Nepal: Peoples Army
Posted by Mike E on January 10, 2008
In April 2006, after long years of Maoist peoples war in Nepal’s countryside, a powerful mass movement broke out in the country’s urban areas demanding an overthrow of the hated monarchy. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) initiated a series of political shifts, seeking to deepen its political connection with the rebelling urban masses — moves which the party describes as a part of its creative approach toward the seizure of power.
As part of this political offensive and accompanying negotiations, the Maoists agreed to move their armed forces into “cantonments” under international supervision and to store its weapons in nearby depots. This suspension of the armed struggle has been highly controversial among communists internationally — as have other tactics of the Nepali Maoists which depart from certain “models” of communist revolution rooted in previous revolutions.
Some forces have argued that these moves would inevitably lead to the dissolution or smashing of the revolutionary armed forces — i.e. to the disarming of the masses and the abandonment of the revolutionary struggle for a new society.
Because of that controversy it has been particularly interesting to read the following recent account of the Peoples Liberation Army forces in a canton located in the lowland areas close to the Indian border (and the Indian army).
* * * * * *
My experience with the PLA
by Roshan Kissoon
Published in Red Star newspaper from Nepal
I have been a frequent visitor to the PLA cantonment in Chitwan over the past five months, where I also give English classes to PLA commanders. There is much disinformation in the Nepali and international media regarding the PLA, based on ignorance and prejudice. Here are some of the things I have seen.
The PLA is made up of the poorest people in Nepal, from the mountainous regions bordering China to the Terai region near India, people from many different castes and clans, speaking many different languages, having many different traditions. However, in the PLA they are equal, they live the same life, eat the same food, and wear the same clothes. There is equality between men and women, and the traditional feudalistic practices such as caste discrimination, arranged marriages with expensive dowries, and the religious superstitions that plague all of South Asia do not exist here. A noticeable thing about the PLA is that many of the soldiers are related; many soldiers have brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, who are also soldiers in the PLA, and so the bond between them is very strong. There is marriage between different castes and communities in the PLA, and so in practice the caste system is being broken down, the soldiers are Nepali, not Bahun or Chettri. Most PLA soldiers marry other soldiers, and there are weddings periodically, usually coinciding with a cultural or political program. Around ten couples get married at one program; there is no priest, no special expensive wedding costume; they get married in military uniform. They pledge their dedication to each other as well as to the cause of Communism. Due to these relationships within the PLA, the army is unified and dedicated. Furthermore, almost all of the soldiers have friends, brothers, sisters, cousins who were killed by the RNA during the People’s War. They know these martyrs died for a better future, a Communist future, and they will not betray their sacrifice. The morale of the PLA is extremely good. There are many young children in the camp, some of them the children of PLA martyrs. They are well looked after, with great love, by everyone in the camp.
When I first arrived in the camp, it was quite bare and had only a few buildings. In the months that followed, the PLA have built what is virtually a small town, with a hospital that is used by the local population. The PLA are always working, never idle. There is sometimes emphasis on construction, other times on education, at other times on military training. In their spare time, they play football and volleyball, as well as practice martial arts. They also watch TV and study in their spare time. Everyone eats together in the mess, and there is a rota system, so everyone takes turns to cook. Dalbhat with vegetables is served everyday, and once or twice a week meat will be served. The food is healthy, and everyone eats three times a day. Nobody drinks or smokes in the cantonement, and the behaviour of the soldiers towards each other, locals, and visitors is good.
The interaction between the PLA and the local population is also good; when I first came to Chitwan many of the locals were wary of the Maoists. But, a few months later, the PLA are part of the population, and the many shops and restaurants around the camp are patronised largely by the PLA; the PLA have greatly improved the local economy. Furthermore, the PLA hold many cultural programmes in which the local population take part and learn about what the Maoists are trying to do, and about the basic rightness of their cause. It was in these cultural programmes that I saw the great talent of the PLA soldiers, who as well as training to fight, could also dance and sing. The songs and dances are traditional, in that they are obviously variations of traditional folk songs and dances popular around Nepal, but also revolutionary; the songs are about revolution, about struggle, about the success and failure of oppressed people around the world to build a better life; the dances show with grace and beauty the dignity of struggle, men and women as equals. There is a very rich Communist culture here, a culture that takes the best of the traditional culture but revolutionises it, a culture that looks to the future and encourages creativity. There are many songs about the Nepalese revolution, some with lyrics written by Central Committee members. Many of the soldiers write poetry. Some of the PLA cultural group asked me about revolutionary culture from the West. I sang to them the American folk classic ‘Stalin wasn’t Stalin’ and ‘The Red Flag’, a classic of the British workers movement. I also recommended that the plays of Bertolt Brecht be translated into Nepali. Some may be surprised to hear that there is even an excellent Maoist comedian, a Platoon commander, who performed at the recent ‘PLA 
day’ celebrations.
