Kasama

“Revolutionaries can lead the masses ahead from the height of consciousness [that they, the masses themselves] acquire from the class struggle in society, not from the height of consciousness the Party of the proletariat has. It is a question of not dictating to the masses to do what we want, but of being together with the masses to deal with the situation and applying the mass line to develop their consciousness…. The masses never compromise with their necessities but prefer peaceful execution. It is the task of the revolutionary parties to prove through practice that their necessities are not met by peaceful means. And only by doing this can the Party of the proletariat lead them to violent struggles. We understand that the enemy will not allow us to attain our strategic goal in a peaceful way, but we can lead the masses in violent struggle to overthrow them with such political tactics.” 

* * * * *

Letter of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (June 2006)

To the Central Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

From CC CPN (M) June 2006

Dear Comrades,

The letter your Party had written on 1 October 2005 to ours had reached to our hand quite late, and it was necessary on our part to reply to it quickly. But, we failed to do so given that we were very busy with the speedily changing political situation in our country and the need to lead it closely. However, firstly, we appreciate the initiative your Party has taken up to put forward criticisms and raise questions on our ideological and political position and the tactics we have adopted in recent years and, secondly, we make an apology for being late in replying to your letter. We firmly believe that the exchange of opinion will undoubtedly help identify the points of unity and disunity among us that, through comradely struggle, will help develop a higher level of unity between us by narrowing down the gap. We are in no doubt that this process of line struggle based on the ideological unity we already have will help both of our parties learn more from each other and elevate our ideological grasp to a higher level, which in fact can be one of the important cornerstones for developing MLM in the twenty-first century. Definitely it will have far-reaching significance.

Nevertheless, the letter has raised serious criticism on the ideological and political line and tactics we have adopted to accomplish New Democratic Revolution in our country and pave the way for socialism and communism. Not only this, your letter has accused us of sliding towards revisionism, though not mentioned directly. In this sense, the letter shows that we have serious differences in our ideological and political grasp, which calls for thoroughgoing struggles. This reply of ours can only be the initiation of that struggle, not the end.

Historical Context

Your Party, the RCP, USA, is very much aware that we were trying to develop our ideological and political line in an adverse international situation.. We had shouldered this historic responsibility when the International Communist Movement was facing a serious setback the world over following counter-revolution in Russia and China, when our philosophy of MLM was facing all-round attack from the imperialists and revisionists, when the world imperialist system too had undergone a change in which inter-imperialist rivalry had weakened and the unipolar imperialist plunder, mainly of US imperialism, was escalating all across the world in the form of a globalized state. In addition to this, the Peruvian People’s War, which was the most inspiring movement for our Party in the 1980s, had suffered a serious ‘bend in the road’, and when other ongoing revolutionary armed struggles, quite a few in numbers, were gaining no momentum but were cycling around the same circle year after year. On the other hand, the development of technology, mainly in the field of information, was making this world a small unit, and the growth of bureaucrat capitalism in our semi-feudal and semi-colonial country had brought about a certain change in the class relations of society. All of these questions were pressing us to think more creatively about how a revolutionary line in our Party could be developed. The semi-Hoxhaite dogmatic legacy of the MB [Singh] school of thought, which was deep-rooted in our veins, was also creating obstructions to going ahead creatively. It was really a challenging task subjectively for us to come out from the aforesaid adversities. We came to realize that the traditional way of thinking and applying MLM is not sufficient to face the new challenges created by the new situation. However, we were confident that a firm grasp of MLM and a proletarian commitment to revolution could face this challenge.

Taking into account all these particularities of the new situation, our Party creatively developed its ideological and political line. Of course, the way we tried to apply historical and dialectical materialism in the particularity of Nepalese society from the very beginning of developing our line and preparing for People’s War, from the early 1990s, was to a great extent different from how other communist parties did before and were doing then in the world. The firm grasp of MLM, the ‘concrete analysis of concrete conditions’, the ‘correct application of mass line’ and the creative application of historical and dialectical materialism, the philosophy of revolutionary practice, in the particularity of Nepalese society were the basis with which we fought back alien ideologies and reactionary and revisionist attacks against us, which in turn prepared the ground for us to initiate People’s War in 1996. What we have achieved during the past ten turbulent years of class struggle is before the world’s people.

