Lundi 11 mai 2009 1 11 /05 /Mai /2009 14:19

To the CC of CPNepalM—from CC of CPIranMLM

The following is an excerpted version of a private letter that the Central Committee of Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) wrote to the Central Committee of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in November 2006. This letter was written at the time when CPNM entered into a Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the ruling parties in Nepal. Since then, the CPNM has deeply followed the direction that this letter sounded concern and alarms about. At this time, the CC of CPI (MLM) feels it necessary to release the main content of the letter to the public—especially to the rank and file of the CPNM.

This letter has been edited for public release.


Dear comrades -- red salutes.

…

We think it is very important to make an assessment of the class interests embodied in the recently signed Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)…. You can imagine our extreme dislike of this Agreement. The reason is not our dislike of your “flexible tactics”. The reason is that this plan objectively (regardless of your intentions and tactical aims) is a strategic plan to restructure the Nepali state as a comprador – feudal Republic. Why you have signed it, is a different matter that we do not want to discuss here. Because we are familiar with your arguments, saying: “the process of revolution needs to take retrogressive as well as progressive measures”. OK! you have taken this retrogressive measure as a “tactic” but let us define its class character clearly and emphasize that if this is in your “tactical” interests, it is in “strategic” interest of the OTHER side—ie, the enemy. The OTHER side looks at this as a “strategy”. The OTHER side is a class--a class alliance consisting of a section of the comprador- feudals of Nepal (minus the Monarch) and national bourgeoisie of different types. And it has the backing of India and the US (the US is playing the role of opposing this Agreement--the role of the bad guy-- in order to give this plan a progressive face).  

 

 The effect of your present tactic is that it is giving a new vigor to the comprador-feudal ruling classes of Nepal. It is helping them to restructure their old state and make it a viable and functioning reactionary state. Never forget that one of the main reasons that the People’s War in Nepal could develop so rapidly was because of the shaky and incoherent conditions of the old state. The enemy is trying to use your tactic to re-emerge out of this crisis. The reactionary anti-people class alliances that they had forged since 1990 in the form of parliamentary democracy could not be consolidated due to its inherent contradictions, and most of all, because the glorious People’s War did not allow them to consolidate.(1) Now they want to finish this consolidation process by getting rid of the King and the People’s War --both at the same time. The result (if they succeed) will be a comprador-feudal Republic. This process might take a lot of pull and push and go through some twists and turns. Because they have to convince the King and the RNA (Royal Nepal Army) of this plan; they should satisfy or push aside UML types etc. But for them the main thing is to bring the Maoists to agree with this plan and help it out.

 

We think, whatever your aim is, this CPA plan (and ensuing interim government) has an objective class character that must be analyzed and its nature not hidden from the eyes of the masses and the international proletariat.

 

What is a tactic for you is a strategic plan for the enemy. CPA is a plan to oust the King and to destroy the revolutionary people’s government which was formed during 10 years of People’s War and restructure the old state as a comprador-feudal Republic around the axis of the Congress party and the Maoists who --as they think-- would have been transformed from a revolutionary war party to a political party of the status quo. Is it impossible for them to get rid of Monarchy and forge a comprador Republic dependent on imperialism? No! The king and the section of comprador-feudal class which is his base and the army generals might resist. But even in the case of Iran in 1979, the US generals convinced Iranian army generals to change sides from the Shah to Khomeini. So in the case of Nepal too, the reactionary classes and their imperialist masters can convince the army generals of RNA to change sides from the King to the Congress Party. Is it impossible for the ruling classes to co-opt the Maoists into the new Republican structure of the dictatorship of the bourgeois? At least the Indians and a section of Nepali comprador-feudal classes represented by the Congress party, think there is a good chance to do this successfully. They have a reason to think so. The Indian ruling classes have done this in India before. They understand very well the magic power of incorporating ex-communists into their state structure and in this way give a new lease on life to the old state. The Indian ruling classes have been able to restructure and renew their state system through the incorporation of ex-communists and movements of the oppressed into their state structure. By doing this, they have made their reactionary rule over the masses more efficient. The suffocating role of the various “communist” parties in India in terms of leashing the rebellious impulses of the masses is equal to the influence of religion and other ideological leashes of the reactionary classes in India and may be even worse. The Indian comprador-feudal classes are old hands in transforming the communists from enemies to reactionary partners. So in the case of Nepal too they want to try this policy. Their strategic plan has two tactical wings which can make it fly: one is to make this comprador-feudal interim government a permanent one after the election of the Constitutional Assembly. And second, to de-link the Maoists from the revolutionaries in India and the world (by changing the revolutionary nature and aims of the Maoists).

 

Using this kind of strategy by the reactionary ruling classes is not new. Lenin called it a Constitutional way of solving the legitimacy crisis of the old state.  In Iran they stopped and overturned the 1979 revolution through a kind of restructuring and solved the crisis of the old state for a while. They could not solve the root causes of the crisis, which were socio-economic and class rule. But they solved the crisis through what Lenin called constitutional measures. ….

 

Never forget the fact that in Nepali revolution, your most important and most successful and most inspiring tactic has been to masterfully turn your strategic strength (being a revolutionary party representing the deep and long-term interests of the oppressed masses in Nepal and India and the world) into a tactical advantage for yourself; and to turn the  strategic weakness of the old state  (being the state of the reactionary classes who are a minority united with India and imperialists) into a tactical disadvantage for it. Now the enemy wants to deal with this problem. They want to de-link you from the revolutionary social upheaval and organized revolutionary masses and use your partnership to disunite the organized revolutionary masses and paint the refurbished state structure as progressive.

 

This is their strategy. Using this strategy does not exclude bloody conspiracies from their agenda. But if it works, it is more effective than bloody suppressions. When the enemies see that they can not tame a rebellion or defeat a revolution, they think about the option of incorporating a layer of revolutionaries. Even in old times, the feudal classes occasionally utilized this strategy. That is why, for example, when Mao wanted to warn some of the leaders of Communist Party of China that they should not stop revolution halfway, he reminded them of the fatal deviation of “Sun Chiangism”. (Sun Chiang led a heroic peasant war in China and after defeating the King, he accepted the ruling class’ call to join the royal government or even replace the King).

 

The reactionary classes have used this policy in the era of imperialism as well. One of the most dramatic examples is the Weimar Republic in Germany after the First World War, when the bourgeoisie incorporated the Social Democrats (leaders of the Second Communist International) into the Capitalist imperialist system. The Social Democrats in Germany, Austria and Hungary suppressed or dismantled the Workers and Soldiers Soviets one after another.

 

Or look at Irish history, how the British imperialists split the Irish movement by incorporating revolutionaries into the restructured old state and caused splits in the Irish movement and sad episodes in which new Irish functionaries arrested and executed their ex-comrades, revolutionaries who did not want to surrender to the old state.

 

By citing these examples, we are not intending to say that this is what you want to become or that this is your strategy. No, you do not want this. But this is the logical outcome of this interim government. Lenin said: even the road to hell is paved with good intentions and emphasized that political line has its own logic despite one’s intentions. …

 

The whole greatness of Lenin was that he did not allow the old Russian state to revitalize itself through the interim bourgeois government. Instead, he led proletarians to replace the old rotten state at one stroke with a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. That made Lenin a hero for the proletariat and peoples of the world and sent Marxism to the remotest corners of the world. After that, millions of masses around the world turned to Marxism-Leninism, because he had opened a fresh new chapter in the history of humanity. The freshness of the new state was awaking peoples of the world even in the most backward corners, in a magical way. When Mao said the canons of October brought Marxism to China, he was not being poetic. He was telling a truth in a beautiful and simple way.

 

Please pay attention: Our main point is not that the ruling classes try to corrupt the revolutionaries. They always try to do that!  Our main point is that a section of the ruling classes and the big powers (imperialists and regional powers) also feel the need to revitalize their system and some times they even resort to utilizing the revolutionaries to revitalize and restructure their state. In this way they achieve two aims: one is that they stop the revolution halfway and “democratically” persuade revolutionaries to eat their own children, step by step. (We ironically call this a “democratic” and bloodless counter-revolutionary coup). And two, overall they make their system and old state more viable by removing some non-functional parts of it (such as the Monarchy) that have become an obstacle to the needs of the development of the comprador-feudal state in the country and region. By doing this they make the old state more efficient and at the same time they tell the masses: “Look, we changed things! This is the change you wanted.” And they do this with the help of ex-revolutionary leaders. Every time they have been able to victoriously carry out this strategy they have been able to hinder revolutions for decades.

 

This Comprehensive Peace Agreement is an “Indian” style attempt to carry out the above said strategy. But the US imperialists do not oppose such restructuring when their interests are better safeguarded. Especially, the approach of a section of the policy makers of the US imperialist ruling classes towards restructuring of non-functional states around the world has been to emphasize the generation of new layers of the comprador-feudal class from amongst the “dissidents” rather than resorting only to force. Of course, this has never been easy for them to do in third world countries because of acute class contradictions. But they have achieved certain things. For example, in this way, they achieved what they consider success in South Africa, Palestine and Iraqi Kurdistan. ….

 

… With this plan the enemy is coming at you in order to take away big chunks of you. You should not think that these kinds of tactics can only be used by you. There are certain tactics that are pragmatic and do not have a proletarian class character. So the bourgeoisie can use them very well. But there are certain tactics that they can never use. They can never use the tactic of granting democracy (that is, the power to overthrow the old state) to the masses. That is why in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement they want to make you dismantle the People's Power: the revolutionary army and the revolutionary state.

