By Derek  Rosin

The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which for the last two decades has been leading the revolutionary movement of Nepal, is currently in a deep crisis. A struggle has recently erupted within their leadership over which direction to move. The differences are substantial enough that their resolution will essentially set the course for the future of the movement.

One faction, led by Mohan Baidya, aka Kiran, calls for a mass insurrection to institute a People’s Federal Republic and break the current political stalemate by completing the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist revolution. The other faction believes it is now possible to forge a ‘historic compromise’ with the other major parties of the country in a way which will consolidate the gains of the revolution thus far and write a new, progressive, constitution. This latter faction is usually associated with Baburam Bhattarai and the Party’s chairman, Pushpa Dahal, aka Prachanda.

The differences of opinion within the leadership are based on real problems that confront the revolutionary movement in Nepal.

For example, there are currently no socialist countries in the world today, or at least none that Nepal’s Maoist movement considers genuinely socialist and revolutionary. In such a situation, could a newly-formed revolutionary state survive, or would it be quickly isolated and crushed?

Also, Nepal is extremely poor and uneducated, with relatively few skilled professionals like doctors and engineers. In order to develop and improve the country, they will need expertise, and there is concern that they are not sufficiently able to ‘go it alone.’ So here the very causes that sparked the rebellion become an impediment to its growth and success.

The ‘historic compromise’ faction points to difficulties such as these to argue for the need for consolidation. Kiran, however, says that this faction is essentially pessimistic and capitulationist, because they are only seeing the strengths of the revolution’s enemies, and not their weaknesses. To bolster his case, Kiran argues that “revolution is the principal trend in the world at present.”

For his part, Bhattarai argues that the Maoists are in an unfavourable military situation, with about twenty-thousand People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers compared to over over one-hundred-thousand better equipped soldiers in the National Army (NA) and Armed Police Force of the state. Others in the pro-revolt camp, however, point that despite this the Maoists were able to seize two-thirds of the country during the civil war. Moreover, they say that the NA is not a reliable force that the enemy can count on to fight for them, made up as it is of Nepal’s poor who have come to be the  strongest supporters of the Maoist revolution.

These differences have recently come to a head on the subject of army integration. The Maoists have yet to disarm their PLA after the peace accords of 2006. Prachanda and Bhattarai have recently been pushing for the PLA to be integrated with the old National Army against whom they fought the civil war. Kiran however, has warned that the manner of integration they are proposing would amount to a liquidation of the PLA and would place it under the command of the NA. For Kiran, this amounts to  disarming the people and the revolution, according to the Maoist dictum that “without a people’s army, the people have nothing.”

This line-struggle is ongoing, and both sides hope to avoid splitting the party. Kiran, for his part, says that he is willing to go and take his faction within the party and go for insurrection without Prachanda, while at the same time acknowledging that only with the unity of their party and its chairman will the revolution be able to succeed.