Measuring ‘Redness’: How ‘Maoist’ are Nepal’s Maoists?

By Nishchal M.S. Basnyat

It is difficult to tell, however, whether the doctrine of Prachanda-path actually directed the behavior of the party or whether the urban insurrection and the pro-democratic policies were simply part of the Maoist’s opportunistic attempt to come to power in any way possible. Today, a major concern for the people of Nepal is whether Prachanda-path was a long term policy of the CPN (Maoist) or whether it was merely a strategy to gain popularity and power.

“Sir, it has been six years since the autocratic monarchical party-less Panchayat system was ended by the 1990s people’s movement…instead of making progress, the situation of the country and the people is going downhill… Nepal has slid to being the second poorest country in the world…”

With such a fervent undertone of frustration began the ominous ‘Forty Demands’, presented in 1996 by Dr. Bhattarai to then Prime Minister Deuba. It is overwhelmingly ironic in hindsight that these demands, so ridiculed and underestimated at the time, ultimately changed the history of Nepal, stripped down a 240-year-old dynasty and wiped clean the “royal” from institutions most royal. When these demands were presented, the Maoist party of Nepal was seen as an anachronistic communist splinter group that was limited to causing trouble in a handful of rural villages. The party that was once derided for having antiquated weapons, a poor organizational base and an “outdated” philosophy has outmaneuvered mainstream politicians and the National Army, irrefutably proving to be the most successful Communist movement in the 21 st century.

Nevertheless, the Party’s use of the label “Maoism” has always been viewed with skepticism in a world that is rapidly democratizing and in a region where even China has adopted capitalistic tendencies. There is great confusion about the exact policies of the CPN (Maoist), while academics have also questioned whether Nepali Maoists are “really” Maoist or whether they have used this label loosely. It is apparent that neither critics nor supporters of Maoism in Nepal are clear about the early constitutional policies of the Chinese Communist Party to comparatively answer whether the CPN (Maoist) is in fact “Maoist”.

This article compares the published constitutions, policies and demands of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) with the early policies of the Chinese Communist Party, especially the regulations of the Jiangxi Soviet of 1931-34. The following demonstrates that before 2001 the constitutions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Chinese Communist Party were strikingly similar in their i) basic political line ii) organizational structure and iii) military strategy. However, by simply following the Chinese Maoist model, Nepal’s Maoist Party was unable to gain i) military victory, ii) international support and iii) domestic popularity. Therefore, after 2001, the Maoist party of Nepal deviated from its original Chinese model of Maoism by adopting the doctrine of Prachanda-path, named after the CPN (Maoist) supremo, Prachanda. Prachanda-path combines Mao’s “protracted war” military strategy with Lenin’s “urban insurrection”, along with the adoption of a more democratic political line. These two changes were necessary to overcome the military stalemate with the Royal Nepalese Army and to acquire a larger support base by shifting to a more democratic line. The article demonstrates that the CPN (Maoists) did not simply imitate the CCP’s policies, but rather changed it significantly according to Nepal’s socio-political situation and the democratic demands of the people. The adoption of Prachanda-path and the abandonment of a purely Chinese Maoist model were instrumental in the success of Nepal’s Maoist Party in coming to power in April, 2008.

What is compared?

The major difficultly in conducting a comparative analysis of such broad historic magnitude is discerning what exactly needs to be compared. While it is an easier task to gather the Forty Demands, subsequent ceasefire proposals, articles and interviews from the Nepali Maoists which occurred in the short span of fourteen years, it is a much more intricate and arduous task to do the same for the Chinese Communist Party. The eighty-year-old CCP has proposed hundreds, if not thousands, of policies throughout the decades. So, what exactly are the “original” Maoist policies? This article acknowledges the following as the touchstone for “Maoism”: i) the regulations of the Jiangxi Soviet of 1931-34, a period when Mao first established a soviet government in Jiangxi and passed laws on various social, economic and political reforms, ii) the speeches and writings of Mao from 1930-1942, iii) the early organizational and military strategy of the CCP from 1928-1935, iv) the writings of Engels, Trotsky, Marx and Lumemburg with the intent of understanding the originality of Maoism and finally iv) the writings of twelve contemporary China scholars and academics of the Chinese revolution.

