The Great Communist Party of India: A Cry for Revitalization {THE CPI CENTENARY PUBLIC MEETING IS TO BE HELD TODAY AT KHAMMAM} : Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

 The Great Communist Party of India 

A Cry for Revitalization

{THE CPI CENTENARY PUBLIC MEETING 

IS TO BE HELD TODAY AT KHAMMAM}

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

The Hans India (January 18, 2026)

{{Communism in India stands today at crossroads where memory competes with forgetfulness, ritual with renewal, and organizational survival with ideological relevance. The centenary therefore demands alongside self-congratulation and ritualistic nostalgia, a serious engagement with the CPI great journey through its genesis, historical necessity, philosophical depth, heroic evolution, painful degeneration, and above all, the compelling need for its resurrection as a people’s movement, for which it was known}} – Editor’s Synoptic Note

As an academic observer and political commentator, my emotional, academic, and political formation has been inseparable from the soil, struggles, and sacrifices by the less known left-right comrades, especially in the villages including mine in Mudigonda Mandal of Khammam District. There, once upon a time, communism was not an imported ideology, but a culture absorbed through people, movements, and lived experience over decades.

My engagement with the Communist Movement evolved through study, association, agreement, disagreement, satisfaction, disappointment, with enduring commitment. Every time Contemporary Indian Communist Rich History inspired me with hope, wielded influence, or suffered decline I became a critique.

Hence, the announcement of the ‘Massive CPI Centenary Public Meeting’ in Khammam, on January 18, 2026, in which delegates from nearly 40 countries are expected to attend, propels me to place these reflections together contextualizing. Yet another reason is, CPI TG State Secretary referring to global and national political developments, hinting at Communist Party adapting to changing conditions while remaining committed to fundamental ideology. 

Hence this reflection is to caution, not to criticize, and to subtly warn it against self-inflicted erosion, with no intention absolutely to weaken the CPI movement. I unequivocally believe that, when communism falters, society moves to static from dynamic, giving way to inequality, authoritarianism, and communal hatred. Come what may, the Communist Ideology, especially, in practice must not be allowed to wither away into ritual, irrelevance, or resignation. 

CPI Centenary Grandeur shall be viewed as a historical summons. Hundred years of an extraordinary political journey is both a matter of celebration and a moment of reckoning. Communism in India stands today at crossroads where memory competes with forgetfulness, ritual with renewal, and organizational survival with ideological relevance. The centenary therefore demands alongside self-congratulation and ritualistic nostalgia, a serious engagement with the CPI Great journey through its genesis, historical necessity, philosophical depth, heroic evolution, painful degeneration, and above all, the compelling need for its resurrection as a people’s movement, for which it was known.

This is not an exercise in factional arithmetic, Left, Right, Centre, Moderate or Extreme, but a conscious attempt to reclaim the communist idea as a civilizational intervention rooted in human emancipation. When communism weakens, the vacuum is never neutral and It is filled by unrestrained capital. The Communist Movement did not arise as a conspiracy. It was not an abstract ideological imposition, but born out of the concrete suffering of humanity.

Karl Marx did not invent exploitation. He analyzed it, and offered not a dogma, but a method, a scientific and ethical framework to understand society and transform it. At its core Communism lay a profoundly humanist vision. Communism in India emerged as part of the broader anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle. It spoke to a society crushed under colonial exploitation, landlordism, caste oppression, and mass poverty. Communists of yester years, whether Leaders or Frontline Cadre, were not armchair theoreticians. They were essentially organizers, underground revolutionaries, trade unionists, peasant leaders, freedom fighters, and much more.

 The Communist Party was conceived not as an electoral machine but as a moral and political vanguard of the oppressed. Its early cadres embodied austerity, courage, and discipline. They believed, sometimes with tragic excesses, that history could be accelerated through conscious action guided by theory. Marxism offered more than slogans. Dialectical Materialism provided a way to comprehend change, not as a linear progression but as a process driven by contradictions. Society was understood as a dynamic totality where economic relations shaped politics, culture, and ideology. History was depicted as class struggles.

