The incomplete revolution

TKP 25/11/2008

The Maoists unofficially moved beyond the 'democratic republic' strategy soon after the abolition of the monarchy

The party will not split,” a vulnerable Prachanda was quoted as saying last week, after his paper on the future strategy of his party faced serious opposition from a large number of central committee members led by Maoist purist Mohan Vaidya 'Kiran'. Ironically, the Maoist chairman is facing the greatest threat to his leadership at a time when his party has gained the strongest position ever. According to conventional narrative, Prachanda faction wishes to institutionalize the federal democratic republic line (by continuing the peace process, drafting the new constitution, and engaging in multi-party democracy) whereas the Kiran faction wishes to take immediate steps towards one-party dictatorship of the proletariat.

The clear distinction made between the two strategies is, however, misleading. The Kiran faction claims that the democratic republic line was useful in getting rid of monarchy but has now outlived its purpose. This is at odds with the official Prachanda line. The essence of this strategy, adopted at the Chumbang plenum in 2005, was to ally with the parliamentary parties and India against monarchy. The opposing view then held within the party was that Maoists should instead work with the King against mainstream parties and India. But after the abolition of monarchy, the Maoists have already unofficially moved towards adopting elements of the line that was defeated at Chumbang.

First, the Maoists and the parliamentary parties no longer have a common enemy. The Maoists continue to work within the parliamentary system and are trying to engage the Nepali Congress leadership. But they have already begun the process of marginalizing the Congress, with the objective of eventually neutralizing them. The disarray within the Congress has helped them, but they are not leaving things to chance. They spent the years of the war displacing party activists from the villages and consolidating their control. This served them well during the elections. After emerging overground, they strengthened their hold over grassroots structures in urban areas. And now, having joined government, they have started using state resources to tighten their grip. Despite periodic clashes between the Young Communist League (YCL) and the affiliate organizations of other parties, the other parties are no match for the Maoists. Their hold over grassroots structures -- over all kinds of unions, tender and bidding processes, teachers' associations in villages, vegetable markets -- is strong and is likely to get stronger.

Second, they have increased efforts to engage with the Nepal Army, formerly loyal to the monarch, and made efforts to gain their trust. Their objective is to minimize the influence of the Nepali Congress or other parties by convincing the Army that only Maoists can protect their interests. This process has a long way to go, but already there are signs that the Maoists are achieving a higher degree of success here than the other parties. The Army hasn't forgotten that they fought a war against the Maoists, and there is still resentment towards them. But it hasn't also forgotten the bad blood that existed between them and the parliamentary parties throughout much of the past two decades. And the Army is currently in search of a patron. The Maoists, being in power, are in a position to act as such, whereas the Nepali Congress, despite its vocal support for the maintenance of the privileges of the Army, is not. Besides, the Army, groomed for decades under the monarch's tutelage, has more instinctive sympathy for the Maoist idea of converging state and party. Many of the top brass seem to believe that this will lead to greater political stability.

Third, the Maoists have been successful in cultivating ties with and assuaging the fears of the international community. This includes Prachanda's charm offensives in New Delhi and New York. Also, Kathmandu's diplomatic-donor circuit is increasingly sympathetic towards the Maoists and less and less patient with the Nepali Congress' complaints about the Maoists wishing to establish authoritarianism. But the Maoists' greatest success in foreign policy has been the cultivation of ties with the Chinese to a degree unparalleled in Nepal's history since Mahendra. This is a movement away from Indian tutelage, from the state of affairs that existed between the signing of the November 2005 agreement and the CA election. Given their affinity for a system where the party is the state, the Chinese, like the Army, are more sympathetic towards the Maoists than towards other political parties.

Prachanda's current strategy then is to sideline other political parties, co-opt powerful sections of society and subjugate them to the Maoist party to whatever degree possible, stay on the good books of the international community, and gradually move towards consolidating a regime of the soft authoritarian left along the lines of several Latin American governments.

Kiran's chief objections to this strategy are as follows:

First, there is increasing disenchantment with what is perceived to be the individual-centric leadership of Prachanda. Prachanda is believed to be disregarding the principle of collective leadership and cultivating a personality cult with the goal of establishing himself as a sort of leftist strongman.

Second, the Kiran faction is unhappy with the strategy of allying with powerful social groups. There was stiff resistance to Prachanda's appointment of former royalist Hira Bahadur Thapa as his foreign affairs advisor. At a time when the Maoists are more powerful than they have ever been, the Kiran line goes, it is necessary to engage ferociously in class struggle. The social base of the class enemy needs to be destroyed. Compromise, even if short-term, will only lead to deviation from the party's core ideology. Similarly, the alliance with the other parties to draft a new constitution only leads to “reformism.” The Constituent Assembly process cannot succeed for the Congress and CPN-UML will never agree on the constitution that the Maoists desire. The only outcome of the current process is further entrapment into parliamentary politics.

Third, Kiran feels that the Maoists have not paid sufficient attention to nationalism and the need to protect state sovereignty. The principal threat here, it is thought, comes from “Indian expansionism”, and immediate moves need to be taken to reduce Indian influence in Nepal's affairs.

While Prachanda seeks to increase his party's influence by gradual penetration into all aspects of society, Kiran desires a more extreme revolt that will immediately subjugate the enemy and bring the Maoists uncontested power. His faction is ambivalent towards the Maoists' entry into government. They recognize that this potentially enables them to use the state for the purposes of the revolution. But they also realise that prolonged exposure to the daily workings of government will make it increasingly difficult to stage the crucial armed revolt necessary for the dictatorship of the proletariat.