Nepal; a nice little earner for the Maoist ruling class - in Lenin's footsteps

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

Nepal's Maoist Party has won around 220 seats in the recent Constituent Assembly (CA) election, about one-third of the total. Though the largest party, they don't have an overall majority; they have stated their wish to lead a coalition government.




But as the result became clear Maoist leader Prachanda told journalists “I will be declared the acting President of this country very soon…which will be followed by occupying the post of the all powerful President of New Nepal…this is the peoples’ mandate…no force on earth can disobey this mandate”. (Telegraphnepal.com 26/4/2008); the man who has long talked of his wish to 'abolish royal autocracy' now speaks of his "all powerful" role.

Recent news reports reveal the wages and expenses of the newly elected members of the Assembly. While they spend an indefinite period drawing up a new national Constitution they will be paid - by Nepali standards - enormous wages;
each CA member will receive net salaries of 23 thousand one hundred rupees per month [£176/$345/Eur224]. On top of this they'll get expenses for drinking water, electricity, telephone, rent, newspapers & "miscellaneous". These expense allowances bring the total income of a CA member to 45 thousand 98 rupees [£345/$674/Eur437] each per month.
The CA President (probably Maoist Party boss Prachanda) will have a monthly salary/expenses income of 60,600 rupees [£463/$905/Eur588] - plus a petrol allowance of 24,500 rupees [£187/$366/Eur237]. The vice president will scrape by on a few thousand less.

So the ruling class, led by the Maoist 'proletarian vanguard', feather their nest. These salaries must be compared with the Nepali average wage of just $200 a year [£102/Eur129]; Nepal is the poorest country in Asia. Around 10% of the population takes 50% of the wealth, the bottom 40% takes 10%. 85% of Nepalese people don’t have access to health care. So the monthly income of a CA politician is well over three times the annual national average wage! Jobs within the CA are already being allocated by all the various member parties to their friends and family.
In a public appearance last week Maoist leader Prachanda said, “I had the opportunity to play the role of Lenin itself in Nepal”. With his fat salary and perks he is certainly following in Bolshevik footsteps; Lenin travelled in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, as did other government officials. "Autocracy’s main enemy, Vladimir Lenin, had no reservations about inheriting the hated old regime’s automobile collection. Lenin used the Tsar’s Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost to drive around town while his colleagues divided up the rest of the collection among them. But two revolutions and a civil war had taken their toll on the cars, and in 1919 [during a time of famine and extreme hardships for the poor] the Council of People’s Commissars had to order 70 more from London." (Aeroflot site). Lenin moved into a dacha (country house) previously owned by a millionaire, while much of the other Bolshevik leadership took occupation of the luxurious Lux hotel in Petrograd,dining on preferential food rations.[1] Then and now, for those who inherit the State, its perks and luxuries are clearly irresistable and seen as just reward for their conquest and devotion to power. And so the new Nepalese republic is born - the furniture and faces at the top have been shifted around a little, and that is all.
There's another interpretation (though less likely) of the reference to Lenin - as a coded pointer towards a historical precedent; that Prachanda's long-term plan is for the Constituent Assembly in Nepal to share the same fate as it did in Russia. When the Bolsheviks were ready to seize sole power for themselves, a revolutionary guard (led by Anatoli Zhelezniakov[2], an anarchist sailor[3]) dismissed the CA, dominated as it was by indecisive bourgeois moderate politicians. The Bolsheviks saw its dissolution as a decisive step in the progress from a bourgeois to a proletarian revolution (though the fact that, unlike Nepal's Maoists, the Bolsheviks did not emerge victorious from the CA elections may have influenced their choices too). The Maoists might, ideally, like to achieve a neat Leninist orthodoxy by replicating this state of affairs, but they know the necessities of 'realpolitik'. External geo-political pressures and economic realities mean that - for the moment, at least - they need to play the democratic game in order to attract foreign investment, so as to try and build up a sound politico-economic base. A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.