In my English classes with the commanders, I have many interesting discussions, and I am asked many questions about life in Europe, the Communist and Left movement in other parts of the world, reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed, the US war on Afghanistan and Iraq, Chavez, Castro etc. They study a great deal, and there are many study programs in the cantonment for all the soldiers, including classes in Nepali, military strategy, dance, and English. The commanders, in particular, research about experiences of revolution in other parts of the world, about what can be learnt from these struggles. From their reading and study, they know the lengths that US imperialism can go to destroy a popular movement (look at almost any country in Latin America), but they know also that Communist forces under the leadership of Stalin defeated the Nazis and that in Vietnam Communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh were able to defeat the US army.
Whenever I come to Kathmandu, I meet middle class, well educated, English speaking Nepalese. They always want to emigrate to the West, they copy the worst aspects of Western culture, and do not see much of a future in Nepal. The PLA soldiers, by contrast, want to create a better Nepal, as they understand that their own people deserve and need better than what currently exists. For this, I will always respect them. - Kissoon is an international freelance journalist.
somecomments said
In his 2007 May Day speech, Prachanda described conditions in the cantonments: “the commanders of the people’s liberation army that have arduously fought in the frontiers for ten years are deprived of the basic human needs living in the middle of the jungles in the inhumane conditions….Many of [our fighters] have been crushed under the fallen trees in the storms, many are killed by the snake bite. Many PLA fighters have to remain awake at night to watch the snakes crawling into the cantonments. Don’t you have to focus on such pathetic conditions, journalist friends!” (The Worker, #11, July 2007)
By most accounts, housing, food and basic sanitary facilities are in short supply in the cantonments. There have been reports of PLA members leaving the cantonments to return to their villages; there are also reports that the CPN(Maoist) has sent some PLA commanders and fighters to stiffen the ranks of the Young Communist League. The UN has registered around 18,000 members of the PLA at the cantonments.
None of this appears in Kissoon’s article. He paints the picture of a model military camp that is presumably prepared to return to the armed struggle at a moment’s notice. Even though the PLA holds the keys to the UN-supervised weapons caches, it would take some time for the PLA to reconstitute itself and move into positions in which it would not be dangerously exposed to attack by the Nepalese Army (which is reportedly around 90,000 strong) and by the much more powerful Indian Army.
Mike E said
All of the points above (in the comments of somecomments) are important:
The cantonment of the PLA has (by various accounts) meant very difficult conditions. Many of the troops have moved from their mountain bases and homeareas into the very different lowlands. The CPNM has publicly and repeatedly denounced the government for not providing the agreed supplies and care to the PLA forces.
There are reports of soldiers leaving the cantonments. I would be curious to understand better: How many are deserting? How many are returning to strengthen the revolutionary forces in their previous base areas? How many are joining the Young Communist League in their political work (which includes preparing for insurrection in the urban areas)? These are the kinds of things were it is hard to know from afar, since it would be naive to simply base assumptions on either public political statements or the reporting of journalists. (And as Somecomments points out, the reporting of sympathetic journalists like Kissoon may be onesided and potentially misleading in their own way.)
One thing that stuck out to me in Kissoon’s article is the revolutionary character of the PLA — the continuing struggle for radical new social relations and culture, and an explicit communist character. This is important because an army is in many ways a concentration of the society it is fighting for — and if this descriptio nis accurate, then clearly (even if in cantons) the forces described here are being prepared to fight for and create a new society in Nepal, not take their place as defenders of the existing order.
It is also important (as somecomments mentions) that (by all accounts) the PLA itself holds control over its weapons (even if they are formally stored in supervised caches). It is worth repeating that militarily there is a question of how exposed some of these cantons are to attack — particularly from India. Somecomments says that they may also be dangerously exposed to attack by the Nepalese Army — which has formally been confined to its barracks in the same agreement that moved the PLA to the cantonments.
I would like to urge others to post here links and accounts of the conditions of the Nepali PLA… so that we can get a sense of the conditions they are under and the line(s) they are being organized around.
zerohour said
How not to do a criticism: Comparison of CCP and CPN [M] negotiating strategies
This is from the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Revolutionary Study Group. They uphold the Cultural Revolution but tend to be too “fundamentalist” in their analysis of current movements.
