Rebellion Is Justified!

Suspending Posts

2006-10-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

I am suspending any new posts at this site indefinitely.

I recommend reference to "Red Flags: News and Views of the Revolutionary Left" at http://burning.typepad.com/ for political news and discussion.

A Sober Look at the Situation of the Peru Revolution and Its Needs

2006-09-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

(The following article is from A World to Win, issue 32, recently published. It assesses the struggle within the Communist Party of Peru following the capture of Party Chairman Gonzalo, Abimael Guzman. Importantly, it acknowledges that Comrade Gonzalo is the author of the line proposing a "struggle for a peace agreement," and recently calling for a "political solution to the problems derived from the internal war.")

The trial of Abimael Guzman (Chairman Gonzalo) and 23 other accused leaders of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) for “aggravated terrorism against the state" that began in September 2005 is continuing as of this writing, May 2006. Yet according to both the government and the defence, there has never been any doubt that its only purpose is to have Peru's current civilian courts confirm the convictions decreed, in most of the cases, by hooded military officers acting in great haste and secret in 1992. In advance of this new trial, various officials promised that the 70-year-old main defendant would never leave prison alive. The candidates in Peru's current presidential electoral campaign seem to be competing as to who can pledge the worst fate for the imprisoned PCP leadership.

This is nothing but a flagrant act of revenge by the protectors of the old order. A mass upsurge, especially one on the scale of the revolutionary war in Peru that began in 1980, cannot be labeled terrorism. No one who believes in justice can accept this attempt by the US-backed Peruvian government to punish Chairman Gonzalo and others for having waged a people's war, an armed struggle deeply rooted in and reliant upon the country's scorned, poorest masses. That is what this trial and the inevitable sentencing are about, no matter what the current views of the defendants may be, and that must be opposed.
This frenzied lust for vengeance has a calculated political purpose:

The conditions for the vast majority of Peru's people are still desperate and outbursts of mass anger and even violence show that they have not become resigned to their fate. The waning of the people's war cannot be explained mainly by any change in their circumstances. It's not hard to understand why the country's rulers want to crush and criminalise the very idea of mass armed rebellion and revolutionary change.

In the years since Chairman Gonzalo's arrest in 1992, the people's war has suffered very serious setbacks. The level and geographic extent of the fighting has declined dramatically, especially since the late 1990s. It is not clear how many if any Open People's Committees - the revolutionary political power of the peasants the party established in the countryside during the high tide of the people's war - and how many clandestine People's Committees survive.

In December 2005, around dates when the PCP historically carried out major military operations, for the first time in several years there were successful ambushes of police patrols in the Huallaga jungle and Ayacucho. The first area has been considered a stronghold of PCP forces that seek a ''political solution" to end the war and threatened armed action to force the government to grant amnesty as a "way out" of the conflict.(1) The second has been considered a focus of those who have sought to continue the war. Were these attacks coordinated, as the authorities claim? Since both actions were carried out in the name of Chairman Gonzalo, it is very difficult to understand which of these two contradictory political goals they were meant to serve. There have been no major political statements clarifying the party's political orientation for years.

What makes this situation all the more complicated is that Chairman Gonzalo's conduct in the course of this current trial has added even greater weight to the serious and concurring evidence from many different sources over the years that he is very likely to have been the source of the call to end the war. How the PCP faced this situation has been central to the development of the current state of affairs.

Chairman Gonzalo was captured in September 1992, as the people's war seemed to be surging forward. But an even greater blow to the Party was yet to come. In October 1993 Peru's US-backed strongman Alberto Fujimori triumphantly announced that Abimael Guzman had written him a letter asking for negotiations b end the people's war. Afterwards he released a video of the chairman and Elena Iparraguirre (a top party leader known as Comrade Miriam, Chairman Gonzalo's companion) reading the letters. Still photos showed the two flanked by other prisoners, some known to be prominent leaders as well.

The party's Central Committee comprising those party leaden remaining free, rejected this call as a "Right Opportunist Line" (ROL) "What goes against principles cannot be accepted," the party said, adding. "It is an international communist norm that one cannot lead from inside prison." But they said more than that: The whole thing was a "hoax" concocted by the regime in collaboration with the US and a "black grouplet" of renegade imprisoned (and now expelled) party members. The idea that Chairman Gonzalo could be associated with it was a "plot", part of US-sponsored "low intensity warfare" against the people's war. (2) The man who looked like Gonzalo, the party told people, was an actor.

Any revolutionary party would risk being shattered if its chair tried to reverse previous positions touching on basic questions of orientation and strategic concepts and advocated abandoning the revolutionary war. This was even more the case for the PCP. At the core of the party's historical identity was the concept of jefatura, the idea that Gonzalo was more than the chairman of the party's Central Committee, a jefe (literally chief, but here meant to designate a special category of leader) who played a role not only through the party but over and above it. Party members swore their unconditional subordination to him personally. Now the man who had led the launching and development of the people's war seemed to be telling the party to struggle for a peace accord with the Fujimori government to bring the war to an end. In return for such an agreement, it was argued, the party should dissolve the People's Committees, and disband the army led by the party.

The Central Committee's "solution" to the problem, the idea that it was all a "hoax", might have seemed like the only way out to those leaders determined not to surrender. But in fact, this idea turned out to be a trap. It worked against the party's ability to persist in the people's war for two reasons. First, because, if there was certainly unclarity at the beginning as to the circumstances of the call for peace accords, there was never real evidence that it was a "hoax". How could continuing the war be sustained on the basis of telling party members to shut their eyes as Chairman Gonzalo's call for peace accords seemed more and more likely to be the reality? Second, this approach tried to avoid the problem of analysing and defeating the arguments being given for why it was necessary to end the people's war.

Chairman Gonzalo and the Peace Accords

The strongest argument for the "hoax" idea was that the calls for peace accords really did go against what Chairman Gonzalo had previously stood for. Shortly after his capture, when put in an animal cage to be presented to the media and a howling pack of police and other reactionaries, he mocked their triumphalism. The arrest was nothing more than a "bend in the road" of the people's war, he said, shouting to be heard over the roaring motors of a hovering military helicopter. He called for the party to persist. (3) Was it really true, however, that Chairman Gonzalo could never change his thinking and come to a different conclusion? Increasingly, the declared impossibility that such a thing could happen became the main line of reasoning. Tautologically (a circular form of argument in which the conclusion is taken as the starting point), any evidence to the contrary was discredited because given this impossibility, it couldn't possibly be true.

When the video came out, it was natural not just to accept it without examination, given its source. Then Chairman GonzaIo's relatives abroad reported that the Fujimori regime, for its own reasons, had let him and Iparraguirre telephone them and argue at length for why he believed that the peace accords were necessary. This could not be ignored or dismissed with the circular contention that since the relatives became supporters of the peace accords, they must have invented the phone calls to justify their stand.

The same reasoning was used to reject a political interpretation of an event that for many people turned the possibility that Chairman Gonzalo was behind the ROL into a strong probability: the "about face" of Margie Clavo (known as· Comrade Nancy), a member of PCP's central leadership who along with Oscar Ramirez (Comrade Feliciano, who assumed party leadership after Gonzalo's capture), was a key leader of the opposition to the peace accords line. When she was briefly hauled before the media in handcuffs after her arrest in 1995, she was defiant, shouting "Persist, persist, persist!" in the people's war. Yet six months later she appeared on television again, telling an interviewer that she had been taken to talk to Chairman Gonzalo and that he had convinced her of the necessity of the accords. She had agreed to this broadcast, she said, so that she could make public self-criticism for her role in leading the Central Committee to persist in the war instead of immediately accepting Chairman Gonzalo's appeal.(4)

Ramirez, captured in 1999, was put in a cell next to Chairman Gonzalo. He also said that Gonzalo argued with him for the peace accords line, although Ramirez's conclusion was not the same as Clavo's. In a letter to Peru's president and in court in May 2004, he said he had decided that Peru's present "democracy is the best system" and that it had been wrong to launch a revolutionary war in the first place, criticising Chairman Gonzalo more for that rather than for calling a halt to it.(5) Comrade Artemio, who succeeded Feliciano as party leader and head of the forces that wanted to persist in the war, later turned into a staunch supporter of the ROL even though he remained free. He said that Chairman Gonzalo had talked to him from prison, over a radio transceiver provided to Gonzalo by the authorities, and won him to seeing that the war had to be brought to an end.(6) Artemio was reported to have explained that no one can claim that he and others had not tried to maintain the people's war, even though it was impossible.

All these party leaders had several things in common. When they had one understanding of the possibility and need of continuing the war, they acted bravely in defence of revolution, and when they were convinced of a different understanding, they acted differently. When the call to end the people's war first came out, they argued that the call attributed to Chairman Gonzalo was a hoax and that the war could and should continue and that that was his real position. After speaking to him, they concluded that the war could not and should a not continue because that was Gonzalo's real position after all. (The important difference is that Ramirez [Feliciano] became a self-described anti-communist, while the others continued to argue in the name of Maoism.) Chairman Gonzalo's personal involvement in the ROL is the most likely explanation of why the party's entire known central leadership turned against the continuation of the people's war.

Although they pale in comparison with what the actions of these party leaders have told us, there are other indications relating to public and private statements by prominent figures and others, including Iparraguirre's mother (who has had regular contact with her daughter and at times Chairman Gonzalo since 1993) and GonzaIo's lawyer Manuel Fajardo, who has visited him often since 2000. Alfredo Crespo, the lawyer who defended Chairman Gonzalo before a military tribunal in 1992 and was punished with almost 14 years in prison in retaliation, joined Gonzalo's defence team in December 2005, shortly after he was released. He explained, "I have decided to accept the defence of Dr Abimael Guzman because Shining Path, also known as the Communist Party of Peru, now has a new political line. It stands for national reconciliation and a political solution to the problems derived from the war."(7)

What is remarkable is not the ever-accumulating body of facts but the stubbornness with which they have been continually dismissed by some people.

Chairman Gonzalo's recent courtroom appearances do not contradict his role in arguing for a Peace Accord. At the televised opening session of his second trial in 2004, a public event witnessed by more than a hundred journalists, Chairman Gonzalo embraced all but one of his co-defendants, including Clavo - all publicly identified with the peace accords line. (The exception was Ramirez.) Then he led them in standing together, raising their fist and chanting, slowly and deliberately, while the authorities frantically tried to restore order, "Long live the Communist Party of Peru! Glory to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! Glory to the Peruvian people! Long live the heroes of the people's war!"

Nothing in these chants is inconsistent with the ROL. This courtroom gesture, which a leader of Chairman Gonzalo's calibre must have carefully thought out in advance, could not have contrasted more with the cage speech he gave in far more difficult circumstances. He failed to utter the one word that would have demarcated between the two lines in the party, the word "Persist!", the word that Clavo had once shouted when she had only seconds to make her views known.(8)

His stand at his current trial is no different. Although this time independent filming has been prohibited to avoid letting Chairman Gonzalo create another fiasco for the regime, a continuous audio feed is available to journalists. There have been many reporters in the courtroom itself on key occasions, although after nine months the media in general is no longer covering it much. Chairman Gonzalo's courtroom strategy, his two lawyers have explained, is to refuse to recognise the legitimacy of this trial, maintain silence, await the inevitable conviction, and hope for an appeal before the Inter-American Human Rights Court in Costa Rica, which previously contested the legality of the military tribunal that sentenced Chairman Gonzalo to life in prison right after his arrest.(9) If Chairman Gonzalo were opposed to the call for peace accords, he could certainly have seized the opportunity of the trial to denounce and dissociate himself from the other defendants. In the past, no one has been able to stop him when he wanted to speak. The man who managed to get his word out to the world even when caged is still communicating.

The Peace Accords Line and the Central Committee

Actually, the strongest indication that the ROL was not just something cooked up by the American and Peruvian intelligence services but that Chairman Gonzalo was behind it was the line itself and the documents that argued for it. They did not put forward a crude rejection of Maoism, revolution or the necessity for people's war. Instead, they marshaled philosophical, historical and political arguments, purporting to uphold and apply the principles of what the PCP called Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, Gonzalo Thought to the very real problems the party was facing.

They referred to two kinds of issues. The first was the objective situation. Even before Chairman Gonzalo was taken prisoner, the PCP had begun grappling with a changing international situation in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which, these documents concluded, marked a "strategic ebb of the world revolution". Further, there were theoretical and practical problems in terms of how - and under what conditions - the people's war could hold on to its achievements, in the face of some setbacks, and advance beyond the level it had attained so far. There was the question of Yankee interference and even invasion - and whether this might provide the opportunity to broaden the united front and advance to the countrywide seizure of political power. There was also debate about how much semi-feudalism remained a factor.(10) In short, there was a recognised urgent need to reassess the objective situation and its consequences for the future course of the people's war. Chairman Gonzalo's capture came at a time when the revolution faced a crossroads.

The second kind of argument advanced by these documents was the "problem of leadership": Chairman Gonzalo had been snatched up and much of the rest of the party's longstanding central leadership was dead or in prison. It was said that there were no leaders who could replace him in the needed timeframe to solve the first category of problems. The ROL's conclusion was that for many reasons, chief among them the unfavourable international situation and above all the "problem of leadership", the people's war could not continue. Any attempt to do so would only lead to the destruction of the party, and given the circumstances, even if the people's war could hold out it would eventually become a "war without perspective" - with no clear goal or possibility of seizing nationwide political power - and disintegrate into scattered "roving rebel bands". By entering into negotiations to call off the people's war now, the argument went, the party could save itself from destruction at the hands of the enemy and endure to relaunch the armed struggle under more favourable conditions in the future.(11)

This was not the empty ranting of a police agency. It represented a coherent line. The questions it posed had to be analysed and answered. No matter who first propounded it, this line could take hold among party members because it offered answers - although wrong answers - to crucial questions thrust forward by life itself. The revolutionaries needed to start out by identifying, analysing and refuting these arguments on the level of political line, that is, as ideas to be examined and found correct or incorrect reflections of reality. This included an objective (not wishful) assessment of the balance of forces to determine whether or not it was in fact possible to persist in the people's war and whether or not, in the concrete conditions prevailing at that time, entering negotiations was a viable way for the party to gain time to rebound or, in fact, a death trap.

Shortly after the call for a peace agreement arose, the Committee of the RIM (CoRIM), the leading body of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, examined the available information and documents in an attempt to understand and guide RIM in taking part in a momentous line struggle that would not only determine the future of the revolution in Peru but have great consequences for RIM and the international communist movement. The Committee argued, "In these circumstances, it is incumbent upon RIM not only to continue its support for the People's War in Peru but also to join this two-line struggle: to undertake the necessary investigation, study, discussion and struggle to achieve a correct and comprehensive understanding of all the questions involved and on that basis render the most powerful support to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line and the comrades carrying it forward in Peru." It established criteria for evaluating the call for peace negotiations: "Do they serve the task of seizing political power through revolutionary warfare" and "safeguard the 'fundamental interests of the people' referred to by Mao, that is, the essential core of the people's power and the revolutionary armed forces?" After an intense process of investigation, evaluation and struggle, RIM adopted a position that the call for peace accords should be opposed and that a two-line struggle should be waged against the Right Opportunist Line in Peru and internationally. Regarding the role of the PCP chairman, it said, "It is important to continue to try to determine Chairman Gonzalo’s current views. The key question, however, is the line, not the author." Furthermore, the Call said that those who had advocated the ROL should "repudiate this line... and retake the revolutionary road."(12)

As part of this process CoRIM had also asked the Union of Iran Communists - the predecessor of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) - to write a major analysis and criticism of the peace accord arguments. That document concluded: "The people's war is far from over. Partial defeat is not absolute defeat." The only way to preserve the achievements of the people's war and solve the party's problems was to persevere in it. It raised a clear warning: a people's war, once launched, could not be turned on and off like a water spigot, including because the reactionaries themselves would use this to crush the revolutionary forces.(13)

The importance - and courage of the firm stand against the call to end the revolutionary war taken by the remaining PCP leadership cannot be overestimated. The ROL was very wrong in arguing that the most important thing of all was to save the party. In return, it was willing to surrender the red political power that Gonzalo had called the "bone marrow" of the revolution because of the way it brought about the conscious involvement of the masses, and to dissolve the people's army, without which, as Mao said, "the people have nothing" to defend their interests or even their lives. Such a step would objectively mean betrayal of the hopes and sacrifices of the masses who had taken up the people's war, those who supported it and those around the world who looked to it. This discrediting of Maoism would have led to a far worse setback and demoralisation than would have been produced by defeat alone. If it did this, instead of leaving a precious legacy the party would turn into an obstacle for the present and future generations of revolutionaries to push aside - even if the reactionaries didn't tear it apart and kill as many of its members as they could.

However, it was not at all inevitable that the only choice was between glorious or inglorious defeat. One thing at stake was a point of basic orientation: whether or not to persist in fighting for the revolutionary interests of the masses, in line with communist objectives, which meant figuring out how to continue that under new and very difficult conditions. But this stand, however basic, had to be grounded in something more than moral commitment. In the end, as the actions of PCP leaders have told us, people act on the basis of how they understand things, what they think is possible and necessary.

The enormity of the problem can't be denied: the leadership which had been responsible for developing the line and strategy for the revolution could no longer do so with a correct orientation, and instead was apparently calling for a reversal of the whole strategic direction and principles they had been basing themselves on. But the difficulty of what was required didn't make it any less necessary. Of course, those remaining had to work out the answers to burning questions step by step and as required over time. To do that, it really wasn't possible to say, "OK, our chairman has left our side, so let's re-examine everything we ever believed before we do anything else." Maybe this is what the revolutionaries thought they were avoiding with the "hoax" line. They had to persist, and figuring out how to do that was as necessary as breathing. But even if Chairman Gonzalo had turned out not to be behind the call to end the people's war, it would not have been true that, as the Persist forces claimed, the thinking and line developed under his leadership to that point was sufficient to lead the people's war to victory. Further, over time it would become impossible to persist in the people's war without a review of the party's line and practice - and theory and experience internationally - to find the roots of the ROL and formulate new analyses and strategic concepts. In other words, without making the breakthroughs in theory and practice ceaselessly required for the advance of this and any revolution.

This would have been very hard for anyone, and perhaps the remaining party leaders did not feel up to the task - especially since they were probably up against their party's chairman. But what else could they do but use their heads and their grasp of Maoism and play a real leadership role as best they could? Communist leaders are not born. Leadership involves talents acquired in many different ways and takes time to develop. But it is fundamentally a matter of ideological and political line (orientation and method). It means wielding Maoism to lead the party in seeking to understand the world and change it. Ironically, the only way to refute the thesis that the remaining party leaders were incapable of continuing without Chairman Gonzalo was for them and new leaders who came forward to rise to the occasion, raising their level as party leaders on all fronts, including tackling and beginning to resolve the line questions involved. It should also be pointed out that the ROL's charge that the remaining leaders were "incompetent" was particularly cruel when it was the ROL itself that was the biggest obstacle placed in the path of the revolution and those trying to lead it forward.

The "hoax" conception was tightly linked to and in fact became a vehicle for a particular conception of political struggle in a communist party. The CC adopted an attitude of trying to persevere through practice alone ("smash the ROL through people's war") and ignore the specific content of the ROL beyond generally denouncing it as "black vomit". Although the February 1994 PCP CC statement said "pay attention to the two-line struggle", it argued that the stand of the ROL had put its members "outside the party by their own free will", as if there were no ROL inside the party itself and no real need to wage two-line struggle against it. To take up and attempt to refute the ROL's arguments, some maintained, would mean falling for the enemy's trap and giving credence to the hoax. Two-line struggle, it was said, should be waged among revolutionaries. The ROL and its "black heads" only needed to be "crushed" physically. PCP supporters abroad spread the attitude that the most serious problem was not the peace accords line but those who refused to accept the "hoax" theory.

One of the most vociferous proponents of this approach was the Peruvian journalist Luis Arce Borja. At the time RIM was adopting its position "Rally to the Defense of Our Red Flag Flying in Peru" and calling for a vigorous two-line struggle against the proposal for seeking a peace accord, Arce Borja launched a frantic attack on RIM and its Committee which, for a while, confused some of the friends and supporters of the PCP. Arce criticized RIM's understanding of the two-line struggle in the PCP. He wrote, "To hold that the 'peace agreement' is part of a process of internal conflict within the PCP portrays it as an organisation corroded by a scandalous division, an organisation divided and undermined and on the very verge of destruction. This point of view is similar to that of the die-hard enemies of the revolution.(14). In reply, an article in A World to Win magazine pointed out that two-line struggle is a permanent feature of all communist parties, even though it has "high tides and low tides" in different periods, as a reflection of the existence of the contending classes in society and the resulting clash between ideas. What's more, such two-line struggle "is absolutely necessary to educate and transform the outlook of party members and the masses."(15) Arce reacted to this polemic by even more rabidly casting RIM and any others who refused to accept the "hoax" thesis into the camp of Fujimori and the imperialists.

Arce is on record upholding this position regarding the "hoax" through June 2004. Suddenly, during the trial in November of that year, the great defender of the faith against all "doubt" was assailed by doubts. A year later, Arce explodes. Chairman Gonzalo is a "traitor" and has been since October 1993! He wrote the peace letters after all. But this journalist lets slip not a word of explanation or even mention of his previous position. The fault, Arce squeals, lies with RIM for not having denounced Guzman back then and for calling for his defence from the Peruvian state ever since.(16)

Unwilling to confront the task of waging the necessary two-line struggle, the Persist forces were only digging themselves deeper and deeper into a pit. Especially if Chairman Gonzalo was the head of the ROL, but even if he were not, it was not the case that this line represented deliberate betrayal and conscious treason of the kind committed by someone who, for example, informs on comrades to save their own life. It could represent a horrible mistake, meant to save the revolution even while objectively leading to its death, a wrong understanding and a wrong line - which would not negate what was correct in the line associated with Gonzalo previously, nor the disastrously harmful nature of the ROL. The main question in determining whether a political line is right or wrong is not one of subjective intent - whether or not its proponents want revolution. Political lines need to be examined in terms of what they call for and carry out, and where that would lead, no matter what some people might want. At any rate, no matter who put it forward and why, the ROL had to be taken on as a line and refuted as such.

A major two-line struggle against the ROL's political line and the orientation and method behind it and the beginning of a clear-eyed summation of the experience of the past period and the situation faced by the party and the revolution could lead to at least an initial idea of how to move forward. This would mean trying to work out how persevering in the people's war could be linked to and serve the building up of revolutionary strength and both hastening and awaiting a change in the international and national situation, as Mao said during a difficult period in the Chinese people's war, when countrywide political power could be seized as a base area for he world proletarian revolution.

There is no guarantee that if the Central Committee had taken this approach, the people's war would have been able to advance or even hold out. First, there was no getting around the terrible fact that the bulk of the party's leadership had taken a wrong road. Second, this was taking place on the stage of difficult objective conditions as well. But it is particularly tragic that despite the wrong assessment of the CC, there was a sharp two-line struggle - waged by only one side, the ROL. By acting as if nothing had happened - as if the ROL were not real, as if its emergence did not reflect real questions, and as if Chairman Gonzalo could not possibly have anything to do with it, the "hoax" line and the associated conception of two-line struggle led those who wanted to persist to act on the basis of an analysis and plan increasingly out of accord with reality. No matter what other problems they faced, the "hoax" line made a bad situation even harder to resolve in a positive direction.

The experience of the people's war in Peru and the issues and lines involved need to be thoroughly studied. The great achievement in launching and carrying forward the People's War and the subsequent setback constitute a very important experience of the Maoist movement in the period since the overthrow of socialism in China. This experience, in both its grandeur and its pain, are part of the common heritage of the whole international communist movement and especially RIM. A materialist examination of the whole complex affair, including the roles of all who took part in it, is necessary not only for the re-orientation and rebuilding of the PCP by the genuine Maoist forces in Peru but concerns all those who take seriously their responsibility to lead revolution in other countries and on a world scale. It is necessary to continue to defend the imprisoned Chairman Gonzalo and others who initiated and led forward this great uprising of the oppressed even if it is not possible to uphold their current political positions. Ideological and political assistance must be extended to those in Peru who seek to overcome the setback of the revolution. Nothing is more despicable than those who, seeing the value of their "capital" diminish, seek to cut their losses and look for new investments.

There are many aspects of political and ideological line that emerged in the course of the People's War and the two-line struggle in the PCP that need to be studied, understood and debated more thoroughly. New advances in Peru will come in conjunction with and as part of the transformations and advances that are required of the international communist movement as a whole.

Footnotes

1. Huallaga Regional Committee and main PCP leader after 1999 Comrade Artemio. See La Republica transcription of radio interview, 16 April 2004, and its own interview with him, 28 August 2004. Also the British Channel 4 TV interview broadcast 7 January 2004.

2. CC statements of 7 October 1993 and February 1994. A World to Win magazine no. 21.

3. Cage speech, AWIW no. 18.

4. Later it was disclosed that the television programme had been made in cooperation with Fujimori's right-hand man Vladimiro Montesinos, who supervised the filming. In fact, it seemed that Clavo had been following a previously-agreed script when she spoke. This is not surprising, given that the regime and Clavo had come to a temporary agreement in pursuit of different ends.

5. A copy of this unpublished letter sent abroad by a reliable source. Its content was substantially repeated in a 10 April 2003 written interview in Caretas magazine.

6. La Republica interview, 28 August 2004. After the fall of the Fujimori government in 2000, documents putting forward the ROL concluded that because the CC members remaining free had refused to take up the call to negotiate with Fujimori directly, a peace accord was no longer possible. Nevertheless, the immediate goal remained forcing the regime to accept a "political solution", including amnesty for most prisoners and those like Artemio with a price on their heads. After carrying out an implicit ceasefire with the government for several years, in 2004 Artemio announced his forces would return to armed struggle if "a political solution to the war" were not achieved in six months

7. Agenciaperu.com, 18 December 2005. He has confirmed this stand in private letters as well.

8. If some revolutionary-minded people abroad took Chairman Gonzalo's chants as proof that he was opposed to the peace accord line all along, it is because they have not understood the real terms of the two-line struggle in the PCP - that it has not been between some people who opposed revolution and others who condemned it, but between two currents of thought that both claimed the mantle of Maoism, even though they called for opposite policies. This is why lines have to be studied before Marxism can be distinguished from revisionism.

9. Radio Programas Peru interview with Manual Fajardo, Gonzalo's attorney, broadcast 17 October 2005. This approach was confirmed in letters received in April 2006 by prominent supporters of the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzman (IEC) abroad, signed by Crespo and Iparraguirre, who repeated her references, written in other correspondence and statements over the years, to "the strategic turn and the political solution that we had been proposing since '92".

10. This was discussed at the party Central Committee's Third Plenum in 1992. In addition to mentioning other political, military and theoretical problems the party was facing, the Third Plenum report reflects the heavy toll taken by the prison massacre of previously captured party leaders in May 1992. The main document is unpublished (some shorter documents are available at www.redsun.org). But Chairman Gonzalo alluded to some main points in his cage speech, particularly the question of whether or not the war had exhausted the potential of anti-feudal revolution and had to go over to a national liberation struggle.

11. The foundational ROL document, purportedly a transcription of a speech given in prison by Chairman Gonzalo, "Take Up and Fight for the New Decision and the New Definition" (Asumir). There are several slightly different transcripts circulating. An early, relatively short version which appeared in a Lima daily in January 1993 was reprinted as a background document for studying the line struggle in Peru in AWTW no. 23.

12. "Rally to the Defence of Our Red Flag Flying in Peru", AWTW no. 21. Also see the 11-point programme of the peace accord forces, reprinted as reference material in that same issue.

13. "It's Right to Rebel", AWTW no. 21. This document was first circulated internally in RIM as part of the process of investigation and study. It was published in October 1995 along with the aforementioned Call "Rally to the Defense of the Our Red Flag Flying in Peru".

14. ''Trappist Monks Turn Into Village Charlatans: Another Summersault of the Circus Acrobats of RIM", El Diario Internacional, March 1995. About half of this article, including its main points, was reprinted as reference material in AWTW no. 22.

15. "An Initial Reply to Arce Borja: On the Maoist Conception of Two-Line Struggle," AWTW no. 22.

16. "The Red Guards of Political Trafficking", EDI, January 2006. Note that Arce Borja's only constants are hatred for RIM and very special venom for Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, a founding party of RIM. Also see "Peru: The Remnants of a Betrayed Revolution".

On the Main Ideological Contributions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

2006-09-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

[The following is a distillation of the content of three articles taken from issue number ten of The Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist): 1. “International Dimension of Prachanda Path,” by Comrade Basanta; 2. “Epochal Ten Years of Application and Development of Revolutionary Ideas,” by Comrade Baburam Bhattarai; 3. “Hoist the Revolutionary Flag on Mount Everest in the 21st Century,” an interview with CPN(Maoist) Comrade Chairman Prachanda. My aim in writing this article is to synopsize the contributions of the Nepalese Maoists to the international communist movement and to the development of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory. Any italics are mine. - K.G.]

The CPN(Maoist) refers to the application and development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the flames of the Nepalese revolution as “Prachanda Path.” Comrade Basanta writes that the Nepalese Party “does not claim that Prachanda Path has already become universal. Nor do we think it is the time to debate whether or not it has attained universality. Nonetheless, we believe that the new concepts and ideas that it has put forward encompasses ideological and political strength to help develop revolutionary struggles all across the world.” There are several areas in which the Nepalese communists have made ideological breakthroughs, the validity of which have been tested, and will continue to be tested by practice.

Combat Revisionism… and Dogmatism

The CPN(Maoist) has stressed, that although revisionism of basic Marxist-Leninist-Maoist principles and right-wing opportunism are the main danger to the communist movement, there cannot be a qualitative leap forward without challenging certain ossified, dogmatic tendencies among the communists. Comrade Basanta says: “Our Party believes that although right revisionism is the main danger in the contemporary ICM, sectarianism and dogmatism also have been creating impediments for the smooth development of revolution from within the Maoist camp in the world”; however, it is clear that “(n)o ideology other than MLM and no form of struggle other than People's War can wipe out imperialism.”

It is understandable that sectarianism and dogmatism have emerged as problems, since the very future of the communist movement was endangered following the loss in China in 1976. After the death of Mao, says Comrade Prachanda, “the revolutionary Maoist movement, in the name of defending the basic principles of MLM against right revisionism, happened to fall prey to sectarian dogmato-revisionism that repeats old things only and overlooks the analysis of the development of an object.”

What is called for is the creative development of communist ideology. “Creative development” is a term that has been sullied by renegades like Khrushchev, but a reflexively dogmatic response to revisionism will not enable a leap forward in the world revolution. Comrade Basanta states that “the usual business of clinging on to what Lenin and Mao said in their life time will not help the Maoist revolutionaries change the face of the globe” and that “the analysis of imperialism made by Lenin and Mao in the twentieth century cannot scientifically guide the Maoist revolutionaries to develop correct strategy and tactic to fight in the twenty-first century.” He quotes Comrade Prachanda: “This February, Comrade Prachanda stressed the importance of ‘struggling against the problems like those of preferring to analyze and eulogize the experiences of old proletarian revolutions but hesitating to develop courageously the strategy and tactics based on mass line by carrying out concrete analysis of the concrete condition.’”

Specifically, Comrade Prachanda calls for ”struggle against Hoxhaite dogmato-revisionism that eulogizes even some of the metaphysical weaknesses of Comrade Stalin and its negative consequences.” This sort of contention has been a source of controversy, with Indian comrades in particular expressing opposition to criticism of Stalin. He further called for learning from Marxist thinkers that have been previously criticized by communists for their errors: “Our Party is definitely opposed to discarding the great revolutionaries like Rosa (Luxemburg) and Che (Guevara) into a different camp by distancing them from the mainstream Marxism and revolution; rather, we are for respecting them and learning from their contributions.” This is the communist broadmindedness that is characteristic of the giants of the revolutionary movement.

Strategy and Tactics

One of the hallmarks of the Nepalese Revolution has been its combination of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. Comrade Prachanda says that “tactical flexibility without strategic firmness leads to a quagmire of reformism and revisionism and while strategic firmness without tactical flexibility leads to a marsh of mechanical tendency and dogmatism, only a proper implementation of dialectical interrelationship between strategic firmness and tactical flexibility can propel revolutionary movement in a proper and dynamic way.” Comrade Baburam Bhattarai affirms that “it is evident that the policy of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility practiced with success during the past ten years is an important component in the development of MLM and Prachanda Path.”

The CPN(Maoist) has been criticized by Indian comrades for some of its tactics, including utilizing peace talks as a route of war by other means. Answering critics, Comrade Basanta states that “(i)t is true, we had gone too far before and we should be ideologically prepared to go far again if necessary for revolution. We had united with parties which were revisionists. Our Party had 11 members in the parliament that can nowhere be seen in the history of revolutionary communists after Lenin's Dumas. We were in table with the enemy twice in the history of People's War. We declared unilateral ceasefire when we were achieving military victory one after another.” Yet the Nepalese Revolution has, in the process of implementing flexible tactics on the basis of strategic firmness, moved from one victory to the next.

It is the view of the Nepalese Maoists that a lack of tactical flexibility has been at the root of setbacks to the communist movement. Comrade Bhattarai proposes: “There has been discernible sectarian and mechanistic deviation from both the right and left perspectives in the understanding and application of the dialectical interrelationship between war and politics inherent in the scientific formulation of 'War is politics by other (i.e. violent) means' developed from Clausewitz through Marx and Lenin to Mao. Rectifying this, the PW was initiated and after the initiation various types of negotiations and political initiatives were constantly and successfully undertaken in the service of the war.

Comrade Prachanda points to the case of Peru, attributing what must be admitted to be the failure of the People’s War in Peru to “the imbalance in the use of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility (unilateral emphasis on strategy), in the question of developing ideas through concrete analysis of concrete condition in the changed context of today's world as well as idealistic thought of glorifying the leadership.”(1)

Party and Revolutionary State

The CPN(Maoist) aims to create a situation after nationwide victory in which revolutionary successors continuously regenerate the Party, and the revolution continues under the revolutionary class dictatorship. The fact that socialism was destroyed in the Soviet Union and in China following the demise of Stalin and Mao presents a serious problem for communists. Comrade Basanta asks: ”(W)hy does the absence (death or capture) of the main leadership, who personally had led the revolution, become the cause of counter-revolution? How can we generate revolutionary successors, who are capable of uninterruptedly sustaining and developing revolution, while the main leadership is still alive?” The Nepalese comrades have attempted to address this question through proposing new organizational frameworks for the proletarian dictatorship. Perhaps most provocatively, this February, Comrade Prachanda said that "the Party firmly believes that only by organizing Partywise competition, even in the socialist society, within the constitutional framework against feudalism and imperialism and making lively the supervision, control and intervention of the masses in the state power, can the proletarian dictatorship be consolidated and the counter-revolutionary force be prevented from raising its head.”

a. Multi-Party Competition

Comrade Bhattarai refers to the “historic Plenum of the CC of the Party was held in Rolpa in May-June 2003. This Plenum adopted a document of monumental significance on 'The Development of Democracy in the 21 It Century'. After making a critical review of the experiences of revolution and counter-revolution in the 20th century, the document advocated the need to ensure the supervision, intervention and control of the masses over the Party, army and the state in order to march along the path of continuous revolution after making the revolution, and for this advanced the concept of practicing a multi-party competitive system within the stipulated constitutional framework. This was a new milestone in the development of revolutionary ideas.” This decision, according to Comrade Prachanda “prepared the ground for concluding the 12-point understanding with other parliamentary political parties to spearhead the anti-monarchy mass movement.”

The rationale for this decision is laid out by Comrade Basanta: “(I)n the course of exercising dictatorship upon the class enemies, no constitutional provisions were developed to ensure people's democratic right to supervise, control and intervene upon the communist Party, people's army and the people's government if they turn against the people.” Comrade Prachanda elaborates, contending that “within the anti-feudal and anti-imperialistic constitutional framework, only through multi-Party competition even in a socialist society can counter-revolution be prevented and proletariat's rule be strengthened by making effective the people's control, monitoring and intervention in the governance.”

Delving into the practical implications of multiple parties under new democracy and socialism, Comrade Prachanda states that “the political parties that represent various classes and ideological beliefs will not need to set up separate armies because there interests will not be antagonistic. Instead, there begins a people's democratic competition under people's dictatorship, which only further strengthens people's state.” He makes clear that the competition between parties under socialism would be non-antagonistic in nature. It must be asked: What, from an institutional perspective, is to assure that this will be the case? While Comrade Prachanda makes clear that multiple parties must abide by the constitutional framework established by revolutionary victory, stating that “(n)o one should forget the limit of people's democratic and socialist constitutional system,” it is not clear how this multi-party system will look in practice - specifically, how it will differ from previous multi-party people’s democratic states. New China always had multiple parties, as did many East European states like the German Democratic Republic. In sum, it is unclear at this point what CPN(Maoist) means by multi-party competition. However, it should be pointed out that Comrade Prachanda stated that “UML's (the main revisionist party –K.G.)multi-party people's democracy expresses class coordination and a reformist line of bourgeois parliamentarianism while our slogan of democratic republic expresses transitional revolutionary slogan that helps propel class struggle in a special condition of power balance.”

b. Separation of Party Cadres from Administrative Work; No Life Tenure

Comrade Prachanda refers to the proposal “that the chief leader and the core team of the leadership should focus on ideological works by keeping themselves away from the day to day administrative works and provide a physical environment for the revolutionaries of the new generation to be trained as successors.” It is important to maintain a ruling Party as a revolutionary Party, and the experience of the socialist states has shown that parties may become bogged down with administrative work; in essence, the communist organizer can in such a case become a “technocrat,” removed from conscious political activity. The danger in separating Party and state work is that politics will not be the lifeblood of economic work; that is, “reds” will occupy the sphere of public opinion while “experts” will occupy the state management of the economy. While it is commendable that the Nepalese comrades seek to maintain their revolutionary character through defining the distinction between administrative and ideological spheres, in no case should the administrative sphere become “off-limits” to communist organizers. Quite the contrary, communists must play a leading role in the management of all spheres of state and economic work.

