Prachanda: We Must Pause and Ponder Our Next Move

This article was published by the Red Star.

We have the ability to bring about change for the better

by Puspha Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’

We Nepali people have made a great political change after a decade long People’s War (PW) and a historic popular movement of 2006. This change has become possible after forging alliance among the three political forces of CPN (Maoist), the Seven Party Alliance and the Civil Society. We need to continue this alliance until a new constitution is drafted and New Nepal is built.

Basically, the issue of development, democracy and peace, that is, the theme of this conference, are intricately linked. In the absence of one, the other two cannot be realized. Without democracy, we cannot dream of development and peace. Democracy must include participation, representation, accountability, transparency, responsiveness and unity of the people. In fact, these are the pillars for democracy to institutionalize and sustain. Likewise, development ensures prosperity and people’s progress, which eventually contribute to strengthening democracy as well as sustainable peace. We all know that a peaceful environment is a pre-requisite for democracy to flourish and development to occur.

Asia witnessed an unparalleled rise of democratic and nationalist governments through the 1940s to 60s. The European colonial regimes, which perpetuated systematic exploitation of human and natural resources in most of the countries in the region, were overthrown by the upsurge of national liberation movements across the region. The success of anti-colonial movements in the region generated high hopes among the working class and expectations for a rapid change in their social and economic lives. However, those newly established nationalist regimes failed to initiate development, consolidate democracy and provide socio-economic empowerment to their citizens which had eroded their popular support bases and credibility rapidly. As a consequence, many elected regimes in various countries of the Asia Pacific region were replaced by the authoritarian and military dictators. People in many Asian countries including Nepal are trapped in a vicious circle of injustice, underdevelopment and poverty. Due to the feudal system and an exploitative international financial and capitalist system, they could not achieve proper economic growth and productivity.

Samir Amin: We Need a New Communist International

This interview originally appeared in Red Star #18 as ‘We need a new international’. Prof. Samir Amin is major revolutionary thinker with dozens of major works over forty years exploring deeply the development and crimes of international capitalism. He was interviewed by Roshan Kissoon and Chandra.

Can you tell us about yourself briefly and your views on Marxism?

I qualify myself as an activist, maybe an intellectual activist. My whole active life was deeply connected with the liberation movements in Africa during the late 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and the after; that is roughly I could say the Bandung period, starting from 1955. That struggle has changed more than any other struggle, possibly, in the last 50 years.

I was and I am an economist and therefore also a Marxist. And, I don’t recognize the qualification of neo-Marxist. I consider a Marxist as starting from Marx but not stopping at Marx. That is considering that Marx thought, laid the foundations for understanding how to analyze and how to change the world. And in that the long history, as of Marx I consider that of course Lenin and especially Mao wrote and made fundamental contributions for understanding how to change the world, taking into account the fact that imperialism has divided the world into centers and peripheries. And, created the polarization at a global level and deepened it from one period to the other. And the question of the long transition to socialism had to be dealt with in a very different way from the Eurocentric, workers vision; the traditional vision of the 3rd international.

That is about myself; I’m currently the chair for the World Forum for Alternatives. Which is a network bringing together thinkers of the world from all regions of the world, north and south, whose qualifications are to be anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, of course, but anti-capitalist more than that, however, in a non-sectarian way. i.e. admitting variety of visions of what are the efficient strategies of moving ahead beyond capitalism.

In your book “The Future of Maoism” you exchange polemics with Indian Marxist V. Nandy on Marxism. Tell us something about this:

You see, the main challenge which has been probably to raise the things overlooked in what I call historical Marxism i.e. Marxism as understood by Marx. The main weakness of that historical Marxism is that it has not ever considered the consequences of the very fact that capitalism in its global expansion from the very start, because capitalism from the beginning tended to be a global system, has created the polarization of the dominant centers and dominated periphery. And that, from periods, of course, the imperialist reality has itself changed from period to period in the sense that the way it used to be defined, it has operated, has changed from place to place. That the fact is, that polarization has continuously been created, recreated and deepened from one period to another. That fundamental fact was overlooked. I think that Marx, because he was really an exceptional person, had a feeling of that reality; however, not much more than that.

Agrarian Revolution: Radical Cooperative Movements & Nepali People’s War

This interview originally appeared in Red Star #18 as ‘Co-operative movement within people’s war in Nepal’.

by Thakur Prasad Devkota

The historical initiation of the People’s war (PW) in Nepal brought drastic changes in social, cultural, economic and political aspects. In the international communist movement that initiation adds an important step to build and develop the ideology in communist international. This article is about the “co-operative movement within people’s war” in Nepal during the war period. When the CPN (Maoist) planned and proclaimed the “establishment the base area”, people and party cadre became aware of co-operatives. Co-operative management and mass-mobilization is the major part of the PW in Nepal. To manage the red army, war preparation, weapon management, war-wounded treatment, feeding, clothing etc. were the major tasks of the base area. The major works to do in this area were:

1. Service and Production

2. Management

3. Construction and

4. Security.

To meet these challenges without the mobilization of the people was not possible. Therefore, to meet these challenges, CPN (Maoist) planned to organize and mobilize the people collectively.