The triumphant march of the nepalese revolution
Nepal has been hitting the headlines more and more often in recent months. The rebellion that was started by Maoist guerrillas against the feudal autocracy has grown from its small beginnings in remote countryside areas ten years ago into a mighty and unstoppable movement. As the conflict between the republican and monarchist forces comes to a head, the Nepali monarchy’s imperialist backers – the US and Britain – are desperately searching for a new tactic that might help them retain their influence in this strategically important region.
February coup and its aftermath
King Gyanendra arrived on the Nepalese throne via a bloody massacre that saw his brother, King Birendra, murdered along with his entire family. Although publicly blamed on Birendra’s allegedly ‘disturbed’ son, Crown Prince Dipendra, the Nepalese people have always believed that the massacre was in fact an imperialist-inspired plot to remove Birendra, whose reluctance to deploy the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) against the Maoist rebels was a source of great irritation to imperialists, and replace him with his notoriously hard-line brother.
True to his reputation, once on the throne, Gyanendra proceeded to use every means at his disposal to try to crush the advance of the democratic revolution that was sweeping the countryside. He declared a state of emergency, enacted round after round of draconian ‘anti-terror’ legislation, rounded up Maoist sympathisers and deployed the army against the unruly peasantry, having first equipped the RNA with British and American weapons and ‘anti-insurgency’ training.
The net result of this wave of repression, however, was to push the wavering elements in the towns straight into the arms of the Maoists, whose broad democratic demands were now seen to be voicing the aspirations of the vast majority of Nepalese citizens.
On 1 February 2005, the king, pushed by the steady gains of the Maoists in the countryside and the inexorable swing of popular sentiment towards republicanism in the towns, acted unilaterally, sacking the elected, if ineffectual, government and replacing it with one hand-picked by himself. His pretext for moving full power openly to the palace and the Royal Nepalese Army, now fully revealed as the last bastion of feudal power in Nepal, was that the elected government had proved itself inadequate by failing to crush the Maoist insurgency and to hold elections.
This draconian move came as a shock to many external commentators, who had convinced themselves that Nepal was locked in a stalemate between Maoists in the countryside and imperialist-backed feudal power in the cities; a stalemate that seemed set to continue for some time to come. According to Rhoderick Chalmers of NGO International Crisis Group, however, “any sense of stalemate was illusory. The Maoists may not have decisively won but they have consistently been gaining political ground. It is no coincidence that the sea-change in popular mood over the last few years, most dramatically illustrated by the tilt of conservative mainstream parties to republicanism, has been almost entirely in the Maoists’ favour”. (‘Nepal on the brink’, Indian Express, 12 October 2005)
This political swing has come as a direct result of the work of the Maoists in exposing the bankruptcy of the feudal Nepalese monarchy. Within 15 years of winning their first bourgeois parliament, the majority of Nepalese had lost faith in it altogether. This disillusionment was hastened by direct experience of life under the people’s government of the liberated areas, where conditions for women, low-caste and remotely-situated workers and peasants have dramatically improved, in direct contrast with the repression and superexploitation experienced by Nepal’s poor under the pliant monarchist regime.
So it was that when, after the February coup, the Maoists called wave after wave of political strikes and demonstrations, the people of Nepal responded in ever greater numbers. Under pressure from the radicalised masses, most of the parliamentary parties were finally forced to abandon loyalty to a constitutional monarchy in favour of outright republicanism. That this shift has come as a direct result of Maoist popularity is amply demonstrated by the words of one parliamentarian, a standing committee member of the unworthily-named Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist): “None of us really wanted to embrace republicanism, but we couldn’t resist the pressure from society any longer.” In October 2005, after citing the unnamed UML official quoted above, Rhoderick Chalmers (cited above) went on to comment: “He could have been speaking for any of the mainstream leaders who have doggedly clung to the hope that they could return to the comfortable accommodation with the palace that had served them well enough for the first dozen years of democracy.” (Ibid)
Media suppression
Like the imperialists described by Mao, who lift a rock only to drop it on their own feet, Gyanendra, although acting to save himself, may well have served merely to hasten the demise of the Nepali monarchy by his ruthless actions against the parliamentary opposition.
