Debate on Nepal

Debate on Nepal: (new) Italian Communist Party
Posted by: "nepali_pla"
Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:06 am (PDT)



Relations about PPW in Nepal and Italy according to the (new) Italian
Communist Party

In the last issue of " La Voce ", the review of the (new)
Italian Communist Party, we read this article and translated it in
English, and now we release it, thinking it is interesting for the
debate within the International Communist Movement.

In solidarity,

CARC Party – International Department

Revolutionary people's war in Nepal and in Italy

Even the longest march is done by single steps

In Nepal , the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal and democratic revolution,
directed by Unified Communist Party of Nepal (maoist), is going on.
Strengthened by the successes got in the ten years (1996-2006) of war in
the countryside, after the agreement drew up in 2006 with the "Seven
Parties" of the old system for striking out the divine right
monarchy and having up a Constituent Assembly, the UCPN(m) has firmly
taken on hand the leadership of the popular masses in the cities too.
The strife is between the democratic movement of the countryside and
that of the cities on the one hand and on the other hand the residual
feudal forces, the comprador bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic
bourgeoisie. What is at stake is the foundation of a new democracy
system.

The reaction persistently opposes, but it is not succeeded to prevail
over, despite it still has great forces into the old Armed Forces
(Royal, renamed National), the Public Administration, the Magistracy
and, most of all, it is supported and pushed by the Indian ruling
classes and the USA imperialist groups. The UCPN(m) has the People's
Army and the Militia and it has been able to move successfully the
revolutionary forces and to continue the Revolution ary People's War
within the new conditions. Thus it has confirmed that:

1. a Communist Party is able to lead the revolution even in a small and
surrounded country (25 millions of people and 140 thousand Km² also
within actual world context),

2. the Maoism is the guiding theory of the second wave of proletarian
revolution.

The line "firmness of strategy and flexibility in tactics"
pursued by the UCPN(m) has aroused the indignation of the Communist
Movement's dogmatics, particularly of the RCP-USA and of its
chairman Bob Avakian, that do not understand the nature of the
Protracted Revolution ary People's War. In fact, the UCPN(m) gives
great teachings to us Maoist communists who lead the PPW for making
Italy a new socialist country. Let's see some of this teachings.

Within the imperialist countries, the revolutionary people's war is
"the revolution organized and established by the Party, with one
campaign after another, combining battles with tactic operations".
The revolutionary people's war is the Party building the New Power.
This is a structure which guides working class and popular masses'
movement. So it joins leading organisms with organized masses which
recognize and anyway follow its directives in their behavior in front of
the bourgeoisie, the clergy and the other ruling classes.

The bourgeoisie takes the initiative in the claiming struggles not yet
led by Party and then not yet inserted in the revolutionary people's
war as its own parts: here the bourgeoisie leads the dance. The masses,
on the basis of their mentality, the existent relations and their means
(spontaneity is this) respond to bourgeoisie' s actions, because of
necessity, need, because costs increase and wages decrease, because the
bourgeoisie makes more difficult popular masses' life and increase
pressure on the masses. Popular masses' action is a reaction to
bourgeoisie' s actions, a answer that needs only a bourgeois
conception and mentality: a conception of a seller who sells dearly his
workforce. That is why we tell that economism is a backward, still
primitive form, of class struggle. It does not require that the
communist conception of the world is at the helm, it does not require
the lead of the Communist Party. The spontaneous action of the popular
masses is their action carried out on the basis of their world
conception, of their vision of the things, of their feelings, opinion,
mentality (see Gramsci, Introduction to philosophy in Prison Notebooks).

