DEM VOLKE DIENEN

In the following, we publish the resolutions that were adopted on the occasion of the III. Meeting of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties and Organizations in Europe translated into six seven ten languages:

We are happy to share a digitalized copy of "Our red flag is flying in Peru", a 82 page strong article reproducted by the People's Movement Peru of Sweden in December 1990, that "drew upon the major May 1990 Pamphlet by the PCP Central Committee, Elections no, People's War yes."

The original is printed in red ink, but for reasons of readability online, the color was changed to black.

We mirror a homage to comrade Pierre published by French comrades on the 1st anniversary of our comrades death:

To our Comrade Pierre

It’s been a year since our Comrade Pierre has passed. And his presence on our side is lacking, that is certain. He would have been there in the Yellow Vests, he who had total faith in the power of the masses. He would have been on the blockades and at the very heart of the revolt because, despite his advanced age, nothing scared him. He would have said “tear gas stings a little at first but we get used to it quickly! “. He would have supported faultlessly the just revolt of today. He would have gone from demonstrations to demonstrations, from blockages to blockades. He would have fought openly, “in front the masses” as he often said, the reactionary elements present in the movement. He, who had been politicized by May 68, would have been proud to see this revolt of the working class 50 years later.

The young Comrades who have not known our Comrade Pierre too well must be inspired by the energy he has transmitted to us. An unfailing and permanent commitment to the heart of the class struggle in close connection with the masses. An absolute confidence in the popular masses to recognize their friends and fight their enemies. Our Comrade Pierre had faith in the ability of the masses to revolt, to learn in a very short time the ways of the class struggle, as happened around him on many occasions.

This personal commitment and trust in the masses do not come from nowhere. This stems from the ideology that our Comrade Pierre had made his own: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. That is the ideology of the working class around the world, the ideology of the international proletariat. All his life he has sought the correct line, seeking to deepen his knowledge of ideology, not only by studying the theory but especially by putting it to the test of practice; through a long and tireless path, to gather around him new comrades around a correct line, the line of reconstruction of a genuine Communist Party, a Maoist Communist Party.

In doing so, he swam all his life against the tide, confronted the reactionaries, participated at the international level in the reconstruction of the movement, organized young people despite the great age difference, showing them the way by going where the working class lives, works and wrestles: on the picket lines, factory occupations, at the very heart of the 2005 suburbs revolt, on the markets of the working-class neighborhoods, in the homes of young workers, in immigrant workers, in occupied dwellings…

Everywhere, in all meetings, he supported the need to build an authentic Communist Party, a Maoist Communist Party, developing in the heat of the class struggle, preparing for the People’s War, an extended process leading to the victory of the working class and the masses on the imperialist bourgeoisie. To the international comrades he met, he repeated with determination: “Build the Party!”

Today, in the revolt of the Yellow Vests, he would have been the first to go to proclaim the necessity of the Party so that this revolt turns into a revolution. And of course he would have been right.

Despite his cruel absence, this task is carried on by what he called “the succession”. Yes Comrade Pierre, every Comrade of the Party is well aware of the need to continue the fight of a lifetime: to affirm in theory and in practice the necessity of the Communist Party of today, the Maoist Communist Party. “Do not put the flag in your pocket ” as you said. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the adversity, there is only one way for the liberation of our class – and consequently of all humanity – the proletarian revolution. We therefore assume our role, in the current revolt of the Yellow Vests of course, but also in its continuity, which will necessarily take many other forms.

Camarade Pierre, présent!

Let’s continue building the Maoist Communist Party in the heat of the class struggle in close connection with the masses!

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the ideology that guides our daily action!

On occassion of the release of the Norwegian translation of the article "Así mueren los enemigos de la clase", that was originally published in English by the comrades from Struggle Sessions on the 11th of July this year, we mirror both articles:

Así mueren los enemigos de la clase

Lucanamarca 1983 and revolutionary violence

“Even quite progressive people said, ‘Though terrible, it is inevitable in a revolution.’ In short, nobody could altogether deny the word ‘terrible.’ . . . The fact is that the great peasant masses have risen to fulfil their historic mission and that the forces of rural democracy have risen to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism. The patriarchal-feudal class of local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords has formed the basis of autocratic government for thousands of years and is the cornerstone of imperialism, warlordism and corrupt officialdom.”

—Mao Zedong

“It’s fine. It is not ‘terrible’ at all. It is anything but ‘terrible.’ ‘It’s terrible!’ is obviously a theory for combating the rise of the peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is obviously a theory of the landlord class for preserving the old order of feudalism and obstructing the establishment of the new order of democracy; it is obviously a counterrevolutionary theory. No revolutionary comrade should echo this nonsense. If your revolutionary viewpoint is firmly established and if you have been to the villages and looked around, you will undoubtedly feel thrilled as never before. Countless thousands of the enslaved—the peasants—are striking down the enemies who battened on their flesh.”

—Mao Zedong

Anti-Communists persist in horror stories about revolution and socialist State projects of the past, and they do this most effectively when they themselves claim to be Communists. This method has been used over and over, but never more effectively than against the Communist Party of Peru, which was the most practically and ideologically advanced revolution in the period subsequent to capitalist restoration in China. We Communists must defend this revolution as we do the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution even though it has not taken power yet, just as the GPCR did not prevent restoration. Both offer us a clear and indisputable way forward. Neither are to be considered principally failures but illuminating successes.

The most acute anti-Communism targeting the PCP centers on an event that took place in 1983 in the early years of the Protracted People’s War. The reactionary Peruvian State and the world bourgeois media refer to this event as the “Lucanamarca massacre.” Lucanamarca is a village in Peru where over 80 people were annihilated according to the Communist Party of Peru (69 according to the State). This has been used again and again to create anti-Communist myths about the PCP and the People’s War it led. I feel it’s important to divide this matter into two. On one hand, no one denies the Party’s involvement in this, least of all its leader, Chairman Gonzalo, who both admits the order came from the Central Committee and admits there were excesses. What we must understand in order not to parrot death tolls the way the enemy always does is the other aspect, which in this question is principal.

