NepalThe Communist Parties
Flags of the Communist Party of Nepal and the Nepali
Congress Party fly over a small urban shrine near the center of
Kathmandu.
Courtesy John N. Gunning
Like the Nepali Congress Party, the fractured communist
movement was deeply indebted to its Indian counterpart,
whose
initiative had helped to found the Communist Party of
Nepal
(Marxist) in 1949 in Calcutta. Nepalese communists looked
askance
at the Nepali Congress Party leadership as willing
collaborators of
Indian expansionism and called for broad-based alliances
of all
progressive forces for the establishment of a people's
democracy.
As many as seventeen factions, ranging from the quasiestablishment royal communists to extremely radical fringe
groups,
vied for leadership and control, preventing the movement
from
making significant gains. The proscription of political
parties in
1960 affected the communists less severely than other
parties
because communist factions proved better at organizing and
operating underground and at making the transition to
covert
activity. Little effort was exerted to detain communist
leaders,
and in the months following the palace coup d'état in
1960, the
Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist) was allowed to operate
with a
perceptibly greater amount of freedom than any other
party. The
Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) was
established in
1978, one of many splinter groups under the name Communist
Party of
Nepal. In spite of many vicissitudes encountered since the
movement's inception, the communists maintained national
attention
because of continued support from the peasant and worker
organizations and the fact that the country's poverty and
deprivation offered a fertile ground for Marxist ideals.
Support
was maintained through the All Peasants Union and the
Nepal Trade
Union Congress.
Communist groups wielded significant influence in the
universities and professional groups. The movement had a
dedicated
cadre of motivated youth who followed party discipline
strictly.
Whereas the Nepali Congress Party seemed to accommodate
the old
guard at the expense of the younger generation, communists
more
ardently sought younger members. Most of the mainstream
communist
groups in the 1980s believed in democracy and a multiparty
system,
recognized no international communist headquarters or
leaders, and
abjured the Maoism many had embraced earlier.
The United Left Front coalition, organized in late
1989,
supported multiparty democracy. During the prodemocracy
movement,
it played a crucial role by joining the interim government
led by
the Nepali Congress Party and by submerging serious
differences of
opinion. Although differences in the communist camp were
endemic
when the movement was underground, the internal conflicts
lessened
as communists operated openly and began to look toward
future
electoral gains.
The success of the communist parties in the May 12,
1991,
election, came as a shock to the Nepali Congress Party,
which had
failed to repeat its 1959 landslide victory. Although
there was
some unity among the communist factions of the United Left
Front,
there was no agreement to share seats with the other
factions or
groups. The Communist Party of Nepal (United
Marxist-Leninist)
faction--formed as a result of a merger between the
Communist Party
of Nepal (Marxist) and the Communist Party of Nepal
(MarxistLeninist )--came in second to the Nepali Congress Party.
The head of
the communist leadership echelon was Madan Bhandari, son
of a
Brahman priest, who was working to turn his Communist
Party of
Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) into a formidable
political power.
He stunned the Nepali Congress Party in the 1991 elections
by
narrowly defeating its leader, K.P. Bhattarai, for a
parliamentary
seat in Kathmandu.
As a partner in the interim coalition government, the
Communist
Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) had endorsed,
although
reluctantly, the new constitution, which retained the
monarchy. The
communists received popular support for their allegations
that the
Nepali Congress Party was too close to India and was a
threat to
Nepal's sovereignty. Other mainstream communist leaders
were Man
Mohan Adhikari and Sahana Pradhan, both originally of the
Communist
Party of Nepal (Marxist); and Bishnu Bahadur Manandhar of
the
Communist Party of Nepal (Manandhar), another communist
faction.
Data as of September 1991
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