>Yuhani at 11:53, 26 June 2021

2021-06-26T11:53:21Z

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{{EngvarB|date=June 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{infobox person
| name = Harpal Brar
| image = Harpal Brar da un discurso en 2015.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Harpal Brar speaking to young communists on the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in Birmingham in 2015
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1939|10|5}}
| birth_place = [[Muktsar]], [[Punjab, British India|Punjab]], [[British Raj|British India]]
| party = [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)]]
| children = Joti Brar (daughter)<br/>Ranjeet Brar (son)
| nationality = British-Indian
| education = [[University of Westminster]]
| occupation = 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_works = ''Inquilab Zindabad: India's Liberation Struggle'' (2014)
}}
'''Harpal Brar''' (born 5 October 1939) is an Indian [[communist]] politician, writer and businessman, based in the [[United Kingdom]]. He is the founder and former chairman of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)]], a role from which he stood down in 2018.

Born in [[Muktsar]], [[Punjab (British India)|Punjab]], [[British Raj|British India]], Brar has lived and worked in Britain since 1962, first as a student, then as a lecturer in law at [[University of Westminster|Harrow College of Higher Education]] (later merged into the renamed [[University of Westminster]]), and later in the textile business. Brar owns buildings in West London which he uses for CPGB-ML party activity, and he part-owns an internet shop called "Madeleine Trehearne and Harpal Brar" which sells shawls.

Brar is the editor of a [[left-wing]] political newspaper ''[[Lalkar (magazine)|Lalkar]]'', the former journal of the [[Indian Workers' Association]]. Brar has written multiple books on subjects such as [[communism]], Indian republicanism, imperialism, [[anti-Zionism]], [[anti-colonialism]], and the [[British General Strike]]. He is also a co-founder of the Hands off China Campaign.

==Political activities==
Brar joined the [[Maoist]] [[Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League]] but soon left to become a founder member of a small group, the [[Association of Communist Workers]], as well as being a member of the Association of Indian Communists.

He and his comrades officially dissolved the ACW in 1997 to join [[Arthur Scargill]]'s [[Socialist Labour Party (UK)|Socialist Labour Party]], a breakaway from the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] after its abandonment of the original version of [[Clause IV]]. Brar and his comrades worked to bring what they described as an [[Anti-Revisionist]] [[Marxist-Leninist]] programme to the SLP, but were eventually expelled seven years later.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/530/scargill-expels-brar/|title=Scargill expels Brar|newspaper=Weekly Worker|issue= 530|date=26 May 2004|accessdate=1 January 2015}}</ref>

Scargill expelled the entire Yorkshire Regional Committee and five members of the National Executive Committee. From this, in July 2004, the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)]] was formed,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=home|title=Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)|publisher=cpgb-ml.org|accessdate=29 October 2015}}</ref> and Brar was elected as its chairman.

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 the working-class movement, revive the "class against class" programme embodied by the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] during the 1920s, and to work for the establishment of socialism in Britain.<ref>[http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=10 Formation of the CPGB-ML], Proletarian, August 2004</ref><ref>[http://www.cpgb-ml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=784 Celebrating October], Proletarian, November 2011</ref>

The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) was registered with the Electoral 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".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/62299/SoA-Index.pdf |accessdate=19 August 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119212741/http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/62299/SoA-Index.pdf |archivedate=19 November 2008 |title=Index to Statements of Accounts |website=Electoral commission }}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite news |title=Comrade Harpal Brar steps down as party chairman after 14 years |url=https://www.cpgb-ml.org/2018/10/24/news/comrade-harpal-brar-steps-down-as-party-chairman-after-14-years/ |accessdate=5 December 2018 |work=Proletarian |date=24 October 2018}}</ref>

==Views on China==
On 19 July 2008, Harpal Brar was one of the people who founded the Hands off China campaign. The campaign is dedicated to defending China and "is aimed to defend China's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and "the country's just stance on issues of its vital national interest such as Taiwan and Tibet."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/20/content_8576443.htm|title=Britain's Communist Party launches "Hand-Off-China" campaign|date=20 July 2008|agency=Xinhua News Agency|accessdate=29 October 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160114034845/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/20/content_8576443.htm|archivedate=14 January 2016|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

