Nepal
And Venezuela
By Pratyush Chandra
23 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Any
serious and honest survey of the Maoist movement in Nepal can convey
the truth that its main agenda has been to establish the essential democratic
institutions that will allow a devolvement of political economic power
to the masses. The Maoists can challengingly claim that in every negotiation
they have indulged, with the King and the parliamentary forces, they
have asked for an unconditional constituent assembly, during whose election
different political forces can go with their respective choice of political
structure and ask for the people’s mandate. And, of course, they
have demanded a subservience of the national army to the democratic
government. Only a democratically elected constituent assembly having
representatives from the exploited and oppressed majority has the capacity
to provide a democratic constitution. Otherwise a constitution is bound
to be an eclectic compromise between the already empowered vested interests,
as it has happened many times in Nepal, and in many other ‘democratic’
countries. On the other hand, which modern nation can openly deny the
‘professionalisation’ of the armed forces, their ability
to harm the democratic interests incapacitated and their subservience
to those interests?
The Maoists have time and
again emphasised their sufficiently theorised commitment to multi-party
republican democracy and to 'political competition' that it represents.
They know that the fight for their maximal goal, for socialism and communism
has to be long drawn, taking into consideration “the balance in
the class struggle and international situation”. But as Prachanda
simultaneously stresses, this position “is a policy, not tactics”.(1)
Does this stress diminish the revolutionary agenda of the Maoists? Not
at all. When Mao called for putting politics in command and guns under
this command, he meant the readiness of the revolutionary forces to
change according to the exigencies of class struggle and revolution.
What the Maoists are struggling for is the establishment of the basic
political structure that will release the energy of the Nepalese exploited
and oppressed masses towards an intensified class struggle, creating
conditions for an unhindered process of self-organisation of the working
class.
In this regard, well-known
Indian Marxist Randhir Singh’s assessment of the place of the
Nepalese movement among the post-Cold War revolutionary movements is
quite apt: “Latin America is in fact emerging as a particularly
important zone of class struggle against international capital. Just
as, far away, on another continent, Nepal exemplifies that, odds notwithstanding,
people will continue fighting for life beyond the established capitalist
or feudal social orders. In this revived revolutionary process, the
Chavez-led Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela apart, the Communist Party
(Maoist)-led movement in Nepal – popularly known as People’s
War – is undoubtedly the most significant popular struggle for
freedom and democracy in the world today.”(2)
This comparison between Latin
American experiences and Nepal’s Maoist movement is quite meaningful.
Both aim towards political exercises unprecedented in the world revolutionary
movement. In Latin America (Venezuela, Argentina and others) and Nepal,
we are literally witnessing, what Marx hypothesized, “the whole
superincumbent strata of official society [of global capitalism] being
sprung into the air”.(3)
In Venezuela (and Latin America,
in general), the complexity of the revolutionary transformation is engendered
by the lingering of the capitalist state machinery and hegemony, on
the one hand, and on the other, the contradiction of bourgeois democracy,
which has put revolutionary forces at its helm. In this situation, there
exists a tremendous pressure within the capitalist state and society
o de-radicalise the social forces behind the upheaval by accommodating
their leadership. The strength of the revolutionary forces, on the other
hand, will be determined by their ability to challenge the lingering
hegemony and the danger of their own accommodation by facilitating the
task of building and sustaining alternative radical democratic organisations
(“self-government of the producers”), while subordinating
the state to them. “Only insofar as the state is converted from
an organ standing above society into one completely subordinate to it’
can the working class ‘succeed in ridding itself of all the muck
of ages and become fitted to found society anew’.”(4) Asambleas
Barriales (neighbourhood assemblies) in Argentina and the practice of
co-management (a partnership between the workers of an enterprise and
society) in Venezuela seek to transcend the officialised practice of
statist socialism and ‘sectionalist’ self-management by
establishing an incipient 'social' control over production.
Modern capitalism relies
mainly on representative democracy as the political system to reproduce
the general conditions of capitalist accumulation. Therefore, “the
crucial problem for the people in charge of affairs is to be able to
get on with the business in hand, without undue interference from below,
yet at the same time to provide sufficient opportunities for political
participation to place the legitimacy of the system beyond serious question…
Parliamentarism makes this possible: for it simultaneously enshrines
the principle of popular inclusion and that of popular exclusion.”
It ‘de-popularises’ policy-making and limits the impact
of class contradiction at the workplace and market place upon the conduct
of affairs.(5)
Hence, the practice of “participative
and protagonistic democracy in society as a whole, the idea of people
communally deciding on their needs and communally deciding on their
productive activity” is definitely a grave crisis for global capitalism.
