This year marks the 30th anniversary of the historic decision to launch the People’s War in Nepal—a decision that would shake the country’s foundations for a decade, radically transforming it during those ten years, only to be reversed following the great betrayal. Today, there are no significant differences between Nepal in 1995 and Nepal in 2026.
The People’s War in Nepal was launched on February 13, 1996, by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). They announced the start of the People’s War through a declaration of war, launching attacks against the old state in six districts, and by distributing a leaflet to hundreds of thousands of people—in which the party’s political program was outlined. Initially, guerrilla actions were carried out in rural areas covering relatively small territories. But in just six years, the People’s War had moved from a strategic defensive position to a state of equilibrium and controlled areas where 10 million of Nepal’s 23 million inhabitants lived. By 2006, the Party controlled four-fifths of the country and had surrounded the monarchy’s stronghold in Kathmandu.
Despite this, the people’s war in Nepal did not end in victory, as the party leadership sold out the revolution for well-paid seats in parliament and, in collusion with the imperialists, transformed themselves into bureaucratic capitalists. This article will provide an overview of the heroic People’s War in Nepal that shook the entire country and explain how the diabolical clique of traitors around Prachanda was able to usurp the people’s power and turn the people’s guns against the people.
What was it like to live in Nepal during the 1990s?
The People’s War began in a mountainous country in Asia where the people lived in medieval conditions. There were still tribes (the Raute and the Kusunda) living a nomadic life in the forests and relying mainly on hunting for their livelihood. The country’s water resources were not accessible to the people, who were forced to share drinking water with livestock in ponds where rainwater collected. In rural areas, women were forced to fetch water in pots or jugs from the nearest river or spring, often up to three hours away, and climb up and down steep paths. In the year the civil war began, Nepal’s gross domestic product per capita stood at 180 U.S. dollars—the second-lowest level in the world. About 70 percent of the population lived below the absolute poverty line. The country was desperately poor as a whole. Ten percent of the population consumed 46.5 percent of the national income and owned 65 percent of the arable land.
The situation for women in Nepal was particularly oppressive. Daughters were virtually barred from education, they were not heirs to the family property, and they were required to manage the household. Some were married off before the age of thirteen. The average life expectancy for Nepalese people was only 56 years, but the life expectancy for women, who hold up “half the sky,” was even lower. Nepal was one of the few countries in the world where women’s life expectancy is shorter than men’s—a clear reflection of the weight of patriarchy. A large number of women died in childbirth, and many children died from malnutrition, cholera, and influenza.
The infant mortality rate was more than 75 per thousand, which is about ten times higher than in Sweden. Modern healthcare in rural areas was virtually nonexistent. Only a few villages had access to medical care, let alone hospitals. In most villages, a sick person had only two choices: either recover on their own using herbs and traditional home remedies, or face an untimely death. Malaria, typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis were widespread. Due to the commercialization of healthcare, medical care was very expensive in the larger cities, and even the Nepalese middle class found it very difficult to afford medication.
Nepal also had a very low literacy rate; according to government data, the rate was less than 50 percent, and educated young people had to go to India or other countries to find work.
The farmers’ hardship lay in their daily lives, which consisted of gathering basic necessities and selling the herbs, ghee, and fruits they produced in the countryside. Some people in remote areas were forced to obtain basic necessities such as salt, black pepper, medicines, and clothing from the markets, load them onto their backs, and carry them a distance equivalent to more than fifteen days’ walk. Mules and horses were the primary means of transportation in the hilly region. This system made life very expensive for the people in these areas; for example, the price of imported goods could be up to fifteen to twenty times higher than in the markets.
These are the living conditions that gave rise to the people’s war in Nepal. (All information is taken from The Worker, No. 3, 1997; the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, Nepal Country Paper, Brussels, May 14–20, 2001; and Encyclopaedia Britannica.)
Class Society in Nepal
The country was ruled by a landowning class that dominated the peasants in the countryside and by a bureaucrat-capitalist bourgeoisie in the cities. In the 1990s, there was a multiparty system within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. During this period, the country was subjugated by yankee-imperialism, to which the ruling class was a loyal ally, as well as by semi-colonial Indian bureaucratic capitalism.
In 1996, Nepalese society was in a serious crisis—economically, politically, culturally, and in other respects. Where had the state, which for the past fifty years had spoken of development and reconstruction, led Nepal economically? It had led Nepal to become the second-poorest country in the world, after Ethiopia. This state, which did not even manufacture a single needle in the name of self-reliance and the national economy, had handed over the entire country’s economy to a dozen families of foreign compradors and bureaucrat capitalists. While this handful of plunderers had become billionaires by selling off the country’s resources, especially water, Nepal’s working masses were forced to live a meager existence in poverty and hardship. The burden of the economic deterioration fell on the peasants, who made up ninety percent of the population.
To address the economic crisis of the 1990s, the constitutional monarchy waged war in rural areas against its own people in order to intensify exploitation. Monarchists and republicans stood side by side and carried out acts of genocide. This government had forced not only the farmers and workers of Nepal but also people from various classes and professions to live in a situation marked by deprivation, injustice, and terror. While this state had long treated women as second-class citizens, it had now intensified systematic rape, human trafficking, and prostitution. Thus, the state had made everyone—whether workers, peasants, women, teachers, students, small traders, lower-level officials, doctors, professors, or people from various classes, including the national bourgeoisie—victims of this state of feudal lords, compradors, and bureaucratic capitalists.
It is also worth noting that Nepal has a caste system rooted in the Hindu religion, which reinforces class divisions. In addition, there are ethnic minorities (Janajatis) who have been subjugated by the Khas-Arya population since the late 18th century.
The Beginning of the People’s War
In 1990, when Nepal transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, a number of new parties were formed. Many parties were dissatisfied with the compromises made by the established parties—the United Left Front (the political representative of the bureaucratic faction of the big bourgeoisie) and the Congress Party (the political representative of the comprador faction of the big bourgeoisie)—with the palace.
