Founding On September 15, 1974,
Mohan Bikram Singh and
Nirmal Lama organized a "Fourth Convention of the Communist Party of Nepal" at the Srikrishna Dharamshala,
Varanasi,
India. Other CPN fractions did not recognize this '4th convention', and effectively CPN(4th Convention) became a separate party. At the time the
Central Committee of the party consisted of Mohan Bikram Singh (general secretary), Nirmal Lama (
politburo member), Jaya Govinda Shah (politburo member), Bhakta Bahadur Shrestha (aka Sher Singh, alternate politburo member), Khampa Singh (alternate politburo member),
Mohan Baidhya,
Rishi Devkota, Suryanath Yadav, Khubiram Acharya,
Chitra Bahadur K.C., Gangadhar Ghimire and Bhardhwaj. Prior to this conference, both Lama and Singh had belonged to the 'Central Nucleus' group, gathering leftwing elements from the
Amatya-led
Communist Party of Nepal. The Central Nucleus, which initially had also included
Manmohan Adhikari and
Shambhuram Shrestha, had tried to reorganize the party and reunite with the
Pushpa Lal group. However, such a merger never took off, partly due to Pushpa Lal's hesitation to merge his own faction into another party (since he claimed to represent the legacy of the original Communist Party of Nepal) and partly due to Pushpa Lal's wish to collaborate with the
Nepali Congress against the royal regime (which MBS did not accept). In the end the Central Nucleus was divided. By the mid-1970s, CPN (4th Convention) was the largest and most well-organised communist group in
Nepal. The party would however disintegrate in internal divisions. In 1976 the
Dang District Committee of the party revolted against the party leadership. The group published a document called
Antar Party Sangarshkalagi (For inner-party struggle). The Dang District Committee broke away, and merged with the
All Nepal Communist Revolutionary Coordination Committee (Marxist-Leninist). In 1979 the
Central Committee of the party published a document called
Ranjinitik Simhavalokan (Political Appraisal), analysing the state of crisis inside the party. The party was unable to play any significant role in the emerging popular movements in Nepal (see
1979 student protests in Nepal). In 1980 a Central Committee member, Rishi Devkota (alias 'Azad') resigned from the party, accusing it of
reformism and being soft on
Soviet social imperialism. as well as future
Maoist leaders like
Pushpa Kamal Dahal and
Baburam Bhattarai. The remainder, led by Nirmal Lama, continued to work under the name of CPN (4th Convention). The party held a National Organising Conference in December 1983. This was followed by a First National Conference of the party. In the conference there were 31 delegates from 17 districts, 17 observers and two representatives of the CPN (Masal) group. Notable members who stayed with CPN (4th Convention) were Jaya Govinda Shah, Suryanath Yadav, Dil Bahadur Shrestha,
Nara Bahadur Karmacharya, Niranjan Chapagain, Shyam Shrestha and Kaila Ba (Devendra Lal Shrestha). In a simplified manner one might say that the key issue behind the split was diverging opinion on who was the main enemy of the party. MBS claimed that the main enemy was Indian
expansionism, which was backing up the royal house in Nepal. Since the Nepali Congress, according to him, were Indian puppets cooperation with them was not feasible. According to Lama was
feudalism as the main enemy, and that the royal regime was propping up the feudal system. The main priority was to fight against the royal regime for a democratic opening, and thus fight against feudalism itself. To Lama, the Nepali Congress was a potential ally in this struggle. ==People's movement and transition to democracy==