Prachanda proposes the Dengist path for Nepal, typical

(leadinglightcommunist.org)

The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is a party that emerged out of the revisionist cesspool known as the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM). The party waged a people’s war for many years and seized power in much of Nepal. Very abruptly, the leadership called off the people’s war and opted for the dead-end path of bourgeois reformism. They seized defeat from the jaws of victory around 2007. During the people’s war, the party had projected the image of a Maoist organization. However, shortly after the leadership dismantled the people’s war, they began abandoning almost every aspect of Maoism. This ideological turnaround accompanied their dismantling of the people’s institutions countrywide: they reversed much of their land reform, they dismantled many of their institutions of dual power, they disarmed and marched their people’s army into prison camps supervised by the UN. At one point, they even proposed dropping the Maoist label and merging with the mainstream revisionist parties of Nepal. The typical reaction by revisionists on the world scene was either to cower in silence as this betrayal went on or to cheer the betrayal on. Many continue to cheer the blatant revisionism in Nepal. Only the Leading Light movement consistently led the international communist movement in exposing the reversal of the revolution and abandonment of Maoism in Nepal.

Prachanda has made many pronouncements reassuring the imperialists that, despite occasional radical rhetoric for internal consumption, his party is not a threat to the imperialist order. Given Prachanda’s deals with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and other imperialists, it should be no surprise that Prachanda has proposed adopting a revisionist, Dengist road for Nepal’s development.

“We will build special economic zones like China.. The special economic zones stimulated China’s economic development, and we want to learn from China. China’s experience is really helpful for us.” (1)

Special economic zones (SEZs) are regions that have relaxed economic, environmental, and labor laws. SEZs are set up to give free reign to foreign capital to exploit local populations and plunder local resources. SEZs are a key part of the neo-liberal globalization and “shock therapy” forced on Third World countries. SEZs have been setup across the Third World in China, India, the Philippines, Korea, Cambodia, Peru, and other countries. SEZs were part of Deng Xiaoping’s program of reversing socialism in China during the 1980s. It is no wonder that the compradors who run India have recently proposed making Prachanda’s right-hand man and vice chairman of the UCPN(M) Baburam Bhattarai in the position of Prime Minister. (2)

Like Deng, Prachanda sees development, not class struggle, as the principal way forward in Nepal. In other words, the development of productive forces is the principal problem in Nepal, according to Prachanda. This revisionist outlook has a long history in the Communist movement. A version of the Theory of Productive Forces has been held by revisionists such as Trotsky, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. This theory was criticized as thoroughly revisionist by the Maoists during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. This view was always the main view opposing the Maoist line that emphasized class struggle and opposition to imperialism versus the revisionist line of capitulation in the name of development. To embrace the Dengist road is a total rejection of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution. Labels mean nothing. Just because Prachanda’s party still attaches the Maoist suffix to their party name does not mean they are Maoist. Even the revisionist Deng claimed to be a follower of Mao. The fact that so few have come forward to expose this revisionism shows the ideological bankruptcy of the majority of those are who call themselves Maoist.

The opening words of Mao’s Selected Works raise the question of class: Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? Mao called the question of class analysis the question of first importance. If you can’t get the question of class right, then it is unlikely that you’ll get anything else right. Even today, the majority of First Worldist parties, that also claim to be Maoist, cheerlead Prachanda’s revisionism. This shows that organizations that get it wrong on global class are infected with all kinds of other forms of revisionism.

Notes.

1. Nanfang Daily, June 30, 2008. http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=5029
2. http://www.nepalnews.com/main/index.php/news-archive/2-political/3263-india-is-proposing-to-make-bhattarai-the-prime-minister-maoist-chairman-dahal.html