[N]ow we are focusing on the mass movement… [N]ow we [can] really practice what we have been preaching. That means the fusion of the strategy of PPW [Protracted People’s War] and the tactic of general insurrection. What we have been doing since 2005 is the path of preparation for general insurrection through our work in the urban areas and our participation in the coalition government.

– Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai, interview with the Britain-based World People’s Resistance Movement, October 26, 2009

Today (November 1) Nepal’s Maoists initiate, with torch rallies in Kathmandu, a mass movement to bring down the regime. This is the regime that succeeded the one their chair Prachanda headed as prime minister from August 2008 to May 2009–a compromise arrangement, always understood to be temporary and transitional, that collapsed when the Nepali Army refused to take orders from the Maoist prime minister.

Prime Minister Prachanda, noting the obvious (that the Maoists’ suspension of the People’s War and participation in parliamentary processes had not really given them state power), might have then ordered the resumption of the war. Instead, the first elected Maoist national leader made a surprising (I think even shrewdly Gandhian) move of resigning his post, while his party, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) redoubled its efforts to organize support among the urban masses of Kathmandu.

The Maoists claimed that acquiring top posts in the government following the toppling of the monarchy in 2008 was less important than two other tasks: achieving goals in the composition of the new constitution and building that mass urban movement. The “Prachanda Path” has always been about combining Mao’s theory of People’s War (surrounding the cities from the countryside) with Lenin’s model of the urban uprising—the October Revolution.

As of November 2005 the Maoists controlled about 80% of the country. They surrounded Kathmandu Valley but felt incapable of taking it militarily. Meanwhile King Gyanendra, deeply unpopular, had made himself even more widely despised by dissolving the parliament and arresting mainstream political leaders. The Maoists cut a deal with the legal political parties to coordinate actions to bring down the king. They agreed to eventually lay down their arms under UN supervision, in return for the other parties’ acceptance of new elections for a Constituent Assembly to author a new constitution. In the April 2008 elections, Maoists won 220 of 575 seats in the assembly, double the figure of their nearest competitors. International observers such as Jimmy Carter verified that the elections were free and fair. There is no question the Maoists have a mass base.

And there’s no question there are real limits to what you can accomplish following the normal rules. Hence “the tactic of general insurrection.”

The U.S. State Department has always seen the Maoists as “terrorists” and even keeps them on the terror list now. That’s not because they’ve used violence to overthrow a social order that inflicts misery in subtle and not so subtle, violent and not so violent ways every day as the Nepali state presides or looks on indifferently. “Terrorism” in the State Department’s lexicon refers to anything that terrifies State Department officials, and the prospect of the red flag flying over Mt. Everest is one of their nightmares. But the fact is they do believe in the violent overthrow of oppressive institutions, they do believe the revolution isn’t by any means over yet, and they do have a program for seizure of power through what Bhattarai terms “the tactic of general insurrection.”

Knowing this, U.S. Charge d’Affaires in Kathmandu Jeffrey Moon called on Prachanda at his home in the city Oct. 28 to express U.S. concern about these upcoming protests. He was apparently told that the Maoists remain committed to the peace process and the drafting of a new constitution. But suspension of the guerrilla war is one thing. General insurrection centered in the city is another. And the People’s War and the urban insurrection may connect at some point in the near future, just as the government of neighboring India undertakes an assault on the Maoist movement that has come to control vast regions of that county.

I have no idea what the outcome may be. But history is clearly not over, Communist movements are clearly not dead, and the ideal of classless society has clearly not vanished in societies where class oppression is most intense.

This poem, written by a long standing member of the Maoist Cultural Front, states clearly and simply what has happened to the revolution in Nepal. The poet, who must remain nameless for the time being, sent the poem to the Red Star just after the CA elections. It could not be published in the Red Star, but I believe it is worth publishing. The poem stands alone, and there is scarcely any need to mention such details such as the Peoples Liberation Army, in UN monitored cantonments, getting paid by the World Bank, nor the agreement to set up four to six SEZs (Special Economic Zones) etc. etc.

