Democracy and Class Struggle says Marx wrote in 18th Brumaire
"Proletarian revolutions, like those of the nineteenth century, constantly criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts seem to throw down their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of their own goals – until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves call out"
With this in view Democracy and Class Struggle will be publishing critical appraisals of Proletarian Revolutions not over the last century but in the last decades.
We begin with this contribution by Harsh Thakor on People's War in Peru. This article represents the personal views of Harsh Thakor and are not the views of Democracy and Class Struggle.
Publishing materials of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist) does not mean we agree with them, because we do not.
Democracy and Class Struggle's position is that until we hear directly from Chairman Gonzalo outside of prison we do not accept he is the author of the peace accords any more than he was author of letter supporting Nepalese neo-revisionist leadership here
Democracy and Class Struggle call for the immediate release of Chairman Gonzalo
We will publish other evaluations of People's War in Peru we judge helpful in furthering the spirit of Marx in the above quotation on Proletarian Revolutions.
33rd anniversary of peoples war in Peru
From 1980 to 1992 the PCP led the greatest peoples war after the Chinese Communist Party.
Whatever be the errors in theory and practice the peoples war was a lesson to all the proletarian revolutionaries worldwide.
No protracted War resembled the Chinese revolution led by Com Mao as the Sendero Luminoso and it will be written in red letters in the annals of history.
It was remarkable the way the P.C.P’s army could engulf the cities from the countryside and resist the enemy forces.
It’s achievement in that period was comparable to that of the Vietnamese against the Americans.
Imagine fighting when being on the border of a great military superpower and with support of no Socialist Country.
Com Gonzalo made some outstanding contributions towards developing MaoTse Tung’s military theories and combining them with the massline.
In the 1988 plenum he demonstrated his mastery of Maoist theory not only in the military line but also on the question of party building. Revolutionary forces demarcated this movement as the outstanding revolutionary war in the World.
Without hesition the author calls Com Gonzalo as the greatest Marxist leader after Comrade Mao.
He brilliantly innovated de-centralisation in the military strategy. Quoting Bhavin in June 2003 of the C.P.I(M.L.) Naxalbari “After the Chinese revolution led by CPC under the leadership of Mao, it is only in Peru and Nepal that we see the concrete application of strategic planning and that too in a creative manner.
Based on this understanding PCP Chairman Gonzalo established the axes, sub-axes, and the directions and lines of movement, so as to maintain the strategic direction of war.
This was done after a thorough study of history of social relations, wars, political, military and economic conditions, terrain etc.
Next on the basis of this National Military Plan was formulated, which was strategically centralised and tactically decentralised guided by the Maoist understanding of linking strategy and tactics, strategic operational plans were formulated.
Every committee below it formulated their own strategic operational plans based on the strategic operational plan followed by the entire party.
All military plans are based on thorough reconnaissance and careful study of the situation of the enemy and our forces, and are guided by the political strategy and the military strategy. (From PCP Base Document,p 43)
The strategic centralisation and tactical decentralisation gives full play to the lower committees to decide specific struggles to be carried out in their area, based on the guidelines.”
One of the most significant aspects of the peoples war was the preparatory stages initiated to build it.
From 1970 to 1979 no armed action was launched but the peoples preparatory schools were launched to prepare for the peoples War.
An Important contribution of Gonzalo is also the 2 line struggle to re-organize the party in 1965. With remarkable skill the PCP combined the armed struggle with the mass movements, forming people’s mass organizations.
The peoples Guerilla Army formed in 1983 had remarakable similarity with that of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930’s.
The village committees formed displayed great democratic functioning.
Some of the most heroic armed actions were launched implementing Com Mao’s theory of protracted Peoples War.
The PCP led P.G.A would comeback facing any setback like launching daylight in the most hazardous of storms .
Although Peru had several neo-colonial features one of the most remarkable aspects was the way the P.C.P carried out the peoples war in spite of such a high urban population the War actually gave credit to Mao’s theory of protracted peoples war in semi-colonial countries.
I recommend readers to read the article ‘Red Flag flying in Peru ‘ in the 1990 edition of a ‘World to win’
It brilliantly summarizes the military actions in ambushing military patrols and in creating revolutionary power in the countryside.
Peasant committees were formed in late 1982 where land was seized from landlords and distributed to poor peasants,relying on the massline.
From building peasant committees guerilla Zones were built into base areas.
A superb action was launched in 1982 on the prison of Ayacucho after which Edith Lagos was martyred.
In 1986 the peoples war entered the phase of building base areas.
New revolutionary political power was created.
Peoples Commitees were established taking into account the subjective forces.
The Commitees comprised 5 members-called commissioners.They were chosen by representatives of the village mass organzaitions of poor peasants, labourers,women,intellectuals,youth and children.
The secretary represented the party and the proletariat.The commissioner,also a party member was in charge of the defence of the political power,by the local organized people,into militias. Finally the commissioner of production and economy organizes the new production relations,supervising the dividing of the land.
He also organizes the production directly owned by the committee.The security commissioner was in charge of police functions The job of the committee was to creat a new politics, new economy ,new culture in the countryside, as part of preparing to be able to do so on a countrywide scale.
In 1983 the PCP had formed the Organizing Committee for a New Democratic Peoples Republic. In the cities ,with the situation different from the villages a Revolutionary Peoples Defence Movement was created “ with the goal of mobilizing the masses to resist and to raise their struggles to a higher level-peopes war .
Shanty town dwellers were mobilized .The Revolutionary Peoples Defence Movement called for armed shutdowns in Ayacucho lasting 3 days in 1988.
The armed shutdowns later rocked Lima and the capital was shaken in November 1989 and March 1990.
On the eve of the November strike,the traditional day of the dead’ about 3000 families of the prisoners of war marched into Lima in honour of the fallen heroes of the peoples war.
On 21st August another shutdown was launched following Fujimori’s price hikes with leafleting at markets, factories, schools. etc.
The documents of the PCP had remarkable similarities with those of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930’s.
Where the P.C.P showed weaknesses was their formulation of the Peoples Guerilla Army doing the mass work in the cities and weakness in developing urban work.
Pre-revolutionary China did not face the onslaught of neo-colonialism or multi-nationals like Peru which had stronger impact of Capitalism.
Com Mao had a more analytical understanding of work in the towns which is revealed in the writings of the C.C.P.on work in the yellow Unions.
There is also an overemphasis of Com Gonzalo on the military aspect in his writings as against the overall question of the mass line and the proletarian party.
A term like ‘militarization of the party’ was used which is erroneous to me as the party is not a military organization. He also stated that it is the stage of ‘principally Maoism’ which is an error as it underestimates Com Lenin’s definition of era of Imperialism and Proletarian Revolution.
A kind of Personality cult was formed around Com Gonzalo and the introduction of Gonzalo Thought is questionable.
Another error is stating that ‘boycott of parliamemtray elections’ is the strategic path of Revolution and that extra-parliamentary tactics can never be deployed.
This is counter to the views of Lenin or Mao. However the author assesses a lineage in Gonzalo thought although in the end its form was distorted from the mass line. In the period of Gonzalo itself there was an attempt to copy the Chinese party experience in toto.
There was also over –emphasis on bureaucrat-capitalism. Although there was a preparatory state and adequate base of revolutionary mass organization or movement was not created.
There was also an under-estiimation of the strength of the enemy forces.
After the arrest of Gonzalo the movement received a setback but the documents of the P.C.P. revealed there was virtually no setback to the peoples War Sympathisers upto 2001 felt that the War was winning. However morally there was great setback and conflict had seriously abrupted within the forces of the CORIM and the M.P.P. Strangely it was the MPP that supported negotiations.
In this work I am compiling some of the best writings and achievements of the P.C.P. as well as reflections of errors. In the end the peoples war tragically lost and the party got divided into factions and splinter groups.
Below are writings from the workers party of Afghanistan(maoist) which still support Gonzalo.
1. Communist Party of Peru
LONG LIFE THE 33th ANNIVERSARY OF PROTRACTED PEOPLE’S WAR IN PERU!
May 17, 1980 marks the beginning of a new epoch in Peruvian people’s history. The glorious protracted People’s War, began under direct leadership of glorious Communist Party of Peru, headed by Chairman Gonzalo, the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist in the face of earth.
As great leadership, Chairman Gonzalo, correctly observes that around 1980, marks the beginning of the strategic offensive of world proletarian revolution, and the People’s War in Peru, is a historic event, that reaffirms itself in such a historic momentum.
The PPW in Peru, is the first people war in the world, after Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s demise. So, it has a leading and historic importance for world proletarian revolution, and it carries the message of the New Great Wave of World Proletariat Revolution, by upholding, defending and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism to the concrete reality of Peruvian revolution, basing itself in Chairman Gonzalo’s Guiding Thought. Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist), hails the great Communist Party of Peru, the People’s war in Peru, and honors chairman Gonzalo and his contributions to the world proletarian revolution.
It is the oppresses masses of Peru, led by Peruvian proletariat who wage a great struggle, over coming the bend on the road, after Chairman Gonzalo’s arrest. We sure are that: Communist Party of Peru, basing itself in Chairman Gonzalo’s Thought, is and will be successfully leading the Peruvian masses towards victory of New Democratic Revolution and proceeding to Socialism and Golden Communism. Proletarian internationalism is our flag, and People’s War until Communism is our slogan and practice. So, we announce our firm solidarity with oppressed masses of Peru. They have fought imperialism, social imperialism, revisionism, bureaucratic capitalism and landowners’ betrayals.
We have also fought those plagues. They are now fighting imperialism, feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism, revisionism, “new” revisionism, armed revisionism (of “Left” opportunist line) and liquidations of Right opportunist line.
We are now fighting imperialism, occupation, puppet regime, revisionism, bureaucratic capitalism (in its most fierce and comprador form), feudalism and fascism and reaction, who are all along the line. So, as anyone can study, we have common enemies, and our struggle, however occuring in different continents, shares a common base, and we wage the same struggle against imperialism, colonialism and fascism.
This is why Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is our red banner, and we all unite under Maoism. We defend the Peruvian revolution, and if possible and needed, will give our bloods in defense of our Peruvian brothers and sisters’ revolutionary cause.
Let us celebrate the 33th anniversary of Protracted People’s War in Peru!
Down with fascists ruling in Peru!
Long Life New Democratic Revolution in Peru!
Long Life Chairman Gonzalo and His All Powerful Thought!
Long Life Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism! People’s War until Communism!
Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)
In defense of Chairman Gonzalo:
Against Liquidationist Anti-Maoist Position of Communist Party of Iran (MLM)
The question of reconstitution of RIM, which is now focused by centrists, and also by some sections of Maoists, is an important issue, and needs evaluation from various aspects. Indeed, if ever any reconstitution of RIM takes place, then we should understand its class nature and its class position.
We should analyze its class characteristics by evaluating the nature of basic positions of die-hard defenders of such a reconstitution. If such a reconstitution takes place under banner of Communist(m) party of Italy, a party which defended Hugo Chavez and reject Maoist thesis of Bureaucratic Capitalism, then such a reconstitution is nothing more than a the formation of a centrist, mainly anti Maoist RIM.
If the Avakianists (however without Avakian and RCP) takes part in such reconstitution, then it again is stamped as an eclectic coordinating body of revisionists.
If Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (Naxalbari) and other die-hard defenders of Mohan Baidya(Kiran)’s Party’s revisionism emphasize in participation of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), then it means that another version of Prachandism is being revitalized in ICM. Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) by adopting a non-People’s War strategy as Party’s line proved that they have also given up the struggle, and have abandoned people’s war and have replaced it with a petit bourgeois agenda of “people’s revolt”.
So, any recognition of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) as a Maoist force means giving up the struggle and supporting centrism and revisionism.
On the other hand, there are some groupings, organizations and parties who claim to be Maoist, but have seriously been in defense of Avakian’s “New Synthesis”. They come from different countries. But, Indonesian and Iranian so called Maoist Parties are in the front.
The stand in favor or against Chairman Gonzalo has always been a hallmark by which Maoists and non-Maoist have been differentiated from each other. This was also the case in ICM about how to take position on Stalin’s Issue. Non Marxists and anti-Marxist-Leninists as Trotskyists and social democrats rejected him, and in essence and basically opposed Marxism-Leninism.
Now, those who reject Chairman Gonzalo are enemies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Those who support Chairman Gonzalo are the defenders of MLM.
For genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, Chairman Gonzalo is the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist in the face of earth. But, for anti-Maoists, Chairman Gonzalo is a “renegade” who gave up the people’s war.
This is also the case with Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). This party, has recently, strongly declared its rejection of Chairman Gonzalo, and has stamped him as the one who has recognized and instituted the “peace accords” in Peru!
