Introduction:
Three months have passed since the Gen-Z revolt. As such, we have a clearer and indeed broader scope of understanding the social dynamics which led to this revolt. Firstly, it must be qualified why the 2-day protest — in its genuine form — is and ought to be called a “revolt”. As communists, we are compelled to recognize this movement as a revolt, to recognize that those who were massacred by the state’s repressive forces are indeed martyrs. The reason this upturn is a revolt is because, in essence, it was the product of the genuine frustration, anger and discontent of the broad sections of the masses of the people.
The events of the revolt are known to all, so are the common lessons that ought to be drawn. Nevertheless we set out for ourselves the task of examining the protests in greater depth. That is, examining not the events of the revolt as such a thing would be superfluous to the point of irrelevance but instead examining the character of the revolt and the way in which the simmering contradictions of society erupted into a massive antagonistic wild fire.
It is an established fact that this revolt though genuine in its content was utilized by the imperialists to reestablish a regime which is favorable to the interests of American finance-capital. Nepal is quickly becoming a vassal of American imperialism which this revolt, due to its failure has only exacerbated. Nepal, due to its proximity to China, is a perfect tool for the Truman doctrine of “containment.” The inter-imperialist rivalry between the United States and China is thus one reason the American imperialists seek to subjugate Nepal. Should this continue, another inter-imperialist war becomes all the more inevitable and Nepal will be compelled by duress to join in. Such a thing would be contrary to the interests of the Nepali proletariat — a class which fights not for nations but only for its own liberation — and is contrary to the essence of the Gen-Z revolt.
That being said however, it would be contrary to Marxism to say that this revolt was fully orchestrated by the imperialists. This is untrue. As Mao explained several times such as in On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Between the People, in On Contradiction and in the documents of the Great Debate, external forces only become operative when the internal contradictions enable it to be so. Otherwise the external aspect is ineffective. Therefore, to understand the Gen-Z revolt we must understand the internal contradictions and antagonisms of Nepali society.
The causes of discontent
We must clarify one myth that has become all too pervasive even among well-meaning analysts of the Gen-Z revolt. The idea that the protests were the result of the social media ban. In a certain sense, one could say that that was the immediate cause, yet such a thing would be inadequate. Just as we can say that when a soldier shoots the immediate cause is the pulling of the trigger, yet, such a thing is likewise inadequate, as it says nothing of the concrete context in which this gunshot occurred. It is the bourgeois historian, and even then a bad one, who explains the cause of the first inter-imperialist war as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. It is a good bourgeois historian who explains it in terms of a network of alliances and rivalry, and it is only the Marxist who can peel away the fetishism of alliances and show the concrete cause of the war i.e., imperialism. Likewise, if we shall be stuck in the superficialities of the Gen-Z revolt, we shall fail to analyze it concretely and shall thus be doing ourselves a great disservice. The social media ban was simply the pulling of the trigger and not the real cause.
The major slogan put forward by the protestors was that of anti-corruption, and it is here that we must begin our investigation of the real cause of discontent. Corruption occurs in many forms, there is nepotism, bribery, embezzlement, policy corruption etc. These acts tear asunder the social fabric which regulates the intercourse between men, it rips apart the trust between men and most importantly trust the citizenry have for institutions. This mistrust at the institutions of the state, namely the bureaucracy and politicians (but excluding the repressive apparatus of the state, namely the army) was due to major branches of the state engaging in practices contrary to the interests of the masses.
The build up of the discontent occurred gradually over two decades, the minute incidents which we read about in the papers, which we daily experience, that was the first apparent cause. Yet, to view corruption as an act of the individual is to underestimate the evil of corruption. Corruption in Nepal is the product not of the will of men who desire to act in a certain way, but the product of necessity. On the individual level, engaging in activities such as bribery and embezzlement have become a necessity born of social life. It is not the corruption itself which was revolted against, it was a revolt against this necessity. Even if one were to find themselves in a respectable status, it became a necessity to engage in activities contrary to one’s better judgement. This group, those who revolted against the necessity compelled onto themselves formed one group of those who participated in the protests.
Corruption occurs in order to benefit someone, to confer to them an unfair advantage. When individuals are advantaged as such, there will also necessarily be those who lose out, who are disadvantaged. There are those who do not benefit from corruption who, although they have this necessity thrust on them do not have the means to engage in activities which could confer them this advantage. This formed the second part of the protestors. Even then, it was not corruption itself that was revolted against, but the lack of means to fulfil the necessity of corruption. It is in this group that we find the loud voices who speak against unemployment and so forth.
As such, we find that the revolt itself, in terms of its members, was a unity of opposites, a contradiction. This contradiction represents the result of necessity, the need to survive, to maintain one’s life and status. In this contradiction, it is clear that the latter group, those who did not have the means to fulfil necessity represented the principal aspect during the revolt itself. It was this group who were out on the streets, who died and whose stories still go untold. And it is that group which revolted against the necessity compelled on them and who had the means to meet the necessity who are principal now, who have the attention, precisely because they have the means.