 

The CPA is the road to restructuring the state along comprador-feudal Republican lines. There are lots of conspiracies going on against revolution -- of the sort that you are aware of. But this is the biggest conspiracy against revolution in Nepal ever. We hope this conspiracy will fail. But you should make it fail. It will not fail automatically.

 

Anti-democratic

 

This CPA is very anti-democratic in nature. Its anti-democratic aspects should be brought to light and the masses made conscious of them so that they can understand their rights more deeply.

 

The oppressed masses have the right to rebel against their conditions of oppression. This CPA makes this right unlawful. Not recognizing this right is not even a bourgeois-democratic line, let alone a proletarian democratic line.

The Agreement is anti-democratic because it is calling for dismantling of the Peoples state, courts and autonomous governments and gives power to the political functionaries at the centre. It calls for the dismantling of the direct democratic rule of the masses and the establishment of dealings among state bureaucrats. Is this 21st century democracy?

 

CPA is anti-democratic because it calls for the abolition of the rights of the people to land and recognizes the right of dismantled feudal land owners to their land ownership.

 

CPA calls for the humiliating confinement of the PLA but gives all sorts of responsibilities to the Nepali Army:  it gives the authority to the Nepal Army to guard the borders, the banks, the ministries, etc., while these should be targets of insurrectionary takeover.

 

CPA recognizes the dictatorship of the Nepali Army. Dictatorship is always the extra power (military and economic and political) that one class exercises over another class. In this case, the dictatorship of the Nepali Army is recognized because it gives the right to this army to hold more arms (it will lock up as many arms as PLA and keep the rest.)  It will be deployed to carry out many tasks such as guarding the border and banks and the PLA will be confined to camps. Who is the victim of a coup here?

 

CPA is anti-democratic because it says that any violation of this agreement is punishable by law: which law? Whose law? How can one speak of suppression even before the election of the CA? Is this 21st-century democracy?

 

All of these counter-revolutionary measures of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement are justified by vague promises for “scientific land reform”, which is just a high sounding but empty phrase. The rights of the people (class, gender, nationality, caste…) in this Agreement are so vague that any comprador state can agree to them…..What kind of negotiation is this that the wining side should dissolve itself into the structure of the other side? …The interim government will prepare the conditions the old Nepal to eat up the new one.

 

Concrete analysis of concrete situations

 

We agree with your emphasis on the importance of making concrete analysis of concrete conditions in order to be able to advance our strategic aims. We know (theoretically and practically) that without having tactics, one can not make the strategy fly. …

 

The point we want to get at here is this: beware of making wrong concrete analyses and beware of following wrong tactics. As Mao said, some words can bring progress and other words can bring disaster.

 

 Here we want to familiarize you with our own historical experience. Our original organization--the then Union of Communists of Iran (UCI) -- always emphasized two things as part of its theory and practice: concrete analysis of the concrete situations, and importance of having tactics. But UCI was very wrong in its concrete analysis of the concrete situation and in tactical policies during the 1979 revolution in Iran-- a revolution whose rise and fall is still reverberating in the Middle East. …

 

It is well known that in the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Monarchy was overthrown. But the most noteworthy aspect of that revolution is that, it did not go far enough in order to destroy the old state and give birth to a new state. So the counter-revolution succeeded and gave birth to a restructured comprador-feudal theocratic state under the name of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

 UCI and other communist forces had deviation in terms of the Central Task (Mao said the central task is to settle the question of power through violent seizure of power). This deviation helped bring about the defeat of revolution and rise to power of the Islamic forces. To make a long story short, UCI rationalized its deviation under the signboard of “concrete analysis”. Indeed, concrete analysis was necessary. But because we had given up the general theories of MLM (we had become centrist on the universal theories of Maoism), our concrete analysis did not have an underlying MLM foundations. As Marxists we know that concrete and universal is unity of opposites. Our “concrete” had the “opposition” but not “unity” with the universals of MLM.  Our deviation came in the form of “tactics” but was related to being centrist and eclectic on the strategy of revolutionary seizure of political power.

 

UCI’s “concrete analysis” was that the new Islamic regime had a dual character: on the one hand it was reactionary because the old army still had not been dissolved and democratic transformations (especially uprooting feudalism through land revolution) were not happening; on the other hand it had a “progressive” aspect (which did not!) because it was “anti imperialist” (which was not!) and consisted of petit bourgeois and national bourgeois parties. On the basis of this eclectic and wrong “concrete analysis” we concluded, the task of revolution was to make the “progressive aspects” to grow and push out the reactionary aspects; the task was to pressure the regime “from below” (by mass movements and revolutionary armed struggle in Kurdistan) to radicalize and make it “shed” its skin (like a snake which drops off its old skin and renews itself). This was a classic form of non revolutionary, eclectic right deviationist line. Shortly after formation of Islamic Republic of Iran, pro-Khomeini students seized the US embassy in Tehran. This event strengthened the right deviationist tendency within UCI. The irony was that the old state was shedding its old skin, but not in favor of revolution. It was renewing itself to be a more efficient and viable reactionary comprador-feudal state and we were losing an historical opportunity to put an end to the life of this wretched state.

 

UCI’s second disastrous “concrete analysis” and corresponding tactics was when the Iran-Iraq war broke out.  It made the “concrete analysis” that this was a patriotic war and if the communists took part in it, this would strengthen the communist movement. UCI falsely compared this policy to Mao's war against Japan --which of course were not comparable.

 

UCI’s centrist line on the question of seizure of power was accompanied by many other wrong theories. For example, UCI had formulated a “third road” theory for accomplishing the Democratic Revolution. This was formulated by a section of our leadership in a book called On the Socio- Economic Character of Iran. The book said: democratic transformations can be achieved through three roads: one, from the top (what Lenin called the Prussian road). Two, by revolutionary violence under the leadership of the proletariat from below, which we called a People's Democratic Republic. Three, by national bourgeois road-- which would be a national bourgeois state but under constant pressure from below (the revolutionary masses)

 

UCI also believed that the road to revolution in Iran was mainly the October Road, while combined with armed struggles such as those which were going on in Kurdistan. This view of October Road was also very reformist which was a dominant understanding of the October Road in Iranian communist movement. The understanding of the October Road was that it fundamentally was a general strike with some scattered armed actions. And no attention was paid to the fact that October was just a first shot in a long civil war.  We took a very specific element in the Russian situation at that time and made it into a general theory: we said the alignment of the forces should get to the point that, as Lenin said, the Czar’s chariot on the verge of an abyss would fall with a toe nudge!

 

The reason we are recounting this history is not to say that your party is just like ours at the time of 1979 revolution. But to say that we made serious errors, and point out what seem like similar errors in your present line in a number of aspects. Some trends of thinking we see in your party seem similar to how we thought in some periods. It is true that our party was not firm on Maoism. But being firm on our universal understanding is not something that is guaranteed once and for all. At different times a communist party can lose its grip on fundamentals. One of those times is when that party is quickly passing from one stage to a new stage. These are the times when our universal line and outlook cry out to be re-affirmed and developed. One great opportunity that you have is that RIM exists, with a clear-cut universal line and developing scientific knowledge. …We want to speak FRANKLY:  We in our history used the same Maoist and Leninist concepts such as Mass Line and Concrete Analysis and United Front to justify incorrect lines. …

 

Take a hard look at whether or not the underlying basis of your particular line corresponds with universal line of MLM. Universal and particular are unity of opposites. The universal must be the guiding compass for the particular; strategy must be the guiding compass for tactics. If you drop this compass it would be like losing your way on the dangerous peaks of the Mount Everest. People don’t make revisionist mistakes because they were originally revisionist. Mao said a lot of comrades who made errors during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were communist fighters during the Long March. He said the reason they committed errors is because they could not see, through the fog, the road to advance towards the peaks...

 

Comrades: we have tried to make clear the nature of this “transitional regime”, and we think you should also be clear about its nature:  it is anti-revolution; it is anti-masses and anti-national independence.

 

We are certain that for revolution to advance, this agreement should be broken.  We are sure the OTHER side will violate it and will provide ample reasons to that effect. But what are your preparations for that?

 

Once again we urge you to safeguard the revolution in Nepal. Not only the future of the Nepali workers, peasants, women and oppressed nationalities depends on you doing this; but the revolution in 21st century will be marked by whether you safeguard this revolution or not. Stakes are high!

Our hearts are pounding in anxiety for revolution in Nepal.

 

 

the CC of the CPI (MLM)

22 November 2006  

 

=======

 

 

 

Footnote:

1-What replaced the Panchyat system was a fractured and crisis-ridden state structure which was not able to dissolve feudalism even a little bit so as to alleviate the class contradictions. The People’s War did dissolve feudalism to great extent. Dissolving certain aspects of feudalism was a kind of necessary reform (necessary for preventing New Democratic Revolution and necessary for penetration of imperialist capital) that the seven-party alliance and the King were completely incapable of carrying out, even with the aid coming from outside. So now they can benefit from some aspects of the dissolution of feudalism achieved by the CPN(M). Imperialist -sponsored systems always can arrange to benefit from lukewarm anti-feudal transformations. In Iran, the Shah and the imperialists themselves carried out the White Revolution in order to dissolve the excessive parts of feudalism which stood in the way of preventing peasant uprisings as well as obstacles to the penetration of capital to the remote areas of the country. And in 1979, the G7 imperialist countries arranged for the removal of monarchy in Iran. The famous Guadaloupe G7 conference did this.

