Voice of Revolutionary Students

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Report by the CARC delegation to Nepal attending the 18th Conference of All Nepal National Independent Students Union (Revolutionary)




Party of the Committees to Support Resistance – for Communism (CARC) - Italy
Via Tanaro, 7 - 20128 Milano - Tel/Fax 02.26306454
e-mail: resistenza@carc.it – website: www.carc.it

National Direction - International Relations Department
Tel. +39 0226306454 - e-mail: carc.ri@libero.it
04/01/2011


Report from Nepal[1]

Kathmandu, 19th December 19, 2010 - A delegation of the CARC Party was invited here in Kathmandu to join the 18th Conference of All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union (Revolutionary) (ANNISU(r)), the most strong student organization in the country, collecting hundreds of thousands of revolutionary students and which is linked to Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Unified (CPN(m)U).

There were present at the conference the representatives of revolutionary student movements in Punjab and Tamil Nadu (India), of Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Philippines, Norway, Australia, Greece. There were delegates of the Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Turkey and North Kurdistan and from Basic, a revolutionary and progressive magazine in Canada. The delegations remained until 18th December, with the exception of the delegation of Punjab, returned home because of the sudden illness that has killed one of its components.

The Conference showed that the revolutionary movement in Nepal can count on the youth of the country to defend and make advance the revolution. The large support by young people to the revolution and to the CPN(m)U that guides it shows that the Party has so far followed the just line. The ability of a communist party to collect the support of the young people of the popular masses is a sign of its vitality and of the rightness of its own line.

Is the CPN(m)U continuing to follow the just line? Given the importance this party and the revolution in Nepal have in the international communist movement there are many people who ask it. Many think that the CPN(m)U is in a stalemate. Some think that the road taken with the interruption of the armed struggle in 2006 was wrong, even if it led to great popular movement of April 2006, to the subsequent fall of the bloody king and to the end of the monarchy, to the victory of the Maoists who won 40% of seats in the Constituent Assembly. The present stalemate, according to these critics, would confirm their reasons.

In fact, we can speak of stalemate only in the sense that the Maoists and the reactionaries are facing each other so that for a long time no one of them has been able to advance, and the political activity in the country is essentially blocked. We cannot speak of stalemate for the Maoist party, which is developing a two lines struggle at higher and higher levels. The latest developments before the Conference of ANNISU(r) have occurred in the expanded Central Committee meeting that was attended by 6,000 party members in Kathmandu in late November and early December. After the meeting, the unity has not been reached, and indeed three documents were approved, one of the Chairman Prachanda, the others of two vice presidents, Kiran and Battharai.

In the face of criticism and doubts, some of most important leaders of UCPN-M (Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Basanta, Dharmentra Bastala, of the International Department, Ananta, of the Standing Committee, the vice president Prakesh, Rashmi, president of the Youth Communist League) gave the same explanation of the tactics adopted, indicating that the party is not divided on key issues, so as some revolutionary forces fear and as the reactionary forces hope. As still a part of the masses is convinced that the change can be achieved through a peaceful process, the tactic is to bring to exhaust all the possibilities in this sense, practicing all the ways of peaceful mobilization that the masses suggest and follow, showing in practice that "the political power grows from the barrel of a gun", that only revolution can bring progress in the country, freeing it from the chains of feudalism and oppression.

The stalemate between revolutionary and reactionary forces cannot be maintained forever, and indeed must be unlocked in the coming months. Above all, the two lines struggle in the party could not go on indefinitely, putting the party in terms of not being able to intervene timely when, thanks to its action, situation is ripe for a revolutionary passage.

On 17th December there was a meeting of the Party Central Committee that some Politburo leaders have described as very important, marking a qualitative leap in the history of the country as was the passage in 2006, from armed struggle to the struggle with peaceful means. The meeting concluded approving a single document, Battharai’s line was in the minority, Prachanda and Kiran converged and were majority. Their line plans the development of the revolutionary process with all the means that will be needed to move towards the establishment of the Federal People's Republic in Nepal and to face the conspiracies and plots that Nepalese reactionaries are weaving supported and pushed by the Indian government.

In this 17th December, then, it has been done an important step, a leap in quality in the process of construction of the revolution that the Nepalese Maoists demonstrated to be able to lead, as they say, with science and art. We are pleased to have witnessed it and we will do our best to understand its importance, for make it known by the international communist movement, and to make the masses of our country know that Communism is being reborn in the world like is being reborn here in Nepal .

[1] Published on “Resistenza”, January 2011 (http://www.carc.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1000:nepal-la-rivoluzione-avanza&catid=6:resistenza-del-mese&Itemid=11).

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Marxism Leninism Maoism - Basic Course

MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, BASIC COURSE.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. What is Marxism-Leninism Maoism

