Homage to Comrade Sitaram Yechury — Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Communist Party of India (Marxist)

September 12, 2024

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:

Homage to Comrade Sitaram Yechury

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its profound grief at the passing away of Comrade Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary of the Party on September 12, 2024. He died after battling a severe lung infection at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He was aged 72 years.

Sitaram Yechury was the topmost leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), an outstanding leader of the Left movement and a well-known Marxist ideologue.

He was a brilliant student who secured a first class in both his undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in economics. He joined the student movement in Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1974 and became a leader of the Students Federation of India. He was thrice elected as President of the JNU Students Union within a span of two years. He was the All India President of the Students Federation of India from 1984 to 1986 and played an important role in developing the student organisation as an all-India force.

Sitaram Yechury joined the CPI(M) in 1975. He was arrested during the emergency for his political activities. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Party in 1985 at the 12th Congress and he remained in the Central Committee till now. He was elected to the Central Secretariat in 1989 and to the Polit Bureau in 1992 at the 14th Congress of the Party.

He was elected as the General Secretary of the CPI(M) at the 21st Congress in 2015, a position he continued until now. As part of leadership team at the Party Centre for over three decades, he played an important role in formulating the political positions of the Party from time to time. It was in the field of ideology that Sitaram played a distinctive role. The Party adopted a resolution On Certain Ideological Issues at the 14th Congress, which formulated the ideological positions of the Party consequent to the setbacks to socialism. This resolution was presented by Comrade Sitaram to the Congress. Subsequently, he was the prime mover of the resolution which updated the ideological positions, adopted at the 20th Congress of the Party in 2012.

As head of the International Department of the Central Committee, he participated in various international forums of Communist and progressive forces and strengthened relations with socialist countries and solidarity with anti-imperialist movements.

Sitaram Yechury was the Editor of the Party