Red Salute to the Immortal Martyrs of the People's War!
Every revolution is nurtured by the blood of martyrs. The New
Democratic revolution in Nepal is no exception to this. Though hundreds of
martyrs have laid down their lives in the altar of this revolution since the
inception of the Communist Party of Nepal in 1949, a new wave of heroic
sacrifice & martyrdom was unleashed after the initiation of the people's war
in the country on February 13, 1996 (i.e. 1 Falgun 2052 B.S.) under the
leadership of CPN (Maoist). Within three months of this qualitative leap in the
revolutionary process and the communist movement in Nepal, more than two and a
half dozen revolutionary fighters have attained martyrdom while facing the
repressive armed apparatus of the reactionary state. And the number in the list
of martyrs continues to grow every passing day. We, therefore, pay our
revolutionary homage and red salute to the immortal martyrs of the people's war
and resolve to march forward along the revolutionary path charted by them
The indiscriminate killing in fake encounters, mass scale
arrests, inhuman torture in police custody, widespread arson and looting of
properties of the people resorted to by the reactionary state after the
initiation of the people's war knows no bounds. It is difficult to ascertain the
exact number of those martyred, as dozens of young fighters arrested by the
police in different parts of the country are reported missing. Of the two and a
half dozen confirmed to have been killed by the police in fake encounters or
indiscriminate shooting at the masses in the first three months (i.e. till
mid-May), most have been local activists of different class and mass
organisations, some were Party members and some belonged to the general masses.
Among the Party members were Com. Chop Bahadur Dangi (Rolpa), Com. Gehendra Giri
(Rolpa), Com. Lahar Singh Pun (Rolpa), Com. Jayadhan Thapa (Rolpa) Com. Jokh
Bahadur Pun (Rukum) and Com. Masta Bahadur Bista (Rukum). We pay our special
revolutionary tributes to our fallen comrades !
February 13 marked a watershed in the history of the communist
movement as well as the history of the entire social development in Nepal The
historic initiation of the people's war on this day not only dealt a fatal blow
to the basically revisionist and reformist past of the Party and marked a great
qualitative leap in the forms of both organization and struggle, but also
ushered in a new era of democratic revolution in all spheres of the society -
i.e. economic, political, social and cultural through violent means With the
clarion call of 'it is right to rebel', the Party on that day led the masses all
over the country to rebel against the reactionary state and direct their ire
against the ruling feudal, comprador and bureaucratic capitalist classes so as
to smash the existing semi-feudal and semi-colonial state and build a people's
New Democratic state. In a preplanned clandestine move, selected targets of
police out-posts, state-owned agricultural development bank office, factory of a
multi-national company, brewery of a comprador bourgeois and premises of a local
feudal-usurer were systematically attacked and properties seized thereof as a
symbol of rebellion and to herald the initiation of the people's war on that
day. Together with these, hundreds of thousands of revolutionary leaflets and
posters were distributed throughout the country to spread the political message
of the historic rebellion among the general masses of the people the same day.
The reactionaries were caught totally unaware of all this and they were just
appalled and dumbfounded at first. Only after several days did they seem to have
realised the severe tremors in their 'heaven' of class exploitation and plunder,
and they let loose their brute state force against the revolutionaries and the
masses in a state of mad frenzy. Thus the precious blood shed by our valiant
martyrs was the inevitable price the revolutionary process had to pay to make a
historic rupture and break-through in the destabilisation of the old state and
with the old form of our organisation and struggle.
The initiation of the people's war on February 13 was the result
of the objective necessity of Nepalese society, since long in crisis, and the
conscious subjective preparations of the Maoist communist revolutionaries. The
present Nepalese state created about two hundred years ago and presided over by
a small clique of moribund feudal, comprador and bureaucratic capitalist classes
is beset with such irreconcilable contradictions that all reformist efforts to
introduce patchworks in the politico-cultural superstructure as well as the
economic base have failed to check its gradual slide towards total collapse.