The attack ordered by the Central Committee of the PCP was in part retaliation for the murder of one of their cadres, Olegario Curitomay, who was beloved by the peasant masses in the area. Peasant life in the area was oppressive, and many had been disappeared, murdered or raped. Curitomay was stoned, tortured to death, disemboweled, and then put on public display. This injustice called for blood, and the masses demanded it. Lucanamarca was a reactionary stronghold; it was already developing and had already organized a strong right-wing death squad (rondero) that took the form of civilian peasant militias organized by the State. This development was in service to the social base of the landlords and the State itself, organized in fear of the spread of Communism. These death squads committed numerous atrocities against the people; they mobilized the most backward masses and the lumpenproletariat to carry out these fascist attacks like the one against Commander Curitomay. The arms given to the ronderos by the Peruvian government had been provided by both US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism to assist the comprador bourgeoisie of Peru in suppressing revolution.

In response the PCP sent a firm and clear message that this was a different type of war, a People’s War, unlike any of the many violent struggles in Peruvian history. While bourgeois minds panic at death tolls Communists see things as they exist in the context of their time. This warning did not fall on deaf ears. To understand the given context you must understand the way the People’s Guerrilla Army (EGP) was organized. While the Central Committee issued orders, operations on the ground were decentralized. The EGP operated in two main ways:

The first way was through the EGP itself, which had armed troops who were assigned guns captured from the enemy. But they composed a relatively small number of mobile bands that operated regionally, sometimes as small as 3 to 6 in a guerrilla military unit. They would move about an area of several villages, carrying out mobile attacks in the hit-and-run sequences of strategic defensive. Keep in mind that this was early still in the People’s War, which had only begun in 1980 by unarmed cadres and soldiers snatching weapons off the police and raiding small arm storage sites. In 1983 the Peruvian State was just beginning to realize the might and effectiveness of the PCP, its army, and its New State/Front.

The second way the guerrillas operated was through peasant militias, who were not armed with captured weapons (still in short supply at this point) but with farming tools, dynamite, and other lethal but non-firearm weapons. These forces were numerically much larger than the EGP proper, and their members were recruited up into the EGP. These were not trained soldiers but the peasant masses themselves, composed of the poorest indigenous Andean masses. These were the forces that carried out the operation in Lucanamarca. The PCP was not abandoning the mass line but carrying it out with the direct involvement of the peasant masses.

The masses can be like a tidal wave, and the order from the Central Committee ruptured the dam, liberating the righteous creative wrath of the masses. It is incorrect to suggest to anyone, least of all the tidal wave, that it should just return to the ocean and be still. We must understand the anger of the people, the pain they feel when their beloved community leaders who are of their own blood are treated with State terror and execution. When the masses go “too far” the revisionists will always say “it’s terrible” and revolutionaries must always say “it is fine.” This was expressed by Mao in his reports on the peasant movement in Hunan during the People’s War that he led.

The PCP understood the dialectical relationship between Communists and the masses this way:

“There can be no leaders who are deaf to the clamor of the masses, blind to their strength, harsh or indifferent. This is unacceptable. Nevertheless, what have we seen? Blind, harsh, indifferent and deaf leaders; are they losing their status as Communists? The souls of Communists should tremble like the souls of the masses tremble, should become happy with what brings them joy, be hurt by what hurts them, become impassioned by what impassions them, uplifted by what uplifts the masses. If not, the militant’s character becomes a mere formality, an insignia, a rubber stamp, a kind of etiquette.”

The events at Lucanamarca were not a question of the masses striking at the wrong time, and the Party standing beside them, but of the Party mobilizing the masses fully to carry out a devastating blow against reaction, one that will never be forgotten. There are of course those people who with a rubber stamp actually switch up who the masses were. They frame the annihilation of a reactionary village as “killing the masses,” and of course they are quite happy to ignore the fact that the masses also participated in the annihilation, supported the Party directive to carry it out, and populated the militias and the EGP. By confusing who the masses are, they confuse revolutionary violence for reactionary violence.

Such revisionists, since they have not expelled their bourgeois mindset and bourgeois class stand, are still prone to getting weepy at the death tolls thrown about by “senderologists,” bourgeois academics, and even sources that are in the direct employment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a State plot most comparable to our COINTELPRO in the US. They study sources like Ivan Degregori, who was one of the top leaders of Truth and Reconciliation. He shared positions in Truth and Reconciliation with reactionary Peruvian Army generals like Luis Arias Graziani, ex-congress members like Beatriz Alva Hart and Rolando Ames, several catholic priests and bishops, and a conservative Protestant church leader, Lay Sun. This assortment of reactionaries were all partisan in the counterinsurgency against the revolution in service of the State, composed of Fujimori endorsers and people who supported Alan Garcia. Degregori, for his part, as an anthropologist, lends academic legitimacy to what amounts to a well-oiled anti-Communist slander campaign. In his book How Difficult It Is to Be God he presents the idea that the PCP, due to its activity in Lucanamarca in 1983, somehow alienated its peasant base with anti-people activity and was forced (almost a decade later) to run away from the countryside and into the city. No matter how false this is there are still conservatives hiding under the banner of Maoism in the US who will flock like moths to a flame to such reports. They can now fake a moral position to oppose Maoism while claiming to be Maoists themselves. The idea of Degregori being an objective analysist is outright hysterical. No amount of citations or academic laurels can erase his class interest and his role in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Even other bourgeois senderologists like Simon Strong, David Scott Palmer, et al. contradict this thesis and highlight the overwhelming evidence that the PCP only increased its popular support throughout the whole 80s and early 90s. Reading US military intelligence reports confirms this as well, as they feared a PCP victory and the collapse of the Peruvian State. As the PCP always insisted, the People’s War in semifeudal countries advances from the countryside to surround the city. The advance upon Lima was not strategic retreat but a response to both subjective factors and objective conditions.