In an attempt to crush all resistance to his seizure of power, the king’s agents acted quickly to shut down opposition media, arresting journalists, confiscating equipment and enacting draconian censorship measures. In the twelve months following the coup, Reporters Without Borders, a decidedly pro-imperialist global journalism watchdog, blamed Nepalese authorities for a staggering half of all reported acts of state censorship in the world, stating that “the security forces stop at nothing to monitor and silence journalists working for the independent press”.
On the day of the coup itself, according to the Financial Times, “Armed military officers were sent to ‘edit’ newspapers and stand over radio anchors.
“‘About 20 soldiers came saying we could play only music, no discussion, no news, no current affairs programmes. They stayed for six nights,’ says Mohan Bista, manager of Radio Sagarmatha, Nepal’s first independent radio station.
“The only ‘news’ on radio until August – when the stations won an interim order from the Supreme Court giving them limited freedom to broadcast – was propaganda on state-run Radio Nepal and the clandestine broadcasts by Maoist rebels.
“‘The sense of security that comes with being informed was suddenly gone,’ says Raghu Mainali, coordinator of the Save the Independent Radio Movement.”
In October, media-related laws were rushed through the puppet parliament in an effort to strengthen the monarchy’s hand by reinforcing the ban on radio, limiting criticism of the royal family and banning publications that “adversely affect national interests and dignity”. Nepal’s supreme court is still considering its final verdict on a legal challenge to these laws, but the king is persevering in his efforts to control the media.
On the one hand, vast sums are spent on advertising and patronage with government-friendly media. On the other, arrests, threats, censorship and confiscations of equipment against independent media follow each other in what Reporters Without Borders describes as an “infernal cycle”, with particularly harsh measures being meted out to those who give coverage to the Maoists. One radio station had its equipment confiscated as it was preparing to broadcast the BBC’s interview with Prachanda, chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) this February, while staff at another were “detained” after they gave coverage to the Maoists’ call to boycott municipal elections in the same month.
(Above information and quotations taken from ‘Nepal’s journalists mark a black day in battle for freedom of expression’ by Binod Bhattarai, Financial Times, 1 February 2006)
Ceasefire and a new alliance
In the midst of this turmoil, the Maoists seized the initiative, declaring a unilateral three-month ceasefire. The effect of this was dramatic. Gyanendra, much to the chagrin of his imperialist masters and the exasperation of western bourgeois commentators, completely failed to judge the popular mood. Instead of agreeing to match the truce, he tried to take advantage of the cessation to step up his own offensive against republicans in general and Maoists in particular, continuing to deploy the army most brutally against his own people. In so doing, the king succeeded only in exposing the carefully-maintained lie that the violence in the country is the product of ‘unreasonable’, ‘terrorist’ action by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), to which the ‘peace-loving’ monarchy has merely been ‘responding’.
It was during this period of ceasefire (later extended for a fourth month to enable negotiations to continue) that the long-term work of the CPN(M) towards building a broad anti-feudal movement began to bear fruit. Moves in this direction had been going on behind the scenes for some time; now, under pressure from the broad masses, seven of the ousted parliamentary parties, representing over 90 percent of the former monarchist parliament, formed a loose alliance with the Maoists, thus bringing the latter firmly centre-stage and leaving the palace more isolated than ever. On 17 November 2005, after a meeting in Delhi, the CPN(M) and the seven parties issued a joint declaration, vowing to work together to establish “absolute democracy” in Nepal.
Outlining 12 “points of understanding”, the parties called for “a nationwide storm of democratic protests” that would bring an end to the autocratic monarchy, without which, they agreed, there could be “no possibility of peace, progress and prosperity” in Nepal. The document went on to outline plans for establishing an interim government with a mandate to arrange free elections to a new constituent assembly, in which the Maoists would also participate. The most immediate, practical demand of the new alliance was a call to boycott the February 2006 municipal elections, called by Gyanendra and characterised by the eight-party alliance as “a crafty ploy” aimed at “deluding the people” and legitimising the king’s rule. The signatories concluded by making a commitment to establish a joint committee to oversee continuing inter-party dialogue, chart out a common course of action and work on differences over the best route towards both a constituent assembly and a new Nepali constitution.