Until the masses restricted themselves to the claiming struggles, in
fact they still are dragged along by the bourgeoisie, no matter how
great are violence and heroism of the revolt. The bourgeoises have
strategies (of course, into the limits of their class condition,
strategies that do not go beyond the horizons of capitalist social
relations,: this is a weak point they can not eliminate). The masses and
their leadership have no strategy. Marchionne [the FIAT manager, Note of
Translator] has a plan and he is trying to carry out it. Epifani [the
leader of CGIL, the most important trade union of the regime, Note of
the Translator] has not a plan. Least of all Angeletti and Bonanni [the
leaders of the two other trade unions of the regime] have it. And these
are the conceited adventurers still now leading the popular masses
insofar as there is a one direction of the moving of popular masses'
individuals and organisms. Neither the alternative trade unions have a
plan. They have claims. They want everything more sincerely, with more
determination and with a little more consistency, less available to come
to compromises with the bourgeoisie and less resigned to its
"omnipotence" than the trade unions of the regime. The best part
of them already feels the limit (about it see, for example, the Thesis
of Slai Cobas' VI Congress, Milan on April 16-18, 2009; the report
of Contropiano on CUB's (Base Delegations) congress in Riccione
(May 23-24, 2009), the Platform by which Slai Cobas has convened the
meeting on June 16, 2009 in Milan). The alternative trade unions shout
aims more advanced (no dismissal, no closing of firms), while Epifani,
Bonanni, Angeletti and some accomplices are content with no closing of
firms, dismissals as less as possible, more social security cushions
possible, gradualness and fair division of sacrifices, etc. Today
Epifani, Bonanni, Angeletti and their accomplices are shouting this, in
order to get the closing of less business possible and for getting
"what will be possible to get".

The popular masses takes the initiative on hand within the class
struggle only when their activism is part of a revolutionary plan of
action, i. e., aimed to establish a new system of social relations: the
Socialism in order to go towards Communism. That is to say, when their
movement is directed by the Communist Party (actually, even if not yet
formally).

On the contrary, in the revolution led by the strategy of revolutionary
people's war, the Party has the initiative. It moves the masses. Of
course, it does it, it has to do it, it is able to do it only
considering masses' material, spiritual, sentimental, etc.,
conditions (as anyway it does when it organizes a simple strike, a
simple demonstration, a protest, whenever it takes the initiative).
Certainly it does it, it has to do it, it is able to do it only thanks
to a network of organisms and relations (the Communist movement) it has
weaved and keeps on weaving, consolidating and strengthening. The Party
and the New Power use one campaign for making the opportune conditions
for the following one, which pursues higher aims. This is the contrary
of the modus operandi of the bourgeois adventurers and careerists as
Cofferati, Bertinotti [former unionist leaders become politicians in the
highest bourgeois institutions, Note of Translator] and Epifani. For
them every campaign comes to an end with the agreement they conclude
with the counter-part. Under their leadership everything is quite normal
with the end of the campaign; the forces break up and the struggle is
out.

On the contrary, the Party and the New Power give continuity to the
class struggle. Every campaign makes the conditions for the following,
even if between the two campaign there can be a break for consolidating
forces.

The Party and the New Power with the operations they promote, bring the
class struggle to climax, to a high level of combativity, protest and
strife which makes impossible bourgeoisie' s life. So, in order to
keep its power, its privileges, its "civilization" the
bourgeoisie will do inconsiderate and desperate moves which climax is
unleashing the civil war. So we pass to the second stage of the
protracted revolutionary people's war.

Since what is important and decisive is the aim, we, who follow the
strategy of the PPW, can and must do things the others who have not our
strategy do not do, and if they do them, they are yielding to the
bourgeoisie or backwardnesses. In James' seasons, Rigoni Stern [an
Italian writer, Note of the Translator] tells that in his village once
the peasantry and the rest of the popular masses severely embarrassed
the fascists. The fascist authority had forbidden the covering of the
cows by the bulls of tarina race, which usually were used in the region.
There were violations about disposition, repression, demonstrations,
arrests. Finally peasantry and women demonstrated en masse against the
law and the repression shouting "Long live Mussolini and the bulls
of tarina race!". How could carabineers repress a demonstration
against the fascist law made praising Mussolini? There were frenetic
consultations, until from Rome the order arrived to forget, to release
the arrestees, and to suspend the law enforcement about improvement of
the bovine race. Rigoni Stern tells a fact: what was the effect of that
event on local popular masses' evolution of politic consciousness
and organization? The results were determined by those who, in that
area, had a more advanced understanding of the conditions, the forms and
the results of the class struggle and on that basis carried it out.
According to the way of thinking of Bob Avakian (the chairman of the
RCP-USA) there is not doubt: it was a semi-fascist demonstration, a
contradiction within Fascism. For those who worked in the ambit of a
tactic plan within the revolutionary people's war against the
regime, for mobilizing, organizing and orientating the local popular
masses it had been an excellent tactic initiative for extending a crack
and strengthening their role: it was to put a foundation for the
following step.