Mike E said
why don’t you elaborate your criticism of how the MLMRSG approached this question? So we can all understand it better, and so they (in particular) have more basis for learning from it and responding to it.
zerohour said
I didn’t want to unfairly bias anyone before they read the document but I thought it would be pretty clear once they reached the conclusion.
The full title of the document is this: “The Political, Military and Negotiating Strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (1937-1946) and Recent Developments in Nepal” and much of the document relates the history of the CCP on these issues. In the last few paragraphs, they do a very schematic comparison between the CCP and the CPN [M]:
“(2) Throughout the anti-Japanese war, Mao had to wage an unremitting struggle
against rightist forces in the CCP, some of whom were supported by Stalin and the Comintern, who argued that the CCP should subordinate its political program, armed forces and base area administrations to the GMD.
• A similar rightist political line has been consolidated in the leadership of the CPN(M). At present, there are no indications of a substantial struggle against this line in the leadership of the CPN(M).”
They ignore the changed global historical situation [fall of the USSR without the rise of another socialist state, new configurations of imperialist alliances, etc.,], and the particularities of Nepal and the Southeast Asia region. Their conclusions suggest that the CPN [M] should simply copy the CCP experience.
Mike E said
First, I think it is important that the MLMRSG has put their initial thoughts to paper — it helps create the conditions for an comradely exchange and debate — applying the Maoist approaches of unity-struggle-unity and unity-criticism-transformation.
I think there are three levels for examining the MLMRSG analysis:
1) If we want to make a living evaluation of the road the Nepalis are taking toward power, is the correct method to examine “what Mao did” in great depth and then compare whether the Nepalis are “doing what Mao did”?
2) Does this document correctly describe “what Mao did”? Or does it accept the way Chinese history was written AFTER THE FACT, and compare it to quotes excerpted from what the Nepalis say they are doing?
3) Does the last section reach a correct set of verdicts (both in how it depicts the Chinese and Nepali events, and in how it contrasts them)?
Two initial personal opinions:
First, I don’t think we can take previous revolutionary experiences and turn them into rigid models — and then compare present reality to those “models.” I think reality is far more complex, and (by the very nature of revolutionary practice) our next advances need to “break the mold” of previous assumptions and models.
I think there is a methodological problem with using our inherently limited, and highly particular past experiences as a rigid yardstick of “what is allowed” in revolutionary work today. Nepal today is not China at the end of World War 2. You can’t use past experiences as some recipe book, or legal case study. On the contrary we need to proceed from from a deep and fresh analysis of concrete reality now (even while we learn from the methods and experiences of previous revolutionary successes and failures.)
Second: One of the 9 Letters’ criticisms of Avakian’s method is the “fetish of the word” — which assumes you can rely mainly on a close textual read of public statements and (on that basis) get sufficient insight to what someone is doing and planning. The public statements political forces make are part of the situation, and certainly reveal important things about the positioning, arguments, agitation, maneuvering and public self-description of the Nepalese Maoists. But I think we have to think through the fact that people may be preparing (or debating) the launching of an insurrection may not actually announce what they are doing or what they are struggling through amongst themselves — even while they make many intense political efforts and maneuvers to win over broad support for their next efforts.
My point is not (as some have wondered) that we cannot “criticize from afar.” I am not making an “identify politics” argument that the truth is unknowable, or that we have “no right” to critically examine the struggle and views of others. But I am arguing for a materialist understanding of what can be known and what can’t. And of what is known and what isn’t. I am arguing against basing verdicts merely on a “textual read” of public statements made by revolutionaries in a very complex situation.
For example: I once had a book (published by the Soviet Union) of Mao’s statements from World War 2 and the Chungking days of negotiations — statements on the U.S., on the Communists’ willingness to form a coalition government with the KMT etc. If you have an inclination toward a mechanical read, these quotes (if accurate, and I assumed they mainly were) would make your hair fizzle. Because in negotiations, in moments when large sections of the people don’t agree with you, in times when you might have a chance at power, the actual process is very complex — there is what people say publicly, there is what people plan privately, there are sharp (and even escalating) internal struggles over how to proceed, and there is an intensifying dynamic of “hasten and await.”
I am not arguing for a solidarity movement that blindly accepts whatever foreign movements say and do. I have been told that in the early 90s communists working on buidling public awareness and political support for the revolution in Peru were told “don’t speculate” on the sharp line questions erupting after the capture of Gonzalo. All of that runs counter to what we should do, how we should think, and what we need to do differently from the past.
If you were watching the Bolshevik work (mainly from public statements) from July to October 1917, you would see them participating in elections for both the gathering of Soviets and the constituent assembly — but would not see the intense internal struggles and preparations for the October Uprising.