In order to come to this agreement, the Maoists had to made considerable concessions to the bourgeois sensibilities of their new allies, promising that as long as all parties were ready to recognise the results of such legitimate elections as might be held, they would allow the PLA to come under “international supervision” during elections and make a “public institutional commitment to the [bourgeois] democratic norms and values [such as] the competitive multi-party system of governance”. Having obtained agreement from the seven parties to call a series of mass protests from December onwards, the Maoists also promised not to try to “capture” any political demonstrations called by parties within the alliance – a demand that clearly demonstrates the other parties’ fear of Maoist popularity!
Meanwhile, the king’s imperialist backers were getting decidedly nervous at this turn of events. At the time the agreement was signed in Delhi, Bharat Bhushan commented in The Telegraph that: “The US and United Kingdom are not believed to be very keen on a rapprochement between the political parties and the Maoists. Their ambassadors to Nepal – James Moriarty and Keith Bloomfield respectively – have rushed to Delhi.” (‘Maoists, parties in secret pact’, 19 November 2005)
Ever since, the imperialist press has done its best to sow divisions between the parties and to decry the alliance as a total capitulation in favour of the Maoist ‘terrorists’, neglecting to mention, of course, the very great compromise made by the CPN(M) and the PLA in joining forces with parties that had colluded in trying to crush the revolution in the most brutal manner possible.
Election boycott and rising republicanism
The PLA’s ceasefire finally ended on 2 January this year amid (predictable) calls from such ‘peace brokers’ as the UN and the EU for it to continue. Reasserting the Maoists’ commitment to the multi-party agreement, however, Chairman Prachanda explained in a written statement that it would be “suicidal” to continue with the ceasefire in the face of new RNA attacks. He added, however, that the PLA would be confining its attacks to bastions of “absolute royal rule” such as the Royal Nepalese Army and its informers. He also confirmed that the Maoists were ready to declare another truce just as soon as an interim government and constituent assembly elections should be guaranteed. Meanwhile, the seven allied parties placed the blame for ceasefire’s breakdown fairly and squarely at the door of the monarchy. According to UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, “The government has to take full responsibility for pushing the Maoists to call off the truce.” (All quotation cited in ‘Nepal’s Maoist rebels end truce’ by Binod Bhattarai and Jo Johnson, Financial Times, 3 January 2006)
As a result of the election boycott, only 15-16 percent of registered electors in Kathmandu, the traditional stronghold of feudal power, cast votes, as compared with a national average of 66 percent in the 1999 parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, thanks to the boycott by the seven political parties, 15 percent of the 4,000 posts being contested had only one candidate standing and a further 55 percent had no candidates at all. In the words of Nepali Congress spokesman Krishna Sitaula, “The election was designed to strengthen the absolute monarchy and has been a total failure. It now shows a boycott of the king himself.”
Given the total failure of Gyanendra’s heavy-handed tactics, and the surge of public resentment in response, US, EU and UN spokesmen in Nepal all felt compelled to express “concern” over the arrest of some 800 party leaders, politicians and political activists in the weeks leading up to the elections. (Statistics taken from ‘Mass boycott of Nepal elections hits king’s hopes’ by Jo Johnson and Binod Bhattarai, Financial Times, 9 February 2006)
The CPN(M), meanwhile, emerged from the ceasefire with its prestige at a record high. During the weeks of demonstrations leading up to the sham elections, pro-democracy parties, students, journalists and human rights activists joined forces with peasant masses in a broad anti-feudal movement with the Maoists firmly at its head. Republicanism has become the dominant ideology of a people that only a decade ago was still firmly imbued with superstitious reverence for its ‘divine’ monarchy.
According to Hari Sharma, director of Social Science Baha, a think-tank in Kathmandu, “In the popular imagination, we’re already living in a post-monarchical situation.” When he spoke those words in January, he believed that Nepal had not yet reached the “moment of madness” that would enable it to sweep away the monarchy, but he explained that such an event was no longer inconceivable. “The popular press no longer venerates the king and he has not realised the significance of the radicalisation of the popular imagination. Nor has he understood that the parties have tremendously radicalised their agendas too because they want to address the fundamental issues raised by the Maoists.” (Our emphasis. Cited in ‘Kingdom of discontent: Maoists enter the mainstream to threaten Nepal’s monarchy’ by Jo Johnson, Financial Times, 3 January 2006.)