The criticism that Avakian, RCP-USA and other dogmatic people (who
declare themselves Maoists as well) are doing to the UCPN(m) (see the
Five Letters and similar positions), falls within this context. Avakian
does not understand what UCPN(m) is making, because he does not
understand the essence of the Protracted Revolution ary People's
War. Ever step of the UCPN(m) has some limits: then according to Avakian
it is a defaillance. For those who carry out the PPW, every step is a
starting point for the following, or an element which takes the
significance from the context to which is tied in its work plan. Every
time somebody go up a step, Avakian shouts he is giving up the struggle.
Is it possible that UCPN(m) will come to a halt at a point and then all
that which it has made will begin to putrefy and collapse, given that in
a struggle it is impossible to come to a halt whenever one like? Can the
way pursued by UCPN(m) lead in fact the Nepal i revolution into a blind
alley? Both things can happen. Such things already happened in other
cases. But only who adopts the strategy of the PPW and is able to make a
concrete analysis of the concrete situations, can avoid all that,
contributing so that the UCPN(m) elaborates the just line and enforces
it by the two lines struggle.

Let's return to our situation and to what we have to do. It is
important that we promote a process, that we make the popular masses
carry it out, starting from those who already are moving themselves and
that we already are able to move and to orientate, a process of
campaigns, struggles and operations, such as to make the bourgeoisie no
more able to bear the way we forced it in, the way it undertook for
facing the process of campaigns, struggles and operations carried out by
popular masses through our work. It will be a process able to suffocate
the bourgeoisie itself in the trap where we will have forced it to fall.
Then, the bourgeoisie will rouse the civil war, if it will insist to
preserve at any cost its system of social relations, to remain to the
power and to perpetuate its privileges, as exploiting classes usually
do. As regards us, it is important that we drive the bourgeoisie toward
this stage of the socialist revolution in the opportune conditions for
us, having the initiative on our hand, even if will be the imperialist
bourgeoisie to rouse the civil war and we will lead those who will face
its sudden attack, its precipitate, desperate and criminal move (we have
not to deceive us about a possible pacific passage, however working
according to our directions we will be prepared to seize it if it will
occur due to unexpectedly and unsuspected causes). We shall choose the
right time and the right ground of imperialist bourgeoisie' s move in
order to determine the widest ranking of troops and classes possible in
our favour and the greatest isolation possible of civil war's
initiators.

An example for understanding about what could happen are the events in
Nepal in the last weeks. On April 20, 2009, Prachanda government, after
the umpteenth infraction by general, has dismissed the gen. Katawal and
has appointed the gen. Khadka in its place as chief of the National
Armed (former Royal) Forces. Prachanda government had strong cases for
dismissing Katawal because of his insubordination since months. In
substance, Bob Avakian (RCP-USA) indicated Prachanda as traitor of the
revolution because he did not actions as dismissing Katawal. Prachanda
dismissed Katawal after he thought he got ready the conditions needed
for facing successfully the reactions which the gen. Katawal, the
chairman Yadav and the most reactionary forces certainly would have
made in order to not lose their main bastion, the National Armed Forces.
Has the UCPN(m) well sized up the conditions made and reactionary
forces' effects? We certainly are not able to tell it. But this is
the way pursued from UCPN(m) and on this basis it has to be sized. Those
who understand what PPW means, size the events in this way. So far the
UCPN(m) has proved to think hard its own steps and to predispose good
traps for the reaction, to lead well the play which the revolutionary
process involves, to be able to make the reactionary forces believe to
be able to prepare traps for the maoists and the revolutionary movement
so that they fall into those traps themselves. There is no reason for
thinking a priori that the UCPN(m) this time has not succeeded about it.
This is the thought of the individuals widely corrupt by rooted
diffidence in the possibility of the success of revolution (they have
neither revolutionary spirit nor courage). The direct and immediate aim
which UCPN(m) is carrying out in the ongoing strife, i. e., the
supremacy of civil on military power's, can be hardly refused by
parties which do not to openly take the responsibility of restarting
civil war and of a coup d'état which results will be uncertain
thanks to what happened before.

The examples more fitting for explaining what we will become, when at
least a part of us will have adopted a such tactic principle which is
part of the New Method of Work, are both that of the stonemason who is
able to find out the vein of the stones he must work and goes toward
his aim, utilizing stone's vein (this means to consider the
circumstances and the conditions), and the pupil who "plays
along" school children and "instigates" them against an
incapable and hateful teacher until making him unable to carry out his
own didactics activity (this means to work with continuity, one campaign
after another, making of every struggle a school of communism and
putting the results of every struggle as starting basis for the
following which has higher aims, by stages and levels).