In November 1990, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Centre), abbreviated as NKP (EC), was formed, incorporating key elements of the United National People’s Movement (UNPM). The UNPM was a parliamentary reformist movement. On January 21, 1991, the NKP (EC) formed the Nepal United People’s Front (NUPF) with Baburam Bhattarai as its leader, as an open front to participate in the election. The NKP (EC) held its first congress on November 25, 1991; it adopted a line of “prolonged armed struggle on the path toward a new democratic revolution” and decided that the party would remain an underground party. In the 1991 election, the NEF became the third-largest party in the Nepalese parliament. However, disagreements arose within the NEF regarding the tactics the party should employ. One group, led by Prachanda, argued for an immediate armed revolution, while the other group, led by Nirmal Lama, maintained that Nepal was not yet ready for armed struggle. On May 22, 1994, the NKP (EC) and the NEF split into two factions.
The United Communist Party, led by Prachanda, went completely underground after the split to begin preparations for the next phase of the struggle. They understood that Nepalese society could not be transformed through peaceful means. The landlords, who controlled the land, and the bureaucratic capitalists, who sold off the country’s resources to the imperialists, would never yield to the people’s demands. Although the Nepalese state was in crisis, it was not powerless. Throughout the 1990s, acts resembling genocide were carried out in rural areas. The Nepalese state possessed advanced technology and weapons supplied by neighboring India. Furthermore, it had military support from the imperialists, particularly U.S. imperialism.
The Maoists chose to go where the masses were. Since 90% of Nepal’s population were farmers, that was where the Maoists sent their cadres. They understood that the country could only be transformed by waging war against the old order and that their only source of support was the masses. The party held its third plenum in March 1995, where it changed its name to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). It also decided that “for the true liberation of the people, all efforts must be concentrated on developing a people’s war that would usher in a people’s new democratic form of government” and officially decided to abandon its policy of participating in parliamentary elections.
The police then launched Operation Romeo in November 1995. Officially, Operation Romeo was described as an operation to curb rising crime in Rolpa, but in reality it was carried out with the aim of suppressing the popular uprising and hunting down the insurgents (the Maoists). Operation Romeo resulted in gross violations of human rights, including arbitrary arrests and detentions of hundreds of members of left-wing parties, rapes, executions, and disappearances. Against the backdrop of this operation, the Party’s Political Bureau of the Central Committee convened briefly in January 1996 and made the final decision on the historic launch of the People’s War on February 13, 1996.
The NKP (M) launched the people’s war on February 13, 1996, by carrying out seven attacks against the old state in six districts and by distributing a declaration of war in the form of a leaflet in the hundreds of thousands. The NKP (M) armed the people in the struggle for land in the countryside and drove out landowners and their armed forces. They created guerrilla zones and developed these into base areas and later liberated areas. The NKP (M) succeeded in building up its own armed forces by mobilizing the masses and by seizing weapons from the enemy. In the liberated areas, the land was distributed to poor peasants and new power structures were established. Their actions led to the formation of guerrilla zones in 15 of the country’s 75 districts by 1998. In these areas, semi-clandestine people’s committees were established. This meant that they were open to the people in the areas but were forced to remain semi-underground to protect themselves from police forces and informants. The people’s committees were the embryo of the people’s republic.
Initially, the government mobilized the Nepalese police to quell the uprising. The Royal Nepalese Army did not participate in the direct fighting, as the conflict was regarded as a police matter. However, the police were highly militarized during this period, as they carried out campaigns in rural areas that amounted to genocide.
It is worth noting that, starting in 1997, revisionists from the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninists) held seats in the Nepalese government. This was a result of the masses’ deep respect for communism, and the ruling class needed skilled manipulators. In May 1997, local elections were announced, but the elections could not be held in 87 village development committees due to threats from the Maoists. The government therefore attempted to introduce the Act on Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Control and Punishment) in July 1997 at the initiative of the revisionist, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Home Affairs Bam Dev Gautam. The law would grant the police extensive powers against individuals deemed to be “terrorists”—in other words, Maoists and poor peasants.
On February 13, 1998, on the second anniversary of the People’s War, the Maoists announced the formation of a Central Military Commission led by Prachanda. By May 1998, 51 village development committees in Rolpa District and western Nepal were under Maoist control, and they ran a parallel administration known as the People’s Government. In 1998, the state launched Operation Kilo Serra Two. The operation was intended to be a “search-and-kill” operation to prevent the Maoist movement from growing stronger. Unlike Operation Romeo, which was concentrated in the western mountains, Kilo Serra Two spread across all Maoist-controlled regions of the country. From mid-1998 onward, an unprecedented number of Maoists and their supporters—as well as civilians—were killed. Nearly five hundred people were killed during Kilo Serra Two.
The Maoists first established their own armed forces as the People’s Army, a guerrilla force tasked with fighting the old state, mobilizing the masses, and producing alongside the masses. In September 2001, it changed its name to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA then consisted of guerrilla fighters and, according to some sources, numbered between 5,000 and 10,000 men. In the conquered areas, the Maoists established people’s militias that defended the area and upheld the people’s power. These militias followed Chairman Mao’s guidelines that they should be integrated with and arm the masses.
New Power
The people’s power grew as the red base areas expanded. These constituted “the backbone of the revolution,” as Chairman Gonzalo of the Communist Party of Peru explained with regard to the people’s war in Peru. Since no enemy of the people could or would allow red base areas to flourish, the Nepalese reactionary state similarly attempted to stifle the people’s war in its infancy. But despite the enemy’s wishes, the revolution had taken ever deeper root among the masses.
The NKP (M) held a dialectical view of the relationship between destruction and construction. While the most important aspect during the current phase of the people’s war was certainly the destruction of the old state, and the construction of the new political power was secondary, the latter also needed to be carried out and was, in fact, crucial for the most important aspect to move forward.
Armed masses in Nepal.
Marxism holds that the state’s most fundamental function is to serve as an apparatus of violence for the oppression of one class by another. Consequently, the armed forces are the state’s most important component. In Sweden, many people are confused because the state also performs other functions, such as running schools, providing healthcare, and managing other parts of the public sector; however, these functions are not inherent to the nature of the state and can be handled by other actors. Instead, it is precisely the armed forces that enable the law to be enforced. In Nepal, particularly in rural areas, the state often had no functions other than serving as an apparatus of force to protect landowners’ property.
