From: K JA <kja.2011@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 9:44 PM
Subject: [** MAOIST_REVOLUTION **] Article published in revolutionary Nepalese journal - Save The Revolution! [1 Attachment]
To: Maoist Rev <maoist_revolution@yahoogroups.com>
Dear Comrades,
The attached file contains the English version of an article put out in the Nepalese revolutionary journal, Samayabaddha, which can be found at http://www.Samayabaddha.org It was published in the run-up to the important meetings of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) held in November and December 2010, and will hopefully be of interest to your readers.
Red salute,
KJA
==================================
SAVE THE REVOLUTION!
By KJA (email address: kja.2011@hotmail.co.uk)
(A long time supporter abroad of the revolution of Nepal)
(Originally published in the Nepali language journal Samayabaddha (Modern Times) in November 2010)
While everyone who has supported the Nepalese revolution from the beginning is anxiously observing the situation and hoping the revolution can find a way to succeed, real proletarian internationalism requires looking squarely at the line and policies of the Party and confronting the danger that, unless this line is reversed, the fruits of the revolution will be definitively lost.
Two great dangers loom in front of the Party and the masses. One danger is that the course that the Party has been on for the last four years will reach its logical conclusion and a new version of the reactionary bourgeois-comprador order will be cemented into place. The hopes that the People's War kindled and nourished of building a new society without and against the principal exploiters, both traditional and modern, are being smothered as the leaders of the revolution themselves become more and more entangled in the process of forging the institutions which should be dismantled.
The other great danger is that the forces of the old order will use the current crisis to deal a decisive blow to the revolution and take revenge on the Party and the masses for the ten years of People's War and to prevent any continued struggle to move the revolution forward, consolidating by force a political system which cements into place the system of capitalist and semi-feudal exploitation.
At the same time, despite the great damage done by the revisionism which has been dominant in the Party's line over the last several years, there is still a basis to reverse course and take the revolution to victory if a decisive rupture with revisionism is made and a basically correct line can be established in the Party.
The Party is currently operating in the framework of the Paris Heights Central Committee resolution. Many comrades saw the struggle waged in the Party and the CC resolution as a decisive step forward because the resolution rejects some of the openly revisionist arguments concerning the nature of the new bourgeois republic and reaffirms the need for the establishment of a new democratic state. But unfortunately the Paris Heights resolution has continued the eclectics which have played such a big role in the Party and which have ideologically handcuffed many of those within the Party who want to get back on a revolutionary path.
The Paris Heights resolution calls for the establishment of a People's Republic and warns against efforts of the reactionaries who are waging conspiracies and "retracting into the status quo." The comrades are warned to avoid being provoked into war by the forces opposed to the advance of the people's movement, and to present clearly to the masses that the revolutionaries are the forces who are staunchly defending the Constituent Assembly and the peace process. It goes on to argue "For that, tactically peace, constitution, national independence, 'civilian supremacy' and 'Maoist-led national government' must be included in our slogans. Based on these slogans, the planned struggles carried from legislature and the street, by defeating the reactionary conspiracies, broad masses can be led to the completion of strategic goal of democratic revolution." In other words, the strategic goal is reaffirmed to be the people's republic whose defining character should be that it is a different state led by the proletariat. Yet the means proposed for achieving this people's republic is to avow strict loyalty to bourgeois democratic principles and indeed to the very institutions that are clearly admitted to be tied to a bourgeois republic, and still in the hands of reactionary classes.
Which State Power is Legitimate?
In 2006 after 10 years of People's War the reactionary classes were in desperate need to find a basis to restore the legitimacy of their state power and their reactionary army in the eyes of the people. This is why the reactionaries, with the advice of India and world imperialism, not only accepted the need for a peace process and a Constituent Assembly but grabbed at it as a lifeline. Over the last four years, these forces have worked hard to weaken the Party's and the revolutionary masses' ability to take things forward to the necessary next step.
