Results 1 to 20 of 74
Nepal: Tea Workers Seize Plantations
Nepal: Tea Workers Seize Plantations
Posted by Mike E on August 18, 2008
Clearly these are important developments. Anyone hearing news of these worker takeovers should sent them to Kasama and we will post them immediately. Thanks to Neil’s Nepal blog for pointing this out.
Such actions of worker control are a sign of a deepening revolutionary situation — and (from very scattered accounts) seem to initiative taken by the people inspired by the increasing power of the Maoist party. As we get more facts about this, we will be able to see whether those first impressions are true, and whether such developments are a trend within the sharpening crisis over Nepal’s revolution and its future.
Somewhere Lenin is Smiling: Workers ‘take over’ tea factories, resume operations
RAM CHANDRA ADHIKARI DHANKUTA, Aug 3 - Workers of three big tea estates, which remained closed for the last three weeks due to disputes between the management and workers, have forcefully took control of the processing factories and resumed operations.
The factories of Gurash Tea Estate, Kuwabashi Tea Plantation and Joon Tea Garden were taken into control by the workers on Friday and started tea production from Saturday.
Gopal Tamang, president of All Nepal Trade Unions Federation, a trade union closely affiliated with the Maoists, said the workers have resumed tea production and also started collecting tea leaves from the garden. He said the workers were forced to ‘capture’ the factories after the managements refused to initiate dialogues to end the deadlock and added that the takeover will continue until the managements agree to talk.
The tea estates were closed three weeks back after tea workers started protest programs demanding wage hikes, permanent appointments, and medical insurance, among others. The managements of the tea estates have been refusing to sit for negotiations citing insecurity.
Kasama Project- We Are the Ones
South Asia Revolution - Information Project
Kasama Threads
"Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution." - George Jackson
But... but... I thought the Maoists were going to supress this sort of activity in order to placate imperialism! I thought they were "red bureaucrats /traitors/Stalinists/[insert liberal buzzword here]"!
Let's hope that these sort of things continue to occur and grow more frequent, and let's draw hope and inspiration from the Maoist-led revolutionary process unfolding in Nepal.
Sounds like things are progresisng for the better there. Something I admittedly did not expect. Didn't the party at some point say that they were "committed capitalists?"
I'd suspect that's a misquote. The CPN (M) have stated their dedication to building what they call "national industrial capitalism" in Nepal, while continuing to mobilise the workers and peasants to lay the basis for eventual socialist transformation. Considering the severe underdevelopment of Nepal, they have no alternative - there's next to nothing to nationalise!
Mindtoaster, the role of the Nepalese revolution at this point starts with the completion of bourgeois democratic tasks, internal peace, amongst other things. It also needs to (and will) develop a capitalist economy to build infrastructure and basically get Nepal out of the feudal quagmire it finds itself in (as defeating feudalism unleashes previously non-existent capitalist relations).
The second stage is basically the advance to socialism.
Kasama Project- We Are the Ones
South Asia Revolution - Information Project
Kasama Threads
"Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution." - George Jackson
The question here, however, is whether the Maoists will use their influence/power to compel these workers to turn the plantation back over to the capitalists, in the name of building "national industrial capitalism", or if they will, rather, use their influence/power to support this worker takeover and aid the workers in running the plantation themselves (i.e., not substitute "nationalization" and state management for real workers' control).
The former is what we've seen happen with the "official Communist" parties in the past (e.g., Spain in the 1930s); the latter is what Marx saw as a task of a communist party participating in a democratic revolution and seeking to build that struggle forward in the direction of establishing the transition from capitalism to communism -- that is, building "the revolution in permanence".
Wait, I thought Maoism was a peasant movement that neglected the needs of the proletariat!?
Look, I'm willing to give the Nepalese Maoists the benefit of the doubt, based on the fact that they have actually lived up to many of their promises, most notably ending the monarchy and establishing a republic. But now, of course, the real tests begin. The CPN(M) has shown the ability to learn and develop based on objective conditions and general communist principle; let's see if they can continue that process.
