New Left Review - Slavoj Zizek: How to Begin from the Beginning

from New Left Review 57, May-June 2009

In his wonderful short text ‘Notes of a Publicist’—written in February 1922 when the Bolsheviks, after winning the Civil War against all odds, had to retreat into the New Economic Policy of allowing a much wider scope to the market economy and private property—Lenin uses the analogy of a climber who must backtrack from his first attempt to reach a new mountain peak to describe what retreat means in a revolutionary process, and how it can be done without opportunistically betraying the cause:

Let us picture to ourselves a man ascending a very high, steep and hitherto unexplored mountain. Let us assume that he has overcome unprecedented difficulties and dangers and has succeeded in reaching a much higher point than any of his predecessors, but still has not reached the summit. He finds himself in a position where it is not only difficult and dangerous to proceed in the direction and along the path he has chosen, but positively impossible. [1]

In these circumstances, Lenin writes:

He is forced to turn back, descend, seek another path, longer, perhaps, but one that will enable him to reach the summit. The descent from the height that no one before him has reached proves, perhaps, to be more dangerous and difficult for our imaginary traveller than the ascent—it is easier to slip; it is not so easy to choose a foothold; there is not that exhilaration that one feels in going upwards, straight to the goal, etc. One has to tie a rope round oneself, spend hours with an alpenstock to cut footholds or a projection to which the rope could be tied firmly; one has to move at a snail’s pace, and move downwards, descend, away from the goal; and one does not know where this extremely dangerous and painful descent will end, or whether there is a fairly safe detour by which one can ascend more boldly, more quickly and more directly to the summit.

It would only be natural for a climber who found himself in such a position to have ‘moments of despondency’. In all probability these moments would be more numerous and harder to bear if he could hear the voices of those below, who ‘through a telescope and from a safe distance, are watching his dangerous descent’: ‘The voices from below ring with malicious joy. They do not conceal it; they chuckle gleefully and shout: “He’ll fall in a minute! Serve him right, the lunatic!”.’ Others try to conceal their malicious glee, behaving ‘more like Judas Golovlyov’, the notoriously hypocritical landowner in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s novel, The Golovlyov Family:

They moan and raise their eyes to heaven in sorrow, as if to say: ‘It grieves us sorely to see our fears justified! But did not we, who have spent all our lives working out a judicious plan for scaling this mountain, demand that the ascent be postponed until our plan was complete? And if we so vehemently protested against taking this path, which this lunatic is now abandoning (look, look, he has turned back! He is descending! A single step is taking him hours of preparation! And yet we were roundly abused when time and again we demanded moderation and caution!), if we so fervently censured this lunatic and warned everybody against imitating and helping him, we did so entirely because of our devotion to the great plan to scale this mountain, and in order to prevent this great plan from being generally discredited!’

Happily, Lenin continues, our imaginary traveller cannot hear the voices of these people who are ‘true friends’ of the idea of ascent; if he did, ‘they would probably nauseate him’—‘And nausea, it is said, does not help one to keep a clear head and a firm step, particularly at high altitudes.’

Of course, a metaphor does not amount to proof: ‘every analogy is lame’. Lenin goes on to spell out the actual situation confronting the infant Soviet republic:

Russia’s proletariat rose to a gigantic height in its revolution, not only when it is compared with 1789 and 1793, but also when compared with 1871. We must take stock of what we have done and what we have not as dispassionately, as clearly and as concretely as possible. If we do that we shall be able to keep clear heads. We shall not suffer from nausea, illusions, or despondency.

After enumerating the achievements of the Soviet state by 1922, Lenin explains what has not been done:

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy, and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism—that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism. We are still alone and in a backward country, a country that was ruined more than others, but we have accomplished a great deal.

More than that, Lenin notes, ‘we have preserved intact the army of the revolutionary proletarian forces; we have preserved its manoeuvring ability; we have kept clear heads and can soberly calculate where, when and how far to retreat (in order to leap further forward); where, when and how to set to work to alter what has remained unfinished.’ And he concludes:

Those Communists are doomed who imagine that it is possible to finish such an epoch-making undertaking as completing the foundations of socialist economy (particularly in a small-peasant country) without making mistakes, without retreats, without numerous alterations to what is unfinished or wrongly done. Communists who have no illusions, who do not give way to despondency, and who preserve their strength and flexibility ‘to begin from the beginning’ over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed (and in all probability will not perish).

Fail Better

This is Lenin at his Beckettian best, foreshadowing the line from Worstward Ho: ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ [2] His conclusion—to begin from the beginning—makes it clear that he is not talking about merely slowing down and fortifying what has already been achieved, but about descending back to the starting point: one should begin from the beginning, not from the place that one succeeded in reaching in the previous effort. In Kierkegaard’s terms, a revolutionary process is not a gradual progress but a repetitive movement, a movement of repeating the beginning, again and again.

Georg Lukács ended his pre-Marxist masterwork Theory of the Novel with the famous sentence: ‘The voyage is over, the travel begins.’ This is what happens at the moment of defeat: the voyage of a particular revolutionary experience is over, but the true travel, the work of beginning again, is just starting. This willingness to retreat, however, in no way implies a non-dogmatic opening towards others, an admission to political competitors, ‘We were wrong, you were right in your warnings, so let us now join forces’. On the contrary, Lenin insists that such moments are the times when utmost discipline is needed. Addressing the Bolsheviks’ Eleventh Party Congress a few months later, in April 1922, he argued:

When a whole army (I speak in the figurative sense) is in retreat, it cannot have the same morale as when it is advancing. At every step you find a certain mood of depression . . . That is where the serious danger lies; it is terribly difficult to retreat after a great victorious advance, for the relations are entirely different. During a victorious advance, even if discipline is relaxed, everybody presses forward on his own accord. During a retreat, however, discipline must be more conscious and is a hundred times more necessary, because, when the entire army is in retreat, it does not know or see where it should halt. It sees only retreat; under such circumstances a few panic-stricken voices are, at times, enough to cause a stampede. The danger here is enormous. When a real army is in retreat, machine-guns are kept ready, and when an orderly retreat degenerates into a disorderly one, the command to fire is given, and quite rightly, too.

The consequences of this stance were very clear for Lenin. In answer to ‘the sermons’ on the nep preached by Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries—‘The revolution has gone too far. What you are saying now we have been saying all the time, permit us to say it again’—he told the Eleventh Party Congress:

We say in reply: ‘Permit us to put you before a firing squad for saying that. Either you refrain from expressing your views, or, if you insist on expressing your political views publicly in the present circumstances, when our position is far more difficult than it was when the white guards were directly attacking us, then you will have only yourselves to blame if we treat you as the worst and most pernicious white-guard elements.’ [3]

This ‘red terror’ should nonetheless be distinguished from Stalinist ‘totalitarianism’. In his memoirs, Sándor Márai provided a precise definition of the difference. [4] Even in the most violent phases of the Leninist dictatorship, when those who opposed the revolution were brutally deprived of their right to (public free) speech, they were not deprived of their right to silence: they were allowed to withdraw into inner exile. An episode from the autumn of 1922 when, on Lenin’s instigation, the Bolsheviks were organizing the infamous ‘Philosophers’ Steamer’, is indicative here. When he learned that an old Menshevik historian on the list of those intellectuals to be expelled had withdrawn into private life to await death due to heavy illness, Lenin not only took him off the list, but ordered that he be given additional food coupons. Once the enemy resigned from political struggle, Lenin’s animosity stopped.