The problem is that the Party's own lack of a clear grasp of the need to break out of the whole framework of bourgeois democracy meant that the Party could not challenge the legitimacy of the new institutions—even the hated Nepal Army got a new lease on life. The Party did not emphasize its legitimacy coming from its role in leading the People's War and fighting for the liberation of the people from exploitation. The Party abandoned, to a large extent, the very strengths it had gained through leading the people in a revolution that went against the constraints of the bourgeois institutions. Instead the party sought to establish its legitimacy as the upholders of the peace process and later based its claims to legitimacy on its electoral success. In fact, presenting the question to the masses on these terms only ends up giving legitimacy to the wrong criteria and institutions, and undercuts the legitimacy of the revolution itself and of the forces who have made that real through arduous struggle.
The confinement of the PLA in cantonments under the watchful eye of UN monitors is glaring evidence that the whole period since the signing of the CPA has dramatically hampered the independent initiative of the forces of the revolution. But it must be pointed out that even this grievous error is secondary to an even more fundamental one—the goals of the revolution are being abandoned or deformed.
Entering into the 12-Point Understanding and the CPA was actually a commitment to remain in a bourgeois framework and to recognize the central role of the old but renamed Royal Nepal Army, as the pillar of the state. Before and during this time there were all sorts of revisionist arguments developed about the so-called "transitional state" which supposedly had no class character. In fact, the pro-feudal and pro-imperialist elements remained clear about their class interests and were and remain determined to fight to the finish to insure that the state that emerged from the peace process would preserve the old exploitative and oppressive relations. Yet instead of challenging this logic head-on, that is, instead of exposing that these new institutions are indeed coherent with the old, reactionary system, the Maoists keep trying to fight on the playing field set up by the reactionary classes and the "international community" who make the rules and appoint the referees.
The whole way the Party has handled, and continues to handle, the Katawal affair illustrates this point clearly. The really important lesson of the COS episode is that the NA was built in the image of the exploiting classes in Nepal and this army exists to serve the old relations of power that the revolution is supposed to put an end to. The communists should be exposing the fact that the Nepal Army is a product of and enforces the rule of the reactionary classes — and not that the army must obey the "civilian authorities" as the Party has constantly insisted. Indeed, this is why the recognition of the central role of the NA was such a crucial ingredient in the whole "peace process" – the ultimate guarantee that whatever came out of the elections, there would be no fundamental transfer of power away from the exploiting classes. Indeed, the NA represents the continuity between the monarchy and the republic and it shows their common class character. The fundamental question is not that the NA is violating republican principles, but rather that the republic, the state power itself, is ultimately based on and backed up by the Nepal Army.
Fighting Forward from Here
The People's War itself provided tremendous material for showing the masses concretely the difference between the new democratic state power being built in an initial way in the base areas on the one hand, and the state power of the reactionaries on the other. Where the PLA and the masses of people were in charge, important changes took place having a very positive impact on the lives of the people: for example, how young women in rural Nepal gained new freedom; how the revolutionary authority made dramatic inroads into the caste system; as well as the real beginning changes in the land ownership system in those areas where the revolution was strongest. This showed in an initial way the vitality and appeal of new democracy and it showed how this kind of democracy for the masses could only exist because the people had their own armed forces, had their own dictatorship over the exploiting classes. This new power was able to protect the masses and protect the institutions that the revolution was creating from the thugs, reactionaries and, above all, from the hated Royal Nepal Army. Of course, the emancipatory changes that began in the liberated areas could not be fully implemented precisely because of the old state power centered in Kathmandu and enforced by the RNA. But this is exactly the point that needs to be sharply made to the whole society: a new, nationwide, revolutionary state power needs to be established.
Once nationwide power is in the hands of the people led by revolutionary communists a whole new horizon opens up for the kinds of transformations that the masses can bring about. Only then does it become possible to really uproot the old landownership system on a revolutionary basis. Imagine the possibilities that open up when the society can take over the main resources of the country from the imperialists and comprador-bureaucrat capitalists and transform these resources from being used as instruments of exploitation into tools which can build up a new and independent national economy to serve the people.
