Nepal's govt must quit: Prachanda

Kathmandu: Maoist leader Prachanda today demanded the resignation of Nepal's embattled government to save the faltering peaceprocess as he threatened to launch a massive agitation to dislodge it.

Prachanda blamed the 22-party ruling alliance led by prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal for hampering the peace process.

"This is the most worthless and corrupt government in history which is defaming the nation," he told a rally of Maoists supporters in the heart of the capital today.

He demanded the ouster of the CPN-UML coalition and formation of a "national unity government" under the Maoists, which is the single largest party in the 601-member constituent assembly.

"Once a national unity government is formed it will be possible to draft the constitution within one and a half months and the peace process to end within a month," the former prime minister was quoted as saying by The Himalayan Times online today.

"We believe the peace process can be brought to a successful conclusion in a month's time," he said at the rally to mark the fourth anniversary of a popular uprising against the former king.

The political leaders are struggling to meet a May 28 deadline to finish the drafting of a new constitution as stipulated by the peace process that brought the civil war to an end in 2006.

Disagreements persist on such fundamental issues as the structure of the national government and the creation of federal states.

Prachanda threatened to launch another phase of agitation to dislodge the government in a bid to uphold "civilian supremacy", national integrity and for timely drafting of a new constitution.

"It is not the end of the fourth phase of our agitation, but it is the beginning of a decisive agitation in all 75 districts across the nation," he said. He said the struggle has entered a "decisive" phase from today.

The Maoists, who have around 40% of the seats in parliament, want the CPN-UML government disbanded, followed by the formation of a new coalition led by them.

Analysts fear that the death former Nepalese leader Girija Prasad Koirala, who was instrumental in bringing the Maoists to mainstream politics after a decade-long insurgency in 2006, could derail the faltering peace process.

Maoist rebels have killed at least 75 Indian soldiers in a series of attacks on security convoys in the central state of Chhattisgarh

Maoist rebels have killed at least 75 Indian soldiers in a series of attacks on security convoys in the central state of Chhattisgarh, officials say.

A large patrol of federal paramilitary troops was ambushed at dawn by hundreds of heavily armed insurgents in a remote part of Dantewada district.

Rescue teams were later ambushed in attacks using landmines and gunfire.

Correspondents say it is the worst attack on security forces by the rebels since their insurgency began.

The Al Jazeera video above makes a serious mistake the video from 3.51 to 4.28 minutes consists of Nepalese PLA and not Indian Maoists

Magtens Korridorer - Militia Women a Poem by Mao written in 1961 put to Rock music

Magtens Korridorer is a band from Denmark started in 1995 in Copenhagen. The band is described as a mixture of rock and poetic post-punk. The band consists of Johan Olsen (vocals), Rasmus Kern (guitar), Niklas Schneidermann (guitar), Terkel Møhl (bass) and Anders Ramhede (drums).

The Poem by Mao is as follows:

How bright and brave they look, shouldering five-foot rifles
On the parade ground lit up by the first gleams of day.
China's daughters have high-aspiring minds,
They love their battle array, not silks and satins

Maoists propose three alternatives on army integration

Sunday, 04 April 2010 05:35


Unified CPN (Maoist) has prepared alternative proposals for integration of its combatants considering other parties' stand against wholesale integration into the Nepal Army.

Maoist chairman Prachanda Aka Pushpa Kamal Dahal told media persons at his residence on Sunday morning that this party would table three alternatives during the Army Integration Special Committee meeting scheduled for later today.

According to Dahal, PLA combatants wishing to join the Nepal Army should be allowed to do so, or PLA to be kept as separate force or a new security agency should be created incorporating personnel from Nepal Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force. Number of personnel to be pooled out of the three security agencies should be equal to the strength of the Maoist combatants, Dahal added.

He also informed that parties will decide within this week whether the constitution will be promulgated within the time frame, claiming Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) have proposed for extension of Constituent Assembly (CA) tenure by six months or a year.

Only on Saturday, the three parties had reiterated their commitment to unveil new constitution by May 28 deadline. He said constitution within timeframe is possible on condition that parties agree on form of governance and number of states in federal system.

Additionally, Dahal said 'no confidence vote' against the current coalition government will be decided based on the support his party generates from UML leaders. He said, his party has the right to lead government being the largest party in the parliament.

Further, Maoist chairman said his party favours extending term for United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) until peace process ends here

Source: Nepal News

For a critique of the Army Integration Strategy of UCPN Maoist by the MLMRSG visit :
http://www.mlmrsg.com/

10 Indian Government Special Operations Group personnel die in Orissa

Picture of Indian Government Special Operations Group

Bhubaneswar/Lalgarh, April 4

Maoists Sunday blew up a bus in a remote part of Orissa killing 10 security personnel as Home Minister P. Chidambaram called the rebels cowards and warned the war against them would be prolonged.

The rebels detonated a landmine, about 14 km from Baipariguda town, when a large number of Orissa's Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel were going in three vehicles, Deputy Inspector General of Police Sanjeeb Panda told IANS

For Real Democracy by Harry Powell

Although this article by Harry Powell was first written in 2001 it arguements are still valid for 2010 and the new General Election Fraud that is currently underway. See the Previous articles at :

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2010/03/british-general-election-fraud-articles.html

As we head towards another general election we are faced with the decision whether or not to cast a vote. Most people in Britain are fairly strongly attached to the idea that it is some sort of public duty to turn out and support one or another party even if they are not very enthusiastic about any of the programmes on offer. It is felt that in the past many people put a lot of effort and sacrifice into winning mass suffrage and that somehow it is disrespectful to them not to vote. Here in Nottingham in 1832 people were actually hung for burning down the mansion of the Duke of Newcastle, a prominent opponent of the Reform Bill that proposed a small extension of voting rights. The suffragettes are often mentioned and some of them endured harsh imprisonment and even death in their struggle to win the vote for women. These were brave, public spirited people and they deserve our respect.

IF VOTING CHANGED ANYTHING …

Nonetheless, the question we should ask ourselves is: ‘Has universal suffrage actually brought about democracy?’ It is interesting to note that many people in Britain today do not actually know what the word “democracy” means. If asked, they tend to say things like “being able to express your opinions”, “doing what you like”, etc.. Very few people are aware that the literal meaning of the word is ‘rule by the people’. If people are asked whether they think that parliamentary democracy actually brings about rule by the people then most are sceptical. They have a healthy contempt for parliamentary politicians because it is known through long experience that the measures they enact are not usually in the interests of the great mass of the people. Yet most go on voting because they have a vague feeling that the civil liberties we do enjoy are somehow dependent on people voting in elections.