Many years ago, in the early `70s, I followed closely the class
struggle within a big metal factory. A working group, even if narrow,
was able to mobilizing effectively its colleagues against the bosses, to
prevent and to face their moves and manoeuvres so that bosses' life
was impossible. The factory changed leadership many times (at that time
the idea to close the factory would have kicked up a complete row), as
long as, in a context different from which the working group was fed by
(and that it fed) a even sharper leadership, was able to make the
working group do mistakes, driving it to isolation and break up. Apart
from such end, which belongs to another story, our just work would
become so and will become so when we shall have assimilated dialectical
materialism at higher level and we shall master it with some skill as
method for knowing and transforming the reality. We will utilize a
higher world conception, we will lead the asymmetric war, on the ground
more favorable to us, upon which the bourgeoisie can not act (as the
French or American imperialists fruitlessly tried to learn and to apply
Mao's military theory for leading the counter-revolutiona ry war).

Instead, until we compare ourselves with the bourgeoisie, the
revisionists, the Subjective Forces of Socialist Revolution on the
ground of the quantity, following again the mobilizations which in the
past were effective but today tire out the workers, we are people who
face their own opponents on a ground more favorable to them, where they
are stronger, where they have got more experience.

For better understanding this thinking we may develop it as regards the
field of the public opinion. In the regime of preventive
counter-revolution, the bourgeoisie developed refined systems and
procedures (the nr. 1 pillar of the regime, see Manifesto Program
website www.nuovopci. it) for influencing, deviating and poisoning the
public opinion. The revolutionaries often do not know how making the
media (TV, newspapers, radio, film, theatre, concerts, etc.) talk about
the experiences, the events and the operations regarding the class
struggle in order to form a public opinion concentrated on this field
and how making the media favorably present masses' claims and the
struggles the masses carry out for achieving them.

The Red Brigades (BR) and other Fighting Communist Organizations (OCC),
when they degenerated in the militarism that drove them to defeat, came
to theorize the attempts as means for propagandize themselves. The
bourgeoises resorted to blackout as counter-revolutiona ry move. It was
forbidden to talk about attempts. At a certain level of the stirfe, the
bourgeois strategists of the struggle against the BR got the consent of
media's owners who made silence around OCC's activities.

How can we face the task to create a public opinion enlightened and
favorable to us?

Certainly neither founding ourselves mainly on the bourgeois media, nor
mainly on our media, which are incomparably weaker than the bourgeois
ones.

Our (still weak) media have to create the public opinion of our
entourages, the entourages they are able to reach. Today we yet are well
away from being able to give, by our propaganda, a clear and practical
consciousness of the reality to those who are listening to us. You just
need to see how even our comrades are in trouble when they are facing a
new problem or event upon when there is not yet a Party Statement about
it.

We have to be able to give to the people we reach by our newspapers,
statements, discourses, fliers and other means of propaganda, the
sufficient intellectual instruments for talking well and the sufficient,
moral and intellectual instruments for acting well. (This is the task of
the agitation and propaganda sector). From here on, their words and
actions will form the public opinion on a wider range. Lenin told the
masses learn mainly by their direct experience. We must lead them to
make that direct experience which helps them to better understand the
class struggle and to make their direct experience go with the word, the
writings, the propaganda, which interprets and does the balance of their
direct experience itself.

Obviously, this main course of our action for making a public opinion
favorable to us, does not exclude the use of auxiliary, secondary
instruments as: to make pirate programs entering the great diffusion
media, to profit by electoral campaign, to make operations as we did
with the web site "cop hunting" [where the nPCI put the photos
of the cops of the political police, so that everybody could be able to
recognize them, Note of the Translator], etc. It is important we take
ourselves the initiative of these operations and that we rightly size up
their effect, range and time, considering the counter-moves of our
enemies.

The UCPN(m) is giving important teachings to all the Communists. The
world conception leading it is the more important strength factor for
the revolution. We Italian Maoist have to learn from its actions,
obviously considering that we are working in a imperialist country, in
particular in the Papal Republic . The common base of the
Marxism-Leninism- Maoism helps us to learn from their experience.

Rosa L.