=========

NOTES
[1] "Ante Ciliga described what he called the state capitalists' 'morals on the morrow of the October revolution' as follows:
From the first days of the October revolution, the Communist [sic] leaders had shown a great lack of shame in these matters. Having occupied the building, they furnished it with the best furniture from shops that had been nationalized. From the same source their wives had procured themselves fur coats, each taking two or three at a time. All the rest was in keeping. (Ciliga, 1979, p. 121)
Far from the emergence of the privileged consumption enjoyed by the state capitalist class coinciding with Stalin's rise to power, some of the state capitalists of Stalin's day looked back with nostalgia to the comfortable life they had experienced during the early years of Bolshevik rule:
During the winter of 1930 fuel ran short and we had to do without hot water for a few days. The wife of a high official who lived at the Party House was full of indignation. `What a disaster to have this man Kirov! True, Zinoviev is guilty 'fractionism' but in his day central heating always functioned properly and we were never short of hot water. Even in 1920, when they had to stop the factories in Leningrad for lack of coal, we could always have our hot baths with the greatest comfort.' (Ibid., pp. 121-2)
Another illustration that Stalin was not personally responsible for establishing state capitalist privilege in Russia is that during the period 1923-5, when Stalin had only an old car at his disposal 'Kamenev had already appropriated a magnificent Rolls' (Medvedev - 1979, p. 33)."
( State Capitalism - the wages system under new management, Buick & Crump.)
[2] On Zhelezniakov, see; http://libcom.org/library/zhelezniak...hy-avrich-1917
[3] The Ukrainian anarchist "Makhno defended that action and explained that Zhelezniakov, a Black Sea sailor and delegate to Kronstadt, had played one of the most active roles in 1917. Makhno merely expressed regret that the fiery sailor, who enjoyed great prestige among his colleagues, had not simultaneously seen fit to dismiss Lenin and his "Soviet of People's Commissars" which "would have been historically vital and would have helped unmask the stranglers of the revolution in good time." "
http://libcom.org/library/makhno-bib...terword-skirda

history repeats itself once more.

[Herman]

They haven't even formed a government yet and you're already complaining?

[BobKKKindle$]

This article criticizes the Maoists before they have even been able to form a government - it would be far more sensible to wait and see how the Maoists behave once they are in power and have been given the opportunity to implement change, before we start making judgements about whether they deserve a high salary. The fact that the Maoists were able to win an election victory shows they have popular support, and no other party has been able to recognize and provide solutions to the problems faced by ordinary people in Nepal.

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

This article criticizes the Maoists before they have even been able to form a government - it would be far more sensible to wait and see how the Maoists behave once they are in power and have been given the opportunity to implement change, before we start making judgements about whether they deserve a high salary. The fact that the Maoists were able to win an election victory shows they have popular support, and no other party has been able to recognize and provide solutions to the problems faced by ordinary people in Nepal.

From their statements given to the bourgeois press I would argue it is obvious how they are going to behave.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Yes you mean a deep acceptance of multi-party democracy and pluralism.

They gave that as a problem of china, north korea and the USSR etc.
just last week there was a bbc article which had quotes outlining their stance towards democracy with one condition, so long as there was no return of the king, they supported democracy.


Nepal 'boosts global communism'


