Auteur/autrice : IoULeeM0n

  • Nepal – Timeline of the people’s war

    April 1, 1986 : Communist Party of Nepal – Mashal tries without success to launch an armed process against the elections. In Kathmandu the statue of King Tribhuvan is painted black and a number of police posts attacked.

    April 9, 1990 : the ban on political parties is lifted.

    November 9, 1990 : a new constitution is promulgated.

    November 19-20, 1990 : merger of the Communist Party of Nepal (Mashal), the Communist Party of Nepal (Fourth Convention), the Proletarian Workers Organisation, the Communist Party of Nepal (Janamukhi). The name of the new organization is Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre).

    April 6, 1991 : violent incidents around the general strike, the police kills a dozen people.

    May 12, 1991 : the United People’s Front Nepal, generated organism of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre), becomes the third largest party in the parliament with 9 seats (UML : 68 seats, Nepali Congress : 110 seats).

    May 22, 1994 : process of splitting of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre), with Puspa Kamal Dahal, known as Prachanda on one side, Nirmal Lama on the other.

    March, 1995 : the Third Plenum of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre) abandons elections and the organization becomes the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre), under the leadership of Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai.

    September, 1995 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist-Centre) adopts the principle of People’s War, for which three fronts are organized : the Sindhuli, Kavre and Sindhupalchok Districts in eastern Nepal, the Gorkha and Lamjung Districts in central Nepal, the Rolpa, Rukum and Jajarkot Districts in midwestern Nepal. The state answers with the two-months during “Operation Romeo”, arresting more than 130 people without warrants, nearly 6,000 others being driven out of their villages, raping dozens of women.

    February 4, 1996 : Baburam Bhattarai representing the United People’s Front Nepal, presents a forty-point list of demands to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

    February 13, 1996 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) launches the People’s War. It is present with Committees in 35 of the 75 Districts of the country, having three kind of organizations : the Radak Dal i.e. the Fighting Groups, the Gaun Surakcha Dal i.e. the Village Defence Groups and the Swayamsewaka Dal i.e. the Volunteer Groups. At the beginning, the arms are a 303 rifle, some homemade guns and the nepali knives called Khukhuris. 6,000 actions are made in 15 days, belonging to four types : propaganda, sabotage; guerilla actions, execution of class enemies.

    May 26, 1998 : the Police begins the operation “Kilo Sierra II” in Rukum and Rolpa.

    November 27, 1998 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) calls to develop base areas.

    August 7, 2000 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) rejects peace talks offer.

    January 22, 2001 : the State announces the formation of the Combat Brigades called Armed Police Force.

    February 2001 : Second National Conference of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which adopts Prachanda long strategic document : “The Great Leap Forward: An Inevitable Need of History”. This will be called “Prachanda Path”.

    “Through the internal contradiction of the imperialists, unequal development and distribution as per the inherent character of capitalism, the development of this objective situation will lead to the revolution in any country in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and its international importance is just evident. It magnificently justifies Mao’s analysis that Asia, Africa and Latin America shall be the storm centres of revolution. These characteristics clearly indicate that 21st century shall be the century of people’s wars, and the triumph of the world socialist system. Apart from this, it also shows that there has been a significant change in the prevailing concept of model of revolution after 1980. Today the fusion of the strategies of armed insurrection and protracted people’s war into one another has been essential. Without doing so, a genuine revolution seems almost impossible in any country (…).

    Actually, the new situation clearfy indicates the change in the nature of strategic difference that occurred between armed insurrection and protracted people’s war generally until the Eighties of 20th century.

    There should be no confusion at all that basically, the developed imperialist countries must essentially pursue the path of armed insurrection and the oppressed countries of the third world protracted people’s war even today.

    But the change occurred in the world situation as mentioned above has created a situation that necessarily links the characteristics of armed insurrection and protracted people’s war with one another, and, moreover, there is a need to do so.

    Because of this situation of the development, it has been almost impossible to successfully advance the strategy of protracted PW of encircling the city with villages and building base areas in any third world country, without pursuing several characteristics of armed insurrection from the beginning.

    The military line of general armed insurrection contains some fundamental characteristics such as continuous intervention by the political party of the proletariat at the centre of reactionary state on the ground of political propaganda right from the beginning, training the masses including the workers with continuous strikes and street struggles on the basis of revolutionary demands, developing works in the military force and bureaucracy of the enemy in a planned way, waging intensive political struggle against various revisionist and reformist groups from the central level, and, lastly, seizing the central state power through armed insurrection in appropriate International and national situation, etc. It is evident that the proletariat of a third world country should concede and apply the above-mentioned characteristics of general armed insurrection, too.”

    Mai 28, 2001 : Prachanda gives an interview to A World to Win, produced by the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.

    “The rapid development of people’s war is inevitable today after this leadership problem is solved through intense struggle against alien tendencies in the proletarian movement, mainly right revisionism. For the masses there is no alternative to rebellion and revolution, given the objective background of exploitation, repression and poverty prevalent in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries of the Third World (…).
    Taking the synthesis of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the highest expression of conscious class struggle, as our starting point, we delved into serious study We made a particularly fervent study of the ideological struggle that erupted in the process of the development of the Communist Party of Peru, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and in other countries (…).

    The Party has been striving to develop the people’s army according to the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: « without a People’s Army, the people have nothing », « political power grows out of the barrel of a gun », and « armed sea of masses », which are requirements for the revolution.”

    June 1 2001 : Gyanendra becomes king, as officially Prince Dipendra went mad and killed ten members of his family, including his brother the king, committing himself suicide. Dipendra was since the beginning of the year sent two times by the king as emissary to negociate with the the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    July 22, 2001 : Sher Bahadur Deuba becomes Prime Minister and calls to peace talks.

    July 25, 2001 : general ceasefire.

    August 30, 2001 : first round of peace talks, in Kathmandu.

    September 13-14, 2001 : second round of peace talks, in Bardiya district.

    November 13, 2001 : third round of peace talks, in Kathmandu.

    November 21, 2001 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) stops the peace talks, following by daring attacks police and military posts in forty-two districts, attacking for the first time the Royal Nepalese Army, in particular in Ghorahi (Dang District) with a 1,100 strong unit.

    November 26, 2001 : the government declares the state of emergency and the Royal Nepalese Army is mobilized.

    May 7, 2002 : the USA announces counter-insurgency support.

    May 15, 2002 : Great-Britain proposes counter-insurgency support, followed by India.

    May 22, 2002 : the King Gyanendra dissolves the Parliament.

    October 4, 2002 : the King Gyanendra takes control of the governement.

    January 29, 2003 : general ceasefire.

    April 27, 2003 : first round of peace talks, in Kathmandu.

    May 9, 2003 : second round of peace talks.

    August 17, 2003 : third round of peace talks. 17 cadres and 2 others persons are killed in a fake encounter at Doramba.

    August 27, 2003 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) withdraws from the peace talks.

    December 17, 2003 : the Royal Nepalese Army announces the killing of 1056 Maoists since the end of the ceasefire.

    April 2004 : during the last months, 11 out of the 95 Central Committee members of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) have been arrested in India.

    January 31, 2005 : Bhattarai is kept temporarily in custody and condemned with others cadres, following his refusal to centralize the People’s War and to launch an anti-India campaign, and his use of Nepali mainstream media in December 2004 to promote a “note of dissent”.

    February 1, 2005 : the King Gyanendra and the Royal Nepalese Army take the control of the state.

    April 29, 2005 : end of the emergency state.

    June 20, 2005 : the Seven Party Alliance calls the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to stop the people’s war and to join against the king.

    September 3, 2005 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) announces a three-month unilateral ceasefire.

    September 2005 : in France, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) begins the publishing of a series of articles about Nepal with Nepal : “lead the Revolution till the end or be defeated by sugar-coated bullets ?”, followed in October by “The Nepalese Revolution at a turning point : dare the new or « reform » the country?”.

    “In most of the « Third World » States, there is a more or less « democratic » constitution, which does not prevent the State from being a fascistic State, dominated by imperialism, bureaucratic bourgeoisie sold to that imperialism and great landowners.

    What does uniting traditional political parties then mean, since those parties are useless, discredited as pretending to be progressist but having done nothing against the fascistic State that they even characterised as democratic, and having always opposed People’s War? (…)

    One cannot speak of « vacillating » parties whereas those parties always supported the fascistic State, against People’s War.

    The CPN(m) is a Vanguard, it built on its fight against those traditional political parties’ opportunism, what is the point of reviving them whereas they are historically supplanted?

    It is not possible to assert on the one hand that People’s War in Nepal has entered the strategic offensive phase, and on the other hand to stop the armed struggle precisely while the old State has to be destroyed.

    The CPN(m) questions the fact that the Party leads the Army and the Front, after having built those three forms in turn. It places the Army under the guidance of the United Front, and subordinates the Party’s policy to the United Front, which is a questioning of the revolutionary principles.”

    October 2005 : the Chunwang Baithak Central Committe meeting of the the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) adopts the principle of the “democratic republic” instead of the “people’s republic” goal.

    November 15, 2005 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist) founded in 1981 reunifies his two factions, forming the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Centre).

    November 22, 2005 : the Seven Party Alliance and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) sign a 12 point agreement, calling for peace and the holding of a Constituent Assembly.

    February 10, 2006 : Prachanda gives a long interview to the Indian newspaper The Hindu.

    “We want to analyse the experience of revolution and counter-revolution in the 20th century on a new basis.

    Three years ago we took a decision in which we said how are we going to develop democracy is the key question in the 21st century. This meant the negative and positive lessons of the 20th century have to be synthesised in order for us to move ahead.

    And three years ago we decided we must go in for political competition. Without political competition, a mechanical or metaphysical attitude will be there. So this time, what we decided is not so new.

    In August, we took serious decisions on how practically to build unity with the parliamentary political parties. We don’t believe that the people’s war we initiated was against, or mainly against, multiparty democracy. It was mainly against feudal autocracy, against the feudal structure.”

    “That when we go for state power and are in power, then we will not do what Stalin or Mao did. Lenin did not have time to deal with issues of power. Although Stalin was a revolutionary, his approach, was not as scientific as it should have been, it was a little metaphysical, and then problems came.

    We also evaluated Mao in the plenum. If you look at his leadership from 1935 to 1976 – from when he was young to when he was old and even speaking was difficult – must he remain Chairman and handle everything? What is this?”

    “We must accept this ground reality. We have mentioned democratic republic and constituent assembly, with the understanding that we should be flexible given the balance in the class struggle and international situation. This is a policy, not tactics. This is a necessary process for the bourgeoisie and the national capitalists alike, let alone the middle-class.”

    “In the multiparty democracy which comes – interim government, constitutional assembly and democratic republic – we are ready to have peaceful competition with you all. Of course, people still have a doubt about us because we have an army.

    And they ask whether after the constitutional assembly we will abandon our arms. This is a question. We have said we are ready to reorganise our army and we are ready to make a new Nepal army also. So this is not a tactical question.”

    “The weapons of both sides should be put together and both the armies should be transformed into one under the supervision of the United Nations or another reliable agency. (…)

    The army will be formed according to the results of the election. This is what you should be clear about. We will accept it if the constituent assembly says we want monarchy. We are flexible even that far. We will accept it even if the people say we want an active monarch. “

    February 2006 : in France, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) defines Prachanda as the “follower of modern revisionism”, because of his position in his interview to The Hindu.

    April 21, 2006 : several hundred thousand people fills the 27-kilometre long Ring Road that surrounds Kathmandu and Lalitpur, in the frame of the mass movement launched by the Seven Party Alliance and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), with a 19 days general strike.

    April 25, 2006 : the Seven Party Alliance stops the movement in accepting the Prime Minister post and the reinstall of the Parliament.

    April 26, 2006 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) announces a three-month ceasefire.

    May 3, 2006 : the Seven Party Alliance announces a ceasefire and the beginning of peace talks with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    May 18, 2006 : the Royal Nepalese Army becomes the Nepali Army, the state adopts secularism.

    May 26, 2006 : first round of peace talks between the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), who decide both of a 25-point Code of Conduct.

    June 16, 2006 : first media appearance of Prachanda in 35 years of political activity, at the Prime Minister’s residence, in presence of the Seven Party Alliance leaders, after having being brought by helicopter to Kathmandu from the Kaski District.

    June 17, 2006 : eight-point agreement between the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), consisting in the formation and interim constitution and governement, the dissolution of both the Parliament and the parallel Maoist government structures, the United Nations supervision of the arms management of the Nepali Army and the People’s Liberation Army.

    June 2006 : CPI(Maoist) spokesman Azad gives an interview to People’s March.

    “Firstly, we are greatly perturbed by the proposal put forth by comrade Prachanda in his various interviews that his party was committed to multiparty democracy, which will be practiced not after the revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat but within the semi-colonial semi-feudal society. The 2003 Plenum document was quite vague regarding CPN(Maoist)‘s concept of multiparty democracy or political competition, i.e., whether it is applicable after the seizure of power by the revolutionary party or prior to seizure itself (…).

    Moreover, we find that comrade Prachanda and the CPN (Maoist) had turned the tactics to the level of strategy and path of the world revolution in the 21st century. Thus, in his interview to The Hindu comrade Prachanda stressed that the Maoists‘ commitment to multi-party democracy is not tactical but the result of a lengthy ideological debate within the party over three years.”

    August 27, 2006 : the Colombian Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) adopts a resolution about Nepal, “giving a fraternal and internationalist call to the leading comrades of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) so that they take again in consideration their engagement with the parliamentarian republic and bourgeois democracy, which are the completed instruments of bourgeois dictatorship”.

    November 13, 2006 : Communist Party of India (Maoist) releases a document called “A New Nepal can emerge only by smashing the reactionary state! Depositing arms of the PLA under UN supervision would lead to the disarming of the masses!!”.

    “The agreement to deposit the arms of the people’s army in designated cantonments is fraught with dangerous implications. This act could lead to the disarming of the oppressed masses of Nepal and to a reversal of the gains made by the people of Nepal in the decade-long people’s war at the cost of immense sacrifices (…).

    The CC, CPI(Maoist), as one of the detachments of world proletariat, warns the CPN(Maoist) and the people of Nepal of the grave danger inherent in the agreement to deposit the arms and calls upon them to reconsider their tactics in the light of bitter historical experience (…).

    Even more surprising is the assertion by the CPN(Maoist) that their current “tactics” in Nepal would be an example to other Maoist parties in South Asia. Comrade Prachanda had also given a call to other Maoist parties to reconsider their revolutionary strategies and to practice multiparty democracy in the name of 21st century democracy.

    Our CC makes it crystal-clear to CPN(M) and the people at large that there can be no genuine democracy in any country without the capture of state power by the proletariat and that the so-called multiparty democracy cannot bring any basic change in the lives of the people. It calls upon the Maoist parties and people of South Asia to persist in the path of protracted people’s war as shown by comrade Mao.”

    November 21, 2006 : Comprehensive Peace Agreement is signed by the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    November 2006 : the Colombian Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) adopts a resolution calling “to struggle against the opportunistic betrayal of the direction of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)”.

    December 26-30, 2006 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) organizes an international Seminar “on Imperialism and Proletarian revolution in the 21st century” at the 114th birthday of Mao Zedong. Are notably present representants of the Communist Party of Afghanistan (Maoist), the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), the Communist Party of the Philippines, the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey/Kurdistan, the Revolutionary Communist Party of USA. A press communiqué is published at the end.

    “The international seminar on ‘Imperialism and Proletarian Revolution in the 21st Century’, organised as part of celebrating the tenth anniversary of the initiation of the People’s War in Nepal, has been successfully completed with the participation of 14 Maoist parties and organisations.

    The seminar was held at a historic juncture where the Nepali people are marching forward to a decisive victory over their enemies and when US imperialism, the main enemy of the people of the world, is getting bogged down in its wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

    February 13, 2007 : big mass rally of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in Kathmandu.

