Communists want internationalism and a new international organization
This year’s May Day comes at a time of unprecedented protests and uprisings all around the world. In the Arab world and Persian Gulf, the youth, the proletarians and the broad masses took to the streets and toppled or tried to topple, one after the other, the dictatorial regimes subservient to imperialism.
In the heart of the imperialist countries, working class struggles, general strikes, rebellions of students and youth are opposing the policy of reactionary governments and the development of a modern fascism aimed at shifting the burden of the crisis on to the backs of the masses, bringing layoffs, job insecurity, intensification of exploitation and attacks on education, health care and basic social services.
Struggles and rebellions are ranging from China to the US, from Russia to Latin America. Particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, imperialism, mainly U.S. imperialism, is suffering blows that prevent it from realizing its plans of occupation, invasion and geo-strategic control on important areas of the world. Its plans to sanctify Zionist occupation in Palestine through sell-out leaders have been checked.
Kasama has produced the following interview, and hopes you will help us circulate it widely. This interview took place in June of 2010, as the Nepali Maoist leader Biplap spoke with a revolutionary journalist .
A revolutionary movement, especially in a poor and isolated country, faces intense challenges: Can we defeat the reactionary internal powers? Can we take the socialist road alone in a hostile world?
There has been an intense and public debate over this within the Maoist party of Nepal — precisely because their movement has reached the point where a stalemate has emerged in negotiating efforts and a new revolutionary impatience has spread
In this interview, Biplap argues that it is possible to press ahead on the revolutionary road: both seizing power by overthrowing the Nepali government and carrying through radical changes in the world today. Biplap is a member of the Standing Committee member of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
The hammer and sickle flew next to the flags of the conservative parties when all Nepal's political forces united against the King. With the King gone from power, can they stay united? Should they stay united?
As Nepal’s Maoists argue sharply over whether a New Democratic revolution is possible, advocates of both sides of the debate are going to the media. This interview, originally published at Myrepublica, takes place with Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai. Bhattarai is a Vice-Chairman of the party, was Finance Minister in the Maoist-led government of 2008, and was the head of the parallel revolutionary government during the People’s War. He opposes a strategy of people’s revolt, arguing the international and domestic situation makes the success of such a revolt impossible. Instead he argues the Maoists must compromise and seek consensus with the old, conservative political parties to draft a new constitution.
There are reports that your party is changing its official line to launch a revolt? Is it true?
Pushing for the conclusion of peace process and constitution drafting is the official party line. We have only said that forward-looking changes and socio-economic transformations should be ensured in the constitution. If this is prevented, people have the right to revolt. We are only using the Marxist terminology, but in the tactical and immediate sense, we have been clearly saying that we would move ahead through peace and constitution. That is the official line of the party and we are going to clarify the existing confusion about that point. Read the rest of this entry »
The UCPN(M) had done considerable work over the last year creating a party plan for mass revolt in case of continuing political stalemate –presumably meaning a seizure of power by the pro-Maoist forces and a rupture from the previous framework of blocked constitution writing. Many party cadre and supporters have believed that the party faces a choice of adopting a traditional parliamentary role in a consolidated bourgeois democracy, or pushing through the stalemates to a new level of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist change, represented by a peoples democracy. It is hard to know from afar whether the critical mass for a revolt could actually be generated by the UCPN(Maoist) over the coming months, or whether their current regular and irregular forces can contain the National Army. It seems likely that the current debate is not merely over the timing of the next advance to New Democracy, but over whether to see it as a realistic goal at all. Numerous reports of this situation have emerged in the bourgeois press. The following article is from The Himalayan Times.
Baidhya shells Dahal over tactical shift
TIKA R PRADHAN
2011-04-23 12:33 AM
KATHMANDU: UCPN-Maoist Vice-Chairman Mohan Baidhya ‘Kiran’ today presented a separate political document at the party’s central committee meeting against party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s five-page document that proposes focusing on army integration and constitution-drafting instead of toeing the official line of ‘people’s revolt’ for the time being.