Take the very important example of the liberation of women. Everyone knows how dramatic a change it was for women to be playing such an crucial role in the PLA as well as in the revolution more generally and how big a blow this was to feudal as well as more modern forms of the oppression of women. But with the revolution derailed into the electoral and constitutional process it is not possible to unleash this section of the masses in the same way. Instead of mobilizing thousands of women to be part of ruling and transforming society as was the case during the People's War, the kind of institutions and politics that are being established through the CA procedure will demobilize these women, restrict them once again to domestic drudgery and the tyranny of the old social relations. This is true even though the CA ( or any new government that might be established within the same basic mold) guarantees representation for a large percentage of women. These kinds of bourgeois institutions never unleash the initiative and the enthusiasm of the masses—this is why the reactionaries have come to understand the value of institutions which reduce the role of the broad masses to mere voters and observers while those that they elect are entangled in the web of parliament and unable to effect any real change.
Unfortunately, the Party is not drawing on the real strengths brought forward through the People's War. The fight for the emancipation of women, the fight against the caste system, fighting for the real equality of nationalities has demonstrated the vast potential for mobilizing the masses to carry forward the revolution. But the ideological and political confusion makes it impossible for the leadership to mobilize these strengths—indeed they cannot even see them. Instead they are taking profound problems of society and turning them into narrow demands about reservations. By taking these questions out of the new democratic context and putting them into the bourgeois constitutional process the Party takes the revolutionary heart out of these struggles, makes them incapable of really thoroughly involving the masses, and channels the energies of the militants into dead-ends.
At the heart of the People's War was the agrarian revolution which is fundamental to achieving new democracy, both breaking the back of feudalism and freeing the country from the clutches of imperialism. Carrying through the agrarian revolution remains a key objective and a crying need of the society. Yet this is not given the central importance in the Party's policies and slogans and instead when it is mentioned at all it is often reduced to a need for "scientific land reform" which is more in keeping with the kind of "land reform" practiced by states like India, than a revolutionary mobilization of the masses to transform the whole system of agriculture.
It is necessary and possible for the Party to formulate demands and slogans that draw on the experience of the People's War and the initial political power it established and which sharply bring into focus the real and essential contradictions that need to be solved as part of completing the new democratic revolution. Masses need to be mobilized on this basis and not something other. In the course of this it should be possible for millions of people to rapidly understand why a different state power is required, not, to recall the words of the Paris Heights CC resolution "a Maoist led national government" that comes out of and is responsible to the CA process.
The tactics and slogans of the Party must reflect the fight for completing the new democratic revolution. This is the opposite of the tactics the Party is now employing. I have read an article from one supporter of the UCPN(M) abroad which argued that the slogan "civilian supremacy over the military" can play the same role in Nepal that Lenin's slogan "land, bread and peace" played in Russia during the October Revolution. But this is a false and dangerous comparison. First of all, the "peace" that the Bolsheviks were fighting for was to withdraw from the imperialist war, a war which was against the interest of the masses. This demand strengthened the ability to make revolution and did not promote class peace. Lenin brought forward slogans that were consistent with an overall strategy of arguing for and mobilizing the masses for a different state power. Lenin also raised the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" which was specifically a call to reject the legitimacy of the bourgeois state structures which had arisen in the course of the bourgeois democratic revolution of February 1917 and to replace these structures with those that had emerged from the revolutionary process, and especially among the workers and peasants (the soviets or workers and peasant councils). Tactics are necessary in the service of strategy, but they cannot be raised above the level of strategy and they cannot contradict the strategy in a fundamental way. Tactics are not a way to "trick" or to "fool" enemies or sections of the people. Communists who think otherwise are really only fooling themselves and their supporters.
There is a need and possibility to present a real vision of what the future society can look like and why such a society is only possible if a new state power is established. As part of this vision the role of the constitution of the new democratic state could be important. But this should not be confused with the constitution drafting process that has been dragging on in the Constituent Assembly. Without a completely different kind of political power no constitution can guarantee the interests of the people and provide a framework social transformation.