In fact, the past ten years have not been years of smooth sailing for us. We have gone through twists and turns, ups and downs, and rights and lefts.. Every revolution does so. When we applied our line in revolutionary practice, it not only developed People’s War in leaps but also started generating new ideas so as to enrich the philosophical arsenal of MLM. It is known to your Party that the experiences and the set of new ideas that we gathered from the revolutionary practice of the initial five years had already been synthesized as Prachanda Path in 2001. It is heading towards a higher level of another synthesis.

From the time when we established our proletarian internationalist relations with your Party through RIM, though we have basic unity between our two parties, we have not found your Party satisfied with our political line and tactics at different historical turning points. Even now, your Party, RCP, USA, is looking at our Party mainly with the same eyes with which it used to see 15 years before. Frankly, RCP never correctly understood our Party, its political line and the tactics we adopted at times. The traditional way of thinking and the dogmatic understanding of MLM that the RCP is suffering from has made your Party unable to understand ours at every turning point of history. Just for example, when we had united with Lamas, in 1991, your Party reached a conclusion that the unity was wrong and it was a deception to the proletarian revolution in Nepal. When we partially used parliamentary elections, you thought that we were bogged down in parliamentarism. In your Party’s opinion, MB Singh, who opposed our Party unity as revisionist and partial use of parliamentary struggle as parliamentarism, was correct. When we sat for two negotiations with the enemy you thought that we were finished. But, the objective reality never proved your judgment to be correct, because it was the result of your dogmatic analysis and subjective synthesis. Now, we understand that you don’t agree with our present tactics of ceasefire, interim constitution, interim government, constituent assembly election and democratic republic to be established by extensive restructuring of the state. It is because your way of thinking is subjective and does not follow the mass line. The present letter is a proof of that.. However, it is our firm belief that with the correct grasp of MLM and its creative application in our particularity we will be able to establish a new democratic state under the leadership of the proletariat, possibly soon in our country, which will objectively prove your disagreement, serious criticism and indirect accusation of revisionism raised in the letter to be utterly subjective and wrong.

History is a witness that the proletarian class had succeeded in establishing its power in almost one-third of the globe, with the breath-taking sacrifice of millions in the twentieth century. The imperialist world system of war and aggression for loot and plunder of the poor nations and people of the under-developed countries was under threat from the socialist system. Poverty, deprivation, corruption, unemployment, etc. – the general phenomena of the capitalist mode of production – had been basically eliminated from those socialist countries.

But questions have come up as to why those proletarian powers turned into their opposites without any bloodshed, right after the demise or capture of the main leadership? Why did Comrade Stalin fail to control the emergence of revisionists from within the Party he had led, despite that he did his best, including forceful suppression against them? Why did the CPC under Mao’s leadership, despite that it launched the Cultural Revolution, fail to stop revisionist Deng and his clique from grabbing power after his demise? Why did the Russian Red Army that was able to defeat the fascist Hitler and his powerful army with the sacrifice of about 20 million Russian patriots, fail to retain proletarian power after the death of Comrade Stalin? Why did the Chinese PLA, which was able to defeat Japanese imperialist aggression and 5.5 million in the Chinese reactionary army, turn out to be a silent spectator when the revisionist Deng clique grabbed power? Why did the Vietnamese people’s army, which was able to defeat the US army, the strongest army in the world, and equipped with the most sophisticated weapons, fail to notice the transfer of proletarian power into its opposite? These and alike are the questions for which we are trying to find correct answers. Only cursing the revisionists does not solve the problem.

It goes against dialectics to believe that we are immune to committing any mistakes while translating MLM into practice. Therefore, we not only welcome but demand suggestions and criticism from our comrades the world over. In this sense, we very much welcome your creative suggestions and criticism.. But, we have been very much frustrated by how you understand us, and your effort to teach us the basics of MLM as if we don’t know them at all or we have derailed from it. We clearly observe inconsistency between what ideological and political assistance we need from our international comrades and what they, presently the RCP, are providing to us through this letter. We need assistance in our effort to try to connect the missing links in the ICM by which our class had to lose its power in the twentieth century, but your letter is trying to draw us back to the struggle around the basic and classical questions of MLM. We want debate on the aforesaid questions to overcome the problems our movement faced in the 20s, when we have got no undisputed answer to date. Your letter does not focus on those ideological and political questions, but mainly teaches the ABC of Marxism. It is frustrating us.

