Workers of the world, unite!
THE MILITARY THOUGHT OF THE PARTY
(CONCLUSIONS)
1. The Party's Military Thought, spanning more than five decades, has unfolded through the first and second restructurings of contemporary Peruvian society. That is, through the emergence and development of bureaucratic capitalism in the first instance, and its deepening in the second. Corresponding to both historical periods are two moments or milestones in the life of the Party: its Constitution and its Reconstitution.
In the Constitution of the Party, Military Thought is embodied as a Outline and Outline of the Path, while in the Reconstitution, it is embodied as its Definition and Foundations.
2. Throughout this entire process, the central and primary question is the question of the Party itself, that is, the construction of a New Type of Party, capable of leading the Armed Struggle.
3. The Party's Military Thought continues its development in the Third Moment of contemporary Peruvian society, which corresponds to the general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism. At this moment, the Party assumes leadership of the armed struggle, and Military Thought is expressed in the Application and Development of the Path.
4. The Application and Development of the Path has launched our armed struggle, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist—Guiding Thought—through the ILA (Institutional Armed Movement), primarily a peasant war, and is currently being carried out as a development of guerrilla warfare, which necessarily leads to the establishment of revolutionary support bases.
5. Through Guerrilla Warfare, we have established and deployed guerrilla zones, the immediate next step being the development of these zones to build revolutionary support bases.
6. The Second Campaign of Defeat prepares the conditions for the Great Leap Forward: Creating Bases. The future of our Armed Struggle depends on this.
MILITARY THOUGHT OF THE PARTY IN THE CONSTITUTION AND RECONSTITUTION
Outlining and Sketching the Path: Constitution
1895 – 1928
I. Struggle for the Constitution
1895 – 1945. First Moment of Contemporary Peruvian Society.
The founding of the PCP by José Carlos Mariátegui (JCM). It has historical significance, changing the terms of the political struggle in the country. It is the beginning of the National Democratic Revolution. It is of great importance. The working class organizes itself into a Party to seize power. Military Thought in six points: Party, Revolutionary Violence, Path, Protracted War, Building the Armed Forces, Strategy and Tactics.
Need to create the Party. The construction of the Party led to ten years of hard struggle for JCM, developing an internal fight against the anarchist positions of González Prada, and reactionary positions such as those of APRA, which denied the need to create the Party. The working-class comrades organize themselves in their Party, the highest form of organization. JCM clearly understood that without a Party there could be no revolution. JCM's position is clear.
He adheres to Revolutionary Violence and has written theses on the subject from 1921, 1923, 1925, and 1927. “There is no measured, balanced, gentle, serene, or placid revolution. Every revolution has its horrors.” “If the Revolution demands violence, authority, and discipline, I accept it wholeheartedly, with all its horrors, without cowardly reservations.”
He clearly understood revolutionary violence.
Mexican Review of 1923: “The indigenous rights movement is the task of Socialism.” “The strength of the Revolution has always resided in the alliance of agrarian and labor movements; that is, the strength of the working and peasant masses.” “Socialist doctrine is the only one that can give a modern, constructive meaning to the indigenous cause, which, situated on a true social and economic terrain and elevated to the level of a creative and realistic policy, relies for the realization of this undertaking on the will and discipline of a class that is making its appearance today in our historical process: the proletariat” (“The Revolution Will Come Down from the Andes,” 1927).
Gamonalism as the basis of the State. The need to liquidate feudalism.
When analyzing the Mexican Revolution, JCM posits the need for a people's war, understanding that it was a country with a peasant majority and that our situation was not the same as that of capitalist countries. In Latin America, a different path had to be developed. JCM tells us that, regarding the Chinese Resolution and the Eastern countries, the Second International did not see the need to find its own path for underdeveloped countries.
MILITARY THOUGHT OF THE PARTY IN THE CONSTITUTION AND RECONSTITUTION
Outlining and Sketching the Path: Constitution
1895 – 1928
I. Struggle for the Constitution
1895 – 1945. First Moment of Contemporary Peruvian Society.
