[From The Worker, #2, June 1996.]
APPEAL OF THE C.P.N. (MAOIST) TO THE PEOPLE
March Along the Path of People's War to Smash the
Reactionary State and Establish a New Democratic State!Dear masses of the people,
Today the Nepalese society is in a state of grave crisis, whether economically, politically, culturally or otherwise. Where has the present state that has been harping about development and construction for the last fifty years landed Nepal economically? It has landed Nepal to the position of second poorest country in the world after Ethiopia. This state that does not manufacture even a needle in the name of self-reliant and national economy, has handed over the whole economy of the country to a dozen families of the foreign compradors and bureaucratic capitalists. Whereas these handful of plunderers have become billionaires, the real masters of this country and the national property, the toiling masses of Nepal, are forced to eke out a meager existence of deprivation and poverty. The sons and daughters of Nepalese peasants and workers reeling under unemployment and poverty are compelled to lead a miserable life of dishonor and neglect in India and different parts of the world to earn their daily bread After piling a massive foreign debt burden even on the future generations of the Nepalese people, the feudal and comprador and bureaucratic capitalist rulers are making merry on it. In the name of privatization and liberalization under the guidance and for the benefit of the foreign capitalists, the process of mortgaging the whole country to the comprador and bureaucratic capitalists is in full swing now.
The burden of this economic degradation has been basically borne by the peasantry which constitutes 90% of the population. That every new government formed under this state structure pushes and will push the country economically into a further state of bankruptcy has been verified historically.
To maintain the hegemony of one religion (i.e. Hinduism), language (i.e. Nepalese), and nationality (i.e. Khas), this state has for centuries exercised discrimination, exploitation and oppression against other religions, languages and nationalities and has conspired to fragment the forces of national unity that is vital for proper development and security of the country. On the contrary, it has been prostrating before the foreign imperialists and expansionists and repeatedly mortgaging Nepal's national honor and sovereignty to them. The present state has been shamelessly permitting the foreign plunderers to grab the natural water resources of Nepal and to trample upon our motherland. If this process is allowed to continue for some more time to come, it is no doubt to the patriotic, conscious and self-esteemed Nepalese that the very existence of Nepal will be in jeopardy.
The present state has declared war against the development of the national culture of the Nepalese people by flooding (the country) with the corrupt, licentious and distorted imperialist culture. The feudal and imperialist forces are doing their utmost to replace the democratic cultural values and ideals with Freudian, nihilist and anarchic values. This is a sequel to the conspiracy of the reactionary classes to corrupt the people culturally and preserve their own heaven of plunder. These corrupt cultural values are no less responsible for the burgeoning of drug-trafficking, smuggling, thievery, black marketeering, looting, murder and rape in the society today.
Within this moribund state structure, a coalition government of Panchas (i.e. royalists) and Nepali Congress, defamed in the Nepalese history for their anti-national and genocidal deeds, has been ruling right now. This (government) has forced not only the peasants and workers of Nepal but also the people of different categories and professions to live in a state of scarcity, injustice and terror. Whereas this state has been treating women as second class citizens for long, now it has intensified rape, trafficking and the process of commoditisation through advertisements, against them. The whole educational system is tuned to produce slaves for this state and there is rampant anarchy in it. Thus, be they workers, or peasants, or women, or teachers, or students, or small traders, or lower ranking civil servants, or doctors, or professors, or people of different classes including the national bourgeoisie, all are victims of this state of feudals and comprador and bureaucratic capitalists. Except for radical change in all spheres, any possibility of reform has now become a mere chimera.
Reactionary ruling classes, ever swearing by democracy, have been repeatedly using their guns against the political activists or the ordinary masses that hold political beliefs counter to the interests of the rulers. This state which regards itself as the custodian of 'democracy' has been surviving on the blood of innumerable sons and daughters of mother Nepal ranging from the infant to the aged, when the people have professed and spoken in favour of nationalism, democracy and livelihood. Hundreds of thousands of Nepalese people fighting for justice have been subjected to inhuman physical torture, confinement in jails and mental torture. Not only during the party less panchayat (i.e. absolute monarchy) period but even in the present monarchical parliamentary period, the fascist genocidal and repressive acts have been on the increase rather than decrease. This is a bitter truth experienced by the Nepalese people in their real life. This process has now developed into an armed repression campaign against the innocent people favouring truth and justice. The recent armed operation and state terror let loose in Western Nepal and in different parts of the country has testified beyond doubt that the ruling classes have openly embarked upon an unjust war against the people. The heinous game of the reactionary state of enrolling the sons and daughters of the poor peasants and workers in the police and the army as mercenaries and forcing them to use arms against their own wretched parents, brothers and sisters, is now crystal clear. With the passage of time those in the police and the army will also come to know the realities. There is no alternative for the people other than to raise the banner of just war against this unjust war.
