The Prachanda Path leading nowhere – The failed successful Nepalese Revolution 20 years later

Between 1996 and 2006 the South Asian Himalaya country Nepal was stuck in a civil war between the Kingdom of Nepal and Maoist rebels led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which in the end led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a federal republic.

The tragedy lies in the fact that the CPN(M) failed despite being successful with its people´s war strategy in the civil war. This history should be studied to draw conclusions for our own practice and to have a warning example of what happens if we lose course.

The creation of Prachanda Path

“‘Prachanda Path’ is the product of creative application of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist science in the concrete conditions of Nepal.”¹ – Prachanda

Prachanda Path looks like a Nepalese copy of Gonzalo Thought because the premise leading to its creation is similar and it was similarly propagated by the namegiver himself. As shown above, Prachanda himself spoke of “Prachanda Path” in an interview in 2001. Gonzalo similarly spoke of “Gonzalo Thought” in his famous 1988 interview with El Diario: “It is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Peruvian revolution that has produced Gonzalo Thought.”² And similarly the CPN(M) propagated Prachanda Path in Nepal just like the PCP propagated Gonzalo Thought in Peru. This would also explain why Prachanda used “Guiding Thought” as a placeholder term for Prachanda Path in his article “The Nepalese People´s War & the Question of ideological Synthesis”³ from the year 2000 because Gonzalo used that term as well as a synonym for his Gonzalo Thought.

The CPN(M) started to propagate Prachanda Path besides Marxism-Leninism-Maoism after its 2nd National Conference in February 2001. This National Conference adopted a document which has been regarded as the ideological basis for the CPN(M)’s revolutionary struggle for the upcoming years. This document is titled “The Great Leap Forward: An inevitable need of history”. In it the necessity of Prachanda Path is explained the following way:

“MLM is the science of social revolution of the proletariat. Being a science, it always obligates its development through practical application in the class struggle to change the world. The synthesis of experiences of the Party as ‘Prachanda Path’, finally expresses the specificities of the application of the universal principles of MLM in the practice of Nepalese revolution.”⁴

Articles for the purpose of Prachanda Path have been written in the following years which did not stand out for modesty while repeating truisms as fundamental components of Prachanda Path.

Kiran Panday from the CPN(M) wrote in December 2003 in his work “Philosophical Concept of Prachanda Path”:

“Prachanda Path is the set of ideas that has emerged amidst application of MLM in the particularity of Nepalese revolution and it has strength to serve world revolution.”⁵

Does that mean that Prachanda Path should be regarded as a new stage in the development of the Marxist theory? Unfortunately Kiran implies that:

“Germany, which was backward compared to advanced England and France, gave Marxism. Russia that was backward compared to Europe and other countries gave birth to Leninism. China, which was underdeveloped and oppressed by imperialism, gave rise to Maoism. Today, the credit of giving birth to new ideas in the form of other height of Prachanda Path is going to Nepal, the third poorest country of the world.”⁶

“Along with the grasp of MLM, Prachanda Path has been developing in the process of its defense, application and development and this concept also carries specific international significance regarding the process of development of revolutionary theory.”⁷

Ananta from the CPN(M) openly wrote in November 2003 in his work “People’s War in the 21st Century and Prachanda Path”:

“Prachanda Path has enriched and developed all the three components of MLM, the philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism.”⁸

That would mean that Prachanda Path would be the fourth development stage of Marxism and be universally applicable. This is not true of course and a ridiculous exaggeration.

Prachanda said in an interview with the BBC in February 2006:

“Ideologically we do want there to be a revolution in the USA and even in your UK, and that the working classes should rule.

That does not mean that once we conquer in Nepal we will go and spread revolution in other countries.

But we will give ideological support, for sure.”⁹

We could assume that this “ideological support” would mean to spread Prachanda Path.