While Dahal’s document, presented today, has stressed the need to prepare the ‘integrated draft’ of constitution incorporating existing differences, Baidhya’s document has accused the party chairman of sabotaging the party’s line of revolt that the central committee had passed as per the spirit of the Palungtar plenum. Read the rest of this entry »
As Nepal’s Maoists argue sharply over whether a New Democratic revolution is possible, advocates of both sides of the debate are going to the media. This interview, originally published at Myrepublica, takes place with a Maoist leader called Netra Bikram Chand. During the People’s War he went by the code name ‘Biplap’. Chand is a leading voice for an immediate strategy of people’s revolt and the seizure of power by pro-Maoist forces. He is also the leader of the newly-created People’s Volunteers, a militant youth formation that many say could play a decisive role in a future uprising.
Is it true that the party is changing its current line to launch a revolt?
No. The decision has not come out officially. I won’t comment as the party has not changed the line officially. Nor do I think that the line endorsed after the Palungtar meeting would be changed.
But party has not drawn up any program for revolt, either?
No. That is not true. We have been holding various programs as per our action plan. We are conducting training and strengthening the organization. And this has created an atmosphere of trust between party cadres and the people. Listen to what the NC and UML, who are against peace and constitution, have to say. Yes, we are yet to see the climax of the revolt. But the preliminary tasks to implement the party line are going on in full swing.
What the leaders of the UML and the NC are saying?
They have been saying repeatedly that there is no significance of the CA now. They also say that they do not want to draft the constitution before completing the process to integrate the PLA. They don’t want to give us the home ministry and they are against the drafting of a people’s constitution. They are also reviving fake cases against Maoist lawmakers. This shows they are planning to create a crisis before May 28. Such things would automatically lead to a revolt. Read the rest of this entry »
When capitalist state interests are at stake, people are expendable. This is especially true in eastern India, where through a combination of military personnel, special police forces and counter-insurgent militias, the state is terrorizing its own people. Regular readers of this site are well aware of these issues. Yet it is still shocking when a journalist exposes the sheer brutality of India’s state terrorism. Though this piece is from the bourgeois press and not openly sympathetic to communism, it refrains from demonizing the CPI(Maoist) and very clearly names the Indian state as the chief purveyor of violence in the eastern Indian states of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The article also shows the utter bankruptcy of India’s “shining democracy” and its capitalist development, which are resoundingly supported by the US. The article originally appeared in The Irish Times.
‘When I got to my village, all the houses had been burned’
Mon, Apr 18, 2011
The 30-year Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh has sparked a vicious response from the security forces and untold numbers of hidden victims, writes ERIC RANDOLPH in Andhra Pradesh, India Read the rest of this entry »
The following report comes from The Himalayan Times. They remain unsubstantiated by the Nepalese Maoists themselves, and we remind our readers to use caution in reading reports from the bourgeois press.
Secretary C P Gajurel said the party did not have three factions and only a two-line struggle existed. “Now chairman Dahal has adopted Bhattarai’s line deserting Baidhya’s,” he said during the meeting.
Dahal´s proposal proves divisive at CC meeting
KATHMANDU: Unified CPN-M standing committee members were divided over party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s proposal stating that the party’s official line of people’s revolt be dropped, at the central committee meeting today. Read the rest of this entry »
Below is a video from the Sanhati Panel at the Left Forum describing the development and conditions of the Indian Maoists. As usual, posting here does not imply endorsement of the views presented.
The rest of this panel can be viewed here and here.
There is great urgency in finding the ways to expose the Indian government’s genocidal and counterrevolutionary Operation Green Hung.
Please help us creatively circulate this talk by Indian author Arundhati Roy, at a convention against Green Hunt, held at the University Institute Hall, Kolkata, April 14, 2010.
This article is from myrepublica, and informs the importance of water in this Himalayan region. This is an important question facing revolutionaries of this century: how resources will be used (or not) and their long term impact on the natural world. Posting here does not imply endorsement of views presented.
The Fog Catchers
“A specially designed mesh is spread between poles and erected on a ridge. The mesh traps water particles from the wind that carries the fog through the ridge on which the device is installed.”
“It quickly becomes evident to the thirsty residents of Kathmandu that despite the fog that descends in the cold winter months, the Valley is unfit to have the mesh installed. Water is indeed everywhere, but far from being readily available.”
The following piece from the Deccan Harald documents a direct action carried out by the Nepalese Maoists that demonstrate an increasingly heightened militancy. India has for years swindled Nepal by unfair water contracts and has exploited Nepal’s natural resources for generations.
