[The following is a serious tracing of developments in the struggle between revolutionary and revisionist lines among Nepali Maoists, concentrated in the UCPN(M), over the last few years. In recent weeks and months events have clarified repeatedly the nature of this struggle, and have raised the internationalist responsibilities of revolutionaries worldwide to inform the people’s struggles about the meaning of these differences, and to give all possible assistance to the revolutionaries in Nepal in their time of decisive battle. It is a good development.
But many international forces have been silent or ambivalent or agnostic on the terms of this struggle, since the PW was ended in 2006. Some have, earlier, even championed the revisionists as “creative thinkers” and have actually suppressed those who fought for the revolutionary line “prematurely”–and some of these are now singing another tune in support of the revolutionary challenges, but avoiding any summation of their earlier concilation with revisionism. In contrast is the polemic issued several years ago by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which led the the most informed critique of the post-people’s war Nepali “Maoist” road. See “Open Letter to Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) from the Communist Party of India (Maoist)”, at http://www.bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/index.htm. This is the revised and finalized version of this important 24-page document, dated July 20, 2009. — Frontlines ed.]
from Le Drapeau Rouge:
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has waged a people’s war for ten years, from 1996 to 2006, extending the area of the Party’s influence to 80% of the country.
In 2006, following an alliance with the seven oppositional parties, the Party became legal, stopped armed struggle, agreed to the confining of weapons in containers under UN control. The Party won general election with 40% vote. Prachanda became Prime Minister, at the head of a government including members of the bourgeois parties, even the feudal, pro-imperialist parties and the revisionist parties (the UML) too, it was a government of national union.
Under such conditions, it was almost impossible to establish a real democracy for the people, and implement any land reform. In spite of all, the Party kept and perhaps is still keeping an important possibility of significant mobilization.
A new Constitution was to be installed, but from one retreat to another of the parties allied to the PCN(M), which had since become Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Constitution has not yet been enacted. Prachanda, stalled in a deadlock, had to resign when the President of the Republic maintained general Katawal at the head of the armed forces. Some members of the Party are still members of Parliament.
Within the Party, the thesis is put forward that Revolution in Nepal includes several phases : people’s war, parliamentary struggle, stopping of the people’s war, preparation of the masses for insurgency.
There is a difference that appeared in practise. What the Party presented as a tactic in order to prepare conditions for insurgency had turned into a strategy for the introduction of a New Democracy within the conditions of the 21st century in conformity with the “Prachanda path”; and all this was presented as something which could be generalized to all countries in the world and advised to all parties, though there was absolutely no proof of the validity of such thesis, just well otherwise.
From one retreat to another, various tendencies and directions emerged in the UCPN(M). One line favours the establishment of a Republic of Parliamentary Democracy of the bourgeois type. Another (centrist), promotes a strategy of mobilizing masses in coordination with the struggle in Parliament and through heading the State apparatus. It seems to us that this line went bankrupt. Another line states that they want to advance the revolution by giving priority to the mobilization of the masses and transforming the Party from within. This seems extremely difficult at present.
In the spirit of maintaining the unity of the Party, rightwing, centrist and revolutionary positions co-exist. In order to preserve unity at all costs and go on with the line which has led to the present situation of deadlock and current paralysis, and in order to regain the leadership of government as Prime Minister, the Central Committee met and suggested to choose as a candidate for Prime Minister a representative of the bourgeois type of democracy.
The obvious problem arising is that the appointment of a Prime Minister issued from the UCPN (Maoist) will be accompanied by the dissolution of the PLA, the surrender of weapons and the integration of part of it into the National Army headed by a high commander from the old Royal Army. In other words, this means the complete liquidationof the PLA and its complete disarming.
Under these conditions, there are two possibilities.
1. Complete surrender, total renunciation to the prospect of insurgency. It has been five years that the Party has been engaged in these transactions, with no significant progress to solve the issue of “power”. What do the masses think about all this? They are either in expectation for the better, or disappointed for the worse.
2. The resumption of the revolutionary fight, which involves mobilizing the masses. “One divides into two” and not “two combine into one”. One has to choose. The rightist line must be denounced to the masse; the only way is to return to the masses because the masses make history and at the same time suffer when their leaders take false, flickering or liquidationist, revisionist positions.
The best support that should make Maoists in the world is to firmly support the second option, to tell things clearly to our comrades who want to lead the revolution to success and assert our positions. The issue that will prevail and be achieved in Nepal is important for the communist movement as a whole and not only for the Nepalese communists. To criticize the false positions, the inadequate tactics adopted, to denounce the liquidators and revisionists etc. is the best support that we can bring to the relatively correct positions and to the comrades who want to continue the struggle for revolution in Nepal. There are Maoists in Nepal who are fighting for revolution and we must support them against the liquidators !
Notes and precisions :
The above text was written a few days before the election of Bhattarai as Prime Minister. The situation has been made clearer since then, and the liquidators have unveiled their real class nature. If Bhattarai has been able to become Prime Minister, it is due to an agreement between Bhattarai and Prachanda on the one hand and, on the other, the Madhesis parties. It is well known that that the Madhesis parties are the representatives of the Indian interests in Nepal. But what is most disturbing are the contents of the above agreement. One point mentioned is the establishment of an “inclusive democratic republic”. It is just the opposite of the Party line of a” Federal People’s Republic”. The agreement also includes the establishment of a separated unit inside the Nepalese Army for 10 000 Madhesis at the very moment when the PLA is being disarmed and when the plans for its integration under command of the Nepalese Army. Furthermore, little time before the liquidation of the PLA through its disarmament, the government headed by Bhattarai ordered the districts governments to hand over all the lands seized by the Maoists during the People’s War. What will the masse be able to keep?
But the liquidators must face opposition and Hari Gyawali, a maoist leader in the Kochila district stated:” We have obtained lands in exchange of our blood. We cannot give this land back as long as the agrarian revolution is not implemented.” “The government will have to face confrontation if it uses coercive means.” “The squatters, the Kamaiyas (former serfs) and the martyrs’ families are using these lands. We shall not give them back as long as a revolutionary agrarian reform is not implemented.” Furthermore, the left wing of the Party is organizing its own training meetings throughout the country. The situation might turn to open confrontation. In any case, the Central Committee is due to meet on September 30th. In the meantime, let us carefully examine a situation which might evolve rapidly.
Le Drapeau Rouge,
Organe du Parti Communiste maoïste de France
http://drapeaurouge.over-blog.co
September 9 marks 40 years since the uprising at Attica State Prison, in upstate New York, and the deadly and sadistic retaking of the prison – and mass torture of hundreds of prisoners all the rest of the day and night and beyond – by state police and prison guards on the morning of September 13. When the shooting stopped and the gas lifted, 29 unarmed prisoners and ten hostages were dead, slaughtered by the assault force.
Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle 