JANA ANDOLAN
A term in the Nepali language which means “People’s Movement”. In the recent history of
Nepal there have been two major events which have gone under this name, and a third such
event may soon develop:
Jana Andolan-I was the mass movement
in 1990 which ended the absolute monarchy and established a government which was nominally,
at least, a constitutional democracy. It was also supposed to eliminate the
Panchayat system of local and caste governance in
Nepal. However, the monarchy still existed, the King still controlled the army, and he
even dissolved parliament and re-established authoritarian control again. This led to:
Jana Andolan-II in 2006 which
overthrew the King again and abolished the monarchy completely. This mass movement led to
the “Seven-Party Alliance” which included the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [now
renamed the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)] which had been leading a People’s
War, and an agreement to end that war, merge the revolutionary army into the regular army,
create a new constitution, and so forth.
However the bourgeois parties [including
a revisionist party called the “Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist)”] have
failed to live up to those agreements. This has recently led the UCPN(Maoist) to
threaten to lead a Jana Andolan-III to force the reactionary parties to
fully implement that earlier agreement and possibly to further develop the revolution in
Nepal.
JANATHANA SARKAR (or: JANATANA SARKAR)
Literally, People’s Government. This is the name of the local governments being set
up by the masses with the help of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in the rural areas
they already pretty firmly control.
See also the document, “Introduction to the
Policy Programme of Janathana Sarkar”, by the CPI(M-L) [People’s War], June 1, 2004, at:
http://www.bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/PWG/JanathanaSarkar.doc
JANGALKHAND
[Bengali: Sometimes two words: Jangal Khand] An alternate name for the Jangalmahal
(see below). It literally means “forested realm”, but it seems also to be put forward by some
as the possible name for a proposed independent state in India (separating from West Bengal).
JANGALMAHAL
[Bengali:] The Jangalmahal, or sometimes two words: Jangal Mahal, and which means
“forested belt”, is the region consisting of the largest parts of these three districts in the
Indian state of West Bengal: Paschim Medinipur (or West Midnapore), Bankura and Purulia. The
population of the Jangalmahal consists mostly of Adivasis or
“tribals” (tribal peoples), who are very poor and generally severely exploited and oppressed.
There are about 1.3 million Adivasis in the 74 “blocks” (sub-districts) of the Jangalmahal.
There has been considerable Maoist revolutionary activity in this region in support of Adivasi
struggles against the theft of their land, etc., especially in the area around Lalgarh village
in West Midnapore.
Occasionally the term Jangalmahal
is used in a looser and broader sense to cover a much larger region of the forested, tribal
belt in parts of five states of east-central India: West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh and Bihar.
“JANUARY REVOLUTION” (Shanghai, January 1967)
The first major seizure of power away from the capitalist-roaders during the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
“Proletarian revolutionaries are uniting to seize power from the
handful of persons within the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist
road. This is the strategic task for the new stage of the great proletarian
cultural revolution. It is the decisive battle between the proletariat and the
masses of working people on the one hand and the bourgeoisie and its agents in the
Party on the other.
“This mighty revolutionary
storm started in Shanghai. The revolutionary masses in Shanghai have called it the
great ‘January Revolution.’ Our great leader Chairman Mao immediately expressed
resolute support for it. He called on the workers, peasants, revolutionary
students, revolutionary intellectuals and revolutionary cadres to study the
experience of the revolutionary rebels of Shanghai and he called on the People’s
Liberation Army actively to support and assist the proletarian revolutionaries in
their struggle to seize power.”
—“On the
Proletarian Revolutionaries’ Struggle to Seize Power”, Hongqi [“Red Flag”]
editorial, #3, 1967; Peking Review, vol. 10, #6, Feb. 3, 1967, p. 10.
JAURÈS, Jean Léon (1850-1914)
A prominent leader of the the French socialist movement, and founder and editor of
the newspaper L’Humanité. He was the leader of the Right, or opportunist,
wing of the French Socialist Party. However, he actively fought against militarism
and was assassinated by an agent of the militarists just before World War I began.
Jaurès and his followers used
the pretext of “freedom of criticism” to revise Marxist principles and preached class
collaboration between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
JAWAN
A soldier (non-officer). Common term in India and other countries of south Asia.
JEVONS, William Stanley (1835-82)
A British bourgeois economist, and one of the founders of the notorious
marginalist school of modern bourgeois economic thought.
