Communist Party of Nepal (UML)
by Jhala Nath Khanal

Dear Comrades and friends,

First of all, I would like to extend my warmest
revolutionary greetings on behalf of the Communist Party of
Nepal (UML) to all the comrades present in this important
gathering in general and to the Communist Party of Greece
in particular for organising this conference.

We have just crossed an eventful century and entered into a
new century which is bringing new possibilities and hope as
well as new challenges before the humanity. The victory of
the great October revolution, establishment of Soviet Union
as the first socialist state in the world, successful
revolutions in eastern Europe, development of anti-fascist
united front, defeat of fascist forces in second world war,
another great victory in the democratic revolution in
China, victorious revolutions in Korean peninsula,
Indo-China and Cuba, evolution of the community of
socialist countries, expansion of national liberation
movement in a world wide scale, emergence of dozens of
newly independent states during the process of anti
imperialist struggles, and establishment of U.N.O. were
some of the great achievements in the 20th century. In the
face of these achievement world imperialism was compelled
to go back from many parts of the world.

But in the mean time, many new revolutions occurred in
different field of science and technology. Particularly the
information revolution provided a new basis to bring the
world closer, to make it integrated and interwoven. The
forces unleashed by these revolutions were utilised by
world capitalism for its own development and expansion. In
that process, modern capitalism has developed into
globalised capitalism through the globalisation of
financial capital that begun its offensive against
socialism since the seventies of the last century. On the
other hand, the socialist bloc suffered from severe
inherent problems. In those circumstances, China began to
implement a new policy of restructuring and readjustment in
socialist structure and opening to the outside world. But
in the Soviet Union, more problems were piling up which
were aggravating the contradictions inside and outside.
Ultimately socialist system failed to solve mounting
complicated socio-economic problems in the Soviet Union
itself. The international communist movement suffered a big
setback. Then the leaders of global capitalism began to
declare that socialism would be disappeared from the face
of the earth in the 21st century.

Despite, various offensive and onslaught by global
capitalism the international working class movement,
international socialist movement, democratic movement and
movement for national liberation have successfully entered
into the new century with a new experience, vision,
possibilities and challenges. All the events that occurred
in past the century and fresh experiences in the land of
former USSR, eastern Europe and different part of the globe
are enough to prove that capitalism- even global capitalism
is not the solution of human society. On the contrary,
global capitalism id aggravating all the social
contradictions in a worlwide scale. Due to the inherent
contradictions within it worldwide crisis is developing and
deepening. The progress of capitalism globalisation is ever
widening the gap between developing and developing
countries, between �haves and have nots' and also between
`knows and know nots'. Today world GDP has reached more
than 30 trillion US dollar. The per capita income is more
than 5000US dollar. If ever person were able to get that
amount of income the world would have reached a prosperous
stage. But due to the inhuman distribution system and
capitalist world order only 1% of the top household has
more wealth than the bottom 95%. More than 3 billion people
are surviving on the income of just under 2-dollar a day.
About one billion people are completely unemployed in the
world. Global capitalism is increasing the numbers of
unemployed people who do not have other alternative than to
struggle against the atrocities perpetrated by it. Global
capitalism is bringing more peoples, nations and countries
of the world against itself. This process is creating a new
objective condition in which new and higher form of
political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and
other struggles against global capitalism would occur.

While capitalism was developing through the stage of
independent competition and was expanding rapidly within
and outside of Europe Karl Marx and Frederic Engels had
declared that socialist revolution would occur as a
universal revolution. It was a farsighted outlook put
forward by these thinkers. When capitalism developed into
the new stage of imperialism a complicated mode of social
contradictions was developed. Analysing those
contradictions, Lenin concluded that in the period of
imperialism revolutions could be successful in one country
like Russia and socialism could also be built in one
country. Events of the 20th century have proved the truth
of the thinking put forward by Lenin. In the mean time,
development in the world capitalism since the second half
of the 20th century has created and is creating a new
objective condition for the higher and wider forms of
national, regional and global struggles against present-day
capitalism and imperialism. We must study in depth the new
development in the structure, functions and methods of
exploitation of modern globalised capitalism and emerging
possibilities of new forms of struggles in different level.
To meet the challenges posed by the time we must develop
our capability to combine efficiently the forms of
national, regional and global struggles according to the
condition where are working.

As you know we Nepalese communists are working in a small
country like Nepal. It has a long history, rich and
diversified culture, a tradition of struggle against the
dark forces inside and outside of the country. The heroic
people of Nepal deeply love the independence of their
motherland. But they are still in the stage of semi-feudal
and semi- colonial condition. So we are in the stage of
People' s democratic revolution. Our party - Communist
Party of Nepal (UML) is trying its best to combine the
universal truth of Marxism - Leninism to the concrete
practice of peoples democratic revolution since 50 years.
In this period, CPN (UML) has developed as a nation-wide
party with more than 90,000 organised members and more
than 400,000 general members. We have 69 out of 205 members
of parliament in the Lower House and 17 out of 60 members
in the upper house. We are the main opposition party in the
parliament. Many mass organisations, class organisations,
professional organisations and community organisations are
organised around the party. Our party has won more than 53%
of the post of local elected bodies. Our party had scored
more than 3,100,000 votes (30.74% of cast votes) in the
last general election held in 1999. Increasing number of
Nepalese people are rallying around the leadership of our
party. At the present Nepal Congress Party is ruling the
country. It is a party of big liberal bourgeoisie and
landlords. It is in power almost eight and a half year
during the past decade. It is trying to curtail the rights
already achieved by the people through the hard struggles
by imposing its anti people, anti-democratic and
anti0national policies. Naturally, people are disappointed
with the Congress Party misrule. They are coming to the
street raising the voice of democracy, nationalism,
people's livelihood, and social justice. Our party is
awakening, organising and mobilising the peoples of various
classes, strata and sectors and leading them towards the
establishment of peoples multiparty democracy which is the
minimum objective of Nepalese revolution today.