    February 2007 : the Chilean Unión de Revolucionarios Comunistas (MLM) publishes a long document called « In Nepal has been consumed a great revisionist betrayal”, where Prachanda is presented a someone having “deviated like Bernstein and Kautsky”, the opportunist line existing already since years in the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    “November 21, 2006 will be remembered as a disastrous day in the history of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and the people of Nepal. This day will remain in the history of the international communist movement as a day of betrayal mlm principles.”

    February 23, 2007 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist Centre) joins the the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    April 1, 2007 : formation of an interim government, with five members of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    April 1, 2007 : publication in the Red Flag, organ of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada, of an article called “What is the situation of the revolution in Nepal?”.

    “Developments over the last year in Nepal, after more than 10 years of armed struggle that shook the foundations of the old regime and won admiration from millions of exploited people and proletarians around the world, did not go without generating debates within the international communist movement—and within forces supporting revolution in that country.

    Many wonder about the decisions made by the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN[M)]) and the future of their revolution. Important Maoist parties like the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Communist Party of the Philippines publicly expressed their dissent with the Nepali comrades.

    Other parties or organizations, whose actual existence is slight of outside the Internet, [We refer here to a small group called “Parti communiste marxiste-léniniste-maoïste” of France.] profited from hardships occurring in the normal course of a revolutionary process, like the one going on in Nepal, to launch a wild campaign against the leadership of the CPN(M), and even against other parties and organizations (notably the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement) who would not follow their appeal to publicly condemn what they call “Prachanda revisionism” (from the name of the main leader of the Nepali party).

    We have clearly set ourselves apart from this childish position, a position which shows a total misunderstanding of the complexity of a revolutionary struggle which is taking place outside of some webmaster’s cozy apartment. In many places there are individuals and collectives of all kinds who have no revolutionary experience, or even the slightest idea of its strategic requirements, but who nonetheless aspire to confused revolutionary ideals. Such groups or individuals will sometimes be attracted to a certain revolutionary symbol. Some will, however, never go beyond this stage.

    Many romanticized the revolution in Nepal, seeing images of armed fighters and acts of open rebellion, and praised the CPN(M). But the recent tactics applied by the Maoist party and the appearance of new images, such as Prachanda no longer a charismatic mysterious revolutionary leader but shaking hands with Prime Minister Koirala, have disappointed them. Their narrow militaristic and romanticized vision of revolution prevents them from understanding that both kinds of activity are part of the same process, and that this process in and of itself always remains essentially political.

    That being said, developments from the last year are raising serious issues, some of which are actually linked to important principles.

    At this point, as a Maoist organization that has supported the revolutionary process in Nepal since its beginning, and acting as a detachment of the international communist movement, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) submits the following considerations:

    1. The revolution in Nepal constitutes the most advanced revolutionary experience of the last 10 years for the international proletariat. The application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the conditions of Nepal by the CPN(M) allowed the country’s revolutionary masses to rapidly progress and win one victory after another.

    The revolutionary process in Nepal also brought forward the whole international communist movement. It confirmed the accuracy of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and of the strategic path of protracted People’s War.

    Revolution in Nepal demonstrates the Maoist thesis, according to which the people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history; it once again proves the necessity of a solid revolutionary leadership embodied by a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist vanguard party linked to the international communist movement.

    2. Tactical decisions made by the CPN(M) over the last 18 months are in continuity with the orientation developed by this party, which allowed the revolution to progress up until now.

    Our first impression is that these decisions are not surprising; the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is following the plan it adopted when it first declared the People’s War. From the outset, the CPN(M) clearly indicated that, within the class composition of Nepal, the main enemy of the Nepali people was made up of feudal landowners and of comprador bourgeoisie and their imperialist allies in the US and India; and that to ensure their domination, these reactionary classes relied, politically, on a monarchist type of state which supports the entire structure of oppressive relations in Nepali society.

    On the basis of concentrating all revolutionary forces to attack one enemy at a time, the CPN(M) decided to target feudal monarchy, and demanded the formation of a constituent assembly that would create a democratic republic. It fought to initiate a united front with the forces opposed to monarchy—including some hesitant forces that it carefully brought into the camp of revolution (even if only temporarily).

    3. These tactical decisions and this step in the revolutionary process has, however, raised a number of questions that should be mainly answered by the CPN(M). One of them is about the important military issue which will determine what force will become dominant at the end of this political process. The peace accord of November 2006 did not force the People’s Liberation Army to give up their arms, as some claim, but simply put them in warehouse.

    During a conference in New Delhi on February 3rd, 2007, Comrade Gaurav, finally freed after more than three years in prison, and now assuming leadership of international relations for the CPN(M), explained that the People’s Liberation Army would need only an hour to fully mobilize itself (eKanpitur.com, 2007/02/03).

    The question of how the national army will be disbanded if the Maoists win the elections in the constituent assembly still remains open. Party leader Baburam Bhattarai recently raised the idea that the national army could be “substantially reduced” and replaced by a people’s militia (eKantipur.com, 2007/02/09).

    However, until elections are held and the Maoists can proceed with building a new country, the conditions of the peace accord, even if they have not neutralized the armed capacity of the People’s Liberation Army, have still placed the forces of the enemy in an advantageous position, since only part of their troops, weapons and supplies, equivalent to that of the PLA, were set down in the same way.

    The national army currently possesses enough surplus strength, in strict military terms, to intervene in the electoral process and perhaps even stage a coup d’état. If they did so, however, it would go against the spirit and word of the peace accord, and the legitimacy of the revolutionary forces would be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt; then, the PLA would be in a far better position to pick up arms to defend the integrity of the free democratic process.

    More generally, the transitional process, which the CPN(M) hopes will abolish the monarchist state once and for all and lead to a democratic republic as a step towards New Democracy and socialism, remains scattered with obstacles. The path towards revolution in any given country never follows a straight and predictable line. It can not be claimed that each step must follow another with a kind of historic determinism.

    The key is for the revolutionary proletariat, embodied in its vanguard party, to lead the process, to accumulate its strength and at each step act according with the reality of the situation, forging and breaking class alliances, advancing and withdrawing, and realizing the tasks necessary for the next step. It is the greatest hardship any revolutionary party will confront.

    As a supporter of the CPN(M) told us not too long ago, the closer the party gets towards seizing power, the more it progresses in transforming society through revolution, and the more its margins of error narrows. When the People’s War was initiated in 1996, the party could afford to make mistakes (relatively, of course).

    A single defeat, or a single failure, could not lead to the consequences that it can now, as millions of people have put their hopes in the revolution.

    4. Nothing is settled; everything is still possible. We are of the opinion that nothing is final, nothing has been set in stone, for the revolution in Nepal. We clearly reject the point of view of those pretending that a bourgeois line has triumphed within the party and that the revolution has been defeated.

    The revolutionary movement in Nepal is more alive than ever.

    The masses are involved by the millions, in one way or another, in the revolutionary process.

    They benefit from the contribution of a trained and combat-proven vanguard party which has proven its mastery at military and political tactics; each compromise made during the course of the People’s War, and each cease-fire, allowed it to accumulate its forces, isolate the enemy and put the revolutionary camp in a better position. This, however, does not give any guarantee about the future. The party (as well as elsewhere), as the leading center of the revolution, is obviously where the bourgeois line is going to redevelop.

    In 1957, eight years after the triumph of Chinese Revolution, three years of New Democracy and four years of socialist construction, Mao Zedong wrote: “Class struggle is by no means over. The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the class struggle between the various political forces, and the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the ideological field will still be protracted and torturous and at times even very sharp.

    The proletariat seeks to transform the world according to its world outlook, and so does the bourgeoisie. In this respect, the question of which will win out, socialism or capitalism, is not really settled yet.” (On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People) We believe that in Nepal, the matter of knowing who will win is not yet resolved.

    5. The challenges for revolution in Nepal are shedding light on a certain number of difficulties and weaknesses within the revolutionary forces and the world proletariat.

    From the beginning, the CPN(M) was always very aware of the dialectical link which unites revolution in Nepal and world revolution. It also grasped the importance of relating the revolution in Nepal with the world revolution, even if it involves mainly internal factors specific to Nepal.

    This relation begins with revolution in South Asia, particularly in India, which constitutes the most immediate and dominant foreign influence in Nepal. The CPN(M) has spent a lot of effort unifying Maoist revolutionary forces in the region. It put forward the strategic idea of a Federation of Soviet Republics of South Asia as a means of establishing and consolidating socialism in each of the region’s countries.

    At the international level, the CPN(M) participates with the efforts of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (the RIM) to develop the world revolution and people’s resistance, and build Marxist-Leninist-Maoist vanguard parties and organizations everywhere in the world, as well as a global revolutionary leading center.

    In the short run, because of the current international context characterized by imperialist war and the USA’s hegemonic imperialist offensive (since the fall of Soviet social-imperialism, and in particular since the September 11, 2001 attacks), proclaiming, establishing and maintaining a Communist-led revolutionary regime represents a gigantic challenge that can never be overcome alone by Communists in a single country. This challenge belongs to Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, to revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces all over the globe.

    6. In this context, solidarity with revolution in Nepal is more necessary than ever. We must continue to support Nepal’s revolutionary masses; in fact, our solidarity with them must strengthen. This does not exclude debate and discussion on the orientations of the CPN(M).

    Not in the least bit. Comrades from Nepal openly participate within the international communist movement, so that the worldwide revolution can be strengthened by their experience, and vice-versa—not in a literal way, but in a very real and concrete manner. And if there is a single concrete revolutionary movement in the world, it is in Nepal. This revolution belongs to us all: it is the revolution of the world’s oppressed people.

    The Maoist conception of revolution excludes any unconditional submission to some “father party.” Thanks to the revisionists, this deviation, which has always plagued the international communist movement, has brought disastrous results in the past. It has been vigorously fought against by Mao and the Chinese Communists, and today is rejected by the CPN(M) and genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces.

    What revolutionaries in Nepal need, what they are righteously asking from us, is that we take the revolution’s issues at heart; that we defeat our fears and our monotonous inaction and lack of resolve, which has become the characterization of far too wide a portion of the international communist movement. They ask that we openly debate with them, in the spirit proletarian internationalism. They ask that we go forward, decisively, on the road to revolution.

    We must not underestimate the impact these advances will have on revolution in Nepal, including on the possibility for revolutionaries there to proceed to the next step towards socialism. Let’s be clear that for our part, our commitment is firm and our solidarity remains indestructible for our comrades in Nepal.” 

    August 3, 2007 : Fifth Expanded Meeting of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in Kathmandu, with more than 2 000 cadres.

    August 20, 2007 : Prachanda and Bhattarai both produce two separate statements with 22 demands concerning the elections, notably the Republic, the seizure of the king’s properties, the democratisation of the Nepali Army and its merger with the People’s Liberation Army, the payment of Rs. 100,000 (€1,100) to the families of fallen Maoist fighters.

    September 17, 2007 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) quits the Government.

    December 15, 2007 : the Seven Party Alliance accepts to call Nepal a republic at the time of the first sitting of the new assembly just after the elections and to use the proportional system.

    December 30, 2007 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) joins the Government.

    January 8, 2008 : the “Comité de Solidarité Franco-Népalais” (French-Nepalese Solidarity Committee) explains having be founded on the 15th of December, 2007, to “make known the progressive anti-feudal, anti-imperialist and democratic process” in Nepal.

    March 2008 : the Chilean Unión de Revolucionarios Comunistas (MLM) publishes a document called “Declench the people’s war in the world, combat prachandist revisionism in the ICM”.

    “The Communists (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) in the world have to join their forces to counter the revisionist trend of the 21st century arose within Maoism, whose visible head is today Prachanda.

    It becomes necessary for this to develop a wide international debate to expose these new revisionists, to ward off the danger that appears and develops right opportunistic lines right wanting to abjure the path of PW and to regroup around prachandiste revisionism.

    Nowadays in the ICM (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), voices were raised to strongly condemn the betrayal of prachandists. There are others who defend it by ignorance, or because they fully embrace its liquidators views. Finally, there are those who remain silent by opportunism or because they are wavering.”

    February 28, 2008 : rally in the front of the US consulate in Montreal by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada in support of the “Nepalese People’s Republic”.

    April 10, 2008 : elections of the first Nepalese Constituent Assembly. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) receives 38,1% of the votes, the Nepali Congress 19,1%, the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) 18%.

    April 13, 2008 : declaration of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada “greetings the victory of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)”.

    “To the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist),

    To Comrade Prachanda and all militants and all the activists of the party,

    Dear comrades,

    It is with great joy and renewed proletarian internationalists feelings that we welcome the resounding victory that you just won, in the frame of the election to the constituent assembly that will end the monarchy and the old regime in Nepal (…).

    You just take the next step – a critical step – towards the construction of a new Nepal. No doubt the road to total liberation of the people of Nepal and the establishment of a revolutionary regime will be strewn with obstacles.

    The imperialist powers who claim to be masters of the world and the reactionary forces that defend and enjoy the old world order, are sure to hatch plots and conspiracies to prevent the triumph of the revolution. The invaluable experience that you have accumulated over the past 12 years and the unfailing determination of the revolutionary Nepalese masses allow you to move forward and overcome, until the final victory. Know that on this road, you can still count on our militant solidarity.

    Having participated in the first international brigade road construction Martyrs in Rolpa district, our party was a privileged witness of your success and your determination. The historic victory that you just won encourages us to continue the fight with more vigor.”

    April 24, 2008 : the Communist Party of India (Maoist) expresses his point of view on the elections in Nepal.

    “The election results in Nepal have proved once again the overwhelming anger of the masses against the outdated feudal monarchic rule in Nepal, against the Indian expansionist’s bullying and domination of Nepal, against US domination and oppression, and are a reflection of the growing aspirations of the Nepali masses for democracy, land, livelihood and genuine freedom from imperialist and feudal exploitation (…).

    The real test, however, begins now after the CPN(M) taking over the reins of power. It is a fundamental tenet of Marxism that no radical restructuring of the system is possible without the smashing of the existing state. It is impossible to make genuine changes in the system through measures initiated “from above”, i.e. through state decrees and laws (…).

    The CC, CPI(Maoist), suggests to the CPN(Maoist) to beware of the conspiracies of the imperialists led by the US imperialists, the Indian reactionary ruling classes, and the feudal comprador forces of Nepal to engineer coups, political assassinations, creation of artificial scarcity through economic blockades and sabotage, and subversion of the democratic process, and calls upon it to be fully prepared to confront these reactionaries by armed means (…).

    The CC, CPI(Maoist) sees immense possibilities in present-day Nepal to carry forward the revolutionary programme by firmly relying on the masses and intensifying the class struggle for genuine land reforms and against imperialist/expansionist domination of the country, while guarding against all reactionary plots and schemes. This is possible if the main leadership of the Maoist party does not become part of the government but concentrates on the principal task of continuing the class struggle by mobilizing the masses.”

    May 10, 2008 : the French Maoist Communist Party hails the electoral success of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    « Our party welcomes your success in the elections of April 10, 2008. This is primarily the result of ten years of people’s war (…). You borrow a path for some is not orthodox, but you are not alone on the path to communism. « 

    June 19, 2008 : the Red Star, published by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has an ad for Toyota on his cover. This was already the case in Ferbuary March, for example. Nepal Telecom and the internet provider Ncell did also such ads.

    January 1, 2009 : publication in the Red Flag, organ of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada, of an article by Samir Amin, called “Nepal: a promising revolutionary breakthrough”.

    January 12, 2009 : the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre–Masal), coming partly from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre–Masal) where the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) comes from a split, joins the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which becomes the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), still mostly known as Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    February 1, 2009 : Kiran responds to an interview called “The street struggle is connected with the peace process” in The Red Star, published by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    “How are you evaluating the unity between CPN-Maoist and CPN (Unity Centre-Masal)? Our party had already made decisions to make single pole of the revolutionary parties and organization. It is the beginning of the unity among the revolutionaries. This unity will certainly fulfill its responsibility for the nation and the people that is to accomplish the revolution (…).