In the Indian context, this framework was adapted to analyze colonial capitalism, semi-feudal agrarian relations and the complex realities of caste and community. The idea of a People’s Democratic Revolution, preceding socialism, sought to address India’s specific conditions. Land to the tiller, rights to labor, dignity to the oppressed, and these were not abstract ideals but immediate tasks. Equally important was the communist conception of the Party itself. Democratic centralism, collective leadership, ideological struggle within organizational unity, and a continuous process of self-rectification has been the core practical theology.

The history of the Communist Movement in India from the Internationally Acclaimed Telangana Armed Struggle to Historic Trade Union Battles, from Peasant Uprisings to Anti-Emergency Resistance as well as organizing Civil Liberites Movements, communists consistently placed themselves on the frontlines of popular resistance.

Through the Party’s entry into parliamentary politics for decades, communists demonstrated that electoral participation need not dilute class politics. In several aspects, in all the Left-Governed states, there have been tangible achievements by communists including the Party retaining mass organizations, such as Trade Unions. Despite occurring of the splits and even when paths diverged, the seriousness of purpose remained, but not without riders.

History is demanding all those who refuse to learn from it. The decline of the Communist Movement has been solely the self-inflicted. Reasons or umpteen. Electoral Opportunism through alliances with bourgeois parties blurred ideological boundaries. Alien class influences penetrated the organization. Leadership structures increasingly reflected middle-class dominance, while workers and peasants were underrepresented in decision-making bodies. The culture of sacrifice gave way to careerism. Lavish lifestyles, accumulation of assets, and proximity to money power eroded moral authority. Rectification campaigns were announced but seldom internalized at the top.

Unfortunately, new entrants were absorbed without adequate political grounding and Ideological Education. Marxism was reduced to ritual quotations. Internal factionalism replaced principled debate. The decline of mass movements created vacuum that was filled either by adventurist extremism or by right-wing populism. The tragic irony is that, the weakening of communism strengthened precisely forces most hostile to democratic and secular values. Extremist paths that reject mass politics and embrace isolated violence proved disastrous.  

The Great Communist Party of India must be reclaimed not as brand or legacy organization, but as a movement of the people which requires a ruthless honesty. The Party must acknowledge its failures without defensiveness. Rectification cannot be episodic, but it must become a permanent culture. Leadership must be accountable, modest, and organically connected to mass struggles. Electoral politics must be subordinated, once again, to movement-building. Ideological renewal is equally essential.

Marxism must engage with contemporary realities, informal labor, digital capitalism, environmental crisis, gender oppression, and caste injustice. The Party must become a site of intellectual ferment, not doctrinal stagnation. Organizationally, the rebuilding of trade unions, peasant organizations and youth movements is non-negotiable. Without people’s movements, communism becomes a slogan without substance. The Party must learn to listen again to the anxieties of the unemployed youth, the worry of indebted farmers, the anger of marginalized communities.

The centenary should therefore be seen as a warning bell. History does not wait for institutions to reform at their convenience. When communism abdicates its role, the choice before society is not neutrality but regression. The resurrection of the Great Communist Party is not for the sake of communists alone, but a democratic indispensability. If the Communist Movement can rediscover its ethical core, its mass character, and its intellectual courage, it can once again become a force of hope. The centenary will have meaning only if it marks not the celebration of survival, but the beginning of renewal.

Great Communist Leaders, whose shared moral universe was synonym for ‘Credibility Communism’ like Pucchalapalli Sundarayya, SA Dange, Chandra Rajeshwara Rao, Muzaffar Ahmed, Mohit Sen, Namboodiripad, Ranadive, Ravi Narayana Reddy, Indrajit Gupta, Bhupesh Gupta, HKS Surjeet, AK Gopalan, Jyoti Basu, Promode Dasgupta, Somnath Chatterjee, Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal, Tarimela Nagi Reddy, Devulapalli Venkateshwara Rao, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, Nagabhushan Patnaik, Akkiraju Ramakrishna, Dr YRK Murthy, Manchikanti, Chirravuri, Gandluri Kishan Rao, Vanam Narsing Rao, Sarvadevabhatla, Rajab Ali, Giriprasad, Bodepudi etc. They symbolized a rare synthesis of personal integrity and political commitment. Greetings to TGCPI Secretary Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao and CPI General Secretary D Raja.

(Wishing Great Success of CPI Public Meeting in Khammam)