Communist Nepal : A party by any other name

Interview with Baburam Bhattarai in "Janadesh", 21 October.

By KIRAN PANDAY

Source: "Nepali Times"

Janadesh:

During your visit to the US, you mentioned that the party was thinking of changing its name to simply CPN. This has stirred a controversy.

Baburam Bhattarai:

I don’t understand why they are trying to make a storm in a teacup. The media exaggerated it as they were short of news during festival time. In fact, this issue had been a topic of discussion within the party for a long time. In 1949 there was only one communist party in Nepal, which divided in 1962 into different factions that consequently adopted suffixes to differentiate themselves from each other.

The followers of Marx were known as ’revolutionary’ while Khrushchev followers were known as ’reformist’. The Russian reformists lost out after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineties, and only those who followed Maoism survived. Since the Maoist party has become the country’s largest party, there is no need for it to have a tag anymore. We have discussed this within the party, but the media reported it as if the party was going to change its name?which is not true. The name of a communist party never changes.

The long-planned unification of the Maoists with CPN Unity Centre Mashal has not been finalised. It is said that a small faction in the party leadership, which doesn’t want a merger, is still influential in the party.
We are in a drive for party unification, not only with Unity Centre but also with other small revolutionary forces. In all parties one can find extreme rightists and constricted leftists as well as moderates. We are revolutionary in leadership and at the cadre level too. We believe the revolutionary movement in general should form a greater mainstream movement, and we are committed to that.

The party’s course is said to have deviated from revolutionary to reformist after the Chunbang meeting, and voices have been raised to demand a change in the party leadership.
This is not true.This is propaganda created by those elements seeking to weaken the party’s revolutionary leadership. Our party launched the people’s war, fought a bloody struggle, and then through the Chunbang meeting came the peace talks, the CA and the establishment of a democratic republic?a pro-public and independent republic. And moving ahead, this is the party’s revolutionary line. No one in the party can challenge it.

– Do you think the upcoming national convention will accept the Chunbang declaration or endorse a new one?

– We want to move forward with Maoist ideals and Prachanda Path. A 21st-century communism in Nepal will be unique: once a revolutionary people’s republic is achieved, we will move towards socialism and then to communism. This is the line our party is following and there is no question of deviating from it. The national convention in 2000 and meetings held in 2003 considered international circumstances and decided on the model of the 21st-century republic and political ideology that our party is following.

In the central committee meeting, Mohan Baidya tabled a different political document from that of chairman Prachanda regarding party policy.

– Which document do you think will get most support at the national convention?

– We might have many issues to be discussed at the national convention. Different views have come up in the central committee meeting which are yet to be finalised. However, after the national convention in 2000, we came up with a new ideology under the leadership of comrade Prachanda. Different thoughts may come up within the party which can be discussed. The party will follow the Prachanda ideology, which I believe is revolutionary and the correct direction for the party. And the upcoming national meeting will also endorse the mainstream ideology.