The Challenge of Seizing Nationwide Power
There is no escaping the fundamental reality that seizing nationwide political power is very difficult and there can be no guarantees of success. The Nepal Army is well armed, has lots of experience in warfare, has support from India, China and the imperialist countries and has a hard core of officers and soldiers united to oppose the revolution. While it is necessary to look for every possible "fissure" in the enemy ranks and to employ tactics that could encourage and foster such divisions there is no way around the reality that the reactionary core of the NA will be a vicious and murderous opponent.
One of the crucial tasks of communist revolutionaries in any country is to find the appropriate means of strategy and tactics that will enable the revolutionary forces to actually triumph. From what I read in the Paris Heights resolution the Party is counting on the idea that an important section of the reactionary army including its officers' corps will come to the side of the revolution. The concept seems to be that reactionary class forces will reveal themselves to be allied with foreign powers and betrayers of the national sovereignty, and on that basis the Nepal Army will split. Indeed, the success of the revolution becomes linked to and dependent on this strategy.
As an article from a supporter of the Nepal revolution posted online in issue no. 200 of Revolution, the newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA put it: "It seems clear that, in the situation of Nepal now, it is correct to seek to rally broad forces against foreign interference and the potential of foreign intervention, and it is even correct to make serious attempts, as a subordinate TACTIC, to split the reactionary forces, including the reactionary army; but to raise this—and the latter in particular (splitting and winning over sections of the reactionary army)—to the level of a STRATEGY is completely erroneous, and very seriously courts disaster. One need only ask: What if these attempts (to split the reactionary army, etc.) fail, while one has made one's whole approach dependent on this...then what? And it does seem very clear that there is no other dimension in which real and serious preparations are being made by the UCPN(M) for an actual showdown with the armed forces of reaction. Mass and militant mobilization of youth, in the urban as well as rural areas, for example, could be an important element of an overall strategy for actually carrying the revolution forward, and preparing for the decisive showdown with the armed forces of reaction; but this in itself is not, and cannot be, a substitute for, or the essential means to, wield an organized and disciplined force that can meet and defeat the armed forces of reaction, domestic and very possibly foreign as well."
There is a world of difference between a new democratic regime led by a vanguard party and "a Maoist led national government" established within the CA structures. It is true that under certain circumstances it is possible to imagine a "Maoist led national government" which would be tolerated by the reactionary classes and the Nepal Army, at least for a time. But this would only be the case if such a government did not and was not thought to be challenging the fundamental property and social relations. In other words, only if the Party accepted, in reality, to become defenders of the existing system. History is full of examples of this path taken by revisionist parties, with very dire consequences for the masses in those countries. Isn't this the devil's bargain that was made with the ANC government in South Africa, for example? A "Maoist-led national government" of the old state is not a goal that one should want at all.
Instead of mobilizing the masses in the city and countryside as part of a conscious plan aimed at accomplishing the genuine revolutionary objectives as was done during the ten years of People's War, the mobilization of the masses has become a tactic which turns them into a "pressure group" to be turned on and off according to the rhythm of negotiations with the reactionary parties. Again we see the danger of the redefinition of concepts like "seizure of power" and "insurrection" to mean something other than the destruction of the existing state apparatus. An "insurrection" of this type cannot create a new army and new institutions that will ensure the rule of the people or lead to genuine revolutionary transformation.
Many observers inside and outside Nepal have taken note of how the promises of an impending insurrection have been abandoned one after another. Some see in this a pattern of deception on the part of Party leaders. Others argue it is simply the lack of a coherent plan to actually transform the promises to reality. However, this is in fact further evidence of a lack of clarity on the objectives of the revolution being translated into practice. Whatever the intention of many Party comrades, the actual goal, in other words, the only goal that can really be accomplished with this approach, becomes cobbling some new kind of government in which Party leaders will once again be responsible for preserving and enforcing the old relations. Whether this takes place violently or peacefully is not the fundamental issue.