In May 2006 the editorial “Ten Years that shook the World” in the ideological organ of the CPN(M) “The Worker” #10 stated:

“The concrete experiences of the Nepalese revolution, which are based in the universal principles of MLM, have been synthesized as ‘Prachanda Path’ by the Party, and may be of interest to the entire international proletarian fraternity.”¹⁰

But Basanta toned down that international propagation of Prachanda Path a bit in his article “International Dimension of Prachanda Path” in the same edition of “The Worker”:

“Our Party does not claim that Prachanda Path has already become universal. Nor do we think it is the time to debate whether or not it has attained universality. Nonetheless, we believe that the new concepts and ideas that it has put forward encompasses ideological and political strength to help develop revolutionary struggles all across the world.”¹¹

That means that Prachanda Path is not officially regarded as universal but it would contain “new concepts and ideas” that the comrades around the world should study. But which are they?

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism teaches that the revolution in semi-feudal (semi-)colonial countries has to undergo two phases: The new democratic phase and the socialist phase¹². In Nepal not even the new democratic revolution can be said to have been led to victory as I will prove in the later chapters.

Let us look into why Prachanda Path is nothing else than another revisionist distortion of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in history.

China and the Nepalese communists

“The CPC developed its unique path to socialism with Chinese characteristics.”¹³ – Prachanda

The Chinese government under Jiang Zemin condemned the Nepali revolutionaries as “terrorists” and condemned their use of violence against the Kingdom of Nepal in 2002¹⁴. This clearly shows that the Communist Party of China since the Deng Xiaoping era turned into a reactionary, counterrevolutionary, bourgeois party. The CPN(M) back then of course refuted such accusations.

Krishna Bahadur Mahara from the CPN(M) stated in an interview with the CNN on 14th November 2002:

“We are a political force and do not support terrorism. We condemn all types of terrorism. Terrorism is what a few people do for their own selfish reasons but we are a political force. This is a people’s movement, a people’s war. It is a people’s force.”¹⁵

When India and Great Britain stopped selling arms to the Kingdom of Nepal in 2005, the Chinese government still sent 990.000$ for military aid to the collapsing regime¹⁶. This was obviously led by imperialist interests which would be harmed by the overthrow of the Nepalese bourgeois state.

This support of the Chinese leadership for the ancien regime in the past seems to be forgotten today just like the CPN(M)´s original categorization of China as a capitalist country after the death of Mao¹⁷. Prachanda seems to enjoy close ties with the Chinese leadership, first under Hu Jintao and now under Xi Jinping.

Right after his swearing in as prime minister, Prachanda went to China to meet the back then Chinese President and General Secretary of the CPC Hu Jintao in August 2008 in Beijing. Hu Jintao claimed that the Chinese government would “respect the social system and path of development chosen independently by the Nepalese”¹⁸. When looking at the previous Chinese support for the Nepalese king, these words sound like a farce. The Wall Street Journal commented in those days back then that the Prachanda Path might be economically actually more in line with Deng Xiaoping than with Mao Zedong¹⁹.

Is that true? It cannot be said to be entirely true since Deng Xiaoping restored capitalism while Prachanda never even abolished capitalism, but it is true in the sense that both support a capitalist course.

In 2017 Prachanda signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” to join the China-led Belt and Road Initiative²⁰. This sealed the fact of Nepal being a Chinese colony.

When Prachanda made a state visit to China in September 2023 on which he also met Xi Jinping, Prachanda called Xi a “visionary global leader” and “good friend of all Nepalese people”²¹. This is beyond mere diplomatic politeness!

The commentators of the Global Times made the close ties between Nepal and China very clear in an article about the mentioned state visit:

“In 2017, Nepal officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative, which was a clear indication to India that Nepal is a country with the right to make independent choices.”²²

This effectively means that Nepal became part of the Chinese zone of influence and the Indian bourgeoisie should take its hands off. On the other hand, Bhutan which is theoretically culturally closer to China via Tibet than to India is within the Indian sphere of influence.

