The Nepali Revolution Moves On

The Nepali Revolution Moves On
by Bill Templer
http://mrzine. monthlyreview. org/templer21080 8.html

In a historic vote on 15 August 2008 in Kathmandu, Pushpa Kamal
Dahal (aka Prachanda), chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-
Maoist (CPN-M), was elected first Prime Minister of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Nepal, where now a "Maoist leads from the top
of the world." Prachanda garnered 80% of the votes cast in the
Constituent Assembly. This turn came on the heels of the surprise
election of Ram Baran Yadav of the Congress Party as new President
of the Republic on 22 July, a move then regarded as a momentary
serious blow to the CPN-M.

In elections on 10 April 2008, the CPN-M gained a clear popular
mandate (40% of all elected delegates to the Constituent Assembly)
after a decade-long armed struggle by the CPN-M against the recently
deposed monarchy. As Shyam Shrestha stressed after the
elections: "The Nepali people are rising, their level of arousal is
amazing. They are more ahead in consciousness than the leadership
of the political parties. The feudal class will try to resist
change, but the CA composition and the level of awareness of the
people is very high, they cannot withstand this pressure."

With Prachanda now at the helm of state, the CPN-M is expected to
gain ministerial control of a number of key ministries, as the CPN-M
and its movement are given a chance to prove themselves: "to show
they are serious about the social transformations in whose name they
went to war. They have a very strong presence in the villages, and
many now long for them to be able to build on the starts they have
made at eroding caste and gender discrimination. They also promise
a more equitable system of land ownership."

Yet Prachanda and his party, even after the landslide electoral
victory and now a democratically chosen Prime Minister, still rank
high on Washington's Terrorist Exclusion list. The DoS and the US
Embassy in Kathmandu are juggling various definitions of 'terrorism'
which they can try to apply to the CPN-M. U.S. Ambassador Nancy
Powell is cautious in a recent interview in expressing how
Washington really views the transformation in Nepal and underscores
neoliberal concerns for promoting "the private sector, the free
market and foreign direct investment" in the country: "We strongly
hope that the new government will recognise that the private sector
is by far the most powerful engine for economic growth." Roshan
Kissoon stresses: "When groups on the 'terrorist' list start winning
elections, another curious thing takes place. The very term'
terrorist' becomes inverted, its utter falsity is seen through, and
a kind of moral collapse of the US and what it represents take
place. There is a kind of moral reversal."

It's really important for progressives everywhere to better grasp
the significance of what is happening in Nepal. Reportage on these
pretty momentous developments is generally eclipsed in both the
corporate and independent media, including much of the socialist
press. As Gary Leupp commented last April, "It ought to be the
ballot heard 'round the world. It ought to be front page news."
But it hasn't been. You can read The Red Star, the English bi-
weekly of the CPN-M, for firsthand reporting and views. A broad
spectrum of local opinion on the Revolution and the challenges ahead
in Nepal is reflected on a unique blog, well worth exploring.

The CPN-M is a major party within the Coordination Committee of the
Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA), made up
of parties from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the
Communist Party of Iran (ML-M). CCOMPOSA also needs to be better
known outside the region, however we may critique particular
positions or tactics. Its Declaration was adopted in August 2002
and can help us to better understand the orientation of
revolutionary socialists in South (and West) Asia who see themselves
as part of a Maoist movement.

In Europe, the (n)PCI (nuovo Partito Comunista Italiano) in Italy,
founded in Oct. 2004, has been especially outspoken in its support
for the people's struggle in Nepal. Its Founding Declaration sets
out a new vision for revolutionary socialist reconstruction and mass
mobilization in Italy and beyond. An article "The First Great
Victory of the International Communist Movement in the 21st
Century," published in Italian in the party paper La Voce (1 July
2008), stresses the historic importance of what is happening in
Nepal. The Party of the Committees to Support Resistance -- for
Communism (CARC) in Italy, closely allied since 2005 with the (n)
PCI, issued an article on the Nepali Revolution in the current
edition of The Red Star, drawing on the earlier article in La Voce.
It is reprinted below, and raises important points for the broader
international workers' struggle.

The article notes the strong support for the Nepali revolutionary
upsurge inside the International League of People's Struggle. The
ILPS, formed in 2001, is an umbrella organization of many NGOs. It
recently mobilized activists to assist Dave Pugh in connection with
his detention in India for his fact-finding work on the anti-
displacement movement. Jose Maria Sison, ILPS chairperson, issued
a "Letter of congratulations to Comrade Prachanda on his election as
Prime Minister." Few socialist parties or organizations have done
so.