For Stalinism, however, even such silence resonated too much. Not only were masses of people required to show their support by attending big public rallies, artists and scientists also had to compromise themselves by participating in active measures such as signing official proclamations, or paying lip-service to Stalin and the official Marxism. If, in the Leninist dictatorship, one could be shot for what one said, in Stalinism one could be shot for what one did not say. This was followed through to the very end: suicide itself, the ultimate desperate withdrawal into silence, was condemned by Stalin as the last and highest act of treason against the Party. This distinction between Leninism and Stalinism reflects their general attitude towards society: for the former, society is a field of merciless struggle for power, a struggle which is openly admitted; for the latter, the conflict is, sometimes almost imperceptibly, redefined as that of a healthy society against what is excluded from it—vermin, insects, traitors who are less than human.

A Soviet separation of powers?

Was the passage from Lenin to Stalin necessary? The Hegelian answer would evoke retroactive necessity: once this passage happened, once Stalin won, it was necessary. The task of a dialectical historian is to conceive it ‘in becoming’, bringing out all the contingency of a struggle that might have ended differently, as Moshe Lewin tried to do in Lenin’s Last Struggle. Lewin points, firstly, to Lenin’s insistence on full sovereignty for the national entities that composed the Soviet state—no wonder that, in a letter to the Politburo of 22 September 1922, Stalin openly accused Lenin of ‘national liberalism’. Secondly, he emphasizes Lenin’s stress on a modesty of goals: not socialism, but culture, universal literacy, efficiency, technocracy; cooperative societies, which would enable the peasants to become ‘cultured traders’ in the context of the nep. This was obviously a very different outlook from that of ‘socialism in one country’. The modesty is sometimes surprisingly open: Lenin mocks all attempts to ‘build socialism’; he plays repeatedly on the motif of party deficiencies, and insists on the improvizational nature of Soviet policy, to the extent of quoting Napoleon’s ‘On s’engage . . . et puis on voit’.

Lenin’s final struggle against the rule of state bureaucracy is well known; what is less known, as Lewin perspicuously notes, is that Lenin had been trying to square the circle of democracy and the dictatorship of the party-state with his proposal for a new ruling body, the Central Control Commission. While fully admitting the dictatorial nature of the Soviet regime, he tried to establish at its summit a balance between different elements, a ‘system of reciprocal control that could serve the same function—the comparison is no more than approximate—as the separation of powers in a democratic regime’. An enlarged Central Committee would lay down the broad lines of policy and supervise the whole Party apparatus. Within it, the Central Control Commission would:

act as a control of the Central Committee and of its various offshoots—the Political Bureau, the Secretariat, the Orgburo . . . Its independence would be assured by its direct link to the Party Congress, without the mediation of the Politburo and its administrative organs or of the Central Committee. [5]

Checks and balances, the division of powers, mutual control—this was Lenin’s desperate answer to the question: who controls the controllers? There is something dreamlike, properly phantasmatic, in this idea of a Central Control Commission: an independent, educational, controlling body with an ‘apolitical’ edge, consisting of the best teachers and technocrats, to keep in check the ‘politicized’ Central Committee and its organs—in short, neutral expertise keeping party executives in line. All this, however, hinges on the true independence of the Party Congress—de facto already undermined by the prohibition of factions, which allowed the top Party apparatus to control the Congress and dismiss its critics as factionalists. The naivety of Lenin’s trust in specialists is all the more striking if we bear in mind that it came from a leader who was otherwise fully aware of the all-pervasiveness of political struggle, which allows for no neutral position.

The direction in which the wind was already blowing is apparent in Stalin’s 1922 proposal to simply proclaim the government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as also the government of the republics of Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia:

If this decision is confirmed by the Central Committee of the rcp, it will not be made public, but communicated to the Central Committees of the Republics for circulation among the Soviet organs, the Central Executive Committees or the Congresses of the Soviets of the said Republics before the convocation of the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets, where it will be declared to be the wish of these Republics. [6]

The interaction of the higher authority with its base is thus not only abolished—so that the higher authority simply imposes its will—but, adding insult to injury, it is re-staged as its opposite: the cc decides what wish the base will put to the higher authority as its own.
Tact and terror

A further feature of Lenin’s final battles to which Lewin draws our attention is an unexpected focus on politeness and civility. Lenin had been deeply upset by two incidents: in a political debate, Moscow’s representative in Georgia, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, had physically struck a member of the Georgian cc; and Stalin himself had verbally abused Krupskaya (having discovered that she had transmitted to Trotsky Lenin’s letter proposing a pact against Stalin). The latter incident prompted Lenin to write his famous appeal:

Stalin is too rude, and this defect, though quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General Secretary. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way to remove Stalin from that post and appoint in his place another man who in all respects differs from Comrade Stalin in his superiority, that is, more tolerant, more loyal, more courteous and more considerate of the comrades, less capricious. [7]

Lenin’s proposals for a Central Control Commission and his concern that civility be maintained in no way indicate a liberal softening. In a letter to Kamenev from this same period, he clearly states: ‘It is a great mistake to think that the nep put an end to terror; we shall again have recourse to terror and to economic terror.’ However, this terror, which would survive the planned reduction of the state apparatus and Cheka, would have been more a threat than an actuality: as Lewin recounts, Lenin sought a means ‘whereby all those who would now [under the nep] like to go beyond the limits assigned to businessmen by the state could be reminded “tactfully and politely” of the existence of this ultimate weapon.’ [8] Lenin was right here: dictatorship refers to the constitutive excess of (state) power, and at this level, there is no neutrality. The crucial question is whose excess? If it is not ours, it is theirs.

In dreaming, to use his own expression, about the ccc’s mode of work in his final 1923 text, ‘Better Fewer, But Better’, Lenin suggests that this body should resort to:

some semi-humorous trick, cunning device, piece of trickery or something of that sort. I know that in the staid and earnest states of Western Europe such an idea would horrify people and that not a single decent official would even entertain it. I hope, however, that we have not yet become as bureaucratic as all that and that in our midst the discussion of this idea will give rise to nothing more than amusement.

