[From The Worker, #3, February 1997.]
EDITORIAL
Long Live The People's War!
Exactly one year ago, i.e. on February 13, 1996, the seeds of revolutionary people's war were sown in the fertile lands of Nepal. Today we are proud to proclaim that the seeds have not only grown into promising saplings but they have taken firm roots as well. On the occasion of this glorious first anniversary of the historic initiation of the people's war, we pay our revolutionary homage and salute to all those valiant martyrs who have laid down their lives to nurture the saplings of revolution; we offer our red salute to all our Party comrades and the revolutionary masses; and we offer our proletarian internationalist salute to all the fraternal parties and organisations all over the world.
The immense national and international significance of this Maoist people's war in the lands of the mighty Himalayas and the legendary Gorkha fighters, but reduced to the second poorest country in the world by the blood sucking vampires of feudalism and imperialism, should be obvious to all. Firstly, the successful initiation and development of this people's war is a vindication of the almighty ideology of Marxism - Leninism - Maoism. At a time when the imperialists and their lackeys were rejoicing over the demise of phoney 'communism' in the erstwhile Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the revisionists and neo-revisionists had been apologetically taking recourse to the cocoon of parliamentarism or outright liquidationism of various hues, this people's war has shown that the fight for communism is far from over and that the road to real communism is illuminated only by Marxism - Leninism - Maoism. Firm adherence to the succinct Maoist formulations of "Everything is an illusion except political power" and "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" has given the people's war a definite and correct political orientation. Similarly, a correct grasp of the importance of concurrent development of the three magic weapons of a new type of a proletarian Party, a People's Army and a revolutionary United Front under the leadership of the proletariat has provided a proper organisational orientation for the people's war. And above all, the historically synthesized military science of the proletarian revolution and in particular the theory of the protracted people's war developed by Com. Mao has been the military guide of this historic war. Thus, a correct Marxist - Leninist - Maoist ideological, political, organisational and military perspective has been the most significant distinguishing feature and guiding factor for the successful launching of people's war in Nepal.
Secondly, the great success of the first year of people's war in Nepal has been ensured by the correct assessment of the prevailing objective & subjective conditions and formulation and implementation of politico- military policies, plans and programmes accordingly. Objective necessity of the new democratic transformation of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal societies like that of Nepal has never been in doubt. But the crisis of the old Nepalese state ridden by class, national and regional contradictions have been so acute and deteriorating over the years that all attempts at cosmetic reforms have miserably failed and a revolutionary transformation of the state and society has been urgently overdue. On the subjective plane, the exploited and oppressed masses of the people and various oppressed nationalities have accumulated a long experience of struggle against this rotten system and acquired a revolutionary consciousness to go all out to smash this state. More importantly, the party of the proletariat, i.e. the C.P.N. (Maoist), has been steeled through long years of inner-struggle and class struggle and finally acquired the capability and maturity to lead this inevitably violent and protracted revolution; Based on the assessment of these concrete objective and subjective realities the plans and programmes for the systematic initiation and development of the people's war were drawn and implemented in a phased manner. Within the First Stage of Strategic Defense, the first plan of Historic Initiation and Continuation has been implemented with tremendous success, and since September October 1996 the Second Plan of Development of Guerrilla Warfare in a Planned Manner is under execution and so far with great success. The Political Bureau and the Central Committee of the Party have gone into sessions in between and made periodic reviews of the Plans, and the responsibilities of formulating detailed programmes and implementing them according to regional specificities have been entrusted to the Regional Bureaus. Special cares have been taken to maintain proper dialectical relationships between the military and non-military (i.e. political) campaigns and actions, and to derive maximum advantage out of the contradictions within the reactionary forces.