With regard to official tenure, Comrade Bhattarai refers to the Party decision that after nationwide victory it is important to ”handover responsibilities to the revolutionary successors in time, rather than the main authoritative leadership running the Party and the state throughout his life…”; thus, the Nepalese comrades have rejected the practice of life tenure in organizational leadership. The transition to new generations of revolutionary leaders must occur while the veteran comrades are still alive. Mao stressed the need for combining old, middle-aged, and young comrades in leadership, but did not break with the life tenure concept. The principal leadership must be periodically regenerated through measures adopted by state law and Party statute.

c. No Standing Army

Comrade Prachanda proclaims that a revolutionary Nepalese state will not require a formal standing army. After nationwide victory, “when the same people's liberation army, instead of being confined in the barracks; goes to the people and creates an ocean of armed people and dissolves itself in it, it will truly reflect the balance between people's democracy and dictatorship and dissolution of the state.” In view of the current realities and balance of military power in the world, the strongest national defense for a country like Nepal is indeed a people’s militia, both popular in character and disciplined, which is politically capable of waging people’s war. Imperialist aggression will not be repelled with conventional warfare in the case of countries like Nepal, but rather guerrilla warfare. As regards standing armies under socialism, Comrade Prachanda further says that in Russia and China, “the extremely powerful permanent armies could not ultimately prevent counterrevolutions, rather the permanent armies themselves turned into the police of the counterrevolution.” It is true that, after the revolution, the professional armies in many cases were never able to break with the culture and ideology of the defeated classes; instead, they were breading grounds for anti-socialist conspirators. For example, one may look to Marshall Zhukov in the Soviet Union, who enforced Khrushchev’s coup against revolutionaries like Molotov. In China, Marshall Ye Jianying provided logistical support to the coup by Deng Xiaoping and his puppets against the Maoist revolutionaries.

d. Right to Self-Determination

Nepal, like many countries, is a prison house of nations. The Maoists place a high premium of leading the liberation movements of the oppressed nations and peoples of Nepal - they recognize that the right to national self-determination is an indispensable prerequisite of national liberation. Comrade Prachanda states that Nepal “will not disintegrate because of right to self-determination or autonomy. Rather it will become a united and powerful,” and that “reactionary forces who spread such rumours that the nation will disintegrate because of right to self-determination and autonomy are people of no less feudal mindset than those who feel that 'all women will start leaving their husbands if they are given the right to divorce'.” On the other hand, it should be stressed that some wives who are abused by their husbands will indeed leave their husbands, especially if these men will not reform! Likewise, some oppressed nations will want independent states, particularly if the oppressor nation will not “reform” by changing its ways through revolution.

Imperialism and Revolution

a. Implications of Globalization

Comrade Basanta points out that the “counter-revolution in China in the 70s, the collapse of Soviet social imperialism in the 80s and inability of other imperialist powers to compete with the US military strength created a temporarily 'favorable' situation for the US to escalate its all-round and unchallenged offensive against the nations and people all across the world.” Formulating a correct understanding of the operation of imperialism is crucial to maximizing the capacity of communists to lead and develop revolutionary struggle.

Comrade Bhattarai spells out the need for new analysis of imperialism in the current period: “Following the Second World War, the inter-imperialist rivalry and Lenin's analysis on the nature of war that continues among them to divide and redivide a certain part of the world and the proletarian strategy built up on its basis, and following the Cold War, the situation of the analysis of Three Worlds made by Mao, even though in a tactical sense, do not basically exist. The condition of the US imperialism, which is advancing as a globalized form of state, has caused Lenin's and Mao's analyses on this to lag behind in the same manner as the development of imperialism in Lenin's time had made Marx's the then analysis and strategy, based on his analysis of capitalism, that revolution will take place firstly and simultaneously in the developed capitalist countries of Europe, to lag behind.”

The Nepalese communists have developed the view that imperialist globalization has necessited the closer integration of world revolutionary movements, while still recognizing that revolution may occur in one or several countries at a time. Comrade Basanta states that the “globalized imperialism developing in the form of a single state and unprecedented revolution in the information technology has now made this world a small unit.” Quoting Comrade Prachanda, he reiterates “Comrade Prachanda writes in the document of CC meeting, 2005, ‘The main specificity of today's imperialism has been to exploit and oppress the broad masses of people of the earth economically, politically, culturally and militarily in the form of a single globalized state.’”

Comrade Basanta makes two propositions: (1) “(R)evolution in any country must be carried out as a part and parcel of the world revolution,” and (2) “revolution in any country can neither be accomplished nor defended unless masses are mobilized internationally. In this regard, the Nepalese Maoists emphatically affirm that “(c)onstituting a new Communist International has definitely become essential for the proletariat to fight against globalized imperialism and globalized revisionism, especially in the context of today's world situation.”

b. United Front Against Imperialism

Comrade Prachanda calls for a broad international front against imperialism. Rather than making the main point of departure the criticism of revisionism or “social-fascism,” Comrade Prachanda states that “(a)s far as the question of Cuba is concerned, we have taken it in the form of a united front against US imperialism.” In the current period, the revisionist states like China, Vietnam, Laos, and the DPR Korea must be won over to a united from against imperialism. They are a part of the third world, are often in sharp contention with imperialism, and as such are in a position to support just democratic demands for national sovereignty and freedom from interference in the internal affairs of third world countries, regardless of social system. The CPN(Maoist) has taken this stand with regards to China (and India), and is engaging in diplomacy for the new, embryonic revolutionary state, assuring Nepal’s neighbors that it seeks peaceful relations on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, as upheld by Mao.

Modern People’s War

The Maoists of Nepal have sought to fuse the conception of protracted people’s war as developed by Mao with insurrection as a revolutionary military strategy. Comrade Bhattarai points out the problems faced by communists waging people’s wars: “(I)t is seen that the protracted PWs launched in different countries have faced obstacles or got liquidated after reaching the state of strategic offensive and imperialism has attempted to refine its interventionist counter-insurgency war strategy as a ‘long war.’ In this context, if the revolutionaries do mechanistically cling to the 'protracted' aspect of the PW at any cost, it would in essence play into the lands of imperialism and reaction.”

Comrade Prachanda criticized ”the tendency to narrow down the war by erecting a Chinese wall between the two 20th century military strategies (general armed struggle and a Protracted People's War) or being imprisoned in one or the other model. In the present contexts of the world that is getting smaller due to revolution in information technology and a modem, unified and centralized exploitation-oppression of globalized imperialism, the Party on the basis of an analysis of positive and negative experiences of the past century concluded that it is necessary to move ahead by having a fusion of the strategies of long-term People's War in armed struggle and the strategies of armed struggle in People's War.” As summarized by Comrade Bhattarai: “(I)n keeping with the ever changing world situation and the specificities of Nepal it was decided to fuse certain aspects of the strategy of armed insurrection to the military strategy of protracted PW from the very beginning.”

Further stressing the tactical flexibility of the Nepalese communists, Comrade Basanta says that the CPN(Maoist) has “put forward a new concept of fusion of two strategies - the protracted People's War and insurrection. But this fusion does not mean a mechanical amalgamation of two kinds of strategies and creation of a new mixture but what it means is to flexibly apply the one that goes well with the given condition. The essence of fusion is not to abide by specific model but to remain ideologically unrestrained to apply any suitable tactic to confront the pressing challenge in the given concrete condition.” In terms of developing revolutionary military tactics, this “ideological unrestraint” as regards tactical questions is fully in accord with the practice of Mao Zedong during the course of the Chinese Revolution. If Mao had instead followed the orthodox dictates, nationwide victory could never have been achieved.

(1). Comrade Prachanda specifically points to the case of the losses suffered in the Peruvian Revolution: the PCP made the mistake “of idealizing Comrade Gonzalo as a supernatural leader who never makes a mistake and of placing him above the whole Party and the Central Committee by asserting his leadership as Jefetura…” and, furthermore, there are “(s)ufficient indications that Chairman Gonzalo himself is the main spokesperson of the two-line struggle developed within the Party after his arrest, as well as of the right opportunist line that argues for peaceful conciliation with the enemy by abandoning war, reveal the seriousness of the situation."

Interview with Prachanda: Hoist the Revolutionary Flag on Mount Everest in the 21st Century

2006-08-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

Below is a very extensive interview with Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leader Comrade Prachanda. The interview was conducted on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Nepalese People's War for The Worker, issue no. 10, and has not been previously available online.

In this far-reaching interview, Comrade Prachanda addresses the important questions confronting the revolutionary movement in Nepal and worldwide, and elaborates the special contributions of the Nepalese Party to the development of revolutionary theory.

Hoist the Revolutionary Flag on Mount Everest in the 21st Century

Prachanda

(This is a special interview on the occasion of the tenth year of the People’s War in Nepal – Ed.)

Preamble

The great Nepalese People's War, having completed its ten years, has entered into the eleventh one. On this historic occasion, how have you been feeling as the main leader of this movement?

When I am called for presenting my feeling on the intensiveness often years-of People's War, pride and sense of responsibility makes me very much emotional. Certainly, there are quite a number of objective and subjective elements behind the intensiveness of Nepalese People's War, but in our Party opinion, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist outlook that determines its policy, plan and program based on 'concrete analysis of concrete situation' and 'mass line' is the main thing. Twentieth century witnessed great revolutions when revolutionaries had acted in line with concrete analysis of the concrete condition and mass line, the crux of Marxist science; the twentieth century also witnessed grave counter-revolutions, when the revolutionaries, deviating from that, got attached with subjectivism of right or left form. In the course of preparing for People's War, our Party, while struggling even against the dogmato-left deviation which, in the name of struggling against right deviation had been developing gravely from within the communist movement, had made concrete analysis of concrete situation and mass line the starting point. It is because of this that the Nepalese People's War has acquired new momentum and intensiveness. My first and deepest feeling is that our ability to make the science of social revolution reachable to the masses by-freeing it from subjective idealism is the reason behind the intensiveness and height of the Nepalese People's War.

In each and every revolution, thousands of martyrs sacrifice their lives. In the course of Nepalese People's War too, thousands of brave fighters have already sacrificed their lives. Thousands have been wounded, handicapped and disappeared, while many others are still imprisoned. How would you remember and honor them all?

It is a ruthless, but unavoidable law of any social revolution that in a class society, the masses of oppressed class, nationality, region and sex have to pay a certain amount of quota from themselves to ascertain their liberation, freedom and progress. This law has been applied without exception in the context of every great revolution in world history. The human society has arrived at today's capitalist phase from the slave era only by paying a necessary quota of sacrifice. History has everywhere highly valued the sacrifice of a part for the prolonged safety of the whole. Thousands of martyrs, who have sacrificed their lives in the movement that has ensued in the form of People's War, will remain alive in the hearts of the living people for ages as an adherence and endless source of inspiration. History highly honours the martyrs, who have sacrificed for justice, equality and freedom. The broad masses will value them highly as their best sons and daughters and preserve their memories in their hearts and the Party will also continue to value the martyrs highly as a source of gaining energy to persistently go ahead. In the same way, the Nepalese people and the Party have been evaluating and will continue to evaluate all the revolutionaries who have been wounded, handicapped, disappeared and tortured in enemy custody, as an essential sacrifice for social transformation. Because of this sacrifice, billions of exploited, oppressed and justice-loving people of the world are acknowledging Nepal and the Nepalese people in the twenty-first century as the source of confidence and inspiration. In this view, it is sure that the sacrifice, which resides in the hearts of the vast majority of people in the globe, will never go futile. Putting forth this scientific and historical fact, I offer red salute and pay emotional homage to all the immortal martyrs of the great People's War. Wishing the wounded combatants a rapid health recovery, I instruct, on behalf of the central headquarters, the whole Party, PLA and People's State to take care of and to respect the handicapped comrades and take active initiative for their overall livelihood and work and I heartily appeal to the entire masses of people for active assistance for the same. Along with revolutionary greetings, I wish for quick release of all the revolutionary fighters who are going through inhuman torture in the enemy dungeon.

What are the major military and political turning points of the People's War in the past ten years?

Like every great revolutionary movement in the world, the Nepalese People's War also is advancing, not in a straight line, but in the midst of a number of rise and fall, twists and turns in the past ten years. Proper balance between political and military intervention has been the specificity of every plan of the Nepalese People's War. Therefore, military with political turn and politics with military turn have been inseparable. But, it does not mean that it is the end of particularity and uniqueness of political and military activities. Bearing this in mind, the third historical Expanded Meeting of the CC that had defined strategies and tactics of People's War from both the political and military point of view should be considered as a milestone. The historic initiation of the People's War on February 13, 1996, represents a great leap and an opening of a new era towards revolutionary transformation of the entire Nepalese society. The fourth Expanded Meeting of the CC (1998) that had added a new dimension to the definition of guerrilla zone and base area should also be taken as a turning point of Nepalese People's War. It is evidently clear that the historic second national conference of our Party has been another milestone as far as ideological synthesis is concerned. The resolution relating to the development of democracy in the twenty-first century and the resolution adopted in the recently concluded CC meeting have remained as important turning points in the development of ideology from political, military and organizational perspectives. Apart from major positive turning points of class struggle, there have also been those of inner struggle, which will be discussed later.

Why was the People's War initiated right on February 13, 1996? Would you please throw some light on the background of its preparation?

Following the historical movement in 1996, the process of polarisation in the overall political movement, in general, and between reformist and revolutionary trends, in particular, got intensified. The major political forces, which had gained access to power with the force of movement, not only failed to address people's aspiration of concrete changes but, on the contrary, exhibited the conduct of sticking only to their chair by collaborating with corrupt ponchos and the king. An objective base, upon which the masses could go forward to building up a militant struggle on the basic questions of nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood, went on developing as a consequence of the growing disgust towards parliamentarian political leadership among the masses of the people, who were looking forward to economic, political and social changes. In the same way, the historic movement, in 1990, created a favourable situation by which the process of ideological struggles and splits taking place since long in the Nepalese communist movement could polarize into two big poles, the reformist and the revolutionary. Accordingly, the UML representing reformist and collaborationist trend came forward under the ideological leadership of mainly Madan where as, under the leadership of mainly Comrade Prachanda the Unity Centre came forward representing revolutionary Marxist trend. The UML, advocating multi-party democracy, sank deeply in parliamentarianism, while the Unity Centre, adopting in the Unity Congress the line of Protracted People's War corresponding to Nepalese particularity, carrying forward intensive ideological and political exposition against the right parliamentarianism and intensifying the rural class struggle as well, went forward to prepare for People's War. In this process, uncovering the right liquidationism of Nirmal Lama and Rupa Lal followers, who had joined the Unity Centre with a reformist purpose, and expelling them through the First National Conference, the whole Party advanced unitedly along the preparation for People's War. In the mean time, the Party continued to advance militant struggles legal1y through United People's Front against the anti-nation and anti-people policies and conducts of the parliamentarian political parties that were in power. The urban people's movement and the rural class struggle taking place in the countryside, mainly Rolpa and Rukum in Western Nepal, had been preparing an objective base for the initiation of People's War. Based on the evaluation of the country's particular political situation, the Party had taken up a policy to make a limited use of the first parliamentary election through a legal and open front. It is worth mentioning that this process of parliamentary struggle, in the then situation of Nepal, had also played an important role to disseminate and establish Party's revolutionary ideology.

In this very backdrop of class and ideological struggle, party's Third Expanded Meeting was concluded. This Expanded Meeting, which has a far-reaching significance in the history of our Party and Nepalese People's War, drafted an original kind of strategy and tactic of the People's War by carrying forward materialist analysis of the past and present of the Nepalese society. In this way, the historic initiation of the People's War on February 13, 1996, is linked with the distinctive fusion between the development of class struggle and ideological struggle.

Theory/Ideology/Philosophy

Even the enemies seem to be forced to acknowledge that the strongest aspect of this movement is the clear-cut ideological and political commitment. Therefore, those, who termed it 'terrorism' in the beginning, have been keeping mum now. How would it be appropriate to understand its major ideological convictions?

No revolutionary movement in history has been able to advance and attain victory without a clear-cut ideological and political line and deep conviction. Nepalese People's War is not and cannot be an exception to it. In this context, what I want to especially emphasize is that the question of correctly grasping MLM as a science is the most important task. The materialist dialectics, because it is a science, demands continuous cycles of defence, application and development. Our Party has been very seriously grasping the importance of applying materialist dialectics to carry out concrete analysis of concrete condition, the living soul of Marxist science, which seeks truth, and also of following mass line to transform truth into people's strength. Because of our correct understanding, our movement was inseparable from truth and the masses, and hence, enemy could not brush it aside as 'terrorism', however hard it tried. In my opinion, this is the primary thing. Standing upon the foundation of this ideological orientation, the Party has been developing a political line that can defeat enemy one by one and make people victorious in leaps by developing a proper sequence of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. Our particularity that transforms the ideological and political intervention against the enemy into military intervention and vice versa and maintains balance between these two, obviously disproves enemy's accusations against us.

The Party seems to have given a lot of importance to defence, application and development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In accordance with this, a particular set of ideas developed from its application in Nepal has also been synthesised as 'Prachanda Path'. Some people have now been curious as to whether it will become a 'Thought' and an 'ism'. Would you throw some light on this?

No revolution in the twenty-first century can be propelled forward without taking proper lesson from the experiences of great revolutions and counterrevolutions of the twentieth century. From this point of view, our Party has been giving plenty of importance to the questions of defence, application and development of the fundamental principles of MLM. While doing so, we are trying to arrive at a correct conclusion by studying and analyzing very seriously the struggle between the empiricist, dogmatist and revolutionary Marxist trends in the international communist movement that emerged mainly after the rise of Khrushchovite revisionism in the second half of twentieth century. Giving priority to the struggle against counterrevolutionary Khrushchovite revisionism in general, Party has laid necessary emphasis on the struggle against Hoxhaite dogmato-revisionism that eulogizes even some of the metaphysical weaknesses of Comrade Stalin and its negative consequences. This fundamental thought had started taking shape in the Third historic Expanded Meeting of the Party Central Committee that was organised to determine the concept related with ideology, strategy and tactic for the initiation of People's War in Nepal. At the Second National Conference, the Party, having arrived at a conclusion that the historic initiation of People's War and its successful and intensive development during five years had developed a series of ideas, synthesised it as Prachanda Path. As one arrives from the Second National Conference to the development of democracy in the twenty-first century' and to the decisions of the recently held CC meeting, one finds that new developments have been taking place in the domain of ideology. But, I don't think the time has come to polemicize or debate the terminology 'Thought' or 'ism' right now. The main question is to go ahead to confront the challenges posed by imperialism of the twenty-first century.

Revisionism has been practised in the name of restructuring Marxism. There have also been tendencies to deviate from the fundamental principles of Marxism in the pretext developing Marxism in conformity with the changed era, time and context. Given this situation, could you please clarify the basis, which can aptly justify that the Marxism you are trying to develop in Nepal is the Marxism of Marx himself?

The revolution advancing successfully since ten years is the most authentic and appropriate evidence that the ideology that our Party is attempting to develop is the Marxist ideology itself. I don't think I can present any authentic and eligible evidence other than a living revolution.

Under the adept leadership of Comrade Chairman, the CPN (Maoist) is going ahead by concretely pointing out and correcting the 30 percent weaknesses of Com. Stalin that Com. Mao referred to. In this context one must remember the Marxists of the Frankfurt School who had totally negated Stalin and tended to go back to Hegel and Kant and there were others who went on to glorify even Stalin's weaknesses. Protecting oneself from both these trends, how should one go ahead?

Those Frankfurt School generals, who, based on pure debate and isolated from the revolutionary practice of class struggle, had pounced upon the great revolutionary, Comrade Stalin, ended up in regression. This is as inevitable as the degeneration of the Hoxhaites, who, by eulogising even the weak aspects of Comrade Stalin, attempted to vulgarise Marxism as an inert entity. Only a Marxist revolutionary can shoulder the task of taking lessons from the weaknesses of another Marxist revolutionary and go ahead by correcting them; it is not possible for those who deviate to the left or to the right.

Standing on the foundation of revolutionary practice of class struggle, our Party is attempting to go forward by taking lessons from the positive and negative experiences of the revolutions in history. In today's world situation, it must not be forgotten that the reason behind our saying that a big historical responsibility of contributing to raising the science of revolution to a new height has come to our shoulder, is the successful People's War advancing since ten years. This living objective reality of revolution makes it clear that our effort of developing ideology is based on Marxist science, free from right and left deviation.

The question of necessity and freedom arises when talking of state and ideology. This question has surfaced time and again even in the Marxist movement in Nepal. In this context, what we want to learn from Chairman is that, while Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemberg etc., who used to talk more about freedom, have been generally discarded from the mainstream of Marxism, you have sometimes talked of learning from Rosa, too. Would you shed some light on this?

Our Party is definitely opposed to discarding the great revolutionaries like Rosa and Che into a different camp by distancing them from the mainstream Marxism and revolution; rather, we are for respecting them and learning from their contributions. However, while talking about necessity and freedom one must not draw a conclusion that stressing more on freedom is to be automatically more scientific. Comrade Lenin had drawn up a correct conclusion that, even though Rosa sometimes seemed subjective on the question of grasping scientific relation between consciousnesses of necessity and attainment o( freedom, she was an eagle of the communist movement. Our Party thinks that Lenin's evaluation of Rosa is correct. Our Party has no illusion about the fact that Lenin had made better scientific synthesis of the relation between necessity and freedom than Rosa had made.

International Situation and Communist Movement

In the resolution recently adopted by the CC and presented by Comrade Chairman, it is said, "It is necessary for proletariat revolutionaries of the twenty-first century to seriously focus their attention on the issue that the analysis of imperialism done by Lenin and Mao and a number of concepts regarding proletarian strategy built on that basis, have lagged behind". Would you please elaborate on this?

The question of developing the science of proletarian revolution is directly linked with the objective analysis of the development and form of imperialism. Marxism developed in the course of studying the particularities of competitive phase of capitalism. The Great Russian Socialist Revolution became possible after developing Marxism-Leninism by analyzing monopoly capitalism, and with the analysis of bureaucratic and state-owned monopoly capitalism along with the process of struggle against it, this development advanced to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Hence, what can be clearly seen is that the development of proletarian revolution together with the development of strategies and tactics can be achieved only on the basis of correct analysis of the development of capitalism and imperialism and their specificities. Following the restoration of capitalism in China, after Comrade Mao's demise, the communist movement fell prey to mainly right revisionism. Naturally, right revisionism surrendered before imperialism, as it is expected to, therefore, there is no question of right revisionists analyzing imperialism from the viewpoint of science of revolution. On the other hand, the revolutionary Maoist movement, in the name of defending the basic principles of MLM against right revisionism, happened to fall prey to sectarian dogmato-revisionism that repeats old things only and overlooks the analysis of the development of an object. Definitely, our Party since before the historic initiation of People's War has been externally struggling mainly against right revisionism and internally against sectarian dogmatism. While doing so, the Party has firmly grasped the method of making concrete analysis of concrete condition and applying its conclusion based on the mass line. The Central Committee, speaking about the development of this very process in the document, has emphasized on the study and analysis of the specificities of today's globalized finance monopoly capitalism.

In the aforesaid document, it has been clarified that Marx and Engels had reached the strategic conclusion that revolution will take place simultaneously in the developed countries of Europe, but later, when competitive capitalism developed, into monopoly capitalism, Lenin found that the previous analysis lagged behind, and on the basis of that he drew up new strategic conclusions on war and revolution. Today, a number of particularities of globalized imperialism that have been developing after the second world war, in general, and the cold war in particular, have come up in new forms, and our Party, initiating a process of encouraging deep study and analysis, has emphasized the aforesaid issue in the document.

Earlier Party had talked about South Asian Soviet Federation, while now it has talked about the World Soviet Federation. Does it mean that revolution cannot be accomplished in an individual country now?

The necessity of People's New World Federation raised by our Party does not at all mean that revolution cannot take place in an individual country now. What it means is to admit the reality that, as a result of the unprecedented revolution in information technology and the particular nature of globalized exploitation and oppression of finance monopoly capital, the world has been transforming into a small unit, and it also implies an emphasis on building up a strategy of revolution based on this reality. Today, what we can clearly see is that the worldwide impact of revolution or counterrevolution taking place in Nepal or any other country in the world cannot be compared with that of Lenin's and Mao's time. Therefore, in today's world situation, worldwide movement is especially unavoidable from both the aspects of accomplishing and of defending revolution in a certain country. For this reason, we have been taking the revolution in a certain country as the base area for world revolution. In order to express this concept based on objective reality, the last Central Committee meeting of our Party had put forward the concept of People's New World Federation. It does not mean that the concept of South Asian Federation, which is becoming a storm center of people's revolution, is unnecessary.

RIM has been in existence since past two decades. But one does not feel that it is developing and expanding at the expected pace. What is the Party's understanding on the challenges and possibilities of constituting a new Communist International?

Following the demise of Comrade Mao, capitalist restoration took place even in China. With this, imperialism and right revisionism intensified worldwide attack on the revolutionary principles of MLM. At that difficult and complex juncture, it was the historical responsibility of genuine proletarian communists to take up special initiative to defend the basic revolutionary principles of MLM. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) was organized in the background of fulfilling that historical responsibility. To the extent of defending MLM from the attack of imperialism and revisionism, definitely, the establishment and initiative of RIM played an important role. But, in the context of applying and developing MLM, RIM has not been able to take leaps. RIM can develop only by struggling against problems, like the tendency of preferring to analyze and eulogize the experiences of old proletarian revolutions but hesitating to develop boldly the strategies and tactics based on mass line, by carrying out concrete analysis of concrete condition.

Constituting a new Communist International has definitely become essential for the proletariat to fight against globalized imperialism and globalized revisionism, especially in the context of today's world situation. The challenges in the context of organizing an International are the mainly the challenges of maintaining ideological uniformity on the question of defence, application and development of MLM. This challenge can be confronted in the course of ideological struggle and class struggle. As far as the question of possibility is concerned, "globalization" has prepared good grounds for the founding of an International.

The Peruvian movement, which was some time before a center of hope for the revolutionaries in the world, seems to have fallen into a serious crisis now. What is the Party's viewpoint on this? What lessons has the Party drawn from this?

The experience of the Peruvian revolutionary movement, which had to go through intensive development and extensive setback between the last two decades of twentieth century, is very important for those who are leading revolution in the twenty-first century. In the context of preparation and initiation of People's War in Nepal, the Peruvian movement had played a major role in inspiring us, and in this sense, it is of special significance for our Party to the lessons from the positive and negative experiences of this movement. It is our understanding that it will be a big mistake to devalue the contributions made by the Peruvian People's War for world revolution, which, fighting back the ideological attack made by right revisionism after the restoration of capitalism in China, was initiated on the basis of MLM. However, in no case, can it and must it be taken lightly that the People's War, which was developing rapidly for 12 years, is now in a crisis of existence because of the setback following the capture of the leadership. Sufficient indications that Chairman Gonzalo himself is the main spokesperson of the two-line struggle developed within the Party after his arrest, as well as of the right opportunist line that argues for peaceful conciliation with the enemy by abandoning war, reveal the seriousness of the situation.

MLM demands correct application of dialectical materialism to continue relentless struggle against all kinds of mechanical, subjective and one-sided thinking. It is necessary to be cautious of drifting towards another extreme while struggling against one. Following the counterrevolution in China, the communist movement, on the one hand, happened to fall prey to right extremism that mainly sides with class collaboration and, on the other, to left extremism that seeks to go straightforward without looking left or right, forward or backward. Following Mao's death, the Nicaraguan Sandinista movement that waged guerrilla war happened to fall prey to the former, i.e. right extremism, and the great revolutionary movement in Peru ideologically happened to fall prey to the second i.e. left sectarianism. It is our understanding and evaluation that, as a result of the mechanical and one-sided thinking, like for example of negating completely the question of building necessary adjustment, compromise or front with the secondary reactionary or middle class against the main enemy, of being unable to maintain proper balance between strategic firmness and tactical flexibility based on the equation of enemy's central power, of understanding the protracted People's War mechanically rather than developing military strategy according to today's world situation, of idealizing Comrade Gonzalo as a supernatural leader who never makes a mistake and of placing him above the whole Party and the Central Committee by asserting his leadership as Jefetura, of being unable or unprepared to learn in the real sense from the metaphysical mistakes of Comrade Stalin etc.- the Party has reached a 'Stage of crisis of existence in such a short time despite the sacrifice of more than 60 thousand people. Although one is revolutionary in spirit, the result can nevertheless be fatal if, from the viewpoint of applying the science of dialectical materialism, one gets caught in mechanical and metaphysical weaknesses this is the lesson taken by our Party from the great Peruvian People's War and the blood of thousands of revolutionaries flown there. All the programs which our Party has been adhering to, such as our concepts regarding the 'development of democracy in the twenty-first century', military line of 'fusion', series of tactics adopted against the enemy, etc., incorporate the lessons from all positive and negative experiences of Peru.

On the one hand, Party has maintained close ideological-political relations with revolutionaries in India and South Asia through CCOMPOSA, while on the other hand, in the particular geo-political situation of Nepal, it seems there is also a compulsion to maintain diplomatic relationship with the Indian State. How will the Party be able to maintain proper balance between the two?

In the particular gee-political situation of Nepal, there are certainly special and essential aspects of relationship with two giant neighbours, India and China. The question of our relation with the Indian State is a question of indispensable diplomatic relation that enriches mutual relation between the people of two countries based on Panchsheel. This relation should be understood and dealt in the form of diplomatic relation of mutual benefit, not in the form of relation based on ideology and belief. Our relation with the revolutionaries in South Asia, established through CCOMPOSA, is mainly ideological relation and it should be taken and handled in the context of the freedom to follow any ideology and belief. It will not be so difficult to handle this relation because ideology and belief remain at their own place and the diplomatic relation with the two• countries remains at its own place. Nevertheless, the question of maintaining this balance is very sensitive, given that Indian monopoly capitalist expansionist character has been the main barricade for the revolutionary movement in Nepal and South Asia. However sensitive it may be, they can be propelled forward without crossing the limits of ideological relation and diplomatic relation.

In recent times, particularly in Latin America, the parliamentary left forces that are against American imperialism have been coming to power one after the other. How does the Party look at this course of event? What is the Party's perception on Cuba?

After US imperialism launched naked military aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq in the pretext of September 11 event, the world opinion is agitating rapidly against it. The wave of people in favour of parliamentary leftists in Latin American countries that are related with 'World Social Forum' signifies people's restlessness. This anti-imperialist wave seen right under the nose of US imperialism clearly indicates towards the new wave of world revolution existing in the horizon. From this point of view, the mass wave witnessed in Latin American countries has a strategic significance.

As far as the question of Cuba is concerned, we have taken it in the form of a united front against US imperialism.

Politics: Strategy and Tactics

It is said that the secret of the development of People's War lies in the proper coordination between political and military lines. There have reportedly been some problems in maintaining their balance sometimes. What is the reality? How was the experience of peace talks for two times?

All those who have seriously studied our movement right from the days of our Party formation to preparation, initiation and hitherto development of the People's War, will see that it is different from many of the prevalent and conventional norms of the past communist movements. Our uniqueness, after having fundamentally set the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideological and political working direction, can be seen in the fact that we have taken our ideological and political struggle to a new height and established them among the people by forging Party unity even with rightists. We have prepared for People's War using even the parliament, given emphasis on striking a balance and coordination between political and military interventions, and we have used peace talks and ceasefire against the enemy in a new way. But in this context, one thing is continuous, which is, placing revolutionary political line at the centre, making concrete analysis of concrete condition and adopting mass line. In the context of preparation, initiation and development of People's War, it is being developed as a right coordination between political and military lines. That balance and coordination can be clearly seen in our process of taking initiatives for People's War by founding a political base and presenting the basic problems of the country and the people in the form of 40-point demands from an open front. The first and the second peace talks can be considered as a new development of that coordination. The Party has already analyzed that the two talks have played an important role in establishing the Party's political line among the people in a more extensive way and in clarifying the Party's commitment to establishing peace with a forward-looking political solution reflecting people's need and aspiration as well as justifying the development and significance of the military line.

The Party seems to be successfully handling the question of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. Don't you think that the Party runs the risk of getting deviated if it goes on stressing on tactical flexibility?

Even our hardcore enemies are compelled to accept our Party's capability of handling strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. We think that while tactical flexibility without strategic firmness leads to a quagmire of reformism and revisionism and while strategic firmness without tactical flexibility leads to a marsh of mechanical tendency and dogmatism, only a proper implementation of dialectical interrelationship between strategic firmness and tactical flexibility can propel revolutionary movement in a proper and dynamic way. This conclusion has already been very well substantiated by our Party and the development of People's War. Had there been only tactical flexibility, our Party would have sunk into the process of uniting with rightist reformists, it would have become pro-parliamentary in the process of making special use of the parliament, and would have never returned to war after the pea talks with the enemies. From these and many other examples, it has already been clear that all the tactical plans and visions of the Party are inseparably linked with strategic plans and visions. Likewise, had we shown only strategic firmness, the Party would have turned into a parochial group isolated from the people, which would have only drained the people's unlimited energy and initiatives in the revolution. Today our practical behaviors have already clarified that our strategic firmness comes into effective implementation by means of our tactical flexibility. In fact, the revolutionary movement is being damaged on the one hand by conservatives who only talk of strategy and on the other hand by the reformists who only talk of tactics. The fast development of People's War became possible because our Party, while fighting against the deviation, understood and mobilized the interrelation between strategy and tactic. In order to keep the revolution in motion, it is necessary to give continuity to strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. We have to be clear here that those who see through reformist spectacles consider our strategy as dangerous and always protest against it while those who see it through the spectacles of 'left' parochialism consider our tactical flexibility as dangerous and always protest against it. But having proved them unscientific, our Party, as the correct practitioner of dialectical materialism, has been moving and will continue to move in future in the direction of revolution.

During the initiation of People's War, the Party attacked parliamentary forces more than they did the monarchy, but now it is just the opposite. What is the meaning and relevance of this? Are the questions of nationality and people's democracy linked with it?

It is appropriate to understand new people's democracy, constituent assembly and democratic republic basically in terms of the interrelation between strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. Whenever a proletarian Party becomes weak in terms of ideology, politics, organization and physical power, it stresses, and should do so, on the establishment of its ideology and power accumulation by means of multidimensional political exposure through its strategic slogans. When the Party is strong and is nearing its strategic goal, it takes up, and should rightly do so, the role of responsible leadership to ensure political outlet by taking together as many forces as possible and putting stress on political slogans. One has to be clear about one thing, that our Party is talking about the development of people's democracy in the 21st century after having learnt from the experiences of the revolutions and counter-revolutions of the 20th century, and accordingly has accepted multi-Party competition within an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist constitutional frame. But here, the issues of constituent assembly and democratic republic should be understood in terms of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility. To demand a makeup like that of the initial phase of the struggle when one has come to a stage of running a regime or to demand a character like that of the stage of running a regime when one is in the initial phase of struggle, both don't represent materialist dialectics.

Many are heard saying that the UML's multi-Party people's democracy and the Maoist's multi-Party democratic republic are similar. What is the reality?

UML's multi-party people's democracy expresses class coordination and a reformist line of bourgeois parliamentarianism while our slogan of democratic republic expresses transitional revolutionary slogan that helps propel class struggle in a special condition of power balance. In this sense, there is a huge difference in essence between the UML's multi-Party people's democracy and our democratic republic. Recently, the UML has also talked about moving towards democratic republic and we have been holding discussions on the essential commonalities between us. We hope that through the slogan of democratic republic, the UML too will move from reformist line of class coordination to revolutionary line of class struggle.

What is the essence and relevance of the 12-point understanding with the parliamentary parties? Is it just an agreement of convenience for both sides or does it have a long-term significance?

Our Party has taken the 12-point understanding with the parliamentary political parties very seriously. We consider it not as a game plan or an agreement of convenience but as a historically essential and practical understanding required to fulfill people's aspiration for peace and democracy against feudal and tyrannical monarchy. The ensuing protests against tyranny has not only justified its significance but has also approved of it. As a first milestone of the process of achieving complete democracy (i.e. 'democratic republic in our understanding) through a constituent assembly election, the 12-point understanding has a long-term importance.

After Lenin's time, CPN (Maoist) is perhaps the first Party to have successfully caught the path of revolutionary war even after having represented in the parliament. Can you shed some light on this experience?

One will be in position to make concrete analysis of concrete condition only after one has adopted Marxist science by keeping it away from left or right dogma while being determined to take the revolution ahead. Our Party, during the early phase of its initiation, moved ahead by struggling against rightist revisionism externally and Mohan Bikram's dogmatic revisionism internally. This struggle encouraged us to adopt Marxism as a science by keeping ourselves away from the traditional deviation of Nepali communist movement that understands Marxist science in terms of formulas. This understanding enabled us, by taking decision to use the parliament, to teach the Nepalese society about the futility of the parliament and the necessity of People's War. The 'left' conservatives who perceived Marxism and revolution in terms of fixed models saw us as sinking into the rightist quagmire while the rightists saw us as dogmatist, as we were exposing the parliament. In fact, we were neither rightist nor dogmatists, we were just Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, which history has already shown. In fact, whatever we are trying to do is not new but an attempt to scientifically fix and give momentum to the intensity of the international communist movement which was broken due to Stalin's weakness after the demise of Lenin and which Mao tried to take ahead.

