MIM presents world's first translation of excerpts of Comrade Gonzalo's "Interview" into English:
Comrade Gonzalo speaks on FMLN, social-democracy, revisionism generally
Interview with Comrade Gonzalo translated
from MIM Notes Number 42, June 18 1990 by MC5
The general political economy of Peru is now well-know even in the bourgeois press. Peru is experiencing 2000% inflation, double-digit unemployment, widespread and worsening starvation and death squad government.
What is somewhat more controversial is that many believe the guerrillas are almost as violent as the army, that there is democracy in Peru and that there is some popular force in Peru other than the Senderos that the masses support.
Peru is an excellent case study of who the real leaders of social change in the world are -- Maoists. Every other ideologically organized group has involved itself in the parliamentary charade in Peru, with the exception of the pro- Cuban guerrillas.
The Maoist revolutionaries in Peru have understated their case against their revisionist and opportunist opponents, perhaps in an effort to rally all democratic forces against fascism. Yet, for outsiders to understand Peru, illusions should be cast aside.
All the social democrats including outgoing President Garcia and all the revisionists (with the exception of the pro-Cuban forces) have decided to serve as figleaves for a military fascist regime. That includes the pro-Soviet and pro-Deng Xiaoping phony communists and various so-called democratic socialists.
What does it mean to be a democratic socialist in Peru? It means providing a cover for fascism and a prolongation of the starvation and grinding poverty of the masses. It means pretending that democratic processes have a meaning where the military slaughters entire villages and massacres prisoners. It means deceiving the masses about the fundamental nature of society in order to grab a share of power for yourself.
The following is an an unauthorized translation of some excerpts from an interview with the Peruvian newspaper El Diario and Communist Party of Peru Chairperson Gonzalo. ("Entrevista Al Presidente Gonzalo," Comite Central Partido Comunista Del Peru, 1989)
El Diario: Chairperson. In Peru's case, what has been the highest expression of revisionism? Who are its proponents?
Chairperson Gonzalo: It is formally called the Peruvian Communist Party that is known publicly through the publication (Unidad) Unity, fifth column of Soviet revisionism, which is headed by the revisionist Jorge Del Prado, who some consider a "dedicated revolutionary." And, in the second place, (Patria Roja) Red Country, is the agency of Chinese revisionism with its leaders adoring Deng Xiaoping. (p. 15)
El Diario: Why characterize the APRA government as fascist and corporatist? What is the basis for this?
Gonzalo: On the characterization of the Aprista government without treating the historical problems. . . . The APRA is in a dilemma [contradiction?] with two tendencies, one of fascist criteria and the other of liberal democratic criteria. . . .
When does the dilemma become defined? The dilemma is resolved with the genocide of 1986, the class struggles of the masses, the people's war, principally the genocidal action carried out by the APRA to define itself as fascist with the triumph of the fascist faction.
Why do we say fascist? The fascist faction that has existed in the APRA is going to take political measures for the implementation of corporatization. . .
What do we mean by fascist and corporatist? For us, fascism is the negation of the principles of liberal democracy; it is the negation of the principles of the democratic bourgeoisie born and developed in the 18th century in France.(pp. 80-3)
El Diario: During eight years [of armed struggle -- ed.] the groups and parties of the right, of revisionism, of opportunism and of all the parties of the reaction have screamed and yelled that the PCP is "insane," "messianic," "bloodthirsty," "Pol Potian," "dogmatist," "sectarian," "narcoterrorist," . . . What do you say to these charges?
Gonzalo: [It is their] incapacity to understand People's War. The enemies of the revolution are never able to understand it. As regards taking the peasants under fire...because it is precisely the immense majority of peasants that fall in with the People's Guerrilla Army. The problem is understanding the Peruvian state with its armed and repressive forces, which want to drown the revolution in blood. It is our understanding and recommendation that these mssrs. study a little about war in general, revolutionary war and principally People's War and Maoism; although we doubt they can understand it because of the class position they hold. (p. 69)
El Diario: The reaction and the revisionists and the opportunists of the United Left (IU), say the [Senderos] are isolated from the masses. What can you say in this regard?
Gonzalo: To these revisionists and opportunists, I have a question: "How do you explain the existence of a movement that developed a people's war in eight years without international support if you have no support from the masses?"
El Diario: What do you think of the political line of the IU? What destiny do you assign to this revisionist front? And about the ANP, what position does the PCP take?
Gonzalo: About this we want to be especially brief, first because, "what is the line of Izquierda Unida (United Left) in these moments?" We don't know it. From previous documents it is "a front of masses of socialist tendency," and it makes evident the fact that it is involved in parliamentary cretinism. At the bottom of these positions what is there? A question very simple -- to believe that they are able to capture the government and immediately take power; since they intend not to capture one without the other . . . because the essential problem of the state is the system of the state, who is to decide the dictatorship that is exercised, which class is, and derive from this the system of government. The rest are cheap elaborations of the rotten revisionists. . . . They are not for the destruction of the state but are for a government that permits them to continue evolution of this dying and rotten order, that is what they seek proclaiming that with this government and reforms they are able to march to socialism; and all this is simply unbridled revisionism condemned by Lenin. . . .
As for the Popular National Assembly [ANP]. Good, the ANP is an interesting case, for on the one side, it says, "it is the birth of power," [connoting grassroots power -- ed.] very good, "grassroots power." The question is are they desiring to form soviets? Are they republishing the Bolivian experience with Juan Jos Torres? Are they able to create a a power in this way? Raising this supposed "grassroots power" is simply building opposition to the New Power that we have been constructing really and concretely.
On the other side, is also the ANP that says it is "a front of the masses," oh, is that a competitor of the IU, also a "front of the masses?" Good, that defines that case then. Is it "grassroots power" or is it "front of the masses"? That case concretely and clearly establishes it as invention of power. What is the truth? Simply that the ANP is managed by the revisionists.
El Diario: How do you define the politics of the front?
Gonzalo: We are absolutely opposed to the revisionist theory that they apply in Central America and they want to send out to other parts, of "all are revolutionaries," "all are Marxists," "there is no need for a Communist Party to direct," "it is enough to simply unite everybody and base themselves in a front for conducting a revolution." That is the negation of Marxism; it is the negation of Marx; it is the negation of Lenin; it is the negation of Chairperson Mao. . . .
[The party provides] the necessary direction, but we don't want to make the revolution because it is the masses that want to make the revolution, consequently the necessity of the front's uniting 90% of the population, the immense majority; that is what we are searching for, that is what we are pursuing and that is what we are doing.
____________
Here is just another piece of what is available on Peru:
(Question about political leadership:)
Gonzalo: Here we have to remember the thesis of Lenin's about the problem of the relation masses-classes-party-leaders. We consider the revolution, the party, the class generates leaders, generates a group of leaders; in all revolutions there is this aspect. If we think, for example in the October Revolution, we have Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov and some others in addition, a small group; the same in the Chinese Revolution, again we have a small group of leaders: the Chairperson Mao Zedong and the comrades Kang Sheng, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao among other. All revolutions are this way. This is also the case in ours. We are not able to be the exception. . . . All processes, then, have leaders. . . . According to these conditions, we are not able to assign all the leaders an equal dimension: Marx is Marx; Lenin is Lenin; Chairperson Mao is Chairperson Mao and each will never be repeated and no one is equal to them.	

MIM presents world's first translation of excerpts of Comrade Gonzalo's "Interview" into English:
Comrade Gonzalo speaks on Nicaragua, Cuba, bureaucrat capitalism, the nature of rulers in Peru
From MIM Notes 43, August 1, 1990
translated by MA10
The following is an excerpt from an interview conducted in 1989 by the Peruvian newspaper El Diario which supported the PCP and the people's war in Peru. This is the first in a two- part series; next month MIM Notes will publish Chairperson Gonzalo's discussion of the conditions for world revolution.
Note: Where MIM translates "popular war," we should say "People's War" in Maoist idiom.
Bureaucratic capitalism
El Diario: Chairperson, what is the analysis of the PCP (Communist Party of Peru) on the process of the Peruvian state and where is it going? (p. 77)
Gonzalo: We have an understanding of the contemporary Peruvian society, understood as that which began in 1895, we consider that from there began the process which we are living and we think there are three moments. The first moment in which were established bases for the (disentanglement) of bureaucratic capitalism; a second moment after the second world war because until then embraces the first, to go deeply into bureaucratic capitalism; this (deepening) of bureaucratic capital will mature the conditions for the revolution and with the beginning of the popular war, in 1980, we entered the third moment of general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism; the destruction of the contemporary Peruvian society because it historically lapsed/expired, consequently, what we see is its finale and that which fits is hard work, and combat, and a struggle to bury it.
Diario: Why do you consider the thesis of bureaucratic capitalism fundamental?
Gonzalo: We consider this thesis of Chairperson Mao Tse-tung key because without understanding it and acting on it, it isn't feasible to develop a democratic revolution without conceiving of its uninterrupted continuation as a socialist revolution.
We understand that bureaucratic capitalism, which began to occur in Peru since (1895), in the three moments which we just sketched. We conceive of this form, on a semifeudal base and beneath a dominant imperialism develops a capitalism, a late capitalism, a capitalism which was born from feudalism and submitted to dominant imperialism. It is these conditions which generated that which Chairperson Mao Tse-tung designated bureaucratic capitalism. So, bureaucratic capitalism developed the large monopoly capitalism which controlled the economy of the country, capitalism made up of, as Chairperson Mao said, the large capital of the large landowners, of the comprador bourgeoisie and the large bankers; from here was generated the bureaucratic capitalism (tied up/reiterated) with feudalism, submitted to imperialism and monopoly, and this one must keep in mind, is monopoly.
This capitalism reached a certain moment of evolution and combined with the power of the state and used the economic means of the state, utilized economic influence and this process generated another faction of the grand bourgeoisie, the bourgeois bureaucrat; in this way it will give a development of bureaucratic capitalism which is monopolistic... but this process will lead to generate conditions which mature the revolution; this is another important concept, speaking politically, which the Chairperson raised regarding bureaucratic capitalism.
It is erroneous to consider that bureaucratic capitalism is the capitalism which the state develops with the economic means of production it has in its hands; it is erroneous, and doesnUt (agree) with the thesis of Chairperson Mao Tsetung. It would be enough to think this way, if bureaucratic capitalism was only the state, if this capitalist state was confiscated and the other, monopoly capitalism, wasn't, in whose hands would it be? In those of the reactionary of the grand bourgeoisie.
Besides, politically we permit a differentiation with much clarity between the grand bourgeoisie and the national or middle bourgeoisie, and this we see as instrumental to understanding so as not to put ourselves at the tail of any of the factions of the grand bourgeoisie, nor of the comprador nor of the bureaucrats, which in Peru is what the revisionists and the opportunists have done and continue to do, decades of this sinister/left politics of labeling a faction of the grand bourgeoisie as national bourgeoisie, progressive and supportive. The comprehension of bureaucratic capitalism allows us to understand the difference, reiterated, between national bourgeoisie and grand bourgeoisie, and to understand the correct tactic which we must follow: precisely that which Maritegui established. For this we consider extremely important the thesis of bureaucratic capitalism. (p. 79)
On Nicaragua
Diario: What is your opinion of Nicaragua, what of Cuba? (p. 123)
Gonzalo: I would like to reiterate that which I said in a conversation with friends on these problems. Nicaragua had an inconclusive revolution and its problem is that is didn't destroy the power of all the grand bourgeoisie, it was centered in antisomocismo, and I think this is a problem. A democratic revolution must remove the three mountains and here that wasnUt done. On the other hand, it developed within Cuban criticisms readjusted in recent times and this simply lead it to depend, in the final analysis, on the Soviet Union. How can we understand this? Because in the conversations between diplomatic representatives of the two superpowers is where... we see and act the situation of Nicaragua, like that of Afghanistan or that of the Middle East; they are all very symptomatic of the steps of progress and counterprogress that it is very coincidental with reunions and agreements of the superpowers the measures taken in Nicaragua, in its relationship with the contra.
We think that Nicaragua, as well deserves this heroic country, to follow the correct road must develop the democratic revolution completely, and this will demand a popular war, it must break with the stick of command of the Soviet Union, assume in its hands its own destiny and defend its class independence and this demands a party, and obviously, to subject to the concept of the proletariat; otherwise continue being a pawn and this is lamentable. We think that this country has shown the sign of great combativeness and its historic destiny cannot continue without developing the revolution as corresponds with a party based in Marxism- Leninism-Maoism and a popular war, and develop itself independently without guardianship of anyone, and no-one, neither near nor far.
On Cuba
Gonzalo: Of Cuba, I can only say this concretely, the game of a role in service to the Soviet Union is not only in Latin America, it is carried out in Angola for example, and in other places. Passed from one hand to another hand, from one owner to another; a process presented as an "exceptional case" to the Cubans themselves.
Cuba has a high responsibility in America because it was a hope; but we must record well what happened in 1970, Fidel Castro said that the strategy of armed revolution had failed, looked to abandon it, to leave that which was it incentive and support. Douglas Brava left the front arguing that it wasn't the fault of the strategy but of the "Castro" tactic, but also unfortunately after Brava sought amnesty. We think these situations have generated many problems in America, but today these same criteria readjusted will be the voice of the social imperialist owner spread and presented as a new revolutionary development which will be concretized in Nicaragua. This is a falsehood. That which we must affirm, is that Latin America is already mature (enough) for popular war, and this is its road. Latin America has an important role to carry out, we donUt forget "backyard of the U.S." as the insolent imperialist yanqui continues to say. Latin America also has importance in the world, fulfilling the ideology of the proletariat, the
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, of forging communist parties and moving toward popular wars within the world revolution.
Latin America at the end of the century will be more than 500 million people. We have many things which unite us and we must work together for closeness. I don't want to say that we will disentangle from the world revolution, because we will only fulfill our work as part of the world revolution; not enough with Latin America, communism is for all the world or for no- one. (p.125)
Peru and the world revolution
Diario: What is the contribution of the Communist Party of Peru to the world revolution?
Gonzalo: The principal contribution is to (plan/outline/carry out) Maoism, as the new, third and superior stage of Marxism; we assumed serving and contributing what this ideology constitutes in commanding and guiding the world revolution. The question derived from this is to show the strength, the transcendental perspective of Maoism. Also to show that it principally supports the proper efforts, without continuing the staff of command of the superpower, nor any imperialist power, it's possible to make the revolution, and even that it's necessary to do it thus; and demonstrate the potential of popular war which is expressed in spite of all our limitations. And if it happens, we will be as some say a hope, that which implicated responsibility and will be a torch for the world revolution, an example which can serve other communists. In this way we are serving the world revolution.
Postcript by MC5:  The most difficult point above is the one concerning bureaucrat capitalists. The context is the common revisionist practice of seeing state-capitalists as progressive or at least a certain wing of the bureaucratic capitalists as progressive. Gonzalo is not attributing a "progressive" role to state-capitalism the way many revisionists and "leftists" do. In seeking temporary allies in a national bourgeoisie, Gonzalo looks outside of the bureaucrat capitalist class.	
Communist Party of Peru
ON THE RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN BASED ON THE STUDY OF THE DOCUMENT NO TO ELECTIONS YES TO PEOPLE'S WAR!;

*I. ON THE QUESTION OF STUDYING – PAY ATTENTION TO ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS.

Pay attention to analysis and synthesis - these are two aspects of a contradiction and synthesis is the principal one. Analysis allows us to break down and set elements apart in order to achieve a better understanding, but this is only one aspect. It is not, nor can it ever be, the entire process of knowledge. It requires its other aspect - synthesis. It is synthesis which enables us to grasp the essence of knowledge. If there is no synthesis there is no qualitative leap in knowledge. Synthesis is the decisive aspect, the main aspect, the one which enables the formulation of objective laws. Grasping this question is a problem of an ideological nature. It is an essential part of the application of the Marxist theory of knowledge, of dialectical materialism. Grasping this point runs counter to bourgeois idealist ideology which strives to separate analysis from synthesis. From the standpoint of proletarian ideology, from the standpoint of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, these are two aspects of the same unity but synthesis is the principal aspect
since it produces a higher level of knowledge, a qualitative change, a qualitative leap. There are two classic examples of this. One is the example of the clock. In order to understand its mechanism it is first necessary to take it apart. This allows us to know its components and the functions of each one of them. But if the clock is not put together again there is no clock, only its parts. Even if they were to be placed together in a group that would only constitute a pile of
pieces, never a clock. 

*Intervention by President Gonzalo in a reunion on the rectification campaign on the study of the document No to elections Yes to People's War! The other example is the development of the various disciplines of natural science since the fifteenth century. This process historically demonstrates where lack of synthesis leads to. The great development of science enabled us to grasp various aspects of nature through studies such as mathematics, astronomy, physics, etc. But this development, entailing the breaking apart, the analytical process of science, its differentiation into various fields, often led to metaphysical theories. Even the eighteenth century, a century of great materialist scientific advance, produced metaphysical knowledge. Nevertheless, all this breaking into constituent parts, all this separation of fields of knowledge, laid the foundations for the qualitative leap. It generated the conditions, first for the appearance of Hegel's idealist dialectics and, later, of Marx's materialist dialectics. Therefore this breaking down required synthesis, a thoroughgoing condensation. It laid the ground and the appropriate conditions for that dialectical materialism achieved by Marx and Engels, principally by Marx. The arrival at this milestone, at the proletarian outlook, at Marxist philosophy, at dialectical materialism, was a process linked to a powerful synthesis. It was in this same manner that we
arrived at the central question of the proletarian outlook, at the question of the universality of
contradiction, an historical qualitative leap of monumental importance. Both examples show the need for synthesis, for the qualitative leap. Therefore let us pay special attention to analysis and to synthesis, principally to synthesis. From the various contributions to the debate we can see a problem arising: the process of breaking down into constituent parts leads to talk about quotations;. The contributions say quotations from the document; or, on reading the words of Marx;, or, on grasping the quotations of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution;. In this
manner they fall into listing isolated quotations which are not applied to actual and current problems. In this way the lack of grasp of synthesis generates a problem: a failure to grasp the proletarian ideology as a unity - as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. We can see this problem even in some peoples' way of expressing themselves. For example, in one of the contributions the question of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, principally Maoism, and the fact that, here in Peru, this ideology's creative application is Gonzalo Thought; is barely mentioned a couple of times. It is
not sufficient to grasp only the facts. Wherever there is a problem one must seek the cause. This is an ideological question and since, in the realm of ideology, the contradiction between proletarian and bourgeois ideology manifests itself, there is always resistance and bourgeois ideology reflects itself in that specific and concrete moment in time as taking precedence over the proletarian ideology. This is but part and parcel of the struggle between these two ideologies
which commonly arises in those inexperienced people who themselves are still in the midst of their ideological development. This entails the need to demolish bourgeois ideology in order to build up proletarian ideology. Without demolition there can be no construction. The dead weight of tradition, of old ideas and customs, of deformities in the ideological level, constitutes an encumbrance presenting strong resistance. Therein lies the need for a profound effort in the direction of transformation. Human beings are practical beings, not contemplative entities, particularly so when acting upon reality in order to change it in the service of the proletariat and the people. Hence humanity is capable of overcoming the old and obsolete ideology and of embracing the proletarian ideology, the only ideology able to comprehend and transform the world in the service of the class and the oppressed peoples. Very well. But, when studying, this contradiction is an issue of analysis and synthesis. From the standpoint of knowledge this is
the driving force which generates a qualitative leap. In the absence of a correct handling of this
contradiction problems will arise in the handling of the proletarian ideology. Therein, at this level, lies the root- cause of the failure to take a stand for Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as universal truth, as the outlook uniting the communists of the whole world and, specifically, the failure to take a stand principally for Gonzalo Thought here in Peru for
this, our Peruvian revolution. Taking up positions based on isolated quotations on the international situation or on the national political situation, on the questions of the Party and its Three Instruments, or on work among the masses, etc., reveals a failure to conceive Marxism as a unity. When studying, to restrict oneself to the analysis and to fail in the handling of the synthesis as the principal factor, constitutes a problem of a bourgeois ideological character involving failure to carry out a qualitative leap. Taking a stand for Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as guide and centre, is the axis upon which everything depends. It is this standpoint, the one which generates comprehension and the elucidating of the objective law, the grasping of which makes possible the changing of everything - nature, society and ideas. One must always learn this lesson well. Limiting oneself merely to analysis leads to metaphysics. Undertaking synthesis leads to dialectical materialism. In studying the document this outlook enables us to arrive at Marxism. Arriving at Marxism leads us to Leninism, and Leninism to Maoism. Of all these three, Maoism is principal. Moreover, Maoism leads us to Gonzalo Thought, which is the universal truth specific to the concrete reality of Peruvian society and specific to the concrete
conditions of the class struggle today. It is synthesis which enables us to understand the document and to understand its Marxist character. To grasp the way in which the Party understands Marxism today while basing itself on the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought, thesis which holds that Maoism is the new and superior stage. All of us, communists, fighters and masses, must forge ourselves in the proletarian ideology - Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought.

II. CELEBRATION OF THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT PROLETARIAN
CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the greatest achievement of Chairman Mao and it constitutes an enormous contribution to the world proletarian revolution. This revolution served to solve one of the outstanding problems of socialism - the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat in its inexorable march towards communism. This question has been resolved for all time and communists already know the answer to the problem – we shall continue the revolution under the conditions of socialist society by means of proletarian cultural revolutions. In perspective, the gist of the question is to change the soul, to transform ideological
outlook. The issue is to make of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism a living reality. Only thus can
capitalist restoration be avoided and the march to communism be advanced. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a fundamental question of Maoism.

If we do not understand Maoism correctly as the new, third and higher stage of Marxism, it is impossible to understand anything. Therein lies the question in all its simplicity. We know very well that to be a Marxist today means to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally a Maoist. The theoretical foundations of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution are rooted in Marx himself who pointed out that in the transition from capitalism to communism there is a need for a permanent revolution throughout a period of proletarian dictatorship, an indispensable and necessary permanent revolution understood as a series of successive great leaps. This theory is also rooted in Lenin who himself conceived and promoted the cultural revolution. But it fell to Chairman Mao to resolve this great unfinished task of the continuation of the revolution. He directed, realised and developed this revolution as the greatest political event witnessed by humanity. Despite many and very great struggles the issue was not settled until 1966 when
the proletariat and the people of China found the way under the personal leadership of Chairman Mao Tse tung at the helm of the glorious Communist Party of China, and in so doing shook the world. For us this event has even more vital importance today since the trumpeted defeat of socialism; is connected with the way in which socialism develops and how the proletarian dictatorship is defended. This failure is the failure of revisionism, not the failure of socialism. It is revisionism which has continued its sinister road of capitalist restoration, sinking into the mire of its final bankruptcy. The revisionists, in the USSR since 1956 with Khrushchev down to the infamous Gorbachev, and in China with Deng Xiao Ping from 1976 to the present, usurped the dictatorship of the proletariat, restored capitalism and destroyed socialism. Revisionism is the political direction of restoration, the negative aspect of the process of restoration and counter-restoration which the class necessarily undergoes until it definitively installs itself in power. The
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the most positive and greatest contribution in this world-wide process of struggle between revolution and counter-revolution, of restoration and counter-restoration within the development of socialism. The fact that it only lasted until 1976 and the fact that the counter-revolutionary revisionist coup of Deng Xiao Ping and the subsequent capitalist restoration took place does not in the least negate the Cultural Revolution nor its
necessity. Moreover, this restoration confirms the words of Chairman Mao: in the struggle between capitalism and socialism, in the life and death struggle between restoration and counter-restoration, in the antagonistic struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat, the question of who will defeat whom is not yet settled., and that the class struggle would continue until final victory, until the achievement of communism. That the Cultural Revolution unfolded from 1966 until 1976 is an incontrovertible fact, a reality; the whole world saw it happen. Therefore, the
Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a settled issue. Marx in 1848 said that political power would be conquered by violence, but he did not live to see this nor was he instrumental in the unfolding of this process. Nevertheless he gave us the solution – the proletariat had to conquer power by means of revolutionary violence and had to apply the proletarian dictatorship. In the same manner Chairman Mao has provided the solution for the continuation of the revolution under the conditions of the proletarian dictatorship. Moreover, he had the opportunity of applying this solution in practice. Therefore, we already know what to do as we have historical experience. Without detracting from the Paris Commune of 1871, an event which marked the first milestone in the process of the conquest of political power for the proletariat, let us remember that Marx himself understood that the Commune was bound to fail since it lacked a communist party to direct it. Nevertheless, he said that we could not allow the morale of the class to be debased, nor did it matter how many leaders may fall. He defended and supported this struggle. Despite its importance as the first milestone the Paris Commune cannot be compared with the unfolding of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which is a milestone of a far higher quality. Besides, the Paris Commune only lasted two months while the Cultural Revolution spanned more than ten
years, was led by Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China and mobilised hundreds of millions of people. Between these two milestones there is the October Revolution led by Lenin, the creator of the first dictatorship of the proletariat and of the first socialist country on earth, and the Chinese Democratic Revolution led by Chairman Mao, which achieved victory in 1949. Of these four great and glorious milestones in the process of the conquest of power and of the construction of socialism, the highest and most highly developed milestone to date is the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In our Party, the Communist Party of Peru, the general political line establishes the fact that the Peruvian Revolution in its march towards communism spans three revolutions: the democratic, the socialist and the cultural revolution (not just one but many), and that all of these, from the very first one, would constitute one single uninterrupted march towards communism. Especially today me must grasp this point very well since now, twenty five years since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, we can see our future in this
revolution. Moreover, let us bear very much in mind the fact that it was in the process of this revolution that Maoism illuminated the world and became the new third and higher stage of Marxism: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Let us celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution! The document, No to Elections! Yes to People's War!; deals with the contributions laid down by Chairman Mao for the process of the Cultural Revolution. Therefore, it points out for us the central issues for celebrating the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The contributions that have been expressed here have grasped the Cultural Revolution and its essence, but we must be able to understand it within the parameters of our tasks. Let us get used to studying in order to apply, in order to obtain practical conclusions from current affairs. This leads us on to a third question.

III. POLITICAL SITUATION

The political practice of the proletariat is to grasp documents, policies or Party directives in order to apply them to the political moment. We always undertake study with a view to its application and in order to resolve actual problems. Otherwise we would fall into bookish studies, into mere parroting, and that is a bourgeois, idealist and metaphysical method. Therefore, let us analyse the current class struggle in the light of the four sections of the document. Let us ponder the ideas we perceive today and the ideas that the Central Committee must decide upon. In the first section - ELECTIONS ARE CRUCIAL FOR THE REACTIONARIES - what is the document pointing at? The document shows us the international and the national context. On the question of the international class struggle, let us keep in mind that today we have the rise of a general counter-
revolutionary offensive of international scope. Let us recall the Party's stand of 1985 when regarding Gorbachev's perestroika - we held that we were facing a new counter-revolutionary revisionist offensive headed principally by Gorbachev and Deng Xiao Ping;. And later, in May 1990, in the document we are presently studying, we said that we were facing a recently intensified offensive in convergence with the offensive unleashed by imperialism against Marxism, an offensive characterised by renewed shouts about a supposed and trumpeted
obsolescence of Marxism, therefore in this case the collusion and the struggle, and here principally the collusion implicit in this sinister onslaught, is aimed at Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism.;. In synthesis, we are dealing with a convergent offensive of imperialism and revisionism in collusion and in struggle. The events which have occurred since have confirmed that this has been, is, and continues to be, the case. But would it not be correct to consider that we are going through a general counter-revolutionary offensive? Why do we say this? Because everyone is attacking the revolution, the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution, attacking revolutionary violence, the people's war. They are attacking the communist party, socialism,
the dictatorship of the proletariat and they are attacking the goal, communism. They say that the facts have demonstrated that socialism is no longer valid, that socialism does not exist, that it has failed. But we must remind them that in the fifties there was a socialist camp, that the victory of the Chinese revolution meant a momentous change in the correlation of forces in the world and that there never had been in history a social system capable of changing so deeply and so rapidly the rotten capitalist and feudal structures that existed in the USSR or in China. We must remind them, too, that socialism in the USSR unfolded under Lenin and under comrade Stalin until the usurpation of power by the revisionist Khrushchev, and that the situation in China was similar,
where socialism lasted until 1976 when, after the death of Chairman Mao, Deng Xiao Ping carried out a counter-revolutionary revisionist coup d'etat. And we must remind them, also, that if we are to count from 1848 when Marx and Engels, who were only but two people, wrote the immortal Manifesto of the Communist Party, laying down the fundamentals of scientific socialism and then, from 1917 when this socialism was first implemented, we can see that socialism is young, it has had but a short life and today it continues to exist as an experience. It lives on in the Communists and the revolutionaries of the world, it lives as an ideology and as a praxis. Also, it lives in us, the communists and revolutionaries of Peru. Therefore we are talking about a general counter-revolutionary offensive aimed at averting the revolution as the main historical and political trend in today's world. And who are those aiming their spears against the revolution? It is jointly the imperialists and the revisionists. Nevertheless, of the two, US
imperialism is the principal element as leader of the offensive since it aims to establish itself as the sole superpower in its struggle for hegemony against the other, Russian, superpower and the other imperialist powers. This offensive is developed principally by US imperialism in its role as main aspirant to world hegemony. Also, it is a general offensive because, besides coming from imperialism, revisionism and world reaction, it also occurs at all levels: ideological, political and economic, although the political level is the principal one. We must ponder this very seriously, analyse it and grasp it well, like we ought to do with everything else: the question is to understand reality in order to elucidate the objective law governing it and by grasping this law, to be capable of transforming reality in order to serve the proletariat and the peoples of the world. Here it is appropriate to make a note - This is not a final offensive. We must differentiate correctly. It is a general counter-revolutionary offensive. In general terms, one speaks of a final offensive when dealing with the last stage of the strategic offensive of the revolution. Politically and militarily speaking, this offensive undergoes three moments or stages - of course, with politics being the principal aspect and always leading the military one - the strategic defensive, the strategic equilibrium and the strategic offensive. Our standpoint is that we find ourselves at the stage of the strategic offensive of the world revolution. However, we do not hold that we are in the final offensive. Besides, we consider that the strategic offensive of the world revolution develops within a protracted process, not within a short one, and moreover, in the midst of great zigzag movements and even retreats. Therefore, what we now are dealing with is not an issue of the revolution but of the counter-revolution. We are dealing with a general counter-revolutionary offensive aimed at averting the development of the world proletarian revolution. Another question: Regardless of all their cannon and hellfire and the unleashing of their heaviest economic blows, their mud-slinging and wild attacks, as always without a valid argument, they are doomed, they are already defeated. If we are conscious that in revolutions there are restorations and even regressions, we should not be surprised at the existence of a general counter-revolutionary offensive. Moreover, we must correctly characterize it in order to handle and defeat it. The attacks upon Marxism have always been a prelude for its further development
and advance. Let us remember our thesis of 1979:, as far as we know today, fifteen thousand million years of the process of matter in movement lead towards the inexorable march of communism. This is the reality so let us grasp this law well and carry it forward. Our aim, communism, is not an idea outside the material process. It is a part of it, it originates from this
process and constitutes its perspective. There is no other class with the historical perspective of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie was once a revolutionary class but it has already become historically obsolete and it is wildly clawing and hissing as wounded beasts do. This rabid behaviour is the price of its destruction. It feels itself sinking, it knows itself to be unburied carrion, but although its grave is already open and waiting, it resists its burial at the hands of the
proletariat. This last monster engendered by the bourgeoisie, imperialism, the oppressor of the world's people, must be swept off the face of the earth together with revisionism and world reaction. Our role, the role of the proletariat and the people, is to bury it. It is the necessary task in our historical perspective. We must always have this absolute conviction - we shall smash the bourgeoisie and bury imperialism! - imperialism and all its partners and running dogs. Regarding the political situation at the national level this first part of the document deals with the so-called legitimisation;. This is a thesis of US imperialism, a tenet of their low intensity warfare, of their counter-insurgency war. In several Party events since our Congress we have dealt with its meaning. This is something of interest for us and therefore we ask ourselves this question: how is it going at the present moment? There is no such legitimisation. Besides the character of elections in Peru as a reactionary farce, the votes harvested by Fujimori do not give him any legitimacy. On the contrary, given that the percentage of non-voters (27%) was higher than the percentage who voted (24.6%) for Cambio 90 in the first round and very far from the 50% 1 needed to assume the presidency in accordance with their own constitution. In the second round and with the support of the Apra, the United Left and Socialist Left, he only achieved a simple
majority (not 50% 1 of all registered voters). Moreover, because of his deeds against the people and because of the character of the regime over which he presides, Fujimori appears even less legitimate. He is a representative of the big bourgeoisie, principally the comprador bourgeoisie and of all the landowners, as well as being the most servile pro-US imperialist ruler up to date, the most rabid enemy of the People's War. In synthesis, a genocide and a Quisling. Therefore, the process of his de-legitimisation;, his utter unmasking, develops explosively.

The people feel that there is no right or reason for so much evil, for so much oppression and the People's War helps along this process. The systematic violation of their human rights, the genocidal policies that Fujimori follows in the footsteps of Belaznde and Garcma - can this
be denied in reality? The people feel these policies, they are forced to endure them. The reappearance of mass graves, the slaughter of the sons and daughters of the people, the vile murder, with absolute impunity, of the fighters and their families, the war without prisoners
- can they hide it from the people who suffer it?. Can they hide the heinous crimes against the families and the masses who were marching peacefully, armed solely with their flags and slogans, in the squares and streets of Lima and the shanty-towns to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Day of Heroism. Can they conceal the massacre at San Gabriel and the subsequent congratulations of Fujimori to the assassins? The protest against the assassination of a University student and two humble children for the sole crime of wearing rucksacks, can that be overlooked in silence that the murderers may be again protected? The genocide of indigenous
communities, the transformation of peasant communities into cannon-fodder for the genocidal
armed forces, the carte blanche given to the ronderos; to commit all sorts of crimes, can that legitimise Fujimori's government? The most brutal cut in salaries, the most infamous neglect of education and the people's health (being recognised as the government of cholera), the most systematic negation of the rights and benefits achieved by the proletariat and the people, the ceaseless and growing repression of the masses, the introduction of land-mortgages, usury and
the new concentration of landownership in order to expropriate the poor peasantry, the hunger of millions thrown into the most stark poverty, the deep recession of the Peruvian economy which reduces the income of the masses to what it was decades ago, the destruction of national production and the greatest jumble sale of the country resources to the imperialists, etc., etc,. Can all this make Fujimori's regime legitimate?. No, it has served only to utterly unmask it in less than a year. In synthesis, in the study of the first part of the document, note: 1) The sinister counter-revolutionary offensive in general, and 2) The growing lack of legitimacy; and the
unmasking of Fujimori's government and of the rotten Peruvian state.In the second part - THE
POLITICAL CRISIS DEEPENS AND THE CONTRADICTIONS MOUNT UP - one would have to centre attention in the process of bureaucratic capitalism. Bureaucratic capitalism is a thesis of our Party. It is the specific modality, the form which capitalism assumes here, in the semi-feudal, semi-colonial backward countries such as ours. This process is related to the fact that the history of Peruvian society achieves an embryonic development of capitalism in the
eighteenth century, that while being subjected to British imperialism it underwent a surge in the middle of the last century, and that it suffered the consequences of the war with Chile. From 1895 bureaucratic capitalism underwent three stages or moments, a process which still continues: 1st.) From 1895 until 1945 with its axis in the decade of the 20s. This is the moment of DEVELOPMENT OF BUREAUCRATIC CAPITALISM. 2nd.) From 1945 to 1980, with its axis in the decade from 1968 to 1978 (1968 - saw the fascist corporative coup d'etat of Velasco). This is the moment of DEEPENING OF BUREAUCRATIC CAPITALISM. The Party established that the fascist coup d'etat had 3 aims: first, the deepening of bureaucratic capitalism, second,
the restructuring of Peruvian society, and third, to avert the Peruvian revolution. It is obvious that they could not quite crown their objectives. They laid down the basis, but their task was not accomplished. The best and most overwhelming proof of this is the beginning in 1980 of the armed struggle. Therefore, the third moment begins in 1980, and it is the stage of the DESTRUCTION OF BUREAUCRATIC CAPITALISM. This is the stage that we are going
through today. Bureaucratic capitalism is born ailing and in a critical condition and today it is in general crisis, approaching its doom. But if one notes the process of each moment of its development, in synthesis, there are in turn stages.

For example in its first moment there is a prologue expressed in a preparatory stage, and then during the decade of the 20s, another stage when foundations are laid for the development of bureaucratic capitalism. Then comes a process of collapse, the intended development is not achieved, a crisis arises, and this crisis leads to further collapse. Historical facts show this
to be the case. In the third moment, the moment of the deepening of bureaucratic capitalism, we also have a prologue or preparatory stage, then the laying down of foundations and finally the arrival of the crisis which led to a greater collapse than the one which occurred at the end of the previous moment. From 1980 onwards, we are in the third moment, the moment of the destruction of bureaucratic capitalism. We have also experienced that prologue, a long and complicated preparation of conditions which leads us into the decade of the 90s. Today they are
laying the foundations for the application of neo-liberalism. They blabber about making a revolution;, but just as in the two former historical moments of bureaucratic capitalism, in this third moment the laying down of foundations will necessary lead them to another crisis which in turn will generate an even greater collapse. In order to differentiate the second from the third historical moment, let us here point out that the former relied on the state as the main economic lever, while today they are aiming to enshrine non-state activity as the principal lever. It is true that history shows that the laying down of foundations produces some results, but it also shows that it generates a deeper crisis. Therefore everything today demonstrates that in the third historical moment bureaucratic capitalism is in general crisis, ideologically, politically and economically. The current critical situation has deepened since 1974 and they have been unable to overcome the crisis. Politically, the state has become more corrupt: the president rules by decree abusing the powers granted by Article 211, Paragraph 20 of their Constitution. Parliament does not comply with legislating, its primary function, and the judicial power, which is ridiculed even by Fujimori and has no budget, is every day more subjected to the executive power. Besides, the laws, among which we have the recent Penal Code, introduce fascist regulations.
Daily more signs of fascism appear and there are more fascist standpoints espoused in the ideological plane. Like their imperialist masters, weighed down by their ideology which becomes more rotten everyday and lacking in perspective, they have no other choice but to raise banners from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century - such as liberalism. If, on the other hand, these banners were already dirty rags by the time of World War I, as has already been demonstrated, then socialism really does represents the future. Meanwhile, capitalism is a corpse, and like so many corpses, needs to be buried. Therefore, they are sinking deeper and deeper in their general
crisis, ideologically politically and economically, and every day they are more and more being demolished by the people's war. This government is in a situation that grows more difficult by the day, the most critical situation which Peruvian society has ever undergone and they will be unable to handle it. Any measures they may adopt cannot result in anything other than a transient respite and in general bankruptcy. The principal instrument of their demolition is the people's war based on the class struggle of the masses. It is important to note the three historical moments of bureaucratic capitalism and their specific character, especially the character of the third. In this fashion we will understand why the three political tasks of Peruvian reaction and its masters, principally US imperialism (to refurbish bureaucratic capitalism, to restructure the state and to smash the people's war), cannot and will not be accomplished. Their accomplishment is an historical and political impossibility. Even the reactionaries themselves are saying, here in the country and abroad, that Fujimori's government is not accomplishing a thing, that it instead goes from failure to failure. This is only a part of the truth since their difficulties are not only growing but are, of necessity, the embodiment of the bureaucratic road of the exploiters, the big bourgeoisie, the land-owners and imperialism. This process is the embodiment of a law, a law which establishes that in its development bureaucratic capitalism serves the development and maturing of the revolution and that the revolution, with the development of the people's war, accelerates and grows more powerful, therefore bringing even nearer the goal of the seizure of power in the whole country. In this second part of the document, we must also consider the
complementary local elections. Around this process an old song is been sung, venal penpushers are already prattling, but they can only fail by denying reality. Today, it is not only a question of the armed forces being the Grand Electors, it is a question of direct appointment of (local) authorities by the same armed forces. They will continue to act in accordance to the policies as laid down in their Cangallo; document. The truth is already emerging. Yesterday they prattled about supposed democratic victories but today they recognise that more than 400 districts are without local authorities. Such is their democracy. On the other hand they are incapable of protecting their candidates, as in the case of those of the United Left in Ayacucho, and in Junin, where they have presented the ringleaders of the army controlled militia (ronderos) as candidates. Therefore, as is the case with these rotten systems, the elections are only an instrument for the continuation of the exploitation and the oppression of the people. That is why the tactic of the boycott sponsored by the Party is good. It develops the people's trend against elections and serves the development of the people's war. In the third part of the document - THE BOYCOTT DEVELOPS THE PEOPLES TREND AGAINST ELECTIONS AND SERVES THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PEOPLE'S WAR, we must focus upon the advances made to debunk the accusations made against us in 1989 and to stress the accords of the 2nd Plenary Session of the Central Committee: That in 1990, the People's War gave us the great achievement
of the Open People's Committees, and that in 1991 it gave us the Strategic Equilibrium. Saluting the Strategic Equilibrium! That simple phrase has been sufficient to make the reactionaries and revisionists tremble and gnash their teeth. Most of them have yelled blue murder and raised a big scandal, they have even set up ridiculous and bloody operations against us, massacring the masses, like they always do, in order to show; that there is no such equilibrium. Why? Because they are frightened since they perceive that their old order is going to perish and be buried. The words of the Party have never been proven wrong by reality. Everything we have proclaimed we
have applied: We said we would start the armed struggle and we did with ILA 80. Today we are entering the stage of the seizure of power in the whole country. We say that there is strategic equilibrium, and we specify its character. Let us point this out more clearly than ever: Strategic Equilibrium and preparation of the Counter-offensive means the enemy striving to recapture their lost positions in order to buttress their system and us striving to put the finishing touches for the strategic offensive by means of the Plan for the Building-up to the Seizure of Power;. Let us understand this clearly in order to handle it better every time. We think that this is a task we must deal with thoroughly in order to appreciate not merely what Chairman Mao teaches us in this respect, but to identify the specific way in which this manifests itself here in our country. Also, let us highlight how the entire process of 11 years of People's War has brought us the 3rd Campaign for Forwarding the Development of Bases of Support as a part of the Great Plan for Development of Bases with the Perspective of Building-up for the Seizure of Power. The importance of this process is rooted in the fact that it crowns the Plan for Forwarding and is therefore a link for a new Plan. In synthesis, the accomplishment of this 3rd Campaign in May, June and July is something superb. Never before had the People's War reached so deeply nor raised its quality so highly, principally in the countryside as well as in the cities as a complement. Everyone of us must feel a deep satisfaction for having served wholeheartedly for such a transcendental task regardless of the level of our participation. A few bricks joined together with
others can make a solid wall. Let the traitors deny this victory. If they do so it is only because of their class interest and because they are paid to deny it, no matter how ill-paid they may be by Peruvian reaction and by imperialism. We are conscious of the truth of the reality in which we live. That is why we are able to see how in the Party, in the Peoples' Guerilla Army, in the New Power and in the masses, the achievements of this epic People's War are so much in evidence. Are there any signs of the echoes of this process of People's War? Yes. For example, for the
first time the US Senate has now debated the People's War in Peru. Therefore this process is
reverberating in the very lair of world reaction. This is not the main sign but it is an important one. In this world there are some people who build castles in the air, for example, a traitor and genocide like Fujimori, hangmen such as the Minister of the Interior General Malca, the Minister of Defense General Torres-Aciego, dyed-in-the-wool pro-Yankees such as C. Boloqa Behr, the Minister of Economy, or reptiles and arrivistes such as Bernales, Tapia, Gonzales, etc. Individuals who, as thorough flunkies of imperialism and the ruling classes, dream of vanquishing the People's War by using its great advances in order to beg the help; of imperialism, principally US imperialism, and to defend their ultra-reactionary Peruvian state by obtaining from them their so-called re-admission; into the world economy. In the USA, the opening moves for next years elections are taking place. Bush is going after re-election. He has achieved a paltry success in the Middle East. That is sufficient for them although everybody knows well that he did not achieve his aims. We say this because a vile and bullying onslaught against a people can
never be considered as an achievement, especially today when every struggle of the world's peoples for their liberation is a component part of the world revolution (we are conscious of the class limitations of Saddam Hussein). Nevertheless, such is what constitutes success; for Yankee imperialism. Moreover, though they undertook that war in the Gulf in order to give impetus to their economy it has not resulted in the new economic impulse they expected and their economy continues to experience serious problems vis-a-vis the economies of other imperialist powers, although this fact does not imply that they have ceased to be an imperialist super-power. Furthermore, Bush undertook to fight a battle against drugs and in that field he is also having to confront his own people. This is because, just as in the case of the handling of his economic problems, where he raises taxes and reduces expenditure on social programmes and clashes
with the US people, in this field he also has to confront the poorest and most exploited sections,
particularly the oppressed minorities. Hence he does not obtain any results on that account. Moreover, this struggle against drugs is closely linked with the fight against the people's war in Peru and to the class struggle in the Andean region and therefore it has its repercussions in US political life. Therefore, we must grasp the fact that this affair would not end in September 1991. We refer here to the hold placed upon the so-called US aid;. An affair in which, in order to receive such aid;, the Peruvian government has to comply with the anti-drugs; treaty, a treaty stipulating in one of its parts, the need for respecting what they call human rights;, rights which
are systematically violated by that same government. The people's war in Peru is therefore a tool
for use in the US's electoral struggle, but the factor which interests us is that it has repercussions in their own Congress. Besides, all this is a contributing factor to the struggle of our comrades of the revolutionary communist party and of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement with
whom, because of this fact, we are more united in waging a common campaign against imperialism, principally against Yankee imperialism, under the slogan of Yankees Go Home!;. This is another example of the achievements and the echoes of the 3rd Campaign.In the Fourth section of the Document – NO TO ELECTIONS! YES TO THE PEOPLE'S WAR, a section which is the most important one, we set- out our criterium for evaluating Marxism today. We analyzed the fundamental thesis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, in four different fields. This constitutes a reaffirmation of our principles and even contains a description in ascending order of importance of our outlook taken as a unity. The document gives a lesser part to Marx, a larger part to Lenin and another very much larger to Chairman Mao. This also demonstrates the development of Maoism as a new, third and superior stage. Let us a take
as a first concept, one which is most apposite today: Upholding, defending and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the decisive factor in order to develop the world proletarian revolution, to demolish imperialism and international reaction and to smash revisionism. This is the gist of the matter. In the 60s it was held that Maoism was the most powerful weapon, that it was our atomic bomb, a peerless weapon. Today we must become even more aware of the historical significance of Marxism. We must become even more conscious of its invincible character -that Marxism is all-powerful because is true. This is the decisive factor. Everything else depends on this factor, everything has its starting point here. If we deviate from Maoism the revolution would be delayed even though our enemies would not succeed in averting it since Marxism-Leninism-Maoism will assert itself anew to lead the revolution. We need principally
Maoism and we need to raise its banner very high, even higher each time round. This necessitates defending Maoism because it is not enough to uphold it. We raise flags in order to defend them, but the main thing is to apply Maoism. Why uphold, defend and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism? In order to develop the world proletarian revolution. The main trend in the world is revolution. There is no future for mankind without the complete and total victory of the revolution realised as communism. Therefore the issue is to develop the
world revolution. To develop the world revolution can only mean applying it, realising it in practice. What has been said here today is a profound truth – how many we are is not the fundamental thing. The important question is if we want to carry it out or not. Yesterday, in 1848, Marx and Engels were but two people, today, 143 years later, we are millions throughout the world. Yesterday we had nothing. Today we have two great historical experiences rich in lessons,
experiences which are present, which are alive in us, in the proletariat and in the peoples. We must insist that the fact that there have been two restorations does not deny the fact that the revolution is the main trend. To deny this fact is a dark pipe dream of reactionaries because the world proletarian revolution continues to advance and we are a part of that advance. It is undeniable that the world proletarian revolution will demand the cost of bloodshed, but what does not demand the cost of blood in this world? We ourselves would not be here without the lives sacrificed by so many communists and revolutionaries throughout the world. We also need Maoism in order to demolish imperialism and international reaction and to sweep them off the face of the earth. The more slime they throw at us, the more they themselves will drown in their own quagmire and bury themselves even deeper while we will be their historical grave diggers. This great social cleansing is something inevitable. We need Maoism in order to smash revisionism. Imperialism and revisionism will together end on the garbage heap, but it is not possible to fight against imperialism without fighting against revisionism. With total conviction and without the slightest doubt to worry us, let alone hamper us, we reaffirm for ourselves Maoism's decisive importance. The communists, the working class, the revolutionary people, are optimists. Nothing can stop us. And all this leads us to : Defeating the counter-revolutionary general offensive. This slogan must become our watchword. A second concept is the placing of emphasis on a task we have agreed upon: To generate favourable public opinion and to launch deep ideological work among the masses. Let's implement this task with great speed and firm decision. Marxism has taught us how to make propaganda work. The words of Marx have borne powerful fruit in the whole world, read in nearly every language. Lenin taught us that the time that elapses between sowing and reaping in propaganda work is unimportant and that propaganda
always gives magnificent fruit. Chairman Mao pointed out that both reaction and revolution need to generate favourable public opinion. The reactionaries need to generate public opinion against the revolution and in favour of their continued exploitation. We need to generate favourable public opinion in order to seize power and to defend it with revolutionary violence. Without the winning of public opinion for the revolution there can be no seizure of power. We have a great ideology, Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, principally Maoism, the most powerful weapon in today's world, and we have its creative application, Gonzalo Thought. Therefore let us arm minds, and each time do it better and more thoroughly. If one wins over the mind one is arming the hand. It is not accidental that our Party is characterised by its strength in the political sphere, and politics is nothing more than the concrete application of ideology in the struggle for the seizure of power. Our ideology is being attacked today by everybody and in every aspect and these attacks are bound to grow stronger. But our enemies are afraid of facing us as they can't debate ideologically against Marxism. The bourgeoisie's critique does not go beyond wild assertions and epithets without the slightest foundation, and this is simply because it doesn't have
any. What arguments are they trotting out to confront Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with? The new ideologues of the bourgeoisie are but candle flames in the wind. For example, let's take Fukuyama, who appeared on the scene as a bright light. He shone for a brief moment and has already faded from view like the smoke of a cheap cigar. Fukuyama denied historical development by claiming that all ideologies, specially the ideology of the proletariat, had become obsolete. Nevertheless, Fukuyama excluded the ideology of the bourgeoisie from this fate, basing himself in a supposed final victory and purported eternity of imperialism as an economic and political system. But, spurred on by the class struggle, history and ideologies continue to do battle and it has been the job of history itself to evaporate his pipe dreams. The
class ideologies continue to fight, be it in the guise of islamic fundamentalists with its religious outlook or as neo-liberals, neo-positivist and fascists as the expression of bourgeois ideology on the one hand, and fundamentally us, the communists, with our scientific ideology Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on the other, as we are doing here with the People's War in Peru which is led by the Communist Party. Once again, as is always the case, the wind promptly blows away the pseudo-theoretical dreams and rantings of the bourgeoisie. Lately, they have returned to Joseph
de Maistre and that is truly a ridiculous situation in which to find themselves. Even Uslar Pietri, a man decorated by the King of Spain, has recounted how de Maistre was the enemy of all progressives. How could it had been otherwise since he was a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the Pope and the reactionary and obscurantist church! Therefore the bourgeoisie is taking cover behind the most ultra-reactionary of their theoreticians;. But this process is nothing but the further reinfection of a rotten carcass and it is obvious that the bourgeoisie and reaction in general lack any fresh blood to reinvigorate their ideological corpse. They merely have recourse to poisonous substances which can only hasten their ideological putrefaction. And now, how should we respond to their ideological attacks? We must unmask them thoroughly, dispossess them of their false and stinking flags, confront them with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, applied to the concrete reality. Marxism is the only true scientific ideology. It can move mountains and transform the world by standing it upright and not on its head, as does idealism. Marx held that philosophy had been enchained, expropriated from the masses and
bogged down in dusty webs of complicated words in order to hide it from the people. We must free philosophy and deliver it back to the masses. We must use our own ideology in order to powerfully mobilise the masses: the generation of favourable public opinion is a question of mobilising the masses in order for the masses themselves to become propagandists and agitators. Let us develop a massive movement to educate the masses in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, and Gonzalo Thought. Since the time of Marx we have been taught this need and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the most vivid and greatest example of
mobilising the masses with Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology in order to continue the construction of socialism under the dictatorship of the proletariat, in order to continue the revolution and to impede the usurpation of its fruits, thus defending the revolution. Therefore, let us mobilise the masses in a deep and boundless theoretical and ideological movement of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Gonzalo Thought ideas. Let us free them from that feudal, pro-imperialist bourgeois pile of garbage which makes them see the world upside down, standing on its head. Let us free philosophy from the bookshelves, from the voluminous tomes, from the false academic centres and carry it to the masses, to the day-to-day class struggle, to the people. The soul has been taken from the masses, therefore our task is to restore it to them so that they would not let themselves be fooled any longer. Philosophy and science are not for the erudite but for the
masses. Today the masses are more and more imbued with dialectics, but they must become conscious of this fact. They must consciously apply the laws of dialectics. They must use the contradiction with full knowledge of its implications. They must apply dialectics in the management of nature, of society, of ideas. The masses are capable of doing this because the masses are the makers of history, the creators of everything. Moreover, we must not forget that practice is the source of knowledge, that humanity is fundamentally an agent of change and that
humanity, in its daily social practice, implements transformations and in the midst of them, learns and acquires knowledge. We must not forget that this knowledge acquired in practice is again returned to practice and in this process generates changes, developments, advances and transformations and, since everything bears a class imprint, humanity's practice, its knowledge and its transformations will also bear a class imprint, that is to say, knowledge and transformations in favour of or against the proletariat and the people. Practice is the source of
knowledge, it is the transforming historical action of the masses of humanity. The masses, by means of their social practice within a concrete historical moment, equip their minds with the ideas which correspond to that concrete historical moment and therefore arm their hands in order to accomplish the tasks prescribed by history. Studying is also an indispensable complement of the process. Humanity is action within and in relation to a class and therefore it generates ideas. This constitutes ideology. Humanity's organised action is social transformation, advancement for the majorities. Engels teaches us to hammer home ideas with actions and this is a method which we have been applying in the Party since the 70s. We should persist in this. Moreover, how should we arm the masses with the ideology and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Gonzalo Thought? The masses, taking into account the level of popularisation and the elevation
to new levels of knowledge, equip themselves ideologically from the standpoint of their concrete problems in the three fields: ideological, political and economic. Let us take-up the lessons of the Rectification Campaign of the First Plenary Session of the Central Committee and, taking into account the popularisation and the elevation of level, distinguish between leaders and cadres on the one hand and ordinary members on the other, differentiate the Party's organisations: the Party
which has a concrete membership, the People's Guerilla Army and its generated organisms. Also, let's differentiate between the mass organisations fighting alongside us. Let us take into account that, among other advantages, reaction has many means of information at its disposal, including a whole system of advanced media, newspapers, magazines, radios, television, etc. We do not have these means, but we can count on one resource which is incomparably more powerful - that the masses are the makers of history. Knowledge is generated by practice and practice is the product of the masses. We have held that the masses must be turned into propagandists and agitators, that the masses must themselves fight and resist and that all these tasks they know how to carry out. They have always done it and therefore it would not be anything extraordinary for them to do it now. Which system shall we apply? From mouth to ear. The first instrument we have is the spoken word. This is a means which allows us to reach the deepest and profoundest layers of the masses. It allows us a more flexible approach since we can adapt the spoken word to the concrete conditions of the audience, be it an audience of peasants, workers, students, intellectuals, soldiers, businessmen, etc.. This is a more flexible, more tactical method, always of course within a general strategy. Let us also employ the written word. We do not only fight with swords but also fight with pens. Let us use a clear and simple language. Let us use graphics. These are very good, for example for the illiterate peasantry. Let us use all modern means that we can get our hands on, without forgetting that from among all these means, the main one is the spoken word, since is the one which is most directly within the reach of the masses of the people. Let us recapitulate, we serve the masses, we handle the word and it doesn't cost us a penny, therefore we have the tactical capacity. For example, let us promote the expression of complaints against oppression. For that the only thing that is needed is a group of people who would recount their experiences of growing oppression and exploitation. If one person begins another follows and everyone will feel the strength of their own capacity to explode in anger. This spurs the people and moves them to action against the sources of exploitation and against the oppressors. It promotes the expression of complaints in many different groups and places. The word of one person joins the word of others and acquires the force of a hurricane. One person alone is weak, but together people constitute a great force. Another form of written mass propaganda are the dazibaos. Chairman Mao taught that these were instruments of democracy and that to use them the masses didn't even need paper, they can use the walls, plaster, charcoal, paint if available. Write large characters, simple slogans that say what is wanted, what forms of struggle to apply, which are the positive experiences, which are the negative ones, that the masses judge their own leaders. In this way the democracy of the masses expresses itself, a democracy totally opposed to the trumpeted bourgeois democracy which is actually not for the people but for those who rule and exploit them. The power of the thinking and acting masses is inexhaustible. They contribute in every field - political, military, economic, artistic, scientific. Let us develop People's Democracy more and more again every time. Let the masses debate the plans and judge their implementation as it is done in the People's Guerilla Army. In this way a higher understanding, a greater unity and a more powerful action is achieved. Let the masses, also by means of democracy, give vent to their capacity as agitators and propagandists. But a great and massive ideological movement needs the Party as the leading force, because the Party is the most conscious part of such a movement since it knows, handles and applies the ideology, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Gonzalo Thought, the laws which guide the revolution and its politics, that
is, the laws of the class struggle for the seizure of power and the People's War as the principal form of struggle. Without the Party the masses would be unable even to equip themselves with a plan. We know that a plan is an ideology, and the Party's plan is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Gonzalo Thought plan. Once the Plan is made the Party must mobilise diverse organic apparatuses, because a policy cannot be carried out without an organic form which can embody it, be it the party apparatuses, the army, the generated organisms, the organs of power or the organisms generated by the deep and profound masses. Then the masses would be able to realise that great ideological mobilisation to uphold, defend and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as a universal truth and Gonzalo Thought as specifically principal for us, in its character as a creative application to our reality. And then let the armed actions hammer home those ideas. Thus only the Communist Party can lead this great process of mass propaganda and agitation. Chairman Mao taught us: While masses and Party exist, all kinds of miracles can
be accomplished;. 

IV. THE RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN

Here today we are implementing the dispositions of the 2nd Plenary Session of the Central
Committee. Our duty was to carry out the Rectification Campaign, and the duty of the membership, the militants, combatants, activists or masses, was to put all this into practice. We are now about to crown this task and therefore we had to study individually and collectively the document No to elections! Yes to the People's War!; and we had to debate it and apply it. From what has been said before we can see the objections to the contributions presented. The main
problem is how to apply the study of the document to today's political situation. We communists learn to study in order to apply, otherwise we would be merely intellectuals and would not be using Marxism to resolve burning questions. Studying in the abstract is something metaphysical, idealistic, bourgeois. We are not pragmatists either. We don't study simply with a utilitarian purpose such as the imperialists or vulgar mechanical thinkers. We study theory in order to apply it in practice and to transform a given reality, in order to change the world for the benefit of the working class and the people. Therefore this is a problem of application and it could be dealt with on three different levels:1) On the world proletarian revolution. On this topic the question is
straight forward and the document outlines for us the burning problems of today's Marxism:
Revolutionary violence, class struggle, socialism, proletarian dictatorship and struggle against
revisionism.

Of these four, socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are principal. On this question the issue is Maoism as a new, third and higher stage, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism principally Maoism, because with such an ideology we shall assault the heavens;. In this lies the value of the document, a document which reaffirms Marxism and holds that to be a Marxist today means to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally a Maoist. The document shows a clear understanding on the question of Maoism as a new, third and higher stage with universal validity, for the communists, for the proletariat and for the peoples of the whole world. That is its decisive point. Therefore our standpoint is rooted in Maoism and, as the Congress has pointed in one of its historic resolutions, the principal contribution of Gonzalo Thought is to have developed the definition of Maoism as a new, third and higher stage of Marxism.2) On the Peruvian Revolution. Here the main issue is that the do -cument serves for the construction of the New
State being implemented by means of the People's War, through the People's Guerilla Army and under the direction of the Communist Party, while basing it on the masses which constitute the people. In the document we can find very valuable points which we must apply today in the New State.3) On the question of how to apply the document to each one of us: Each one of us is duty bound to grasp and embody the document in order to better serve the revolution. Under this topic, the direct concerns of those present here, are the questions of art and the questions of the role of intellectuals, and the answer is to always put politics in command. Every study of Marxism shakes up people and the contradiction between the two world outlooks comes to the fore. Marxism gives hammer blows to the non-proletarian outlook and fuels the ideological forge. As in every task, three stages, each with its own contradiction, present themselves. At the beginning arises the contradiction between starting the study and not starting it. Starting-up already constitutes a 50% advance.

Later, during the stage of development, the contradiction between carrying it through and leaving it half-baked arises. That represents another struggle and, in our case here, the question of leaving this task for another did actually arise. That issue even became a heavy burden for some people and that was a bad thing as it meant permitting the old, the bourgeois attitude, to take charge. We held discussions and as a result we agreed to cap this task as a priority or shock-task. This is a very useful method, a component part of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Gonzalo Thought style of work. It consists of concentrating all our energies in accomplishing the unfinished task, stretching our time until the task is completed, just as when we apply forced marching when the enemy is hot on our heels. In this way we pass the point of no return and do not let them catch up with us. When studying it is something similar and we do not allow the bourgeois outlook, which is present contending inside our own minds, to defeat the proletarian one. On the contrary, with this new ideology which we represent, we defeat the idealist, the bourgeois enemy which is alien to the working class outlook. Therefore there arises the resistance which the old ideas present and each one of us does battle consciously and voluntarily inside our own minds until we overcome such internal resistance. The old ideas say: how are you to leave behind that which has
sustained you for so many years? The old ideas always make us see rotten weeds as if they were beautiful roses and thus the will is weakened. The shock-task method helps to overcome such resistance. In the third stage, at the crowning moment, there also arises a contradiction for or against the completion of the task and the struggle continues until there is a decision for capping it and until the task is actually clinched. Having completed the study already constitutes a qualitative leap, and the shock-task method has been a good instrument in contributing to the culminating leap. You have accomplished the Rectification task. This is nothing but a means of
developing the two-line struggle in order to adjust us to the proletarian ideology. How much have we advanced?. From lack of knowledge of what had been outlined in the document to a study and a debate which has enabled us to be equipped with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Gonzalo Thought outlook about four fundamental and burning problems of today's Marxism. From the contributions that have been expressed here we can conclude that the lessons learned are being applied to today's issues. The task has been accomplished and has generated a qualitative leap
and an adjustment to the four fundamental issues of today's Marxism. Finally, it is good to emphasise that the document constitutes a serious contribution to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Gonzalo Thought counter-offensive in the face of the converging counter-revolutionary revisionist and imperialist offensives. It also constitutes today a serious contribution for the
struggle against the counter-revolutionary general offensive. Therefore in arming ourselves with the teachings of the document we are serving the Peruvian revolution and the world proletarian revolution. It is true that there is no such thing as a completely finished question since all knowledge, being in itself a part of matter, is necessarily relative and needs development. But this knowledge corresponds with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally with Maoism and therein we find its value. Besides, it corresponds with the outlook of Gonzalo Thought.

THEREFORE, IT IS MARXIST-LENINIST GONZALO THOUGHT KNOWLEDGE.

CONCLUSION

1. This meeting is very good, the work has been advanced. Let's earnestly undertake study while under war conditions. It is a helpful tool for the better handling of the war. Studying has prepared the conditions for a higher qualitative leap which reflects itself in practice.

2. While summing up the first contributions we dealt with the question of the contradiction between analysis and synthesis while studying, noting that the first contributions were focusing on analysis. But now, after the subsequent contributions, synthesis has been achieved in this very place and time and the gist of the question has been grasped: to take sides in support of Maoism. The qualitative leap which had been prepared for became a reality. The limitations of the study were the lack of sufficient synthesis, but it did lay down the conditions for the qualitative leap.
If one is capable of grasping analysis and synthesis studying becomes something more powerful
and thorough and therefore the essence is grasped and the qualitative leap takes place.

3. Marxism has been grasped in four fundamental and burning issues.

4. The study is undertaken in order to apply it to today's class struggle. We seek means of
opening avenues to fight on the battleground of living problems. One must bear in mind the prospects and not merely remain with what is written in the document.

5. This meeting is helpful for the maturing of certain problems which occur throughout the whole Party. Therefore our actions here are helpful to all other comrades in that they give us experience. For example, the shock-task tactics as an instrument for the completion of studying in the Rectification Campaign is something very useful for the whole Party.

6. WE MUST UNDERSTAND BETTER THE SPECIFIC POLITICAL task linked to the construction of the New Power by means of the People's War and to the prospect of the Seizure of Power in the whole country. That is, of course, something necessary, but it has to be linked to its specific application here, which is to be artists and intellectuals. Therefore you must guide yourselves by the watchword of serving the people and following the lead of the Party;.

7. HOW MUCH HAVE YOU ADVANCED?. YOU HAVE undergone a qualitative leap while practising an intense AND SYSTEMATIC STUDY TAKING ON LIVING ISSUES. There is now a higher understanding of what is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and of the need of upholding, defending and applying it in order to totally transform Peruvian society and to serve the world
revolution.

