[lbo-talk] Nepal: "Maoist" and "Unified Marxist-Leninist"

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Wed Apr 26 11:10:53 PDT 2006


Michael Hoover mentions "mao's theory of guerrilla war" and "mao's adaptation of marxism-leninism to needs of over-whelmingly agricultural and still traditional society."

I'm sure these two points made sense to Nepal's Maoists, but, then again, no left-wing political movement that neglects the countryside in a country whose population is more than 80% would get anywhere. So, I'd think that Nepal's Maoists' doings have largely been dictated by the country's real social, political, and economic conditions as well as their own political fortunes, rather than any particular ism at the level of ideas.

Really, I don't understand folks getting stuck on the question of mere names in countries like Nepal. The main parliamentary Communist Party there is called CPN-UML, UML being "Unified Marxist-Leninist." What's in that name? Why should anyone care? :-|

At least, the Financial Times that Travis posted here doesn't give a damn about names and ideologies and goes right to the heart of questions: political economy.

-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list