In this national and international situation, our party is
trying to develop not only a broadest possible united front
of all democratic, patriotic and progressive forces inside
the country but also we are trying to expand our
international relations with all the friendly forces who
support our cause around the globe. By summing up the
national and international experiences it is our conclusion
that -

We must primarily concentrate our independent revolutionary
effort to chart the correct course of Nepalese revolution,
to develop correct programme, line and tactics by
creatively combining the universal principles of Marxism -
Leninism to the specific condition of the Nepalese society.
We must try our best to awaken, organise and mobilise the
peoples of different classes, strata and communists under
the correct guidance of the revolutionary principles, line
and tactics developed by our party based on the specific
condition of Nepalese revolution.
We must develop the revolutionary forces of the people
through the continuous people's struggles against
feudalism bureaucratic - capitalism and imperialism and
consolidate it through the tortuous road of class
struggles. This is the internal preparation, which is the
decisive factor for the victory of the revolution.
We must have, side by side, a clear out look to mobilise
the international support and co-operation in favour of the
Nepalese revolution. Without the support of peoples and the
progressive forces around the world no revolution could be
victorious.
We must develop our fraternal relations with all possible
communist and workers' parties around the globe on the
basis of Marxist - Leninism and proletarian
internationalism and we must share the different outlook,
experiences and views from different parties. In this
process we must not confine our-self with the parties of
one or another category. But we should try to develop our
relations with communist and workers' parties of different
kinds having different stand, outlook and experience in
various parts of the world.
We must develop and expand our friendly relations with all
other socialist, social democratic, democratic, patriotic
and progressive forces around the world on the basis of
independence, mutual understanding, mutual co-operation,
and possible support to our cause.
We know the reality of the modern world where no
revolutions could be victorious without enough preparation
in domestic front and without mobilising every possible
positive factor from international community. For that
purpose at every stage of the revolution we need to share
each other's views, outlooks and experiences. We need to
learn from each other's experience to enrich our
principles, methods and practices in the course of
revolutionary struggles.
We know in any country the internal factor is the decisive
one to make a revolution victorious but the external factor
is also an essential condition. So we must try to develop a
world-wide relations among the communist and workers'
parties working in different countries and conditions in
different parts of the world. Whether international
communist movement again needs an international centre like
first, second and third international or not? This is a big
question that deserves a deep study before coming to any
conclusion. But we, all communist and workers' parties of
the world, need frequent contacts, exchanges of our
continuously developing experiences, views and outlooks. To
fulfil this purpose we need, at least, an information
centre that may provide us a forum for contact each other,
exchange our experiences and information. It will create a
favourable condition for those countries that need
immediate material as well as moral help due to aggression
or intervention of global imperialism.
We must therefore continue to work vigorously in the
domestic front combining it with the various forms of
democratic and anti-imperialist struggles in regional and
international level ultimately leading towards a broad
international united front against global imperialism. We
must try to mobilise all possible forces that support the
cause of world peace in the broad framework of
international united front. Naturally international
communist movement should play a decisive role in building
such a broad united front.
We must study about the proper means and methods to foster
the process of international united front. There may be
various ways to promote this type of united front today. I
think this conference itself is also a good form of united
front. Our party would like to support and congratulate the
Communist Party of Greece for organising this important
international conference. In the same way our party CPN
(UML) is going to organise another international conference
on �socialism in 21st century� in November 5-10,2000 in
Kathmandu through Madan-Ashrit Memorial Foundation
established by our party. I would like to take this
opportunity to invite all the fraternal parties to
participate in that international conference.

Lastly, international communist movement has travelled a
long road and has accumulated a series of positive and
negative experiences in diversified field. We must sum up
these rich experiences and draw lessons from the past. We
must deeply analyse the latest development in world
capitalism, its present characteristics, and the process of
capitalist globalisation and its impact on socio-economic
structure of the world. We must try to find out the ways,
means and methods to foster closer contacts, to disseminate
each other's experiences and to promote greater solidarity
among the revolutionary and progressive forces of the
present day world. In this process the Communist Party of
Greece has added a new contribution to promote the
international solidarity among the communist and workers'
parties of the world. I would again like extend our deepest
thanks to CPG and its leadership for organising and
providing us a common forum to express our views and
exchange our experiences in Athens, the historical city of
human civilisation.

Long Live - Marxism-Leninism
Long Live The International Unity of Working People and
Oppressed People of the World.

Thank you