To quote Joseph:

“So many times in my life-time I have heard communist parties and Marxist thinkers claim they have developed some wonderful new approach to Marxism … Bascially, they were bourgeois parliamentary democracy and market economics. In fact the ‘new things’ were really very old things, the ideas of the original founders of bourgeois democracy and the original theorists of capitalism like Adam Smith.”

I think that what Joseph observes is true in 99 cases out of 100. There is all the difference in the world between extending and deepening Marxism by a more rigorous application of its principles in new historical circumstances (e.g. Lenin’s theory of imperialism, Mao’s GPCR), and calling the very abandonment of those principles “new thinking”.

This is precisely what’s been happening in the CPUSA for decades now.

Ludo Martens of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, in The Collapse of the Soviet Union (a book I don’t necessaily endorse on every particular), remarks: “For the bourgeoisie living under socialism, the key question is this: how to enlarge democracy? For them it is very important to create a legal space for their old parties, crushed during the revolution. For the proletariat and the workers the key question is as follows: how to ensure that the Communist Party maintains its revolutionary spirit, its socialist line and its relations with the masses?”

This sums up the whole question very neatly, I think. The political tasks of proletarian rule represent challenges that have not been met with unqualified success, though we can look to the GPCR and the early days of Soviet power for important guideposts going forward to future struggles. There is every reason for Communists to debate those truly proletarian tasks in good faith and with a critical scientific spirit.

But we have to work to distinguish, at every step in theoretical struggle, between THESE tasks and those of the bourgeoisie, which are different in nature.

Take the comment #13 for example: A single short paragraph that on the surface seems a passionate defense of the revolution in Nepal.

He is full of passion alright, but only because deep down he thinks UCPNM has entered into a strategic alliance with capitalism/imperialism against what he would have us believe as the only real enemy, that is Feudalism. This is what he really wants us to learn from Nepal. Quite different from those who yearn for real revolution.

Some people may think he is wobbly and inconsistent; defending revolutions hither, supporting invasions thither. Wrong. Has anyone heard him utter a single word in support of the revolution in India or the Philippines?

But even if somehow all the above could be dismissed as fanciful or he had made this comment about a revolutionary process in Mars, it would still be poisonous, pernicious and full of poppycock.

The ICM, with some exceptions, went through a long period of uncritically and (frankly) slavishly following Soviet Union and Comintern exactly under the same false premises and it took a long process of struggle to get over it. If learning from Nepal or anywhere else that has had some success in something is used as a back door to reintroduce the same phenomena, it would be a disaster. For me, any learning process always involves critical appraisal.

In the eighties some honest people were suggesting the same type of “learning from Peru”. Was that right?

If Lenin had followed Arthur’s Advice in 1914, he would have had to “learn” from Kautsky and co. But then again, Arthur wouldn’t mind, would he.

Many times since 2006 we have heard that this or that dispute over the political process in Nepal would lead to revolution. I must admit I propogated similar illusions myself until last year so my comments shouldn’t be taken as a personal criticism of anyone. I really don’t think we can carry on with this approach. I don’t think its a very good idea for Marxists to try to create a revolutionary situation by pushing for reforms the system can’t or won’t meet anyway. This approach tends to give the initiative to the reactionaries who can pick their own time to launch coups or mass round-ups of communists. I don’t really think this is exactly what the UCPN(M) is doing in any case. I think they’re just trying to win reforms.

Li Kui: ‘If you don’t think the program of the UCPN(M) is about revolution at all, then I suspect your view of revolution is so narrow that we can’t expect any success in the 21st century or beyond.’

So many times in my life-time I have heard communist parties and Marxist thinkers claim they have developed some wonderful new approach to Marxism. The old British Communist Party did this, we had ‘reform communism’ (Gorbachovism), before that there was ‘Euro-communism’ and so on. Every time those that opposed these deviations were accused of living in the past and not wanting to try a new approach to building socialism. But what were these wonderful ‘new things’. Bascially, they were bourgeois parliamentary democracy and market economics. In fact the ‘new things’ were really very old things, the ideas of the original founders of bourgeois democracy and the original theorists of capitalism like Adam Smith.

Mao, by upholding something ‘old’-the line of Lenin as upheld by Stalin in the USSR created a very new thing-the Cultural Revolution that brought very positive benefits for the proletariat and peasantry of China. The UCPN(M) as a whole ditched the approach of Cultural Revolution for the old bourgeois ways.