This practice shoos all ‘metaphysical subtleties and theological
niceties’ that characterise market relations (presenting the capitalist
reality in distorted manner), dividing the collective worker into various
identities (consumers, citizens, unemployed, formal and informal sector
workers) and devise competition among them. It reclaims the right of
determining one’s own destiny, to realise the “creative
potential of every human being and the full exercise of his or her personality
in a democratic society”, as envisaged in the Bolivarian constitution
of Venezuela.(6)
In Nepal, on the other hand,
regular betrayals of the democratic movement by Monarchy and democrats
have time and again scuttled the potential emergence of even the minimum
semblance of popular democracy. Therefore, the movement was restricted
to petty bourgeoisie, who were heavily fed by international aid and
its 'cut and commission' regime. Whenever the movement seemed to integrate
with the struggle for the basic needs of the poor peasantry, landless
and proletarians, a compromise was forged curbing the radical potential
of the movement.
The success of the Maoists
lies in the fact that they integrated the remotest corner of the Nepalese
society with the mainstream struggle for popular democracy. They exposed
the class content of the formal democratic exercises undertaken in the
1990s. They demonstrated how the formal democratic institutions that
emerged in Nepal with the arrangement between the royalty, landlords
and the upper crust of petty bourgeoisie along with global imperialism
were designed to integrate the neo-hegemonic interests, the local agencies
of commercialisation, dependency and primitive accumulation.
In this regard, we must not
forget that the armed struggle was the major catalyst in the achievements
of the Maoist movement. Firstly, it was a veritable boost to self-confidence
and self-defence of the oppressed and exploited in Nepal. Secondly,
it allowed sustaining politicisation and democratic practice of the
downtrodden undiluted by the hegemonic coercive and consensual influences.
The virtual emergence of dual power could become possible only if it
had its own defence mechanism. The decade long people’s war and
radical land reforms undertaken in the countryside with alternative
incipient democratic institutions have radicalised the Nepalese society.
It halted the continuous drainage of the Nepalese natural and human
resources for economic profit, leisure and security of the external
hegemonic forces, buffered by the Nepalese landlords, merchants and
corporates under the leadership of the royalty. Time and again all these
forces combined to scuttle the democratic aspirations of the Nepalese
society in the name of maintaining stability, however allowing a “controlled
transformation of the economy to suit the imperialist calculus”.(7)
The Maoist upsurge liberated the potentialities in the Nepalese polity
and economy.
The recent alliance between
the Maoist and other democratic forces in Nepal can be seen, on the
one hand, as winning back of the “middle forces” (using
Mao's phrase) and on the other, it signifies a nationwide unity among
the exploited and oppressed sections of the society. Further, it marks
the willingness to challenge the formal ‘democracy from above’
by the incipient ‘democracy from below’, to allow a “political
competition” between them. It is in this respect we can understand
the Maoist movement as part of the global struggle for freedom, democracy
and socialism. We will have to wait and see, what specificities the
Nepalese struggle would acquire. Or, will it be another saga of historic
betrayal forged by the imperialist forces and the local ruling coalition?
Seeing the way global imperialism
has been once again hyperactive with its ideologies and armies, one
can only rely upon the working classes of the world to defend these
movements for social transformation with their “fraternal concurrence”.
They must realise their “duty to master themselves the mysteries
of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective
governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their
power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations,
and to vindicate the simple laws or morals and justice, which ought
to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount
of the intercourse of nations. The fight for such a foreign policy forms
part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes.”(8)
Notes:
(1) “Interview with
Prachanda”, The Hindu (excerpts published on February 8, 9 and
10, 2006) Full text: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/nic/maoist.htm
(2) Randhir Singh (2005),
“Foreword” in Baburam Bhattarai, Monarchy Vs. Democracy:
The Epic Fight in Nepal, Samkaleen Teesari Duniya, New Delhi, pp.vii.
Available at: http://monthlyreview.org/0605singh.htm
(3) Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels (1848), The Manifesto of the Communist
Party (Chapter 1). Available at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
(4) Michael Lebowitz (2003),
Beyond Capital (2nd Edition), Palgrave, pp.196
(5) Ralph Miliband (1982),
Capitalist Democracy in Britain, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.38
(6) Michael Lebowitz (2005),
“Constructing Co-Management in Venezuela: Contradictions along
the Path”. Available at: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/lebowitz241005.html
(7) Baburam Bhattarai (2003),
The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal: A Marxist
Analysis, Adroit Publishers, Delhi, pp.46
(8) Karl Marx (1864), “Inaugural
Address of the International Working Men’s Association”.
Available at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/10/27.htm