Voting is an interesting example of what the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser called interpollation or ‘hailing’. He pointed out that all of us - even those of us who are conscious opponents – are deeply conditioned into conforming to ways of behaving and thinking that are integral parts of capitalist society. For example, most people recognise and celebrate Christmas even though they are not convinced Christians. Millions of people place bets on horses in the Derby and the Grand National even though they have no real interest in horse racing. So it is with voting. Although most of us have serious doubts that it gives us any real power over our lives we go through with the ritual. Somehow it is easier to go along with the crowd than to stand out by abstaining.

Yet things have been slowly changing. The educational and cultural level of people in Britain has risen considerably during the last half century. People are much more questioning and critical than were our forebears. Often we do not unquestioningly accept what politicians and the media tell us. Part of this general trend is a growing reluctance to participate in elections. The turnout in 1997 was the lowest since 1935. Furthermore, many of those who voted Labour did so not out of any positive enthusiasm for that party but out of a deep loathing for the Tories. In fact, Labour’s “landslide victory” was brought about by less votes than the Tories had cast for them in 1992. If Labour win again at the next election then it certainly will not be because of any positive enthusiasm for Tony and his friends but because the electorate find the likes of Hague and Widdicombe even more repulsive. We have had getting on for a century’s experience of mass parliamentary democracy and have learnt through the harsh school of experience that it does not give power to the people.

The performance of the current Labour government provides ample evidence. They have done nothing to repeal the vicious anti-trade union legislation brought in by their Tory predecessors. Far from reversing the Tories’ measures to undermine comprehensive education they have pressed ahead with measures to dismantle the whole system. They abolished student grants and introduced fees for higher education. Their “stakeholder” pension legislation is designed to further undermine achieving a secure and comfortable standard of living for older people. Their persistence with the disastrous privatisation of the railways has brought the whole system into chaos. They refuse to reverse the Tories’ abolition of higher tax rates on the rich even though income equalities in Britain are now at an all time high, etc., etc..

OUR MASTERS

What is very clear is that whichever party forms the government they serve the interests of the capitalist ruling class. One strength of the British bourgeoisie is that most people are only vaguely aware and not very clear about just who are their masters. A lot of people still think that the Queen and the aristocracy rule Britain! In fact it is the owners of the chief means of production who exercise real power in Britain today. This monopoly capitalist class consists of the owners and controllers of large-scale capital and these people are to be found on the boards of directors of the major companies, such as the ones quoted in the FTSE 100 Index. They are in a position to make the decisions that have a major impact on the lives of the rest of us. They are assisted in their exercise of power by various functionaries such as the commanders of the armed forces and police, top civil servants, judges, etc.. There are probably no more than a hundred thousand, at most, members of the ruling class out of a population of sixty million. There have been studies, such as those by John Scott and Ralph Miliband, that provide detailed descriptions and analyses of this ruling class.

Unlike some of the crude, despotic regimes found in less developed countries their exercise of power is usually subtle and not very visible. Nonetheless, the British bourgeoisie does not permit any developments that pose a serious threat to their interests.


Immediately a Labour government was elected in 1964 there was a massive transfer of funds abroad by British financial institutions. In his memoirs the then prime minister, Harold Wilson, recalls that the Governor of the Bank of England (a state official) was asking for all-round cuts in state expenditure and changes in economic policy. Wilson protested to the Governor that it seemed as if powerful interests in the City were acting so as to pressurise the government into accepting these policy changes. The Governor confirmed that this was indeed the case and Wilson’s government had to climb down. The Thatcher governments of the nineteen eighties did an excellent job for the bourgeoisie during a period of economic crisis by helping to manage a major restructuring of the British economy and breaking the power of the trade union movement. After eleven years as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seemed to be all-powerful and secure in her position. Yet there was one important matter on which she was seriously out of step with the bourgeoisie: Europe. The British ruling class had long since decided that their best interests would be served by Britain's full economic and political membership of the European Community. Thatcher was becoming increasingly obstructive about Britain’s further integration into Europe and so the view emerging from the City boardrooms was that she must go and go she did. Almost effortlessly a largely informal network of pressures was activated so as to make her position untenable.

The invention of “New Labour” is another example of the will of the bourgeoisie prevailing. After their defeat in the 1992 General Election it had become clear to the Labour leaders that they would not be acceptable as a government unless they brought about some major policy changes. In particular they faced an unremittingly hostile press that portrayed them in very negative terms. The Labour leadership under Tony Blair were professional politicians who had spent many years on the opposition benches and whose political careers were clearly going nowhere. Partly in order to gain government office and partly to satisfy their personal ambitions they embarked on a process of making their policies more acceptable to the bourgeoisie. No doubt some of them duped themselves into believing that they were playing a cunning game in order to get a Labour government elected. In fact it wasn’t the tail that was wagging the dog but rather the other way around. Before long the Labourites were outdoing the Tories in accommodating themselves to the bourgeoisie. In particular they announced that they would relax the rules restricting cross-media ownership even more than the Tories had done. This dampened the hostility of the press towards Labour, especially in the case of Rupert Murdoch’s papers such as the Sun. Although the Tory Party had handled well the social unrest brought about by economic depression, by the mid-nineteen nineties they were losing their touch and sections of the bourgeoisie began to look towards Labour as the party best able to maintain their hegemony. As we know now, they were not to be disappointed and Labour, rather than the Tories, has become the party most clearly expressing the interests of the ruling class. Under William Hague’s leadership the Tory Party has lurched into a virulent anti-Europe stance and clearly is being rapidly abandoned by the bourgeoisie. A remarkable transformation has occurred: Labour is now the preferred party of the British ruling class.

A century or more of experience of the election of reformist, social democratic governments in Western European countries has amply demonstrated that this neither gives the mass of the people power nor poses any threat to the rule of the capitalist class. On the contrary, the mildly reformist programmes of such governments has helped perpetuate the rule of capital by taking off some of its sharpest edges and by holding out the false hope of bringing about more fundamental changes within the present capitalist system.