The Link Between Problems in Theory and Problems in Practice
The political questions the Party is presently facing did not spring out of nowhere. The problems of correctly evaluating the current Nepal state are very much linked to theoretical errors and confusion that have existed in the Party for sometime now about the nature of the state in general and especially the need for and the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat, including in its form of new democracy. Many of these questions have been addressed in the exchange of letters between the UCPN(M) and the RCPUSA and I would strongly encourage comrades to study them.
To put it in its most basic terms, the Party has not been clear on what kind of state power needs to be established. The Party has been confused on the difference between the dictatorship and democracy of the bourgeoisie (bourgeois democracy in short) and the dictatorship and democracy of the proletariat. And this basic confusion has disarmed the Party ideologically and politically when the revolution reached the point where a new state power needs to be established on a nationwide basis.
We should not forget that before the Party's practice was transformed (abandonment of the People's War and the commitment to the "peace process" and constitutional process, etc.) a theoretical attack took place on the basic Marxist understanding of questions of democracy and dictatorship, the state, and the history of the communist movement. Here I am specifically referring to com Bhatterai's article "On the Question of Building a New Type of State". I will not repeat the criticisms that are made in the RCPUSA's first letter of October 2005 (written before the April 2006 movement) but it is not at all accidental that the revisionist theory expounded is quickly thereafter reflected in a fundamental shift in the line of the Party. Unfortunately many comrades in Nepal and internationally did not take the debate over com Bhatterai's article very seriously, failing to recognize the content and implications of the revisionist line that he was proposing in that article. It is worth noting what Chang Chun-chao, one of the outstanding leaders of the GPCR, said: some comrades consider the study of the dictatorship of the proletariat to be a "flexible task" . The class enemy understands that it is an "inflexible task". To put it another way, sometimes revolutionary comrades can, out of pragmatism and other reasons, fail to take up the crucial questions of line struggle, but the proponents of the revisionist line will most definitely fight on the theoretical front.
It is necessary to take a sweeping view of the proletarian revolution: what, after all, is it all about? Only if we are clear on the goals and means of the proletarian revolution will it be possible to apply a correct "yardstick" for measuring whether or not the UCPN(M) has been advancing in the direction of carrying out those aims or not. As was stressed so forcefully by Lenin and Mao, revolution is, above all, about the seizure of political power and establishing a new state. Achieving this political power is not, of course, an "end in itself". The dictatorship of the proletariat, including in the new-democratic form appropriate in Nepal, is important only in so far as it is a tool, a vehicle, through which the society can be transformed step by step as part of achieving communism throughout the world. There is a dialectical relation between the goals of socialism and ultimately communism and the means of the proletarian dictatorship and, as part of this, its appropriate forms of democracy. Conversely, there is a similar relationship between the unspoken goal of preserving capitalism and assuring the most favourable conditions for its development and the bourgeois state as it exists in the world today, including in its most democratic forms such as in Switzerland or France.
This helps explains why Marx first advanced and Lenin emphasized so strongly that it is not possible simply to "take over" the existing ready-made state apparatus and that instead the proletariat needed to "smash" the existing state. There is the most immediate and obvious factor that the state apparatus has grown up in relation to the dominant system of exploitation and the ruling classes themselves. While many of the governmental institutions in Nepal are "new"(in that they did not exist under the previous monarchy), the heart and centre of the state power, in Nepal as in all countries, are the armed forces and, as we have already discussed, the old reactionary army is right at the heart of the "new" state in Nepal today.
As for the Constituent Assembly, this may be new to Nepal but such institutions are in the image of a well-oiled machine that has been tested over many generations in the countries dominated by the bourgeoisie. It has been proven time and again that the bourgeois democratic political process will serve and re-enforce the rule of the exploiting classes. If on some occasion representatives of opposition parties, even "socialists" and "communists" participate in or even lead governments, they remain bound into these political, legal and bureaucratic institutions and have never been able to use these institutions to radically transform the socio-economic system in a revolutionary direction. The imperialists and their army of political scientists and advisers are very clear on this reality. This is why tying revolutionaries or ex-revolutionaries into the spider web of parliamentarism is often so central to their counter-revolutionary efforts.
