FRFI 176 December 2003 / January 2004
You have a Maoist insurgency that’s trying to overthrow the government and this really is the kind of thing that we are fighting against throughout the world.
Colin Powell, US Secretary of State
The victory would constitute a challenge to the Fukuyama thesis (end of history as clash of ideologies) and the Huntingdon thesis (clash of civilisations). We’d be back to the old capitalism vs communism discussion, which was supposed to be behind us, all settled, and consigned to the rubbish heap of history!
Gary Leupp, Jufts University
Lodged in the Himalayas between China and India, the loud voice of revolution is being sounded and the imperialists wish no one to hear. Since the ceasefire ended (FRFI 175) the Nepalese people have continued their victories against the monarchy of King Gyanendra, backed by the terrorist Royal Nepal Army (RNA). Virtually all vestiges of the previous bourgeois democratic parliament have been replaced by the monarchy, which struggles to keep control as more arms and land fall to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Deep fractions have emerged between the king, the RNA hierarchy and Prime Minister Thapa on dealing with the crisis. On 11 November, Lieutenant General Bibek Kumar Shah (military secretary to the king) resigned, following his differences with Thapa. He called for the involvement of political parties to solve the turmoil. A police superintendent also retired amid mass desertions of police to the Maoists. On 15 November, Brigadier General Sagar Bahadur Pandey of the RNA was ambushed and killed south of Kathmandu.
The problem for Gyanendra, Thapa and their imperialist backers is that a political solution is now extremely difficult for them. During the recent ceasefire the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) CPN(M) presented the government with modest proposals; the election of a constituent assembly and the formation of an interim government, which were rejected out of hand. Thus Gyanendra and Thapa were exposed as completely reactionary to the urban middle classes, whilst the Maoists were shown to be interested in dialogue. As a result, segments of the proletariat in Kathmandu have split from the opportunist Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), which had moved towards the ruling party, and sided with the CPN(M). The bourgeoisie and intellectuals have also become less antagonistic to the Maoists since the failed negotiations.
The protracted people’s war is now entering its final stage, preparing to take state power, after eight years of revolution. The Maoists started out with knives and pitchforks, developed fighter teams, village security teams and volunteer units, and have progressed to platoons and well-armed squads controlling almost all of the countryside. These military forces have five essential functions:
• Developing political work (mass political education)
• Organisational work (developing mass organisations)
• Production and construction (growing food grains and solving people’s problems)
• Propaganda (putting slogans or posters on walls, and processions, including armed marches with torches)
• Fighting, military actions.
The peasantry has seized local power; feudal culture is being replaced by revolutionary culture. Women are being emancipated from religious and feudal repression, collective and cooperative production has been carried out with volunteer production teams. The people fix goods prices and interest rates. Many capitalist and imperialist institutions have been driven away and replaced by cooperative financial funds. Economic self-sufficiency is developing, along with the construction of buildings, paths, schools, playgrounds, martyr monuments and gates, bridges, public toilets etc.
The revolution in Nepal is not a religious one nor is it led by opportunists. It is a highly organised and strategic movement mobilising and educating the mass of the Nepalese with a strong class-conscious content. Different groups and interests comprise the revolution, but the vanguard – the CPN(M) and its military wing the PLA – have been highly sophisticated in dealing with the reactionary government, always clear that they are leading an anti-imperialist national liberation struggle. This is because Nepal is economically subservient to India. For example, the ice-glazed Himalayas have given the country the second largest reserves of fresh water in the world, yet the people suffer from constant drought and disease from dirty water as it all gets piped into its southern neighbour. Nepalese men are forced to do hard labour at factories in India for as little as 50 US cents a day and Nepalese women are forced into prostitution throughout India.
Precisely because it is a popular democratic revolution the Western media has censored it. The genocidal nature of the monarch and the support for the revolution make it difficult to portray the CPN(M) as ‘terrorists’, even though President Bush has put them on his list of terrorist organisations. No news is therefore the best news for the imperialists until they work out how to deal with the situation.
The US and Britain want to send their own troops in (the US has 300 in the country already, mainly training the RNA), but the risen people of Iraq and Afghanistan are limiting the scope for direct intervention in Nepal. They may use Indian expansionism to represent their interests. India has already been giving assistance to Kathmandu in combating the Maoists, and although Delhi would like to occupy Nepal, it has problems with Maoist insurgents of its own and is not keen to have troops bogged down in Nepal.
The Chinese too would certainly not tolerate Indian expansionism into Nepal and would likely invade and occupy the north of the country if the Indians were to invade from the south. China must also deal with the ‘Maoist problem’. Beijing recently released a statement claiming that it ‘didn’t wish to see Chairman Mao resurrected in Nepal at present.’ A long way from the Long March! A genuine Maoist leadership in Nepal with the fruits it could bring for the people would reveal the true nature of the self-proclaimed ‘Maoism’ of the Chinese Communist Party – devoid of content.
On 19 November, Radio Nepal announced that China had arrested four Maoists trying to smuggle Chinese pistols and explosives into Nepal from Tibet. This is the first time that Chinese security officials have arrested Nepalese Maoists. The Chinese government repeated that it would cooperate with the Nepalese government in its crackdown on the rebels.
The US, India and China all want an end to the revolution in Nepal, and they all pose the most significant threat to the successful development and survival of the revolution. Yet, paradoxically, it may prove that the pressures they exert on each other create a semi-perpetual stalemate that will allow the revolution to flourish and spread. For their part, the Nepalese people are united and moving forwards and upwards.
Victory to the Nepalese revolution!
