The Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (APCCCR) and its Progeny
The Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (APCCCR) was a leftist split-off from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Within Indian Maoism it and its successor organizations represented one of the most important if not the most important alternative to Charu Mazumdar’s Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) line.
Like Mazumdar and the other leaders of Indian Maoism, the founders of the APCCCR started out in the Communist Party of India (CPI). Several APCCCR leaders had in fact been prominent in the CPI. These included T. Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao, both of whom had been active in the legendary Telangana armed struggle of 1946-1951. Rao had been one of the authors of the CPI’s 1948 “Andhra Thesis” arguing for the Indian revolution to follow the Chinese path of protracted people’s war. Reddy was a prominent CPI leader and member of the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly in 1968.
In 1964, when the CPI split, Reddy, Rao and Mazumdar all left to go with the CPI(M). Beginning in 1965, however, Mazumdar grew increasingly dissatisfied by what he considered theoretical revisionism and political opportunism in the CPI(M). In 1967 he and his supporters launched a peasants’ uprising at Naxalbari in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. This was the much celebrated “Spring Thunder Over India.”
For Reddy, Rao and their allies in Andhra Pradesh, the break with the CPI(M) would take longer. The flash point was a draft resolution prepared by the CPI(M) Central Committee detailing its differences with the Communist Party of China on certain ideological questions (the so-called “Madurai document”). In January 1968, at the instigation of Reddy, Rao and others, including Chandra Pulla Reddy, a plenary meeting of the Andhra Pradesh CPI(M) rejected the Central Committee’s draft resolution by a majority vote: 158/52.
The CPI(M) attempted (see its “Letter to Andhra Comrades”) to win back the Andhra Pradesh dissidents to no avail. As a result, T. Nagi Reddy, Rao, Chandra Pulla Reddy and another dissident leader, Kolla Venkaiah, were expelled from the CPI(M). In the meantime, the radicals had been organizing secretly and formally split from the CPI(M) after the latter’s Burdwan plenum in April 1968. They took with them 11 of the 14 Andhra Pradesh district committees and around 60% of the CPI(M) membership in the state (approximately 8,000 people in all). They were also able to capture the local CPI(M) publication, Janashakti. In July, the dissidents formally constituted themselves as the APCCCR.
While this process was unfolding in Andra Pradesh, in November 1967, under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar and with strong support from China, the All India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) of India was being formed. Its professed goals were to: a. develop and co-ordinate militant struggles at all levels, especially peasant struggles of Naxalbari Type; b. develop militant struggles of the working class; c. wage ideological struggle against revisionism and popularize Mao Tse Tung Thought; d. develop a revolutionary programme on a correct tactical line; e. found a new revolutionary communist party (which it did in 1969, forming the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI(M-L)).
APCCCR decided to affiliate with the AICCCR, but strategic and tactical differences with the Mazumdar line soon led to their expulsion. APCCCR characterized these differences as follows:
a. The AICCCR negated the mass line and exhibited romantic and petit bourgeois tendencies when they advocated armed struggle with no relation to the people’s consciousness. Typical of this error was the advocacy of the ’annihilation of the class enemies’ line. The APCCCR stressed that a mass agrarian revolutionary movement should be built up systematically and carefully, with particular attention to the land question. It also stressed implementation of the mass revolutionary line of the Telengana Armed Struggle.
b. APCCCR insisted on the need of building multiple forms of struggle and organization and the need to combine mass forms of struggle with armed struggle. The AICCCR totally neglected this aspect.
c. APCCCR opposed the line of “Boycott of parliamentary Elections” as a strategic path. Elections were a question of tactics and one of the several illegal forms of struggle. For the AICCCR, election boycotts were a matter of principal.
In April 1969, an APCCCR plenary session strengthened the organizing, adopted the “Immediate programme” and renamed the group the Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh. It launched limited armed struggles in Warangal, Khammam, Karimnagar, Nalgonda, and East Godavari.
In December 1969 six out of the nine APCCCR State Committee members were arrested, including T. Nagi Reddy and D.V. Rao. The arrests were a serious blow to the organization. In response, a new state committee led by Chandra Pulla Reddy was created in July 1970.
In 1971 APCCCR suffered a major split, with the Chandra Pulla Reddy-led group leaving the party. For a while this group also called itself APCCCR, but in September 1973 it took the name Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Party (APRCP). The APRCP led by Chandra Pulla Reddy was the strongest Maoist group in the state in the 1970s. It conducted armed struggle operations in various locations, defended the armed defence of the cadres in the face of repression, but also insisted upon combining these action with the active mobilization of masses in struggle.