Indeed, this party has confirmed and given side with the positions of ROL (Right opportunist Line) of Peru and international roaders of ROL.
In Peru, and now internationally, there has been two opportunist lines, the Right and the “Left” opportunist line, both opposing Maoism and People’s war.
Opposing these “two” lines, is the Line of World Proletarian Revolution, which declared Maoism always in Command. This line, declares that: Chairman Gonzalo is People’s War until Communism.
This is the only true and correct line, so it is real and powerful. The opportunist lines are not the reflection of proletarian praxis. They are black lines in favor and in service of imperialism and cointel pro. We all are aware how Avakian, the RCP and Avakianists had always opposed Chairman Gonzalo and PCP in many ways and various aspects. So, it is not a surprise that now pro-Avakianists or post”-Avakianist who now superficially “reject” avakian’s “New Synthesis” are still in illusions and create illusions about Chairman Gonzalo, PCP and Maoism in particular.
Such forces still are basically against revolutionary contributions of Chairman Gonzalo. Our organization had already criticized the anti-Maoist position of Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan, who sees Chairman Gonzalo’s thought, as a deviation. This party was a pro-Avakianist party, but, finally to a significant scale this party has broken with Avakianists, and has declared its analysis and rejection of “New Synthesis” of Avakian, and has truly labeled it as post-Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
But, this party still has not been able to get rid of Avakianist strips and dusts. Still this party fails to understand what a (Revolutionary Thought) is. Still this party fails to understand and recognize the genesis of a (guiding thought) that the revolution generates and this thought is the source of guide for people’s war.
This party still rejects the Maoist thesis of guiding thought. Our organization, together with CPMLM France and Communist Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party of Bangladesh, are working on a draft on how guiding thought leads the revolution and paves the way for a genuine people’s war. Without a guiding thought, everything ends in illusion. There might not be a successful and genuine people’ war. A people’s war without a guiding thought, is only an abstract idea, and might not change into a triumphant material force.
But, we confirm current anti Avakianist position of Communist (Maoist) party of Afghanistan, which opposes Communist Party of Iran (Maoist)’s Avakianism. However we still remain critical of this Afghanistani party’s incorrect position on Guiding Thought and recognition of contributions of chairman Gonzalo.
This party still not only does not recognize the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, but also rejects and marks them as deviationist and non-Maoist. If Communist Party of Afghanistan (Maoist), accepting Chairman Gonzalo as Maoist, but refusing his legitimacy and Gonzalo thought, still remains a centrist force, but, Communist Party of Iran (Maoist) who declares that Chairman Gonzalo is the source and initiator of “peace accords”, is a totally revisionist and fascist party.
Yes, all Maoist forces all over the world should take firm stand against this fascist “Communist Party of Iran “Maoist””. This fascist party proven that Avakianist “analysis” of the Questions of People’s war and World Proletarian Revolution concludes to fascism.
So, here again we see that post Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, particulary, Avkian’s post Maoism is nothing more than a naked fascism. Communist Party of Iran (Maoist), after a lengthy delay, finally replies to Communist Party of Afghanistan (Maoist)’s analysis which had stamped that Iranian party, as post Maoist, of an Avakianist trend.
But, this reply, not only prettifies Avakianksm, but also this apologist of Avakian’s (New Synthesis) also attacks Chairman Gonzalo.
The “reply” document is originally in Persian language, and in to part. Here we quote and translate the paragraphs which are direct attack on Chairman Gonzalo. Such attacks represent the liquidationist and anti-Maoist position of this Iranian Party. Readers should evaluate that: if this liquidationist party becomes a participant in reconstitution of RIM, then all will be sure that such a RIM, with such anti-Maoist elements, will be nothing more than a black trench of anti-Maoists.
Let s reader some quotes from this black anti Maoist Party:
“the people’s war in Peru from the year 1992 on, by Gonzalo calling for transforming the revolutionary war to a peace process, bore hard damages, and for several year until now, the remnants of Communist Party of Peru, have only waged a series of military operations, merely for the sake of maintaining a “peace line”
In above quote, communist party of Iran (Maoist) has argued the following false anti-Maoist liquidationist claims:
1- Gonzalo is the initiator of ROL(Right opportunist Line) and has established the line of “Peace accords”
2- Communist Party of Peru, is not waging a people’s war after Chairman Gonzalo’s arrest .
3- There is no strong Communist Party of Peru, but a remnant of the party, who only wage wars in favor of a ROL agenda of “Peace accords”.
Such liquidationist analysis, has nothing to say about the truth, and only deals with ROL as the “true” scenario of the “Peruvian Maoism”, and such black analysis, confirms the hoax of the miserable rats of ROL and LOL (left opportunist line).
This is purely fascism in clothes of Maoism. This is Maoism in “naming” but Fascism indeed.
So, all Maoism forces of the world, must take position against such vomits of miserable rats of international ROL.
There will be no real RIM if such elements participate in its reconstitution. But, the question of formation of a new International Maoist Center, which was focused by historical declaration of Maoist and revolutionary organizations and parties in December 26th, 2012, is also seriously damaged after recent damages that were brought about by some participants of that declaration. OCBR dissolved itself. Collective Odio De Clase from Spain first gave up by adopting a support to Assad’s Syria, and then it supported Chavez, and finally rejected the Maoist thesis of Bureaucratic Capitalism, a thesis which lays the foundations for a New Democratic Revolution in semi-feudal and semi colonial/colonial counties.
Finally this collective opposed chairman Gonzalo, PCP and Gonzalo thought (as Iranian Party renegades now oppose Gonzalo and PCP).
UOC (Colombia), another signer of the declaration, also rejects bureaucratic capitalism, and gives and incomplete analysis and critic of centrism.
As a conclusion, forces, those who fight for reconstitution of RIM and those who claim to fight for a new RIM like organization, are in ideological crisis. They cannot coordinate a Maoist alternative. The events proved that the correct stand belonged to PCMLM France, who neither confirmed the constitution of RIM with centrists, nor signed the international declaration of 26 2012. Our organization however still defends the aim of the declaration that we also have signed it, but criticizes the centrist praxis of some of the signers since December 26 2012.
Who can tolerate a “Maoist” collective like Odio de Clase who has no problem with alliance with Hoxaists? Who can accept an incomplete analysis of Venezuela and semi feudal countries like Venezuela, ‘neglecting’ Maoist thesis of bureaucratic capitalism?
So, from one side, we confirm Communist Party of Ecuador’s position, in defense of PCP, and an international under legitimacy of Chairman Gonzalo’s red line of Maoism. From the other hand, we believe that no reconstitution of RIM is acceptable, if RIM is reconstitute with centrists and revisionist elements like so called Communist Party of Iran (Maoist).
Neither with centrism nor with Post Maoism! This is our slogan. Only Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces, for a reconstitution of a New International or for establishing a new World Maoist Center!
This is the rationale of the need of the world proletarian movement in light of today’s class struggle. From December 26th, the situation has changed, and the forces claiming for reconstitution or new formation, have proven their real face and their real deeds. So, it is now time to reevaluate to take stand before May first 2013, before a constitution of a centrist world center (which the claim that it would be a reconstitution of RIM), and for The formation of a MLM world center, a center not constituted from anti Maoist forces like Collective Odio De Clase.
We strongly criticize the pragmatist position of Communist Party of Philippine on Hugo Chavez and we reject their claim that of Hugo Chavez as a champion for the masses. Chavez was and remains a bourgeois bureaucrat who served the imperialism and is always a symbol of “national socialism” for fascists. His so called Bolivarian Revolution for Latin America and his “Socialism for twenty first century in shade of Maoist critics is nothing more than fascism indeed.
If Philippines comrades do not revise their superficial position on Chavez, there is serious risk of deviation in Philippines revolutionary process, and it will create the basis for a “peace accord” process within the ranks of Communist Party of Philippines. But, for the parties like that of Iran, it is revisionism that moves them towards a rejection of Chairman Gonzalo and PCP. This renegade party, even denies any “enthusiasm for struggle” in Peru, and reaffirms absence of “enthusiasm for struggle “in Peru, as it does argue the same in Nepal.
This party puts the question as this for Peru: “which front of a direct practical and mass struggle in Peru…?”
The Maoist thesis of (people’s war until Communism) which was synthesized and formulated by Chairman Gonzalo, based in the almighty experience of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, is another differentiating point, which brings about the criteria for genuine Maoism.
So, revisionism and post Maoist revisionism have always fought this Maoist thesis. Communist Party of Iran (Maoist) for its turn, also, has fought this thesis, and argues that:
“Gonzalo the leader of PCP believed that for preventing the restoration of capitalism, communists should wage the people’s war “until communism’ uninterruptedly. All above evaluations {Gonzalo’s and those of others’ which this party criticizes} which were false, were prevailing among RIM parties in various forms…”
As we read, this renegade Iranian party, like other revisionists, attacks the Maoist thesis of “People’s war until Communism”.
Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist) upholding, defending and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism principally Maoism, the scientific ideology of international Proletariat, takes position in defense of Chairman Gonzalo and PCP, and rejects and opposes “Iranian” post-Maoism.
We call the ICM for a taking a firm position against the renegade “Communist Party of Iran “Maoist””. Chairman Gonzalo is the banner of Militant proletariat in the phase of strategic offensive of the world proletariat revolution. He is the incarnation of MLM in the class struggle waging people’s war until communism.
Down with centrism, dogma-revisionism, revisionism and revisionism!
Long life Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism!
People’s war until Communism!
Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (maoist)
March 31, 2013
MILITARY LINE-COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU(Document By P.C.P IN 1988)
INTRODUCTION
Upholding, defending, and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, President Gonzalo established the military line of the Party. In the First Expanded National Conference of November, 1979, it was agreed upon as being central to the general political line and it is now being developed through the People’s War.
President Gonzalo has persistently integrated the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with the concrete practice of the Peruvian revolution, combating and crushing revisionism and the right opportunist line. By applying dialectical materialism to the question of war, the military line also expresses the philosophical thought of President Gonzalo and summarizes the laws of war, of revolutionary war in general, and the specific laws of the revolutionary war in Peru. The military line is vital to our ideological, political, military, economic, and cultural work and permits us to differentiate between the proletarian military line and the bourgeois military line.
The military line consists of the laws that govern the People’s War for the conquest of Power and its defense. It contains three elements:
1. People’s war, specified in our case as unified People’s War, principally in the countryside, with its complement in the city;
2. Construction of the revolutionary armed forces, applied here as the People’s Guerilla Army, which has the particularity of incorporating the militia in order to advance towards the sea of armed masses, and;
3. Strategy and tactics that are formed through the encirclement and annihilation campaigns and the counter-campaigns of encirclement and annihilation. In our case this element is specified by applying political and military plans that have a political and military strategy developed in campaigns with specific objectives.
I. THE PEOPLE’S WAR
1. ON THE PEOPLE’S WAR IN PERU.
President Gonzalo, reaffirming himself on the universal law of revolutionary violence, follows the military theory of the proletariat established by Chairman Mao:
The people’s war has universal validity and is applicable in all types of countries, in accordance with the conditions of each revolution. The World People’s War is the principal form of struggle that the proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world should launch to oppose imperialist world war. The people’s war is a war of the masses and can only be accomplished by mobilizing the masses and being supported by them. He says: “The masses give us everything, from the crusts of bread that are taken from their own mouths to their precious blood which stirs jointly with that of the combatants and militants, which nourishes the road of the People’s War for the New Power.”
The masses should be organized into armed units in the People’s Guerilla Army. In the rural Base Areas all the men and women of each People’s Committee are organized militarily. In the cities, the People’s Guerrilla Army also acts and is bound more and more to the masses in the various new organizations in and for the People’s War. The Revolutionary Movement in Defense of the People is the realization of the Front in the cities. Its objective is to mobilize the masses in resistance, to serve the war, and serve the future insurrection.
He holds that in order to carry forward the People’s War we must take into account four fundamental problems:
1. The ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that must be specified as a guiding thought, therefore we base ourselves on the Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, primarily the latter;
2. The need for the Communist Party of Peru that leads the People’s War;
3. The People’s War specified as a peasant war that follows the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside; and
4. Base Areas or the New Power, the construction of the Base Areas, which is the essence of the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside.
He analyzes the historical process of our people and demonstrates that they have always struggled, that it “has been nurtured and advanced through revolutionary violence.
It is through this violence, in its diverse forms and degrees, that our people have conquered their economic gains [reivindicaciones], rights, and freedoms, since nothing fell from the sky, nor was it handed out.
‘Damn the words of traitors’; everything was won in fact through revolutionary violence, in ardent battles against the reactionary violence; that is how the eight hour day was won, our lands were conquered and defended, our rights were won and tyrants were overthrown.