Contradictions in Historical Materialism

The science of Marxism has, indeed, discovered the laws of society that can explain how one form of society changes into another form of society. Marxist historians have revolutionised the study of history in every area, from the early origins of humanity to the modern world. Historical materialism can explain and shed light on all periods of human history. Historical materialism does not seem able, however, to explain itself. In those periods of history when Marxism itself played a decisive and dominant role; historical materialism does not seem able to explain nor understand. This seems a contradiction inside the Marxist system, and the inability to resolve this contradiction prevents the Communist movement from advancing ahead. For example, Marxists constantly say that the ‘masses are the real creators of history’, as an explicit challenge to the ‘great man’ hypothesis of bourgeois history. However, in all the Marxist-Leninist revolutions we see again the ‘great man’; the great Lenin, the great Stalin, the Great Mao etc, without whom the revolution would not have succeeded. This seems a glaring contradiction. Again, consider the following questions about the USSR

Did the revolution create a socialist state?

If so, when did the USSR turn into a capitalist state?

The Khrushchev line parties claim socialism ended when the USSR collapsed. Maoist and Hoxha line parties claim that Khrushchev ended socialism by turning away from the line of Stalin. Trotsky line parties claim that Stalin ended socialism, and Stalin himself represents the counter revolution by turning away from the line of Lenin. Nobody dares to criticise the great Lenin.

Marxists seem unable to analyse the USSR with any kind of objectivity, and instead of analysis we get a ‘party line’ that passes for analysis. If one reads or listens to an account of the Russian revolution by parties or historians that ‘uphold’ Stalin, the role of leaders such as Trotsky, Bukharin or Radek do not merit mention or study. They do not mention the Moscow trials of the 1930s. They tell a story of the ‘good guy’ Stalin saving the revolution from the ‘bad guys’ such as Trotsky, only for the evil Khrushchev to cunningly reverse all the gains made by Stalin.

Likewise, in Trotskyist accounts, they simply show us with the reverse picture; the ‘good guy’ Trotsky outwitted by the villainous Stalin. Just as the ‘Stalinists’ keep an ominous silence regarding the Moscow trials; likewise the Trotskyists keep an ominous silence regarding the Kronstadt rebellion against the Bolsheviks and Trotsky’s role in this tragedy. It seems to me that Trotsky’s criticisms against Stalin seem correct, but Stalin’s criticisms of Trotsky also seem correct. They both seem correct and both seem incorrect. International revolution was impossible and socialism in one country was impossible, as socialism in one country turns into its opposite, state capitalism and finally just capitalism. Marxism-Leninism has not gone further.

Marxism-Leninism has not properly addressed the following problems:

1) The Bolsheviks smashed the Tsarist feudal state, and created a new ‘workers state’. Why didn’t the revisionists or bourgeoisie smash this so-called ‘workers state’ in turn when they reintroduced capitalism?

2) In China, the Communists also smashed the old feudal state and created a new ‘workers state’. However, Deng Xiaoping and his successors seem quite able to use the ‘workers state’ for capitalism. How?

3) In the USSR, why did the masses seem unable to tell the difference between a revolutionary line and a counter-revolutionary line, or the difference between the line of Lenin and that of Stalin, and the line of Stalin from that of Khrushchev?

4) Likewise in China, why did the masses seem unable to tell the difference between the revolutionary line of Mao Zedong and the gang of four, and the revisionist line of Deng Xiaoping?

The simplest and best explanation is simply that the Russian, Chinese, Cuban, and Vietnamese revolutions were bourgeois revolutions, and not proletarian revolutions. I think the Nepalese revolution can change the feudal relations of production and introduce capitalist relations through agrarian reform or revolution. If the Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese etc revolutions created modern capitalist states, then why should the Nepalese Communists, following their examples, go further?

