Reflection
Ranji Chandisingh’s motivation for his resignation from the People’s Progressive Party and his affiliation with the People’s National Congress was the greatest political enigma of the 20th century. But was it a trilemma of conversion, convergence or plain convenience?
Ranji Chandisingh considered it his mission in the People’s Progressive Party “to help develop cadres with a communist outlook, loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the principles of proletarian internationalism.” When he left the PPP in 1975, he published his letter of resignation to the PPP General Secretary and Central Committee in which, he explained his reasons for leaving. In an elections pamphlet published later by the People’s National Congress, he wrote:
As a socialist, I functioned in the PPP for 18 years, believing that the leadership of that party was committed to the cause of socialism. To my deep regret and dismay, however, I discovered from bitter experience – at a crucial period in Guyana’s history when the PNC has demonstrated its commitment to socialist transformation and development in deeds, not merely in words – that the PPP leaders were less interested in socialism and the unity and well-being of the Guyanese people than in furthering their ambitions for personal power and prestige.”
The great idea in Chandisingh’s life was the construction of a socialist state as the solution to the problems of poverty and underdevelopment. He believed in Marxism-Leninism, unreservedly and unapologetically, for all of his adult life and never saw any reason to change. The cardinal principles of his thought were that, fundamental to the building of socialism, first, political or state power must be in the hands of the working class; and, second, that it is necessary to have a Marxist-Leninist party at the head of the working class to organise and guide the masses in the building of socialism.
He saw the party, “being the most conscious and organised vanguard of the working class,” having to be equipped with the ideology of scientific socialism and an understanding of the objective laws of social development and comprising “the most advanced, conscious and dedicated members of the working class and other working people.” The party, furthermore, had to be organised on the basis of “democratic centralism which ensures centralised leadership and conscious discipline, coupled with full democracy and initiative.” Only such a party, he thought, could be effective in building socialism.
These beliefs explain why he was attracted to political parties rather than any other form of social organisation, such as trade unions. After graduating from Harvard University in the USA with a BA degree in the Social Sciences at the age of 19 years in 1949, he had gone to the UK where he became involved with well-known members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. One such person was the Jamaica-born, Royal Air Force World War II veteran William ‘Billy’ Strachan who was also president of the London Branch of the Caribbean Labour Congress and who had been imprisoned on several occasions for his political activities.
Post-war London was a hotbed of anti-colonial agitation and communist organisation. Students, war veterans and migrants from all over the British Empire mingled and conspired. Many were to become prominent in the independence movements of their own countries in the 1960s onwards. Into this ferment the young Chandisingh plunged and was appointed editor of the left-wing Caribbean News – a newspaper that Strachan had launched in 1952. The paper was banned throughout the British West Indies. Members of the staff were known communists and Chandisingh steeped himself in the voluminous writings of Karl Marx, Frederich Engels, Vladimir Lenin. He and Strachan became comrades and the latter recommended him to Cheddi and Janet Jagan who were already self-confessed socialists. This was quite fortuitous because the People’s Progressive Party had returned to office after winning the general elections in 1957.
Chandisingh’s occupation in London was as a journalist and it was in this position that he was first employed on the PPP’s Thunder, then a newspaper, in 1958. It was replaced by the Mirror newspaper in 1962 but the name Thunder was given to a “quarterly theoretical and discussion journal” which was published from 1969; he was later appointed its editor. From the start, the Thunder’s content reflected Chandisingh’s preoccupation with the topics of colonialism, imperialism, proletarian internationalism, socialism, Marxism-Leninism and some party news.
He was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly for the Lower Demerara River constituency in the August 1961 general elections and, subsequently, was appointed Minister of Labour, Health and Housing in the Council of Ministers in the PPP’s 1961-64 administration at the age of 31. But the early 1960s were troubled times as independence approached. It was the height of the Cold War and, particularly after the Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) fiasco in Cuba in April 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, the USA became highly intolerant of the PPP’s friendly relations with the communist regime in Cuba.
In addition, the local contest for power intensified among the country’s three main political parties of the day – the People’s Progressive Party, the People’s National Congress and the United Force. Behind them, the major trade unions and ethnic groups were also mobilised. Political contests fanned the flames of racial, communal and trade union disputes and led to violent clashes, particularly in 1962, 1963 and 1964. Chandisingh had the responsibility for introducing the contentious Labour Relations Bill in 1963. The Bill sought to “ensure the compulsory recognition” of unions which, the Minister of Labour deemed, after enquiry, to represent the workers in a particular industry.