Revolutionary violence is, therefore, the very essence of our historical process… it is easy to understand that the development and victory of the Peruvian revolution, of our democratic revolution, the emancipation of the people and the class, will be achieved solely through the greatest revolutionary war of our people, raising the masses in arms through the People’s War”.
He draws the historical lesson that these political and military realities have defined the major transformations in the country. First comes the military deed and later political change. This shows once again that war is the continuation of politics by other means.
He teaches us how the masses of our people have fought against exploitation. Since the VII century, in which the Peruvian state emerged, the masses have combated oppression and exploitation.
The Incan empire established its domination through wars of conquest which culminated in the battle of Yahuarpampa [Quechua for "bloodfields"--Trans.] against the Chancas Predominant cultural group in the region of Ayacucho and Apurímac..
The empire further expanded through war. This is a political and military fact.
The conquest by the Spanish crown was another political and military fact that was imposed, crushing the resistance of the indigenous people and using the infightings among the conquered. However, we should highlight among others the struggle of Manco Inca, who led a rebellion against the Spanish.
The imposition of the Vice-royalty was another political and military fact that was used to crush the conquistadors themselves. To maintain itself it had to face large peasant uprisings such as the one led by Juan Santos Atahualpa, and in 1780 the powerful movement of Túpac Amaru that raised 100 thousand men, extending from Cusco and Puno into Bolivia, putting the dominance of the Vice-royalty at serious risk, having repercussions in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico and thus shaking up the American continent.
While the movement was defeated, it had weakened and undermined the Vice-royalty, thus preparing the conditions for Emancipation. To see its class character, we should recall that Túpac Amaru was a cacique. [A cacique was a chief of the indias in the area of Cusco, appointed by the Viceroy--Trans.]
The Emancipation was another military and political fact and has three moments:
First, in the XVIII Century, peasant uprisings, Túpac Amaru, for example; second, the uprisings in the cities, such as that of Francisco de Zela in Tacna and the guerrillas, especially those of Cangallo and Yauyos among many others; third, confrontations of large armies that ended with the liberating epics of San Martín and Bolivar in the battle of Ayacucho in 1824. It is important to understand that even though the Emancipation was led by the creoles [criollos], it had the merit of breaking the domination of the Spanish crown; that San Martín was a great military strategist and Bolivar proved to be both a political and military strategist. Both of them fought for the emancipation of several American countries without seeking personal gain, showing that to serve a great cause we must always put the general interest first and never the personal, and they did so without being Communists.
In the Republic the landlords remained in power but facing with fire and blood great peasant struggles, among them those of Atusparia and Uscho Pedro, or that of Llaccolla Autsparia, Uscho Pedro, and Llaccolla were leaders of rebellions in southern Peru. in Ocros. Here we have the dark chapter of the war with Chile where both countries faced each other manipulated by the interests of the English and the French that were seeking our wealth in guano and nitrates. This was a war that halted the incipient capitalist development of the country and revealed the dirty role of the dominant classes, part of which capitulated to Chile. But one must emphasize the heroic resistance of the masses against the invader in defense of the people and territorial integrity, a resistance that was especially strong in the mountainous Central and Southern regions of the of the country where guerrillas were formed; Cáceres [Andres A. Caceres organized a strong guerrilla movement against the invaders--Trans.], who was a landowner-soldier, played an important role in that circumstance.
The war with Chile was waged from 1879 to 1883, and it led to the collapse of the Peruvian economy. Shortly thereafter, in 1895 it entered the beginning of bureaucratic capitalism that initiates the development of contemporary Peruvian society. As the XIX Century passes, Peru goes from a colony to a semi-colony and from feudal to semi-feudal. Bureaucratic capitalism bound to Yankee imperialism begins to develop, thus replacing the English one. Finally, the modern proletariat emerges which changes the terms of the political struggle.
From this historical process the following lessons are drawn:
The people have always struggled, they are not peaceful and they apply revolutionary violence with the means at hand.
The peasant struggles are those which have most shaken the foundations of society, and these struggles have not triumphed because they lacked the leadership of the proletariat represented by the Communist Party.
The political and military deeds determine the major social changes.
From the position of the military line, contemporary Peru has three moments linked to the appearance of the proletariat that founds its Party to conquer Power through revolutionary violence, specifying its road, which is synthesized in the process of the military line of the Party.
The first moment. (1895 to 1945) The Communist Party of Peru is constituted and, concerning the military line, Mariátegui establishes the “Indication and outline of the road.” The heroic workers’ struggles for better wages, the eight hour day, for decent working conditions, the peasant movements for lands and the agricultural proletarian movements of the southern Sierra, and the movements to reform the university, led to a complex sharpening of the class struggle in which the Peruvian proletariat matured and in which Mariátegui founded the Communist Party of Peru, on October 7, 1928, under the banner of Marxism-Leninism.
Mariátegui pointed out and outlined fundamental ideas on revolutionary violence.
He said: “There is no revolution that is moderate, balanced, calm, placid.” “Power is conquered through violence… it is preserved only through dictatorship.” He conceived the revolutionary war as being protracted in nature: “A revolution can only be fulfilled after many years. Frequently it has alternating periods of predominance of either the revolutionary forces or the forces of counter-revolution.” He established the relationship between politics and war; understanding that the revolution generates an army of a new type with its own tasks different from those of the exploiters; he also understood the nature of the peasantry and the vital participation of the working class in a leading role, that the revolution will come from the Andes, that “with the demolition of the latifundista feudalism, the urban capitalism will lack forces to resist the growing working class”; that in order to make revolution, guns, a program and doctrine are needed. He conceived the revolution as a total war in which there is a conjunction of political, social, military, economic and moral elements, and that each faction puts in tension and mobilizes all the resources that it can. He totally rejected the electoral road.
Mariátegui died in April, 1930. The Right led by Ravines is going to usurp the leadership of the Party and the questioning and denial of Mariátegui’s road occurs. They invoke insurrection in words but degenerate into electoralism. The so-called “Constitutional Congress” of the Party in 1942 sanctions the tactics of capitulation of the “National Union”, both in internal politics as well as internationally. The Party is influenced by Browderite ideas, a predecessor of contemporary revisionism, where there is a clear abandonment of revolutionary violence and an electoral tactic is promoted focussing on the “National Democratic Front”. Nevertheless, the red line in the Party struggled to defending the Marxist-Leninist positions, although it was bitterly resisted and the internal struggles were resolved through expulsions.
The second moment. (1945 to 1980) The Communist Party of Peru is reconstituted, and with respect to the military line, President Gonzalo establishes the “Definition and Basis of the Road”. This second moment has two parts: The first, in the period from 1945 to 1963, which is one of “New impulses for the development of the Party and the beginnings of the struggle against revisionism.” The second part, from 1963 to 1980, is one of the “Establishment of the general political line and reconstitution of the Party”.
In the first part of the second moment, by the mid-1950s, the struggle for reactivating the Party that had remained unfinished after Odría’s coup d’état begins. Afterwards, the Party starts the opening step in the struggle against revisionism. This process occurs in the midst of the repercussions of the Cuban revolution. At the same time, at the world level, the unfolding of the struggle between Marxism and revisionism begins. The revolutionary road is discussed, the armed struggle is discussed again and, in the IV Congress of the Party, in 1962, it is agreed that in Peru the so-called “two roads” are feasible: “The peaceful road and the violent one.” Also, “the revolution can follow the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside or from the city to the countryside.” But in spite of this talk, the Party in essence was hanging on to the old electoral strategy then taking the form of the so-called “National Liberation Front.” This was the revisionism of Khrushchev. At this time the political positions of President Gonzalo began to emerge, laying the foundations of the red line which adhered to the positions of Chairman Mao in the struggle between Marxism and revisionism.
In the second part of the second moment, from 1963 to 1980, we have the “Establishment of the general political line and reconstitution of the Party”, this task was carried forward by President Gonzalo in constituting the red fraction of the Party in an intensive struggle of more than fifteen years and through three political strategies:
From 1963 to 1969 he guided the red fraction under the political strategy of following the “Road of surrounding the cities from the countryside.” From 1969 to 1976 he led the Party with the political strategy of “Reconstitution of the Party for the People’s War.” From 1976 to 1979 there was the political strategy of “Complete the Reconstitution and Establish Bases” for the beginning of the armed struggle.
During the first strategic period following the “Road of surrounding the cities from the countryside,” the Communists of Peru are profoundly shaken by the struggle between Marxism and revisionism, and Marxist positions seep into the organization. In the 1960s there is a great peasant movement that mobilized 300 to 500 thousand peasants which fought for land but that was precluded from the armed struggle by a revisionist leadership; a great movement of labor strikes occurs in the working class, and the university struggle is developed to a higher level. All these events had repercussions on the Party and President Gonzalo forged the red fraction in Ayacucho, with clear ideas that the Party must seizing power, and that it must be based on Marxist theory.
A frontal struggle is unleashed against revisionism that had its center in the Soviet Union, and adheres firmly to the positions of the Chinese Communist Party and principally with those of Chairman Mao. He sustained that: “The countryside is in a powerful revolutionary ferment”, “we must lend special attention to the countryside and to the poor peasants”, that “our revolution will be from the countryside to the city.” In the IV National Conference of January, 1964, he met with the different bases of the Party to expel revisionism and its crusty representatives Jorge del Prado, Acosta and Juan Barrio. Our Party is going to be one of the first in breaking and expelling revisionism from its ranks.
President Gonzalo began to consolidate the Party in the Regional Committee of Ayacucho; the center of Party work was focused in the countryside; in the city he organized the poor masses in the Neighborhoods’ Federation, and reorganized the Revolutionary Student Front. But what is of transcendental importance, is that despite the opposition of the new central leadership, President Gonzalo applying a Party agreement launched the “Special Work”, which was the military work of the Regional Committees by giving them three functions: political, military, and logistical.
Afterwards, in sharp two-line struggle against the positions of the central leadership that wanted to control the military work, he combated militarism, mercenaryism and foquismo. [Refers to the "foco" theory of Che Guerara--Trans.] In these circumstances the guerrillas of the MIR [Movement of the Revolutionary Left--Trans.] develop, a position that expressed the struggle of our people from a petit-bourgeois outlook, which follows a militaristic line and ignores the Party. In spite of being out of step with the rise of the peasants, this movement showed the feasibility of the perspective of armed struggle, provided that it was led by a just and correct line under the leadership of the Party. For that reason, President Gonzalo was opposed to dissolving the Party in order to tail the MIR and the ELN [National Liberation Army--Trans.] in a supposed Front.
At the September 1967 meeting of the Expanded Political Bureau, he outlined a Strategic Plan which contained a set of measures that the Central Committee had to take for the construction of the three instruments, having as its principal task the forming of the armed forces that was agreed upon at the V National Conference of 1965. This occurs in the midst of a factional struggle where most notably the fractions of “Patria Roja” and of the Right liquidationism of Paredes contended for the leadership of the Party. Paredes intended to replay the tactic of tailing a faction of the big bourgeoisie, while those of “Patria Roja” went on to plunge into Right opportunism.
During the second political strategy of “Reconstitute the Party for the Peoples’ War,” President Gonzalo outlined the underlying revisionism within the Party and that its reconstitution on the Basis of Party Unity, upholding Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought, the thought of Mariátegui and the general political line was necessary. These positions were opposed by the aforementioned fractions. The mishandling of the two-line struggle by Paredes is going to lead to the break-up of the Party. President Gonzalo understood the need for the reconstitution of the Party and the need for waging an internal struggle to make it a reality by sweeping away revisionism, as evidenced by the editorials he wrote in Bandera Roja [Official journal of the PCP--Trans.] of December 1967, “Develop in Depth the Internal Struggle,” and that of April 1968, “Deepen and Intensify the Internal Struggle in Revolutionary Practice.” He worked tirelessly for the channeling of revolutionary violence in a people’s war, for the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside, thus accomplishing the principal task demanded by the Party:
The construction of the revolutionary armed forces. He proposed that the indispensable base in this undertaking was the development of revolutionary peasant work, that without good work in the peasant masses, that is, work guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought and led by the Communist Party, there cannot be a development of the armed forces nor of the People’s War. Afterward, he proposed that the Party must not only retake the continuing validity of Mariátegui’s thought, but must also develop it.
He established the Agrarian Program of the Party in May of 1969. In 1972, the Strategic Plan of the Regional Committee of Ayacucho was established. Right liquidationism is defeated, and in the Party two fractions remain: the red fraction fundamentally in Ayacucho, led by President Gonzalo, and the “Bolshevik” fraction, acting mainly in Lima. This second one developed a left liquidationist line, a form of revisionism that isolated the Party from the masses. Their conception was that fascism could not be fought, that a correct line was sufficient. They had a military line that was opposed to the People’s War. They were crushed in 1975 and their leaders fled.