The king’s last stand
A general strike called by the anti-feudal alliance on 6 April lasted for 20 days, 16 more than the four originally planned. With each passing day, the demonstrations swelled as more people took to the streets in towns and cities all over the country. In response, Gyanendra tried to impose a daytime curfew in the centre of the capital and gave the army and police instructions that they should shoot those violating the order on sight. As a result, police ran amok attacking demonstrators, including children as young as 10. In three weeks of protests, 15 people were been either beaten or shot to death and many hundreds more were injured. Among those killed was a young boy, shot in the head as he held his hands up and pleaded for mercy, and a 14-year-old boy who was beaten to death by rampaging police.
The result of this draconian crackdown, however, was simply to swell the numbers on the streets. By trying to prevent the pro-democracy alliance from mustering large forces in the city centre, Gyanendra had been hoping to prevent it claiming a popular mandate. Instead, the movement swelled to previously unheard of dimensions, encompassing, according to the Financial Times, even members of the privileged urban elites that had previously stayed aloof from the struggle. “Professionals, business associations, civil servants and even families of security personnel have started supporting the pro-democracy movement,” it reported on 21 April, adding further that “Not only has royal rule failed to deliver tangible benefits to a society racked by conflict, but [the king’s] refusal to respond to peace overtures from the Maoists has handed the parties the popular peace ticket. Even the US … has been forced to ram home to the king the bankruptcy of his project.” (‘Nepalese king’s last stand fails to hold protests at bay’)
With even his US backers telling him to make some concessions or prepare to flee by helicopter, Gyanendra made a statement on 21 April promising to return executive power to an interim government made up of the seven-party alliance. “We are committed to multi-party democracy and a constitutional monarchy,” he said, in what the Financial Times characterised as a “terse” broadcast. “Executive power of the kingdom of Nepal, which was in our safekeeping, shall from this day be returned to the people.” Even the FT, however, conceded that the deal proposed was a limited form of democracy that gave the palace ample opportunity to influence the proceedings and was therefore unlikely to be acceptable to the people, tempting as it might be to some of the more opportunistic leaders within the alliance. (Cited in ‘Nepalese protests make king back down’, 22 April 2006)
It was indeed too little, too late. On 22 April, after Maoist leaders urged the people not to fall for Gyanendra’s “royal trickery”, the biggest demonstration to date congregated on the streets of the capital. Defying the police and braving tear gas, truncheons, rubber bullets and live ammunition, hundreds of thousands of Nepalese formed a snake two-and-a-half miles long that stretched from the suburbs to deep within the officially out-of-bounds city centre, demanding that the king accept a new constitution. They also called for him to stand trial over the deaths of those slaughtered since the strike started.
As Gyanendra tried to tough it out in the palace, soldiers and police were reported to be panicking over the scale and fearlessness of the demonstrations. Opposition leaders, meanwhile, made it clear that if the king did not accept their ultimatum, the protests would escalate until he stepped down – or until such time as they decided to bypass him altogether, convene their own assembly and unilaterally strip him of power.
On 25 April, the seven-party alliance accepted the king’s offer to restore parliament and invited Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress Party to become Prime Minister of an interim government. The following day, hundreds of thousands of Nepalese took to the streets, some to celebrate this partial victory, but many to put pressure on the alliance leaders to deliver on their promises of a new constitution and a constituent assembly and to hold security forces to account for their brutality during the previous three weeks of protests. The CPN(M), meanwhile, has called on the Nepalese people to continue their struggle towards a democratic republic and not be palmed off with a “deceitful compromise” of the kind that led to the first monarchist parliament in 1990.
Imperialist agenda in Nepal
Although armed and backed by the US and Britain, and helped to power by them through the notorious palace massacre of 2001, Gyanendra and his generals in the RNA have failed just as miserably as the comprador parliament before them did to accomplish the task of crushing the Maoist insurgency and making Nepal safe for imperialist looting once more. Quite the contrary, today, the Maoist forces control 80 percent of the country and have won the peasant masses firmly to their side, while in the cities, not only agents of the feudal regime but also representatives of multinationals such as Coca Cola have found themselves targeted by the People’s War.
Unable to regain control of the countryside, and with Maoist influence spreading in the cities too, Gyanendra has been powerless to safeguard the economic interests of either local or overseas investors. General strikes, called by the Maoists in response to palace repression, have regularly brought even Kathmandu to a standstill, while the detrimental effects of global competition on the country’s economy have been exacerbated by the WTO’s decision last year to abolish the quotas that formerly guaranteed the Nepalese garment industry at least a minimal level of business.