    Is the street struggle related to the future insurrection? The street struggle is connected with the progress of the peace process. The three fronts: the government, CA and street: are complementary. However, the front of struggle can take another bend if the anti-people and the reactionary powers create obstacles incessantly against writing constitution and the peace process.”

    February 16, 2009 : Kiran publishes an article called “The Mandate Expressed in People’s War”, The Red Star.

    “Right before 12 years, Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) had brought a historical initiation of the people’s war to establish a New State Power by assaulting over the old state power on 13th February. The day has been established as the momentous day for the Nepalese people. Now, we are going to celebrate the day as the entrance of the 13th year all over the country. At this moment, it is necessary to be serious for the adoption and the implementation of the expressed mandate of the great people’s war remembering the commitments committed before the initiation of the people’s war.

    Now, we are advancing ahead in the peaceful process through between the historical process of the ten year long people’s war and nineteen days people’s movement. The goal of the great People’s War is to move ahead to the direction of Socialism and Communism by establishing the New Peoples Republic in Nepal. At present, we are advancing ahead energetically to the direction to built new Nepal through the election of the constituent assembly (CA) as the starting point of achieving the goal.”

    May 4, 2009 : Prachanda resigned from the post of Prime Minister after being impeached by the president Ram Baran Yadav from the Nepali Congress to dismiss Nepalese Chief of the Army Staff Rookmangud Katawal.

    October 12, 2009 : the World People’s Resistance Movement interviews Chandra Prakash Gajurel “Gaurav” in England.

    “When our party talks about multiparty competition or democracy, we are talking about our concept of ‘21st Century Democracy’. The difference here however is that in China there was a condition, all anti-feudal and anti-imperialist forces had to cooperate with the CCP. This was the precondition. But now our party is talking about allowing those political parties to compete even with the UCPN(M).

    In China there was a precondition, they were not allowed to compete but had to cooperate. In elections they made some sort of compromise or negotiation and they fixed candidates by consensus. In some constituencies the other parties put forward their candidate and the CCP did not. And in most other seats they did not have a candidate but supported the candidate of the CCP. But here in Nepal today we are talking about competition. All those political parties will be allowed to compete with the UCPN(M). We can have direct elections with those parties and the Maoists. That is the difference.”

    December 15, 2009 : the French Organisation Communiste Marxiste-Léniniste Voie Prolétarienne published the document “Long live the revolution in India and in Nepal!”.

    “Since five years, the Asian continent is the heart of the world revolution (…).

    In Nepal, it is the Maoists (Unified Communist Party of Nepal Maoist) who won the support of the majority of the population and organized the popular uprising that brought down the monarchy.

    Today, at their initiative, a new wave of popular uprisings has just started in the country to remove from power the bourgeoisie still powerful in the economy, the government and the army, especially as it has the strong support the major powers, neighboring India in the first place. In the complex situation of a tiny circled semi-feudal country, in the debate and the line struggle, the Nepalese Maoists advance toward the democratic revolution (…).

    We Marxist-Leninists and Maoists of Proletarian Way, France, assure our Indian and Nepalese comrades of our support. They are the ones that sustain today the hope of the world revolution!”

    29 March 2009 : the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA makes public an exchange of letter with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), where its policies is criticized.

    July 24, 2009 : the Communist Party of India (Maoist) writes a 24 pages Open Letter to the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    “We are sending this Open Letter to your Party so as to conduct a polemical debate both within your Party and the Maoist revolutionary camp worldwide.

    This step has become necessary because of the very serious developments that have taken place in the course of development of the revolution in Nepal that have a bearing on our understanding of imperialism and proletarian revolution as well as the strategy-tactics to be pursued by Maoist revolutionaries in the contemporary world; there is also serious deviation from the ideology of MLM. Hence these are no more the internal matters concerning your Party alone (…).

    The UCPN(M) leader has directly assured the comprador bourgeois-feudal parliamentary parties that his Party is ready to have peaceful competition with all of them.

    And by describing this decision on multiparty democracy as a strategically, theoretically developed position comrade Prachanda has brought a dangerous thesis to the fore—the thesis of peaceful coexistence with the ruling class parties instead of overthrowing them through revolution; peaceful competition with all other parliamentary parties, including the ruling class parties that are stooges of imperialism or foreign reaction, in so-called parliamentary elections; abandoning the objective of building socialism for an indefinite period; and opening the doors wide for the feudalcomprador reactionaries to come to power by utilizing the backwardness of the masses and the massive backing from domestic and foreign reactionaries or the bourgeois and petty bourgeois forces to hijack the entire course of development of society from the socialist direction to capitalism in the name of democracy and nationalism.

    Overall, com. Prachanda’s conclusions regarding multiparty democracy creates illusions among the people regarding bourgeois democracy and their constitution (…).

    The fusion theory of the CPN(M) had undergone further deviations in the five years since it was first proposed, and by 2006 it became the theory of peaceful competition with the reactionary parties and peaceful transition to people’s democracy and socialism.

    From a fusion of people’s war and insurrection Prachanda’s eclectic theory had assumed the form of negotiations and diplomatic manouevring. One of the major reasons for this change was the incorrect assessment of the contemporary world situation and the conclusion that the neo-colonial form of imperialism is now taking the form of a globalised state (…).

    Our CC appeals to the leadership and ranks of the UCPN(M) to undertake a deep review of the wrong reformist line that the Party has been pursuing ever since it has struck an alliance with the SPA, became part of the interim government, participated in the elections to the CA, formed a government with the comprador-feudal parties, abandoned the base areas and demobilized the PLA and the YCL, deviated from the principle of proletarian internationalism and adopted a policy of appeasement towards imperialism, particularly American imperialism, and Indian expansionism.”

    October 21, 2009 : Indra Mohan Sigdel Basanta gives an interview to the World People’s Resistance Movement.

    “First of all I would like to say it was not a struggle between two individual leaders. Comrade Prachanda is our Chairman; he has been leading our party and revolution for a long time. Comrade Kiran is a senior leader, even senior to Comrade Prachanda.

    Sometimes in the outside world it is said that it is a struggle between Prachanda and Kiran, but this is a wrong way of looking at. Definitely lines come from certain comrades and in our case comrade Prachanda and comrade Kiran are such leaders who have stood as unity and struggle of opposites i.e. they have dialectical relationship.

    The way this has been reported in the external media is wrong and is aimed at dividing our party. They projected that Comrade Prachanda was a soft-liner and Comrade Kiran was a hard-liner. This kind of projection was always there because the reactionaries do not want our party to remain united. They want to destroy it.

    The reality is that the principal aspect between them is unity. If they did not have unity how could they lead our party together for so long years? But because they are the products of our society they have different ways of thinking so the differences in certain issues arise.”

    Avril 29, 2010 : the French Maoist Communist Party publishes an article in support of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    “There is a debate about the theories espoused by some of the leadership of the UCPN-Maoist. Our Party has already expressed some criticisms and reservations. However, we must always move from the assessment of what is primary and what is secondary.

    Today, what is primary is supporting the mass movement led by the Maoists in Nepal. UCPN-Maoist has demonstrated that he had not abdicated imperialism and expansionism. In this delicate phase, our duty is to support the popular initiative against the reactionaries.”

    June 16, 2010 : Netra Bikram Chanda “Biplap” publishes the article Can We Go Ahead? In The Red Star.

    “Nepal is only nation, in the contemporary world, where there is political leadership of the revolutionaries and the entire nation is in the hands of the proletarian class. The leadership of the revolutionaries is not only from the point of view of number; rather, it is because of political, ideological agendas.

    Constituent Assembly (CA), people’s new constitution, federalism, land-reform, special rights, national independence and new national army are the agendas and the conceptions put developed and fore 4 warded by UCPN Maoist. Nepalese people have their active participation and a strong support on them. The intellectuals, traders and businessmen and even the security forces have their support on it.”

    May 27, 2011 : publication in the bulletin Partisan of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada of an article calledd “Difficult situation for the revolution in Nepal”.

    “It is difficult to predict how the Maoists of Nepal comrades shall resolve these contradictions; rumors of a split of the party are also increasingly strong. Time will tell what will become of the red flag flying over Mount Everest; but we remain confident that the revolutionaries of Nepal will lead the revolution to victory.”

    September 2, 2011 : the “Comité de Solidarité Franco-Népalais” (French-Nepalese Solidarity Committee) begins to take a critical stance about the situation in Nepal stopping its activity two weeks later.

    “Two important news reached us from Nepal. Unfortunately, they are the sign of a great danger for the revolution rather than a sign of recovery of the revolutionary struggle.

    First, Baburam Bhattarai was elected prime minister. He is the representative of the reformist line in Nepal. He’s for the establishment of a bourgeois parliamentary democratic republic he sees as a necessary step towards a people’s republic landing stages. He seems ready for any compromise to stop for good the revolutionary process.

    Secondly, key containers containing the arms of the People’s Liberation Army have just been handed to the Special Committee for Integration, meaning de facto surrender of the PLA. All keys have been made except in a cantonment in Kailali, where the deputy commander said he had received no formal directive from the party.”

    September, 2011 : in France, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) publishes a document called “Line, tendency, fraction and the question of Nepal”.

    “For the so-called maoists and real trotskyists, nothing happened in Nepal with the peace agreement in 2006. This is because they looked the phenomena from above, and not from below. And they look it from above because they have a mechanical conception of the Nepali revolution.

    They don »t understand that the Nepali revolution progresses in spiral, and so that the people »s war can suffer huge defeat if its development is not correctly understood by the avant-garde. Only the fact that the Nepali revisionnists like Prachanda pretend that they have invented a “tactic” is a proof of their non understanding of the scientific laws of dialectical materialism (…).

    A line is the expression of life (for the red line) or death (for the black line), its ideological synthesis has a high level, because it is question of path for the phenomena. It is what is called a crisis. A line is so an expression not of a tactical problem, but of a strategical one. For this reason, there are not two lines in the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (maoist).

    They are two tendencies, tendencies that disagree on many points, and now so many that they become openly opposed, and so fractions, open and public tendencies. But both were favourable of the peace agreement, both pretended to “choose” the path of people’s war, instead of understanding people’s war as the insurrection of matter.

    Both accepted prachandism in the 2000 »s, with the promotion of “socialism of 21st century”, the rejection of the dictatorship of proletariat under the direction of the Communist Party (in name of “democracy”), etc.”

    September 23, 2011 : the French Maoist Communist Party publishes a document called About the line struggle within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

    “Under these conditions, there are two possibilities.

    1. Complete surrender, total renunciation to the prospect of insurgency. It has been five years that the Party has been engaged in these transactions, with no significant progress to solve the issue of “power”. What do the masses think about all this? They are either in expectation for the better, or disappointed for the worse. 

    2. The resumption of the revolutionary fight, which involves mobilizing the masses. “One divides into two” and not “two combine into one”. One has to choose. The rightist line must be denounced to the masse; the only way is to return to the masses because the masses make history and at the same time suffer when their leaders take false, flickering or liquidationist, revisionist positions.”

    November 2011 : the Colombian Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) publishes a document called “About the betrayal in Nepal and the role of the so-called red Fraction”, explaining that there is no such things in the prachandist party.

    December 26, 2011 : Joint declaration called “The International unity of the communists requires the defeat of revisionism and centrism!”

    “It has appeared that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – CPN (M), being a RIM member, has raised in the name of Maoism against Marxism Leninism Maoism, clutching a revisionist platform of renunciation of destroying the old reactionary state, of betraying the People’s War by renouncing to it, by disarming the people, by dismantling the bases of popular power already conquered and by dissolving its People’s Liberation Army in the reactionary army of exploiters, and finally by merging with the revisionist party Mashal in the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – UCPN (M), and by compromising with all others opportunist parties to defend the class dictatorship of the landlords, the bourgeoisie and imperialism, and to serve to run over the people.

    It is likewise evident that the Committee of the RIM has, remaining silent facing the revisionist line and the betrayal carried out by the CPN (M), resigned in practice the role of being the international leading center, and compromising the prestige of the RIM (…).

    Against such a need that requires to differentiate and to break completely with opportunism, rises again the familiar centrist tendency known in the history of communist movement for its « conciliator » role between Marxism and revisionism. A centrist tendency, headed today by the Communist Party (Maoist) of Italy, direct continuation of the centrism in the RIM yesterday, and mainly in its Committee.

    In the open bourgeois degeneration of prachandism, the centrists, who yesterday praised his theory, ignored the treason in Nepal and supported bourgeois parliamentarism of the UCPN (M), declare today themselves to be against Prachanda, but actually without breaking with prachandism.

    They remain supporters of a fraction of prachandism that no longer recognizes Prachanda as leader, but Kiran. They repudiate the current symbolic acts of Bhattarai and Prachanda in the surrender of the revolution, but deny the revisionist nature of the party and escape its responsibility in the real political betrayal of People’s War conducted in the Peace Agreement of 2006.

    Centrism both reconciles and calls « red » a fraction of the revisionist right in Nepal, and fights angry against the revolutionary communists whom are called « dogmatic-revisionists » and « opportunistic liquidators » for their struggle against revisionism and centrism.

    It fears the complete rupture, ideological, political and organizational, with the revisionist line of the UCPN (M), a condition without which it is not possible to conceive a true revolutionary line in Nepal, able to return to the People’s War and lead it, to conquer the triumph of the Revolution of New Democracy in the whole country.”

    December 26, 2011 : the Maoist Road blog made by the Maoist Communist Party of Italy answers to the joint declaration.

    “leftist-cyber maoists make a joint declaration.. what is their real objective ? They attack to ‘PCm Italy’ but their real ennemies are the possibility to save and advance nepal revolution and the rebuilding of an real international mlm organisation with parties and organisations that make the revolution in the praxis.”

    June 19, 2012 : founding of the Communist Party of Nepal – Revolutionary Maoist, led by Mohan Baidya “Kiran”.

    July 1, 2012 : Mohan Baidya “Kiran” explains his position at a press conference.

    “Yes, we are in the RIM. There are many different parties in the RIM (…). We used to be involved in the decision making in the RIM. The RIM is actually not operative at this moment (…).

    We did not leave Prachanda and Baburam but they left us. We did not separate from the party as well but they split themselves ditching the political ideological line of the party. Therefore, now the issue of their class categorization is a real bizarre. An independent political line of Prachanda and Baburam has come to an end. What should we label those who are the puppets of foreign reactionaries and expansionism? It is not possible to join neck together with the puppets (…).

    We are not ambiguous about whether to go for People’s War or People’s Revolt. Firstly, we will revolt for new democracy against parliamentarianism. We don’t acknowledge parliamentarianism.

    The democratic republic, the aged-decayed parliamentarianism of which all the parties here sing the retro song of democracy deafeningly, that democracy has completely failed, the Constituent Assembly has also failed. Therefore, as an alternative, in the interest of the country and the people we move ahead to establish New Democratic Republic in Nepal against Feudalism, Imperialism and Neo-Colonialism. This is our key agenda.

    To attain this goal, if asked how we move ahead, both ways, legal and underground, a revolutionary party can utilize every essential method. We came to the peace negotiation honestly. When we arrived only the Maoists had to make all the compromises but now we don’t compromise up to this excess.

    So, that is beyond doubt, if necessary– People’s War or People’s Revolt, anything can happen, this is the key issue.”

    August 31, 2012 : the Communist Party of India (Maoist) publishes a document called “Hail the formation of Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist”.

    “The CC, CPI (Maoist) is sending its warmest revolutionary greetings to you and all the CC members and the entire rank and file of the CPN-Maoist on the formation of the new revolutionary party in Nepal after a prolonged internal ideological and political struggle against the opportunist and neo-revisionist leadership within the party who betrayed the Nepalese revolution and by demarcating and making a break with them.