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Lundi 11 mai 2009 1 11 /05 /Mai /2009 14:14

Letter from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (Nov. 2008)

To the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and all Parties and Organizations of RIM

Dear Comrades,

On March 19, 2008, our Party sent a circular letter to the comrades of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) as well as to the other parties and organizations of RIM expressing our deepest concern over the political and ideological orientation of the CPN(M) and the basic path it has been following for the last three years. The central point in that letter was our belief that despite the great struggle and sacrifices of the ten years of People’s War and its tremendous achievements, the state system being established and consolidated in Nepal is not New Democracy, the particular form of the dictatorship of the proletariat appropriate in countries like Nepal, but rather a bourgeois state, a “federal democratic republic” which will preserve and enforce the existing capitalist and semi‑feudal relations of production prevalent in Nepal.

The People’s Liberation Army is to be destroyed through “integration” into the reactionary state army and/or dissolved by other means, land distributed by the revolution to the peasantry is to be returned to previous owners, Western imperialist powers and reactionary states such as China and India are being hailed as great friends of the Nepalese people, and astounding theoretical propositions are being put forward such as the “joint dictatorship of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie”.[i] Instead of arguing for a program of carrying forward the revolution, CPN(M) leaders and government officials have loudly advocated positions and policies that so flagrantly go against the principles of proletarian revolution and the interests of the masses in Nepal and around the world that any genuine communist is shocked, saddened and angry to hear them on the lips of comrades of our Movement.

Yes, we have heard that the assurances from some that all of this is but a “transitional state” that can be transformed into a genuine people’s state – or, sometimes we are told, it is but a clever ploy to “deceive the enemy” while preparations continue to bring the revolution to a victorious conclusion. But in fact each step taken down this road is making it more difficult ideologically, politically, organizationally and militarily to get back on the revolutionary path. Today many more communists, in Nepal and elsewhere, are coming to recognize that the formation of the “federal democratic republic” is not a “stepping stone” toward achieving the communist objectives but a giant step backwards, away from revolution and away from the achievements of the People’s War, and a giant step toward firmly reconsolidating Nepal’s position in the reactionary world imperialist system.

The Problem Is The Line Of The Party

It is excellent that many comrades are now recoiling when they stare into the abyss into which the revolution in Nepal is falling.. The question is to understand how things reached this point and, most importantly, what is necessary to fundamentally reverse this course and save the fruits of the revolution in Nepal that are being so rapidly destroyed. The current situation is no accident, no mere excess in carrying out an otherwise correct policy. It is not just one more “maneuver to the right” that can be easily corrected by a following “maneuver to the left”. The current display of class collaboration is a direct result of the ideological and political line that has been leading the Party over the last period, particularly since the immediate goal of the Party was defined as the establishment of the “transitional state”, that is, a bourgeois democratic republic.[ii]

The immediate task facing all communists who hold the revolution in Nepal dear is to repudiate and fight against the wrong line in the CPN(M). Once again we will quote the words of Mao Tsetung: “If one’s line is incorrect, one’s downfall is inevitable, even with the control of the central, local and army leadership. If one’s line is correct, even if one has not a single soldier at first, there will be soldiers, and even if there is no political power, political power will be gained. This is borne out by the historical experience of our Party and by that of the international communist movement since the time of Marx.… The crux of the matter is line. This is an irrefutable truth.”[iii]

Today the question of the future direction of Nepal is being battled out in the domain of political line and ideology. If a correct revolutionary communist line can triumph within the party, the energy and aspirations of people that have been unleashed by the People’ War can be harnessed and led, and there is a real possibility that nationwide victory can be won and the pathway opened to socialism. On the contrary, if the present line of the CPN(M) leadership is not repudiated, this great opportunity for the people in Nepal and for the communist movement more generally will be lost. We are not in a position to speculate or propose specific tactical steps, and we do not see that as the role that comrades in the international movement can or should be playing. We must all focus our attention on major matters of ideological and political line and not on secondary matters of tactics or so-called “maneuvering”. Most fundamentally this means reaffirming, ideologically and in its political line and specific policies, that the revolution in Nepal is seeking to establish socialist relations in the country as part of the whole world process by which the capitalist‑imperialist world order will be overthrown and supplanted by socialism and ultimately communism. Yes, the revolution in Nepal must pass through the transition of New Democracy, but the purpose of the New Democratic Revolution is exactly a transition toward socialism, and not toward an acceleration of capitalism in Nepal and its further integration into the world imperialist system.[iv]

This essential point – the need to maintain the goal and orientation of fighting for New Democracy and not substituting the goal of classless, “pure” democracy (which can only mean bourgeois democracy, whether federal and proportional or not) – was a major theme of our October 2005 letter to the Party, which the CPN(M) leadership dismissed as merely being the “ABCs of Marxism” with no importance for analyzing the specific questions of tactics and policy facing the Party. But these “ABCs”, or more correctly put, these basic truths of Marxism, confirmed in the course of generations of revolutionary struggle all over the world, remain crucial to the success or failure of the revolution, and the rejection of these basic truths by the CPN(M)leadership is what is leading the revolution over the cliff.

New Democracy & Socialism Are Stepping Stones On The Road To Communism

New Democracy requires a joint dictatorship of the revolutionary classes under the leadership of the proletariat and its vanguard, that is to say, a specific form of the dictatorship of the proletariat appropriate to the stage of the democratic revolution. While the system of New Democracy recognizes and protects the interests of the national bourgeoisie, it targets as an enemy the comprador and bureaucrat capitalist sector which is, after all, the dominant form of capitalism in Nepal. In its international policy, New Democracy aligns itself with the masses of people struggling against imperialism and reaction and opposes the world imperialist system. Economically, as Mao put it, New Democracy “opens the door to capitalism”, but “it opens the door to socialism even wider” by quickly establishing state ownership over those sectors controlled by the imperialists, allied reactionary states and the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie and feudal elements. In the countryside New Democracy means the thorough and revolutionary implementation of “land to the tiller” by mobilizing and relying on the oppressed masses of the peasantry. Culturally, New Democracy means mobilizing the masses and unleashing them to thoroughly uproot backward institutions such as caste discrimination, child marriage, the oppression of women, the oppression of nationalities and so forth. Indeed, to a large extent New Democracy means completing on a nationwide level the revolutionary democratic transformations that the Party had begun in the base areas.

In all of these aspects the New Democratic system represents something quite different from bourgeois democracy. Bourgeois democracy accepts the capitalist system in a given country and internationally. It offers “equal rights” (especially the right to vote) to everyone within the framework of the existing ownership system and the existing relations of production. Bourgeois democracy will always seek to demobilize the masses and oppose and repress the efforts of the masses to assert their own interests.. And we know that in a country like Nepal, bourgeois rule, however “democratic”, inevitably involves a great degree of compromise with semi-feudal relations, as is seen so clearly in neighboring India. The “rule of (bourgeois) law” so central to bourgeois democracy means that government officials become the agents and enforcers of bourgeois law. Isn’t this an important lesson of the “Yadov affair”, when comrade Matrika Yadov, the CPN(M) Minister of Land Reform and Management in the new government, resigned over his refusal to accept the use of state violence to evict the peasantry off of land that had been redistributed to them by the revolution?[v] This shows quite clearly how the government cannot help but function as an agent of the reactionary production and social relations, and it is a good illustration of Marx’s point that “the proletariat cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes” but must “smash it” and establish its own state.[vi]

Today when the choice before the Party and the masses is sharpening up as one between a “people’s republic” and a bourgeois republic (in the form of the “federal democratic republic”), it is essential for the communists themselves to be clear on the fundamental meaning of these two, opposite, kinds of states. It is important to be vigilant as well that the very conception of “people’s republic” (or New Democratic republic) is not gutted and reduced to just a different label on the bourgeois democratic republic. It is important to firmly grasp that the New Democratic republic must be part of the world proletarian revolution and that it must serve as a transition to socialism and communism.

This goal must not be left at the level of an empty declaration of faith. We should not forget that even the most brazen capitalists in China still hide behind the banner of the “Communist” Party. Taking the socialist road requires understanding clearly what socialism and communism actually mean. It is not about the “perfection of democracy” in a way detached from the class struggle.[vii] It is about achieving a society without class distinctions through the overcoming of the “four alls” Marx spoke about and which became popularized in the GPCR of China. Marx wrote that the communist revolution must aim at the elimination of: all classes and class distinctions generally, all the relations of production on which they rest, all the social relations corresponding to them, and all the ideas that result from these social relations.

The vehicle for assuring this transition from one social epoch to another is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only if state power is firmly in the hands of the proletariat at the leadership of an alliance with the other revolutionary classes will it be possible to protect the interests of the masses, as we have seen in the entire course of the People’s War. If state power is in the hands of the masses countrywide led by a vanguard party clear on its goal, the initial transformations carried out in the base areas can be consolidated throughout the country and, most importantly, this state power can be used to begin the long and difficult but truly liberating process of transforming the economic and social relations between people in the direction of socialism and communism.

The fundamental issue at stake in the debate over the form of the state and the role of “multiparty democracy” in Nepal today is actually about whether the dictatorship of the proletariat (at the stage of New Democracy) will be established. Indeed, as the Chinese comrades pointed out during the epoch of Mao, all of the great struggles between Marxism and revisionism have been focused on the question of establishing and persevering in the proletarian dictatorship, and this is the case in Nepal today.