AN AUTHORITARIAN SOCIETY

Most aspects of our lives are run along authoritarian rather than democratic lines. Most families are fairly authoritarian in their structure with parents, especially fathers, telling their children what to do and not standing for much dissent. This, though, is perhaps less so than in the past with more parents encouraging their children to become actively involved in decision-making processes with the family.

The same is not true of the education system. Schools, colleges and universities are generally organised in a rigid hierarchy with power concentrated at the top. Students are told by teachers what to do who, in turn, are told by heads of departments what to do followed by headteachers/principals and governors with the state having ultimate authority. Headteachers in schools are in a particularly powerful position. Young people spend at least eleven years of an early part of their lives becoming acclimatised to operating in an authoritarian environment. Although there are some elected school councils and the odd student representative on the governing bodies of colleges and universities, they at best have a consultative role and exercise no real power over their situation in these organisations. Thus it is hardly surprising if people emerge into adult life having had no significant experience of being part of a democratic environment and lack the skills necessary to engage in collective behaviour conducted along democratic lines. It has often been pointed out that the organisational structure of educational organisations mirrors that of workplaces in capitalist society. Our education prepares us to be subordinates and superiors, bosses and workers, in our working lives.

Other important socialising influences on us in childhood and throughout our lives are the mass media. Before infants even get anywhere near a playgroup or nursery school they have been exposed to hundreds or more hours of television viewing. This promotes a view of the world where authoritarian relationships are depicted as normal. This exposure continues throughout our lives. Soaps depict family and work situations where conflict is rife and people are frequently dissatisfied with their lot in life. Even so these social structures are represented as inevitable and unavoidable and not open to any real change. News bulletins certainly focus on various forms of strife in the modern world but people who advocate fundamental societal changes are usually depicted as well-meaning impractical dreamers or simply as downright evil.

It is hardly surprising after such a preparation if people enter their working lives thinking that hierarchical, authoritarian forms of organisation are normal and natural. You do what the boss tells you to do even if it is not in your interests or even that of the owners and controllers of the organisation. Trying to make constructive suggestions is very often seen as threatening by superiors and defined as “trouble-making”. You’re there to work, not to think. Some modern work organisations formally encourage employee participation in policy formation and decision-making – “empowerment” – but this is usually an ideological sham designed to deceive employees into believing that they have some power in their workplaces. What the bosses really require is that their employees compliantly endorse and accept the policies and decisions coming from the top.

DEMOCRATIC IMPULSES

Despite our lives being enveloped in authoritarian structures people do struggle against these social chains. Throughout human history people have struggled against oppression and exploitation. Sometimes this rebellion is in the form of open defiance as in the case of slave revolts and strikes by workers but more typically it takes place in the form of more covert, underground types of resistance.

Children often do rebel against heavy-handed parental authority. Sometimes this is but a wilful impulse to indulge some hedonistic and selfish desire but on other occasions it is a genuine rebellion against unreasonable treatment by an inconsiderate or even despotic parent. Parental abuse, both physical and mental, is not uncommon in contemporary capitalist societies and children resist it in both covert and overt ways such as running away from home. There are very considerable restrictions on children’s lives that prevent them doing many things of which they are quite capable, such as productive work, and they have very little control indeed over what they do. Truly, they are in a state of alienation.

Most children experience schooling as an imposition to a greater or lesser degree. This is clearly evident in the fact that truancy is a major problem for teachers and the state. Even at the tertiary stage on any given day a quarter of students in further education colleges are absent. Another form of dissent from schooling is children “misbehaving”. Discipline is a major issue in schools to the extent whereby security guards have been brought into some schools to try to maintain order. All of this only goes to show that far from being natural and normal the hierarchical, authoritarian structures imposed on children in schools are experienced negatively and are resisted.

Resistance to oppression and exploitation is a constant factor in most workplaces. Very often this occurs in informal and individualistic ways but it also takes on a formal expression in the setting up of trade unions. The trade unions were the first and principal form of mass democracy to appear in capitalist societies. Of pressing necessity, workers have found it necessary to organise themselves so as to conduct effective negotiations with employers. Given the circumstances of their creation, the trade unions were democratic in their organisational structures.

Even so, right from their early days, the antidemocratic tendencies of bourgeois society also have been present in the unions. Always there has been a tendency for the elected leaders to try to concentrate power in their own hands rather than that of the membership at large. This is not brought about by some inevitable and unavoidable flaw in human nature. Rather it is a case of the leadership becoming incorporated into the dominant structures, especially the state, of capitalist society. The contradictions of capitalism, between bourgeoisie and proletariat, between dictatorship and democracy, permeate all sections of society including those organisations such as trade unions and radical political parties specifically set up to resist and oppose it. Periodically, throughout their history, the rank and file trade unionists have found it necessary to establish new structures – such as the shop stewards movement – to defend their interests precisely because their own leaders were no longer doing so. At present trade unions are restricted from effectively representing their members by some of the most restrictive anti-trade union laws in the world. Yet practically all of the trade union leaders, especially those in full-time posts, do nothing more than pay lip service to opposing this legislation. Sooner or later there will be a fresh wave of rebellion from below to take up the issues and problems that the leaders want to avoid.

There are many other examples of people in the mass getting themselves organised in order to oppose the oppressions and exploitation to which they are subject. One has only to think of the women’s movement, gay and lesbian groups, environmental organisations, etc.. It is interesting to note that the changes in society that these groups have brought about are the result of extra-parliamentary activity largely outside of the mainstream political parties. The capitalist state has not succumbed to some of these demands as a result of people casting votes in elections but because of other pressures.

THE STRUGGLE FOR REAL DEMOCRACY

As communists have always asserted, there can be no real democracy – no rule by the people as a whole – all the while the means of production are owned and controlled by a small minority, the monopoly capitalist class. Their control of the economy and the state apparatus means that they can resist and obstruct any serious threat to their class interests. A century or more of experience has shown that attempts by social democratic parties to change capitalism from within its own political system of parliamentary “democracy” are doomed to failure. If by some fluke a left-leaning government is elected that seems to pose some serious threat to capitalist interests then it is simply overthrown by the military as happened in Spain in 1936 and in Chile in 1973. Such an eventuality is even more unlikely now than in the past because, as was pointed out above, the former social democratic parties have now in their new “centre-left” clothes become one of the main pillars of the capitalist system. It is quite clear that we can only achieve real control over our lives by getting rid of the capitalist system as a whole and this can be done only by means of revolution.

