Revolutionary dreams of Nepal – a photoessay

I fell in love with my husband in the camp because he didn’t speak too much. We got the approval from our commander and married two years later. Now we both talk about how the leadership betrayed us.

IMG_9932Janaki Bhatta – Accham, currently living in Lamki, Kailali running a hotel

I get depressed when I look at my personal situation, my party’s situation and my society’s situation. A part of me has tied my dreams, my anger, my fire that I had as a Maoist fighter in a handkerchief and put them aside and another part of me has to work and make a living.

IMG_9977Ishwor Timilsina – Kuika, Accham, currently living in Lamki, Kailali runs a small hotel Continue reading

Bangladeshi Maoists open critical discussion with Nepali Maoists

[Developments and struggles between revolutionary and revisionist political lines in Nepal, among many who have identified themselves as Maoists (in one sense or another), continue to spark polemics among revolutionaries in South Asia as well as throughout the world.  In this Open Letter from Maoists in Bangladesh, recent moves and statements by the new (and newly restored) Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) are questioned and challenged for their clarity and direction.  In the course of this Letter, critical (still-unexamined and unresolved) issues for the worldwide Maoist movement are raised.  —  Frontlines ed.]

CPMLM-BD: An Open Letter to the Sincere Comrades of Nepal

(14 August 2013)

Comrades and friends,

Red Salute!

We are sending this letter at a time when the sun of revolution in Nepal has already gone down long before. The people’s war that was earth shaking event in contemporary world that even after liberating eighty percent areas of the country has collapsed because of the betrayal line of the leaders, and as a consequence, all the achievements were lost. Now there is no People’s War, no Liberated Areas and no People’s Liberation Army. There is no hope remaining except the people. Besides, there are many sincere revolution seeking leaders and cadres who generally exist in every country as a result of revolutionary process.

The former Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)-being a member of Revolutionary Internationalist Movement rose against Maoism, abandoned the Path of Revolution, disarmed people and dismantled Base Areas. RIM committee hided those betrayal, advocated a secret Two Lines struggle, upheld coexistence with opportunism and adopted an incorrect method of restricting Line Struggle, and thus RIM committee resigned leading role of RIM. By presenting ideology as ’ Maoism or Mao thought’, led by Prachanda-Baburam the revisionists transformed Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) to Unified communist party of Nepal (Maoist). It was final rejection of Maoism. Prachanda-Baburam revisionists showed that present world and domestic situation is not favorable for revolution, so, compromise should be made. They said of so called bourgeoisie democracy instead of New Democracy. Through the so called peace talk, they made People’s Liberation Army surrender to reactionary army, and by surrendering achieved land and power to the exploiters, became imperialist- expansionists’ lackey the fascist Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie. On the other side, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA also made leap to their own revisionism. Both CPN (Maoist) and RCP USA, seeing only the outer appearance of globalized named imperialist world, and not by seeing its contradictory and moribund essence, presented it as unipolar and showed that war or revolution is not inevitable. They declared Marxism as insufficient. Both of them abandoned the concept of Proletarian Dictatorship that is a basic tenet of Marxism. Even RCP branded the confidence on Marxist Philosophy as Political Truth and hoisted the flag of non-Political Truth.

With the start of the New Year 2013, Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) has again been formed. They had invited us to their founding conference, which is their party’s 7th congress. For that we express our gratitude to them. It is to mention that a significant number of sincere Maoist leaders and cadres have united in this party, many of whom have working experience in International Communist Movement. Some days ago, a party representative of our party had a discussion with two high rank leadership of CPN (Maoist). They are hopeful that CPN (Maoist) will lead the revolution and they emphasized on building a new Communist International and rebuilding organization like Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations. All know that internationally we made various joint statement with MLMist Communist Parties of Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, France, Spain, Belgium, Arab and Afghanistan where we struggled the successive opportunism existing in International Communist Movement such as opportunism within the leadership of RIM Committee, Avakianism, Prachandism and Centrism, and at the same time, we put forward the importance of an advance Thought for building a new Communist International. In this context, we want to raise some points to the sincere comrades within Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) and also we want to attract attention of the sincere comrades outside that party to the same points. Continue reading

India: Commemorating the Life and Revolutionary Leadership of Comrade Azad (1954-2010)

https://i0.wp.com/www.bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/Cadre/Azad-photo-04.jpg“India is a vast and highly complex society with uneven and varied development.  It has the universal features of any semi-colonial, semi-feudal society under the grip of finance capital; it also has many a specificity, which requires deep study and analysis.  Revolution here is no simple task.  While focusing on the axis of the armed agrarian revolution it would additionally entail dealing with and solving the varied and numerous diseases afflicting our socio-political system.  The new democratic revolution entails the total democratization of the entire system and all aspects of life – political, economic, social, cultural, educational, recreational, etc.  The standard of life has to be enhanced, not only materially but also in the sphere of outlook and values.  A new social being has to emerge in the course of the revolutionary process.” — Comrade Azad