Party Vs Class

The bourgeois nature of all the forms of Marxism-Leninism seems clearest in the form of organisation. The Leninist idea of a centralised, authoritarian, hierarchical party led by professional revolutionaries, a party that seeks to centralise all power in one organisation, proves extremely effective for an underground struggle, such as an urban insurrection or a Peoples War. However, this form of party, a ‘democratic centralist’ party, does not belong exclusively to Marxist-Leninists. Any political ideology can use this form of organisation for any ends whatsoever. In Nepal, many of the Terai and Madhesi armed groups, some led by former Maoist commanders, use the ‘democratic centralist’ form of party. The LTTE in Sri Lanka and many other nationalist and even Islamic groups across the world also use the ‘democratic centralist’ form of organisation. Even some NGOs and multi-national companies use this form of organisation. Undoubtedly, this form of organisation proves extremely effective for struggle. Otto Ruhle, a German Marxist of the early 20th century, in a provocative essay entitled ‘The struggle against Fascism begins with the struggle against Bolshevism,’ argued that Hitler and Mussolini only copied the Bolshevik model for their Fascist ideology, because the party and state structure of Fascism bears remarkable similarities, in form, to the Bolshevik party and state. Mao Zedong seemed aware of this, as he often warned that if the political line of a Communist party changes, the party itself can turn into its opposite, a Social Fascist party, or Fascism presenting itself as Socialism. A Fascist party and a Communist party share the same form of organisation, but the ideological content appear as opposite. Mao seemed aware that the ‘democratic centralist’ party would centralise not just power in one place, but also wealth in one place, in the party itself. Thus, after a revolution, the new bourgeoisie would emerge from inside the party. Mao did not seem able, however, to condemn the ‘democratic centralist’ form of the party, probably because he himself led such a party! Simply put, ‘democratic centralism’ is not very democratic, but very centralised.

The Marxist-Leninist tendency to centralise all power in one place, in one person, has proved both effective and ineffective. This tendency seems effective in countries like Nepal, where many people can neither read nor write, and the political tradition demands a single strong leader. In the leader, the people find a reflection of themselves, a leader who can say what they wish to say, and lead them to where they cannot go themselves. However, this form of leadership causes many problems, as the leader becomes more than human, and the person of the leader becomes inseparable from the political line. The tendency of the leader to put their own families and friends in positions of power and to not know ‘when’ to leave power presents a big problem. The failure of Cuba, after the long reign of Fidel Castro, to find another leader apart from Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, represents a failure of this tendency. The examples of North Korea and Zimbabwe also testify to this failure.

This tendency, taken to its extreme, such as with Chairman Gonzalo and the Shining Path of Peru, has proved tragic. When the Peruvian state captured Chairman Gonzalo and other central committee leaders of the PCP (Communist Party of Peru), their entire struggle collapsed. Even now, the remnants of the Shining Path go on and on about the great leader Chairman Gonzalo, even thought Gonzalo now resides in a top security prison and cannot even lead himself to the toilet. From tragedy we move to farce, and the strange behaviour of Chairman Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA. Even though Chairman Avakian has not led any kind of Peoples War or any major revolutionary struggle, he has declared a ‘new synthesis’ that goes beyond Marx, Lenin and Mao. Chairman Avakian claims to have a made a ‘break in epistemology’, yet seems to have never studied the works of Russell, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger and other philosophers of the 20th century, or even distinguished Marxist philosophers such as Lukacs, Gramsci, Ilyenkov etc. RCP USA comrades describe Chairman Avakian as ‘the American Lenin’ (which, I presume, would make Lenin the Russian Avakian…) and sometimes even praise god for Chairman Avakian. Needless to say, nobody outside of the RCP USA actually believes this nonsense, and the RCP USA resembles a strange cult rather than a real Communist party. Ground Control to Chairman Bob… Dr. Bhattarai, after the Maoist victory in the CA elections, compared Chairman Prachanda to Lenin and Napoleon. I think this seems correct, if we understand that both Lenin and Napoleon turned their countries into modern nation states. This is the limit of Marxism Leninism and this form of leadership. For a Proletarian revolution, I believe we need a new form of organisation.

I do not claim to know ‘what’ this new form of organisation take, but I can say what form it should take:

1) The culture and practice of Marxist-Leninists seems stale and completely lacking in creativity. Consider the number of labels Marxists use to criticise other Marxists: ‘opportunist’, ‘revisionist’, ultra-leftist’, ‘rightist’, ‘dogmatist’, ‘pragmatist’, ‘Stalinist’, ‘Trotskyist’ ‘petit bourgeois anarchist’ etc. If we do not like another’s ideas, we can dismiss them as ‘eclectic’, metaphysical’, ‘idealist’ etc. So many labels, so little thought. If we view the Marxist-Leninist system as a type of game, with certain rules, we observe the following: Comrade A says to Comrade B that X and Y must be done. Comrade B asks why. Comrade A then quotes from Lenin to justify his assertion. Comrade B says to Comrade A that he misunderstands Lenin, and accuses him of misquoting Lenin, taking Lenin out of context, and comes up with a counter quote from Lenin. Comrade A responds by giving the context in which Lenin said such and such thing. Comrade B accuses Comrade A of misunderstanding the context, and so on and so on and so on. Frankly, even though Marxists claim Marxism to be science, this kind of practice does not seem very scientific. Rather, it resembles the kind of theology practiced by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, the ‘peoples of the book’. An unquestioned assumption behind this kind of argumentation in the Communist movement is the belief that Marx and Lenin were unquestionably right, simply because Marx is Marx and Lenin is Lenin, and the Russian revolution ’succeeded.’ Frankly speaking, the longer and longer the Bolshevik revolution fades into the past, the less and less convincing the tales and legends of the great Lenin will seem.