The People’s War was thus aimed at defeating the state’s armed forces in order to establish popular power, based on its own armed forces, and was thus able to transform the economy and redistribute the landowners’ lands to the people.
By defeating the state’s armed forces and replacing them with the people’s forces, a power vacuum was created. This power vacuum was filled by the people’s power. Under this new power, not only did a change occur in who held the weapons, but society as a whole was radically transformed. Based on the experiences of China and Peru, new politics, a new economy, and a new culture are required for the new power to function and serve the purpose of building the new state alongside the incorporation of the masses into the people’s war.
The concepts of political power and base areas had been part of the party cadres’ repertoire from the very beginning. When the police and the armed forces were driven out of the countryside, the people were faced with a new situation in which even the most rudimentary functions of the state apparatus had ceased to operate. But the people needed power to function, to organize their living conditions and meet their daily needs. Therefore, under the party’s leadership, they set themselves the task of establishing new political bodies, which became the embryo of the red political power in the countryside.
New power: New politics
People’s power meant that the people were given influence—a combination of social, political, and military capabilities—to lead the day-to-day management of life in the liberated areas, particularly in the areas of administration, legislation, and the judiciary. The most important tasks that the new political power needed to address were social security, development projects, establishing frameworks for economic transactions among villagers and their education and cultural development, as well as the politicization and militarization of the people to continue the revolutionary struggle.
As the fifth year of the People’s War came to a close in 2001, the expansion and consolidation of the primary form of base areas in various parts of the country gained momentum. Rukum, Rolpa, Jajarkot, and Salyan were districts in western Nepal where the United Revolutionary People’s Committees now openly exercised new political power and functioned as the primary administrative bodies. The major newspapers published in Kathmandu regularly reported on news from these areas.
Some of the people’s committees, commonly referred to as the “people’s government,” invited journalists from across the country to attend and report on massive public meetings. On August 26, 2000, the village committee in Korchawang held a large open meeting just a three-hour walk from Liwang, the district capital of Rolpa, where the committee held a press conference the following day. The purpose of the press conference was to spread the word across the country that the people’s committees served as the embryo of the new democratic government at the local level.
Advances in political power went hand in hand with advances in the war. Without developing military power—the core of the people’s power—to higher levels in both quality and quantity, it would be impossible to consolidate these base areas and expand them into relatively stable bases for the revolution. The People’s Committees, which usually consisted of 11 members, were elected in general elections called by the party on the basis of a three-in-one combination system. This is a form of organization developed under Mao’s leadership during China’s Cultural Revolution that brought together representatives from various sectors of society. In Nepal, this meant a combination of representatives from the party, the People’s Liberation Army, and other democratic forces, as well as elements from the petty bourgeoisie who participated as representatives of various parties, such as local rebel cadres from various bourgeois parties. In these elections, candidates participated and were directly impeachable.
These local-level committees carried out political, economic, social, cultural, and educational activities and exercised coercive power through bodies such as the People’s Armed Forces, People’s Courts, and People’s Prisons.
These committees oversaw various departments. Some of the most important were the departments of administration, finance, social work, culture, education, and development. Administrative development generally encompassed legal activities, such as matters concerning land, business and financial transactions, and issues related to the People’s Court. Minimum prices for all types of goods were set for transactions. An important aspect of exercising red political power in the base areas was ensuring the people’s security. Now that the base areas had been established, the people’s committees operated their own mobile prisons and labor camps, where captured police officers, corrupt administrative officials, and arrested hooligans, vandals, and vigilantes were held captive. Although the primary purpose of these camps was to protect the new society from these oppressors, they were run according to principles that stood in direct opposition to the torture chambers of the old society; instead, there was a sincere effort to change the mindset of the internees and teach them to become useful members of the new society. They therefore applied methods from the People’s War in China and Chairman Mao:
”The newly captured soldiers in particular feel that our army and the Kuomintang army are worlds apart. (…) The Red Army is like a furnace in which all captured soldiers are transmuted the moment they come over. In China the army needs democracy as much as the people do. Democracy in our army is an important weapon for undermining the feudal mercenary army. (…)
The most effective method in propaganda directed at the enemy forces is to release captured soldiers and give the wounded medical treatment. Whenever soldiers, platoon leaders, or company or battalion commanders of the enemy forces are captured, we immediately conduct propaganda among them; they are divided into those wishing to stay and those wishing to leave, and the latter are given travelling expenses and set free. This immediately knocks the bottom out of the enemy’s slander that ”the Communist bandits kill everyone on sight’. Writing about this measure, the Ten-Day Review the journal of Yang Chih-sheng’s 9th Division, exclaimed: ”How vicious!” The Red Army soldiers show great concern for the prisoners and arrange warm farewells for them, and at every ”Farewell Party for Our New Brothers” the prisoners respond with speeches of heartfelt gratitude.”
– Mao Zedong, The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains (1928).
New Power: New Economics
One of the most important challenges facing the revolutionary forces was that, while confronting the enemy on the battlefield, they also had to restructure economic relations—not only to meet the needs of the people’s war, but also to lay the foundation for a self-reliant economy that serves the interests of the people. To do this, it is necessary to break with the economic relations that have kept the Nepalese economy in chains and shaped it according to the needs of the Indian market and the imperialist system. This will prove impossible unless the Nepalese people are given free rein in this area to create new forms of economic organization that not only support the continued advance of the people’s war, but also ensure that a revolutionary Nepal can withstand a counterrevolutionary economic embargo or even a full-scale invasion.
At the heart of Nepal’s economy lay the land issue. Most of the fertile land—the flat lowlands—was known as the Terai. These were the plains of southern Nepal that stretch from east to west along the border with India. These plains and the valleys, including the inner Terai, had long been owned by the royal family and its many relatives (the Ranas).
Most of the remaining land cultivated by the people had been seized by high-ranking bureaucrats. The party’s policy was to expropriate the land from these landowners and distribute it to the peasants according to the principle “land to the tiller”. As the people’s war advanced and the base areas developed, most of the local feudal landowners had abandoned their land and fled to the cities. Some land had also been seized directly from the enemy. All these tracts of land and other properties were handed over to the peasants, primarily to the landless peasants, who have priority over others, and to the poor peasants, while the rest of the expropriated land is set aside for cooperative production.
