CPI-M votes Factions agree to disagree!

Editorial in the Statesman

 January 29, 2018

(Note: Any hope of the Marxist-communist ideology resurrecting after the break up and going to smithereens of the Russian Empire? Nope! That seems to be the clear verdict of history so far.

          Who in fact was the first communist and the first commune or group of humans who demonstrated to the world that it is possible,  yes possible to live together caring and sharing according to the principle: “To each according to his/her needs and  from each according to one’s capacities?” How they practised the communist ideology is described in the Acts of the Apostles.

       Bishops Fulton of US makes a comparison between that communism and the ones practised today and said: “The ideal communists of Acts said: ‘All that is mine is yours’, while today’s says, ‘All that is yours is mine’. One gives up all to become a CATTLE CLASS while the other grabs everything from the rich and well-to-do. One creates equality by giving up, the other by robbing everything from others.

      So if Karl Marx was the  founder of present Communism; Christ who gave up everything — power, position, possession and glory — was the founder of true Communism. He taught us all that it is  in giving that we receive and in dying that we are born to eternal everlasting life. Will the clerical class in any of the churches be ready to practise the communism practised by Christ? That is why it is said, there was only one Christian alive and he died on the cross!

       Let the land-grabbing,  money-making and builders of concrete wonders (50 Crore Edappally Church) called monumental, cathedrals and Medical  (real name: ‘Maadical or extorting) colleges, led by the Clergy Class think of it! And what are the ignored laity to do? Instead of joining this comfortable class by hook or crook to get a lion’s shre in their profit, let them listen and do what the great late Archbishop Louis Mathias of happy and blessed memory used to tell his seminarians, half in earnest, half in joke: “Fuge Prelatum than quam peccatum!” Flee from bishops and Eminences as from Mortal sin!

             If they don’t do that what happens to Sitaram Yechury will happen to them. Jyoti Basu generations were experts at hounding with the hounds and running with the rabbits. There are many among the laity who do the same among us running after Chevalier positions and photo options with the highly placed in the hierarchy. Watch out and join the CATTLE CLASS, the company of the ONE born in a cattleshed and lived it up to Calvary’s top, and so lives on shining all the way. James kottoor, editor ccv.

Now read below the editorial in the Statesman

                 The post-Jyoti Basu generation, that now helms the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has agreed to disagree. This is quite the most charitable construct that can be placed on the vote during the party’s Central Committee meeting in Kolkata.

His proposal for an electoral alliance with the Congress before 2019 ~ to keep the BJP at bay ~ has been voted down emphatically, arguably a testament to the continuing influence of the hardliner, Prakash Karat. Yet it would be unwarranted for spin-doctors to claim that the outcome is a moral victory for Narendra Modi, still less that Yechury had staked his office on the result of the floor-test. The party is much too astute to realise that the Bharatiya Janata Party is a formidable force in the country.

This isn’t the first time that the Yechury lobby ~ no, it isn’t a faction ~ suitably backed up by Alimuddin Street has pitched for a tie-up with the Congress. It would be pertinent to recall that what the Marxists would call “pragmatic realism” was first advocated by Jyoti Basu in the mid-1990s; the idea attained its frution ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha election when the Congress assumed power with the CPI-M’s “outside support”.

The vote has underlined the numerical division within the party over the issue, one that has prompted Yechury to remark that it testifies to “internal democracy”. So indeed it might. While 31 members of the Central Committee backed the general secretary’s proposal, which envisaged a tactical adjustment, as many as 55 members had voted down the idea.

Was there a rift in the Yechury lute? Reports do suggest that at least three members of the Bengal unit, ever so willing to forge an understanding with the Congress, did not favour his proposal. Nor for that matter did he get the support of the powerful unit in Tripura, scheduled to go to the polls very shortly. Apparently, the party in the state, where it boasts the longest spell of Left rule, was loath to confuse the electorate on so critical an issue as the tactical line.

With the defeat of Yechury’s proposal, precedence at the Hyderabad congress in April will almost certainly be riveted to the formulation of Prakash Karat, who has consistently been opposed to any truck with the Congress… exemplified with the withdrawal of support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government (July 2008) post the nuclear deal with the US and the expulsion of Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. The rest is history.

For the moment, Buddhadeb  Bhattachar jee’s absence at the CC meeting cannot be wholly attributed to the fact that he has been under the weather. He is still the leading light of the Bengal lobby.