Now it is the gap between the professed commitment to revolution and the geopolitical constraints that has left the UCPN (Maoist), the mainstream communist party, on the brink of a split.[break]
Then, it was the Communist Party of India (CPI) which incited Pushpa Lal who was removed from the party leadership by Manmohan Adhikari and his company, to hold a separate general convention and formally split the party.
Now it is again the outside force – mainly the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Revolutionary International Movement (RIM) – that is persuading the Maoist radical faction to split from the “revisionist” leadership and keep the hope for a “world revolution” alive.
The seemingly insurmountable ideological chasm in the party between the moderates and the hardliners, aggravated by a tussle for power and personality clashes, has so far neither triggered a split nor left any space for unity, either.
To borrow from Marx again, it looks much like a farce being played out for so long that the political characters have almost lost their charms and stopped entertaining the audiences. Hence the waning publicity of the Maoist drama that was once the grist to the media mill.
Ideological dilemma and conflict
While being clear that the working policy serves the strategic goal, the party has understood the concept of Democratic Republic neither as Bourgeois Parliamentary Republic nor directly as New Democratic Republic. This republic (Democratic Republic) that envisions a thorough state restructuring in order to end the existing discriminations based on class, ethnicity, region and gender will play the role of a transitional multiparty democratic republic. Certainly, the reactionary classes and their parties will attempt to transform the system into Bourgeois Parliamentary Republic while our proletariat party will try to change it into New Democracy. It cannot be said with certainty how long that transition lasts. It will mainly depend on the immediate national and international situation and power balance.
– Chunwang Baithak, 2005
It is striking to note that the Maoists predicted the current political complications way back in their Chunwang caucus held in the aftermath of the Royal putsch in 2005.
The major tactical shift taken by the meeting prepared a ground for the signing of the 12-point agreement with the parliamentary parties, and the subsequent mass movement, which overthrew the monarchy.
The country was turned into a secular state, and an inter-party agreement had been reached to adopt federalism as part of state restructuring. In short, the Maoists, to their pleasant surprise, achieved their immediate goal set by the Chunwang conference. But was that all the party had fought for?
“No. In fact, we should’ve already prepared a ground to establish New Democracy for now to move on to socialism and finally to communism,” says Khadga Bahadur Biswakarma who comes from the Baidya camp.
In fact, the Maoists succeeded in turning the country into a republic through an alliance with the parliamentary parties whom they view as “useful idiots,” and are now supposed to jump to New Democracy –a concept referring to a combination of a bourgeois-democratic revolution and socialist revolution – as per the vision of their ideologue and military strategist, Mao Zedong.
But what are the tactics the Maoists have to achieve the party’s goals? There are none. Maoist Vice Chairman Baburam Bhattarai, now the Prime Minister, who formulated the Chunwang line, seems to have run out of ideas.
Though he vaguely talks about “pressures from the streets, government and parliament” to advance the revolution, his silence on the organizational structure and line to effect his own vision of “revolution” raises serious doubts over his will to move beyond the “transitional multiparty democratic republic.” On top of that, Bhattarai, a heartthrob of the middle class, has picked up the agenda of “rapid economic development” as his road to power, much to the chagrin of the “revolutionaries” inside and outside the party.
The situation of the party’s radical camp is even worse. Senior Vice Chairman Mohan Baidya, who leads the camp and is never tired of talking big about revolution with all sorts of communist jargons, has been reduced to a crying baby.
He is left without any tactics to achieve the goal, but continues to harp on “people’s constitution,” “urban insurrection” “state capture,” “New Democracy” and all that sounds revolutionary. Backed by General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa, he has been launching more lacerating criticisms against the “revisionism” of the establishment, and threatening to split the party.
In an apparent bid to appease Baidya, the party had even put in efforts to foment an urban insurrection in May 2010. But domestic and international power dynamics turned the whole project into a fiasco.
The state security mechanisms, mainly the army, remain intact, while the hoi polloi spurned the party’s call to come onto the streets.
The cost of the wrongheaded strategy was too heavy on the party, compelling the leadership to rethink before embarking on such a “leftist adventurism” again.
Restless Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, on the other hand, sees more benefits in setting Baidya and Bhattarai against each other, rather than working out a formula for revolution.
Without any tactics, the whole party is at a dilemma about its future course, and the thousand of full timers have been left idle for lack of political programs.
Why don’t they part ways?
If the Maoist farce has begun to bore people, what intrigues them is the way the party has been maintaining its unity.
Why have the party’s moderates and hardliners, who have publicly declared each other their arch enemy, continue to remain glued together as one party?
“It’s because each faction is waiting for an opportune time to checkmate the other,” says Ram Karki, a member from party establishment.
If the hard-line faction is waiting for an opportune time to win the sentiments of party cadres and form a separate party, Chairman Dahal is said to be playing different games to split the hard-line camp.
“All Dahal is attempting is to isolate Netra Bikram Chand [who has a good hold on the organization] and win the support of others, including Baidya, who leads the hardliners, and General Secretary Ram Babadur Thapa again,” says a Maoist leader. Dahal regards Chand the major force behind the radicalism of Baidya and wants him to cut down to size.
Thus, neither can the party establishment take disciplinary action against the “unruly” radicals, who want to inherit the mantle of the party’s “revolutionary line”, nor can the latter announce a split immediately.
“Now the unity is more like a marriage of convenience,” argues the leader.
The road ahead
The Maoists say if the ideological and political line is correct, all good things will come on the way to revolution; and if it is wrong, everything will be lost. The current political situation is clearly the logical conclusion of the Chunwang declaration.
The Maoist party, beset by “personality cult, blatant financial corruption and petite bourgeoisie culture,” is now left without any roadmap to their goals. Hence the factionalism and fragmentation.
It is yet to be seen how the Maoists of the faction-ridden party will settle themselves in the soon-to-be-drafted Constitution, secure the interests of the “proletariats and the marginalized peoples” during the transitional “multi-party Democratic Republic” and later turn the system into “New Democracy” while preventing the “reactionaries and their political parties” to change it into “Bourgeois Democratic Republic.”
Meanwhile, the boring Maoist farce is likely to continue for some months and reach its peak during the final phase of the Constitution drafting. But it will be interesting to see how the drama ends and at what costs.
Basnet is a senior correspondent at Republica.
postbahadurbasnet@gmail.com
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