The relationship to China is to some degree part of the next issue:

The economic transformation that never happened

Despite having had several governments led by the CPN(M) and their successor parties since 2008, the big bourgeoisie has never been expropriated in Nepal. Already in October 2006 Prachanda said in an interview with The Telegraph:

“We are not fighting for socialism.”

“We are just fighting against feudalism. We are fighting for a capitalistic mode of production. We are trying to give more profit to the capitalists and industrialists.”²³

This shows that right after succeeding in the civil war, the CPN(M) effectively gave up its goals of social transformation openly.

After becoming Nepalese prime minister, Prachanda said in an interview with the BBC in September 2008:

“We do not believe that private property should be abolished. But we believe that the leadership must keep away from making money to ensure that the properties of the people are protected and promoted.”²⁴

This literally means: Business as usual. It is obvious that the existence of capitalism in Nepal was accepted.

The peace agreement of 22nd November 2006 between the Nepalese government and the CPN(M) stated in Point 3.7. that a “scientific land reforms program” should be executed to “end feudal land ownership”²⁵. But the harsh truth is: The land reform which was supposed to abolish feudalism effectively failed due to barely redistributing any land from landlords to small peasants²⁶. So even the abolishing of feudalism failed and was never even tried in a serious manner.

Prachanda said in February 2006 in an interview with the BBC:

“The vision that we see of the future Nepal is to be free of class exploitation that exists in Nepal; that all classes should be free from feudal exploitation.

Nepal also has caste exploitation. Nepal should be free from the exploitation of the suppressed castes. The suppressed castes have been exploited by feudal castes. And we want them to be free of that.”²⁷

Except for the formal abolishing of castes (like it happened in India as well on paper already shortly after the founding of the Republic of India) we can assert that nothing of the mentioned liberation from exploitation was achieved due to not abolishing the exploiting classes, the bourgeoisie and the landlords.

Even the Central Committee of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), into which the CPN(M) has merged at the time, admitted in their decision “Present Situation and Historical Task of the Proletariat” from 28th January 2010:

“There has been no basic change in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition of the country.”²⁸

Now, more recently, Prachanda started talking about socialism again. But still there is no talk of a planned economy at all in Nepal, of course.

Prachanda spoke in December 2020 about inner-party debates about the “journey to socialism”²⁹.

In July 2025 Prachanda said that “bureaucratic capitalism” is the main obstacle in Nepal today, not “monarchy and feudal autocracy”³⁰. This is not even wrong, but very incomplete. Capitalist and feudal exploitation are still on the necks of the Nepalese working people, it is just that the monarchy is indeed gone for good.

Prachanda accused the CPN(UML) and the Nepali Congress in September 2025 of supporting “crony capitalism and comprador capitalism” and claimed that the “contribution of entrepreneurs and industrialists” would be “essential for moving toward socialism”³¹. By that he accused others of supporting capitalism while self supporting Nepali capitalists and even claiming the possibility to build socialism with them.

The question is who would actually believe his U-turn to be genuine after driving the Nepalese revolution against the wall.

To give some numbers about the Nepalese economy:

State enterprises contributed in 2023/2024 with 11.57% to the GDP of Nepal with 45 companies of which only 20 are completely owned by the state and 25 majorly owned by the state³². Effectively the latter show the state capitalist nature of these enterprises very clearly due to being joint ventures.

In 2019/2020 the cooperative sector had only a 0.85% share in production³³. Most cooperatives were savings cooperatives. The makes the boasting goal of the National Cooperative Development Board of Nepal of achieving 15% cooperative sector share on the GDP by 2045 questionable³⁴.

Even when counting both sectors as if they would be fully socialist (which they are obviously not!), Nepal would have an economy that is over 85% capitalist or even still stuck in feudal remnants. Without expropriation of the exploiting classes nothing will change on the situation.