2) I believe that this emphasis on the great names, on forming a party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Trotskyism etc seems completely ridiculous. Consider the number of Communist parties in Nepal; 1) CPN-ML 2) CPN-UML 3) CPN-MLM 4) CPN-MLM Prachanda Path 5) CPN workers and peasants party 5) CPN-ML unified 6) CPN-unity centre Masal 7) CPN-Masal revolutionary left wing 8) CPN-Masal and no doubt many others. L & M, however, are a brand of cigarettes.

3) Marxists seem to already know, without studying, that Marx and Lenin defeated their opponents, and so do not revisit the old debates. The one-sidedness of this seems clear, as we have read what Marx said about the Gotha program, but few have actually read the Gotha program. We have read Marx’s criticisms of Feuerbach, but we have never read Feuerbach. We have read Marx’s criticisms of Bakunin and Proudhon, but have never read Bakunin or Proudhon. Let us take the last, Marx’s criticisms of Bakunin, the Anarchist leader of the First International.

Marx argued that the working class in the advanced capitalist countries of England, France, and Germany would lead the revolution. Bakunin disagreed and argued that workers in these advanced countries would not revolt, and considered them as forming a ‘labour aristocracy.’ (Lenin took over Bakunin’s idea of ‘labour aristocracy,’ and developed it.) Bakunin believed that the revolution would take place in Russia, and peasants would play a major role. This is what happened, and the revolutionary role of the peasantry seems clear in Nepal. Marx argued that the First International should have a single line and program, his own line and program, and all the chapters of the First International should follow this line. Bakunin rejected this, and argued that individual chapters should have their own program and line, and that the International should not seek uniformity. The demand for one and only one political line as the basis of unity does not allow for unity; this is clear. Marx argued that the proletariat needed a centralised party to represent their interests, while Bakunin argued that a centralised political party of the proletariat would simply turn into the new rulers over the proletariat. This happened in Russia, China and other places. Now, in the 21st century, we can see that Marx’s criticisms of Bakunin were correct, but Bakunin’s criticisms of Marx were also correct. Both are correct and both are incorrect.

Orthodoxy-Bulleh Shah did not follow the laws of Islam. He and his disciples did not fast during Ramadan, and were often seen drunk. One day, a great Ulema, or Muslim religious leader, came to meet Bulleh Shah. The Ulema stated that he was an orthodox Muslim and had studied in the famous Al-Azhar University in Egypt and was a follower of the Sunna of the Prophet Mohammed. Bulleh Shah replied to the Ulema: ‘You may be an orthodox Muslim, but I am an unorthodox Muslim, I am so unorthodox, I am not even a Muslim!’

This movement has overthrown Nepal ’s hated King Gyanendra and abolished the medieval monarchy. It has created a revolutionary army that now squares off with the old King’s army. It has built parallel political power in remote rural areas over a decade of guerrilla war — undermining feudal traditions like the caste system. It has gathered broad popular support and emerged as the leading force of an unprecedented Constituent Assembly (CA). And it has done all this under the radical banner of Maoist communism — advocating a fresh attempt at socialism and a classless society around the world.

People in Nepal call these revolutionaries the Maobadi.

Another remarkable thing is the silence surrounding all this. There has been very little reporting about the intense moments now unfolding in Nepal , or about the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) that stand at their center. Meanwhile, the nearby Tibetan uprisings against abuses by China ’s government got non-stop coverage.

There are obvious reasons for this silence. The Western media isn’t thrilled when people in one of the world’s poorest countries throw their support behind one of the world’s most radical movements.