Historical and dialectical materialism is the philosophy of revolution; it not only applies to society but also in human thinking. The unity and struggle of opposites is its fundamental law. It means every entity divides into two, and each of the two aspects transforms into its opposite. We think the latter is the principal aspect for us communists.

It is our opinion that the ICM, in general, failed in the past to grasp the totality of this law of dialectics. Our class paid more attention to ‘one divides into two’ in the past and is doing so at present, but knowingly or unknowingly it has skipped grasping and applying in practice the transformation of one aspect into its opposite, the principal aspect. Because of this mistaken grasp, in practice at least, our class applied the dialectics of negation in two-line struggle so as to create splits among our own ranks instead of helping to unite by creating the material environment to make the wrongdoing comrades transform. In other words, our class practiced unity-struggle-split, not unity-struggle-transformation. The fatal consequences that the communists are confronting to date justifies [proves] this fact. Our ranks must correct it, and our Party is trying to do so.

Now the question comes up, how can we help the fellow travellers to correct their mistaken ideas? Definitely, we don’t have any magical rod. Firstly, and importantly, it is the correct grasp and appropriate application of dialectical materialist principles in the practice of two-line struggle within the proletarian Party that can correct the mistaken ideas of given comrades. And secondly, it is the masses of the people, the proletariat and oppressed class, that can help their leaders transform by supervising, controlling and intervening, if necessary, upon them and the institutions they work in. We say, “Revolution from within the revolution”, and of course believe that it is the developed practical manifestation of and so the development of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as propounded by Mao. In other words, it is the process of making mass action against the mistaken leaders a regular phenomenon under the dictatorship of the proletariat. We believe this is how the Party of the proletariat can help the wrongdoing comrades to transform in the service of the oppressed people and thereby check counter-revolution from within its ranks. We will discuss later on how we are trying to develop the mechanism and methodology to achieve this goal.

It is the ABC of Marxism that state power is an inevitable means to apply dictatorship upon one class by another in a class society. In a letter, dated 5 March 1852, to Weydemeyer, Marx says, “What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society….” In the same way, in his famous work, State and Revolution, Lenin says, “Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

For those who claim to be communists to think that both of the hostile classes in a society enjoy equal rights under the existing state power is sheer nonsense and unscientific. The fact is that the class in power enjoys democracy and applies dictatorship over the enemy class. Hence, democracy and dictatorship are two opposites of a single entity, state power. That is why there can be no absolute democracy in a class society nor can absolute dictatorship exist there. It is entirely true for both of the states, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. When classes cease to exist in society, then the state power too ceases to exist, and consequently both dictatorship and democracy wither away. Where should we focus on is how our practice of democracy and proletarian dictatorship can lead to the abolition of state power and the withering away of both democracy and dictatorship from society.

Of course, our Party’s serious concern is how the proletarian class, when it reaches power after the violent overthrow of its enemy, can strengthen the dictatorship over its antagonistic class so that it can continue towards the abolition of the state by preventing counter-revolution. We believe that the more democracy for the oppressed classes is guaranteed, the stronger will be the voluntary and principled unity among them, which as a consequence will strengthen the dictatorship over the bourgeois class. When democracy does not take root in the entire oppressed classes, then bureaucratic tendencies emerge in the Party, state and the society as well that consequently weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat. The history of the ICM and our own practice of people’s power, though in an immature form, have demonstrated us this. This is why we have been emphasizing developing democracy under the proletarian dictatorship.

Now, we would like to see how our pioneering leaders looked at democracy under socialist society and the state. The Communist Manifesto, on page 57 writes, “… that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”

In his famous work, “The Socialist Revolution And The Right Of Nations To Self-Determination (Theses)”, Lenin writes, “The socialist revolution is not one single act, not one single battle on a single front, but a whole epoch of intensified class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e. battles around all the problems of economics and politics, which can culminate only in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the socialist revolution, or obscure, or overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, just as socialism cannot be victorious unless it introduces complete democracy, so the proletariat will be unable to prepare for victory over the bourgeoisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.”