The question of state power

It is obvious that without the intention of fundamentally changing the socio-economic conditions in Nepal there was also no effort for the erection of a proletarian dictatorship. The necessity for the replacement of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is recognized as a must from the very beginning of the creation of Marxism.

Karl Marx knew: “The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”³⁵

Also Lenin knew who has the true power in a bourgeois republic: “The power of capital is everything, the stock exchange is everything, while parliament and elections are marionettes, puppets.“³⁶

There was a time in which Prachanda used to recognize these facts found in the Marxist theory. For example in his appeal to the members of the CPN(M) on the occasion of the third anniversary of starting people´s war in Nepal, dated 13th February 1999, he clearly wrote:

“It is the reality of Nepalese society that not only the Nepalese masses have rejected the reactionary state that is based on exploitation, oppression and pillage of the masses of the people for thousand years, but they have taken initiative to build their own state power by means of the People’s War.”³⁷

A couple of years later Prachanda wrote in his work “Down with Parliamentarism! Long live New Democracy!”:

“What the people have understood from the history of all over the world and also from Nepal is that resolution of the problem is not possible by casting vote in the parliamentary election. The fact that casting of vote in the parliamentary election in real sense is to provide national betrayer and anti-people elements the right to perpetrate unjust, atrocity, exploitation and repression upon people has been established at the lowest level of the masses too. There is no other way for the Nepalese people than to jump into the struggle that makes them the sole master of their destiny.”³⁸

On 10th August 2005 Prachanda wrote in a press statement on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPN(M):

“Our party is a revolutionary party struggling to establish a real democracy of the Nepalese people.”³⁹

In February 2006 Prachanda still said in an interview with the BBC on the tenth anniversary of the people´s war in Nepal:

“We want to conquer Kathmandu with the people’s rebellion.”⁴⁰

Actually this never happened due to the peace agreement in the same year. This was the beginning of the complete erosion of the revolutionary goals of the CPN(M).

In the very same interview Prachanda also stated:

“As soon as the people are given the right to decide of their own fate and of their own future, we will be ready to lay down our arms. But if the people are not given their rights, we are committed to and are ready to fight till the end.”⁴¹

As we have seen, this meant for him merely bourgeois-democratic rights. Nothing more.

Prachanda focused so much on the overthrow of the monarchy that the class character of the state was completely forgotten. Engels on the other hand already wrote on this matter in his 1891 Postscript to Marx’ “Civil War in France”:

“And people think they have taken quite an extraordinary bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.”⁴²

On 1st February 2005 Prachanda wrote in a press statement on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPN(M):

“Our party pledges to fight till last for the emancipation of the country and people and complete overthrow of feudal autocracy.”⁴³

Maybe this statement can already be seen as the beginning of a shift?

Prachanda said in October 2006 in another interview:

“Even under the dictatorship of the proletariat, multi-party competition is necessary to have a vibrant and dynamic society.”⁴⁴

These are empty words since the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is not even a dictatorship of the proletariat to begin with.

Prachanda already said in an interview in December 2001 with “The Times of India”:

“We are definitely against a one-party dictatorship. There will be full freedom to all the anti-feudal and anti imperialist political parties in New Democracy.”⁴⁵

Socialist multi-party systems have existed previously already. Until 2006 there was no talk about that allowing several parties would mean parliamentarism.

In an interview for “The Worker” #10 published in May 2006 Prachanda accused the CPN(UML) of having sunk “deeply in parliamentarism”. When the interviewer confronted Prachanda with the fact that the CPN(UML) and the CPN(M) don´t seem to differ that much on the matter of “multi-party democracy” and a “multi-party democratic republic”, he formulated the following excuse:

“UML’s multi-party people’s democracy expresses class coordination and a reformist line of bourgeois parliamentarianism while our slogan of democratic republic expresses transitional revolutionary slogan that helps propel class struggle in a special condition of power balance.“⁴⁶

This is effectively nothing else as if Lenin stopped in the middle of the October Revolution to suddenly accept and support the constituent assembly of the Mensheviki. But actually Lenin criticized Zinoviev and Kamenev for doing so⁴⁷.