But clearly many alternative news sources don’t quite know what to make of the Nepali revolution. The Maobadi’s mix of communist goals and non-dogmatic methods disturb a lot of leftist assumptions too. When the CPN(Maoist) launched an armed uprising in 1996, some people thought these were outdated tactics. When the CPN(Maoist) suspended armed combat in 2006 and entered an anti-monarchist coalition government, some people assumed they would lose their identity to a corrupt cabal. When the Maoists press their current anti-feudal program, some people think they are forgetting about socialism.

But silent skepticism is a wrong approach. The world needs to be watching Nepal. The stunning Maoist victory in the April elections was not, yet, the decisive victory over conservative forces. The Maobadi are at the center of the political staqe but they have not yet defeated or dismantled the old government’s army. New tests of strength lie ahead.

The Maoists of Nepal aren’t just a opposition movement any more; they are tackling the very different problems of leading a society through a process of radical change. They are maneuvering hard to avoid a sudden crushing defeat at the hands of powerful armies. As a result, the Maobadi of Nepal are carrying out tactics for isolating their internal rivals, broadening their appeal, and neutralizing external enemies.

All this looks bewildering seen up close. This world has been through a long, heartless stretch without much radicalism or revolution. Most people have never seen what it looks like when a popular communist revolution reaches for power.

Let’s break the silence by listing four reasons for looking closely at Nepal.

Reason #1: Here are communists who have discarded rigid thinking, but not their radicalism.

Leaders of the CPN(Maoist) say they protect the living revolution “from the revolutionary phrases we used to memorize.”

The Maobadi took a fresh and painstakingly detailed look at their society. They identified which conditions and forces imposed the horrific poverty on the people. They developed creative methods for connecting deeply with the discontent and highest hopes of people. They have generated great and growing influence over the last fifteen years.

To get to the brink of power, this movement fused and alternated different forms of struggle. They started with a great organizing drive, followed by launching a guerrilla war in 1996, and then entering negotiations in 2006. They created new revolutionary governments in remote base areas over ten years, and followed up with a political offensive to win over new urban support. They have won victory in the special election in April, and challenged their foot-dragging opponents by threatening to launching mass mobilizations in the period ahead. They reached out broadly, without abandoning their armed forces or their independent course.

The Maobadi say they have the courage “to climb the unexplored mountain.” They insist that communism needs to be reconceived. They believe popular accountability may prevent the emergence of arrogant new elites. They reject the one-party state and call for a socialist process with multi-party elections. They question whether a standing army will serve a new Nepal well, and advocate a system of popular militias. And they want to avoid concentrating their hopes in one or two leaders-for-life, but instead will empower a rising new generation of revolutionary successors.

Nepal is in that bottom tier of countries called the “fourth world” — most people there suffer in utter poverty. It is a world away from the developed West, and naturally the political solutions of the Nepali Maoists’ may not apply directly to countries like the U.S. or Britain. But can’t we learn from the freshness they bring to this changing world?

Will their reconception of communism succeed? It is still impossible to know. But their attempt itself already has much to teach.

Reason #2: Imagine Nepal as a Fuse Igniting India

Nepal is such a marginalized backwater that it is hard to imagine its politics having impact outside its own borders. The country is poor, landlocked, remote and only the size of Arkansas. Its 30 million people live pressed between the world’s most populous giants, China and India.

But then consider what Nepal ’s revolution might mean for a billion people in nearby India .

A new Nepal would have a long open border with some of India’s most impoverished areas. Maoist armed struggle has smoldered in those northern Indian states for decades — with roots among Indian dirt farmers. Conservative analysts sometimes speak of a “red corridor” of Maoist-Naxalite guerrilla zones running through central India, north to south, from the Nepali border toward the southern tip.

Understanding the possibilities, Nepal’s Maobadi made a bold proposal: that the revolutionary movements across South Asia should consider merging their countries after overthrowing their governments and creating a common regional federation. The Maobadi helped form the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) in 2001, which brought together ten different revolutionary groupings from throughout the region.

A future revolutionary government in Nepal will have a hard time surviving alongside a hostile India. It could face demands, crippling embargoes and perhaps even invasion. But at the very same time, such a revolution could serve as an inspiration and a base area for revolution in that whole region. It could impact the world.

Reason #3: Nepal shows that a new, radically better world is possible.

Marx once remarked that the revolution burrows unseen underground and then bursts into view to cheers of “Well dug, old mole!”