This meant that the production systems on these lands were established on a cooperative basis. Along with the adoption of cooperative farming methods, the people’s committees had also begun to introduce collective production. The villagers had accepted the collective farming system, and the “June Commune” had been established as a model for collective farming. In the western Terai region, most of the land was cultivated by the Tharus, a Nepalese ethnic group living in the southern plains. The reactionary feudal landlords took their land and turned them into serfs, kamaiyas, on their own estates. Now these kamaiyas had risen up under the leadership of the NCP (M) and were fighting to overthrow the landlord system and reclaim their land. Just as this Terai movement was in full swing and reaching its peak, parliament declared that it would “eradicate the Kamaiya Pratha system of slavery.” But they knew that no real change comes from the banquet halls of the rich and powerful, and these masters did not come up with any magic plan either. Without resolving the problems rooted in society’s relations of production, the Tharus’ problems cannot be solved. Merely abolishing the Kamaiya system on paper without creating a viable alternative only created new problems for the landless and homeless farmers.
Almost the entire community rallied behind the Maoists’ demand for “land to the tiller”, thanks to the correct handling of the land question and the mass line of persistently politicizing and arming these peasants. Since the party’s task was to overthrow the reactionary relations of production, the main focus of production policy has been to develop a self-sufficient economic system by mobilizing all local resources.
It was from this perspective that small-scale industries were established in the base areas and supplied with the raw materials available in rural areas. Production was focused on meeting the people’s immediate and basic needs. These types of enterprises were primarily focused on producing materials needed for the people’s army, as well as personal and household items, such as hats, socks, gloves, sweaters, shawls, sheets, bags, and paper. Many problems were viewed from new perspectives, in ways never before considered. The production of alcohol had been generally banned, not only because it was associated with drunkenness and the abuse of women, but also because it consumed particularly large amounts of grain. The top priority for grain was now to feed the people and the soldiers of the liberation army.
New Power: New Culture
The culture of the people was a crucial factor in transforming and revolutionizing society. Unless a cultural revolution is carried out from the very beginning, it is impossible to raise the consciousness of the masses and shift their worldview to a level relatively on par with that of the revolutionary activists. To this end, Maoist revolutionaries must educate and mobilize the masses ideologically, politically, and culturally from the very beginning of the movement, and above all from the moment the revolutionary society begins to take shape.
In this area, major changes took place in the base areas. The revolutionary masses broke with old, corrupt, and oppressive customs and traditions (such as arranged marriages and sexual harassment) and established new, liberating practices. The long-standing taboos surrounding the remarriage of widows, inter-caste marriages, and love marriages were challenged and fought against in the base areas of Nepal. In the red zones, revolutionary festivals replaced the old, reactionary festivals based on various religions.
In Hindu tradition, there are countless religious rituals and ceremonies. Dasain and Tij were the most important festivals that people celebrated before the establishment of the red political power. As the prestige of the revolutionary festivals grew, the celebration of the old festivals had declined sharply. People now abandoned these and created a new culture. May Day, the International Workers’ Day, had become a very important holiday in the base areas. Similarly, the historic day marking the start of the People’s War (February 13), Martyrs’ Day, and International Women’s Day had also become very important days.
After losing their old, backward-looking cultures, the reactionaries raged and screamed that “women are being hoisted onto the roof,” that “the warm relationships between brothers and sisters are being destroyed because their parents’ property is being divided among them,” and that “untouchable elements are being brought into the kitchen.” Outraged by these reactionary outbursts, the masses hammered ever harder at the old social relations and customs until they were completely eradicated.
More and more people began to realize that religion—in Nepal’s case, Hindu beliefs—was being used by those in power to provide ideological and political support for the feudal monarchy. They also began to see that all kinds of religious fundamentalist practices, especially those with inhumane aspects such as the division of society into castes, perpetuated and reinforced the class system. In the specific case of Hinduism, it held that the misery and oppression of the oppressed are a punishment for sins committed in previous lives, while the luxury and privileges of the upper castes are a reward for their past goodness. By encouraging such divisions, the exploiting classes have maintained the inferior position of the oppressed masses. Since the beginning of the People’s War, and through the development of the base areas, the people had begun to abolish this and rediscover their humanity.
During the implementation of these activities, illiteracy was an enemy that had to be eradicated in the course of the revolution. Campaigns had been carried out to promote adult education among the masses, as well as campaigns to raise awareness of health and hygiene.
Ever since this embryonic red political power emerged in the countryside, the NKP (M) had devoted considerable attention to the rights of national minorities. Consequently, the principle of the right of nations to self-determination was applied. Wherever national minorities (janajatis) had lived and the old state had been driven out, they now exercised power. Thus, for the first time since power had been wrested from them—that is, since the country was unified into a single nation-state in the late 18th century—the people themselves were participating in building their own future. The Janajati comrades, in fact, played a leading role in the party’s affairs. Through this practice, the dominance of the Khashan nation (the dominant caste group in Nepal, originally the inhabitants of the Khashan region in western Nepal) over the national minorities began to come to an end.
The Women Break their Chains
While Nepalese society has been dominated by three pillars of oppression—feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism, and imperialism—Nepalese women have borne an additional burden: patriarchy, or male domination.
Furthermore, Hindu women from the so-called lower castes were subjected to unspeakable brutality and immense social suffering. Women in feudal society were completely denied property rights. Even in affluent or wealthy middle-class families, it was only in exceptional cases that women owned property in their own names. Women had to accept any man their parents chose as a husband. Child marriage and marriages between young women and much older men were common, both because Hindu customs permitted this and because of poverty. Women were not allowed to divorce, but men could marry more than one woman. Widows were not allowed to remarry and were forced to serve their husband’s family as slaves for the rest of their lives. However, a man could remarry if his wife died.