Nepal Maoists storm Indian hydropower office
Kathmandu, Apr 17 (PTI)
The Maoists in Nepal have stormed a function organised by an Indian hydropower major GMR and demanded the scraping of its project in the western part of the country, alleging it was against the interest of Nepalese.
Activists of Unified CPN-Maoist, the largest singly party and the main ally of the ruling CPN-UML coalition, Nepal Workers and Peasants’ Party and Rastriya Janamorcha disrupted the interaction programme organised by GMR. Read the rest of this entry »
Binayak Sen has been charged with sedition by the Chhattisgarh Government, but has now been released on bail for lack of evidence. Dr. Sen has been a popular figure among the poor and oppressed people of India and the attacks against him are seen as an attack on the poor and oppressed themselves. We celebrate Dr. Sen’s release and join with others in demanding that all charges against him be dropped.
Binayak Sen Granted Bail
By Free Binayak Sen Coalition
16 April, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Free Binayak Sen Coalition Activists Welcome Supreme Court Bail Decision -Remain Vigilant for Campaign Battles that Lie Ahead Read the rest of this entry »
Abir Abdullah is a Bangladeshi photo-journalist, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh
12/04/10: Nature has never made it easy to live in Bangladesh. The country is situated in the low-lying Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. Most of the land is less than 10 metres above sea level. It is a country swamped by annual floods, with a coast battered by cyclones and tornadoes, yet an interior subject to drought at times.
With nearly 150 million inhabitants, Bangladesh is also the most densely populated country on the planet. As warnings against climate change grow in intensity, Bangladesh is forecast as the scene of increasing numbers of climate migrants.
While not a radical or communist analysis, the following article shows how even the most “innovative” capitalist solutions to problems of poverty, caste and gender oppression in India are inadequate. As the article suggests, underlying structural problems that cause displacement and dispossession remain: “…communal resource areas in villages, where women used to harvest fish and vegetables, have been converted for the production of commercial cash crops.” Contrast this with the approaches of India’s Maoists who offer the people far more comprehensive and dignified models. The piece originally appeared at Trust.org.
The pitfalls of microcredit among Dalit women in India
Dalit peoples in South Asia are a disadvantaged group. Historically they have faced discrimination as they are considered to be a lowly caste. Regarded as ‘untouchables,’ they historically performed work that was ‘unclean.’ They did leatherwork, cleaned the sewers, disposed of animal carcasses, swept the streets and did other work that was regarded as ‘polluted.’ Today, Dalits are often still regarded as outcasts and their ‘unclean’ status stems either from their actual occupation or from descent. Read the rest of this entry »
Her subject is the 1943 famine that ravaged India for over a year, snuffing out the lives of 3 million people. Mukerjee argues that the figure should be adjusted upwards to over 5 million. When thinking about the millions of dead resulting from World War II, many atrocities come to mind: the 6 million Jews killed in the concentration camps, half a million Roma, 20 million Soviet citizens, 8 million Chinese, to name only some examples. Not so well-known, especially to people from the imperialist citadels, are those who suffered and died from what Mukerjee calls the “man-made” famine in India, a human catastrophe that could have been easily prevented if Churchill had not refused to assign available ships from Australia to carry their surplus grain to the Bengal region. This famine gets rarely mentioned in British history. Read the rest of this entry »
Kasama wants to share the following announcement:
The UCPN(M) had done considerable work over the last year creating a party plan for mass revolt in case of continuing political stalemate –presumably meaning a seizure of power by the pro-Maoist forces and a rupture from the previous framework of blocked constitution writing. Many party cadre and supporters have believed that the party faces a choice of adopting a traditional parliamentary role in a consolidated bourgeois democracy, or pushing through the stalemates to a new level of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist change, represented by a peoples democracy. It is hard to know from afar whether the critical mass for a revolt could actually be generated by the UCPN(Maoist) over the coming months, or whether their current regular and irregular forces can contain the National Army. It seems likely that the current debate is not merely over the timing of the next advance to New Democracy, but over whether to see it as a realistic goal at all. Numerous reports of this situation have 
As Nepal’s Maoists argue sharply over whether a New Democratic revolution is possible, advocates of both sides of the debate are going to the media. This interview, originally published at 
Revolution in South Asia 