We are not saying that since we went to the People's War after having used the parliament, everyone in the world has to do the same. We know it very well that in today's world the usefulness of the tactics to use parliament has almost come to an end. But continuous boycotting of a system without considering the situation of a country and its people is not Marxism. Ignoring concrete analysis of concrete condition and also mass line would just mean to make Marxism, Leninism and Maoism meaningless by reducing it to the level of a religious sect. Our experience of the use of parliament is less important in terms of the utility of parliament and-more in terms of understanding Marxism as a science.

What are the ideological and practical aspects of Prachanda Path?

All the processes of development of nature, society and human thought are mobilized and limited by absolute struggle and relative unity of the opposites. Mao has explained it as sovereignty of internal contradiction, distinctiveness of contradiction, primary contradiction and secondary contradiction. In the course of taking the Party and the revolution forward, there can be numerous contradictions that have to be settled. In other words, the Party always faces mountains of works to be done. In such a situation, if we sort out the aspects of opinions, plans and programs that need to be given immediate emphasis and those that need constant attention even in a secondary form, then we will be able to accomplish our goal in a scientific way.

On the basis of this principle to mobilize internal differences in a scientific way, the third historical extensive meeting of the Central Committee of our Party has presented a series of strategies and tactics that the Party has to emphasize and pay attention to in the entire development process of People's War. Also, the Party always follows this scientific principle while deciding on every new policy, plan and program.

Party/Organisation

Comrade Prachanda, once you wrote very seriously "New ideology always demands new organization. If the revolutionaries cannot settle the demand on time in a proper way, the old organization will eat up the new ideology." Can you explain the background and the essence in a little more detail?

In the course of developing ideology, strategy and tactic of Nepali revolution, our Party has always tried to form new organization according to new ideologies and strategies. There is a dialectical interrelation between ideology and organizational structure and working method. If the interrelation is not properly mobilized or managed, an internal conflict develops between ideology and organization. One cannot guarantee that the new and scientific ideas will prevail in a situation of internal conflict. In a certain situation, if the internal conflict is not properly settled, the old organization and old working method will blunt the new ideas and impose the old ideas. What one needs to understand here is that a certain organization and certain working method is after all a certain ideology. In this sense, the internal conflict between new ideology and old organization is ultimately the internal conflict between new and old ideas.

Looking back .at the history of our Party, what we can clearly see is that whenever new ideas develop in the Party leadership, brave attempts to form new organization come up. From Ekata Kendra to Maoist, the series of development of new unity through the principle of unity-struggle-transformation and on a new basis makes this clear. In accordance with the development of new ideas and necessity of revolution, old organizations should be demolished, new ones constructed and continuous organizational transformation and mobility should be stressed upon. Our Party has chiefly been doing that and the recent dissolution of the Central Committee also sheds some light on this, and this is how revolution receives new life and new pace. But in many situations, when many of the Party leaders fail to adopt the essence of the new ideas developed by the Party, they tend to stick to the old organization and old working method. I think I had written that article on organizational problem, attacking the tendency that hesitates to enter a new organization and new working methods necessitated by the new decision on the construction of base area and army at the fourth extensive meeting of our Party's Central Committee. The article still has an ideological importance as well as political and organizational relevance even today. The great thought contributing to the international revolution in the 21st century is still fighting organizational diseases like indulgence in parochial and anarchic group ism and adoption of extremely self-centered personal working method.

Stating the process of the formation of the Party, the proposal passed by the Second National Convention said, "The Party unity conducted by Comrade Prachanda a decade back, in fact, reflects the beginning of a giant leap towards revolution and a completely new process, not addition-subtraction, transformation or change of form in any complete group of Nepali communist movement. Comrade Prachanda's ideological and political line passed by the unity convention was the result of a long struggle against pseudo reformists". But even after 15 years, often in course of inner struggle within the Party, the ghosts of old groups and sub-groups have attempted to resurrect and this has made inner struggle unhealthy and obstructing the development of a unified and centralized Party. What is your latest view on this?

As far as science is concerned, the evaluation made I in the proposal of the Party's second historical national convention is correct. But the fact that the organization has a weak culture and will power to adopt the height of ideas and transform itself accordingly is clarified by the process of latest unhealthy inner struggle. The strong petty bourgeois material ground
existing in Nepali society and the relics of Mohan Bikram school that heartily enjoys anarchic and parochial groups are chiefly responsible for this. In relation to the formation of the Party, the chief characteristics of Mohan Bikram school is 'struggle-split,' 'again struggle and again split.' The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist principle of unity-struggle-trans formation and new unity on new grounds is hot at all found in the Mohan Bikram school. Since most of the members of our Party were more or less influenced by that period of history, sometimes the influence gets reactivated and we enjoy being divided in groups. The negative dialectics that understands struggle in terms of split rather than transformation leads to such unhealthy condition. Due to the extreme thoughts that do not see unity in struggle and struggle in unity, it has been difficulty to implement the principle of thesis, antithesis and synthesis or the creative dialectics of unity: struggle and transformation. For this, the Party wants to focus on the transformation aspect by raising the ideological struggle against petty bourgeois tendency and metaphysics. It will be difficult to get rid of the Mohan Bikram tendency of groupism and schism until and unless we understand the meaning and importance of struggle-transformation. The Party's attempt is to move ahead by giving priority to the Party rather than a group and to transformation rather than schism. through this interview, I want to make special appeal to all, ranging from the leadership rank to ordinary Party members, to work specially for the development of new thought and culture by seriously thinking over the question of struggle and transformation.

The Central Committee meeting held some time back (in 2005) is reported to have decided on "revolution within revolution" in order to alleviate the serious deviations which emerged in the Party and the revolution. Could you please clarify on this?

Along with the development of petty bourgeois individualism born on the semi-feudal and semi-expansionist economic, political and cultural grounds, and the development of People's War and the new state, from time to time upgradation of class position, slavish and anarchic tendencies as well as signs of non-proletarian deviation have also surfaced due to the lack of adequate ideological and political training in the Party. Such problems have been seen not only in course of the development of Nepali revolution but in the international revolutions as well. Even after capturing the regime, the great parties in Russia and China were involved in upgradation of class position and due to the slavish and capitalistic influence, turned into counter-revolutionary parties. The deviations that are appearing within our Party are its leftovers. Realising this bitter truth, in order to given momentum to the historically important global process of preventing future counter-revolution (whose ideological foundation was set up as a continuous revolution through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China under the leadership of Mao), our Party's Central Committee made the decision to launch revolution within revolution. The attempt to move ahead along the principles of the great cultural revolution is the main essence of revolution within revolution. Construction of a new Party by developing new ideas and culture though debates in order to prevent counter-revolution is the essence of the Central Committee's decision.

Can you speak of the characteristics and consequences of the chief inner-struggles over the last ten years?

It is not possible to discuss in detail the inner-struggles within the Party over the past ten years. Yet, to make a mention of the major one in brief, the debate on the concept of leadership during the formation of the first plan of the historical initiation of People's War can be considered the first memorable inner-struggle. Before the completion of one year of the historical initiation of the People's War, the cultural deviation seen in three responsible comrades of the Party centre and a very sensitive inner-struggle that ensued is the second remarkable inner-struggle. The third important inner-struggle is the one over centralization and establishment of leadership during the fourth extensive meeting of the Party centre held amidst the so-called kilo sera two operation of the enemy. The popular struggle against Aalok tendency following the fourth extensive meeting is the fourth major inner-struggle. The fifth and the most serious inner-struggle that took the Party on the verge of a split is last year's much publicized conflict over the issue of centralization and rectification of the leadership. In sum, these five inner-struggles can be considered as the major inner-struggles over the past ten years. Though during this course, various weaknesses were seen in various personalities, the Party has achieved success in taking the revolution to a new height, by developing new ideas through struggle and forging new unity with transformation on a new basis. History has proved the fact that this has become a unique and scientific feature of our Party leadership. Being proud of this scientific feature, we revolutionaries have to continuously make attempts to take this process to newer heights.

In the international communist movement, the question of leadership has been the core issue of the Party and the revolution. What is Prachanda Path's latest opinion on this? Recently, it was reported that Comrade Chairman presented a new view on this issue for discussion within the Party. Can you say something about it publicly?

It is a fact proven by experiences of all revolutionary movements of history that the suppressed class cannot achieve success without giving birth to a leadership from within itself. In this sense, the question of leadership is central to the success of the Party and the revolution. The development of leadership this way does not happen out of someone's wish but out of class struggle and ideological struggle according to the historical necessity of the class. Therefore, it is only a matter of chance as to who forms the core team of the leadership and who becomes their chief leader. Marxism has clarified such a scientific conclusion since its research period. But relating to its practical use, this question seems to become complicated when the Party captures state power. Since the danger, possibility and necessity to use force in the struggle within the Party increases along with the development of power, the experiences of the 20th Century revolutions and counter-revolutions have already clearly exhibited that the issue of moving towards dissolution of states by strengthening the leadership of the proletariat is very complex and challenging. To speak concretely, the excessive use of' force in the internal conflict during the leadership of Stalin, the counter-revolution with rise of Khrushchev's reformism and the counter-revolution in China after the death of Mao despite the great cultural revolution have compelled and inspired today's proletarian revolutionaries to think seriously about it. With this belief, our Party has been seriously studying and thinking over the issue relating to leadership. Against this background, the proposal was presented for discussion on behalf of the central office in the last Central Committee meeting. The main essence of this proposal is that the chief leader and the core team of the leadership should focus on ideological works by keeping themselves away from the day to day administrative works and provide a physical environment for the revolutionaries of the new generation to be trained as successors. What our Party believes is that this process of producing successors ensures continuous revolution by preventing the danger of counter-revolution that is likely to take place following the death of the chief leader. It is not-possible to discuss more than this much about the issue here.

The Party's proposal on the development of people's democracy in the 21st century has forwarded the concept of having multi-Party competition even in socialist society. What is the essence and significance of this? Is it possible this way to achieve the socialist goal of dissolving all classes, parties and states?

The Party's proposal on the development of people's democracy in the 21st century was forwarded on the basis of the positive and negative experiences of the 20th century. Accordingly, the Party believes that within the anti-feudal and anti-imperialistic constitutional framework, only through multi-Party competition even in a socialist society can counter-revolution be prevented and proletariat's rule be strengthened by making effective the people's control, monitoring and intervention in the governance. Only such a rule of the proletariat strengthened on the basis of people's democracy can prepare the necessary infrastructure for the ultimate dissolution of class, Party and the state. This process that increases political awareness among the people through multi-Party competition will make socialist competition lively. The foundation of state dissolution will be prepared as extensively and rapidly as we organize socialist competition. The main essence of our proposal is to make proletariat's democracy lively by preventing it from being mechanical and formal.

According to Marxist concept, Party or ideology is inseparable from army and the state. Party is an ideology, according to which the army is formulated and the state is maintained with the power of the army. If multi-Party competition is accepted in tomorrow's people's democratic republic or in socialism, it appears to be very complicated as to whether or not to allow every Party to form an army on the basis of their own respective ideologies. What is your view on this?

The main thing that needs to be clear here is the class structure of the state. Going by the experiences of history and conclusions of Marxism, to imagine a classless state is just a bourgeois idealistic hypocrisy. The people's democratic state that we have envisaged is a state under the leadership of the proletariat with collective dictatorship of various classes of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist people. Such a state cannot be established without first dismantling the state that works in the interests of feudalism and imperialism. When an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist state is formed, in such a situation, the political parties that represent various classes and ideological beliefs will not need to set up separate armies because there interests will not be antagonistic. Instead, there begins a people's democratic competition under people's dictatorship, which only further strengthens people's state. The issue of forming an army might arise only in two completely different situations. The first situation is, if the Party that leads the people's democratic state turns counter-revolutionary and starts exploiting, suppressing and torturing people, any of the competing political forces using people's right to revolt can and should form an army. The other situation is, if a political Party competing in the name of people stoops to the level of advocating feudalism and imperialism and starts armed activities under their support and instigation, in such a situation the people's state will certainly impose dictatorship on them and solve the problem. No one should forget the limit of people's democratic and socialist constitutional system.

Army/War

Could you please briefly tell us about the preparation, initiation and development of People's War in Nepal's context? It is heard that there had been an important discussion as to whether the People's War, when it was launched in Nepal in 1996, would develop in a fast or slow pace. What have the events proved now?

Since 1971, when I first participated in the Communist Movement, my attentions were drawn towards the studies of ideological and strategic aspects of armed struggles in the history of the world and particularly of Nepal, After Mohan Bikram's paper presentation on the preparation of armed struggle in the Ayodhya plenum of the then CPN (Fourth Convention) in 1981, I in my capacity as a leader of the then Youth Front in 1982, had got an environment to carry out special studies on ideological and practical aspects of armed struggle. We, in the leadership of the then Mashal group had made an active attempt to prepare and initiate an armed struggle on the eve of the historical people's movement in 1990. It is worth recalling that, in course of our preparation for the same, I along with Comrade Badal went to Manang to meet Comrade Dev Gurung and Comrade Ganesh Bahadur Gurung to purchase rifles. We even conducted the first central level army training after Ganesh Bahadur bought two rifles which Dev Gurung secretly brought to Gorkha. I still feel very excited to recall the incident when I and Comrade Badal were going to Gorkha with army documents, a pistol that Comrade Lekhnath Bhatta had made available to the Party and ten pieces of gelatine, and narrowly escaped a search carried out by Tanahu district's DSP and CDO just across the Muglin bridge.

Considering the context of the preliminary preparation and the 1990 movement, we felt that ideological, political and organizational preparations for a People's War were extremely inadequate. Inspired by the prospects of overcoming the shortcoming in the new political circumstance of post-1990 Nepal, we took initiatives to unify the revolutionaries scattered into various groups and, as a result, CPN (Ekata Kendra) came into being. In the unification convention held in 1991, we passed with overwhelming majority an improvised military line of a long-term People's War of Nepali characteristics by fighting against various reformist tendencies within Ekata Kendra. Following the convention, we went forward with preparations at four levels (ideological-political, organizational, technical and struggle) as preparation for the People's War. On the one hand, we emphasized on rural class struggle and on the other hand, through an open People's Front, we carried out various programmes of training people by raising various burning national issues through continuous Nepal Bandh (closure), rallies and mass meetings. Seeing our preparations, the representatives of reformists in the Party chiefly Nirmal Lama, Rupial Bishwakarma etc. were terrified. Mr. Lama even declared to move along his own way just 15 days before the beginning of the People's War. In such a situation, naturally the two line struggle within Eleata Kendra took an antagonistic form. Finally, after the Party's first national convention expelled Lama and Bishwakarma faction from the Party defining them as rightist liquidationists, the path. to solidify concrete and technical preparations for the People's War was cleared.

A few months after that, the third extensive meeting of the Party's Central Committee was held. This meeting occupies a very important place in the history of Nepali People's War, because for the first time it fixed the series of phases, sub-phases, strategies and working policy of the People's War in a systematic way by analyzing the past and present characteristics of Nepali society. The discussions held and the documents approved at the meeting maintained a single understanding about the People's War. It is worth noting that prior to this, some thought that the People's War should be given continuity gradually and slowly without breaking the sequence while on the other hand, there was still some doubt about Comrade Baburam Bhattarai regarding the question of joining People's War because he was still seen as an intellectual, even though he had been taking up responsibility at important leadership level in the movement. But this meeting unified the views on People's War by changing the thought of waging the war slowly without breaking the sequence and on the other hand, it also erased doubts about Comrade Baburam Bhattarai as he termed the meeting's decision as a milestone and expressed his strong commitment. In this way, the Third Extensive Meeting struck a unique ideological, political, emotional and firm unity in the Party. Because of this encouraging unity, a small remark about Lakhan Thapa by Comrade Bhakta Bahadur Shrestha triggered a memorable peal of laughter, which caused the meeting to halt for some time.

After having clearly drawn the map of the People's War, the Party pushed ahead the final preparation of the war among the people within and outside the Party line in a planned manner. In this context, the enemy's brutal suppression of the rural peasants' struggle in Rolpa-Rukum in the name of 'Romeo operation' played a very important role against the nationwide preparation of the People's War. Finally the Central Committee meeting was held to finalize the planning of the historic initiation of the People's War. At the meeting, the discussion chiefly focused on two important questions. One important question was whether the People's War would move ahead rapidly or in a slow pace. Some comrades thought that it should not be called rapid because it would generate a mentality of achieving quick victory while on the other hand, many of the comrades including those in the chief leadership believed that it would gain momentum, which was finally agreed upon after the discussion. The other •important question was the question of leadership. After the reformist elements who were expelled from the Party tried to create confusion in various circles by making publicity on the eve the initiation of the People's War that there was a parallel leadership and headquarters within us, we held discussion on the question of leadership believing that at least the Party has to be clear about it. When Comrade Kiran strongly advocated in favour the then general secretary Comrade Prachanda then the debate grew hot and sarcastic. At last, the debate was settled after a general agreement that chief leadership was in fact chief leadership. Finally, the meeting passed the first plan of the initiation of the People's War. While the preparation for the plan was towards its final phase, we presented a 40-point demand before the then parliamentary government through the open front (People's Front), as a political intervention. A final analysis of all this process was done by the PB meeting held in Kathmandu. After having analysed all national and international situations, the proposal to blow the-trumpet of the People's War on 151 Falgun 2052 (February 1996) was approved. The day came and as planned the People's War got underway announcing a new era in Nepali society.

Looking back at the process of preparation and initiatives, after ten years now, that has now become a great history and according to the discussion then, everyone is feeling that the development of events has proved that the People's War took rapid course.

As the supreme commander of the People's Liberation Army, how do you evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the army?

I think the unfailing respect and trust towards the revolutionary ideas and revolutionary leadership as well as high sense of self sacrifice are the greatest strengths of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Inadequacy of technical resources and training can be considered its weakness. Nevertheless, the People's Liberation Army is moving with determination and rapidity towards the great direction of learning war from war and capturing war logistics from war itself. Proud of being the Supreme Commander of the People's Liberation Army with the great spirit of ideas, sentiment and self sacrifice, I highly evaluate and salute the entire People's Liberation Army at this historical moment.

The Party's Second National Convention (of 2000) had put forward the necessity of having a fusion of two different military strategies of long-term People's War and armed struggle in the present context of Nepal and the world, but now the Party has started talking about developing a new military working direction of the People's War in the 21st century. Can you elaborate on this?

The uniqueness and novelty of ideas lying behind the Nepali People's War were discussed in various contexts above. The second historical national convention adopted the development of those very ideas as 'Prachanda Path.' The second convention took an important decision against the tendency to narrow down the war by erecting a Chinese wall between the two 20th century military strategies (general armed struggle and a Protracted People's War) or being imprisoned in one or the other model. In the present contexts of the world that is getting smaller due to revolution in information technology and a modem, unified and centralized exploitation-oppression of globalized imperialism, the Party on the basis of an analysis of positive and negative experiences of the past century concluded that it is necessary to move ahead by having a fusion of the strategies of long-term People's War in armed struggle and the strategies of armed struggle in People's War. This conclusion provided and is providing a new and wide horizon for the Nepali People's War to move ahead. From a bold offensive to peace talks, ceasefire, again attack and again talks, the second convention laid the foundation of a new military strategy for the 21 It century.

The issue of the development of a new military strategy in the 21st century is based on the essence of the Party's proposal relating to the development of People's Democracy in the 21 It century as well as on the spirit of historical document passed by the recently held Central Committee meeting. The world today has moved far ahead from the 1920s and 30s. Productive forces are in a new position, imperialism is in a new position, the people fighting against it are in a new position and information, communication and technology are in new positions. Therefore, it is imperative that the military strategies of the proletariat should also be in a new position. The Party's policy of symbolically 'hitting the enemy on the head by riding on the back' is also the part of the new military strategy of the 21 It century. This policy is not just purely a military strategy but is also inseparably connected with the question of developing the ideas of Marxism-Lenin ism-Maoism in the 21 It century. In addition to continuing the decisive struggle against rightist revisionists, this question also represents the acts of revitalizing the Marxist spirit of doing concrete analysis of concrete condition by fighting against the traditional, orthodox and stereotypical tendencies developing within the communist movement. The military strategy that is being successfully implemented is sure to play an important role in the formulation of new ideas of the 21st century.

Some critics say that People's War in Peru was declared to have reached a stage of strategic equilibrium when it was still in the defensive phase. Can you clarify on some of the solid grounds to justify that in Nepal there hasn't been a mistake in estimating the phase of war by way of getting excited to achieve quick victory?

In our opinion, the main reason for the failure of the People's War in Peru is not the imbalance in the declaration of defense and equilibrium. The main reason is the imbalance in the use of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility (unilateral emphasis on strategy), in the question of developing ideas through concrete analysis of concrete condition in the changed context of today's world as well as idealistic thought of glorifying the leadership. This is the principal thing. So far as the Nepali People's War is concerned, the new ideological, political and military strategic concepts developed since the preparation and initiation periods till the present time are themselves reliable grounds to assert that it will not meet Peru's fate, rather it will emerge victorious.

Amid fierce race of militarization, the Party has said that there is no need of a permanent army. Can you shed light on the dialecticism between the two?

When Karl Marx and Frederich Engels were preparing the theoretical foundation of proletariat revolution and of future socialist society, they envisaged preparing a sea of armed communities, not a permanent army. Behind the Party's idea of creating a situation that will not require a permanent army lies a concept of preparing armed communities to erect a base for repelling counter-revolution. In Russia and China, the extremely powerful permanent armies could not ultimately prevent counterrevolutions, rather the permanent armies themselves turned into the police of the counterrevolution. The essence lying in this id is that, instead of emphasizing on the technical aspect like the bourgeois vocational permanent army that is confined in barracks after capturing the regime, if the people themselves are trained and provided with weapons under certain conditions, we can in the true sense make the people the master of their own fate. We of course need a strong people's liberation army while we are• fighting a guerrilla, mobile and systematic war against the Royal Army, the mercenary of tyrannical feudal elements. We believe that when the same people's liberation army, instead of being confined in the barracks; goes to the people and creates an ocean of armed people and dissolves itself in it, it will truly reflect the balance between people's democracy and dictatorship and dissolution of the state. I am fully confident .that it will formulate through the discussion in the Party and it will significantly contribute to leading the international revolution in the 2111 century.

What is the difference between the idea that the main feature of a Party is the army and Regis Debre's 'Foko' principle, especially in the Latin American context?

There is an incomparable difference between Regis Debre's 'Foko' and the Maoist concept that the army is the main feature of the organization. Debre's 'Foko' reflects the unscientific and cowardly thought of considering the role of some trained youths dedicated to revolution as decisive and relegating the general people's role as subsidiary or that of spectators whereas our concept of considering the army as the main feature reflects the concept of integrating the general people with military organizations of various forms and levels or the scientific concept of considering people as the decisive force of revolution. It is clear that these two ideas have fundamental difference in perspective.

Following the 12-point agreement, there is an issue keeping both the people's liberation army and the Royal Nepalese Army under a reliable international supervision and of forming a new national army in new democratic regime. This has triggered general curiosity and debate. What is the Party's actual understanding or proposal on it?

After the 12-point agreement with the seven parliamentary parties, our Party has time and again public1y clarified that we are ready to restructure military organization according to the decision of a free and fair constituent assembly election.

State/Front

Within a short span of time we have come to see the destruction of the old state in most parts of the country and the initiation of a process of construction of a new state. Please throw some light on the concrete experiences of this process of development.

Within a span of six-seven years of the glorious People's War, the old feudal state had been uprooted from the entire rural areas of the country and in its place the seeds of a new people's power had been sown. Today they are active in the form of different national and regional autonomous republican governments, and in a centralized form, they are advancing in the direction of the creation of a federal system with Nepalese specificities. Undoubtedly, the Party's correct ideology, policy, plan and programs have also been the basis of this process of 1ievelopment. In fact, to be more precise, I think it is the ability of the Party to make the policy of a revolutionary united front active and alive by correctly addressing the problems of class, nationality, region and gender that has enabled the development of new people's power, although still in its initial stage, in about 80 per cent areas of the country.

The Party had formed a strategic united front mechanism at the central level in the form of United People's Front right from the preparatory and initial days of People's War. In 2001, it formed the United Revolutionary People's Council in the form of a revolutionary people's front oriented towards people's central government. This practice also looks a bit different from what has been carried out elsewhere. Could you tell us something about its relevance and importance?

Here also it becomes necessary to emphasise on the Party's scientific orientation and practice of concrete analysis of concrete condition' and of implementing 'mass line. It is because of this that the Party was able to mobilize and politicize people against feudalism and imperialism in an open and authorized way in the name of United People's Front for a limited period before the initiation of the People's War. The Party took its initiative in forming the United Revolutionary People's Council in the form of a revolutionary people's front oriented towards people's central government after the rudiments of new people's power started making their appearance in the country's entire rural area. The recently held meeting of the Central Committee of the Party dissolved the Central Committee of the United Revolutionary People's Council and built a new Central Organisational Committee which would play the role of an organisational committee for a massive national political meet. The motive behind this is to increase the political intervention against the old state to give our struggle its final shape. In theoretical terms, this step of ours is in tune with the three weapons of revolution as outlined by Com. Mao. But, in implementing this in Nepal's specificities, it has indeed acquired theoretical enrichment in a new way. This practice of a united front as a mass line to make the enormous number of people participate in revolutionary movement has its own concrete character. And herein lies the relevance and importance of this process.

It is said that one of the reasons for the rapid development of Nepalese People's War is its ability to address questions of class, nationality, region, gender and caste in a cohesive and united way. What is the reality?

It has been made clear above, in many contexts, that the reason behind the rapid advancement of Nepalese People's War is its ability to correctly address the questions of class, nationality, region and gender. Though small in terms of territorial area, Nepal is nevertheless 'huge because of its diversity in terms of nationality and geography. But the 237 year old feudal state based on Hindu high-caste chauvinism (Brahmanism) has hindered the progress, the rights as well as language and culture of groups belonging to other class, nationality, region and gender and has been practicing a policy of discrimination, oppression, exploitation and suppression. It was with this glorious aim of creating a new Nepal, out of this unjust feudal state, in a democratic basis for all the oppressed people that our Party took the historic initiative of launching a People's War. And it is because of this initiative, together with the spirit of sacrifice that the People's War has been able to increase its popularity amongst the common people in such a short span of time.

The policy and program of autonomous rule together with the right to self-determination of nationalities and regions put forward by the Party seems to have generated a lot of excitement among the oppressed nationality, region and Madhesi people. But some of the political forces have been expressing their doubts over the fact that such a policy may lead to the disintegration of the nation. How will you convince the common people regarding this apprehension?

Country will not disintegrate because of right to self-determination or autonomy. Rather it will become a united and powerful Nepal in its true sense by forming a new bond of national unity along democratic lines. In our opinion, the feudal state resting on hill high-caste Hindu chauvinism (Brahmanism) has been unleashing oppression against the majority of people in the country. For the first time, al1 the oppressed nationalities, sub-nationalities, dalits, women and people under regional oppression are feeling united in a true sense because of our policy of right to self-determination and autonomy. The reactionary forces who spread such rumours that the nation will disintegrate because of right to self-determination and autonomy are people of no less feudal mindset than those who feel that 'al1women will start leaving their husbands if they are given the right to divorce'.

The Madhesi question is considered to be a very sensitive and important one in Nepalese struggle. How is the Party looking at this issue?

Our Party has been taking the question of Madhes and Madhesi as one of strategic importance for the Nepalese struggle. It is necessary to ensure the participation of the Madhesi people in al1 aspects of life of the nation because of geographical accessibility, economic progress and linguistic development and also to rapidly take the country forward in the path of progress together with a strong national unity. But the feudal central power based on hill high-caste chauvinism never looked upon the Madhesi people as citizens. The feudal state kept on giving continuance to the process of oppression, exploitation, psychological assault and sectarianism through various conspiracies and deceptions. The feudal state has not been able to cater to the rights and sentiments of Madhes and Madhesi people and this is responsible for Nepal lagging behind in economic development. It is keeping in mind this historic reality, that our Party has been addressing the issue of Madhes as a central one since even before the initiation of People's War. Amongst the various nationality fronts, our Party held the national conference of Madhesi Front first and this was convened on behalf of the Headquarters itself. Recently the Party has passed a concrete resolution to study the Madhesi question from a greater height and to debate, discuss and develop leaders as well to take the revolutionary movement in Madhes to a new height.

An unprecedented participation of women and dalit is seen in the Nepalese People's War. What is the Party's observation on this?

The unprecedented participation of women and dalits, and the sacrifice and courage that they have displayed, has not only given a big blow to the feudal elements in Nepal but it has also threatened world imperialism. Also the superior role played by women and dalits in the People's War is giving a new and powerful inspiration to the anti-imperialist mass opinion al1 over the world. Our Party has highly valued the participation of women and dalits in the People's War and it has also determined a strategic objective to develop them as a powerful force to confront the danger of counterrevolution.

The movements of peasants, students, workers, intellectuals and other mass and class organisations have also played an important role in the rapid development of People's War. But it is heard that in comparison to the development of People's War, these mass and class organizations have not developed. What is the Party's view on this?

In a war situation and in the course of ups and downs of revolutionary movement, some particular mass and class organizations and some particular mass and class movements are seen to be prevailing in a particular circumstance, whereas, in some other circumstance another mass and class movement is seen to prevail. Nevertheless, as a matter of principle, our Party has been emphasizing on developing all the mass and class movements in a balanced way. At a time when revolution is most feasible in the country and when Party is taking steps towards that direction, it is important to take forward the movements of various mass and class groups in a united, centralized and concentrated manner.

Problems regarding cultural degradation within the Party, as a form of pollution of feudalist and imperialist culture, have often been heard. How has the Party and movement been battling against these problems?

The question of cultural transformation becomes far more serious, sensitive and of a long-term nature than that of political transformation. The question of culture tends exert a deep influence as soon as a revolution or counterrevolution takes place. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoists have always emphasized on the fact that cultural revolution has to be carried forward even after a political revolution. Ideological and cultural pollution spread for hundreds of years by the feudalists and imperialists has habituated social degradation. The questions of changing this habit or of emotional transformation of each and every individual and of imparting scientific culture are not simple, straightforward ones. Because of this, our Party has been giving priority to the question of cultural transformation and has been stressing on making the cultural front more dynamic and effective.

Current Issues

The April 2006 mass struggle created a big stir nationally and internationally. Could you please throw some light on its significance?

Building an objective conception on the background and the lessons of the multi-dimensional and popular mass struggle that took place in Nepal in the first decade of the twenty-first century will be of great significance not only to determine the future course of development of Nepalese revolution but also the path of world revolution. Resolute courage, sacrifice and the creative initiative that the Nepalese people exhibited during the three weeks against autocracy not only turned out to be main news in the entire media of the world but also thundered the heart of reactionary rulers and imperialism. Distorting the background of this extraordinary mass struggle and its lessons and thereby confusing the masses, contemptible acts and exercises to fulfill reactionary and opportunist interests have already begun. In this situation, a historic responsibility to expose the reactionary and opportunist moves by bringing out the truth and reality of the mass struggle before the masses and to prepare for a new rebellion has come on the shoulders of genuine revolutionaries.

Definitely, every extraordinary event stands on the foundation of an extraordinary setting. It is not difficult to understand that the extraordinary mass struggle witnessed in Nepal now is in the backdrop of the extraordinary People's War, which has been going on since a decade. The present people's struggle bas forcefully revealed that the People's War of one decade had not only made the poor peasants, nationalities, dalits and women politically conscious in an unprecedented way but has also enabled them to demonstrate resolute courage and take initiative for their self-respect and rights.

How far have we come from the mass movement of 1990? There are fears of a compromise just as it had happened in 1990. What is your opinion?

The special features of the present mass struggle I are incomparable with the historic mass movement of 1990 from both the angles of quantity and quality, I and they are in many sense totally contrary to that of 1990. In 1990, the main arena of mass struggle was I Kathmandu valley and urban middle Class was at the forefront. Bu~ in the present mass struggle, the rural area came forward as the main force and the main arena of people's initiative and, on the class basis, it was evident that the role of poor peasants, nationalities, dalits and women remained principal. If efforts are made to patch up abruptly as it happened in 1990 without trying to resolve the problem by correctly understanding the difference of balance of class forces seen during the mass struggle in 1990 and 2006, it is sure that a bigger uprising will take birth from its embryo in the near future. The present political decision of reinstating the parliament that the international power centres have taken to solve the contradiction between parliamentarian political parties and the feudal king does not address even an iota of the new balance of class forces and the historic initiative that the masses of oppressed class, nationality, region and sex have exhibited in the mass struggle. If someone thinks our country can achieve new vision, promise and tradition from the old leaders of major parliamentarian parties, who have already started playing old game and tradition of acquiring victory in the election with the force of baton by bringing the home ministry into their hand, there will be no bigger suicidal mistake other than this.

The present mass struggle has been lauded from all sides but is this at the cost of sidelining the role of the CPN (Maoist)?

One of the main and fundamental particularities of the mass struggle now has been the unity between the forces of armed struggle and urban mass movement, which is said to be peaceful but has never been so. Every individual, who is free from nonsensical feudal tradition and mindset, is clearly noticing that the mass struggle had started acquiring momentum only after the 12-point understanding was reached with the CPN (Maoist), which has been leading successful People's War since the past ten years. The drama of municipal election designed for legitimatizing autocracy got crushed.

The present extraordinary mass struggle stands on the foundation of the extraordinary events like- the second understanding reached by revising the program of general political strike which had been declared before by the CPN (Maoist), the general strike called on accordingly from April 6, the military attack on the very morning at the district headquarters of Sarlahi and crushing of the army helicopter for first time by the People's Liberation Army etc. It is also equally clear that the mass struggle started from April 6 did not remain peaceful for a single day. Masses of people resisted prohibition order, curfew, baton charge, teargas and bullets of the so-called security force with stones and blood everyday. Masses, in their own way, continued to step up resistance against the violence that the feudal autocracy had imposed on every next day. The countrywide wrath that the masses showed against offices, signboards, monuments and sculptures which symbolised feudal autocracy is a justified resistance against the reactionary violence.

This mass struggle stands on the foundation of the agreement reached with the Party that has been leading the People's War since 10 years. Against this backdrop and given the fact that people's resistance had been on the increase every single day during this
mass struggle, to argue about a peaceful struggle can be nothing other than idealist self-satisfaction of the bourgeoisie.

On the one hand there is widespread celebration that people have become victorious. On the other hand there are arguments that the movement was curtailed in between and that the Maoists want to push further ahead. What is the reality? Also please clarify on the status of -the PLA which is considered as being problematic by some.

The reality is that the foreign reactionary power centres, who were scared of the daily qualitative rise of the mass struggle and the resistance that emerged from it, intensified their design to prevent the mass movement from reaching its final goal. When the rural masses in lakhs started roaring in the cities from Mechi to Mahakali, tens of lakhs of people in the valley started enhancing their effort to encircle the feudal palace. Exactly at this juncture, the foreigners came forward to protect Narayanahiti and the movement was stopped from reaching to its climax by pushing Narayanahiti a step back to the situation of four years ago. Had it been allowed to go ahead for a few days it was almost sure that the situation of the king and his family would not have been different than that of Ceausescu of Romania. In such a situation, split within the royal army was sure and it was fully possible for Nepal to enter into the era of democratic republic.

But, what an irony! The main leaders of seven political parties, lying on the lap of the almost overthrown murderer king and the vulnerable murderer royal army, are talking of disarming the Maoists. Today, even Gyanendra and his puppets have started talking about constituent assembly to deceive the people as Tribhuwan did in 1951. A peculiar scene is being seen in the country whereby the royalists are becoming the spokesperson of constituent assembly, which was put forward constantly by the CPN (Maoist) and representatives of the civil to make people sovereign in the real sense and free them from the exploitation and oppression of feudalism and imperialism. A conspiracy to fully isolate the real spokespersons of the constituent assembly from the process and make royalists the organizer of constituent assembly has already been initiated.

The initiative taken by lakhs of people in the streets was centred not on reinstating the parliament and constituting ministry of the same old leaders but on building a republican Nepal. Great Nepalese people are now keenly observing the activities of the political parties with an expectation that democratic republic will be established through the unconditional constituent assembly. Nepalese people are impatient to see process of organizing the constituent assembly go ahead so as to have talks with the CPN (Maoist), abrogate the existing constitution, dissolve the parliament, build an interim constitution and constitute interim government to resolve the basic problems of the people of oppressed class, nationality, region and sex and to put forward the process of organizing constituent assembly by ensuring their proper representation. If the major political parties ignore people's aspiration as they did in the past, the upcoming people's rebellion will spare no one.

The present mass struggle has shown orientation towards new ideology and strategy of revolution in the twenty-first century. It has provided material to enrich the ideology that the CPN (Maoist) had put forward on the fusion of People's War and mass movement a few years back. If someone has imagined disarming the CPN (Maoist) by keeping the "royal" army in tact that will be a suicidal assumption. The question, on which the CPN (Maoist) had agreed, was that of keeping the people's liberation army and "royal" army under United Nations or a trustworthy international supervision till the result of a free, fair and unconditional constituent assembly election comes out. The people's liberation army wil1 have no problem in getting organized in the new national army in compliance with the mandate that the constituent assembly election provides. It will be a big mistake to see the people's liberation army, which is committed to democracy, peace and progress in accordance with the spirit of 12-point understanding, as a problem.