This sort of statist thinking might have accorded with Chandisingh’s ideology but to Richard Ishmael, the President of the British Guiana Trades Union Council, it seemed that the PPP administration’s intention was to replace his pro-UF Manpower Citizens Association with the pro-PPP Guiana Agricultural Workers Union in the sugar industry. The BGTUC called a general strike in April which lasted until 6th July 1963, the longest in the country’s history up to that time, with the effect that the Bill was not introduced. Chandisingh’s Ministry was at the centre of a storm again in 1964 when GAWU called a strike, ostensibly against the British Guiana Sugar Producers’ Association. It was thought that the strike was really a pretext for the PPP’s political campaign to derail the proposed general elections under the system of proportional representation. Given the volatile situation in the country at that time, the GAWU strike degenerated into communal violence that continued even after the strike was called off in July. In December that year, the PPP was replaced in office by a PNC-UF coalition administration.
When it left office, the PPP drifted into a period of disarray precipitated in part by tactical disagreements by Brindley Benn, the former Chairman of the party and Deputy Premier, and Moses Bhagwan, the former Chairman of the Progressive Youth Organisation, both of whom subsequently quit. Thereafter, the party moved quickly to impose discipline by transforming itself. By 1969, it declared that it recognised “that a Marxist-Leninist party was essential to the attainment and retention of revolutionary, anti-imperialist political power and the building of a socialist society [and] decided to transform itself from a loose, mass party into a disciplined Leninist-type party.”
These portents were completely in accord with Chandisingh’s weltanschauung and his ‘great idea’ for Guyana and the world. It seemed, at last, that there was a clear convergence between his, and the party’s, ideology. By this time, he had earned a reputation as the party’s leading ideologue and was appointed director of studies of the ideological institute − Accabre College of the Social Sciences − located first at Success Village, ECD, then at Land of Canaan Village, EBD. He was also entrenched as a member of the party’s General Council and Executive Committee and served as Secretary for Education and Secretary of the New Guyana Company Ltd., one of the PPP’s commercial enterprises.
By the mid-1970s, however, the political situation in Guyana underwent radical change. The PNC administration, to mark the 10th anniversary of its accession to office in December 1974, published its Declaration of Sophia − a manifesto that proclaimed, among other things, its goal of constructing a socialist state. By that time, Guyana had become a republic, embarked on a programme of nationalisation of the “commanding heights” of the economy; started to develop diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba and other communist states; taken a leading role in the Caribbean Community and the Non-Aligned Movement; and supported anti-colonial liberation movements. The administration later made a formal application for membership of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (also referred to as COMECON of CMEA) – the economic organisation of communist states.
As a result, the international socialist movement took the position that the PNC administration was on the road to Marxism-Leninism and Guyana came to be regarded as a ‘fraternal’ country. When Cheddi Jagan went to Havana, Cuba, to attend a conference of Latin American communist parties, therefore, he came under pressure from the Cuban Vice-President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba to modify the PPP’s hostility to the PNC. At its 25th anniversary conference in August 1975 at Annandale, Jagan announced a change in its political approach from one of non-cooperation and civil resistance to one of ‘critical support’ to the PNC administration.
This new situation provided an opportunity for Chandisingh, and others – including Vincent Teekah, Harry Lall, Halim Majeed and Vic Puran – who had also become disenchanted with the PPP’s policies to leave that party and join the PNC. In his letter of resignation to the PPP’s General Secretary and Central Committee, Chandisingh concluded:
It seems to me that it is the PNC that is taking all the concrete initiatives in terms of social transformation, while the PPP is merely reacting petulantly and seeking, in some cases, to go one better in words.
Chandisingh was appointed a member of the PNC’s Central Executive Committee and was later to serve as General Secretary and became Director of Studies of the Cuffy Ideological Institute. He also held several government positions including Minister of Higher Education; Minister of Education, Social Development and Culture and, Vice-President, National Development and Deputy Prime Minister. He was also appointed Guyana’s Ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1989.
During his active political career, he published several articles in Thunder, including “The Erosion of Civil Liberties” (1969) and “Socialism and Democracy” (1975). His major pamphlets included: Why I left the PPP (1976); and Education in the Revolution for Socialist Transformation and Development, which originally, was delivered as an address to the 3rd Biennial Congress of the People’s National Congress in August 1979.
An appropriate epitaph for him would be the words of another celebrated communist, Leon Trotsky, who wrote, “Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.” Ranji Chandisingh’s ‘great idea’ was the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.