We have all been told that radical social change is impossible. Rebellion against this dominant world order has often seemed marked by backward-looking politics, xenophobia, lowered sights and Jihadism. And yet, here comes that old mole popping up in Nepal — offering a startling glimpse of how people can transform themselves and their world.

Some of the world’s poorest and most oppressed people have set out in the Nepali highlands to remake everything around them — through armed struggle, political power, and collective labor. Farming people, who are often half-starved and illiterate have formed peoples courts and early agricultural communes. Wife beating and child marriage are being challenged. Young men and women have joined the revolutionary army to defeat their oppressors. There is defiance of arranged marriage and a blossoming of “love matches,” even between people of different castes. There is a rejection of religious bigotry and the traditions of a Hindu monarchy. The 40 ethnic groups of Nepal are negotiating new relations based on equality and a sharing of political power.

All this is like a wonderful scent upon the wind. You are afraid to turn away, unless it might suddenly disappear.

Reason #4: When people dare to make revolution — they should not stand alone.

These changes would have been unthinkable, if the CPN(Maoist) had not dared to launch a revolutionary war in 1996. And their political plan became reality because growing numbers of people dared to throw their lives into the effort. It is hard to exaggerate the hope and courage that has gripped people.

Events may ultimately roll against those hopes. This revolution in Nepal may yet be crushed or even betrayed from within. Such dangers are inherent and inevitable in living revolutions.

If the Maobadi pursue new leaps in their revolutionary process, they will likely face continuing attacks from India , backed by the U.S. The CPN(Maoist) has long been (falsely!) labeled “terrorists” by the U.S. government. They are portrayed as village bullies and exploiters of child-soldiers by some human rights organizations. Western powers have armed Nepal’s pro-royal National army with modern weapons. A conservative mass movement in Nepal’s fertile Terai agricultural area has been encouraged by India and Hindu fundamentalists.

Someone needs to spread the word of what is actually going on. It would be intolerable if U.S.-backed destabilization and suppression went unopposed in the U.S. itself.

Here it is: A little-known revolution in Nepal .

Who will we tell about it? What will we learn from it? What will we do about it?

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) 37%
Nepali Congress Party 18
Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) 17
Madhesi Janadhikar Forum 9
Terai-Madhesh Loktantrik Party 3
Other (none over 2%) 16

It was a stunning victory for the banned party that had launched a People’s War in 1996, acquired control of 80% of Nepal, then announced unilateral suspension of military action in September 2005. When the highly unpopular monarch, King Gyanendra, declared martial law, dissolved the government, and seized absolute power in February 2005 — ostensibly so that he could lead the fight against the Maoists — his actions prompted the Maoists and the seven mainstream parliamentary parties to negotiate with one another. They produced an agreement on common action against the monarchy that November.

The Maoists ended their ceasefire in January 2006, declaring they needed to defend themselves against government attacks. The following month a Maoist-called strike paralyzed the country. The Maoists suspended attacks on the capital while the political parties organized strikes and demonstrations in April, forcing the king to return power to the prime minister. In June the government agreed to the Maoists’ demand to be included in the government, and in November an agreement was announced whereby the Maoists would end the People’s War, disarm its 37,000 fighters under UN monitoring and confine them to cantonments, join an interim government, and take part in elections for a Constituent Assembly. The interim constitution adopted in early 2007 specified that elections were to take place by last June but these were delayed due in part to the Maoists’ insistence that the assembly abolish the monarchy. The constitution made the prime minister rather than the king the head of state but did not formally abolish the monarchy or proclaim a republic. It stated that during the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly the matter of the “continuation of the monarchy” would be decided by a simple majority vote. On the opening day of the assembly, May 28, the 240-year-old monarchy was indeed abolished by a vote of 560 to 4.

The current constitution pursuant to an earlier agreement with the Maoists declares that a “Nepal Army” will be formed. That effectively renames the 80,000-strong Royal Nepalese Army, confined to barracks as the Maoist army is confined to cantonments, and paves the way for the integration into it of the registered Maoist fighters. This is a key Maoist demand, and major sticking point as officers in the former RNA resist that inclusion. They claim there is no place in a professional army for “ideological” soldiers, although I suspect that royalist ideology prevails in their own ranks. There is the basis here then of a looming confrontation.

