This marks a new turn in the zig-zag of Maoist strategy in Nepal.
Till yesterday, the same Prachanda was making press statements terming the vibrant ‘Young Communist League’, the only healthy organ in Nepali revolution, to be ‘superfluous’. Today he is calling upon the same youth and students to prepare for revolt. The same prachanda who refused to prepare for revolt at the height of the movement in 2006 and even thereafter, rather advocated surrender of arms and collaboration with capitalists, to the unrelenting youth, is today issuing advisory for preparation for revolt, under new conditions when the whole movement has already taken the worst ever dip.
The statement is issued at a time when apparently the movement has gone into worst shape, practically losing all steam. Unable to explain the crushing failures and still not ready to claim responsibility for the defeats, the Maoist leadership, is landing into obvious desperation. They call for preparations of a revolt, which under the prevalent conditions is nothing but an extravagant day dream. Ironically Maoist leadership itself has little faith in its call.
How these new conditions, where the capitalists could regroup and restabilize themselves, were created, anyway?
These were created in the first instance by the blank refusal of Maoists to carry the revolution forward, to head off the monarchy and not just sideline it, and further to fight against the capitalists for seizure of power. This refusal, in its turn, was based not upon the wrong pragmatic estimates or decisions of Nepali Maoist leaders, but essentially emanated from the incorrect perspective of history and revolutions, advanced by Stalinism and Maoism. Both of them artificially divide the revolution in two stages- democratic and socialist- which division has lost its validity in Europe long back and has no relevance for the countries, who enter upon the revolutionary stage belatedly in history.
Taking to power in Nepal, in conjunction with capitalists in 2008, Prachanda proclaimed repeatedly that the nature of development in Nepal was essentially capitalist and they would create conditions for growth of capitalism and not its destruction. Coming to power, Maoists conceded even to undo the gains made by the revolution, i.e. surrender of arms by the YCL and PLA, return of lands seized since 1998 in peasant war, disbanding of YCL etc. Maoists in power became a virtual agency of capitalism, executing the program of bourgeois democracy. In this, they not only consciously permitted the revolutionary upsurge to die down, but the capitalists to regroup. Instead of seizing power against the capitalists, Maoists held the power in alliance with capitalists.
The high tide of revolt in 2006, which catapulted Maoists to power in 2008, had continued to ebb and has gone to its lowest since then. The very same Maoist leaders, who opposed the revolt at the height of mass upsurge, arguing that people were not prepared for a revolt, now advocate it, when the movement has almost disappeared in the shades of history.
The call for preparation of revolt is not only provocative, but a self defeating argument at the time, when the forces of revolution do no more reflect a revolutionary mood at all. Maoist leaders, however, becoming desperate from their own marginalisation on political scene , now instigate the youth for a blood bath, with no prospects of victory in sight.
Maoist leaders are practically kicked out by the bourgeois leadership, after regaining a foothold during a short political lull, and then re-emerging from their ashes under the new conditions. It was Maoist leaders who chanted the rhymes of ‘alliance’ and ‘collaboration’ with capitalists, while the capitalists were clear in their approach and always wished to take power as a single class ‘dictatorship’. While Maoist leadership continued to chant the rhymes of constitution and the constituent assembly, the capitalists restored their armoury waiting for the storm to pass. At the first opportunity, they ambushed the enemy, throwing Prachanda & Co. out of the government, with much disgrace.
Maoists failed, not because people were not ready for their cherished ‘democracy’, but because this ‘democracy’ so dear to our Maoists, retains no actual revolutionary potential in today’s Nepal, being exhausted already in history. They failed to realise that the democracy in Nepal cannot advance even an inch further without welding itself to socialist tasks. If the democracy does not cross over forthwith to socialism in Nepal, it is bound to degenerate into a class dictatorship of capitalists, may be in the form of a monarchy, republic or army rule.
“It’s clear that nothing can be taken ahead without the destruction of all old settings of the country through one powerful blow,” said Lekhnath Neupane, ANNISU-R president, following a meeting between party office-bearers and ANNISU-R leaders at the Nayabazar-based residence of party chairman Dahal.
The difficulty is that for Maoist leadership capitalism is not component part of the ‘old settings’. For them capitalism is the newest setting of the present day Nepal, while old settings for them represent ‘feudalism and imperialism’ in Nepal. Maoists refuse to see that so called feudalism of Nepal is already subjugated to itself by capitalism, the world capitalism, with a Nepali section at hand. In Nepal no fight can be legitimately put against medievalism in any form whatsoever, without fighting against capitalist power. The foolhardy, instead propose to fight medievalism, in alliance with capitalists. When turned out, they start to blow hot and cold. Now they plead in the name of ‘democracy’, then they issue calls of revolt.
Failing to ride the wave of mass upsurge in 2006 and thereby take to power against the capitalists, Prachanda now plans to fix a date for the revolt, as if to create a revolution a decree from the Chairman was only awaited for two years. Is it not the same trajectory Stalin followed in 1925-26 in China? First he consistently argued for collaboration with the Kuomintang (KMT) under them, and forced the young and vibrant Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to real political servitude under KMT. After the whole revolution was crushed by KMT, first under Chiang Kai Shek and then under Wang Ching Wei, Stalin called for a revolt, at the end of 1926. The revolt resulted in a historic disaster and the working class was savagely crushed by KMT. Nepal repeats China in dual respect. Firstly basing itself upon the same bogus perspectives of Stalinism and Maoism and then by repeating the sequence of events exactly.
Capitalists in Nepal can never be overthrown, till Maoists retain the leadership of the movement of the peasants and the youth above all. Giving a call for revolt at this time, is to attempt to wash off the sins committed by these leaders themselves, with the blood of the revolutionary youth. We warn the youth against this trickery and foolish proposals of Maoist leaders. The calls for preparing a ‘revolt’ at this time are a mockery of revolt itself. After claiming in 2008, that the power in their hands would be instrumental in strengthening capitalism and democracy in Nepal for decades to come, now kicked out of the power Maoist leaders shout for a revolt.
Still Maoists wish to use the threat of a ‘revolt’ as a tactic to exert pressure upon the capitalists to share the power with them under the farce of a constitutional governance. Capitalists laugh at that. They gear up to welcome the provocation, seeking an opportunity in it to annihilate all living forces of the revolution.
Rather, this is the time for more young generations in Nepal for an introspection and deliberations over the question of failure of the revolution. It is the time not for preparing an overthrow of the capitalist regime, but in fact overthrow of the bogus Maoist leadership from the revolutionary movement. It is the time when movement should be built up peacefully among the city proletariat and the proletariat must be prepared to take to leadership of the national revolution in conjunction with the rural proletariat, more specifically of the peasant wars. The provocative call of Maoists must be ignored at any cost and opposed tooth and nail, if need be.
First line of 3rd to last paragraph, 'till' I think should be 'while'.
ReplyDeletewhat an arrogance! blockheads!
ReplyDeletelenin refused to call anyone names until and unless he found alternatives. comrade lone crusader, do you know nepal properly? or is it simply an opportunist tactic of an advocate (who earns money by taking up cases of jailed revolutionaries) to absolve himself before the increasingly repressive indian state of his clients' influence on him?
unwarranted, but to mention... that to our knowledge the writer never earned any money from jailed revolutionaries......whatever their political colour may be....
ReplyDelete