Review of
the Historic Initiation of the People's War and Future Strategy of the Party
"From the particular characteristics of war there arise a particular set of organizations, a particular series of methods and a particular kind of process..... Hence war experience is a particular kind of experience. And who takes part in war must rid themselves of their customary ways and accustom themselves to war before they can win victory."
- Mao Tse-tung, "On Protracted War"
1. The plan of the Party to initiate the people's war has been implemented. A
great process representing the qualitative leap in the development of class
struggle in the Nepalese society and in Party life has been initiated. While
affecting all classes, stratums and categories of society in an electric motion,
the people's war in Nepal has shaken the "heaven" of the reactionary state and
its props and generated new queries and enthusiasm among the masses. The high
morale, exquisite bravery and self-sacrifice demonstrated by the Party and front
workers and supporters in the first phase of the initiation of the people's war,
has exposed the cruel, fascist and cowardly character of the reactionary classes
and added a new dimension to the glorious tradition of struggle of the Nepalese
people. All these have been indelibly engraved in golden letters of the history
of revolution in the specificities of the initiation of people's war in Nepal.
This great initiation and its impact and success is an indicator of victory and
glory of the almighty ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism of the world
proletariat in general and of the Nepalese proletariat and oppressed masses in
particular. In this context, the Party takes pride in all the immortal martyrs
who have sacrificed their lives to make the plan of historical initiation of the
people's war a success, pays revolutionary homage to them and resolves to fight
till the end to make their dreams come true.
2. In this great process of initiation of the people's war, the revolutionary
thoughts, policies and plans of the Party were translated into practice as a
physical force, and on the basis of this live practical experience, the door is
opened for further development and refinement of those thoughts, policies and
plans. In the history of the Nepalese communist movement beset with metaphysics
and idealism, this process has represented the correct implementation of the
dialectical materialist theory of knowledge. This has been a scientific and
powerful blow to the revisionist proposition of from 'thought to thought' and
from 'reform to reform'. Apart from this, not only the positive aspects but the
limitations and weaknesses in the organizational, struggle and technical spheres
of the Party have naturally cropped up on the surface while making a qualitative
leap from the process of peaceful and legal struggle to the armed struggle. For
learning more, this great process has opened a treasure-house of knowledge. This
process of learning war through war has been started in practice. Because of a
long ideological, political and organizational preparation, the Party has been
facing in a normal manner the killing of 17 persons (till March 20, 1996) by the
enemy, the condition of having to go underground of more than a thousand leaders
and cadres of the Party at a time and the arrest and inhuman torture of hundreds
of Party members, members of different front organizations and supporter masses
of the people by the enemy. This is a question of not less pride for the Party.
3. This historic initiation of the people's war has given practical
expression to the theory of army as the principal form of organization and war
as the principal form of struggle through different forms of armed squads and
guerilla actions. Actions during the initiation and the continuation periods
were able to put the Maoist people's war in the centre of national politics of
the country. The level, nature and number of armed actions and the level of
their propaganda and publicity achieved within a short span of one month should
in itself be a unique experience for a Maoist Party of any country in the
present day world. In this process, the specificities of the Nepalese
revolution, the crisis of the reactionary state and the level of development of
the class struggle and the Party have all been manifested simultaneously.
4. One of the main goals specified by the Party in the plan for the historic
initiation was to put the politics of armed struggle in the forefront in the
country. This goal has been achieved more than ordinarily expected. The politics
of armed struggle In Nepal has now been established firmly not only among the
general masses of the Nepalese people but to a certain extent at the
international level as well. Similarly, the goals of preparing ground for
developing certain strategic areas into guerilla zones and of transforming the
forms of organization and struggle have also been satisfactorily achieved.
5. The historical initiation of the people's war has created new problems,
contradictions and crises for all the political groups and sub-groups whether
inside or outside the reactionary government in the country. This has
intensified the crisis brewing within the entire reactionary state. Even the
arch reactionary elements could not deny that it is a political issue for fear
of their getting exposed before the masses because of the appeal made by the
Party to the wide masses of the people along with the analysis of the grave
situation of the country at present and because of the level, quality and range
of armed actions and propaganda. This process has intensified the contradictions
among different reactionary factions within the government and within the
factions themselves.
On the basis of their reactions towards the people's war, it is clearly seen
that they are divided into three main political trends. They are: reactionary,
centrist and revolutionary trends. Despite the differences of opinion within
each group on whether to view the question as a political one or a purely
terrorist activity, all in the reactionary camp are unanimous in repressing the
people's war as 'anti-constitutional' and 'anti-democracy' activity, and the
Nepali Congress (NC), the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and the Communist
Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist -Leninist) (UML) are the main ones in this
category. In this context, the UML clique was seen to be the most upset by the
process of the people's war. The "Bahudaliya Janabadi" (or multi-party
democracy) faction of this clique has been particularly aggressive to instigate
the government in favor of repression and is conspiring to form its own
government and undertake repression.