During the third political strategy to “Complete the Reconstitution and to Establish Bases” to begin the armed struggle, the problem was to finish, to consider the Reconstitution of the Party as complete, and to establish bases to begin the armed struggle. This issue was settled in the VII Plenum of April, 1977, in which all the Party worked under the slogan of “Construction serving the armed struggle”, in struggle against the seeds of a right opportunist line (ROL), which sustained that Velasco [Military regime from 1968-1972--Trans.] had made the agrarian reform, that there was a need to organize the peasants in connection with the Peasant Federation of Peru and that the People’s War needed to be waged for the “deepest claims of the masses”, forgetting about the problems of land and of power. In the cities, they developed “workerism”, focusing the class in labor unions [gremialismo] and opposed to the class playing its leading role. Once these positions were crushed, President Gonzalo launched the “National Plan of Construction” in June of 1977; dozens of cadre were sent to the countryside in the interests of the strategic needs of the People’s War and to build Regional Committees taking into account the future Bases Areas.
In the VIII Plenum of July of 1978, the “Outline for the Armed Struggle” was established.
In essence, this outlined outlined that the People’s War in Peru must be developed as a unified whole in both the countryside as well as in the city, with the countryside being the principal theater of armed actions, following the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside. Furthermore, it must take into account the historical social process of the country, especially the military aspect, the importance of the Sierra and principally from the Central and Southern part in our history, the importance of the Capital, and the need to pace Peru within the context of Latin America, in South America particularly, and within the international context and the world revolution. All the Party was put into a general reorganization, placing the countryside as central to develop the principal form of struggle and organization. Thus, the basis of the construction of the three instruments of the revolution was laid down.
In synthesis, the entire process of Reconstitution led us to a Party of a new type prepared to begin the People’s War and to lead it until the conquest of power countrywide. In this process the historical contingent was forged, who with the ideology of the proletariat under the leadership of President Gonzalo was prepared to assume the conquest of Power through the People’s War.
The third moment. (1980 to the present) The Party begins to lead the People’s War. Its military line is formed with the “Application and development of the Road.” This third moment has four milestones:
1. Definition;
2. Preparation;
3. Initiation; and
4. Development of the guerrilla war.
1) Definition. In essence, the Party takes up the historic and transcendental agreement of initiating the People’s War in Peru, which was agreed upon in the IX Expanded Plenum of June, 1979. This agreement was achieved in the midst of three intense struggles: The first was against the right opportunist line that was opposed to beginning the armed struggle, denying the revolutionary situation and declaring its conditions as nonexistent, and that there was a condition of “stability.” After the expulsion of this line, the Party agreed upon a new stage and a new goal.
The second struggle was against a new Rightist line that believed that the armed struggle was impossible, that it was a “dream”, that there was no need of taking up that agreement because it was a matter of principle.
The third struggle was with the divergences in the Left [the left line within the PCP--Trans.], one in which the details were discussed on how to develop the People’s War. It was established that the proletarian position was President Gonzalo’s and therefore was the one which should be implemented; all the Party made a commitment to be guided by the leadership of President Gonzalo.
Concerning the organization of the armed forces, it was agreed to form military cadres, specific groups for action and to undermine the reactionary forces, aiming at soldiers. In strategy and tactics, the organic system was restated.
2) Preparation. In this milestone event, the Program of the Party is sanctioned, along with the general political line of the Peruvian revolution and the Party statues. Problems related to political strategy, revolutionary violence, the People’s War and the Party, the Army and Front United are resolved. The following Decision is assumed: “Forge the First Company in Deeds! Let violence flourish towards the initiation and development of the armed struggle; we open with lead and offer our blood to write the new chapter of the history of the Party and of our people forging the First Company in deeds. Peru, December 3, 1979.”
The Party prepared the armed struggle dealing with two problems: 1) Problems of Political Strategy that give both the content and the objectives of the People’s War in perspective and in the short term, as well as the guidelines that the People’s War should have, the military plans and the construction of the three instruments and their ties with the new Power; 2) The Initiation of the armed struggle. This decisive and essential problem had merited the most special attention from President Gonzalo, who established the “Plan of Initiation” guided by the slogan “Initiate the armed struggle!” that was the gist of the principal politics that had to be developed militarily. Its contents included:
First, the political tasks that had to be fulfilled during the initiation of the armed struggle, to boycott the elections, to promote militarily the armed struggle for the land and to establish the bases for the new conquests, especially the new Power;
Second, forms of struggle: guerrilla warfare, sabotage, propaganda, armed agitation, and selective annihilation;
Third, organizational and military forms: armed detachments, with or without modern weapons;
Fourth, a chronology, date of the initiation and duration of the Plan, and simultaneous actions for specific dates.
The Preparation began with the struggle against the Rightist positions within the Party that were denying the revolutionary conditions, and they were saying that the Party was not prepared or that the masses would not lend us support. The leader of these positions deserted and they were crushed.
3) Initiation. On May 17, 1980, the People’s War in Peru began. It “was a defiant political blow of transcendental significance that, displaying rebellious red flags and hoisting hammers and sickles, proclaimed: ‘It is right to rebel’ and ‘Power grows from the barrel of a gun.’ It summoned the people, especially the poor peasantry, to stand up in arms, to light the bonfire and to shake the Andes, to write the new history in the fields and hidden features of our tumultuous geography, to tear down the rotten walls of the oppressive order, to conquer the summits, to storm the heavens with guns to open the new dawn. The beginnings were modest, almost without modern weapons. It was fought, it was advanced and it was built from the small to the large and from the weak material and initial fire came the great turbulent fire and mighty roar that grows, sowing revolution and exploding into ever more impetuous People’s War.”
This third milestone lasted from May to December of 1980, resolving the problem of how to initiate the armed struggle, of going from the times of peace to the times of war. In this context, the militarization of the Party through actions and the masterful Plan of Initiation were key. This was how the new was born: the principal form of struggle, the armed struggle and the principal form of organization, the detachments and squads. The most outstanding actions in the field were the guerrilla actions of Ayrabamba and Aysarca [localities in Ayacucho--Trans.] and, in the city, setting fire to the Municipal Building of San Martín [a district in Lima--Trans.]. The boycott of the elections by the people of Chuschi was the action that initiated the beginning of the People’s War. This plan was fulfilled, defeating the Rightist positions that were saying that the Plan was “Hoxhite” and that the actions were centered in the city. Their arguments confused appearances with reality and distorted the essence of the struggle, since reactionary propaganda gave big headlines to the sabotages in the cities and minimized the actions in the countryside. It is a characteristic of the People’s War in Peru to make the countryside the principal theater of action and the cities a necessary complement.
4) Development of the guerrilla war. It has been fulfilled through three military plans: To deploy guerrilla warfare, to Conquer Bases and to Develop Bases.
Regarding the Deployment of guerrilla warfare. This was completed by a plan that lasted from May 1981 to December 1982 and had a pilot period in January 1981. The slogan “Open guerrilla zones serving as Base Areas” implied an ideological-political leap by putting Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, guiding thought of President Gonzalo as the basis of party unity. Militarily, they opened the guerrilla war throughout the country seeking to “Capture weapons and the means for war, stir up the countryside with armed actions and go forward toward the Base Areas.” These plans were partially completed with the last one, “Go forward”, being the link with the subsequent plan. It advanced by razing the feudal relationships of production aiming against the gamonales [semi-feudal landlords--Trans.] as the spearhead and fighting against the joint police operations. A multitude of assaults on police posts and selective annihilation of gamonales were carried out, generating a great mass mobilization of peasants that volunteered themselves for the militia, giving rise to a power vacuum for the reactionaries. The People’s Committees emerged, which grew and multiplied. Their appearance defines the Base Areas.
We should emphasize actions such as the assault on the city jail of Ayacucho where the First Company acted for the first time, occupying the city and freeing tens of prisoners of war; the assaults on the police posts of Vilcashuamán, of Totos, of San José de Secce; the sabotages to the power grid and communication lines; the razings like those of Pincos, Toxama, Allpachaca, Huayllapampa among others. In the cities, there were the sabotages to bureaucratic capitalism and to imperialism, as well as support to strikes by armed actions.
Here the Rightist positions that were combated were those of personal power and fealty and the retreat from actions. Deploying the guerrilla war gave us the most important conquest: The new Power, the clandestine People’s Committees that are the backbone of the Base Areas.
In the face of the advance of the People’s War, the reactionary government of Belaúnde launched from the very beginning the persecution, repression, torture, the imprisonment and death of the militants, fighters and the masses. They have mounted independent police operations and jointly with their police forces, Civil Guards, Republican Guards, Investigative Police, along with the counterinsurgency corps known as the “sinchis”.
They promulgated the D.L. [Decreed Law -- Trans.] No. 046, a truly terrorist law that violates the most elementary principles of bourgeois criminal law. But the result of all their plans has been the most categorical failure, the masses rejected and resisted their aggression.
The emergence of the new Power broke the reticence of the government of Belaúnde, which from the beginning minimized the problem to maintain their bogus democratic facade and strengthened the class necessities of the two exploiters, the big bourgeoisie and landlords under the protection of Yankee imperialism. Belaunde then entrusted the armed forces (Army, Navy and Air Force), the backbone of the State, to reestablish public order with the support of the police forces, imposing a state of emergency under political-military control in the regions of Ayacucho and Apurímac, from December of 1982 until today (1988).
President Gonzalo, with the development of the People’s War and the counter-revolutionary response that implied a qualitative leap, outlined the Great Plan of Conquering Bases in the Expanded Central Committee from January to March 1983 where four political tasks were defined: a general reorganization of the Party, the creation of the People’s Guerrilla Army and the Revolutionary Defense Front of the People and their consolidation as People’s Committees in the countryside and as the Revolutionary Defense Movement of the People in the cities and the Military Plan of Conquering Bases. Politically, the contradiction between the new State and old State was advancing under the slogan of “Defend, Develop and Build” the Base Areas.
A sharp armed conflict developed in which the reactionaries struggled to re-establish the old Power and the revolution struggled to counter-establish the new Power. This is what we call the struggle between restoration and counter-restoration encompassing the years 1983 and 1984. Military plans were specified for the zones applying the tactics of encircling and striking the enemy’s weak point. Two successful campaigns were completed in which the new Power was tempered passing its first test of fire; the Party was forged and the People’s Guerrilla Army was developed.
The reactionary armed forces pursued the counter-revolutionary war, following the concepts of their Yankee imperialist master, theories established by their experience in counter-revolutionary war, mainly extracted from Vietnam and particularly drawn from the combat against the armed struggle in Latin America, especially in Central America. That is the basic theoretical source combined with the “anti-terrorist” experience of Israel and its counterpart in Argentina, along with the Federal Republic of Germany and its advisors in Taiwan, Spain, etc.
This adds to their experience of the few months of anti-guerrilla struggle of 1965 and the more limited experience of fighting in La Convención [a province in Cusco where there was guerrilla struggle in 1965]. The operations are under the direction of the Joint Command of the armed forces that acts according to the will of the National Defense Council headed by the President, today under Alan García, who holds direct responsibility. This counter-revolutionary strategy has been defeated many times. It has been crushed and defeated completely and thoroughly by the People’s War, showing to the world again and again the superiority of the strategy of the proletariat over that of imperialism.
A summary of the specific policies that were applied by the genocidal government: masses against masses; genocide, mass graves; disappearances of entire villages. In sum, they unleashed the white terror in the countryside, especially in Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurímac. The result of this genocide is eight thousand seven hundred Peruvians dead. Of these, four thousand seven hundred of the murdered were the poorest and the most exploited, mainly peasants and in the neighborhoods and slums of the cities, where four thousand disappeared. This genocide has not produced the result they wanted; it did not crush the People’s War. On the contrary, “the People’s War grows stronger, developing and striking powerful blows”, evidence of what Chairman Mao taught, that repression is what arouses and feeds the revolution.
Within the Plan of Conquering Bases is the “Plan of the Great Leap” that is subject to the specific political strategy of “Two Republics are expressed, two roads, two axes” and the military strategy of “generalize the guerrilla warfare.” Four successful campaigns were carried out under the political guidelines of: “Open our political space”, “Against the general elections of 1985, disrupt and destabilize them and impede them wherever feasible”, “Against the ascension to power by the new Aprista government,” and “Undermine the fascist and corporativist Aprista assembly.”
The People’s War developed in the region of Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Apurímac and was expanded to Pasco, Huánuco and San Martín, covering an area from the department of Cajamarca, on the border with Ecuador in the Northwest, to Puno on the border with Bolivia in the Southeast of the country, striking and shaking-up the cities, especially in the capital.
