Puran Chand Joshi
Puran Chand Joshi (April 14, 1907 – November 9, 1980) was an early Indian communist leader and the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), serving from 1935 to 1947.
He was born in Almora, in what is now Uttarakhand, to a Kumaoni Hindu Brahmin family. His father was a teacher. He earned a Master of Arts degree from Allahabad University in 1928 but was arrested soon after graduation as a suspect in the Meerut Conspiracy Case and sent to the Andaman Islands, where his sentence was later reduced.
After his release in 1933, Joshi helped bring various left groups under the CPI. In 1934 the CPI joined the Communist International (Comintern).
When Somnath Lahiri was arrested in 1935, Joshi became the CPI’s General Secretary, the first person to hold that post. The British banned communist activities during this period. In 1938 Joshi began editing the party’s legal weekly, the National Front, from Bombay. The CPI was banned again in 1939, and in 1941 the party shifted its line after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
Joshi played a key role in building mass support and promoting a cultural revival. He encouraged songs, drama, literature, theatre, and film to spread Marxist ideas and unite people. He helped form broad alliances and influenced the Congress and other groups. He also backed various armed struggles in certain regions, including Telangana in 1946 as part of anti-Nizam action.
In 1947 Joshi remained general secretary, but internal disagreements led to his removal at the 1948 Calcutta Congress. He was suspended in January 1949, expelled in December 1949, and readmitted to the CPI in June 1951. After the party split later, he stayed with the CPI and worked to document the movement.
In his later years he studied and wrote, helping to create an archive on the Indian communist movement at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Joshi married Kalpana Datta in 1943. She was a revolutionary who took part in the Chittagong armoury raid. They had two sons, Chand and Suraj. Chand Joshi (1946–2000) became a journalist.
Puran Chand Joshi died on November 9, 1980, in Delhi, at the age of 73.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:15 (CET).