In the heartlands of the revolution, such unjust and unreasonable social customs had become a thing of the past. Once the people’s political power was established, women, just like men, had the right to own land. This shattered one of the greatest obstacles facing women, which had forced them to live in absolute subordination. As a result, many women had gained the enthusiasm and strength to demand and achieve social respect. This was one of the greatest social achievements, along with active participation on the political and military fronts. This was an accomplishment resulting from Nepalese women’s active participation in the exercise of red political power and through their passionate commitment to the people’s war. Women’s participation in the party, the People’s Liberation Army, and the new political power had increased with each passing day, reaching ever higher levels. More and more women had begun to organize themselves within the Maoist-led armed forces. Armed with Maoist ideology and weapons in hand, they had unleashed their fury against the hated exploiters and the reactionary state that protects the people’s notorious enemies. Nepalese women, who were born practically as slaves to men in this patriarchal system, who had endured countless reactionary feudal rituals, and who had been treated as nothing more than ornaments and objects for men’s sexual gratification, had now begun to challenge such views and violently shake up these social relations. These changes occurred much more rapidly during the few years of the People’s War than during decades of reforms.
On several occasions, female warriors had expressed their own surprise at the extent of their newfound boldness and power to turn their circumstances upside down and punish their enemies in society. They were guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and applied this revolutionary science to the harsh reality of Nepal. They had become aware of their own interests and the enemy’s interests in the class- and caste-dominated society, and this was the source of their courage and power, their love for the people, and their hatred of the enemy.
The courage of the women in the revolutionary movement was truly inspiring, if not downright impressive. When some of them were captured by the enemy, they did not beg for their lives, even though the enemy troops brutally tortured and gang-raped them and even gouged out their eyes before dousing their bodies with gasoline and setting them on fire. The commitment of many women to the great revolutionary process had truly roused the whole of Nepal. A prime example was the story of a 50-year-old woman in the western region who sought revenge for her husband’s death; he had been martyred by the notorious army during the state of emergency after being forced to live an underground life for many years. The news of her determination to join the party and the People’s Army spread fear among the enemy troops, while inspiring many people to join the revolution. The reaction was so strong that voices were raised, even from some in the middle class, arguing that the military’s suppression of the people’s war alone could not lead to a lasting solution to the sociopolitical conflict. The country was also electrified by the daring escape of five female Maoist political prisoners who, bit by bit, laboriously dug an underground tunnel from inside the prison where they were held captive. The rise of these women signified the rise of half the population. Reactionaries of all stripes never regard women as a force capable of bringing about epoch-making events. They can do nothing but treat them as simple, powerless beings. But just like revolutionary women all over the world, the rebellious women of Nepal had shown that they could make history by seizing political power and reshaping social relations on new foundations.
Vacillation, Negotiations, and the Great Betrayal
As the people’s war progressed, the class struggle intensified throughout the country. This was also reflected within the Communist Party, which was leading the people’s war. As early as 1999, signs of capitulation and betrayal began to surface. A letter from Prachanda, the party chairman, to a government official stated that there were three minimum requirements for initiating negotiations and implementing a ceasefire. These were to hand over missing Central Committee members, release arrested prisoners of war, and end state terrorism.
The fact that there is vacillation within the Communist Party’s top leadership is extremely dangerous for the people’s war. This stems from the fact that the party leadership prioritized its own instinct for self-preservation and its own security over the interests of the Nepalese people. This is the basis of the policy of capitulation that would later benefit the reactionaries.
June 1, 2001, marked a turning point in the people’s war in Nepal. On that day, King Birendra was assassinated along with his entire family. This was planned by the imperialists in collaboration with the ruling monarchical-feudal classes. The reason was the monarch’s repeated refusal to use the army to combat the guerrillas. This situation prevented the ruling classes from effectively wiping out the guerrilla forces.
By the end of 2000, there were already liberated areas where popular power was exercised almost openly, covering thousands of square kilometers with a population of several million people (in the western part of the country). In these areas, police forces had been swept away from dozens of districts. It was then that Gyanendra, the brother of the murdered king, ascended the throne.
He immediately deployed the royal army against the Maoist guerrillas. This earned him increased military and economic support from the imperialists and the Indian state. But within the army, which was still in an uproar over the king’s assassination, significant tensions arose that threatened to escalate. At the same time, and for the same reason, the rift between the monarchist faction and the parliamentary faction began to widen. On the other hand, the FBA launched an offensive the following month with significant military operations. The NKP (M) called for a national strike, which proved to be a major success, as it helped destabilize the national political situation.
In this situation, where the revolutionary forces were scoring new victories and the ruling classes were struggling through an acute crisis, the leadership of the NKP (M) leadership did not seize the opportunity to launch an offensive that would exacerbate the crisis in the old monarchical state, but instead threw out a lifeline in the form of a unilateral ceasefire by the FBA and negotiations that lasted four months.
The points Prachanda raised were as follows:
(a) the formation of a provisional government;
(b) a new constitution;
(c) the establishment of the republic, which was replaced by the requirement for a provisional government and a constituent assembly.
It was recognized that these demands corresponded to a bourgeois republic that was a far cry from a new democratic republic, but it was argued that this was part of a “flexible tactic” aimed at winning over the republican elements of the bourgeoisie.
The reactionary forces used these four months of dialogue to regroup, resolve their internal conflicts, and prepare for a military offensive against the Maoists. On December 21, the monarchist state broke off the dialogue and prepared to attack. Two days later, the FBA completely destroyed the military barracks in Dang. In this new phase of the revolutionary civil war, the FBA had to constantly confront the KNA. By this point (a period of seven years), 3,000 people had died, and with the royal army’s entry into the war, more than 5,000 people (mostly poor peasants accused of being Maoists) were massacred during the year 2002.
On December 26, 2001, the monarchy suspended all constitutional guarantees and declared a state of emergency. In May 2002, parliament was suspended, and in October, the king assumed direct control of state power. This is the result of the royal army’s continuous defeats and the national strikes (including a five-day strike in April). The leadership of the NKP (M) took advantage of the situation and called on the bourgeois parliamentary forces to combat autocracy by drafting a joint minimum program containing the points formulated above.
In the face of the communists’ advances in Nepal, the Anglo-American imperialists and the semi-colonial Indian state stepped up their support for the king. China and the European Union expressed their concern, and the United Nations (the platform of the imperialists and the semi-colonial bourgeois governments) offered its services as a mediator for future negotiations if both parties so requested.
