For the last thirty years, Nepal has been the scene of one of the most remarkable experiences of the World Revolutionary Movement. This small, mountainous country, which maintained its semi-feudal, semi-colonial character, was transformed into a source of hope for the oppressed classes and peoples worldwide with the powerful development of the People’s War initiated in 1996 and the possibilities of power it created for the oppressed. This concrete source of hope was lost when the revolutionary wave, which went as far as the surrounding of Kathmandu, rapidly receded as the bourgeois understanding prevailed in the communist party, and when the revolution was abandoned in favor of a compromise with the Nepalese reaction, limited to the “abolition of the monarchy.” The revolutionary wave, which surrendered to bourgeois reaction, had inevitably receded, only to swell once more.
Today, Nepal is again on the agenda with staggering developments. Street movements reflecting the anger of the youth, dissolving relations and disturbed balances in the power bloc, interim governments, social discontent, and the forces seeking a place for themselves in this whole picture… However, to correctly grasp today’s picture is not possible merely by looking at current developments. It is necessary to remember, learn from, and discuss the accumulation, gains, and mistakes of the past. The revolutionary experience in Nepal is of special importance for teaching how vital the struggle is, completely and to the end, against revisionism and all forms of reaction; moreover, this experience is recent.
The Birth of the People’s War, the March to Power, and the Anchoring to Parliamentarism
In the mid-1990s, the social structure of Nepal bore classic semi-colonial, semi-feudal characteristics. Landless peasants, feudal relations, ethnic and caste-based discrimination, the oppression of women under all forms of patriarchy, but especially feudal patriarchy, a fragile economy dependent on imperialism, and the domination of the bureaucratic capitalist class: All these conditions had magnified the anger of the people and made a revolutionary outlet possible.
The Maoist leadership, with the People’s War it initiated in 1996, put into practice the strategy of surrounding the cities from the countryside. This war, which lasted for ten years, led to the establishment of revolutionary base areas in 80 percent of the country, the growth of the People’s Liberation Army into a force numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the dissolution of feudal authorities, and the construction of organs of people’s power. During this period, the people of Nepal seized the chance to build an order in which the oppressed classes could breathe through their own organizations.
In 2006, the capital, Kathmandu, was besieged by the People’s Army. The siege, which lasted for months, simultaneously transformed into a policy that paved the way for taking power through a “peace process.” This became a turning point in the trajectory of the Maoist movement. In place of seizing power through armed struggle, the theses of joining the parliamentary system, “multi-party democracy,” and “peaceful transition” were put forward, and the “fusion” theory was concluded with an understanding of “revolution” without revolution. This line, promoted by the leadership of Prachanda and Bhattarai, argued that the New Democratic Revolution could be completed through parliamentary processes while preserving the balance of power created by the People’s War. The CPN(M) reached a compromise with the political representatives of the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and agreed on the overthrow of the monarchy. In return for this agreement, the line of “peaceful coexistence and struggle,” which aimed to legalize the revolutionary struggle within the existing order, was adopted. This, in turn, was defended with the fallacy that there had been a qualitative change in the nature of the Age of Imperialism and Proletarian Revolutions. This fallacy, wrapped in the theories of globalization that discoursed on the change in the nature of imperialism, proved that the class perspective had been abandoned. A class phenomenon abstracted from imperialism was created, and the revolutionary struggle was reduced to a simple tool of factional strife.
However, the peace process brought with it the liquidation of revolutionary gains. The People’s Liberation Army was disarmed, the base areas were dismantled, the lands occupied by the peasants were returned to the landlords, and the youth organization, which had made significant gains in the revolutionary war and struggle, was neutralized. The movement, which had once taken a clear stance against imperialism and Indian expansionism, shifted towards a search for harmony with these powers.
The “Democratic Republic,” presented by revising the most fundamental theories of scientific socialism, would not eliminate the economic and cultural roots of feudalism, even though it ended the monarchy, the traditional political representative of feudalism. Indeed, despite having a strong representation in parliament, real power remained in the hands of the bureaucratic-comprador class and imperialist interventions. While the masses’ expectation of power was frustrated, the “two-line” struggle within the party came to light. On one side was the leadership advocating the parliamentary path, and on the other was the intra-party opposition, which had been at peace with the deviation when it began, even ardently defending it, but later argued for a return to the revolutionary line.
