Essay:Vehemently Defend The Peoples War in Peru!

Art Portraying the People's War in Peru

To the people of today, to those people who breathe, struggle, and fight, has befallen the task of sweeping reaction from the face of the earth, the most illuminating and magnificent mission given to any generation. We find ourselves in this situation: The world revolution enters a strategic offensive. Nothing will prevail against it. The innumerable iron legions arise, and more and more will arise, inexhaustibly multiply, encircle and annihilate reaction. Reaction, which unleashes its bloody claws tearing the flesh off the people, continues to sow discord, embroil, and seeks to sate itself with the blood of the people. But the people’s blood ascends like furious wings and the stricken flesh converts itself into a powerful vengeful lash - Chairman Gonzalo

Introduction

Brief History

During the time of the Cultural Revolution, a thirty-one-year-old Peruvian Marxist-Leninist attended a cadre training course in China. This experience would impact him profoundly. He would later return to Peru. Later, on the 17th of May 1980, the People's War began in Peru led by him and the Peruvian Communist Party. This would spark years upon years of war waged against the Bourgeoisie and the Fascist Peruvian government led by Alberto Fujimori, Alan Garcia and other Bourgeois despots. His name was Abimael Guzmán, but he would later earn the nickname "Gonzalo", Chairman Gonzalo. As the PCP would lead a precise war, one that would last until today, Gonzalo was not only the leader of the Peruvian People's War, but also the definer of Maoism and many Maoists world-wide uphold him. However, due to his anti-Dengist stance and his Maoist beliefs, Dengists, Dogmato-Revisionists and Anti-Maoists would attack him for various number of reasons and would create myths about him. This essay is geared towards combating those attacking the People's War in Peru.

Combating Myths Against the PCP

"The PCP was a cult!"

What is a cult? According to Merriam-Webster:

a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious

Well Communism nor Maoism is a religion, and since the majority of these definitions mentions religion let's observe one that doesn't:

a great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book)

Well, if you have a "great devotion" to Communism, then you are a cultist, you have a great devotion to Leninism? You are a cultist, any devotion to anything, and you're a cultist, so we can see how this is a useless definition. Marxism is not a religion, it is a scientific analysis of society. So if the PCP was a "Cult", then we might as well just consider Marxism a cult overall. But let's just say a cultist is being "Dogmatic". Surely the PCP would be dogmatic/cultist by that measure, right? Wrong, Gonzalo himself advocated for dialectical discussion in the party and for a two-line struggle and the PCP was known to constantly self-criticize.

"The PCP was Revisionist!"

There are many components to this claim so I'll just split it up into the four parts:

The PCP had false views on war! They said that war can be constructive but war is nothing but destructive!

Those are not false beliefs and claiming they are, is in direct contradiction with what Marxist theoreticians have said. First off, Gonzalo said that war can be constructive in the way that it can be progressive. This is supported by Lenin, that wars waged by the oppressed are justified, progressive and necessary:

and we also differ in that we fully regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressing class, slaves against slave-owners, serfs against land-owners, and wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as legitimate, progressive and necessary. We Marxists differ from both the pacifists and the Anarchists in that we deem it necessary historically (from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism) to study each war separately. In history there have been numerous wars which, in spite of all the horrors, atrocities, distress and suffering that inevitably accompany all wars, were progressive, i.e., benefited the development of mankind by helping to destroy the exceptionally harmful and reactionary institutions (for example, autocracy or serfdom), the most barbarous despotisms in Europe (Turkish and Russian). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the historically specific features of precisely the present war.

So the people making these accusations are exposing their anti-Leninist side by saying “war is nothing but destructive.” They also contradict what Mao said, as Mao classified wars as just or unjust, the same as Gonzalo, so unless these people are ready to become pacifists, they should retract this argument.

The PCP claimed Mao Zedong Thought was universal when its not! Mao never wanted Mao Zedong Thought to be universal! Etc...

The PCP said that Maoism was universal, Maoism being the third-highest stage of Marxism. Derived from the universal aspects of Mao Zedong Thought, not Mao-Zedong Thought itself. And besides, Mao-Zedong Thought was declared universal by the CPC, so this claim is in contradiction with the CPC itself:

Chairman Mao has integrated the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of revolution, has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the political, military, economic, cultural, philosophical and other spheres, and has brought Marxism-Leninism to a higher and completely new stage. Mao Tsetung Thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory.

So, Mao-Zedong Thought was universal like "Bolshevism", but defined as Leninism by Stalin. Or, in this case, Maoism by Gonzalo.

The PCP was adventurist!

Nothing to back this up. Everything was organized by the party, ordered by the party, not done by individuals. They did it at the will of the people and in the interest of the people. Adventurism just means taking actions, especially revolutionary actions where material conditions don’t equal the actions. The PCP did the opposite of this.

The PCP supported Great Man Theory IE, Jefatura!