The constitution declares overwhelmingly Hindu Nepal, formerly the world’s only “Hindu monarchy,” a secular state. This alarms some in Nepal who regard the Nepali kings as incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu, and have already set off bombs expressing their displeasure. It also angers Hindu nationalists in India who are in a position to support Nepali monarchists. A form of Hindu fundamentalism may gather strength in the months to come.

India, the regional hegemon increasingly aligned with a U.S. egging it on to become a “superpower,” poses another threat to the unfolding revolution in Nepal. The Indian government facilitated the talks between the Maoists and the seven parties, and has released the Nepali Maoists detained in its prisons. But it faces a massive Maoist insurgency with longstanding ties to the Nepali revolutionaries, and views the prospect of a Red Nepal serving as a base for regional revolution with understandable trepidation. New Delhi is in a position to exploit ethnic tensions in Nepal, Hindu fundamentalism and Nepalese Army resistance to Maoist integration. The Chinese government (having itself abandoned Maoism decades ago) is unsympathetic to Nepal’s Maoists and would strongly oppose Indian intervention in the Himalayan country wedged between the two giants. Still, Indian intervention can’t be ruled out.

In this context the CPN (M) now forwards political demands to the other parties. It demands the retention of the existing (interim constitution) provision for a two-thirds majority to appoint a prime minister remain. This allows the Maoists, with 37% of the seats, to block the appointment of an opponent. If the assembly changes the rules, as the Nepali Congress Party and the (moderate reform-oriented) Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) propose, it is likely the current Prime Minister Girijia Prasad Koirala will remain at his post. In that case the Maoists, who demand the posts of both prime minister and president as a result of their electoral victory, threaten to quit the government in which they currently hold several ministries.

CPN (M) chairman Prachanda has recently declared, “If they don’t want to give it [government leadership] to us, they can keep it. We’ve no objection.” He’s also said that, “Due to the foolishness of Gyanendra, [a] republic has been established. If the NC and UML also continue demonstrating their foolishness, [a] people‘s republic will be established.” In other words, if the Maoists are denied the power they’ve obtained by a mix of People’s War and the ballot box, they will launch a movement in the streets of Kathmandu that will sweep aside the opposition. The “Prachanda Path” articulated years ago advocates for Nepal a combination of Mao’s People’s War and Russia’s October Revolution. The party states openly that 50,000 young militants are arriving in the city to take part in demonstrations. June could be a climactic month.

The statement seems quite un-Maoist in its description of any twentieth-century socialist experiment as truly “communist.” Mao broke from Stalin in emphasizing the long-term nature and fragility of the construction of socialism as a transitional stage between capitalism and the classless society of communism theoretically posited for the human future. And it seems oblivious to historical reality in denying the existence of homosexuality anywhere, anytime in human history. Dangerously foolish (if I can assume that it was indeed said), it was made in the context of reported abuses of gay men and lesbians by Maoists in areas under their control.

Such mistreatment has not been particularly associated with the Maoists in recent years but indeed more with the old security apparatus of King Gyanendra. It’s not clear that it represents a clear party line; Hisila Yami, a Maoist member of parliament, Minister of Physical Planning and Work and wife of party leader Baburam Bhattarai told a Nepali gay organization, the Blue Diamond Society, in January that the party’s policy was “not to encourage homosexual behavior but not to punish homosexuals either.” But plainly there is cause for the sort of concern recently expressed by Human Rights Watch in a letter to Khadga Bahadur Biswokarma, a CPN(M) member and now Minister of Women, Children and Social Welfare. The letter claims that in December 2006, Maoists in Katmandu ordered homeowners not to rent rooms to gays or lesbians, and that Amrita Thapa, general secretary of the Maoist women’s association, told participants at a national conference in March 2006 that homosexuals were unnatural and were “polluting” society.

I’ve sometimes been critical of Human Rights Watch, which has little sympathy for revolutionary movements and has sometimes sided overtly with repressive regimes. (It congratulated the government of Alberto Fujimori in Peru for capturing Maoist leader Abimael Guzman in 1992 and has done little to protect the human rights of Maoists imprisoned under successive Peruvian regimes.) But here HRW seems to be on target in its criticism.

The communist movement of course has a long sordid history of homophobia — just as does bourgeois liberalism. Up to 1962, homosexual sex was punishable by lengthy jail terms everywhere in the U.S., and it was only in 2003 that the Supreme Court invalidated the “anti-sodomy” laws operative in Texas and several other states. The sentiments expressed by Gurung and Biswokarma are obviously not unique to communists but part of an historical continuum of intolerance that crosses all kinds of ideological lines.