The resulting decline in investment opportunities and lack of a climate for smooth business running (ie, for efficient exploitation), combined with the unstoppable march of the democratic revolution, has led the King’s external backers to reconsider their formerly unconditional support for the king. In view of his increasing isolation, the US, Britain and India all imposed a lethal-weapons embargo in January, hoping to push Gyanendra into restoring at least a façade of multi-party democracy and civil rights before it was too late. Unfortunately for them, however, their man in Kathmandu was not as pliant as he ought to have been. Proving totally unequal to the task of negotiating the current political crisis, the king preferred to stand by his ‘rights’ as absolute feudal monarch than make compromises with his irritatingly assertive ‘subjects’.
After two-and-a-half weeks of mounting protests, the British papers were full of imperialist worries about the possibility of a future “failed state” (ie, a socialist one) emerging from the conflict if the king didn’t quickly come to some suitable deal with the Nepalese bourgeois parties. “Given the pervasive influence of the Maoists across Nepal,” moaned the Financial Times in an editorial, “it is hard to be optimistic that the Nepalese version of ‘people power’ on display in the streets will lead smoothly to a workable [ie, comprador bourgeois] form of democracy unless foreign governments put more pressure on the king to yield.” (‘High risks of a new failed state in Nepal’, 24 April 2006)
Two days later, the same paper noted the US’s continued efforts to direct events in line with its own interests: “Making an intervention that risked angering [and did anger] republican elements within the democracy movement, the US pre-empted the outcome of an eventual constituent assembly, as Adam Ereli, State Department spokesman, said the monarch should retreat to ‘assume a ceremonial role’.” (‘Protestors celebrate as king restores parliament’, 26 April 2006)
With the writing on the wall for their fratricidal puppet, the US and Britain will no doubt be redoubling their efforts to divide the democracy movement and persuade some or all of the members of the seven-party alliance to accept, if not a constitutional monarchy, then some form of parliament from which the Maoists are still excluded.
Indian interference in Nepal
India’s interest in Nepal is both economic and territorial. As a buffer state between India and China, Nepal has great geostrategic importance, not only for the countries in the region, but also for any imperialist power wishing for a base from which to threaten the world’s two fastest growing economies, a fact which is lost on neither of them. Traditionally, the Indian strategy in Nepal has been to encourage the bourgeois parties and the king to work together to maintain some kind of ‘stability’ and social peace, but, increasingly, Indian commentators are demanding a change in this approach.
Raja Mohan, writing in the reactionary Indian Express of 14 April, concluded with exasperation that “By his reckless actions, the king has made himself the main problem in Nepal. … Most authoritarian rulers extend their rule by mobilising external support or by dividing their domestic opposition. However, the ambitious but inept Gyanendra has few friends left in the world or at home.” On the evaporation of Gyanendra’s domestic support, Mohan complained: “As he sought to dominate Nepal, Gyanendra was faced with two opponents – the political parties who wanted restoration of constitutional rule and Maoists who demanded abolition of the monarchy. By trying to divide the political parties and playing fool with the Maoists, Gyanendra has achieved the impossible of getting both opponents together on one platform.” Even the most elementary survival strategy, according to Raja, demanded that the Palace make peace with one of these opponents, but the king repeatedly “shunned advice from India that he make up with the political parties and strengthen his hands vis a vis the Maoists”.
While the US and Britain still hope to preside over a patching-up of relations between the monarchy and the parliamentary parties, at the expense of the Maoists, and are leaning on the king to make concessions to that end, Indian commentators such as Mohan are starting to think that the king might never be up to the job. With a large stake in the Nepali economy, India, just as much as the imperialists, has no wish to see Nepal make a decisive break with capitalist economics at the same time as it’s dumping its feudal relations. Moreover, the Indian ruling class has every fear that a Maoist victory in Nepal could give a shot in the arm to the Naxalite and Maoist rebellions that are gaining strength in several northern Indian states. On the other hand, if a power vacuum in Nepal were to be filled by some puppet of the US over whom India had no influence, that would also be a cause of great uneasiness to the Indian ruling class.