There are important and difficult questions concerning the form of people’s rule: What role should be allowed for competing political parties? How can the rights of the masses be guaranteed in deeds and not only in words? How can the revolution mobilize all positive factors in society to advance? And yes, there have been serious errors in the history of the communist movement in this regard, although our party does not accept the one-sided negation of the previous experience of the communist movement that is trumpeted by the international bourgeoisie and, unfortunately, echoed by the leadership of the CPN(M). But one thing is quite certain: it will be impossible to address the genuine questions correctly unless comrades understand the desirability and the possibility of achieving a wholly different type of society (socialism and communism) and therefore the need for the state to serve as a vehicle for carrying out this transformation, step-by-step and in conjunction with the masses the world over.

If the essence of the state is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, if it is understood to be a vehicle for thoroughly uprooting class society and all of the evils that flow from it, then and only then will it be possible to answer the question of what type of democracy is required and what forms it might take. Again, the Yadov affair is instructive – what about the rights of the peasants to own the land they till? These rights count for nothing in the kingdom of “pure democracy”. And where is the state power to back up the rights of the peasantry, even if they were formally recognized? But it is not only a question of which classes enjoy democracy under the proletarian dictatorship and which classes are the object of this dictatorship. The proletarian dictatorship can and must also guarantee the democratic rights of those intellectuals and other middle class strata whose class position between the masses and the exploiting classes tends to reinforce illusions of “pure” democracy.

More importantly, in a society that is truly advancing on the socialist road, it is possible and necessary to unleash the critical spirit among intellectuals and others and welcome the criticism that such forces will have of the socialist society and proletarian rule, in the spirit of applying the dynamic Bob Avakian has called “solid core with a lot of elasticity”. In fact, the stifling of dissent, the absence of rights, and bureaucratic stultification is a feature of revisionist rule (even a quick look at contemporary China shows this easily). The socialist society that revolutionary communists must construct will be a far livelier and more invigorating place for the masses and for the intellectuals then any of the reactionary societies in the world today, whether they be “liberal democracies” like India or the US or revisionist prisons like China or North Korea.

Every state consists of a dictatorship led by a specific class (in alliance with others) and every state requires a specific kind of democracy that corresponds to the interests of the ruling class and the kind of society it is building. This is why Lenin correctly stressed that the proletarian dictatorship is a million times more democratic than the most liberal of bourgeois democracies.. The crucial question is democracy for whom and for what aim? What is needed is democracy among the broad ranks of the masses and dictatorship over the small number of exploiters, a democracy that energizes society and mobilizes all of the diverse and contradictory features that can help propel the society forward along the socialist road toward communism. The kind of dictatorship and the kind of democracy needed are those that reflect the truth Lenin was getting at when he said communism springs forth from “every pore”. We do not need the empty shell of bourgeois democracy where the exploiting classes and their socio-economic system set the terms and the limits of political life and discourse and that reduces the masses’ participation in politics to an occasional vote or demonstration.[viii]

The Election Miracle?

The most significant event that took place since we sent our letter of March 19, 2008 has been the Constituent Assembly elections, the emergence of the CPN(M) as the largest party in the country and the subsequent formation of a government with Comrade Prachanda at its head.

One leading comrade of the CPN(M) described this as “the election miracle”. And indeed, we ourselves, like many other observers, were surprised by the result.

We had written in our March 19 letter: “The most likely result is that the CPN(M) will be defeated ‘fairly’ at the elections… If in the extremely unlikely event that the Party did come to occupy the key positions of government through this electoral process the very alliance required, the entanglement in bourgeois political institutions and with the ‘international community’ will ensure that there is no transfer of power to the proletariat and the oppressed classes and no basis for the state to carry out the revolutionary transformation of society.”

What our party had predicted as “extremely unlikely”, that is the emergence of a CPN(M)‑led government, has come into being.

We were wrong to introduce a specific prediction of the election result in our previous letter. Not only did this prediction turn out to be wrong, it weakens the essential and correct point we were making in that letter including in the paragraph cited above – that the Constituent Assembly (CA) process could not lead to the peaceful transfer of power to the proletariat and masses of Nepal and would instead legitimize the reactionary bourgeois state. Advancing an election prediction, whether or not it turned out to be correct, feeds into the very pragmatism that is such a problem in the Party – judging tactics and policy by whether they “work” (or seem to work) rather than by whether they correspond to fundamental objectives.

The “mandate” that the Party obtained through the CA vehicle is not a mandate for completing the New Democratic revolution. While it is true that the revolutionary masses of Nepal voted for the CPN(M) out of the love and respect won in the course of the People’s War, the deferential treatment of the CPN(M) by the bourgeoisie, imperialists and India came not from having waged a People’s War but from having stopped one. Any support from the middle classes and others for the Party on this basis (having stopped the war) will not further propel the Party toward completing the revolution but act as a brake on it.

“Without A People’s Army The People Have Nothing”

The form of the state has been changed from monarchy to republic, but this does not represent the fulfilling of the New Democratic revolution. Far from it. The current state represents the perfecting of the old reactionary state, shorn of its monarchical costume, and this is true regardless of what political party sits at the top this state – this is a theme which we developed at length in our letter of March 19, 2008. This new state system is objectively the continuation and perfecting of the old state, and as such it has no choice except to enforce the old reactionary economic and social relations, and it can never be a vehicle for their destruction. Meanwhile the very structures of power that had been established during the People’s War to enforce the class interests of the masses of the people have been dismantled. Without a new state power in the hands of the masses it is impossible for society to be revolutionized: as Lenin put it, without political power all is illusion.

Nowhere is this clearer than when examining the pillar on which this state stands – the (formerly Royal now republican) Nepal Army. All of Marxism as well as contemporary social experience teaches again and again that it is the armed forces that are the central and decisive element of any state. The People’s Liberation Army, which had been the pillar of the new state that was being forged in the base areas, has been confined to cantonments and is now threatened with liquidation through the process of “integration” into the old reactionary army. Without the PLA it will be impossible to protect the transformations that have already taken place in the base areas, to say nothing of extending them throughout the whole country. We should never forget Mao’s words that, “without a People’s Army, the people have nothing”, nor the great sacrifices that were required to build up a powerful PLA in Nepal.

Any idea that the Nepal Army, even if it swallows up and digests part of the PLA, can be transformed into a People’s Army, that it will become, in essence, anything other than what it always has been, is worse than ridiculous, it is extremely dangerous. As noted earlier, the role of the Nepal Army will be to continue to enforce the dominant social and production relations that keep the masses enslaved.

Nor can we accept the argument concerning the “two sides” of the Nepal Army – that it has always been undemocratic in its defense of feudal oppression (true) but that it is has defended the interests of the nation (untrue).[ix] The fact is that the (Royal) Nepal Army has been the pillar of defending the decrepit reactionary social system, which, at least in the modern period, has been entirely dominated by the world imperialist system. To talk of “preserving the independence” of a comprador, bureaucrat capitalist state has a very restricted meaning. No fundamental national independence can come about unless and until this old system is uprooted and the whole network that keeps Nepal ensnared in the world imperialist system is broken. Doesn’t the role of the (Royal) Nepal Army in providing soldiers for UN “peacekeeping missions”, which the new government has most unfortunately pledged to maintain, show the real relationship between the reactionary army and the world imperialist system?

Time and again we have seen the inseparable link in the oppressed countries between achieving the social emancipation of the masses and waging the struggle against imperialism – and quite often communists have fallen into the error of supporting this or that reactionary state because of its alleged anti-imperialist character. We should not forget the tragic experience of the comrades of Iran giving support to the Khomeini regime because of a mistaken view of Khomeini’s “anti-imperialist aspect”.[x] Exactly because imperialism is a world system that is ever more deeply penetrating all aspects of the social and economic structure, it is impossible for meaningful social transformation to take place without a radical rupture with imperialism, and, conversely, reactionary so-called “anti-imperialist” states have a strong tendency to compromise, capitulate or collapse in the face of imperialist aggression and bullying. The achievement of genuine national independence is inseparable from the liberation of the masses and can never be obtained by a reactionary army.

No, the task of “smashing” the old state apparatus, the seizure of political power by force, has been and remains the crucial first great task of the revolution in Nepal, as in all other countries. We have not been convinced that the line of fighting for a “transitional state” has in any way hastened or facilitated the fulfillment of this task. On the contrary, the “transition” that we have seen is a transition to a more fully consolidated bourgeois order and, unfortunately, raises the danger of the transformation of the CPN(M) itself from a force that led the masses in fighting against the old order into a force for the preservation of this old order in its present Republican skin.

Part Of The Rebirth Of Revolutionary Communism Or Part Of Its Burial?

The current conjuncture of the revolution in Nepal must be seen in this context of the crossroads now facing the entire international communist movement. It is coming at a time when, thirty years after the defeat of proletarian rule in Mao’s China and after decades of relentless anti-communist assault by the imperialists and their apologists the world over, the whole international communist movement has reached a low point in the effectiveness of its struggle and, most importantly, in its ideological clarity and its resolve to fulfill its revolutionary objectives.