8. If there is a qualitative leap, how should we consolidate the new qualitative leap?. And, how should we develop the new qualitative leap?. How to consolidate and how to develop the qualitative leap are two issues which relate to the question of serving the Party better and more thoroughly, two issues which relate to the question of serving better and more thoroughly the revolution in Peru and the world proletarian revolution, of serving the cause of the whole of humanity's emancipation, to the question of the march towards communism. We propose to continue with Karl Marx; by V.I. Lenin in order to further our ideological formation and with the Reports of the 2nd Plenary Session of the Central Committee in order to further our political formation. The effort that has been displayed is very good. We congratulate each and every one.
TRANSLATED BY SOL PERU COMMITTEE -LONDON, April, 1992
REPRODUCED BY PERU PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTOF FRANCE

Comrade Gonzalo, leader of the PCP
Chairperson Gonzalo's speech upon arrest September 24, 1992
[This is the official version of the speech as it came out immediately in 1992 and as according to the PCP-generated organizations abroad. Since that time, numerous groups and individuals with varying agendas have altered the document for distribution--ed. Maoist Sojourner.]
"The People's War Will Be Victorious, 'You Shall See It!'" Speech from Headquarters of the Anti-terrorist Police of Peru, September 24, 1992
Comrades of the Communist Party of Peru, fighters of the People's Guerilla Army, Peruvian people: we are living through historic events; each one of us knows this to be the case. Let us not deceive ourselves. At this particular moment we must ready all our forces in order to continue accomplishing our tasks. Let us win new victories including the final one, too!
We are fighting in these trenches because we are communists! We fight, too, because we defend the people's interests, the principles of the Party and the ideals of the People's War! That is what we do, what we are doing and what we will continue to do! We are here in circumstances which some think to be a great defeat. They are dreaming. Today we say to them this is barely a bend in the road. Nothing else! A bend along the road. And though the road is long we shall traverse it completely. We shall arrive at our goal and we shall win! You shall see it!
We must continue with the tasks laid down in the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee, a glorious event! This Third Plenary Session has already started and it will continue. We shall continue to carry out the plans of the People's War for the seizure of power. We will continue the development of the Sixth Military Plan. That is our task! We shall carry it out, together with the proletariat and the people!
Today the democratic road has begun to unfold as the road of people's liberation! These are the circumstances in which we are developing our actions. Where are we now along this road? At a strategic equilibrium!
It is useless to continue to deny this evidence. Let us look at the history of Peru. Specifically let us examine the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and understand their lessons! If you do not understand this you will remain blind. There was first Spanish domination, and this Spanish domination, where did it lead us? To an extremely deep crisis! As a consequence, Peru became a house divided. It is here where you can identify the source of the state's current policies.
Then, in the last century, what? British domination. Where did that lead us? To another great crisis and its consequence, the war with Chile. Let us not forget this! What was the result? Peru lost territories!
In the 20th Century how are we faring? There is an imperialism dominating us, US imperialism. This is something real and every one knows it! Where has this led us? Here and now, to the worst crisis in our entire history, a crisis the like of which has never been endured by our people.
These past 12 years of struggle have served to demonstrate and show clearly to the people that the Peruvian state and the Peruvian army are evidently rotten to the core. That they are paper tigers!
What should we do? We must give impetus to the people's liberation movement and develop the people's war. The time to set up a National Liberation Front has arrived. It is time to form and develop a Popular Front of Liberation with the People's Guerilla Army as its core. That is what we will do; that is what we are already doing; that is what we are going to be doing!
Maoism is marching relentlessly forward in its task of forging the new wave of the world proletarian revolution. This must be well understood and everyone must become well aware of it! Those who have ears must use them well, those who have understanding--we all have it--use it well, too! Let us do away with this cant!
The same opposing forces behind the First and the Second World Wars are now preparing the Third. This is something that must be made known! We can't allow this to happen! Enough is enough!
100 Years of Chairperson Mao
Next year it will be one hundred years since the birth of Chairperson Mao. We must celebrate it! We want an unforgetable celebration! We shall start celebrating this year and we shall culminate this celebration the next year.
I want to take the opportunity to salute the international proletariat, the great oppressed majorities. To all the communists of Peru: The People's War will inevitably be victorious!
We must have faith in the future birth of the People's Republic of Peru.
Glory to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! Honour and Glory to the People of Peru!