These liberal humanists will decry the violence of 1983 and in doing this they decry the PPW in Peru and denounce its leader, Chairman Gonzalo. They insist with no regard to historical materialism or the most accessible facts that this “massacre” alienated the peasant base and actually bolstered the number of death squad recruits, harming the revolution itself. This is nothing but a fabrication. The masses themselves understood this action, supported it, and themselves carried it out at the behest of the Party. This was not the activity of “outside agitators,” shadowy Party agents from alien backgrounds. Much as with the rationale used by other liberals to dismiss the most rebellious activity of the US masses, the liberal mind makes fairytales and conjures ghosts. The Party is, in the liberal mind only, understood as divorced fully from the revolutionary masses, carrying out massacres nearly unprovoked based solely on a metaphysical bloodlust.

Let’s look then at the facts: The People’s War in Peru only grew stronger from 1983 into the 90s. When they began advancing upon Lima and other major cities, the peasant militia and people’s committees grew year by year, and with them grew the EGP and the PCP itself. The revolution spread like wildfire, from the Andes to the jungles and into the slums of Lima, which began choking the city from the countryside. The prisons were organized, and whole areas stopped using Peruvian State currency and began using the currency of the PCP. Such places were the most developed and advanced base areas of modern times and far exceeded any current example. The New State was already functioning throughout large areas of the country.

As mentioned, military reports from the US government nervously anticipated the collapse of the Peruvian State, whose infrastructure had been consciously chipped away by the PCP and its mass base. The People’s War bloomed, and this is impossible without broad mass support. The mass support was undeniable. An incident in 1983 did not and could not have cost them their mass base; this opportunist reading of history is basically illiterate in the theoretical and ideological sense. Revisionists and opportunists have always relied on historical revisionism (the revision of the historical record) to try to alter an understanding of the past, against historical materialism. Ideologically weak and underdeveloped comrades might at times be tempted to swallow such anti-Communist hogwash, but by embracing historical materialism one can see how their growth took place and their mass base developed and grew within the PPW. The People’s Army carried out the majority of the mass work that was responsible for carrying out the mass line and winning over the majority of the Peruvian masses in the countryside and the slums. The whole world shook with the movements in Peru, and revolutionary Communism was once again back on the agenda.

“‘Damn the words of traitors’; everything was won through revolutionary violence.”

—Chairman Gonzalo

We must contend now with the question of violence from the Marxist perspective, which is divided into two main categories: revolutionary violence and reactionary violence. We had better learn the difference. One of the sharpest knives at the liberal butcher shop that is aimed at slaughtering and dismembering revolutions is the conflating of these two distinct types of violence—combining two into one. Hence they take part in reactionary and, most often, State-sanctioned violence.

State violence in this case is the arming of the ronderos, and the preparation of counterinsurgency on the village level, through the old ideological organs of colonialism, mainly the church. Reactionary violence was the stoning, dismemberment, and public display of the body of a beloved revolutionary and commander in the PCP. Reactionary violence is the historical revisionism of both the liberal critics squirming at a body count and the ideological counterinsurgency maneuvers of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Anti-Communism is reactionary violence.

There are those critics who of course always seek to pardon the white terror of a fascist State by suggesting that it was the revolution that provoked reaction. This argument pardons the State of its wrongdoings. It pardons the most backward of Peruvian society, who willingly joined the death squads. This is a major line of argument by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission against the People’s War. They play on liberal false equivalence and liberal sentimentality. They only reluctantly and in hindsight blame Fujimori (in part) for his bloodlust, all while being of the same fabric as those who pardoned him legally while Comrade Gonzalo remains perhaps  the most closely guarded political prisoner on earth.

So then we must come to understand revolutionary violence as the dialectical opposite of reactionary violence. Violence is anything but neutral. Revolutionary violence, which is always justified, is when the masses get so fed up with torture, exploitation, murder, and rape at the hands of the ronderos and the Party calls upon them like a mighty storm. No one, least of all the PCP, can deny the great and fearless masses their revenge. Those who are repressed by the constant threat of reactionary violence respond to the will of such a Party, and their rising cannot be struck down. For the PCP to denounce the annihilation of class enemies would be to betray their own people, their own cause—that is, the cause of the international proletariat. Lucanamarca, while being far from the standard of revolutionary violence, was nonetheless necessary. It was necessary to make it clear that this revolution was unlike any other that had ever shaken Peruvian society. Furthermore it accomplished its objective and decreased interest in joining death squads. Those who fake concern for the more than 80 annihilated by revolutionary forces do so only opportunistically, from a position of safety, where the white terror has not mutilated and maimed them; to them it is most certainly “terrible” and “going too far.” For revolutionaries deeply in tune with the masses we can say “it’s fine.” We can understand that pain in the faces of the Black youth in the US, who are boiling over for revenge, and it is up to us to give them the type of Party that can make the call to action—their revenge will at times also contain excesses, and revolutionaries will support them, for we aim to make a revolution unlike any other.

There will always be bourgeois attacks on revolution that position themselves on the “left.” It is necessary for the bourgeoisie to fake this position to safeguard against any potential strengthening of revolutionary sentiment among the people. The Peruvian State learned its lesson when they attempted to humiliate Comrade Gonzalo by placing him in his prisoner’s uniform, in a cage like an animal on national television. Their aim was to destroy the myth of the man and humiliate him. It backfired and he was only humanized. They would not make this mistake again, and through forming the Truth and Reconciliation Commission they attempt to monsterize the revolution from a phony position of “human rights,” all while siding with State abuses, abuses that are far more monstrous than the average imagination can conceive of.