Talk of revolution is not at all fashionable these days. After all, we are told, attempts to overthrow capitalism and imperialism by revolutionary means and to establish socialism have been tried and failed, particularly in the cases of Russia and China. It is true that the first wave of socialism in the world, which began with the October Revolution in 1917, has been defeated. Capitalism is being restored in these countries and by elements who actually emerged from within the communist parties such as the late Deng Tsaio-ping in China and Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia. Given this major defeat for the working class and other oppressed people, it is easy for the bourgeoisie and their ideological apologists to portray attempts to build truly democratic, socialist societies as terrible disasters. In the mass media controlled by capitalist interests there is an unremitting barrage of propaganda claiming that socialism brought about the deaths of tens of millions of people. During the last ten years it has become acceptable for journalists and academics to peddle any sort of nonsense about Russia and China in the socialist period and to get away with it largely unchallenged.

In fact, the first wave of socialism in the world was an enormous advance for oppressed and exploited people. The revolutions in Russia, China and some other countries showed that for the first time in human history the most oppressed people in society could rise up and overthrow their oppressors. The revolutionary states set up with mass support and participation proved themselves capable of beating off and defeating attempts to destroy them from both imperialist forces without and reactionary elements within. It was the Soviet Union that in World War II was the major force that defeated German fascism, not the British and American imperialists who had hoped before the war that the Nazi regime would destroy the USSR. Socialist Russia and China were very economically backward countries yet in record time they succeeded in developing modern industrial economies that brought about great rises in living standards and enabled them to produce modern armaments to beat off ferocious attacks by the imperialists. Mass education was established and proper health care systems set up. The subordinate position of women was attacked and women made great advances in these societies. Many other achievements could be listed such as those on the cultural front.

The revolutions in Russia and China had positive results for people in other parts of the world as well. In the advanced capitalist societies such as Britain the ruling capitalist classes became more fearful of proletarian revolution and thus became more amenable to conceding some popular demands for reforms in working and housing conditions, health, education, etc.. The rising tide of revolt against imperialism in the colonies was greatly encouraged by the October Revolution and this meant that the imperialists were more willing to make concessions and strike a deal with leaders of independence movements. Post-colonial regimes in Africa and Asia were able to gain some advantages by exploiting the rivalry between the US-led imperialist bloc and the Soviet bloc. For thirty years or so after World War Two the imperialist powers were definitely on the defensive in the international arena. But all of this has changed in the last twenty years with capitalist restoration in China and the Soviet Union.

The socialist regimes did not fail as a result of the military, economic and ideological assault from without waged by the imperialist powers. Given the difficult economic and social conditions in which they were established they withstood external pressures remarkably well, as was dramatically demonstrated by the Soviet Union during World War II and the newly-formed People’s Republic of China in the Korean War. No, it was as a result of their own internal contradictions that these societies have reverted to capitalism. It should be remembered, as Marx pointed out, that immediately after a popular revolution socialism – much less communism – does not magically spring into existence. Rather, what exists is a new state power based on a new class or alliance of classes while society at large is still unreconstructed, being capitalist in character or even containing large elements of earlier social formations such as feudalism. Only as a result of a long process of class struggle lasting generations can society be transformed in a direction towards communism. It is hardly surprising that the first attempts to move along the socialist road eventually came unstuck. Both Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung were aware, in their different ways, of the danger of capitalist restoration and spent their last years trying to defeat the emergent elements within the communist movement who wanted to defeat socialism. Unfortunately they did not succeed.

The task of far-sighted people today is not to wring our hands in despair at these defeats but to learn from the experience of socialist revolution so far so that when fresh revolutionary upsurges occur they can do so having learnt positive lessons from the past and thus be less likely to fall by the wayside. One thing is for sure. The material conditions which gave rise to the first wave of socialist revolution in the world still persist. About one fifth of the world’s population are in a state of absolute poverty of the most basic kind: they simply do not have enough food to stay alive on a continuing basis. Another third suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies in their diets which means that they are susceptible to various illnesses and likely to die relatively young. What is more, in recent decades the distribution of world income has been widening with the well-off getting much richer while the worst off have actually become significantly poorer in absolute terms. Even in the advanced imperialist countries such as America and Britain the lowest income groups have experienced a decline in real incomes while most members of the workforce are actually working longer hours than they did two decades ago. In addition there is widespread alienation – estrangement of people from each other – in contemporary capitalist societies as is evidenced by rising crime rates and breakdowns in personal relationships. The necessity for change is as strong as ever.

The real revolutionaries in Britain today are not the Trotskyites who – as they always have done – try to keep alive reformist illusions by urging participation in bourgeois parliamentary elections. Rather they are those people who encourage others to go further along the path many are already taking of consciously rejecting the sham of bourgeois elections. We should encourage this growing number of rejectionists to think through the consequences of the position they are taking up. If we cannot gain control over our lives by means of this fake democracy then how do we do it? Part of the process of putting socialism on the political agenda again is to remind and inform people of the extraordinary achievements of the first wave of socialism in the world and not unremittingly denigrate them as do the Trotskyites.



Another part of renewing the struggle for socialism is to rethink and revive the various struggles to resist capitalist oppression and exploitation. In Britain the trade union rights of employees to negotiate with employers on wages and working conditions and if necessary take industrial action have been rendered largely ineffective by the anti-trade union laws. Instead of lamely pleading with the Labour government to change these laws – as do the trade union leaders and Trots – we should encourage people to defy and break these laws. New methods of economic struggle need to be developed such as interfering with the elaborate IT systems that employers are increasingly dependent upon. The main point about renewing defensive, reformist struggles on the economic and other fronts – education, transport, housing, the environment, etc. – is not that these can fundamentally change capitalism. Rather the point is that if people discover that they can fight back and defend themselves it will help them realise that the system is not impregnable and this can lead on to thoughts about getting rid of and changing the whole rotten system.