The People’s War fundamentally takes place in the sierra, the historical axis of Peruvian society and its most backward and poorest part, by transforming it into the grand theater of the revolutionary war. It advanced to the edge of the jungle and to the headlands of the coast.
Thus, the People’s War was not conceived in a single region was developed simultaneously in several regions, although in unequal form, with the principal area that can vary as necessary. All activities were conceived within a strategically centralized and a tactically decentralized plan.
Among the most salient actions, we see the blows to the anti-guerrilla bases in the department of Ayacucho; the destruction of the counter-subversive settlements [nucleamientos] disruptions in the establishment of the local micro- regions; in Huancavelica the demolition of the electrical grid and the destruction of the highway system; the destruction of the agricultural cooperatives Cinto and Vichincha with cattle redistribution and appropriation of lands; breakthroughs in Apurímac.
In the Central region, there were ambushes such as in Michivilca, sabotage to the substation of Centromín [state mining corporation--Trans.], sabotage to SAIS [state-run cooperative] Túpac Amaru. In the North, land seizures under the slogan “Seize the Land!” that mobilized 160 thousand peasants and confiscated 320 thousand hectares, mostly pastures, and 12 thousand head of livestock; sabotage to the oil pipeline “Norperuano”, and to the headquarters of the APRA in the city of Trujillo. In the South, the land seizures mobilized more than 10 thousand peasants; in Huallaga, an assault on the police post of Aucayacu, destruction of the large company Tealero, ambush of the Republican Guards; in Metropolitan Lima, sabotages against the embassy of the Russian social-imperialists, against dozens of local offices of the APRA party, against banks and factories, all leading to a state of emergency with military control in February of 1986.
Alan García Pérez continued the counter-revolutionary policy of his predecessor and sought to crush the People’s War through genocides such as those of Accomarca, Llocllapampa, Umaru and Bellavista in the countryside. In the capital of the Republic, he unleashed two genocides against the prisoners of war, the first on the 4th of October, 1985, where 30 militants and combatants were annihilated in the shining trench [refers to a prison--Trans.] of Lurigancho. That did not break the heroic resistance of the prisoners of war who, with their blood, formed the Day of the Prisoner of War. On the 19 of June, 1986, the most vile and despicable premeditated crime was unleashed to crush the People’s War and to annihilate the prisoners of war, who with a ferocious resistance inflicted the most serious political, military, and moral rout to the genocidal Aprista government. This brought out and defined their dilemma of serving the bureaucratic faction of the big bourgeoisie, in order to develop corporativist fascism, García and the Aprista party remaining forever bathed in the blood of the genocide. Thus the Day of Heroism was formed with the monumental trilogy of 250 dead in the shining trenches of combat of El Fronton, Lurigancho, and Callao.
We unmask and condemn opportunism and revisionism in its various incarnations: The pro-Russian, the pro-Chinese, the false Mariateguists, all those who have acted and continue to act as informers, tailing after the counter-revolution, denying and combating the People’s War and branding it as terrorism, repeating what Reagan and the Peruvian and world reactionaries say. They can never hope to prove their accusations and simply hurl adjectives and condemn violence “whatever the source,” and continue with their old electoral posturing with the aim of hoodwinking the people with parliamentary cretinism, sinking further each day into the embrace of the old order, their rotten parliament, their electoral farces, their constitution and their laws, living in quivering fear and reverential dread before the reactionary armed forces and the bluster of the old State.
We condemn the groveling attitude and capitulation of Barrantes Lingán and others of his ilk [secuaces y compinches].
Since 1983, the political strategy of the Great Plan of Conquering Bases was completed through two campaigns of defending, developing and building Parts I and II, and of the Plan for the Great Leap with its four campaigns up to December of 1986. These plans show us the advance of the People’s War, that we are solidly linked to the masses, contrary to everything they say, since the facts are undeniable. The People’s War has conquered an area that is being extended through the Sierra, the Jungle and the Coast, marching vigorously and strong, building what is new and opening the future. The Base Areas which are the foundation of the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside have been already established.
The Great Plan of Developing Bases. This has a special role in the People’s War since the essence of the People’s War is to develop support; therefore the Great Plan of Developing Bases has to do with the construction of the new Power and its development, it has to do with the perspective that is being opened for the conquest of power countrywide. The political strategy is to develop Base Areas and the military strategy is to develop the People’s War serving the world revolution, a plan that is being fulfilled through a pilot plan.
The triumph of the revolution begets and crushes a powerful counter-revolution. We are entering decisive years in which the APRA government continues without having a strategic plan; they talk of a “new strategy” but there is none. What remains is only greater repression: Political, economic, and social laws, strengthening the military to facilitate the actions of the armed forces to unleash new genocides under new conditions, for us as well as for them. For us, the genocide under way presents itself under new circumstances. We have passed through the genocide of 1983 and 1984 that demonstrated the great popular repudiation and the strengthening of the revolution. The reaction can only apply genocide, but that will strengthen the People’s War. There might be initial withdrawals or inflections, but we will prevail by persisting in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, in our politics of the five developments, in the invincibility of the People’s War and in the support of the people who make history always under the leadership of the Communist Party.
On the concrete situations and possibilities that are presented us in the new Great Plan of Developing Bases we must be aware of:
1. Armed groups such as the MRTA and the CRP [the short-lived People's Revolutionary Commando--Trans.] have appeared. They have been recast and they do not have a definite Marxist conception. Thus, they march to serve imperialism, social-imperialism, and the supposedly fascist dialogue to which they have already given unilateral truces.
2. APRA has already begun to unfold fascism and corporativism. It faces serious and increasing difficulties, such as its growing and sinuous collusion and contention with the comprador bourgeoisie, among other more important contradictions.
3. The class struggle sharpens and intensifies more, the masses begin to defend themselves and resist; if social explosions occur in the urban areas, they could be used by social-imperialism and the reactionaries in general, through their political representatives.
4. A coup d’etat is possible at any moment. The same García Pérez may promote a self-coup in order to preserve his political future.
5. In perspective, the reactionaries can also play with an Allende-type government, using the Aprista Barrantes or someone similar; within this possibility one must consider the sinister role of the United Left.
6. The Peruvian State has border problems that can be inflamed at any moment, as is shown by the experience of other Latin American countries. This problem must be seriously addressed.
7. The sending of Yankee troops is already a real fact and not a simple possibility. Their presence is linked to a similar presence in other countries, especially on the border and it must be seen in the context of military measures taken by Brazil.
8. The imperialist wars and their aggressions continue to increase. The World War for hegemony between the USA and the USSR continues being prepared through collusion and contention of a global dimension. Consequently, the People’s War is a peremptory necessity and the world People’s War is an inevitable perspective.
All these possibilities must be taken seriously into account to handle the People’s War with politics in command, and, particularly with an eye toward the conquest of power countrywide that may present itself and which must be taken up. For all these reasons, we must be ideologically, politically and organizationally prepared.
The First Campaign of the Pilot Plan of the Great Plan of Developing Bases has meant the largest shake-up with national and international repercussions. It is fracturing the old State more and more, which had never been shaken up this way by anyone in Peru. Now it is up to us to fulfil the historical and political necessity of “Finish by brilliantly establishing a historical milestone!” in the Second Campaign. Understand that the Pilot Plan is like the initial battle of the Great Plan of Developing Bases.
In conclusion, after close to eight years of People’s War we have completed more than forty five thousand actions that reveal their high quality; the militarized Party has been tempered; the People’s Guerrilla Army has been developed and has increased its belligerence; and we have hundreds of organizations of the new Power with the poorest masses increasingly in support of us. The People’s War has raised the class struggle of our people to its highest form and that impinges on the struggle of the masses themselves, impelling them to be incorporated by leaps and bounds into the People’s War. The “People’s War is turning the country upside down, the ‘old mole’ [el topo viejo] is rotting profoundly in the entrails of the old society. No one can stop it, the future already dwells among us, the old and rotten society is sinking irrevocably, the revolution will prevail. Long Live the People’s War!” Our task is to develop the People’s War serving the world revolution under the banners of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought.
2. THE ROAD OF SURROUNDING THE CITIES FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE AND THE BASE OF REVOLUTIONARY SUPPORT
Chairman Mao established the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside. At its heart are the Base Areas, taking into account that the powerful imperialists and their reactionary Chinese allies were entrenched in the principal cities. If the revolution refused to capitulate and wanted to persevere in the struggle it had to convert the backwards rural zones into advanced and solid Base Areas, into great military, political, economic and cultural bastions of the revolution to fight against the fierce enemy that was assaulting the rural zones using the cities, and to carry the revolution step by step to a complete victory through a protracted war.
True to this basic Maoist thesis, President Gonzalo has established the carrying forward of a unified People’s War where the countryside is the principal theater of armed actions: Since in our country we have an immense majority of peasant masses, that is where we must build the Base Areas.
As Chairman Mao said: “The protracted revolutionary struggle supported in such revolutionary base areas is fundamentally a guerrilla war of the peasants led by the Chinese Communist Party.
Therefore, it is wrong to ignore the necessity of using the rural zones as revolutionary base areas, to disregard the arduous work among the peasants and to neglect the guerrilla war.”
Going further, President Gonzalo specifies that in the cities armed actions should be carried forward as a complement, since international experience, as well as our own, demonstrates that this is feasible. He draws lessons from, for example, what happened to the guerrillas in the Philippines which recast themselves in the countryside and left the cities quiet, especially the capital, resulting in the isolation of the guerrillas. In Brazil, the revolutionaries also carried out armed actions in the countryside and city, only they neglected to specify which was principal. In Vietnam, important armed actions were carried out in the cities. Thus, taking into account the peculiarities of the cities in Latin America, where the percentage of the proletariat and of the poor masses in the cities is high, the masses are ready to develop actions complementing those in the countryside. In the cities, however, the New Power or Base Areas are not being built, rather the Front is materialized through the Revolutionary Defense Movement of the People (MRDP) with Resistance Centers that carry out the People’s War and prepare the future insurrection, which will occur when the forces of the countryside assault the cities in combination with the insurrection from within.
The Base Areas are the strategic bases which the guerrilla forces rely on to fulfil their strategic tasks and to achieve the objective of preserving and increasing their forces as well as annihilating and throwing back the enemy. Without such strategic Bases there would not be anything from which to carry out any one of our strategic tasks to reach the war’s objective.
Chairman Mao outlines three reasons for the creation of Base Areas: To have armed forces, to defeat the enemy and to mobilize the masses. These were specified in our People’s War in 1982, when applying the Plan of Deployment the guerrilla war in its role of beating the enemy, we aimed at destroying the old feudal relations of production. Police posts were assaulted, selective annihilation of landlord power was applied, and the police forces abandoned the countryside and were regrouped in the provincial capitals. The authorities of the old Power massively resigned which created a power vacuum, while tens of thousands were mobilized.
It is in these conditions that the Base Areas emerged and were specified in the clandestine People’s Committees. Therefore, it is wrong to take the Chinese experience dogmatically since if the conditions were given and principles were in effect, we would have had sufficient reason to build the Base Areas. To agree with this thesis implied a struggle against Rightism that was arguing that we had not defeated large enemy forces, when the problem was that the enemy forces had abandoned the field as a consequence of the rout of their political and military plans.
President Gonzalo has established a system of Base Areas surrounded by guerrilla zones, zones of operations and points of action taking into account the political and social conditions, the history of struggle, the geographical characteristics and the development of the Party, the Army and of the masses.
It is fundamental to support the validity of the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside and its heart, the Base Areas, because with only wandering guerrillas of insurrection the People’s Guerrilla Army would not have the Base Areas as a rearguard that sustains it and neither would the new Power be built. We are totally against foquismo.
THE PROTRACTED WAR
The People’s War is protracted because it derives from the correlation between the factors of the enemy and ourselves that are determined by the following four fundamental characteristics: The first is that Peru is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, one in which a bureaucratic capitalism unfolds. The second is that the enemy is strong; the third is that the People’s Guerrilla Army is weak; and the fourth is that the Communist Party leads the People’s War. From the first and fourth characteristics we can derive that the People’s Guerrilla Army will not grow too rapidly and will not defeat its enemy soon. These peculiarities determine the extended character of the war.
The enemy is strong and we are weak; in that fact resides the danger of our defeat. The enemy has a single advantage–the numerous contingents of its forces and the armaments they rely upon. But every other aspect constitutes their weak points. Their objective is to defend the old and rotten Power of the landlord-bureaucratic State. It has a bourgeois military line; it is a mercenary army.