As it was put in a recent Manifesto from our Party,

“The temporary defeat of socialism and the end of the first stage of the communist revolution has …among other things… led to lowered sights and low dreams. Even among many people who once would have known better and would have striven higher, it has led, in the short run, to acceptance of the idea that – in reality and at least for the foreseeable future – there can be no alternative to the world as it is, under the domination of imperialism and other exploiters. That the most one can hope for and work for are some secondary adjustments within the framework of accommodation to this system. That anything else – and especially the attempt to bring about a revolutionary rupture out of the confines of this system, aiming toward a radically different, communist world – is unrealistic and is bound to bring disaster.”[xi]

The necessity and desirability of completely sweeping away capitalist exploitation and radically transforming the whole planet is greater than ever before but the possibility of such a revolutionary transformation is not seen or is denied. Complex new problems in making revolution have emerged – for example the massive trend toward urbanization in the oppressed countries – while the very conditions of capitalism and imperialism’s breakneck “triumphal” development of the last several decades has actually further prepared the ground for the victory of the proletarian revolution by furthering the great class cleavages, by tying the destinies of the masses of people in different countries even more tightly together, and by ever more clearly revealing the world capitalist system as an obstacle to the further advance of human society.

We must prepare and lead a whole wave of proletarian revolution that can show both in its vision and in its practice how it will be possible to take society to a completely different place. It is in this light that the revolution in Nepal must be seen. If it can clarify its objectives and overcome its current predicament, the revolution in Nepal will rekindle hopes in the ranks of the genuine communists and conscious revolutionary masses the world over. The People’s War fuelled the hope that, after several decades in which the imperialists and the reactionary ruling classes have controlled every country on the earth, a new state was being born where the masses of the people led by the proletariat and its vanguard communist party would hold power. The People’s War cracked open the door to see how political power in the hands of the masses could be used to thoroughly uproot the old semi-feudal and capitalist social relations and build a radically different society opposed to the world imperialist system, a beacon for the revolutionary masses in the volatile South Asian region. But the revisionism and eclecticism from the leadership of the CPN(M) is snuffing out this very hope and instead is reinforcing the message of the international bourgeoisie that there is no real alternative to the imperialist system, that the only real possibility is to improve the position of the country (or really that of its ruling class) within this imperialist system.

In this letter we will only briefly protest against the present international line of the CPN(M) leadership. It has been shown over and over again that the international orientation of a political party is not a minor matter somehow unconnected to its overall ideological and political line. Today we see the CPN(M) leadership presenting imperialist and reactionary enemies as friends and even treating some of them as “strategic allies” of the revolution. How are we to understand the many speeches and articles justifying the suppression of the masses in Tibet[xii] or worse, those extolling the “wonders” that China has accomplished under revisionist rule? And not a word[xiii] about the tens of thousands of Chinese children poisoned by the milk adulterated by the capitalists or those buried under the rubble of schools built by unscrupulous contractors.

We often hear comrades of the CPN(M) justify this or that tactic on a national or international scale in order to “make use of contradictions among the enemies”. Certainly this is a necessary and correct part of revolutionary tactics, but only if those tactics flow from the fundamental strategic interests of the proletarian revolution and if those tactics do not violate revolutionary communist principles.

New Synthesis Or Tired Old Bourgeois Democracy?

One of the great tragedies of the great right turn in the CPN(M) has been that instead of helping the revival of the communist movement internationally by showing the viability of a revolutionary communist orientation, which the People’ War objectively did in large measure, the Party’s present line and practice is only strengthening the “anti‑communist verdict” that the imperialists and reactionaries have tried to impose throughout the world, especially following the defeat in China and the collapse of the USSR.[xiv]

Now, when the first wave of proletarian revolution that began with the Paris Commune and continued through the Cultural Revolution in China has ended and a new wave of proletarian revolution has yet to break forth, questions of ideology have taken on a particular importance. Bob Avakian has stepped forward to the challenge of summing up the tremendous experience of the first wave of proletarian revolution, its grievous shortcomings as well as its heroic accomplishments, and has brought forward a New Synthesis. To quote from our party’s Manifesto, “there is an analogy to what was done by Marx at the beginning of the communist movement – establishing in the new conditions that exist, after the end of the first stage of the communist revolution, a theoretical framework for the renewed advance of that revolution. But today, and with this new synthesis, it is most emphatically not a matter of ‘back to the drawing board’, as if what is called for is throwing out both the historical experience of the communist movement and the socialist societies it brought into being and ‘the rich body of revolutionary scientific theory’ that developed through this first wave. That would represent an unscientific, and in fact a reactionary, approach. Rather, what is required – and what Avakian has undertaken – is building on all that has gone before, theoretically and practically, drawing the positive and the negative lessons from this, and raising this to a new, higher level of synthesis.”

But unfortunately, the leadership of the CPN(M) has adopted an opposite approach that accepts the unscientific anti‑communist verdicts of the international bourgeoisie and renounces the dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transition toward socialism and communism. Instead, the very old ideology of bourgeois democracy is being presented as “Communism of the twenty-first Century” and the actual communism of the twenty-first century as it is concretely emerging is being ignored, belittled or opposed.

“Emancipators Of Humanity” Or Builders Of A New Switzerland?

One of the central points that Bob Avakian has been emphasizing as part of the New Synthesis that he has been bringing forward is the crucial importance of communists seeing themselves and training the proletariat to be “emancipators of humanity”. This is far different from seeing the role of the revolution as simply improving the lot of the specific section of the masses who have supported it. Yes, the revolution must and will dramatically improve the lives of the masses of people and, in fact, capitalist development will not bring about a better life for the majority. In desperately poor Nepal the question of lifting the heavy burden of poverty is a crucial part of any revolutionary transformation.

A basic question is whether development must come by being more integrated into the capitalist and imperialist system – that is by welcoming and organizing more capitalist exploitation – or whether the socialist road is actually possible: building a viable and emancipatory social and economic system that in a fundamental sense is opposed to the world capitalist system.

This is one of the reasons we find it so strange to see the CPN(M) promising the “ten, twenty, forty” to the masses (doubling the gross national product in ten years, doubling it again in the following ten years and “reaching the level of Switzerland” within forty years). Not only would this imply a growth rate far greater than has ever been achieved before, such as in China under Mao, but it implies that the imperialists will actually help bring these developments about. In fact, repeated experience in the real world shows that wherever the imperialist system reaches, backwardness and poverty are far from eradicated, even if “bubbles” of development grow and benefit a minority of urban dwellers.

Now, bit-by-bit, it is being revealed that this transformation will be possible by becoming the “dynamic link” between India and China. So what is this really saying? It is saying that by making Nepal a functioning, “dynamic” part of the world imperialist system, somehow the country will benefit from the capitalist development of India and China and their interrelation. This dream is both impossible and reactionary. Even if the reactionary states and the imperialists were persuaded to accept this model, it would certainly be a relative handful of the wealthy in Kathmandu Valley who would be part of this “dynamic link”, while the great majority of the population would be left to rot in the countryside or in the slums. With China and India both hellholes for the masses of people in the countryside and the slums, why would the “dynamic link” between them be any different? Is this really what is in the interests of the masses in Nepal? How does this model fit with the task of promoting revolution in India, China and elsewhere?

Not only is this vision based completely on a model of vigorous uninterrupted capitalism, this goal of becoming a Switzerland is itself quite revealing. After all, what is Switzerland? It is a small highly parasitic and reactionary imperialist state that has grown very wealthy due to its particular position as a major center of banking and finance of the world imperialist system, located in the heart of imperialist Europe. Does such a goal and vision have anything to do with achieving communism? In other words, a country can only become a “Switzerland” based on achieving a privileged position in the imperialist world and sharing in the plunder of the majority of mankind. Is this really what the masses in Nepal have fought for? How does this goal help emancipate humanity?

It is ironic that at the very moment the CPN(M) leadership is seeking a development model based on the continued and uninterrupted development of imperialism, the crisis of world capitalism is exploding all around them. Capitalist China and India will also suffer as the contradictions of world capitalism catch up with it, and even the dream of a Nepalese “dynamic hub” between these two reactionary states could well explode in a puff of smoke.

It is impossible to overestimate the role a genuine proletarian revolutionary state could make in transforming the still mainly unfavorable international situation. Such a regime may not be able to set growth records for capitalist development, but it could take giant steps forward, and quickly, to solve many of the most basic problems of the masses, such as food security, employment within the country, sanitation, basic health services in the rural areas, and much more. The existence of such a state, even a small one like Nepal, would rekindle hope among the oppressed masses, especially in the region, and demonstrate that a revolutionary path is possible.

So the choice is between pursuing a path of integration into the capitalist system, which might benefit relatively small strata, or pursuing a development path based on the interests and needs of the great majority of the people in opposition to the world capitalist system. Yes, this latter, socialist, road is difficult, and there is no guarantee of how events will unfold. But we are guaranteed that a capitalist Nepal can only mean misery for the majority, and a state based on this economic system cannot help but be one more link in the web of relations that keep the world enslaved to the world imperialist system.

When we say that the dominant line of the CPN(M) leadership represents a “bourgeois” orientation, we are not hurling insults or impugning the character of the comrades. We are simply stressing what we consider to be a scientific evaluation of the incorrect line they are leading: the conception of “pure democracy” standing apart from and “above” the cleavage of society into classes corresponds to the capitalist mode of production and not to the communist outlook based on the goal of surpassing class divisions. And so we are not at all surprised that the Party leadership is now loudly proclaiming the benefits of capitalism and proposing concrete programs for the acceleration of capitalism in the country. What we have seen in the recent months is nothing other than the first “fruits” of the tree of capitalism under this line and leadership, and you can be sure that other, ever more sour fruits will be sure to follow.