Marx and Engels themselves were, as their private correspondence clearly establishes, distinctly hostile to homosexuality, which they viewed as “unnatural.” On the other hand, in the 1890s, the German Social Democratic Party leaders Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, and the socialist Reichstag deputy August Bebel, called for the repeal of the German statute criminalizing sex between consenting adult males. Bernstein called for “a scientific approach” to sexuality rather than one based on “more or less arbitrary moral concepts.” (Meanwhile the British socialist Edward Carpenter, influenced by the work of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, argued that “uranians” — or members the “intermediate sex” — served in a positive role as a bridge between [heterosexual] men and women.) Adolf Thiele, a socialist deputy in the German parliament in 1905, declared that he “wouldn’t even admit that [homosexuality] is something sick.” It was, he opined, “simply a deviation from the usual pattern nature produces.”

Between 1917 and 1933, the USSR pioneered in sexual legal reform. The Bolsheviks in power rescinded all the anti-homosexual statutes in the czarist legal code and sent Soviet delegations to international sexual reform congresses in Europe. The early Soviet state officially declared “the absolute non-interference of the state and society into sexual matters, so long as nobody is injured, and no one’s interests are encroached upon.” Soviet law regarded homosexual intercourse as the same as “so-called natural intercourse” and was far ahead of (for example) U.S. law at the time.

All this changed in 1933, when the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party introduced a statute penalizing consensual homosexual activity (muzhelozhstvo or sodomy) between men; thereafter Soviet writers increasingly conflated male homosexuality as indeed “unnatural,” and associated it with German fascism. Not all Marxist theorists followed the Soviet lead in castigating homosexual activity, but the most prestigious of Marxist psychoanalysts, Sigmund Freud’s student William Reich, wrote in 1934 that men of a “homosexual tendency” were easily “drawn toward the right.”

Gurung’s association of homosexuality with capitalism echoes the Stalinist line that homosexuality represents “bourgeois decadence.” But Gurung should realize that Maoists outside Nepal have largely abandoned the Stalinist legacy on this issue. The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, a close ally of the Nepali Maoists, up until 2001 stated in its program that under socialism “struggle will be waged to eliminate [homosexuality] and reform homosexuals.” But the RCP now accepts homosexuality and renounces its past position on the issue (if without adequate self-criticism or explanation for why a bankrupt line was held so long). The Communist Party of the Philippines, another Maoist party with cordial ties to the CPN(M), officially recognized gay relationships among its members in 1998 and has been conducting same-sex marriages since 2005. The Nepali party lags embarrassingly behind.

Many have derived inspiration from the People’s War in Nepal, which in a mere decade acquired control over about 80% of Nepali territory and proved to the world that revolutionary communism remains the hope of the hopeless. I myself was happy to endorse Li Onesto’s first-person and very sympathetic account of her Maoist-sponsored visit to Nepal, Dispatches from the People’s War in Nepal (Pluto Press, 2005). The party now shares power with its former foes, heading six ministries in the provisional government. Some who have supported the CPN(M) are expressing grave concern that the party is abandoning its commitment to socialist revolution by its deal with the seven mainstream parties and its abandonment of the People’s War.

The Nepali Maoists deny that that’s the case, and I’d just as soon withhold judgment on that issue. But if the sentiments of Comrades Gurung and Biswokarma are at all representative of party sentiment, and if measures against gays are part of the party’s agenda, the outlook for a new revolutionary model in Nepal is looking worrisome.

* * * * *

Mao Zedong was all about struggle, always stressing that it’s right to rebel against reactionaries. He saw inter-party two-line struggle as a good and inevitable thing. There is already some apparent struggle within the CPN(M) regarding gender and sexuality issues. Earlier this months Maoists protested the television broadcast of the Miss Nepal Pageant. But it went forward, with the support of the new Information and Communications Minister, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, himself one of the newly appointed Maoist cabinet ministers. He argued “practical considerations” (including a contract between pageant sponsors and the state-run channel) did not allow cancellation.

So — so far — beauty pageant okay, homosexuality “polluting.” May the Maoists of Nepal struggle these things out among themselves, with some input from the world, and the correct line win.