PCP
Chapter 7 "CPP and Mao Tsetung"
Central Committee The Communist Party of Peru, December 1987 Reproduced by the People's Movement Peru of France. Distributed by the Comite Sol Peru
Re-distributed by the Maoist Internationalist Movement on September 7, 1992
The Maoist Internationalist Movement is proud to present these excerpts from the political documents of the Communist Party of Peru led by Comrade Gonzalo. To our knowledge, this is the first time these documents appear in the world of electronic communications. Since the original language of the translators is not English, we take some liberties in changing the grammar and idiomatic phrases of Maoism.
Chapter 7: "On the International Situation. To Be a Marxist is to Adhere to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought."
Chairperson Mao Tsetung, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, has systematized the development of world revolution and has established fundamental theses that develop Marxism, and that we must bear in mind in order to orient ourselves in the understanding of the present international situation. In his great work, "On New Democracy," he emphasized that with the First World War and with the October Revolution, history had entered a new era, "of the new world revolution: the proletarian socialist world revolution" and that, in consequence, "every revolution undertaken by a colony or semi- colony against imperialism, that is, against the bourgeoisie or international capitalism, will no more belong to the old category of world democratic bourgeois revolution, but to the new category."
Thus, he conceived that the powerful revolutionary movement of colonies and semi-colonies was a part of the revolution that the international proletariat leads on a world level. He emphasized, after the Second World War, that the peoples of Latin America "are not submissive slaves of the U.S. imperialists," that in the whole of Asia "a great national liberation movement" had come forth, and, calling the Asian countries to combat imperialism and the internal reactionaries, having as their goal the emancipation of the oppressed of Asia, he said, "We must take our destiny entirely into our own hands. We must extirpate from our ranks any idea which is an expression of weakness or impotence. Any point of view which overestimates the strength of the enemy and underestimates that of the people is wrong. . . . We live in a historical epoch in which capitalism and imperialism in the entire world hasten towards ruin, and socialism and democracy in the entire world march towards victory." Condensing the forthcoming struggle, he characterized the present epoch:
"The next 50 to 100 years from now, more or less, will be a great epoch of radical change in the social system in the world, an epoch which will shake the Earth, an epoch with which no epoch before it will be able to compare itself. Living in an epoch like this, one must be ready to wage a great struggle whose forms will have many characteristics different from the past epochs."
Analyzing this epoch of the proletarian revolution, Chairperson Mao Tsetung established his great thesis on the reactionaries: "All the reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view it is not the reactionaries but the people who are really powerful." In "Talk with Anna Louise Strong," where the above quotation is found, analyzing the contradictions and the distribution of social forces, he also stated:
"The United States and the Soviet Union are separated by a vast zone which includes many capitalist, colonial and semi- colonial countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. Before the U.S. reactionaries have subjugated these countries, an attack on the Soviet Union is out of the question."
To these statements of 1946, the following of Chairperson Mao's analyses on the contradictions among the imperialists themselves and between the imperialists and the oppressed nations and contending forces must be added:
"Above all, the contradiction that has to do with the scramble among the imperialist countries and their dispute for the colonies stands out. What they are doing is to take as an excuse the contradictions that they have with us in order to cover up their own contradictions."
"In this conflict (the Suez Canal event) that is occurring there, two types of contradictions and three different forces converge. These two types of contradictions are: first, the inter-imperialist contradictions, that is, the contradictions between the United States and England and between the United States and France, and second, the ones that exist between the imperialist powers and the oppressed nations. Of the three forces involved, the first is the United States, which is the major imperialist power; the second is England and France, imperialist countries of a second order, and the third is the oppressed nations."
In January of 1964, Chairperson Mao pronounced a declaration in support of the people of Panama; in it, after emphasizing that U.S. imperialism "has continued oppressing the peoples of Latin America, pillaging them and repressing in those countries the revolutionary national democratic struggle;" after denouncing that "it has converted . . . parts of Korea and Vietnam into its colonies, keeps Japan under its control and semi-military occupation. . . and intervenes and assaults other Asiatic countries;" after pointing out that in Africa, U.S. imperialism continues intensifying its neo-colonialist policy, "tries by all means to replace the old colonialists, loots and enslaves the peoples of Africa, undermines and suffocates the national liberation movements;" asking for vigilance against the Yankee's . . . aggression and war "intends firmly to put into practice its policy of 'peaceful evolution' in the the socialist countries;" and that "even with their West European North American and Oceanian allies, the U.S. imperialists are applying the policy of 'the law of the jungle,' and constantly try to step on them;" he concludes calling: "the peoples of the countries of the socialist camp should unite; the peoples of the different countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America should unite; all the peoples of the different continents should unite; all the peace-loving countries and all the countries submitted to the aggression, control, intervention and humiliation of the United States should unite. All of them should form the widest united front of opposition to the U.S. imperialists' policy of aggression and war, in order to safeguard world peace."
In this way, he denounces U.S. imperialism, calling us to combat it. But the revisionists usurped power in the Soviet Union, restoring capitalism and converting it into a social- imperialist country, which, as such, extended its penetration, subversion, control and domination, contending with Yankee imperialism for world domination. Focussing on the referred to intermediate zone, Chairperson Mao declaimed: "The Soviet Union is at present under a bourgeois dictatorship, a grand bourgeois dictatorship, a German fascist type dictatorship, a Hitlerian type dictatorship." And calling for the struggle against the two superpowers, he put down the following important theses:
"The United States is a paper tiger. You shouldn't believe in it. It can be pierced by one stroke. The revisionist Soviet Union is also a paper tiger."
"Soviet revisionism and U.S. imperialism, entering into conspiracy themselves, have perpetrated so much wickedness and infamy that the revolutionary peoples of the whole world will not let them go unpunished. The people of all the countries are rising up. A new historical period of struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism has begun."
"Peoples of all the world, let us unite and oppose the war of aggression that any imperialism or social-imperialism might unleash; let us oppose especially a war of aggression in which atomic bombs are used as weapons. If such a war explodes, the peoples of the whole world must eliminate it with a revolutionary war, and we must get ready right now!"
So was fixed the period of struggle that has opened against the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and, within this perspective, reiterating the role of the peoples of the world, he made his famous statement in May 1970: "every time when the people of a small country dare to rise up in struggle, venture to grasp weapons and hold in their hands the destiny of their own country, they will unfailingly be able to defeat the aggression of a big country. This is a law of history."
Chairperson Mao Tsetung always gave a lot of attention to tactical principles. With regard to this, his work "On policy" is of the greatest importance; there he set down the fundamental policy: "In the relations with the different classes of the country, apply the fundamental policy of developing the progressive forces, win over the intermediate ones, and isolate the anticommunist die-hards;" to have a revolutionary dual policy against the die-hards, and in order to combat them apply: "In the struggle against the anticommunist die-hards, our policy is to make use of contradictions, win over the many, oppose the few and crush our enemies one by one, and to wage struggle on just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint." These criteria, first established for the struggle in China, are applicable to the struggle against the imperialists.
In the year 1957, Chairperson Mao summed up the strategical and tactical ideas in the struggle against the enemy:
"We have developed a concept over a long period for the struggle against the enemy, namely, strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously. In other words, with regard to the whole we must despise the enemy, but with regard to each specific problem we must take him/her seriously. If we do not despise him/her with regard to the whole, we shall commit opportunist errors. Marx and Engels were but two individuals, and yet in those early days they already declared that capitalism would be overthrown throughout the world. But with regard to specific problems and specific enemies, if we do not take them seriously, we shall commit adventurist errors. In war, battles can only be fought one by one and the enemy forces can only be destroyed one part at a time. Factories can only be built one by one. Peasants can only plough the land plot by plot. The same is even true of eating a meal. Strategically, we take the eating of a meal lightly; we are sure to manage it. But when it comes to the actual eating, it must be done mouthful by mouthful. You cannot swallow an entire banquet at one gulp. This is called the piecemeal solution and is known in military writings as destroying the enemy forces one by one."
Up to here we have the fundamental problems on the historical period in which we are living, the contradictions and the developing forces and the tactics, all substantive problems of strategy and tactics; but furthermore, Chairperson Mao Tsetung also devoted himself to sum up the experience of the socialist revolution, setting forth his great theory and practice of the continuation of the revolution under proletarian dictatorship. He also found the adequate form of developing it through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In the beginnings and development of this great revolution he set down the following theses:
"A great disorder under the heavens leads to a great order under the heavens, and the same happens all over again every seven or eight years. The monsters and demons will come out by themselves to the palaestra. As their own class nature determines it, they cannot behave otherwise."
"In the past we waged struggles in the rural areas, in the factories, in the cultural circles, and we carried out the movement of socialist education. Nevertheless, all this could not solve the problem, because we had not found a form, a means of mobilizing vast masses in an open way, in all areas and from below upwards, in order to expose our bad side."
"In fact, those elements with power, followers of the capitalist-road within the Party, who support the petty tyrants of bourgeois acadamies, and those representatives of the bourgeoisie infiltrated in the Party who protect these petty tyrants, are in fact big petty tyrants in the Party who do not read books or newspapers, who do not keep in touch with the masses or possess any knowledge, and who rely only on 'acting in an arbitrary form and repressing the people with their authority,' and usurp the name of the Party."
"The bourgeois representatives who have infiltrated inside the Party, the government, the army and the different cultural sectors, are a group of counterrevolutionary revisionists who will seize power and will convert the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, if they have the chance. Some of these persons, we have already seen through; but not yet others. And in some of them we still trust and we prepare them to be our successors. For example, persons of the Khruschev type still dwell at our side."
"The main target of the present movement are those elements with power, followers of the capitalist-road within the Party."
"What will you do if revisionism appears in the CC? This is very probable, this is the greatest danger.
"The proletariat must exercise an all-embracing dictatorship over the bourgeoisie in the superstructure, including the different domains of culture."
"The present Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is completely necessary and very timely to consolidate the proletariat's dictatorship, prevent the restoration of capitalism and build socialism."
"The present Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is only the first one, and in the future undoubtedly there will be many more. In a revolution, the problem of who will defeat whom will only be solved in a long historical period. If things are not adequately solved, there will be a possibility in any moment for a capitalist restoration."
"It is just to rebel against the reactionaries."
"Proletarian revolutionaries, unite to snatch power from the handful of leaders inside the Party who are followers of the capitalist-road!"
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution hit the counterrevolutionary bourgeois headquarters headed by Liu Shaoqi, the Chinese Khruschev, whose deputy is Deng Xiaoping, "another top element with power following the capitalist-road within the Party;" and it also crushed the counterrevolutionary conspirator headquarters headed by Lin Biao. Thus, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was developed in order to consolidate the proletariat's dictatorship, to prevent the restoration of capitalism and to build socialism; and whose summation was made in the IX Congress of the CP China, which was a great landmark in the history of the CP China and the international communist movement.
The development of class struggle, in China, the struggle between capitalism and socialism, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and between Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Though and counterrevolutionary and capitulationist revisionism, was manifested in the great campaign of criticism against Confucius and Lin Biao, which discussed the problem of restoration and counterrevolution, the long process of consolidation of a power-holding class which implies preventing its reseizure by the reactionaries and the resultant restoration, and if power is lost, to strive for reconquering it, a problem which was raised in the beginnings of the debate against Khruschev-Brezhnev revisionism. Later, the struggle centered on the decisive question and on the very essence of power, the problem of the proletarian dictatorship. Chairperson Mao said:
"Why did Lenin talk about the need of exercising a dictatorship over the bourgeoisie? It is necessary to have this question clear. Lack of clarity with regard to this will lead to revisionism. All the nation must be made aware of it."
"In one word, China is a socialist country. Before Liberation it did not differ much from capitalism. Now it still practices a salary system of eight grades, distribution to each one according to his work, and exchange through money, all of which is hardly different from the old society. The difference lays in that the property system has changed.
"Our country now practices a commodities system, a salary system which is also unequal, like that of the eight grades, and things of that type. This, under the proletariat's dictatorship, only can be restricted. Because of this, it will be very easy for persons like Lin Biao to set up a capitalist system if they climb to power. For this reason, we must study more Marxist-Leninist works."
"Lenin said: 'Small size production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, every day, every hour, spontaneously and in big volumes.' This also occurs with a part of the working class, and a part of Party members. Both among the proletarians and the officials of public enterprises, there are those who indulge in bourgeois lifestyle.
"Lenin spoke about a bourgeois state without capitalists, built in order to protect the bourgeois law. We have ourselves built a state like that one, in which things do not differ much from those of the old society, because there is still a hierarchy -- an eight grade salary system, a distribution according to work and the exchange of things of equal value still prevail."
These theses and the former ones are, evidently, the continuation and development of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. Chairperson Mao Tsetung reiterates the standing of Marx's and Lenin's statements concerning the long revolutionary transformation of the old society; the need of the proletariat's dictatorship and its strengthening, the unceasing class struggle within socialism and of its utmost sharpening in certain circumstances, the persistance of bourgeois right and its necessary restriction, the constant generation of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, and the possibility of the restoration of capitalism through climbing to power . . . [deleted repeated words--MC5] He establishes, furthermore, the need of aiming against the capitalist-roaders within the Party, and of continuing the revolution under the proletariat's dictatorship by means of the cultural revolution.
In January 1975, Deng Xiaoping became Vice-Chairperson of the Central Committee, which he had joined in the X Congress. In September the same year, the "unfolding of criticism against 'On the Water's Margin'" was called for. Chairperson Mao called for paying attention to capitulation, which is an essential issue in revisionism; he says: "The merit of the narrative 'On the Water's Margin' lays precisely in the description of capitulation. Serving as a teaching material in the negative sense, it helps the people to know the capitulationists." "'On the Water's Margin' opposes only the corrupt officials, but not the emperor. It excludes Chao Kai of the Hundred and Eight. Sung Chiang capitulates, practices revisionism, changes the name of Chu Yi Parlour, given by Chao Kai, into that of Chung Yi Parlour, and accepts the offer of amnesty and enrolment. The struggle between Sung Chiang and Kao Chiu is a struggle waged by a fraction against another among the landlord class. Sung Chiang capitulates and then goes to combat Fang La." (Chao Kai: founder of the peasant rebel army, in the narrative; the 108: the rebel captains; Sung Chiang: a character who usurps the rebel army's leadership; Chu Yi Parlour means to get together and to rise up in rebellion and so the rebel leader gave that name to the parlour where they met; Chung Yi Parlour means to profess loyalty to the emperor, an evil trick employed by the usurper). Let us emphasize that capitulationism implies class capitulation before the bourgeoisie in the country, and capitulation of the nation before imperialism on an international level, and that capitulationism is revisionism.
In these circumstances, the struggle is waged against the restorationist, anti-Cultural Revolution rightist wind. In it Chairperson Mao states: "After the democratic revolution, the workers, the poor peasants and the low middle peasants have not stopped and want to make the revolution. Contrariwise, a part of the militants of the Party are reluctant to continue forward, and some have gone backwards and have placed themselves against the revolution. Why? Because they, as high officials that they have come to be, try to protect the interests of the high officials."
"It so happens that the socialist revolution falls on their own heads, and in this way during the agricultural cooperativization there were already those in the Party who opposed it and when bourgeois right is criticized, their feeling is that of rejection. The socialist revolution is being carried ahead; however, it is not well understood where the bourgeoisie is. It is exactly in the Communist Party, the leaders following the capitalist-road in the Party. The capitalist-roaders still follow their road."
"To revoke just verdicts goes against the will of the people."
"It is impossible to advance without struggle." "Being 800 million people, can we do without struggle?!"
"What is that about 'take the three instructions as the key link point!' Stability and unity do not mean renouncing the class struggle. Class struggle is the key link of the net and all the rest are mails."
"This person does not persist in class struggle; he has never mentioned this key link. He still continues with his 'white cat or black cat' making no distinction between imperialism and Marxism."
In this way, the struggle centered against Deng Xiaoping, against him who, following the Chinese Khruschev, Liu Shaoqi, held the theory of the extinction of class struggle; against who, in 1956, in his report on the statutes' modification in the VIII Congress of the CP China, held that classes were extinct, especially the bourgeoisie, that the socialist revolution had already fulfilled the greater part of its tasks, and they should not emphasize the class struggle, but the tasks of construction; against him who, in the same report, followed Liu Shaoqi's theory of the masses in order to oppose Chairman Mao's thesis on the Party; against him who upheld the Soviet Union's XX Party Congress, in which Khruschev attacked the proletariat's dictatorship camouflaging himself under the so-called struggle against the "cult of personality," considering the congress of possessing "important merits," precisely for him "one of the most important merits" is that "struggle against divinization" which he used to combat Chairperson Mao Tsetung.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution's campaign to counterattack the (revoking) revisionist wind centered against Deng Xiaoping. Against the tenacious defender of Peng Dehuai, the climber and conspirator military chief sanctioned in 1959 and defended by Liu Shaoqi and his reactionary headquarters; it aimed against Deng who, forming a gang with the Chinese Khruschev in the difficult years 1959-1961, attacked the three red banners: the general line, the great leap forward and the people's commune. Against him who advocated the increase of lands for private use, free markets, enterprises responsible for their own profits and losses, and agricultural production shares based on each family, unleashing a revisionist wind of individualistic agricultural labor. Against him who held: "Be it black or white, if a cat hunts mice, it is a good cat." This the Deng Xiaoping of the 1950s and 60s, "another leading element with power, capitalist-roader within the party" as he was typified, Liu Shaoqi's lieutenant, who performed as secretary general and whom the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution overthrew.
The struggle that Chairperson Mao led in order to counterattack the reactionary revisionist wind aimed at Deng Xiaoping, who since the 50s held a counterrevolutionary programme and who, like others, as soon as he returned to leading posts continued his old road unfolding anew an opposing programme based on "take the three instructions as the key point," aiming at "conquer the ideological stand as a means to form public opinion," "take into account first of all, the leading bodies," in order to take hold of organizational positions, "they rectified in all aspects." It was a programme oriented at revoking the GPCR, usurping the leadership in order to promote restoration, undermining the proletariat's dictatorship, divulging the extinction of class struggle and centering in the development of the productive forces. It was a programme that fought the GPCR imputing that it "injured" the "experienced cadres" and served to "overthrow" "good cadres of the Party," typifying it as "ultraleftist" for combating the capitalist-roaders. This struggle to counterstrike the revoking wind led to "Deng Xiaoping's removal from all his posts inside and outside the Party," a resolution taken "according to the proposal of the great leader Chairperson Mao Tsetung."
Chairperson Mao Tsetung's decease, as the death of all the proletariat's great leaders, has generated deep commotions and wide repercussions in China and in the world; and, in the conditions in which the struggle developed in China. It propitiated the circumstances for the rightists staging a coup d'etat, usurping the power of the proletariat's dictatorship. It helped them undermine the conquests of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and open the doors to capitalist restoration, to capitulation and to revisionism. Class struggle in China between revolution and counterrevolution, between Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and revisionism, between Chairperson Mao's proletarian line and the revisionist bourgeois counterrevolutionary and capitulationist line, headed by Deng Xiaoping, has entered into crucial, complex and difficult moments; strange and surprising methods are resorted to in the dealing with problems and the struggle; important and vast changes in the leadership and in the organizations mainly of the Party, were produced; at the same time, the criticism campaign against Deng Xiaoping's revisionist revoking wind is suspended; the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is openly questioned; capitulation is developed, especially national capitulation, and Deng's counterrevolutionary programme is hoisted as a banner. All this is nothing but a rightist coup in the sharp two-line struggle in the period of the continuation of the revolution taking advantage of the circumstances and the repercussions of Chairman Mao Tsetung's death.
The situation that arose in China is not an unimportant problem. It is, on the contrary, a transcendant problem for revolutionaries and communists of the world and we all must give it a very special attention, because from the usurpation of power derives the general change of the line, both in the development of socialism and in the international policy. The key question of Marxism is the proletariat's dictatorship; it is its essence, and a rightist coup and its usurpation is a problem of the utmost seriousness and importance; and it is not a question in China alone; it is a question for all communists since its repercussions have to do with world revolution. The experience of restoration and of usurpation of power in the USSR are recent lessons that we cannot forget.
Mariategui has taught us: "It is not possible to be uninterested in the destiny of a nation that occupies such a principal place in time and space. China weighs too much in human history for us not to be attracted by its deeds and men." This great truth continues to be valid today more than ever for all communists and revolutionaries in the country. But although the events in China, especially after Chairperson's Mao Tsetung's death move us to a just concern and to the duty of defending the banners of Marxism, precisely to be able to defend them let us guide ourselves by his own forecasts.
"If the rightists carry forward an anti-communist coup d'etat in China, I am sure that it will not know peace either, and very probably its domination will be short-lived, because it will not be tolerated by any of the revolutionaries who represent the people's interests, more than 90 percent of the population.
"Let it be in China or in other countries of the world, broadly speaking, more than ninety percent of the population will finally support Marxism-Leninism; many persons who, owing to the deceit of social-democracy, revisionism, imperialism and all the reactionaries, have not taken yet political consciousness. But in any way they will gradually wake up and will support Marxism-Leninism. The truth of Marxism-Leninism is irresistible. The masses will invariably rise up in revolution. The world revolution will inexorably triumph."
(Bandera Roja Nos. 47/48, October 1977, redistributed in 1987 by the CP Peru)
[MIM comments: The above article is remarkable in a number of ways. First, unlike a number of parties influenced by Trotskyism, the PCP upheld Mao's theory of new democracy. Secondly, in 1977, the PCP cleared up confusion over Maoist foreign policy by supporting Mao's formulations from the 1960s as relevant to the mid-1970s (and then again in 1987). In particular, the PCP did not say that the Soviet Union was the "main danger" in this article. Finally, before Deng Xiaoping came back to power formally in China, the PCP notes the revisionist coup in China. While many supposedly Maoist parties in 1977 fell in with Hua Guofeng or Deng Xiaoping revisionism or retired to study the question, the PCP took a clear and correct stand opposing the counterrevolutionary capitalist coup--MC5.]
PCP
Excerpt from Sendero Luminoso on Mao Zedong Ch. 8 from "CPP and Mao Tsetung"
Central Committee The Communist Party of Peru, December 1987 Reproduced by the People's Movement Peru of France. Distributed by the Comite Sol Peru
Re-distributed by the Maoist Internationalist Movement on September 7, 1992
[The Maoist Internationalist Movement is proud to present these excerpts from the political documents of the Communist Party of Peru led by Comrade Gonzalo. To our knowledge, this is the first time these documents appear in the world of electronic communications. Since the original language of the translators is not English, we take some liberties in changing the grammar and idiomatic phrases of Maoism.]
Chapter 8: "Chairperson Mao and the Objective Situation in the Backward Countries" written in September 1979 and redistributed in December, 1987
Chairperson Mao Tsetung employed the term "objective situation" to analyze the revolutionary situation or the objective conditions for the revolution and its development in the backward countries, that is, semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries; he starts from the necessity of penetrating into the essence of things and not staying at simple appearances. For him, it is fundamental to take into account the semi- feudal basis and the imperialist oppression that weighs on the backward countries, in which the revolution is a democratic revolution, that is, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution, and whose development demands the armed struggle from the countryside to the cities through revolutionary base areas as the new State that upsurges accordingly as the old reactionary landlord-bureaucratic State is being destroyed. This is fundamental in order to understand the specific conditions that a revolutionary situation acquires in a semi- feudal and semi-colonial society, and its development in those societies.
Chairperson Mao Tsetung established the conditions that comprise the objective situation and mainly the contradictions that arise, and the development of which derives the unfolding of the revolution, that is in essence armed struggle and the unavoidable triumph of the revolution. As it can be seen in point 4 of his work "A single spark can start a prairie fire," he emphasizes the following points and contradictions:
1) On the international level, a development of the contradictions among imperialist countries. Evidently, today these contradictions are sharper than yesterday, and the struggle for world hegemony between the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism grows more each day. This derives in our country as contradictions among the exploiters, mainly of the grand bourgeoisie as can be seen in recent times in their factions: bureaucratic bourgeoisie and comprador bourgeoisie, contradictions that, far from diminishing, will continue developing.
2) Contradiction between the reactionary rulers and the vast masses of taxpayers. Among us, the growth of the state apparatus necessarily leads to tax increases that fall upon the vast masses of people and, furthermore, the state economy evolves in a constant budgetary crisis; the process followed under the present regime and the present situation clearly show the above, as well as that it is the masses of people that through indirect taxation suffer more and more the state expenditures, a situation that is worsening each time more and will continue worsening.
3) Contradiction between imperialism and national industry. Also among us this contradiction is obvious; the industry in our country is all the time more subdued to the imperialist rule, and the access to their markets more limited; on the other hand, the aggression of foreign merchandises run by imperialism limits national industry and the financial impositions of imperialism sink it more in economic recession, even worsened by the world crisis. As stated by Mariategui, imperialism does not allow the development of a national industry.
4) Contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Seeking to escape from their difficulties, the capitalists "try to find an outlet by means of an unbridled exploitation on the workers, and the latter oppose them." This statement of Chairperson Mao's is proved among us everyday to satiety, mainly we see it today in the development of the crisis which our country is suffering in recent years. In synthesis, we see how brutally the salaries are shrunk; the working day hours are increased and hard work conditions are imposed in order to safeguard enterprises' profits; but facing this we see the resistance of the proletariat through persistent strike struggle, even against all forms of harassment and repression, suspension of guaranties and the state of emergency.
5) An even greater deepening of the contradiction between the landlord class and the peasantry. In this country, the State has assumed the collection of territorial rental through the agrarian debt, the imperialist investment mainly through the Banco Agrario and the control of all the associative system (cooperatives, SAIS, etc.) in agricultural production and, furthermore, it maintains servile forms of production, thus joining the old feudal landlord exploitation. In this way, the situation of the peasantry is worsened due to the evolution of feudalism stamped by the agrarian law and the penetration of bureaucratic capitalism in the countryside.
6) The merchants of national products and the independent producers are pushed more each time towards bankruptcy. Today the economic crisis clearly shows the validity of this statement. It is enough to remember the bankruptcy situation faced by the small industrial production and small trade, as well as the small mining; let us emphasize the serious situation the street vendors suffer, on whom also repression falls. But the situation hits even the middle producers.
7) The reactionary government increases its troops unlimitedly. In our country the development and reinforcement of the reactionary armed and police forces is evident, both in number and weaponry, with the creation of new repressive corps and the wider range of their functions and the greater control they exercise upon all the functions of society. Evidently, this process will be further developed.
8) Hunger and banditry extend all over the country. The Peruvian masses of people suffer chronic hunger, but today the crisis is even greater; really the masses, specifically the poor peasantry, have nothing to feed on, and with hunger sickness comes at its side, fattening itself mainly on children and youth. Delinquency expands more and more, and cattle stealing increases in the countryside backed by the authorities themselves.
9) The vast peasant masses and the urban poor find themselves in a situation in which they can hardly keep alive. This verification made by Chairperson Mao in China is also a cruel reality among us. Misery settles more and more among the masses of people of our country.
10) Due to the lack of budgetary means, many students fear to be unable to continue their studies. With regard to our country this is also true. The budget for education as well as that for health, decreases, and education agitates in deep crisis; in this way, many students quit studying due to the lack of academic centers and, moreover, due to the lack of resources.
11) Due to the backward character of production, many graduated students have no hope of finding work. Among us, this situation also happens, thousands of graduated students work in anything but in their profession.
This is how Chairperson Mao Tsetung judges the revolutionary situation in the backward countries, and when he analyzes the contradictions that the objective situation presents, he finds the material basis that gives support to the armed struggle, its development and triumph. From the above we can see that in our country a similar objective situation is given, and the same contradictions are developing. All this is very evident. They are contradictions that are developing and in no way can they be solved by a reactionary government; furthermore, we all know that the contradictions that can not be solved sharpen; therefore, the objective situation in our country is and will be more propitious for the development of the revolution, for the development of its superior form, the armed struggle; in consequence, the question is to initiate the armed struggle, this is the unavoidable perspective of our condition as a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country. What other perspective can our country have? What other road can we follow in Peru? What other hope can our masses of people and the proletariat possess?
Chairperson Mao Tsetung, concluding his analysis said: "Once we understand all these contradictions, we shall see in what a desperate situation, what a chaotic state China finds itself. We shall also see that the high tide of revolution against the imperialists, the warlords and the landlords is inevitable and will come very soon. All China is littered with faggots, which will soon be aflame."
Following our country the same laws of the revolution, being our situation similar as well as our perspective, can we think in a different manner? No, in no way.
But, furthermore, Chairperson Mao Tsetung has established a brilliant distinction between a revolutionary situation in development and a stationary revolutionary situation, as can be seen in point 3 of chapter II of his work "Why is it that red power can exist in China?" Chairperson Mao starts from that in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country, as ours is, there always exists a revolutionary situation, or an objective situation, as he calls it, for the development of armed struggle, but this is presented in two forms: 1) stationary revolutionary situation, and 2) revolutionary situation in development. Moreover, analyzing his statements, we can say that a stationary revolutionary situation can be transformed into a revolutionary situation in development through the action of the subjective conditions upon the objective situation; it is very important to keep this in mind. Furthermore, it is necessary to differentiate the unequal development of the revolutionary situation and to take into account that this situation can appear even in a region, and that the revolutionary action itself can generalize it in the whole country and that, also, armed struggle can be initiated in the midst of a general falling back of the revolution, as proven by the Uprising of the Autumn Crop in August of 1927 in China.
Develop the People's Growing Protest! September, 1979