Indeed, why not combine pleasure with utility? Why not resort to some humorous or semi-humorous trick to expose something ridiculous, something harmful, something semi-ridiculous, semi-harmful, etc.? [9]

Is this not almost an obscene double of the ‘serious’ executive power concentrated in the cc and Politburo? Tricks, cunning of reason—a wonderful dream, but a utopia nonetheless. Lenin’s weakness, Lewin argues, was that he saw the problem of bureaucratization, but understated its weight and true dimension: ‘his social analysis was based on only three social classes—the workers, the peasants and the bourgeoisie—without taking any account of the state apparatus as a distinct social element in a country that had nationalized the main sectors of the economy.’ [10]

The Bolsheviks quickly became aware that their political power lacked a distinct social basis: most of the working class on whose behalf they exerted their rule had vanished in the Civil War, so they were in a way ruling in a void of social representation. However, in imagining themselves as a pure political power imposing its will on society, they overlooked how—since it de facto owned, or acted as caretaker for the absent owner of, the forces of production—the state bureaucracy ‘would become the true social basis of power’:

There is no such thing as ‘pure’ political power, devoid of any social foundation. A regime must find some other social basis than the apparatus of repression itself. The ‘void’ in which the Soviet regime had seemed to be suspended had soon been filled, even if the Bolsheviks had not seen it, or did not wish to see it. [11]

Arguably, this base would have blocked Lenin’s project of a ccc. It is true that, in both an anti-economistic and determinist way, Lenin insists on the autonomy of the political, but what he misses, in Badiou’s terms, is not how every political force represents some social force or class, but how this political force of representation is directly inscribed into the represented level itself, as a social force of its own. Lenin’s last struggle against Stalin thus has all the hallmarks of a proper tragedy: it was not a melodrama in which the good guy fights the bad guy, but a tragedy in which the hero becomes aware that he is fighting his own progeny, and that it is already too late to stop the fateful unfolding of his wrong decisions in the past.

A different path

So where are we today, after the désastre obscur of 1989? As in 1922, the voices from below ring with malicious joy all around us: ‘Serves you right, lunatics who wanted to enforce their totalitarian vision on society!’ Others try to conceal their malicious glee; they moan and raise their eyes to heaven in sorrow, as if to say: ‘It grieves us sorely to see our fears justified! How noble was your vision to create a just society! Our heart was beating with you, but reason told us that your plans would finish only in misery and new unfreedoms!’ While rejecting any compromise with these seductive voices, we definitely have to begin from the beginning—not to build further upon the foundations of the revolutionary epoch of the 20th century, which lasted from 1917 to 1989, or, more precisely, 1968—but to descend to the starting point and choose a different path.

But how? The defining problem of Western Marxism has been the lack of a revolutionary subject: how is it that the working class does not complete the passage from in-itself to for-itself and constitute itself as a revolutionary agent? This question provided the main raison d’être for Western Marxism’s reference to psychoanalysis, which was evoked to explain the unconscious libidinal mechanisms preventing the rise of class consciousness that are inscribed into the very being or social situation of the working class. In this way, the truth of the Marxist socio-economic analysis was saved: there was no reason to give ground to revisionist theories about the rise of the middle classes. For this same reason, Western Marxism has also engaged in a constant search for others who could play the role of the revolutionary agent, as the understudy replacing the indisposed working class: Third World peasants, students and intellectuals, the excluded. It is just possible that this desperate search for the revolutionary agent is the form of appearance of its very opposite: the fear of finding it, of seeing it where it already stirs. Waiting for another to do the job for us is a way of rationalizing our inactivity.

It is against this background that Alain Badiou has suggested we should reassert the communist hypothesis. He writes:

If we have to abandon this hypothesis, then it is no longer worth doing anything at all in the field of collective action. Without the horizon of communism, without this Idea, nothing in historical and political becoming is of any interest to a philosopher.

However, Badiou continues:

to hold on to the Idea, the existence of the hypothesis, does not mean that its first form of presentation, focused on property and the state, must be maintained just as it is. In fact, what we are ascribed as a philosophical task, even a duty, is to help a new modality of existence of the hypothesis to come into being. [12]

One should be careful not to read these lines in a Kantian way, conceiving of communism as a regulative Idea, and thereby resuscitating the spectre of ‘ethical socialism’, with equality as its a priori norm or axiom. Rather, one should maintain the precise reference to a set of social antagonisms which generates the need for communism; the good old Marxian notion of communism not as an ideal, but as a movement which reacts to actual contradictions. To treat communism as an eternal Idea implies that the situation which generates it is no less eternal, that the antagonism to which communism reacts will always be here. From which it is only one step to a deconstructive reading of communism as a dream of presence, of abolishing all alienating representation; a dream which thrives on its own impossibility.

Though it is easy to make fun of Fukuyama’s notion of the End of History, the majority today is Fukuyamaist. Liberal-democratic capitalism is accepted as the finally found formula of the best possible society; all one can do is to render it more just, tolerant and so on. The simple but pertinent question arises here: if liberal-democratic capitalism is, if not the best, then the least bad form of society, why should we not simply resign ourselves to it in a mature way, even accept it wholeheartedly? Why insist on the communist hypothesis, against all odds?

Class and commons

It is not enough to remain faithful to the communist hypothesis: one has to locate antagonisms within historical reality which make it a practical urgency. The only true question today is: does global capitalism contain antagonisms strong enough to prevent its indefinite reproduction? Four possible antagonisms present themselves: the looming threat of ecological catastrophe; the inappropriateness of private property for so-called intellectual property; the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments, especially in biogenetics; and last, but not least, new forms of social apartheid—new walls and slums. We should note that there is a qualitative difference between the last feature, the gap that separates the excluded from the included, and the other three, which designate the domains of what Hardt and Negri call ‘commons’—the shared substance of our social being, whose privatization is a violent act which should be resisted by force, if necessary.

First, there are the commons of culture, the immediately socialized forms of cognitive capital: primarily language, our means of communication and education, but also shared infrastructure such as public transport, electricity, post, etc. If Bill Gates were allowed a monopoly, we would have reached the absurd situation in which a private individual would have owned the software tissue of our basic network of communication. Second, there are the commons of external nature, threatened by pollution and exploitation—from oil to forests and the natural habitat itself—and, third, the commons of internal nature, the biogenetic inheritance of humanity. What all of these struggles share is an awareness of the destructive potential—up to the self-annihilation of humanity itself—in allowing the capitalist logic of enclosing these commons a free run. It is this reference to ‘commons’ which allows the resuscitation of the notion of communism: it enables us to see their progressive enclosure as a process of proletarianization of those who are thereby excluded from their own substance; a process that also points towards exploitation. The task today is to renew the political economy of exploitation—for instance, that of anonymous ‘knowledge workers’ by their companies.

