Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation’s Polit Bureau member and a Central Committee member for more than two decades Kavita Krishnan has been relieved from the posts and responsibilities in the party over some basic differences regarding socialist regimes. Commenting on the Ukraine-Russia conflict, she had tweeted recently that socialist regimes were autocratic regimes far worse than parliamentary democracies.
Talking to The Hindu, Ms. Krishnan said she would continue as a primary party member, but added that she had requested the Central Committee to relieve her from all elected posts. She said she felt a need to recognise the urgency and prime importance of defending parliamentary democracies with all their flaws not just in India but in the world.
Ms. Krishnan said that there was a need to recognise that really existing or past socialist regimes were and had been terrible totalitarianism, far worse than existing capitalist democracies with all their flaws.
Ms. Krishnan said she needed to pursue certain troubling political questions and it was not possible for her to explore and express in her responsibilities as a CPI(ML) leader.
“The party Central Committee has agreed to my request,” she said. “It was not possible to write on these questions remaining in the leadership. It is not a resignation, it is a mutually agreed to step aside from the responsibilities. There is no quarrelling with the party,” she said.
The CPI(ML) Liberation leadership decided to remove Ms. Krishnan from the primary membership of the party. The Central Committee of the CPI(ML) met between August 25 and 27 and the panel discussed a letter she sent to the leadership. “The party accepted my request,” she added.
Ms. Krishnan said there was a need to recognise that it was not enough to discuss the Stalin regime, USSR, or China as failed socialisms but as some of the world’s worst authoritarianisms that served as a model for authoritarian regimes everywhere.
“The conviction that for our fight for democracy against fascism and growing totalitarianism in India to be consistent, we must acknowledge the entitlement to the same democratic rights and civil liberties for all people across the world, including subjects of socialist totalitarian regimes past and present,” she said.
Ms. Krishnan said she was thankful for her political journey of nearly three decades with CPI(ML) and its frontal organisations and those movements would continue to be a part of her life.
“I will be writing on the substantive issues mentioned above, soon, to share my thinking as it evolves,” she added.