If the opinion polls are to be believed – and they should always be treated with caution – then more people than ever before will consciously decide not to vote in the forthcoming general election. The task of revolutionaries is to encourage this trend and its eventual development into a conscious revolutionary movement and party

http://www.electionfraud.org.uk/

The new Italian Communist Party convened its 1st Congress!

In recent weeks we convened the 1st Congress of the (new) Italian Communist Party.
Thus we have passed another important stage of the work we began in 1999 with the establishment of the Preparatory Commission (PC) of the founding Congress of the (new)PCI, announced in HYPERLINK "http://www.nuovopci.it/voce/ind01.html" n. 1 of La Voce (March 1999). For the reasons then explained in HYPERLINK

"http://www.nuovopci.it/voce/voce18/indvo18.html" n. 18 of La Voce (November 2004) and in the Declaration of 1st November 2004, we did not found the (n)PCI in a Congress. We founded the (n)PCI on 3rd October 2004 at an enlarged meeting of the PC that, waiting to convene the Congress, entrusted the leadership of the Party to a Provisional Commission (PC) of Central Committee, elected in the same meeting. Finally, few weeks ago we also managed to convene the 1st Congress of the Party.

The Congress has finally approved the Manifesto Program already discussed in the provisional organizations of the Party. It discussed and approved the Statute of the Party (see below) that confirms the clandestine nature of the Party, issued and approved eleven Resolutions, elected the Central Committee (CC) which will direct the party with full powers until the 2nd Congress, as by Statute enacted. The Congress has instructed the CC to draw up the Resolutions for the final publication. They will soon be published as Supplement of No. 34 of La Voce. As by Statute enacted, the CC has elected the General Secretary of the Party.

The Congress dissolved the Provisional Commission. The convention of the Congress is the culmination of the good work the PC did. The PC handed over to the CC that succeeds to it in all respects.

Thanks to the convention of the Congress, now the new Italian Communist Party has a well defined, stable and authoritative direction. In the coming months, the CC will carry out the restructuring from the top to the bottom of all the Party organizations and in particular of the Party Committees, according to what was already stated in the “Plan in two points to start simultaneously from several points the building of the Party” on the basis of which the Party Committees have been constituted so far.

Also the New Power, which we are building in accordance with the strategy of the revolutionary people’s war, has now a well defined and stable center. The Party is the hub of the New Power and to give the Party a well defined, stable and authoritative direction, is an important factor in the current stage of revolutionary people’s war to establish socialism. The terminal phase of the general crisis of capitalism has in fact placed on the agenda, as a realistic immediate goal, the establishment of an emergency government by the Workers’ Organizations and People’s Organizations, the People’s Bloc Government. The stable structure the 1st Congress gave to the Party Center and the impulse it gave to the reorganization and the strengthening of the Party Committees at various levels, contribute to enhance the possibilities to reach this goal.
The 1st Congress is therefore an important step forward in the struggle to end the Papal Republic, to make Italy a new socialist country and thus contribute to the new wave of socialist revolution that advances all around the world. Its effects will become evident in coming months.

Which are the main meanings of the 1st Congress of the (n)PCI?

They can be summarized in four points.

1. The 1st Congress is an important step in Party building
With the convention of the Congress we sanctioned the completion of the first of the three stages of Party building our Manifesto Program indicated, and we sanctioned the start of the second stage.
What the first stage was?
The Communists had to constitute themselves in a party on the basis of their ideological unity and of getting minimum necessary organisational conditions.
The Manifesto Program (MP) published in the spring of 2008 after extensive discussion in the provisional organizations of the Party, proves and expresses our ideological unity. Our working proves that we got the minimum organisational conditions and the convention of the Congress further confirms it.
Certainly in our country there are still other Communists. They are men and women moulded by the story we have behind to a conception of the world and a moral commitment similar to ours. Because of secondary motives, they did not participate in the process of building the Party and up till now they do not belong to any party organization, many neither belong to the caravan of (n)PCI. They are in the left wing of the Subjective Forces of Socialist Revolution, in bourgeois leftist organizations, in the left wing of unions and in the left wing of workers and people’s organizations, in the committees of resistance.
They could be recruited in the party. We must avoid sectarianism towards them and be ready to recruit them in the best conditions for the development of socialist revolution.
But we must win the bulk of the future members of the Party among the popular masses, mainly in the working class. How can we do it? Transforming their conception of the world and their conduct with the propaganda and with the practical demonstration that for the humanity to resume its path of progress interrupted by the long survival of capitalism and by the extension of its decline (by its imperialist phase), we need a just and strong Communist Party. It will be a practical demonstration that, as regards our country, we will give during 1. the struggle to create the three conditions of forming the People’s Bloc Government, 2. the promotion of the revolutionary mobilization of the popular masses, 3. the struggle against the reactionary mobilization of the popular masses, 4. the struggle against the manifestations of the three crises (economic, political and environmental), in all the struggle on the four fronts of our General Plan of Work (see Manifesto Program, in HYPERLINK

"http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html" ...in080619.html , PDF version, p. 88).
Our Manifesto Program correctly points out that the essence of the second stage of Party building, that is the stage of consolidation and strengthening of the Party, is to win the advanced workers to the Party so that, thanks to its composition, it will also become the vanguard of the organized working class and then play its role of General Staff of it in the class struggle.
The workers are men and women the capitalists engage in their companies to produce commodities (goods or services) which, if sold, increase their capital. In Italy they are about 7 million. About 3 millions of them work in companies with more than 100 employees, and nearly 1 million of them work in companies with more than 500 employees. In order to the Party could actually play the role of General Staff of the working class, that is it could guide and direct its movements, we already said (in HYPERLINK

"http://www.nuovopci.it/voce/voce20/indvo20.html" La Voce n. 20 ) that the Party must recruit at least one hundred thousand of them.

One of the constitutive theories of Marxism is that the workers are the ruling class of socialist revolution and of socialism. For the condition in which bourgeois society places them, the workers are the class that more easily assimilates the communist conception of the world, if we Communists are able to bring it to them. They are the class that more easily elaborates the organizational tools to put it into practice: that is to establish socialism and lead the popular masses to make the transition from capitalism to communism.