The founding of the PCP by José Carlos Mariátegui. It has historical significance, changing the terms of the political struggle in the country. It is the beginning of the National Democratic Revolution. It is of great importance. The working class organizes itself into a Party to seize power. Military Thought in six points: Party, Revolutionary Violence, Path, Protracted War, Building the Armed Forces, Strategy and Tactics.
Need to create the Party. The construction of the Party led to ten years of hard struggle for JCM, developing an internal fight against the anarchist positions of González Prada, and reactionary positions such as those of APRA, which denied the need to create the Party. The working-class comrades organize themselves in their Party, the highest form of organization. JCM clearly understood that without a Party there could be no revolution. JCM's position is clear.
He adheres to Revolutionary Violence and has written theses on the subject from 1921, 1923, 1925, and 1927. “There is no measured, balanced, gentle, serene, or placid revolution. Every revolution has its horrors.” “If the Revolution demands violence, authority, and discipline, I accept it wholeheartedly, with all its horrors, without cowardly reservations.”
He clearly understood revolutionary violence.
Mexican Review of 1923: “The indigenous rights movement is the task of Socialism.” “The strength of the Revolution has always resided in the alliance of agrarian and labor movements; that is, the strength of the working and peasant masses.” “Socialist doctrine is the only one that can give a modern, constructive meaning to the indigenous cause, which, situated on a true social and economic terrain and elevated to the level of a creative and realistic policy, relies for the realization of this undertaking on the will and discipline of a class that is making its appearance today in our historical process: the proletariat” (“The Revolution Will Come Down from the Andes,” 1927).
Gamonalism as the basis of the State. The need to liquidate feudalism.
When analyzing the Mexican Revolution, JCM posits the need for a people's war, understanding that it was a country with a peasant majority and that our situation was not the same as that of capitalist countries. In Latin America, a different path had to be developed. JCM tells us that, regarding the Chinese Resolution and the Eastern countries, the Second International did not see the need to find its own path for underdeveloped countries.
JCM. “The Revolution is the Party's task,” understanding that only the Party can lead. The peasantry would always fail without the leadership of the proletariat, which is the only one capable of carrying out the tasks of the national democratic Revolution.
Those of the reactionary position said that the indigenous problem is an educational problem. JCM argues that the Revolution will descend from the Andes wearing sandals Ojotas).
1927. Gamonalismo (Landlordism). The problem is to liquidate feudalism, given the semi-feudal character of society, which was the path for underdeveloped countries.
“The term gamonalismo does not designate only a social and economic category: that of large landowners and agrarian proprietors; it designates an entire phenomenon. Gamonalismo is not only represented by the gamonales themselves; it comprises a long hierarchy of officials, intermediaries, and agents.”
JCM aligns the Party with the Third International, stating that it adheres to Marxism-Leninism. We are part of the International Communist Movement (ICM) and practice proletarian internationalism. Point 8 of the PCP Program: “Marxism-Leninismo is the revolutionary method of the stage of imperialism and monopolies.” Point 9: “The PCP is the vanguard of the proletariat. The political force that assumes the task of its orientation and leadership in the struggle for the realization of its class ideals.”
Power is seized through violence and maintained through dictatorship. It recognizes the relationship between revolutionary violence and the dictatorship of the proletariat; it is not only a matter of seizing power, but of maintaining and implementing it as a dictatorship of the proletariat.
C. “Once the Landlordism (latifundist) feudal system is overthrown, urban capital will lack the strength to resist the growing working class.”
It raises the two problems to be solved: the national question and the land question. Stages of the Revolution: Republic of New Democracy, which is led by the proletariat through the Workers' Party. The bourgeoisie can no longer lead because it has historically become obsolete, and leadership now belongs to the working class, which is the only class capable of leading.
“The emancipation of the country's economy is possible only through the action of the proletarian masses, in solidarity with the global anti-imperialist struggle. Only proletarian action can first stimulate and then carry out the tasks of organizing and defending the socialist order.”