There's nothing Great man-ist about Jefatura, Jefatura is the concept that great leaders are produced during a revolution not by chance but by the material-conditions surrounding it at a particular place and time. We can observe this: Stalin was the Jefatura of the Bolshevik party, and Mao was the Jefatura of the CPC. Now this isn't to say individuals should be above the party, but this is simply the observation of this phenomenon. We can also see that when Capitalism is in the process of being restored, the Jefatura, the face of the revolution/socialist construction/party, is denounced directly or indirectly. Ex: Stalin, Mao.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

"The PCP Hated and killed Gay People!"

Not true, the PCP denounced discrimination, hatred and violence towards LGBTQ+ people. They have not committed any crime towards LGBTQ+ people. In fact, they have responded to these accusations and have debunked them. Many people have confirmed that they have not harmed any people that are LGBTQ+ solely because they are LGBTQ+.

"The PCP boiled babies!"

Absolutely no evidence for this claim, its just baseless slander.

"The PCP killed stray dogs in protest of Deng!"

First of all the evidence for this claim comes from two sources, Deng's dogs by Santiago Roncagliolo. Which I will address first, this source has no references or citations, so we should not consider it. The second source is "The Dog's of War: The Animals of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru", which supports the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

Unfortunately, events like Allpachaka became more frequent as the internal conflict intensified. Findings from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and other studies show that rebels systematically eradicated sheep and cattle – even obligating peasants to kill their own farm animals.

I don't know why anyone would take the Truth and Reconciliation Commission seriously, but this is just a fake claim. If we were to believe it, then we might as well believe this too:

He recounted how a group of Bolsheviks had turned up and demanded that he surrender his cow. ‘I told them,’ he wrote, ‘that the cow was all I had left and that my youngest child needed milk, so that I could not give her to them. “Very well,” they answered, “we will see to it that your brat does not need milk any more.” And in spite of my struggles, they tore my youngest child out of my arms and bashed her head in against a wall, then they took my cow and left me with my dead baby.’

People need to read older anticommunist sources (or maybe some more recent) so they can see how pathetic these are. EVERY revolutionary group has been painted as a gang of thugs that killed for no reason. We don't believe myths about the Red Army. Why should we believe myths about the People's War in Peru?

"The PCP hated and killed indigenous people!"

This wouldn't make sense because over half of its membership in the army was indigenous or mixed-indigenous, from the countryside. They, at their peak, controlled over half of the country. A lot of that was countryside. This is likely projected from the Peruvian state, as they killed a lot of indigenous people themselves and wanted somebody to blame it on. The PCP's armed wing had upwards of 10,000 Ashaninka youth members during the people's war, so I don't think they were killing their own soldiers.

"The PCP butchered babies and innocent people at Lucanamarca!"

Table 3 shows the results of the November 1983 municipal elections in the Ayacucho province of Huamanga. (Elections were not held in other provinces). The table indicates massive disaffection from the electoral process in Huamanga. Of an estimated 115,000 people in the province, only 13,059, or about 11 percent, cast valid votes (The PCP often called for election boycotts). The triumphant party, PADIN, fared less well than the nulls and the blanks. Moreover, a vote for PADIN, a party that ran only in Ayacucho and promised amnesty for the guerrillas, cannot be considered an explicitly anti-Sendero vote.

Lucanamarca was a village of indigenous peasants that came under the control of the PCP. The PCP was instituting people’s trials in the villages, replacing the old unofficial legal systems of the peasantry. In response, the village got together and lynched a teenager who was associated with the PCP. The local PCP members mobilized untrained masses (not party members or even army members) to investigate and ended up executing about 70 people. It wasn’t a chaotic event. People were arrested then killed. Gonzalo admitted that the number dead was an excess, but their reasoning, which was enforcing the people’s trials and the will of the party, was justified. The Shining Path also had a high degree of support in area where Lucanamarca happened, see the right image.

The Ronderos formed as a peasant movement from the failures of the PCP!

No, far from that, the Ronderos started out as a group of gangsters used by village authorities to violently settle grievances or gain power. The violent conflicts within the villages wiped out entire communities through massacres and emigration. The Peruvian government, recognizing their counter-revolutionary and reactionary nature, gave them weapons and support. The government even forced people to join the Ronderos, or risked being viewed as a PCP sympathizer. The Ronderos were poorly armed and had very little public support.

The PCP committed Tarata!

There has been no solid evidence that they did, and Gonzalo denied it.

Conclusion

The People's War in Peru was one of the sharpest and most precise revolutions ever played out, led by the PCP which was under the guidance of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Gonzalo Thought, allowing for them to take over up to 40% of Peru at their peak. However, due to the capture of Gonzalo and most of the high command, then the rest of the high command later, the PCP was split up into splinter parties. This was an unfortunate event. However, with the knowledge we have gained from the People's War in Peru, let's ensure that we learn from our mistakes and vehemently defend the People's War in Peru!