The Consequences of Ideological Deviations
The most critical aspect of the Nepal experience is the deviations that occurred at the ideological level. These deviations, by utilizing the space they found and combining with the fact that history does not forgive a vacuum, took on a revisionist form and, in the final analysis, rendered it reactionary. Theses such as imperialism taking the form of a “global state”—thereby declaring imperialism the absolute victor by rejecting that it is the decaying stage of capitalism that will bring about its end—that Lenin’s analysis of imperialism was “insufficient,” and that Mao’s revolutionary theories are “no longer valid” today, made their way into the official documents of the movement. This was the theoretical expression of an orientation from the revolutionary line towards revisionism.
While the essence of revolution lies in the sharpening of the class struggle and the organized action of the masses of the people, the leadership gradually became confined to the limits of class collaboration, reformism, and bourgeois democracy. Thus, all the gains of the ten-year People’s War were jeopardized and largely lost. The CPN(M), instead of completing the democratic revolution and building socialism, chose the path of interrupting the democratic revolution and degenerating with parliamentary bourgeois criteria that serve the imperialist system.
The degeneration and decline in the CPN(M) can be concretized in its failure to lead to any progress despite coming to power through the parliamentary path. For this reason, although its leader Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) sat in the prime minister’s chair three times for short periods, from 2008 to 2009, from 2016 to 2017, and finally from December 2022 to July 2024, the party could not achieve its initial “success.” “Power” was surrendered to the reactionaries each time. The most recent Prime Minister, KP Oli, is also one of these reactionaries, although his party’s name bears the adjective Marxist-Leninist. The decay in power did not begin with the CPN(M), which had abandoned the Maoist line… The Prime Minister who was forced to flee the country after the latest events is the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). This party and its leader, from the very beginning, have continuously organized opposition against the CPN (Maoist), which saw itself as Maoist but moved away from the Maoist line in the manner we mentioned above.
The Situation Today: Youth Rebellion, Violence, and Political Crisis
Nepal is in turmoil once again today. The youth, especially those bearing the heavy burden of unemployment, corruption, and a lack of a future, have poured into the streets in mass protests. In the demonstrations, in which tens of thousands participated, dozens have been killed and hundreds have been injured. The state’s apparatuses of repression have responded to the people with bullets and gas.
This process has not only led to a government crisis; it has also expressed a rupture with the years-long corruption, luxurious lifestyles, and parliamentary distractions. The resignation of Prime Minister Oli and the establishment of a provisional government in his place were the results of this pressure. The appointment of judge Sushila Karki, chosen by the youth through an internet vote, as the provisional prime minister is a symbolic novelty. Although Sushila Karki, also referred to as the first female prime minister and known as a judge who has conducted bribery and corruption investigations against governments, is perceived as a “sufficient” response to the rebellion of the day, this is far from being a real answer to the social demands.
The demands put forward by the youth movement, an end to corruption, a solution to unemployment, justice, and freedom, are directly linked to class foundations. The broad peasant masses are still grappling with the land problem, debt, and forced migration. The working class and laborers are fighting for their lives under precarious working conditions, low wages, and dependence on migrant labor. Women, Dalits, ethnic minorities, and religious communities, on the other hand, face discrimination and multifaceted oppression.
Today’s youth rebellion also carries the legacy of the path forged by the Maoist movement years ago. The consciousness, organization, and struggle experience created by the People’s War still live on today in the memory of Nepalese society. However, this legacy was largely wasted in the process of the leadership getting bogged down in parliamentarism against the empowerment of the masses. The anger of the youth is directed not only at today’s corrupt governments but also at those who came to power with revolutionary claims and eventually became part of the same system. So much so that the displacement of the representatives of the decay and corruption in Nepal today through acts of violence, highlighted with “lynching” headlines in the bourgeois-feudal press, has also frightened those who once marched with the sharpest people’s slogans and called themselves “communists.” The calls for moderation and persistent, non-violent appeals to parliament for a solution made to the youth by Baburam Bhattarai, who was prime minister between 2011-2013, was one of the leaders of the People’s War that began in 1996, later split from the CPN(M), and underwent enough of a transformation to “discover the value of Trotsky”, are a product of this fear.
