LEADER OF SRIKAKULAM GIRIJAN ARMED STRUGGLE AND VETRRAN COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONARY COM. PYLA VASUDEV RAO PASSES AWAY

Veteran communist revolutionary of India and one of the foremost leaders of the glorious Srikakulam Armed Struggle Com. Pyla Vasudev Rao breathed his last at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2010 after fighting cancer. He was 78 years’ old at the time of his death; of these he had party life of 58 years of which the last 42 years were spent in underground.

Born in 1932 in Rittapadu village of Srikakulam dist, Com. Pyla joined the united CP in 1953 when a party unit was formed in his village. He resigned his job in 1957 and devoted himself to building party organization and peasant struggles. He was elected joint secretary of the district peasant organization. On Party’s instruction he took up teacher’s job, many of his students joined the revolutionary communist movement. He became a professional revolutionary in 1962 and also a member of the district committee of the party. He sided with CPM in the struggle against Dange revisionism.

In response to the clarion call of the Great Naxalbari Peasant Armed Struggle, the Srikakulam Girijan Armed Peasant Struggle started on 25^th November 1968 and on the decision of the party, Com. PV went underground. As a member of the Srikakulam leadership, Com. Pyla became part of the CPI(ML). He participated in the 1970 CPI(ML) Party Congress (first after Naxalbari). In Srikakulam movement he worked along side with Comrades Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Vempatapu Satyam, Adibhatta Kailasam, Subbarao Panigrahi and others.

Between 1969-’70 many important leaders of Srikakulam leaders were martyred and the movement suffered huge losses and setbacks. CPI(ML) PC was reorganized of which Com. Pyla became the secretary. Opposing line of individual annihilation, Com. resigned as PC secretary and joined with other Srikakulam comrades revived CC led by com. S.N. Singh. Since then he was a member of the Central Committee of the Party. In 1974, APRCP led by Com. CP Reddy merged with CPI(ML) led by Com. SN Singh and Srikakulam movement became part of the state movement. Com. Pyla was elected state committee secretary in 1976 when Com. P. Ramanarasaiah was killed in a fake encounter.

He was re-elected to the CC in 1980 Special Congress. For long the Party in AP was identified with his name.

Com. Pyla consistently practiced and supported the revolutionary mass line and struggled against rightism and revisionism. He resolutely opposed the interpretation equating mass line with legalism. He was an ardent votary of armed agrarian revolution and of building areas of sustained resistance. He greatly valued the role of armed squads in building resistance struggle and fought against the trends that he perceived to be opposed to this. Till the end of his life, Com. PV consistently upheld revolutionaries’ separation from neo-revisionist CPM after Naxalbari and formation of CPI(ML) in 1969 unlike some leaders who then or later criticized the formation of CPI(ML) and refused to treat it as revolutionary communist party of the country.

His died at a time when the peasants of India are rising in many parts against the decadent rule of the ruling classes, against landlord oppression and forcible displacement. Srikakulam Armed Struggle continues to inspire the revolutionaries and struggling people of the country. Srikakulam Armed Struggle which reached highest point in terms of resistance and people’s participation in all the struggles inspired by Naxalbari, continues to serve as a beacon light for the present revolutionary movement. Com. Pyla as one of the leaders of that movement continues to live in the memory of the revolutionaries and struggling people of the country.

To pay homage to this veteran communist revolutionary leader CPI(ML)-New Democracy organized memorial meetings at Hyderabad and Delhi on April 20, 2010.

Long Live Com. Paila Vasudev Rao !