It is, however, only the fourth antagonism, the reference to the excluded, that justifies the term communism. There is nothing more private than a state community which perceives the excluded as a threat and worries how to keep them at a proper distance. In other words, in the series of the four antagonisms, the one between the included and the excluded is the crucial one: without it, all the others lose their subversive edge. Ecology turns into a problem of sustainable development, intellectual property into a complex legal challenge, biogenetics into an ethical issue. One can sincerely fight for the environment, defend a broader notion of intellectual property, oppose the copyrighting of genes, without confronting the antagonism between the included and the excluded. Even more, one can formulate some of these struggles in terms of the included threatened by the polluting excluded. In this way, we get no true universality, only ‘private’ concerns in the Kantian sense. Corporations such as Whole Foods and Starbucks continue to enjoy favour among liberals even though they both engage in anti-union activities; the trick is that they sell products with a progressive spin: coffee made with beans bought at ‘fair-trade’ prices, expensive hybrid vehicles, etc. In short, without the antagonism between the included and the excluded, we may find ourselves in a world in which Bill Gates is the greatest humanitarian, fighting poverty and disease, and Rupert Murdoch the greatest environmentalist, mobilizing hundreds of millions through his media empire.

What one should add here, moving beyond Kant, is that there are social groups which, on account of their lack of a determinate place in the ‘private’ order of social hierarchy, stand directly for universality: they are what Jacques Rancière calls the ‘part of no part’ of the social body. All truly emancipatory politics is generated by the short-circuit between the universality of the public use of reason and the universality of the ‘part of no part’. This was already the communist dream of the young Marx—to bring together the universality of philosophy with the universality of the proletariat. From Ancient Greece, we have a name for the intrusion of the excluded into the socio-political space: democracy.

The predominant liberal notion of democracy also deals with those excluded, but in a radically different mode: it focuses on their inclusion, as minority voices. All positions should be heard, all interests taken into account, the human rights of everyone guaranteed, all ways of life, cultures and practices respected, and so on. The obsession of this democracy is the protection of all kinds of minorities: cultural, religious, sexual, etc. The formula of democracy here consists of patient negotiation and compromise. What gets lost in this is the position of universality embodied in the excluded. The new emancipatory politics will no longer be the act of a particular social agent, but an explosive combination of different agents. What unites us is that, in contrast to the classic image of proletarians who have ‘nothing to lose but their chains’, we are in danger of losing everything. The threat is that we will be reduced to an abstract, empty Cartesian subject dispossessed of all our symbolic content, with our genetic base manipulated, vegetating in an unliveable environment. This triple threat makes us all proletarians, reduced to ‘substanceless subjectivity’, as Marx put it in the Grundrisse. The figure of the ‘part of no part’ confronts us with the truth of our own position; and the ethico-political challenge is to recognize ourselves in this figure. In a way, we are all excluded, from nature as well as from our symbolic substance. Today, we are all potentially homo sacer, and the only way to avoid actually becoming so is to act preventively.


[1] V. I. Lenin, ‘Notes of a Publicist’, published posthumously in Pravda, 16 April 1924; Collected Works, vol. 33, Moscow 1966, pp. 204–7.

[2] Samuel Beckett, ‘Worstward Ho’, Nohow On, London 1992, p. 101.

[3] Lenin, ‘Eleventh Congress of the rcp(b)’, Collected Works, vol. 33, pp. 281–3.

[4] Sándor Márai, Memoir of Hungary: 1944–1948, Budapest 1996.

[5] Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle [1968], Ann Arbor, mi 2005. pp. 131–2.

[6] Quoted in Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, Appendix 1, pp. 146–7.

[7] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 84.

[8] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 133.

[9] Lenin, ‘Better Fewer, But Better’, Collected Works, vol. 33, p. 495.

[10] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 125.

[11] Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 124.

[12] Alain Badiou, The Meaning of Sarkozy, London and New York 2008, p. 115.

Blog Guide: A discussion of blog features and primary topic content may be found at the initial entry. The first few entries give a good idea of how best to use the blog, especially for the tagging and social bookmarking at my external Delicious site, and for instructions regarding the Stefandav TV widget.

news books articles people topics culture politics philosophy activism badiou zizek

Subscribe to Stefandav: Atom 1.0 RSS 2.0
Read more!

June Maobadi Bookmarks

Notice:

1. The single article introductions below are the latest postings of this month's bookmarks for news items or opinion pieces on the Maoist revolution in Nepal. To see all this months bookmarks to date, use the "Read More" link following the currently displayed articles.

2. The introductions to articles are excerpts from the original publication. The original publication is accessed from the link at the end of each introduction "... go to original article".

3. To obtain last month's Nepal Maoism bookmarks only, go here or when available next month's Nepal Maoism book marks will be available here.

4. To obtain a display of blog postings including all monthly bookmarks as well as all other blog postings including the tag "nepal maoism" please go here.

No Compromise on Nepal’s Nationalism: Gajurel

“It is now time that the common citizen be militarily trained who in turn could safeguard the national independence”, opined Gajurel. Gajurel saw the need, as he puts it, “the unity among the entire nationalist forces scattered in different political paraphernalia has now become urgent”. “For this we need to come under one Front”, he elaborated. According to Gajurel, the “Maoists yesterday did not compromise on Nepal’s nationalism nor will do so tomorrow”. Gajurel says, “Now it was the opportune moment to expose the pseudo nationalists by making the real nationalists, patriots and the left forces to come under one umbrella in the name of the nation”. The noted border expert, Mr. Buddhi Narayan Shrestha cautioned the government not to get carried away by the Indian regime’s freshly sketched rough and fake Nepal-India border demarcation map which the Indian side wants Nepal to approve while the Nepal Prime Minister will shortly be in Delhi. ... go to complete original article

Party Weak and Loosing Grassroot Support: Maoists PB Members

Ten Maoists’ PB members had ventilated their views on Wednesday. Lila Mani Pokharel, Amik Serchan, Dina Nath Sharma, Hisila Yami, Devendra Poudel, Agni Sapkota, Ram Karki, Haribol Gajurel, Gopal Kirati and Shakti Basnet had made their remarks at the PB meet. Mr. Poudel insisted that unity with the nationalists and leftists should be accorded top priority than mulling over the formation of the National Government, which he said, could help build firm foundation for yet another revolt. Haribol Gajurel, Gopal Kirati, Dina Nath Sharma and Agni Sapkota told the party chairman point blank that the erstwhile Maoists led government under his command was a total failure. “If not addressed immediately, the Maoists party will soon see the fate of the parliamentary parties”, the Politburo members said. “The proposal needs to be amended and the Chairman needs to re-clarify his position over the formation of the National Government” ... go to complete original article