By the end of 2002, the revolution had taken root in Nepal’s 75 districts. The People’s War had already reached a strategic equilibrium, with the People’s Liberation Army and the Royal Nepalese Army on equal footing. Two powers existed: on the one hand, a state in the making—the new-democratic state—which was developing and gaining power in the liberated zones, based on the revolutionary force of the exploited classes; and on the other hand, a state in decline, supported by the imperialist, bourgeois, and feudal exploiting classes, which was defending itself and attempting to retain its power.
In February 2003, the leadership of the NKP (M) declared a unilateral ceasefire for the second time and initiated a series of negotiations with the monarchy that would last seven months. In this new dialogue, the party reiterated its demands while attempting to form a united anti-monarchist front with all republican sectors of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. To this end, it put forward a “joint program for progressive democratic change.” Internally, the argument was made that this paved the way for the strategic offensive and the general uprising (once the NKP (M)’s political agenda had been rejected by the monarchy). On August 27, 2003, the royalist government broke off negotiations, as it felt ready to launch an attack on the Maoist positions.
At that point, the NKP (M) initiated a transitional phase in the people’s war. The aim was to move from strategic equilibrium to the phase of the strategic offensive. This new phase was divided into three stages: the first involving decentralized actions, the second involving relatively centralized actions, and the third involving highly centralized actions. The People’s Liberation Army thus carried out, in accordance with this plan, several attacks against the king’s armed forces.
The monarchy, shaken by the revolutionary forces’ impressive victories, attempted to regain the initiative in the war. On February 1, 2005, King Gyanendra seized absolute power and took direct control of the government in Kathmandu. At the same time, he imposed a state of emergency throughout the country, blocked communications, and immediately censored all media. Thousands of resistance fighters were arrested and taken to secret prisons. The leaders of the main bourgeois parties (former collaborators with the monarchy) were placed under house arrest, including five former prime ministers of the royal government. With its back against the wall, the monarchy resorted to desperate measures. Its main support was the army.
The revolutionary masses, led by the NKP (M), controlled 80% of the country’s territory. Many organs of revolutionary power (people’s committees) administered the liberated areas, administered justice, maintained order, organized economic work, distributed the land and property of the landlords, and organized healthcare, education, culture, social assistance, etc. Their activities were regulated by public legislation for the administration of people’s power in a new democracy. The People’s War was in its third phase (strategic offensive) and was approaching its second phase (relatively centralized measures).
In this highly favorable situation, the leadership of the NKP (M) once again declared a UNILATERAL ceasefire on September 3, 2005. In November, a 12-point agreement (which reiterated its proposals) was reached and signed with the alliance of the seven bourgeois parties opposed to the absolute monarchy (while remaining ambiguous as to whether the monarchy should be retained or not). The leadership of the NKP (M) unilaterally extended the ceasefire with the monarchy.
On January 2, 2006, the FBA ended the unilateral ceasefire by resuming hostilities against the KNA. On April 6, the party participated in a major national strike, called by the alliance of the seven bourgeois parties, which was to last three days. The masses, incited by the revolutionary communists and republican elements, went beyond the deadlines, and the strike lasted 19 days, until the king (under pressure from the imperialists, the Indian state, and the overwhelming support of the masses) accepted the 12-point agreement, renounced absolute power, and handed over the government to the parliament he had dissolved 14 months earlier.
During this major national strike, the leadership of the NKP (M) declared a complete cessation of the FBA’s military operations throughout the Kathmandu Valley. They justified this by stating that it would remove a pretext for the royal army’s oppression and massacres against the people. However, this did not prevent the police and military from using their weapons during the strike, killing 22 people, injuring more than 5,000 demonstrators, and arresting tens of thousands.
With the government in the hands of this seven-party alliance, Prime Minister Koirala, with the assistance of the recently reinstated civilian parliament, resumed talks with the leaders of the NCP (M) to reach a complete and definitive ceasefire, which would culminate in a peace agreement under UN supervision. In accordance with this goal, on July 24, Prachanda wrote a letter to Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, requesting his intervention in the peace process underway in Nepal. Through this act, the Chairman of the NCP (M) accepted imperialist interference in the attempt to thwart the New Democratic Revolution in Nepal.
On November 21, 2006, the reactionaries achieved their first and most important objective: the end of the war. This was a decisive turning point, as they were on the verge of losing the war. On November 28, a second step was taken: the agreement on the control and management of weapons and armies, which consisted of disarming the army that was on the verge of winning the war—that is, the People’s Liberation Army—and which disarmed only one-third of the royal army, since the police were not affected by the agreement.
Under this agreement, the revolutionary masses, who held no power, were disarmed, while the ruling classes retained their power with a weakened army. Prachanda succeeded in halting the people’s war and disarming the People’s Liberation Army, leaving the Nepalese people defenseless against their enemies; the class structure and Nepal’s semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions were thus preserved. By signing the first two agreements, the revisionist leadership of the NKP (M) renounced the New Democratic People’s Republic, socialism, and communism. They consigned themselves to the dustbin of history.
Parlamentarism
The interim constitution in Nepal granted the “Maoist” cadres a constitutional status. The “Maoist” leaders believed that the revolution was not over, but that only the form of the struggle had changed.
In the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections, the NCP (M) won 229 seats, making it the largest party in the first Constituent Assembly. However, they did not have a majority to form a government and were forced to form a coalition with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninists)—which they had previously fought against—and the Madheshi Jana Adhikar Forum, Nepal. Pranchda was elected prime minister after receiving 464 out of 577 votes against the Nepali Congress candidate Sher Bahadur Deuba. Since the first motion at the first meeting of this Constituent Assembly received full support, it was declared that the monarchy in Nepal had ceased to exist forever, that the monarchy, which had been in power for 240 years, had ended, and that Nepal had become a federal democratic republic.
Thanks to his comfortable seat in parliament and in the government, Prachanda has transformed into an openly and self-confessed corrupt politician with an estimated fortune of just over half a billion. Today, Prachanda is not merely a political representative of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie—he is a bureaucratic capitalist!