Despite the claims of the CPN(M) leaders that they are aiming eventually to achieve a communist society, in truth they completely confound democracy and communism. They are themselves prisoners of their own world outlook. Furthermore, the CPN(M) leadership is falling into the age‑old revisionist error that the achievement of communism depends primarily on the further advance of the productive forces, to be achieved by capitalist ends. This is precisely the line that Mao and the revolutionaries in China fought out in the course of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution against Liu Shao‑chi and later Deng Xiao‑ping.

Earlier in the history of the Chinese revolution, the question was clearly posed as to whether it would be possible to build socialism in a backward country. Indeed, Mao’s whole thesis of New Democracy was based very much on showing how it was possible to do so and, of course, he then went about doing so in practice. In the course of the Cultural Revolution Mao raised the slogan “grasp revolution, promote production”, thus correctly showing that the productive forces of society could be unleashed by further revolutionary transformation – the exact opposite of the argument that many are making in Nepal now that development must come by capitalist means.

Two‑Line Struggle Or “Three Lines”?

One of the particularities of centrism and eclecticism is its refusal to make a clear‑cut demarcation between Marxism and revisionism, but instead to try to carve out a position “half‑way” between a revolutionary communist ideology and politics and outright capitulation and opportunism. In Nepal it is this form of centrist revisionism that has become the greater danger, not those who unabashedly proclaim their adhesion to the ideology of multiparty democracy and the glories of capitalism. The tired refrain is that there is the danger of revisionism or rightism “on the one hand”, but there is also the danger of “dogmatism” on the other, and that by skillfully maneuvering between these two obstacles the Party has gone from victory to victory. Or, there is the recognition‑in-words of fundamental principles, the “ABCs of Marxism”, such as the need to smash the existing state apparatus, while the Party’s actual policy goes completely contrary to this goal.

This brings us back to the argument we and other comrades have raised regarding the CPN(M)’s repudiation of the Maoist principle of “one divides into two”. The belief in the possibility and even necessity of reconciling or “fusing” together antagonist opposites has become a deeply engrained part of the CPN(M) leadership’s approach.[xv] The fusion of Marxism and reformism is really not a brilliant new contribution to the communist movement. It is just one more unfortunate and tragic case where the communist leadership has lost its bearings.

We should remind comrades that every revisionist party always has a “left” whose role objectively is to provide an outlet for the discontent of the masses and sections of the rank and file, while keeping these same sections bound to the political program of the party leadership. The point is not the lack of sincerity of those who still try to combine justification and support of the CPN(M)’s objectively capitulationist line with language upholding proletarian revolution. The problem is that such language in support of revolution becomes meaningless, a mere deception of oneself and others, unless it is combined with an all‑out struggle against the very revisionism that is threatening the advance of the revolution.

Eclecticism and centrism, especially when raised to the level of philosophical approach and principle as is the case with the CPN(M) leadership, do not represent a position that is “half correct” or somehow more correct than an openly revisionist position. On the contrary, it is a form of revisionism in which an anti-Marxist ideology and political line are allowed to flourish and are actually determining the course of political action, while better sounding words serve to cover over this reality and confuse the masses and comrades. Lenin’s words, which the Chinese comrades often referred to during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, are cruel but unfortunately right on target: “In falsifying Marxism in opportunist fashion, the substitution of eclecticism for dialectics is the easiest way of deceiving the people. It gives an illusory satisfaction; it seems to take into account all sides of the process, all trends of development, all the conflicting influences, and so forth, whereas in reality it provides no integral and revolutionary conception of the process of social development at all.”[xvi]

Yes, there is a marked tendency toward dogmatism in the ranks of RIM and the ICM more generally. But the CPN(M) “solution” is not the antidote to the dogmatic disease. A dogmatic refusal to make a “concrete analysis of concrete conditions” as Lenin referred to “the living soul of Marxism” has often gone hand-in-hand with revisionist political positions.

Rather than look to find a “middle ground” between two opposite forms of revisionism, be it the classic rightist form or sterile dogmatism, and end up incorporating the worst features of each, we propose that comrades focus their attention on what is in common between these “mirror opposite” forms of revisionism. The Manifesto recently issued by our Party points to the following common features of both forms of revisionism prevalent in the ICM as a whole:

“** Never taking up – or never engaging in any systematic way with – a scientific summation of the previous stage of the communist movement, and in particular Mao Tsetung’s path-breaking analysis concerning the danger of and basis for capitalist restoration in socialist society. Thus, while they may uphold – or may in the past have upheld – the Cultural Revolution in China, they lack any real, or profound, understanding of why this Cultural Revolution was necessary and why and with what principles and objectives Mao initiated and led this Cultural Revolution. They reduce this Cultural Revolution to, in effect, just another episode in the exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat – or, on the other hand, reinterpret it as some kind of bourgeois‑democratic ‘anti‑bureaucracy’ movement, which in essence represents a negation of the need for a communist vanguard and its institutionalized leading role in socialist society, throughout the transition to communism.

** The common tendency to reduce ‘Maoism’ to just a prescription for waging people’s war in a Third World country, while again ignoring, or diminishing the importance of, Mao’s most important contribution to communism: his development of the theory and line of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and all the rich analysis and scientific method that underlay and made possible the development of that theory and line.

** Positivism, pragmatism, and empiricism. While again, this may take different expressions in accordance with different particular erroneous viewpoints and approaches, what is common to them is the vulgarization and degradation of theory – reducing it to a ‘guide to practice’ only in the most narrow and immediate sense, treating theory as, in essence, a direct outgrowth of particular practice, and attempting to establish an equivalence between advanced practice (which itself, especially on these people’s part, involves an element of subjective and arbitrary evaluation) and supposedly advanced theory. A scientific communist, materialist and dialectical, viewpoint leads to the understanding that practice is the ultimate point of origin and point of verification of theory; but, in opposition to these narrow, empiricist distortions, this must be understood to mean practice in the broad sense, encompassing broad social and historical experience, and not simply the direct experience of a particular individual, group, party, or nation. The very founding, and the further development of, communist theory itself is a powerful demonstration of this: From the time of Marx, this theory has been forged and enriched by drawing from a broad array of experience, in a wide range of fields and over a broad expanse of historical development, in society and nature. Practice as the source of theory and the maxim that ‘practice is the criterion of truth’ can be, and will be, turned into a profound untruth if this is interpreted and applied in a narrow, empiricist, and subjective manner.

** Very significantly, these ‘mirror opposite’ erroneous tendencies have in common being mired in, or retreating into, models of the past, of one kind or another (even if the particular models may differ): either clinging dogmatically to the past experience of the first stage of the communist revolution – or, rather, to an incomplete, one‑sided, and ultimately erroneous understanding of that – or retreating into the whole past era of bourgeois revolution and its principles: going back to what are in essence eighteenth century theories of (bourgeois) democracy, in the guise, or in the name, of ‘twenty-first‑century communism’, in effect equating this ‘twenty-first‑century communism’ with a democracy that is supposedly ‘pure’ or ‘classless’ – a democracy which, in reality, as long as classes exist, can only mean bourgeois democracy, and bourgeois dictatorship. All this while ignoring, treating as outdated, or dismissing as dogma (or consigning to the meaningless category of the ‘ABCs of communism’, which are acknowledged as an abstraction and then put to the side as irrelevant to the practical struggle) the fundamental, scientific communist understanding, paid for literally and repeatedly in the blood of millions of the oppressed from the time of the Paris Commune, that the old, reactionary state must be smashed and dismantled and a radically new state must be brought into being, representing the revolutionary interests of the formerly exploited in transforming all of society and emancipating all of humanity, or else any gains of the revolutionary struggle will be squandered and destroyed, and the revolutionary forces decimated.”[xvii]

In Summation: Fight To Save The Revolution!

It is true that now that the Party has dug itself such a big hole it will be difficult to dig out. But however difficult this task may be, the only solution is a real radical rupture, a revolution in thinking, a determined and protracted effort to criticize and repudiate the revisionist orientation that has been increasingly dominating the Party ideologically, politically and organizationally. Anything short of such a determined effort, any attempts to maneuver and “finesse” away from the abyss without confronting the magnitude and source of the problem will not only fail to avoid the impending disaster but will actually be ideologically and politically paralyzing. “Half‑solutions” are no solution at all and, on the contrary, part of the problem.

We are not in a position to comment on what tactics or immediate steps the CPN(M) should take in the present situation. But we are convinced that if fundamental clarity is achieved on the vital questions of the state and revolution, the comrades in Nepal can find appropriate means to reverse the current path. The CPN(M) enjoys a tremendous reservoir of support from among the masses of the people of the whole country. The People’s War ignited the hopes of the long downtrodden and unleashed them. The masses of the poor peasantry, the oppressed nationalities, women and oppressed castes need the revolution to go forward and will never be satisfied by a few representatives in parliament or government. The PLA is in peril, but it has not yet fallen victim to the conspiracies to dissolve it. And despite the efforts of the Party leadership to pander to the backward ideas of the urban middle classes (especially their illusions about “pure democracy”), experience has shown that the educated youth, intellectuals and others from the middle strata can be won to the side of the revolution on a positive basis by showing how their interests can best be fulfilled not by aborting the revolution but by carrying it through to its victory. Despite the great damage of the wrong line in command of the Party, a strong objective basis remains to rescue the revolution and carry it through to the establishment of a revolutionary state led by the proletariat and its vanguard.

On the other hand, unless the Party abandons its current confusion on the nature of the state, on the class nature of dictatorship and democracy, on the confounding of the socialist road and the capitalist road, and the confusion of friends and enemies on the international scale, all efforts to rectify the present state of affairs will be in vain. It will not be possible to reduce the fever without attacking the underlying sickness that is causing it.