3. Socio-economic Conditions Leading to
the Birth of Marxism

4. Early Life of Marx and Engels
Until They Became Marxists

5. The Three Sources of Marxism

6. The Basic Foundations of Marxist Philosophy – Dialectical and Historical Materialism

7. Struggle Against Utopian Socialism and the Establishment of Scientific Socialism

8. Marxist Political Economy

9. Marxism Fuses Its Links with the Working Class

10. The Lessons of the Paris Commune

11. Spread of Marxism and Rise of Opportunism

12. Marxism in Russia – Early Life of Lenin

13. Lenin and the Proletarian Party of a New Type

14. Russian Bourgeois Revolution of 1905 – Development of Proletarian Tactics

15. World War I – Opportunism v/s Revolutionary Tactics

16. Lenin’s Analysis of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

17. The Great October Socialist Revolution

18. The Formation of the Third International

19. The National and Colonial Question

20. Early Life and Revolutionary Contributions of Stalin upto the 1917 Revolution

21. Socialist Construction – the Russian Experience

22. Fight against Trotskyism and Other Opportunist Trends

23. Tactics During World War II

24. Mao’s Early Years

25. Mao’s Fight Against Right and ‘Left’ Lines and Victory of the Chinese Revolution00

26. The Path of Revolution for the Colonies and Semi-Colonies

27. Mao on Philosophy

28. Mao on The Party

29. Socialist Construction – The Chinese Experience

30. The Great Debate – Mao’s Fight Against Kruschev’s Modern Revisionism

31. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

32. After The Death of Mao


INTRODUCTION

Most of us revolutionary activists are ‘practical’ people. We feel, “Why bother about ideology, and theory, and such other things, … that is for the scholars and ‘intellectuals’, … the most important thing is to get on with the job”. The lower level activists and members feel that it is sufficient that the CC and the higher committees do study and provide guidance; and often, many members in the higher committees also feel that other work is too pressing to ‘allow’ much time for theory.

On the other hand, there are a few others who feel it is necessary to know every work of the Great Teachers in order to work ‘properly’. They spend a large amount of time in trying to read everything. They also have a tendency to treat everything they read as dogma.
It is necessary to avoid both these attitudes in our study.

All comrades should give sufficient time and attention to study in order to understand the essence of our ideology — Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought. Rather than knowing by heart a large number of books, it is necessary to understand deeply the essential and basic aspects of our guiding ideology.

If we do this and learn to apply it in our day to day work we can greatly improve our practice, both, as individual activists, as well as, of the party as a whole. Very often we understand and analyse the world around us only according to our own limited experiences and therefore arrive at wrong conclusions.

A proper understanding of MLM Thought can help us overcome such errors. At other times a superficial understanding can lead to going by only the letter of certain party decisions and stands and not understanding their essence and spirit. Such mistakes can also be avoided by a deeper grasp of MLM Thought. By our study of MLM Thought, we learn from the positive and negative experiences of World Revolution; we learn to absorb the good in it, and we learn to differentiate between the good and the bad in our own practice. We thus learn to recognise, criticise, and fight all types of opportunism. In short, MLM Thought is a must to mould our practice in the light of theory.

This Basic Course in MLM Thought is intended to present to activists an understanding of the principal aspects of our ideology. Our ideology is, first and foremost, a ‘practical’ theory, meant to be implemented and put into practice. The theory itself emerged in the course of numerous class struggles. It is therefore essential to understand the concrete material conditions and social practice through which the Great Teachers of the proletariat – Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao – discovered and formulated its basic principles. Thus, this book has been presented by relating the historical process of the growth and development of MLM Thought. The basic concepts have been presented in short by, wherever possible, linking to the socioeconomic conditions, main political events and class struggles that gave birth to them. In order to understand any particular aspect in detail, more particular study would be necessary. This Basic Course however is meant to provide an essential basis for understanding the dynamic process of the development of our ideology and in what historical conditions and circumstances certain stands and theory came into being.
Come; let’s begin our study

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A Call for the resignation of Aaron Porter has President of the National Union of Students





A model motion drawn up by the National Union Of Students (NUS) Executive Committee Members will be sent to universities across the country.The document claims Mr Porter should be stripped of his position because he has failed to back the student protests.

It says:

 "We the undersigned believe that Aaron Porter should be removed as NUS National President as he is unable to lead the student movement.

"His failure to call or even back another National Demonstration, his refusal to back up his promises of support for occupations, his weak stance on police brutality and his collusion with the Government in identifying cuts means he has lost the confidence of the movement.

"We call on activists to bring motions to their Student Unions calling for his removal and an Extraordinary Conference to do so."

Sean Rillo Raczka, Birkbeck University student union chair who wrote the motion told Sky News there is a strong feeling among activists that the president must go.

He said: "Aaron Porter has not been leading the student movement.

"We have seen people on the streets day after day protesting, but he has done nothing."

An NUS spokesman said: "The NUS National Executive Committee is a 50 member strong elected body so there are bound to be disagreements."

He added: "Aaron Porter is not available for comment on this as he is busy working on other aspects of the campaign."

Aaron Porter has been criticised for his handling of the student protests

SOAS student union has already passed a vote of no confidence motion against Mr Porter in a meeting last Friday.

At least 25 student unions have to pass a motion before a vote of no confidence can be considered.

Source: Sky News

BBC Jody McIntyre Interview

Monday, December 6, 2010

From Monument to Movement - Nickglais Appeal to Students



In this poster Lu Xun calls for the destruction of Confucian mindset

It is very clear that our enemies have seen something new in the current student movement against the fees and cuts but have we ?

To often the Left in Britain is concerned with retaining its monuments rather than developing a movement.

The ritual demonstration from A-B is dead but so is the mechanical politics that led there.

When the bourgeoisie fails to incorporate or hi- jack a protest movement it calls on its labour lieutenants of capital to take us down the old social democratic road of the re-election of a Labour Government - old Labour of course !. This is precisely the mechanical dead end that Wedgewood Benn would take has down - but he is not alone a ragbag of trotskyists and revisionists follow the same well trodden path.

I praise the new youthful vigour of the teenage school students on the demonstrations not because I am bowing to spontaneity but praising creativity - the seeking out of new paths to the future rather than back to the old routine of failure so epitomised by the old "wise" Wedgewood Benn founding father of the Coalition of Resistance.

We need to address the question of how we keep the path to a better future open and not become a monument to the past rather than a movement for the future.

This starts with a recognition of what is new and the politics of developing the new.

This is the stage of learning from the masses and unleashing their creativity to prevent the return of the Social Democratic trap - then the movement will flow - smash the monuments build a movement.

Toward a Mass Line for Britain.