Miscellaneous

What main challenges and possibilities do you see confronting the ten year of People's War in Nepal? How is the Party preparing to deal with them? How do you visualize this revolutionary movement and the Nepalese society ten yean from now?

Development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in field of ideology to meet the imperialist challenges of 21st century is, in my opinion, the biggest challenge for Nepalese People's War too. And the basis created for this type of development of ideology by the ten successful years of People's War is, in my opinion, the main possibility that lies ahead of People's War. For the development of this ideology, where challenges and possibilities have both come to be centralised, the Party has been determined to take ideological synthesis to a new height by conducting great debate both within and outside the Party.

Though it is not something that can be exactly predicted the way a fortune-teller does, by analyzing the process of development of past ten years of People's War and the Nepalese society, it should be the case that ten years from now; the revolutionary struggle in Nepal will serve greatly the international revolutionary movement by making a historic contribution in the field of ideological development. The Nepalese People's War will be a success with its own specificities and from a political point of view it will soon transform itself into people's republican state system. And so within ten years, Nepalese society would have effectively advanced towards a direction of peace and progress.

On the historic occasion of the completion of ten yean of People's War, would you like to make any special appeal to the common people?

On this historic occasion I would like to express my heart-felt love, high respect and good regards to the great Nepalese people. And I would like to make a special appeal to hoist the revolutionary flag on Mount Everest in the 21st century and to unite in the task of giving out a new message of independence and freedom to the world.

Joint Statement by Maoist Parties of India and Nepal

2006-08-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) have issued a joint statement, reaffirming the political and ideological unity between these two parties, rebuffing certain elements, including the Indian revisionists, who have been keen on promoting conflict between the two groups. The statement reiterates the strong bonds of class unity uniting the two parties and the peoples of the two countries.

The website Nepalnews.com gives details:

Nepali, Indian Maoists jointly condemn US 'intervention' in S Asia, Israeli attacks in Lebanon

Nepali and Indian Maoists have come together to condemn what they call growing intervention of the United States in South Asian nations.

In a rare joint statement on Tuesday, the CPN (Maoist) and CPI (Maoist) said the ‘US imperialists’ had been increasingly intervening in South Asia, particularly in Nepal and India. The two rebel outfits took the opportunity to lash out at America through the joint press statement issued in reaction to media reports about the growing differences between them.

The joint statement signed by CPI (M) spokesperson Azad and CPN (M) central committee member Satya said “…Even in South Asia the US imperialists are more and more openly intervening in the countries of the region. Particularly in Nepal and India they have been directly intervening in the suppression of the Maoist movements.”

It added, “As part of their direct intervention the US officers have themselves been training the RNA [now Nepali Army] and even entering every sphere of society to subvert the ongoing anti-monarchial movement. In India the US diplomats have been openly visiting Chhatisgargh and the military-run jungle warfare camp as part of their plans to suppress the Maoists.”

The US government has already warned of stopping its assistance to Nepal if the Maoists were brought to the government before they laid down arms. The US government’s position has not only irked the rebels but also some partners of the ruling the seven-party alliance.

Meanwhile, the two Maoist parties also denounced the ‘US-backed’ Israeli attacks in Lebanon and called for immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from there.

On the differences between them, the two rebel parties claimed that they were still united on the basis proletarian internationalism, mutual fraternal relations and the principles of MLM [Marxism, Leninism and Maoism].

“The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) jointly re-assert their firm commitment to proletarian internationalism, mutual fraternal relations, on the basis of MLM,” the statement said, adding, “All tactical questions being adopted in the respective countries are the sole concern of the parties operating there. Both parties will seek to learn from the positive experiences of the other party as also the experiences of the Maoists who comprise the ICM.”

Saying that media reports regarding their differences were misleading, the statement further said, “While doing so we shall continue debates on ideological, political and strategic issues on which we differ in the true democratic traditions of the international communist movement. These debates and discussions will take place bilaterally and also, occasionally, publicly.”

The joint statement comes amidst media reports that the Indian Maoists, who provided crucial support to the Nepali Maoists during their People’s War, are unhappy about the softening stance of their Nepali comrades.

While their Nepali counterparts, who are considered far more successful, have joined the peace process, the Indian Maoists have not been forthcoming in the central government’s offer for talks.

The Indian Maoist outfits are mainly active in rural parts of states like Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pardesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Lebanon: People's War, Just War

2006-08-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

The military struggle centered in Lebanon is a national struggle and in the final analysis a manifestation of class struggle. It must be understood that the Lebanese masses are waging a just war, a people's war against Zionist aggression. The Israeli regime, like all reactionaries, underestimates its enemies.

Mao Zedong said:

History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust.

"On Protracted War" (May 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 150

All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality, they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are powerful.

"Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong" (August 1946), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 100.

Epochal Ten Years of Application and Development of Revolutionary Ideas - Baburam Bhattarai

2006-08-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

Below is an important article by leading Nepalese Comrade Baburam Bhattarai concerning important ideological lessons stemming from the past decade of revolutionary struggle in Nepal. The article was published in The Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

Epochal Ten Years of Application and Development of Revolutionary Ideas
Baburam Bhattarai
"Often, correct ideas can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge, and then back to practice. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge, the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge. "

- Mao Tse-tung, Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? (May 1963)

The People's War (PW) led by the CPN (Maoist) in Nepal has completed its historical ten years. Internationally, in the 30 years after the demise of Mao and, internally, in the 237 years after the formation of a centralized feudal state under the leadership of Prithvi Narayan Shah, these ten years have been the most significant years. Hence the task of analysis and synthesis of its varied dimensions from different angles is underway, and it will continue in the days to come. Among these, the aspect of creative application of the science of proletarian revolution of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) in the concrete conditions of the present day world and Nepal and the synthesis of the developed set of ideas during the process as 'Prachanda Path', is the most significant achievement in these years. To constantly uphold the Maoist dictum of 'Whether the ideological and political line is correct or not, decides everything' as a guiding principle, is the characteristic feature of this epochal PW. As a result of this, in these ten years the PW has not only developed in a fast pace and enforced multi-faceted revolutionary transformation of the Nepalese society caught in stagnation and decay since ages, but it has also taken up the cudgel against world imperialism spearheading the so-called 'endless war' against 'terrorism' and has successfully developed into a centre of hope for the freedom-loving people of the world. Particularly, in the context of the serious counter-revolutionary setbacks faced by the revolutions of the 20th century one after another and in the light of the vicious ideological offensive against the fighting masses of the world launched by the imperialist opinion makers in the name of such regressive formulations as 'end of history', 'end of ideology', 'clash of civilization', 'post-modernism' etc., the CPN (Maoist) under the leadership of Chairman Prachanda has resolved that only through the defense, application and development of MLM can a new revolutionary wave be created in the 21st century. Hence foremost priority has been accorded to the ideological work. It is, therefore, utmost imperative that while making a review of the historic ten years of the PW special stress be given to the analysis of its ideological aspect.

Ideological Development

Highlighting the historico-materialist concept of ideological development and its class character, in the famous 'Manifesto of the Communist Party', Marx and Engels had said:

"Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that men's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?

"What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."

Thus, it is evident that the consciousness or idea born as a result of interactive reflections of the material and social world in human brain keeps on transforming or developing in accordance with the pace of transformation of the material and social world in constant motion. Moreover, in a class divided society, idea or outlook is formed according to the position of the individual in social relation of production, and it keeps on transforming or developing in steps with the changes in relation of production or social life. Thus, pointing out that correct ideas do not fall from the sky but develop during the course of physical and social struggle, Mao had said: "Where do correct ideas come from? ... They come from social practice, and from it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment." [Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?, 1963]

Mao also elucidated that ideas do not develop as a direct reflection of matter in a mechanical and simplistic manner, but as an initial leap from matter to consciousness and again another leap from consciousness to the development of new material world, which would keep on repeating endlessly leading to continuous development of ideas. From this, it follows that during the process of class war or people's war, which is the highest form of class struggle, the application and development of revolutionary ideas, too, would take place in corresponding height and speed. This truth should be correctly grasped by the proletarian revolutionaries.

In this context, one has to be cautious about two types of deviations from two opposite poles on the question of development of revolutionary ideology, and focus on the principled and creative development of MLM. Firstly, it is the rightist revisionist deviation, which discards the fundamental principles of the science of revolution in the pretext of development of ideology and of getting creative. The proclaimed revisionists ranging from Bernstein to Deng in the International Communist Movement and from Rayamajhi to the UML in Nepal, abandon the basic tenets of MLM, like class concept of the state, inevitability of use of force in revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, continuous revolution, etc., and commit the crime of converting MLM into a bourgeois trade-mark just to hoodwink the working class. This is not development of science and ideology but its abandonment, and is thus a naked form of liquidationism. Another tendency related to this but masquerading in a 'left' cloak is the tendency of militant pragmatism, which focuses on the parts rather than on the whole and highly exaggerates them. This ultimately serves revisionism. Secondly, there is the tendency of dogmato-revisionism, which reduces the science of revolution into a lifeless dogma and a religious sect in the pretext of defending the ideology and remaining principled. This rightist conservative tendency appearing in a 'left; guise and represented by Enver Hoxhas internationally and by Mohan Bikram Singhs in Nepal, does not acknowledge the need to develop the ideology and science in keeping with the motion of time and place and keeps on chanting as formulae certain ideas developed in a different context, which ultimately leads the ideology and the revolution to liquidation. Contrary to both of these erroneous and harmful tendencies, creative MLM firmly upholds its basic principles and attempts to apply and develop the ideas in keeping with the times by making concrete analysis of concrete conditions.

The CPN (Maoist) has been waging relentless struggle against all kinds of revisionism and dogmatism and hammering on creative application and development of MLM through the process of the great PW for the past ten years, and the set of ideas developed in the process has been synthesized as MLM and Prachanda Path. Moreover, the Party has been seriously practicing the dialectical process of solving new problems of revolution through the development of ideas and further developing and enriching the ideas from the new experiences of revolution.

Historical Process of Development

In order to understand the process of development of ideas during the past ten years of the PW, it is necessary to pay attention to the phase of preparation prior to the initiation of the PW, too. As MLM is basically a science of history and it has an international character, it is only after correctly identifying and defining its historically proved universal laws first that its further application and development is possible. Accordingly, it may be useful to have broad review of the important decisions of the Party from the Unity Congress held in December 1991 to the Central Committee Plenum ill September-October 2005. It is axiomatic that Com. Prachanda has played the leading role in this process of ideological synthesis as he has remained first the General Secretary and then the Chairman of the Party throughout this period.

The period from 1991 to 1996 was basically the period of ideological and material preparation for the PW. During this period a vigorous struggle was waged particularly against revisionism, nationally and internationally, to defend the revolutionary spirit of MLM and to prepare ground for its application in the specificities of Nepal and present day world. In this context; the Unity Congress held in 1991 fundamentally prepared the main ideological base of the revolution by upholding Maoism as the developed, higher and third stage of Marxism-Leninism. It also formulated the general line of the revolution by upholding the politico-military line of protracted PW. These decisions were of historical significance in the fight against Right revisionism, which was the main danger then. Also, struggle was waged against sectarian and mechanical dogmatist thinking, which was though a lesser evil, and in the specificities of Nepal a policy was pursued to develop countrywide mass movement as a subsidiary means of preparation for the PW through the United People's Front (UPF) and to make a limited use of parliamentary and local elections. These ideological and political decisions and practice were quite challenging and of far-reaching significance in the context of application and development of creative and revolutionary MLM, while fighting against both Right revisionist and dogmatic thinking. After three years of this practice and vigorous struggle against rightist liquidationism within the Party, the revolutionary political line of the Party was established among the general masses throughout the country.

In this process, the resolutions of the Third Extended Meeting (EM) of the Central Committee (CC) of the Party organized in February 1995 on initiating the PW were another important milestone in the development of the revolutionary ideas. Two decisions of the Third EM were particularly significant in the development of the ideas. Firstly, it was about grasping the law of development of society not in a reformist way as gradualism but in a revolutionary dialectical way as leap of quantity into quality through shock, rupture and catastrophe. This was also the question of initiating the PW in a planned manner. There was quite a serious debate among the10p leadership of the Party on this issue. Secondly, it was about the question of application of the line of protracted PW in the concrete historical, geographical, social, political and economic condition of Nepal and about working out the series of strategy and tactics accordingly. The most important aspect of this issue was that the PW in Nepal would not be rooted in one area for quite long, like Chinkangsan in China, and then expand to other areas but it would be initiated from more than one area and it would require the defense of a continuous political intervention at the central level. This has been emphatically proved by the experiences of the past ten years.

In addition to this, the seven-point ideological commitments of the Party made in the First Plan of the initiation and the well-known 40-points demand presented by the UPF on the eve of the initiation of the PW constitute a correct fusion of the strategy and tactics of revolution. "Our Commitments for the Historic Initiation of the PW" [see, Some Important Documents a/the CPN (Maoist), 2004] worked out in October 1995 lays down the broad ideological framework for the march from New Democratic Revolution (NOR) via Socialism and Continuous Revolution to Communism in seven points, and the 40-points demand presented on February 6, 1996, provides the minimum programme of the NOR in a legal and popular language. The policy of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility manifested in them has now become a very important dimension of the developed set of ideas of 'Prachanda Path', and without correctly grasping this the essence of ‘Prachanda Path’ cannot be fathomed.

On completion of this process of preparation, the revolutionary PW was formally initiated on February 13, 1996 (Fagun 1, 2052 B.S.) as a great rebellion of the exploited and the oppressed masses in the form of countrywide military and non-military actions. It was an epochal event to transform revolutionary ideas into a material force and contribute towards further development of ideas. This is amply reflected in the 'Appeal' to the masses issued by the Party Central headquarters on the occasion. (see, ibid) . The process of initiation of the PW and the ideology and politics behind it were substantially different and in some form of rupture from the traditional thinking and process. The periodic plans for continuation and development of the PW formulated since then ensured the continuous process of making leaps from ideas to actions and again from actions to ideas.

The Fourth EM of the Party held after two and a half years of the historic initiation of the PW in September 1998 synthesized the important experiences of class struggle and ideological struggle and passed important resolutions, principally on the development of base areas in the specificities of Nepal and centralization of leadership in the revolutionary movement and the Party. Making an objective assessment of the problems faced by the PW particularly after the demise of Mao, in different countries of the world due to the ideological obfuscation on the question of guerilla zones and base areas, the EM stressed that the question of base areas or the creation of new local people's power is the key question in any PW. Subsequently, it resolved to develop base areas within one's own specificities and for this to create wide mass base on the basis of ideological leadership of the Party, armed strength of the People's Army and revolutionary mass line. This was a significant step in the development of revolutionary ideas. Similarly, the question of development of unified and centralized leadership in the Party, People's Army and the United Front was related to the question of fusion of democracy and centralism, organizationally, and of necessity and freedom, philosophically, which has been under consistent debate in the International Communist Movement, too. This was also related to the further development of the theory of continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat during the Great Proletarian Cultured Revolution (GPCR) under Mao's leadership. The debate conducted within the Party during this period had contributed significantly in the overall development of revolutionary ideas.

Then ensued a vigorous ideological struggle against a petty-bourgeois Right opportunist tendency masquerading in 'left' garb, which was indigenously branded as 'Alok tendency'. Also, the class struggle developed in leaps and bound.

It this background, the historic Second National Conference of the Party was convened exactly after five years of the initiation of the PW in February 2001, which made certain decisions of epochal nature and resolved to synthesize the developed set of ideas as 'Prachanda Path'. Firstly, after making a serious review of the International Communist Movement, it was resolved to rectify particularly the monolithic and metaphysical shortcomings of the Third International and Com. Stalin and to advance from the postulates of the GPCR under Com. Mao. Secondly, a thorough and critical review of the Nepalese society and the history of the Nepalese communist movement was made and the Party, i.e. the CPN (Maoist), was acknowledged as the highest synthesis of all revolutionary currents since 1949. Accordingly it was resolved to develop a new type of revolutionary Party and a People's Army and revolutionary United Front under its leadership. Thirdly, in keeping with the ever changing world situation and the specificities of Nepal it was decided to fuse certain aspects of the strategy of armed insurrection to the military strategy of protracted PW from the very beginning. Also the concept of development of a South Asian Federation was formulated. Fourthly, taking into consideration the existing national and international balance of political forces, an immediate tactical slogan of a broad political conference, interim government and Constituent Assembly was advanced, which later became the principal, political agenda of the whole country. Thus the resolutions of the Second National Conference represented a great leap in the ideological, political, organizational and military fields and proved to be an historical milestone in the development of revolutionary ideas.

Immediately after the conclusion of the Second National Conference the crisis within the reactionary state was further hastened, which culminated in the infamous palace massacre of June 1, 200l. This was followed by the first truce and negotiation with the old state. In the meantime, a formal announcement of the formation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and United Revolutionary People's Council, an embryonic form of Central People's Government Organizing Committee, was made. The breakdown of the negotiations in November 2001 was followed in quick succession by declaration of a state of emergency by the old state, deployment of the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) against the PW, qualitatively higher military actions by the PLA throughout the country, further intensification of the crisis of old state manifested in the dissolution of the parliament in May 2002 and a direct royal takeover in October 2002, the second truce and negotiations with the old state and massive countrywide mass mobilization by the Party. In this light, another historic Plenum of the CC of the Party was held in Rolpa in May-June 2003. This Plenum adopted a document of monumental significance on 'The Development of Democracy in the 21 It Century'. After making a critical review of the experiences of revolution and counter-revolution in the 20th century, the document advocated the need to ensure the supervision, intervention and control of the masses over the Party, army and the state in order to march along the path of continuous revolution after making the revolution, and for this advanced the concept of practicing a multi-party competitive system within the stipulated constitutional framework. This was a new milestone in the development of revolutionary ideas.

Another Plenum of the CC held in August 2004 declared the PW to have entered into the third and last stage of the strategic offensive. However, the inability of the Party to manage in a proper manner the inner struggle brewing within the Party for some time led to very unhealthy developments particularly after the Politbureau meeting held in January 2005. Nevertheless practicing the correct method of revolutionary dialectics of converting the negative into positive, the plenum of the CC convened in September-October 2005 resolved to make 'revolution within revolution' and achieved new unity on a new basis by raising the whole proletarian ideology to a new height Further the plenum made certain bold decisions of longterm significance. This was in essence another historical milestone in the development of revolutionary ideas.

Firstly, the resolution made an objective assessment of the present day globalized imperialism and advanced the conception that only by taking a worldwide initiative of revolution in the new context that the revolution in a particular country can be accomplished and defended. Secondly, it was resolved that the proletarian character of the Party, army and state needed to be preserved by constantly launching a revolution within the revolution in the spirit of the GPCR not only after accomplishing revolution but even earlier than that. In this context it was further affirmed that, among other things, the undeclared tradition of a lifelong tenure of the authoritative leadership in the Party and the state should be done away with and the chain of a new leadership should be groomed well in time. Thirdly, keeping in mind the prevailing political balance of power in the country and the international situation it was decided to take special initiative to implement the immediate tactics of multi-party democratic republic, which prepared the ground for concluding the 12-point understanding with other parliamentary political parties to spearhead the anti-monarchy mass movement. Fourthly, an assessment of the causes of setbacks met by almost all the revolutionary PWs since Mao's death particularly after their reaching the stage of strategic offensive was made and it was resolved not only to fuse the military strategies of protracted PW and general insurrection but also to attempt to develop a new military strategy in keeping with the new situation. It has also been agreed to launch a great debate within and outside the Party over all these new proposals before a final decision is made in the forthcoming Congress of the Party.

A series of face to face interviews granted by Chairman Prachanda to selected national and international media on the historic occasion of completion of ten years by the PW in February 2006 (See, for example, the interviews to Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post from Nepal, The Hindu from India and the BBC World Service television network from London) and his expositions particularly on the question of development of democracy and the immediate tactics of democratic republic, have contributed significantly to establish the newly developed set of ideas at the international level and among the general masses. Thus, it is evident that the development of revolutionary ideas is proceeding amidst the vigorous class struggle and inner- Party struggle generally since the time of preparation of PW and particularly during the past ten years of the ongoing PW. Also, it needs to be correctly grasped that in the initial and weaker stage of the movement the thrust was on the defense of the fundamental principles of MLM and with the gradual development and unfolding of new problems in the movement, the focus shifted more on the development of the ideas. As Chairman Prachanda played the main leadership role during this entire process, it was obvious that the developed set of ideas was concretized and synthesized as 'Prachanda Path'

Important Dimensions of the Developed Set of Ideas

Some of the important dimensions of the developed set of ideas, namely MLM and Prachanda Path, which is advancing in the furnace of class struggle and ideological struggle, may be enumerated as follows:

a. The Sphere of Philosophy

The most scientific and advanced philosophy to date for cognition and transformation of the material and social world is dialectical and historical materialism, which is the philosophy of struggle of the proletariat. However, philosophy itself has a class character and along with the change in the material and social world new dimensions are added in the understanding of the laws of philosophy. In this context, the main aspect of development of ideas in the field of philosophy during the practice of the past ten years is to uphold and develop the 'critical' and 'revolutionary' spirit of dialectics as stressed by Lenin after launching vigorous struggle against the metaphysical, idealist, empiricist, agnostic, mechanical materialist and other distortions in grasping and practicing materialist dialectics.

Firstly, the development of nature, society and human consciousness takes place not in a gradual evolutionary or reformist way as claimed by vulgar evolutionists but in a leap from quantity into quality and in a break in continuity. This is the basic principle of revolutionary dialectics on the law of development. The correct application of this law in class struggle and further enhancing its understanding is a very significant achievement. This has been clearly enunciated in the resolution proposed by the then General Secretary Com. Prachanda and adopted by the Third EM, thus:

"Marxism is a philosophy of struggle. The law of development according to Marxist dialectics is that each process of development in nature, society and human thought takes place through struggle of opposites and its obvious result will take the form of a leap. Any thought that sees any kind of development process as an ordinary addition subtraction schema and as a gradual evolution would be exposed as bourgeois evolution by the Marxist. It is clear th~ transformation from one process to another process does not take place gradually, but through leap, through qualitative change, through revolution". [op.cit. p.22]

Accordingly, it is particularly noteworthy that plans for various political and military struggles have been made in terms of big push and the inner struggles occurring occasionally within the Party are solved in terms of rupture and transformation. In this sense, just for convenience, 'Prachanda Path' may be termed as philosophy or ideology of leap.

Secondly, fundamental premise of materialist dialectics is to regard unity of opposites as the basic law of being of matter or consciousness and to accept that everything divides into two and there is a continuous process of unity-struggle-transformation between the opposites. However, in the matter of grasping this law, on the one hand, there is the monolithic view which rejects the existence of the opposites and, on the other, there is the pluralistic view which denies that the opposites are not independent of each other but interdependent and they transform into each other in particular conditions. Because of this many deviations and problems have occurred in the international and the Nepalese communist movement. Fighting against both of these metaphysical and erroneous thinkings, the past ten years have seen finest practice of materialist dialectics in the form of vigorous struggles at times and unity with transformation at other times in regards to the opposite forces and tendencies both within and without the Party. This is not merely a question related to simple practical matters but a very significant question of ideo1ogy and philosophy. It is important to grasp that the key to overall development of MLM lies in this very question.

Thirdly, among the contradictions or opposites, it is always one aspect that is principal and the others are secondary, and correct identification is made through concrete analysis of concrete conditions. However, the metaphysical thinking does not make the analysis of this difference and it does not see the other one while seeing one, or sees both as equal. This causes a great damage to the revolution either from getting one-sided, mechanical and sectarian or being liberal and eclectic. Contrary to this, 'Prachanda Path' has always stressed on differentiating the contradictory aspects into principal and secondary, and goaded to 'stress' on the principal aspect and to 'pay attention' to the secondary aspect, or to make a dialectical (and not mechanical) interpenetration or fusion of the two. Clarity on this ideological question is imperative to advance the revolution by maintaining correct balance between the contradictory aspects of theory and practice, military and non-military struggle, centralism and democracy, war and negotiation, class question and national-regional-gender question, tasks in urban and rural areas, open and underground work, strategy and tactics, leadership and cadres, Party and army or united front, the question of nationalism and democracy, etc. In this sense, one should not mind if somebody simplifies and calls 'Prachanda Path' as the theory of fusion. Of course, if the two aspects are seen as equal or the interrelation between them is taken as stable or permanent, it would be eclecticism, and some people may even charge 'Prachanda Path' with this. However, dialectical fusion is within the fundamental law of unity of opposites and is quite revolutionary, and hence has no relation with eclecticism.

Fourthly, among the contradictory aspects like matter and consciousness, productive forces and production relations, reality and possibility, necessity and freedom, etc., the former is principal and latter is secondary. However, they are never independent of each other and in particular conditions the latter aspect assumes primacy over the former. The mechanical materialist or idealist tendency that fails to grasp this dialectical interrelationship or that one aspect transforms into the other has created great havoc in the revolutionary movement. Assessing the experiences of the past revolutions and counter-revolutions in the International Communist Movement and particularly those of the GPCR, which remained incomplete, the CPN (Maoist) has made considerable stride in the ideological development on this issue during the course of class struggle and inner-Party struggle in the last ten years. It is important to note that the basic political concepts of 'Prachanda Path', like revolution within revolution, continuous revolution after making the revolution, development of democracy in the 21st century, ensuring a chain of revolutionary successors while the authoritative leadership is still alive, etc., have emanated from this thinking.

b. The sphere of political economy

As, political economy basically deals with the laws of development of society and ascertains class relations at the national and international level, it plays a crucial role in the development of the revolutionary movement. Hence 'Prachanda Path' has made significant ideological development in this sphere during the past ten years of rapid stride of the PW.

Firstly, the PW was initiated within the analytical framework that the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations and people is the principal contradiction at the global level and that the ever aggravating imperialist crisis as foreseen by Mao in his famed dictum 'The coming 50 to 100 years will be the years of great upheavals' is preparing a favorable objective basis for world proletarian revolution. By the end of the ten years since then the Party has made significant advancement in the theoretical understanding of new characteristics of globalized imperialism and its impact in the strategy of proletarian revolution. On this, the resolution adopted by the CC plenum held in September-October 2005, says: "The attention of the proletarian revolutionaries of the 21st century must be focused seriously on the fact that the analysis that Lenin and Mao had made on imperialism and a number of concepts they had developed on its basis regarding proletarian strategy have lagged behind. Following the Second World War, the inter-imperialist rivalry and Lenin's analysis on the nature of war that continues among them to divide and redivide a certain part of the world and the proletarian strategy built up on its basis, and following the Cold War, the situation of the analysis of Three Worlds made by Mao, even though in a tactical sense, do not basically exist. The condition of the US imperialism, which is advancing as a globalized form of state, has caused Lenin's and Mao's analyses on this to lag behind in the same manner as the development of imperialism in Lenin's time had made Marx's the then analysis and strategy, based on his analysis of capitalism, that revolution will take place firstly & simultaneously in the developed capitalist countries of Europe, to lag behind. This is the principal issue for developing MLM and determining new proletarian strategy in the 21st century." Pointing towards the new proletarian strategy the Resolution further says: "The necessity of developing the concept of South Asian Soviet Federation in the 21st century as put forward by the Second National Conference of our Party to the concept of World Federation and waging the national liberation, democratic and socialist movement in each countrys accordingly, is the burning necessity of today." There is no doubt that this new analysis of imperialism and proletarian revolution has contributed further in the development of MLM.

Secondly, the historico-materialist interpretation of the Nepalese society, the analysis of bureaucratic capitalism born out of the illicit relations between feudalism and imperialism, the analysis of Kathmandu-centric, unequal and dependent development and that of the oppression of different nationalities and regions, class differentiation of peasants and the analysis of urban-rural , divide, the analysis of unequal relation with India and large scale labor migration, etc., have made significant contribution in working out correct strategy and tactics of revolution. These experiences would be quite valuable in the development of revolutionary ideas.

Thirdly, some of the new economic policies applied and developed during the course of the past ten years of PW are : to make the slogan of 'Grasp revolution and promote production' as the principal slogan of economic development keeping in mind the utterly fragmented means of production due to the predominantly mountainous geography and backward forces of production; to lay the foundation of labor-intensive, self-reliant, balanced and planned development with a view to firstly prepare a New Democratic economic base and then to move towards socialist transformation; to attempt a progressive transformation of the basically rural and agriculture-based economy through cooperatives, collectives and socialization, etc. Though still in the primitive stages, the implementation and development of these policies can be expected to contribute significantly in building the economic base of a society freed from feudalism and imperialism.

c. The sphere of scientific socialism or politics

As the development of the ideas of the proletarian class takes place basically during the course of the class struggle, it is obvious that during the past ten years of class war utmost ideological development has taken place in the realm of politics related with class struggle or scientific socialism. It is well known that now the PW has crossed the stages of strategic defense and equilibrium and reached the third and final stage of strategic offensive, most of the country except the limited urban areas is liberated by the revolutionary forces, and various forms of people's power are under operation in the liberated areas. In this situation it is imperative that important ideological development be made on such cardinal issues as development of new type of Party, army and state and the nature of proletarian power.

Firstly, the key question of revolution is the question of state power. Moreover, the central task of revolution is to forcibly destroy the old state with the means of new type of Party organized as the real vanguard of the proletariat and an army and a broad; revolutionary united front under its leadership and ' to create a new state as the joint dictatorship of all the progressive classes under the leadership pf the proletariat. This issue has not only been corroborated I by the experiences of the past ten years but also some new insights have been gained on it. At a juncture when the proletarian revolutions of the 20th centuries have consecutively faced counter-revolutionary setbacks and when modem revisionist trends like Euro-communism, bahudaliya janabad (multi-party democracy) etc. have spread the ideological poison of peaceful transition everywhere, it is a matter of great ideological significance to prove in practice the fundamental postulates of MLM like 'Everything else is an illusion except political power' and 'Power flows out of the barrel of a gun'. This has been amply proved by the fact that the initiation of building a people's army was made with the simple fighting squads and defense squads firmly rooted in the dictum of 'The people without an army have nothing of their own', and now a division-level People's Liberation Army (PLA) which puts proletarian politics in command and is equipped with the ultra-modem weaponry has been raised. As a result of the ten years of PW fought on the basis of this, PLA, and with the broad participation of the masses, various strata of people's power are in operation in large parts of the country after the destruction of the old state apparatus there and the revolutionary movement is now moving in a fast pace towards the capture of power at the centre. It should be acknowledged by all that this accomplishment of the ten years of PW is the most significant and decisive issue in the defense, application and development of MLM.

Secondly, creative development in the realm of military line of the proletarian revolution is another important ideological development during this period. There has been discernible sectarian and mechanistic deviation from both the right and left perspectives in the understanding and application of the dialectical interrelationship between war and politics inherent in the scientific formulation of 'War is politics by other (i.e. violent) means' developed from Clausewitz through Marx and Lenin to Mao. Rectifying this, the PW was initiated and after the initiation various types of negotiations and political initiatives were constantly and successfully undertaken in the service of the war. This amply substantiates the point (i.e. dialectical interrelation between war and politics). The significance of the resolution of the Third EM, which stated that in the present context of unprecedented development and expansion of communication technology imperialism can be defeated only by advancing the revolutionary war as 'total war', is particularly noteworthy here. Another very significant aspect in the development of the revolutionary military line is the question of fusion of the strategy of protracted PW and that of the armed insurrection in the present context of the international and national situation and of developing a new military line. The Second National Conference had advanced the proposition that in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries like Nepal some aspects of the strategy of armed insurrection ought to be fused with the general strategy of the protracted PW. The CC plenum of September-October 1961 has gone still further and resolved that the very strategy of protracted PW needs to be further developed to cater to the necessities of the 21st century. In particular, several decades on it is seen• that the protracted PW s launched in different countries have faced obstacles or got liquidated after reaching the state of strategic offensive and imperialism has attempted to refine its interventionist counter-insurgency war strategy as a long war'. In this context, if the revolutionaries do mechanistically cling to the 'protracted' aspect of the PW at any cost, it would in essence play into the lands of imperialism and reaction. Hence the latest proposition of 'Prachanda Path' that the proletarian military strategy also needs to be further development is quite serious and of long-term significance. It may be noted that this proposition is firmly based on the concrete experiences of the successfully advancing PW now at the stage of strategic offensive and is aimed at further advancing and defending it. It has no relation with any open or veiled opportunism that does not initiate any type of PW or prepare for it, or in essence, rejects it.

Thirdly, there is the question-of developing a board revolutionary united front under the leadership of the proletariat to make revolution in a society divided into multiple classes and with the preponderance of extra-class exploitation and oppression, like national, regional, gender, caste etc, Similarly, the issue of working out different stages and sub-stages of revolution to reach the final goal of socialism and communism is also quite challenging. The experiences gained and ideas developed in these fields are substantial and significant. In this context, positive experiences of mobilizing in the revolutionary movement different anti-feudal and anti-imperialist/expansionist classes along with people under national and regional oppression, women under patriarchal oppression and dalits (so-called untouchables) under Hindu caste oppression in a broad united front under the leadership of the proletariat in the specific semi-colonial and semi-feudal condition of Nepal, could be useful and worthy of emulation for all. The experiences of organizing revolutionary united front in the form of United People Front (UPF) both at the central and local levels from the time of preparation for the PW and then in the form of United Revolutionary People's Council (URPC) as the means of struggle and people's power after the birth of local base areas and autonomous regions, have also been typical. On the other hand, the political thinking of the CPN (Maoist) to forge tactical alliance with antimonarchical parliamentary forces to materialize the immediate tactics of democratic republic is also a novel idea. For, in the specific condition of Nepal, where the feudal monarchy equipped with military power is the main obstacle for revolution, this tactics is important to complete the bourgeois democratic revolution and advance towards socialism and communism. In sum, it is evident that the policy of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility practiced with success during the past ten years is an important component in the development of MLM and Prachanda Path.

Fourthly, the proletarian state powers in the past were destroyed primarily due to the internal crisis without any external attack or intervention. Hence the question of exercise of democracy in the Party and the state happens to be a key question, subjectively. Thus the proposition to develop democracy according to the specificities and needs of the 211t century is perhaps the most important theoretical proposition of 'Prachanda Path' so far. In this context, the resolution on "Historical Experiences And Development of Democracy in the 2111 Century" proposed by Chairman Prachanda and adopted unanimously by the CC of the Party in May-June 2003 is of historical significance. The proposal to develop necessary mechanism for ensuring general masses, supervision intervention and control over the Party, army and state, both before and after the revolution, so as to prevent their bureaucratic distortions and to ensure constant proletarianisation and for this to go for multi-party competition within specific constitutional framework, is definitely a novel idea and is in rupture with the traditional thinking and modality. Moreover, the proposal to deploy one section of the Party for mass work and the other section for running the state, instead of involvement of the whole Party in state affairs, and to handover responsibilities to the revolutionary successors in time, rather than the main authoritative leadership running the Party and the state throughout his life, are of far reaching significance. These propositions could play an important role in correcting the inherent weaknesses and limitations of the proletarian Parties and states of the 20th century and in creating a new upsurge of world proletarian revolution. In that sense, these propositions could be a milestone in the overall development of MLM. However, one has to be cautious that development of democracy here does not mean promotion of formal and hypocritical bourgeois democracy; On the contrary, it is the question transforming formal democracy into real democracy.

Problems and Prospects

On the occasion of completion often glorious yea of moving heaven and earth by the Nepalese PW, its achievements on different fields, particularly those in the realm on of development of the science of MLM, are definitely worth celebrating. Every revolutionary should contribute wholeheartedly to further enrich these set of ideas synthesized as 'Prachanda Path by 'churning in the furnace of class struggle and inner-struggle. This advanced idea nurtured by the blood, sweat and tears of tens of thousand of martyrs and innumerable leaders, cadres and masses of the people, is a common property of all revolutionaries. Hence everybody should strive to defend this from the onslaughts and distortions of revisionism and dogmatism and convert it into a weapon of liberation of the world proletariat in the 21st century. Somebody has aptly said, “Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it.” We, too, should attempt to enrich this advanced idea not by worshipping it but by feeding it with the experiences of class struggle and inner-struggle. Let us all take a vow on this on the occasion of completion of ten years of initiation of great upheaval in the Nepalese history and proletarian liberation movement. The success of proletarian movement in the 21st century will depend on whether we can further enrich and develop the ideology of MLM.

International Dimension of Prachanda Path

2006-08-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

The following article is taken from issue number 10 of The Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [CPN(M)]. It highlights some key points of the Party’s theory of Prachanda Path, the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to Nepal’s conditions; in particular, it argues that Prachanda Path has implications for the international communist movement. This is particularly interesting in light of the recent criticism of the CPN(M) political actions by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) seen here. This article, and the Indian criticisms, should be studied in order to better focus debate over how to implement the masses' right to rule.

International Dimension of Prachanda Path

Basanta
Introduction

Nepal, a small landlocked country, which has been suffering from semi-feudal and semi-colonial exploitation and oppression mainly after the penetration of British imperialism in 1816 through Sugauli Treaty, has now become well-known to the people, both the oppressor and oppressed classes, of the world. The incredible transformation in the politico-economic domain undergone in the vast countryside of Nepal during the past ten years and the process of coming close to seizing central power by the oppressed masses in Nepal has become a source of encouragement and inspiration for the oppressed people the world over. On the other hand, it has become an ideological and political threat for imperialism, mainly the US imperialism presently led by George W. Bush. The People's War has made Nepal reach this glorious height right in the beginning of twenty-first century with nothing other than the strength of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and its creative application in the particularity of Nepalese politico-economic contour. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the vanguard of Nepalese proletariat, has been leading this revolutionary process under the adept leadership of Chairman Comrade Prachanda.

