DACS: Maoists Face “Unholy Alliance” of Reactionaries in Nepal
Posted by Mike E on July 23, 2008
This editorial statement was written by the Democracy and Class struggle blog. We are posting it here to call attention to the rapid political changes happening in Nepal, and the need for revolutionaries to pay close attention to developments and foreign intrigues against the revolution.
Click here to read “Open Letter from Mike Ely: Eyes on Nepal” concerning these events.
Dealing with an “Unholy” Anti Maoist Alliance
Democracy and Class Struggle says the decision of the CPN Maoist not to form Government given the new Anti Maoist Alliance of the CP UML, Nepali Congress and MJF reflects the new realities in Nepal where the counter revolutionary forces in Nepal have re-grouped.
The siren call of the Nepali Congress for CPN Maoist to form government is nothing but a rope for the CP Maoist to hang itself with.
Arjun Narsingh of the Nepali Congress says.
“We still believe and want the Maoists to form and lead the new government. That was our earlier decision and we stick by it,” Narsingh said. “We will not be an obstacle for them in this matter.”
The CPN Maoist rightly ignores such siren calls and should concentrate on exposing the new alliance of the bankrupt parties and their new government to build on its popular support registered in the Elections.
The CPN Maoist Programme cannot be implemented under current political
conditions of the new President and Vice President.
Therefore exposing the opportunists of the CP UML and Nepali Congress and MJF is the task of the hour so that the CPN Maoist can sweep the remainder of the CP UML, the Nepali Congress and their new found Madhesi partner the MJF from electoral office over the days,months and if necessary years.
The People of Nepal want democratic change but the “Unholy” Alliance does not.
The political landscape in Nepal has changed and the CPN Maoist has to adjust its strategy and tactics to fit that terrain
nickglais said
I would like to bring to attention the following from Chairman Prachanda
“the current government has stopped releasing the budget for People’s Liberation Army” (PLA)
Prachanda warned the situation would turn volatile if government continued to violate the past agreements.
This indicates a new possible provocation of the CPN Maoist by the new Anti Maoist Alliance psyched up by their Presidential and Vice Presidential Victories.
They seek to confront CPN Maoist from a “Constitutional Terrain” despite the CPN Maoists overwhelming Electoral mandate.
Nando said
It is important to draw attention to these change in Nepal, and the crisis that appears to be tightening up.
There is one passage in Nickglais’ editorial that I’d like to discuss:
I think this summation is wrong on a number of levels.
While we can’t predict events with any certainty, I don’t think a new government (based on the knot of reactionary parties) will tolerate the Maoists or (especially) their army. I don’t think they will allow the Maoists to systematically expose them, and then defeat them in elections.
The announcements that the new coalition is withdrawing its agreement to pay the salaries of the Maoist forces is a scheme to have those forces disband (and drift home hungry). Without that army the Maoists cause is unlikely to win.
And so, rather than this vision of a protracted “exposure followed by election” that nickglais is describing…. I think we should consider that there may (may!) be a different set of developments:
Where the new government seeks to dismantle the Maoist basis of support (and armed power) — and prevent them from ever repeating their recent rise to strength. And I would suspect that the new president will use his constitutional power over the existing government army to plan major intrigues (and perhaps armed military strikes, even coup-like moves) to break the back of the maoist revolution.
No reactionary government tolerates a revolutionary army within its borders that it does not control. No reactionary government plans to coexist with a powerful vigorous revolutionary party.
This crisis may go on for a while. Or it may come to a sharp decision quickly. I don’t know enough about the National Army’s military preparedness. I don’t know enough about the mood among the National Congress base.
But I would not tell ourselves and the people broadly to expect that we are now entering a protracted period of “exposure” that may last years. We should inform people that there are other real possibilities that they should be aware of — because the danger of Pinochet-like or Indonesia-like counterrevolutionary coups are real, and underscore the urgency of the “internationalist information project” around south Asia.
nickglais said
Nando is right when he says I have argued for protracted exposure of NC UML and MJF. I should have been qualified this for the two year period of the Constituent Assembly.