The core of this article was laid out a long time ago, and many of the targeted audience have since rectified their view regarding the Peruvian People’s War, but the lies of the senderologists and Truth and Reconciliation Commission are persistent gnawing parasites, always looking to fling mud at what was the most important revolution to take place since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Ironically, many of the attacks use the same old gambit: cite the excesses while blowing them out of proportion and frame them as par for the course for the revolution, all while comfortably keeping the terror of the bourgeoisie in a blind spot.

Today it is more important than ever to defend the People’s War in Peru, to defend not only its legacy but its continuation. The great setbacks suffered with the arrest of Comrade Gonzalo and the decrease in military activity in 1999 are but bends in the road. Attacked on all sides, the PCP persists in reconstituting itself once more. People’s War is ongoing, and at no time has the Peruvian proletariat been without its vanguard. It is ever pressing to preserve its legacy and to uphold it. While many have fallen off, revolutionaries persist. As historical materialists we can understand that no revolution has taken place without these bends in the road: the October Revolution had many such setbacks, and many of the initial armed struggles in China were defeated, only for the revolutionaries to persist until victory and once again face setback. What we cannot do is give into our cynicism and be short-sighted. Otherwise we forget the very basis of our history.

On occassion of the release of the Norwegian translation of the article "Así mueren los enemigos de la clase", that was originally published in English by the comrades from Struggle Sessions on the 11th of July this year, we mirror both articles:

Así mueren los enemigos de la clase
Om Lucanamarca 1983 og revolusjonær vold

«Til og med ganske progressive folk sa: ‘Selv om det er fryktelig, er det ikke til å unngå i en revolusjon.’ Kort sagt kunne ingen fullstendig avvise ordet ‘fryktelig’ … Sannheten er at de store bondemassene har reist seg for å fullføre den historiske oppgaven sin, og at de demokratiske kreftene på landsbygda har reist seg for å styrte de føydale kreftene der. Den patriarkalsk-føydale klassen av lokale tyranner, ondskapsfulle storfolk og forbryterske godseiere har i tusenvis av år dannet grunnlaget for det eneveldige styret, og er hjørnesteinen for imperialismen, krigsherrevesenet og det korrupte embetsmannsveldet.»

–Mao Zedong

«Det er flott. Det er ikke ‘fryktelig’ i det hele tatt. Det er alt annet enn ‘fryktelig’. Det er tydelig at ‘Det er fryktelig!’ er en teori for å forsvare interessene til godseierne mot bøndene som reiser seg. Det er tydelig at det er en teori for godseierklassen for å bevare den gamle føydale ordningen og legge hindringer i veien for at den nye demokratiske ordningen skal gjennomføres. Det er tydelig at det er en kontrarevolusjonær teori. Ingen revolusjonær kamerat må føre dette tøvet videre. Hvis det revolusjonære standpunktet ditt virkelig har slått rot, og hvis du har vært i landsbyene og sett deg om, vil du utvilsomt bli begeistret som aldri før. Utallige tusen av de underkuede – bøndene – slår ned fiendene som levde høyt på deres bekostning.»

–Mao Zedong

Anti-kommunister tviholder på deres skrekkhistorier om fortidens revolusjoner og sosialistiske statsprosjekter, og mest effektivt gjør de dette når de selv hevder å være kommunister. Denne metoden har blitt brukt igjen og igjen, men aldri så effektivt som mot Perus kommunistiske parti, som utgjorde den mest fremskredne revolusjonen i perioden etter den kapitalistiske gjeninnføringen i Kina, både på det praktiske og ideologiske. Vi som kommunister må forsvare denne revolusjonen, slik vi også forsvarer Den store proletariske kulturrevolusjonen, selv om den ennå ikke har tatt makten, slik heller ikke DSPK forhindret gjeninnføring. Begge viser likefullt en klar og udiskutabel vei fremover. De bør ikke vurderes som hovedsakelig forfeilet, men som lysende suksesser.

Det mest umiddelbare anti-kommunistiske angrepet på PKP kretser rundt en hendelse som fant sted i 1983, i de tidlige årene av folkekrigen. Den reaksjonære peruanske staten og de verdensborgerlige mediene refererer til denne hendelsen som «Lucanamarca-massakren». Lucanamarca er en landsby i Peru hvor over 80 mennesker ble utradert, ifølge Perus kommunistiske parti (69 ifølge staten). Dette har gjentatte ganger blitt brukt for å skape anti-kommunistiske myter om PKP og folkekrigen de ledet. Jeg føler det nødvendig å dele disse tingene i to. På den ene siden er det nemlig ingen som benekter partiets involvering i dette, minst av alle partiets leder formann Gonzalo, som både har vedkjent at ordren kom fra sentralkomiteen, og at overskridelser forekom. Hvordan så forstå dette, uten å tvære som en papehøye over dødstallene slik fienden alltid gjør, er den andre siden, hvilket i dette spørsmålet er hovedsiden.

Angrepet som PKPs sentralkomité beordret utgjorde til dels gjengjeldelse for mordet på en av deres kadre, Olegario Curitomay, som var svært kjær blant bondemassene i området. Jordbrukslivet i området var undertrykkende, mange hadde blitt bortført, myrdet eller voldtatt. Curitomay ble steinet, torturert til døde, buksprettet, og så stilt til offentlig utstilling. Denne urettferdigheten påkalte blod, og massene krevde det. Lucanamarca utgjorde en reaksjonær bastion – her hadde det allerede blitt utviklet og organisert en kraftig høyreorientert dødsskvadron (rondero) i form av sivile bondemilitser opprettet av staten. En utvikling som ble besørget for å understøtte den sosiale basisen til landeierne og staten selv, og organisert i frykt for kommunismens spredning. Disse dødsskvadronene begikk en rekke grusomheter mot folket, og mobiliserte de mest tilbakeliggende massene og filleproletarene til å utføre de fascistiske angrepene, som det mot kommandør Curitomay. Våpnene som ronderosene hadde fått av de peruanske myndighetene, hadde både amerikansk imperialisme og sovjetisk sosialimperialisme sørget for, for å bistå det peruanske komprador-borgerskapet med å knekke revolusjonen.

