By: Ranjeet Brar
Thanks so much to all my friends and comrades for your kind and moving words at this difficult time. Forgive me if I don’t answer you all individually now.
Yesterday Ella, Joti, Carlos and I were with Harpal when he passed away peacefully at the home of our cousin – his nephew, Manpreet. He did not suffer any pain, and he was surrounded by love and comradeship.
We attended his cremation the same evening in his home village – Fattanwala, Punjab. The whole village and many people from surrounding towns attended. And we met many members of Harpal’s Punjabi family and contacts from his original life. It is hard to think of him as a horse-riding, crop-raising Punjabi farmer. But those were his roots. Before he journeyed to the metropolis, became a law lecturer, married my mother, Maysel Sharp, found Marx and Lenin and took up the cause of the liberation of mankind.
We are writing his obituary and will likely publish it very soon. With such a full and meaningful life, to us personally but also to the Indian community in Britain, the Indian Workers Association (GB), the British communist movement and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), that he founded, the working class and wider humanity, it is hard to know where to begin. And where to end.
Harpal played a role in many of the great liberation struggles of his time, from Zimbabwe and South Africa, Vietnam and Korea, Palestine and the Middle East to the great anti-imperialist cause of Irish reunification and national liberation. And of course he struggled tirelessly to solve the central question of the liberation of the working class from capitalist exploitation and imperialism.
Harpal wrote extensively on the question of proletarian revolution and womens liberation. Harpal’s criticism of the Labour Party as an imperialist party of Social Democracy is essential reading for all British workers. He wrote on Indian, Zimbabwean, Korean and Vietnamese national liberation, on bourgeois nationalism, black separatism and identity politics. He wrote of course extensively on the great revolutionary movements of the Soviet people and of China, and he wrote on the historical roots of Zionism and imperialism in the Middle East with specific reference to the cause of the Palestinian people for national liberation and self determination.
Harpal was undoubtedly a great disciple of Marx and Lenin, and recognised that the Great Socialist October Revolution in Russia as a watershed of cultural enlightenment and freedom for Humanity. Harpal’s critique of Trotskyism, his defence of the revolutionary teaching and leadership of Joseph Stalin, and his critique of Khrushchevism and revisionism that caused the downfall of Soviet Socialism is among the lasting theoretical contributions he bequeathed to the communist movement.
I’m grateful and moved by all of the tributes from his friends and comrades – that flowed to us even before we could speak to any but our closest family.
To all of Harpal’s comrades and loved ones: I’m sorry for your loss too. We are united in our grief. And our determination to carry on his work. Which is all of our work. The Party was Harpal’s wider family in every sense. And remains mine.
If Harpal could say one thing to us it would be: “guard the party as you guard the apple of your eye.” He struggled to found and build it in the most difficult conjunction of circumstances, after the fall of the once mighty USSR. It is a great gift – the best of British – that he leaves us.
Harpal thought creatively about how to solve the problem of uniting revolutionary politics with the mass of the British workers. To that end he worked with the greatest revolutionaries and British working class leaders of his time, among them Claudia Jones and Manchanda, down to Avtar Johal, Jagmohan Joshi, Arthur Scargill, Frank Cave and Bob Crow.
But the greatest and most self sacrificing comrades and his true friends and comrades were always those unsung heroes of our Party: Kathy Sharp, Godfrey Cremer, Iris Sloley, Ella Rule, Deborah Lavin, Isabelle Crook, Jack Shapiro, Jack Gaster, and many others.
With Lenin, Harpal realised that “without a revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” That was the slogan he inscribed on the banner of Lalkar.
And it’s Lenin’s insightful way of paraphrasing Marx.
“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”
For Harpal, study was a practical part of politics without which we can never succeed in liberating the working people from their current state of servitude – from their wage slavery. This was an early realisation of Harpal’s and his work – together with the CPGB-ML – is the enduring legacy that he leaves us.
A lutta continua!
Red salute to comrade Harpal Brar! May he rests in power.
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My deepest condolences to you and the whole family. I was lucky enough to have met Harpal a few times. I remember our common time in Pjongjang in 2013, and also my visit in London in 2015, to give a lecture on Finland’s Workers’ Revolution 1918.
May Co…
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Indeed La lotta continua, so sorry for your loss, may he rest in peace.
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So sorry for your loss. Deepest sympathies to you all.
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Ranjeet I am so sorry for your loss. Utterly devastating. Sending my deepest condolences to you and all the family at this sad time. An amazing man.
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Deepest condolences Ranjeet hope you’re ok during this difficult time 
R.I.P Harpal Red Salute Comrade.
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Stay strong 
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Salute to great thinking
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A man who meant so much, to so many. I’m sorry for your loss and ours. Sending love x
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Eternal Glory to Comrade Harpal Brar! I learned so much from his works I could never describe. My deepest condolences to my British comrades, to Comrades Ranjeet & Joti, and all family members. Comrade Harpal’s works & revolutionary struggles will endure for the ages.