A simple tactic communists have used all over the world to capture the power, from Lenin to Ho Chi Minh, is at first they increase their activities in the villages(poor people), move toward the cities, block the cities (the power center of capitalism), create unrest in the city and finally capture the power.
History has proven that those communists movements who were able to block and create unrest in the cities succeeded to capture the central power and those who failed to create unrest in the cities (Naxalbari-India, FARC-Columbia etc) are still struggling to continue their movement.
One of the war tactic of the Nepalese Maoists is what they call 'mukhya shatru sanga ladda aaru sanga haat milaune'. They knew that they can not capture the capital with their sole effort. So in order to combat King-their main target, during Jana-andolan II, they shook hands with political parties in the cities. But in the villages they were beating the cadres of other parties.
Now, make no mistake thinking that other political parties did not know about this fact, they knew, but at that time they had no choice other than to shake hand with Maoists. The king was unpopular, Maoists were gaining popularity in the cities. The parties had to choose a side and they chose the popular Maoists' anti-king agenda rather than their own constitutional monarchy.
After Janaandolan II the king went down and the Maoists defeated UML and congress in election. Then the main target of the Maoists became not those looser parties but the Nepal army-the only national entity so far undefeated by the Maoists. Had they been able to topple the CoAS, there is no doubt that they would have capture the whole country. Knowing this situation none of the other parties supported Maoists in that case. Now the Maoists have realized that before they can take over the National Army they still have to fight against the Congress. Do not be surprised if they shook hands with UML and Forum in order to fight against congress.
Since Maoists are rebels, their ultimate goal is to capture the state power. With this motive they fought for so many years. They have given up their lives and taken so many lives. It would be stupid if anyone thinks that by coming into the peace process and taking part in the constitutional assembly election they became like the mainstream political parties. They are not. The are still rebels. They are still eying to capture the state power. Coming into the peace process and all is just another tactic to present itself in the national and international political arena differently. The VDO of Prachanda that has been publicized lately is typical for a rebel party. Which leader of a rebel party in the world would say in front of his cadre that the bloody war they fought has ended without a concrete success, without capturing the state power. Whatever Prachanda said in the VDO is been said in order to give a vibe to its cadres that the party has not forgotten its fundamental instincts. If it is unusual for somebody, then he/she probably does not know how a party that carries a people's war runs and how its cadres are trained.
At the present controversial case of CoAS, every party did what they were supposed to do in order to protect their identity. Maoists wanted to topple CoAS in order to capture the central power and mark the victory of their Janayuddha, CoAS resisted the move because NA is not ready to kneel down in front of the rebels without losing the war, Congress and UML resisted in order to protect their own political identity. Who is right? Or Who is wrong? At this moment, depends who you are and what your perspective is.
However in every national crisis like this people are the deciding factor. Now whoever can mobilize the mass will win and the winner will write the history.