Som svar sendte PKP en resolutt og klar beskjed om at dette var en annen type krig – en folkekrig, til forskjell fra enhver av de utallige andre voldelige kampene i den peruanske historien. Mens de borgerlige sinnene går i fistel over dødstall, ser kommunister tingene slik de befinner seg i kontekst av tiden. Denne advarselen falt ikke for døve ører. For å forstå den gitte konteksten må en forstå måten Folkets geriljahær (EGP) var organisert på. Mens sentralkomiteen utstedte ordre, så var operasjonene på bakken desentralisert. EGP opererte hovedsakelig på to måter:

Den første måten var gjennom EGP selv, som hadde væpnede tropper med våpen konfiskert fra fienden. Men de besto av et relativt lavt antall mobile grupper med regionalt virkeområde, tidvis så få som tre til seks i én geriljahær-enhet. De bevegde seg i et område som spente over flere landsbygder, hvor de gjennom den strategiske defensivens rekker av "hit and runs" utførte mobile angrep. En bør også huske at dette var tidlig i folkekrigen, som hadde begynt først i 1980 ved at ubevæpnede kadre og soldater snappet til seg våpen fra politi og raidet våpenlager. I 1983 hadde den peruanske staten såvidt begynt å innse hvor mektig og effektiv PKP, dets hær og dets nye stat/front var.

Den andre måten geriljaene opererte på var gjennom bondemilitsene, som ikke var væpnet med konfiskerte våpen (som det på dette tidspunktet var begrenset tilgang på) men med jordbruksredskaper, dynamitt og andre dødelige men ikke-skarpe våpen. Disse styrkene var tallmessig betydelig større enn EGP selv, og deres medlemmer ble rekruttert inn i EGP. Dette var ikke trente soldater men bondemassene selv, bestående av de fattigste massene av de andiske urfolkene.

Massene kan være som en tidevannsbølge, og da sentralkomiteen utstedte deres ordre gikk demningen brast, hvilket frigjorde det rettmessige og skapende vredet hos massene. Å hevde overfor noen, og minst av alt en tidevannsbølge, at den enkelt og greit bør vende tilbake til havet og forholde seg i ro, er ikke riktig. Vi må forstå folkets sinne, og smerten de føler når lokale ledere som de har kjær, og som er av deres eget blod, utsettes for statlig terror og blir henrettet. Når massene går «for langt» kommer revisjonistene alltid til å si at «det er fryktelig», og de revolusjonære må da alltid si «det er flott». Dette ble uttrykt av Mao i hans rapporter om bondebevegelsen i Hunan under folkekrigen han ledet.

PKP forsto det dialektiske forholdet mellom kommunistene og massene på denne måten:

«Ingen ledere kan stille seg døve overfor massenes rop, blinde overfor deres styrke, være hardhaus eller likegyldig. Dette er uakseptabelt. Likevel, hva har vi sett? Blinde, hardhause, likegyldige og døve ledere – mister de sin anseelse som kommunster? Kommunistenes sjeler må tordne slik folkemassenes sjeler tordner, må glede seg over det som gjør dem lykkelig, smertes over det som skader dem, la seg begeistre av det som begeistrer dem, la seg inspirere av det som inspirerer massene. Hvis ikke blir den militantes fremtoning en ren formalitet, et insignia, et gummistempel, en form for etikette.»

Hendelsene i Lucanamarca var ikke et tilfelle av at massene gikk til angrep på feil tidspunkt og at partiet stilte seg på deres side, men at partiet mobiliserte massene til fulle for å slå et knusende slag mot reaksjonen, et slag som aldri vil bli glemt. Så er det selvfølgelig de folkene som med deres gummistempler faktisk bytter om på hvem massene var. De fremstiller utraderingen av en reaksjonær landsby som å «drepe massene», men ignorerer selvtilfreds det faktum at massene også tok del i utraderingen, støttet partidirektivet om å gjennomføre det, og befolket militsene og EGP. Ved å forveksle hvem massene er, forveksler de revolusjonær vold med reaksjonær vold.

Disse revisjonistene har ikke lagt bort deres borgerlige tenkning og borgerlige klassestandpunkt, og er derfor fortsatt tilbøyelig til å bli sorgfull over dødstallene som slenges rundt av «senderologene», de borgerlige akademikerne, og selv kilder som er direkte ansatt i Sannhets- og forsoningskommisjonen, et statlig plott høyst sammenlignbart med vårt eget COINTELPRO her i USA. De studerer kilder som Ivan Degregori, som var en av topplederne for Sannhet og forsoning. Han delte posisjoner innen Sannhet og forsoning med reaksjonære peruanske hær-generaler som Luis Arias Graziani, tidligere kongressmedlemmer som Beatriz Alva Hart og Rolando Ames, en rekke katolske prester og biskoper, og Lay Sun, en konservativ protestantisk kirkeleder. Dette sortimentet av reaksjonære var alle partisaner i opprørsbekjempelsen rettet mot revolusjonen, under statlig tjeneste, bestående av Fujimori-tilhengere og folk som støttet Alan Garcia. Til denne tilstelningen av en veloljet anti-kommunistisk svertekampanje, bistår Degregori som antropolog fra sin side med akademisk legitimering. I boken How difficult it is to be God legger han frem ideen om at PKP som følge av dets virksomhet i Lucanamarca i 1983 på et vis fremmedgjorde sin egen base av bønder gjennom anti-folkelig virksomhet, og ble tvunget (nesten et tiår senere) til å trekke bort fra landsbygda og inn i byen. Hvor enn forfalsket dette er, gjemmer det seg fortsatt konservative under den maoistiske fanen i USA som svermer rundt slike rapporter som møllen rundt flammen. De kan nå innta en tilgjort moralsk posisjon for å opponere mot maoisme mens de samtidig hevder at de selv er maoister. Ideen om at Degregori er en objektiv analytiker er rett og slett hysterisk. Ingen mengde siteringer eller akademiske pyntefjær kan viske bort hans klasseinteresser og hans rolle i Sannhets- og forsoningskommisjonen. Selv andre borgerlige senderologer som Simon Strong, David Scott Palmer et al. motsier denne tesen, og påpeker den overveldende bevismengden for at PKP kun økte sin folkelige støtte gjennom hele 1980-tallet og det tidlige 1990-tallet. Leser man amerikanske militæretterretnings-rapporter bekreftes også dette – de fryktet PKPs seier og at den peruanske staten skulle kollapse. Som PKP alltid insisterte på rykker folkekrigen i halvføydale land frem fra landsbygda for å omringe byene. Fremrykket mot Lima var ikke en strategisk retrett, men en respons på både subjektive faktorer og objektive forhold.