I've been trying to read more on what's happening with this situation. Unfortunately, only this article from Kantipur Online and a short blurb from the World Socialist Web Site are available to read (in English, anyway). From what I can see, though, here's what seems to have went down:...
For most of July, these workers staged a run-of-the-mill labor campaign -- strike pickets, informational meetings, etc. Apparently, this campaign went nowhere. So, on August 2, through some process, the union representing the tea workers changed from the old tactics to the "capture" of the factories and production under worker-union control. According to the WSWS report, some workers returned to work "under protest". No further news is available.
So, my main questions are this: What was the process by which the decision was made to move from the "campaign" tactics to the "capture" tactics? Was it a mass membership meeting, or a decision by the union officials? If it was a mass meeting format, were most of the workers there and did they vote in their majority for this action?
Finally, what is being done to make this struggle part of a larger historical shift toward workers' control of production throughout the economy? Has there been a process of organizing workplace committees/councils/communes that are sustained bodies organizing the day-to-day activity of the factories? Or, is this a case where, if the capitalists concede to some of the workers' demands, the union will dissolve workers' control and work to reassert the control of the capitalists over production?
Comrades, this is an important moment for the Maobadi. Much of their relationship to the Nepalese rural proletariat will be shown through this situation. Will they go the route of communists, and use this as an opportunity to open a "school of communism" for our class brothers and sisters? Or will they go the route of social democrats, and use the proletariat as a battering ram against the bourgeoisie for the security of their own power and position?
I am genuinely interested in learning where this struggle is going.
Raw, thanks for posting this!
We just need the same in China, Cuba and North Korea now (and elsewhere, too!).
Does anyone here know much about the Prachanda Path? All I'm getting from it off Wikipedia is that it's based upon the lines of MLM and also influenced by Ho Chi Minh. Obviously they use guerilla warfare as a tactic, but apart from that I'm pretty ignorant on the subject. What do their policies include (land reform, industrialization, etc.) ?
Miles,
The crucial task at this point in Nepal is building "national industrial capitalism", and, no matter how "counterrevolutionary" that may sound, it is the necessary prerequisite (along with the democratic class bloc) to the establishment of socialism (and more thorough, consistent, worker's power).
The takeover of the factory is very important, and shows the increasing relevance and popularity the Maoists are showing in the urban areas, and amongst workers (and goes against the anarchist and trotskyist thought that maoists are peasant rebels that careless about the workers). Will the workers maintain control of the factory and production as it is now? Probably not. This is something that I sincerely cant say because I dont know how things will turn out. Do you think that, considering the conditions of Nepal, direct workers control is possible? Idk.
And I also agree with your assessment as far as the "official Communist parties" goes. I sincerely hope (and it seems as I am correct so far) that the Maoists, with the PM leadership of Prachanda, pursue the correct path of the NDR and maintain on that socialist road (and defeat the growing tendency towards "negotiationism" and other revisionist trends).
Kasama Project- We Are the Ones
South Asia Revolution - Information Project
Kasama Threads
"Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution." - George Jackson
Sometimes the party inspires the people. Sometimes the people inspire the party. Here's hoping for some positive feedback.
Personally, I think the hue and cry about "national industrial capitalism" as the economic goal is a bogeyman. Of course most of the economic development in Nepal at this conjuncture will be necessarily "national industrial capitalist" in character! Does anyone honestly expect that the development of the communist mode of production is possible?! The material prerequisites don't even exist for a state-ized capitalist economy in Nepal right now.
But the issue at this moment is not the kind of economy the CPN(M)-led government is going to shepherd, but whether the state they lead will serve the exploiters or the exploited. When Marx and Engels, for example, spoke of "the revolution in permanence" and even the "dictatorship of the proletariat", it was with the understanding that this revolutionary rule of the exploited and oppressed would be over a developing capitalist economy -- that it would be the conscious intervention of the working people's republic into the economy and the systematic uprooting of the capitalist class, that "the proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie" until classes, class distinctions and antagonisms are abolished.