The Nepali Revolution deserves international solidarity. It can be
a source of direct inspiration for people's resistance hands-on
along the southern face of the Himalaya and well beyond. In the
region, it is feasible that "given the extreme and intensifying
contradictions in Indian society, a real revolutionary regime in
Nepal will have immediate and deep reverberations throughout India,
especially the north and northeast. Furthermore, although it has no
common border with Bangladesh, Nepal is only a few dozen kilometers
from that country, most of whose 150 million people live in
conditions of great hardship." Writing in The Red Star, Kissoon is
apprehensive but confident: "we have seen how a coup was engineered
to stop Hamas becoming the government of Palestine. There is every
reason to believe that the US is trying to plan something similar in
Nepal. [. . .] Here, the CPN Maoist has planned accordingly, and
prepared for any necessity." The gains now being achieved and on
the pathway forward need to be protected.

I worked many years in Nepal, but I and my students then never
thought we would see the day of a Federal Democratic Republic
dawning on Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest), now a reality. Roshan Kissoon,
who taught English and much else to men and women of the People's
Liberation Army in the countryside, and who knows the people's
movement at the grassroots, puts it well: "For the masses of people
in Nepal, the poor and the oppressed, the destitute and the
landless, history is only just beginning."

*******

The International Communist Movement and the Nepali Revolution

The ongoing revolution in Nepal is provoking many reactions within
the international communist movement. Many are positive, others
positive with reservations, and some negative. These many reactions
demonstrate the importance of the Nepali revolution, and it is best
if they develop and relate to each other and an open and frank
debate develop within the many forces of the international communist
movement. An open and frank debate is a necessary means for
overcoming sectarianism, that is, in this case, the attitude to
ignore each other, each shut in its own ideological or national
ambit.

Sectarianism is a weakness of the international communist movement,
persisting in this beginning of the new wave of proletarian
revolution. A concomitant expression of this weakness is the
attitude of the great aggregations of the international communist
movement towards the Nepali revolution.

In fact, for decades, some great aggregations have been in
existence, constituted in contrast with modern revisionism, which
collect communist parties and organizations all around the world.
The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) itself is a member of one of
these aggregations, and our party is one of another. These
aggregations have not yet clearly expressed themselves on the
meaning of the Nepali revolution. The only one that did so was the
International League of People's Struggle (ILPS), which, however, is
an aggregation of mass organizations, not of political parties and
organizations.

The fact that the existing aggregations of the international
communist movement have not yet expressed themselves on the meaning
of the Nepali revolution is important. In our view, it shows their
limit.

All these aggregations, in fact, set themselves up and gained
significance as means of struggle against modern revisionism. They
have been useful in fighting this enemy of the communist movement,
whose days, however, have come to an end in many countries. It
maintains its strength in the international ambit and in some
nations (i.e. in India, where it slaughters the popular masses, as
it did in Nandigram, or in China, where it rules the country).
However, elsewhere, revisionists no longer, or hardly, exist. Some
disappeared with the collapse of the first socialist countries.
Some in the imperialist countries practically vanished, as it
happened in Italy with the latest elections. Some keep on existing
but they have already been crushed, as it happened in the elections
for the Constituent Assembly in Nepal. The more revisionists
withdraw, the less anti-revisionism serves as a sufficient means to
unite the various communist forces.

The many existing international aggregations are ideologically
different among them (Marxist-Leninist, Marxist-Leninist with a
positive attitude towards Mao Tse-tung's thought, Marxist-Leninist-
Maoist). Still, they have had anti-revisionism as the common
character and strong point. The more this character loses
importance, the more they lose it as a strong point around which
they can rally.

Today, the various international aggregations of communist parties
and organizations cannot say only what they are fighting against
(revisionism, imperialism, etc.), but they have to say what they are
fighting for. They have to mark out a course for advance. The fact
that they can denounce revisionists' lies and imperialists' crimes,
but they are unable to give their opinion or stutter about the
situation in Nepal where Communists are advancing, is a sign of
their difficulties.

None of the various aggregations of communist parties and
organizations can set itself even as an embryo of a new
International if it does not overcome this difficulty, if it just
restricts itself to denouncing revisionism and imperialism, if it
does not propose a course that could lead communists to victory, in
the imperialist countries and the semi-colonial and oppressed ones,
according to their respective specific conditions.

Such proposals do not arise from some individual genius, nor from
the particular qualities of a single party or organization. They
arise from an open and frank debate among the various communist
parties and organizations on the international level. This debate,
then, must be united to the practical organizations on all the
struggle fronts (against imperialism, for defending the conquests of
the working class and the masses, the oppressed peoples and nations,
women, young people, environment, etc.) and to mutual solidarity.
Then, the debate cannot be reduced to an empty and abstract talk:
the common practice will confirm which positions are right and which
are not.

Open and frank debate, common practice, and solidarity are the
pillars that support the main road of the unity of the International
Communist Movement.

CARC, International Relations Dept., July 2008