    Even while the Nepal Revolution reached the stage of strategic offense, the UCPN (Maoist) leadership assessed the national and international situation subjectively, took erroneous tactics which themselves led the party get bogged down in the quagmire of parliamentarianism with capitulationism uninterruptedly since end 2005 (…).

    Revolutionaries may still be present in the neo-revisionist Prachanda-Bhattarai faction of the party, so your stand of continuing internal struggle and keeping the doors open till the Congress is correct (…).

    We end this letter with the great hope that CPN-Maoist would uphold revolutionary traditions of the great oppressed masses of Nepal and Proletarian Internationalism and fulfill the dreams of thousands of great martyrs of Nepal revolution.”

    October 2012 : the TKP/ML from Turkey releases a document called “The Nepalese Revolution in the Clasp of Reformism and Revisionism”.

    “The UCPN (M) successfully led a people’s war in Nepal and is currently at a historical threshold, facing the question of whether or not to continue with the revolution. In the struggle against the revisionist line that is dominant in the party, comrades, especially those in the leadership positions, are taking an active stance in the discussions, expressing their opinions and criticism openly, even publicly for sometime now. This course of action is further proof that situation is extremely serious (…).

    The « peaceful transition » theory, advocated as a method of seizing state power, in fact aims to preserve the existing mechanism. The system is preserved, only this time masters with the « revolutionary » or « socialist » mask have come to power.

    The « populist » or « revolutionary » governments that came to power through elections or similar methods, and once through coups that took place with the involvement of social-imperialists, never brought about a fundamental change in the reign of ruling classes. Another dimension of the issue is the abstract concept « democracy » that forms a basis for the dreams about « peaceful transition. »

    The understanding that defines democracy as a supra-class concept, a common system that is isolated from classes, finds its ground in the assessment of « geniality » regarding imperialism. It is argued that imperialism, which collectively carries the humanity to more advanced standards and optimally develops the productive forces, contains legitimate possibilities for peaceful transformation of the system owing to the virtues of « democratic » regimes that it has established or assisted the establishment of in many countries.”

    January 4, 2013 : the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada hails the 7th congres of he Communist Party of Nepal – Revolutionary Maoist, led by Mohan Baidya “Kiran”.

    “Montreal, January 4, 2013

    Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’ president

    Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, General Secretary

    Organisatory Central Committee

    Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist

    Dear comrades,

    On behalf of the Central Committee and all supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada, please convey our warmest revolutionary greetings to all comrades participating in the historic Seventh National Congress of your party. Even if we can not be physically present, know that we are with you and that our solidarity is acquired to you (…).

    Since 1996, our party, and the organizations that preceded it, has always supported the proletariat and the revolutionary masses of Nepal and the Maoist vanguard party. We’re very proud to have participated in the first international Martyrs road construction brigade in fall 2005 in the Rolpa district.

    The example of the people’s war in Nepal has also led us to undertake a process unit with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), that we have unfortunately been unable to complete before the disappearance of this organization.”

    January 16, 2013 : a Marxist Leninist Maoist National Liaison Commission (USA) sends a Letter of Solidarity and Greetings to Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist.

    “We are most excited and delighted to know that the comrades of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), after years of struggle against the Prachanda-Bhattarai revisionist clique, are forging again a party of steel to complete revolution in Nepal.

    The Prachanda-Bhattarai revisionist clique had indeed not only derailed the revolutionary people’s war in Nepal but had confused the entirety of the revolutionary movement with their liquidationist treachery.

    In Nepal this clique had attempted to surrender the People’s Liberation Army to the enemy, it had locked up the fighting comrades, seized their weapons, and negotiated their liquidation with the reactionary state.”

    February 15, 2013 : the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist) produces a document called “Either Prachanda Or Mohan Baidya (Kiran) Means More Revisionism!”.

    “Bringing forth the theory of fusion of two different kinds of strategies which was held by CPN (M) in its second national conference in 2001 was the beginning for a deeply deviationist line. However, formally this party betrayed the revolution from 2005-2006 on, but, one should consider the theoretical and ideological roots for this.

    The so called theory of two different kinds of strategies which is also called “the model of fusion”, according to Prachanda is legitimate due to:

    ““The rapid development of science and technology, especially in the area of electronic field has brought about completely new model in regard to forwarding revolution in each country and in the world in the form of fusion of the strategies of protracted people’s war and general armed insurrection based on the above analysis.”

    In such a manner, revisionism rejected the universality of PPW, and denied its strategic sufficiency.

    “Reviving” the model of armed insurrection was not the point of interest for Nepali revisionists. It was a mask for overthrowing the strategy of PPW. They found no “better” means rather than escaping towards reviving an insurrectionist myth for discarding strategy of People’s war.

    “Model of fusion” was not more than eclecticism. As MLM forces uphold, today, in all over the world, it is only the PPW which is the international strategy of proletariat. Denying PPW equals to denying and discarding Maoism. Discarding Maoism equals to discarding communism and future of the world.”

    April 13, 2013 : constituted by different break away groups, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified) joins the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    July 14, 2013 : the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan expresses its view about the situation in Nepal, in a A Documentary Summary Analysis of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist.

    “It seems that the initial optimism about a profound and comprehensive position by the faction under Kiran’s leadership within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist [UCPN-M]––the faction that, after the “national convention of the revolutionary faction of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist” in June 2012, has emerged as the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist [CPN-M] against Prachanda-Bhattarai revisionism––did not have a strong basis.

    Despite the CPN-M’s recent congress we have not received or been able to study the documents it produced. Thus, we do not deem it necessary to produce a final and detailed conclusion regarding this party. However, even with close scrutiny of the CPN-M’s pre-congress we can find particular ideological and political positions that indicate the repetition of the deviations of the UCPN-M in a different form and shape.”

    November 19, 2013 : second Nepalese Constituent Assembly election. The Nepali Congress receives 29,8% of the votes (2,694,983 votes), the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) 27,55% (2,492,090 votes), the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) 17,79% (1,609,145 votes).

    November 29, 2014 : split in the Communist Party of Nepal – Revolutionary Maoist, as the secretary Netra Bikram Chand leaves and founds the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

    May 19, 2016 : merger of the UCPN-Maoist, the majority of CPN-Revolutionary Maoist (but without Kiran), a faction of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (but without Netra Bikram Chand) and 7 others organizations. The name chosen is CPN Maoist Centre, with Prachanda as chairman.

    July 12, 2016 : Baburam Bhattarai, who left the UCPN Maoist in september 2015, founds the Naya Shakti Party (New Force Nepal), on a line of “good governance”.

    June 16, 2016 : merger of the Communist Nucleus Nepal party led by Hemanta Prakash Oli and CPN Maoist (Revolutionary) led by Bhupendra Neupane, as Communist Nucleus Nepal.

    August 3, 2016: Following the resignation of the Prime Minister, member of the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) favorable to China, Prachanda takes his succession, supported by India and the Nepali Congress.

    => documents in English

  • First of May 2015 : Understand and fight the demons of imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudalism!

    In the famous painting “The School of Athens” by the Renaissance painter Raphael, we can see Plato and Aristotle as the central figures: Plato points his index finger to the heavens, calling to see beyond matter, whereas Aristotle points down to earth with his hand.

    Five hundred years afterwards, we can see that we have the same contradiction between idealism and materialism. The images of the religious barbarians pointing to the heavens with their index to justify their senseless killings staged in sordid videos have caused a terrible trouble in the democratic minds.

    The spectre of the Middle Ages, of antiquity with its slavery and its murders, shows his ugly face. It is a challenge to progress, to the cause of humanity advancing in culture, rationality, science. It is an attack against the dignity of civilization.

    And it didn’t happen by accident, or because imperialist countries organize “conspiracies” : the roots for barbarity are based on the semi-feudal semi-colonial nature of the majority of the countries in the world today.

    Only in a few countries did capitalism manage to develop itself in its natural way, moving from its liberal form to the domination of the monopolies, becoming imperialism, in a complex process, across twist and turn.

    In the others countries, where the majority of the people of the world lives, religions and nationalism as strong irrational tools used to mobilize the masses in a reactionary way, because society is driven by a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, born from the submission to imperialist countries, and allied to different feudal forces which maintained their structures.

    Hundred years ago, there was the Armenian genocide, and still it is not recognized by the Turkish state despite the fact that its new government is Islamist: it is because the bureaucratic capitalism in this country has become more powerful, but still depends on the alliance with feudal forces made at the very beginning of the secular regime.

    We can see the same process in India, with the successes of the Hinduist most reactionary forces taking the control of the government; the urbanization of the country and the development of bureaucratic capitalism do not abolish semi-feudalism, on the contrary!

    Semi-feudalism has only change its form. That explains also why Islamism could become such a strong force in countries like Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt : beyond the secular form of the regime previously, the foundation of it is semi-feudal semi-colonial.

    Inter-imperialist struggles play here of course a major role, imperialists supporting bureaucratic factions acting to favor them against others,

    During the 1960’s-1980’s, the peoples of the world had to struggle against the partition of the world of the two superpowers – the USA and the social-imperialist USSR – now they have to understand in the same way the bloody games played by imperialists, even trying to divide countries, like in Ukraine for example.

    The general crisis of capitalism can only bring more inter-imperialist struggles, more imperialist wars. In the imperialist countries themselves nowadays, selfishness and individualism are used to promote nationalism and its desire to transform the country in an aggressive fortress in the context of “globalization”. Despair provokes escape in drugs and alcohol, pogromist postures, trends to merge nationalism and “socialism”.

    At the same time, multiple are the aggressions which disfigures the Earth on a global scale: from climate change to tremendous deforestation, from massive urbanization to the acidification of the ocean.

    The world masses are aware of this, but they don’t find a way to be united and to choose the path of the red star. The lack of a communist strategic proposal disorients the world masses, which want real democracy, but don’t know how to achieve it.

    In this context, such a position of retreat of the world revolution permits capitalism to modernize itself, in particular in the dependent countries, where feudalism change its form, to be more conform to the development of bureaucratic capitalism. In the same way that we find a difference between a superpower like the USA and the imperialist countries of the second category – like France, Germany or England – we find according to that differences among the dependent countries.

    Whereas a country like Iraq falls into the horror of feudal murders, a country like Brazil knows an agro-industrial development through a bureaucratic capitalism acting to serve the imperialist interests.

    Semi-feudal semi-colonial countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia play an open aggressive policy, helping reactionary forces ideologically and materially to establish factions supporting them; the Arab spring was no “revolution”, but a battle between bureaucratic bourgeoisies. This shows the correctness of Akram Yari and Siraj Sikder’s thesis on the possibility for an oppressed country to be a colonizing force and to have an expansionist character.

    Everything obeys to the law of dialectics, and this evolution testifies of the development of the productive forces, in such a manner however that it means more exploitation, more oppression, more imperialist wars, that it’s a threat to the nature on our planet, to the possibility of a happy life, full of joy and culture, for the world masses.

    Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe that this negative aspect is the major trend in our world. In each country, they are people working to understand the situation in a scientific way. They try to analyze the current situation, be it on the international level as on the national level.

    When they are genuine revolutionaries, as the product of the class struggles of their own country, when they understand that they must be in the tradition of the International Communist Movement, then they do contributions that permit to move in the direction of producing a guiding thought.

    This question of the guiding thought is the most important one in each country. As the Communist Party of Peru explained it in the document “On Gonzalo’s thought” :

    “Revolutions give rise to a thought that guides them, which is the result of the application of the universal truth of the ideology of the international proletariat to the concrete conditions of each revolution; a guiding thought indispensable to reach victory and to conquer political power and, moreover, to continue the revolution and to maintain the course always towards the only, great goal: Communism.”

    In the famous interview he gave, the leader of the Communist Party of Peru, Gonzalo, tells us here also:

    “In Engels’ view, it is necessity that generates leaders, and a top leader, but just who that is is determined by chance, by a set of specific conditions that come together at a particular place and time. In this way, in our case too, a Great Leadership [Jefatura] has been generated. This was first acknowledged in the Party at the Expanded National Conference of 1979.

    But this question involves another basic question that can’t be overlooked and needs to be emphasized: there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be.

    The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought.

    None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility.”

    The first of May is an historical day: it is the one of the pride of working class, the one of the honour of the red flag. The word as we know it is full of sufferings and of transformations, the main aspect of our epoch is the production of guiding thoughts, which are carried by revolutionaries to build the revolutionary paths in each country.

    Such a revolutionary path consists in People’s War: the armed mass mobilization to break the old state and install the new one, carrying the revolutionary program of New Democracy in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries, of Socialism in the capitalist countries.

    It is here to stress the importance of the theory to defend all the communist conceptions, against all the tendencies to make “compromise” with imperialist values, to integrate post-modernist conceptions, to promote ultra-leftist positions, to negate the teachings of the Communist International especially in the lessons of the People’s Front against Fascism.

    The epoch of decay of capitalism is a tormented one; only a strong ideological headquarter can face the many faces of opportunism, reformism, fascism, of the counter-revolution. We remember here what happened to the heroic people’s war in Nepal, which was betrayed.

    The consequences for the Nepali masses are terrible; their cause was stabbed in the back by revisionism. The terrible earthquake that just happened near Kathmandu brought many deaths that could have been avoid with another social development allowing more robust constructions; we have to remember also here the intolerable and dramatic situation of the Nepali workers working in Qatar.

    It is important to note that nowadays, centrists having tried to mask the revisionism in Nepal, protecting its leader Prachanda and his “peace agreement”, do everything they can to avoid any criticism. Genuine Maoists have said as soon as 2006 that there was a major problem in the line of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), whereas centrists still greeted the “people’s war” years afters there was no people’s war any more and when it was clear since long that revisionism had won there.

    The position of centrists about Nepal testifies here their negation of the concept of bureaucratic bourgeoisie; this shows the importance of dialectical materialism as a science.

    We wish here to emphasize the following elements :

    1. Contradiction is the only fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter. Dialectical materialism is the science of understanding this law and the ideological core of the communist movement.

    2. Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. Spontaneity doesn’t lead to revolution; there is a need for a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party that firmly applies independence, autonomy and self-reliance.

    3. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. The masses make history and the Party leads them through the direction of a guiding thought, application of the communist ideology to the concrete conditions of a given country.

    4. Capitalism in its liberal form became imperialism characterized by the hegemony of the monopolies, tending to fascism and imperialist wars. The building of an united antifascist People’s Front, as underlined by the Communist International, forms the condition for the democratic foundation for establishing socialism as dictatorship of the proletariat.

    5. Capitalism which is being developed in the oppressed nations by imperialism along with different degrees of underlying feudalism, or even pre-feudal stages, is bureaucratic. The New Democratic Revolution, as a joint dictatorship based on the worker-peasant alliance, smashes the semi-feudal elements, opening the way to overthrow bureaucratic capitalism, as democratic foundation for establishing socialism.

    6. The three instruments of the revolution are the Party, the army and the united front, understood in the frame of People’s War as the universally valid military theory of the international proletariat. Invincibility of the People’s War is inevitable as it represents the new against the ancient, as obligatory resolution of an antagonistic contradiction.

    7. The communist ideology prevails in all the intellectual and cultural fields, through socialist realism in the arts and literature and Marxist philosophy i.e. the law of contradictions in science. Taking power means to take it at all levels of society, as shows it the masterful example of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

    Maoism is not a “tool” to support rebellion, but the materialist understanding of a situation and therefore the revolutionary application of the communist cause by the proletariat: class struggle, conquer and to defend power with the People’s War in each country, as part of the world socialist revolution!

    On this First of May, 2015, we call therefore again the basic positions of the genuine communists:

    Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, long live Maoism as the most develop form of dialectical materialism!