Disse liberale humanistene gremmes over volden i 1983, og når de gjør det gremmes de også over folkekrigen i Peru og fordømmer dens leder formann Gonzalo. Uten noe hensyn til historisk materialisme eller de mest tilgjengelige fakta insisterer de på at denne «massakren» fremmedgjorde bondebasen og styrket rekrutteringen til dødsskvadronene, og dermed skadet revolusjonen. Dette er en ren fabrikasjon. Massene selv forsto denne aksjonen, støttet den, og bidro selv til å gjennomføre den under partiets ledelse. Dette var ikke drevet frem av «agitatorer utenfra» eller lumske partiagenter med fremmed bakgrunn. De liberale sinnene koker opp eventyrfortellinger og maner frem spøkelser – ikke så ulikt rasjonalet som andre liberalister mobiliserer for å avvise den opprørske virksomheten til de amerikanske massene. Kun i liberale sinn oppfattes partiet som fullstendig atskilt fra de revolusjonære massene, og utfører massakre nærmest uprovosert og basert ene og alene på metafysisk blodtørst.

La oss da se på hva fakta er: Folkekrigen i Peru vokste seg stadig sterkere fra 1983 og opp til 1990-tallet. Under framrykkene mot Lima og andre storbyer vokste bondemilitsen og folkekomiteene år for år, og med disse vokste også både EGP og PKP. Revolusjonen bredte seg som en skogbrann, fra Andesfjellene til jungelen, og innover mot slumområdene rundt Lima, hvor byen i økende grad ble avskåret fra landsbygda. Fengslene ble organisert, hele regioner sluttet å bruke den peruanske statens valuta og gikk over til å bruke valutaen til PKP. Disse områdene utgjorde de mest utviklede og avanserte baseområdene i moderne tid, og overgikk alle tilsvarende eksempler i dag med god margin. Den nye staten var allerede fungerende over store deler av landet.

Som nevnt antok amerikanske myndigheters militærrapporter med bekymring at den peruanske staten ville kollapse, hvis infrastruktur hadde blitt bevisst avskåret av PKP og dets massebase. Folkekrigen blomstret, og dette er umulig uten bred støtte fra massene. Støtten fra massene var ubestridelig. Ingen enkelthendelse i 1983 kostet dem denne massebasen, og kunne heller ikke gjort det – en slik opportunistisk lesning av historien bygger teoretisk og ideologisk sett på grunnleggende mangelfull lesekyndighet. Revisjonister og opportunister har alltid vært avhengig av historisk revisjonisme (omskrivning av de historiske beretningene) i forsøket på å forandre visse oppfatninger om fortiden, i strid med historisk materialisme. Ideologisk svake og underutviklede kamerater kan tidvis la seg friste til å sluke denne typen anti-kommunistisk vås, men omfavner man den historiske materialismen kan man se hvordan deres fremvekst foregikk, og hvordan deres massebase ble utviklet og vokste gjennom folkekrigen. Folkehæren utførte mesteparten av massearbeidet med ansvar for iverksettingen av masselinjen og å vinne til seg flertallet av de peruanske massene på landsbygda og i slumområdene. Hele verden ble rystet til grunnvollene med bevegelsene i Peru, og den revolusjonære kommunismen var atter igjen tilbake på agendaen.

«‘Fordømt være svikernes ord’; alt har blitt vunnet ved revolusjonær vold.»

–Formann Gonzalo

Vi må nå hanskes med spørsmålet om vold sett fra det marxistiske perspektivet, hvilket fordeler seg i to hovedkategorier: revolusjonær vold og reaksjonær vold. Det er best at vi lærer oss forskjellen mellom disse først som sist. Blant de mest finslipte knivene de liberale slakteriene bruker for å hugge ned og partere revolusjoner, er det å forflate disse to distinkte voldsformene, og å slå sammen to til å bli én. Dermed gjør de seg selv delaktig i den reaksjonære og oftest statssanksjonerte volden.

Den statlige volden er i dette tilfellet væpningen av ronderosene, samt tilretteleggingen av opprørsbekjempelsen på landsbynivået, gjennom kolonialismens gamle ideologiske organer, hovedsakelig kirken. Den reaksjonære volden var steiningen, lemlestingen og den offentlige utstillingen av kroppen til en folkekjær revolusjonær og kommandør i PKP. Den reaksjonære volden er den historiske revisjonismen til de liberale kritikerne som forknytter seg over antall døde, og manøvreringen til Sannhets- og forsoningskomiteens ideologiske kontraopprør. Anti-kommunisme er reaksjonær vold.