The bourgeoisie, the clergy and all the conscious or unconscious representatives and spokespeople of their culture have made and continue to make a big effort to refute (or, rather, to confuse and hide, because to refute is difficult and try to do it is dangerous) the thesis of Marxism on the historical role of the working class. They also try to refute (or, rather, to confuse and hide) the fact that in our country, despite the dismantling of the productive apparatus, the outsourcing, the growing number of contracts, the imposition of subcontracts and precarious work, the workers working in companies of more than 100 employees are still around 3 millions, therefore, according both to the historical experience and to the analysis on current social relations, a mass more than enough to trail the rest of the popular masses to the struggle and to lead them.

The history of the communist movement in our country and in other capitalist countries, has largely confirmed the thesis of Marxism. But it is true that today, in our country, very few workers are members of the Communist Party. Not only that, but today few workers consider themselves Communists and the mass of workers is far from being in some way favourable to Communism. It is a situation completely opposite to that of even forty years ago. Because of their convenience or of their depression, bourgeois sociologists and apologists of capitalism, anti-communist intellectuals love feed their mind with this fact as the proof that the theory of Marxism is no more valid. The anti-communist leftists (the Frankfurt School and the like) began forty years ago to talk a lot of “integration of the working class in the system” and their thinking in all the imperialist countries has got the strength of the platitude among the intellectuals of the regime. Actually, the detachment of the working class of the imperialist countries from the communist movement is the result of the crisis of the communist movement, not the cause of the crisis of the communist movement. The working class is not spontaneously communist: this is a fact that Lenin has shown widely over a hundred years ago (What Has to Be Done? 1902), before the development of the first wave of proletarian revolution, that is before, in the major capitalist countries, the working class joined Communism en masse in different ways and degrees. Lenin also indicated how Communists could win the working class en masse to Communism. The development of the first wave of proletarian revolution tested and confirmed his theories.

It took dozens of years of political collaboration with the bourgeoisie by the communist parties and of transformation of communist politics in economic claims (so as Togliatti, Berlinguer and Bertinotti did), of reduction of communist theory to empty declamation of so called Marxist dogmas (so as Ingrao, Cossutta and the like did), for making the workers of the imperialist countries, urged and pressed by the bourgeoisie and the clergy by all means of the regime of preventive counter revolution (see Manifesto Program of the (new) Italian Communist Party, in HYPERLINK "http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html" ...in080619.html , PDF version, p. 18), abandon the communist parties and the communist movement. The new birth of the communist movement occurs after this detachment en masse has been consumed. We must therefore go back to the top. We Communists have to find way and means to win again en masse the workers to the communist movement. The completion of the first stage of Party building now puts the conquest of the advanced workers to the Party as our central and inescapable goal. Each project to establish socialism without having achieved this goal is a harmful fantasy. Claiming to act on behalf of the workers, to speak on behalf of the workers, to say what workers think without having organized those vanguard workers whose consonance with the masses is verified in the practical vanguard relationship that they have every day with other workers, and therefore without the advanced workers have possibility to express themselves, is pure anarchism and opens the way to the arbitrariness, falsehood and fantasy.

The recruitment of the advanced workers occurs in Party Committees. Thus the reorganization of the system of Party Committees of various levels, their strengthening and the multiplication of their number become the central and crucial part of our work.

The general crisis of capitalism and in particular its terminal phase creates favorable conditions for our work in the sense that the imperialist bourgeoisie and the clergy have plunged even the most advanced imperialist countries in a painful and destructive chaos and savagery and the new birth of the communist movement has become the only way out for all the popular masses. The weapons of capitalism are blunt, but the new birth of the communist movement is neither automatic nor obvious. It will occur only if and as more the Communists of the imperialist countries will overcome dogmatism and economism that still makes sterile the efforts of most communist groups of the imperialist countries, even of the most advanced ones, and will use Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a practical guide to lead the socialist revolution. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the most advanced conception of the world that humanity has yet produced. It must guide the activities of any communist party. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the method that every communist party must follow to know the world and to transform it.
So we completely understand the reason of the current detachment en masse of the workers from the communist movement. The very reason of this detachment says that the detachment can be fully overcome. It is up to us Communists to overcome it

The task that we must fulfill in the second stage of Party building is therefore necessary and possible. It implies a special effort to build the basic Party Committees, namely Party Committees established in firms, departments, dwelling places. To place this task at the core of the work of Party building is the first and most important meaning of the Congress.

2. The New Power shall have and now has a well defined center around which to build itself
The development of the revolutionary people's war in our country is the foundation and strengthening of the New Power (NP) as opposed to the Papal Republic and bound to suppress it. The Communist Party is the hub of the New Power (see HYPERLINK "http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html" ...in080619.html , PDF version, p. 81). The full structuring of the Communist Party in all its organizations and means necessary for its operation is an indispensable aspect of building the New Power. After the 1st Congress, the (n)PCI is a unitary organism based on a conception of the world expressed by its Manifesto Program, ruled by a Statute with an elected Central Committee (CC), grouped around the General Secretary of the Party and with full powers in the direction of the Party Committees which in turn periodically will elect delegates to the Congress who will control the work of CC and elect the new executive body of the party.

In order to make the socialist revolution advance, we need a revolutionary theory and a direction that embodies it. The new Italian Communist Party Congress fulfilled this task. It is the final break not only with the theories but also with the anti-party atmosphere to which the crisis of the communist movement gave way, of which the bourgeoisie took advantage, and of which the anti-communist or anyway not communist Left was the expression. The practical failure of plans and projects of this Left is worth more than any reasoning. It happened to the non-communist or anti-communist Left the same thing that happened to the modern revisionists and to their "democratic way to socialism", their "ways to socialism through structural reforms", their "socialism built under the umbrella of NATO”. The facts contradict them better than any reasoning could do. But certainly the conceptions of anarchists, spurious democrats, Trotskyites, etc. will not disappear suddenly with the practical failure of the political projects they produced. Therefore it is worthwhile to set out clearly the communist thesis according to which the workers can set themselves up as ruling class only in the Communist Party. The bourgeoisie form and selects its leaders during the trafficking of "civil society". The proletariat, because of his social position, can form, select and verify its leaders only in the class struggle that those leaders conduct framed within the ranks of the Communist Party. The Congress has completed the frame so that this work could be systematically carried out.
This is the second most important of the main meanings of the Congress.