Nepal’s Kiran: New Uprising Urgently Needed

Mr. Baidya made these remarks talking to journalists on Tuesday June 23, 2009. “The deadlock must come to an end through the third peoples’ revolt and ultimately to form the National Government, said Kiran.. “The Imperialists and Expansionists foreign powers have provided this puppet government a shape under the command of Madhav Kumar Nepal”, said Kiran adding that the formation of the puppet government is against the mandate of the Nepali population. “The Maoists’ led revolt is yet incomplete…the next revolt will ensure Peoples’ Republican order and safeguard Nepal’s unique identity”, Kiran also said. To add, in the ongoing Maoists’ politburo meeting, Maoists leaders C.P. Gajurel, Netra Bikram Chand and Dev Gurung have stood in favor of Mr. Baidya’s line. ... go to complete original article

Intl. Atmosphere Conducive to Initiate Revolt in Nepal: Badal

Mr. Badal who is considered close to Mr. Mohan Baidya Pokharel alias Kiran, a hardliner in the party, has been toeing a middle path demanding both Dahal and Baidya to exhibit restraint. Badal also said that the time was opportune to initiate yet another revolt. “Local and international atmosphere have become conducive to initiate a revolt in Nepal”, Badal is quoted as saying. Mr. Badal also urged Party Chairman Dahal to collect views from the party leadership and effect necessary changes in his proposal submitted at the PB meeting some days back. Dahal’s proposal favors peaceful path to pressurize President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav and also for the formation of the Maoists’ led government, whereas Baidya sees the need for a revolt to form the next government under Maoists’ command. since India was behind the fall of the erstwhile Maoists’ led government, the party should make special moves to unite the Nationalists scattered in various groups and form a National Government. ... go to complete original article

Baidya and Dahal Confront Over Maoist Future Strategy

Party Chairman Dahal favors peaceful path to pressurize President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav to restore peoples’ supremacy and form a National Government to draft the constitution on time and bring positive conclusion to the peace process. Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai and Narayan Kaji Shrestha Prakash support Dahal’s proposal. However, Mohan Baidya Kiran favors revolt to restore peoples’ supremacy. Dahal’s proposal is incomplete, is how Baidya and his ilk criticized Dahal’s proposal. Mr. Baidya even threatened to write a note of dissent if the proposal does not include the path of revolt. “In an indirect manner Baidya is in favor of preparing for a revolt”, a Maoist politburo Committee member told Kantipur dated June 21, 2009. Chairman Dahal made it clear that he will not lead the government until he is the Maoists’ party chief. “The party’s top leadership will not become a part of the government as it had been in the past”, said Dahal addressing the politburo meeting ... go to complete original article

To get a display of all this months Nepal Maoism bookmarks

Upendra Yadav Elected MJF PP Leader

Yadav was elected the party PP leader unopposed after the post of PP leader became vacant following Gachhadar's oust after he decided to join the government in his leadership going against the party's decision. After being elected at the PP leader, leader Yadav accused that some of the lawmakers took Gachhadar's side allured by the charm to become minister well-off. He also said that his party would agitate from the streets and the parliament to press for implementation of the agreement signed by the government with Madhesi alliance in the past including the demand for an independent one Madhesh and the Former foreign minister Yadav warned to launch 3rd Madhesh movement if their demands are not met. ... go to complete original article


Maoists Finalize Party's Draft for New Constitution

The ongoing politburo meeting of the main opposition Unified CPN (Maoist) passed the draft of the new constitution proposed by the party Friday. The draft also proposes executive president while the prime minister will have some powers to maintain check and balance in the executive. According to the draft, the Prime minister will be elected from the parliament while president will be elected directly. The draft also proposes 'powerful parliament' which has been named as 'People's House of Representatives'. The Nepali Congress, UML and other parties have been advocating for ceremonial president and executive prime minister elected by the parliament, much like existing one. In the draft the Maoist party has proposed mixed election system in order to ensure representation of different sections of the society. The draft was prepared by a committee headed by senior leader Dr Baburam Bhattarai ... go to complete original article

Maoist Disrupt Nepal CA Proceedings

C.P. Gajurel, a senior Maoist leader speaking at the Zero Hour of the Constituent Assembly said that the Daura-Suruwal attired Prime Minister Madav Kumar Nepal was hell bent on establishing Nepal Army’s Supremacy over the People’s Supremacy. “The Government’s fresh decisions are all against the country and the republican order”, said Mr. Gajurel. Mr. Gajurel and the other Maoists CA members were concerned over the government’s act to nullify the Prachanda government decision to sack Army Chief Katawal. “The country is being attacked by the Indian Security forces, Nepali lands are ever shrinking, our mothers and sisters are being raped, our brothers are being thrashed by the Indians but the present government is tightlipped”, said Gajurel adding, “The government is only concerned over catapulting the erstwhile Maoists government decision.” ... go to complete original article

SC Show Cause on Generals

June 10 - The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a show cause notice to the government asking why it decided to extend the tenure of eight Army generals. A single bench of Justice Rana Bahadur Bom issued the notice in response to a public interest litigation filed on Sunday challenging the June 5 decision of the government to extend the term of the eight Army generals who were pensioned off by the Maoist-led government. In his litigation, Raju Thapa had argued that the government decision should be stayed for two reasons: it was a sub-judice case and it was unconstitutional decision as the decision violated the Article 43 of Interim Constitution, which states that the government has to function based on consensus among the major political parties, including the UCPN (Maoist). ... go to complete original article

Nepal Maoists Prepare for Final Battle with Counter Revolutionaries

“With my resignation from the post of the prime minister, the new ruling coalition is likely to hinder the constitution drafting process and also the positive conclusion of the peace process, which is ultimately inviting the inevitable clash between the revolutionaries and the counter-revolutionaries”.. is finalizing the draft of the Maoists strategy adopted by the Kharipati meeting, our strategy is to reach the target of Peoples’ Republic, which will be achieved with the defeat of the counter revolutionary forces”.. will present the party future strategy in the politburo meeting set to begin June 11, 2009, He holds regular talks with senior Maoists leaders like Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai, Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal, Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Netra Bikram Chand to make the party strategy more matured and comprehensive.. met with the Chief of the UNMIN Ms. Karin Landgren in Naya Bazaar. The UNMIN is being continuously alleged as a Maoist friendly UN organization in Nepal. ... go to complete original article

MJF Kicks Out Gachhadhar; Withdraws Support to UML Govt

Maoist leaders Mohan Vaidya, Dinanath Sharma and Barsa Man Pun responsibile for the unification held discussion with the CPN -ML Revolutionary (MLR) leaders at party headquarters Buddhanagar this morning. At the meeting, the leaders decided to formally declare the unification with the MLR on June 9. Prior to the unification, a four-member taskforce has been formed for the preparation and oraganisational working division, Maoist spokesperson Dinanath Sharma informed. The taskforce comprises Sharma, Pun, MLR leaders Keshab Raj Nepal and Padam Bhandari. Earlier, Ram Acharya, Dinesh Panthi, among over a dozen central members had left CP Mainali-led ML and formed the revolutionary party. The CPN (Maoist) and CPN (Ekata Kendra Masal) had united on Jan 13 and adopted Unified CPN (Maoist) as the new name following the unification. ... go to complete original article

Blog Guide: A discussion of blog features and primary topic content may be found at the initial entry. The first few entries give a good idea of how best to use the blog, especially for the tagging and social bookmarking at my external Delicious site, and for instructions regarding the Stefandav TV widget.

news books articles people topics culture politics philosophy activism badiou zizek

Subscribe to Stefandav: Atom 1.0 RSS 2.0
Read more!