The main form that revisionism has been taking in Nepal – and a major problem in our Movement as a whole – has been eclecticism and centrism. While some leaders of the Party have all along expressed their support for the political system of bourgeois democracy and their belief in the necessity for the country to pass through a whole stage of capitalism, the greater problem has been those in the Party leadership who have floundered ideologically – confusing bourgeois democracy with the New Democratic dictatorship, combining two into one, confusing strategy and tactics, confounding secondary and principal aspects of a contradiction, talking one language in private and another in public, and in general saying one thing and doing another.

The problem can be overcome, but only if a radical rupture takes place with the current dominant centrism and eclectics. This means that a pressing and immediate task is the ideological reaffirmation of the basic goals of the proletarian revolution as distinct from bourgeois democracy, reaffirming the New Democratic revolution as the vehicle for achieving this in Nepal, and reaffirming the basic means to accomplish the revolution. On this basis it will be possible to sweep away the cobwebs of revisionism, eclecticism and centrism and really meet the challenges of communism of the twenty-first century. It is worthwhile recalling that one of the main focal points of the final ferocious struggle against the capitalist roaders in China was the debate over the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chang Chun-chiao, one of the main leaders of Mao’s revolutionary headquarters in the party, spoke sharply to some of the other party leaders who were not playing a good role in the struggle. He pointed out: some of you consider the study of the dictatorship of the proletariat to be a “flexible task”, but the capitalist roaders understand very clearly that it is an “inflexible task” with life and death implications for the revolution. Similarly, the current debate concerning the path forward in Nepal is no less vital.

Our comrades in Nepal are caught in a swamp and in dire danger of drowning. And what has been the reaction of RIM comrades in other countries to this emergency? While a few have tried to assist as best they can, unfortunately some others have thrown flowers to the floundering comrades when what they critically need is a strong rope to pull themselves out of the swamp. The necessary rope exists: it is nothing other than the revolutionary communist ideological and political line, its stand, viewpoint and method. It is a scientific understanding of the world and the revolutionary process, which is constantly developing as it steadfastly upholds and builds upon the achievements as well as summing up the positive and negative experiences of the first wave of proletarian revolution, incorporates discoveries and advances in every sphere of human endeavor and confronts both new problems of revolution and old problems in new forms. The current two-line struggle within the CPN(M) is taking place within the context of the greater question of whether, and on what basis, a whole new wave of world proletarian revolution can be brought forward.

The experience of the revolution in Nepal is very rich indeed, and one can see the real-life implications of political and ideological line, both positively through the ten years of People’s War and more recently negatively in the period of dismantling the people’s power. Nevertheless, the belief that the advanced practice of the Nepal revolution has made it unnecessary to learn from advanced understanding from other comrades is part of the pragmatism and empiricism that has, unfortunately, been a growing part of the CPN(M) leadership’s ideological orientation for some time now. Any effort to resolve the crisis in the CPN(M) only “on its own terms”, and on nationalist or empiricist grounds to ignore or resist the advanced revolutionary communist understanding developing elsewhere is to severely handicap the struggle for a correct line. In particular, we sincerely hope that the comrades of the CPN(M) will give serious attention to engaging with the body of work, method and approach, the New Synthesis, that Bob Avakian has been bringing forward.

We will conclude by sending our warm greetings to the leaders, cadres and fighters of the CPN(M) at this crucial crossroads of the revolution and our hopes that the crucial struggle will be carried through to a successful conclusion. The correct political and ideological line is capable of transforming the present direction of the Party and avoiding the abyss. Those who have played a revolutionary role in the past can, if armed with a correct line, cast off the baggage of eclecticism, pragmatism and centrism and retake the revolutionary road. But this will only be achieved by fighting through for the necessary radical rupture. We pledge again to do everything we can to assist you in this struggle, which will not only determine the future for Nepal but is inseparable from the crucial questions that are now facing the entire international communist movement.

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

4 November 2008

Notes

[i] See Red Star, Number 15, “Fall of Koirala Dynasty”.

[ii] A decisive turning point in this process was in October 2005 when a line struggle in the Party reached a culmination at the Central Committee meeting. One of the important subjects in that two-line struggle was whether or not the revolution must pass through the stage of anti-monarchical struggle and the establishment of a bourgeois democracy (“transitional state”). In typical eclectic fashion, this thesis was rejected theoretically by saying that such a sub-stage was not an absolute requirement but at the same time this thesis was made the guiding line for the practice of the party as a “tactic”, which opened the way to the series of agreements with the parliamentary parties and effectively made the immediate goal of the revolution the formation of a bourgeois republic.

[iii]  From the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, adopted August 28, 1973.

[iv] See Mao Tsetung on thus subject, especially “On New Democracy”, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 339.

[v] See Red Star, Number 16.

[vi] Karl Marx, The Civil War in France.

[vii] In our October 2005 letter speaking to the “New State” article, we argued that the ideology of classless democracy (or “pure democracy”) corresponded to capitalism where goods must be exchanged according to “equal” value and where this formal equality covers over the actual exploitation of the working class (the exchange of a “fair day’s pay” for a “fair day’s work”). See Bob Avakian’s book Democracy Can’t We Do Better than That?, as well as his polemic against K. Venu “Democracy: More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better than That”, which appeared in the journal A World to Win, Number 17. Many of these and other writings of Bob Avakian and the RCP are available for downloading at the web address:www.revcom.us or www.bobavakian.net

[viii] Bob Avakian has done important work on the subject of democracy as well as re-envisioning the process of socialist revolution including bringing forward the concept of “a solid core with a lot of elasticity”. In addition to the works on democracy cited above, see his discussion of the socialist revolution in, among other recent writings, “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity” in Revolution and Communism: A Foundation and Strategic Orientation (2008).

[ix] See Red Star, Number 14, “The Essentials for Fusing Two Armies”.

[x] The comrades of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) have summed up at length the error of their predecessor organization, the Union of Iran Communists, in this regard.

[xi] Communism: the Beginning of a New Stage: A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, September 2008.

[xii] We are well aware of the fact that the US imperialists and others are making use of the reactionary nature of the Tibetan leadership, especially the Dalai Lama, to put pressure on China and manipulate the discontent of the Tibetan masses. But this does not change the fact that real national oppression exists in Tibet, nor does it justify the vicious repression by the Chinese authorities.

[xiii] Here we can only speak of the English language materials of the CPN(M). If such exposure of the true nature of capitalist China has appeared in Nepali publications we would like to have them pointed out to us.

[xiv] Although the USSR had long previously become a revisionist, social‑imperialist superpower, the fact that its leaders still referred to themselves as “communists” made the collapse of this regime and the unchallenged hegemony of the US and other “Western democracies” an occasion for further anti communist “summation” from the Western imperialists and other reactionaries.

[xv] See the argument that the CPN(M) made on this question in their reply to our October 2005 letter [...]and the criticism of this point in both our letter of March 19, 2008 [...].

[xvi] Lenin, “The State and Revolution”, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 405.

[xvii] We strongly encourage comrades to study Communism the Beginning of a New Stage: a Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which includes our party’s understanding of the overall situation of the international communist movement in today’s juncture and discusses the lessons of a major struggle within our own party to uphold and advance communist principles.

Publié dans : Marxisme leninisme الماركسية اللينينية
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Lundi 11 mai 2009 1 11 /05 /Mai /2009 14:08

ABOUT PROFESSIONAL BOLSHEVIKS-REVOLUTI ONARIES

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!  

FOR BOLSHEVISM  

INSIDE THE COMMUNIST AND WORKERS’ MOVEMENT         

AUCPB - ВКПБ
No 4 (73  )APRIL 2009                                                                                            

                                                                                            
            We have repeatedly discussed questions with you on the merging of our Bolshevik party work with the workers’ and protest movement, with the struggle of the working people for their rights. 
            We have repeatedly discussed questions with you on the merging of our Bolshevik party work with the workers’ and protest movement, with the struggle of the working people for their rights.

 

But, unfortunately, the results in this area are little more than modest. Only separate organisations are aiming on a daily basis to solve this task, expanding the party ranks, understanding that two, three or five people, even with their whole self-conviction, courage and loyalty to the ideals of Marxism-Leninism, to the cause of Lenin-Stalin, they cannot get behind them the thousands and tens of thousands of working people of their city or district. And indeed revolution is brought about by the masses of the working people, when millions of people rise up to the struggle. And to get them to follow can only be done by a party closely connected with them, living one life with people of labour, reflecting the root needs and aims of the working people in their everyday activity and struggle and, at the same time, pointing out the way to the working people and liberating them from exploitation and oppression.

I think that our fault lies in the absence of professionalism in our party work.

This is how Vladimir Ilyich Lenin put the question on professional revolutionaries in his outstanding work “What is To Be Done”, written at the start of the 20 century ) Autumn 1901 – February 1902) for the activity of a proletarian party in the conditions of the most brutal tsarist censorship and police brutality.

I shall cite separate extracts from his work:

“The fact is, of course, that our movement cannot be unearthed, for the very reason that it has countless thousands of roots deep down among the masses; but that is not the point at issue. As far as “deep roots” are concerned, we cannot be “unearthed” even now, despite all our amateurism, and yet we all complain, and cannot but complain, that the “organisations” are being unearthed and as a result it is impossible to maintain continuity in the movement. But since you raise the question of organisations being unearthed and persist in your opinion, I assert that it is far more difficult to unearth a dozen wise men than a hundred fools.