The leader of Nepal's Maoists has said that his party's recent election victory is a sign of the global resurgence of communism.
But Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, stressed his party believed in retaining multi-party competition.
Prachanda has made it clear that he wants to become the first president of a Nepalese republic.
The Maoists won twice as many seats as their nearest rivals in last month's polls for a constitutional assembly.
Investment priorities
Prachanda's comments are a reminder of the extraordinary way in which Nepal has contradicted the world's move away from communism in the past 20 years.
The leader of the former rebels told the AFP news agency that the Maoists' big poll victory signalled a wave of revolution in developing countries, which he said would spread to the developed world.
But Prachanda stressed that the Maoists did not believe in a one-party state.
He said they had concluded that "multi-partyism is a must, even in socialism" and that without competition, a vibrant society could not be created.
The Maoists have said time and again that such pluralism is necessary.
Another senior Maoist leader, CP Gajurel, recently told the BBC that communism had failed in other countries precisely because it did not allow competition, adding that it would be normal for the party to lose some elections, then come back to win others.
Prachanda also reiterated the Maoists' support for private investment in Nepal, both local and foreign.
But he said Nepal's people and government should decide on investment priorities.
The new assembly is due to sit some time after 20 May and is set to abolish the monarchy.
Discussions are in progress on what should be the composition of the country's new government.
Some in the traditionally biggest party, the Nepali Congress, say the current Congress Prime Minister GP Koirala should continue in the post. But many others ridicule this suggestion.

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That was a recent BBC article. It is amazing and very foresighted to accept pluralism and multipartyism, and brave considering the hostile nature of the world they live in at the moment.

lets celebrate what the maoists have done, becuase we will never witness a perfect party or organisation, but these maoists have got the most important part right!

[Dimentio]

Yes, Nepal must move from the point where it is standing, not try to become some form of Utopia at first without the infrastructure to support it. But what the country needs most of all is land redistribution.

[Zurdito]

In Lenin's footsteps?

Lenin rejected outright the idea of a bourgeois revolution in the era of imperialism. He recognised that in the era of imperialism and monopoly capitalism - the era which itself has abolished private property and has centralised capital under the direction of the bourgeois state, one which exists to socialise risk whilst keeping profit in private hands, including its own - the only move forward to socialism is to dismantle the bourgeois state itself and then to use the new workers state to expropriate all private property.

the maoists in Nepal on the other hand have already called for a utopian "transition" from "feudalism" to capitalism in co-operation with the "national bourgeoisie" and their state, whilst still operating within the framework of imperialist global capitalism.

where is the similarity?

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

In Lenin's footsteps?

Lenin rejected outright the idea of a borugeois revolution, and recognised that in the era of imeprialism and monopoly capitalism, the only move forward to socialism is the overthrow of the bourgeois state itself and then the use of a workers state to expropriate all private property.

the maoists in Nepal on the other hand have already called for a utopian "transition" from "feudalism" to capitalism in co-operation with the "national bourgeoisie" and their state, whilst still operating within the framework of imperialist global capitalism.

where is the similarity?

In the fact that the Maoists are following the historical path set by Lenin and the Bolsheviks of consolidating a wealthy, bureaucratic elite who come to encompass the new ruling class (apart from this time they didn't even need to pretend to stand for social revolution).

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

lets celebrate what the maoists have done, becuase we will never witness a perfect party or organisation, but these maoists have got the most important part right!

What their opportunistic acceptance of bourgeois representative democracy and the cultivation of investment opportunities for Western capital? Hoorah!! Viva la Revolucion!

[RedStarOverChina]

In the fact that the Maoists are following the historical path set by Lenin and the Bolsheviks of consolidating a wealthy, bureaucratic elite who come to encompass the new ruling class (apart from this time they didn't even need to pretend to stand for social revolution).

Believe it or not, even that can be considered progressive in this particular case.

Just about anything's better than the feudal mess it is now.

The Maoists, bourgeoisie or not, are going to revolutionize Nepal into something that resembles a modern Bourgeoisie state...And that's good for a country as backwards as Nepal.

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

Believe it or not, even that can be considered progressive in this particular case.

Just about anything's better than the feudal mess it is now.

The Maoists, bourgeoisie or not, are going to revolutionize Nepal into something that resembles a modern Bourgeoisie state...And that's good for a country as backwards as Nepal.