This is where the issue of the Maobadi-led state becomes important. More to the point, this is where, in the early phases of a working people's republic, political principle -- the extent of the conscious character of the revolution -- becomes central. A communist party at the head of a transitional regime can shepherd a fledgling and developing capitalist economy at the same time as it develops as a working people's republic -- as a state that acts in the class interests of the proletariat. Lenin's understanding of the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" for the democratic revolution rests precisely on this point (see Two Tactics for more on this).
A democratic dictatorship of the exploited and oppressed shepherding a developing "national industrial capitalism" is what Lenin saw as the consequence of a 1905-style revolution in Russia, as opposed to Martov and the Mensheviks, who saw the role of the social democrats as shepherding the bourgeoisie into political power. That is, whereas the Bolsheviks saw the role of the social democrats as that of resolving the contradiction that would necessarily arise from the victory of a working people's party in the lead of a democratic revolution in favor of working people's class rule (thus eventually expropriating the capitalist class of its social-economic power), the Mensheviks saw the role of the social democrats as that of resolving the contradiction that would necessarily arise from the victory of a working people's party in the lead of a democratic revolution in favor of capitalist rule (thus eventually expropriating the working class of their political power).
This issue of how this contradiction between the class holding state power and the class holding social-economic power is resolved is especially acute in Nepal. Unlike with Russia in 1905 or 1917, there is not even the hope of a worldwide wave of revolutionary struggle overturning capitalist rule in one or several Great Power states -- not even the "morale factor" exists. This means there is, in fact, less "wiggle room" or "grey area" with the principles and consciousness that guide the revolution. When the Bolsheviks abandoned direct workers' control of production and re-instituted one-person management in 1919, there were many sectors of the party that rationalized it by saying "well, when the workers in Germany rise up and overthrow their ruling class, we will have the means to reinstitute workers' control". That cannot even be said in the case of Nepal today. Thus, while that would seem to demand more overall conciliation from the Maobadi, in fact it demands a greater firmness in principle while also requiring more flexibility in tactic.
That is, if history is any judge of these matters.
Do I personally think that direct workers' control at these three tea factories is possible? I really don't know, either, comrade. The only people who can answer that question are the workers themselves. However, as communists taking an interest in this unfolding revolution, we should be able to answer the corrollary question: Are the Maobadi able and willing, if called upon to do so, or at the very least if sensing the need for it, to create that "school of communism" and provide the political (though not necessarily the practical) leadership necessary to aid the workers in establishing their own control?
If the workers abandon an attempt at workers' control of production, it should be their decision, not that of the CPN(M). They should not be forced to abandon their attempt because the "Maoist Communist Party" refused to help them, just as the "official Communist Party" has already done in past years; they should not be placed in a position where they have to abandon it because the Maobadi could not help them.
In other words, the workers should not be used as pawns by the Maobadi in a larger game. I know that sounds crass, but I cannot think of a nice way to put it right now.
In many ways, we share the same hopes, even if we come from different doctrinal perspectives.
Last edited by Martin Blank; 21st August 2008 at 06:41.
I was speaking to Mike Ely on this, since I want to learn more about this as well, and he had some important things to say. To paraphrase him, he said the NDR has socialist elements from the beginning, and, if we seize and divide plantations (policy of land to the tiller), we are eradicating feudalism for small property, and thus clearing the path for socialist transformation in the form of rural communes (which the maoists already have in some rural areas).
The new economy will not ONLY be capitalist, but contain elements of a socialist economy within it, like the hydroelectric project itself, that exists within the NDR. This new democracy eliminate feudalism (so contains small ownership and markets) but contains the seeds of socialism within it.
Kasama Project- We Are the Ones
South Asia Revolution - Information Project
Kasama Threads
"Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution." - George Jackson
I think the maoist election victory is an inspiration to the workingclass, and inspire's them to do hings such as these, but ultimatly the maoists will not and do not even have an interest in living up to the illusions projected upon them. "national capitalism" is menshevist-stalinist nonsense and ultimatly constitutes a stab in the back of the workingclass and denying the international nature of the socialist revolution. However, as I said, the coming of power of the maoists might be a pretext for something grander. What is necessary of course is to form a real socialist and workingclass alternative that is up to the task, when the maoists fail.