P.W.: He presents us with the idea of total war; he analyzes the different revolutions and the movement of leaders who call themselves revolutionaries. Not just any movement can be called revolutionary, but only those that advocate social, economic, and political goals, those that destroy the economic foundations of the State; that is to say, also the relations of production.
JCM, analyzing the Atusparia movement, says that it failed because “when the revolt aspired to transform itself into a revolution, it felt powerless due to a lack of weapons, a program, and a doctrine.” He already saw the problem of the three instruments (1930)
JCM analyzes the phenomenon of imperialism as an international force that exerts oppression and exploitation in underdeveloped countries. In a document discussing Eastern countries, he states that capitalism thrives at the expense of European workers, colonists, slaves, and indigenous peoples of the East—of underdeveloped countries. Imperialism generates its social support, which JCM calls the “merchant bourgeoisie,” and which develops bureaucratic capitalism.
He conceives of Marxist-Leninism as a development of the First International and the need to apply it to the concrete reality of underdeveloped countries, thus establishing the path forward. JCM died two years after founding the PCP (Peruvian Communist Party); this is his historical limitation.
11. Questioning and Negation of the Red Line
Struggle for Mariátegui's Path and Revolutionary Violence.
1930.
This year Mariátegui dies without having been able to solidify a New Type of Party that embodies the General Political Line he established; They usurp the Party's leadership, question its line, and focus everything on the CGTP (General Confederation of Peruvian Workers) and its demands, neglecting the Party and the problem of power. This is what right-wing opportunism does, always aiming to seize control, change the line, and change the Party's image, abandoning the path.
There is an abandonment of Revolutionary Violence and the Path, insofar as they only talk about revolutionary violence but don't put it into practice, leading them to abandon it.
By abandoning the path, they invoke insurrection, which is not the path of our Party. Revisionism has usurped the Party and changes the program and the line, claiming to follow the path of Russia, but in essence, what they sought were elections, aligning themselves with the big bourgeoisie.
Ravínez and Jorge del Prado, in the struggle of the Malpaso workers, stated: "Only once every five hundred years does the opportunity to stage an insurrection arise." Speaking of insurrection, of organizing soviets; leftist positions that, at heart, are right-wing, are a misunderstanding of the path, in the Party's bases, JCM's article "The Revolution will come down from the Andes with flip-flops" is anonymously disseminated, forcing debate and development of the two-line struggle, and for the red line to be expressed.
In 1939, they supported Manuel Prado's candidacy, calling him the "Peruvian Stalin," thus aligning themselves with the upper bourgeoisie. World War II began, and under the pretext of halting the spread of fascism, they called for "uniting the entire nation" in a national front to support Prado, as, according to revisionism, he represented the nation's interests. This electoral tactic was sanctioned at the First National Congress in 1942, further solidifying their alignment with the big bourgeoisie and thus abandoning the established path. They had participated in elections since 1931; 1939, 1945. They declared war on Germany. The working class in our country emerged through struggle and underwent a process until it became a Party and came of age.
Definition and foundations of the path; Reconstitution.
New impetus for the development of the Party and the beginning of the struggle against revisionism.
1945.
I. Browderist Electoralism
Electoral party; they changed the party's name to "Socialist Vanguard." Browderism was counter-revolutionary; they proposed criteria for organizing a party as an organizational machine, not a combat force for seizing power, but rather mired in electoralism.
Electoral opportunism. Bourgeois pacifism; they renounced violence, centered on parliamentary cretinism.
They abandoned the path, further developing capitulationism, changing the character of the party into a revisionist party; in essence, they capitulated to reaction.
They advocated a national defense front, which was an electoral front, abandoning the party. In the post-war period, they continued to follow the lead of the big bourgeoisie. They brought Bustamante to power under the pretext of continuing to block fascism, "in the face of the imminent danger of fascism," calling for the unity of the entire nation.