The revisionism of Prachanda
The NKP (M), led by Prachanda, had betrayed the people’s war, surrendered the people’s guns—which the people had won with their precious blood—and dissolved the new government. Since the people’s war had been led by the NKP (M), built proletarian consciousness in its ranks, and been based on proletarian ideology, Prachanda and his cronies needed to justify this while still resorting to old rhetoric. Thus, revisionism became Prachanda’s malicious weapon. By bending the principles of Marxism and invoking new conditions, he could attempt to rationalize his actions. Below, we highlight a few points from Prachanda’s revisionist line:
1. Prachanda and the other leading cadres of the party constantly reiterated that the “old concept of communism” was no longer useful, that the teachings of Marx, Lenin, and Chairman Mao—that is, the teachings of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism—had been superseded due to the development of the class struggle and the “new situations.” He himself declared that he could renounce the name “Maoist,” and the party’s spokespeople had clearly shown that they were determined to abandon the so-called “Prachanda line” if it were necessary to form a united party with the open revisionists, who were then carrying out violent repression against the people’s war.
2. Prachanda declared that they had eradicated feudalism when they overthrew the king. He stated that his revolution had “triumphed by about 60 percent” and that his goal was for Nepal, in 10 to 20 years, to become a country like Switzerland thanks to foreign capital (i.e., imperialist capital exports). In other words, the struggle for independence was set aside so that the country could remain under imperialist domination. They welcomed imperialism’s expansion into Nepal, as evidenced by their leader’s statement: “We will welcome foreign investors when we use foreign capital for Nepal’s benefit.” Twenty years later, we can clearly see that feudalism still runs rampant in the countryside and that Nepal has not become one bit more like an imperialist country such as Switzerland; instead, the country has become poorer and more dependent on foreign capital.
3. Regarding imperialism, he has stated that there was only a single “globalized state” of imperialism. He regarded the United Nations (UN) as the representative of the “international community.” This is the same UN that Prachanda had previously called upon to oversee “arms management” in Nepal. In other words, he believes that the representative of “the international community,” part of the single globalized imperialist state, was the most suitable actor to manage the people’s affairs. What a clown!
4. He had also stated that India was currently playing a positive role. Yet again, this was the same India that had dominated Nepal for over half a century and had fought side by side with the reactionary army against the people’s war. This claim did not sit well with the people of Nepal and India.
5. Prachanda described his party’s peace policy as “a new form of people’s war” and stated that “after ten years of armed struggle, the people’s war in Nepal has reached a new form of conflict.” This, of course, contradicts Marxism’s view of war, where “war is the continuation of politics by other means” and that “war is the highest form of struggle,” and that a revolution is “an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” The NKP (M)’s policy focused instead on participation in parliament. Through negotiations, dialogues, and above all through the masses’ participation in the electoral spectacle, society could be transformed. Consequently, the class struggle was reduced from being an antagonistic contradiction—in which classes with directly opposing interests fight by all available means—to becoming a non-antagonistic contradiction, which could be resolved through dialogue and mutual understanding. This is, of course, revisionist rubbish served up with the aim of securing comfortable and well-paid seats in parliament. But the foundation of this revisionism is the alteration of Marxism’s principles regarding class struggle and war.
6. Prachanda and the NKP (M) also revised the communists’ view of the state. The thesis presented in the Manifesto of the Communist Party—that “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”—was disregarded when they unanimously declared Nepal a democracy. But which class, then, holds power in Nepal? The proletariat, the peasants, the bourgeoisie, the landlords? Can the party of the proletariat govern together with the parties of the landowners and the big bourgeoisie? No, of course it cannot.
The old Nepalese state continued to be a state of landowners and bureaucratic capitalists—the only difference being that the monarchy was replaced by new rulers: wolves in sheep’s clothing—the revisionists. The people remained subjects, inequality continued to grow, while Prachanda and his clique transformed into the very billionaires they had sworn in 1996 to eradicate through the people’s war.
These are just a few examples taken from the NKP (M)’s public records. There are countless other examples that could be cited, but we believe that the cases mentioned are more than sufficient.
Photo taken in 2025 after the mob had burned down Prachanda’s home during a nationwide uprising against corruption and nepotism.
Lessons from the People’s War in Nepal
“The masses make history” and “Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist.” The People’s War in Nepal was able to achieve the victories it did only by winning the hearts and minds of the masses through serving the people’s material interests. The People’s Army was never more technologically advanced than that of the reactionaries, nor did it have a better economy or even military training. It had something else. It was based on the people and the people’s interests, and by showing and leading the way—by arming the people—it was able to win over the masses. The contest of power between revolution and reaction is not merely a struggle of military and economic strength; it is also a struggle of human strength and morality. Military and economic power are necessarily exercised by people.
“The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes”; rather, the core of the people’s war must be the replacement of the old state with the new state. This means that the new power is essential and becomes the guarantee of victory in the people’s war. In Nepal, the new power was dissolved, and the “communists” took over the state machinery of the old state. The state machinery of the old state was built on bureaucratic capital and large landholdings. Its apparatus of violence was trained to oppress the people and serve the propertied classes. Its economy and military were dependent on imperialist capital and dirty deals with the genocidal regime in India.
The new state, on the other hand, was built on the participation and integration of the masses. It was built on an armed force led by the Communist Party, in which the masses were the bearers of arms. The integration of the masses is achieved through the new politics, economy, and culture, whereby they become the actual masters of their own lives. It becomes much more difficult to stage a coup in a state where the masses are armed and where revolutionary consciousness has taken root. It is as Chairman Mao taught us that “democracy in our army is an important weapon for undermining the feudal mercenary army.” A state built on the interests of the people, where they become active and leading figures, will always win broader and more steadfast support than those built on oppression and exploitation.
It is also through this understanding—that the victory of the people’s war throughout the country is achieved by the new state replacing the old one—that the Maoists avoid getting bogged down in peace negotiations and policies of reconciliation. Even though a new and an old state may coexist for a certain period, the struggle between them is constant and fundamentally antagonistic.