==Views on India==
Brar heavily disagrees with the popular belief that the fight for Indian independence was a peaceful and pacifist movement, led entirely by Gandhi. He wrote a book on Indian history called ''[[Inquilab Zindabad]]: India's Liberation Struggle'', in which he argues that the fight for Indian independence was a violent and bloody class struggle, and goes onto accuse Gandhi of supporting British imperialism. The back cover of the book says:
<blockquote>There is a widespread myth spread by bourgeois historians that Gandhi and the Indian National Congress were solely responsible for achieving India's independence from the much-hated British Raj, and that they did it using only the message of non-violence, peaceful non-co-operation and civil disobedience.
The truth is quite the reverse. The heroes of the 1857 revolt, the Ghadar patriots, and Bhagat Singh and his comrades inspired and led the Indian masses in armed struggle as the best means of liberating their country from British colonial occupation.
Many thousands of ordinary people and many hundreds of revolutionary leaders made the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of this noble cause. Their struggle is summed up by Bhagat Singh's popular slogan, "Inquilab zindabad!" (Long live revolution!), which electrified the Indian masses.
It is an insult to their memory, and to their self-sacrificing heroism, to credit India's independence to the most compromising, cowardly and obscurantist representatives of the India bourgeoisie.
All progressives, workers and peasants have a duty to honour these heroes, to perpetuate their memory and to learn from them in the continuing struggle against imperialism and exploitation.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brar |first=Harpal |date=2014 |title=Inquilab Zindabad: India's Liberation Struggle|location=Great Britain |isbn=978-1-874613-22-0}}</ref></blockquote>

==Views on the Soviet Union==
Brar defends the governments and leaders of the USSR until the appearance of Khrushchevite revisionism during the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] in 1956.<ref>{{cite web|last=Brar|first=Harpal|title=Revisionism and the Demise of the USSR|url=http://cpgb-ml.org/download/publications/RevisionismUSSR.pdf|year=2011|website=Perestroika|accessdate=16 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110814011931/http://cpgb-ml.org/download/publications/RevisionismUSSR.pdf|archive-date=14 August 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''Lalkar'', the newspaper edited by Brar, criticises ''[[Britain's Road to Socialism|The British Road to Socialism]]'' (the programme of the original [[Communist Party of Great Britain]]) from its earliest version in 1951 as "un-Marxist"<ref>{{cite news|title=The British Road to Revisionism|url=http://www.lalkar.org/article/931/the-british-road-to-revisionism|newspaper=Lalkar|date=November 2008|accessdate=16 February 2016}}</ref> and regards the claim that Stalin approved it as a "fiction".<ref>{{cite news|title=The revolutionary programmes of British Communism|url=http://www.lalkar.org/article/853/the-revolutionary-programmesof-british-communism|newspaper=Lalkar|date=January 2008|accessdate=16 February 2016}}</ref> Brar is seen as an admirer of Stalin and has been attacked as an "anachronism" in the ''[[Weekly Worker]]'' publication of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)]], which Brar in turn regards as Trotskyite propaganda.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/389/stalin-society-v-cpgb/|title=Stalin Society v CPGB|date=20 June 2001|publisher=weeklyworker.co.uk|accessdate=29 October 2015}}</ref>

He, along with his daughter Joti Brar (deputy leader of the [[Workers Party of Britain]]), is an active member of the [[Stalin Society]], the website of which contains articles denying Soviet wrongdoing in the [[Katyn massacre]] which they blame on the Nazis,<ref>{{cite web|author=Ella Rule|title= The Katyn Massacre|date= 17 February 2016|url=http://stalinsociety.net/?p=103|publisher=Stalin Society|accessdate=17 April 2018}}</ref> the [[Soviet famine of 1932–33]] which they blame on foreign sanctions, kulak sabotage and weather patterns,<ref>{{cite web|author=John Puntis|title=Ukrainian famine-genocide myth|date=17 February 2016|url=http://stalinsociety.net/?p=114|publisher=Stalin Society|accessdate=17 April 2018}}</ref> and the [[Moscow Trials]] which they describe as fair process.<ref>{{cite web|author=Mario Sousa trans. Ella Rule|title=Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union|date=14 January 2017|url=http://stalinsociety.net/?p=428|publisher=Stalin Society|accessdate=17 April 2018}}</ref>