Before 2001

The parallel political, organizational and military strategies of CCP and the CPN (Maoist)

I. Political, social and economic policies

Before 2001, there were striking similarities in the political, social and economic policies of the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The fundamental goal of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been that of naulo janbad, the concept of “new democracy” which they have derived from original Maoist philosophy. This concept is a transition from the Marxian stage of bourgeoisie hegemony, what is referred to as “old democracy”, to a proletarian hegemony, “new democracy”. This concept of “new democracy” is not only found in Mao literature, but is built on the views of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Early Nepali Maoist work found in national publications displays their allegiance to this purist Maoist idea of “new democracy”:

“The plan would be based on the aim of completing the new democratic revolution after the destruction of feudalism and imperialism, then immediately moving towards socialism, and, by way of cultural revolutions based on the theory of continuous revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, marching to communism---the golden future of the whole humanity.”

There are remarkable parallels in social reform policies when comparing the regulations of the Jiangxi Soviet and Nepal’s infamous ‘Forty demands’ presented by Dr. Baburam Bhattarai to the government of Nepal before waging the “People’s war”. Both express their goals for freedom of speech and assembly, liberation of women, free and universal education and religious freedom. The regulations of the Jiangxi Soviet called for:

“Freedom of speech, assembly, and the press…democracy for the workers and peasants… liberation of women… free and universal education for all workers and peasant toiling masses, the progress of the class struggle permitting, and guaranteed “true” religious freedom”

Similarly, the ‘Forty Demands’ in Nepal called for:

“The right to expression and freedom of press and publications…Academic and professional freedom of scholars, writers, artists and cultural workers… Patriarchal exploitation and discrimination against women should be stopped, daughters should be allowed access to paternal property…education should be available to all… Nepal should be declared a secular nation [As opposed to a Hindu kingdom]”

The regulations of the Jiangxi Soviet also included a bulk of reforms known as the Land Laws. These Land Laws emphasized the advantage of land nationalization for the peasantry who had previously been deprived of such privileges. Consequently, in 1931 the Land Law “confiscated the land of all the rich landlords and rich gentry, without compensation, their land was given to the poor, middle and hired peasants…the land of the rich peasant was also confiscated”. The Jiangxi Land Laws also declared that the landless poor farmers were to be freed of all kinds of loans, while employment for these farmers would be guaranteed. Similarly, the CPN (Maoist) adopted parallel demands related to land distribution, to the extent that the wording of the ‘Forty Demands’ of the Nepali Maoist party reads almost verbatim to the Land Laws of the Jiangxi Soviet:

“Land under the control of the feudal system should be confiscated and distributed to the landless and the homeless. The property of middlemen and comprador capitalists should be confiscated and nationalized. Poor farmers should be exempt from loan payments. Employment should be guaranteed for all [peasants]”

Finally, both the guidelines of the Jiangxi Soviet and the Forty Demands of the Nepali Maoists display anti-imperialistic tendencies. While Mao’s anti-imperialistic fever stemmed from his antipathy towards the Japanese invasions and wars waged on China during the Sino-Japanese conflicts, the anti-imperialism of the CPN (Maoist) seem to have stemmed from the growing hatred of India and the US. Like Mao himself, Prachanda and the CPN (Maoist) succeeded in gaining support for their party by inciting nationalistic sentiments through anti-imperialistic policies. As Waller explains, the “ Jiangxi Soviet government pledged itself to free China from the “yoke of imperialism” and threatened to “nationalize much of the property owned by the imperialists”. Similarly, ten of the Forty Demands presented by the Maoist Party of Nepal in 1996 are strongly anti-imperialistic: “The dominance of foreign capital in Nepali industries, business and finance should be stopped. The invasion of imperialist and colonial culture should be banned. Vulgar Hindi films, videos and magazines should be immediately outlawed”.

Furthermore, both Mao Zedong and Prachanda took on the issue of class and caste in a similar fashion. Mao, as Kraus helps explain, saw class as political behavior; “the central question was no longer what class one belonged to…but rather what class was served by one’s conduct”. Thus, for Mao class identity could change and even an individual of “higher” class could help serve the CCP. In Nepal, after 2001, Prachanda adopted similar rhetoric, even stirring up controversy by famously stating that even former royalists and pro-monarchists could join the Maoist cause. While the CPN (Maoist) ran a campaign to help those of the lower and “untouchable” castes in Nepal, Mao was also against those who handed down power and prestige through their sons’ blood line. While China did not have “castes” per say, the concept of curtailing hereditary elitism was the same.