This short period often years in the Nepalese history has indeed been the most important and tumultuous period of class struggle to change the political, social and cultural landscape of Nepal. Naturally, a question has come up as to why the Nepalese People's War, unlike others, acquired such a big victory in a short span of time? What we believe is that the reason behind this amazing success of People's War is the correct application of dialectical and historical materialism, the philosophy of MLM, in practice in the concrete condition of Nepalese society. Regarding this, Comrade Prachanda, in an interview to Janadesh on February 13, 2006, says, "Our Party has been very seriously grasping the importance of applying materialist dialectics to carry out concrete analysis of concrete condition, the living soul of Marxist science, which seeks truth, and of following mass line to transform truth into people's strength". Based on this understanding, when our Party creatively applied MLM with tactical flexibility and strategic firmness, and maintained correct sequence between political and military intervention against the state power, it resulted in great leaps in the development of Nepalese People's War.

This creative application of Marxism in Nepalese, particularity not only advanced People's War in leaps, but also developed new experiences, which in fact justified once again what Lenin had said- "Marxism is not a lifeless dogma, not a completed, ready-made, immutable doctrine, but a living guide to action". (Lenin, 4th English Edition, page 43). The second national conference, convened after five years of initiation of People's War, synthesized those new experiences as Prachanda Path (PP), which of course is the most important ideological achievement the Nepalese proletariat has gained during the past turbulent ten years. It has also once again proved in Nepal the correctness of theory of two leaps propounded by Mao. On ideological synthesis, Chairman Comrade Prachanda, in the document, A Great Forward Leap: Inevitable Necessity of History, page 79, said, "This synthesis of experiences, according to the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism, has been acquired from the process of practice, knowledge, again practice and again knowledge. MLM has taught us that this cycle goes on moving up to infinity."

Our Party does not claim that Prachanda Path has already become universal. Nor do we think it is the time to debate whether or not it has attained universality. Nonetheless, we believe that the new concepts and ideas that it has put forward encompasses ideological and political strength to help develop revolutionary struggles all across the world. MLM is a universal science of revolution, so the developments taken place in any part of the world in this domain, is sure to have universal applicability. In this sense, PP can be no exception. This short article does not aim at elaborating the entire ideological and political questions that our Party has claimed to have developed in the form of PP. Here, mainly the ideological and political questions that can have immediate implication in the ICM will be discussed in short.

Analysis of Imperialism

One of the most important aspects that our Party has been paying keen attention to is the analysis of imperialism in a scientific and rational way. Like all living objects, capitalism also does not remain stationary but undergoes changes in its course of functioning. The way capitalism was operating during Marx's time did not remain so at the time of Lenin. When competitive capitalism acquired monopolistic nature, Lenin held it to have reached the form of a moribund stage, that of imperialism. In the same way, Mao came to analyze imperialism working in a different form, differently than what Lenin did. Today, one doesn't find imperialism working in the way it used to work in Mao's time. However, unless it is overthrown by the force of proletarian revolution, one thing that it never slows down rather speedens up is its monopolistic pillage, the oppression and exploitation of the world and its pursuit to make, by any means, the entire world kneel down under its ruling.

The counter-revolution in China in the 70s, the collapse of Soviet social imperialism in the 80s and inability of other imperialist powers to compete with the US military strength created a temporarily 'favorable' situation for the US to escalate its all-round and unchallenged offensive against the nations and people all across the world. On the other hand, this resulted in further intensification of people's hatred and fury mainly against US imperialism. Growing militant struggles all across the world and the September 11 event as well are nothing other than the upshots of intensifying contradiction between imperialism, mainly the US imperialism, and oppressed nations and the people. But, the ideology it was inspired by and the form of struggle it made use of in 9/11 episode are both wrong to fight imperialism. No ideology other than MLM and no form of struggle other than People's War can wipe out imperialism. In fact, this event created a suitable pretext for the US ruling class, the ringleader of world imperialism, to launch its war business openly against the masses of the world. Bush's arrogant dictum of "war on terror" and "either you are with us or against us", though surfaced right after September 11, was only a part of the design the US imperialism had been engineering against the people of the world since long. It is not correct that this event alone prompted the US imperialism to come out aggressively against the people of the world. What it did was to create a 'favorable' environment for US imperialism to implement its anti-people ploy without any delay. Military aggression and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq is the result of this design that the US ruling class had been conceiving since long against the people all across the world.

The US imperialism, terrorizing the masses of the people the world over by what it is doing now in Afghanistan and Iraq, and others in the making, is giving a free rein to its superpower ambitions over all the nations, mainly the third world countries. Bush's arrogant dictums, "war on terror", "either you are with us or against" and "axis of evil " are nothing other than his grand design to make the entire nations kneel down before US imperialism and establish its sole control in the form of a single globalized state. Explaining this, Chairman Comrade Prachanda writes in the document of CC meeting, 2005, "Although the capitalist class essence remains the same, imperialism in its course of development has been acquiring new forms and shapes. The main specificity of today's imperialism has been to exploit and oppress the broad masses of people of the earth economically, politically, culturally and militarily in the form of a single globalized state". This is definitely a new and creative opening that PP has put forward on the analysis of imperialism in the beginning of the twenty-first century. This fact has been clearly manifested from how US imperialism has been forcing the regimes of other countries, mainly the third world, to follow imperialist diktats in the entire internal affairs of politics, economics, culture and the military like a federal central power in a certain country does with provincial states within it. The presence of US military bases in 140 countries all over the world justifies this very ambition of the US ruling class. However, one needs to go further deep in this analysis.

But the aforesaid analysis does not mean that the contradiction between imperialist countries has been non-existent. This contradiction exists and will continue to exist until the whole imperialist world order has been wiped out. It only means that the present world is being decided not by the contradiction between imperialist powers but by the struggle between US imperialism and the entire nations and people all over the world. At present, the collusion between imperialist powers has been the principal aspect. It is our assessment that never before had been the US imperialism so exposed before the world people than now. This has made the situation more favorable to mobilize masses internationally against it.

Strategy and Tactics

Undoubtedly, strategy and tactics are the weapons of a revolutionary Party with which it can effectively carry forward revolutionary activities against the enemy and get rid of it. The way an enemy attacks on us decides how we should counter-attack, but not vice versa. What it means is that change in the objective situation necessitates the development of strategy and tactic to complement it. We believe that the revolution in the twenty-first century can advance and become victorious only if the Maoist parties deepen their understanding of the changes taken place in the imperialist system and develop strategy and tactic corresponding to them. Otherwise, the usual business of clinging on to what Lenin and Mao said in their life time will not help the Maoist revolutionaries change the face of the globe.

In the famous essay "On Contradiction" Chairman Mao has quoted Sun Wu Tzu, "Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat". Where does it point to? What should revolutionaries do to know the enemy and oneself? It is nothing other than the concrete analysis of concrete condition, the soul of Marxism, which guides revolutionaries to know oneself and the enemy.

Along the lines of aforesaid analysis, our Party, under the leadership of Chairman Comrade Prachanda, believes that the analysis of imperialism made by Lenin and Mao in the twentieth century cannot scientifically guide the Maoist revolutionaries to develop correct strategy and tactic to fight in the twenty-first century. Naturally, strategy and tactic based on the analysis of the erstwhile situation have now become insufficient to accomplish, sustain and develop proletarian revolution. Emphasizing this question, in the resolution adopted by the CC in 2005, Com. Prachanda writes, "The internationalist revolutionaries of the twenty-first century must seriously focus their attention on the fact that the analysis that Lenin and Mao had made on imperialism and a number of concepts they had developed on their basis regarding proletarian strategy have lagged behind."

Those who are studying our People's War closely will find us at times going too far in tactics. It is true, we had gone too far before and we should be ideologically prepared to go far again if necessary for revolution. We had united with parties which were revisionists. Our Party had 11 members in the parliament that can nowhere be seen in the history of revolutionary communists after Lenin's Dumas. We were in table with the enemy twice in the history of People's War. We declared unilateral ceasefire when we were achieving military victory one after another. However, our Party firmly believes that we would not have been in today's situation had not we been tactically far at those junctures. History is witness, unity with revisionists helped us grasp Maoism more firmly. Our MPs helped expose the emptiness of the so-called parliamentary system and maintain close relation with the masses. Two negotiations helped us popularize our politics among the masses nationally and internationally and helped us build strong unity with them. Consequently, it helped us create a situation by which we could justify the necessity of higher level of military offensive against the enemy. The latest unilateral ceasefire helped us unite with all those who can be united against the main enemy, the monarchy and its international tutor, George W Bush. This is the uniqueness and originality of Nepalese People's War.

What we can claim from this is that it is the firmness in strategy and flexibility in tactic, which has developed People's War in leaps. Now let us see, what Comrade Prachanda says on this. In the same interview he says, "Here we should be clear that those, who are with reformist specs surmise our strategic firmness as a danger and always oppose it, where as, those with specs of 'left sectarianism' also find our tactical flexibility dangerous. But, proving their opposition to be unscientific and exposing it, our Party has been moving forward in the direction of continuous revolution as a correct applier of dialectical materialism and will continue to do so in future." Further clarifying the interrelation between strategy and tactic, in the same interview he writes, "Tactical flexibility without strategic firmness makes one sink into the quagmire of reformism and revisionism and, strategic firmness without tactical flexibility into that of dogmatism. Where as, only the correct handling of dialectical interrelation between strategic firmness and tactical flexibility makes the movement go ahead correctly and lively." We believe that this grasp of PP has enriched MLM on the question of strategy and tactic.

Problems in Contemporary Communist Movement

The fall of Soviet social imperialism followed by counter-revolution in Russia, the counter-revolution in China after Mao's demise and the ideological offensive against Marxism that imperialism and revisionism carried out all across the world pushed the International Communist Movement into a very defensive situation. In that difficult situation, the communist parties upholding Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tsetung thought played an important role to defend our internationalist ideology some by organizing RIM in 1984, and some remaining outside. The great People's War in Peru once again came up as a rising sun to awaken the proletariats and oppressed masses all across the world. Following all this, the adoption of Maoism by RIM in 1993 was a big victory for the international proletariat in the ideological domain. But still, right revisionism remains the main danger in the ICM. Our Party had played an important role in both the internal and external struggles against right revisionism and formation of RIM.

Not only right revisionism, represented mainly by the UML, but we had to struggle internally against the semi-Hoxhaite trend of MB Singh, its remnants within us and right liquidationism of Rupalal and Nirmal Lama, to develop our line. In addition to this, our Party under the leadership of Comrade Prachanda has developed a correct line in the course of struggles against two, wrong trends that appear in the question of analyzing national and international situation for revolution within the Maoist camp internationally. The first one is the trend that one-sidedly emphasizes only on the basically favorable national situation in a given country but does not comprehensively look at what is happening in the world. Parties with this trend follow their own course as if the international situation has no relation with the revolution in the particular country. They overlook the necessity of developing strategy and tactic to confront the new challenges created by imperialism but stick to what Comrade Mao had said before. In other words, this trend neither finds it necessary to analyze the changes brought about by the imperialist system nor comprehends the interrelation between part and whole. Rather, it emphasizes only on the part of the world they work in. As a consequence of this, they confine their activities within their own geography, do not find it necessary to learn from positive and negative experiences of others and finally fall prey to sectarianism.

The second one is the trend that does not pay sufficient attention to analyze the national situation and find sharpening contradictions to take up class struggle as soon as possible, but conceives of their revolution as a thing that routinely succeeds when the world revolution takes place. They think no revolutionary situation has yet emerged internationally. According to this trend, what is needed now is not to take up class struggle and thereby hasten the revolutionary situation to emerge but is to develop ideology and politics so that the revolutionary situation in the future can be seized unfailingly. In fact, this trend goes against historical dialectical materialism, which demands practice to develop it. What seems to be their regular routine is not to concentrate on how revolutionary struggle can be developed in one's country by developing correct strategy and tactic but to talk more of world revolution, enjoy classical debate, eulogize strategy and tactic of the past successful revolutions, teach other fraternal parties as if they know everything about the concrete situation in that country and stick to what Lenin and Mao had said before. This trend represents dogmatism.

Our Party believes that although right revisionism is the main danger in the contemporary ICM, sectarianism and dogmatism also have been creating impediments for the smooth development of revolution from within the Maoist camp in the world. Prachanda Path has been developed in the course of sharp struggles against right revisionism and these two wrong trends existing within the Maoist camp as well. In short, 'emphasize on the national situation, pay attention to the international situation and apply MLM creatively based upon concrete analysis of the concrete condition and mass line to develop class struggle and MLM' is the essence of Prachanda Path.

International and World Soviet Federation

People's fury and resistance against US imperialism and its lackeys have been substantially stepping up in these days all over the world, including in the imperialist citadels themselves. The People's War in Nepal, which is moving close to seizing the central power, is now directly confronting, ideologically and politically, against US imperialism. The People's War in India, Philippines, Turkey and others have been developing so as to challenge the central powers, the lackeys of US imperialism. Apart from this, the growing resistance against US occupation in Iraq, a Vietnam in the making, people's opposition stepping up in Afghanistan, recent uprising of the masses in France, recent victory in election of the anti-American left parliamentarian parties in the Latin American countries, people's approval of Hamas, the "terrorist", in the Palestinian election, countrywide protests against recent Bush visit in India and Pakistan, innumerable militant protests in various parts of the world against imperialist policies like globalization, liberalization and privatization etc. signifies that the oppressed masses in the entire world are turning up against imperialism. All this shows that objectively the situation is getting favorable to advance world proletarian revolutions and anti imperialist struggles all across the world.

The Maoist revolutionaries are very weak subjectively. In order to seize the opportunity engendered by constantly developing favorable situation for the proletarian revolution, the Maoist revolutionaries must make a forward leap ideologically, politically and organizationally as well. We believe that the globalized imperialism by way of intensifying its aggression all across the world has created favorable situation and prerequisites more solid than before for the establishment of a new type of international in the twenty-first century. Certainly, RIM has played an important role to defend our proletarian cause and ideology MLM, in the face of imperialist offensive. But it has been unable to make a forward leap by way of applying and developing MLM and playing the role of a new type of International. A lot more is left for the RIM to do to reach that level. In the interview to Janadesh on February 13, 2006, Chairman Comrade Prachanda says, "To the extent of defending MLM from the attack of imperialism and revisionism, the establishment and initiative of RIM definitely played an important role. But, in the context of applying and developing MLM, RIM has not yet been able to make any leap. RIM can develop only by struggling against the problems like those of preferring to analyze and eulogize the experiences of old proletarian revolutions but hesitating to develop courageously the strategy and tactics based on mass line by carrying out concrete analysis of the concrete condition."

The globalized imperialism developing in the form of a single state and unprecedented revolution in the information technology has now made this world a small unit. As a result of this, the impact of revolution or counter-revolution in a particular country reaches now within seconds to every comer of the globe which none at the time of Lenin and Mao could have imagined. When any revolutionary activity develops to, a certain height it is bound to attract imperialist offensive of the kind they think necessary. In this situation, revolution in any country can neither be accomplished nor defended unless masses are mobilized internationally. In this context, what PP thinks is that revolution in any country must be carried out as a part and parcel of the world revolution. This is why Comrade Prachanda has put forward a concept of 'World Soviet Federation'. In the said interview Chairman Prachanda says, “...in today's world situation, worldwide movement is especially unavoidable from both the aspects of accomplishing and defending revolution in a certain country. Exactly for this reason, we have been taking revolution in a certain country as the base area of world revolution." In addition to this, in the said resolution he says, "The necessity of developing the concept of South Asian Soviet Federation in the twenty-first century to the concept of World Federation and waging every country's national liberation, democratic and socialist movement-under it is the burning necessity of today". However, it does not at all mean that no revolution can take place in a single country in the present day world. What it only means is that in the present world situation no revolution can succeed, sustain and develop if it is not made a part and parcel of the world revolution and if international community is not mobilized against the main enemy.

Nationalism and Internationalism

Sometimes the questions of nationalism and internationalism mislead the revolutionaries. Without any doubt, the communists are internationalists. But becoming an internationalist does not mean to take no notice of its national responsibility to make revolution country they dwell in. Becoming an internationalist means to make revolution in the country they inhabit and subordinate this to the interest of internationalist proletariat. There have been debates and sharp struggles on the question of nationalism and internationalism in the past and will be so in future. On what true internationalism means, Lenin says, " ... proletarian internationalism demands, firstly, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in one country be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world scale, and secondly, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the sake of overthrowing international capital". (The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-determination Thesis - Lenin).

Unless the interrelation between these two is addressed scientifically and applied correctly in the specificity of given world situation the revolutionary movement will fall prey to deviation, either towards ultra-nationalism or towards national capitulationism. Our Party; by way of grasping the interrelation between these two correctly and applying this creatively has been struggling hard to accomplish revolution in Nepal, link this revolution with interests of international proletariat and thereby serve the world revolution.

Comrade Prachanda, since the period before the initiation of People's War, has been always guiding and leading our Party on its international duty. In the document adopted right before the initiation of People's War, he writes, “This plan of ours would be based on the great spirit of proletarian internationalism. The Nepalese revolution is an integral part of the world proletarian revolution and this will serve the world revolution. In this context our Party takes it as a serious responsibility to contribute towards the further development of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) ...” One can easily understand how much it resembles with what Lenin said in the above quotation. This correct doctrine of Lenin is being precisely applied in our revolution and so represents true internationalism.

The Question of Model

The imperialist system is not a static thing but a dynamic one. Therefore it is bound to go ahead with changes in its course of functioning. Consequently, these changes bring about changes in the nature of contradictions it had before, be it a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country or the capitalist one. Our Party firmly believes that unless the revolutionaries grasp this dynamism of the imperialist system no revolutionary activities can successfully be propelled forward.

When our Party was going through a serious ideological struggle on how the People's War in Nepal can be initiated, sustained and developed, one of the questions we had seriously focused on was the question of model, the Chinese or the Russian. Truly, the third world countries in which there is semi-feudal and semi-colonial politico-economic relation do have more similarities with the erstwhile situation of China. So, the revolution, in these types of countries, basically takes a protracted form with different stages as Comrade Mao had defined. In the same way, the politico-economic relation and nature of contradictions in the capitalist and imperialist countries resemble more with the then situation of Russia. Nevertheless, what we think is that situation has undergone a considerable change so the communist revolutionaries must not stick to what Lenin had said about insurrection and what Mao had said on Protracted People's War.

Marxism is not an inert thing but a living science to transform the world. It demands creative application. Only the correct grasp and creative application of MLM can develop it. From the very beginning, our Party has been trying to grasp MLM correctly and apply it corresponding to the particularity of Nepalese condition. We are opposed to confining the path of revolution within the framework of a certain modality, which holds down our hand. In our concrete situation, what we have been applying is not a definite model. PP holds that sticking to what Lenin had said 80 years before and Mao had said 40 years before and trying to apply it as before in the present context also is not correct MLM. But switching on to what the concrete situation necessitates at the particular juncture of revolution is the real MLM. Those, who are keenly studying our Party and People's War from the very beginning will find that the course of revolution we are traversing neither resembles fully with what Mao did in China nor with what Lenin did in Russia. We believe one of the reasons behind the development of People's War in such a short span of time in Nepal is our success to keep ourselves away from the constraint of any model.

Prachanda Path has put forward a new concept of fusion of two strategies- the protracted People's War and insurrection. But this fusion does not mean a mechanical amalgamation of two kinds of strategies and creation of a new mixture but what it means is to flexibly apply the one that goes well with the given condition. The essence of fusion is not to abide by specific model but to remain ideologically unrestrained to apply any suitable tactic to confront the pressing challenge in the given concrete condition. We believe this new concept of ours is applicable everywhere in the world regardless of the politicoeconomic condition of country under question. Some people have sometimes criticized us of falling into spontaneity. But, the historic achievement of People’s War during the past ten years has objectively proved that this is not spontaneity but the dynamism of PP.

Democracy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat

State power exists till the classes exist in society. It represents democracy for the class in power and exercises dictatorship over the hostile class. The ultimate goal of the proletarian revolution is to establish worldwide communism, where no class and the state power exist. By no other means can the proletariat class make the class and state power disappear other than by handling correctly the dialectical relationship between democracy and dictatorship, when it is in power. But, as a result of a wrong grasp of this relation, there have always been debates, sharp struggles and even splits in the ICM on the question of democracy and dictatorship.

Definitely, dictatorship of the proletariat against bourgeoisie is a principal aspect to defend and develop revolution. But the question has come up time and again regarding how that dictatorship can be strengthened? How could reactionaries evolve from within the dictatorship of the proletariat? Can the defense of revolution be ensured by suppressing them with the force of power alone? How can the entire oppressed class be involved in strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat? How can the masses play a role to control the power from turning into dictatorship of the bourgeoisie? How can our class curb the bourgeoisie from attaining power? Our generation must find answers to these questions.

Yes, in order to prevent counter-revolution, Comrade Mao has given a solution of Cultural Revolution, hundreds and hundreds of Cultural Revolutions until communism has been established all across the world. But it is not enough; we must develop it. It is a question of developing a methodology that can ensure revolution from within the revolution. It is the question of making cultural revolution a process of mass action that goes on uninterruptedly from within the society.

Democracy and dictatorship is the unity of opposites and so there is a dialectical relation between them. What it means is that stronger the democracy for the masses of the people stronger is the dictatorship they impose upon their class enemies. PP has tried to connect the missing link of the past that, in the course of exercising dictatorship upon the class enemies, no constitutional provisions were developed to ensure people's democratic right to supervise, control and intervene upon the communist Party, people's army and the people's government if they turn against the people.

Lenin says, "If the working class people is dissatisfied with their Party, they can elect other delegates, hand over power to another Party and change the government without any revolution at all." (A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, second .edition, edited by Tom Bottomore, pg. 409). Mao further concretized it and said, "It is right to rebel", "Let hundred schools of thought contend" etc. Now the question is how to institutionalize what Lenin indicates here and what Mao means from these sayings.

Our Party strongly believes that state power, the joint dictatorship of the people in new democratic stage and dictatorship of the proletariat in socialist stage, should guarantee the masses of the people, who are against the main enemy in the given situation, to contend within the constitutional framework and provide people's right to rebel against the state power if it turns into bourgeois dictatorship. Only by doing so can the voluntary unity among the oppressed masses be consolidated to defend and develop the dictatorship of the proletariat. Strong dictatorship upon the foundation of genuine democracy is the essence of PP. On this, chairman Prachanda in the said interview says, "According to this proposal, the Party firmly believes that only by organizing Partywise competition, even in the socialist society, within the constitutional framework against feudalism and imperialism and making lively the supervision, control and intervention of the masses in the state power, can the proletarian dictatorship be consolidated and the counter-revolutionary force be prevented from raising its head. In this way, only the dictatorship based on the development of democracy can finally prepare necessary preconditions for the withering away of the class, Party and the state." We believe this concept connects the missing link of MLM and therefore enriches it.

On Leadership

In the history of ICM, one can see that the fate of any revolution, whether it is to accomplish, to defend or to develop, has depended upon the key issue of leadership. No revolution in the past has triumphed without the emergence of an adept leadership nor will it in the future. In general, the communist parties believe in collectively. But it does not mean that all of the individual leaders can discharge that responsibility efficiently and so anyone can be picked up based on anyone's subjective wish. In the course of two-line struggle in the Party and class struggle in the society a certain individual, out of many, comes up with a specific quality and becomes the leader of the movement. Who comes ahead out of the collectivity is simply a matter of coincidence.

The history of ICM and our own recent experiences show that the leadership comes to be pushed and pulled more forcefully after the communist Party occupies state power or reaches close to it by way of revolution, than before. External threat from the imperialists and overthrown reactionaries, internal obstructions from the opportunist elements, growing demand of the masses of the people from the revolution and the inadequacy of resources to satisfy people's desire etc. can sometimes place the leadership in a state of quandary. But despite this difficult situation, the revolution has gone forward effectively in history till the main leadership, who had physically led the revolution, remains intact.

But, why does the absence (death or capture) of the main leadership, who personally had led the revolution, become the cause of counter-revolution? How can we generate revolutionary successors, who are capable of uninterruptedly sustaining and developing revolution, while the main leadership is still alive? These are genuine but difficult questions, and our generation must answer them.

Based on the experiences of past revolutions and counter-revolutions and our own experience of running people’s local powers, PP has attempted to address these longstanding problems that the ICM has been confronted with. In the recent CC meeting Comrade Prachanda has put forth a proposal to launch debate on the question of leadership within the Party and the ICM as well. On this, Chairman Prachanda in the said interview says, "The main crux of this proposal is to create such a material circumstance, in which the main leadership and the main leading core of the Party, who were leading the revolutionary movement to seize state power for the proletariat, keeping oneself away from the daily administrative works, can have an opportunity to concentrate on ideological work and provide opportunity for the revolutionaries of the new generation to train as successors. What our Party centre believes is that this process of producing successors can ascertain continuous revolution by preventing the danger of counter-revolution after the death of the main leadership." We firmly believe this is an important contribution of PP in the ideological arsenal of MLM. Our Party must work hard to develop and systematize this debate in the whole Party, the ICM and the masses as well.

Conclusion

The tumultuous ten years of successful People's War in Nepal has brought to the surface a set of new ideas in the domains of ideology, politics, organization, military, political economy and culture that has the ability to serve world proletarian revolution. Our Party believes that some of the aspects of Prachanda Path, which has enriched the arsenal of MLM, can have immediate implication for the contemporary International Communist Movement. Generally, the international situation is getting favorable to advance the world proletarian revolution, but the level of ideological and political understanding and the unity among Maoist revolutionaries is not sufficient enough to seize this opportunity. We, as a Party leading a successful People's War since the past ten years, have an important role to play to face the present challenges and connect the missing links of ideology, politics and organization internationally.

Genocidal Zionism

2006-07-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

This article points out the bases of the Nazi war strategy, and particularly its theory of collective punishment and mass liquidation of civilian populations. This is the current Israeli war strategy as well. Many on the left wince at the comparison of the state of Israel with Nazi Germany. But the comparison is wholly justified. The ideology of Zionism has led to the emergence of an evil gendarme for imperialism that is intent on wiping out whole populations in its pursuit of lebensraum for the Jewish settler colonialists.

Yesterday, Israel's Justice Minister proclaimed that to kill every person in southern Lebanon is justified, because "(a)ll those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah." This is premised on a Nazi war strategy, a genocidal war strategy.

Israel is systematically destroying the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, including its only power plant. Because electricity of required to pump water, access to drinking water is severely limited. Furthermore, Israel's prime minister states that "no one should be able to sleep in the night in Gaza," making it clear that it is Israel's intent to use all methods of terror in its futile attempt to force Palestinian submission. (Link) This too is based on a Nazi strategy, taken from the German playbook.

In the lands they occupied, the Nazis would often kill a certain number of civilians for every German soldier killed by a resistance fighter. They would hold entire families hostage to try to force the surrender of resistance fighters. (Link) Collective punishment is also at the heart of the Zionist war strategy. In the West Bank and in Gaza, Israel regularly kidnaps and holds hostage relatives of its opponents. (Link) It is also maintaining its 10-to-1 "kill ratio" - ten Lebanese civilians must die for every Israeli death. Because Israel fears confronting a people's war of resistance on the ground, it indiscriminately attacks from the air.

Israel today is walking down Hitler's beaten path. But it too will fail: where there is oppression, there is resistance.

Video: Revolutionary Women Prisoners of Peru

2006-07-24T10:42:00.001-07:00

Click below to view brief video of revolutionary ceremony of female prisoners of war at Canto Grande prison on International Women's Day 1992. Footage is from documentary People of the Shining Path.

(Click here)

Imperialism and Barbarity Reflected in the Faces of Israeli Children

2006-07-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Israeli girls gleefully write messages on weapons destined to kill the children of Lebanon.

Interview with Nepal Maoist Student Leader Himal Sharma

2006-07-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

"I came to know that the barrack was a slaughterhouse for killing people through wild and inhuman torture."

"...a major came to see us and said, 'We won't spend bullets to kill you. We will keep you hungry so that you die crying for food.'"

Leader of the Nepalese Maoist student union gives an interview, appearing in issue number 10 of The Worker magazine, during his time in Nepal's prisons. Last month, Sharma was released along with hundreds of other Maoists as part of the ongoing talks between the Maoists and the state.

FROM THE PRISON: INTERVIEW WITH HIMALSHARMA

[Himal Sharma, General Secretary of ANNISU (Revolutionary) was detained 27 months ago, and he is now imprisoned in Nakkhu Jail. This interview was prepared by Janmadev Joshi on the basis, of written conversation with Mr. Sharma. Sharma describes the context of his detention, wretched life within the prison, and his struggles against the prison authority. - Ed.]

When and from where were you detained?

I was detained on October 20, 2003 from Jamal, Kathmandu. Colonel Raju Basnet of Bhairavnath Barrack himself came to arrest me. I was arrested in a manner which resembles kidnapping. He nabbed me, blindfolded me and took me to his battalion at Maharajgunj, Kathmandu.

You were kept in a military custody for a long time without any formal notice, weren't you?

Most of my 27 months were spent in the military custody at Bhairavnath barrack. I came to know that the barrack was a slaughterhouse for killing people through wild and inhuman torture. The army pushed us into the water, electrified us, ordered us to urinate in the electric heater, and beat us with sticks and their boots. They used to beat us twice everyday at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., and every fit of punishment continued for two hours. They did this to me and Krishna Sen till the last day there. In our files, the headquarters had ordered the army of Bhairavnath Barrack to torture us until we surrender. We were given a glass of rice after every 18 hours. We used to collect and eat the spilled rice, too. Two of other friends namely, Khadga Bahadur Gharti and Padmanarayan Nakarmi died of hunger in the custody.

They had a rule of beating us twice with a stick every time we went to toilet. We were ordered to stand up for 30 minutes every night. There was no question of getting any sleep. We were blindfolded and our hands were tied back for twenty four hours.

The detention of Krishna K. C. and yourself was made public. However, the situation of 47 others is atill unknown. What do you say to this?

Hundreds of people have disappeared from within this custody. As far as those 47 of our friends are concerned, they were with us until the night of December 20, 2003. All were given lockets with numbers to wear. We were called by those numbers not by our names. Among those who were in custody, Nischal Nakatmi, Gyanendra Trithi, Oipendra Panta, Suchendra Maharjan, Bhim Maharjan, Punya Basnet, Ohirendra Basnet, Hira Rokka, Bhim Geri, Oeshbhakta Chapagain, Jalandhar Bastola, Hirabahadur Saru, Koushilya Pokharel, Arjun Pokharel, Bhavanath Ohama Rewakala Tiwari, Ourga Bisankhu, Renuka Oula Babukaji Shresth Rupal Adhikari, Lila Acharya, Gokul Niraula, Lila Pandey, Hemnarayan Shrestha, Rajendra Mali, Kamala Waiba, Oileshwar Limbu, Rajendra Thapa, Kumar Dhakal, Ashok Akela, Prakash Lama, B. K. Shrestha, Shantiram Bhattarai, Tejman Bika, Arjun Maharjan, C. N. Dhungana, Bipal Shrestha, Sudarshan Rijal, Buddhi Lama, Ram Chandra Kafle and some others were put in a military truck and taken away. They are still missing.

Some media have mentioned that all of them were murdered in Shivapuri forest. Is this true?

If this is not true, why does this royal regime hesitate to make them public? Therefore, I think, the media reports are true. The royal army conducted this with great precision and preparation. I think this mass murder was done under direct order from the King and Chief of the Army Staff. We know about a secret meeting of Chief of the Army Staff Pyar Jung Thapa, Generals Oilip Rayamajhi, Rukmangat Katuwal, Biplavbahadur Gurung, Sudeepbahadur Shaha and the Colonels of Bhairavnath Battalion, Uddhabhairav Battalion, Mahavir Battalion held on that day. I think the investigation of United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Mr. Ian Martin must have reached to this conclusion.

Do you have any information about the erstwhile general secretary of ANNFSU (Revolutionary) Mr. Purna Poudel, who was detained two years before your detention?

We came to know that many people including Purna Poudel, Bain Bandar, Nabin Rai, Dil Bahadur Rai and Ishwar Lama were kept in Bhairavnath Barrack two years before. One night, they were tortured extremely until they became unconscious, and they were put in an army truck and taken to an unknown place. We have enough evidence to prove this information as correct. They will be made public in due time. The Bhairavnath Barrack and the whole royal regime must answer the question related to their situation.

What do you remember most when you remember your 27 month-long detention in a military custody?

There are many things. First, we could hear the voice of a woman who was kept inside a tent within the barrack. During a night of November 2003, we suddenly started to hear her scream. At first I thought it must be a routine, beating, and I, would also receive the same punishment after her. But we later came to know that she was being raped. The woman was pleading in loud voice that she was pregnant of eight months, and was asking the soldiers to kill her rather than rape her. In spite of her requests she was blindfolded and she was raped by a group of soldiers. After that the soldiers hit her on her stomach with their boots. The lady was requesting the soldiers to give her innocent child a chance to be born promising to be ready to get killed after the birth of her baby. But the drunken soldiers kept hitting the woman on her stomach. The lady gave birth to a dead child the same night. It was a baby girl. The lady, too, died after a couple of hours. I was kept in the next tent which was five meters away. My heart was paining for not being able to do anything except witness that wild incident. Before early morning, the colonel ordered his soldiers to bury her at the same place where she died. I can never forget that incident however hard I try to.

Second, 47 of our friends who were sleeping with us in the same Bhairavnath barrack were taken away in an army truck on December 20, 2003. On that occasion a major said to his officer, "The people who are taken out today will not be spent. The others' turn will come next." We later came to know that 'spend' means killing with bullet in their codified language. I still remember those words.

Third, we were not given food for many days during the month of March in 2004. During that time, a major came to see us and said, "We won't spend bullets to kill you. We will keep you hungry so that you die crying for food." Our friends Khadga Bahadur Budha and Padmanarayan Nakarmi died the same night. Before they died, they were asking for a loaf of bread. After the soldiers heard their scream, they beat both of them severely. They lost their lives after a while. The scene, of people dying of hunger can never be forgotten.

You were detained for 27 months without any information to anyone. The Supreme Court bas already ordered your release. However, you were rearrested. On what account are you imprisoned at the moment?

This question could be answered if the country was ruled on the basis of law. The police and the army mock the Supreme Court verdict. The king feels his rule is safe this way. We are detained because of our ideology and faith. Everyone understands the false drama hidden behind the government's cases. They have prepared 19 cases against me. All those cases allege me of wrongdoings while I was in their custody. This is funny. They hold no truth.

What have you been thinking about currently?

The reactionaries are turning this whole country into a prison. Our responsibility is to fight against evils of all kind. The nature of fight may be different. However, the jail, too, is a trench of struggle for the revolutionaries. Therefore, we are struggling within the goal, too. We recently organized different programs from on the occasion of people's war day. During the same period, we struggled against the prison authority between January and March. As a result, the jail administration was forced to step down. We are not animals. We don't want to be shackled while we are taken to the court or to the hospital. The prices have soared. Therefore, Rs. 30 is not sufficient for us, and we are fighting against the authority so that it is doubled. Similarly, we have achieved some success in taking the issue of missing people to the international arena. This has become one of the major issues in the Geneva meeting.

Finally, is there anything else tab you want to say?

The country is rapidly moving towards democratic republic. Time has now arrived to fight against the feudalist monarchy. In this crucial turning point of history, I request all students and citizens to get active in the mass struggle.

Photo: At right, Himal Sharma after being released from Nakkhu prison on June 13th, as part of a release of Maoist political prisoners and prisoners of war in preparation for talks over constituent assembly.

The Worker: Comrade Prachanda on Revolution in Peru

2006-07-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

(The item below is taken from the interview with Comrade Prachanda in issue 10 of The Worker. Comrade Prachanda synopsizes the positive and negative aspects of the revolution in Peru since initiating people's war in 1980. Specifically, while heralding the Communist Party of Peru's (PCP) defense of Maoism and steadfast opposition to revisionism of communist principles, he criticizes the revolutionary movement in Peru for certain "Left sectarian" errors, principal among them being insufficient tactical flexibility and an incorrect view of revolutionary leadership. It is highly commendable that Comrade Prachanda has taken the initiative to speak candidly on the Peruvian movement, as this is part of a summation of lessons that will aid both the world revolution, as well as the Peruvian revolution, as comrades in that country struggle to regain the ideological and political initiative.)

Question: The Peruvian movement, which was some time before a center of hope for the revolutionaries in the world, seems to have fallen into a serious crisis now. What is the Party's viewpoint on this? What lessons has the Party drawn from this?

Comrade Prachanda: The experience of the Peruvian revolutionary movement, which had to go through intensive development and extensive setback between the last two decades of twentieth century, is very important for those who are leading revolution in the twenty-first century. In the context of preparation and initiation of People's War in Nepal, the Peruvian movement had played a major role in inspiring us, and in this sense, it is of special significance for our Party to take lessons from the positive and negative experiences of this movement. It is our understanding that it will be a big mistake to devalue the contributions made by the Peruvian People's War for world revolution, which, fighting back the ideological attack made by right revisionism after the restoration of capitalism in China, was initiated on the basis of MLM. However, in no case, can it and must it be taken lightly that the People's War, which was developing rapidly for 12 years, is now in a crisis of existence because of the setback following the capture of the leadership. Sufficient indications that Chairman Gonzalo himself is the main spokesperson of the two-line struggle developed within the Party after his arrest, as well as of the right opportunist line that argues for peaceful conciliation with the enemy by abandoning war, reveal the seriousness of the situation.