Peru: The Remnants of a Betrayed Revolution
By Luis Arce Borja January 28, 2006
[MIM is unable to confirm that Luis Arce Borja is the author of this document. It was 2002 that his neighbor the revisionist Workers Party of Belgium last reported on him in the news. Various reactionary Peruvian papers have reported on him more recently. We hope Luis Arce Borja is well.]
A guerrilla action, and similarly a whole process of armed struggle, does not by itself constitute a liberating political process in the sense of revolutionary change of society and the state.
The revolutionary content of a political or military action is determined by its strategic objective, whose essence is determined by a combination of ideological, political and organizational factors.
From May 1980 until almost the middles of the ‘90s the Maoist guerrilla was without any doubt a hope for revolutionary change in Peru. The poor masses took it as such and valiantly fought at its side. In that war the people gave their blood and sacrifice, and more than 60,000 peasants, workers, students, squatters, and others had died by the end of the armed conflict. A historical epoch that is an extraordinary legacy for the Peruvian people and their future revolution. What cut short that road? In October 1993 Abimael Guzmán and the greater part of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) changed political line while in prison and became collaborators with the regime of Fujimori and Montesinos. They called off the armed struggle. This betrayal, the fundamental cause of the defeat of the revolution, came wrapped up with the so-called "peace letters" written in the manner of applying "Gonzalo Thought," which in the words of Guzmán himself is the "creative expression of Marxism- Leninism-Maoism in the concrete conditions of Peruvian reality." In this way, what served to initiate and develop the revolution became useful in bankrupting this same process.
What remains of that historical epoch, and what is the current situation of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP)?
What remains after the defeat of the People’s War, is a supposed Communist Party that is nothing but a caricature of the party that initiated the armed struggle in May 1980. Its remnants do not behave like fragments of but rather like the remains of a political process broken by the disastrous defeat. Here there was no, like Lenin said, organized retreat in the defeat, only political dispersion without any perspective of reorganizing for the future struggle. Its representatives do not express themselves as a separate party with its own political aspirations and programs, but they subscribe to directives inherited from when Gonzalo hadn’t yet been captured. They don’t act as antagonistic groups, and their ideological points of reference spring from fidelity to Gonzalo thought, which they uphold without criticism or reservations. They continue to consider Guzmán the legitimate "head of the PCP and the revolution." They sustain that Gonzalo continues as the "strategic and decisive leadership of the PCP" and, as they say, "Doctor Abimael Guzmán Reynoso continues as our chief." Some take Guzmán as the holy spirit, without conceivable sins and outside the realm of human weaknesses, much less betrayal and capitulation.
The main group is constituted by those directly connected to the "peace letters." It groups together at its heart almost the entirety of high and medium level leaders, as well as base level militants who capitulated in prison (many of which collaborated with the National Intelligence Service [SIN]). The members of the Central Committee, with Gonzalo at the head, are part of this group and continue dictating party orders aimed at propitiating political repentance and insertion in the terrain of bourgeois legality. Their political course has not varied at all since the time of Fujimori, and continues based on the postulates of the document "Asumir y Combatir por la Nueva Gran Decisión y Definición" [Take Up and Fight for the New Great Decision and Definition] (written by Gonzalo in 1993) whose political line constitutes the negation of the revolutionary theses that gave shape to about 20 years of armed struggle in Peru. Its current work is urban and restricted to the capital. Its operations are legal and aimed at continuing to sell the snake oil of "looking for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the problems of the war." At the international level this group is part of the "parties" that make up what is known as the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement [RIM], with headquarters in the United States and London.
Another group is active in the Upper Huallaga region, and is led by the one called "rtemio," involved in some sort of vendetta on television, the radio and in the press. It carries our armed actions focused on the jungle region without any perspective of people’s power, and it declares itself the defender of the coca growers of the jungle. The political objective of this group is not revolution, but to reach a political settlement with the current representatives of the Peruvian state and army. Since before 2000, when Fujimori still governed, its guerrilla actions were suspected of being carried out in complicity with the military plans of Vladimiro Montesinos and the SIN. The goal of this group, which calls itself "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist" is to insert itself in Peru’s political system. Artemio, who now presents himself as the head of the Huallaga Regional Committee of the PCP, has not stopped publicly repeating that his armed struggle’s objective is to achieve a "political solution and all-sided negotiation to the problems derived from the civil war," which in other words means to serve the government of Toledo like they served Fujimori’s government before. The political demands of this personality are not different from those of the peace letters group. Artemio has told the magazine Caretas (August 2005) "we began the armed actions with the objective of demanding a negotiated political solution of the government and the state. Today we are carrying out the actions with this same purpose, demanding a political solution of the whole set of problems derived from the war."
A smaller group exists that the Peruvian press calls "proseguir" (in relation to their decision to keep on the road of armed actions). This group, according to official information, is led by comrade "Alipio," and its area of operations is in the central jungle region, mainly on the Ene River. The political position of the proseguir group differs from that of the "peace letters" group and that of "Artemio." They reject collaboration with the state and declare themselves against capitulation and betrayal, but strangely they continue to consider Gonzalo the "head of the Party and the revolution." They blindly deny that Abimael Guzmán is the author of the "peace letters" and the treason committed against the revolution. They have no known programmatic document or current analysis of Peruvian reality. Their communiqués are repetitive, delirious slogans, whose content is a textual reproduction of what Gonzalo spoke and wrote before 1992, and demonstrates that this group, perhaps sincere in its political activity, has not even come close to understanding the true problem in the Peruvian revolution.
The guerrilla actions, those of "Artemio" as well as those of the "proseguir" group, (without bearings or leadership), rather than serve as a stimulus for the people’s struggle, serve to confound the possibility of regrouping the people’s forces and in better conditions return to the true revolutionary struggle under the leadership of a solid political organization. The masses of people, betrayed by the Maoist leaders in 1993, with good reason distrust these guerrillas, and see in these actions not the possibility of liberation, but rather a trick of the secret services to continue militarily controlling the state in the guise of the senderization of society. By chance or by direct relation, the truth is that the supposed "guerrilla offensives" serve the reaction more than the revolution. For example, based on the actions of "Artemio" of past months, the Fujimorismo has renewed in grand form its old electoral campaigns expressed in Lima street paintings that say "Fujimori yes, terrorism no." But it is not only Fujimorismo that is looking to gain from this situation of fictitious people’s war. The military forces that for ten years of Fujimorismo were involved in brutal crimes and spectacular graft have not had to wait to win dividends from this situation. With this purpose, a congressman (Luis Iberico) just proposed in parliament "a selective amnesty" for 638 army officials legally accused of crimes and human rights violations. This amnesty, according to parliament, is aimed at "strengthening the morale of the Armed Forces so they can confront terrorism without fear." In the same vein, the Fujimorista daily La Razón (Lima), has become the most enthusiastic medium for publishing on the front page any murmur of a guerrilla bullet. Including, in order to give credibility to supposed propaganda about the "senderista advance" it has publicized "declarations" of nonexistent and phantasmal organizations that publish a marginal web page in Sweden.
The ideological basis of the betrayal
The defeat of the people’s war did not have its main causes in the superiority of the enemy, rather in the political ideological weakness of its top leaders. When the Central Committee of the PCP, including Chairman Gonzalo, passed over to the side of the enemies of the revolution, the Maoist guerrilla was carrying out about 400 military actions per month and maintained the repressive forces of the state in check, which including soldiers, police, paramilitaries and civil defense groups, rondas and other tools of the army, included over 500 thousand active members. In that stage of intense social struggle, the people’s committees (open and clandestine) expanded and multiplied across the country the support bases of the revolution. The armed process was the epicenter of the class struggle and determined the political life of the country.
This problem has its roots in the deep ideological problems whose elements should not be sought outside the party, but rather within it, and particularly in the Gonzalo thought that has served for war and for treason. The police repression factor could be an important ingredient, but not determinant in the form of behavior of the leaders of this party. The biblical cult of the leader and the one man management of the party organization are two of the road to follow to arrive at the origin of the problem. In no part of the world can a revolutionary party be conceived of that is operated by only one person and even less from prison as has been the case with the PCP. In revolutionary war parties have a structure that as a whole makes them invincible against reaction. Each militant, each cadre and each leader form an ensemble of leadership. No revolutionary party, even more so a Marxist party, can demand that its membership take an oath of total and unconditional subjection to the leader of that party, as has been the experience of the PCP. The militants, together with respecting the most distinguished cadre and leaders, express their revolutionary fidelity to the programme, political line and to each one of the organic instances of leadership. This excludes personal management and any type of great leader adoration characteristic of the political organizations of the bourgeoisie.
Any political group in Peru that intends to take the victorious years of people’s war (1980-1993) as a point of departure is obliged to be honest with the facts and explain with political coherence the causes and ideological- political factors involved in the conduct of Gonzalo and the Central Committee. It has to explain, beginning with ideology, what has been the phenomenon by which top leaders become clowns, turncoats, informers and poor devils. An example of this problem is "Feliciano." The highest responsible military figure in the party is now someone who renounces not only his old convictions but publicly begs the authorities to collaborate in the pacification of the country. In every social phenomenon there is cause and effect, and the most abominable problems don’t pop up and appear out of nothing. They are connected to class consciousness, the vision of socialism, political formation in general, experience, also material factors. The interest of this reflection can be presented in diverse aspects, but to deal with it substantially one must rigorously broach the ideological aspect of the PCP. The whole course that Gonzalo and the PCP ran from 1964 to 1993 must be scrutinized with a magnifying glass. Nothing can be left unanalyzed and it is preferable to submit to criticism the whole ideological, political and organizational scaffolding that preceded the "peace letters" of 1993.
To take things as if nothing had happened in the heart of the Communist Party nor in the armed process is a distortion of reality. It is a form of complicity in covering up betrayal and Marxist deviation. It is a style of conciliation with those responsible for the defeat of the armed process. The serious damage caused to the Peruvian social process, whose principal victims have been the true communists and the masses who fought at their side, was directly caused by people who can be given no concessions and cannot be conciliated with. The traitors are no longer part of the people and any revolutionary initiative has to struggle against them. On the other hand, to not search for the truth of things and say it as it has happened, is serious in that it takes the masses for idiots, and above all negates the political tasks of the current moment, principally that which has to do with the ideological aspect and the reconstitution of a revolutionary organization.
Before 2000, when Fujimori was still in power, there might have been good reason to maintain serious suspicions that the peace letters had nothing to do with Gonzalo. It was also correct to put out the hypotheses of video editing, lies and imposters of the leading Maoist prisoners. That situation changed substantially when Fujimori fled Peru in 2000. Secret documents, direct testimonies and other proofs came to light and cleared up a situation which had been managed since ’93 spectacularly based on lies and half-truths. The same Chairman Gonzalo, facing the judges who judges him and in front of 254 national and international journalists, confirmed on November 5, 2004 his protagonism in the capitulation and treason of the armed struggle. In said event, the first act of Gonzalo was not to call for the continuation of the armed struggle, as he did in 1992 (first public presentation) but to effusively hug each member of the Central Committee who like him were responsible for the "peace letters" and the text: "fight for the political solution to the problems derived from the war" and conclude the internal conflict without victors nor vanquished". [the original text is missing a "]
The fantasies regarding the "uncontainable advance" of the People’s War, or that the "reaction trembles" from the current armed actions, are nothing more than artificial flames that the reaction uses to camouflage the grave political crisis of the country, who most notorious expression is the electoral carnival on whose terrain the dispute is open between ruffians, delinquents and criminals. Even Fujimori’s political party is fighting again for the presidential chair. But these extravagant slogans also cover the opportunism of their mentors whose purpose is the cap with one finger the loss suffered by the PCP and the ideological drift this organization finds itself in. To not make a distinction between the political situation before 1993 and the current conjuncture, is not only an error, but in and of itself constitutes authentic proof that those who currently claim the legacy of the Peruvian revolution are merely remnants of a betrayed process which has been beaten into deafeat.
MIM International Minister responds:
MIM is probably to blame for the appearance of this article. I in particular have to make self-criticism for recently allowing the publication of some short and bland articles on Peru in MIM Notes. Although I knew there was an issue of the Peruvian reactionaries' inventing Maoist armed struggles for their own purposes, I allowed the articles to go forward without a thorough investigation.
This is also an example of how people mistakenly pressure leadership. Often as International Minister I come across superficially cheerful and optimistic news spread by bourgeois media blitz that I have to quash. This sort of pressure "from below" is wrong in many aspects in the West. 1) It caters to the labor aristocracy and ends up supporting Comintern-like thinking that we have to be involved in the concrete details of other struggles. 2) It gives the enemy a chance to probe our defenses and procedures. Then leaders must work overtime to compensate. At least in this case, we have an article now to try to set us straight.
With regard to Luis Arce Borja's article's contents, most are plausible. We do not undertake a concrete investigation throughout Peru as would be necessary. For all we know, there are real Maoists in Peru spreading great agitation and theory as they carry out armed struggle. MIM and activists generally know to what extent the media and self-interested political leaders misreport events. If we have omitted the activities of real Maoists in Peru in our reporting, we apologize and again, we mean no harm. We are not claiming to lead a Comintern reaching into Peru and excluding legitimate Maoist comrades.
In the article above, Luis Arce Borja concludes that Gonzalo was in fact behind the peace letters. From MIM's point of view, 250 journalists could claim to see Gonzalo in court, but most would not know what he looked like originally. Luis Arce Borja, on the other hand, does know what Gonzalo looks like, so his opinion has to be taken seriously. We also see no evidence of a huge campaign to undo the publicity that says that really was Gonzalo in the 2004 court appearance. For that reason, let us presume that the people of Peru have concluded that Gonzalo did collaborate with the Peruvian state once arrested.
If the people of Peru have concluded that Gonzalo and his central committee capitulated, the uphill nature of the fight in Peru has become more steep. It will be psychologically difficult to accept that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought guided the most successful revolutionary movement in Latin American history, prior to the arrest of Gonzalo. The CIA has won a great battle then.
Nonetheless, MIM maintains that Gonzalo the man and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought now belong to history and have to be treated objectively, regardless of feelings about the man supposedly still alive in a naval prison. In this regard, MIM has some experience as well. Huey Newton led the most successful scientific communist movement in North Amerikan history. Yet the last 15 years of his life are full of rumors of his being a horrible drug addict. He managed a book and a few statements before an alleged drug dealer took his life. The paths of Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale were even worse. MIM has assessed that the white labor aristocracy bears the principal blame for the degeneration of Huey Newton, who was unparalled in his 1966 to 1970 activity. It's not that the labor aristocracy betrayed Newton. We cannot say the enemy betrays us. MIM popularized Huey Newton's work even while Huey Newton was still alive. One could even say MIM was too impersynal in not trying to take in Huey Newton directly. That might have been an error on our part.
If Gonzalo capitulated in prison, then his accomplishments leading People's War for so many years are what we must learn from. We have no materialist choice other than that, because no one in Latin America has done better. The only reason we know that it is wrong to try to direct the struggle from prison is that we have seen successful revolutionary movements elsewhere, not in Latin America. We have the example of Mao. The Communist Party of the Philippines also does not allow leadership from prison.
There is one condition under which we should allow leadership from prison. When all the masses are in prison, we should lead the party from inside the prison struggle. Such was not close to being true in Peru. In the united $tates, we are on course statistically for the oppressed nations to end up in prison. Yet even inside u.$. borders it is not appropriate to lead the vanguard party from inside prison yet. The prison struggle itself may be led inside prison.
With regard to saving the life of comrade Gonzalo, the best course is a well- developed People's War. That is of concern to the whole international communist movement. Nonetheless, saving the life of Gonzalo should not be the principal goal of armed struggle. It could be a tactical goal of one armed struggle. It cannot be the overall goal of People's War in Peru. The people must make the struggle for their own reasons.
The question of how reaction benefits from alleged People's War is only tactical. We cannot raise to a question of principle how the reaction frees Fujimorista military officers by pointing to People's War. There is never any armed struggle that does not polarize society. Hence, MIM cannot get involved in criticizing people for giving blood-thirsty military officers a chance to go free. That could be tactically correct, but MIM is not in a position to know.
As Luis Arce Borja pointed out, there are those connecting themselves to the Peruvian struggle who give us the sense of existing just before 1993. What we need though, is a leadership able to depart from Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought as it existed before 1993 but also integrate theory with conditions of 2006. Most of the major social and political conditions have not changed in Peru since 1993--comprador bureaucratic capitalism, semi-feudalism and imperialism--but some relatively minor conditions have changed and there is no way to get around having leadership outside prison. Marxism- Leninism-Maoism-Gonzalo Thought should be the basis of line in Peru, but those who continue to say that Gonzalo is still the "chief" of the revolution do it a disservice. Even if Gonzalo did not capitulate, he cannot lead the Peruvian revolution now from prison. Perhaps there should be Marxism-Leninism-Maoism- New Comrade Thought for Peru, but Gonzalo Thought prior to 1993 should still be the point of departure.
As for the question of one-man management, we must all admit that the reactionaries captured and killed many more than one man. There are weaknesses in the oppressed and exploited which enable one-man leadership in some conditions. MIM is surprised given the plentitude of revisionism and reformism in Peru that one man leadership might be a serious problem. It would seem natural that the political competition would alleviate the problem of monarchist-style thinking, but the revisionists and reformists do not go deep into the countryside among the indigenous peoples much, so MIM can draw no firm conclusion. It is natural that Luis Arce Borja would have firmer conclusions.
MIM has tried to develop ideologically lately that the bourgeois pluralism of the imperialist countries does have a secondary role to play in demolishing the conditions of semi-feudalism in the Third World. To the extent that our Peruvian comrades are forged in the furnace of the whole world's struggle, the whole international communist movement will be better off.