Admitting the similarities between the two revolutions, Maoist number two, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, has often talked of how the Chinese Maoist model has influenced even their governing strategy: “Nepali Maoists will follow a genuine mass-oriented and efficient economy functioning under a centralized leadership and guidance and decentralized initiative and management, which to a large extent was practiced in China during Mao’s time”.

II. Organizational structure

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has also emulated the Classic communist configuration of “the three magic weapons”, which includes the party, the army and the united front. As the International Crisis Group report on Nepal has proved, even the predecessor to the CPN (Maoist), the CPN ( Unity Center), promoted this threefold organizational structure:

“For the success of the New Democratic revolution, it is a must, as taught by Comrade Mao, to develop the three instruments of revolutionary Communist Party, revolutionary United Front and People’s Army…It is of primary importance to move ahead with a concrete program for the development of these instrument”.

The Party, which is the first organ of this threefold revolutionary organizational structure for Nepal’s Maoists, consists of i) the political leadership, ii) divisional commands, iii) international bureau and iv) other departments including broadcasting, publishing, health and education. The Party branch of the CPN (Maoists) consists of the standing committee, politburo, central committee, divisional commands, regional bureaus, sub-regional bureaus, district, area and cell committees.

The People’s liberation army is the second organ of the threefold system, and in the case of Nepal’s Maoist party consists of around 25,000 to 30,000 trained and armed militias. The PLA is under the leadership of Supreme Commander Prachanda, but in practice militias are commanded by different bodies, ranging from local party committees to people’s governments.

Finally, the third organ for the CPN (Maoist) is the United Front, which seeks to “unite with all parties that can be united with” in order to win the struggle. This is straight out of Mao’s thinking and was his solution to communist triumph in China as he felt the Communist Party needed to fight a united struggle against the enemy. The United Front ideology became increasingly strong during the time of anti-Japanese struggle in China. Being true to such Maoist ideology, the CPN (Maoist) included more than twenty fraternal organizations by 2001, including the All-Nepal National Free Student Union, Nepal Trade Union Federation, All-Nepal’s Women’s Association and the All Nepal Peasants Association to name a few.

As the comparison between Figure 1 and Figure 2 clearly demonstrates, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) have almost perfectly emulated the “three-magic-weapons” that Mao had theorized, making sure that the Party, PLA and the United Front stand as pillars of stability in its fight to usurp Nepal’s Monarchy and establish a communist regime in Nepal.

Recently, however, there has been a slight shift in organizational structure as the standing committee has been replaced by an eleven-member central secretariat and the politburo has been dissolved. Regardless of these developments, it is quite clear that the CPN (Maoist) displayed strict adherence to the Chinese Maoist organizational structure throughout the “People’s War” when such configuration seemed to be of utmost importance.

III. Use of Violence and Military Strategy

Mao Zedong first emphasized the necessity and rationale behind violence in his most famous study of the peasant revolution in the province of Human. In this report, Mao delivers lengthy justification for the use of violence:

“It was necessary to bring about a brief reign of terror in every rural area. To right a wrong it is necessary to exceed the proper limit, and the wrong cannot be righted without the proper limit being exceeded”

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has abided by Mao’s ideology that for the success of the revolution, using violence was an absolute necessity. Prachanda, Nepal’s Maoist supreme Prachanda has echoed Mao’s philosophy by reiterating the requirement of violence during Nepal’s thirteen-year “People’s War”:

“People have not obtained even the least of gains without waging violent struggles. Today, the Nepalese society has arrived at such a point of crisis under the existing political system that there is no alternative on the part of the people other than to smash it.”

Following such ideology, the CPN (Maoist), before 2001, emulated Mao’s “protracted war” strategy in which rural areas would be captured in order to encircle the cities. To successfully encircle the cities from the countryside, Mao Zedong had devised a three step military strategy: i) Strategic defense ii) Strategic balance and iii) Strategic offense. Nepal’s CPN (Maoist) mimicked this formula perfectly. The CPN (Maoist) started their strategic defense stage with the onset of the 1996 “People’s War” when they attacked a few police posts and distilleries in villages throughout Nepal. In 2001, the Royal Nepalese Army was deployed by the state, instead of the Armed Police, to put an end to the Maoist insurgency. By this time, the Nepali Maoist Party and the PLA had a military capability strong enough to balance out the National Army. Therefore, the Maoist’s direct confrontation with the Royal Nepalese Army by early 2001 is the era that the CPN (Maoists) consider to be their strategic balance phase. Finally, Nepal’s Maoists launched their strategic offensive on 31 August, 2004. During this all out offensive, the PLA captured the various army barracks throughout Nepal. This all out offensive from the Maoist Party of Nepal also led to many smaller battles being fought across the country between the Royal Nepalese Army and the PLA. In this way, it evident that before 2001, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) displayed its loyalty to the philosophy and strategies of Mao, even when it came to its military strategy.