Det er selvfølgelig de kritikerne som alltid søker å unnskylde den hvite terroren til fascistiske stater, ved å insinuere at det var revolusjonen som fremprovoserte reaksjonen. Denne argumentasjonen unnskylder staten for dens ugjerninger. Det unnskylder de mest tilbakeliggende i det peruanske samfunnet, som velvillig lot seg verve til dødsskvadronene. Dette utgjør hovedlinjen i Sannhets- og forsoningskommisjonens argumentasjon mot folkekrigen. De spiller på liberal, falsk likhet og liberal sentimentalitet. Kun motvillig og i etterpåklokskap legger de til skylden på Fujimori (delvis) for hans blodtørst, samtidig er de selv støpt i den samme formen som de som fikk ham rettslig frifunnet, mens formann Gonzalo fortsatt holdes som den trolig tettest bevoktede politiske fangen på jorden.

Vi er altså nødt til å lære oss å forstå at revolusjonær vold er den dialektiske motsetningen til reaksjonær vold. Vold er alt annet enn nøytral. Revolusjonær vold, hvilket alltid er rett, er når massene har fått nok av ronderosenes tortur, utbytting, mord og voldtekt, og når partiet påkaller massene som en mektig storm. Ingen, og minst av alle PKP, kan nekte de ruvende og fryktløse massene deres hevn. De som holdes nede under konstant trussel om reaksjonær vold besvarer viljen til et slikt parti, og deres oppstand er ikke mulig å slå tilbake. Å avvise utraderingen av klassefiender ville for PKPs del være forræderi mot deres eget folk, deres egen sak – det vil si det internasjonale proletariatets sak. Skjønt Lucanamarca langt fra utgjør standarden for revolusjonær vold, var det likefullt nødvendig. Det var nødvendig å gjøre det klart at denne revolusjonen var forskjellig fra alle andre revolusjoner som noensinne hadde rystet det peruanske samfunnet. Videre oppnådde det sitt mål og bidro til å redusere interessen for å tilslutte seg til dødsskvadroner. De som spiller forskrekket over de mer enn 80 som ble utradert av de revolusjonære styrkene, gjør det av utelukkende opportunistiske grunner, fra en posisjon preget av trygghet, hvor den hvite terrorens lemlesting og maltraktering ikke rammer dem – for disse er det så absolutt «fryktelig» og å «gå for langt». For revolusjonære som er dypt knyttet til massene kan vi si at «det er flott». Vi kan forstå smerten i fjeset til den svarte ungdommen i USA, som koker over etter å få hevn, og det er opp til oss å gi dem den typen parti som kan påkalle handling – deres hevn vil til tider også innebære overskridelser, og revolusjonære vil støtte dem, for vårt mål er å skape en revolusjon helt uten sidestykke.

Det vil alltid komme borgerlige angrep mot revolusjonen som plasserer seg selv til «venstre». Borgerskapet er avhengig av å oppkonstruere denne posisjonen for å forhindre enhver mulig styrking av det revolusjonære sentimentet blant folket. Den peruanske staten lærte leksen sin da den forsøkte å ydmyke formann Gonzalo ved å putte ham i et bur som et dyr, kledd i fengselsuniform, foran riksdekkende TV. Målet deres var å ødelegge mytene rundt ham og nedverdige ham. Det slo tilbake, og bidro bare til å menneskeliggjøre ham. De gjorde aldri den tabben igjen, gjennom opprettelsen av Sannhets- og forsoningskomiteen forsøker de heller å monsterforklare revolusjonen fra en hyklete «menneskerettslig» posisjon, mens de samtidig stiller seg bak statens overgrep, overgrep langt mer monstrøse enn den gjennomsnittlige fantasi er i stand til å fatte.

Kjernen i denne artikkelen ble skisset ut for lenge siden, og mange av de den retter seg mot har siden den gang korrigert sitt syn på den peruanske folkekrigen. Men løgnene fra senderologene og Sannhets- og forsoningskommisjonen er standhaftige og iltre parasitter, kontinuerlig søker de å kaste møkk på det som var den viktigste revolusjonen som har funnet sted siden Den store proletariske kulturrevolusjonen. Ironisk nok gjør mange av angrepene bruk av den samme gamle gambit-manøveren: Pek på overskridelsene, haus de opp og ut av alle proporsjoner, og fremstill det som om de utgjør normalen for hvordan revolusjonen forløper, mens man hele veien sørger for å holde borgerskapets terror trygt plassert utenfor eget synsfelt.

Det er i dag viktigere enn noen gang å forsvare folkekrigen i Peru, og å forsvare ikke bare dens arv men også dens fortsettelse. De store tilbakeslagene som følge av arrestasjonen av kamerat Gonzalo og nedtrappingen av militær aktivitet i 1999, er ikke annet enn buktninger langs veien. Tross angrep fra alle kanter fortsetter PKP å kjempe for å rekonstituere seg på nytt. Folkekrigen fortsetter, og på ingen tidspunkt har det peruanske proletariatet vært uten dets fortropp. Mer enn noen gang gjelder det å forsvare og holde dets arv i hevd. Mens mange har falt fra, står de revolusjonære urokkelig igjen. Som historiske materialister forstår vi også at ingen revolusjon har funnet sted uten disse buktningene på veien: Oktoberrevolusjonen møtte mange slike, og mange av de begynnende væpnede kampene i Kina ble knust, kun for at de revolusjonære skulle kjempe seg videre mot seier og atter igjen tilbakeslag. Men vi kan ikke gi etter for egen kynisme og begynne å tenke kortsiktig. Det ville innebære at vi glemmer selve grunnlaget for vår historie.

We publish the English version of the statement of the Communist Party of Peru (Reorganization Committee of the CPP) published in Nuevo Peru blog.

Also we publish images of an action that took place in Berlin in this occasion.