Again, a form of organization that calls itself independent and comes to the fore with more revolutionary demands has also emerged in the process. The success that this committee, named SAFAL, will show in managing the process and carrying it further is doubtful for now. Its status as a street organization, its positioning with claims of establishing a workers’ front, and its state of evolution should be examined in the process. However, it is clear that the basic demands they have voiced throughout the actions are demands that must be supported and amplified.
For this reason, the movement rising in the streets shows a character independent of the existing parties. But the lack of organization and ideological clarity should be evaluated as a clear indicator that the movement will not be successful in achieving social progress.
In Nepal today, the peasants are still demanding the resolution of their land problems, the lifting of the burden of debt, and access to the means of production. However, the parliamentary process has brought about the reversal, not the fulfillment, of these demands. (It will be recalled that with the entry of the Nepalese Revolution into the peace process, the revisionist leadership had long since cast aside the land revolution, which is the essence of the New Democratic Revolution, and had returned the lands seized during the People’s War to the remnants of the rotten system, that is, to the former owners, the enemies of the peasants!)
Today, the millions of Nepalese laborers who have been forced to migrate abroad form the backbone of the country’s economy but are deprived of their rights. The workers inside the country, meanwhile, live in non-unionized, precarious, low-wage conditions.
The youth are the driving force of today’s movement. Unemployment and anxiety about the future make them both angry and open to radical pursuits.
The future of today’s movement depends on the reclaiming of the lessons of the People’s War anew, but with a consistent and thoroughly revolutionary class stance. The great mistake made in the past must be embedded in the consciousness of the masses so that it can be understood that today’s corruption is a bourgeois orientation, the substitution of revolutionary strategy with parliamentarism. This is not a tactical error; it is a result that emerged through ideological deviations, through the revision of the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. History and science have proven that the true liberation of the masses is possible not by compromising with class enemies, but by smashing their power.
The re-insurrection of the people in Nepal can gain a revolutionary direction if it is combined with a correct leadership, a clear ideological line, and the masses’ own self-organizations. Otherwise, reformist solutions, provisional governments, and election games will absorb the anger of the masses but will not solve the fundamental problems.
In Conclusion;
Nepal, past and present, is a concrete experience that shows both the strength and the weaknesses of the international communist movement and the proletarian vanguards. The People’s War proved what can be achieved with the organized struggle of the oppressed classes. But parliamentarism, in which the deviation found its reflection, caused the revolution to be derailed. If the popular movement, rising again today under the leadership of the youth, embraces these lessons, it can be the ground for a new beginning.
Nepal still maintains its semi-feudal and semi-colonial character; imperialism and the comprador classes continue to exploit the country. The liberation of the oppressed classes will be possible by reclaiming the gains of the past and building the future on these foundations. In this sense, the reality and necessity of the New Democratic Revolution as a transitional stage on the road to socialism in such countries remains.
It is also necessary to say a word against those who use the process of the Nepalese Revolution’s leaders becoming revisionists and anchoring themselves to the opposing class as a justification to despicably attack Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. MLMers, with the claim of being the strongest champions and leaders of the Proletarian World Revolution, presented their criticisms both when the People’s War in Nepal was at its strongest and at its lowest moments, and they waged the ideological struggle for this. Even the corpus of this ideological struggle would be enough to blow the minds of this front composed of “hybrids” and an “alloy of refuse” that attacks MLM today. The Maoists in the world know that in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, the cause of the New Democratic Revolution, socialism, and communism will advance with victories and losses, and that these experiences will strengthen the struggles of proletarian revolutions. They know, defend, and explain that consistent revolutionism to the very end requires continuous struggle. The Proletarian World Revolution is not without owners. To set the process we are in back on a correct course is, despite everything, possible and will be possible.