That is teleological rubbish. Historical dialectics is a failed doctrine. It doesn't stand at all against the patently obvious empirical evidence to the contrary. This is Marxism at its most repugnant. Nothing but a reactionary fairy tale that disguises the consolidation of political elites and the continued exploitation of the working class and peasantry.

"teleological dialectics pose an idea of becoming that simultaneously justifies and annuls the weight of the suffering of history and the significance of revolt." A. Negri

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

What their opportunistic acceptance of bourgeois representative democracy and the cultivation of investment opportunities for Western capital? Hoorah!! Viva la Revolucion!

Lol "anarchist communism or death!"

right, you are an ultra left so your are in no way able to speak with any authority to be honest.

[Herman]

That is teleological rubbish. Historical dialectics is a failed doctrine. It doesn't stand at all against the patently obvious empirical evidence to the contrary. This is Marxism at its most repugnant. Nothing but a reactionary fairy tale that disguises the consolidation of political elites and the continued exploitation of the working class and peasantry.

What are you talking about? A bourgeois state is far better than a feudal one. Every marxist knows this.

[Zurdito]

What are you talking about? A bourgeois state is far better than a feudal one. Every marxist knows this.

Nepal was not a feudal state, there are no feudal states left in the world today, the Nepalese state existed to provide conditions for and to direct and protect the process of capital accumulation. In this way, it was in direct contradiction to the interests of the majority of the population.

Nepal was a bourgeois state, and will remain so under the Maoists.

[bezdomni]

Nepal was a bourgeois state, and will remain so under the Maoists.

Sorry, but how can you have a bourgeois state with an autocratic monarchy and no substantial urban working class or industry to speak of?

You either don't understand what a bourgeois state entails, or you don't understand how Nepal was structured before the revolution. Nepal was very strongly feudal.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

manufacturing in 2000 was about one fifth of annual GDP. Thats pretty hefty chunk.

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

Lol "anarchist communism or death!"

right, you are an ultra left so your are in no way able to speak with any authority to be honest.

I am not really sure how in any way that constitutes an argument.

What are you talking about? A bourgeois state is far better than a feudal one. Every Marxist knows this.

Well actually no. Only Marxists so tied to stageist orthodoxy that they feel it is appropriate to use nineteenth century economic categories previously only applied to pre-modern Western states. "feudalism" is an anachrohism and your 'theory' only seeks to justify the exploitation and disempowerment of the Nepalese people. Nepal is a mixed agrarian economy very much connected to a global capitalist system.

[The Advent of Anarchy]

I do not have a positive view of this little victory for the Maoists and, in this case, their reformist counterparts. I know what a nation-state does, and it needs to end ASAP.

Fuck Maoism, fuck Leninism, and fuck any attempt to create a "temporary worker's" government! We all know the failure of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, along with every single one of the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat". Freedom comes after the revolution, not another damn oppressive government.

Oh, and I almost forgot; fuck reformism.

I'm in the mood to say fuck today. O_o

[Zurdito]

manufacturing in 2000 was about one fifth of annual GDP. Thats pretty hefty chunk.

That would be the same proportion as the US and comparable to the UK.

Nepal is a mixed agrarian economy very much connected to a global capitalist system.

And this is the main point: the Nepalese state is a vassal for imperialist capital, a small ruling class bought off by imperialism which exists primarily to oversee the exploitation of Nepal, and enrich itself in the process.

At times they may clash with imperialism - something they are forced to do by the class struggle at home - and demand specific improvements in terms and conditions.

When this happens, we should defend Nepal from imperialist aggression in any form, but we should not raise the illusions that the redundant Nepalese ruling class and its state can provide any long term leadership in this struggle, or that they have any role in the struggle against imperialism except to seek to contain it and lead it to defeat, due to their most basic instinct as a class being the need to defend private property, and therefore defend the global economic system.

[Guerrilla22]

I'd say it's a bit premature to start analyzing the course the CPN Maoist and the elventeen other CPN factions will set for Nepal.