Amerikan revolutionary Carol Andreas passes away
by International Minister
El Diario International has reported that Carol Andreas of Colorado died at age 71 on December 7 of a cerebral aneurism. She was a professor and revolutionary. The people of Peru and Amerika both have special reason to mourn.
Although in the 1960s there were over 1 million self-described revolutionaries among u.$. college students, by 1976, the number of people still active in revolutionary struggle in the united $tates fell to about 0.1% of its previous level. El Diario International led by Luis Arce Borja mentioned her support for the People's War in 1980 and after, but Carol Andreas has international significance to Maoism as well.
In 1976, when most of the world's communists fell for Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping after the death of Mao, Carol Andreas held firm. Her study group immediately published a book upon the death of Mao upholding the Cultural Revolution and denouncing the capitalist restoration. This should have been unremarkable given the preparation Mao and the "Gang of Four" gave the world for capitalist restoration in China, but in practice relative to others, Carol Andreas proved to have great foresight and firmness on this question while most of the world's communists temporarily fell off course. It was only in succeeding years that Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping revisionism went into the minority in parties outside China.
As El Diario International correctly pointed out, Carol Andreas also held firm in 1992-1993 when the "peace accords" controversy in Peru arose. MIM will add that Carol Andreas confided to MIM that we should uphold Luis Arce Borja in exile against others arising at the time to diminish his stature outside Peru. In knowing what's what in 1976 and 1992, no one can do better than Carol Andreas did.
MIM also conducted activity to support the Cultural Revolution and Luis Arce Borja, so the question arises about the unity of Carol Andreas and MIM. One would guess that the issue dividing us would be the labor aristocracy, and we're still not entirely convinced she accorded this issue the proper weight, but Carol Andreas claimed not so much to disagree with MIM on this point. In fact, she pointed out that even in Peru the labor aristocracy was quite a problem. She stressed repeatedly that she had read all of Lenin's Collected Works and she knew where MIM was getting all those suspicions about the oppressor nation workers. With regard to others agitating for labor aristocracy demands she said, "let them bang their heads against the wall."
In print, a newsletter published by Carol Andreas on Peru openly debated MIM's contributions in passing. She reported that she had spoken with those who had found MIM to be a rejuvenation of Maoism in Amerika and integration of Maoism with U.$. conditions while others say MIM made no contribution to the struggle in Peru.
Our criticisms of Carol Andreas were public before she died. What we have not reported before is that she told MIM she "did not have energy" for inner party struggle and democratic centralism anymore. Her attitude was something like "been there, done that."
We do not doubt that Carol Andreas told Luis Arce Borja there is no vanguard party in Amerika, but we only criticize Carol Andreas and some Third World comrades for a liquidationist line. Carol Andreas was an articulate activist regarding the Cultural Revolution and Peru and this translated into invitations to speak to international communist conferences. In this practice of promoting individual personages at conferences, MIM has found a liquidationist attitude catering to the imperialist country petty-bourgeoisie. Some have gone so far as to invite Carol Andreas as an individual to speak while excluding parties.
Sartre spent his most correct years criticizing intellectuals who refuse vanguard parties. Intellectuals chafe against discipline for their own persynal mental needs at the expense of the international proletariat.
The disease of petty-bourgeois intellectuals obtains orthodox aid from those who have quoted Stalin on vanguard parties in the West against MIM. Stalin made a list of conditions organizations must meet to call themselves vanguard parties. Yet we challenge our critics to find in Stalin anywhere that it is OK not to join a party until it meets those conditions and if Stalin did any such liquidationist thing, then he was wrong. Our international comrades do a disservice to the international proletariat with cynical comments denying the need to take sides and join organizations. That does nothing to encourage youth in countries where no one claims to be Maoist either.
The relationship of Carol Andreas to the vanguard party idea and Stalin's theses on vanguard parties raise a basic question of materialism. The problem in the day of Lenin and Stalin was to choose among parties or factions wishing to join the Comintern especially from Germany, but also typically from Italy. These factions Lenin and Stalin could choose among had five and six digit memberships. That sort of luxury does not apply today in the imperialist countries. When we materialists are choosing among factions and parties, we can use conditions like those prepared by Stalin for use in the Comintern.
The decision on how to recognize one faction or party over another discussed by Stalin is completely different than what Carol Andreas and some of her international admirers have done-- which is to deny any choice at all. If we have a choice between factions or parties, we can compile a list of conditions. When we find ourselves saying there is no vanguard party at all when at least one claims to be one, then we have fallen into liquidationism.
There is always a most advanced line in any society--a basic fact of materialism. If Carol Andreas did not like MIM or other organizations, she should have declared herself vanguard in Amerika and forced the issue. The passive attitude that no one else has already established nicely running vanguard parties that we can join as cogs in the machine must be banished as anti-Leninist and fatal to this stage when so many countries need to form vanguard parties.
One thing we like about what Carol Andreas did is that she took a liquidationist line which she made up for to some extent with internationalism. In her last decade or so she could not see straight to leading revolution in the united $tates, but she gave her energy to the revolution in Peru.
Comrades who would like to remember Carol Andreas should read her book Peru: When Women Rebel. And if anyone clings to any stereotypes about wimmin not being able to hold firm lines, digest Lenin or lead politically, we point to Carol Andreas. No one in Amerika, male or female did any better than Carol Andreas did in 1976 and 1992.

Comrade Gonzalo allegedly appears in a Peru courtroom:
Why Amerikans should back a Maoist willing to take power in Peru
by mim3@mim.org
Peru has problems that Amerikans cannot begin to understand, unless they are the Amerikans in the Pentagon and State Department intimately involved in creating those problems. The best way to demonstrate this is with a story.
In the midst of a civil war in Peru, the U.S. Government started grooming successors for a regime it had bribed and goaded into brutality. A handsome man of indigenous roots came forward.
"Mr Toledo was born in a poor Andean Indian village as one of 16 brothers and sisters, seven of whom died.
"When his parents migrated to the coastal city of Chimbote in search of a better life, he began work as a shoeshine boy, aged seven. But a scholarship to secondary school led to a university place in the United States. He went on to take a doctorate at Stanford University and establish himself as a respected economist.
"Mr Toledo's wife, Eliane Karp, has been compared to Hillary Clinton . . ."(1)
It's natural for Toledo's hometown to take pride, but even the people of Peru will not understand how much the story of Alejandro Toledo pleases Amerikans. For Amerikans, it would seem that Mr Toledo did what was necessary for success and he proved the myth of the heroic individual struggle so deeply rooted in Amerikan culture.
The above story was from 2001. Toledo took power in Peru and the Amerikan media reported his approval rating of almost 60%.(2) So far, everything makes sense to Amerikans. Everything sounds just like it happens here, which is not surprising, since Amerikans manufactured Toledo to begin with. The trouble is that wanting other countries to be "just like us" does not make it so.
Amerikans may have fooled even the people of Peru to some extent, the same way the Russians and eastern Germans thought kow-towing to Amerika and installing shopping malls make a country rich. Soon the people learned that even this perfect Amerikan success story named Toledo could not create six digit figures of jobs in a country with massive unemployment, poverty and malnutrition. Any doubts that the West had failed to apply enough brain to Peru's situation can now cease. Amerika won't do better than Fujimori or Toledo in the brains department. The real problem is that the Amerikans are not even close to understanding Peru's conditions.
Toledo's approval rating dropped even faster than George W. Bush's after the afterglow of 911. Alejandro Toledo's public approval rating was down to 11.2% when in 2003 he arranged a show trial of a senior citizen from England that he managed to extradite by a surprise Gestapo-like visit from the Spanish police at a Spanish hotel when recently deposed Aznar was trying to show Bush that he meant business on "terror." In the previous 20 years, Adolfo Olaechea had spent 2 weeks in Peru on a honeymoon, but he called himself a "Maoist intellectual," a claim that MIM can assert was extremely dubious, though there were few other Peruvians abroad with his command of English that we of the imperialist countries could speak with about Peru. In any case, this senior citizen proved useful to Peru's authorities as a "Central Committee" member of an organization called the "Shining Path" of Peru that is on the u.$. terror lists.
Adolfo Olaechea spent three months in Peru's maximum security prison in 2003, according to the not so reliable media in Peru. Now he's out on bail but not allowed to go back home to London where he was living for decades as a permanent resident married to a Dutch national.
Oddly enough, and more importantly, now Peru's hardly trustworthy authorities claim that they have the truly absolute leader of "Shining Path" up to 1992 named Comrade Gonzalo coming up for another trial. Past public displays of Gonzalo have turned out to be hoaxes. Today, Comrade Gonzalo allegedly raised his fist in a trial appearance.(3)
This happens against a backdrop where Peru's authorities try to adopt a veneer of inspiration from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. In an effort at balance, the thousands of stories of humyn rights violations by the regime in killing unarmed civilians in the 1980s and 1990s are coming out. While many still blame "Shining Path" communists as "responsible" for 69,000 deaths in the 1980s and 1990s, they have also admitted that the regime carried out about half of the killings.
As of November, 2004, authorities in Peru are not saying they have evidence that Comrade Gonzalo who led the "Shining Path" ever planted a bomb or fired a gun, but that he was the "intellectual inspiration." It seems that putting it that way will serve to intimidate people like Adolfo Olaechea who did not have much to do with "Shining Path" except as a foreign intellectual voice concerned with Peru issues.
The advantage to the regime of course is that it is easier to prove such charges and also it intimidates more people than proving that Gonzalo actually carried out armed struggle. When your approval rating is only 7% as it is now in 2004 for Toledo, you start to think about having to go after a wider range of people. It's an example of why a politician's popularity in an alleged democracy is directly relevant to the options open to that politician.
If Peru's authorities go the other road, they also face difficulties. With a focus on armed struggle by the "Shining Path," the authorities draw attention to the violence of the Fujimori regime and remind the public that he is wanted for criminal charges, that his henchmen are in prison and that there is videotape evidence of bribery of legislators and a paper trail for drug-trafficking. Since the charges against people like Adolfo Olaechea originate under Fujimori, drawing attention to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s can also backfire and remind people exactly why they want to let Adolfo Olaechea go.
Yet another road is to count Adolfo Olaechea as a renegade or informer. In that way, the authorities can let him go with less political cost to themselves but more confusion, and without solving the similar cases that are genuine. If the authorities release Adolfo Olaechea as an informer or capitulator, that won't change the fact that his extradition and imprisonment for the original reasons given was wrong. Those reasons in print will still reflect poorly on the authorities in Peru and still prove how the allegedly democratic system is completely rotten.
The sorts of difficulties like these that lead to convoluted twists and turns hardly discernible to the outside eye are no-win for the rulers in Peru, because they stem from an underlying economic situation that gave at least parity to the rebels as against the Fujimori regime. That is why the real answer is to be found outside the dialogue as seen so far.
To understand how low the approval rating of the Peruvian regime is, this writer had to look up Richard Nixon's approval rating. President Nixon had a 24% public approval rating when he resigned from office in the Watergate disgrace in 1974.(4)
In point of fact, Toledo's approval rating is so low, it's possible that MIM's approval rating in the anti-communist united $tates might be higher than that if we happened to seize power today. After all, MIM would end the Iraq war, legalize gay marriage, rescind the Patriot Act and release prisoners stuck on immigration violations and pot possession, so we would be hated by most but we would get some support. Thanks to Toledo, that's the first time this writer ever had that fantasy. Perhaps in the united $tates, Toledo would have had a three times higher 21% rating as president, but because Peru is in such a difficult situation, the typical Amerikan bourgeois success story cannot get anywhere.
The man before Toledo was also someone that Amerikans would expect to succeed, a modern, full-blooded Japanese man named Fujimori. He proved to be a fascist tied into drug lords. He's up for criminal charges and his henchmen (equivalent of cabinet leaders) went to prison. Despite the successful capture of the leadership of "Shining Path" by Fujimori, Peru did not really get anywhere for the trouble of arresting the only people not corrupted in respect to Peru's needs.
Meanwhile, in the rest of Latin America, people that Amerikans would call "socialists" are coming to power via election anyway. First it was Lula in Brazil. Then Hugo Chavez won his referendum in Venezuela. Highly influential also was the the Socialist victory in Spain after the Al Qaeda attack there. Then on October 31st, Uruguay elected its first "leftist." Leaders in Chile and Argentina would also be beyond Amerikan imagination politically, considering that Amerikans just elected George W. Bush.
The problem in Peru is that it is a little ahead of these other Latin American countries politically, because Peru elected that sort of leader that MIM would call watery in the 1970s and 1980s and the people have debated every shade of "socialism" and "Marxism." Needless to say, Peru would not have had narco-dictator Fujimori or abysmal failure Toledo if the leaders before them had had success to pass along through their parties.
What it all means is that Amerikans may understand Toledo, but they do not have any chance of understanding the situation he faces, and why people in his position become unpopular figleafs for military dictatorship. A Toledo in the United $tates could easily be a senator by now. A Toledo in Peru is helpless except for police and military repression.
The Maoists have experience in situations like this. Mao cleaned up China's drug problem and doubled the life expectancy of his people. Expecting Peru to jump into the lifestyle of Beverly Hills or even just Main Street mall mania is simply not realistic.
Amerikans will have plenty of chances to persuade Peru's people of the beauties of capitalism later, as the Soviet and Chinese examples prove. When the people of Peru are no longer hungry, have minimal medical care, crush the drug trade, enjoy universal education--in others words after the communists succeed in doing what they do--then the people of Peru will start to wonder why they put communists in power to begin with and a new competition more familiar to Amerikans will begin, one which they have won in the ex-Soviet Union and China without an invasion.
Let's face it: Amerikans just do not understand the political competition process at this stage of Peru's development. That's why all their chosen leaders for Peru end up miserable failures.
Peru borders on the kind of lawlessness seen in Somalia and Afghanistan and the people are tired of the fascist solution. The only people who can bring long-term order are the communists, because only the communists have a recipe for long-term progress specific to Peru's conditions. No free market politician could ever surmount the drug trade in Peru, never mind improve jobs, education and health care. Much as that it is hard to hear for Amerikans, that is what has happened historically in Peru with the failure of decades of Peru's partnership with Washington.
If the Amerikans would let Peru go communist and have a thorough land reform, eventually business with Peru would boom, just as it did in all other countries that had successful land reforms--China & Taiwan, Japan and southern Korea. In today's weak global economy, that cannot happen any too soon. If Amerikans are concerned about civil liberties under communist leadership in Peru even while their partners of capitalism and semi-feudalism thus far have shown no such concern, then it would pay for Amerikans to offer to loan the money to buy out the ruling class of Peru for a real land reform and make it more peaceful. The more peaceful the land reform and nationalization of assets can be, the less reason for any violation of civil liberties of Peruvians by Peruvians. Anyone who can see how profitable u.$. trade with China, Taiwan, Japan and southern Korea are today knows it would pay off for Amerikans down the road. All those places had land reforms forced through in the midst of World War II and its aftermath.
Backing off the anti-communism in Peru would not only bring better order and future business, but also, it would prove to all of Latin America that despite a rising mood of anti-Americanism, anything is possible. This would open up possibilities for "wheeling-and-dealing" that Amerikans have not seen before in Latin America. After all, if Amerikans are flexible enough to get over the communist bogey, then this will encourage other Latin American leaders to come up with innovative offers meeting Amerika's needs concerning trade, drugs and terrorism.
Notes: 1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/708450.stm 2. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7969938.htm?1c 3. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aK8k35sZEeHg&refer=latin_america 4. http://slate.msn.com/id/32927/