    Uphold, defend and apply, principally apply, Maoism !

    Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

    People’s War until Communism!

    Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

    Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center [Belgium]

    Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)

    => documents in English

  • Ajith’s position

    On the First of May, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) merged with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari, and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) became practically the center of the international grouping called “Maoist Road”.

    Therefore, “comrade Ajith”, leader of the former CPI(ML) Naxalbari, saw its conception of Maoism recognized by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and its position becomes the one of the Maoist Road. Works of “comrade Ajith” were also translated in Italian for the First of May, which was important because the main protagonist, historically, of Maoist Road, is the maoist Communist Party of Italy.

    It is interesting to see what Ajith says, because its line struggles precisely with what we have put forward in France those last years.

    We have promoted the inevitability of Communism and the necessity of the Thought, following the teachings of Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru. Studying our country, we considered that must be defended Humanism, the absolute monarchy, Enlightenment, as progressive aspect of the contradiction of 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

    Ajith, on his side, rejects the relativism of Avakianism, which consists in idealism (with communism as a kind of “best option”), but rejects also our position, showing in fact that the substance of his position is in itself the same as Avakianism, or better said, as post-modernism.

    What does Ajith says? In the review “Naxalbari”, in August 2013, in a long document called “Against Avakianism”, Ajiths says numerous things that make the things very clear.

    For example, he says the following, trying to save post-modernism, which is nevertheless a terrible enemy of our ideology:

    “We have noted that Marx and Engels were not totally free of Enlightmentalist influences.

    How does Avakian fare in this matter? Today, compared to even Mao’s time, we are enriched with a new awareness of the contradictory essence of Enlightenment and its scientific consciousness.

    Post-modernist trends have made significant contributions in this matter. Though their relativism led them to an ahistorical rejection of the Enlightenment and modernisation, the critical insights they offer must be synthesised by Marxism.

    The contributions made by theoreticians of the Frankfurt school are also to be acknowledged. The necessity to distinguish the emancipatory aspect of the Enlightenment from its overarching bourgeois, colonial nature and thrust is one important lesson that we must derive.”

    Ajith says that Marxism should “synthesize” -he means integrate – the “critical insights” elaborated by the post-modernist trends about Enlightenment and modernisation. We say precisely the contrary:

    * Enlightenment is the progressive ideology of the bourgeoisie, which was not unified and therefore there were different trends: for example in France, there was the radical, atheist trend of Diderot, and the deist one of Voltaire. Enlightenment had no “contradictory essence”, but differences reflecting the different fractions of the bourgeoisie;

    * The struggle against “modernisation” is the one of romanticism, with all its variants, going from Islam with Khomeini or Sayyid Qutub, to Hinduism, nationalism, etc. – it is not our struggle. On the contrary: we are for “modernisation”, for the integration of the world in a single entity, crushing the elements of the past. We believe in progress.

    This last point is important because post-modernism propagates a lot a criticism of “technology”, of the “modern world”, expressing a petty-bourgeois fascination for the small production.

    Ajith says something corresponding to this point of view:

    “Furthermore, scientific consciousness itself must be critiqued in order to separate its rational content from the influence of Enlightenment values seen in it.

    These are particularly manifested in the claim made about modern science as the final word, the disparaging of pre-modern thought and practices on that basis and a utilitarian approach on

    the human-nature relation. In the oppressed countries, the belittling of traditional knowledge continues to be a dominant aspect of the comprador modernisation, developmental paradigm.

    Mao’s approach on the critical appropriation of Western, modern ideas and technologies, the rich lessons of the attempts made in Revolutionary China to synthesis traditional knowledge with modern sciences and its mass practice during the Cultural Revolution offer a sound starting point for a Maoist synthesis. It has the penetrating observations made by Marx and Engels on the human-nature interaction as guidance.”

    On our side, we worked a lot about the “human-nature interaction”, upholding the concept of “Biosphere” developed by the Soviet scientist Vernadsky, but also in defending ecology and a non-conflictual relationship to animals.

    But it doesn’t mean that we “regret” the “traditional knowledge”, which in fact has mostly disappeared since long and is now an ideological tool for the nationalist reaction. If we take a look at those who use the concept of “pre-modern thought and practices”, we will find only populists, defenders of romanticism.

    In fact, Ajith defends the same path as the populists in pre-Soviet Russia. And indeed, here is what he says about India, his country:

    “Finally, the Marxist conception of historical advance doesn’t imply in any way that human societies must invariably progress along the schematic trajectory of tribal-slave-feudal-capitalist social formations.

    It has advanced through diverse paths. For instance, though the societies in the South Asian sub-continent had various forms of slave exploitation, they never had a stage of slavery akin to that of Egypt or Rome. (In this context, the concept ‘shudra-holding mode of production’ advanced by the martyred Maoist activist intellectual Saket Rajan of the CPI (Maoist) demands deeper study.

    There is also the example of the region that later took shape as Keralam. Here, tribal societies directly became caste-feudal kingdoms, where adiyalatham (slave-like trading and exploitation of Dalit castes and some Adivasi tribes) existed in a symbiotic relation with tenant exploitation.”

    What Ajiths says here is totally wrong, and reflects a non understanding of the process which happened in India. It is very significant that he doesn’t speak about Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

    Because to say that in India there was no “stage of slavery akin to that of Egypt or Rome” is easily understood as false if we see how Brahmanism transformed itself in Hinduism.

    In fact, Ajith underestimates India’s history and doesn’t see that Buddhism was the form of pre-bourgeois ideology at that time, closely related to the principle of absolute monarchy (here we find the famous figures of Ashoka and Kautilya). It was a threat for feudalism.

    It is therefore just absurd to say that “tribal societies directly became caste-feudal kingdoms”: in fact, the process was organized from the top by “Hinduism” as historical trend in India, the “Aryans” integrating people in new ruling castes in the south, to crush Buddhism.

    Let’s quote here our article “Indian Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism – 10 : unification and glaciation of Indian society” :

    “Eventually, the ideological vigour of Hinduism led the feudal forces of the south to join Hinduism, through the integration of the feudal lords into the kshatriya caste and the instruction of priests, and a whole history was “written” about all this, to connect it with northern culture.

    This was a pure ideological construction, and in reality, the south of India never knew four castes, but only a traditional two level system, with feudal lords and priests on one side, and the oppressed masses on the other.

    Another variant was applied to the tribal areas that were integrated; in such cases, Hinduism had to adapt itself, which gave birth to tantricism, i.e. magical variants.”

    India’s historical path is absolutely not different of the rest of the world. The position of Ajith can only lead, like Frantz Fanon could have done it in Algeria, to a post-modernist support of the national bourgeoisie in semi-colonial semi-feudal India.

    It is logical, when we see the post-modernist position of Ajith, that he rejects both inevitability of Communism and the principle of Thought.

    In a strange manner, Ajith rejects the fact that Mao Zedong defends inevitability (a fact that Avakian recognizes, but rejects). But everybody knowing Mao Zedong knows that he upholds dialectical materialism, and therefore inevitability. We must see here that Ajith never speaks about it, he never speaks about the eternal matter, the infinite universe, thought as reflect of the movement of matter, socialist realism, etc. etc.

    Like Avakian, Ajith considers “Maoism” as a toolbox, and reduce Marxism to Historical Materialism using a “dialectical” philosophy, “produced” by Mao making a rupture with Stalin. That’s why he just doesn’t understand the principle of Thought.

    Here is what he says:

    “The Avakianists blame everyone who resists this as opposing the development of proletarian ideology itself. Therefore, in order to complete the repudiation of Avakianism, we must examine the process, dynamics, of ideological development. This also becomes unavoidable in the wider context of views that hold the development of Thought or Path as essential for the success for every revolution.

    Recently a concerted attempt is being made to propagate this view within the international Maoist movement. [See ‘The International Project: Guiding Thought Of Revolution: The Heart Of Maoism’, jointly promoted by the OWA (MLM, principally Maoist), CPMLM – Bangladesh and CPMLM – France and supported by the MLM Center of Belgium. An Open letter to the ICM from these parties states, “At our epoch, Maoism, as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, synthesis of the ideology of working class, can only exist as a guiding thought in each country, forging the avant-garde in correspondence with the inner contradiction of the country, unleashing People’s War.”]

    It was first advanced by the PCP and later on reiterated by the CPN (Maoist).

    Every creative application of MLM, leading to the successful development of a revolution (that is an application tested through practice), will surely give rise to a deeper grasp and insight of MLM. It will even contribute new concepts or ideas, which will enrich MLM. But it is not necessary (inevitable) that these contributions will represent a new ‘Thought’. It is even less necessary that they will represent a leap to a new stage, i.e., an all-round development of MLM.”

    It is very clear here that Ajith doesn’t understand at all what a Thought is and even, that he has not study this question. In the document “Guiding Thought Of Revolution”, some Thoughts are presented, with a biography of their biographies.

    But it is not said that these Thoughts represent a leap to a new stage. On the contrary even: a Thought represent the correct application to a country of the universal ideology.

    The only special case is here Gonzalo Thought, which had such a high level that it helped understanding Maoism.

    Nevertheless, it is not a question of “new concept or ideas”, to “enrich MLM” or whatsoever. Thought means: in a given country, history and culture are understood and a path for the revolution is formulated.

    The Chinese comrades explain this in saying:

    “History shows that the bourgeoisie first took hold of ideology and prepared public opinion before it seized political power from the feudal landlord class. Starting from the period of the “Renaissance,” the European bourgeoisie persistently criticized feudal ideology and propagated bourgeois ideology. It was in the 17th and 18th centuries, after several hundred years of preparation of public opinion, that the bourgeoisie seized political power and established its dictatorship in one European country after another.

    Marx and Engels began propagating the theories of communism more than a century ago. They did so to prepare public opinion for the seizure of political power by the proletariat. The Russian proletarian revolution culminated in the seizure of political power only after decades of preparation of public opinion. Our own experience is even fresher in our minds. When the Chinese proletariat began to appear on the political scene, it was weak and unarmed. How was the revolution to start? It started with the propagation of Marxism-Leninism and the exposure of imperialism and its lackeys in China. The struggle of the Chinese proletariat for the seizure of political power began precisely with the May 4th cultural revolution.

    In the final analysis, the history of the seizure of political power by the Chinese proletariat is a history of Mao Tse-tung’s thought gripping the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. As the masses have aptly put it: “Without Mao Tse-tung’s thought, there would have been no New China.” By integrating Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution, Comrade Mao Tse-tung, the great revolutionary standard-bearer, changed the whole face of the Chinese revolution.” (Long Live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966)

    This is precisely what Ajith doesn’t face, according to us. Maoism is for him Historical Materialism + a toolbox of concepts. According to us, Historical Materialism is only a section of Dialectical Materialism: each country is a part of the World Revolution, and the World Revolution is a part of the whole matter moving to Communism.

    => documents in English

  • Long live May Day, day of the proletariat, in struggle for communism!

    How does the world look, in 2014? Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Mali, Afghanistan, Egypt… In more and more countries, there are attempts to destabilize governments, so that the ruling clique is thrown out, in order that a new one comes. It means here: a governing bureaucratic bourgeoisie is changed, when anyway feudalism remains unaffected.

    The reason for that is easy to understand: capitalism can not overcome its internal crisis, owing to the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It means that it will come to more and more imperialist interventions, to more and more inter-imperialist contradictions, which express themselves up to war, and also to always more poverty, more national and social demagogy, and this up to Fascism as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital”.

    In the background, it also means that, in essence, barbarism anchors itself more and more. Indifference, subjectivity, individualism, spirit of competition, etc. are the values that are presented as “coherent” and “normal”, while on the other side consolation is given by religions, irrationality, retreat into subcultures, etc.. The culture is also increasingly under attack, in the name of the expansion of the capitalist market, as well as the nature anywhere in the world, on behalf of the urgency of capital accumulation.

    Nevertheless, this is only one aspect of reality. We are living a period, which is on the one hand temporarily, and which finds itself on the other side in a context of an “epoch of 50 to 100 years”, because the 21st century will be the one of the world revolution.

    “President Gonzalo teaches us that in the process of the world revolution to sweep away imperialism and reaction from the face of the earth there are three moments: 1st, the strategic defensive; 2nd, the strategic equilibrium; and 3rd, the strategic offensive of the world revolution.

    He reaches this conclusion by applying the law of contradiction to the revolution since contradiction rules everything and all contradictions have two aspects in struggle; in this case revolution and counter-revolution (…).

    Our conceptions is of a long-term process with the conviction of reaching Communism even if it means passing through a series of twists and turns and the reverses that will necessarily occur (…). As Communists, we should see not only the specific moment, but the long years to come.” (Communist Party of Peru: the International Line, 1988)

    In this sense, we say that it is a historical necessity to know the history of his own country, to defend the democratic aspects and to synthesize the revolutionary aspects, as a guiding Thought to open the way for the Revolution, until victory in the People’s War, under the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, ideology of the proletariat which can only be worn by the genuine Communist Party.

    It would therefore be wrong to let oneself be impressed by things like the canonization, this week, of the popes John XXIII and John Paul II, which intends to spread superstition, or from the current intensive propaganda in Afghanistan about the elections, which only goal is to reinforce the colonial stand.

    It is also the case with the false promises about improvements of the work conditions in Bangladesh, one year after the collapse of the Rana plaza building, and the recent elections made by a regime without and with its bourgeoisie opposition with greed for power. Directly and indirectly, those reactionaries are forcing people to take more and more superstition, backwardness and blindness.

    This is the same with the next European elections, where the radical reformists will get some success in Belgium, but where in France the far rights will celebrate electoral victories.

    These are just attempts to keep a system alive, that is already at the end, which is already condemned historically.

    Therefore we call: Proletarians and oppressed people and nations of the world, unite!

    PEOPLE’S WAR UNTIL COMMUNISM!

    Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

    Communist Party Marxist-Leninist-Maoist [Bangladesh]

    Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center [Belgium]

    Communist Party Marxist-Leninist-Maoist [France]

    First of May, 2014

    => documents in English

  • Struggle through fraction or through ideology?

    The positions of the MPP and the CPMLM [F]

    One of the main question in the International Communist movement nowadays, and in fact since the 1960’s, is the one of the reconstitution of genuine Communist Parties.

    On this occasion, we never documented or formulated in a clear way a difference of approach between the CPMLM [France] and the MPP, the Communist Party of Peru’s generated organism for the work abroad.

    Let’s present it here in four points, easy to see.

    1.What happened in the oppressed countries and in the imperialist countries

    In the 1950’s, or even earlier, the Communist Parties formed following the wave of the 1917 revolution and then members of the Communist International began to degenerate; with revisionism’s success in 1953 in the Soviet Union, the process was nearly completed.

    The word “nearly” plays here an amazing role. Indeed, the anti-revisionists formed in the 1960’s “fractions” in the revisionist Communist Party, considering that the process of degeneration was only nearly completed.

    Soon expelled, they formed new parties, mostly called “Marxist-Leninist Communist Party”.

    In Asia, Africa and South America, this happened solely in this way.

    But in the imperialist countries, some others parties, considered as “leftists” by the others, didn’t follow this approach. They considered that they had to form a Communist Party of the time of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

    They considered that a rupture was needed with the precedent revisionism, that a “reconstitution” was not enough, a cultural and ideological leap was needed. 

    In the imperialist countries, the result was that there were two kind of parties:

    – “ML” parties that followed a legal or a semi-legal way, refusing armed struggle and that very soon became hoxhaists;

    – organizations claiming Maoism and developing an approach deeply influenced by spontaneism, practicing armed struggle, before collapsing very quickly, at least ideologically: the French Proletarian Left, the Italian Red Brigades, the (West-)German Red Army Fraction, the US Weather Underground, the Japanese Red Army, etc.

    2.Two approaches

    The people claiming Maoism in Italy, in Germany (West, but also East), or even in France after some experiences, considered that the communist organization had to be rebuild.

