It is necessary to analyse some of the main points in Comrade Prachanda's paper presented at the second convention of the Maoists held recently. Firstly, the national convention accepted the fact that the paper presented by Prachanda not only provides direction to the communist forces in Nepal but that the manifesto also provides new direction to all communist forces in the world. It is a broad paper, they said, and applicable to all leftist forces.

Second, the paper not only tries to unite various communist forces in Nepal, it also provides direction for communist forces in the 21st century. This paper has the force to take forward not only the revolution in Nepal but is also capable of taking forward a revolution of the whole world. Third, it accepts the fact that there were some hindrances to the communist system because of deficiencies in the thinking of Stalin and that these deficiencies hurt communist movements to an extent. Fourth, it accepts that the revolution taking place worldwide will put in place a new system, unlike any that we have seen so far. Fifth, it declared that the people's war and revolution would have to take a new turn, change to an extent and evolve into a new model. Sixth, that the theory of greater India being pushed forward by some Indians will have to be helped along for a "South Asian Soviet Federation" to come into existence. Seventh, it declared that no party or grouping will be accepted as a party and that this will be done on the basis of the political direction provided by the communist movement. Eighth, Prachanda Path was accepted, and placed on the same plane as Marxism, Leninism and Maoism. Lastly, the need to form local area governments and the need to carry the revolution forward was recognised.

A dangerous point put forth by the Maoists in their second convention is the formation of a "South Asian Soviet Federation". The Maoists used to call themselves nationalist, but by advocating the idea of a South Asian federation they have proved themselves to be slaves of Indian Imperialists. To talk of a Soviet federation is to prove that you are a slave of the Indians. In whatever way you look at it, this thought of the Maoists is giving birth to a new Lendup Dorje [the former chief minister of Sikkim instrumental in the Indian annexation of the Himalayan kingdom.

The Maoists have accepted the fact that the model of the revolution needs change to some extent and have agreed that the new model will be similar to the one espoused by Comrade Madan Bhandari eight years ago. This shows that the Maoists are flexible in their thoughts and working to a certain extent-they accept the fact that revolution will not have a fixed model, but at the same time their saying that the people's revolt is an integral part of the revolution is only going to drive them in circles and is not going to improve their image.

The second convention has shown that there will be centralisation of thought and force in the people's war even as it is said there will have to be new thinking on the political and war fronts. What the latter will be has not been spelt out. They ask a question but do not provide an answer. Instead, all that the papers show is that they will continue with their present thinking and actions, which seems to contradict the new thinking that they plan to incorporate in their models. There is nothing new except that a personality cult seems to be taking root, and they want Prachanda to be the president of some state that might be formed of some areas in the new "Soviet federation" they want to form. This is a brief analysis of the second convention of the Maoists.