Let us quote Mao from his “Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China”. (Vol. 5, 15 November 1956). He says, “We are not even afraid of imperialism, so why should we be afraid of great democracy? Why should we be afraid of students taking to the streets? Yet among our Party members there are some who are afraid of great democracy, and this is not good. Those bureaucrats who are afraid of great democracy must study Marxism hard and mend their ways.”

From the above quotations we find the Communist Manifesto, Comrade Lenin and Comrade Mao urging for democracy. But we find the past practice of proletarian democracy was inadequate, particularly in the lack of a specific mechanism and appropriate methodology to institutionalize it, which as a consequence weakened the dictatorship of the proletariat. We are not arguing for something new, not in MLM, but what we are suggesting is to connect the missing link of the past to make both democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat more effective. So, we don’t think your Party should be afraid of the democracy that we are talking about. Rather, we want your Party to concentrate more on how the genuine democracy of the proletariat can be established so that the voluntary unity of the whole oppressed classes can exercise effective and real dictatorship over their class enemy.

Of course, we have put forward some proposals to develop a methodology and mechanism within the state so that it can effectively help implement the dialectical relation between proletarian dictatorship and democracy in society. We have seen Chinese practice, the latest, where we find eight different political parties of various sections of the masses, not of the enemy class, playing a co-operative role in the people’s government. We think it was mechanical and formal, so it is inadequate. What we have proposed is to raise this multiparty co-operation to the level of multiparty competition in the proletarian state within an anti-feudal (or anti-bourgeois) and anti-imperialist constitutional framework. The RCP’s criticism that the CPN (Maoist) is sliding towards the abandonment of the proletarian dictatorship by adopting bourgeois formal democracy reflects your Party’s unawareness to reach at the crux of the problem we are raising. So, instead of accusing us of having adopted bourgeois democracy, we request RCP to take it seriously and launch debate from the height we need.

Now a question arises, what the Party of the proletariat will do if it is defeated in elections under multiparty competition, which we think is your main concern. We believe this question is less serious and less dangerous than, what will the proletarian class do if its Party in state power degenerates into revisionism? These are the questions related to how to develop a methodology and mechanism to continue the revolution until communism amidst various internal and external threats of counter-revolution. This is why we have proposed that the constitution, which is put into action after the proletarian class seizes power, should provide the right for the oppressed classes, not the enemy, to rebel against the Party, if it turns revisionist, and to form a new one to continue the revolution under the given circumstances.

On the other hand, the Party’s necessity to go for the people’s mandate makes them more responsible towards the masses of people. If they are not to face competition among the masses to remain in the leadership of power, then there remains a material basis, in which the relation between the Party and the masses becomes formal and mechanical, consequently it provides an opportunity for bureaucracy to breed up from within the Party itself. Past experience justifies this. Hence, we believe multiparty competition for the people’s government and, along with this, the people’s right to supervise, control and intervene, including the recalling of their representatives from power, provides a kind of hook in the hands of the masses that can drag the wrongdoing comrades into their court. This process makes the relation between the Party and the masses livelier and vibrant, which creates a helpful objective environment for the wrongdoers to transform, either in a positive or negative direction.

Criticizing our position, your letter writes, “We feel that to make the most essential question one of formal democracy, and its expression in elections, competing political parties, and the like, is a serious mistake and will strengthen tendencies toward the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or its outright overthrow by counter-revolutionaries.” We don’t think the question is as simple as you have placed here. Everyone knows there was no multiparty competition, and the like, in Russia and China, which according to you is the main source of strengthening tendencies towards the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Then why did Russia and China fail to sustain the revolution and continue with the dictatorship of the proletariat until communism? Multiparty competition is not the only way by which imperialism can play a role to reverse the revolution. We request comrades to focus the debate on what positive and negative consequences it can lead to if such a competition is put into practice under the proletarian dictatorship, but not to reject it outright by accusing it as formal democracy of the bourgeoisie. Simply criticizing our proposals, based on logical arguments, does not solve the problem that our class is confronting now. We think the fate of the proletarian revolution in the twenty-first century relies on our generation, mainly our two parties at present. We request RCP to dare to break the traditional way of dogmatic thinking and raise the level of struggle to meet the need of the day.

