Pushpa Lal Shrestha

Nepali politician

Pushpa Lal Shrestha (1924 – 22 July 1978) was a Nepali politician, considered to be the father of Nepali communism. He was the founding general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal as well as leader.

Shrestha was born on 28 June 1924 in Ramechhap District, Bagmati Province, Nepal.

The communist movement in Nepal traces its history back to Pushpa Lal Shrestha, the father of Nepali communism and the founder and general secretary of the first Nepali communist party, the Communist Party of Nepal. Younger brother to Gangalal Shrestha, one of the four great martyrs of the Nepali democratic revolution, Pushpa Lal joined the political fight against the autocratic Rana regime at a young age, some time after Gangalal's martyrdom in early 1941. He was already known for his defiance of the Ranas by 1946. He began his political career at Nepal Praja Parishad, the party of the four martyrs. He then went on to become a prominent member of the Nepal Rastriya Congress (NRC), the sister party of Indian National Congress, which would eventually become Nepal Congress. Disillusioned by the political infighting within the party, and the party's willingness to cooperate with some Ranas, Pushpa Lal left the party he was the office secretary of, and sought to birth an uncompromising political struggle against the Rana regime. After his meeting with the noted Indian communist leader Nripendra Chakrawarti, he settled upon founding a communist party, deeming the support of the international socialist movement an indispensable asset in the struggle for democracy. On 22 April 1949, he founded the Communist Party of Nepal along with four other colleagues, in Calcutta. He translated the Communist manifesto and other writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, in addition to his own original writings on Nepali struggle for democracy and Nepal's future path.