==Publications==
For many years, he was on the executive of the [[Indian Workers Association (GB)]] and was the editor of that organisation's journal ''Lalkar''. He continues to publish the journal, but the IWA cut its ties with the paper in 1992, when members of the executive committee with affiliations to the [[Communist Party of India (Marxist)]] objected to Brar's publishing of an article that was mildly critical of the adoption of market socialism in China.<ref>[http://lalkar.org/issues/contents/jan2006/china.php "Socialism with Chinese characteristics"], ''Lalkar''</ref>

Since 1992, Brar has self-published fourteen books on various aspects of Marxism, imperialism and revisionism. These works are a combination of original material and articles previously published in ''Lalkar'' and have been translated and distributed internationally by a number of sympathetic communist parties around the world.

==Works==
*''Inquilab Zindabad, India's Liberation Struggle (2014)''
*''Revisionism and the Demise of the USSR''
*''The 1926 British General Strike''
*''Nato's Predatory War Against Yugoslavia''
*''Imperialism and War''
*''Imperialism – the Eve of the Social Revolution of the Proletariat''
*''Chimurenga! The Liberation Struggle in Zimbabwe''
*''Imperialism – Decadent, Parasitic, Moribund Capitalism''
*''Bourgeois Nationalism or Proletarian Internationalism?''
*''Perestroika: The Complete Collapse of Revisionism'' (1992)
*''Trotskyism or Leninism?'' (1993)
*''Social Democracy: The Enemy Within'' (1995)

==Elections contested==
'''UK Parliament elections'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Date of election !! Constituency !! Party !! Votes !! %
|-
| [[1997 United Kingdom general election|1997]] || [[Ealing Southall (UK Parliament constituency)|Ealing Southall]] || [[Socialist Labour Party (UK)|SLP]] || 2,107 || 3.9
|-
| [[2001 United Kingdom general election|2001]] || [[Ealing Southall (UK Parliament constituency)|Ealing Southall]] || [[Socialist Labour Party (UK)|SLP]] || 921 || 2.0
|}

'''European Parliament elections'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Region !! Party !! Votes !! % !! Result !! Notes
|-
| [[1999 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom|1999]] || [[London (European Parliament constituency)|London]] || [[Socialist Labour Party (UK)|SLP]] || 19,632 || 1.7 || Not-elected || Multi-member constituency; party list
|}

'''London Assembly elections''' (Entire London city)
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Date of election !! Party !! Votes !! % !! Results !! Notes
|-
| [[2000 London Assembly election|2000]] || [[Socialist Labour Party (UK)|SLP]] || 17,401<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.election.demon.co.uk/gla.html|title=Greater London Authority Election Results|website=election.demon.co.uk|accessdate=29 October 2015}}</ref> || 1.0 || Not elected || Multi-members party list<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.election.demon.co.uk/glacand.html |title=Greater London Authority Candidates |website=election.demon.co.uk |accessdate=7 September 2015}}</ref>
|}

==Notes==
{{reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
*[http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/trotvslenin.htm Preface to Brar's book ''Trotskyism or Leninism?''].
*[http://www.trehearneandbrar.com/ Brar's business website].

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brar, Harpal}}
[[Category:1939 births]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Westminster]]
[[Category:Anti-revisionists]]
[[Category:British communists]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:People from Sri Muktsar Sahib]]
[[Category:Socialist Labour Party (UK) members]]
[[Category:Maoists]]
[[Category:British anti-fascists]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:British social commentators]]
[[Category:Indian businesspeople in textiles]]
[[Category:Indian expatriates in the United Kingdom]]

Harpal Brar - Revision history

>Yuhani at 11:53, 26 June 2021