I think there is a methodological problem with comparing a thumbnail historical view of the Chinese negotiations of Chunking (dealing with events and contradictions which were in fact quite a bit more complex than depicted in the MLMRSG paper or even more elaborate “official history”) to the sketchy non-history available to us concerning the Nepalese events (that are unfolding in real time, that come to us with significant gaps, and where those gaps by their nature may (!) involve the Maoists’ actual intentions and covert preparations.)
zerohour said
I think it was Richard Feynman who once said that a question well-formulated is a question half answered.
Beyond seeing what Mao did, it’s important to see why he did it. I am sympathetic to the idea that there are no universal answers just universal questions. If we apply Mao’s methodology to concrete situations today [assuming he was correct] why should we come up with the same answers he did for his situation? If we are dialecticians, we should not.
This raises an important issue for how we even understand the lessons of history. The MLMRSG document points out that the CPN [M] felt they needed to win over the urban population politically, even thought they could have pushed towards a seizure of state power. Could this be based on a historical summation of the CCP’s urban policy? I haven’t seen much on this but it would be interesting to see how Mao’s line on urban organizing affected the development of the Chinese Revolution in the post-1949 period. I haven’t seen much on this. Pretty much all the histories of the Chinese Revolution I’ve seen focus on the countryside after Mao begins leading the party.
Mike E said
I think this is an extremely important issue.
One major question we need to extract from the last century is how do we avoid “exercising dictatorship” harshly over major sections of the population — because (however justified that can be, and however rooted it may be among the most oppressed) such a situation forms and transforms what you can do and even (in some significant ways) who you are.
We don’t just need to look at china for that. In the Soviet Union there was a largely urban socialist revolution that produced a state which had to deal with a hundred million plus rural people who were not inclined toward that socialist process. This was a huge and defining feature of the Soviet experience — where there were vast stretches of the country that had essentially zero communists, and required degrees of accommodation and then forceful insertion by the central authorities.
Mao was very aware that you needed to rely on the people… and the experience of Tibet (which I have explored in some beginning ways) was a case where Mao strongly argued that the pace of revolutionary change required a process of winning over key sections of the people.
somecomments said
Since this thread is engaging in a substantive way the question of the roles of the people’s army and the mass movement in Nepal, and possible preparations for insurrection, I have copied my post on the “Nepal Maoists: On Criticism by RCP.”
I think that joeblow’s remarks in posts 11 and 15 (on the Nepal Maoists thread) are well taken. While we have to be conscious of what we know and don’t know about what is going on in Nepal, and while final “verdicts” (either endorsing or condemning the strategy of the CPN(M) cannot be made in the midst of a developing and unstable situation), we do have an internationalist responsibility to evaluate what is happening in Nepal and raise important questions and make comradely criticisms. Internationalism also requires us to act in solidarity with the revolutionary masses of Nepal (and India as well), an important part of which is exposing and opposing the counter-revolutionary maneuvering and actions of the Indian state and the U.S. imperialists behind it.
In their comments on the situation in Nepal, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has focused on the question of state power and what it will take to seize it and wield it in the interests of the people. A week after the CPN(M) agreed to deposit its arms in seven designated cantonments in early November 2006, Azad, the spokesperson for the CPI(Maoist) stated:
“The agreement to deposit the arms of the people’s army in designated cantonments is fraught with dangerous implications. This act could lead to the disarming of the oppressed masses of Nepal and to a reversal of the gains made by the people of Nepal in the decade-long people’s war at the cost of immense sacrifices. The clause in the agreement to deposit an equal number of arms by both sides will obviously work in favour of the Koirala-led government as the latter will have the option to use the huge stock of arms still at the disposal of the army anytime and to further strengthen the reactionary army of the government. The decision take by the CPN(Maoist) on arms management, even if it thinks it is a tactical step to achieve its immediate goal of setting up a constituent assembly, is harmful to the interests of the revolution.
“Entire experiences of the world revolution have demonstrated time and again that without the people’s army it is impossible for the people to exercise their power. Nothing is more dreadful to imperialism and the reactionaries than armed masses and hence they would gladly enter into any agreement to disarm them. In fact, disarming the masses has been the constant refrain of all the reactionary ruling classes ever since the emergence of class-divided society. Unarmed masses are easy prey for the reactionary classes and imperialists who even enact massacres as proved by history. The CC, CPI (Maoist), as one of the detachments of the world proletariat, warns the CPN (Maoist) and the people of Nepal of the grave danger inherent in the agreement to deposit the arms and calls upon them to reconsider their tactics in the light of bitter historical experience.