While some other parties and political groupings will participate in the socialist transformation to differing degrees this will only happen if the communist revolutionaries make such a transformation possible by keeping a firm hand over the state power and lead the whole process forward. Because the proletarian revolution is going against the spontaneity of capitalist society and hundreds of years of class exploitation, it will require stubborn and protracted struggle to advance toward the communist future, to create the political, material and ideological conditions for moving to a whole different type of society.
But the UCPN(M)'s thesis of "multiparty democracy" blurs over the fundamental difference between bourgeois democracy (and real dictatorship) and the proletarian democracy and dictatorship that needs to be established. To argue as the UCPN(M) leadership does that, somehow, "multiparty competition" will determine the future direction of the revolution is simply to renounce in advance moving in the direction of the socialist and communist future. The Party very correctly did not ask permission of the majority of the population before launching the People's War in 1996 and it would be terribly wrong to make the continuation of the revolution contingent on an election result.
Just because the proletarian Party has won the enthusiastic support of vast sections of the population mainly through leading the heroic People's War is by no means evidence that the Party will be able to consistently win election after election. The reactionary classes have many advantages in this contest—advantages in wealth, education, international connections and, we must never forget, connections to the ultimate "trump card", the reactionary army. It should not surprise anyone that if the game is bourgeois democracy, the likely winners over any period of time will be the bourgeois parties.
Nor is it correct to see "multiparty competition" as the magic solution to prevent a capitalist restoration under conditions of socialism. While contested elections can have a significant role under socialism as a means of focusing and encouraging debate throughout society, the basic direction of the socialist revolution cannot be made dependent on election results. Even under conditions of socialism, and all the more so in a world still dominated by imperialism, conditions can arise in which the majority of the population might be swayed by demagogy of capitalist roaders or their appeals to what may seem (in the short term) the interests of different sections of the people.
What is needed are institutions that incorporate the broadest sections of the masses into the political process, allow and foster genuine debate and dissent, while ensuring that the state actually is in the hands of the masses of people and their representatives specifically being led by the vanguard Party, and not allow reactionary class forces, old and new, to drag the society backward. Here too I think that many of the experiences of the People's War and the institutions that it brought forward in the countryside such as local and district councils, a different court system, contested elections but organized under the revolutionary authority, could serve as important elements to learn from, perfect, and correct where necessary, in fashioning a new governmental system that could exercise nationwide power.
Some comrades have argued that they are very clear on the need for a new democratic state, but that there is a need to make an appeal on a different basis to the middle class forces who have a lot of illusions and bourgeois democratic prejudices and aspirations. In particular since 2006 the question of the correct political approach to the middle classes especially in the Kathmandu Valley has taken on much greater importance. It is definitely true that no revolutionary seizure of power and no sustainable revolutionary transformation can take place without a correct united front policy toward this important section of the masses. There is the basis for many from these sections to be ardent supporters of the revolution while others who will not share the communist goals can still participate fully in the new society in a way that can never be possible under the rule of the reactionary classes. But it is not correct, and actually harms the ability to unite as broadly as possible, to say what you think people want to hear, rather than bringing out the truth that the Party must lead the society to break free from the whole set up that it is now trapped in.
Even if it is not understood by many, it is none-the-less true that only a revolutionary state led by a proletarian party can actually start to solve some of the problems that these sections of people also care deeply about. Of great importance is the educated youth: under the current system there is very little scope for them to place their energy and hopes in the service of the society. But a different society with a different state power can change that dramatically and open up whole new vistas for creative activity, for combing scientific knowledge with the masses of the people, for building up a self-reliant economy that is not fundamentally determined by its links to the world imperialist system.
