REVOLUTION IN NEPAL ENTERS NEW STAGE

300,000 CPN (M) supporters

at June 2 Kathmandu rally

Momentous events have unfolded in Nepal over the last six months.

The democratic movement in the cities, and the armed struggle waged by the People’s Liberation Army, led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has resulted in a major defeat for the reactionary monarch King Gyendra.

Gyendra has been forced to hand executive powers back to the House of Representatives following an agreement between the Maoists and the parliamentary Seven Party Alliance (SPA) to coordinate their activities in a mass anti-monarchy uprising.

This occurred in April. To advance the aims of the anti-monarchist united front, the Maoists and the SPA agreed to a ceasefire and for CPN (M) participation in elections for the House of Representatives.

On June 2, a mass rally of 300,000 supporters of the CPN (M) was held in Kathmandu to celebrate developments (see picture above).

Details of arms accountability had to be worked out. In layman’s terms, troops of the former Royal Nepalese Army and of the PLA will each place their arms into storerooms under UN supervision, with each side effectively retaining the key and able to access its own arms at any time. Soldiers in both armies will likewise be housed in separate barracks (or designated villages in the case of the PLA), again under UN supervision.

This allows the CPN (M) to exercise independence and initiative within the united front on the basis that political power has come from the barrel of the gun, and can and will be maintained by it if and when circumstances warrant.

The culmination of this series of developments has been the signing on November 21 of a formal peace treaty between the CPN (M) and the SPA, and the entry of the CPN (M) into an interim government.

This should not be seen as a surrender to parliamentarism on the part of the CPA (M). Like the Bolsheviks and the Communist Party of China before it, it has had to seize the moment for a change in its tactical direction. The Bolsheviks opted at one stage for participation in the Duma. The CPC went through three stages of cooperation with the Guomindang, and in the course of the anti-Japanese War, the Red Army was reorganised by the CCP into the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army to serve the aims of the United Front against Japan. At the end of the War, the CCP put forward proposals for a Coalition Government that were scuttled by the GMD and the US imperialists, and so the armed struggle was resumed.

An excellent analysis of the Nepalese revolution in its current stage can be found here in the Indian publication Revolutionary Democracy (Rajesh Tyagi, Sept 2006 edition). Although it predates the arms accountability agreement, it is incisive and thorough in its analysis.

For keeping up with the most recent developments in Nepal, the most helpful website is Comrade Haisanlu’s Reason and Revolution. There is a link to his site in the list opposite.

Backpacker at Maoist checkpoint in PLA-controlled countryside