The history of communism, as perceived by the faithful, has always been fiercely contested. Apart from abstruse hair-splitting over what constituted ‘correctness’, there is the stultifying effect of the ‘party line’ and the theological belief that the ‘party’ is never wrong. Both these trends were in evidence at the function in Delhi last Sunday to observe the birth centenary of P.C. Joshi, the towering intellectual and organizer who was the general secretary of the undivided Communist Party from 1934 to 1948. That both the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) shed their differences to commemorate Joshi from a common platform is in itself refreshing. Since 1948, when he was unceremoniously turfed out of the party for all sorts of ideological follies, Joshi has been somewhat of a ‘non-person’ in the Indian communist movement. His contribution to the communist movement, like that of M.N. Roy, or S.A. Dange, has either been discreetly understated or crudely airbrushed out of existence. Those like B.T. Ranadive, P. Sundarayya and even Rajani Palme Dutt, who tormented him and steered the Indian communist movement to a disastrous but short-lived adventurist course, have, however, retained their place in the Indian communist pantheon.

It is understandable that both Mr A.B. Bardhan and Mr Prakash Karat have been squeamish in confronting the contribution of Joshi as well as the circumstances of his fall from grace. Doing so would have highlighted two awkward facets of the communist inheritance — the prolonged inability to comprehend the strengths of ‘bourgeois democracy’ in India, and the crippling effects of being remote-controlled from the Kremlin. In consistently pushing for a united front with the Congress (and subsequently the Muslim League), Joshi anticipated both the CPI’s infatuation with Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter and the CPI(M)’s willingness to sup with anyone opposed to the ‘forces of communalism’. Joshi began the journey that has culminated in both communist parties eschewing anti-Congressism. The process would probably have fructified much earlier had it not been for the fact that the communist parties meekly acquiesced in being used as puppets of Moscow and Beijing. Admitting Moscow’s hand in the removal of Joshi is tantamount to conceding that external pressures triggered the split of 1964. That is more revisionism than the comrades can digest at one go.