    They didn’t form a “fraction” inside the Communist Party, which continued to exist in all the imperialist countries, and continue to exist even today in some countries like France or Greece.

    They tried to “revolutionize” the model in the imperialist countries, and didn’t succeed : they collapsed very soon ideologically, or even at the organizational level; only some splitter groups managed to continue their clandestine activities, like for example the Red Army Fraction, but with Maoism having been abandoned. 

    So, what appears is the following: either there would be the need to reform a “red” fraction to organize a rupture with the “old” revisionist “Communist” Party, or to recreate an ideological rupture.

    3.The French example

    In France, at the beginning of the 1990’s and until recently, there were three conceptions that existed in the question of the reconstitution:

    – the semi-revisionists tried to recreate a “red” fraction and being expelled they all proceed to a reconstitution of a Party, but it didn’t work, because culturally and ideologically, no rupture was done;

    – the spontaneists only proceeded to the valorization of the rupture of the past, mostly on the armed level, but not able to forge a real high ideological level;

    – the CPMLM affirmed that the thought is the main aspect, after having considered that it was the key to understand the failures of the reconstitution.

    4.Struggle through fraction or through ideology? The positions of the MPP and the CPMLM [F]

    During the 2000’s and until today, the positions of the CPMLM [F] and the MPP were always very near.

    Nevertheless, the CPMLM [F] didn’t accept that the MPP didn’t criticize openly prachandism, or participated at international conferences with what  would become the center of international centrism: the Maoist Communist Party of Italy.

    The line of the MPP was always: let’s be the red fraction, there should be no active rupture, the responsibility must come to the prachandists.

    The result was that the prachandists could take easily the control of the Co-RIM, with then the post-prachandists taking the lead, killing softly Maoism.

    Why that? Because what counts is not a “tradition” or an “historical current”, but ideology. 

    What counts is not a formal reconstitution of a Communist Party who only then works on the question of “thought”, but the dialectic construction of the Party / generation of the Thought.

    This is how revolutionary organizations should be evaluated. Do they move in direction of the generation of the thought, or not?

    => documents in English

  • In defense of Chairman Gonzalo

    Chairman Gonzalo, imprisoned since 1992, in a Peruvian military jail, is deeply ill and his life is threatened. It is a moment of an extreme importance; the life of the great Maoist of these last thirty years is in danger.

    Therefore, it is necessary to recall: to fight for Chairman Gonzalo means to fight for Communism! It is necessary to study Gonzalo and to apply his masterful understanding of the People’s War, of the Thought, of dialectical materialism!

    Here, it is necessary also to stress the importance of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist), which just made a call to defend the life of Chairman Gonzalo, to mobilize in this sense.

    This call is correct, and is the expression of the very important work of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist) to underline the importance of Gonzalo in our communist identity.

    As these comrades of Afghanistan say about Gonzalo: “He is People’s War until communism.” Gonzalo incarnates the ideological leap to Maoism.

    The question of Gonzalo is precisely what separates us of new revisionism pretending to be “maoist”!

    As these comrades of Afghanistan say:

    “Today, it is Chairman Gonzalo and his all-powerful thought that gives the correct formulation of the scientific ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.

    The international line, Democratic line, mass line and military line of Communist Party of Peru which has been authored by Chairman Gonzalo, have international importance and great significance for world proletarian revolution. Chairman Gonzalo’s contributions are combat weapons that enables us the smash the rotten “new synthesis of Bob Avakian” and “Kiran-Prachanda twins revisionism of renegades of Nepal”.

    So, in defense of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we have to defend the legacy of its major contributions, and those major contributions are those who represent the all-powerful formulation of MLM by Chairman Gonzalo.

    The above mentioned LINES are the extract of MLM in our epoch. So, to fight for Chairman Gonzalo’s life means to fight for Communism. We ask for unconditional release of Chairman Gonzalo, and we fight for it.”

    The CPMLM of France always defended Gonzalo and is proud of having made a common document with the comrades of Afghanistan and Bangladesh on the concept of thought elaborated by Gonzalo, following the teachings of Mao Zedong.

    The CPMLM of France always celebrated Gonzalo, not like the fake Maoists in our country who always rejected him or pretended defending him, only to betray him in a more perverted way.

    Gonzalo, our best comrade, kept in total isolation and victim of ideological hoaxes pretending that he became a renegade, must be defended.

    And all the reactionaries of the world must be warned: Gonzalo’s lessons are eternally a part of our all powerful ideology ; any attack against him will transform itself in a contribution of the new revolutionary storm coming, the new red wave of the world proletarian revolution.

    Gonzalo means People’s War until Communism! Gonzalo means the understanding of the thought necessary in each country to make People’s War! To defend Gonzalo is to defend dialectical materialism! 

    CPMLM of France

    August, 2013

    => documents in English

  • Our values

    Nothing is indivisible ! The universe is eternal !

    The law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law

    of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought!

    1.

    On the contrary to what religions explain, there is not the matter on one side, the soul on the other side. Only matter exists, and it has always existed, and it will always exist. The universe is infinite and eternal; there is neither a beginning, nor an end.

    This is the basic conception of materialism, which negates that something “outside” the matter would exist, like a god, the “spirit”, the soul, etc.

    In ancient Greece, philosophers like Epicurus and Democritus (or later the Roman Lucretius) supported this materialist thesis. Nevertheless, in their conception the universe was a passive one.

    It was so the scientific current opened by the Greek Aristotle and continued by the Islamic philosophers Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes which developed the conception of an universe which is eternal and in movement.

    2.

    Later, humanism continued this affirmation, from the the Parisian Latin averroism of the 13th century to Spinoza, which surpassed the conception of God and recognized nature as the sole reality.

    Materialism in Europe, carried in different manners through averroism, humanism, the different variants of protestantism, English materialism, the French Lumières, etc., permitted the nascent bourgeoisie to have its own ideology and to transform reality.

    The bourgeoisie profited from the Romanesque and Gothic ages, where a centralized state began to form itself, which peak is the absolute monarchy, notably of Louis XIV of France. The nations began to be formed in this process of development of an unified market; in France the national culture was so formed at the 17th century, whose great figures were Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Molière.

    The era of the bourgeois revolution was the climax of this process of the growing bourgeoisie; the French revolution was a phenomenon of the greatest historical value. Great philosophers affirmed materialism, like de la Mettrie and Diderot.

    3.

    The bourgeois affirmation of materialism could not be protracted, because the bourgeoisie was prisoner of the development of Capital itself. Nevertheless, this transformation of reality through the new mode of production produced the working class.

    Transforming reality i.e. matter, the working class is historically condemned to materialism; moreover, it understands the contradiction between itself and the reality which is transformed, and between itself and the bourgeoisie which exploits his work.

    Therefore, the working class is the most revolutionary class of history, because it carries the understanding of the law of the contradiction, coming from the fact that it transforms reality through work (therefore the symbols of hammer and sickle).

    So, with the working class, materialism reaches the level of understanding of how humans are indeed subjected to the process of reproduction of the means of life; their conceptions are only the reflect of this process.

    As Karl Marx pointed out in a famous sentence: “In the social production of their life, humans enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production.

    The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society — the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

    The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general.

    It is not the consciousness of humans that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

    At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters.

    Then begins an epoch of social revolution.”

    4.

    This is not all: the working class understands also the way the matter comes to transform itself. It permits to come back to a total materialism like with Epicurus, but this time with matter in movement, surpassing the idealism opened with Aristotle.

    The working class, in transforming reality, acquires the understanding of reality and understands that the contradiction is the motor of movement in history, but also of all phenomena, of matter itself.

    According materialism, there is neither a “cause” nor a “consequence”, there is only transformation, the movement from matter itself: the law of contradiction is universal.

    Materialism is only genuine materialism when based on dialectics, which is explained by Lenin in this way: “Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical, – under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another, – why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another.”

    Dialectics is universal; as Mao Zedong pointed out: “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought.”

    5.

    The fundamental teachings of dialectical materialism are the following:

    *the law of the unity of opposites is universal, and therefore:

    **nothing is indivisible

    **the universe is eternal

    *society and thoughts obey to the universal law of contradiction, and therefore:

    **the thought is the reflect of the movement of matter

    **materialism means following rationally the direction of matter

    The fundamental lines of dialectical materialism are the following:

    *The masses make history, the Communist Party leads them

    *The general crisis of capitalism is unavoidable

    *Fight fascism and the romanticist attempt of the ancient to roll back the wheel of history

    *Defend the biosphere as the place of living matter

    *Struggle for the generation and the application of a guiding thought in each country

    *Socialist realism is the guideline for arts, Cultural Revolutions are needed in socialism

    *Surpass the contradiction between intellectual and manual labor, surpass the contradiction between cities and countryside, build people’s communes!

    *People’s War until communism !

    => documents in English

  • Joint declaration: 1st of may 2013: Maoism is the spring of our epoch!

    1st of may 2013: Maoism is the spring of our epoch !

    On this first of may 2013, from Afghanistan, Belgium and France, full of revolutionary optimism, we hail all the proletarians and oppressed masses of the world, calling them to unite under the red banner of Maoism!

    We call them to understand the two sides of world’s reality. The night is dark, darkness seems to envelop each aspect of reality, but in fact the dawn begins to make shine the red sun.

    Yes, this is the call of the time: a new storm is coming, the new wave of the World Proletarian Revolution is emerging! Maoism is the spring of our epoch !

    This is why, from Afghanistan, Belgium and France, we say:

    Uphold, defend and apply Maoism !

    Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought
    in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

    Inevitably, people’s war will develop in each country, carried by the fire in the heart of the masses, led by the Communist Party based on Marxism Leninism Maoism, forged by the guiding thought!

    Inevitably, the masses of the world will unite under the red star, forming the World Socialist Republic, going to the golden Communism!

    Our conception is that the world proletarian revolution is in its strategic offensive, the revolution is the main tendency, the revolutionary alternative appears each day more as unavoidable in the eyes of the world masses.

    So, they ask for the historical weapon!

    Therefore, as a contribution, there is a document, a project from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and France, about the principle of guiding thought, key element of dialectical materialism in each given country.

    What is a guiding thought? “Revolutions give rise to a thought that guides them, which is the result of the application of the universal truth of the ideology of the international proletariat to the concrete conditions of each revolution; a guiding thought indispensable to reach victory and to conquer political power and, moreover, to continue the revolution and to maintain the course always towards the only, great goal: Communism.” (Communist Party of Peru, On Gonzalo thought)

    Without a guiding thought, there can’t be no correct resolution of the contradictions in a country; without a guiding thought, there is only reformism, revisionism, a cosmopolitanism which inhibits the release of potential radicalism of the masses toward a successful People’s War.

    In each country, communists must understand the development of society, the historical movement giving birth to the New Democratic Revolution, in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries, and the Socialist Revolution, in the capitalist-imperialist countries.

    In each country, communists must forge the Communist Party, based on Marxism Leninism Maoism, following the thought born of the historical necessity of the time.

    In each country, People’s War is the way to liberation!

    It is conform to the requirements of our time. Indeed, capitalism, in its fierce form, in its last stage, is a decayed, parasitic and moribund system.

    It can’t bring nothing more than more exploitation, more oppression, more injustice, more destruction of the nature of our planet, nothing more than fascism and imperialist wars.

    Capitalism is the enemy of progress, of culture, of democracy, and at its imperialist stage, it is a mortal enemy for all progressive values.

    The struggle against fascism is in the front of the eyes of each revolutionary.

    But there is more to understand. With capitalism come also reactionary ideologies, which pretend to be “revolutionary”, but are in fact counter-revolutionary in nature, like national-socialism, peronism, chavism, castrism, etc.

    They pretend to combine “nationalism” and “socialism”, and in fact that they are the servants of the most reactionary fraction of the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, and of a bureaucratic capitalist fraction in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries.

    This is not all. Imperialism tries also to make penetrate the poison in the ranks of the genuine revolutionaries. This poison takes the form of the conceptions of “peace agreements”, flexibility in strategy, “post-Maoism”, etc.

    We uphold Maoist orthodoxy and reject the “modernist” trends, which are nothing more than a bourgeois sabotage. We say: all the bourgeois ideologies, the rightist tendencies, must be rejected.

    Without that, there can only failure, as prove it some organizations, which followed “centrist” line around the “Maoist Communist Party of Italy”, refusing the big separation with capitulation in Nepal, and so coming to the point of diffusing a liberal, bourgeois conception of what should be Maoism.

    We also say: it is correct to raise an anti-centrist criticism, but dialectically it has to move forward in the elaborated affirmation of Maoism, and assume the principle of the Guiding Thought, which is the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, to the reality of each country.

    A real two line struggle against centrism, a new variant of “Maoist” revisionism, necessitates a real rupture with relativism, to assume Maoism as the third stage of Marxism.

    It is incorrect to criticize centrism from a point of view limited to the conceptions acquired at the second stage of Marxism, i.e. Leninism.

    Therefore, we say:

    Combat the liquidation of the learnings of Chairman Gonzalo and the propaganda of the right opportunist line (ROL) in Peru!

    Combat armed revisionism, like carried by the left opportunist line (LOL) in Peru!

    Combat “post-maoism” of Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA !

    Combat centrism of the Maoist Communist Party of Italy!

    Combat pseudo anti-centrism, when it doesn’t come to accept Maoism as the third stage of Marxism!

    Uphold, defend and apply Maoism !

    Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

    And in this process will emerge unity, step by step, through the movement to the universal cause of the proletariat: Communism. The generation of the thoughts in each country is the presupposition for mutual recognition under the universal banner of Maoism.

    People’s War until Communism!

    Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

    Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center (Belgium)

    Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party (France)

    => documents in English

  • Has Akram Yari founded the dialectical materialist approach of psychology?

    Did Akram Yari, the great historical Maoist of Afghanistan, founded the dialectical materialist approach of psychology? This is a very important question. There are many elements that can let us consider that it is the case. Let’s go back to a sentence written by Akram Yari:

    “Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

    There is the need to comment further this sentence, as its ideological luxuriousness is extreme.

    Poles of opposites

    As we can see, indeed, there are two poles of opposites:

    Individual’s perpetuity <=====> sacrifice for the [working] class

    cause of station and is a passive agent <=====> dynamic and active agent

    If we look further, we can see another pairs of opposites, in the opposites:

    individual <=====> [working] class

    perpetuity <=====> sacrifice

    and:

    cause of station <=====> dynamic

    passive agent <=====> active agent

    We begin to have an overlook about the luxuriousness of Akram Yari’s thought. Let’s go further and see which words he used.

    The etymology of the words chosen

    In particular, we need to see which vocabulary he use for active / passive and cause of station / dynamic.

    Akram Yari says:

    « بقای فردی عامل سکون وپسیف است وازخودگذری درمقابل منافع طبقه عامل متحرک واکتیف »

    For “station”, he uses “سکون”, pronounced “Sukoun”, it comes from the Arabic language, where it means “calm”; it is also used by the great master of the falsafa, Avicenna, for example in the “Danesh Namé”, the “book of science”.

    For “dynamic”, he uses “متحرک”, pronounced “Mutaharek”, which comes from the Arabic « حَرَكَة”. Here it is to note that word is to take in the sense of “mobile”, i.e. dynamic in the sense that it can come to be in motion. The opposition station/dynamic is to understand as calm/mobile.

    This is directly in relation with the opposition passive / active, for which Akram Yari uses the words borrowed from the English language (aktif/pasif).

    And now, let’s take a last look, at the word “agent”. Akram Yari uses the word “عامل”, prononced “Aamel”. It comes from the Arabic language, and the on-line dictionary wiktionary gives us this useful explanation:

    “Noun

    عَامِل‎ • (ʕāmil) , plural عَوَامِل (ʕawāmil)‎

    1. factor, constituent, element, causative agent
    2. motive power
    3. (grammar) word that governs another word”

    The Falsafa: Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna

    Now, let’s take a look at the teachings of Falsafa. Do we find the same poles of opposites?

