Maoist Approach in Nepal – Baburam Bhattarai

[A recent interview with Com Baburam Bhattarai clearly reminds us of Lenin’s defense of the independence of workers’ organisations:

“We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state.”]

1. The first step is, though we have won the election, the reactionary classes are hatching various conspiracies, especially the imperialists. They’re trying to instigate the monarchist forces and the bureaucratic bourgeois class, which is strongly aligned with the imperialists. They’re instigating them not to hand over power to the Maoists. So for that we may have to go through a process of struggle, for which the working class and all the oppressed masses should be prepared. If need be, we’ll have to go to the street to resist this reactionary backlash. Practically, we appealed to them to get prepared. And secondly, after we form the government under our leadership, then we’ll have to provide some immediate relief to the working class and the poor people, those who have suffered all along, they’re suffering from poverty, unemployment, and also discrimination. Families of those martyred. They’re poor people. Their sons and daughters were martyred so they will need immediate relief. And there are others who were disappeared, and those who were injured. That’s one aspect. The other aspect is the real basic poor people, working classes, who need economic relief, immediately. So we are thinking of providing a public distribution system, a network of cooperative stores whereby we can provide basic goods to the working class and the poor people. We want to provide some fund for that. And then, for education and health. Our position has been that education and health and employment should be — and also shelter and food security — these should be the fundamental right of the masses of the people. This we have already promised in our manifesto. And partially it has been written in the interim constitution also. So we’ll try to put it into practice. And for that, we’ll have to prepare a new budget, and appropriate new policy of the new government. The working class and the mass of the poor people should contribute to this process. They should advise our party and the future government, and they should be very vigilant to keep the government in line. If the public and the working class and the poor masses don’t put pressure, then the government may not be able to move in the right direction. There are very bad historical experiences in this regard, you see. So until and unless the working class is very vigilant and exercises its power to control the government from below, there are chances of the government deviating, not implementing what it has promised during the elections.

2. Firstly, our party recognizes that even when we participate in the government, this government is not a fully revolutionary government, it is a transitional government. So we’ll have to compromise with the other classes. But we would like to take the lead. We would like to transform the state from within. For that we have to create pressure from outside. For that our party’s position is that the whole leadership of the party won’t join the government. One section of the leadership will join the government, and the other section of the party leadership will remain outside and continue organizing and mobilizing the masses. So the party will take that route. Many of us will be [in the government]. The main form of struggle will be from within the government, to make the new constitution. But another section will remain outside the government. That’s why all of our central leaders didn’t participate in the elections. We want to organize and mobilize the masses so that they can put pressure on the government. So this is one aspect. And we want to develop certain institutions. Though we haven’t found the concrete form for them yet, we have made some policy decisions. When we put forth the concept of development of democracy in the 21st century, our slogan was that the government and the party should be constantly supervised by the masses, and the masses should intervene at times if need be. This is our policy. But we have not been able to find the concrete form. What will be the way of intervening in case the government deviates? What will be the form of putting pressure, apart from public demonstrations? How will they intervene in the state system? That mechanism we are trying to work out.