We would like again to quote two sentences from your letter. It writes,

“China did not just gradually become more and more capitalist, more and more ‘totalitarian’, as the state grew stronger and stronger. In order for capitalism to be transformed state power had to be seized by the capitalist roaders, which they did through a coup d’état after Mao’s death.”

Firstly, this kind of interpretation doesn’t represent dialectical materialism, because it negates the inevitability of quantitative development for a qualitative leap. There was a material basis mainly in the superstructure for the counter-revolution to take place, which was constantly developing from within the socialist state itself. Had there been no such situation, why had Mao to struggle against various evils like, for example, the three excesses and five excesses and finally launch the GPCR against the revisionist headquarters? Had there been no such material basis, counter-revolution could not have taken place in a single stroke on the wish of revisionists.. Rather, the fact is Mao was late to foresee this situation.

Secondly, this kind of argument leads to the conclusion that it is the revisionists alone who are responsible for counter-revolution. This way of thinking does not go into the depth of the problem but skips the question of why revolutionaries failed to prevent the emergence of revisionists from within a revolutionary party. Revolutionaries must not remain self-content only by cursing revisionists for the damaging consequences, but should emphasize more what mistakes they made in the past and what measures they should take to correct them at present. The trend of cursing others for a mistake and enjoying oneself from such acts does not represent either a proletarian responsibility or culture.

Let us initiate our discussion on this topic by quoting a sentence from your letter to us. It writes,

“The role and character of the ruling classes and their political representatives, such as the parliamentary parties, are determined fundamentally not by their relation to the monarchy but by their relationship to imperialism and feudalism.”

Strategically, it is very much correct. But, in our case, even though there is no fundamental difference between monarchy and the parliamentarian parties strategically on the question of their relation to feudalism and imperialism, in a tactical sense there are some conflicting aspects existing between them. It was for this reason that we have been able to take advantage of their conflict during the past ten years of People’s War. This conflict is not yet resolved. Our political tactics of an interim government, constituent assembly and democratic republic of this conflict.

The political resolution that our Central Committee Meeting adopted unanimously in 2005 clarifies our position on this tactical slogan. It reads, “Now the slogan of interim government, election of the constituent assembly and democratic republic that our Party, taking into account the international and domestic balance of power, has formulated is a tactical slogan put forward for the forward-looking political way out. Remaining clear on the principle that the tactics must serve strategy, our Party has viewed the democratic republic neither as the bourgeois parliamentarian republic nor directly as the new-democratic one. This republic, with an extensive reorganization of the state power as to resolve the problems related with class, nationality, region and sex prevailing in the country, would play a role of transitional multiparty republic. Certainly, the reactionary class and their parties will try to transform this republic into a bourgeois parliamentarian one, whereas our Party of the proletarian class will try to transform it into a new-democratic republic. How long the period of transition will be is not a thing that can right now be ascertained. It is clear that it will depend upon the then national and international situation and state of power balance. As for now, this slogan has played and will play an important role to unite all the forces against the absolute monarchy dominant in the old state, for it has been a common enemy for both revolutionary and parliamentarian forces.” We don’t think more explanation is required to clarify our position on this tactic.

The question of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is very much linked with this tactical slogan. Clarifying our position on the PLA, a unanimous resolution of the CC meeting held in 2006, writes, “In the present context, when domestic and foreign reactionary elements are conspiring against the Nepalese people’s aspiration of progress and peace, the whole Party from top to bottom must give maximum emphasis to the question of consolidating and expanding the People’s Liberation Army and keeping them prepared to go any time into the war front. In the present sensitive stage, when imperialism and reaction will struggle to disarm the People’s Liberation Army, and our Party will struggle to dissolve the ‘royal’ army in the front of talks, if the Party failed to consolidate and expand the People’s Liberation Army and keep it prepared 24 hours for war, the Nepalese people would suffer a big defeat. The Party can have a lot of compromises in the domain of politics and diplomacy, but will never give up the real strength, the People’s Liberation Army and the arms they posses that the Nepalese people have gained with the blood of thousands of martyrs. Its name and structure can be changed in accordance with the verdict of the people, but even its name will not be changed as to benefit the imperialists and reaction and their wishes and demands. The Party will never tolerate any vacillation in this basic class and theoretical question.”

