Castro opts for VRS championed by Basu Castro opts for VRS championed by Basu - Bowout binds Cuba and Bengal

New Delhi, Feb.19: Old soldiers, it is said, never die; they only fade away. Communist rulers, by contrast, seldom retire. They are either purged or stay in power till their dying day.

That is why today’s announcement by Fidel Castro that he was stepping down as President has taken the world by surprise.

The charismatic Cuban leader who came to power after his revolutionary army overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959 has held the record of being the longest serving ruler in the world without royal lineage.

He may have transferred effective power to the First Vice-President (who also happens to be his younger brother), Raul Castro, on July 31, 2006. But Castro was still king and set to be re-elected to the top post five days from now.

But in a letter that appeared in Granma, the official paper of the Communist Party of Cuba, Castro declared that “I will not aspire nor accept — I repeat I will not aspire or accept — the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief.”

Cuba’s President — perhaps the greatest living revolutionary of our times — was also quoted as saying that “it would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion that I am not in a physical condition to offer”.

Castro, unbeknownst to himself, was echoing the sentiment of only one other communist patriarch (other than post-Mao Chinese leaders) in the history of world communism. And his name is Jyoti Basu.

Basu, it is true, came to power through the far more genteel power of the ballot and isn’t quite in the same pantheon of revolutionary leaders that Castro belongs to.

Yet, what Castro did today, Basu had done over seven years ago. On November 6, 2000, Basu — the longest-serving elected chief minister in the country — decided to step down from office and hand over power to a younger leader unrelated to him by blood.

And Basu too, far more laconic than Castro, had cited ill-health as the main reason behind his decision.

Communist party general secretaries have stepped down from leadership in the past, too. E.M.S. Namboodiripad, for instance, retired a good few years before his death. His predecessor P. Sundarayya also chose to step down, albeit because of differences with the party’s line. But neither exercised state power at the time of retirement.

In fact, ideological differences are usually the only reason for a leader to be purged from a position of power. The undivided Communist Party of India saw a series of such forcible retirements -- P.C. Joshi was expelled for his “revisionist” line at the party’s second congress in 1948; his expeller B.T.Ranadive met the same fate a few years later, and when differences at the top could not be resolved with individual purges, the party itself split in 1964.

But unless a communist party supremo – who is seen as the chief executor of the party line – steps out of line, there are usually no provisions for retirement. Unlike the US presidency which cannot go beyond two terms or prime ministerships which are entirely dependent on electoral victories, “revolutionary” leaders invariably continue in office till their last breath.

Leninist organisation principles laid inordinate emphasis on a “stable” leadership and notions of fixed tenures was alien to a revolutionary party. But long after revolutionary ardour was replaced by the stodgy rule of apparatchiks, the Soviet Union stuck to the “no-retirement” policy.

Josef Stalin set the trend. He remained the general secretary of the CPSU – and the effective ruler of the Soviet Union – till his death on March 15, 1983.

The “de-Stalinisation” process was carried out by his successor Nikita Khrushchev only after Stalin was safely dead. But Khruschev made history by becoming the only Soviet leader to be ousted from office.

On October 14, 1964, when Khrushchev was away on holiday, the politburo voted to remove him from office and appointed Leonid Brezhnev as the boss.

The bushy-eyebrowed Brezhnev wasn’t the most dynamic of leaders and was mostly ill for the last few years of his life. But retirement did not cross his mind. After his death on November 10, 1982, the Soviet Union had two faceless bosses in quick succession – Yuri Andropov (Nov 12, 1982—Feb.9, 1984) and Constantin Chernenko (Feb. 13, 1984 – March 10, 1985). Both suffered from ailments that kept them bed-ridden but neither took the initiative – or, indeed, would have been allowed to take the initiative -- to step down from office voluntarily

Even an ailing general secretary was more important for “stability” than a sudden vacancy caused not by deviation or death. And the decision of the politburo was proved right in later years. The “dynamic” Mikhail Gorbachev took over in 1985. He did lose his job as CPSU general secretary on December 25, 1991 – but then there was neither any CP nor SU left.

The other great Red leaders -- Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh – also followed the norm. Despite power struggles that started long before his death, Mao was the supreme leader of the People’s Republic of China until his death in 1976. Like de-Stalinisation, the dismantling of the Great Helmsman from the pedestal he stood on began only after his death.

True, Deng Xiaoping also “retired” before he died. But then, post-Mao china has done away with the practice of long-serving supreme leaders in favour of fixed-term party bureaucrats.

Ho Chi Minh died as President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) on September 2, 1969. It was only six years after his death that Vietnam defeated the US. That is why, perhaps, Uncle Ho, remains an undying hero, escaping the fate of Mao and Stalin.

Castro – and Basu – have followed another route. By giving up power before power gives up on them, both have achieved the stature of grand patriarchs. Basu remains the CPM’s sage counsel in all matters big and small. Castro too will be revered as the man who stood up against Uncle Sam and is still standing -- never mind the hospital bed.

 

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