July revolution

LENIN and Stalin, the two 8216;8216;official8217;8217; icons of the communists, trashed by comrades in West Bengal, one of the last bastions of communism in the world. What next?

Shocked to the core, and by the core: that8217;s the state of the Communist Party of India Marxist headquarters at Alimuddin Street here, after a critical appraisal of Joseph Stalin slipped into a monthly magazine for the party faithful. Lenin was not spared either. A new book by former chief minister Jyoti Basu8217;s maternal uncle ripped through Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin: Revolution State 038; Terror, is authored by Amal Datta, a former CPIM member of Parliament for at least three terms between 1984 and 1996. Datta fell out with the CPM in 1997.

Joseph Stalin came under 8216;8216;attack8217;8217; from a Left intellectual, Anindya Bandopadhyay, whose critical appraisal found space in Nandan, a monthly magazine of the party edited by ideologue-economist Biplab Dasgupta. Nandan has a circulation largely among fellow travellers.

The essay mentioned 8216;8216;excesses8217;8217; committed under Stalin, including the elimination of his rival Leon Trotsky.

The apparatchiki at Alimuddin Street8212;this is where the state unit8217;s HQ is located in Kolkata8212;are red in the face for not being alert enough to prevent such disgrace to a party icon. They have promised a thorough inquiry and the corrective steps could well be a rejoinder to the article published, that of course is to be written by the author himself who made such a critical assessment of Stalin.

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Retribution, Communist style. Party insiders say that these are isolated but crucial evidence of the party8217;s iron grip over various forums loosening gradually.

But the book written by Amal Datta, the maternal uncle of Jyoti Basu, the Communist chief minister of Bengal for 24 years who has yet been spared the trauma of being pulled down from his high pedestal, is by far the most critical of all.

8216;8216;The collapse of the Soviet Union has thrown open Russian archives,8217;8217; says Datta and goes on to add that 8216;8216;democracy under the Soviet regime was the highest fraud perpetrated by the government of USSR.8217;8217;

Records in the Russian archives show that even some of the Russian Czars had better track record in improving the socio-economic condition of the poor than the Communist regime that lasted 70 years, writes Datta.

For instance, in the chapter titled Terror Starts Datta portrays how Lenin had a philosophy of ruling by terror and enunciated cruelty. And such policies led to the killing of millions.

Asked if he found a similar situation under the Communist regime of past 26 years in Bengal, Datta told The Indian Express: 8216;8216;Yes. The only difference probably is that the regime under Lenin was using the secret police to kill any opposition voice but in Bengal it is the CPIM party cadres who are doing the job. The killings also may not be so largescale but they are hell bent on destroying any opposition initiative.8217;8217;

A brief prelude to such anti-communist outpourings in Bengal in recent times has been the staging of a drama titled Winkle-Twinkle where Bratya Basu sought to portray the anguish and broken hopes of a promised revolution. The dramatist presented a character in the play by the name Buddhadeb Bhattacharya the drama8217;s equivalent of the Bengal chief minister, who is put in the dock and reminded of the failed revolution.

In Kolkata, the staging of the play could not be stopped, but in rural belts the party roped in the administration to prevent the play from being staged. Censorship? No, no. Just class struggle.