MLM demands correct application of dialectical materialism to continue relentless struggle against all kinds of mechanical, subjective and one-sided thinking. It is necessary to be cautious of drifting towards another extreme while struggling against one. Following the counterrevolution in China, the communist movement, on the one hand, happened to fall prey to right extremism that mainly sides with class collaboration and, on the other, to left extremism that seeks to go straightforward without looking left or right, forward or backward. Following Mao's death, the Nicaraguan Sandinista movement that waged guerrilla war happened to fall prey to the former, i.e. right extremism, and the great revolutionary movement in Peru ideologically happened to fall prey to the second i.e. left sectarianism. It is our understanding and evaluation that, as a result of the mechanical and one-sided thinking, like for example of negating completely the question of building necessary adjustment, compromise or front with the secondary reactionary or middle class against the main enemy, of being unable to maintain proper balance between strategic firmness and tactical flexibility based on the equation of enemy's central power, of understanding the protracted People's War mechanically rather than developing military strategy according to today's world situation, of idealizing Comrade Gonzalo as a supernatural leader who never makes a mistake and of placing him above the whole Party and the Central Committee by asserting his leadership as Jefetura, of being unable or unprepared to learn in the real sense from the metaphysical mistakes of Comrade Stalin, etc.- the Party has reached a stage of crisis of existence in such a short time despite the sacrifice of more than 60 thousand people. Although one is revolutionary in spirit, the result can nevertheless be fatal if, from the viewpoint of applying the science of dialectical materialism, one gets caught in mechanical and metaphysical weaknesses - this is the lesson taken by our Party from the great Peruvian People's War and the blood of thousands of revolutionaries flown there. All the programs which our Party has been adhering to, such as our concepts regarding the 'development of democracy in the twenty-first century', military line of 'fusion', series of tactics adopted against the enemy, etc., incorporate the lessons from all positive and negative experiences of Peru.

The Worker: Nepal Maoists and Indian Maoists on New Communist International

2006-07-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

The following interview excerpts are taken from issue number 10 of The Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [CPN(Maoist)]. The first excerpt is from an interview with Comrade Prachanda, CPN (Maoist) leader, and the second is an from an interview with Comrade Ganapathi, leader of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI(Maoist)]. Emphases are mine.

Question: RIM has been in existence since past two decades. But one does not feel that it is developing and expanding at the expected pace. What is the Party's understanding on the challenges and possibilities of constituting a new Communist International?

Prachanda: Following the demise of Comrade Mao, capitalist restoration took place even in China: With this, imperialism and right revisionism intensified worldwide attacks on the revolutionary principles of MLM. At that difficult and complex juncture, it was the historical responsibility of genuine proletarian communists to take up special initiative to defend the basic revolutionary principles of MLM. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) was organized in the background of fulfilling that historical responsibility. To the extent of defending MLM from the attack of imperialism and revisionism, definitely, the establishment and initiative of RIM played an important role. But, in the context of applying and developing MLM, RIM has not been able to take leaps. RIM can develop only by struggling against problems, like the tendency of preferring to analyze and eulogize the experiences of old proletarian revolutions but hesitating to develop boldly the strategies and tactics based on mass line, by carrying out concrete analysis of concrete condition.

Constituting a new Communist International has definitely become essential for the proletariat to fight against globalized imperialism and globalized revisionism, especially in the context of today's world situation. The challenges in the context of organizing an International are the mainly the challenges of maintaining ideological uniformity on the question of defence, application and development of MLM. This challenge can be confronted in the course of ideological struggle and class struggle. As far as the question of possibility is concerned, "globalization" has prepared good grounds for the founding of an International.

...

Question: How is your party looking at the role that the RIM has been playing ideologically and politically in the contemporary international communist movement?

Ganapathi: Our Party has a positive and critical approach towards RIM. On the one hand, we recognize the positive ideological-political role played by RIM on certain questions such as its analysis of the counterrevolution in China after the demise of Mao. This certainly helped those revolutionary parties that had some confusion regarding the developments in China.

On the other hand, our Party also has differences on some ideological-political questions such as the question of assessment of Stalin, concept of a new International, question of democratic centralism, and the problems in the functioning of CoRIM and so on. The manner in which RIM has been dealing with the question of Stalin is only creating more differences within the Maoist camp. We are debating with CoRIM on all such questions.

Our Party has adopted the correct method of unity-struggle-unity in resolving our differences with RIM. We must adopt this method in solving the problems confronting the ICM.

Comment: Though the question was about RIM, which is not a new International, this seems to cut to heart of whether or not international organization of communist parties and organizations is appropriate. The Filipino Party definitely answers "no." The Nepalese say "yes," and are a part of RIM. The CPI(Maoist), which is not a part of RIM, is not clear here, but implies they at a minimum have problems with the RIM conception of what a new International should be. This debate will likely expand and become more concrete as revolutionary struggles intensify across South Asia. Certainly, the CPN(Maoist) conceptions concerning the implications of globalization are provocative and should be thoroughly analyzed.

"China Rushes to Mend Ties with Nepal Maoists"

2006-07-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

KATHMANDU: With Nepal inching towards a new, interim government where the Maoist rebels would be a key partner, a red-faced China is rushing to mend fences with the guerrillas it once branded as anti-government forces tarnishing the image of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Beijing’s Nepal strategy started unravelling in April when King Gyanendra’s regime crumbled after 15 months in power. Earlier, China had supported the February 2005 coup through which the king seized power and ruled with the help of the army.

When the international community suspended assistance to the royal regime, and India, the US and Britain suspended military supplies, China stepped up the sale of arms and ammunition that were used by the royal government to launch attacks on the Maoist guerrillas as well as suppress the anti-king protests by opposition parties.

However, China realised it had backed the wrong horse when nationwide protests forced the king to step down three months ago and an alliance of seven major opposition parties came to power. Within days of the new government being formed, Beijing rushed a team here to extend the hand of friendship to it.

Now Beijing is showing how far that arm can stretch by wooing the Maoists, at least two of whom were earlier sentenced to death in Tibet on charges of smuggling arms and explosives.The new Beijing emissary, Wang Hongwei, a member of the Chinese intelligentsia, established contact with the rebels, assuring them of Beijing’s support.

For the first time in the history of the decade-old insurgency in Nepal, a Chinese official has given an interview to Janadesh, the weekly mouthpiece of the Maoists that was banned during the king’s regime.“We believe the situation in Nepal would grow more stable after an interim government is formed with the Maoists,” Wang told the weekly. “China hopes its relations with the new government would grow stronger.”Distancing itself from King Gyanendra, who had called China Nepal’s “all-weather friend” and branded the Maoists terrorists, Wang said: “Even though India and the US dubbed the Maoists terrorists, Chinese officials never called them that. It is wrong to brand the party terrorists. I feel Washington is trying to play the terrorist card to further its own vested interests in Nepal.”

The statement was in stark contrast to what Sun Heping, then Chinese ambassador to Nepal, had said in 2003. “They (the rebels) shouldn’t be called Maoists,” he had said. “That tarnishes the image of Chairman Mao.”But now glossing over that, Wang lauded the rebels, saying they could “represent the aspirations of the poor people of Nepal”.While the Maoists seem ready to forget and forgive, Beijing’s about turn, however, is not without pitfalls.

Saying that Chinese academics and intellectuals can play a key role in Nepal’s democracy movement, Wang told the weekly the Chinese city of Shanghai had hosted a conference on Nepal issues some time back.On June 24-25, the Academy for World Watch, a Shanghai-based research institute, invited a speaker from Nepal to deliver the keynote address on the impact of Maoist activities in Nepal as well as neighbouring countries.

The speaker invited by Beijing was Sharad Chandra Shah, a royal relative who was also King Gyanendra’s adviser. Currently, investigations are on into Shah’s role in the atrocities perpetrated on unarmed protesters in April, which resulted in the death of 21 people. – IANS

(Link)

(Wang Hongwei is not an official Chinese government representative, but is attached to the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies at the country's Academy of Social Sciences. However, it is highly unlikely if he would have spoken to Janadesh or referred to the CPN(Maoists) as "Maoists" instead of "anti-government guerrillas" unless he were instructed to do so by the state.)

Support for Revolutionary Maoist Parties within China

2006-07-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

An article posted on the website of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences entitled “Strong Left-wing Political Parties Inspire Asia Again” heralds the armed revolutionary struggles led by the revolutionary communists of Nepal and the Philippines. The article by Liu Yuanqi is typical of many circulating in official and semi-official “New Left” circles in China, which are obliquely critical of the Chinese government’s counterrevolutionary foreign policy, and are supportive of revolutionary movements abroad. A weakness of the article is its eclecticism - it also heralds the electoral strength of the “Communist Party of India (Marxist),” which is a right-wing outfit that that is a part of the national Indian governing coalition, and leads two Indian state governments, enforcing anti-people, pro-IMF and pro-World Bank policies. However, it is a positive development that more and more Chinese people are searching for political solutions from the international communist movement. Ultimately, however, the Chinese “New Left” will have to accept the fact that socialism can only be restored in China through a second revolution, and that the state machinery in the hands of the revisionist “Communist Party of China” will have to be smashed if China’s working people are to again assume their role as masters of the country. Certainly, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces can contribute to this emerging debate by creating and distributing Chinese translations of materials such as A World to Win magazine and documents of Comrade Prachanda and other revolutionary leaders.

Strong Left-wing Political Parties Inspire Asia Again

At the end of 1980’s and the beginning of 1990's, the drastic changes in the Soviet Union caused the Asian left-wing political parties to suffer serious setbacks. But, because the Asian left-wing has a strong historical basis in Maoist principles and national independence, the Soviet and Eastern European collapse has not affected the Asian left as much as the left in the developed countries…

(Since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis) the Asian left has continuously gained strength, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of the Philippines and Nepalese Communist Party (Maoist) with particular strength warranting attention.

The Poverty of the Philippine Countryside Inspires the New Strength of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The Philippines was one of the first third world countries to thoroughly implement the neo-liberal development agenda under American hegemony. As early as in 1962, the Philippines ended government regulation of the economy, and thereafter continuously carried out the export-oriented development strategy recommended by the International Monetary Fund, attempted to attract foreign capital with its cheap labor force, and became the supplier of cheap commodities to the developed countries. This strategy is advantageous to the developed countries, but actually causes the Philippines to become one of nations which most retarded in terms of development.

These factors have prepared the soil for the Communist Party of the Philippines' growth. After the massive change in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of the Philippines has an inner-party struggle, with the appearance of a faction denying the necessity of military revolutionary struggle and advocating only parliamentary struggle. The New People’s Army force rapidly declined in strength… In this critical moment, the “Second Great Rectification Movement” was launched, confirming that protracted people's war was the main revolutionary form, and reiterating that the main route of people's war is the countryside surrounding the city, thus enabling the Communist Party of the Philippines the to restore the strength of the New People’s Army…

The New People’s Army has not established completely liberated areas, but has established massive guerrilla areas, established 127 guerrilla fronts, spreading across 90% of the provinces. The New People’s Army works in the countryside, implementing rent reduction for the tenant farmer, raising the wages for the farm worker, carrying out genuine land reform in the countryside, and therefore has a good mass base, and can carry on very large-scale guerrilla warfare…

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Rises up in Impoverished Countryside

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is a faction which split from the Nepalese Communist Party. Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) thought Nepalese class contradictions greater and greater, that is was impossible to struggle through the parliament to obtain transformation, and believed that only the path of Mao Zedong - establishing rural revolutionary bases, the countryside surrounding the city through armed struggle - could transform the society. In 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) initiated the people’s war in Nepal’s poorest west mountainous under the leadership of the working class, fully mobilized the populace, carried out agrarian revolution, set up the liberated areas’ new political power, liberated women by eradicating feudal customs, and has obtained people's widespread support…

At present, liberated areas have a population of 10 million, with the total Nepalese population being 23 million. Even in white areas which are controlled by the enemy, there also appear general strikes and other forms of struggle…

Conclusion

… Mao Zedong Thought still has vital significance regarding third world development and liberation in the present time. Mao Zedong's military concept of guerrilla warfare waged by the people - people's war - still currently has value to the third world. As proof of this, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Communist Party of the Philippines have absorbed and have developed Mao Zedong's concept of people's war, and have obtained very great success… After nearly 30 years of dense historical fog has dissipated, we discovered that Mao Zedong Thought still will be very important to the future of China and the world.

http://ilas.cass.cn/redianzt_fj/20051007224049-0.doc

More on Peru: Article - Communist Party of Peru to “Initiate Armed Resistance”

2006-07-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

The following article - translation mine - comes from the reactionary media and should, as always in such cases, be taken in a critical and skeptical manner. Luis Arce Borja, former editor of the revolutionary Peruvian newspaper El Diario, among other figures, has stated that forces using the name “Communist Party of Peru” in the region referenced in this article are associated with a so-called faction called Proseguir (Continue), which allegedly rejects the line of fighting for “peace accords” and allegedly presently upholds the pre-1992 program of the Communist Party of Peru. In other words, the PCP Regional Committee in the Apurímac-Ene River valley may never have abandoned the road of people’s war.

Many international forces, including the individual Arce Borja, have been dismissive of all the groups using the moniker “Communist Party of Peru” as a whole. In this context, the question confronting communists outside of Peru is:

1) How is the experience of the people’s war in Peru from 1980-1992 to be summed up?

2) What are the contributions of Abimael Guzman to the experience of international communist movement?

3) Can (relatively) definite conclusions be drawn about the relationship of Abimael Guzman, Elena Iparraguirre, and other PCP leaders to the capitulationist line that emerged in 1993?

4) How can communists and revolutionaries outside Peru provide moral-political support to the Peruvian revolutionaries?

These questions are important. Revolutionaries in Peru undoubtedly, to the extent possible under their conditions, pay attention to the political lines emanating from the international communist movement. More often than not, they are hearing absolutely nothing with regard to Peru. PCP may have been organizationally and even more importantly politically disarticulated in the course of sustaining the severe blows of the enemy. Correct analysis of the course of the Peruvian revolution is a service to those struggling in Peru. Perhaps even more importantly, correct analysis provides a service to those struggling outside Peru, attempting to assimilate the lessons of the whole experience of the world proletarian revolution.

Article: Sendero Luminoso Threatens Garcia

In a communiqué they announce the beginning of its "armed resistance" to the Aprista (APRA - Garcia’s social democratic party –K) government.

Looking for international impact and gratuitous propaganda, Sendero Luminoso announced in a communiqué, that it is preparing to initiate "armed resistance" against the government of Alan Garcia Perez, whom they accuse of having selectively assassinated Senderistas during his first government, according to the Notimex news agency.

The terrorists also point their weapons against the first vice-president, Luis Giampietri, whom they label as being the executor of the orders of Garcia to kill the Senderista prisoners in the El Fronton prison, in June of 1986.

But there is more. According to the Mexican news agency, Sendero Luminoso not only announced the reorganization of its columns in the jungle and the mountains of the country for its "armed resistance,” but it also advanced that it would initiate its fight in a type of revenge against the elect president.

"We are going to fight and resist the government of Garcia, the one responsible for several massacres. This criminal will have to pay by his crimes,” runs one of the phrases of the communiqué reproduced by Notimex.

In addition, the terrorists assured in their communiqué that they are ready to take up arms. "We still have operational capacity, although one is told that there are no armed actions or that we are decimated,” they emphasized.

According to Notimex, the communiqué is signed in the Amazonian jungle of Satipo, an area where the terrorist columns are allied with the drug traffickers known as the Apurímac-Ene River valley.

EVIDENCE AGAINST ALAN

In an attempt to gain the attention of questionable human rights organizations, the message "remembers" that in the previous government of Garcia (1985-1990) and in the administration of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), “selective annihilations" of Senderistas were committed.

"Those two governments kidnapped, annihilated and disappeared hundreds of young people, adults and children suspected of belonging to (Sendero Luminoso),” they maintained.

Also, they asserted that they have evidence concerning the presumed intellectual participation of Garcia Perez - through his present vice-president, Admiral Luis Giampietri - in the military operation of to put down the bloody riot at El Fronton.

Referring to the Fujimori government, the criminal organization indicated that it knows of evidence that implicates Martin Rivas as the person responsible for the annihilations by the paramilitary group Colina.

"In name of the democracy he tortured and disappeared presumed militants of (Sendero Luminoso)". With this phrase the communiqué concludes, representing its followers in the Apurímac-Ene River valley, numbering 200 fighters.

Luis Giampietri: "We have a ready counter-subversive strategy"

Confident in the military power of the State and its strategy to confront the terrorist threat - thus was the first vice-president-elect, Luis Giampietri, yesterday after learning of the Senderista communiqué that threatens the Aprista government with unleashing a spiral of violence in the country.

"If we are to take a military attitude, we are taking it at this moment, of analyzing this threat - we will face it. We have a counter-subversive strategy towards these remnants, that for intelligence reasons we will not reveal now,” he indicated.

In that sense, he states that although the APRA hopes to govern on the basis of harmony in all of the country, it does not mean that they will doubt using force at the suitable moment.

Nevertheless, the admiral in retirement affirmed that he trusts that those delinquent hordes will not be able to take armed actions that are not localized in the Ene Valley, and that they are incapable of operating in other zones of the country and in Lima.

Old Tactics

Also, he (Gaimpietri) states that the Sendero Luminoso is resorting to old tactics of using messages through mass media to intimidate to the population with "military threats.”

Giampietri clarified, in addition, that the terrorists continue with their double game of wanting to fight by means of the political route and also by means of the trigger and the powder. "On the one hand they present themselves as being legalists and on the other hand they threaten war. Sendero always has used legalism as one of its weapons. I always said that the problem of Sendero has not been finished and it will be necessary to attentively follow this narcoterrorist version,” he expressed.

Finally, the sailor in retirement avoided commenting on the responsibility that Sendero attributes to him in the communiqué concerning the slaughter of Senderista criminals that occurred during the first Garcia Perez government.

http://www.ednoperu.com/noticia.php?IDnoticia=26451

Revolutionary Optimism

2006-07-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Will the future ever arrive?

Should we continue to look upwards?

Is the light we can see in the sky one of those
which will presently be extinguished?

The ideal is terrifying to behold, lost as it is in
the depth, small, isolated, a pin-point,
brilliant but threatened on all sides by
the dark forces that surrounds it;

Nevertheless, no more danger than a star in
the jaws of the clouds.

- Victor Hugo

Nepalese Maoist Baburam Bhattarai: "We'll Never Surrender Our Arms"

2006-07-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

One of the principal Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) leaders, Baburam Bhattarai, made clear that the Maoists will not be disarmed prior to the holding of elections for a constituent assembly for a body to write a new state constitution.

KATHMANDU, July 10 (Reuters) - Nepal's Maoist rebels will not surrender
their arms before next year's elections for a special assembly to map out the
embattled Himalayan nation's political future, a top rebel leader said on
Monday.

"Let everybody be clear -- we'll never surrender our arms," Baburam Bhattarai, seen as number two to Maoist chief Prachanda, told Reuters in an interview.

"We want the restructuring of the state and the army. In that restructured army our army will also be integrated."

Comrade Bhattarai makes clear that the Maoists will not accept anything less that the dismantling of the old state and the construction a new popular, democratic state. In order to do this, the revolutionary armed forces must not be liquidated; rather, the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the national army and the army of the new state. The soldiers of the old "royal" army should be incorporated into a new national army along with the PLA.

The United States, which provides $45 million aid annually to impoverished Nepal -- more than 10 percent of total aid -- has threatened to withdraw funds if the Maoists, who it lists as terrorists, join the interim government without giving up arms.

It is clear that the imperialists are frustrated with the success of the Nepalese revolutionary forces, and are conspiring to effect a counterrevolutionary coup d'etat. Along with this, the old Hindu chauvinists and royalists are plotting comeback attempts. Because of these dangers, it is important that the Maoists have made the firm decision to maintain the revolutionary armed forces. As Comrade Mao said, "with a people's army, the people have nothing." Comrade Lenin instructed, "all but power is illusion."

"There is tremendous pressure from the people who want to make
the peace process a success," Bhattarai said, adding that the rebels would not
return to war.

Bhattarai said the guerrillas had no regrets about the war,
which has ravaged infrastructure and displaced more than 200,000 of the
country's 26 million population.

"We are proud of it. We have changed the whole scenario --
political, economic, social and cultural scenario in the country," he said.

The Maoists are committed to pursuing elections to a constituent assembly as a pathway for revolutionary change. They are upholding the strategy of people's war as not just an "option" for revolutionary
change, but rather as an absolutely necessary means of struggle. Indeed, without the ten years of people's war and without what Comrade Mao called the the three magic weapons of Party, people's army, and revolutionary united front, the recent successes of the anti-feudal, pro-democratic movement would have been out of the question.

Though Comrade Bhattarai states that the Maoists would not "return to war," this is in fact completely in the hands of the imperialists, feudal monarchists, and anti-national bureaucrat capitalists: if they sabotage the environment, making it impossible to hold elections for a constituent assembly, this will constitute an act of war, forcing the people to return to other forms to struggle.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B323510.htm

Revolutionary Armed Struggle Continues in Peru - Articles from Peruvian Media

2006-07-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

Below are some items from the reactionary Peruvian media, which I have translated as best I can. While in general these news outlets attempt to belittle the stature of the Communist Party of Peru and its armed forces, the tabloid-ish and hysterical tone of some of the articles betrays an insecurity on the part of the ruling classes. Note also in the final article that the defendents' legal motions in the trial of revolutionary prisoners of war is being decided a priori not by a judge but by the head of the "anti-terrorist" police.

Almost 14 years after the capture of Comrade Gonzalo - Abimael Guzman - and the other leading members of the Party in the political bureau and permanent historical committee, the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) continues to wage revolutionary armed struggle and carry the red flag of proletarian revolution. From the perspective of most outside observers, the political situation within the PCP is unclear in terms of the struggle against elements advocating a unilateral ceasefire (capitulation), it is highly encouraging that the Party’s forces continue to operate militarily and politically both in its historical base as well as in the cities.

From the Peruvian media:

“2006 Hunt” Counter-subversive Operation Launched

Huánuco, 06/07/2006 (CNR) - In the coming days, the National Police in Huánuco will launch the "2006 Hunt" operation, in order to contain the reemergence of elements of the Shining Path in this region.

This was relayed by PNP Colonel Gustavo Lúcar Espinoza, head of the local regional police, commenting that a strong contingent of soldiers will be mobilized shortly to the remotest provinces like Huacaybamba and Huamalíes, scenes of recent terrorist incursions.

Hardly two days ago, the forces of order discovered two packages with explosives in the locale of the ElectroCentro plant. It is presumed that the frustrated attack was directed by “Comrade Norma", whose column made an incursion in the center of San Miguel de Querosh (Llata) several weeks ago. Link

Presumed Terrorist is Arrested in Lambayeque

CPN RADIO 3 July - A presumed rebel of the North Regional Committee of the Shining Path was captured by agents of the Anti-Terrorist Division (DINCOTE), during an operation carried out in the Olmos district, department of Lambayeque.

Dionisio Huancas Mazape, known also as Comrade “Gil,” had been under warrant of the Special Penal Unit for Cases of Terrorism in Chiclayo.

Apparently, Huancas Mazape joined the Sendero force in their base in Los Faiques village. Also, he committed activities in zones like Piedras Negras, Garbanzal, Santa Rosa and Racalí. Link

Armed Forces Locate Zone Where Comrade “Artemio” Operates

CPN RADIO 02 Jul - The Armed Forces have an idea of where the dangerous terrorist ringleader "Artemio" operates in the zone of Alto Huallaga, minister of Defense, Rengifo Martian revealed during an inspection visit in the region San Martín.

"We have the idea of where he moves about... in the countryside or the populated places, but give it some time (dejemos tiempo al tiempo)", said Rengifo Ruiz.

In declarations to the press, he indicated that the work of searching for subversive remnants in the forest must be permanent and persistent on the part of the intelligence sector. Minister Rengifo spent three days traveling across the Alto Huallaga in order to supervise the work of the armed forces in the capture of the Shining Path remnants. Link

THEY WILL SENTENCE HIM IN AUGUST

(Peru.com: 2006/7/5) The president of the National Anti-Terrorist Unit, Pablo Talavera affirmed that next August Abimael Guzman, the ringleader of the Shining Path will be sentenced along with other leaders in the "mega-trial" against them.

In these days, he stated, the court is listening to audios and watching videos related to this subversive group between the years 1980 and the 2000. "I predict that all this month we will listen to the audios and we will see videos.” Soon the debate will come about the evidence, the pleas of the defendants and the sentence,” the magistrate detailed in a dialogue with the Andean agency.

Talavera indicated that the order for annulling the evidentiary process presented weeks ago by the terrorist leadership in no way will interrupt the judgment… Link

Meeting Pasang in Rolpa

2006-07-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

(The following is an article from the Nepali Times newspaper. As the ceasefire in Nepal continues, more and more Maoist leaders are coming forth and gaining public exposure.)

Comrade Pasang reviews the hard struggle of the past decade of popular war:

RED STAR OVER EVEREST

Maoist deputy commander Nanda Kishore Pun poses in front a banner at his office in Rolpa in March.

He sits on a chair in front of a flag depicting two AK47s flanking a mountain with a red star over the summit. He is among the more reclusive Maoist commanders and this is a rare interview. Nanda Kishor Pun, Comrade Pasang, agrees to meet me in an office-like house in the small valley of Kureli in Rolpa and the meeting lasts five hours.

He is one of the four deputy-commanders of the Maoist ‘People’s Liberation Army’ and is directly under Prachanda who is the supreme commander. Pun, 40, was born in Rangsi in northwestern Ropla as the fourth among seven siblings. By the time he was in fourth grade, he was already a communist and actively involved in student politics becoming a member of the first district committee of the CPN (Unity Centre). He led a cultural group during the first general election campaign after 1990 and became the first district president of the newly-formed Young Communist League. This was an armed front of the Unity Centre formed to counter activities of the then ruling NC which was filing cases against their party.

This YCL was transformed into Ladaku Dal (Fighting Force) which was a precursor to the PLA.

Thirty-five members (including two women) of four Ladaku Dals launched the ‘People’s War’ by attacking a police post in Holeri on the night of 13 February 1996. Pun took part as an assistant commander under Ananta.

When the Maoists formed squads in Rolpa made up of members of the Ladaku Dal in May 1996 Pun was made in-charge. And when the PLA was formed in September 2001, he was made commander of the first battalion. When new formations– company, battalion, brigade or division–were formed, Pun always led them.

He took part in most of the major Maoist attacks in western Nepal, from the first action on security forces at the Jhimpe communication tower in Salyan in January 1999 to the battle for Beni in March 2004. It wasn’t always easy, he says.

“When eight of our comrades were killed in a raid on a police post of Rukumkot in April 2001 we felt very bad,” Pun remembers, “and we saw the number of martyrs increase after we took on the RNA. We lost nearly 80 comrades in the Beni action and even more in the second Khara attack.”

Pun revealed that he personally took part in planning battles including the first-ever attack on an army base in November 2001 in Ghorahi where he stayed to gather intelligence for the attack. Pun claims 4,500 people, including 1,900 ‘volunteers’, participated in the attack on Beni. The force started their march from Thabang in Rolpa. When they arrived in Takam of Myagdi they brought forward the raid by two days when they found that the army knew about the impending attack.

Pun also admitted Maoist defeats in Bhalubang and Kusum in 2003 and two attacks on RNA barracks in Khara of Rukum. He said the main reasons for these defeats were lack of preparation and leakage of information to the security forces.

Unlike three other deputy commanders, Ananta, Prabhakar and Baldeb who commanded divisions, Pun has been made in-charge of the Maoist military academy. Prabhakar and Baldeb have been included as public speakers at Maoist meetings and Ananta has been enlisted to provide security to top leaders in the capital but Pun’s role today is unclear.

Ram Bahadur Thapa (Badal) was himself in Kathmandu last week and told me Pun was providing political training to PLA members. “He’s is quite busy these days,” Thapa said, “he and some other leaders who have not yet appeared in public will come out soon.”

During another meeting last month, Pun himself said: “We were obliged to carry weapons but I am quite happy with the present political development as we have wanted a peaceful solution since the beginning.”

Link (Registration required)

Chilean Judge Allows Lawsuit Against Peruvian President for Massacre of Communists

2006-07-06T15:52:00.000-07:00

A Chilean human rights organization is attempting to bring charges against Peruvian President Alan Garcia, who in addition to his current reign was president during the 1985-1990 period. On June 19th, 1986, hundreds of revolutionary prisoners under the leadership of the Communist Party of Peru were massacred on Garcia's orders. This day came to be known among revolutionaries around the world as the Day of Heroism. The prisoners truly turned the dungeons into shining trenches of combat, marking a milestone of resistance.

From the Cuban Latin Press:

Chile: Lawsuit against Alan Garcia Accepted

Santiago,
Chile, Jul 4 (Prensa Latina) Santiago's Second Criminal Court agreed on Tuesday
to a lawsuit filed against Peruvian president-elect Alan Garcia for serious
human rights violations committed during his first term (1985-1990).

Judge Romy Rutherford ruled that events attributed to the former ruler
constitute crimes against humanity, which are unprescribable and have
international competence.

The lawsuit was filed on Jun 22 by leaders of
the Committee of Peruvian Refugees Living in Chile, Raul Paiva and Rodolfo
Noriega, on occasion of a visit paid to Santiago by Garcia to meet President
Michelle Bachelet.

The judicial action is sponsored by Chilean human
rights lawyers Hugo Gutierrez and Roberto Avila. It refers to killings of
inmates occurred on Jun 19, 1986, El Fonton, San Juan de Lurigancho and Santa
Barbara prisons.
The crimes occurred when the prisoners, who belonged to
Sendero Luminoso and other radical groups, rebelled to avoid being transferred
to the high security prison of Canto Grande, where conditions were even
worse. (End Item)

More on MIM and its Break with the Nepalese Revolution

2006-07-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Posters on the pro-Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) discussion forum It’s Right to Rebel have responded to my post concerning MIM’s document formally breaking with the Nepalese revolution. One poster, Rebel_One, injects the following: “I agree with comrades' remarks on the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party -K.), but given the suggestion some have made on these forums that criticism of the Nepalese people's struggles is likely to be based on a lack of information and understanding of concrete developments, is there any point in splitting with the Nepalese Maoist party? I wonder what exactly MIM has against the Nepalese Party other than its ties to the RCP? Is its ties to the revisionist RCP likely to adversely impact its capacity to carry forward revolutionary communism?” That is precisely the reason I criticize MIM for “over the top” sectarianism. Its document clearly laid out “reciprocity” in party-to-party relations as a criterion for supporting the revolutionary struggles led by other parties. It further made non-recognition (or as MIM puts it, non-“tolerance”) of the RCP as another such criterion. Whether I support or do not support the RCP is not relevant to my criticism of MIM’s adoption of such criteria for support of the struggles led by communist parties.

ServethePeople engages in sophistry by stating that “MIM does support the Maoist revolutionary movement in Nepal and every other country but does not necessarily endorse specific parties.” But the MIM central committee document clearly states that it will no longer promote struggles led by parties that “tolerate” the RCP, and MIM has even gone to the length of removing its web pages with articles relating to the Nepalese people’s revolutionary struggle, keeping only one Luis Arce Borja article obliquely criticizing the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [CPN (Maoist)]. This matter goes beyond party “non-recognition.” Furthermore, how is it possible to “support” the communist revolutionary struggle in Nepal without supporting the Party that initiated it and is leading it? There is no Nepalese “Maoist revolutionary movement” separate from the CPN (Maoist). The Nepalese people’s army is the People’s Liberation Army, and it is under the command of the CPN (Maoist). People’s war was initiated in 1996 by decision of the CPN (Maoist). By making “reciprocity” and the relations between the CPN (Maoist) and the RCP dividing line questions, MIM breaks with not only the CPN (Maoist), but also with the revolutionary struggle it is leading.

WV states that “Klement is wrong to suggest proletarian unity is not based on ideological unity and unity against opportunism and revisionism, as Lenin and Mao said they were.” I made no such suggestion. If RIM were a counterrevolutionary group and the CPN (Maoist) were a counterrevolutionary party, then struggle and not unity would be called for. But that is not the case. If MIM would state that it believes RIM and also the CPN (Maoist) are counterrevolutionary, then at least MIM would be principled, though incorrect. However, if MIM upholds the sort of sophistry demonstrated by ServethePeople, then MIM is unprincipled as well as incorrect. However, MIM could still in the future specifically identify the CPN (Maoist) as counterrevolutionary, and then it would be clearly articulating its principles. WV further states that “Klement is wrong to say breaking with particular leaders means rejecting the oppressed's struggles or even the previous practice of these leaders.” That is merely more sophistry of attempting to separate the Nepalese Party from the revolution it is leading. However, if MIM were to state that it previously supported, but no longer supports the CPN (Maoist) and its struggle, that would at least be principled.

Iran - Sarbedaran and the Question of the “Main Enemy”

There is another aspect to the MIM document worth discussing. The document, without naming names, strongly condemns the Iranian Sarbedaran, or Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). Sarbedaran, along with the RCP, recently gave support to International Women’s Day (IWD) activities that were aimed at opposing the misogynistic oppression in Iran. Earlier, I addressed the issues raised by the controversy surrounding this matter (Link). The RCP addressed the question by printing a note defending the IWD activities in Revolution newspaper (Link). This is an issue that has been raised by MIM - among others - that is worthy of consideration.

It was a wrongheaded course of action for the RCP to participate in these demonstrations, particularly at a time when U.S. imperialism is clearly gearing up for aggression against Iran. There is no doubt that the Islamic Republic is deeply reactionary, but it is simply not the main enemy of the people of Iran at present. And furthermore, it is a foremost duty of communists in the U.S. to oppose imperialist aggression. Imperialism is looking for every political tool it can grasp to whip up U.S. public opinion for aggression against Iran.

In light of these facts, promotion of the IWD events is mistaken, and may feed into the strategy of groups like the MEK, or “Mujehideen” organization which has become a willing handmaiden for U.S. imperialism and an accomplice in its plans for Iran. The MEK is on the friendliest of terms with leading U.S. neo-conservative political figures, who promote the MEK as a pro-US, secular political force for a “new Iran” to emerge after US-engineered “regime change.” Despite its “left” cover, the MEK, like the CIA’s “Iraqi National Congress” prior to 2003, is loudly banging the war drums and building political support for all manner of imperialist aggression. It uses “human rights” as one of its principle tools. Communists must not unwittingly attach themselves to such a political campaign.

How to Assess MIM

I have stated previously that it is incorrect to simply dismiss the MIM and its ideology and politics as “crazy,” or as somehow “irrelevant” because the MIM may have few supporters. Neither of these matters is relevant to assessing the MIM. Every self-proclaimed communist organization in the U.S. can fairly be described as miniscule. And there is no such thing as “crazy” divorced from class content. Something can be learned from a political line, whether right or wrong.

The MIM does have a coherent political line, regardless of its correctness or incorrectness. It is premised upon their class analysis that the overwhelming majority of all those within the U.S. - regardless of nationality - constitute varying strata of the international exploiting classes. While the pro-MIM internet discussion group It’s Right to Rebel is not an official MIM forum, a vision of a model North American post-revolutionary society developed there is congruent with MIM’s line. This hypothetical society was referred to as “One Big Gulag.” That is, the vast preponderance of current U.S. citizens are in need of reform through labor under criminal statute. The implication is that there is simply no social basis for revolution within the U.S.

The “One Big Gulag” vision of a post-revolutionary North America and its accompanying class analysis goes far beyond the correct understanding that there is a large, very influential Euro-American labor aristocracy in the U.S. It rules out a progressive role by any social stratum internal to the U.S., with the possible exception of some non-citizen immigrants. WV states that this analysis is not just “MIM Thought,” but there is no evidence to this effect.

The MIM condemns RIM or any other international organizational formation as “Trotskyite,” and at the same time demands “reciprocity,” non-recognition of the RCP, and support for its class analysis of the U.S. as preconditions for its support. In doing so, it is replicating the worst aspects of the old Comintern’s practices of maintaining international discipline. In the past, MIM has promoted the view of international party-to-party relations of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which gives support to many parties and struggles but also opposes international organization of parties, preferring individual party-to-party relations. Now it appears that MIM has gone to the extreme and repudiated relations with all other parties, because it views “MIM Thought” as a cardinal principle, and there are at this time no other parties that uphold “MIM Thought.” MIM can be described as an organization with an errant class analysis that lends itself to the inevitable conclusion that there are no internal factors or social basis for revolution in the U.S.

Maoist Internationalist Movement Formally Breaks With Nepalese Revolution

2006-06-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

I normally do not comment on the group known as “Maoist Internationalist Movement” (MIM). However, it is interesting that in a new document published in their newspaper (Link), MIM has taken a position that they will no longer support or publicize the struggles led by Maoist parties that recognize the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) as a fraternal party, or that do not support MIM’s class analysis of the U.S. or, specifically, its summation of the Chicano national question. Though the document does not name any parties or organizations, it specifies that it is referring to those waging people’s war currently.