“As I have stated repeatedly, by “wise men”, in connection with organisation, I mean professional revolutionaries, irrespective of whether they have developed from among students or working men. I assert: (1) that no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organisation of leaders maintaining continuity; (2) that the broader the popular mass drawn spontaneously into the struggle, which forms the basis of the movement and participates in it, the more urgent the need for such an organisation, and the more solid this organisation must be (for it is much easier for all sorts of demagogues to side-track the more backward sections of the masses); (3) that such an organisation must consist chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity; (4) that in an autocratic state, the more we confine the membership of such an organisation to people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the more difficult will it be to unearth the organisation; and (5) the greater will be the number of people from the working class and from the other social classes who will be able to join the movement and perform active work in it.”

“In this way, and in this way alone - (here, Lenin is talking about the study of illegal material, and about its distribution, and about demonstrations and other functions of the movement) - shall we ensure that reading the illegal press, writing for it, and to some extent even distributing it, will almost cease to be secret work, for the police will soon come to realise the folly and impossibility of judicial and administrative red-tape procedure over every copy of a publication that is being distributed in the thousands. This holds not only for the press, but for every function of the movement, even for demonstrations. The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a “dozen” experienced revolutionaries, trained professionally no less than the police, will centralise all the secret aspects of the work — the drawing up of leaflets, the working out of approximate plans; and the appointing of bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each institution, etc.”

“in order to “serve” the mass movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to Social-Democratic activities, and that such people must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries.”

“Give us an organisation of revolutionaries, and we will overturn Russia!”

***

And that is the way Lenin puts the questions.

As we can see, the strength of a proletarian party, the strength of Bolshevism lies in its monolithic connection with masses, in the fact that Bolshevism has “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of roots deep down in the masses”

Up until today, we, as a rule have been displaying complete inability to connect our daily party work with the life of people of labour. Many of us have learned to talk by slogans and quotes. But they are completely unable to use their knowledge of Marxism-Leninism in daily reality. Its turns out that party work runs along at its own speed, and life flows along by itself. This, at the root is not true. This can only be called sectarianism. Today’s comrades believe that everything should be decided by the Central Committee, the Secretariat of the CC or, in Ukraine for example, the Buro of the CC. But indeed the result and effectiveness of party work depends not just on the skills of the leading party organs on working out the correct political line and tactics of struggle. But and to also to embody the decisions worked out, in life. And this already depends on the local party organisations, on the activity of Bolsheviks in the localities, on their connection with masses of working people, that is, with the labour collectives, learning institutions, scientific establishments, agricultural enterprises etc. Lenin writes that “scores” of revolutionaries will get down to the work of preparing leaflets, that is, the printing of leaflets, the planning of action, “the appointing of bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory quarter, for each learning institution, etc”.

See how Lenin puts forth the task – the Bolsheviks must have an influence in every factory, plant, learning institution and every area of the city. But for this it is necessary that a party organisation, even if only made up of a few people, has tens of sympathisers in factories, plants, mines etc. Having one or two comrades in every factory or learning institution means ten will be gathered around the town, and then hundreds of sympathisers who exert a Bolshevik influence among the workers, students, pupils and employees of various types of establishments. Is it possible to win over tens and tens of sympathisers by distributing central party newspapers like “Raboche-Krestyanska ya Pravda” or “Serp I Molot” which are produced only once a month and in small numbers? No, of course not. Every party organisation must set up the publication of leaflets that reflect the state of affairs in the town, district, region, in this or that factory, enterprise, leaflets in which the anti-peoples policies of the local authorities or factory management are exposed.

In Kiev, Mr Chernovetsky, the Mayor, the city administration raised the fares for city rail transport 4 times: from 50 kopeeks to 4 gryvna. And how do the working people of Kiev respond? – They keep quiet. And the bourgeoisie need just that – so everyone stays silent. The Kiev organisation of the AUCPB prepared and printed a leaflet of protest against this rise in fares and called upon the working people to rise up to the struggle for their rights (the leaflet was published in Raboche-Krestyanska ya Pravda No12, 2008). But the quantity of leaflets printed was very small – in all only 100 copies. And in Kiev there are about 50 underground railways stations. In order to hand out on average 100 leaflets at every station we would need to print no less than 5 thousand leaflets. Only then could we start talking about some kind of Bolshevik influence on the people of Kiev.

And in this plan, an example has been shown to us by “Trudovaya Kharkovshina”. In “RKP” No1 the leaflet by our Kharkov comrades has been published under the title “Enough of putting up with bourgeois disorder and destruction of the people!”. In this leaflet an analysis is given on the state of affairs at enterprises of Kharkov and the region, and it shows how the bourgeoisie is mercilessly closing down enterprises and throwing tens of thousands of working people onto the streets without any means of existence. And “Trudovaya Kharkovshina” appeals to the workers and working people with calls such as “Death to capitalism!”, “Long live the impending socialist revolution!” and calling on them to rise up to the struggle for their rights. It is good that the Kharkov organisation of the AUCPB, and the editorial of the newspaper “Raboche-Krestyanska ya Pravda” have for a long time set up cooperation with comrades from “Trudovaya Kharkovshina”. But indeed such an analysis of the state of affairs needs to be done in every region, every major industrial centre, every town, city and village. And this is the task of the party organisers of the Central Committee and local party organisations of the AUCPB. But our comrades from Lugansk, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozh, Kherson, Simferopolya and others are staying silent, as if no mass closures of enterprises and establishments is taking place and that thousands and thousands of people are being left without jobs and a means to existence.

The most important task of each local organisation is to set up the systematic production of leaflets reflecting the state of affairs in the localities and calling on the working people to rise up to the struggle for their rights. But this needs to be learned and to find young people who work on computers and can produce good quality leaflets.

In general, the task of every Bolshevik, of every professional revolutionary is to constantly study, to study Marxism-Leninism and most importantly, the skills to utilise the knowledge gained in daily practical activity and raise our common culture (in this connection we remember the words of V.I. Lenin when he said “a person may only become a communist only when he has enriched his memory with knowledge of all that wealth which has been gathered by humanity”, to learn the art and skill of working with people and attracting them over to our side, to our Bolshevik side (90% of the inhabitants of Ukraine exist on miserly kopeeks and are struggling to survive; we Bolsheviks live and exist in such conditions too on low pensions, wages, student grants and do not know how to go to the masses?!) to master the art of public speaking and carrying out propaganda work etc., etc.

For leaders and secretaries of party organisations and organisers of the CC, it is very important to have the skills in selecting the right people and place those Bolsheviks in those areas of work where they can demonstrate their skills most effectively.  Some may be good at distributing Bolshevik press, some good at writing articles into newspapers, some – good at photography, others good at publishing leaflets, or working on computers, skilled at using the Internet and from there gathering information and critically analysing it, etc.

I would like to once again remind every CC partorg that your primary task is the forming of party structures in the localities. Many CC partorgs for many years have not recruited any comrades into the party. And this means they are simply not working with people in the given direction, have let this question slip or simply let it all go, which is inadmissible for a Bolshevik. Without any growth in the party ranks (not for the sake of membership growth alone and noone wants just a formal growth in membership because that is even more harmful) we cannot solve the tasks set forth by our party and will simply be unable to influence the masses with our Bolshevik influence.

Obviously, the rank of professional revolutionary also means that he is maintained by the party and carries out only and exclusively party work. But our party does not have such a luxury. But separate comrades do carry on only party work existing on their own pension, others have to earn extra over and above, but a large number of Bolsheviks work in order to maintain their families and Bolshevik work has to be done in their own free time.

But in any case, a Bolshevik has to always remain a Bolshevik, to correspond to his high rank of belonging to the vanguard of the proletariat, with the determination and selflessness to fulfil voluntarily the party responsibilities given to him – that is, to always remain a revolutionary, a fighter for the rights of the working people.

Another very important task for every Bolshevik and more so for every leader (secretary of a party organisation, party organiser of the CC and high-standing leaders) is in the attracting of young people over to our Bolshevik activity and to the struggle along with the training up of suitable replacements. Without the youth, we cannot guarantee gains in the movement. Namely the combining of living experience and knowledge of the senior comrades with youthful energy and ardour and make the flames of the impending socialist revolution which will sweep from the face of the earth rotten to the core imperialism.

Every one of us, every Bolshevik must understand that preparing the party and masses for revolution is not the result of some kind of spur of the moment upsurge, but that Bolshevik work lasts for years, that this is a lengthy struggle together with the working people for their rights, for their liberation. Only in such work and in such struggle does a Bolshevik become hardened, strengthen his character and forge out of himself a true revolutionary:

“it has to take years to turn oneself into a true revolutionary” (Lenin)

***

The situation in Ukraine is hardening. The closure of enterprises, the appearance of thousands and millions of newly unemployed people, the hikes in prices and tariffs on the most vital necessities for the lives of working people, all of this will inevitably lead to a growth in the struggle of the working people for their rights.

Our duty and most important duty of every Bolshevik, every party organisation is to take active part in this struggle, to be its vanguard, to raise the working class and working people of Ukraine up to the struggle for liberation from exploitation and oppression.

It is namely in such a struggle that one can become a true professional revolutionary and bring closer the implementing of the tasks standing in front of our party – to achieve the overthrowing of the power of capital, the revival of Soviet power and socialism and the revival of our great Soviet Motherland.

A. MAEVSKY

10 January 2009,

KIEV

Publié dans : Marxisme leninisme الماركسية اللينينية
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