In general, tactical political slogans are materialized less in practice. This is because reactionary think tanks understand that it has a direct link with the strategic goal of the revolutionaries, and they know that the proletarian class takes advantage of it. But sometimes they are compelled to agree with it because the next alternative remaining for them becomes worse than that. In this sense, revolutionaries must not put forward tactical political slogans with the assumption that they are not being put into action. That is why our tactics has been so adopted that in both cases, whether it is being put into action or not, it can be linked with the strategic goal for a higher level of offensive against the enemy. The main thing it needs to have is the political strength to weaken and isolate the enemy by rallying people around this slogan. When the politics of the proletarian class gets established among the masses, then the masses will have no hesitation to rally around the Party raising that slogan. We believe this slogan has been doing this.

The democratic republic can take its shape only after the restructuring of the state, which the document has clearly mentioned. It will be structured so as to resolve the basic problems of the oppressed classes, nationalities, sex and regions, the content of the new-democratic revolution. In whatever ways we manoeuvre in between with this terminology, it does not make any difference in the essence of the strategic goal. What we can say now to your Party is, just be patient – to wait and see.

Dialectical and historical materialism, the revolutionary ideology, is a science, and revolutionary politics is the art of developing tactics in favour of the proletarian class interest. Tactics cannot be copied from a book, nor can anyone away from the knowledge of objective reality suggest it. It is creatively developed on the basis of the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. In this sense, one should be very flexible in tactics, because the objective situation goes on changing. But strategy represents a specific target or goal so as to resolve the basic contradictions in the given society. The revolutionaries must remain firm on strategy till the basic contradictions of the society are resolved. And tactics must serve strategy.

Memorizing things from books and interpreting for hours and hours on their basis is one thing, and applying them in living practice is qualitatively another. Frankly speaking, it is very easy not to commit any mistakes in strategy. But it is extremely difficult to take up and apply appropriate tactics in the service of strategy. It is dangerous too. Where there is more danger, there is more opportunity, this is dialectics. The test of revolutionaries, including your Party, is best taken by tactics, not strategy. Therefore, the fate of the revolution depends fully not on the strategy alone, but on what kinds of tactical moves one adopts at various junctures of the revolution to attain the strategic goal.

We can confidently say that we have been correctly applying the dialectics of strategic firmness and tactical flexibility in our revolutionary practice, since before the initiation of the People’s War. It is open to the world’s people, including your Party, that we had united with revisionists, we had been in parliament with 11 MPs, we already had two rounds of negotiations with the enemies, and the third round is going on. The Interim Government and constituent assembly election are on the immediate agenda. Comrades, if we were wrong in handling the dialectics of tactical flexibility and strategic firmness in our practice of waging class struggle, we would have been finished quite before. Any one of these tactical moves was enough to make us revisionist, the whole set was not necessary.

Yes, there is always a serious danger of tactics eating up strategy or policy eating up politics, the synthesis of MKP according to your letter. Tactical flexibility without strategic firmness creates this danger, and its ultimate consequence is reformism and revisionism. It is manifested in the form of ‘fighting to negotiate’, not ‘negotiating to fight’. But, there is other danger too, which you did not mention in your letter. It is: strategy becoming tactics, in other words, having no tactics, or politics eating up policies. To say this in another way, it is strategic firmness without tactical flexibility, of which the end result is dogmato-sectarianism.

Those who are drowned in the quagmire of tactical flexibility without strategic firmness understand our Party as dogmatic, whereas, those who are suffering from the jaundice of strategic firmness without tactical flexibility see us moving towards reformism and revisionism. Confidently, what we can say is that both of these accusations are wrong, but we are correct, because we have been applying in our practice strategic firmness and tactical flexibility dialectically. The qualitative leap of the People’s War in the past ten and a half years justifies this fact.