After 2001

A Need for Change

By 2001, it seemed clear that simply imitating the policies of the Chinese Maoist Party only led to a stalemate between the CPN (Maoist) and the State. On one hand, the CPN (Maoist) had been able to put together a successful revolutionary movement and an army to support it. On the other hand, however, Prachanda and his colleagues came to realize that they had miscalculated three crucial elements: i) They had mistakenly believed that an overall military victory was possible, ii) They had underestimated the consequences of international condemnation and iii) They realized that their purist Maoist approach would not give them enough support domestically. The Maoists understood that they either needed a popular support base or clear military superiority, neither of which they had.

Lack of Military Victory: The major factor that led to rethinking the purist Maoist path was the lack of military victory and the eventual stalemate of the Maoist party and the Royal Nepalese Army. The poorly run government police that had initially been given the responsibility of defeating the Maoist militias was shattered and overrun by the PLA and the Maoist Party was hoping for a similar outcome when the Royal Nepalese Army was deployed after 2000. However, following Mao’s “protracted war”, the PLA was unable to defeat the RNA and had only led to a stalemate.

Lack of International Support: The CPN (Maoist) had underestimated the role that international players would play in Nepal’s domestic dispute. The Maoists believed that their growing strength would force foreign countries to, at the very least, tolerate the CPN (Maoist). The hostile reception from the US, UK and India meant that the CPN (Maoist) were never considered a legitimate political group. Rather, most Western states including the US had labeled the CPN (Maoist) a “terrorist organization”, thus hurting their support base at home and decreasing their chances of coming to power. Following Mao’s revolutionary path was clearly costing the CPN (Maoist) foreign support.

Lack of Domestic Support: Due to their purist and hard-line Maoist approach, it was clear that the CPN (Maoists) would be unable to garner popular support within key cities, such as Kathmandu, which had a substantially westernized educated population. It was clear that adopting a more “democratic” line would increase the sympathy and popularity of the CPN (Maoist)

The Maoist party realized that for a successful revolution in Nepal, they would have to modify the classical Maoist model. Prachanda himself admitted that the party used to critique the classical Maoist model: “Why did the communist movement suffer such an enormous setback? This was a debate within the central committee for many years”. Such pragmatism would soon pave the way for unprecedented reform within CPN (Maoist) policies.  

Leaving Mao Behind: The Adoption of “Prachanda-path”

From the initiation of the “People’s War” in 1996 to 2001, the CPN (Maoist) had mimicked the basic political policies, organizational structure and military strategy of the early-era CCP. In 2001, this changed significantly. Six years after the “People’s War” was initiated, the CPN (Maoist) carried out a full assessment report on their progress. In February 2001, the Maoist party of Nepal held their second convention meeting at a secret location. This had been the first mass meeting of the CPN (Maoist) since the beginning of the “People’s war” in 1996. It was there that the CPN (Maoist) adopted the doctrine of Prachanda-path, named after the supreme leader of Nepal’s Maoist party, Prachanda. The doctrine was proposed by Prachanda himself in a political document presented at the convention entitled ‘The Great Leap Forward: The Inevitable Necessity of History’.

Prachanda-path, according to CPN (Maoist), is said to be an “enhancement” of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology in order to be more specific to the needs of completing the communist revolution in Nepal.

There were two primary “enhancements” in Prachanda-path: i) Change in military strategy and ii) A more democratic line

I. Change in military strategy:

First, Prachanda-path called for a change in military strategy, emphasizing the need for an urban insurrection while continuing rural warfare in the surrounding countryside. Prachanda-path, therefore, married Mao’s military strategy of a “protracted war” in rural territories with Lenin’s vision of a “people’s rebellion” in towns and cities. The combination of these two military strategies was an unprecedented step in Communist history. In an article by a senior Nepali Maoist leader Comrade Ananta, Prachanda-path emphasized that the one sided rural struggle that Mao proposed should be combined with the philosophy for struggle in towns and cities:

“Give priority to the work in villages, but don’t leave work in cities…Give priority to the guerilla actions, but don’t leave political exposition and propaganda works [In cities]…Give priority to certain strategic areas, but don’t leave other areas too”