In the centrist camp fall mainly those small petty-bourgeois reformist groups
that talk of Mao Thought and new democratic revolution. These groups are trying
to save their existence by hoodwinking the ordinary masses and their cadres with
a low theoretical level through their pretension of opposing both the people's
war and the government repression. Despite a quantitative difference , as the
basic character of these groups is reformist and parliamentary cretinist, they
are hurling the identical accusation of ultra-leftism at the people's war. This
accusation of theirs has become in practice merely an additional voice to the
cacophony of the reactionary UML clique. To get carried away by the reactionary
propaganda, to have faith in the bourgeois elements and to distrust the
proletariat, are their characteristic qualities, which have now been exposed. To
attempt to tread a middle path in the struggle between revolution and
counter-revolution is to serve counter-revolution. This truth is getting
verified in the context of these cliques. A new opportunity is now at hand to
thoroughly expose such opportunist characteristics of theirs and to clear the
illusions amongst the genuine revolutionaries in their ranks. What has been seen
in real life is that the honest and revolutionary cadres of these groups
(particularly the liquidationist 'Unify Centre' and the neo-revisionist
'Mashal') have been helping the people's war somehow or the other. Apart from
this, wherever and to what extent do these groups take a stand against the
reactionaries, there and to that extent, we must pay attention to forge a
coordination with them.
Political parties, organizations, independent intellectuals and general
masses of the people that have helped and supported in various ways the process
of the people's war led by the Party, constitute the revolutionary camp.
In essence, the great process of the initiation of the people's war has made
a direct and massive impact in the politics of the country and has enhanced the
possibilities of utilizing from new heights the contradictions developing in new
forms. The Party should be alert in practicing Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on this
question
* Future Strategy
The initiation of the people's war was historic; but now the grave question
of whether we are able or not to continue and defend and develop it, is looming
large before the Party. At the moment, the attention of the politically
conscious masses, intellectual community and all others is centered on what
would be the next plan of the Party and whether or not we would be able to
preserve and develop what has been newly given birth to. Only through a serious
coordination of the sovereign principle of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the
experiences of the historic initiation of the people's war can we formulate a
correct future plan of the Party. In this context, we should first of all pay
serious attention to the following points:
1. We should constantly keep in mind that despite all the specificities, the
character of the people's war in Nepal is protracted. ln the present condition
of the balance of forces, the enemy wants to drag us into a decisive war, but we
on our part, want to avoid it and prolong the war. The enemy uses the strategy
of attack but we use the strategy of defence. The enemy wants to incite us and
draw us into confrontation according to his own convenience, but we want to
harass the enemy, tire him out and attack him at his weak points at the time and
place of our convenience according to our own plan.
2. The enemy wants to keep us apart from the struggle for the people's
immediate problems and wants to cut off our relations with the masses. We,
however, do not want to be cut off from the live contact with the masses at any
cost. Our policies and programmes should guarantee our constant interactions
with the masses because the Party has no separate interest other than the
interests of the masses, and otherwise there would be no rationale for the
existence of the Party.
3. We should have a clear understanding that the danger of making wrong
policies and programmes in the Party is inherent in the vacillating character of
the petty-bourgeois class in Nepal. This class has the tendency of getting
overexcited and jumping into adventurism after a minor victory, and the tendency
of getting disheartened and moving towards capitulationism after a minor defeat.
We must wage relentless ideological and political struggle against the tendency
of dragging the Party in the direction of either adventurism or capitulationism.
In the present situation of the enemy in the offensive, the capitulationist
tendency is more dangerous for the Party.
4. The historical initiation of the people's war is a rebellion, indeed, of
far-reaching consequences, against the existing state and exploitation and
oppression since thousands of years. Put in the present stage of socioeconomic
formation and development of class struggle in Nepal, this is not an armed
insurrection to capture the central state power immediately. The process of
protracted people's war is the process of construction of revolutionary Party,
revolutionary struggle, revolutionary power and revolutionary army, from the
simple to the complex. In the context of the beginning of such a new and
qualitative process through the historic initiation of the people's war by the
Party and the widespread propagation of the politics of armed struggle, it is
necessary now to concentrate on the development of guerilla war in a planned way
and based on the principle of protracted people's war and on our own
specificities.
Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor: it is
people, not things, that are decisive.
- Mao Tse-tung, "On Protracted War"
Excerpts from a document adopted by the meeting of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party held In third week of
March 1996.