Our Party is very keenly trying to learn from the experiences of revolutionary struggles and tactical moves of the International Communist Movement, in general, and the latest experiences of Peru and Nicaragua in particular.. We believe that both ways of adopting tactics, in Peru and Nicaragua, were wrong. We are confident that we can protect our movement from the mistakes committed in these two countries.

On the basis of our experience of unity and struggle with your Party in the past in general and your letter at present in particular, we believe that your Party is deeply suffering from the dogmato-sectarian trend. Therefore, we are not surprised to receive from your Party a warning bell through your letter in which it has doubted that our revolution is sliding towards revisionism. We know it is not your wish to indirectly accuse us of revisionism, but it is your way of thinking that has led you to this conclusion. Nevertheless, we don’t claim that we are immune to committing any mistakes in our path. In this sense, your letter has contributed significantly to alerting us to the possible dangers ahead on our journey.

Republic Of Nepal And The Army

What our present position is on the PLA in the context, when your letter has suspected us of dissolving it, has been clarified in the part of the document excerpted before. We don’t think it necessary to elaborate on this more. But, given our geopolitical situation, we are developing some concepts about the strength of the army in the New Democratic Republic of Nepal. It is a geographical fact that our country, inhabited only by 25 million people, is sandwiched between two giant nations, India and China, each of which has more than one billion inhabitants. Chinese military strength is being developed so as to counter US imperialism. The Indian army is known to be the fourth-strongest army in the world. From the resources we have in our country and the strength of our PLA, even if we recruit all of the youths within it, we cannot think of defeating either of the armies neighbouring us, let alone the US imperialist army, to defend our geographical integrity from foreign military aggression.

In this objective situation, we have to maintain our army not to fight foreign military aggression, but so as to provide military training to the general masses in the form of the militia. Only the armed sea of the masses, equipped with revolutionary ideology and politics, can defend our geographical integrity. Just for example, we have a brilliant history of heroic struggles in the past. The Nepalese masses equipped with domestic weapons and aged from 11 to 65 years had, under the leadership of patriotic army generals like Bhakti Thapa and Balbhadra Kunwar, defeated British aggressors attacking from the South, in Nalapani. Based upon the aforesaid historical facts too, we think that some thousands of the PLA will be sufficient to train the general masses so as to defend her geographical integrity under the New Democratic and Socialist Republic of Nepal.

Our Party has developed this concept on the basis of the bitter experiences of the past revolutions too. This means it is related to how the relation between the army and the general masses can be maintained as cordial as it was before the capture of power. But, after the seizure of power, if the PLA are set in big permanent army barracks, objectively this would cut off the previous vibrant relation of ‘water and fish’ and ‘soil and seed’ between the general masses and their army, and consequently a bureaucratic set-up would start getting its shape from within this. This is why we are for developing a new methodology and mechanism by which bureaucracy could be frustrated from within the army, so that a strong people’s relationship with them is maintained. We think this way of maintaining the People’s Army can democratize it more, can involve them more with mass activities and strong ideological and political unity, which so develops among their ranks and the masses, and enables them to fight unitedly against both threats, internal and external. This can also be a new concept for maintaining the army in the socialist countries, in the 21st century, to fight international imperialism. We want to debate from this height.

Let us excerpt some of the important parts of a sentence or sentences from the latter part of your letter under different headings like, “A Questionable Proposal”, “On The International Community”, “Nepal and the Imperialist World Order”, etc. These are as under:

“And, it must be pointed out, if the enemies were to accept such a ‘political solution’ it could well be coupled with, or be a prelude to, relying on military means to enforce a military solution, as we have seen far too often in history (Indonesia, Chile, Iraq in 1965).”

“…it is equally true that the existing world order will not tolerate a genuine people’s revolutionary state.”

“…an unwritten consensus in the international community that the Maoists must not be allowed to come to power. … We think it is very accurate.”

