The Communist Party of Nepal (), abbreviated CPN, was a communist party in Nepal from 1949 to 1962. It was founded on 15 September 1949 to struggle against the autocratic Rana regime, feudalism, and imperialism. The founding general secretary was Pushpa Lal Shrestha. The founding members of the Communist Party of Nepal were Moti Devi Shrestha, Niranjan Govinda Vaidya, Nar Bahadur Karmacharya and Narayan Bilas Joshi.
History
Formation and early years, 1949–1951
left|thumb|200x200px|Founding members Nirajan Govinda Vaidya, Pushpalal Shrestha, Nar Bahadur Karmacharya, Narayan Bilas Joshi
The party was formed by Pushpa Lal Shrestha, a former member of the Nepali National Congress, who had grown disillusioned with the infighting in the party and the willingness to cooperate and make concessions with the Ranas. After his resignation from the Nepali National Congress–which would later become the Nepali Congress–he had been inspired by Marxist literary criticism and in April 1949 published a translated version of The Communist Manifesto in the Nepali language. There were initial plans to work within the Nepali National Congress as a leftist group or organize as a workers-peasants party but this was eventually scrapped.
Shrestha who was in Kolkata at the time joined the Marxist Study Circle in Campbell Medical School. Keshar Jung Rayamajhi who was studying at Campbell and Man Mohan Adhikari who was studying in Benaras at the time were also members of the group. The first central committee of the CPN did not include any other members of the original organizing committee except for Shrestha. The members of the first central committee were Man Mohan Adhikari, Tulsi Lal Amatya, Shailendra Kumar Upadhyaya, D.P. Adhikari and Communist Party of India member Ayodhya Singh.
Ban, 1952–1954
On 8 June 1952, the Kisan Sangh (Farmer's Union), the farmers-wing of the CPN, declared a revolt against landlords and demanded that land be distributed to landless peasants. Earlier in the year in January, a coup was attempted by the Rakshya Dal under the leadership of Kunwar Inderjit Singh. The party had occupied the airfield, radio station, the post and the telegraph office at Singha Durbar. They had demanded that an all-party government be formed that included the Communists but excluded the far-right Nepal Rashtrabadi Gorkha Parishad. The military intervened and Singh was arrested. As a consequence of this event, the CPN was banned on 24 January 1952.
The party contested the 1953 Kathmandu municipal election as independents and won half of the votes and six seats to the nineteen-member council. Janak Man Singh from the party was elected as the first elected mayor of Kathmandu. In the end of 1955, the party organized the Rastriya Janamorcha (National People's Front) under the leadership of general secretary Keshar Jung Rayamajhi.
First general convention, 1954–1958
thumb|200x200px|[[Man Mohan Adhikari, General Secretary of CPN 1954 to 1957]]
In 1954, the first party congress was held clandestinely in Patan, Lalitpur. Man Mohan Adhikari was elected as the party's general secretary, the party also approved a programme to replace monarchism with a republican system framed by an elected constituent assembly.
In 1956, when the Tanka Prasad Acharya-led government became an ally of the Communist Party of Nepal, the party had to accept constitutional monarchy as a condition to lift the ban on the party. In April 1956, the ban on the party was lifted. CPN also had one member in the Senate (the upper house at the time) when Sambhu Ram Shrestha was elected in 1959. When King Mahendra took power and started his own direct rule, two major blocks developed in the party. In early 1961, all political parties were banned. A wave of repression against CPN was initiated by the government. Rayamajhi had expressed certain faith in the politics of the monarch, something that provoked stern reaction from other sectors of the party.
To resolve the conflict a central plenum was convened in Darbhanga, India as all political gatherings in Nepal had been banned by royal decree. The plenum unanimously passed the line of armed struggle that was proposed by Pushpa Lal.