II. Reactivation of the Party
1950
In the mid-1950s, the struggle to reactivate the Party, which had been sidelined, began.
The abandonment of revolutionary violence continued.
Capitulation persisted, but the local councils fought for the Party and the path forward; a two-line struggle developed. Local councils sent a document to the Party demanding a return to Khrushchev's theses.
Electoral tactics continued.
III. Khrushchev's Revisionism and the Struggle over Revolutionary Violence.
Two Paths.
1960
The Party remained focused on elections; however, after thirty years, in the 1960s, the talk of revolutionary violence and armed struggle resurfaced. A debate ensued regarding which of the two paths was best: the peaceful, electoral path, or the violent one. It was the revisionists who spoke of two paths, but there were no such paths; there was only one, the violent path, which today is embodied in armed struggle.
The comrades who were striving along this path began the fight against revisionism. A great advance was made. Pronouncements were issued by the various Party apparatuses; the Chinese Revolution and Maoism, as well as the Cuban Revolution, also played a strategic role here. Internationally, the great debate between Marxism and revisionism unfolded, driven by Chairman Mao Zedong with the CCP Charter, which presented 26 points to the CPSU, distancing itself from Khrushchev's revisionism (who assumed power after Stalin's death). This letter is taken up by Chairman Gonzalo, who leads the class faction, drawing on Maoism, which will later lead him to reunite with JCM. The struggle against revisionism develops violently.
The problem of the path of the Revolution begins to be discussed; the proposals are presented ambiguously, unclear, regarding the two possible routes.
The electoral tactical line continues, focusing on the FLN (National Liberation Front), whose candidates are Father Bolo and General Pando Egúsquiza. The Party agrees to vote for Belaúnde, whom they consider to be part of the national bourgeoisie (revisionists); however, the Arequipa Regional Committee, with Chairman Gonzalo at its head, speaks out against participating in the elections and exposes Belaúnde as belonging to the big bourgeoisie. We see the role of Chairman Gonzalo's faction, which, although a minority, makes its position clear.
Establishment of the General Political Line and Reconstitution of the Party
1963
I. The Path of Encircling the Cities from the Countryside (CCCC).
The path becomes clearer thanks to the faction's actions. Comrade Gonzalo, following in the footsteps of JCM, develops his actions in the Ayacucho Regional Committee and elaborates on the line. He tells us that the Party is for seizing power, not for elections. Based on Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory, drawing on Stalin and Chairman Mao, "without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary practice," the goal is the seizure of power and communism. He organizes the Ayacucho Regional Committee on M-L-M principles.
In 1967, Comrade Gonzalo drafts a document for the 20th Plenum with a report on the Three Instruments: the Party, burdened by revisionism; the United Front for electoral purposes; and the Armed Forces, operating with mercenary criteria. Although revisionism had already been expelled, revisionist conceptions and organizational forms persisted; the document proposed modifications to restructure the party apparatus. It was not approved because the Party imploded beforehand. Patria Roja was expelled, along with entire Regional Committees, anarchists, and amautas, due to Paredes's erroneous, right-wing handling of the struggle by liquidationism.
In 1968, the need to reconstitute the Party was raised for the first time because, burdened by these revisionist elements, it could not fulfill the task of leading the Revolution to seize power. Internationally, the Party's position within the International Communist Movement was one of adherence to Maoism, and it was one of the first parties to break with Russia.
1963. The struggle against revisionism led to the expulsion of Jorge del Prado and his associates. In January 1964, at the Fourth National Conference, spurred by the international debate between revisionism and Marxism, and led by Chairman Mao against Khrushchev, the CCP's 25-Point Charter to the CPSU was debated and studied. A break with revisionism was made, and a rapprochement with Maoism took place.
Opposition to focusing on elections was directed against voting for Belaúnde and the FLN, which was seen as opportunistic.
Comrade Gonzalo put forward basic theses, returning to the origins of the Party. Within the Party, he refocused on the problem of the Revolution, emphasizing that our Revolution was peasant-led, following the path of encircling the cities from the countryside.