“…the ‘international community’ — will bitterly oppose you and do everything they can to prevent you from coming to power in the first place, and to overthrow your rule, if you do succeed in coming to power, and this will very likely involve different types of military aggression as well as economic sabotage and blockade, espionage activities and the financing and training of counter-revolutionaries all of which is “business as usual” for the imperialist states and India as well, for that matter.”

First of all, we would like to say that your concerns expressed in these excerpts is very much correct, so we share them. Imperialism will not tolerate any revolutionary to rule in any part of this earth as long as they can.. It was not true that the CPSU and CPC first made imperialism happy with their politics and tactics, and then collected support to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in their countries. Also it was not true that they successfully established the dictatorship of the proletariat because they were superior to imperialism militarily. The fact was that the Party of the proletariat was superior in mobilising people around it, handling contradictions among the enemies and using them in one’s favour dialectically, because their outlook was scientific and they were far-sighted. The same is true for now also.

From the whole of your letter, it implies that imperialism will not allow any revolutionaries to have a political settlement in a peaceful way and will conspire with ‘business as usual’ to destroy revolution.. And it also implies that what our Party is doing now tactically is wrong and nonsense. Therefore your letter has suggested us to go straightforward in a military way, with ‘business as usual’. We appreciate your concern; but we understand imperialism will not tolerate us in power at all, as long as they can, even if we go with ‘business as usual’ too. That is why, whether imperialism will tolerate us or not is not the question at all behind our tactics; with which tactics we can defeat imperialism in the present context is the only question. We are not self-assured on the question that imperialism will allow resolving the civil war peacefully in the way our Party wants, but we are confident that we can defeat imperialism and their puppets in the military front by going through this tactic only. This is the question of applying the mass line correctly.

Yes, there are some confusing positions in our interpretations, in several contexts. We think sometimes they are necessary. If we can confuse our enemies and the international community with our tactical dealings, it can divide them to a certain extent, which will benefit our revolution. Problems will arise only if the Party of the proletariat itself is confused. So long as the ideological and political line is clear and the Party is committed to accomplishing its strategic mission, it can lead the masses in all circumstances. Revolutionaries can lead the masses ahead from the height of consciousness they acquire from the class struggle in society, not from the height of consciousness the Party of the proletariat has. It is a question of not dictating to them to do what we want, but of being together with the masses to deal with the situation and applying the mass line to develop their consciousness.

Your letter has very apprehensively raised one question. If the enemy accepts your demand, just for example, a constituent assembly, you are obligated to agree with it; otherwise you will lose the confidence of the masses. We appreciate your anxiety. But we understand that a constituent assembly in itself is not a solution, but its political content can be. For example, if the constituent assembly can ensure the dissolution of the royal army, the reorganization of the national army under our leadership, the implementation of revolutionary land reform based upon the policy of land to the tiller, the right of nations to self-determination, an end to social discrimination, development and prosperity, etc., why should one oppose it? By this, we mean that the constituent assembly is decided by its political content, not by its form. It is not an inert thing but full of contradictions, only what is required is our capability to use those contradictions in favour of our strategic goal.

The masses never compromise with their necessities but prefer peaceful execution. It is the task of the revolutionary parties to prove through practice that their necessities are not met by peaceful means. And only by doing this can the Party of the proletariat lead them to violent struggles. We understand that the enemy will not allow us to attain our strategic goal in a peaceful way, but we can lead the masses in violent struggle to overthrow them with such political tactics.

This is our short response to your letter dated 1 October 2005. We hope we succeeded to place our position clearly, mainly on the questions you have raised in the letter.

We understand that our two Parties have a convergence of views on the need to synthesize the positive and negative experiences of the past successful revolutions. Also we have convergences of views on the need to develop MLM to confront the challenges before our class in the twenty-first century. We believe that MLM can be developed in the course of applying historical and dialectical materialism in the practice of class struggle in society, two-line struggle among the entire revolutionary ranks all across the world, and the correct synthesis of past experience. Our two parties have a good opportunity to wage struggle, both being together in RIM. As an internationalist class, both of us have an important responsibility to fight unitedly for our class in the USA, in Nepal and the world as well. We take this response of ours as a first step towards that direction.

With Revolutionary Greetings!

From the Central Committee,

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Post comments here >>