Harpal Brar | |
|---|---|
 Brar speaking in 2015 | |
| Born | (1939-10-05)5 October 1939 |
| Died | 25 January 2025(2025-01-25) (aged 85) |
| Education | University of Westminster |
| Occupations | Former Chairman of the CPGB-ML, Businessman, University lecturer |
| Known for | Anti-imperialist activism, CPGB-ML founder, support of Irish republicanism and Palestinian solidarity |
| Notable work | Inquilab Zindabad: India's Liberation Struggle (2014) |
| Political party | Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) |
| Children | Joti Brar (daughter) Ranjeet Brar (son) Carlos Martinez (son) |
Harpal Brar (5 October 1939 – 25 January 2025) was an Indiancommunist, politician, writer and businessman, based in the United Kingdom. He was the founder and chairman of theCommunist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist), a role from which he stood down in 2018.
Born inMuktsar,Punjab,British India, Brar lived and worked in Britain from 1962, first as a student, then as a lecturer in law atHarrow College of Higher Education (later merged into the renamedUniversity of Westminster), and later in the textile business. Brar owned buildings in West London which he used for CPGB-ML party activity, and he part-owned anonline shop called "Madeleine Trehearne and Harpal Brar" which sells shawls.
Brar was the editor of aleft-wing political newspaperLalkar, the former journal of theIndian Workers' Association. Brar has written multiple books on subjects such ascommunism, Indian republicanism, imperialism,anti-Zionism,anti-colonialism, and theBritish General Strike. He was also a co-founder of the Hands Off China Campaign.
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Brar joined theMaoistRevolutionary Marxist-Leninist League but soon left to become a founder member of a small group, theAssociation of Communist Workers,[1] as well as being a member of theAssociation of Indian Communists.[citation needed]
He and his comrades officially dissolved the ACW in 1997 to joinArthur Scargill'sSocialist Labour Party, a breakaway from theLabour Party after its abandonment of the original version ofClause IV. Brar was the parliamentary candidate inEaling Southall in2001,[2] coming eighth with 921 votes.[3] He had previously come fourth in the 1997 general election, with 2107 votes. Brar and his comrades worked to bring what they described as anAnti-RevisionistMarxist-Leninist programme to the SLP, but were eventually expelled seven years later.[4]
Scargill expelled the entire Yorkshire Regional Committee and five members of the National Executive Committee. From this, in July 2004, theCommunist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) was formed,[5] and Brar was its chairman.[1]
Adopting positions maintained by Brar and his comrades since the 1960s, the CPGB-ML has been vigorously opposed to all those who work with or in any way endorse the Labour Party since its inception. Its stated aim on formation was to oppose opportunism in theworking-class movement, revive the "class against class" programme embodied by theCommunist Party of Great Britain during the 1920s, and to work for the establishment ofsocialism in Britain.[6][7]
The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) was registered with theElectoral Commission in 2008 under the name "Proletarian", which is the title of the bi-monthly newspaper of the CPBG-ML. The party was registered "to prepare for standing in elections".[8]
At the eighth congress of the CPGB-ML in September 2018, Brar announced that he would step down as chairman of the party, to be replaced by Ella Rule.[9]
On 19 July 2008, Harpal Brar was one of the people who founded theHands Off China campaign, dedicated to defending thePeople's Republic of China and to defending "China'ssovereignty and territorial integrity" and "the country's just stance on issues of its vital national interest such asTaiwan andTibet."[10]
Brar strongly disagreed with the popular belief that theIndian independence movement was peaceful andpacifist, and was led entirely byMahatma Gandhi and theIndian National Congress. In his bookInquilab Zindabad: India's Liberation Struggle he argues that a violent and bloodyclass struggle involving the masses took place. He accuses Gandhi and Congress of supportingBritish imperialism, describing the latter as "the most compromising, cowardly and obscurantist representatives of the Indiabourgeoisie".[11]
Brar defended the governments and leaders of the USSR until the appearance ofKhrushcheviterevisionism during the20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.[12]Lalkar, the newspaper edited by Brar, criticisesThe British Road to Socialism (the programme of the originalCommunist Party of Great Britain) from its earliest version in 1951 as "un-Marxist"[13] and regards the claim thatJoseph Stalin approved it as a "fiction".[14] Brar is seen as an admirer of Stalin and has been attacked as an "anachronism" in theWeekly Worker publication of theCommunist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), which Brar in turn regarded asTrotskyite propaganda.[15]
He has chaired and was an active member of theStalin Society,[2][1] along with his daughterJoti Brar (deputy leader of theWorkers Party of Britain). The Society denies Soviet wrongdoing in theKatyn massacre which they blame on the Nazis,[16][1] theSoviet famine of 1932–33[1] which they blame on foreign sanctions,kulak sabotage and weather patterns,[17] and theMoscow Trials which they describe as fair process.[18]
For many years, he was on the executive of theIndian Workers Association (GB) and was the editor of that organisation's journalLalkar. He continued to publish the journal, but the IWA cut its ties with the paper in 1992, when members of the executive committee withCommunist Party of India (Marxist) affiliations objected to Brar's publishing of an article that was mildly critical of the adoption of market socialism in China.[19]
From 1992, Brar himself published 14 books on various aspects of Marxism, imperialism and revisionism. These works are a combination of original material and articles previously published inLalkar and have been translated and distributed internationally by a number of sympathetic communist parties around the world.
Brar died in Mohali, Punjab, India on 25 January 2025, at the age of 85.[20]
UK Parliament elections
| Date of election | Constituency | Party | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Ealing Southall | SLP | 2,107 | 3.9 |
| 2001 | Ealing Southall | SLP | 921 | 2.0 |
European Parliament elections
| Year | Region | Party | Votes | % | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | London | SLP | 19,632 | 1.7 | Not-elected | Multi-member constituency; party list |
London Assembly elections (Entire London city)
| Date of election | Party | Votes | % | Results | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | SLP | 17,401[21] | 1.0 | Not elected | Multi-members party list[22] |
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