I entirely accept that events may by pass any notion of protracted exposure with the new President and the Army trying to take a “Constitutional” position in opposing the CPN Maoist Electoral Mandate. The budget for the Peoples Liberation Army may become the flash point.
I hate second guessing events in Nepal but Prachanda has made clear that there is a serious risk of Counter Revolution and I in no way want to underplay that threat – it is real and it is current.
I hope Nepalese comrades are prepared for any turn of events.
entdinglichung said
is it possible, that the CPN(M) acted a bit naïve in the last months and has accomodated itself too much to the institutional political process instead of mobilizing extra-parliamentarily forces?
Nando said
I have no inside knowledge (of course) but the thought has never crossed my mind that they are “naive.”
I think they have written and spoken about the risk they have taken. I think they have had the wisdom to keep their armed forces together and their powder dry.
I think they did this not thinking there would be a peaceful transition, but thinking that they would create the best conditions for a forcible transition.
I think their calculations were that when they were “on the outskirts of kathmandu” that they did not have enough consolidated support to maintain power. and they took this detour to get that — to expose the very diverse opposing parties (NC, UML and Monarchists), not just in words (which had been done over and over through the decades!) but on the living canvas of polical life, in front of the eyes of engaged millions.
So they made compromises, but not to “accomodate to the institutional political process” — but in order to get into a particular political position.
Also, I need to comment on the assumption that the Constitutent Assembly is the “institutional political process.” Nepal is not Germany or the U.S. — there IS NO institutional political process.
The monarchy (the real, previous institional politics) is discredited and overthrown. Parliamentary democracy (india style) has gone in and out of operation — and has a fragile basis, and has never been “institutionalized” in any deep way. It is the program of forces like the National Congress who (not surprisingly) are seen as imitators and servants of India in other ways to.
I have been doing some reading on Nepali history (belated, but feverish)…. and it is clear that the DEMAND FOR A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY has been the central demand of COMMUNISTS since World War 2. And it has been a demand IN OPPOSITION to the demand (of the congress party and others) for a parliamentary democracy (india-style or western style).
So the CPN(M)’s agreement to cease their war in exchange for a constituent assembly (while it included risks and compromises, which I am not trying to downplay) was, in reality, also the OTHER PARTIES finally GIVING IN to the quite radical demands of the Communists — that the overthrow of the monarchy NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean a western bourgeois democracy.
So, in that sense, the CPN(M)’s participation in the CA elections, and their attempt to form a government out of that process, is not “accomodating to the institutional political process” at all — but participating in a process dedicated to making NEW institutions.
And IN THAT SENSE, their campaign and actoins have been PRECISELY “extra-parliamentary” — in the sense that the Constituent Assembly was a mechanism for envisioning a democracy that was not confined to “parliamentary” norms and models.
The fact that the old parties (NC, UML, and Terai separatists) are now gathered in one knot against the rise of the maoists is a very revealing factor, and it puts them against the expressed plurality of popular votes.
One final note: you ask if the CPN(M) “acted a bit naive.” I think we also have to assume that there are different wings in the CPN(M) — i.e. that there is not a single set of assumptions (or one single line) guiding that party. There have been forces who went quite far in suggesting that their party was assuming the possibility of peaceful transition. But I do not believe that was ever the dominant or leading assumption of the party (or of Prachanda, or of Prachanda Path as a strategic body of work).
In some countries, the believers in “peaceful transitions” have been in a lather over the Nepali experience — since they thought ( a ) that the Nepalis were attempting peaceful transition, and they thought ( b ) that the Nepalis may succeed.
But my belief is that the Nepalis are exactly NOT naive (if we are talking about the dominant, revolutionary, Maoist forces most clearly leading that party) — but have used the CA process to build (on the basis of their PW and PLA) a way of bringing in middle forces, neutralizing or isolating diehard hostile forces. All of these are key things to accomplish in setting the stage for a seizure of power.
And the very same things that mean that the final seizure of power may be in grasp also COMPELL the reactionary forces to try to unite, to try to strike before all is lost. For now that has meant forming their “unholy” (and highly unstable!) alliance. But within days, or months, it might take the form of a bloody strike (of the chilean or Indonesian kind).
Such are the risks of revolution.