People take heart from Bhattarai’s comments in one interview on this subject. I’m not being dogmatic here-I think it’s possible for the line of the UCPN(M) to change and I will welcome it if it does. But there needs to be a lot more than one interview before we can say the line has changed.

What I see existing in Nepal at the moment is that on the one hand there is the old, reactionary, semi-feudal/semi-colonial state apparatus, which the UCPN(M) has also entered into for tactical reasons, and on the other the embryo of a New Democratic Maoist-led state. Evidence of this revolutionary state can be found in the strength of the UCPN(M) throughout the country, in the old base areas in particular, where they really run the place, but also mainly the existence of the YCL, which acts not just as a youth organisation but as a weapon against feudal and imperialist culture and practice, and almost as a new state apparatus in its carrying out of social projects and legal arbitration. And this is without even mentioning the PLA, which obviously exists outside of the state structure at present.

Whether we call this dual power or not I’m not sure. This is not a case of two states in existence at the same time. The latest UCPN(M) document makes it crystal clear that the current state is a semi-feudal/semi-colonial state. Therefore, for the UCPN(M) to succeed in its task, it will have to smash this old state machinery. However, as the process of destruction and construction proceeds in a dialectical way, while destruction is still the principal aspect necessary for NDR, the construction of an embryonic future state is under way. And an understanding of this process I think is crucial to an understanding of the revolution in Nepal, or indeed anywhere. The state will not be smashed if there is nothing new to put in its place.

Moreover, I don’t think the dismantling in name of the base areas means that NDR has been put back. While in Rolpa recently, it was clear that the area is massively under the control of the UCPN(M), with the NC office flying its flag for ceremony only (www.wprm-britain.org for reports). In China too, the process of making revolution was not simply the gradual development and consolidation of the base areas, and in fact even Yan’an was given up at one stage of the war against the Guomindang. So we have to try to look at the issues of base areas and so-called dual power by dividing into two. The “peace process” so far has involved much compromise by the UCPN(M), but by keeping up the mass line and uniting with all who can be united with, the balance of forces nationally is now very much in its favour.

But a revolutionary situation will not come into existence until some sort of crisis in the old state appears, and then people will be on the streets in their thousands. It is when this situation comes about that we will be able to see whether the UCPN(M) can advance to NDR or will be defeated by the reactionaries at home and abroad. To reiterate once again, this is why revolutionaries around the world should now be uniting towards, and developing, support of the Nepalese people in making the first revolution in the twenty-first century.

And with the constitution deadline looming, there is the chance that things will come to a head sooner rather than later.

http://www.wprm-britain.org

For now a quick question:
It seems you think a revolutionary situation does not exist in Nepal at the moment and yet talk about the existence of dual power. Can you explain this a bit further?

The UCPN(M) is not only grappling with this situation on the ground, but also advancing new ideas, especially around democracy and cultural revolution. Indeed, this should work in a dialectical way. If you don’t think the program of the UCPN(M) is about revolution at all, then I suspect your view of revolution is so narrow that we can’t expect any success in the 21st century or beyond.

The new CC document published by the party is fascinating and it is good to see a party genuinely summing up its experiences and doing real self-criticism. The UCPN(M) does not know exactly how things will turn out, but so far they have had great success in every strategic move they have made. That doesn’t mean we should blindly support them. But at the moment there is much that should be studied and debated, especially the existence of dual power with the embryonic Maoist state in the making referred to by Alastair.

At a time when greater worldwide proletarian support for the Nepalese revolution is becoming of even greater significance, we still busy ourselves in unconstructive criticism and splittism, the curse of the left for so long. If we had learned anything from the CR we should have learned to properly divide one into two and to carry out serious unity-struggle-transformation. Unfortunately, because of this serious deficiency, whereas the Nepalese are grappling with revolutionary practice as well as new ideas, we are still stuck in the past.

BTW this stuff does go back to the defeat in China. Most people who refused to follow the whateverists or Hoxhaites were still delighted to ditch Mao’s “embarassing” shift to identifying social imperialism as the main enemy and building a united front against it. At first they pretended that line, which they had never understood, but only reluctantly parrotted, came from the Dengists. It didn’t take long for them to trace this “three worlds” deviation all the way back to Mao’s line in the war against fascism and reject that too. This way of thinking with no interest in actually defeating actual enemies was thoroughly consolidated in politically irrelevant sects long before they turned into outright cults.