Prachanda said in the very same interview:

“The people’s democratic state that we have envisaged is a state under the leadership of the proletariat with collective dictatorship of various classes of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist people. Such a state cannot be established without first dismantling the state that works in the interests of feudalism and imperialism.”⁴⁸

He was paying lip service to his previously revolutionary Marxist-Leninist-Maoist positions while actually already having given them up.

In an interview with Ratopati in September 2024 Prachanda openly admitted:

“The main issue of the People’s War, initiated under the leadership of the then CPN (Maoist), was indeed to draft a constitution through the Constituent Assembly, ensuring federal democratic republic status that included inclusive and proportional recognition.”⁴⁹

He openly shows his Menshevik face in this matter here. Prachanda broke with his own former party line. In an interview in February 2006 with Kantipur Publication he still held the position that the demand for a Constituent Assembly is not a communist but a capitalist one⁵⁰.

Krishna Bahadur Mahara made the CPN(M) party line clear in his 2002 interview with the CNN:

“The government is not agreeing to our proposal for a constituent assembly because they know that they’ll lose. They just have the support of the army and certain pimps in position of power. The common man is against them. Our party’s chairman comrade Prachanda has appealed for talks again and again. The slogan for constituent assembly is not ours, it is that of the capitalist. Our slogan has always been people’s democracy and new democracy.”⁵¹

Now Prachanda is claiming in 2024 that the Constituent Assembly was not a capitalist slogan but effectively the idea of the CPN(M)! He sunk so low, on the level of a renegade of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Back in February 1999 he wrote in his appeal to the CPN(M) members on the occasion of the third anniversary of the people´s war:

“The elements that seriously betrayed the development of the Nepalese revolution have degenerated to the revisionist renegade cliques who cite the name of Marx to worship parliamentarism.”⁵²

And also in the very document establishing Prachanda Path on the 2nd National Conference of the CPN(M) titled “The Great Leap Forward: An inevitable need of history” from February 2001 it is stated:

“After Engels’ death, the leaders of the Second International, mainly Karl Kautsky, knelt before the bourgeois parliamentarism and betrayed revolutionary principles of Marxism.”⁵³

Cannot Prachanda be today targeted by his own words from the past in which he condemned what he is representing today?

The Constituent Assembly adopted a constitution as the name obviously states. Prachanda said in an interview in 2023 with the Global Times about this constitution:

“Nepal’s Constitution defines Nepal as a socialism-oriented state. In my view, socialism and Chairman Mao’s ideas and teachings remain relevant to transform Nepal into a socialist country.”⁵⁴

It is true that Article 4.1 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal says:

“Nepal is an independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive democratic, socialism-oriented federal democratic republican state.”⁵⁵

But this has no value in itself. Even the constitution of Portugal speaks in its preamble of “opening up a path towards a socialist society”⁵⁶. Despite that nobody would question the fact that Portugal is a capitalist state because never having taken any steps towards socialism. The same applies to Nepal.

The other issue is that the CPN(M) proposed an “Interim Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal” in 2006 which did not mention socialism at all, not even in its preamble. It only talks about social rights on the level of social-democratic reforms by content while the focus was clearly to abolish the monarchy and feudalism. Article 1 even clearly states:

“A state system of democratic republic shall be established by bringing to an end all the remnants of monarchy and feudal autocracy.”⁵⁷

There was not even the talk of expropriating the comprador bourgeoisie, like it was done under Mao Zedong⁵⁸. Therefore the outcome of the revolution in Nepal cannot even be called a new democratic revolution but rather a bourgeois-democratic revolution at best, with all its half measures.

In 2007 there was hope among the CPN(M) that a people´s democratic state could be established, just as it was the formal party line until 2006.