It does not have conscious discipline and its moral is low. It has profound contradictions between officers and soldiers, and it is discredited before the masses. Furthermore, the very base of the reactionary army are of worker and peasant origin, which can disintegrate during the course of an unjust war. Apart from this, the Peruvian armed forces have never won a war and they are expert in defeats. Furthermore, they have repeatedly counted on the support of international reaction, but we count on the support of the oppressed nations, of the peoples of the world and the international proletariat, which are the new forces.
The People’s Guerrilla Army has a single weak point, its insufficient development but the remaining aspects constitute valuable advantages: It carries forward a People’s War to create a new Power; it has a proletarian military line, led absolutely by the Communist Party; it is based on class valor and revolutionary heroism and on a conscious discipline. Its morale is high and there is a close union between officers and soldiers and it is an army composed of the people themselves, mainly poor workers and peasants.
But the objective fact is that there is a large disparity between the forces of the enemy and our forces and for us to go from weak to strong requires a period of time, one in which the defects of the enemy are exposed and our advantages are developed. Therefore, we say that our army is apparently weak but in essence it is strong and the enemy’s army is apparently strong but in essence it is weak. Thus, to go from weak to strong we must carry forward the protracted war and this has three stages: The first is the period of the strategic offensive of the enemy and the strategic defensive of our forces. The second will be the period of the strategic consolidation of the enemy and of our preparation for the counteroffensive. The third will be the period of our strategic counteroffensive and of the strategic withdrawal of the enemy.
President Gonzalo teaches us that the People’s War is protracted, long and bloody but victorious and tells us that the time of its duration will be extended or shortened within the scope of its protracted character. The time will depend on the extent that we fight within the proletarian military line, since Rightism is the principal danger that can cause serious setbacks to the war.
Today, we find ourselves in the period of the strategic offensive of the enemy and of our own strategic defensive. We must strengthen the People’s War by applying guerrilla warfare, establishing bases for the next stage, paying whatever cost is necessary but fighting to minimize it.
II. CONSTRUCTION OF THE PEOPLE’S GUERRILLA ARMY
To wage the People’s War we must count on the principal form of organization, which is the People’s Guerrilla Army, since the backbone of the old State is the reactionary armed forces and to destroy the old State one must first destroy its reactionary army. The Party must count on a powerful army: “Without a peoples’ army the people have nothing,” as Chairman Mao taught us.
The construction of the Army is seen in the line of construction based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. In synthesis, President Gonzalo has contributed in bringing the incorporation of the militia into the People’s Guerrilla Army. Its creation is a step toward the sea of armed masses and the solution of going from disorganized masses to masses who are militarily organized.
III. STRATEGY AND TACTICS
President Gonzalo emphasizes seven points on strategy and tactics of Chairman Mao specifying some of them. We must pay close attention to these in order to lead the People’s War.
1. On Strategy and Tactics.
He departs from Chairman Mao’s thesis that the task of strategy as a science is to study the laws of leading military operations that influence the situation of the war in its entirety. The task of the science of campaigns and tactics is to study the laws of leading military operations of a partial character. He makes a strategic development of how to wage the war in each zone and in the country as a whole, taking into account its ties to the international situation. He outlined for us the axes, sub-axes, directions of movement and lines of movements which permit us to maintain the strategic course of the war under any circumstances and to face all types of political and military operations that the counter-revolution launches.
On this basis he established the National Military Plan that is strategically centralized and tactically decentralized, departing from the premise that all plans reflect an ideology, that they must reflect both the reality and vagaries it must express. Taking up Stalin, he links strategy with tactics and establishes the strategic-operational Plans that are the concrete way that strategy is linked to tactical operations. As a result, each Committee must elaborate its strategic-operational plans within the strategic-operational Plan common to the entire Party.
The correct disposition emanates from the just decision of the commander; all military plans must be based on the indispensable recognition and careful study of the situation of the enemy, the actual situation and the interrelationship of both. That is, we must always keep in mind “the two hills”; we must be guided by a political strategy and by a military strategy.
For the elaboration of the Plans always take into account the following general features:
1. The international class struggle between revolution and counter-revolution; ideology; the international communist movement; the RIM.
2. The class struggle in the country; the counter-revolution.
3. The development of the People’s War; its balance; laws and lessons.
4. The need for investigation.
5. The People’s War and its construction.
6. The People’s War and the masses.
7. The two-line struggle.
8. Programming and Chronology.
9. Attitude and slogans. “Rise above the difficulties and conquer greater victories!”
In almost eight years of the People’s War, we have had four plans: Plan of Initiation; Plan of Developing the People’s War; Plan of Conquering Bases; and, Plan of Developing Bases.
2. The basic principle of the war.
All the orienting principles of military operations originate with a single basic principle: do everything possible to preserve our own forces and to annihilate the enemy’s forces. All war imposes a price, sometimes it is extremely high. To preserve our own forces, we must annihilate those of the enemy; but to annihilate the enemy, we must pay a price in order to preserve the whole. President Gonzalo teaches us that one must be prepared to pay the highest cost of the war, but we should fight so that it will always be the smallest possible cost. It is a contradiction and the problem resides in attitude and good planning. It is mainly a question of leadership. He forged us in the “challenge to the death”, in “revolutionary heroism” and in “conquer laurels in death.” In war we always see the two aspects, the destructive and the constructive and the principal aspect is the second one.
3. The guerrilla tactics or basic tactics.
“When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy is stalled, we harass him; when the enemy is tired, we attack him; when the enemy withdraws, we pursue him.” This basic tactic must be incorporated and applied, maneuvering around the enemy and seeking his weak point to smash it.
4. Campaigns of “encirclement and annihilation” and the counter- campaigns, principal form of the People’s War.
It is a law that the counter-revolution in seeking to crush the revolution unleashes campaigns of “encirclement and annihilation” against each unit of the People’s Guerrilla Army or against the Base Areas. The operations of the People’s Guerrilla Army adopt the form of counter-campaigns and Chairman Mao has established nine steps to crush a campaign of “encirclement and annihilation”:
1. The active defense;
2. The preparation of a counter-campaign;
3. The strategic withdrawal;
4. The strategic counteroffensive;
5. The initiation of the counteroffensive;
6. The concentration of forces;
7. The mobile war;
8. The war of rapid decision; and,
9. The war of annihilation.
President Gonzalo, applying this law to the conditions of our People’s War, has outlined the five parts of the campaign which permit us to defeat the political and military plans of the reactionaries. Each campaign has a specific political and military objective, fulfilled by the element of surprise, attacking them when we want, where we want and as we want. He also specified the five steps that must follow each military action always serving the political objective, opposing the criteria of action for action’s sake. He stresses the importance of differentiating between the essence and the appearance of the enemy’s movements. He has also established for us the four forms of struggle of the People’s War:
1. Guerrilla action with its two forms, the assault and the ambush;
2. sabotage;
3. selective annihilation; and
4. Propaganda and armed agitation, as well as its diverse methods.
5 The strategic role of guerrilla warfare.
Chairman Mao raised guerrilla warfare to a strategic level. Prior to him, it was only considered as a tactical problem that did not decide the outcome of the war; but even though the guerrilla war does not decide the war’s outcome because this requires conventional warfare, it fulfils a series of strategic tasks that carry forward to the favourable outcome of the war. We conceive guerrilla war on a vast scale, generalized guerrilla warfare that must support the protracted and bloody war. From there, we apply the six strategic problems of guerrilla warfare:
1. Initiative, flexibility and planning in the realization of offensive operations within the defensive war, battles of rapid decision within the protracted war and operations in the exterior lines within the war in the interior lines.
2. Coordination with the regular warfare.
3. Creation of Base Areas.
4. Strategic defence and strategic assault in the guerrilla war.
5. Transformation of the guerrilla war into mobile warfare.
6. Relationships of command.
The ten military principles.
In December 1947 Chairman Mao masterfully synthesized the just and correct strategic line followed in more than 20 years of People’s War in 10 military principles.
This is seen in his article: “The current situation and our tasks,” Third part. We apply these principles and it is very important to broaden their application.
7. Brilliant summary of strategy and tactics.
Chairman Mao has summarized in a brilliant way the strategy and the tactics of the People’s War in the following phrase:
“You fight your way and we’ll fight ours: We fight when we can win and we retreat when we cannot.”
“In other words, you are supported by modern armament and we by the popular masses with a high level of revolutionary conscience; you fight to the fullest with your superiority, and we fight with ours.
You have your combat methods and we have ours. When you want to assault us, you are not permitted to do so and cannot even find us.
But when we attack you, we reach the target, we inflict accurate, sure blows and we annihilate it.
When we can annihilate it, we do so with deliberate decision; when we can not annihilate it, neither do we allow ourselves to be annihilated by you.
To not fight when there is a possibility of winning is opportunism.
To persist in fighting when there is no possibility of winning is adventurism.
Our strategic orientation and tactics are based on our will to fight.
Our recognition of the need for retreating is based first of all on our recognition of the need for fighting.
When we retreat, we always do so with an eye to future combat so that we may finally and thoroughly annihilate the enemy.
Only by supporting ourselves in the broad popular masses can we bring about these strategies and tactics.
And in applying them, we can put into full play the superiority of people’s war and confine the enemy to the passive position of being beaten, although they are superior in equipment and no matter what means they employ.
We always preserve the initiative in our hands.”
From “Long Live the victory of the People’s War!”, September 1965.
The application of this principle allows us to demonstrate the invincibility of the superior strategy of the People’s War, because the proletariat as the last class in history has created its own superior form of war and no other class, including the bourgeoisie with its greatest political and military strategists, are capable of defeating it. The reactionaries dream about elaborating “superior strategies” to the People’s War, but are condemned to failure since they are against history.
Our People’s War after nearly eight years blazes victoriously, demonstrating the invincibility of the People’s War.
As militants of the Communist Party of Peru, we assume completely and thoroughly the military line of the Party, established by President Gonzalo, which based on the highest creation of the international proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, has specified our military line with Gonzalo Thought, endowing us with an invincible weapon, the unified People’s War principally in the countryside together with the city as a complement. As the principal form of struggle we carry it forward, it is a bright torch before the world, proclaiming the universal validity of the forever living Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
LONG LIVE THE MILITARY LINE OF THE PARTY!
THE PEOPLE’S WAR IS INVINCIBLE!
1. REAFFIRMATION OF THE PRINCIPLE THAT "THE MASSES MAKE HISTORY"(1988 P.C.P. document)
Chairman Gonzalo reaffirms himself on the powerful Marxist principle: "The masses make history" and teaches us to forge our Communist conception in struggle against the bourgeois conception which is centreed around the individual as the axis of history. He states: "The masses are the very light of the world . . . they are its fiber, the inexhaustible heartbeat of history . . . when they speak everything trembles, the old order begins to shake, the high summits bow down, the stars change their course because the masses make everything possible and are capable of anything."
This reaffirmation is of great importance because it is part of the proletarian conception. It upholds the mass line and is applicable to everything, it allows judgment on everything from international questions to specific policies, because it is an ideological problem. No historic event, no movement of change, no revolution can be made without the participation of the masses. This applies to the Party because it has a mass character and it cannot be unlinked from them, otherwise it would be extinguished or diluted. The masses, in order to guarantee the course of their struggle, must be led by the Party. The Party has masses: The militants, who as Communists must necessarily embody this principle and overthrow that rotten individualism which is not a proletarian conception through a constant struggle. It can be observed how our process of the People's War powerfully aids this transformation. Furthermore, one principle of leadership is "from the masses to the masses." This also applies to the People's War because it is a war of the masses; they are the very source of it. It is with this Marxist conception that we make the People's War.
He particularly highlights the rebellion of the masses as the makers of history, telling us: "Since ancient times the masses live subject to oppression and exploitation, but they have always rebelled. This is a long and inexhaustible history .
. . From the beginning, since the masses have fought their oppressors they have always clamoured for organizing their rebellion, their arming, their uprising, that it be led, that it be conducted. It has always been this way and it shall continue to be so. Even after there is another world it shall continue to be this way only in another form." "The masses clamour to organize the rebellion, and therefore the Party, its leaders, cadre and militants today have a peremptory obligation, a destiny:
To organize the disorganized power of the masses, and this can only be done with arms in hand. We must arm the masses bit by bit, part by part, until the general arming of the people. When this goal is reached, there shall be no exploitation on Earth."
Here he expresses his absolute conviction in the masses, in their historical and political necessity to rebel, to arm themselves, their demand that they be led and organized. He summons the Communist Parties to fulfil the demand that comes from Marx and Engels who taught us that there are two powers on the Earth:
The armed force of the reactionaries and the disorganized masses. Chairman Gonzalo propounds that if we organize this power, what is only potential shall become deeds, and what is a possibility shall become a reality. Everything is a house of cards if it is not based on the masses. Concretely, the problem is to go from the state of disorganized masses to masses that are militarily organized.