Cherukari Rajkumar (1954-2010), popularly known as Azad, spokesperson of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), served the cause of the Indian revolution for over thirty five years till he was murdered by state forces on July 1, 2010.  His leadership concentrated the very best of revolutionary Maoism in his adherence to principle, his reliance on the revolutionary masses, and his insistence on never deviating from the revolutionary goal.  He fought against every mischaracterization of the revolutionary struggle, especially such claims that the Maoists were self-seeking, opportunistically using the masses.  The people’s war, he insisted, was not of Maoists substituting themselves for the masses, but of the masses struggling for revolution and liberation in every sphere of life, and the role of the Maoists is to serve the revolution of the masses as organizers, leaders, educators, and defenders.  He extended this view to the revolutionary overthrow of feudalism and capitalism which will establish a socialist state, in which the revolutionary Maoists will remain among the masses and continue the revolution, organizing and leading the struggle to transform every economic, political, and social relation, toward the final goal of communism.  Today, on the third anniversary of his cowardly ambush-murder by the Indian fascist state, we honor his memory with a serious, internationalist red salute, and with the determination to continue his legacy. 
We present an interview with Azad, conducted a few months before his assassination, in which he details the views of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).  Lal Salaam!
Inquilab Zindabad!  —  Frontlines ed.]

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from:  Mainstream, Vol XLVIII, No 6, January 30, 2010
‘Let Us Not Make Truth A Casualty In This War’

Azad exposes Chidambaram’s Clear-and-Hold operations based on the Stratetgic Hamlet programme pursued by Britain in Malaya and the USA in Vietnam

“The following interview of Comrade Azad, spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee, given to the Maoist information Bulletin on October 19, 2009 reached our (Mainstream Weekly) office in late December last year. This wideranging interview—on the current Centrally-planned anti-Maoist offensive in our tribal heartland and related issues [including violence and counter-violence, Maoists’ talks with the government, the CPI (Maoist)’s stand on development, charges of extortion, beheading of Francis Induvar, recruitment of child soldiers etc.]—is being published in full here despite its length due to its importance in the present scenario and for the benefit of our readers.” —  (Mainstream Weekly Editor)

Q: There is a lot of talk about an unprecedented massive military offensive due to begin anytime now. How will your Party confront it?

Azad: The fact is, the unprecedented massive offensive has already begun. In the Chintagufa area in Dantewada district almost 4000 police and Central forces led by around 600 elite commandos of the anti-Naxal COBRA force had carried out their biggest-ever counter-revolutionary operation called Operation Green Hunt in the third week of September. Some media reporters described it as Operation Red Hunt. Whatever is the name, it was the first major attempt by the Central and State forces to wrest a part of the territory from the hands of the oppressed people led by the Maoists. This operation was a sort of a rehearsal for the forthcoming Centrally-planned countrywide simultaneous offensive on all our guerrilla zones.

When the enemy attack took place near Singanamadugu village, our forces present there were hardly 50 or 60 in number. But they fought heroically, and successfully repulsed the attack by a superior force, by totally relying on the people. It was the people who gave us the information regarding each and every movement of the enemy force. Hence our guerrillas could deal the first biggest blow to these so-called COBRAs who were specially trained in jungle warfare and sent to wage an unjust war against the Maoist revolutionaries. Six of their men including two assistant commandants—one from Manipur and another from UP—were wiped out in the real battle. These brave COBRAs demonstrated their heroism and courage by murdering seven unarmed adivasi villagers, including two aged men and a woman, and burning four villages. Not a single Maoist was killed contrary to the false claims of the police that 22 Maoists were killed. Our forces chased them for about 10 kilometres. The people of the entire area stood with us in this counter-attack on the thugs sent by Manmohan-Chidambaram’s khadi gang at the Centre and Raman Singh’s saffron gang in Chhattisgarh. This heroic resistance by a handful of Maoist guerrillas underscores the superiority of the tactics of guerrilla war and the massive mass support enjoyed by the Maoists. It demonstrates the ability of our Maoist guerrillas to confront and defeat a numerically far superior enemy force equipped with all the sophisticated weaponry, aerial support and what not, by relying on the sea of people in which we swim like fish.