Gaurav from the CPN(M) wrote in his article “New Tactics: Challenges and Opportunities” for “The Worker” #11 from July 2007:

“What type of republic will be established and institutionalized in Nepal depends on who wins the majority in the election of the constituent assembly. If the left force gets majority in the assembly, there will be ‘People’s Democratic Republic’ in place and the constitution will be written and promulgated accordingly.“⁵⁹

These words represented a hope that would be shattered just after the election of Prachanda in 2008. He spoke about this matter in an interview with the BBC in September 2008 after being elected as Nepalese prime minister. Here an excerpt with the relevant questions and answers:

“There are two schools of thoughts within your party – one favouring the People’s Republic and the other favouring the Democratic Republic. Which one will prevail?

That is not the case. There is no illusion within our party regarding our ultimate goal of establishing a Socialist Communism. However, in the current national and international circumstances, we have decided to move ahead by institutionalising the federal democratic republic.

So, you want to establish a People’s Republic by means of the state of the democratic republic?

We will definitely attempt to establish a People’s Republic by institutionalizing democratic republic and through the legitimate means like elections. Once we attain that, we will then work to achieve socialism and communism.

Will there be a people’s republic if your party wins a majority in the next election?

Let’s not understand this in a provocative manner. We will definitely try our best to ensure that the new constitution will be as close to the ideal of People’s Republic as possible. I believe that the constitution would pave the way for a People’s Republic, Socialism and Communism.

How can it pave the way for communism when you have said there will be guarantees of all kinds of political freedom?

We have concluded that socialism without multiparty competition and political freedoms cannot survive. We have learned this from the experiences of Russia and other countries.”⁶⁰

Isn’t it crystal-clear that no people´s republic has been built in the past 20 years and instead, as Prachanda himself said, only the “federal democratic republic” furtherly “institutionalized”? Compare that to the position the CPN(M) still held in 2003!

“The main objective of the People’s Council is to institutionalise the New Democratic/People’s Democratic Republic in the country. The fundamental character of New Democratic or People’s Democratic republican state shall be the people’s democratic dictatorship with the participation of all the progressive classes including the national bourgeoisie and oppressed nations/nationalities based on worker-peasant alliance under the leadership of the proletariat. It will end all forms of exploitation-oppression of feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism/expansionism in the country and implement democracy for the people and dictatorship over the enemies of the people.”⁶¹

Nothing has been achieved effectively, not only not on the economic field but also on the political one. As a sort of “excuse” for this change in the policy of the party the CPN(M) posted an editorial on its website in July 2007 in which they stated:

“While developing the PW during the last ten years it was felt that the international support was not enough that was required to achieve the nationwide victory of the revolution. It is necessary to fulfill this task during this time of peaceful development of the revolution.”⁶²

This is a very bad excuse. Prachanda himself saw that the Kingdom of Nepal was “on the verge of collapse due to advancement of People’s War”⁶³ – and this interview has been published in January 2003 already! By 2006 the PLA controlled most parts of Nepal – mainly the rural areas. The urban centers were surrounded. Entire victory could have been achieved despite some hardships on the way.

After years of unclear status, the integration of the Nepalese People’s Liberation Army into the regular armed forces effectively failed with the integration of just a small portion of 3.129 PLA fighters joining the Nepalese Army⁶⁴. That equals the dissolution of the PLA effectively when comparing it to PLA chief Pasang’s demand back in 2008 to integrate the entire PLA of 19.604 soldiers into the regular armed forces besides a few exceptions only⁶⁵. Prachanda in the same year only said: “I am not in a position to say how many PLA combatants will be integrated and how many of them will return home.”⁶⁶ He did not even use his influence to achieve the goal of turning the PLA into a regular armed force.

Therefore, not only has the Nepalese Army not been transformed into a progressive armed force, also the PLA as a revolutionary armed force has been abolished. This should be enough proof for the class character of the Nepalese state.