On November 28 there was a new mobilization of students in several cities of the country. The demand remains the same: more funding for public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The State's response also remains the same: to defend its education project as a business of the big capital and imperialism, which can be summarized as follows: 1- Gradual de-financing of HEIs; 2- Compelling them to self-finance by raising enrollments, selling research to multinationals and large companies, selling cultural and sports services to the middle class, and ending the support programs for the popular classes within the University; 3- Promote educational credits, strengthening the Icetex with state resources and with loans from the World Bank, promoting that students and their families get indebted with educational loans to access higher education; 4- Increase the level of demand for admission to public universities, with expensive registration pins and more difficult admission tests, which leaves the poorest young people who come from public schools with almost no possibilities.

This state plan, applied little by little since the 90s, has led public universities to an unprecedented crisis: some have been applied bankruptcy law, others with buildings that are falling apart, dismantle the university welfare for popular sectors (residences, restaurants and free transportation), collection of registration pins with values ​​between $ 50,000 and $ 120,000, hiring professors per hour chair, minimum enrollment above $ 500,000 / semester in large amount of public HEI, collection of outputs field to students, among many other expressions that affect all students, but especially the poorest, because every year there are fewer guarantees for young people from working and peasant families can access and maintain public university. And while the poorest young people are gradually excluded from public universities, the middle class (strata 3, 4 and 5) are now the sector to which the public university is directed, since they are the children of families with the ability to pay tuition fees, currently between $ 1,000,000 and $ 3,000,000 per semester, and continue to rise.

Faced with this situation, the last governments (Santos and now Duque), continue to deepen the plan: not giving importance for public universities and greater budget for Icetex (educational credits), but now they created a new ingredient: 5- Strengthening of most prestigious private universities`  programs, through programs such as the former "Ser Pilo Paga" or the new "Generation E", which are scholarships for the best secondary school students, programs that annually only favor less than 2% of all high school graduates 1 , 2 and 3, and that are resources that in more than 80% end up in private ones. A great business in which private universities, banks and Icetex (which pays very high interest to the World Bank) win, and loses the working people, the children of workers, peasants and the middle classes, for whom, with the gradual dismantling of the public university, there is only one option: borrow to study.

This year, facing the alarm of several rectors of public universities, that the resources not even did reach enough to finish the year, unleashed an ample student and teacher movement that already completes more than a month, and in some cities more than two months, with weekly mobilizations and gradual increase in combativity and confrontations with the police. The past November 28 was not the exception, after the march, students of several universities decided to make a blockade of Barranquilla Street, outside the University of Antioquia (UdeA), to exert greater pressure on the State. Before the repression of the riot police, the students responded with stones, sticks, explosives and Molotov cocktails. Below are photographs of the march in the city of Medellín and the confrontation with the police in UdeA.

Translated from El Comunero

We forward the publication from Antifascist Action on the ocasion of the 25th of November.

Around the world, women used the 25th of November, the International Day against Violence against Women, to carry their justified protest and struggle to the streets, in Austria as well. Editors of the „Antifaschistische Aktion – Infoblatt“ took part in this year’s demonstration in Vienna. It was a very lively and loud demonstration, that attracted much attention. The day before, various actions and protests were set against a march of the clerical-fascist abortion opponents in Vienna.

Positively noticed was the internationalist demonstration, involving many migrants and slogans in different languages. This reflects the intensified oppression of the migrant women, who are particularly affected by the attacks of the ruling class. Especially strong was that the demonstration was attended by a strong contingent of red women, wearing a banner reading „Down with Patriarchy and Imperialism.“ These were noticeable by a good, combative mood and they contributed many slogans in the demonstration, which were then shouted by large parts of the demonstration. Slogans against the 12-hours working day and Patriarchy were demonstrating, that violence against women is not only individual, but is organized by the state and is directed against all women. Patriarchy is expressed thousands of times a day in the „own four walls“, but above all it is a harsh instrument of domination against the masses of women.

The main purpose of this demonstration was to demonstrate that, in addition to the legitimate and necessary protest against the attacks of the government and against the brutal individual violence against women, there must be an intensified struggle against patriarchy. An activist of the Red Women’s Committee Austria, said in a conversation to us: „Thousands of women have participated in the protests against the government in the last year, against the 12–hours working day, against the EU-Alliance, … that shows that many women already today don‘t believe the lies of „weak“ and „unpolitical“ women. The pioneers of the proletarian women’s movement in Austria have also shown this: they have consciously also made the lead of the revolutionary struggle. This year marks the 100 anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party Austria. Above all, we must learn from the experiences of the proletarian women’s movement and use the 25th of November to better understand proletarian feminism, the revolutionary line in the women’s movement, and put it into practice. For only the revolutionary struggle will drive forward the emancipation of women and support the creation of a Communist Party. „

At the demonstration a leaflet of the Red Women’s Committees Austria was distributed, which can be read as text already online: Down with Patriarchy! Get organized in the Red Women’s Committees!

The numerous slogans that contributed to a combative mood at the demonstration and were shouted together by large parts of the demonstration, also demonstrated the need to fight against the fragmentation of the women’s movement in Austria. The fight against patriarchy and imperialism, as well emphasized in the above-mentioned leaflet, means „not ‚cooking everyones own soup‘ regionally. Learning from each other’s experience and mistakes, bringing the struggles together and putting them on a common base, will make the development of a women’s movement in the service of the revolution even more powerful. „

Above all, the red women, who have already united on the basis of Proletarian Feminism, showed that there is already a force in the women’s movement in Austria that takes up this struggle. For all conscious feminists and red women, this demonstration should also be an occasion to take up even more the mobilization of women for the struggle not only for their daily demands, but also against patriarchy and imperialism. This year’s 25th of November should be a starting point to take on these tasks even more decisively in the upcoming actions and demonstrations and put them into practice.
We would like to record here two slogans, that have been distributed on the demo, for the upcoming struggles:

Against Imperialism and Patriarchy!

Proletarian Feminism for Communism!