The point here really is that corruption, though presented as the primary issue, was secondary to the necessity for corruption. And, that the protestors themselves were revolting against this necessity and the ability not to be able to fulfil this necessity respectively. This begs the question, what gives rise to this necessity?
The answer is that the neocolonial conditions of Nepal give rise to this necessity. Nepal is a comprador republic, as such, it is a stooge to imperialism. In order to maintain itself, it is compelled to engage in overt and covert acts which are contrary to the interest of the masses. In Nepal, the policy of neo-liberalism and the accompanying privatization, deregulation etc. has created a massive reserve army of labor. It would not be incorrect to say that Nepal as a country has become a country which is the reserve labor army of the world. The interests of the Nepali proletariat have been subjected to the interests of imperialism. Since the introduction of neoliberal policies in the 1990s there has been a collapse of the stature, social position and independence of Nepal. It has become compelled to become a country reliant on foreign imperialism, even for necessities.
When the state itself degrades the condition of the average Nepali, for the average Nepali, life becomes a question of survival. To work all day to pay for the most wretched existence. And so, it is in this context that the individual engages in corruption, it is in this context that there is a necessity to engage in this bourgeois vice. The only solution to this is, of course, the completion of the New Democratic revolution and the transition to socialism. For, it is only through this that there can be national-self sufficiency, and there be a society in which no individual is compelled to engage in corruption and each individual can realize the real development of human faculty.
The protagonists of the revolt
The character of this revolt, in essence, was that of a failed revolution. We shall consider the reason for its failure in a later section, but its failure must first be asserted. First of all this revolt, though having the potential to transcend the bourgeois horizon failed to do so. It remained a myopic affair which focused on immediacy. They lacked the ability to cognize the end of the present state of affairs. This revolt, in failing to overcome the petit bourgeois orientation, had thus doomed itself. However, we shall defend one aspect of the protests which has come to be universally condemned, and one which must not be shrugged so easily: the violence.
Before we can begin that however, we must look at the precise character of the revolt. Can it be said that the revolt was of a proletarian character, are we dealing with a failed social revolution? To this we must say, it was not a proletarian revolution. The main reason being that the objectives were not at all proletarian in content. Certainly anti-corruption benefits the proletariat, however, from the class point of view, anti-corruption is not a socialist issue (other than its use as a partial demand). We will be retorted in this by those who say that all things which benefit the proletariat are a socialist issue. This is a degeneration of the truth, a half-truth. Indeed, communists must address issues near to the proletariat, however that does not alone make an issue or a subject a socialist one. For an issue to be socialist and not bourgeois, it must also be able to challenge the capitalist system altogether. Anti-corruption is not an issue which challenges the bourgeois status-quo, it tries to reform it. Therefore, though in the heat of the revolt, there was undoubtedly potential to cross the limits of bourgeois issues into proletarian ones, this was not done and therefore, the protests were bourgeois.
We understand that in a country ravaged by imperialism, the bourgeoisie themselves are split into two: the comprador/bureaucrat bourgeoisie who depend on and benefit from imperialism on the one hand, and the national bourgeoisie who are fettered in their ability to accumulate capital by this comprador class on the other. The two are in conflict, in contradiction with the former (the compradors) holding the power in the case of Nepal. When we say the revolt was bourgeois, we mean that it was a national bourgeois (and to an extent, petit bourgeois) revolt.
Corruption as an institutional process benefits those in cahoots with the imperialists and their comprador cronies. This means that the national bourgeois are perpetually deprioritized. From the handing of government contracts to the way policy is structured and enforced favors the ruling compradors over the national bourgeoisie. The national bourgeoisie used the opportunity of the social media ban to put forward their agenda. This can also be seen in another agenda put forward by some elements of the protestors, that of centralism. Centralism is beneficial to the national bourgeoisie since it creates an environment of unitary laws and regulations which the federal formation does not allow. In general, centralism benefits the compradors as well, though this is less pertinent for them given the economic and political power they are able to exert at all levels of government.
The national bourgeoisie in Nepal however are not yet a political class as such with their own party which puts forward their political interests and demands. Rather, it is at a stage where it is attached to, an appendage of the ruling compradors; it is unsure of its own class capacity. What we see from this class instead is sporadic attempts to break out and assert its own class interests. This can be seen, for instance in the factional struggles in the bourgeois parties, and also, in the recent formations of new parties following the Gen-Z revolt which are characteristically different from the earlier comprador parties. These parties show that the national bourgeoisie are asserting their demands in a bolder manner; that being said however, the national bourgeoisie can never lead the class struggle due to its weakness vis-a-vis the comprador bourgeoisie and its struggle against the latter only ever amounts to a usurpation of certain compradors and the organic maintenance of the comprador state apparatus as a whole. The national bourgeoisie only serves as a reserve of the compradors, such that when they inevitably lose prestige and legitimacy, the national bourgeoisie can take up the mantle and become the new compradors.