Contemporary criticism

The mentioned problems in the practice of the CPN(M) after succeeding in the civil war have been seen by comrades back in those days already. Comrade Azad from the Naxalite Communist Party of India (Maoist) looked at the events in Nepal through the critical lens while many comrades around the world were stuck in blind celebrations.

Azad already criticized the peace agreement that effectively accepted the capitulation of the bourgeois state to grant them a place in their government:

“The agreement by the Maoists to become part of the interim government in Nepal cannot transform the reactionary character of the state machinery that serves the exploiting ruling classes and imperialists. The State can be an instrument in the hands of either the exploiting classes or the proletariat, but it cannot serve the interests of both these bitterly contending classes. It is a fundamental tenet of Marxism that no basic change in the social system can be brought about without smashing the state machine. Reforms from above cannot bring any qualitative change in the exploitative social system, however democratic the new constitution might seem to be, and even if the Maoists become an important component of the government. It is sheer illusion to think that a new Nepal can be built without smashing the existing State.“⁶⁷

Effectively the CPN(M) only achieved some social reforms for a high bloodshed. It would have not taken too much more efforts to smash the bourgeois state apparatus after almost controlling all of the country except the urban centers.

Azad criticized the tries to portray the Nepalese revolution as a “peaceful” one:

“There is a tendency to compare the Maoist movements of Nepal and India, pitting the Nepal Maoists’ present tactics as a supposed peaceful alternative to the Indian Maoists’ violent methods. One should not forget that the present victories of the anti-monarchy movement are primarily a result of the success of the politico-military battles by the People’s Liberation Army and their ability to beat back the attacks of the king’s army. Their victories are built on the backbone of a 30,000 strong PLA and one lakh militia, and the loss of 12,000 lives.”⁶⁸

As long as the CPN(M) was actively engaged in people´s war, they were condemned as “terrorist”; as soon as they signed the armistice and the following peace agreement on the basis of a bourgeois republic, they were portrayed the way Azad criticized. It is obvious that this “praise” only came to discourage the necessary revolution. Due to this “peaceful” path after 2006 the CPN(M) effectively made the sacrifices made by the Nepalese working people meaningless because effectively just a few small reforms were made when it comes to the socio-economic sphere. This is the outrageous part, not the necessary sacrifices.

Azad also criticized the turn of the CPN(M) to parliamentarism:

“Comrade Prachanda had also given a call to other Maoist parties to reconsider their revolutionary strategies and to practice multi-party democracy in the name of 21st century democracy. Our CC makes it crystal clear to CPN(M) and the people at large that there can be no genuine democracy in any country without the capture of state power by the proletariat and that the so-called multi-party democracy cannot bring any basic change in the lives of the people. It calls upon the Maoist parties and people of south Asia to persist in the path of protracted people’s war as shown by comrade Mao. We also appeal to the CPN(Maoist) once again to rethink their current tactics, which are actually changing the very strategic direction of the revolution in Nepal, and to withdraw from their agreement with the government of Nepal on depositing the arms of the PLA as this would make the people defenseless in face of attacks by the reactionaries.”⁶⁹

Also the pro-capitalist turn of the CPN(M) has been criticized by Azad:

“In the past Maoists had opposed private institutions in health and education sectors. But now Prachanda has promised private-public partnership will be encouraged in health and education sectors.”⁷⁰

As we can see, the CPI(M) followed the course of her Nepalese sister party always in solidarity, but with a critical view against their revisionist change in course. Unfortunately the CPN(M) never listened to the criticism of the CPI(M) and continued their erroneous path.

Back in 2008 the German politicologist Cornelia Schöler wrote a book on the Nepalese revolution with a rather supportive lens. Despite that she was far from being uncritical. She saw it critical that the CPN(M) suddenly turned to electoralism after the peace agreement⁷¹. She therefore asked the legit question at the end of her book:

“Will the CPN(M) keep its orientation? At the end, as they know themselves, success will decide if they were right with their chosen course.”⁷²

As we have seen, the chosen course of Prachanda Path led into nowhere.