3. The new PCI is a party of new type that takes up the heritage of the first PCI
In rebuilding the party, we had to take into account and have taken into account both of the great and heroic historical work the first PCI made, and of the disastrous defeat it has suffered up to corruption, to disintegration and finally to dissolution. We had to divide its life in opposing phases that correspond to conflicting roles it had in the class struggle in our country and in the International Communist Movement. We had to bear in mind and we bore in mind the experience of the first PCI, of which we are and we want to be heirs. At the same time we have established clearly what distinguishes us from the first PCI, and in which sense we are a Party of new type.

The main expressions of the Party of new type are the Manifesto Program and the ideological unity of the Party on the Manifesto Program, the Statute of the Party and the role it gave to the two lines struggle, the clandestine nature of the Party

.
The (n)PCI is a Party of new kind for the conception of the world that leads it, for the strategy it practices to build the socialist revolution and for the Statute ruling its existence. In this sense, the (n)PCI innovates in the history of class struggle of our country and in the context of the communist parties of the imperialist countries. It is an innovation that has been dictated by the evaluation of the experience of the communist movement of our country and of the experience of the international communist movement, of which the (n)PCI considers itself a department, for now ideally, awaiting that there will be created the conditions for an organizational unity as well.
It is important to note that in the Statute of the Party the two lines struggle is set as an organizing principle of the Party, on the same level of democratic centralism.
The clandestinity of the party is not only an indispensable tool to face repression, but is primarily an indispensable tool to promote and direct the protracted revolutionary people's war, then to actually adopt the strategy that the evaluation of the experience of the first wave of the socialist revolution in our country and all over the world has proven to be the universal strategy of socialist revolution.

This is the third most important of the main meanings of the Congress.

4. The 1st Congress strengthens the action and the role of (n)PCI in the International Communist Movement

With the 1st Congress we have confirmed our commitment to make Italy a new socialist country, to eliminate the Papal Republic and therefore to make by this an important service to the oppressed classes and oppressed peoples of the world, given the role that Vatican and its Church have had and have for the European and American imperialism and for the oppression that they still burden on the rest of the world. We therefore confirmed our commitment to contribute to the second wave of proletarian revolution which is advancing all around the world. Based on the results of the 1st Congress we shall strengthen our relations in the International Communist Movement and shall give our stronger contribution for liberating it from dogmatism and economism still hampering its new birth.

This is the fourth most important of the main meanings of the 1st Congress.

The 1st Congress did not only put a solid foundation for those who struggle or aspire to struggle to establish socialism and to transform themselves for this struggle. It is ultimately a call to continue with increased impulse the work we have undertaken, the work that aims to crown the dream of our fathers, the work that aims to help to create a bright future for humanity, thinking to new generations that will constitute this future and in memory of our martyrs who gave their lives for the cause and of all those comrades who have dedicated their lives to it. This is the call I do also personally to the comrades and the bodies of the Party, and I pledge to deal with honor to the role of the CC of the (n)PCI has entrusted to me.

The General Secretary of the Party


Statute of the (new) Italian Communist Party

1.
The (new) Italian Communist Party is the organization that promotes and directs the struggle of the working class and of the other classes of the popular masses against the Papal Republic to establish socialism in Italy and lead the country toward Communism, thus contributing to second wave of proletarian revolution which is advancing all around the world.

2.
The protagonists of this struggle are primarily the working class and, trailed and directed by it, the other classes of popular masses. The (n)PCI is the General Staff of this struggle and therefore also the vanguard party of the working class. Its strategy is the Protracted Revolutionary People’s War. Its task is to articulate the revolutionary people's war in tactical plans and campaigns each one linked with the previous one and the next one, to structure each campaign in battles and tactical operations, to collect and direct the forces to fight and win.

3.
The (n)PCI is based on the communist conception of the world, the dialectical and historical materialism, namely, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism expressed in the Manifesto Program of the Party. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is also its method to know the world and to transform it.

4.
The (n)PCI is a member of the International Communist Movement. It is the heir of the old communist movement and, in order to accomplish its work, it values the experience of the old communist movement and in particular the experience of the first wave of proletarian revolution, of the October Revolution, of Soviet Union, of People’s Republic of China and of all the first socialist countries and of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the Chinese people.

5.
The (n)PCI is the heir and successor of the communist movement of our country, of the first PCI, Italian section of the first Communist International and backbone of the glorious anti-fascist Resistance and of the struggle against the regime of Christian Democracy. The (n)PCI is the heir of the Red Brigades, the most advanced even if insufficient expression of the revolutionary struggle of the '70s to rebuild the Communist Party, to defend the achievements of civilization and welfare and to wring new ones.

6.
Main organizational principles of the Party are the democratic centralism and the two lines struggle. The two principles are complementary: they are two opposite terms in a dialectical unity. Between the two, in some circumstances the main one is the first, in others the main is the second one.
Democratic centralism is synthesized in the following four points: 1. electivity of all ruling bodies from the bottom to the top; 2. obligation of each body of the party to report its activities to the organization that elected him and to upper bodies; 3. rigorous and fair party discipline and subordination of the minority to majority; 4. decisions of upper organisms are unconditionally compulsory for lower bodies.
The principle of the two lines struggle tells us that in the Communist Party in every field there are always two trends: one that pushes forward and one that hinders. They are the combined effect of the class contradiction (the influence of the bourgeoisie and the struggle against it), of the contradiction between truth and falsehood and of the contradiction between the new and the old. There are times when the two trends are complementary and both contribute to the work of the Party. There are other times when they become antagonistic and incompatible. The left trend must transform the right one. If the right trend is irreducible, the left one must expel it.

7.
In order to fulfill its task, the (n)PCI is a clandestine party: it proclaims its goals, its conception of the world, its analysis of the situation and its line, but until the establishment of socialism it keeps secret the identity of its members and of its organizations.

8.
In order to fulfill its task, the (n)PCI aspires to organize in its ranks all the advanced workers, for directing through them the working class and, through the working class, the rest of the popular masses to lead the revolutionary people's war that will establish socialism in Italy.

9.
In order to fulfill its task, the (n)PCI uses all kinds of mass organizations created and tries to guide and direct all the organizations of workers and of the rest of the popular masses to enable them to contribute to the revolutionary people's war that will establish socialism in Italy.

10.
The main method of work and leadership of the Party towards outside is the mass line.

11.
It can be a member of the Party each person aged over 14 years who 1. shares the communist conception of the world expressed in the Manifesto Program of the Party and is committed to strive to promote the Protracted Revolutionary People’s War that will establish socialism in Italy and will open its doors to the transition from capitalism to Communism; 2. works in one of the organizations of the Party; 3. observes the Statute. Responsible for the recruitment, application, conduct, use and eventual removal of any member, is his/her membership organization under the authority of the Central Committee of the Party.

12.
Organizations of the (n)PCI are the Party Committees (PC) of base and of intermediate level, the Central Committee, the Work Commissions of CC and of PC. The CC elects the General Secretary of the Party.

13.
The supreme body of (n)PCI is the Congress. It elects the Central Committee that directs the Party with full powers between the Congress that voted for it and the next one, on the basis of the Manifesto Program, the organizational principles of the Party, the Congressional Resolution and the Statute.

¡Viva el 1er Congreso del (n) PCI!

Operation Greenhunt Starts in Orissa

Bhubaneswar : The much-delayed anti-Maoist offensive Operation Greenhunt along Koraput-Malkangiri-Dantewada axis on Orissa-Chhatisgarh border has started with Border Security Force police aided by Special Operation Group of Orissa police and the Central Reserve Police Force making deep forays into the jungles of Malkangiri and Koraput since last 4-5 days.

The offensive which got underway amid little fanfare has so far met with no resistance, a senior police official associated with the operation told The Indian Express. One of the 5 battalions of BSF which have arrived in southern Orissa for the offensive have already participated in the operation along with State police and CRPF.

"We are yet to get any tangible result. It seems the Maoists are on the run," a senior CRPF official told The Indian Express. Central Task Force Commander Vijay Raman also confirmed that the operation has started.

Though the last battalion of BSF arrived in Koraput a few days ago, the first battalion which arrived on March 18 had already undergone synergisation and familiarisation process at the local camp. After a week's training, the first batch of highly-trained BSF forces started the operation. A DIG of the BSF now stationed in Koraput is helping the central forces synergising the operation with the State police.

Armed with sophisticated weapons, GPS systems, night-vision binoculars, landmine detectors and helped by bomb-disposal squads and sniffer dogs the combined forces have been doing operations both day and night. More than 95 per cent area of Malkangiri and 75 per cent area of Koraput are beyond the State's control.

Senior police officials in-charge of the operation said the operation would be intensified in the next one week with around 7000 police personnel from 10 battalions of central forces including 5 battalions of BSF scouring the area for the rebels. have been put under a Orissa's elite anti-Maoist force Special Operation Group which recently lost three jawans in Gajapati district to Maoist ambush is also spearheading the onslaught against the rebels. A chopper to evacuate the injured security personnel as well as for reinforcements and aerial surveillance of the jungles would soon land in Koraput.

The officials said the police forces are getting good support of the villagers who are by and large supportive of the offensive. "In the village we are conducting medical camps. Barring a few everyone else is quite sympathetic," a CRPF official said.

The officials said the real challenge would be to gain foothold of the areas by the end of May as the onset of monsoon in the first week of June would make the operation difficult in jungle areas.

Though Operation Greenhunt against the Maoists was to start sometime in October last year, the State police refused to kickstart the operation demanding deployment of BSF forces, who are trained in jungle warfare and more skilled than the CRPF. Lack of synergy between the State police and 3 battalions of CRPF stationed in southern districts was the main reason in delay of the operation.

On its part, the State is also geared up for the operation with allocation of Rs 20 crore for deployment of 5600 police personnel in the Maoist-affected areas during next first four months.

The Central forces would move northern Orissa districts of Sundargarh and Keonjhar after the operation in southern Orissa.

(Express India, 1st April)

Orissa : Concerned Citizens Condemn Police Firing at Kalinga Nagar

BHUBANESWAR: Concerned Citizens Committee (CCC), a forum of civil society leaders, on Wednesday accused police of "brutal use" of force to evict tribals from their lands at Kalinga Nagar in Jajpur district.

"At least 30-40 tribals have sustained serious bullet injuries in police firing on Tuesday. Four of them are critical and battling for life in hospital. The district administration says only rubber bullets were fired at the crowd to prevent them from attacking the police. But the bloody wounds do not prove to be handy work of only rubber bullets," Justice Choudhury Pratap Mishra, head of the forum, said at a crowded press conference here.

A retired high court judge, Justice Mishra headed a four-member team that visited Kalinga Nagar on Tuesday afternoon soon after the police resorted to lathicharge and lobbed teargas cells at the tribals, besides firing rubber bullets.

Kalinga Nagar is in boil since past few days as the district administration is hell bent on construction of a common corridor to facilitate rail and road links to the Kalinga Nagar industrial complex where more than one and half a dozen steel industries are coming up.

The tribals are demanding land for land and adequate financial compensation for displacement.

The anti-displacement forum, Visthapan Virodhi Jana Manch [VVJM] secretary Rabindra Jarika said on Wednesday that the tribals were betrayed as the government - instead of sticking to its promise to continue dialogue - used force to acquire the land.

At least 40 frontline leaders of the VVJM have been put behind bars recently on charges of instigating violence and attacking police.

The area has virtually turned into a battle field with 29 platoons of armed police forces, two platoons of NSG commandoes and 70 top police officers being deployed their to facilitate land acquisition.

"The administration has trampled our human rights. We can no more continue our protest in the face of brutal use of force. We would rather commit mass suicide," VVJM secretary Mr Jarika said.

The CCC, while seeking immediate intervention of the chief minister Naveen Patnaik, urged him to order immediately halt to the police action in Kalinga Nagar. Besides, it demanded Rs 1 lakh compensation for each injured individual.

Meanwhile, Jajpur district administration did not allow political leaders from the Opposition Congress and BJP as well as media personSl to visit Kalinga Nagar.


(Economic Times, 31st March)

Kalinga Nagar Attack - Village resisting Tata Steel attacked by police and goons

If you see the footage carefully you will realise that this was no police force trying to maintain law and order. They have vandalised the 2 Jan 2006 martyrs’ memorials…they have destroyed the personal documents of the people…they have robbed money from homes… they have destroyed foodstocks and carried away lifestock, and killed cattle. It is as if we were returning to the medieval times of plunder and invasions.

Source: Sanhati