1975 saw significant changes for both the Nagi Reddy and Pulla Reddy groups. In that year, the APRCP merged with the Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) of Satayanarayan Singh. Singh had been a leader in Mazumdar’s CPI(M-L) but then led the revolt inside the party against him, setting up a parallel Central Committee. In November 1971 the new Central Committee officially declared Majumdar expelled from the CPI(M-L) and elected Singh as the new general secretary. In 1980, Chandra Pulla Reddy broke with Singh and went on to form yet another CPI (ML).
The APCCCR also actively pursued efforts to unify like-minded Marxist-Leninists in 1975. It prepared a draft Programme Path and Constitution for unity talks and invited other groups to a unity conference. Three groups responded: West Bengal Coordination Committee, North Zone Committee and West Bengal Communist Unity Centre. The resulting organization was called the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) (UCCRI(ML)).
The April 1975 unity conference adopted a programme, path, method of work, constitution and a statement on unification. The unity conference elected a Central Committee with D. V. Rao as its secretary. Other CC members included T. Nagi Reddy, Moni Guha (one of the first anti-revisionist dissidents in the international communist movement), and Parimal Das Gupta (a long-time anti-revisionist and one of Charu Mazumdar’s earliest critics). The UCCRI(ML) started publishing the Spark as its central organ.
Shortly after the UCCRI(ML)’s formation, Indira Gandhi launched her State of Emergency. The UCCRI(ML) was proscribed and forced underground. At the same time, efforts were undertaken to unite the UCCRI(ML) with other forces that were critical of Charu Mazumdar’s strategy and tactics and were supporters of the T. Nagi Reddy line. As a result of these efforts, a merger was effected with the Punjab Communist Revolutionary Committee (PCRC) led by Harbhajan Singh Sohi in June 1976.
Harbhajan Singh Sohi was originally part of the Charu Mazumdar led C.P.I.(M-L) but left it to form the Fereozepur Bhatinda Committee in 1969. This group came to be known as the Punjab Communist Revolutionary Committee. The PCRC played a leading role in the Punjab Students Union and the Naujavan Bharat Sabha, a popular youth organization. As a result of the 1976 merger between UCCRI(ML) and the PCRC, PCRC secretary Harbhajan Singh Sohi (and two leaders from Andhra Pradesh, Madhu and Anand, were added to the UCCRI(ML) Central Committee.
In July 1976 T. Nagi Reddy, who had been the most important leader of the UCCRI(ML), died. His death was a severe set-back for the group. In the following month the UCCRI(ML) suffered a major split. A conflict had developed in the CC between D.V. Rao and other Central Committee members. One of the resulting UCCRI(ML)s rallied around D. V. Rao. The other elected Moni Guha as its General Secretary.
The Rao UCCRI(ML) itself underwent a split in September 1979, this time over events in China, advocacy of the “theory of three worlds,” the death of Mao and the defeat of the Gang of Four. The majority, led by Rao and his supporters, upheld the “theory of three worlds” while the minority, led by Sohi, rejected it. As a result of these differences the former PCRC broke away and went on to establish a separate UCCRI(ML), known as the Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) [Harbhajan Sohi]. In 1982 this group, too, split and a parallel Unity Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (Marxist-Leninist) [Ajmer group] was created.
The Rao UCCRI(ML) experienced further turmoil in 1980 over whether or not to participate in national elections. In Andhra Pradesh the UCCRI(ML) promoted non-participation, in reality a boycott, while supporting certain candidates in West Bengal and Orissa. In the aftermath of the elections, yet another split developed with Rao leaving the party with a group of followers in Andhra and setting up his own UCCRI(ML). After Rao’s departure, Anand became the new Central Committee Secretary of the other UCCRI(ML).
In 1988 Anand himself broke away from UCCRI(ML) taking with him the Maharashtra unit. In the aftermath, he initiated a dialogue with Sohi’s UCCRI(ML). Later that year, the two UCCRI (ML) factions led by Sohi and Anand joined with three other groups, namely the CPI(ML) led by Chandrasekhar, the RCPI led by Takra and the OCCPI(ML) led by Jitender to form the Centre of Communist Revolutionaries of India (CCRI).
