On the Communist Party of India (Maoist)’s 10th Anniversary Report
September 2014
LLCO.org
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has released a 96-page document commemorating its 10th anniversary earlier in September, 2014. The document entitled “A decade of struggle and sacrifice” offers an assessment of the current state of the Maoist war in India. The document reports that the Maoists have faced “a severe offensive” from the security forces. The Maoists admit they have lost “considerable number of comrades belonging to all levels.” The report estimates around 2,500 people associated with the movement have recently been killed. “They include hundreds of great leaders of the revolution, from the topmost level of our party to its basic levels.” And:
“Our party lost considerable number of comrades belonging to all levels, right from CC to the village level, in the offensives of the enemy. Though leadership losses began since 2005 May itself, they increased gradually after Unity Congress and the situation took a serious turn by 2011 end. The leadership failed to a large extent in defending itself and the ranks. These losses weakened the three magic weapons of NDR – the party, PLGA and the UF – quite a lot. This failure is a very severe one.”
The outlook needed for current period, according to the report, is one similar to that of the time of “countrywide setback period during the beginning of 1970s.” The bourgeois media is reporting that the recent document confirms that the Maoist people’s war has been hurt badly in recent years by counter-insurgency such as Operation Greenhunt. (2)
It is important to have a materialist assessment of resistance movements worldwide. The CPI (Maoist) is one of the flagship organizations of the Maoist movement. Another important Maoist movement is the Communist Party of the Philippines. Both movements are engaged in popular wars of resistance against the state. However, the international Maoist movement has been in decline since at least the beginning of the 1970s when Mao shifted away from supporting people’s wars, when he shifted into an alignment with the West. This led to terrible demoralization among Maoist forces worldwide. Many movements dropped Maoism as a result. After the death of Mao and end of the Maoist era in China in 1976, the Maoist movement was in crisis. Various attempts were made to regroup the Maoist forces worldwide. Today, not only have these efforts at regroupment failed, but those movements upholding Maoism have failed to scientifically adapt to current conditions. Thus Maoists continue to see setbacks just as other revisionist trends have. Maoists today can claim no special success in their revolutionary efforts against other trends such as Marxism-Leninism. Like other revisionist trends, the Maoist movement too is at an impasse. This is reflected in the long-term decline of Maoism globally, but also in the experiences of their flagship organizations.
In an interesting passage, the CPI (Maoist) report acknowledges that the success of their opposition is a result of adapting and learning:
“The enemy has developed its counter-revolutionary war strategy and tactics (Low Intensity Conflict) drawing on worldwide experiences.” (3)
If the enemy is not afraid to update its science of oppression, why are Maoists afraid to update their science of liberation? To remain stagnant while the enemy increases its scientific capacity will only result in defeat. The revolutionary movement must adapt using the best science available or perish.
The world has significantly changed since the time Mao led his people’s war. It will not be long until a century has passed. The world has changed significantly since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in China a half century ago. Just because there has not been a revolution since Mao’s does not mean science has stopped dead in its tracks. To assert that our knowledge of how economy, society, culture and revolution work cannot advance until there is another conquest of state power by revolutionaries is pure metaphysics. If that were the case, Marx’s writings would have been dismissed in his day. There would have been no reason to support Lenin or Mao until they had won. Today, it is necessary that real communists, Leading Lights, adopt the vanguard stance. We must make a realistic analysis of material conditions, the impasse that exists, and develop the science to push revolution forward. Revolutions or not, there has been an explosion in scientific knowledge in numerous areas in the last century. It would be foolish to think that the tremendous explosion in science and technology does not have profound implications for making revolution today. It is pure metaphysics to think that making revolution today must exactly follow the cookbooks of the past.
Although we salute all popular forces of resistance, including Maoists, we recognize the limits of Maoism today. The world does not stand still. Human knowledge does not either. Leading Light Communism, the most advanced revolutionary science today, continues to apply the correct lessons of the past while advancing and adapting our analysis, tactics, and strategy to confront reality as it exists today. Maoism today, at best, is a beginning, not an end. At best, it is step toward, a ladder to, the most advanced science of Leading Light Communism. We are the ones illuminating the way forward for humanity. Leading Light is the future.
Notes