It was Machiavelli, with that devious brain of his, who gave the prince this famous advice: "It's better to be feared than loved." Mao understood the power of fear and used it ruthlessly, but he also preached love, believe it or not.
Mass base support, Mao wrote, was crucial for the success of the revolution. Squander that support, and you are a fish out of water. Mao understood the power of the mass base. Even revolutionaries can't afford to ignore public opinion. Mao's revolution was no picnic. Millions died of starvation in his failed agrarian and rural industrialisation experiments, and millions more were killed during the cultural revolution-that fearful precursor to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.
For Mao, an armed struggle to dislodge entrenched feudal interests and a self-perpetuating, and corrupt oligarchy was not only justifiable but also necessary. Mao felt violence was needed because there was no other way to dislodge despots. The only thing that will make unyielding and soulless elites take notice is when resistance uses the force of arms. The rigid, centralised power that they struggle against is brittle. It doesn't take much to shatter such structures when they are ridden with corruption and factionalism.
But revolutions pass through their own cycles. After their initial populism, the violence they unleash breeds counter-violence, they descend into anarchy and spin out of control. Internal rifts surface, warlords take control, psychopathic purges begin. The revolution devours its own children.
It will be fair to say that except for the election violence against the United Peoples' Front in the mid-western districts in the 1995 polls, there was ample political elbow-room within the post-1990 constitution for our comrades to manoeuvre, gain support on a genuine socialist platform and deliver their promises through parliamentary politics. But they were impatient. Parliament was too messy, and it meant they had to usually share power. They wanted a shortcut to total power, and it came through the barrel of a gun.
The phenomenal spread of Prachanda's path through Nepal in the past seven years shows just how deep the public frustration is, how ripe for the picking the country had become. And the gathering revolution in turn fed the frustration by wrecking the economy and throwing more people out of jobs. When the momentum of revolution takes over, there is no room for dissent. It is the inexorable logic of totalitarianism that support must be total. You agree with us, or else. If you don't agree with the goals of the revolution and the path chosen by the leadership to get there, then you take the ultimate punishment of being banished into afterlife.
The only way to command such unquestioning allegiance is through the power of fear. And that fear will only work if it is the fear of grievous bodily harm. If your entire support base is derived from fear, then the violence has to be of the fiercest and most barbaric kind. Which means as an individual, you harden yourself to witness and implement unspeakable and savage acts. You shed your humanity, your compassion and your ability to be moved by human suffering-those are all signs of weakness.
