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17 October 2024

The death of Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)), has come as a great shock to his many comrades, not only in India but in the international communist movement. As editor of this journal, I was honoured to meet him several times, most notably for me at the 19th CPI(M) Congress in Coimbatore in 2008, when he was international secretary, and had the task of ‘enshawling’ the international guests, in front of a crowd of 100,000 at the end-of-congress rally.

I was always struck by his geniality, but also by his deep understanding and application of Marxism. Over a decade ago, we published two of his articles, ‘The International Communist Movement in the 21st Century’, in CR56 (Spring 2010), and ‘On Transitional Governments’, in CR60 (Spring/Summer 2011). We should have sought to publish more.

Communist Party of Britain (CPB) general secretary Robert Griffiths has written a very warm tribute to Sitaram in the Morning Star.¹  In CR114, we add to that by including a eulogy from Sitaram’s long-time comrade Vijoo Krishnan. But we precede that with one of Sitaram’s last published speeches, his opening address to the CPI(M) 23rd Congress, just two and a half years ago. This was before the recent Indian Lok Sabha elections, which saw the far-right governing Bharatya Janata Party under Narendra Modi lose its absolute majority, under the impact of the secular INDIA alliance which Sitaram helped to build.

The speech is notable for its emphasis on building not only unity of Left and democratic forces against the policies of the Indian ruling classes (a ‘united front’), but also the broadest possible front of secular forces against Hindutva communalism (a ‘popular front’ – see CR112 for comparison). Sitaram also makes pertinent remarks on the impact of the Covid pandemic and economic recession, not only in India but internationally, and on the political rightward shift internationally, US imperialism’s quest for global hegemony, and the Russia-Ukraine war, which at the time had only been going for 42 days.

Communist Review is, as our mast-head states, the theory and discussion journal of the CPB, and our cover feature article from Jerry Jones ticks all those boxes. Jerry seeks to explain in general – whatever the mode of production – the processes which drive forward, or hold back, economic development. In this first of three articles, he argues that what happens to surplus labour, once it has been performed, and how it is utilised, determines the course that economic development takes. The second and third articles, to be published later, will deal with the analysis of capitalist economic policies from the 1940s onwards, and with the application of the surplus labour concept in the building of socialism.

On 1 October 2024 the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrated its 75th anniversary. Slightly late for that, we include a chapter here from Praxis Press’s very recent book, People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red, edited by Keith Bennett and Carlos Martinez. In the chapter reproduced here, Marxist economists Cheng Enfu and Chen Jian deal with two China centenaries, and the respective goals attached to them. For the first centenary, that of the Communist Party of China in 2021, the goal was set of “building a moderately prosperous society in all respects”, and this has been achieved. For the second centenary, that of the PRC itself in 2049, the goal is to build China into “a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful”, and the authors demonstrate that this is being rapidly realised, with China at the same time striving for “the building of a community with a shared future for humanity and a new internationalism.”

We follow that with a warm appraisal by James Crossley of the life and work of British Communist intellectual AL Morton, perhaps best known for his A People’s History of England. In fact, as James points out, Morton was very much an activist as well as a writer, and there is much in his writings that is worthy of study, in particular The English Utopia. Interestingly, James says, Morton was an early advocate of ecological Marxism, and his comments on the “endless consumer trash” of capitalism remain highly pertinent. James’s book-length study of Morton will be appearing in 2025. But meanwhile, as David Grove points out in the Political Education column, Morton is one of a number of British Marxists whose works need to be part of the reading list of ‘classics’.

Several shorter articles complete this edition of Communist Review. First up, we have a recent speech by Eugene McCartan, former general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, where he situates the demand for a united Ireland within the context of class and imperialism, emphasising that “the struggle for unity cannot be separated from the struggle for independence and national democracy”, and that “ending partition is an essential step on the road to achieving socialism.” Then, reflecting on the recent British general election, Nick Matthews points out how democracy in the major parties has been progressively hollowed out, and that “messianic managerialism” in Labour will “only accelerate the exodus from the party.” Following that, we have a review by your editor of Robert Griffiths’ ‘The Gleam of Socialism’ and finally the Soul Food column, where Fran Lock argues that ‘working class’ poetry constitutes “archives of solidarity and resistance”.

Since our last edition, this journal’s web site, https://www.communistreview.org.uk, has gone live. We hope you find the archive there useful.

Notes and References

1. R Griffiths, ‘A champion of the masses: Sitaram Yechury 1952-2024’, in Morning Star, 20.09.2024, at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/champion-masses-sitaram-yechury-1952-2024.

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