Thirdly, the unprecedented sense of revolutionary devotion, courage and sacrifice practiced by the Nepalese proletariat and the oppressed masses has been instrumental for the forward march of the people's war so far. It is perhaps unique in the present day world communist movement that within the first eleven months of the systematic initiation of the revolutionary peoples's war more than seventy best sons and daughters of the oppressed masses and communist revolutionaries have attained heroic martyrdom, while about fourty reactionary elements including the local tyrants, police informers and the policemen were eliminated by the revolutionaries. (It may be recollected that there was no policy of 'annihilation' during the First Plan.) Of these great martyrs, nearly fourty percent were Party members, more than sixty percent belonged to the oppressed nationalities (most of them 'Magars' from Western Hills) about ten percent (i.e. seven in numbers) were women, and almost all of them were of poor or lower middle peasant class origin. Particularly the heroic efforts and supreme sacrifices of their lives made by Com. Tirtha Gautam and two others while capturing the police out-post (along with four rifles and other weapons and ammunitions) at Bethan in Ramechhap district in Eastern Nepal on January 3, 1997, with the help of only the local muzzle-loading guns and crude bombs, should be engraved in golden letters in the annals of proletarian revolution. Similarly the heroic martyrdom attained by Com. Daulat Gharti while storming another police outpost at Triveni in Rolpa district in Western Nepal on December 15, 1996, deserves special accolade. Such instances of dare-devil bravery exhibited by the guerrilla fighters and the high levels of devotion and sacrifice maintained by the Party members and supporters have contributed immensely to spread the fire of people's war far and wide in the country. This rechanneling of the vast reservoir of energy of the poor peasant and tribal youths for the revolutionary purposes, so far misappropriated and squandered by the British imperialists and Indian expansionists through cheap mercenary services in their predatory armies while flattering them as 'brave Gurkhas', should play a major role in the future development and successful conclusion of the people's war under the leadership of the Party of the proletariat.
Fourthly, the immense goodwill, sympathy and support given by the international proletariat through their Parties and organisations in the true proletarian internationalist spirit and tradition have contributed a lot towards the successful development of the people's war in Nepal. In this context we deem it our duty to gratefully acknowledge the important contributions of the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), of which our Party is the proud participating member, and various Parties and organisations within and outside the ambit of the RIM. Also, the revolutionary people's war raging In Peru, Philippines, India (Andhra Pradesh, Dandakaranya and Bihar), Turkey and other parts of the world provide a direct inspiration to the revolutionaries in Nepal. It is this sense of belonging to and learning from the experiences of the world proletarian movement that has been one of the most significant contributing factors for the development so far, and would be the ultimate guarantee of the success or otherwise, of the people's war. Because in the present era of imperialism and the so-called ' globalisation' and 'cyberspace', the revolution in a particular country can be, and should be, viewed only as a base area for the world proletarian revolution.
Indeed, war is the continuation of politics by other (i.e. violent) means. One year of people's war in Nepal has, therefore, marked a decisive break with the old politics and ushered in a qualitatively new politics in the country. This has quite naturally further sharpened the contradictions and crisis in the old society and state, and the pace of political polarisation along the reactionary and revolutionary camps, with a miniscule 'centre' in between, has been accelerated significantly over the past year. Also, this opening of a new front against world imperialism and reaction, that too in their so-called Sangrila, has greatly perturbed and annoyed the guardians of world reaction. Hence the domestic and world reaction are bound to make concerted efforts to nip this people's war in the bud. The recent holding of a so-called 'seminar against international terrorism' under the aegis of the royal Nepal army is a significant pointer to this. After the miserable failure of the armed police to check the growth of people's war both quantitatively and qualitatively, despite their resorting to large scale massacre and other forms of brutal repression over the past year, the reactionary state is definite to deploy the army and launch genocidal campaigns in the days to come. Besides such physical extirpation campaigns from outside, they would attempt subversion from within. Hence the Party should not only prepare to tight the enemy militarily, but should guard against the 'right' tendency of capitulationism and the 'left' tendency of revolutionary impetuosity within the Party and the movement. In the present day national and international situation, however, the rightist danger of capitulationism is more imminent and hence needs to be guarded against more intently. Moreover, the protracted nature of the people's war needs to be hammered and grasped more thoroughly.
The first year of the people's war has not been a bed of roses only. There have been fair amount of thorns as well. And very naturally at that. As the laws of war can be learnt through the process of war only, this initial year of people's war has taught us both positive and negative lessons. Though the positive lessons have far outnumbered the negative ones. As long as we are good at learning, no amount of negative lessons would deter us. After one year of the historic initiation of an epoch-making process, we have every reason to feel proud of the achievements of the Nepalese proletariat and the oppressed masses. At last a Prarie fire has been set in the Himalayas. Let the reactionary ruling classes and their imperialist/expansionist masters tremble at the prospect of their ultimate demise in this fire. We have everything to rejoice at, for the ultimate victory will be ours.
Long live the people's war!