Earlier, there was an allusion to the role of the petit bourgeoisie in the revolt. They also played a significant role, however, much as in all instances, they became trapped in the power play between different factions of the haute bourgeoisie. They became ‘kingmakers’ but only in a way allowed by the bourgeoisie so that the vanity of the petit bourgeoisie would be satisfied and they would not raise their voice in discontent. Though, even there the haute bourgeoisie played a losing gamble, as once against discontent has begun to simmer and intensify.
The violence enacted was thus a result of the splintered national bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie, who are by their very nature unpredictable. The hours of bloodshed and violence during the protests were a product of the class character of the revolt i.e., of the revolt itself and not its members. The result therefore, was terror. It was neither red terror, nor white terror. Nevertheless, it was terror enacted on the henchmen of the imperialists.
It is quite easy to condemn the violence. Many have already done so. However, as Marxists we understand that only the use of force can act as the midwife of history. To say that the violence accomplished nothing is to miss the point! The violence was an attempt to accomplish something. Though this ultimately failed. We cannot be detractors of violence. In fact, we must make use of the spontaneous violence of the masses, which as history and our experience proves accomplishes nothing, and utilize it toward greater ends.
To condemn the violence is an act of betrayal. To paraphrase Mao from the report on the peasant movement in Hunan: there is now a tide engulfing us, it is up to us whether to stand beside it and do nothing, stand behind jeering and criticizing or to be at the helm leading it. It is up to us, for history will not forgive us if we jeer and criticize the violence, nor will it forgive us if we do nothing. Both are acts of social treachery. This revolt has only been the first, Gen-Z is too frustrated and tired to let this mockery of our movement occur. This generation will demand time and again its due. For too long the ruling classes have been sitting idly as frustration grows, and with the new government and even with the elections, nothing will change; people will have died for nothing. This time, however, we will not be caught flat footed, this time, the wonderful storm of revolution will consume Nepal and tear the chain of imperialism at its weakest link. In order to do this, however, we must look at why the present revolution failed in the first place.
Spontaneity and Insufficiency
Why did the revolt achieve so little? All it ended up achieving is expediting the elections by a year. The deaths of so many people resulted simply in the dissolution of the parliament, the formation of an interim government — which is really just a puppet government — and a new election set for Falgun 21st. After the sacrifice of so many martyrs, after such a violent and bloody upturn, why is it that so little ended up changing?
To understand why so little ended up changing, we must understand one of the most important factors which determine the success of a revolution viz. Consciousness. Without clear consciousness, revolutionary transformation is rendered an absurdity. Though, even with clear consciousness, it is necessary for the objective conditions to be just as conducive to revolutionary transformation. The objective conditions for revolutionary transformation were adequate, nay, excellent during the Gen-Z revolt, yet, the forces of the counter-revolution ended up winning out in the end. This has ended up perpetuating the counter-revolutionary moment and pushing back the revolutionary transformation.
The reason for such a thing is made clear when we examine Lenin’s seminal work What Is To Be Done? During the polemic against the economists, Lenin divided the consciousness of the workers into Trade Union consciousness and Communist (what was then called social democratic) consciousness. Lenin explains how communist consciousness comes from without; through the fusion of the declassed intelligentsia with the workers’ movement. The workers, moreover, cannot spontaneously develop communist consciousness. The highest expression of communist consciousness is the communist party, which raises the consciousness of the masses. Lenin sharply argued against the economists who “bow to spontaneity.”
The reason for the failure of this movement is precisely this bowing to spontaneity from the point of view of the individual protestors. They did not have a clear picture in their mind of what is to be done, they were stuck in a cycle of spontaneity. And so, when the hour of victory arrived, when the institutions of bourgeois power were at last sacked, they had no idea what to do or where to go from there. And in this, the party too must shoulder responsibility, the vanguard must instill communist consciousness in the masses, and the spontaneism of the protests proves our failure.
Now, it is here that we must mention that since the treasonous peace agreement, that is to say, for the past two decades, there has been an ideological campaign by the ruling compradors to enforce their ideology. The people’s war sent a terrible shockwave across the bourgeois world, the ruling classes from Lima to Manilla at one point trembled at the sight of the hammer and sickle. And so, in order to combat the breaking of their ideological monopoly, they used their money, their institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank to reinforce their ideological monopoly. They funneled huge sums of money into NGOs, INGOs, Schools, Social media and other such institutions to ensure the overton window remains to the right. The ruling classes in their fear funded these organizations which taught such seemingly benign things as “civic sense” and so on, but in doing so, they ensured that their ideology would permeate every aspect of social change. Even the language of social change, the actors who participate in it, are those trained by the imperialists, reared by them. Such is the way they were able to ensure that in the vacuum left after the collapse of one group of compradors another would take their place.
Now, again the contradictions which are present in our society are simmering. This time however, it must be ensured that the communists play a major role, for to do nothing is itself an act of treachery. Also, events must not be allowed to simply pass by; they must be seized by the collar. Only then would justice be done to the outstanding goal: revolution!
The views presented in the article are personal views of the writer .
