A Documentary Summary Analysis of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist
It seems that the initial optimism about a profound and comprehensive position by the faction under Kiran’s leadership within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist [UCPN-M]––the faction that, after the “national convention of the revolutionary faction of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist” in June 2012, has emerged as the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist [CPN-M] against Prachanda-Bhattarai revisionism––did not have a strong basis. Despite the CPN-M's recent congress we have not received or been able to study the documents it produced. Thus, we do not deem it necessary to produce a final and detailed conclusion regarding this party. However, even with close scrutiny of the CPN-M's pre-congress we can find particular ideological and political positions that indicate the repetition of the deviations of the UCPN-M in a different form and shape.
In the following paragraphs we will discuss the important deviations revealed in the pre-congress documents of the CPN-M.
1. Demanding the formation of a “people’s federal republic” prior to the formation of a “new democratic republic” in Nepal and calling it a tactical strategy.
Instead of continuing to struggle on the path of people’s war for the victory of the new democratic revolution and the formation of a people’s democratic republic in Nepal, the UCPN-M opted for and succumbed to the formation of a bourgeois-comprador democratic republic. Indeed, it was this party that accepted the formation of a "people’s federal republic" as another stage for achieving the new democratic revolution and the formation of a new democratic republic. However, Prachanda and Bhattarai eventually abandoned this objective and succumbed to the existence and continuation of a bourgeois-comprador republic. In fact, it was at this juncture that the disagreement between the factions under Prachanda and Bhattarai’s leadership and the faction under Kiran’s leadership intensified. Thus, the CPN-M under Kiran’s leadership has divided the process of achieving the new democratic revolution and the new democratic republic into three stages: i) the stage of bourgeois democratic revolution; ii) the stage of people’s federal republic; iii) the stage of new democratic revolution and new democratic republic.
Therefore, while the party under Prachanda and Bhattarai’s leadership has succumbed to the continuation and existence of the bourgeois-comprador republic, the party under Kiran’s leadership wants to replace it with a "people’s federal republic". Despite the fact that the latter party has not provided a specific definition of their desired federal people’s republic, it is apparent that this republic cannot be understood as a new democratic republic. Formulating the achievement of the people’s federal republic as a tactical strategy in fact acknowledges its strategic importance. In other words what is being mentioned as a tactic is actually a strategy. It is here that one can gauge the depth and width of this deviation.
2. Adopting the strategy of “mass insurrection” or the negation of the renewal and continuation of people’s war as a protracted people’s war based on the strategy of encircling the cities from the countryside.
In the conditions of a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country such as Nepal, the only correct Marxist-Leninist-Maoist strategy is the strategy of protracted people’s war, by carrying forward the encirclement of cities through the countryside. In such a country the strategy of a general insurrection has no class basis and adopting it can only be considered a deviation––at the very least it would result in the deviation of a coup d'etat or result in the abandonment of the strategy of revolutionary armed struggle in order to adopt a strategy of peaceful struggle and parliamentarism.
3. Endorsing the merger of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) within the Nepalese Army (NA) under the title of “a dignified merger”.
The CPN-M is not against the merger of the PLA with NA and are merely demanding a “dignified” merger of the two armies. It is entirely obvious that the intention of the “dignified” merger is for gaining more concessions––whatever these concessions might be would not change the fundamental issue and, in any case, would lead only to the breakup of the PLA. It is also not unlikely that the purpose of a “dignified” merger is a merger to facilitate a possibility of a future military coup d'etat for the CPN-M; this is also a deviation from the Maoist strategy of people’s war.
4. Endorsing the so-called peace process that has begun in Nepal.
The peace process in the way that it has been outlined in the Election Manifesto of the UCPN-Maoist is nothing more than a declaration of the end of the people's war in Nepal. The party under the leadership of Kiran has no disagreement with this process, but wants its continuation––and this means distancing itself from the people's war and adopting the strategy of peaceful struggle, by itself in contradiction with the strategy of gaining political power through armed struggle.
Here we should note that the current condition in Nepal is fundamentally different from the conditions of Russia before the 1917 revolution. At that time the Bolsheviks raised the slogan of peace in opposition to the imperialist war in which the Tsarist state, and later the provisional government, was involved; the Bolsheviks were demanding the transformation of the imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war. In Nepal, however, the slogan of peace is being raised in opposition to a revolutionary civil war.
5. A deviationist international orientation.
The political line of Prachanda-Bhattarai played an important role in the collapse of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), the international organization of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations of the world, while tending to cozy up with the revisionists in power in China.
The genuine Nepali Maoists cannot forget this treason in theory and in praxis. They should sincerely struggle for the reorganization of the Maoists of the world into an international organization. Unfortunately, the party under Kiran’s leadership, since its inception as a faction within the UCPN-M until now, has not played a pioneering role in this area; instead, it can be said that their role has been pharisaic and has practically served to slow down the process of struggle for the formation of a new international organization. Lately this party has also demonstrated the tendency of cozying up with the revisionists in power in China, while in theory and practice they have practically forgotten the cause of struggle for the formation of a new international Maoist organization to the extent that now the successful and principled advance of the formation of a new Maoist organization is also tied to the struggle against the deviations of this party.
[ Back to top ]