Don't roll those eyes too hard. Your head might explode.Wait, I thought Maoism was a peasant movement that neglected the needs of the proletariat!?
Workers making an autonomous action against management might have nothing to do with "Maoist Government" (the same one which is not against private property). When workers occupy their workplace, it's not because "Maoist affiliated" union bureaucrat told them to do so.
I have a suggestion for you Mao-lovers: don't get too cocky. The government is not suppressing this because it's not its own capital.
In 1936. French workers occupied when People's Front came to power, believing that the Government might "watch over" this process. It all ended in battles with the "people's government" police.
::: Formerly DJ-TC ::: IWA-AIT :::
Провери обим злонамере непријатеља
и његову снагу о кремени брид своје. — Oskar Davičo
Yeah if the Maoists are pouring their political credentials (oh wait...) onto the nepalese maoists they, like many nepalese, will be sorely dissapointed.
Well, I appreciate you bringing comrade Ely into this, and hope he eventually finds the time to engage this discussion.
I am perhaps a little confused by the invoking of the "New Democratic Revolution" in the case of Nepal. I had thought that the CPN(M) had decided that it was still to premature to consider the country in the "New Democratic" phase. If I am wrong about this (and I see no reason why I should doubt comrade Ely's insistence that this is in the "New Democratic" period), then it seems to me that it raises a number of new questions.
In his article, "On New Democracy", Mao writes:
I will leave aside for the moment the issue of what exactly constitute "revolutionary classes", since I know that is a longer discussion between our two trends, and concentrate for now on the view, correctly stated by Mao, that a "new democratic revolution", which creates a "democratic dictatorship" of the oppressed and exploited classes, is part of a process of "clearing ... a wider path" for the transition to communism.Originally Posted by Mao Zedong
Even though I am not a Maoist, I can see that there are definite parallels between his "new democratic revolution" and Lenin's "democratic dictatorship". And, in my view, I can also see that there is a genuine attempt to encapsulate the view expressed by Marx in his "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League" of March 1850, and summed up in his slogan of "the revolution in permanence" by Mao (and Lenin). My questions begin at this point: the extent to which the application of this Maoist formulation draws consistently from the communist theory of Marx (and, to a lesser extent, Lenin), and the extent to which the actions of the CPN(M) stand within this consistency.
====================
I'm beginning to think that this discussion, if we agree to go forward with it, will fast outgrow the narrower topic that sparked it. Nevertheless, I think that if you want to continue this theoretical discussion, since it does seem to have piqued your curiosity, we should do so in another thread. We can, of course, link back to this and re-post the discussion elements from here in there, so that there is context and preliminary exchanges made available.
How does this sound to you, comrade?
Certainly the popular front governments of both France - and perhaps even more so spain - are worth thinking about when trying to make sense of the political situation in Nepal. In the case of the latter, in particular, what we see is largely agrarian, underdeveloped country in which a monarchy was replaced by an asy coalition of left republicans and socialists.
Yet there are also important differences in the Nepali situation. The maoists represent a mass organisation which - unlike either the french or spanish left at the time - has already been through the experience of civil war. Furthermore, physical force in the country is not monopolised by forces hailing from the ancien regime.
It is hard to say how things will develope in Nepal. The idea of building National Industrial Capitalism and intervening in its developement on the side of the workers is not unproblematic. For capitalism to be maintained the government must constantly intervene to protcect property rights. Moreover, it is hard to see how capitalist developement might be achieved without serious foreign direct investment, which again limits the scope of the nepali legislature - in which the maoists are minority - to intervene on the side of the workers.
This is not to say that the Maoists are in any way bound to simply betray and repress the working class, but rather that they will eventually face a stark choice as to the future of nepal.