Interview: Chandra Prakash Gajurel

I’ve been in Kathmandu for six weeks meeting many Maobadi comrades. As a result I have reached the office of Chandra Prakash Gajurel to interview this important Maoist leader and head of the International Department, Central Committee, Unified CPN (Maoist). In recent weeks I found many friends among the ranks of the unions and the intellectual wing affiliated with the International Department. Through these comrades came the opportunity to report on this meeting and interview.

C.P. Gajurel (Click to Enlarge Photos)

In August 2003, when attempting to travel to London, using forged travel documents, Comrade Gajurel was arrested in Chennai, India. Nepali and foreign supporters, including several international communist parties launched a campaign to have him released. In April 2005 a team of European human rights activists was allowed to meet Gajurel in prison. His supporters feared that he would be extradited to Nepal and tortured by Nepali authorities. After the CPN (M) and the government of Nepal signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, India dropped charges against Gajurel, of "conspiracy against India". He was released in November 2006 and returned to Nepal. [1]

******************

SDM: Thank very much for meeting with me. It’s an honor. Just to begin, a very general question in the direction I would like to explore. The supposition is that the central question is how to seize state power now the Maobadi have left government, the tactics now in these new conditions. [2]

CPG: Yes. This is always the central question. It’s not just the central question for the Maoists. All the parties are looking to seize state power, not just the Maoist party. But the Maoists are bringing about a new transformation in Nepal. It is more important that since the elections, where the Maoists emerged as the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly, we are leading the creation of the new constitution. Because of the election, the Maoist party has been recognized internationally as the legitimate leadership in Nepal. Now, this is our most important work, to use the CA for transformation of Nepal. [3]

SDM: What about the perception by some communists in the international community that the recent years of participating in multi-party politics show these tactics are actually blocking advance of the revolutionary process?

CPG: If you only look at it the traditional way, from the way of traditional communist thought, it looks like this line will not help. In fact it has. Still, we have to see that in reality, seeing what happened recently, in the struggle during the last few weeks, the participation in the government did not completely work actually. We have had to make a new turn in withdrawing from the government, but we are still participating in the democratic process. Criticizing this as blocking the revolutionary process is incorrect. This shows a lack of knowledge of our real practice and the concrete situation in Nepal….

SDM: But the critics point out such retreats as disbanding the Revolutionary Peoples Councils in the countryside and other concessions and ask what evidence is there that the leadership is preparing the mass base should a new uprising be necessary.

CPG: When we entered into negotiations we had to lose something. Without, at that point, giving up actual state power, what we had attained in replacing the previous government in the countryside with the Revolutionary Councils, we would not have been able to gain the more important opportunity to develop peoples’ power in the rest of the country, to have the opportunity to win the elections in the Constituent Assembly or run the government. We gave up power but actually spread the mass base in a new way. For example, we were able to increase our numbers through membership drives, there has been extensive growth of the revolutionary process in our affiliation with many workers’ unions and through the increases in the student and youth organizations, especially the YCL. Also during this period, within the party we continued the two-line debate and we formed the Unified party [4], continued to build our mass base. We will complete the revolutionary process in creating a New Nepal.

SDM: There are indications also that rebellious forces are organizing outside UCPN (M) authority, particularly around land reform issues in the Tarai for example Matrika Yadav …

CPG: Some who were with us from the beginning abandoned the party. We listened to their criticisms and with Matrika Yadav we tried, we asked him not to split with us. Since then his new party has opposed us with their own candidate in the recent elections the result was their candidate received only 135 votes. The real irony is one of our former leaders actually joined the UML [United Marxist Leninist party, despite the name, well known as reactionary]. Others are trying to develop a so-called “Left Wing” in parties and youth groups outside affiliation with the Maoists; but we consider these things as essentially insignificant. These groups have in fact been supportive of the Maoists in the move to sack Katawal and in appreciating the PM’s resignation.

SDM: So is was true that from the time of negotiations through Prachanda’s recent resignation there was initially a drawing back from an aggressive revolutionary process as before and a new and different way of building the mass base. Would you say those tactics are over now? What are the new tactics, will we see a renewed aggressive revolutionary movement?

CPG: The Prime Minister’s resignation was not a big thing for us. Our movement has been working on three fronts and the participation in government was the least important. The experience of being in government was not a failure; it contributed to our revolutionary process in many ways. The issue we raised of civilian supremacy over the army has demonstrated to the people the truth of the situation, the other parties are against supremacy of the people. More important is the Constituent Assembly front where more focus can be on creation of the New Nepal constitution. Our tactics remain the same as to the remaining two fronts, the CA and the streets. We boycotted the selection of the new PM and abandoned the government front for better political benefits from action in the more important and effective fronts. We will use our greater numbers in the CA to create a constitution that will transform Nepal, creating a socialist economy meeting the needs of all the oppressed populations.

SDM: If indeed the goal is to have an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist constitution, especially in regard to land reform, is that really going to be enforceable without a new revolutionary upsurge?

GPG: In our use of the CA the question of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist resistance is the main contradiction. Without at least 2/3 of the vote we cannot write even one clause of the new constitution. We have approximately 40% of the vote and this is not enough. At the same time we are going to be blamed if the writing of the constitution is indefinitely delayed. This is why the most important front is the street. We will do everything possible to convince CA members from the other parties of the necessity and benefits of an anti-imperial and anti-feudal constitution for a New Nepal with a socialist economic orientation. It is likely this will require an “extra-CA” effort to influence the vote within the CA. It will mean the action of our people in the streets.

SDM: You mean the continued direct pressure from the YCL on the cadre of the other parties and the street activism we have seen by the many unions and their collective organization under the All Nepal Federation of Unions – not any activation of the PLA.

GPG: Yes….

SDM: But there still remains the possibility that reactionary forces in Nepal and international interference could cause us to fall short of that 2/3 vote for the constitution with the necessary character. Should this become likely, how does that fit with movement towards integration and rehabilitation of the PLA?

GPG: First it is important to understand this question is integrated with .. its not isolated from, it’s a part of constitution making process. If we have an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist constitution, if we can institute a real peoples’ republic, the integration will be the creation of a national army under civilian supremacy and in the service of the socialist orientated economic structure, the transformation to a New Nepal. It’s not an isolated issue.