India’s need to maintain influence in Nepal forces Mohan to denounce the Indian government for failing to act decisively against Gyanendra once it was obvious that he had lost any local support. He blames this weakness on the personal and political connections Gyanendra has with sections of the Indian ruling class – with India’s own princes and thakurs, with the Hindu nationalists of Congress and the BJP, who cherish him as the world’s only Hindu king, and with the Indian army and Ministry of Defence, both of which are heavily reliant on Nepali Ghurkhas. “India,” he says, “should make its bottom line clear. Restoration of parliament, formation of a national government, peace talks with the Maoists, and a schedule for elections to a new Constituent Assembly that would write a new political future for Nepal.
“If Gyanendra falls short of that framework, India should be prepared to impose new sanctions against the king … [and] key functionaries of the regime – especially their assets abroad and their right to travel. If Gyanendra comes to terms with reality, a purely ceremonial monarchy might yet have a place in Nepal’s future. If he can’t, India must be prepared for a republican Nepal.” (‘Gyanendra’s time is up’, 14 April 2006)
What next for Nepal?
It would be tempting to see the removal of Gyanendra, whose barbarity and stupidity have made him into such a focus of hate, as the solution to the Nepalese people’s problems. But while it is true that decadent feudal regimes all over the world find their rule reinforced through an unholy alliance with imperialism, which keeps them in power in exchange for free access to their countries’ resources and markets, it must not be forgotten that the primary goal for imperialism is not the preservation of feudalism but the preservation of monopoly. As the saying goes, imperialists have no permanent friends, only permanent interests; if the US imperialists can find some other vessel in Nepal that is willing to help it in its quest for hegemony, they will unceremoniously dump their favourite and leave him to his fate.
While India and the imperialists jostle for influence and do their best to curry favour with the parties of the alliance, however, the people themselves, having come so far, are unlikely to simply step aside and leave their fate in the hands of a few bourgeois and petty-bourgeois politicians. Having been mobilised for the struggle against feudalism, and having learned through bitter experience what comes from believing the promises of comprador bourgeois and feudal elements, as they did when the Nepalese parliament was first established in 1990, the impoverished and superexploited masses of Nepal are now a force to be reckoned with.
Nor must it be forgotten that 80 percent of Nepal is effectively already liberated and under Maoist rule, albeit on a war footing. Nor must it be forgotten that the root causes of the People’s War have never been tackled by any of the bourgeois or revisionist parties. Only the Maoists have ben able to explain the roots of oppression in Nepal – and only they have been able to show that there is a way out of the endless cycle of repression and grinding poverty for the masses there. In the liberated areas, and within the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army, many Nepalese have already started to find a chance of equality for all regardless of gender, nationality, caste or region, as well as the chance to lead a cultured and fulfilling life.
Moreover, the republican mood of the Nepalese masses has been firmly bolstered by the most recent demonstrations of state brutality. The demand for a constituent assembly and a democratic republic has gained mass support, when only six months ago a full-blown republic might have seemed a step too far to many of the less militant Nepalese. It has long been understood by Marxists that in revolutionary times, the consciousness of the people can advance with breathtaking speed. At such times, mass movements can develop more in the space of a few weeks or months than they might otherwise do in 50 or 100 years of ordinary ‘peaceful’ development. With a steeled revolutionary party such as the CPN(M) to guide their understanding, the formerly backward and trampled masses of Nepal are, before the eyes of the shocked and soon-to-be-obsolete king and his acolytes, overcoming centuries of indoctrination regarding the ‘divinity’ of the royal family and, more importantly, the inviolability of both feudal caste and bourgeois class relations.
With the Maoists in the driving seat of the democratic revolution, and taking every opportunity created by conditions on the ground to open the eyes of the masses still further as to the real nature of their oppression and the way to end it, there is every chance that the Nepalese will soon succeed in overthrowing the feudal relic on the throne, despite the best efforts of his imperialist backers.
We congratulate the CPN(M) on its achievement in harnessing the bourgeois democratic elements along with the workers, peasants, students, and oppressed nationalities and castes of Nepal into a single, powerful anti-feudal movement and wish the Nepalese people every success, not only in pushing through to completion the current democratic revolution, but in transforming it into a socialist one. We must give them every support as they struggle to rid themselves not only of the local feudal parasites, but also of the imperialist parasites that have propped up the feudal regime for so long.
Victory to the Nepalese workers and peasants! Long live the People’s War!