French Translation: An Interview with Basanta

This translation was made by le Comité de Solidarité Franco-Népalais and published by Nouveau Népal.

Interview avec le Camarade Basanta

La grande Guerre Populaire que notre parti a lancée le 13 février 1996 visait à accomplir la Révolution de Nouvelle Démocratie, première phase pour ouvrir la voie au socialisme et au communisme mondial. Afin d’atteindre l’objectif stratégique minimum de Révolution de Nouvelle Démocratie au Népal nous avions appliqué diverses tactiques conformément à l’analyse concrète des conditions concrètes.

Quand le monarque destitué Gyanendra a usurpé tout le pouvoir avec la force de l’armée réactionnaire, la contradiction politique entre les masses d’une part et le roi de l’autre est venue au premier rang. Objectivement, il a créé une situation dans laquelle les partis politiques qui se réclamaient démocratiques pouvaient être rassemblés dans un combat pour établir la république démocratique. Basé sur l’accord en 12 points, l’unité tactique entre les sept partis politiques et le nôtre était l’exécution correcte de la fermeté dans la stratégie et la flexibilité dans la tactique de notre part.

L’abolition de la monarchie et l’établissement de la république démocratique dès la première réunion de l’Assemblée Constituante constitue un pas en avant important pour notre objectif stratégique minimum de Révolution de Nouvelle Démocratie, mais ce n’est pas la Révolution de Nouvelle Démocratie en elle-même.

Nepal: A Report on the Maoist Revolution

This article was published in the 2010 edition of Red Resurgence found in Seminar Magazine. Kasama does not necessarily endorse the statements made in this article. Thanks to CPSA for pointing this publication out.

“The top leadership actively went out to the districts, addressing mass meetings as well as smaller party gatherings. District committees were activated in areas where the ‘People’s War’ had not penetrated deeply to spread the party’s influence. If there were major disagreements on what political ‘line’ to pursue, an extended plenum or meeting of party workers from the entire country was convened to arrive at a consensus in a remarkable exercise of internal democracy.”

“This fusion of tactics has meant that the Maoist leadership adopts different, often contradictory, rhetorical devices while addressing different constituencies – moderate, sincere, and pragmatic when in Kathmandu and revolutionary, conspiratorial with undertones of violence when speaking to the cadre. This has led both India and other political parties, who were erstwhile partners of the Maoists and are now antagonists, to claim they were betrayed. It has occasionally led to disenchantment and confusion within the rank and file about the party’s direction.

But cutting through the ‘duplicity’, if one were to decipher the party’s aim, it is to bring about a radical change in Nepal’s political-economic structure and its engagement with the world through greater control over the state and society – by consensual politics if possible, and confrontation if necessary. The goal in itself is legitimate within the norms of open politics. But the undemocratic and violent tendencies apparent in Maoist strategy give powerful interests who would lose out in the process the space to question and block the entire process of change.”

Maoism: the Nepal scene

by PRASHANT JHA

THE Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is arguably the most remarkable radical left party in operation anywhere in the world. Beginning with two rifles and a nascent organizational structure in 1996, the party has emerged as the most powerful political force in Nepal in less than fourteen years

New Pamphlet: Arundhati Roy’s “Walking With the Comrades”

We need to come together to take advantage of this remarkable event: that a writer of this skill and stature has dared (and truly risked) to speak the truth about the revolutionary people of remote rural India. Help her. Help them.

We urge all our readers to share and download this new pamphlet. It makes it much easier for people to study this important work by Arundhati Roy describing the revolutionary fighters and people of India’s Maoist political base areas. This pamphlet includes many of Roy’s remarkable photographs from her trip that bring the text to life.

Download “Walking with the Comrades”

Or order the pamphlet to be delivered by mail

This is a brilliantly written and subtle journalist’s description of this living revolutionary movement, its activists and their hopes.

Who needs to see this? Where should this be posted?

Email this pdf to friends. Share it on e-lists. Post it on significant related discussions.

This piece is also available here on Kasama in web format.