With this new two-fold insurrection policy, the CPN (Maoist) enlisted several tactics to carry out this urban “struggle”. First, many of the fraternal organizations associated with the United Front of the Nepali Maoist party staged strikes and street demonstrations in the capital. Second, the CPN (Maoist) started vastly developing their student front, which targeted and harassed expensive private school in Kathmandu, forcing many to shut down temporarily. Third, the Maoist party also helped flare up nationalistic riots, such as the one that erupted following reports that the Bollywood actor, Hrithick Roshan, had made insulting comments about Nepal. Finally, the CPN (Maoist) quickly developed the Youth Communist League (YCL) inside Kathmandu, which operated as a parallel security force inside the capital. It handled traffic, arrested the corrupt and did some social relief work but also stood primarily to strengthen the hold of the Maoist party within Kathmandu and decrease the strength, sometimes with the use of violence, of other political parties.

Yet, whether this two-fold rural-urban insurgency policy is a true deviation from Chinese Maoism, as the CPN(Maoist) claim, can be questioned. There is great evidence that Mao and the CCP had also adopted urban warfare. In March 1949, Mao issued a historic statement that the period of the “city leading the village had now begun”. Mao claimed that if the Party did not learn how to manage the cities and win in urban areas against urban enemies, the Party would be unable to maintain its political power. Therefore, “the Chinese communists set about urbanizing themselves with the same determination they had applied to land reform”. S. Pepper explains that the CCP’s adoption, or at least interest, in an urban insurrection started as early as 1946. In January of 1946, Party members travelled to the city of Kalgan to test their abilities, stating that their performance in Kalgan would help to determine whether rural cadres would be able to work effectively in the cities. Furthermore, historian Kataoka goes as far as stating that Maoist victory in China was not due Mao’s rural protracted war alone. The cities, the author claims, played a major role in communist strategy and was one of the main reasons for the victory of the CCP. While Mao had developed the rural-oriented path to revolution, Kataoka explains that for the CCP it was Wang Ming who promoted the city-oriented line, gambling his career to do so.

Therefore, whether or not the military strategy of Prachanda-path was a significant deviation or “enhancement” from the policies of the Chinese Communist Party is questionable. Nevertheless, Prachanda-path stands as a significant change from the purely Chinese Maoist strategy of “protracted war”.

II. Democratic line:

Secondly, Prachanda-path called for the combination of communism and “Development of Democracy in the 21 st Century”. Although, the CPN (Maoists)’s exact definition of democracy is unclear, it is evident that the CPN (Maoist) post-2001, toned down its underground communist rhetoric and adopted more democratic tone with the onset of Prachanda-path, expressing their wish for a transparent multiparty democracy. As CPN (Maoist) spokesperson Krishna Bdr. Mahara explained:

“It is learned from the experience of Russia, China and others…We haven’t given up Marx, Lenin and Mao but we don’t want to take it as dogma. We want a 21 st-century democracy in which the people supervise the state so that the people with money cannot control the elections. We want transparency and equal opportunities for all parties…We envisage a two-step revolution-first a multiparty democratic republic. If it was a genuine democracy, then we would work for the peaceful transformation of the state”

The effects of the new democratic line of Prachanda-path became clear as the CPN (Maoist) adopted multi-party democracy and were willing to sit for negotiations for their inclusion in the government. The First round of peace talks between the government and the Maoists in Nepal was held on 30 August, 2001, just six months after the declaration of Prachanda-path. Despite the failure of the first round of peace talks, a second round of talks was held on 27 th April, 2003 and a third round on 17 th August. Soon, the Maoist party was toning down its revolutionary rhetoric and was instead in favor of the new concept of “true democracy”. The CPN (Maoist) also began to decrease their call for a complete communist revolution and instead shifted its interests towards constructing a democratic republic by abolishing the monarchy. The spokesmen for the CPN (Maoist), Krishna Bdr. Mahara’s statements after 2001 exemplify this trend:

“If we are to forge an alliance with the other parties we have to be flexible. We envisage a two-step revolution-first a multiparty democratic republic. If it was a genuine democracy, then we would work for a peaceful transformation of the state”.

Therefore, in both its military strategy and democratic leaning, Prachanda-path stands as a bold move away from the Party’s original imitation of the early CCP policies. More importantly, the pro-democratic aspect of Prachanda-path is a great divergence from the CPN (Maoist)’s original adoption of a purely Maoist communist line.