SDM: I take this means it’s a matter of timing of the integration [CPG nodding at this point]. I wish to venture a personal opinion. Without garnering that 2/3 vote in the CA, the integration would lead to a situation where the PLA would no longer be able to function as a revolutionary force. Mao said that without a PLA the people have nothing. [I didn’t actually get a direct response to this opinion].

GPG: The real situation in Nepal is that many forces are leading the nationalistic struggle. It is a struggle for liberation from feudalism and imperialism. It has been led by communists. No one believed that the Peoples’ Revolution would be so successful. It was our decision to enter the democratic process of multi-party participation. No one believed that we could win the largest number of CA seats. We did take the lead in a third way, extending our revolutionary struggle to include a government front. It’s not that important for our revolution that we took decision to leave government. If the government is not led by the communists it can be led by others, we are not concerned because we are supported in the streets and have the largest number of seats in the CA. We believe over time and in the future the people are seeing what is in their best interests.

SDM: My final question goes to this issue of communist leadership, to the possibilities for the communist vanguard. I have concluded from my time in Nepal that the bulk of Maobadi support is simply based on the desires of those people to overcome their oppression. There is not a depth of understanding of the communist hypothesis. So what are the real prospects of a communist society in Nepal?

GPG: There is the distinction between theory and practice. In every revolution there are very few who have a real understanding of Marxism, what Lenin and Mao have said. The masses are motivated by attaining something for their basic well-being not by an understanding of theory. But they learn by practice. The real intentions of the reactionaries are revealed to the masses as they are led through the revolutionary process. Of course, even among the masses supporting the revolutionary struggle are the opportunists. We believe that, over time, the people, without theoretical understanding, will in practice understand the necessity of removing the reactionaries and will recognize the opportunists for what they are. In time, in this way, a transformation will happen; there will be a New Nepal.

SDM: So we must put our faith in the people and the truth of the communist hypothesis and its egalitarian maxim. Thank you for giving so much of your time. I am very encouraged to continue to establish an affiliation with the International Relations Department, an organization based here in Kathmandu that may be a benefit to the many communists who support the Maobadi throughout the world [5].

CPG: I am very happy to see someone from the heart of the imperialist world here to work in Nepal and to work towards a greater understanding in the international community about the real intentions of the Maoist revolution. [at this time he gave me a copy of the renewed publication of “The Worker”]. I suggest you read and share the articles here for the most correct understanding our movement.

Notice: “The Worker” is being published now under C. P. Gajurel ‘s leadership of the International Department, Central Committee, Unified CPN (Maoist). The website: http://www.cpnmintl.org

Notes:

[1] Excerpts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Prakash_Gajurel
[2] For an excellent recent background article on international interest in the Maoist revolution see http://stefandav.blogspot.com/2009/04/ferment-in-nepal-dynamic-vortex-of.html
[3] I refer the reader to my extensive bookmark collection of chronological news items during recent years. A review of the last few weeks’ developments may be necessary for some readers to understand the context of this interview. See http://delicious.com/stefandav/nepal+maoism

[4] I wrote a series on this debate in November 2008 beginning at http://stefandav.blogspot.com/2008/11/maoist-debate-in-nepal-part-1.html
C. P. Gajurel’s part in that debate is covered in Part 3 of that series. A most interesting news item at the time on his views is found at http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/gajurel-cpnms-on-multi-party-democracy-armies/

[5] An immediate objective is to establish a facility in Kathmandu that would provide international communist activists basic infrastructure for staying and working in Kathmandu for periods of time. This infrastructure could be developed in affiliation with the UCPN (M) International Department. In short this may be a clearinghouse for information exchange and project development. Such has been the subject of my discussions with some Maoist affiliated Union activists and one part of the intellectual wing of the International Department – the comrades who provided me this entree to an interview with Comrade Gajurel. There are as yet no specific agreements for this plan, but it is certainly an important goal for the coming weeks and months.












Blog Guide: A discussion of blog features and primary topic content may be found at the initial entry. The first few entries give a good idea of how best to use the blog, especially for the tagging and social bookmarking at my external Delicious site, and for instructions regarding the Stefandav TV widget.

news books articles people topics culture politics philosophy activism badiou zizek

Subscribe to Stefandav: Atom 1.0 RSS 2.0
Read more!

“Revolution and State Power in Nepal” (Kasama)

Last month, Kasama posted an analysis from the MLM Revolutionary Study Group called “Revolution and State Power in Nepal.” Since then, in the wake of rapidly moving events, the MLMRSG has written the following reassessment of their views, published on May 16, 2009.

By the MLM Revolutionary Study Groupyoung worker in kathmandu

In keeping with the importance of supporting the people’s revolution in Nepal, we have been following the rapidly changing developments after the attempted sacking of General Katawal, Chief of Staff of the reactionary Nepalese Army, by the Maoist-led government. We have also been looking more closely at the statements by party leaders following the National Conference of the Unified CPN (Maoist) held in November 2008. Finally we have developed our views on the particular circumstances posed by the revolution in Nepal. We have decided to make some further comments that clarify, correct and elaborate upon our paper of April 4, 2009. (See www.mlmrsg.com)

First, we have reassessed the results of the National Conference. Prior to it, Chairman Prachanda’s views were coming under public criticism from a number of senior party leaders, including Kiran (Mohan Baidya), Guarav (CP Gajurel) and Biplap (Netra Bikram Chand). The main issue of political strategy that was brought to the conference was whether the party should go for a People’s Republic, completing the new democratic revolution through the seizure of state power, or the revisionist position that the party should consolidate the present bourgeois republic and limit itself to a process of state restructuring. (See Bastola’s “Historic National Convention: Milestone of Revolution,” in the December 1-15, 2008 Red Star, and CP Gajurel’s “The Role of Major Tactical Line in Developing a New Constitution” in the January 16-31, 2009 Red Star. For Red Star archives.)

The Conference united around a compromise that merged the two positions. This resolution delivered a partial blow that has restrained the revisionist strategy that had been dominant, and has given more freedom of action to the revolutionary forces in the party. Since the leadership of neither side was defeated, the line struggle has not ended but has moved out of public view in recent months.

The new formulation of waging struggle from the government, the parliament and the streets points to such a shift to the Left. (The revolutionary forces in the party have been stressing the struggle from the streets.) The efforts of the Maoist-led government to sack the army chief of staff, which has brought the Maoist mass base out into the streets in a way not seen since the April 2006 uprising against the monarchy, also points in this direction. Just the fact that Basanta could publicly state that “the Nepalese oppressed class has now arrived at a very glorious but more challenging juncture of seizing central power through a process of people’s rebellion of the Nepalese specifically under the leadership of our party the Unified CPN (Maoist)” is another sign of this shift. (Red Star, March 16-31, 2009).