Blow up, no glow up

The Nepali Communist Party of today does not even propagate Prachanda Path anymore. The NCP officially only follows Marxism-Leninism (and not even Maoism anymore, despite Prachanda seeing it as the third stage of the development of Marxist theory⁷³!) nowadays⁷⁴ – and even that is highly questionable due to their at best social-democratic course. That means that effectively nothing is left from Prachanda Path except the name of a Nepalese politician who threw away all revolutionary progress on the brink of complete victory.

In 2006 Prachanda said towards the BBC:

“In the 20th Century, totalitarianism was widely propagated.

People might find it surprising.

The main difference in us is when we talk about Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and their ideology, we believe that it has to be developed.”⁷⁵

He effectively spilled boiling water over the socialist countries of the 20th century by that and called his social-democratic path a “development” of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! This is not uncommon for revisionists to claim that Marxism would have to be “developed” due to “altering conditions”.

Prachanda himself used to criticize these attempts. He wrote in June 1990 in an article titled “Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or Revisionism?”:

“What is revisionism? In fact, to make reforms in Marxism, which is unified with the cause of class struggle of proletariat and mould it to suit the non-proletarian interest is revisionism. The need of revisionism comes out of its class base in the modern society. The greater the number of non-proletarian, particularly petty bourgeois class in a particular place, the more propitious base there for revisionism. Indeed revisionism is capitalism and imperialism that have penetrated into the workers movement. Therefore, any attempt to weaken the struggle against revisionism under any pretext is revisionism in itself.”⁷⁶

Therefore: Prachanda Path cannot be regarded as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism applied to the Nepalese conditions due to resulting in a merely bourgeois republic, never abolishing capitalism nor even the feudal remnants in Nepal.

Prachanda used to be looked up to by comrades around the world as long as his party was leading the struggle. Today nothing of this glory is left. The glorious victory became a shameful treason by the very leaders of the revolutionary struggle itself. Isn’t that a vile irony? The Bible says that the righteous works shall not be remembered when someone committed serious iniquities later on⁷⁷. That is true for Prachanda and his “comrades” for sure because in the end he did not help the world revolution at all except to serve as a negative example.

What should we learn as lessons from the failure of Prachanda Path?

1. We should learn that winning a civil war alone is not enough when after it no measures are taken into the direction of the national democratic and socialist revolution. The actual revolution, the transformation of the socio-economic conditions, is not finished with victory in the civil war but rather starts with it.

2. We should learn to focus on ideological education to not lose the initial goal of the revolution half way like the CPN(M) unfortunately did. The lack of ideological education leads to reliance on personal authority due to incapability to answer fundamental ideological questions by yourself. This also undermines the practice of inner-party democracy.

3. We should learn that the cult of personality around one leader might create a popular figure and boost the party’s popularity as his appendix, but go along with ideological vulgarization and distortion. We have seen that Prachanda Path did not properly apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Nepalese conditions and rather replaced it by a cult around Prachanda as a leading person.

4. We should learn to not give up the cause and the struggle. The CPN(M) even gave up the struggle on the brink of complete victory. They did not go the extra mile to victory – with fatal consequences! Compromising the dictatorship of the proletariat by accepting a merely bourgeois republic made ten years of arduous struggle invalid within just a couple of months.

5. We should learn to not stay silent when comrades abroad are committing grave errors to the revolutionary cause out of fear of disturbing the relationship with a sister party. As shown, the CPI(M) was not afraid of criticizing the CPN(M) for their erroneous course despite them having close ties. Not criticizing grave errors of close comrades would mean carelessness for the international communist movement and in the end undermine proletarian internationalism as a whole.

Let us learn for the future to do it better!