In the second week of October once again Chidambaram’s men unleashed another massive offensive by amassing 10, 000 men in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra with MI-17 choppers surveying the area from the skies. It was as if an army from an enemy country was waging war on the Indian people. In the face of it our forces had successfully carried out a massive political campaign against the farce of the Assembly elections that were held on October 13 in Maharashtra.

Here I shall not go into the concrete details of our precise tactics to confront and defeat the unprecedented, massive, brazen offensive on the most oppressed people being unleashed by the Indian ruling classes on behalf of the imperialists and the comprador big business houses. I can only confidently say one thing for the present: All our plans, policies, strategy and tactics will be based entirely on the active involvement of the vast masses of people in this war of self-defence. The enemy class cannot decimate us without decimating the entire population in the regions we control. And if it dares to go into an all-out war of extermination of the tribal population the entire socio-politico scene in India will undergo a fundamental shift and will witness a radical realignment of class forces. All peace-loving, democratic, patriotic, secular forces, all the downtrodden sections of the society will polarise into one pole while the most reactionary, anti-people, authoritarian, traitorous, jingoist counter-revolutionary forces will end up at the opposite pole. Such a polarisation is bound to take place as the war advances and the enemy’s mercenary forces attempt to turn central and eastern India into a graveyard. The warmongers will be isolated and will face unprecedented social and political crises. However, on behalf of our Party, PLGA, revolutionary mass organisations and organs of people’s democratic power, I can assure the people of our country that with their support, direct as well as indirect, we shall deal crushing blows on the enemy’s mercenary forces and defeat their plans to hand over these regions to the international and domestic bandicoots.

Q: But your forces had killed around 20 policemen, most of them C-60 commandos, in Laheri in Gadchiroli district on the eve of the elections in Maharashtra. Is it not due to incidents like this which is provoking the government to deploy huge forces in these areas?

https://i0.wp.com/www.bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/Cadre/Azad-photo-01.jpgAzad: No, no. It is the other way round. It is because of the indescribable atrocities perpetrated by the specially-trained anti-Naxal forces that we are compelled to carry out such attacks. If they do not harass the poor, unarmed adivasi population; if they do not arrest, torture, murder them, and rape their women; if they do not engage in destroying the property, burn villages and crops of the adivasis; if they do not indulge in cold-blooded murders of abducted Maoists and declare them dead in so-called encounters, then why will our forces undertake such attacks? How can this be a provocation? You know who the C-60 commandos are? They are specifically formed as an elite anti-Naxal force whose one and only task is to kill Naxalites and Naxal sympathisers. If no Naxalite is found they pounce on hapless adivasi villagers, arrest them, torture them, and murder them. And adivasi women have become their objects of rape. You might have heard of the heart-chilling story of a 13-year-old girl from Pavarvel village in Dhanora tehsil who was gangraped by five or six commandos led by the notorious Munna Singh Thakur in March this year. Or the case of the gangrape and murder of 52-year-old Mynabai from Kosimi village by several policemen in Gyarapatti PS in the same Danora tehsil in May last year. For the directors of this war on adivasis —Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram, G.K. Pillai and others—the gangrapes of a 13-year-old girl or a 52-year-old woman are only collateral damage in their larger war for capturing the region to plunder its wealth. Continue reading

Canadian Group in Solidarity with Indian Mass Struggle Against Op. Green Hunt and Maoist People’s War

Newsletter from the Political Information Bureau, pcr-rcp of canada (June 29, 2013)

Support the People’s War in India, Oppose Operation Green Hunt!

– From the Partisan No. 40

The International Committee to Support the People’s War in India has called for July 1st to be an international day of solidarity with the comrades of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). The comrades of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) are waging a heroic struggle against the Indian government, the feudal landlords, the Indian and multinational corporations for the socio-economic and political equality of all the peoples of India. These multinational corporations increasingly include amongst their roster Canadian companies.

In response to this heroic struggle the Indian government and its armed forces have assaulted, tortured, raped and killed all those who oppose its plans for “economic development” under the name of “Operation Green Hunt” (OGH). This is the true face of the ‘world’s biggest democracy’.

Indeed, the people of India are painfully aware that this development will not improve the lives of those most economically vulnerable in Indian society: the working class, the peasantry and the adivasi (tribal) peoples. Rather, it will simply benefit the Indian and multinational corporations, and their bagmen in the Indian government. It is in opposition to this exploitation of the Indian people and their resources/lands, and in support of the millions of people resisting the imposition of these anti-poor economic policies that we stand in solidarity with the people’s war and all struggles waged by the Indian toiling masses.