The "fight over democracy" has been and remains an important arena of struggle between the proletariat and other class forces. But this fight is not how revisionists the world over have always portrayed it. To the revisionists, the question is to fight the bourgeoisie on the terrain of bourgeois democracy, in other words, to argue that only the communists can thoroughly implement "real" democracy. Of course, there are plenty of reasons why this argument has appeal to large sections of the people and one important reason is that bourgeois democracy is always truncated, polluted, incomplete—and all the more so in a society which has been heavily marked by feudalism such as Nepal. While it is correct and necessary to expose to the masses the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy we must never conclude from this that the goal of the revolution should be "real" (in essence bourgeois) democracy. It is still the case that the political system of bourgeois democracy corresponds to the political rule of the bourgeoisie and the economic system of capitalism and its market.
Conclusion
Everyone knows that sharp struggle has taken place within the UCPN(M) over the line and policy of the Party. Whether the eclecticism, contradictions and confusion of the Paris Heights document and other Party statements are a result of the comrades' own confusion or a conscious compromise between different tendencies in the Party matters little in the final analysis. The result is the same: the Party is unable to clearly envision the strategic way forward so it upholds and endorses the wrong strategic view of the last few years: the strategy of elections, ceasefire, dismantlement of the PLA and so forth even while calling for preparations for something different.
I am sure that there are many comrades of the UCPN(M) who are sincere in wanting to go forward to the completion of the new democratic revolution and to launch the socialist revolution. But this cannot happen unless the comrades are able to clearly draw a line of demarcation between a genuinely revolutionary line and the revisionist line that has done so much harm over the last several years. Again, breaking out of the whole framework which the Party has locked itself into is urgently needed. Without a resolute struggle against revisionism, and the development of a line and strategy that reflect a clear rupture from the present course, victory is impossible and no mere wishing for revolution can solve the problem. This is not just one more "general truth" of Marxism that "everyone" accepts in theory but is free to ignore in the specifics. In fact, the whole process of the Nepalese revolution has reaffirmed and brought to life Mao's brilliant summation that "The correctness or incorrectness of the political and ideological line determines everything."
Once a wrong line was firmly established in the leadership of the Party the whole future of the revolution was put in great jeopardy. Today, only by reestablishing a fundamentally sound and clear revolutionary communist line can the Party open the way forward to a solution. Only by radically reversing the course–not trying to navigate within the opportunist current–might it be possible to regain the initiative and save the revolution.
The danger of the communist revolutionaries continuing to march deeper and deeper into the swamp of class collaboration cannot be ignored. But plenty of parties with an opportunist and revisionist line have been the victim of reactionary onslaughts nonetheless. This was the case with the horrific massacre of Indonesian communists and revolutionary masses in 1965 and again the bloody coup against the left government of Allende in Chile in 1973. Nor did the nationalism and the opportunism of the LTTE in Sri Lanka prevent an ugly and bloody assault on them and the masses supporting them while the "international community" closed its eyes. Revisionism is no guarantee against such eventualities. On the contrary, revisionism means that the masses will be disarmed ideologically as well as organisationally and militarily in such circumstances.
Unless the comrades are able to break with the past and current strategic conception and put forward a basic programme and strategy for the completion of the new democratic revolution and its subsequent advance toward socialism and communism, efforts to develop correct tactics will fail and the only real question is whether the revolution will be defeated by a vicious blow or slow strangulation of revisionism and opportunism.
The achievements of the People's War and the hopes kindled not only among the people of Nepal but among masses throughout the region and even the world are too precious to accept either of those alternatives. Despite the damage done by revisionism there remains a powerful base among the masses to carry through the revolution to victory. There are potentially favourable factors in the developing crisis in the country that can and must be seized based on as part of a radically different approach concretized in new slogans and policies. I sincerely hope that at this crucial juncture comrades will rise to the challenge and again demonstrate the same daring, determination and revolutionary communist orientation that marked the earlier decision to break with revisionism in the Nepal communist movement and launch the People's War.
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