Opinion

People’s Republic is the fundamental goal of a Communist Party

- Agni Sapkota

Nepal is establishing a new model of peace and change, under the leadership of the CPN (Maoist). The political line of Nepali revolution determined by the Unity Congress held in 1992 after a scientific and objective synthesis of the experiences of the 20th century revolutions and counter-revolutions; the third expanded meeting determined the strategy and tactics of the People’s War based on the party line of the Unity Congress. The People’s War began on 13 February; the preparation, initiation and the development of the People’s War was quite original and carried forth in a creative way. After five years of the initiation of the people’s war, the party synthesized the ideology as Prachandapath, as a developed ideology to lead the revolution.

From that point, the party realized the importance of a new synthesis for all the achievements, developments, experiences and lessons. Now, an ideological and political debate is going on inside and outside of the party. The debate is going on sharply in the form of a discussion to synthesize the ideological, political, organizational as well as the military sectors. The issue of the Federal Democratic Republic is at the centre of the debate. The party had put forward a new proposal in “The development of democracy in the 21st century” in 2004 by developing the newly synthesized ideology of Prachandapath, developed from the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on the soil of Nepal. The new proposal was forwarded through a 12-point understanding to the Constituent Assembly and the people have ratified it. Our party has become the largest party in the Constituent Assembly through multi-party competition. It has already been agreed, in essence, for ‘the development of democracy in the 21st century’: things such as the republic, multiparty competition, federalism etc. However, there are efforts to overturn the decisions that have already been reached by the agreement and are ratified. I am trying to synthesise the main issues to advance the discussion ahead.

Our party is advancing through the strategic offensive by crossing the stage of strategic defensive and equilibrium. Our party has already clarified that the main aspiration of the political strategy is to accomplish the new people’s democratic revolution by carrying out the strategic offensive in an original and creative way. It is obvious that the People’s Republic will be established after the accomplishment of a new people’s democratic revolution. However, the party is moving ahead with the ideology of MLM. Likewise, the party is creatively developing the political power. A new proposal regarding to the relation between state power and the communities of the people has been put forward in the proposal of ‘the development of democracy in the 21st Century’. Instead of formal democracy and bureaucratic centralism, the actual democratic dictatorship can be strengthened through a broad live process of democratization. There is no difference of opinion within the party to go ahead to the People’s Republic. However, the republic that is going to be institutionalized in Nepal will not be a copy of other countries. Major emphasis will not be given to the mechanical relationship to assist only communist parties among the anti-feudal and the anti-imperialist parties, but also emphasis will be given to the dialectical relationship which creates the environment for a democratic political competition to serve the people.

The current debate is not about a democratic republic or a People’s Republic, but it is rather centralized between the Parliamentary Republic and People’s Republic. Hence, there is not even a single debate about whether to go ahead to the People’s Republic in our party. Rather, intensive efforts are being undertaken to weaken party unity by stretching the issues unnecessarily. Our party has frequently stated that we have not come to the mainstream of the traditional parliamentary system. We are fully committed to institutionalize the Federal Republic according to the necessity of 21st century and the Nepalese conditions. Politically independent, economically prosperous, advanced and progressive is the vision of the new Nepal.  Based on these assumptions, our party has developed a new conception of the acceptance of the multi-party competition not only in the People’s Republic but also in the stage of socialist system. Our party has clearly stated that an independent and people-oriented republic with multi-party competition should be developed instead of the old parliamentary system that is worthless to the people. The party has moved ahead by introducing an optional model of People’s Republic rather than the model developed during the period of Mao in China. There was no federalism in Mao’s democracy; but we are talking about a new federal republican system in Nepal. Hence, the democracy that we are trying to develop is a more advanced democracy than the Chinese Republic.

The new conception of our party is to establish the system with multi-party competition that protects the interest and the well-being of the majority of the people. The current federal republic has been established not only through debates and discussion, but also through the foundation of People’s War by the proletarian class under their own leadership, after destroying the old feudal system. Hence, it will be regressive notion if somebody imagines the reestablishment of an already demolished state system.

In the state power with multi-party competition, the fundamental norms and values including civic freedom, fundamental rights, human rights, voting rights, child rights, periodical elections, freedom of press etc will be maintained according to characteristics and necessities of the 21st century. Furthermore, in the new state power, there will be a competition to justify the commitment towards the class and the people through dedication, devotion and sacrifice uniting with the people.

The basic pillars of the new state power will be liberation of people from class, caste, regional and gender repression, federalism with the right of self-determination and freedom for anti-imperialist and anti-feudalist parties. The revolution is not yet complete. The historical responsibility of true revolutionaries is to establish a new Republic Nepal, which will be politically free, economically prosperous, culturally advanced and progressive. Therefore, the People’s Republic is the fundamental goal of a communist party; however, the People’s Republic will be according to the needs and specificities of the 21st century, and not a traditional one.

Writer is a central committee member of CPN (Maoist).