See also:
SUNSPOT THEORY.
JIANG QING (Old style: Chiang Ching) (1914-91)
Jiang Qing was Mao Zedong’s third wife, and the most prominent member of the so-called
“Gang of Four” who played a prominent role in leading the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and who attempted unsuccessfully
to continue the Chinese revolution after the death of Mao.
Jiang Qing played an especially prominent role
in promoting revolutionary art, literature, music, drama and films during the GPCR. Many of the
model revolutionary Chinese operas were produced with her guidance and direction.
It seems that she and the other top Party
leaders who tried to remain loyal to Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought [as our revolutionary
science was then called] failed to use the mass line that Mao
always strongly advocated, and failed to unite the great majority of the masses and the Party
members against the relatively small number revisionists and capitalist-roaders within the Party.
This is why Mao himself gave the friendly advice to this core of revolutionary leaders not to
form themselves into a “Gang of Four” (which is the origin of the phrase).
These revisionists bided their time until Mao
died on September 9, 1976. Less than a month later, on October 6, 1976, Jiang Qing and the other
members of the “Gang of Four” were arrested and imprisoned. A show trial for them began in 1980,
and according to the revisionists only Jiang Qing bothered to mount any sort of defense. She
stated that she had obeyed the orders of Chairman Mao at all times and always tried to defend
Mao and his political line. She also made the famous statement that “I was Chairman Mao’s dog.
I bit whomever he asked me to bite.” At the conclusion of the trial in 1981, Jiang Qing was
sentenced to death. In 1983 her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. While in prison she
developed throat cancer and in 1991 was released temporarily to a hospital. She reportedly
committed suicide before she could be returned to prison. In her suicide note she is said to
have written: “Chairman [Mao]! I love you! Your loyal student and comrade is coming to see
you!”
“You have been wronged. Today we are separating into two worlds. I am old and will soon die. May each keep his peace. These few words may be my last message to you. Human life is limited, but revolution knows no bounds. In the struggle of the past ten years I have tried to reach the peak of revolution, but I was not successful. But you could reach the top. If you fail, you will plunge into a fathomless abyss. Your body will shatter. Your bones will break.” —Said to be a prose poem, summation and warning written by Mao shortly before his death and sent to Jiang Qing. [As posted by Mike Ely on the Kasama-Threads website on Oct. 15, 2008.]
JIEFANGJUN BAO
Liberation Army Daily, the newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army in China.
JIN
A traditional unit of weight in China and other Asian countries. Jin is the term used in
Mandarin Chinese, while the English term is catty (which originated from the Malay word
for the same weight, kati). However, many English translations of articles published in
China during the Mao era use the term jin rather than catty. A jin (or
catty) was traditionally equivalent to 1 1/3 pounds, but has been more precisely defined
in terms of metric system units in various countries. In many countries it is now defined to be
either exactly 600 grams, or else near to that. In Hong Kong it is still defined as 604.78982
grams (or exactly 1 1/3 pounds). But in mainland China the jin or shijin (“market
catty”) is now defined as 500 grams, or 1/2 kilogram.
JUNK BOND
A bond issued by a capitalist corporation which has a very low rating
by the securities rating agencies based on their estimate that company may not be able to
redeem the bond when it comes due. In other words a bond issued by a company for which there
is some reason to think that it might go bankrupt or otherwise be unable to pay its debts in
the future. Unless and until the company actually does go bankrupt, the bonds it issues are
not valueless, but they are obviously highly risky.
Since junk bonds are risky, they command a
higher rate of interest. Starting in the 1990s in the U.S., Wall Street brokers began selling
junk bonds to the middle-class public in a major way. Obviously the term they themselves were
using for these risky investments—“junk bonds”—did not promote their sale! Consequently
alternative names such as “high-yield debt” were coined in order to better foist these risky
investments off on unsuspecting yet greedy investors.
JUNKER [Pronounced: YOONG-ker]
A member of the Prussian landed aristocracy.
JUST (Adj.)
In accordance with the principles of justice; conforming to the standards we have for
answering to (or meeting) the common, collective interests of the people.
JUSTICE
1. [Marxist usage:] A social arrangement that accords with the genuine interests of the
people, and thus where there is no oppression or exploitation.
2. [Bourgeois usage:] A (supposedly) harmonious balance between the “rights” of the various
members of society, including the “right” of capitalists to exploit and oppress working people
at home and abroad.
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