It is clear that MIM is repudiating the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [CPN(M)] and the decade-long people’s war it has been leading. The CPN(M) has always viewed the RCP as a fraternal party united in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). This is not a new thing. What is new is that MIM, in an over-the-top sectarian fashion, is breaking off support for any group that will not hew to its anti-RIM line. The implication from MIM is that it opposes any party in the RIM, which it refers to as “the RCP=U$A Comintern.” (Link) The MIM document states: “…anyone tolerating the Mujahedin or the RCP=U$A need not bother calling themselves comrades of ours. If that is not public, they can forget thinking they are making a contribution to the imperialist country struggle.” Furthermore, the document states that MIM will henceforth “demand reciprocity” in giving its support to other parties’ struggles - including people’s wars led by other parties. With this, MIM has disavowed all parties leading people’s war, including those outside RIM, such as the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and the Communist Party of the Philippines, which do not extend “reciprocity” to MIM, and maintain friendly relations with RIM parties. Finally, MIM threatens that “(a)ll organizations that MIM deems not to have met the challenges of this period now find web pages related to their struggle removed from our website.” At this time, there is no listing for Nepal under MIM’s “country index” (Link) Indeed, all articles formerly listed under MIM’s www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/countries/nepal directory have been removed from the MIM website. Such is the spirit of “proletarian internationalism” as understood by MIM.

Interview with Comrade Prachanda

2006-06-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

Nepal's Kantipur television interviewed Comrade Chairman Prachanda of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Below are selected excerpts. In the interview, Comrade Prachanda puts forward a vision for a new-type people's democracy in which the national capitalists will have a place at the table of the multi-class rule characterized by Mao Zedong's concept of new democracy. The remarkable tactical flexibility of the Nepalese communists, coupled with their firm defense of basic communist principles, has allowed them to make such impressive gains:

Q. You have suddenly landed on the liberal political ground from a violent political base, especially after the 12-point understanding with the seven parties. What were the reasons behind the understanding?

Prachanda: Our political base was not that rigid. Ours is a party which had to wage a People's War for just rights despite entering Parliament. We were the third largest party in Parliament.... We lawfully tried to raise some issues- issues related to nationality, people's daily requirements and democracy- even back then. We are not rigid. What we said even after starting the People's War is that we are not communists of the traditional type. Even after the start of the People's War, we have always been ready to accept the people's verdict. We had told the government during the very first peace talks let's hold constituent assembly elections; that the solution to our problem lay there. We were never into rigid politics. We were very much wide and flexible.

Q. You took up arms for political change. Isn't that rigid?

Prachanda: To take up weapons is just a form of politics. I don't think you become rigid once you take up arms. Taking up weapons is also a form of flexibility.

...

Q. How optimistic are you (about peace talks)? Do you doubt (Nepalese Prime Minister) Girija Prasad Koirala's honesty?

Prachanda: Rather than Koirala's honesty, how he will run the politics is the major thing. In my first meeting with him three years back, I had told him "You accept a republic, we will accept multiparty. Then the country will become new. Let's make a new Nepal." He had replied immediately, "Congress cannot go for a republic right now." He is still where he was three years back. He mentioned ceremonial king only yesterday. But this ceremonial thing doesn't work in Nepal. This proves how much rigid he is. This concept of a ceremonial king will not work- one, because of the army, and two, because of the king's own character.

Q. Do you personally feel that the talks will be successful?

Prachanda: I don't think the seven-party leaders are in favour of making the talks successful. And I don't think the international power centres, too, are in favour of giving Nepal and Nepalis a forward-looking exit from the current crisis by making the talks successful. To tell you directly, I haven't seen the signs for the talks to be successful. But again, the Nepali people want the talks to be successful and our party, too, wants the same. It depends on how much the people's and our party's initiatives can be taken forward. The talks will be successful if the pressure can be increased.

Q. What kind of republicanism is it that you have been talking about?

Prachanda: There shouldn't be the parliamentary republicanism, which is in practice in other countries, in Nepal. That doesn't solve the problem. There's no question of an autocracy. We need a republicanism of our own kind.

Q. You have envisioned a people's republic, no?

Prachanda: Mao Zedong's People's Republic cannot fulfill the needs of today's world. It cannot address today's political awareness appropriately. Mao said cooperative party theory; we called it competitive party theory. We have said let's move ahead from the conventional People's Republic and develop it as per the specialties of the 21st century.

Q. You do not follow the old concept of communism?

Prachanda: Definitely not. What happened without competition? In the USSR, Stalin gave no place to competition and went ahead in a monolithic way. What was the result?

Q. Let's talk about the economy. The 21st century world is a free-market world. How do you see the open market economic policy?

Prachanda: The economy should not be given a free rein in the name of a free market. We should take the middle way. Words like liberalisation and globalisation are being much touted these days. But if you look at it closely, the very supporters of these theories have not implemented it in their own countries. The most powerful countries and America themselves have not implemented it. They have referred it to the poorest countries. Competition has been referred to undeveloped countries. We are against that policy. It's not right.

Q. The country's resources haven't increased. The number of mouths to feed has. In such a situation, do you think the country's development is as easy as you are saying?

Prachanda: I think development is not that difficult a thing. The main thing is what policies and plans the state adopts and what kind of programmes it brings forward for the millions of people. This is the main thing. One hundred years back, we were very much self-dependent. We were not economically weaker than others. If you compare us with many countries of the world, you will know that we are not weak. Others kept progressing and we kept going downhill. We have serious problems in the policies adopted by the state. What I think is if the state has the right programmes and vision, then there are only 200 million mouths but 400 hands. If the 400 million hands are put to work in the right way, imagine where this could take the country in 10 years.

However, we have to cut down certain things to save money. I have been saying that we do not need this 90 thousand-strong army. We can cut it down by 80 thousand. 10 thousand is enough. And then see how much capital we will have. It's not out of any personal grudge that we want to abolish the monarchy. They have amassed hundreds of billions of rupees. Imagine the kind of capital we will have if that is nationalised. Won't miracles happen if we then mobilise the 400 million hands? We can earn millions from our herbs. We have so much Yarchagumba. Let's open processing factories where it is found. Thousands will get jobs and we can earn hundreds of millions of rupees. Money will start growing there.

...

Q. Business people, industrialists and entrepreneurs are a little concerned about you. Their fear is if you can give them so many problems as a powerful party, you will squeeze them once in power.

Prachanda: We encourage those who want to develop industries in the country, create jobs, make profits and invest the profits in the country. We are organising a national meet of the capitalists. There, we will invite even those who disagree with us. We want that Nepal's capital does not go outside. We are clear that there will be no development in Nepal unless the capitalists can make some profit. But let that profit not be through exploitation and let it also not go abroad. We are also going to propose to the capitalists to invest where the most profit can be made. We should introduce a strict law to stop those who earn here and deposit the money in America or India.

Breaking Gender’s Chains

2006-06-13T15:23:00.000-07:00

The question of gender is dealt with as sharply as that of class in the 1954 film “Salt of the Earth,” a movie about the struggle of Latino miners against their racist exploiters. The lead characters, Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, live on mining company land and must buy their necessities from the mining company stores. They eke out a subsistence living, and furthermore, as a result of national oppression, have worse conditions than the white miners.

It is understandable why the McCarthyite reactionaries despised this film and persecuted its producers. “Salt of the Earth” is a damning indictment of class, national, and gender oppression. In the film, after a mining strike breaks out, and the courts bar the workers from picketing the mine, the miner’s wives step forward, against their husbands wishes, to man the picket and continue the struggle. The women must convince their husbands to put aside their patriarchal notions so that man and woman can jointly wage the struggle against the class enemy.

The women do not hesitate to physically resist an assault by the police, and forcefully assert their demands. The women change themselves in the course of their struggle, and set aside the chains of tradition that bound them as women. As Esperanza Quintero deepens her political work, she becomes much more at ease, and positively beams with happiness because she knows her cause is just.

In Salt of the Earth, for the sake of the class struggle, Ramon Quintero sets aside male right, and his wife Esperanza sets aside traditional female submissiveness.

This example in “Salt of the Earth” brings on the general question of gender as a social construct, and how communists who uphold science must also reject bio-determinism, or the ideology that biology means destiny. The dominant concepts of gender are not principally determined by biological characteristics of male and female sex, but rather they are rooted in the existing social system presided over by a ruling class. Engels outlined how the female sex suffered a “historical defeat” when male right was established and women’s productive roles were subordinated to those of men. It is true that biological sex characteristics played a role in this initial emergence of patriarchy; in particular, women’s role in menstruation, childbearing, and nursing of children may have imposed certain disadvantages vis-à-vis men. But by no means do such characteristics justify patriarchy, nor do they at all mean that it is somehow “natural” for women’s roles to be determined by their reproductive system. In short, communists say, “women are not incubators.”

Communists recognize that human beings are differentiated from animals by virtue of their consciousness and their ability to remake the world - and themselves - to serve the interests of humanity. What is “natural” is that which serves human freedom. That which inhibits the participation of men or women in social life and their development is not to be enshrined for all time as sacred, but it should instead be transcended. This transcendence, this struggle to push the borders of freedom ever-forward against alienation and necessity, represents the basic nature of men and women as conscious beings. And there is no gender identity in that.

Men must struggle to renounce male right, to recognize women as their equals in every realm, and to reject the anti-social, oppressive notions of manhood. Women must join with men and assume the social stage as the co-equals of men, putting aside all inhibitions based on reactionary, submissive notions of womanhood. Socially-understood concepts of gender - as opposed to biological sex - will in some form exist throughout the course of class society, including under socialism. It is not possible to know whether or not gender will exist in a classless society, but I do not believe it will exist in a form at all similar to those yet seen. Men and woman will work side by side - in non-alienated labor - to brighten the horizons for humankind. Whole new vistas of human relations will open up, and the chains of gender will fall away.

No Way Out in Iraq for U.S. Imperialists - Only Defeat Lies Ahead

2006-06-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

The imperialist media are trumpeting the purported “death” of al-Queda of Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a supposed great victory in their phony “war on terror.” We have heard this same song again and again. But the fundamental facts of this unjust and immoral occupation keep crashing down on the aggressors and their media handmaids, and so they will yet again. Oppression breeds resistance. The Iraqi people have not and will not submit to the plans of imperialism to turn their country into a vassal and a showcase of so-called Westernization.

But let us address the case of Zarqawi, and his role in the Iraqi political scene. Al-Queda of Iraq is not the main enemy of the Iraqi people – the U.S. imperialist occupation forces are; however, it must be made absolutely clear that Zarqawi is a reactionary, an enemy of the people of Iraq. Zarqawi’s group has hindered, and not helped the consolidation of an all-Iraqi resistance to occupation. We saw glimmers of this potential unity during the genocidal siege of Falluja in 2004. While this predominantly Sunni city was being bombarded around the clock, Iraqi Shia Muslims lined up to donate blood to the victims of the slaughter. Link Also, the Shia Muslim Sadrist movement stepped up its struggle against occupation forces. The Zarqawi group’s indiscriminate attacks against non-Sunni segments of the Iraqi people plays very well into the plans of imperialism to exercise its strategy of divide and rule. Zarqawi’s notion of religious war against infidels bears an ideological similarity to Bush’s Christian fascist “crusade.”

Children are continually targeted by the U.S. imperialist occupation forces

It appears that the main forces of the Sunni religious fighters in Iraq have rejected Zarqawi’s strategy of killing masses of non-Sunni Iraqis. In early April, numerous media sources including BBC relayed reports from a leading pro-al-Queda figure that Zarqawi had been removed from his leadership position due to dissatisfaction with his war strategy and tactics, and had been replaced by an Iraqi figure. Link If Zarqawi was indeed killed, it is quite possible that Zarqawi was betrayed by his colleagues so that the U.S. could accomplish their task of eliminating him.

When Saddam Hussein was captured in late 2003, the imperialist media were overjoyed - they were certain that “now that they didn’t have to be afraid of Saddam coming back to power,” Iraqis would come out in support of the occupation forces. Of course, in reality, the resistance only at this time began to crystallize into a formidable force militarily. Saddam Hussein’s freedom in Iraq was actually a brake on the development of the struggle, because so many Iraqis did not wish to be identified with Ba’athism politically. So too Zarqawi’s presence has been a brake on the struggle, alienating the masses with reactionary attacks on the rights of the people and mass killings at places of worship, and so on.

The imperialist spokespersons are now flush with a seeming “victory” by allegedly liquidating one individual, who, as noted, has been detrimental to the development of the fight against imperialist occupation. If the real strategists of imperialism actually believe such talk, they are seriously deluded, and lack clear heads. This is a struggle which has no victory for U.S. imperialism. Some ruling class forces already recognize this, and are calling for “Iraqization,” and the withdrawal of U.S. forces to nearby Kuwaiti and Qatari bases, from which they can bomb and kill at a safe distance.

But no matter which strategy the U.S. adopts, it cannot achieve the objectives delineated by Bush, and that is because the Iraqi people will not accept it. The masses are the makers of history. Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and people want revolution. In war, people, and not weapons, are the principle aspect. This was a lesson taught to U.S. imperialism by the people of Indochina - others will forever accept the job of re-teaching that lesson, if need be.

Cultivate the Critical Spirit, Make Working People Masters of Society

2006-06-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

“Mounting the Platform to Criticize Lin Biao and Confucius”

In a revolutionary society, people must have ease of mind to wage criticism. The understanding of “contradictions among the people” must be very expansive - broader than that understood during the previous, first wave of proletarian revolution.

“The Workshop Is a Battlefield”

The workplace must cease to be a place in which working people are subordinated - they must become masters of society, and as part of that, must assume a leading role in places of production. This mustn’t merely be a slogan: the right to strike and to recall management must be legally protected. As revolutionary shipping workers said in China, “Be Masters of the Wharf, Not Slaves to the Tonnage!”

Reactionary Student Movements under Socialism and Revisionism

2006-06-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been studying the ways in which student movements were used to topple the revisionist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989, as well as how earlier right-wing student movements were aimed at subverting real socialism. Though the states in the region were not socialist in nature in 1989, I believe that the experience in these countries has implications for future socialist experience.

After Khrushchev attacked Stalin and the bulk of Soviet socialist experience in 1956, old and new reactionaries throughout the socialist countries (most of which were now in the process of restoring capitalism) took this as a signal and opening to attack the whole edifice of socialism, albeit sometimes under a “socialist” cover. The Hungarian events of 1956 are the most extreme expression of this. In this case, communists were viciously persecuted, Marxist books were burned, old fascists appeared openly and attacked police and state officials, reactionary clergy mobilized their flocks to loot and burn, and so on. In China during 1956, Mao had called for “one hundred flowers to bloom, one hundred schools of thought to contend.” The bourgeois rightists took advantage of this to agitate against the basic constitutional premises of socialism in China. Their aim was to replicate the Hungarian events in China. Mao quickly launched a campaign against the rightists, and made clear that democracy was for the people, but the organs of state power would defend socialism when contradictions with political elements became antagonistic in nature. By doing so, he maintained the political initiative for the communists in Chinese society, while in the European countries, which were changing color, the parties were politically and ideologically passive, failing to mobilize the masses and instead relying on secret police and law enforcement measures alone.

The student movements in Eastern Europe during 1989 were essentially reactionary in nature.* While the regimes against which they were agitating were not socialist, the protesters represented new and old bourgeois elements who were profoundly dissatisfied with the constraints on their political and economic activity which were largely a relic of the previous socialist order. They represented “experts” and “technocrats” who were no longer content to be paid significantly less, relatively speaking, than their Western counterparts. Incomes in Czechoslovakia, for instance, were quite egalitarian by international standards. Taking all this into account, there is a similarity between the rightist student movements of 1956-1957 and those of 1989, and a lesson for future socialist states.

Gorbachev and his clique were instrumental in engineering the dissolution of the revisionist order in Eastern Europe. They made a strategic decision as the ruling class of Russian imperialism that they could do better without what they perceived as the fetters imposed by their phony socialism. They endorsed those in the ruling parties in Poland and Hungary who wished to pursue multi-party, bourgeois politics, and openly go over to social democracy. The problem for Gorbachev, et al., was that there were Brezhnevite remnants in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. In Romania, Ceausescu was also not about to let go of the pretense of socialism. And so, the Soviet political agents, including KGB, encouraged and managed the political activity of various “democratic socialist” groups in these countries. In East Germany, the main group was called “New Forum,” which now is a part of the Green Party. In Czechoslovakia, social democrat Dubcek, the Communist Party leader who was overthrown in the 1968 Soviet invasion, was wheeled out.

At the beginning of October 1989, the crusty revisionists felt secure in their positions of power. In East Germany, leader Honecker was preparing festivities for the 40th anniversary of the republic. There was political resistance to the wind of “perestroika” coming both from Moscow and from the West. Soon, demonstrations began occurring, in which the participants called for “free speech” and for “socialism with a human face.” Slowly but surely, with the active intervention of the Soviet authorities, party leaderships in Eastern Europe were purged of those resisting “new thinking,” and concessions were made to the student-centered opposition. Suddenly, the protesters stopped talking about “socialism,” and instead sensed the weakness of the “communists,” and they began to strike at the heart of the legitimacy of their rule. Soon, the ruling parties, stripped of all leadership and sense of cohesion, stripped themselves of their leading state roles, and removed references to socialism and Marxism-Leninism from their respective state constitutions.

There is a lesson in this for future socialist states. The reactionary student movement is a favorite tool of internal and external class forces seeking to subvert socialism. It first parades as supportive of socialism and even as supportive of the Communist Party. We saw this in China’s right-wing Tienanman counterrevolutionary riots of April 1976, in which students upheld “socialism” and the deceased right-wing Premier Zhou Enlai, while beating up workers’ militia and slandering Mao and his closest comrades. Under socialism, the rightists don’t generally dare to openly oppose socialism, because this would provoke mass mobilization to defend revolutionary gains. Instead, they slowly eat away at the political foundations of socialism, seeking to confuse and disorient revolutionaries, until they have achieved their goal.

Future socialist states must learn from this experience. They must, first of all, adhere to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, wage successive cultural revolutions, and make the working people masters of society and not slaves to their labor. But furthermore, the socialist state must never conciliate with old or new reactionaries. It is fine to allow reactionary ideas to be expressed; in particular, this may serve as a good lesson by negative example. But the socialist state must also not hesitate to impose dictatorship over those who seek to restore the old order. All the student movement “liberalism” is a smokescreen, for they would unleash white terror given the opportunity. Future socialist states must prevent the emergence of new reactionary elements in academia and technical fields by keeping the working class in charge, ensuring that universities are filled with children of workers, and insofar as practical, integrating study with application through real-world work. Communists must assume a leading role in society. But the crux of this role is not legal-administrative, it is political and ideological. They must be the most active element politically, continuously mobilizing people and shaping public opinion. The Hungarian experience of 1956 is a good example of the consequences of ceding political ground and retreating into administrative affairs.

*Some Maoists may think that the collapse of revisionism in Eastern Europe was at least a democratic victory over “social-fascism,” but I do not agree. While now in these countries there is greater democracy in some areas, such as rights of assembly, speech, and the right to strike, in other areas, there is less freedom, such as with social guarantees, workplace democracy, and so on.

Human Reason and the Struggle against Alienation and Necessity

2006-06-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

Through reason - the application of the powers of consciousness -humanity struggles to transform itself and his world. The question of the nature of human reason, in turn, leads to the question of what is the human nature, from which springs such reason. Concepts of human nature removed from historical conditions are functionally apologia for the status quo, for they impute to an ahistorical, universal human nature the effects of historically specific, oppressive social relations. Marx, in contrast to such views, postulates an essential relationship between human nature and its historical context. Reason, as such, is, likewise, not to be viewed apart from relevant historical context. This is exactly why, within the context of class society, human reason interacts with the class struggle. The ideological representation of systems of thought changes with changes in the social system. That which is constant, by contrast, is the reasoned struggle against alienation, for self-development.

Marx states that, “human power is its own end.” (1) By this, Marx stresses the ongoing struggle for human self-development, and sovereignty over the physical world. While class struggle will come to an end with the advent of communism, the contradiction between freedom and necessity will not. To Marx, this fight, to roll back the margins of necessity, represents the constant “thread,” running throughout human development, from pre-class society onward into the communist future. The human beings are not born as a tabula rasa; rather, they express their specific human character through their productive labor, and through grasping the world-at-large. Marx said that humankind must become a collection of individuals “with an all-round development, one for whom various social functions are alternative modes of activity.” (Das Kapital) If full play is given to this natural bent, then a conscious, determined fight against class oppression will be the result. Indeed, if the exercise of human reason is a process leading to the expansion of human power, then alienation of labor is its greatest hindrance.

The inherent power of human reason, spanning the stages of social development, is of a decisively revolutionary character. By apprehending social relations, and fighting the systemic causes of alienation, humanity strives to attain freedom to pursue universal (non-alienated) labor. This fight must, under present class society, tend toward communist revolution. The end result of this revolution is no utopia, no final state of fixed laws and relationships. In fact, communism is an endless series of successively higher states of human self-development, distinguished from earlier forms of society by the elimination of alienation - the “all-round development” about which Marx talks, is pursued.

In order to determine whether the view of human reason upheld by Marx, the one by which humanity apprehends the world in order to transform it, actually is “right,” or, conforms to reality, one need only point to the entirety of human history, which is a story of the struggle of humanity to become more self-aware, to become more aware of the world and the relation between the subjective and the objective realms, and finally, to transform this world and humanity itself, in order to transcend the hindering burdens of necessity and alienation.

Endnote

1. Quoted by Raya Dunayevskaya in Philosophy and Revolution 1973 (173)

Maoist Mass Rally Mobilizes Hundreds of Thousands in Katmandu

2006-06-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

Party workers prepare for today’s great rally by decorating the capital with the working people’s flag.

Party workers cover the city with posters heralding the victories of the people’s war and the democratic movement. Comrade Prachanda is seen in the posters.

The Nepalese youth were prominent in organizing for the success of the rally. Organizers wore t-shirts bearing the image of Party leader Comrade Prachanda.

Today’s rally was attended by more than 200,000 people, according to bourgeois news media.

The Party flag belong’s not only to the working people of Nepal, but to those of the whole world.

Comrade Mahara, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chief negotiator, addressed the mass rally. He warned against plots to restore the autocratic monarchy, and to scuttle the people’s demand for a constituent assembly to determine the destiny of Nepal.

The revolutionary Nepalese people are filled with determination to forge a new Nepal, free of national, class, and gender oppression, in the service of the world revolution.

Historical Materialism vs. Historical Determinism

2006-05-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Marx’s outlook on historical development bears no similarity to what could be called historical determinism, or, a fatalistic concept of a mechanically determined predestination. Marx’s dialectical method is opposed to the mechanical method or determinist method in which the subjective, conscious aspect of human activity is totally negated. The materialist conception of history does not argue that man does not make history, but that man makes history within definite parameters set by the inherited conditions of society. Marx says, “men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” (Eighteenth Brumaire)

Marx’s own practice bears out his opposition to the historical determinist outlook. His role in proselytizing communist ideology, and in building revolutionary organization, coincide fully with his belief that the rule of the bourgeoisie would not fall of its own accord, but only with the conscious, determined efforts of a cadre among the masses of people.

Marx does not state that the communist society is inevitable, but instead points to the systemic crises of class rule, and the role the propertyless proletariat may play in replacing this society with classless, communist society. To Marx, the point was to grasp the essence of historical processes, not in order to imagine the alleged inevitability of this or that future course for society, but to carry out an actual, current revolutionary process fully in accord with historical opportunities. The subjective, conscious aspect of social development, without doubt, functions within a set of constraints. Historical necessity allows for varying possibilities within a certain scope of operation; it does not forecast definite or absolute outcomes. For instance, Marx and Engels do not see revolution as the inevitable triumph of a nascent class. Indeed, revolutions may cause “the common ruin of the contending classes” (Communist Manifesto).

Voluntarism makes the error of ignoring the objective constraints of the conditions inherited from history. Such was the error of the utopian socialists who sought to, parallel with and apart from the ascendant nation-states, affect a kind of communistic relations. Historical determinism makes the error of ignoring the subjective, conscious aspect of history as a process of human self-development. Often revisionists, but also at times genuine Marxists, have adopted a historical determinist stand when proclaiming that an increase in the development of the forces of production will absolutely lead to a corresponding leap to communism, apart from the class struggle in the realm of the superstructure.

In Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, in which he declares that “the philosophers have understood the world, the point however is to change it,” he answers the criticism that he upholds a mechanical, deterministic worldview. “The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society,” says Marx. Here, he clearly highlights the dynamic role of the subjective element in the making of history, without which, no human development can occur. The materialist conception of history fully accounts for both the objective and subjective factors contributing to social movement.

Works Cited

Marx, Karl. The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers, 1947.

Marx, Karl, and Engels, Frederick. “Theses on Feuerbach.” Marx/Engels Selected Works. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969. 13-15.

Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1978.

Continued Revolution under Socialism Means Seizing Power

2006-05-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

In 1975, a film was released in China called “Breaking with Old Ideas.” The central plot of the movie surrounds the struggle of working people to gain entrance to an agricultural college, as well the struggle over what role education should serve in a socialist society. My favorite scene in the film is when there is mass meeting concerning the criteria for student admissions, and a revolutionary cadre at the college holds aloft the hand of a young worker, and proclaims, “These calluses are his qualification for admission!” The point here is that educational institutions under socialism must serve the working people, and also must promote overcoming the contradiction between mental and manual labor, and between town and countryside.

There is a weakness in the film, however: until the very end of the movie, it is unclear whether or not the revolutionary forces at the school will win out against the backward school officials. Finally, an official in a government car arrives with a note from Mao Zedong, praising the revolutionaries. The masses erupt in celebration of their victory, and then the film ends. A year after the film was released, a counterrevolutionary military coup was carried out, and the revolutionary leadership was crushed, with little armed resistance. Had many good revolutionaries become too accustomed to looking to the center for strength? Perhaps a more apt film would have portrayed the January Storm in Shanghai during January of 1967. In this uprising, the reactionary-led local Party committee was overthrown, and the revolutionary forces seized control of media, factories, and state offices. They masses did so without getting a note from anyone in Beijing.

“Petitioning the Center” or Seizing Power?

Under Stalin, aggrieved workers and farmers wrote to Stalin, in the hopes of finding relief from the abuses of local officials. The same was true of working people in China under Mao’s leadership. And there is nothing at all wrong with this, in itself. A revolutionary leadership is crucial to the success of socialist revolution and construction. However, such activity alone is insufficient, and is furthermore a great hindrance if the masses of people do not mobilize to actually seize political power for the revolutionary forces, and overthrow those officials carrying out reactionary policies.

On the other hand, there is a real danger from rampant, misdirected “leftism.” Zhang Chunqiao, one of Mao’s closest comrades arrested after the chairman’s death, raised criticism of anarchism, and in particular pointed out the ways in which rightists use ultra-“leftism” to sabotage the Party and socialist society. In other words, legality cannot be completely dispensed with. There must be a legal mechanism to provide channels for revolutionary renewal in society, without opening the door to class subversion and counterrevolution. It will not be an easy task for future socialist states to devise such organizational forms.

Nepal’s Answer

A Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) document states that “(e)xperience has proved that after assuming state power, when various leaders and cadres of the Party are involved in running the state affairs, then there is strong chance that physical environment may swiftly reduce the Party into a bureaucratic, careerist and luxurious class. With intensification of this danger the Party will become more formal and alienated from the masses, in the same proportion. This process when it reaches to certain level of its own development, it is bound to be transformed into counter-revolution. In order to prevent such danger as counter-revolution to happen, it is important to develop further organizational mechanism and system so that Party is constantly under the vigilance, control and service of the proletariat and working masses according to the theory of two-line struggle and continuous revolution.”

The document gives specific policy recommendations as well, calling for “organizing political competition within the constitutional limits of the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist democratic state. Only by institutionalizing the rights of the masses to install an alternative revolutionary Party or leadership on the state if the Party fails to continuously revolutionize itself that counter-revolution can be effectively checked.” It may well be the case that the CPN (Maoist) has gone the furthest of the communist parties to date in assimilating the lessons of the reversals to the cause of socialism, and in understanding how to simultaneously protect a revolution from its enemies while preventing political degeneration resulting from bureaucratization.

Reference: http://cpnm.org/new/English/worker/9issue/document.htm

Dialectical and Historical Materialism

2006-05-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

Karl Marx stresses clearly and repeatedly that the materialist conception of history is qualitatively different than the idealist method of historical analysis, which, Marx says, “confines itself to high-sounding dramas of princes and states.” (46) Marx’s criticism of the idealism of his German opponents is aimed at highlighting his historical materialist conception, and specifically its application to the actual struggle of the proletariat to affect revolution.

There can be no contradiction between the “human experience” and human history, because, as Marx points out, human history is a continuity, a process of self-development leading directly into, and explaining, the actual productive relations of society, and these relations’ “efflux,” man’s mental intercourse, world outlook. Marx’s revolutionary party, the communists, could not hope to initiate revolutionary consciousness among the proletarians without being able to posit the class struggle into the context of historical development. Marx’s stress on man’s world-historical acts leads directly to understanding the class struggle of the communists as the self-conscious making of current history.

The German Ideology wittily and clearly attacks the philosophical muck of historical idealism. But the point appears not to be identifying idealism, so much as developing its opposite: historical materialism. Using the materialist method, seeking to analyze concrete productive relationships and processes of development, and in a dialectical way, seeing the dynamic, multi-sided character of this development. But this was to Marx no scholastic exercise, so much as a programmatic expression of the communists, declaring to the world that history is on the side of the proletariat, as the class to end class division once and for all. To Marx, the struggles of class society lead directly to the present, in which the propertyless, socialized working class, combined with mighty productive forces, could and would seize power.

The crux of The German Ideology is its identification of the process of self-development of human society, and its forecast that the communist revolution will qualitatively transform this. “All-round dependence, this natural form of the world-historical cooperation of individuals, will be transformed by this communist revolution into the control and conscious mastery of these powers, which, born of the action of men on one another, have until now overawed and governed men as powers completely alien to them.” (58) Here, Marx highlights the fundamentally heteronomic (dependent) state of man until present, in which the hand of necessity both alienates him from the product of his work, and leads him to ascribe this process of alienation to metaphysical concepts such as “God,” or “fate.” This alienation will be resolved through the revolution, when human creativity will no longer be smothered by necessity and class oppression.

Indeed, the real value of this work is its application of materialism to the analysis of the motion of history, and, from that standpoint, the optimistic forecast of a communist future. Marx’s dialectical method can be applied to physical as well as social science, but historical materialism has perhaps shattered the old, reactionary traditions more than has anything else. Marx transformed the notion of historical development into a “specter,” that has long haunted the exploiting classes, and provided a basis for optimism among revolutionary forces. After the fall of many self-proclaimed socialist states, some bourgeois ideologists, wishing to bury Marx’s contributions once and for all, triumphantly declared “the end of history,” in which all forward motion was said to be a utopian mirage. But the fundamental power of Marx’s analysis here lies in its focus upon the broad, world-historical development of the productive forces, relations, and the correspondent superstructure. The contradictions giving rise to revolutionary crises cannot be covered over with any idealist philosophy, and, ultimately, the conscious, willful mastery of human creative and productive power foreseen by Marx will be realized.

Works Cited

Marx, Karl. The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers, 1947.

Forty Years Since Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

2006-05-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). It was on that day that the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted the “Circular of the Central Committee of the CPC on the GPCR.” The tide had turned against the revisionist, right-wingers in power, and the revolutionaries had seized the initiative. The central committee dissolved the revisionist-led group that was formerly in charge of the development of the Cultural Revolution, and decided to set up a new Cultural Revolution Group comprised of leading revolutionaries. The circular enumerated the principal errors of an “outline” drawn up by revisionist group being dissolved, and these were applicable to the entire bourgeois headquarters in the Party, led by Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. Below are quotations from the circular, followed by comments.

“Instead of encouraging the entire party boldly to arouse the broad masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers, and the fighters for proletarian culture so that they can continue to charge ahead, the outline (the rightist, dissolved Cultural Revolution group’s document) does its best to turn the movement to the right.”

Comment: The revisionists were afraid of the masses. Practically the first thing they did when they came to power was to eliminate the “four big freedoms” in the constitution which protected the masses’ right to speech and to strike.

“The outline lays special emphasis on what it calls 'opening wide'. But playing a sly trick it grossly distorts the policy of 'opening wide' expounded by Comrade Mao Tse-tung at the party's National Conference on Propaganda Work in March 1957 and negates the class content of 'opening wide'. It was in dealing with this question that Comrade Mao Tse-tung pointed out: 'We still have to wage a protracted struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology. It is wrong not to understand this and to give up ideological struggle. All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be allowed to spread unchecked.' Comrade Mao Tse-tung also said, 'To "open wide" means to let all people express their opinions freely, so that they dare to speak, dare to criticize, and dare to debate.' This outline, however, poses 'opening wide' against exposure by the proletariat of the bourgeoisie's reactionary stand.”

Comment: The reactionaries wanted to stifle the masses of working people and the youth, but wanted to “open wide” for the sake of the old and new exploiters and exponents of exploiting class ideology and politics. Deng Xiaoping’s slogan in the late 1970’s was to “emancipate your mind.” He meant this as a signal to the reactionaries that they could spew all sorts of backwardness without fear of criticism from the masses. In short, they want the intelligentsia to be comfortable and at ease, while the masses are forced off the stage of history, forced to defer to the “technocrats.”

“Just when we began the counter-offensive against the wild attacks of the bourgeoisie, the authors of the outline raised the slogan: 'everyone is equal before the truth'. This is a bourgeois slogan. Completely negating the class nature of truth, they use this slogan to protect the bourgeoisie and oppose the proletariat, oppose Marxism-Leninism, and oppose Mao Tse-tung's thought.”

Comment: A criticism must be raised here: there is a truth which is independent of class. But, Marxist materialists know that the absolute truth cannot be ascertained at any given moment. Human beings can only obtain relative truth. Marxism provides the scientific framework to best approximate the truth, and to continuously challenge that which inhibits perception of the truth. On the other hand, the criticism is aimed at the political aim of the revisionists’ slogan, which is to negate the superiority of Marxism over the pragmatic ideology upheld by them.

“Chairman Mao often says that there is no construction without destruction. Destruction means criticism and repudiation; it means revolution. It involves reasoning things out, which is construction. Put destruction first, and in the process you have construction. Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung's thought, was founded and has constantly developed in the course of the struggle to destroy bourgeois ideology. This outline, however, emphasizes that 'without construction, there can be no real and thorough destruction'. This amounts to prohibiting the destruction of bourgeois ideology and prohibiting the construction of proletarian ideology. It is diametrically opposed to Chairman Mao's thought.”

Comment: This is a critical point. The GPCR was a real revolution, but the revisionists wanted it to be a sterile, academic affair. They didn’t want the old things and ways of thinking destroyed. In one of Mao’s first articles, on the peasant movement of Hunan, he states:

They fine the local tyrants and evil gentry, they demand contributions from them, and they smash their sedan-chairs. People swarm into the houses of local tyrants and evil gentry who are against the peasant association, slaughter their pigs and consume their grain. They even loll for a minute or two on the ivory-inlaid beds belonging to the young ladies in the households of the local tyrants and evil gentry. At the slightest provocation they make arrests, crown the arrested with tall paper hats, and parade them through the villages, saying, "You dirty landlords, now you know who we are!" Doing whatever they like and turning everything upside down, they have created a kind of terror in the countryside. This is what some people call "going too far", or "exceeding the proper limits in righting a wrong", or "really too much". Such talk may seem plausible, but in fact it is wrong. First, the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords have themselves driven the peasants to this. For ages they have used their power to tyrannize over the peasants and trample them underfoot; that is why the peasants have reacted so strongly. The most violent revolts and the most serious disorders have invariably occurred in places where the local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords perpetrated the worst outrages. The peasants are clear-sighted.
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The revisionists feared the revolutionary fury of the masses. They wanted to preserve their bureaucratic privilege. They wanted to become a new exploiting class, like the ruling revisionists in the Soviet Union. The GPCR was all about preventing that from happening. It was a “Hunan peasant movement” of the 1960’s.

May 16th Circular

May 17th, 2006: 26th Anniversary of the Initiation of the People’s War in Peru

2006-05-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

Twenty-six years ago, the Communist Party of Peru launched a tremendous blow for communism and revolution, and against imperialism, by launching revolutionary war. There have been many twists and turns since that time, but the struggle of the revolutionary forces under the leadership of the PCP has been an experience of supreme sacrifice and heroism. The contribution of the PCP to the international communist movement cannot be underestimated. It provided critical ideological leadership at a time of confusion and disarray stemming from the loss in China following the death of Mao Zedong.

Below are Peruvian revolutionaries during the 1980’s.

“Communist Party of Peru (PCP)” Pro-“Peace Accord” Faction Favors Alan Garcia for President

Unfortunately, since “peace accords” were proposed by a group within the PCP in 1993, the unity of the PCP was shattered, and multiple groups claim leadership in the name of the Party.

An underground representative of the “PCP” pro-“peace accord” faction gave the French news organization AFP a statement. Gabriel Uribe, “PCP south-central committee spokesperson” said, “It is our fervent desire that the black campaign against Humala crushes him at the ballot box so that he and his followers are driven to our camp.” He articulated the belief that Garcia’s reign would reignite the crises of bureaucrat-capitalism - the ones that in 1993 PCP leader Abimael Guzman allegedly praised Alberto Fujimori for mitigating.

The speaker further intoned: “It is not in our plans to retake to arms.” Uribe said that, now, armed struggle in Peru is “a burden for the people.” He further insisted that the Peruvian state accept the nearly 13-year old “peace proposal” allegedly put forth by Abimael Guzman, which would declare amnesty for all revolutionary prisoners of war and political prisoners. Yes, war is a “burden.” But so are imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism.

Below, the banner behind Gabriel Uribe calls for a “political solution to the problems derived from the internal war.” Now they do not even call it a people’s war. It is Mao Zedong, appearing on a poster behind Uribe, who said that to bury the gun it is necessary to pick up the gun.