Consequently, the country has now slid down to the position of the second
poorest country in the world; economic inequality with the richest 10 percent
gobbling up 46.5 percent of the national income is one of the gravest in the
world; 71 percent of the population is forced to live below the absolute poverty
line, 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas in primitive conditions
and 81 percent of the workforce is engaged in backward agriculture; 10 percent
of the labour force is fully unemployed and another 60 percent is
under-employed; nearly about one third of the total labour force is forced to
emigrate to India and other countries for petty menial jobs and some for
mercenary services in Indian and British armies; domination of foreign
imperialist and expansionist powers in all spheres is ever increasing with more
than two-thirds of the so-called development budget of the country relying on
foreign loans; and so on and so forth. In other words, the objective conditions
of the country demands beyond any doubt a total restructuring of the existing
semi-feudal and semi-colonial relations and state and their replacement by New
Democratic relations and state. But the subjective preparations by the Communist
revolutionaries for this purpose was lagging far behind all these years. The
Communist movement, long plagued with revisionism and reformism, almost from the
outset lacked among other things a correct Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideological
orientation and a revolutionary political line of bringing about New Democratic
revolution through protracted people's war till the decade of the 1980s. Only at
the Unity Congress held in December 1991 of the reconstituted C. P.N. (Unity
Centre), which was later rechristened as C.P.N. (Maoist), was this ideological
and political question finally sorted out with the adoption of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the ideological guide of the Party and the path of
protracted people's war with the strategy of encircling the city from the
countryside and in which guerilla war will have a strategic role as the only
path of New Democratic revolution in the country. After a fierce and victorious
two-line struggle for nearly two and a half years against a rightist
liquidationist clique opposing this ideological orientation and political line,
which was finally expelled from the Party in May 1994, the Party ultimately
decided at the historic third plenum held in March 1995 to go ahead with the
initiation of the people's war and chalked out the strategy and tactics of the
people's war in the country keeping in mind the specificities of Nepal. A year
of general preparations since then and the intense preparations since the CC
meeting of September 1995 had preceded the ultimate initiation of the people's
war on February 13, 1996. Thus, February 13 marks a historic and decisive
victory of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line over the various
brands of revisionism and neo-revisionism plaguing the Nepalese communist
movement for long, and in that sense, the supreme sacrifice made by the heroic
martyrs in this phase of the revolution deserves a permanent place in the annals
of proletarian revolution.
As the Party has unequivocally declared in the "Plan for the
Historic Initiation of the People's War", this people's war is aimed at creating
a New Democratic state, then marching towards socialism and then finally towards
communism through a continuous series of cultural revolutions under the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and thus it is an integral part and parcel of
world proletarian revolution. Hence once it is started, it will follow the
objective law of development of people's war through its different strategic
stages and take different twists and turns, but it will never stop until it has
attained its final goal, i.e. a classless society of universal communism, as so
brilliantly espoused by Mao in his theory of continuing the revolution under the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus many many more of our proletarian class
brothers and sisters will have to make the supreme sacrifice of their lives to
keep this fire of revolution burning till all remnants of class society are
burnt to ashes and we reach the goal of communism, because, as Mao again so
aptly said, either none will reach or all of us will reach the goal of
communism.
The proletarian revolution has both immense challenges and
opportunities in the present day world. Whereas world imperialism, with U.S.
imperialism currently at the forefront is, on the one hand, dreaming of crushing
all the proletarian class and national liberation movements with the might of
its vast overt and covert war arsenals, on the other hand, it is beset with
irreconcilable contradictions within itself and is falling into newer and deeper
crisis everyday. However mighty it may appear at the surface, it is ultimately a
paper tiger, because the system of global exploitation and oppression it is
based upon cannot be reproduced indefinitely and it has to collapse someday.
Against this, the proletarian class in general and those in the oppressed
countries in particular are gradually recovering after their last loss in China
and, particularly with the decade of 1980s, they are rising in the offensive
against imperialism and domestic reaction in different parts of the world with
the invincible weapon of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in their hands. The Maoist
communist revolutionaries from Peru and Philippines to India (Andhra Pradesh and
Bihar) are posing a formidable challenge to world imperialism and all
reactionaries and lighting the path of proletarian revolution The Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement (RIM) is preparing a good ground for the ultimate
coming together of genuine communist revolutionaries the world over. It is in
this context that the initiation of the people's war in Nepal marks the opening
of a new front against world imperialism and reaction, and this front in the
land of world famous Gorkha warriors and highest mountain peaks (Himalayas)
should hammer additional nails into the coffin of imperialism and reaction. We
definitely are in a long arduous warpath, as the enemy is formidable, but we are
in for inevitable victory, for our cause is righteous and just. The best homage
to our martyrs, therefore, would be the persistent pursuit of the path of
proletarian revolution until final victory is achieved, and that, we resolve
with all determination and courage, we will.
Eternal Glory to the Immortal Martyrs!