    Let’s take the opposition passive agent <=====> active agent.

    To sum up, according the tradition of Aristotle, the second master (Al-Fârâbî) and Avicenna, there is a God which is a “motor”. Because it is “good”, it produces goodness which is already separated from God, giving birth to an “angel” which is an “intellect” (aql).

    At the end of this process, there is the Earth, formed of a fusion of the low level of the “intellect” and matter. Matter is merely “passive” and formed by the intellect, which is “active”.

    Therefore, what is called the “thought” does not belong to matter. It belongs to the intellect.

    Let’s see now the opposition cause of station <=====> dynamic.

    According the tradition of Aristotle – Al Farabi – Avicenna, matter is “calm”, in the sense of “receptive”, whereas the intellect is “mobile”, moving to the receptive matter, forming it (= gives forms to it).

    According Aristotle, the wise who understands that becomes happy; according Al-Fârâbî, somebody understanding that become the philosoph-king. And according Avicenna, the individual can receive the “light beams” of the “intellect” bringing universal forms of knowledge.

    The Falsafa: Averroes

    In the amazing conceptions of Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, people are like computers searching the informations in a big datacenter, which would be “God”, the cables being the intellect putting informations on the screens (here: the “souls”).

    But as we know, the “great commentator”, Averroes, modified this system. In the system of Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, everything comes from the top, from the intellect. The individuals are merely passive.

    However, Averroes saw the contradiction: how can the eternal and unique intellect be in relation with the non-eternal and non unique individuals?

    This was a major materialist step, which was quickly and harshly crushed by the representatives of Islam, whereas in Europe it became the weapon for the materialists in the struggle against the Church, giving the central impulse for the Renaissance.

    How did Averroes change the Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna system?

    According Averroes, the “intellect” was not only coming from outside the matter, there was also a part of the intellect directly connected to matter.

    Humans were matter, but with an “intellect”, which was opened to the intellect coming from outside (from the top, from God).

    The union matter – intellect of a human formed a union الاتحاد – al-ittihad, seeking for a jonction إتصا –ittisal, with the great intellect.

    It was a major step, because it was a recognition of the existence of the brain.

    A materialist understanding

    The system of Aristotle – Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna – Averroes is a static one. But for us, the world is in movement, matter is eternal and follows a dialectical movement. So, the static aspect is opposed to the dynamic aspect, as Mao Zedong said, “the tree may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside”.

    So, now, let’s go back to Akram Yari’s affirmation:

    “Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

    And let’s understand it properly.

    What is perpetuity? It is the calm. What is the sacrifice? It is the wind. The individuals live in a given society, but this society evolves. The individual sees and feels this evolution, but without a proper approach, falls in nostalgia.

    Here, Akram Yari stressed some very important points, reaching a very high level of understanding of psychology; if we take his quote, on one side, we have the non-mobile side:

    “Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent”

    On the other side, we have the mobile side:

    “sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent”.

    If we were with Avicenna, we would say: the intellect (aql) is active and “writes” the passive agent. But as we don’t use the concept of God, but of matter in eternal dialectical movement, then the world is in a process of auto-transformation.

    (It is certainly why Akram Yari didn’t use the Arabic words for active / passive that used Avicenna : it would been as if the materialist system was equivalent to Avicenna’s, and this was not the case. Akram Yari probably didn’t knowt Averroes, Titan of the falsafa but largely unknown in the Muslim world.)

    Therefore, this transformation is the real active agent. And with Averroes, we know that the individuals are not only like a receptor, they can emit also: humans are turned in the direction of the intellect from the top, but also in the direction of the matter they’re connected to.

    So, Akram Yari explains what Averroes, Kant, Lenin observed: people do no think at a greater level than themselves, except some few people understanding the whole system which put everything in motion.

    The “thought” of the humans is a reflection, it is late, because not turned in the direction of the general motion. To understand it properly, let’s come back to the opposites presented by Akram Yari.

    Individual and sacrifice, a dialectical movement and so, intern

    We said that the opposites were:

    individual <=====> [working] class

    perpetuity <=====> sacrifice

    But in fact, this is not correct, it should be:

    individual <=====> sacrifice

    perpetuity <=====> [working] class

    Why that? Because it is the class which is against perpetuity, the class carries communism, which is abolishing the old society.

    The contradiction is intern: the class belongs to the society.

    And the other contradiction is between the individual, turned in the direction of itself, whereas the sacrifice shows that he turned itself to the general movement of matter.

    The contradiction is intern: the sacrifice is the one of the individual itself.

    The basis for an understanding of the psychology of the individual

    So, the contradiction is intern. But what are the forms of this contradiction?

    Let’s, for this, understand what Akram Yari said just before the sentence we quoted:

    “the basic principle of an individual’s life is in a superficial manner, nothing more than keeping owns material existence till death, but the situation of life, meaningfully, its social manner, conducts the survival and perpetuity of an individual towards transforming to a contradiction: from one side, material survival is the basis for being alive, but from other aspect, giving sacrifices in favor of the class, is the necessary initiative for individual growth and development of human society.”

    When Akram Yari speaks of the “social manner”, the fact of “keeping owns material existence till death”, it is like when Averroes speaks of the “intellect” present in matter and not turned to the great intellect (Averroes calls is the “material intellect”).

    And as the contradiction is in society itself, in the reproduction of the means of life (= the mode of production), then the contradiction is in the human directly also. Individual and sacrifice forms a contradiction, but a contradiction not between the human and an intellect as in the religious conception of Aristotle – Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna – Averroes.

    It is indeed a contradiction in the human itself. This is why Karl Marx explained us, in its Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843):

    “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.

    Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself.”

    Akram Yari gave the basis for psychology

    In explaining that the individual is in a situation which is passive and non-mobile, Akram Yari upholds the dialectical materialist point of view that the individual thought is the reflect of the movement of matter.

    Nevertheless, as the thought is gray matter, is in the brain, and as the brain is matter, the brain is a part of the movement of matter.

    Therefore, the individual is in a contradiction. This contradiction is the basis for the dialectical materialist approach of psychology.

    The mind of the individuals is at the same time the tool to understand the direct reality of the individual, but also the global reality of the world. This comes from the natural reality of the brain.

    This opens a whole field of understanding the individuals. It helps to understand the tension between the global aspect of the class and the reality of the individuals, which are in the class, but also turned, in a relative way, in a direct reality part of the reproduction of the means of living.

    => documents in English

  • Akram Yari on the dialectics between an individual’s life and society’s progress

    When we look at history, when we see that life is matter in movement, then it is inevitable that we can see a contradiction between the search by each life of its own preservation and the necessity to put its own life in danger in the struggle for progress.

    On one side, the general trend of revolution pushes the individual to action. On the other side, the individual is already living, he has a family, he has friends, a love relationship can have begun, kids are maybe already there, etc.

    There is so a great tension between the life of an individual which is propelled in one direction, with a culture of its own, individual making project for the future, and the necessity of the revolution.

    Of course, genuine revolutionaries are aware of this and all their life is managed so to conform to the necessity of the revolution: this the principle of the professional revolutionaries, like Lenin formulated it.

    So, we have to raise the question of the adequacy of one individual’s life and its duty. This is a contradiction. We can see it easily in the process of construction and development of the Communist Party; we can see how people fail, because they are not able to transform themselves. This is also what Gonzalo meant with the question of necessity and historical chance for what makes an individual act like this or like that.

    There is a tension between the tendency of the individuals to see in communism the only path for progress in general, and their tendency for self-protection, which must go, if not transformed, in direction of the illusory protection by the past, the reaction, when in fact transformation can’t be avoided.

    Therefore, the Communist Party must always elevate its level, so that individuals can directly see that their own development is linked with the progress of communism. No life can be improved in a sense that goes against communism.

    And life following the general tendency to communism can only progress, gaining elements for its advance in the cultural fields, finding the positive elements in society, its own life, being able to stay authentic, etc.

    So, to sum up, a part of matter can’t anyway go in a direction opposed to the general movement of matter; it is the principle of the universe in onion. All the layers of the universe are in transformation.

    Here how the great Maoist of Afghanistan, Akram Yari, explains to us this contradiction:

    “…the basic principle of an individual’s life is in a superficial manner, nothing more than keeping owns material existence till death, but the situation of life, meaningfully, its social manner, conducts the survival and perpetuity of an individual towards transforming to a contradiction: from one side, material survival is the basis for being alive, but from other aspect, giving sacrifices in favor of the class, is the necessary initiative for individual growth and development of human society.

    Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

    The grandiose understanding by Akram Yari shows us here that there a passive aspect, and a dynamic aspect, which means that the main aspect is the general aspect, not the individual aspect. It means that the trend which wins is the dynamic aspect.

    This is dialectical: as the individual is a component of matter in general, if the system moves, it moves also. And if the individual understands that, he can accompany the general movement of matter. Indeed, he carries then the thought.

    And that is why Akram Yari explains that:

    “It crucial for a better existence and for a better life, to give sacrifice, because, it is only in this from work, in the frame work of sacrificing for the sake of class, being fully pledged in favor of the class, and neglecting one’s own interest, and being in favor of the class that leads to a better life. It is then possible for an individual to wage a struggle for guaranteeing his/her real eternity.”

    This looks like poetry for people not used to the laws of dialectical materialism. But if we look at Engels, didn’t he win his “eternity” by helping Karl Marx and the foundation of Marxism, instead of only “living” as a bourgeois as he could have done?

    Basically, this is the question touching every individual: should it try “self-protection”, which can only be an illusion as the past is always weaker, or should it dare the new, which is weak but always stronger, and conform to the general movement of matter in transformation?

    We all know people that faced a choice, and that followed the opportunist line, instead of the revolutionary one, for a reason of comfort, exactly like somebody can pretend to negate its own love, because it is not in adequacy with its own bourgeois career project.

    But let’s conclude with this masterful lesson of Akram Yari on dialectics, here about the nature of revolutionary politics:

    “What form takes the principal work in struggling for the emancipation of the humans in a class society? That form of work, which is really effective in liberation and emancipation of humans. This form of working is a revolutionary politics.

    It means that the revolutionary politics of interests of the class at whole, while in progress, and within progression, can break the chains of bondage of the humans {from oppression} and it leads the human beings towards emancipation and liberation. This is the reason why politics is prior to all issues.

    This means political aid is the most non-private thing and most unbiased one that an individual can offer to other ones. But all knows that in a class society, there is nothing unbiased, so the politics also cannot be unbiased, and cannot be found unbiased in a class society.

    But what is the political bias? Political bias, it is itself a contradiction: from one aspect, it contains all private biases and {represents} each of them, and from another aspect, political bias does not reflect private and personal bias.

    Political bias is an image, is an abstraction and contains too much parts of personal or private biases, and contemporarily, does not represent private bias of any individual, and does not fulfill any private bias.

    As is the revolutionary proletarian politics the negation of private bias each individual of the class, at the same time, it is the abstracted form and the integration of the whole biases of the individuals [/members] of a class.”

    How useful are the lessons of Akram Yari, carried by the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)!

    => documents in English

  • Conscience, matter, reflection and Siraj Sikder

    The comrades of Bangladesh have translated in English some documents of Siraj Sikder, which is a great contribution to the history of the International Communist Movement, but also to the active field of ideology which is ours.

    In particular, the importance of the document called “On some slogans”, from January 1971, is to stress, because in it Siraj Sikder expresses the very fundamental approach of dialectical materialism.

    Let’s see here in what it consists.

    1.The affirmation of the law of contradiction

    Siraj Sikder understood that each nation was build through the development of economy in a concrete situation, and that this was to consider to understand how the social changes take place.

    Correctly, he points out:

    “Dialectical materialism teaches us “The fundamental cause of development of a thing is not external but internal. It lies in the contradictoriness within the thing”. It further teaches us, “Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society”.

    That means, the basic reason why independent democratic East Bengal is the end result of social development of East Bengal lies inside the society of East Bengal. This is dialectical materialism.”

    2.Slogans as expression of the thought

    Nevertheless, Siraj Sikder wouldn’t be a great leader if he understood only the basic law of contradiction. He understood also the principle of direction.

    Here, Siraj Sikder precises us the question of the slogans as the reflection of the necessity of East Bengal’s development.

    “Proletariat as class is minority at present East Bengal society and even it will remain so till certain stage in socialist society too.

    In that situation, how proletariat will lead whole masses of the country? “First, by putting forward basic political slogans that accord with the course of historic development and by putting forward slogans of action for each stage of development and each major turn of events in order to translate these political slogans into reality.” [Mao, Selected Works, Vol-I, P-274]

    So, in order to lead the whole masses of East Bengal society, East Bengal proletariat has to make political strategy and tactics corresponding to the historic development of East Bengal on the one hand, and strategic and tactical slogans as reflection of respective strategy and tactics on the other, and they have to implement those as well.

    In this context, they must study and analyze whether or not the slogans raised by different forms of revisionists of East Bengal properly reflect East Bengal society and its development.”

    Even if a minority, the working-class, as it is at the avant-garde, indicates the correct way.

    3.Matter is dynamic and this dynamism has its own law

    So, slogans are expression – through the thought which formulates them – of the necessities of the movement of the social reality, i.e. of matter.

    Here is what Siraj Sikder says:

    “Dialectical materialism teaches us – matter exists independent of our consciousness.

    Matter is primary while consciousness is the reflection of matter in our brain through five perceptual organs. Consciousness is created from matter and is secondary.

    It further teaches us, matter is dynamic and this dynamism has its own law.

    If there are many contradictions in process of development of a matter, in that case each contradiction has separate existence, they have mutual relations too and matter develops periodically through solution of principal contradiction.

    This is the reflection of the law of development of mater that has been included in the law of dialectical materialism and principal contradiction.”

    4.The materialization of the program

    All this perfect understanding of Siraj Sikder makes him say an affirmation which is non-sense for revisionism and reformism:

    “The People’s Republic will materialize the great program of East Bengal Workers Movement”.

    Indeed, according dialectical materialism, this sentence means that the realization of the people’s republic is the product of the thought, thought who carried out the synthesis of the necessities of the matter, producing by this the great program.

    In the logic of revisionism and reformism, which is idealist, “demands” produce a movement which makes a program. These “ideas” should be “accepted” and bring a “revolution”.

    In fact, a revolution doesn’t happen like this. Revolution is the product of matter in movement, and there is a dialectic movement with the thought. The thought reflects this movement of matter, and dialectically, it throws forces in this movement, to accomplish the qualitative leap.

    This is why Siraj Sikder raises the importance of the slogans, expression of the necessities of the movement of matter… And why the revolution will materialize the road map synthesized by the avant-garde.

    => documents in English

  • Gonzalo’s allusion to Engels in the question of necessity and historical chance, and the position of Marx

    In the article « Gonzalo and the question of guiding thought, thought in development, People’s War« , we saw that Gonzalo spoke of necessity and historical chance when dealing about the question of why an individual, and not another, carries the thought.

    Here is what he said, precisely:

    « The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. 

    None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility. »

    It is of importance to note that here, Gonzalo alludes to what Engels said. It is important to understand that, because Engels spoke about thought in general, and in particular of the “great men” and their political role in history.

    Indeed, if we follow Gonzalo, “thought” is not passive, it is always directly political, revolutionary.

    Here is what Engels said, in a letter to Borgius, written in London on January 25, 1894 :

    “Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined, given society.

    Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and appears under the forms of accident.

    The necessity which here asserts itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity.

    This is where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found.

    That Napoleon, just that particular Corsican, should have been the military dictator whom the French Republic, exhausted by its own war, had rendered necessary, was an accident; but that, if a Napoleon had been lacking, another would have filled the place, is proved by the fact that the man has always been found as soon as he became necessary: Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc.