We should organize the masses with arms in hand because they clamor to organize the rebellion. As such, we must apply People's War which is the principal form of struggle, and organize the masses for the seizure of power led by the Party. This is clearly in keeping with the principal contradiction in the world today, with the strategic offensive of the world revolution, and with the principal tendency in today's world: revolution. Furthermore, the mass line aims at materializing what Marx indicated, the general arming of the people with the goal of guaranteeing the triumph of the revolution and preventing capitalist restoration. This is a thought of great perspectives that shall carry us up to Communism: Only by organizing this sea of armed masses shall it be possible to defend what is conquered and develop the democratic, socialist and cultural revolutions.
He refutes those who propound that the masses don't want to make revolution or that the masses will not support the People's War. He teaches us that the problem is not with the masses because they are ready to rebel, but rather it is with the Communist Parties who must assume their obligation to lead them and rise up in arms. He differentiates from those positions that today are based on "the accumulation of forces," which propose parsimoniously accumulating the masses by way of the so-called "democratic spaces" or the use of legality.
Such an accumulation of forces doesn't correspond to the current moment of the international and national class struggle, it doesn't fit in the type of democratic revolution we are unfolding and which shall have other characteristics within the socialist revolution, since we are living in a revolutionary situation of unequal development in the world. He is opposed to and condemns the opportunist positions of making the masses tail after the big bourgeoisie, either on an electoral path or by armed actions under the command of a super power or power.
Thus, he upholds the great slogan of Chairman Mao: "It is right to rebel," and conceives that the problem of the masses today is that the Communist Parties must mobilize, politicize, organize and arm the masses to seize power, specifying people's war.
He specifies the necessity of the scientific organization of poverty. Chairman Gonzalo stresses that those most disposed to rebel, who clamour most to organize the rebellion are the poorest masses, and we must pay particular attention to the revolutionary and scientific organization of the masses. This is not against class criteria because as he shows, poverty has its origin in exploitation, in the class struggle: "Misery exists next to fabulous wealth; even the Utopians knew that both are linked: A colossal and challenging wealth next to a revealing and clamorous poverty. This is because exploitation exists."
This thesis is connected to Marx who discovered the revolutionary potential of poverty and the need to scientifically organize it for the revolution. Marx taught us that the proletariat does not have property and is the creative class, the only class that shall destroy property and thus destroy itself as a class. This thesis is tied to Lenin, who taught us that social revolution does not arise from programs but from the fact that millions of people say we prefer to die fighting for revolution rather than live as victims of hunger. And it is also tied to Chairman Mao, who conceived that poverty shall propel the yearning for change, for action, for revolution, that it is a blank piece of paper on which the newest and most beautiful words can be written.
He takes into account the specific conditions of our society, and teaches us that in Peru, to speak about the masses is to speak of the peasant masses, the poor peasants; that the 1920s, 1940s and 1960s demonstrate that the peasant struggles shake the very foundation of the State, but that they lack a guide:
The ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. They lack a motor: The People's War and the just and correct leadership of the Communist Party. The peasants' struggles were not able to take the correct path to power, and the blood they shed was used to fetter them and mould them to the old order. These were unforgettable bloodbaths which left extraordinary lessons. The 1980s show that the true mobilization of the armed peasant masses organized in the Communist Party and People's Guerrilla Army has begun, and that they are giving their precious blood for the new power that is blossoming and developing through the People's War.
This is particularity strategic because it permits the understanding that revolution in the world is defined on the side of the poorest, who constitute the majority and who are the most disposed to rebel. In each revolution we must go to the poorest applying the three requirements that the scientific organization of poverty demands: Ideology, people's war and a Communist Party.
In this regard, Chairman Gonzalo says: "Poverty is a driving force of the revolution. The poorest are the most revolutionary; poverty is the most beautiful song; . . . poverty is not a disgrace, it is an honour, our mountains with their masses are the source of our revolution, who with their hands led by the Communist Party shall build a new world. Our guide: Ideology. Our motor: The armed struggle. Our leadership: The Communist Party."
2. THE PRINCIPAL ASPECT OF MASS WORK IS POLITICAL POWER, BUT THE STRUGGLE FOR REVINDICATIONS IS NECESSARY
Basing himself on Chairman Mao, who generalized revolutionary violence as the universal law for the conquest of power and who established that the principal form of struggle is the armed struggle and the principal form of organization is the armed forces, and that before the outbreak of a war all the struggles and organizations should serve to prepare it, Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that in mass work the struggle for power and the struggle for revindications are two sides of the same coin, with the struggle for Power being the first and foremost demand of the masses.Organize the masses so that they can go beyond what is permitted by the existing legal order, so that they struggle to destroy the old order and not to maintain it. This is accomplished by use of the three instruments of the revolution: The Party where the few converge, the Army with more participants, and new State/Front which is the base which progressively accumulates the masses through leaps. In the countryside this is achieved through People's Committees and in the cities through the People's Revolutionary Defence Movement. In this way the tradition of electoral fronts, which the revisionists and opportunists apply to channel the struggle of the peasantry and to divert the masses in the cities from not seizing power through war, is destroyed.
To centre on political Power also demands the organization of the masses in diverse new forms of struggle, because war imposes changes on the struggle and organization of the masses. As Lenin taught us, in revolutionary epochs, new organizations must be formed and go against the old leaders who seek to sell-out the revolution in order to accommodate themselves within the reactionary system. For that reason, the old forms of struggle and organization of the masses cannot be used.
The struggle for power as the principal aspect does not mean that from the beginning we are going to incorporate the masses all at once. Chairman Mao teaches us that developing Support Bases and armed forces is what generates the high tide of the revolution. This has to do with the law of incorporation of the masses into the revolution, which was established by the Party in the Second Plenum of 1980, an incorporation that shall be through progressive leaps; with more people's war shall come a greater incorporation of the masses. Thus, the People's War is a political event that continues to pound ideas into the heads of men through powerful actions, who shall bit by bit come to understand their only true path, thereby developing their political consciousness. The People's War summons all the revolutionaries and opens a trail as it develops.
The masses are avid for politics and it is incumbent upon Communists to organize and lead them. The masses have concrete problems everywhere and we must worry about them and attend to them. Mass work is done within the class struggle and not on its margins. If we do not do mass work, the reactionaries and revisionists shall utilize it for their own ends, whether it is to develop fascism and to corporativize them or hand over their struggles to another imperialist master. These are two wills that are distinct and opposed.
The masses seek the voice of those who affirm and not those who doubt. In our Party, in the Initiation, Chairman Gonzalo demanded that no one must ever doubt the masses, fighting those who are blind and deaf to the voice of the masses, listening to their faintest rumor and attending to their daily, concrete problems. The masses must never be fooled, they must never be forced, they must know the risks which they may face. They must be summoned to the long, bloody struggle for power, but with this goal they shall understand that it shall be a necessary and victorious struggle.
Therefore the struggle for power is principal but it cannot be separated from the struggle for economic and political demands, they are two sides of the same coin, and the latter struggle is necessary.
How do we conceive the struggle for revindications? We are accused of not having a specific line for the economic and political struggle of the masses. The fact is that we apply it in another way, in other forms, with different politics opposed to those applied by the opportunists and revisionists, a new and different way from the traditional forms. Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that the struggle for economic and political demands is one side of a coin, which has the struggle for political power on the other side. It is completely wrong to separate them—to talk only about the struggle for economic and political demands is revisionism. In specifying Marx's thesis to our society he tells us:
"The crisis presents us with two problems: First, how to defend what has been won, since in crises the gains are lost, and more would be lost if they were not defended. This is the necessity of the struggle for revindications . . . , an economic and political struggle . . . , furthermore, it forges the class and the workers in their struggle for power. Second, how to end the crises? They cannot be ended unless the predominant social order is ended . . . [there is a] necessity for revolutionary struggle which serving the seizure of power by armed struggle under the leadership of its Party . . . one cannot be separated from the other. The relationship of both problems materializes in developing the struggle for demands as a function of political power."
To carry forward the struggle for revindications the union is used, along with the strike which is the principal form of the economic struggle of the proletariat. These are developed into guerrilla warfare which educates the class in the struggle for power. This elevates the class through concrete armed actions which strengthens this form of struggle, giving it a higher quality.
In sum, the struggle for revindications must be developed serving the conquest of power. This is a political principle of doing mass work.
3. TO WHAT MASSES DO WE GO?
We must start from the class criteria to resolve to what masses do we go. It is very important to make sure that the masses are organized according to the common interests of the classes they belong to. Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that this approach is essential to combat those who pretend to separate masses from classes with tales of "unity," betraying the true interests of the masses by trafficking with their struggles. Also because it allows us to understand that the masses are always an arena of struggle where the bourgeoisie and proletariat clash to lead them. However, only the Communist Party is capable of leading the masses because it is the only one that can represent them and struggle for their interests. Those who talk about "mass democracy" or who create open mass organisms as if they were a form of Power without violence are merely upholding bourgeois positions that negate the leadership of the proletariat and its dictatorship.Starting from a class criteria has to do with the character of the revolution, with the classes that make up the people who should be united under the leadership of the proletariat. In our case of the democratic revolution, the proletariat leads, the peasantry is principal, the petty bourgeoisie is a firm ally and the middle bourgeoisie has a dual character. The basic masses which we must go to are the proletariat and the peasantry, principally the poor peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and also the middle bourgeoisie.
Keeping in mind the specific revindications of the masses, we should differentiate between those sectors of the masses which suffer more oppression with the goal of organizing them so that they shall struggle to achieve conquests and resolve their specific contradiction. This refers to the mass fronts in which we must work. These are: The workers, the proletariat, the leading class of all revolutions, a class whose principal and decisive political objective is the conquest of Power through the People's War to emancipate itself, emancipate the other classes and finally to destroy itself as a class. Its specific revindications are the seizing of conquests and rights like increased wages, a shorter work day and better working conditions. Towards this end, the workers' movement, its struggles, mobilizations, marches, agitation, and strikes must be developed with armed actions. "Worry about the fundamental problems of the class and also of the workers, their general and concrete problems which they fight for daily."
The peasants are the principal force, especially the poor peasants, who struggle for the conquest of land through armed struggle under the leadership of the Communist Party. Not seeing it this way leads to the "land grabs"[toma de tierras] and conforming to the old order. Further develop the peasant movement applying the "three withs": Live with, work with and struggle with them, thus forging peasants with a proletarian mentality.
Women which make up half the world and develop the women's movement for the emancipation of women, a task which is the work of women themselves but under the leadership of the Party. We must combat the bourgeois thesis of women's liberation. Women struggle against the constant increase in the cost of living which effects the physical integrity of the class and the people, mobilize the working, peasant and intellectual women, etc.
The intellectuals so that they may fulfill their role as revolutionary intellectuals serving the proletariat and peasantry within the People's War. Among them are the secondary school students, university students and professionals, etc. See their specific revindications, that they should defend what is conquered, aiming at a new national, scientific and mass culture, making them conscious that they can only achieve this with the revolution.
Mobilize the poor masses in the cities, in the shantytowns and slums against hunger and misery, so that they fight for the revolution's programme, summon them to the People's War so that they may seize their conquests and rights which are trampled on more each day. Do not allow that they be struck with impunity and teach them how to defend themselves, so that they can resist the enemy's aggression using all the available means at their disposal. Apply "Combat and Resist!," which is the common slogan for the class.
Mobilize the youth so that they directly participate in the front lines of the combat trenches of the People's War. Let young workers, peasants and students develop their struggles for a new world, their right to be educated, against unemployment and other ills that wrack them.
Make the children active participants in the People's War. They can carry out many tasks which will help them understand the necessity of transforming the world. They are the future and in the end they shall live in the new world. Change their ideology so that they adopt the proletariat's ideology.
4. PERSIST IN THE ONLY MARXIST-LENINIST TACTIC
Starting from Engel's thesis: "In a country with such an old political and workers' movement, there is always a colossal heap of garbage inherited by tradition that must be cleaned step by step." Lenin established: "The only Marxist line in the world proletarian movement consists in explaining to the masses that the split with opportunism is inevitable and indispensable, educating them for the revolution through a merciless struggle against it." Chairman Mao indicated that a period of struggle against imperialism and revisionism was opening, with revisionism being one of the principal sources of imperialist wars and a danger within the Party for Communists in general. Chairman Gonzalo calls for persisting in the only Marxist tactic which implies four issues:First, sweep away the colossal heap of garbage that is revisionism and opportunism, principally electoralism. None of these revisionists and opportunists, nor any of their kin, can represent, much less defend, the masses. Now as before they only defend the exploiters in turn, yesterday they were merely a caboose for the fascist and corporative Aprista government, sinisterly dragging along the union organizations dependant on them. All these political and union organizations and their leaders do not represent the people but that crust of the labour aristocracy.