The remaining UCCRI(ML) faction, led by Viswam and Madhu, merged with five other groups to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti in 1992. Madhu signed the merger agreement on behalf of his UCCRI(ML). The CPI (ML) Janashakti was built on and continued the revolutionary traditions of Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana Rebellion, as developed and articulated by and T. Nagi Reddy, D.V. Rao, and Chandra Pulla Reddy.
In 1995 the CCRI merged with the Central Team of the CPI(ML) (CTCPI(ML)), the Communist Unity Centre of India and the Marxist-Leninist Organising Centre to create a new organization named the Communist Party Re-Organisation Centre of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPRCI(ML)). The merger was significant as it brought together groups that had evolved from different streams with divergent ideological positions. The Central Team descended from the Charu Mazumdar led CPI(ML) tradition while the CCRI belonged to the T. Nagi Reddy tradition.
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Let Us Learn from Com T. Nagi Reddy, By Meghanath [from India Mortgaged, 2nd. Edition]
The Development of the Tarimela Nagi Reddy Line, By Srinath Reddy Tarimela
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Rebellion is Right!, (on the Andhra State Party Plenum, CPI (M)) [Liberation, Vol. I, No 5 (March 1968)]
Class War in Andhra Pradesh, [Frontier, May 4, 1968]
The Rebels Press Statement (June 1968)
The Andhra "Extremists," by H. Rao
Resolution on Andhra State Co-ordination Committee, by the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries [Liberation, Vol. II, No 5 (March 1969)]
“To Move the People Into Revolutionary Action Is Our Task” by T. Nagi Reddy [from India Mortgaged, 2nd. Edition]
Immediate Programme, Adopted by the Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries
The Srikakulam Story Part I; Part II, by Narayanmurthi
The Politics of Nagi Reddy, by a journalist [Liberation, Vol. II, No 12 (October 1969)]
Left Trend Among Indian Revolutionaries [Extracts], by D.V. Rao
Indian Maoism - Two Shades? by Mallikaranjan Rao [Frontier, 4 July 1970]
Some Problems Concerning the Path of People's War in India by Chandra Pulla Reddy for the Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (n.d. (1970?))
People's War Path - Lessons of China by Chandra Pulla Reddy (1970)
New Tactics in Andhra, by Mallikaranjan Rao [Frontier, 23 January 1971]
Will You Vote?, by C.K. Kkatumba Reddy [Frontier, February 27, 1971]
Fundamental Line and Question of Unity [Extract], by D.V. Rao
A Forged Letter [Frontier, May 29, 1971]
What To Do?, by C. Chandraasekhara Rao [Frontier, June 12, 1971]
Andhra Pradesh: Conspiracy Case Diaries
Fight Against Revisionism: Party Letter from the Andhra State Committee of the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) to all Andhra Comrades [Liberation, Vol. V, No 1 (July 1971-January 1972]
Serious Mistakes (summary of part of a document released by the Revolutionary Communist Committee of Andhra Pradesh) [Frontier, 29 July 1972]
Andhra Pradesh: Analysis of a Split by a correspondent [Frontier, 27 January 1973]
Note to the English Translation of Right Opportunist Trend Inside the Party, [Extract], by D.V. Rao
The First Conference of the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Party
More on Andhra Politics by Sudhendu Roy [Frontier, 19 January 1974]
Preface to the First English Edition, Telengana Armed Struggle and the Path of Indian Revolution, by D.V. Rao
The Parvatipuram Case, by D. Krishnamurty [Frontier, December 28, 1974]
"Unite to Build a Single Party" by Satyanarain Singh, General Secretary, CPI (ML); Paila Vasudeva Rao, CPI (ML); P. Ramanarsiah, Secretary, Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Party; and Chandra Pulla Reddy, leader, member, APRCP [Frontier, 8 March 1975]
On United Front, [Extract from Political and Organisational Report of the UCCRI(ML) adopted at its first Central Conference in July 1977]
In Defense of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and General Line of the International Communist Movement by Harbhajan Singh Sohi (1978)
Hold Alot the Invincible Banner of Mao Tsetung Thought by Harbhajan Singh Sohi (1980)
Hold High The Banner of Mao Tse-tung Thought! by the Central Committee, UCCRI (ML) (1980)
The Politics of Comrade D.V. Rao and his UCCRI by Chandra Pulla Reddy (1980)
India Mortgaged. A Marxist-Leninist Appraisal by T. Nagi Reddy (1993)
See also:
Chandra Pulla Reddy Internet Archive
Janashakti, organ of the Central Committee of the CPI (M-L) - Janashakti