Sunday, February 27, 2005

Ideological Overture To The Nepali Maoists


Maoism, or for that matter, Marxism, or Leninism, if followed like a dogma, leads one to a dead end. It has to be seen as a guidepost at most, and as one might apply it to one's local conditions, as the Nepali Maoists have tried to do, one has always to be taking into account the facts on the ground, as they stand and as they emerge, as well as lessons that can be drawn when Maoism was applied in other parts of the world, mostly to bloody, inhuman conclusions, like in Peru and Cambodia. If the Nepali Maoists were to ignore all facts on the ground, as well as those from distant lands, they end up being a closed cult, a dictatorial organization that leads its followers to disaster, and self-destructs its "movement" after the "fuel" might have run out, like that of a forest fire, taking a life of its own, coming to an end on its own, leaving little, if anything, in the form of legacy.

On the other hand, the Nepali Maoists can claim the theory of Maoism as their guidepost and inspiration that they have tried to apply to Nepali conditions out of a deep sense of patriotism as well as a non-compromising allegiance to social justice. And as they constantly seek empirical evidence to support their claims and goals, always keeping an open mind, not only to members of their organization, but also to those from other organizations with different ideologies, there is a possibility these Nepali Maoists could make major contributions to Nepali society, and help herald a new era of social justice, but only if they learn to harness the power of peace, compromise, and coalition-building, as they have harnessed the power of armed insurgency, and repeated statements that echo each other, only if they finally come around to the idea of co-existence with other political parties within a peaceful multi-party framework.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica Online: "Maoism has clearly represented a revolutionary method based on a distinct revolutionary outlook not necessarily dependent on a Chinese or Marxist-Leninist context ..... The young Mao was a nationalist, and his sentiments had been strongly anti-Western and anti-imperialist even before he became attracted to Marxism-Leninism about 1919–20...... Mao's nationalism combined with a personal trait of combativeness to make him admire the martial spirit, which became a cornerstone of Maoism...... Mao's political ideas crystallized slowly. He had a mentality that was opportunistic and wary of ideological niceties...... China's hundreds of millions of peasants, for he saw potential energy in them by the very fact that they were “poor and blank” ..... For a time after the creation of the Chinese Communist state in 1949, Mao Zedong attempted to conform to the Stalinist model of “building Socialism.” In the mid-1950s, however, he and his advisers reacted against the results of this policy, which included the growth of a rigid and bureaucratic Communist Party, and the emergence of managerial and technocratic elites—accepted in other countries, especially the Soviet Union, as concomitants of industrial growth...... Maoism's alternative to growth led by elites and bureaucracies was to be growth brought about by revolutionary enthusiasm and mass struggle. Maoism undertook to pit the collective will of human beings against the customary and rational dictates of economics and industrial management. The violent excesses of Maoism and its inability to achieve sustained economic growth led after the Chairman's death to a new emphasis on education and management professionalism, and by the 1980s Maoism appeared to be celebrated mainly as a relic of the late leader."

Also here: "His thought was complex, a Marxist type of analysis combined with the permanent fundamentals of Chinese thought and culture...... and the necessity of struggling against bureaucracy, wastage, and corruption in a country of 600,000,000 to 700,000,000 inhabitants, where very old civilizations and cultures still permeated both the bourgeois classes and the peasantry, where bureaucracy was thoroughly entrenched, and where the previous society was extremely corrupt..... In his effort to remain close to the Chinese peasant masses, Mao drew upon an idea of nature and a symbolism found in popular Chinese Taoism, though transformed by his Marxism. It can be seen in his many poems, which were written in the classical Chinese style."

Like Mao broke with the Soviets, the Nepali Maoists should have the guts to break with Mao himself, the most important might be to do with violence. Real social change ultimately exists in a realm of peace. That peace has to be part of the Maoists' vision. It has to be added to their portfolio.

The first step could be an aggressive overture on their part to the Nepali parties with a vision of a Democratic Republic, with a Constituent Assembly as a first step, with a clear willingness to accept the verdict of the people, even if it might come in the form not of a Democratic Republic, but in the form of a reformed Constitutinoal Monarchy, and Multi-Party Democracy. They could still hope to mobilize the public opinion in some later referendum to turn the country into a Democratic Republic.

The second step could be to work within the multi-party framework to create a Nepal that (1) abolishes the army, just as the Maoists disband their own armed units, (2) dramatically increases state expenditures on education upto the secondary level, and primary health care, making both free of cost and universal, and letting the poor have universal access to micro-credit to start small businesses, and (3) bans fund-raising by political parties, and instead the parties get funds for party building and election campaigns from the state that is directly proportional to the number of votes they might have earned in the last held national elections.

The vision becomes one of attempting to create a classism-less society through peaceful, democratic means, the way of the ballot box. Classism-less, as different from classless. Classism-less allows for diversity in income due to the fundamental role of the market in wealth creation, but it does its very best to make sure no person's socio-economic background prevents that person from reaching his or her maximum potential.

I urge the Nepali Maoists to take their ideology to the next level by breaking up with Mao himself so as to no longer be a slave to a way of thinking that necessarily depends on unending violence, as if it were a group addiction, and not an intermediate step to liberation.

Paramendra's Reading Lists: Maoism
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bull shit!

4:28 AM

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