How do we intend to support the people’s war in India? The CPI(Maoist), in their statement to the Hamburg conference to Support the People’s War in India, write that, “The campaign to end OGH and the solidarity movement in support of People’s War in India complement each other and the anti-OGH programs should form an integral part of the support movement to Indian revolution as defeating this multi-pronged countrywide offensive of the enemy is an immediate task before us. Our party believes that it is the need of the hour for the communist forces standing in support of PW in India to strive to mobilize the broadest possible anti-imperialist, democratic and revolutionary forces to strengthen the campaign to end OGH and with a view to build a broad worldwide anti-imperialist front that is in process.” Continue reading

Indian state and media cast a worried eye on Maoist-led people’s movement

[Despite ongoing claims of imminent demise of Maoist forces, the Indian State remains obsessed over the continuing growth of the people’s movements and People’s War.  Two major newspapers, known for reporting the “official” views, describe their worries in the following articles from the Hindustan Times and ZeeNews.  While the accuracy of their assessments cannot be confirmed, the adage “time will tell” certainly applies.  — Frontlines ed.]
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Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, April 15, 2013

Three-state Red corridor is new Maoist threat

https://i0.wp.com/www.hindustantimes.com/Images/Popup/2013/4/15_04_13-pg-01b.jpgIn bad news for security forces, Maoists have managed to form a Red corridor that gives them easy movement and safe passage through three states – Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand.

The term Red corridor has so far been used for the entire naxal-infested region in India that includes the three states as well as parts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra.

But recent interrogation of arrested cadre has revealed it now literally means a narrow but contiguous strip that runs from the southern tip of Chhattisgarh to central Jharkhand – the two key theatres of naxal violence.

Such a corridor would be crucial to the Maoist strategy of enabling free and safe movement of its military companies from one battlefield to another.

Government sources told HT that Maoists arrested in recent weeks, including a courier, had confirmed the corridor was now in use.

“A corridor is essentially a question of support structures. In recent times, they have strengthened themselves in Odisha’s heavily-forested Naupada district,” a home ministry official said.

This means Maoists have managed to build a reasonable support base among the local population along the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border, right up to Jharkhand’s Gumla district. Continue reading

Mao and the new Chinese leadership

In 1976, China was the most equal society in the world while today, it is led by billionaires

by Hukum B Singh, eKantipur.com (Nepal), April 11, 2013

After the successful power transition in China,  Xi Jinping is now formally in charge of the Communist Party of China, the Government of China and its formidable military wing. However, there are big challenges ahead for Xi.

Mao, the founding father of modern China and the Chinese communist party, is still popular in China but the present leadership is fast moving away from his thought. The life and work of Mao is an inspiration to the poor, oppressed people in many parts of the world, including present China. That is why capitalists in China and their followers hate the memory of Mao and do everything they can to denigrate the great revolutionary leader. In Nepal and India, millions of workers and peasants are in favour of Maoism. Mao’s conception of a people’s war is being applied by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which is leading an armed insurrection in many parts of India.

As it becomes clearer that capitalism—the oppressive system under which we live—is in decline, capitalists and those who serve them are becoming more desperate to convince us that no alternative, especially socialism, is possible. Hence, capitalist roaders in China and rest of the world have been attacking Mao’s revolution of China.

A century ago, when Mao was young, the once great civilisation of China had been reduced by internal reactionaries and external imperialists to a state of disorder and destitution. Mao was a young Chinese determined to find a way to save China and turn it into a prosperous, modern society. It was the Communist Party of China, eventually led by Mao, which found the way forward leading to the defeat of internal and external enemies and the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949. In China today, Mao is widely respected and revered for the leading role he played in this great revolutionary struggle. Continue reading

Syrian people’s just rebellion needs people’s war–not FSA, Assad, or imperialism

[The conflict in Syria has been the subject of much  twisted coverage by the US and EU and its surrogates, by supporters of anti-US bourgeois nationalists, by partisans of Russian imperialism against US hegemonists, by advocates of the regional power of the Iranian Islamic Republic, and by “pragmatic opportunists” who wink at the role of Saudi Arabia/Bahrain/GCC.  Many people, outraged at the mass suffering and mass killing of Syrian people, have been justifiably confused, especially as the issues have been distorted by imperialist and reactionary medias which serve these interests.  And to confuse even more, many of the reactionary medias proclaim themselves as anti-imperialist, though careful reading reveals these to be promoting one reactionary power versus another.