How did we reach this stage of critical condition of nationalism, democracy and livelihood and a situation of open warfare of the state against the people? What is clear on the basis of historical and scientific materialism is that the seeds of this state of affairs were sown in the Nepalese history long time back. With the advent of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, as in almost all the oppressed nations, in Nepal, too, a semi-feudal and semi-colonial socioeconomic structure based on the alliance of feudalism and imperialism was raised. The process of feudalism prostrating before imperialism and Imperialism plundering the masses while protecting feudalism, was started. In Nepal, this process was initiated in the concrete form after the conclusion of the Sugauli Treaty of 1815-16 with British India. The inevitable consequence of this process was that it obstructed the development of national capitalism and instead opened the path of development of bureaucratic capital in the interest of both landlords and imperialism. This long historical period has been in fact the period of the process of birth, rise and demise of the same bureaucratic capital.
In Nepalese society, the 104 years period of Rana autocracy (i.e. from 1846-1950) existed under the same formation and the later partyless panchayat autocracy (i.e. from 1960-1990) and the current so-called monarchical multi-party system (i.e. from 1990 onwards, ) also continued and continues under the same dispensation. As a result of the struggle of the Nepalese people against this (socio-economic) structure, principally, and due to the changes in the international political situation, secondarily, the names of the system and the government have been changing, sometimes liberal and at other times conservative, to make a redistribution of the spoils of power. But the basic structure of the state has remained unchanged. The political developments of 1951, 1960, 1979 and 1990 can be understood only in this way. If we view the history from 1951 onwards alone, what is amply evident is that within the womb of petty reforms carried out within the reactionary state there has been sprouting ever greater crisis for the country and the people.
Nepalese people have been constantly struggling against this state of affairs. In the process of such struggles, Nepalese people have been a victim of not only the repeated repression and intrigues of the reactionaries but also of the betrayal and treachery of the reformists. Today the biggest traitors of the people have been those so-called communists, the revisionists, who have gone after crumbs of reactionary state power by licking the boots of feudalism and imperialism. The Nepalese people and the Nepalese history will never forgive those traitors who have sat on the chairs of the reactionaries by betraying the people's faith in radical change and the Communist Party and by stepping on the blood of thousands of martyrs. Again if somebody talks of limiting oneself to the reformist struggle within the reactionary state, that will be merely another process of treachery. This has now become a historically verified truth.
The other aspect which should not be forgotten at this point is that the negative recurrence of the reactionary repression and intrigue and the reformist betrayal and treachery have given rise to the positive conditions of enhancing the political consciousness of the general masses of the people and of attaining by the people for their liberation the sole revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, amidst the people's class struggle and a long and intense ideological struggle against such reformism. Today, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party guided by this almighty revolutionary ideology has developed like a beautiful and blossoming flower, through the long struggle of the labouring masses of Nepal and irrigated by the blood of thousands of martyrs. Whereas all kinds of reactionaries and revisionists are madly after it to nip it in the bud, the revolutionary masses, are taking care of its preservation and development.
Dear Masses of the People,
What is clear from the above historical and current facts is that the present crisis-ridden condition of the country is the result of the development of contradictions between the exploitation and oppression of the people by the state power of the feudal, comprador and bureaucratic capitalist classes, on the one hand, and the relentless struggle carried out by the people against it, on the other. To defend their moribund and crisis-ridden reactionary state, feudalism and imperialism have openly imposed on the Nepalese people an unjust war. It the Nepalese people cannot raise the banner of a just people's war against this unjust war and become victorious in it, the Nepalese people and the Nepalese nation will be doomed to a prolonged darkness.
Conscious of one's duty towards this historical necessity, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the proletarian party of the sons and daughters of the masses of the people, has resolved to initiate the process of forcibly smashing this reactionary state and establishing a New Democratic state. This resolve of ours is based on the feeling of service and devotion towards the people, on the commitment to the almighty ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to free humanity forever from the yoke of class exploitation, and on the study of history of the Nepalese society in that light. What we are fully conscious about is that this war for breaking the shackles of slavery since thousands of years and establishing a New Democratic state would be quite uphill, full of twists and turns and of a protracted nature. But this and this alone is the path of people's liberation and a great and bright future. This path will unfold by making uses of all forms of struggle in keeping with the historical stage of development of Nepal and principally, as we have been saying all along, according to the strategy of encircling the city from the countryside, with agrarian revolution as the axis and from the midst of and in conjunction with the rural class struggle. This process of people's war in the context of the present balance of forces will move forward through the process of people's guerilla war within the stage of strategic defence. What we are confident about is that the masses of the people of all classes and categories will extend active support and help to this revolutionary process and it will be vigorous. Besides this, what we are also conscious and confident about, is that this struggle will get support and help from the communist revolutionaries and struggling masses the world over and this will in turn assist all those revolutionaries. Because this struggle of ours will be a part and parcel of the world proletarian revolution undertaken with a view to end the exploitation and oppression of man by the man and to end for ever the war itself. In this context we would like to make a special mention of the ongoing people's revolution in Peru based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) and revolutionary movements the world over based on the same.
Finally, we appeal to the workers, peasants, women, students, teachers, intellectuals and the masses of the people of all categories and trades to march along the process of people's war for establishing a people's New Democratic state and to extend to it all forms of support and help.
It is right to rebel!
Long live the people's war!
Down with the reactionary state!
Long live the new democratic revolution!
Glory to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
With revolutionary greetings,
Central Committee,
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
Historic leaflet distributed in hundreds of thousands all over the country along with the great initiation of the people's war on February 13, 1996