“The agreement by the Maoists to become part of the interim government cannot transform the reactionary character of the state machinery that serves the exploiting ruling classes and imperialists. The state can be the instrument in the hands of either the exploiting classes or the proletariat but it cannot serve the interests of both these bitterly contending classes. It is the fundamental tenet of Marxism that no basic change in the social system can be brought about without smashing the state machine. Reforms from above cannot bring any qualitative change in the exploitative social system however democratic the new Constitution might seem to be, and even if the Maoists become an important component of the government. It is sheer illusion to think that a new Nepal can be built without smashing the existing state.”
If comrades think that this statement is a dogmatic reading of the situation in Nepal, they should argue their position. If they think that the CPN(M) can take state power peacefully through elections to the Constituent Assembly, they should explain how. And if they think that state power can be seized and held while the PLA is holed up in seven cantonments, or if the PLA is integrated into the Nepalese Army (as the CPNM is demanding at present), they should explain how this can be done. While the situation in Nepal is different in an important respect (the existence of a people’s war and a people’s army) from that of Indonesia in 1965 and Chile in 1973, aren’t there important lessons to learn from the counter-revolutionary coups that led to the slaughters of tens of thousands (Chile) and over a million (Indonesia) communists and supporters?
By 2005, the CPN(M) had liberated 80% of the country. It was preparing to go over to the strategic offensive and could possibly have made a final push to defeat the Nepalese Army and take Kathmandu. However, it confronted two major problems. It might have faced direct Indian military intervention, and it had a relatively weak base of support among the urban masses that would have made it difficult to launch urban insurrections and to maintain state power in Kathmandu and the other major cities. Thus, the CPN(M) made a strategic shift to suspend the armed struggle and make political struggle principal.
Several articles in the July 2007 issue of The Worker indicate that the CPN(M) is rethinking its strategy and is preparing for “the other option.” Guarav points out that “It will be naive to think that the monarchy and the ruling class patronized by imperialism esp. the US imperialism, will accept its own overthrow without any resistance.” He states that “In every Socialist or New Democratic Revolution, there are some fundamental laws and ideological and political lines which are universally applicable and hold good, but succeeding revolution can not be replicated as the previous one. Every revolution discovers some thing which is new. When you are doing some new experiment there is always risk involved in it.” He also states that the immediate aim of the party is to overthrow the monarchy and to establish a new democratic state, which is a shift from a previous formulation that put off the new democratic revolution into the undefined future.
In another article, Basanta says that Mao’s statement that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun is “a general truth for any revolution and a revolutionary party.” He states that since the initiation of armed struggle in 1996, and through two ceasefires and periods of negotiation, the CPN(M) has “been trying to maintain a proper sequence between political and military offensive, i.e. politics and war.” Basanta goes on to explain that political offensives allow the next military offensives to be justified among a wider section of oppressed masses. This is an expression of what the CPN(M) calls the “fusion” of people’s war and insurrection–which calls for applying “either one that fits in the given concrete objective situation irrespective of which model it came from.”
The Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPN(M) held in April 2007 (also published in The Worker No. 11) explicitly refers to making preparation for insurrection, including making efforts to “unite patriotic and nationalist elements” within the army and police forces. The Resolution also calls for a tactical shift to place “the struggle against national betrayal” in “the primary position”–referring to stepped up Indian intervention in Nepal.
This rethinking is a welcome development. However, if the CPN(M) is making plans for insurrection and for dealing with Indian military intervention, it must be asked how this can be done with the PLA holed up in seven cantonments with its weapons in storage depots. A militant but unarmed mass movement cannot stand up to the Nepalese Army or the Indian Army. Even if the party decides to withdraw the PLA and its weapons from the cantonments, this cannot be done quickly and safely. The PLA will be exposed to enemy attack while it attempts to move into positions favorable to the resumption of the armed struggle. This is not to say that it can’t be done. The reality is that the PLA is in a very dangerous position, and the oppressed masses of Nepal need an unfettered people’s army to complete and defend their revolution.
Maoists say: Shut Down Kantipur. What’s the future of Nepal’s Press Freedom? « The Melting Point said
[...] Roshan Kissoon, who claims to have taught English to the Maoists, says newspapers which cater to only a specific class of the soceity should not be allowed in business. Kissoon also writes that such news outlets should be thwarted because it does not represent the poor. Kissoon says he is an international freelance journalist, who has clear biasness. [...]
emil said
Mr kissoon seems to have changed many of his views. his latest piece ‘negation of the negation’ seems diametrically opposite to the views in his previous pieces.
http://www.countercurrents.org/kissoon160109.htm