The union bureaucracy and the bourgeois workers' parties that always try to swerve the masses from their revolutionary path and are no more than part of that colossal heap of garbage which must be gradually swept away as Engels said.
Second, go to the deepest and most profound masses which constitute the majority, which in our country are the workers and principally poor peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and also keep the national bourgeoisie in mind. Of these, the most important are the workers and principally poor peasantry, and we must go mainly to them in both the countryside and city. We must propel their movement, lead it, mobilize them for Power so as to topple and overthrow the old State. This is the principle tactical question. Thus, among the masses it is necessary to distinguish the superficial scum which is the crust that serves the bourgeoisie from the immense majority of deep and profound masses which shall emerge more and more until the sweeping away of the decrepit Peruvian state, even more so when a People's War starts to crumble the old Peruvian state.
Third, the masses must be educated in the People's War, in its theory and practice. Thus, educating them in the peace of bayonets is to allow them to be slaughtered. The masses should no longer shed their blood with impunity only to be betrayed by their false leaders, for capitulation—rather this precious blood should serve the conquest of Power for the class and the people.
Fourth, it is necessary to struggle implacably against revisionism and opportunism, combating it as a dangerous cancer inside and outside the Party and among the very masses themselves, or else they will not solidify their revolutionary path. This is a struggle which we have been unleashing since the reconstitution of the Party and which today in open people's war is more urgent and implacable because of the increasingly treacherous way they act against us, the people and the revolution, all the more so if social-imperialism is operating behind them within their policy of collusion and contention with Yankee imperialism for global hegemony. This is applicable to revisionism and opportunism of all sorts no matter who their representatives are.
Regarding this Chairman Gonzalo tells us: "Rise above this miasma, this superficial revisionism, opportunism and electoralism which rides on the back of the masses. The main thing is that below this the colossal and self-impelled masses agitate, upon which we operate with the most powerful instrument of the rebellion which exists on the Earth: Armed action. We are the cry that says: 'It is right to rebel.'"
5. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE MASSES
Chairman Gonzalo starting from the ideological and political bases and simultaneously with the organizational construction, established the forms of struggle and the forms of organizing the masses. He teaches us the process in which the mass work of the Party developed:
In the Constitution. He tells us that Mariátegui outlined the bases for the mass work of the Party and determined specific lines by unleashing the two-line struggle against anarchism which sidestepped the necessity of the Party and also against Apra which negated the Marxist-Leninist conception and the capacity of the class to constitute itself into a Communist Party, through its work in the Front.
In the 1930s with Mariátegui's death, his line was abandoned. The work is centered around the masses, putting them at the tail of the big bourgeoisie, deviating them towards "frontism," elections and revisionism which weighs down on the efforts of the red line to oppose them. These erroneous tactics last more than 30 years.
In the Reconstitution. Chairman Gonzalo establishes the mass line of the Party and the organic forms. This is in a period of over 15 years of hard two-line struggle which achieves partial leaps.
In the first political strategy of the Reconstruction he develops the initiation of the mass work of the Party, all the militants in Ayacucho did peasant work and with the civil construction workers, for example, also with the intellectuals and poor masses in the slums. He supported the land seizures and carried out peasant events, the most transcendental being the I Regional Convention of Peasants of Ayacucho where the agrarian program was established.
He led the historic struggles of June 20, 21 and 22 in 1969 in Ayacucho and Huanta, mobilizing the masses of secondary school students, parents and families against Decree 006 of General Velasco which was defeated.
He organized the People's Defense Front of Ayacucho, reorganized the Revolutionary Student Front (FER), created the Popular Feminine Movement (MFP), the Centre for Mariátegui's Intellectual Work (CETIM), the Revolutionary Secondary School Student Front (FRES) and above all the Poor Peasants' Movement (MCP).
Thus, he established new politics in mass work, new forms of struggle and new organic forms.
In the two-line struggle, Chairman Gonzalo fought against revisionism which led the masses towards electoralism and against revolutionary violence in order to preserve the old order.
He fought against Patria Roja, a form of revisionism which trafficked, as it does today, with the slogan "power grows from a barrel of a gun," negating semi-feudalism, centering on the petty-bourgeoisie, especially students and teachers. He also defeated the right liquidationism that diluted the Party's leadership among the masses, preaching legalism and saying everything could be done through the Peasant Confederation of Peru (CCP), that the peasants didn't understand confiscation but they did understand expropriation, and that the fascist and corporative measures of the Velasco government should be deepened.
In the second political strategy of the Reconstitution, he established the Generated Organisms agreed upon in the Third Plenum of 1973: "The movements themselves as organizations generated by the proletariat in the different fronts of work have three characteristics:
1) adherence to Mariátegui,
2) mass organizations and
3) bound by democratic centralism."
He founded the character, content and role of the Generated Organisms applying Lenin's thesis on a clandestine Party and points of Party support in the masses, learning from the Chinese experience in open and secret work.
He specified the necessity, in order to develop the Reconstitution of the Party, of opening the Party to the masses more. In order to reach agreement upon and carry out this policy he had to defeat the left liquidationism that began from the notion that fascism sweeps everything away, aiming at the Party's extinction by isolating it from the masses; it deprecated the peasantry and proletariat and preached that "line is enough."
With the defeat of the left liquidationist line the ties with the masses grew and People's Schools begin to be formed, schools which politicized the masses with the conception and line of the Party, which played an important role in the agitation and propaganda by linking the struggle for revindications with the struggle for political Power. They completed a systematic and planned study based on outlines, [en base a esquemas] unleashing the two-line struggle and developing the mass work.
The advance of the work of the Generated Organisms led to Chairman Gonzalo proposing their development into one torrent, under the political guide of initiating the armed struggle. This led to the forming of zonal work. The Metropolitan Coordination was established for the cities, applying Lenin's thesis for open work and Chairman Mao's thesis for work in the cities, so that the struggle of the masses should be developed in a reasonable, advantageous and precise way. Their application allowed us to keep the Party clandestine, entrenched in the masses, moving in a good number of activists, distribute propaganda in a short time and facilitated agitation and mobilization under a centralized Party plan.
All of this is what we call "the three little feet" for mass work in the cities: Generated Organisms, People's Schools and the Metropolitan Coordination. For the countryside the first two forms were applied.
In the third political strategy of the Reconstitution, the Party broadly developed its mass work in the zones of the Sierra, linking itself with the peasants, primarily the poor peasants. In the cities it linked itself with the proletariat and masses in the slums and shantytowns. The generated organisms have played a good role within the culmination of the reconstitution and laying foundations for the armed struggle. The specific lines were developed even further, so that the Classist Movement of Workers and Laborers (MOTC) proposed the 15 basic theses for the workers' movement; the Poor Peasant Movement (MCP) politicized the peasants with the agrarian program specified for new conditions; in the Shantytown Classist Movement (MCB) the List of denunciations and demands of the people was published; the Student Revolutionary Front (FER) further developed the thesis of the Defense of the University against corporativism; the Revolutionary Secondary School Student Front (FRES) impelled the struggle of students for people's education; the Popular Feminine Movement (MFP) raised the thesis of women's Emancipation, impelling the mobilization of working women, peasant women, shantytown dwellers and students. Furthermore, there was participation in the United Syndicate of Peruvian Educational Workers (SUTEP) which led to its specific class line being adopted in the 1970s. The National Federation of Peruvian University Teachers (FENTUP) was also formed. All of this work entered into a broad ideological-political mobilization to initiate the People's War.
In synthesis, all the mass work of the Party in the Reconstitution was to prepare the initiation of the People's War. As Chairman Mao taught us, before initiating the war, everything is preparation for it, and once it has begun everything serves to develop it. Chairman Gonzalo has applied and firmly developed this principle.
In the leadership of the People's War there was a great leap in the mass work of the Party, a qualitative leap, which shaped the principal form of struggle—the People's War, and the principal form of organization—The People's Guerrilla Army. This highest task was carried forward through the militarization of the Party, and with respect to the mass work this means that all the mass work is done through the People's Guerrilla Army, which as an army of a new type fulfils three tasks: Combat, mobilize and produce. We conceive that the second task of the army implies mobilizing, politicizing, organizing and arming the masses, a task which is not counterposed to fighting, which is the principal task, because the principle of concentrating for combat and dispersing for mobilization is applied. In addition, the masses are educated in the war. This is a principle which governs the three forces: Principal ones, local ones and base forces in which various degrees of actions are specified.
For the mobilization of masses, the Party through the EGP carries forward the People's Schools, forms the Generated Organisms and the support groups. This is a policy that is applied one way in the countryside, because that is where the New Power is being formed, and in another way in the cities. In the cities, the Revolutionary Defense Movement of the People was formed, aiming at the future insurrection.
In the countryside, where we have power, Support Bases and People's Committees, we see to it that all the masses engage in armed participation, organized in the Party, Army and Front/State. If all the masses are not organized the New Power will not be able to sustain itself for long. Amorphous masses or power without masses organized under the leadership of the Party is not enough.
In the cities, the mass work is carried out by the Army as well, and the main thing is the struggle for power through the People's War, with the struggle for revindications serving political power as a necessary complement. Obviously, this happens through many armed actions with the goal of materializing the new forms of organization. We formed the Peoples's Revolutionary Defense Movement (MRDP), which attracts masses from the workers, peasants, shanty towns and petty bourgeoisie, neutralizing the middle bourgeoisie, aiming toward the democratic forces which support the People's War. The objective is to lead the masses towards resistance and to the elevation of their struggles into People's War, to hinder, undermine and upset the old State and serve the future insurrection, preparing the cities with People's War specified as complementary. We use the double policy of developing our own forms, which is principal, and penetrating all types of organizations. We apply Combat and Resist!
Regarding the Generated Organisms, in the People's War they have expressed a development and their characters have been varied. They continue being mass organizations of the Party and today: 1) They are guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought; 2) They are governed by democratic centralism, and 3) They serve the development of the People's War.
In the countryside, the Generated Organisms are militarized; in the cities many degrees of militarization can be applied.
Today, we have the following: MOTC, MCP, MCB, MFP, MJP [proletarian youth movement—Trans.], MIP. [proletarian intellectual movement—Trans.] Peru People's Aid is also important which has upsurged in the People's War as part of the struggle for prisoners of war and disappeared. For the Party's overseas work the Peru People's Movement (MPP) has been formed with its specific tasks.
Today, after nearly eight years of People's War the Party has made a great leap in its mass work, proving that it is just and correct to develop mass work within and for the People's War.
As a result of its application our people are learning each day that the class struggle necessarily leads to the struggle for Power; their growing participation in the People's War is very expressive of this, and even if not everyone reaches an understanding of it, they see in it the concrete hope of their emancipation. They are developing their struggles with new forms of struggle and organization, and the class struggle in Peru has been elevated to its principal form: The People's War.
The masses are organized in People's War and are the base and sustenance of it. They are organized in a Communist Party, in the People's Guerrilla Army and principally in the New Power, the principal conquest of the People's War in which the workers, peasants and petty-bourgeoisie participate, exercising political power like never before in history.
These are qualitative leaps which give rise to conditions for a new chapter in mass work within and for the People's War towards the conquest of power countrywide.
Those who uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, assume the embodiment of the mass line of the Party, giving up our lives so that the Party seizes Power countrywide and serves the world revolution.
EMBODY THE MASS LINE OF THE PARTY!
ORGANIZE THE CLAMOR OF THE PEOPLE FOR THEIR REBELLION!
MAKE THE GREAT LEAP IN THE INCORPORATION OF THE MASSES WITHIN AND FOR THE PEOPLE'S WAR!
Central Committee
Communist Party of Peru
The above writings reflect how remarakably Com Gonzalo combined the military line with the mass line.
The mention of the mass organizations like the peolpes schools, People's Defense Front of Ayacucho, reorganized the Revolutionary Student Front (FER), created the Popular Feminine Movement (MFP), the Center for Mariátegui's Intellectual Work (CETIM), the Revolutionary Secondary School Student Front (FRES) and above all the Poor Peasants' Movement (MCP) shows this.
However weaknesses are also revealed.
Quoting Scott Harrison of massline.info
“This document mentions the leadership method of "from the masses, to the masses" only in passing, but does discuss the PCP's efforts to mobilize various sections of the masses.
One position defended here, that "all the mass work" of the Party should be "done through the People's Guerrilla Army" is rather dubious, in my opinion, and sounds like a reflection of what Mao called "a purely military point of view."
It is doubtful that the PCP fully followed such a policy, however. It would have been very difficult to implement it in Lima and other urban areas, for example.
To me there is also a great spontaneity of mass movements described and not enough centralization of the party.
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