The Significance of Prachanda-path: Why was it Successful?

When Prachanda-path doctrine was first introduced, political critics ridiculed the idea just as they had undermined the Maoist party itself. In his op-ed for the Kathmandu Post in March 2001, columnist Achyut Wagle dismissed this new ideology: “Prachandapath does not contain anything that qualifies it as a new political hypothesis…the hasty decision to proclaim Prachandapath is nothing more than Prachanda’s passion for self-aggrandizement”

Despite the immediate dismissal of Prachanda-path as being almost identical to the Chinese Maoist model, the doctrine had within it subtle changes that catered to the political and social conditions of Nepal. As Maoist supremo Prachanda explains himself:

“It is well known that the guiding principle of the CPN (Maoist) the political representative of the Nepalese proletariat, is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM)…according to this scientific understanding, the Party has synthesized ‘Prachanda-path’ as a particular set of ideas of its own in the course of providing leadership to the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist democratic revolution of the Nepalese people. Prachanda Path has provided a new dimension of ingenuity and creativity to the communist movement with the proposed new idea of ‘Development of Democracy in the 21 st Century’.”

In hindsight, Prachanda-path paved the way for Maoist success in Nepal. There are two specific reasons why Prachanda-path became the turning point for Maoist victory in Nepal:

i).First, Prachanda-path quickly realized that in a “highly centralized country such as Nepal it would be hard for rural actions to put serious pressure on the state”. With the “urban insurrection” policy of Prachanda-path, schools and shops were closed by Maoist fraternal organizations, general strikes were declared and union workers were incited to rebel. This finally affected the elite population in Nepal, paralyzed the capital Kathmandu and made the Royal Nepalese Army helpless.

ii).Second, the democratic line of Prachanda-path has led to their most significant political shift: multiparty democracy. The CPN (Maoist) after 2001 decided on three policies which gave them more credibility in the domestic and international arena. a) First, the decision to defend the achievements of the 1990 mass movement instead of labeling it a “betrayal” which they had done earlier (2001 decision). b) CPN (Maoist) decision to abandon the immediate goal of “new democracy” and replace it with a more democratic goal of “Development and Democracy in the 21 st century (2003 decision) and c) The decision to ally with the parliamentary parties for “full democracy” (2005 decision). Not only were these new trends post-Prachanda-path reassuring for domestic and international agents, but for the first time in 2006, Chairman Prachanda started assuring donor agencies and countries that they had become “rightist communists”.  

Conclusion

By following a strict Chinese Maoist model, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was able to capture and control vast amounts of rural territory in Nepal after the initiation of its “People’s war” in 1996. From Western regions like Rolpa to Eastern regions like Ilam, the CPN (Maoist) was successful in establishing parallel governments throughout the countryside. Nevertheless, Nepal’s Maoists were unable to replicate their victory in the capital, Kathmandu, only reaching a stalemate with the State by 2001. It is irrefutable, therefore, that the doctrine of Prachanda-path was the instrumental final step in the CPN (Maoist)’s ascension to power. By marrying Mao’s vision of rural “protracted war” with Lenin’s “urban insurrection” Maoists waged a dual war by 2001, one which the RNA could no longer defend. Unlike in the countryside, the Army was unable to conduct raids or guerilla warfare within the capital, especially as most of the Maoist uprisings were cleverly planned non-violent strikes and protests. The Maoists shut down schools, businesses, held street demonstrations and collected “taxes” from the business elite. In this way, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) paralyzed the capital, Kathmandu, after 2001, rendering the national security forces powerless in their own home base.

It is difficult to tell, however, whether the doctrine of Prachanda-path actually directed the behavior of the party or whether the urban insurrection and the pro-democratic policies were simply part of the Maoist’s opportunistic attempt to come to power in any way possible. Today, a major concern for the people of Nepal is whether Prachanda-path was a long term policy of the CPN (Maoist) or whether it was merely a strategy to gain popularity and power. In other words, will Nepal’s Maoists stick to their pro-democratic policies after they officially take over power?

In the end, Prachanda-path stands as an overwhelming irony: For a party calls themselves “Maoists”, it required the deviation and digression from pure Chinese Maoism to successfully attain power.

(Basnyat is a student at Harvard University. This article is a brief synopsis of a longer report presented by the author. He can be reached at: nbasnyat@fas.harvard.edu)

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to editors@mos.com.np)

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