We take up the slogan of the PCP and Chairman Gonzalo, “People’s War until Communism” to affirm that power cannot be won by any method other than the people’s war, and that it is by persevering in the principles of the people’s war—such as building up the new power—that we have a guarantee of victory in advancing toward communism and in fighting against capitalist roaders like Khrushchev, Deng, and Prachanda.
“Without a people’s army, the people have nothing,” Chairman Mao taught us. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” and therefore disarming the people means depriving them of their achievements. Nothing that has been won can endure unless it is safeguarded by the rifle—history has taught us this. When the people’s war in Nepal began, they drew lessons from the people’s wars in China and Peru and applied the method that if you do not have weapons, you seize them from the enemy. During the early years, the people’s army was built up through precisely this method. Uniting the masses’ struggle under the banner of the people’s war, seizing weapons, and arming the masses became the successful method for defeating a heavily armed, technologically advanced, and imperialist-controlled reactionary army. It was the People’s Army that made it possible for the new power to develop and flourish.
When Prachanda and the NKP (M) struck a deal with the imperialists, the bureaucratic capitalists, and the landlords, and handed over the people’s rifles—which had been under UN inspection—to the enemy, the new government collapsed and everything that had been won was lost.
“The Party is a contradiction in which the class struggle is expressed in the form of a two-line struggle between the left and the right” means that the class struggle within the Communist Party, the leadership of the revolution, becomes the main battleground of the class struggle in the country. It cannot escape anyone’s notice that it was revisionism that crushed the people’s war, not the reactionary state’s army or the masses’ indifference toward who ruled over them. As early as 1999, before the people’s war entered a strategic equilibrium, one could see how the leadership of the NKP (M) began to waver. This wavering within the Communist Party’s top leadership is the cause of the outbreak of revisionism. Once again, it stems from the fact that the party leadership prioritized its own instinct for self-preservation and its own security over the interests of the Nepalese people. This is the basis of the policy of capitulation that was implemented.
The constant ceasefires and attempts at negotiation were thus rooted in the class struggle within the party. The People’s War could have achieved victory earlier if momentum had been maintained in the early 2000s, especially as the internal crisis within the ruling classes intensified following the massacre of the royal family in 2001.
The fact that this is a matter of class struggle and not a matter of opinions, perspectives, or tactics is proven by the fact that capitulation to imperialism transformed the leadership of the NKP (M) from proletarians into bureaucratic capitalists. It was precisely within the Communist Party that the decisions were made that made Prachanda rich and led to the defeat of the people’s war. This makes it clear that “revisionism is the main danger” and that the main focus of the class struggle is the subjective forces (the communists) and their internal struggle (the two-line struggle—the struggle between being a proletarian revolutionary party or a bourgeois reactionary party in the service of imperialism).
Don’t forget—the people’s war was on the verge of victory across the country. The development of the class struggle within the party deprived the people of a People’s Republic of New Democracy.
The PCP defined that the leadership is the key and that “it is the duty of all Party members to constantly struggle to defend and preserve the Party’s leadership.” It is the leadership’s line that shapes the party as a whole and, consequently, the people’s war. Defending the Party’s leadership means defending its unity under the ideology of the proletariat. If the Party becomes revisionist, it ceases to be a communist party.
Chairman Mao taught us that if the party is taken over by revisionists, it changes its character and ceases to be the party. Speaking of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), he described how, after Khrushchev’s coup, the CPSU was transformed into a “Hitler-style fascist party.” He predicted that the same thing could happen to the Communist Party of China if the revisionists took over—which they did after his death in 1976.
Prachanda and his gang transformed the party from a communist party serving the proletariat and the peoples of the world into a party of the landlords and bureaucratic capitalists serving imperialism. In other words, the most important and decisive battles of the people’s war in Nepal did not take place on the battlefield between the People’s Army and the armed forces of the old state, but within the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
Nepalese society today
According to the Kathmandu Post, the wealthiest 7% own approximately 31% of the country’s agricultural land, while half of Nepal’s farmers own less than 0.5 hectares. An estimated 1.3 million families (not individuals) are landless farmers. The land controlled by landlords is the most fertile, and various medieval forms of tenancy dominate the countryside. Around 80% of the population are still farmers.
In other words, Prachanda lied when he claimed that feudalism had been swept away by the people’s war. This is the same lie that the right-opportunist line in Peru put forward to crush the people’s war. This lie is based on the claim that “the people’s war was justified when the country was semi-feudal and semi-colonial, but now that the bourgeois revolution is complete, we can use parliament for reforms.” This is incorrect and must be rejected.
Imperialist capital has not made Nepal richer. Chinese social-imperialism has gained greater influence over Nepal’s economy, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative. Furthermore, India continues to keep Nepal under its thumb as a puppet state through import dependency, particularly on military equipment, industrial goods, and fuel, which serves Indian bureaucratic capitalism. Most of the exports of raw materials go to India, which ultimately serves its imperialist masters as well as U.S. imperialism.
In other words, the people’s war did not lead to any change in the fundamental pillars of class society. The country remains stuck in the Middle Ages with a feudal economic base. On top of this, a bureaucratic capitalism continues to grow, causing value to flow out of the country and enrich the imperialists and their lackeys. Nepal remains a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country with bureaucratic capitalism growing over it. The people—the peasants, the proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie—continue to be oppressed by the ruling classes: the landlords, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, and the imperialists.
Summary
The People’s War in Nepal proved that the People’s War is not only possible but the only victorious tactic. The People’s War in Nepal had tremendous potential to seize power throughout the country. However, it bears the stain of a treacherous bourgeois leadership that preferred to secure its own safety and success over the success of the international proletariat, the peoples of the world, and the revolution. This highlights the necessity of the communist party, united around the ideology of the proletariat, and not any other class whose interests lie in self-preservation. The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains, but a world to win.
We honor this anniversary by learning from the great advances and lessons that have been both won and paid for with the precious blood of the Nepalese people. We wholeheartedly condemn revisionism and its proponents: imperialist lackeys, traitors, murderers, egoists, and scum! We know, however, that the memory of the People’s War will never fade and that the Maoists in Nepal continue to struggle, against the fierce tide of revisionism, especially against Prachanda’s vile revisionism, and for the launch of a new People’s War.
Long Live the People’s War!
Down with revisionism!
Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!