From the beginning of the Reconstitution, he clearly outlined the path. Our focus is the countryside, the main point of work.
- 1968 marked the beginning of agrarian policy: "Land for those who work it," which included confiscation. That the war is protracted, with a winding path, marked by ups and downs.
1969. He developed a Research Plan for the countryside, aiming to understand it in relation to the Armed Struggle and the people's war. He conducted a political, economic, historical, military, geographical, and other analyses.
Report (Initial). He described the character of the Ayacucho Zone, the main zone, recognizing its strategic importance in relation to the armed struggle. This initial plan was updated in 1976. He established military work zones for the Party, countering the opportunistic positions that opposed them.
He stated that, in essence, our Revolution is peasant-based and prepares for total war.
Comrade Gonzalo established special work in the countryside, linking it to military work.
Organizations that fulfill three tasks: political, logistical, and peasant; with three functions: to fight, to build the Party in its early stages, and to organize for the armed struggle. He advocates for self-sufficiency, contrasting it with positions that went so far as to rely on canned goods—mercenary positions. Comrade Gonzalo: “We are sustained and supported by the masses; we are not mercenaries.”
1965. The Second National Conference takes place, where the main theme is the construction of the armed forces, and it is determined that Belaúnde does not belong to the national bourgeoisie. He analyzes the Vietnamese guerrilla movement, which relies primarily on the peasantry, following the strategy of encircling cities from the countryside. He explains that it is a small nation that dares to fight against a superpower and defeats it.
1967. A Strategic Plan is established for the war, outlining measures for the construction of the three instruments: relocation of the leadership to the countryside; the countryside being the main theater of the war.
Comrade Gonzalo is consistent with his positions; it is through these positions that he conceives the path forward and imposes it amidst the struggle between two lines; even though at that time the faction was in a defensive phase, because it did not have a majority. Comrade Gonzalo and the faction wage a hard struggle against revisionist and opportunist positions.
II. Reconstitution of the Party for People's War
The Sixth National Conference of the Party sanctions the Reconstitution of the Party for People's War and the Basis of Party Unity. General Political Line. Thus providing the Party with an ideological-political foundation it lacked, and it is agreed to "maintain the banners against the capitulationist positions that question the Party." The bureaucratic leadership of the Party is antediluvian. Fight for the Party's survival, never lower the banners. Comrade Gonzalo relies on the masses, on the grassroots, organizing Party work. He breaks the encirclement and promotes work among the masses in both rural and urban areas, establishing the relationship between grassroots = masses = power. The Party leads the masses to seize power.
1973. Organization of the Party at the national level. Expansion of organizational work. Work in Lima.
Events include: Sixth National Conference 1968, Second Plenum January 1970, Third Plenum 1971, Fourth Plenum 1973, Fifth Plenum 1975, Sixth Plenum 1976.
Power is the central issue, and revolutionary violence has a concrete expression: armed struggle, people's war, and the Party exists to seize power.
He applies and develops Maoism in practice.
Fulfillment of the strategy of encircling the cities from the countryside; The main task is peasant labor, without which there can be no revolution; labor guided by the Marxist-Leninist-Massive (MLM) and the People's Party (PG), directed by the Party, without which there can be neither Armed Forces nor People's War.
1969. Chairman Gonzalo develops the Agrarian Program and presents us with two paths regarding the land problem and the destruction of feudalism: the landowning path of expropriation and the peasant path of confiscation, which leads us to defend it with arms, to armed struggle. The landowning path perpetuates feudalism; the peasant path destroys feudalism.
Peasant events: from the Provincial Federation of Peasants of Ayacucho; there, the agrarian problem was raised and the document "Allpa" was produced. It analyzes the Agrarian Law and exposes its reactionary character and how it develops the landowning path ("People's Voice"). Three Steps: Who grants it? Who implements it? Confiscation or expropriation.