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Lenin and Science

2006-05-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

Upholding scientific method is one of the characteristics that distinguishes communist, scientific socialist thinkers from those with idealist and utopianist conceptions. Let us take up the example of Lenin, for instance.

Lenin acknowledged the universally revolutionary role of scientific method. Particularly, Lenin acknowledged the crucial role that science, technology and the accumulation of capital played in terms of allowing for the oppressed nations to transcend feudalism and imperialist domination. Science is a key not only to achieving material abundance, but also serves to challenge ossified class and productive relationships. Soviet policy under Lenin aimed to raise the cultural and technical level of the proletariat to the level of the workers who were engaged in engineering and other technical work with the objective of eliminating the differences between mental and physical labor. In both theory and practice, Lenin was committed to scientific method.[1]

It is only certain false friends of the national liberation struggles that would, perhaps in the name of a false “anti-imperialism” or of “zero growth,” adopt an anti-science, anti-capital accumulation standpoint. But this is not the standpoint of Lenin. The question of the role of scientific method is a demarcation between scientific socialism as upheld by Lenin, and the various utopian socialist currents of thought. Some revolutionary-minded people see scientific endeavor and its technological product as an optional, secondary political matter for a new society as compared with the simple redistribution of existing wealth. However, Lenin understood the absolute value of developing the material base of production as the prerequisite for class liberation. While Lenin held that, for the nations oppressed by imperialism, the stage of bourgeois-directed capitalist development need not follow liberation from imperialist-dictated semi-feudalism, he did not hold that the period of capital accumulation analogous to capitalist development could be bypassed. That is, Lenin held that, due to the emergence of imperialism, the bourgeoisie in the oppressed nations could not fulfill what has been understood by Marxists to be their historical task, the development of material abundance, and that completing this task would fall to the proletariat and its allies. While Lenin held that a semi-feudal nation could chart a course of socialist development without going through a capitalist stage, never did he negate the necessity for building up mighty productive forces with scientific workers at their core.

Ted Kazcynski provides an extreme yet succinct demonstration of Luddite, utopian opposition to scientific method and technology. His “manifesto” proclaimed:

The system needs scientists, mathematicians and engineers. It can't function without them. So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields. It isn't natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the real world. Among primitive peoples the things that children are trained to do are in natural harmony with natural human impulses. Among the American Indians, for example, boys were trained in active outdoor pursuits -- just the sort of things that boys like.[2]

Here, Kazcynski makes clear that he sees science as a burden alien to the so-called “natural” man, exemplified by the indigenous Americans and their more “natural human impulses” of physical activity. Indeed, this line of thought hearkens to the national socialist cult of so-called “physical culture.”[3] Kazcynski precludes the idea of non-alienated universal labor, and instead projects a cult of a bestial “nature.” Science, however, has a potential to serve as an egalitarian force and to challenge customary authority by shattering axiomatic agreements about what is known. The shattering of customary agreements and underlying assumptions is the dialectical process by which new knowledge comes into being through scientific discovery. It is this discovery, this human self-development that Kazcynski eschews in favor of “natural human impulses,” of unconscious “active outdoor pursuits.” Scientific socialist thinkers see science as a uniquely human, even voluntarist endeavor to willfully transform humankind’s world, and, as a derivative effect of this, recognize that the exercise of scientific method serves to continuously challenge the existing social, axiomatic assumptions.

With regard to science in today’s political arena, if Lenin were to condemn anyone as furthering the cause of imperialism, it would be those Luddites and utopianists who wish to deprive the peoples of the oppressed nations access to the technology necessary to develop the productive forces. Lenin would condemn Earth First ecologists, who proclaim “a new biocentric paradigm based on the intrinsic value of all natural things: Deep Ecology. Earth First believes in wilderness for its own sake.”[4] Lenin would condemn Kazcynski. Lenin would uphold the central role of science in the cause of human freedom.

Endnotes
[1] See Lenin’s slogan, “Communism equals Soviet power plus electrification” as embodying Lenin’s commitment to the role of technical improvements in the process of building socialism.

[2] Kazcynski, Ted. Industrial Society And Its Future, Paragraph 115.

[3] See Mein Kampf, in which Hitler argues that sporting and physical pursuits are superior to study.

[4] Earth First: An Introductory Primer.

“Racial” Nationalist Agenda of the U.S. Right: Demographic Panic

2006-05-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

Fox News presenter John Gibson gave a wild rant about the “dangers” of whites in the U.S. not reproducing enough to preserve white majority in the country. Such talk is a clear expression of the racist, national chauvinist ideology of the “Minutemen,” the “angry white men,” the “post-9/11 Americans” and other assorted fascists and proto-fascists whites in the U.S. Gibson’s rant is entitled “Do Your Duty, Make More Babies.” We soon enough find that he is talking only to whites and not other nationalities in the U.S.

Gibson says that the need to have more babies is “a lesson drawn out of two interesting stories over the last couple of days. First, a story yesterday that half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call ‘gabachos’ -- white people -- are having fewer.” Gibson makes clear that it isn’t “Hispanics” who need to have more babies, but rather just whites. It is clear when he intones that in 25 years “the majority of the population is Hispanic,” the anticipated response from the white audience is one of fear and dread. Also, it is of interest to note that he demonstrates that “Hispanic,” a term the rightists use, divides into two parts: the indigenous and mestizo people of color on the one hand, and the white, Spanish-descended people on the other. The latter point is important because the rightist “minority outreach” attempts are in fact largely aimed at white “Hispanics,” who do not share the national oppression of Chicanos in this country, for instance.

The real politics driving the anti-immigrant movement is a fear of the end of white majority in the population. Indeed, the emergence of a majority population of oppressed nations and nationalities would make clear the settler-colonial roots of this country, and further expose the true nature of the Euro-American imperialist ruling class. Certainly, that the indigenous and mestizo peoples have roots in the North American continent perfectly exposes the sham, ludicrous nature of U.S. whites campaigning against “immigration” into the country on whose land the blood of so many indigenous people was spilled--at the hands of white settlers.

Gibson sums up, “To put it bluntly, we need more babies,” and suggests the battle cry of “procreation not recreation.” Gibson, like white “racial nationalists” generally, believe that U.S. whites have “gone soft”; that is, they are too fearful of sacrifice and too dedicated to personal amusement to serve as useful foot soldiers for a resurgent, aggressive imperialism. That’s what the “post 9/11” mentality is all about: systematically imbuing the ideological foundations for a mass, fascist movement among whites. But progressives and revolutionaries are fighting this and going on the ideological and political offensive. “Bush Step Down and Take Your Whole Program With You,” indeed. And take John Gibson too.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605120006

Imperialism Is the Main Enemy of the People of Iran

2006-05-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

There has also been much criticism from Maoist forces, including from Iranian Maoists, of Iran’s using its “defiance” of the so-called “international community,” i.e., imperialism, with regard to the fabricated “nuclear crisis,” to gain public favor at home.

It is a lesson of the Iraq war that disarming before imperialism only invites aggression. It is the lesson of the north Korean “crises” over the years that arming in the face of imperialist threats raises the costs to imperialism of launching aggression, and averts war. Of course, ultimately, people and not weapons are principal. People’s war is a “magic weapon” in the face of a better-armed enemy. But it must also be remembered that China under the leadership of Mao Zedong pursued and acquired a nuclear weapons deterrent. In 1964 it successfully tested an atom bomb. Three years later, in the midst of the Great Cultural Revolution, it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. It launched its own satellite, which transmitted the tune “The East Is Red.” The achievement of military parity with Israel on the part of a regional state outside the orbit of imperialism would have the effect of aiding the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and would also serve to, once again, raise the price imperialism has to pay for launching wars of aggression.

Communists should resolutely oppose unequal treaties like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which serve to maintain the military hegemony of imperialism in the world. Revolutionaries should not accept the credo of the ruling classes about “weapons of mass destruction.” Imperialism has no hesitation in acquiring and indeed in using all manner of weapons in pursuing its strategic objectives. What the imperialists fear is the proliferation of more powerful weaponry internationally, not just in the hands of the third world governments, but also and especially in the hands of the masses of people in those countries.

The Iranian regime is without doubt a reactionary one, of the worst variety. It is a regime with the blood of countless progressives and revolutionaries on its hands. But it also without doubt that Iran, at the present time, is directly in contention with international forces of imperialism, which are threatening war against the people of Iran. It is the foremost duty of communists in the heart of imperialism to oppose aggression against peoples, nations, and also countries under threat, such as Iran.

Article on Indian Revolution

2006-05-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

The following article from the British press is worth reading in its entirety. It gives a clear picture of the change in strategic posture by the Indian ruling classes. They now see the communist revolutionaries leading people’s war as the principal threat to their class dictatorship, overshadowing the various nationalist struggles within India, as well as the struggle in Kashmir.

The ruling classes have a so-called development strategy for India. It is a strategy of neo-liberal economic policy that leaves India a neo-colony, with literally hundreds of millions of workers and peasants mired in destitution. This is precisely the social base for revolution in India.

The reactionaries have set up a militia called Salva Judum, which ironically means “Peace March.” It is a gang of thugs creating a white terror by indiscriminately killing people in guerrilla zones, and enslaving many of them in “strategic hamlets” in the evil tradition of the Vietnam War. It is said that revolutionaries are the fish and the masses are the sea in which they swim. This hamletization seeks to the “drain the sea” in order to encircle and suppress the revolutionaries. As the article shows, it is the Indian state and ruling classes which are oppressing the peasants of India, and it is the people’s army which is fighting to free them.

Inside India's hidden war: Mineral rights are behind clashes between leftwing guerrillas and state-backed militias

Forty young men and women in ill-fitting army fatigues, clutching flintlocks and pistols, stand in the shade of a mango tree. Beside them flaps a red flag emblazoned with a hammer and sickle.

In a show of strength, the soldiers creep up on imaginary enemies through long grass. Armed with weapons and the opinions of the doctrinaire left, these guerrillas, or Naxalites as they are known, are part of a hidden war in the middle of India's mineral-rich tribal belt.

The Naxalites are heirs of the revolutionary ideology of Mao Zedong. Unlike their ideological cousins in Nepal, the guerrillas are not prepared to consider exchanging the bullet for the ballot box. Across a wide swath of India, from Andhra Pradesh in the south to the Nepalese border, there are daily reports of underground armies hijacking trains, mounting audacious jailbreaks and murdering local politicians.

Last month the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described the rebels as "the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country". Nowhere is this conflict more acute than in the dense forests of southern Chhattisgarh state, the scene of violent land disputes and social clashes. In the past year the state has armed thousands of villagers with guns, spears and bows and arrows. Child soldiers are often ranged against opponents of similar age. In Chhattisgarh a battalion of Indian paramilitary forces has backed this militia, known as Salva Judum (Peace March), against the Naxalites, turning the forest into a battlefield.

Entire villages have been emptied as tribal communities flee from the burnings, lootings and killings. The civil conflict has left more than 50,000 people camping under tarpaulin sheets without work or food along the roadsides of southern Chhattisgarh.

Campaigners say that the reason why the government has opened a new front in this battle lies beneath Chhattisgarh's fertile soil, which contains some of the country's richest reserves of iron ore, coal, limestone and bauxite. Above live some of India's most impoverished people: semi-literate tribes who exist in near destitution.

India's biggest companies have moved stealthily into the forest areas, buying up land and acquiring the rights to extract the buried wealth. Last year the Chhattisgarh government signed deals worth 130bn Indian rupees (£1.6bn) with industrial companies for steel mills and power stations.

The Naxalites have begun a campaign against such industrialisation, which the state sees as necessary to create jobs and provide the raw materials for economic growth.

Watching his "troops" conduct military exercises is Gopanna Markam, company commander in the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, whose rank is denoted by the AK-47 in his hands. He says the "exploitation" needs to be stopped. "The government is bent upon taking out all the resources from this area and leaving the people nothing."

These are no idle threats. Police estimate there are 4,500 armed leftwing guerrillas in Chhattisgarh. In recent months they have attacked mines, blown up electricity pylons and torched cars used by contractors. They have set up "people's courts" to punish, and in some cases execute, those deemed to be capitalist collaborators.

The guerrillas' aim is violent revolution. Their political wing, the Communist party of India (Maoist), operates underground and has an armed presence in almost half of India's 28 states. The cadre fervently believes that India's feudal traditions, ingrained caste hierarchy and skewed land ownership provide fertile ground for rebellion. "The path ahead will become more difficult for us but we know history is with us," said Commander Markam.

The Naxalites argue that they have brought order if not law to the area - banishing corrupt officials, expelling landlords and raising prices at gunpoint for harvests of tendu leaves, used to wrap bidi cigarettes. They finance their operations by levying "taxes" of around 12% on contractors and traders.

In the tribal areas, officials estimate half the population supports the Naxalites, through choice or coercion. Two-thirds of the forests have been off-limits to government staff. In many districts 40% of police posts are unfilled and a quarter of doctors' positions are vacant.

Mahendra Karma, a state politician of tribal heritage, said the Naxalites have "collapsed the social, economic and traditional administrative structure" and tribes now are "backward people who want to go forward with industry".

Although Salva Judum is widely seen as his brainchild, Mr Karma says the movement was a result of "spontaneous anger bursting through".

The first signs of this anger were seen last June, when thousands of villagers marched with police in the village of Kortapal, where the Naxalites had abducted several government supporters. A fierce gun battle followed, with many running for cover in the forest. The village today is deserted and many of the houses have been vandalised.

This policy of emptying villages where there is support for Naxalites has been implemented across southern Chhattisgarh, with the attacks becoming bolder and bloodier. The response has been equally devastating. In February the Naxalites blew up a truck carrying Salva Judum workers back from a rally, killing more than 50 people.

In March a series of lightning raids led to tit-for-tat disappearances, beheadings and shootings. Ten days ago the bodies of 13 villagers who had protested against the guerrillas were found dead. Human rights groups say the conflict has claimed more than 150 lives this year.

"[Naxalites] have developed sophisticated strategies. We have recovered rocket launchers, mortar shells and machine guns recently," said the state police intelligence chief, Sant Kumar Paswan.

In the areas controlled by the Salva Judum, teenagers with bows and arrows guard roadblocks and Indian paramilitary forces patrol the refugee camps.

While the soldiers say villagers come seeking refuge from the violence, the tribals tell a different story. They claim that the camps are, in reality, prisons.

The guards in Bhairamgarh camp brought out captured Naxalite political agents, known as Sangam, for the Guardian to interview. Each told a story of state-backed terror. A mob of government supporters invaded their village backed by armed soldiers who opened fire on "Naxalite houses". A battle ensued and the guerrillas, outgunned, fled.

Once an area has been "cleansed", the homes of those used by leftwing guerrillas are destroyed and their owners brought to the camps.

"I was a Sangam. People were getting shot and homes burnt every day. I had no choice but to come here," said Buddram, who used to farm around Kortapal.

In the camps, fear stalks the inhabitants. The men have to report daily to the police station. Twice a day they queue up for a roll call and a drill.

Families are supposed to build their own makeshift houses. Without the state providing food or medicine, the displaced villagers say, anyone who can work is forced to do so for 50 rupees a day digging roads through the forest.

Caught in the crossfire are thousands of innocent villagers. Clutching her baby to her chest, Jamli recounts how the Salva Judum militia kidnapped her and seven friends as they travelled to a market. "We were told we had to come to the police station. Once we reached there we were kept overnight and driven to this camp where we were told if you leave you will be killed," she said. "I was alone until my husband arrived a week later and he is trapped here too. We are not Naxalites. We have no homes here, just these tents."

A third of Chhattisgarh's 21 million people are aboriginals, mostly from the Gond tribe. Experts say that the situation is in danger of turning into an "African-style" conflict over minerals, with refugees herded from one camp to another, dying of illness, hunger and thirst.

Pradeep Prabhu, a tribal campaigner, said the basic problem was one of land rights. In India everything below the ground belongs to the state, not the people who live above it.

"States like Chhattisgarh are seething with anger over this issue. The issue came up in parts of Africa where it has caused so much mess."

Backstory

The Naxalites, a name taken from Naxalbari district in West Bengal where the movement began in 1967, have spread to 160 of India's 604 administrative districts. In the 1960s they won the approval of Beijing, but China has since denounced the guerrillas.

The Naxalites functioned outside the parliamentary system, organising uprisings among landless workers in West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. They spread to the mineral-rich areas of Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The two armed wings, People's War Group (PWG) and the Maoist Communist Centre, combined 18 months ago to form one front: Communist party of India (Maoist).

With a force of 15,000 soldiers, it controls an estimated fifth of India's forests. The eventual aim is to capture the Indian state.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,1770612,00.html

Communist Party of Peru (PCP) in the Reactionary Peruvian Media

2006-05-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Peruvian reactionary media have for years made a big point of stressing that “the Senderistas (PCP supporters) have been defeated” and that “subversion is almost totally wiped out.” It must be stressed that the Peruvian state and its allied media have always spread massive disinformation about the PCP and the people’s war it has led since 1980. For instance, PCP leader Abimael Guzman, also known as Chairman Gonzalo, was “captured” many times according to media reports, prior to his actual capture in 1992. The media have always grossly overestimated Maoist battle casualties, while minimizing blows against the old state to the extent possible. They have also falsely attributed the massacres by government forces to the PCP (See “Anatomy of a Government Lie: The True Story of the Shining Path and the Ashaninka Indians at: http://www.csrp.org/rw/rwash.htm ).

The reactionary media’s disinformation was particularly damaging in the period after the capture of Abimael Guzman and other important PCP leaders in 1992, and especially after the alleged request by Guzman for the PCP to dismantle the red base areas and lay down arms. But despite the tremendous difficulties, and the apparent capitulation by important sectors of the PCP, the popular war to this day continues, and red political power still exists in the remote countryside.

The following item from the reactionary press shows that the people’s war is still a threat to the old state, and that the armed struggle, along with political agitation, is still pursued:

“Peru.com: 2006/5/3) the Police Front of the Huallaga relays that two subversives of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP)-Sendero Luminoso (SL), were captured at kilometer 4 of the highway Federico Basadre, when went to the town of Aucayacu.“According to CPN Radio, Carlos Juan Celestine Advíncula (18) and Rubén Silva Huamanta (27), were preparing to board a motorcycle on the referenced highway at the time of being arrested by the agents of order.“In their possession was a grenade, a slow wick, four sticks of dynamite and 31 photocopied pamphlets with the motto ‘Don’t Vote, Wage People’s War!,’ as well as a booklet in which reference is made to the anniversary of the beginning of the armed warfare.”

Link

Disinformation concerning “innocents” aside, the following item demonstrates that the armed forces under the PCP exercise the ability to strike out at counterrevolutionaries:“(Peru.com: 2006/4/22) The remnants of the Shining Path have initiated a ferocious hunt to take revenge for the death of Héctor Aponte Sinaragua, Comrade Clay, who was killed the 19th of February. For that reason they have assassinated to date five innocents in the Alto Huallaga, these being confused as being informants of the Police, according to Police director, Luis Montoya Villanueva.”

Link

That the Defense Minister sees fit to relay the following, whether true or not, belies the alleged nonchalance of the reactionaries concerning the people’s war:“Peru.com: 2006/5/2) the leadership of the remnants of the Shining Path has begun to assassinate several of their members that wish to lay down the arms, according to Minister of Defense, Marciano Rengifo, referring to intelligence information.”

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The media serving the old order in Peru have not ceased their lies and slanders against the PCP and the people’s war. That is, if anything, good evidence that the specter of popular revolution still haunts the ruling classes of Peru, and that the people are indeed still making revolution.

Recent Photo of Peruvian Maoist Fighters

White Racists “Love America”…and Hate Third World Immigrants

2006-05-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Laura Courtney, a presumably white woman of Louisiana, writes the following to her local newspaper: “It is our job as Americans to protect the very fabric on which this great country of ours was built. It is time to put an end to the illegal immigrants and the threat they pose to our country’s heritage and way of life.” Putting aside the genocidal implications of putting “an end to” millions of people, this statement sums up the thinking of many millions of white people in the United States concerning immigration from third world countries. These people believe that the influx of people from third world countries threatens the social, political, cultural, and economic dominance of white Americans; that is, the whites’ “American way of life” is thereby threatened.

The sign shown above says “European Immigrants Made the U.S.A.” Think about that for a moment. Firstly, the sign should be commended in the respect that it implicitly acknowledges that there is no such thing as an indigenous white person in the U.S. But it is not nearly descriptive enough in this regard. His sign would be more on the mark if it said “European Settler Colonialists Made the U.S.A.” The Europeans who came to the U.S. did so leaving a wake of indigenous people’s blood and enslavement wherever they settled, right from the beginning of the colonization in 1492.
But, more fundamentally, one must ask: What did the Euro-Americans “make?” The Euro-American ruling class did indeed “make,” and thereafter dominate the social system practiced in the U.S. There is no doubt about that. And so the sign should in fact say “European Settler Colonialists Made the U.S.A. Social and Economic System.” That is something for which a parasite can rightly be proud. And a parasite is what, in class terms, a large portion of the social base of the white “anti-immigration movement” is.
Bush, in his political campaigning, refers to the concept of “ownership society.” What this really represents is a strategic attempt on the part of the ruling class to extend the social basis for imperialist rule by creating more system “stakeholders.” In recent years, there has been an increase in individually-managed stock portfolios, for instance. The relative privileges accruing to the upper section of the white working class have contributed to its crystallization as a “labor aristocracy” and as a potential mass social basis for fascism. (For one expansive view of the labor aristocracy, though not necessarily entirely correct, see the “Eighth Route Readers Club” class analysis at: http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/ClassStructure.html ) Bob Avakian says the following in his work Conquer the World: “But it's (economism) so much the worse when you're talking about it in an imperialist country with not only a powerful labor aristocracy, but broad, thoroughly bourgeoisified strata, where it would be stretching it to even describe a lot of the so-called economic struggle as struggle and certainly stretching things to call it any kind of significant struggle.” It is the bourgeoisified stratum of white workers that is at the heart of the racist anti-immigrant movement.

Many leading liberals in the U.S. are cynically attempting to straddle the divide between the white anti-immigrant nativists on the one hand, and those defending the rights of immigrants on the other, by simultaneously criticizing Republican proposals to enhance criminal penalties for immigration law violations and calling for a crackdown on those hiring the labor of undocumented immigrants. They hope in this way to simultaneously appear as being “anti-illegal immigration” and “anti-racist,” and to win support for people of color and racist whites at the same. But, at the most basic level, many of them share a belief that there is indeed an “illegal immigration crisis,” and that it threatens the allegedly legitimate interests of the relatively privileged sectors of the non-immigrant working class. They share a position of defending the U.S. borders as being just and legitimate, and they certainly share a desire for the U.S. to continue its international hegemony.

The movement for the rights of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, stands opposed to the basic class interests of the bourgeoisie and its allies in the labor aristocracy, both in their “Democratic” and “Republican” expressions. Progressives must strongly support unconditional amnesty for all immigrants. Revolutionaries and communists must also recognize that the U.S. border is an imperialist border, an oppressive border, and that it has no legitimacy. They must be anti-imperialists and must recognize that “Oppressed Nation Labor Made the U.S.A. Material Wealth.”

Images of Nepal People's Liberation Army

2006-04-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

Nepal People's Liberation Army soldiers are the people's heroes!

Nepalese villagers happily greet members of the people’s army.

PLA Soldiers stand ready…

…always fighting for a democratic republic.

They look forward to New Nepal.

Socialist Planning vs. Market Economy, and the Question of the Destruction of Soviet Socialism

2006-04-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

The question of how to distinguish socialism from capitalism is one that has been central to the struggles within the international communist movement since before the split in the Second International nearly one hundred years ago. Focusing upon the question of the nature of the Soviet Union over the period of its existence, in order to make a determination of its socialist character is primarily a political matter rather than a technical one. Juridical ownership is not the main criterion for determining the social system; rather, the criterion is which social class wields state power.

Few would doubt that capitalism has now been restored within the former Soviet Union. But of more importance is how and when this occurred. Pro-capitalist economists suppose that this occurred when state ownership of the major means of production was ended and ownership became concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. However, many communists propose a different story as to how and when capitalism was restored. The anti-revisionist communist movement of which the Communist Party of China was a part during the leadership of Mao Zedong holds that the crucial date in the timeline of capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union is 1956, the year that Nikita Khrushchev consolidated his grip on the state power and repudiated much of the socialist experience of the country. As to how this occurred, many communists propose that the internal social force motivating the destruction of the Soviet Union was in fact that country’s exploitative ruling class. While ownership of the vast preponderance of the means of production remained in the hands of the Soviet state until the end of the Soviet Union, socialism had long since been replaced by state monopoly capitalism, with the leadership of the Communist Party forming the nucleus of the ruling class exercising dictatorship over the proletariat.

The new leading group in the Soviet Union qualitatively deepened some of the existing errors in the Soviet Union. Earlier, during the war against fascism, Stalin conciliated with nationalist and reactionary Orthodox sentiment in order to forge the broadest unity against the invaders possible. But after the war, he turned his attention to strengthening the socialist foundations of the country. Notable is his work Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, in which he proscribes the operation of the law of value under socialism. However, after Stalin’s death, the leading group returned to a policy of appeasing Great Russian sentiment and gave greater play to the law of value in the workings of the economy.

The new leading group headed by Khrushchev deepened the bureaucratic tendencies within the party, government, and within the state and collective economy, reducing the active role of the working people in running the society. “Corruption” among party and state officials ran rampant and became an institutional hallmark to the extent that a new class formation took form, a state capitalist bourgeoisie. It is not difficult to understand why capitalist restorationists would continue to wave the red flag and proclaim communism instead of openly changing the state power. In the Soviet Union in 1956, there were still powerful forces that were loyal to the socialism and who were communists committed to the historical cause of the working class. The pretense of communism kept many of them politically disarmed.

The Soviet leadership repudiated the dictatorship of the proletariat and insisted that class struggle no longer drove social development in the country. Instead, the “dictatorship of the whole people” was declared, and the category of Soviet “working people” was declared to include manual workers, the intelligentsia, managers, as well as Party and state officials. In this way, the role played by the Soviet ruling class as an exploitative force was obscured.

With regard to capitalist restoration, it is important to point to the relationship between the economic base and its political and cultural superstructure, and the relationship between the forces of production and the relations of production. Many have argued that the qualitative leap presaging the restoration of capitalism in a socialist society takes place in the realm of the superstructure; specifically, the state power of the working class is overthrown and replaced by the power of the exploiting classes, as opposed to changes in the economic base (say, the area of ownership of the means of production) being crucial in this regard. In line with this analysis, mere public ownership of the means of production does not in any way mean that an exploiting class does not rule society. It would, in this case, be only a matter of time before such a class fully imposed its political and economic program on the formerly socialist society. Conversely, when the working class seizes political power, socialist relations of production do not immediately spring forth. This is impossible, and so it took time for the socialist economy to be transformed into a state capitalist economy.

Later, party figures emerged advocating the restructuring of the economy along lines more consistent with capitalism. An economist, Yevsei Liberman, provided many of the theoretical bases for a number of proposed reforms during the mid-1960s. Liberman made an argument that the role of the law of value was wrongly denigrated and must be fully recognized in order to develop the productive forces.

At the core of the 1965 Soviet reform proposals was a policy of self-financing of state enterprises: the government would provide the original funding, but thereafter, enterprises were to survive on their own resources. Profitability was officially declared the main criterion by which enterprises were to be judged. In practice, profitability was weighed along with a number of factors; however, profit was retained as a criterion of success. The Soviet state capitalist bourgeoisie appropriated the surplus value of labor not in order to serve the social needs of the formerly ruling working class, but instead to serve the material interest of the new exploiting ruling class. It is precisely out of this party and state leadership that today’s “oligarchs” and other private capitalist emerged.

Socialist Planning Versus Market Economy

Especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the much-heralded “death of communism,” the question of socialist planning versus various “market socialist” schemes is of critical importance to the future of socialist development. The remaining self-proclaimed socialist states each in varying ways proclaim adherence to “market socialism.” An ideological offensive against the concept of central planning and in favor of the concept of allowing market forces to determine prices and production has occurred, creating a broad consensus that central planning is inferior to market forces in terms of economic output.

But the question must first be asked: What is the objective of economic activity? This is first and foremost a class question rather than one of comparing raw figures on the production of this or that commodity. In a capitalist society, the goal of production is to make money, to obtain profit, while in a socialist society the goal is to lay the basis for the realization of communism and create common abundance, in line with the political needs of the continuing transformation of society.

The socialist calculation debate of the 1930s was sparked by an attack on socialist economic planning by liberal, pro-“free market” economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Stepping up to defend planning were social democrats like Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner. Even today, the writings of Hayek and Mises serve as the ideological basis of proponents of capitalist austerity and the supremacy of private property generally.

It must be pointed out that what was missing in this debate is a voice defending the position of genuine, revolutionary communism. Lange, for instance, succumbs to the ideological framework of the liberals in trying to prove that socialist planning can “out-compete” free markets by mimicking their operation. What he leaves out is what distinguishes socialism from capitalism. That distinctive quality is not planning versus free markets as such; rather, that question must be viewed as an aspect of the broader issue of what social class rules society and shapes society in its interest.

The fallacies of the liberals’ position on planning are built into its assumptions which flow directly from liberal ideology. While many pro-capitalist economists deny that their methods of analysis are based upon ideological presuppositions, in fact all economic theory is a subsumed part of class ideology in general and cannot be viewed separately from that context.

It is important to note that the historical value of the socialist experience cannot be assessed merely by looking at the leading economic indicators of the socialist countries. The materialist conception of history holds that social development is marked by a succession of modes of production, those being slave-owning aristocracy, feudalism, capitalism, and finally socialism and communism. Communists recognize that progress toward new forms of social organization takes place in a spiral rather than linear trajectory, and that the validity of socialist transformation cannot be judged through a simple quantitative comparison of advanced capitalist versus newly-emerging socialist economies. The consolidation of new social systems is an arduous process spanning generations, and progressive forces are locked in constant battle with powerful forces of counterrevolution.

Assessing the socialist calculation debate, two questions have come forward as most pertinent; that is, the issue of the rate of capital accumulation, and also the question of distribution (of income, wages being one component). The liberals see no independent, dynamic role for distribution in relation to the composition of consumer market demand. It is as if, to them, the actual existing incomes, which are inseparable from “demand” as understood in the market, are given by a sort of natural law, as if they are a natural product of entrepreneurial ability.

For a socialist state engaged in economic planning, the question of transforming people’s ideological standpoint is crucial and tied to its broader political objectives for the society. The participants in the socialist calculation debate, whether Mises or Lange, take as given consumer’s demand for various goods. But, the truth is that within either a socialist or capitalist framework, people’s wants are shaped by ruling class ideology. For instance, professional marketing and other messages in capitalist society inculcate the demand for consumption of a relatively private nature; for example, as with the Internet or home entertainment, broadly speaking. On the other hand, in socialist societies, ruling party “marketing” of a different sort encourages demand for a relatively public type of consumption, as with palaces of culture, public entertainment and so forth. And so, consumer demand is not a self-contained entity, but interacts with and is shaped by the ideology permeating the superstructure.

If the labor power is hired according to market forces, it is inevitable that class differentiation will be reinforced, not broken down. While Lange posits the rule of labor market forces as being a matter of “free choice of occupation,” in actuality this free choice is the same one permeating all capitalist relations of production. It is the same free choice of exchanging land and capital and the product of such at a price determined by the capitalist.

Under capitalism, price acts as a signal for market demand. But pro-capitalist economics does not critically analyze what is the basis of such demand. First, the question of distribution cannot be separated from market demand. The shape of the distribution of income determines precisely the shape of market demand. A relative increase in the polarization of incomes in society, all else the same, will lead to most of society increasing its relative demand for necessity goods, while the more affluent minority increases its relative demand for luxury goods. Further, market demand in no way corresponds to social need or utility. It is entirely a function of monetary demand, as opposed to social demand.

Socialist planning enables the state to make decisions about the short-term and long-term needs of society, and to balance them against each other. While the capitalist views monetary profit as the signal of success, this type of efficiency criterion does not account for long-term needs, which could for instance be met by increasing the rate of capital investment so as to expand the future productive forces. Through planning, calculation for many variables can be devised that are not addressed by the market.

One argument raised by more “libertarian”-minded socialist sympathizers is that central planning, by appropriating the product of labor, is engaging in a form of exploitation akin to that of the capitalist. Profit must be understood as being equal to (Surplus Value/[Fixed Capital+Variable Capital]) (for an explanation of this, see: This ), and as such it exists in either a capitalist or a socialist society. If “worker control” is devolved to the level of workplace units such as individual factories or groups of factories, instead of collaborating in a planned way to meet mutually understood social needs, the separate units will become atomized and behave as competing capitals. Such competition mimics that of capitalism, resulting in an inefficient allocation of resources—especially if the goal of production is not monetary profit but instead, broadly speaking, meeting of the people’s material needs as determined by the socialist state.

As for the question of capital accumulation, Preobrazhensky and other Soviet figures make the case for deferring, say, increases in consumer welfare, so as to instead produce the means of production. The liberals instead are focused on immediacy and do not see the value of an increased rate of accumulation. Marxist economist Maurice Dobb’s claims regarding the nature of the Soviet “stagnation” in the post-war period are related to this. Dobbs said that in the earlier periods, planning was mainly focused on a few, key products that were determined to be of importance not to the consumer market, but to what he called the “primary sector,” which would include production of the means of production. Later, he claims, Soviet planning did not successfully guide the “intensive growth” of the economy as a whole, that is, the transition by Soviet planning from relatively few products, with the “production campaigns” including Stakhanovism playing a key role in the earlier period, to the post-war period when planning took on a comprehensive form, with an increasing focus on complex mathematical relationships needing to be determined, and also what Dobbs would call the necessary transition from extensive to intensive growth.

Two constraints upon the development of the higher phase of communism in a society under the leadership of the working class are, first, encirclement by hostile countries ruled by class exploiters and second, an insufficient development of the level of the productive forces. The socialist state must engage in extended reproduction (production of the means of production) in order to defend its sovereignty through national defense and also to lay the groundwork for transcending the existing, less-than-communist productive relations.

Conclusion: The Necessity of Economic Planning and Restricting the Operation of the Law of Value In Socialist Society

Marx’s treatment of labor as a special kind of commodity is a key distinction from capitalist economics. Specifically, he addresses the matter with the labor theory of value. The Manifesto proclaims that the socialist distribution principle is “to each according to work,” which is distinct from that of capitalism, which is determined by a subsistence wage plus a certain cultural minimum requisite for the type of work involved, and is further modified by political need to maintain social cohesion and maintain its class dictatorship. But socialism cannot follow such a dictate and simultaneously carry out social planning. The socialist state must appropriate a surplus in order to accumulate capital and build the material foundations for communism and in order to use science and technology to improve the living standards of the population. Doing this requires conscious, systematic economic planning on the part of the socialist state, and minimizing the operation of the law of value rather than attempting to replicate the capitalist market.

Letter From a 14-Year-Old (1989): Importance of Outreach

2006-04-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

The following was written in early 1989:

"The American flag to me is an ugly representation of everything bad in the world. It represents the CIA agents working around the clock to oppress the proletariat, it represents the skinheads at my school who act as a more dangerously military KKK. It represents the police, full of corruption.

"The American flag makes me sick to my stomach, because it represents death. The death of a family in Mozambique, a little boy in El Salvador, a village in Nicaragua, the endless slaughter by the rebels, death squads and governments the government supports.

"I have never burned an American flag, I have never had the opportunity. The best way for the Revolutionary Communist Party to attack the fascist intrigues of the right concerning flag-burning would be to burn the flag some more. A nationwide burn-a-thon is my idea. Please send me information on RCP demonstrations in XXX.

"I think the RCP is one of the few organizations that really threatens and scares the capitalists…"

I think the above letter shows the importance of finding ways to connect with youth and others in areas in which there is no presence of revolutionary organization. In regard to the above letter, in 1989 RCP came into the national media spotlight in connection with the case of the RCYB member who was arrested for burning the U.S. flag at the 1984 GOP convention. This legal case had worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the politicians were agitating for action to be taken against those who would burn the banner of imperialism. But something else happened as well. As shown in the letter above, those who truly hated the existing system were moved by the raw and powerful expression of internationalism and anti-imperialism shown by the RCP supporters. It shined a light on a sharp dividing line between liberals and social democrats like those in the CPUSA (or the other various left groups which around that time were dedicated to the presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson) on the one hand, and revolutionary forces on the other hand. The same is true today. The rebels who hate the system will be drawn to those who promote the necessity and justice of revolution. The revolutionary organization must develop relations with those in small and mid-sized cities, and those living in rural environments as well, and especially in the case of youth. The experiences of those rebels must also be analyzed and shared in order to help them conduct political work in their own locales.

Nepal: Returning Parliament Is Not Enough

2006-04-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Gyanendra, the autocratic king of Nepal, has proclaimed that he has allegedly reinstated the elected parliament which himself dissolved last year, imprisoning and banning its members. Now, when confronted with the fury of the people's movement, the king has winced and apparently retreated. But this is only a small tactic. Gyanendra has proven time and again that he is willing to kill to maintain his position and power. He must be removed from his throne, either through his abdication or his forcible overthrow. This is well within grasp of the people's movement. He is an albatross around the neck of the Nepal nation.

If Gyanendra will not step down, he must be held to account for the blood that has been spilled by the royalist security forces, at his orders. The convocation of a constituent assembly, that can forge a new basis for a Nepali state, is a basic, just, and minimum demand of the eight allied parties (seven parliamentary, plus Maoist party). The people should be given the decision as to whether or not they wish to maintain the rancid, feudal monarchy, or if they wish to embark upon a popular democratic path.