Recognizing the greater regional and world significance of the People’s War in Nepal also informs the overall strategy of the CPN (Maoist) – in how it sees the path to seizing power and in how it sees consolidating state power. The Party leaders very consciously look at their revolution as ‘part of the world revolution’ and they look at the success of a revolution in Nepal as providing both an example and a ‘base area’ for further Maoist revolutions. This has huge implications for the armed struggles being waged by Maoists in India and in turn reacts back on the struggle in Nepal. When I interviewed Prachanda he emphasized the importance of the struggle in India to the success or failure of the Nepalese revolution – pointing to the positive factor of reinforcing synergy between Nepalese Maoists living in India, the political forces in India that would oppose intervention in Nepal, and the overall progress of Maoist revolution in India. The CPN (Maoist) emphasizes its ‘proletarian internationalism’ and has given this organizational expression through its participation in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), whose participants include Maoist parties and organizations from around the world. The CPN (Maoist) also makes no secret of the fact that it has fraternal relations with Maoist organizations throughout the Indian subcontinent. For example, in June 2001, the CPN (Maoist) helped form CCOMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia), which is made up of ten parties, including ones from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and India. CCOMPOSA’s stated purpose is to ‘unify and coordinate the activities of the Maoist parties and organizations in South Asia to spread protracted people’s war in the region’. Maoist parties in India have clearly been encouraged and emboldened by the success of the Maoists in Nepal. A press statement announcing the formation of CCOMPOSA emphasized how the struggle in Nepal is ‘changing the political geography and revolutionary dynamics of South Asia’. All this underscores the strategic significance and political importance of the Nepalese revolution – and the fact that the US and other imperialist powers cannot (and will not) ignore the real threat of a Maoist victory in Nepal. This also poses critical questions if the revolution does come to power in Nepal – what this could spark in neighboring countries, how the US, UK, India, and other countries would respond, and what kind of support would have to be built in the world for a new Maoist government in Nepal to survive the pressures and attacks of surrounding states and America’s new imperial order. This would be a real challenge, not just for the revolutionaries in Nepal but for all who stand against injustice and oppression.
CAN THE REVOLUTION WIN?, Dispatches from the people's war in Nepal (2004), Onesto Li