Thus, our statement that “the current strategy of the Prachanda leadership … is guided by a revisionist line and strategy that is in opposition to a revolutionary line and strategy of preparing the masses and the party to wage a struggle to seize political power” is an unclear description of the current situation within the Unified CPN (Maoist). Both inside the party as well as publicly, Prachanda has been promoting the revisionist strategy of consolidating the bourgeois republic and restructuring the state by constitutional means. However, the party leadership as a whole is not following a revisionist line, as it has clearly not resolved the two line struggle.

This assessment is opposed to the position of the RCP, USA, which asserts that the UCPN (Maoist) has become a revisionist party i.e., that revisionist consolidation is complete and that no revolutionary line struggle remains within the party, and that the revolution has basically been defeated.

In sharp contrast, the Kasama Project in the U.S. has performed a valuable service in popularizing the revolution in Nepal and developing support for it. However, in our view the materials of the Kasama Project do not pay the necessary attention to the two line struggle in the UCPN (Maoist). Without saying so explicitly, these materials promote the view that a revolutionary line has been in command of the party and has been implemented since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2006, in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary.

We believe we were correct to emphasize the decisive nature of the two-line struggle in the party for the future of the revolution:

“The current transitional stage cannot last for long. There are two alternative paths of development: Either the bulk of the Maoist forces will get further submerged in administering a bourgeois/feudal state and trying to push it to the left–which will represent a serious setback to the revolutionary process–or a new wave of Maoist-led revolutionary struggle will lead to the seizure of power and the victory of the new democratic revolution as a transition to socialism in Nepal.”

A second point in our article must be revisited. We wrote that:

“there is no evidence that the party leadership is preparing its mass base and the party for an actual seizure of power.”

It must be said that lack of public discussion of making plans for insurrection by the party doesn’t mean that such plans and preparations aren’t being made–which by necessity must be kept secret. We would expect the People’s Liberation Army, the Young Communist League and other organizations led by the party to have contingency plans in the event of a decisive showdown with the reactionaries, such as a coup by the army. However, these are plans for defensive armed struggle. An “offensive insurrection,” on the other hand, is a strategic undertaking, and plans for this can move forward only if a revolutionary line and strategy wins out in the struggle within the UCPN (Maoist).

It is important to understand that a revolutionary situation is an objective process, the conditions for which must mature before the time to strike comes. Going over to the insurrectionary offensive requires a qualitative change in the mood of the masses, where they have become convinced that a peaceful solution is no longer possible by the actual conditions they face and by the work of the revolutionaries. The masses of people do not arrive at such a position at the same time. The advanced forces must win over the intermediate among the basic masses, as well as vacillating allies, to the revolutionary seizure of power, and in the process disorganize and demoralize the backward forces. One important factor that can accelerate this process and bring it to a head is when the onus for the breakdown of a political stalemate—such as exists in Nepal today—can be laid at the feet of the reactionaries. This was successfully done by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in the months before the October 1917 insurrection, and by Mao and the Chinese Communist Party during 1945 and 1946 before the outbreak of civil war with the Guomindang.

In his writings on the Kasama website, Mike Ely has emphasized that before an insurrection can be launched in Nepal, there must be “dress rehearsals” in the streets, where the party can assess the strength of their core revolutionary forces, determine how effective they are in bringing over broader sections of the people, and measuring the response of the reactionaries. The current confrontation over General Katawal, which has brought tens of thousands of Maoist cadre and supporters out into the streets, could prove to be such a political dress rehearsal if a revolutionary line drives the struggle forward and brings the masses into play in a way that is not limited to asserting civilian control over the army. Future political confrontations may arise when Maoist efforts to write a new revolutionary constitution, and to integrate the two armies in a way that keeps the People’s Liberation Army politically intact, run into a wall of reactionary resistance. New popular initiatives in the struggle for land reform–which have been placed on the back burner since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2006–can also reshape the political landscape in preparation for the revolutionary seizure of power.

Third, we have held a view that the political and military strategy of protracted people’s war—which includes a tactical use of negotiations and, in some conditions, electoral work that exposes the system–is the only viable strategy in semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries such as Nepal, India, the Philippines and Indonesia. In Nepal, the question is posed whether, after the mass armed struggle in the countryside has been ended short of victory, is it possible to wage political struggle, including participating in elections and coalition governments, with the orientation of generating new forms of revolutionary struggle and organization among the masses in the cities and countryside–thereby gaining the political independence and revolutionary initiative that can enable and lead to a renewal of armed struggle and the conquest of nationwide political power. It remains to be seen whether such a path to the revolutionary seizure of power can be successfully pursued in Nepal, much less in other countries, but this possibility cannot be simply ruled out.

As a result of the people’s war that liberated most of the countryside, and the ending of that war to wage political struggle as the main form of struggle, there is now a temporary and unstable dual power in Nepal. The Maoists share state power with the bourgeois/feudal forces in the government. Their armed forces are still separate entities—though the PLA is in an extremely vulnerable position. How does the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the class nature of the state comprehend this situation? Does the state everywhere and always have to be either bourgeois or proletarian? Or can there be particular historical situations where there is fierce struggle between these two antagonistic classes within the state apparatus for a limited period of time before the issue is settled?

In order to answer these questions, there are dangers in both dogmatic application of historical precedents, drawn from other times, places and circumstances, as well as from overdrawn “exceptionalism” and “particularism.” The latter tendency acts as if nothing has been learned about the underlying laws of society, political economy, the modern state as an instrument of class rule, class struggle, and the necessity for the armed seizure of power and the replacement of the bourgeois state by a new revolutionary state. Both errors are denial of a scientific method and remove essential tools of analysis from the revolutionary toolbox of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

In the period ahead the political situation in Nepal will be in a high degree of flux as the two lines contend in the party, and as new flash points develop between the Maoist-led masses and the forces of reaction. With the triumph of a revolutionary line in the party, the revolutionary consciousness and power of the masses can be unleashed to the fullest extent, and the conquest of nationwide political power can become an actual possibility when the objective conditions ripen. These points–which differ from the wishful view that the UCPN (Maoist) is united in leading the revolutionary struggle forward against the forces of reaction, as well as the dogmatic and sectarian claim that the revolution has been betrayed by the party–are essential to include in materials aimed at popularizing and building support for the revolution in Nepal.

The people’s revolution in Nepal is a just one. Its every step forward requires support by communists, revolutionaries and progressive people around the world.

The MLM Revolutionary Study Group website is www.mlmrsg.com. Contact: mlm.rsg@gmail.com

Blog Guide: A discussion of blog features and primary topic content may be found at the initial entry. The first few entries give a good idea of how best to use the blog, especially for the tagging and social bookmarking at my external Delicious site, and for instructions regarding the Stefandav TV widget.

news books articles people topics culture politics philosophy activism badiou zizek

Subscribe to Stefandav: Atom 1.0 RSS 2.0
Read more!