    While Marx discovered the materialist conception of history, Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians up to 1850 are the proof that it was being striven for, and the discovery of the same conception by Morgan proves that the time was ripe for it and that indeed it had to be discovered.

    So with all the other accidents, and apparent accidents, of history. The further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run in a zig-zag.

    So also you will find that the axis of this curve will approach more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt with.”

    It is important to note this allusion of Gonzalo. Nevertheless, politically and also because it is useful, we have to quote Karl Marx. A revisionist thesis which comes often is that Engels added some personal conceptions to Marxism.

    This assertion is wrong, and let’s quote here Karl Marx himself, explaining the same concept of thought.

    In a letter from September 1843, written in Kreuzenach, for Arnold Ruge, our great teacher explains:

    “The reform of consciousness consists entirely in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in arousing it from its dream of itself, in explaining its own actions to it.

    Like Feuerbach’s critique of religion, our whole aim can only be to translate religious and political problems into their self-conscious human form.

    Our program must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form.

    It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality.”

    What is the consciousness of the world? Of course, it is the thought.

    => documents in English

  • Gonzalo and the question of guiding thought, thought in development, People’s War

    To say that a thought is necessary, in each country as synthesis of social reality, to make the revolution, is certainly absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it is useful to make some precisions about the formation of the thought.

    As the Afghani comrades pointed out, a thought like Gonzalo thought is a really high developped thought; it is a thought which managed to develop itself until the universal aspect of People’s War.

    But some thoughts may exist without being that developped. A thought may also be carried through different steps. This has to do with the fact that the thought is the reflect of the social development of reality.

    If we take a look at Gonzalo’s interview given in 1988, we can find two explanations helping us in this question of the levels of the thought.

    Gonzalo says:

    “It is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Peruvian revolution that has produced Gonzalo Thought. 

    Gonzalo Thought has been forged in the class struggle of our people, mainly the proletariat, in the incessant struggles of the peasantry, and in the larger framework of the world revolution, in the midst of these earthshaking battles, applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of our country. 

    Previously we called it the Guiding Thought. 

    And if today the Party, through its Congress, has sanctioned the term Gonzalo Thought, it’s because a leap has been made in the Guiding Thought through the development of the people’s war. 

    In sum, Gonzalo Thought is none other than the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality. This means that it is principal specifically for our Party, for the people’s war and for the revolution in our country, and I want to emphasize that. 

    But for us, looking at our ideology in universal terms, I emphasize once again, it is Maoism that is principal.”

    We find also this, in the interview:

    “In Engels’ view, it is necessity that generates leaders, and a top leader, but just who that is is determined by chance, by a set of specific conditions that come together at a particular place and time. In this way, in our case too, a Great Leadership [Jefatura] has been generated. This was first acknowledged in the Party at the Expanded National Conference of 1979. 

    But this question involves another basic question that can’t be overlooked and needs to be emphasized: there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be

    The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. 

    None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility.”

    Here, Gonzalo explains two things interesting us for the question of the level:

    * first, there was a guiding thought, that knew a leap (with People’s War);

    * then, there is this very important sentence:  “there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be.”

    So, we can make a hierarchy of the development of the thought:

    1.Applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of a country gives birth to the guiding thought.

    2.This guiding thought knows different stages.

    3.At its highest stage, it knows a final leap with people’s war, elevating itself to the question of the universal.

    Here, we must stress the importance of the fact that Gonzalo explains that to build a direction – and without a direction, there is nothing practically, all efforts are vain – there is the absolute need for a “body of thought”.

    And he tells us also that this body of thought must not be really or fully developed to already exist. It can exist at a low level of development.

    There are two aspects. First, this is all a reminder of the correct lessons of Kautsky and Lenin on the absolute need for a theory, a direction, based on the correct ideology. This is the correct point of view opposed to all liquidationist trends (“communism of council”, revolutionary syndicalism, spontaneism even disguised as “Maoism”, etc.).

    The second aspect is that it gives an indication to the first tasks that communists must do. In a given country, to make the revolution the communists need people’s war, and to have people’s war they need the developed thought.

    To have this developed thought, they need a guiding thought, and to have this guiding thought, they need to forge it.

    Without this, they have nothing. That’s the central point: the forging of the thought, of the correct ideology in a given country, is the main battle – without this, there can be no development of communism.

    => documents in English

  • Managing or corresponding to the transformation of reality? A major question of Maoism

    What is the revolutionary path? Is it to manage the transformation of reality, to require it to be transformed in a revolutionary way? Or is it to follow the revolutionary nature of reality itself, to correspond to it?

    The question raised here is the one of the nature of dialectical materialism. Either reality exists “outside us” and, in a way, we can choose to transform it, or the contradiction is inside reality and we are a part of reality, transforming ourselves in an adequate manner.

    This is a very important question, the basic question of the nature of materialism, of reality. And it plays a very important role also – or even a central role – nowadays in the debates in the International Communist Movement about Maoism.

    To understand that we need to see the main ideological proposals that exist. We can see that these two conceptions are expressed and are the source of the main differences.

    The main Maoist conceptions nowadays

    There are nowadays four main Maoist conceptions. Here is a short presentation.

    a) The avakianist conception

    This conception is that revolution is not something coming “mechanically” from reality, but the best choice of humanity. Communism is the best “option” for a rational thought. There is no scientific affirmation, only a will, a choice, an option. Communism won’t be established unless humanity “chooses” it.

    Carried by Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA), it was accepted by all the organizations involved in different ways in the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement – RIM (Sarbedaran of Iran, Revolutionary Communists and TKP(ML) Maoist Merkezi in Germany i.e. Berlin, etc.).

    b) The Co-RIM second generation conception

    As the avakianists abandoned the RIM, this structure came under command of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Maoist Communist Party of Italy and the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey North Kurdistan.

    The conception put forward by these organizations is that Maoism is the science of revolution. Nevertheless, Maoism gives mainly the main indications; practical flexibility is needed because of the numerous situations. Therefore, good choices must be made, with a flexible mind and there is no place for dogmatic views.

    c) The intermediary conception

    Some organizations rejected clearly the avakianist conception as idealist and the Co-RIM second generation as opportunist.

    Therefore, they produced anti-Centrist calls, against the Nepali betrayal at the beginning, which brought them in ideological conflict with the organizations defending the “flexible approach”.

    The understanding of Maoism of these organizations is quite different, but the common basis is that Maoism is the science of revolution with principles that are not “flexible”.

    d) The conception of Gonzalo – two interpretations

    According to Gonzalo, communism is unavoidable and therefore thoughts are produced, synthesizing a national reality with dialectical materialism and being a guiding light for the revolutionaries. In this sense, a thought is all-powerful.

    But there can be and there are two interpretations of this all-powerful feature.

    a) either this thought is all powerful because it shows the way and gives the correct methods; then following the thought means victory;

    b) or this thought is all powerful because it corresponds to the movement of reality; being conform to the movement of matter, and expression of it, the thought is all power full, because conform.

    The position of the MPP and its consequence

    It is very clear that the Peru People’s Movement, generated organism of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) for the work abroad, upholds the first conception mentioned about the Gonzalo conception (the thought shows the way and gives the correct methods).

    For the MPP, Maoism must be “put in command”, it is spoken of “imposing Maoism” ; some organizations near from the MPP call to “accelerate” the constitution or reconstitution of the Party in their own country, and there is also the call for two-line struggle.

    The CPMLM of France does not accept this conception. Two-line struggle is not a “choice” but a practice which is made when in the reality itself the conditions exist for it. It is not possible neither to “accelerate” or “brake” the revolution; reality is one and no “choice” is possible.

    The consequence of this difference can be seen in the attitude about Nepali revisionism. When Gonzalo was captured by the reactionary Peruvian army, the PCP considered itself as the red fraction within the RIM.

    The MPP maintained this in the years following. The MPP spoke for long of “comrade Avakian”, trying not to criticize him openly directly, and the same happened with “comrade Prachanda”. When in 2007, for the CPMLM of France, Prachanda was already considered openly serving modern revisionism and the line of an imperialist peace agreement, the MPP criticizes him but was still speaking of “comrade Prachanda”.

    The reason for the position of the MPP, that can be summed up with “no open criticism until the other decides a split”, is a direct product of the subjectivist conception of “managing matter”.

    The MPP tried to “manage” the reality of the RIM, whereas the inner contradiction of the RIM was absolutely not considered, thus permitting the avakianists to organize and then the centrists to organize.

    It is so to note that the MPP signed numerous documents with the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, participating in numerous “conferences”, for example in Paris, organized by the Maoist Communist of Italy.

    The position of the CE-PCR and its consequence

    In the last weeks, the PCE-CR – Reconstruction Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador called for two line struggle and criticized sharply some organizations of what we called here the intermediary conception.

    The paradox is that the PCE-CR criticized them for not recognizing Gonzalo’s teachings, whereas on the other side the PCE-CR does not criticize the centrists, who clearly reject Gonzalo’s teachings!

    The reason for that is that the PCE-CR seems to move in the same subjectivist conception of “managing reality”. Its call for “two line struggle” exists as nothing would have happened in the RIM those last 15 years.

    It is as the RIM would exist, with problems – the PCE-CR and the MPP certainly not agree with Centrism – but that the anti-centrists would be “outsiders”, with an ideological level “under” the value of the RIM.

    Therefore, with such a vision, the PCE-CR can come and make a subjectivist call of two line struggle with its own criteria – even if the criteria are of the greatest value, they do not correspond to the question of the moment, they are not articulated politically.

    The positive example of the first of may 2009

    When there was the betrayal of the Nepali revolution, in 2005-2006, few organizations explained it openly and express that it was a terrible revisionist danger. Among them, there was the Communist Worker Union (Marxist Leninist Maoist) of Colombia.

    On the first of May 2009, the joint document called “The Imperialist Capitalism is in Crisis – Long Live Socialism and Communism!”, signed by the Union Obrera Comunista (MLM) – [Colombia], the Marxist Leninist Maoist Communist Party – [France] and the Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun expressed in a correct manner:

    “The world is mature for the revolution! (…) And not only to resist, also to remove with the revolution all the relations of oppression and exploitation, as the intensification of social contradictions puts on the agenda the question of political power and revolutionary violence of the masses, and its resolution by the People’s War which – today – is advancing in a victorious way in countries like India, is re-appearing in Peru, and is getting ready in others, in agreement with the level of organization of the proletariat’s party (…).

    And with this reality showing a luminous prospect, the proletarians in the world must know a bitter truth : in Nepal, where the victorious advance of People’s War and the working and peasant masses were about to conquer power in all the country, the direction of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), signed a peace agreement with the bourgeoisie and the landlords with the support of the imperialists, dismantling people’s power in the bases of support and confining the People’s Liberation Army under the supervision of the UN.

    A renunciation of the revolutionary path which constitutes in the facts a treason of the revolution of New Democracy in Nepal and the World Proletarian Revolution, producing in the International Communist Movement a great confusion to the point that the RIM – Revolutionary Internationalist Movement remained tied up and quiet confronted to treason and to phenomenons which, as the crisis, are of decisive importance in the world situation and the international struggle of the proletariat (…).

    Long live the red First of May, International Day of the Working Class!

    The Imperialist Capitalism is in crisis – Long live Socialism and Communism!

    Down with the Revisionist Treason in Nepal!

    Go forward in the Construction of Communist Parties and in the direction of New International Conference of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists!

    May 1st 2009”

    We find here four points: supporting the People’s War in India, greeting the People’s War in Peru, rejecting the imperialist peace agreement in Nepal, calling for a New MLM International Conference.

    Was this correct? Indeed – it was not “managing” reality, but corresponding to it. It was not subjectivism or will in command, it was a synthetic understanding of reality, and an expression of reality.

    Managing or corresponding to the transformation of reality? A major question of Maoism

    Communism is unavoidable, because matter is eternal and obeys to the dialectical law of transformation. Communists are humans corresponding ideologically to the new, being a part of the tendency triumphing over the past.

    From this conception come the theory of reflection, the conception of the thought, socialist realism in the art (i.e. typical representation corresponding to the new reality being born, assuming the heritage of the past).

    Mao Zedong, in explaining that nothing is indivisible, permitted to understand this in the most perfect way.

    Mao Zedong permitted us to go over the mistakes of our great comrade Stalin, that moved towards the idealist approach of changing matter from “outside”, forgetting the inner contradiction (mistakes producing the “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature” in the 1948, opening the way to idealism and revisionism).

    The Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution (GPCR) was launched not only against the counter revolutionaries, it was also there to generalize the conception that nothing is indivisible.

    All over the world, thoughts were produced, following the call of the GPCR: Gonzalo in Peru, Akram Yari in Afghanistan, Siraj Sikder in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in Turkey…

    And these thoughts were not an idealist “Mao Zedong thought” pretending to change reality with the revolutionary “will”, there were the best product of Mao Zedong’s understanding of Marxism-Leninism, brought to a new stage.

    It was not a question of “managing” reality, but to be conform to it! That is why subjectivism must be rejected; even the best revolutionary “will” converges with opportunism because it is not able to follow reality and its incessant transformation.

    Adequacy must be our great concern, we must always correspond to the transformation of reality.

    => documents in English

  • Open Letter to the International Communist Movement

    January 2013

    Today, the International Communist Movement faces many challenges, like the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, the tendency to imperialist war and the sharpness of imperialist powers concurrence, climate change.

    And because of the uneven development existing in the International Communist Movement, there are many differences about how to understand reality; there are indeed no sufficient unity, no sufficient exchanges among the International Communist Movement.

    According to us, this situation must change, in fact it is already changing, the requirements rise, the world masses want answer, they want a way to shine in front of them. They are hungry for a way to break their chains, to build a new society, far from exploitation, oppression and decadence.

    We must answer this: the level of ideological, theoretical and cultural exchanges among communists must be developed. This means building an international platform, a democratic platform for the communists, which would be a step for the ideological unity in the future.

    Nevertheless, such a platform can exist if it really corresponds to the requirements of the masses, which is the World Proletarian Revolution, to build the world socialist Republic, bringing us to Communism.

    That is why, according to us, to understand what is happening and to transform reality, we need science, dialectical materialism, which means at our epoch: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, applied to each national reality, because each nation is the framework of social transformation.

    At our epoch, Maoism, as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, synthesis of the ideology of working class, can only exist as a guiding thought in each country, forging the avant-garde in correspondence with the inner contradiction of the country, unleashing People’s War. In this process, all the People’s War unite and combine themselves, forging the path to the World Proletarian Revolution.

    Because of the uneven development, thoughts have been developed in some countries, like Gonzalo in Peru, Akram Yari in Afghanistan, Siraj Sikder in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in Turkey.

    These thoughts must be studied, compared also with others thoughts that may be appeared, like Charu Mazumdar and Kanai Chatterjee in India, Ulrike Meinhof in Germany, Alfred Klahr in Austria. In each country, communists must study and understand if and how a thought may have been developed.

    We know that there are Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organisations that did not understand this question of the thought, or that may even reject it. It was and is historical understandable, it comes from the law of uneven development.

    We are so fully aware of it but we think the question is unavoidable, and that history will make these organisations either jump to the thought, or fail. In our eyes, genuine communists can only recognize the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, who synthesized the lessons of the Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution, summing it up in the slogan: “People’s War until Communism!”

    For this reason, we are for an open, democratic discussion among Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organisations wanting the International Communist Movement to move forward.

    We are for unity, we are not afraid neither of discussions nor of a common struggle against counter-revolution, capitulation and revisionist ideologies like Prachandism and Avakianism.

    Comrades, let’s dare unity. Let’s build an international platform, to show our spirit of unity, to be able to exchange about our experiences and our lessons, to show to the world masses that, despite the uneven development, despite our differences, we are guided by the same red star, we are full aware of our duty.

    Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan
    (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

    CPMLM Bangladesh

    CPMLM France

    => documents in English