We recently received the following statement and analysis of the situation in Syria from revolutionary Maoists in Brazil.  Views of revolutionary internationalists have too rarely been heard on this issue, and so we present these views as a good counterpoint to the prevailing revisionist and reactionary accounts.  We believe these comrades in Brazil have done significant groundwork toward the analysis needed. 

There are some aspects of this analysis which require more work and debate, in our view.  In particular, their argument that People’s War–if defined as China’s revolutionary military strategy–is universally  applicable to all countries, is a view we do not share.  Our understanding that the Maoist strategic conception of People’s War, (as summarized by the phrase, “surrounding the cities from the countryside”), only applies to feudal, semi-feudal, colonial and semi-colonial societies, where repressive power in the countryside is sufficiently weak that people’s revolutionary war, seizing and expanding significant liberated areas is an accurately applied historic strategem.  In other countries, where reactionary state power is effectively deployed everywhere, a long period of amassing revolutionary political forces through primarily political , not military, struggle, must precede the armed struggle for state power.  These general categories and strategies have often been taken literally, without detailed investigation and analysis, at great and disastrous cost to revolutionary forces.  The need for detailed study of concrete conditions is especially indicated by the ongoing changes in capitalist-imperialist production, distribution, and state power–and the distribution and growth of people’s forces.

But some use the term People’s War, not in the sense of the “countryside-overtaking-city” strategem, but synonymous with people’s armed struggle for power in all variety of circumstance–as a statement of principle, in opposition to the revisionist and social-democratic notion of the “peaceful, electoral” road to power.  In this sense, People’s War (where the masses take up the gun against reactionary power, and where the gun is led by revolutionary politics) is a universal revolutionary principle.  —  Frontlines ed.]

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Proletarian and oppressed peoples of the whole world, united!

Statement of the Revolutionary Front in Defence of the People’s Rights, RFDPR, Brasil, on the present situation in Syria

DOWN THE IMPERIALIST ALLOTMENT IN SYRIA!

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S WAR OF THE PEOPLES IN ALL COUNTRIES!

“The combat to imperialism and reaction without the inseparable combat to opportunism is nothing but empty phraseology”.

Lenin: “Imperialism and the splitting of socialism”.

The nation of Syria has been suffering a bloody imperialist plundering war in the shape of  a civil war. Assad’s armed forces and the so-called free army of Syria are the contestants of this inter-imperialist dispute for the Syrian territory. Syria has been converted into a new treachery for the anti-imperialist world resistance and the newest enclave of the inter-imperialist struggles.

At the present conditions of this struggle development any result will not bring any advance for the Syrian people and nation; it will only deepen the imperialist dominance over the country and oppression on the people since until now an independent and organized intervention of the armed masses has lacked of a proletarian vanguard even very little constituted.

The March 2011 revolt was a spontaneous mass uprising against a fascist regime led by Bashar al Assad and it is part of an overwhelming wave of people’s rebellions that happened all over the North of Africa and Middle East. The mass rebellions awakened in those countries, despite being developed in an unconscious form and not having a proletarian leadership, have the same root: they are antifascist, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist ones.

The revolt is a just rebellion against a bureaucratic comprador regime at the service of imperialism mostly Russian that has been controlled for decades by the Assad dynasty.

The Yankee imperialism has taken advantage from the situation, as for instance in all Arabic countries rebellions, manipulating the mass struggle, deviating them from the revolutionary path, to guarantee their interests in the region. The intelligentsia services for the imperialist coalition forces have formed and armed a mercenary army self-named Syria’s Free Army –SFA, directed commanded by their agents with the aim of changing the Syrian regime. Thus the USA wants to change the Russian control over Syria, breaking with the relationship with Hezbollah, surround and isolate Iran and prepare the grounds to attack it.

All this complex plan in the Middle East and North of Africa is part of a new war of imperialist plundering and allotment against the peoples. The Yankee imperialism, still being an unique and hegemonic superpower in the world, has declared its objective to create a map of a “New Middle East”, that is, a Middle East totally controlled by the USA, without the influence and interference of other imperialist powers and mostly without the people’s armed resistance of the masses.

The Yankee imperialism, amidst a deep and protracted crises, hit by the people of the world, mostly in the main front of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the people’s wars in India, the Philippines, Turkey and Peru, with its hegemony questioned by the inter-imperialist struggle, is more and more at the verge of an unprecedented war.

In this context, the events in Syria are firstly and mostly part of the contradiction between oppressed peoples/countries and imperialist powers; secondly, the inter-imperialist contradiction that could convert into the principal contradiction. This one happens through the dispute for the control of colonies and semi-colonies accumulating and being able to develop into a direct confront in the form of a new world imperialist war. Continue reading