The construction of the Armed Forces, led by the Party and based primarily on the peasantry. There can be no national democratic revolution, nor a new state, without an army to support it and without the peasants building it with their own hands, led by the Party. Our People's War is peasant-led, or it is nothing. These are criteria based on Marxism-Leninism, which we are now developing to a higher level. Today we are engaged in Agrarian War.
Everything is geared towards the people's war, the work of the Party, the work of the masses, etc.: everything is geared towards organizing the people's war. Chairman Gonzalo has given us the Strategic Construction Plan of the Regional Committee of the Communist Youth of the North (JCM) 1972. It defines the zones of military work and the main point: Ongoy (between Andahuaylas and Ayacucho).
It establishes the tactics. First Plenum and Conference. It analyzes the regime, characterizing it as fascist, and identifies its internal contradictions. It analyzes the Agrarian Law, the Industrial Law, and the Education Law.
III. Completing the Reconstitution and Laying the Foundations
It proposes the construction of the party in relation to the armed struggle.
The National Construction Plan is established, with the VI and VII Construction Plenums (1976 and 1977). The “First Displacement” takes place.
Then, the plan proposes completing the Reconstitution and laying the foundations (1976 and 1978), VIII Plenum. Following this, the General Reorganization of the Party (1978 and 1979), IX Plenum, is carried out in relation to the armed struggle.
At the VIII Plenum, the Party completed its Reconstitution. The key to Reconstitution is to transform the party, burdened by revisionism, into a New Type of Party, prepared for the struggle to seize power; endowed with a General Political Line and the structures to implement it. The General Political Line is determined and put into practice. VII P. of C., 17 points.
The struggle between two lines against right-wing positions on the peasant question, which later becomes structured as a right-wing opportunist line.
1977. First National Conference of the Communist Party. The development of urban construction in relation to the countryside and its complementary role is considered.
The International Liberation Army (ILA) is presented to us as a germinal idea to be developed, starting in September 1977.
At the International Communist Movement (ICM), Chairman Gonzalo denounces Deng Xiaoping's counter-revolutionary coup in China. Our Party is the only one to denounce this revisionist action and takes a clear position in favor of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, following the red line.
The Eighth Plenum presents us with a Scheme for armed struggle:
1. International Situation
2. National Situation
3. Strategic Location of Peru in Latin America
4. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
5. People's War: Rural-Urban Management
The leadership is proposed, and the bases for encircling the cities from the countryside are defined.
It shows us that the peasant path leads to the Red Republic, necessarily to the People's Republic of New Democracy. The landowning path is the one that drives the reactionary regime to perpetuate feudalism. It develops the rural problem in terms of initiating armed struggle (ILA).
Gamonalismo persists, it concludes after analyzing the trajectory of the Peruvian state and the need to make the Revolution.
The landowning-bourgeois state presents us with its two classes: the big bourgeoisie and the feudal landowners; and its two factions: the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the comprador bourgeoisie. They propose to associate and not associate, and one faction or the other achieves hegemony, but the class character of the state remains unchanged.
The New State is the product of destroying the landowning-bourgeois state through revolutionary violence.
It centers the countryside for developing the main form of struggle (armed struggle) and the main form of organization (the army).
With the implementation of the National Construction Plan, construction begins at the national level, since previously it was concentrated in the Metropolitan Committee and the Ayacucho Regional Committee. The construction of these three interrelated instruments is proposed simultaneously. The Party is in charge of the Armed Forces and the United Front.
S and T. Application of tactics at the international and national levels, with the aim of initiating the revolution.
From the outset, the CCCC (encircle the cities from the countryside) and the birth of the people's democratic revolution are implicit. JCM gives us the program and the line. Develop Military Thought, whose basic principle is to encircle the cities from the countryside.
Then he fights against revisionism and to reactivate the Party; in '64 he is expelled. With ILA , the spell of more than fifty years of dark revisionist action is broken. Hence the great importance of ILA; it is the struggle of Chairman Gonzalo, of the Red faction, to reconstitute the Party.
Chairman Gonzalo takes, applies, and develops Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality.