Proletarians of all countries, unite!
COURSE AND SUMMING-UP OF THE CONSTRUCTION IN THE PARTY. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE LESSONS
FROM CHAIRMAN GONZALO’S REPORT
SECOND PLENUM OF THE
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE
COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU
EXTRACT OF THE PREPARATORY SESSION OF THE SECOND PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE1
[Prepared for the internet by the Peru People’s Movement on the occasion of the 34th Anniversary of Chairman Gonzalo’s Speech of September 24, 1992,2 and the 98th Anniversary of the Founding of the PCP,3 October 7, 1928]
COURSE AND SUMMING-UP OF THE CONSTRUCTION IN THE PARTY. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE LESSONS
As in the history of the development of our Party, particularly its reconstitution, we have always followed a process of ideological political construction as the basis, underpinning, and principal question, and, in parallel, organizational construction, all of this in the midst of the class struggle and the two-line struggle. As is specified later, we conceive this entire construction as achieved, concretized by and for the People’s War. In this way, the principle of construction that we have followed and will continue to have as a guide was concretized within the Party.
Emphasize how construction, speaking specifically of construction as organization, is preceded by an ideological political basis, and how it has been carried out in intense struggle; only thus have we generated an ideological political leap in order to develop construction at a higher level.
We must also keep in mind — and this is the experience of the Party — that what came before, the old, tends to reestablish itself, to express itself, and to persist in the midst of the new. On the other hand, all our construction work has always been guided by the fact that the Party has as its task the conquest of Power, and this takes on a greater dimension in the last ten years through the development of the People’s War, which is increasingly giving shape to and developing the New Power. Linked to this, the conquest of Power must likewise lead us to the dictatorship of the proletariat; without this, our condition as communists would not be clearly concretized.
Our entire process of construction has taken place and continues to take place in struggle against contemporary revisionism. We should now specify that the central target of attack, the great black and sinister head, is Gorbachev; the Political Bureau, the Central Committee, should define this. All this struggle against revisionism at the national and international levels is for the defense of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is the question of upholding, defending, and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, and linked to this is the question of Gonzalo Thought. We must keep these things in mind and always reaffirm ourselves in the fact that, in the question of construction, as in the entire revolution, everything is decided by the just and correct ideological line. This implies that our construction work, like all Party work, is always based on the ideology of the proletariat and leads us to proletarian internationalism.
The ideology shows its splendid validity. See and comprehend that our construction work always has a solid foundation and that this ideological political work and the specific treatment of construction are indispensable, so that we can then define it, concretize it, and give shape to it in reality. A simple review of the documents will allow us to comprehend that today we have a more developed basis, with more complex work, that the conditions are given, and that this is the moment to define an Outline of a Strategic Plan of Construction and, on that basis, to work on it and apply it as a pilot plan. Thus practice will show what must be corrected, and it can then be definitively sanctioned, so that we have to concretize, as fully as possible and with all possible tenacity and effort, the construction of the conquest of power, since this is an indispensable question for conquering Power in the entire country.
In synthesis: That slogan of “Build the conquest of Power!” is the problem of generating, developing, and forging the entire organic apparatus necessary so that, being superior to that of the reaction, it is equal to the level of the political leadership that will lead us to the conquest of Power in the entire country. Comrade Stalin said, following Lenin: first, to raise the organic to the level of political leadership; and the other is the selection of leaders in order to develop this entire system and thus handle, with just and correct leadership, the great task of conquering Power in the entire country.
PROCESS THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE IN THE PARTY
From the initiations of the red fraction in the 1960s, the documents are very expressive. If we look at Red Flag4 No. 1, even at the cover, there are the hammer and sickle; it is for May 1st, and very clear positions are put forward. We can see this in the basic Party documents of the fraction. On page 2, on social classes, we start from a quotation from Marx in order to develop the question of social classes. The quotation refers to the fact that there is a true revolution, which is the communist revolution; that is in Red Flag No. 1, Ayacucho, 1963. This is how the fraction begins to define our ideological political conception. On page 4, in the article Peasants, there is a quotation from Lenin addressed to the rural poor, perfect for the peasants of today. In 1963, when the peasant movement was the order of the day and the highest simultaneous peasant movement of this century was recorded, unlike the present situation, when the situation was such that everyone was posing how an agrarian law should be enacted, the fraction puts forward in that article that the revolution will be from the countryside to the city; this is very important. A clear position on road, peasantry, worker-peasant alliance, against Belaúnde’s plan of “picks and bullets.” On page 5 it speaks to us of revolution, of Marx’s thesis on the clash between the productive forces and the relations of exploitation, a quotation found in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.5
Also on revolutionary situation, starting from Lenin. Since the 1960s, our Party has been clear about what a revolutionary situation is. We have always based ourselves on world experience, on what Marxism-Leninism taught, as it was called at that time. It enters into the problem of what the road is in Peru, since the so-called roads were debated within the Party. Our position was very clear: the only route is revolutionary violence and revolution from the countryside to the city. There is a very important quotation from Marx there on insurrection: that one does not play with it and that it must be carried through to the end. We still did not know the texts of Chairman Mao; the quotations from Marx are entirely valid. We put forward our obligation to serve the world revolution, defending Marxism and supporting the great struggles that were taking place at that time. We also said that we could not dream of a rapid triumph of the revolution and that the dictatorship of the proletariat is the necessary road of the proletarian revolution.
These are very expressive things. Without ideological political fundamentals, one cannot open the road. It is decisive. That Chairman Mao raised this to a very high level, we came to comprehend later. April 1964, Red Flag No. 4. It puts forward a greeting to the proletariat for May 1st and that it leads based on Marxism-Leninism, based on its ideology. It also speaks of unions of every type, class-based unions, the iron unity of the proletariat and peasants around the worker-peasant alliance, and uniting all the masses; this is how the revolution is made. Where do they get the idea that we are sectarian, that we are against the unions? The problem is that we want authentic unions. We want to turn those that exist into authentic unions, because we cannot leave them in the hands of traitors: “reconstitution of a true class-based and proletarian national center, without traitors or capitulators.” That is what we want. Authentic unions are being forged; time will tell. Decades and centuries are condensed into days, and many things fly into the air, while what is class-based and proletarian remains. What we put forward about undermining them from below is so that this may occur in the great condensation, and this does not mean that we are going to wait long years for it to happen. We combat that of a worker-peasant-student alliance; things cannot simply be changed around. It calls for becoming conscious of the historical role of the class.
There is also an article on the character of the government of Belaúnde in Red Flag No. 6. We unmasked its class character; we said that it could not represent the exploited classes. This was one year into his government; it does not say that it was a government of the national bourgeoisie. The problem was the struggle between the Ayacucho Departmental organization and the national leadership, which maintained that Belaúnde represented the national bourgeoisie. There was a hard struggle over the article Peasants and over Belaúnde, because it put forward land invasions and unmasked him. This is from August 1964. Revisionism had been expelled in January 1964, but the document of the Fourth National Conference says that the Belaúnde government was one of the national bourgeoisie and that unity and struggle should be practiced with it; the same revisionist position continued within the Party.
Editorial. Page 12. It speaks on the Party, on the task it has to fulfill: to conquer Power and lead the people to the socialist revolution. That was what “Through revolution to socialism” meant, because there were positions maintaining that one could evolve toward it; we did not think that way.
These documents are very important. They show us how the faction begins to unfold its work. On that basis, we swept away revisionism in Ayacucho; not even a trace of them remained. That is clear and concrete: we made them disappear. A weapon of combat was the famous Chinese Letter of June 14, 1963,6 a happy coincidence with the anniversary of Mariátegui’s birth.
It shows us that we have advanced on the basis of ideological-political principles, in two-line struggle against revisionism, class struggle, and the main basis on which it is built. It also shows us that forming a party, developing it, is not a simple matter; that a handful is enough to assume the construction of a Party so that it develops and grows, and the problem is not how long one is going to last. Mariátegui taught us to fulfill our day’s work, nothing more.
Year 1965. Page 14, Of the Party, Its Principles and Objectives. In the first article of the new Statute that was made after we broke with revisionism and held the Fifth National Conference, September 1965. The person speaking was entrusted7 with drafting the Statutes. There it is stated that the Communist Party of Peru is the party of the working class, its organized vanguard. Ideological basis: Marxism-Leninism. Violent revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat. War to the death against contemporary revisionism in defense of Marxism and the national and international revolution. On pages 16 to 20, a very important article because we say that Mariátegui’s line should never have been abandoned and that it had to be developed.
In Red Flag No. 21 there is an article, Túpac Amaru: Revolutionary People’s Hero. Much has been trafficked with him; they charge us with not starting from history. The proof is here: we analyzed him and drew lessons from the greatest social movement in America up to today, as we say there. We have analyzed Túpac Amaru again at the Eighth Plenum and have drawn military lessons. What lessons does the MRTA8 draw?
On page 24, July 28, Last Day of Despotism and First of the Same, Red Flag, July 1966. It says that nothing changed, the same exploiting class continued. Also there is democratic revolution led by the Communist Party and people’s war. Page 29, Chairman Mao, Thinking and Acting Man. Page 29, Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and concrete lessons are drawn. Page 31, The PCP and Secret Work.
There is no Communist Party without secret work. That is very clear in Red Flag No. 28, January 1967. I wrote that; I was Secretary of Education and Organization of the Central Committee.9 That has a foundation. The Party is secret because we have to conquer Power and overthrow them; the PCP draws upon itself the implacable hatred of the oppressors, who seek to destroy it by all possible means, mainly by mobilizing the repressive bureaucratic apparatus of the State. No matter that the reactionaries in one period use the tactic of the soft hand and in another the hard hand. These changes are nothing more than different methods for a same end: to frustrate the revolution by annihilating the Party of the proletariat, the only Party capable of carrying the revolution through to the end. That is the reason why the Party has to be secret. When we have seen the problem of the falls, we said that it is forgotten, that the ideological political root is not seen, what the Party is for: it develops by fulfilling secret and open work; these are not new problems. Twenty-three years later we continue putting forward the same thing, but there are comrades who do not understand it this way. Then, how are we to build the conquest of Power? Is it not going to be in fiercer struggle?
Page 35, Let Us Put an End with Counter-Revolutionary Sanctification. It refers to which day we should celebrate, the birth or the death of Mariátegui. Every year, on the day of his death, the revisionists make pilgrimages. According to Marxism, the day of birth of leaders is celebrated.
Page 31, “Develop the Marxist-Leninist Thought of Our Founder and Shining Guide.” It vindicates Mariátegui.
We have a long process of how we initiated and have gone on developing, how that first struggle combating revisionism, defending Marxism, and organizing the Ayacucho Regional Committee shows the ideological-political and organic link.
All that is going to lead to a situation. In September 1967, measures are put forward to develop construction. That is in the supplement of the documents of the faction. It was put forward in a Session of the Enlarged Political Commission and was approved because nothing else was presented. Fundamental measures that required sweeping away remnants of revisionism; we posed to ourselves how to do open work, trade union work, United Front, because it is open, and armed force, since at the last hour the Army is a form of front with arms in hand. In the case of the Party: organic forms and forms of struggle. Without a good method of leadership one cannot work well, without democratic centralism, without strategic centralization and decentralization of functions. What is centralized are the policies and what are decentralized are the functions. Style of work.
It says: “Develop struggle on all planes to adjust the organic to the political.” The Party has to be prepared when the moment arrives, because when it presents itself it is too late to prepare; underlined is: “taking up arms in the next revolutionary rise of the masses.” Also underlined are: “lead the struggle against revisionism, the struggle, which is the opportunism that threatens to corrode our ranks.” “Put the center of the Party’s work in the countryside in order to deepen the peasant struggles.” “Develop the armed force, principal task of the Party.” It is posed how to carry this forward.
The National Leadership must move to the countryside. For the moment, partial relocation is possible. Regional leaders must go to the countryside. Organically apply a new system of organization, having the committees of the highlands as principal. Systematic education campaign. The formation of cadres is decisive. The ideological basis of the campaign is of Comrade Mao Tsetung’s Thought. Redistribution of Party cadres. Central Committee devoted to work 24 hours a day. Enlargement of the Political Commission. Military Commission; comrades dedicated fundamentally to the military problem. Regional leadership on the basis of members of the National Leadership, selected by the National Leadership. Open work, secret work, politically and militarily. Purge the militancy through work. Political Commissar. Zones of military work. The press, agitation and propaganda have capital importance; the principal thing is drafting and control because the line is there; the principal thing is not the problem of printing, printing is necessary. Fill gaps in front and trade union work. Peasant work, summing-up and center of our attention.
Norms on the Communist Youth; the Party leads it. All the foregoing demands a bold and firm promotion of cadres.
Economically, base itself on its own efforts. Keep in mind that the Party will Bolshevize itself and will create the powerful organisms of the revolution only through armed struggle. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”10 Internal struggle, deepen it through the Enlarged Political Commission. Security Commission.
What is of interest is to see how all this ideological political debate, laying ideological political bases, leads to organizational questions, to organizational construction. This generated that some members of the Central Committee were going to cease being so, since they were not full-time; the problem of distributing cadres, putting an end to personal contests, points to putting the armed force as the center; it is in function of preparing for war. This generated strong internal struggle; in the same supplement, on page 2, there is: “Develop the internal struggle thoroughly in revolutionary practice.” An entire ideological process leads to an organizational question, and that one poses internal struggle so that it may unfold.
At another moment: “Mariátegui Established the General Political Line of the Peruvian Revolution.” Then there was a political line. To arrive at this demanded internal struggle, one of the struggles most dirtily carried out by liquidationism through Paredes. It has to do with the question of Red Fatherland; it was not known how to handle it well. It led to the division of the Party because Paredes set up a plan to blow up the Party, handling in a treacherous manner a police blow. It generates the bursting apart of the Party because the political line was not definitely clear, nor ideological unity, because there was Castroism, Maoism was questioned, Mariátegui was denied, Paredes believed that he had created the line; because of that, to speak of Mariátegui was to oppose the Secretary.
It was demonstrated that there was a strong Committee, the Ayacucho Regional Committee, which stood up to him. The Party blew apart and we were reduced to one Committee, and in the country, dozens.
Declaration of the Second Plenum. Year 1970. When the Party blew apart, we were left few, a handful, so the question is not how many there are but whether you want to or not. In February 1970, the cadres assumed this declaration. In the Declaration, the character of the State and government that ruled was defined as fascist and corporative, and then how we had to proceed in order to develop, beginning by unmasking the liquidationist line. Reconstitute the Party on the Basis of Party Unity, which comes from 1967, as can be seen in those documents mentioned. Once again, an ideological political foundation, page 55.
Third Plenum of the Central Committee. Year 1973. On the Reconstitution. The turn takes place starting from the 1970s; we devoted ourselves to the defense of the existence of the Party; in 1973 that ended. Then it fell to us to expand it, develop it, and that required political bases. Analytical Outline page 125. Just as today we put forward political bases for the conquest of Power in the entire country, for the Strategic Plan of Construction. Political bases of reconstitution, thus we put forward to ourselves ideological-political fundamentals, economic fundamentals.
This also developed in internal struggle to establish those ideological-political bases, but we took a very important step: we defeated left liquidationism. And we entered the year 1976, and there one sees that the Party has a General Political Line; it was when we brought out “Let Us Take Up Mariátegui Again and Reconstitute His Party.” Red Flag No. 45 with the same title; there is a very important compilation of documents, because they were not known, besides the fact that there was the Fifth Plenum of the Central Committee: Propel the reconstitution! To that the documentation served, which served as underpinning for that impetus and which developed the Party’s political situation. Pay attention to its editorial because it explains the course to us. Not only take up Mariátegui again but also develop him from the beginning that was the criterion. See the steps that are taken and the function they fulfill; we have already struggled, we have an ideological-political document, then we enter into propelling reconstitution, once again a parallel between ideological, political, and organizational development.
Year 1975. People’s Voice No. 5. It is an important document on bureaucrat-capitalism. In the year 1976 Allpa, May 1969, report Program and Tasks, Document of the Convention of Peasants of Ayacucho is reprinted again. The peasant problem was key in the struggle against Paredes, who put forward expropriation while ours is to confiscate; that is put forward there. It was reprinted because left liquidationism, Montañéz, put forward doing peasant work with existing peasant organizations in Lima, demandism and criteria of the Tahuantinsuyo.
In May of 1969 the Party is going to put forward that a new agrarian law is coming and that the road of bureaucrat-capitalism was the only one it can follow. The law is of June 24, 1969. But what happened between May and June of 1969? Some time before, the Party had created the Front of Defense of the People of Ayacucho it was an agreement of the Secretariat of that time; the underpinning of the Front was the neighborhoods, and the Party held the Congress of neighborhoods and shantytowns in Ayacucho it had antecedents in the struggles in defense of the University’s funds. In Ayacucho we had forces, and that struggle for the University with the Neighborhood Federation was made use of. This Front led by the Party is going to unfold struggle against D.S.11 06 on the problem of education; and the center of that struggle has been Ayacucho; from there the Revolutionary Front of Secondary Students (FRES) has come forth. That movement was growing, and many young people commissioned to different provinces go out; they go to Huanta, Cangallo, Huancayo, Fajardo, Huancavelica, Apurímac. The struggle for education that the people supported and the Party led achieved a great triumph and dealt its first defeat to the fascist regime. Now they want to traffic in it; what the liquidationists sought was to undermine, to cause the struggle and the Party to abort. The source of that trafficking is Aracelio Castillo. Now where are the liquidationists? We are conquering Power.
Investigation Plan. July of 1977. Investigation of the peasant work. This is how we are advancing. There are already fundamentals of Mariátegui’s line, and with the situation developed, we have the basis of reconstitution in 1973, in 1975 propel the reconstitution, and in 1976 a process of arming,12 of developing work in Lima begins to take place. (Lima was the base that served to arm the Party at the national level, each thing in its place.) Because there was an ideological political base, there was already Mariátegui’s line, then development comes, it leads us to the problem of construction, it is expanded at the national level; it can be seen in the Sixth Plenary of the Central Committee.
Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee, December 1976. It was one of the most violent sessions we have had, but we advanced quite a bit. In the central report, in the third part of the outline of the Session, Report on Construction is presented, which had 6 parts: Marxism and construction; construction in the country and Mariátegui’s road; the problem of construction; generated organisms; problems of internal struggle and current tasks of construction. Co-report on guidelines for the Department of Organization; it deals with 9 points: The Leadership is always key. Among the agreements is that the Seventh Plenum be convened to deal with the National Plan of Construction, since it was not possible to advance further because of internal struggle.
After this process that begins with the Second Plenum, Third Plenum, documents of 1975, we devote ourselves to construction. It means that the base is the ideological political and simultaneously organizational construction, but there are moments when construction passes to being a basic substantive question in order to raise it to the level of political leadership.
SEVENTH PLENUM. April 1977: On the Seventh Plenum of the Central Committee of the PCP preliminary document to prepare the event. Political Bureau. It deals with Internal Struggle and Construction; in the Sixth Plenum internal struggle burst out, there was rightism in the countryside and city. Current Problems of Construction and Seventh Plenum of the Central Committee. Seventh Plenum must have as its directive ‘Construct in function of armed struggle.’ Content of the Plenum. It has said what the directive is, where the plenum must point, construction passes to being the substantive question at certain moments.
SEVENTH PLENUM. May 1977 Develop the construction, mainly of the Party, in function of armed struggle! Document of the Plenum. Part I. There in the preliminary report, in point 3, Road to Follow: National Plan of Construction in Function of Armed Struggle; in Part III, Develop the construction, mainly of the Party, in function of armed struggle, it is the central part; in that, point 5, Work Plan.
In this document we have transcribed annotations of the Standing Committee in the debate, and there various ideas are put forward. For example: “Does the work of construction have to wage struggle against revisionism?” or “The problem of construction is little dealt with; why?” They are very useful questions for leading an event well it is a good habit; it would be good to think that the Political Bureau13 apply this system, putting annotations to the side, questions, which points to highlight, develop; it serves to contribute more. This summary is very good, and summaries of each event must again be made. Syntheses and summaries see page 5 of the document, there it is put forward: 2 lines, a contrary line in organization is already beginning to be outlined, it will develop and later lines will appear on other fronts; at bottom it is being designed. Let another 1968 not occur. Split, the line is antagonistic, it must be dismantled. In the Sixth Plenum a contrary line appeared in the peasant problem; a contrary line in construction is already developing; as the fronts unfold, contrary lines will be designed and at the bottom of all this there is an underlying contrary political line and a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois conception. We are liquidating liquidationism in order to develop two-line struggle against revisionism as the principal danger. What is the situation today? Fourth Agreement: National Plan of Construction and Outline of the Plan of Construction.
In Part II. Marxism and construction and the 26 problems of construction. The National Plan of Construction, despite being approved, was a problem because it was necessary to pass to applying it; that can happen to us today.
Part III. National Plan of Construction. It has 16 points, ranging from ideology to the organizational goal to be concretized. Part IV. Work Plan, general and specific tasks, directive. The Seventh Plenum has several documents; they are materials that serve as a foundation; these problems of construction demand this type of documentation.
Red Flag No. 46. Page 19, On Party Building. It is a very important document; keep it in mind, it will serve us. Red Flag No. 47-48, Declaration of the Sixth and Seventh Plenums of the Central Committee. Develop the construction, mainly of the Party, in function of armed struggle. It is extremely important, it is key because it orients the struggle, defines situations, puts forward conditions on how to build, basing oneself on the masses, being guided by politics, and ends in the great framework of how to see ideology.
In 1977 clear bases are laid for how to develop construction. We are going to enter into the struggle, into how to develop construction. The Eighth Plenum is very important. Let us remember that a set of works on the Generated Organisms has been developed, and this work is quite linked to the work of the Metropolitan Committee; analyzing the documents of the Metropolitan Committee we can find good experience. Moreover there is an important event, the meeting of Generated Organisms at the national level there are documents on that too, it can be very useful to us for mass work and how to propel the plan of construction linked to masses. Remember the holding of the National School of Cadres around June of 1977; after the Seventh Plenum that School served to prepare a contingent that had to move throughout the country.
The Eighth Plenum is of much importance and gives us good lessons. It is important to emphasize the works that were being developed in political meetings a year before the event; here too problems of construction are dealt with; see also the work of the Departments of Propaganda and Front in relation to construction. The work of Propaganda is indispensable; in this case it fulfills an important role in the documentation, and the Front is also an instrument that we must develop; it is important to see what we emphasize about front work linked to the masses.
Meeting of the Enlarged Political Bureau. September of 1977. Here the Fifth Congress was prepared. What interests us to highlight as to construction is what is in the agreements of that meeting. In putting forward the draft plan of the Fifth Congress, in point II it is put forward: Culminate reconstitution and lay bases to develop armed struggle. Construct in function of armed struggle. The second is of greater importance: “Lay bases to develop armed struggle,” because the problem of culminating had to be specified in laying bases to develop armed struggle, because the Party is for the conquest of Power and, the Party being reconstituted, armed struggle had to be initiated; thus the relation is established: lay bases for a new period of developing armed struggle. A period has ended, another must begin: armed struggle. Hence it has transcendence.
Culminating and laying bases is going to sharpen the struggle tremendously because it implies making a qualitative leap of much importance. The comrades who moved after that School are brought together in November of 1977, and a summing-up on construction is carried forward. Here the principal thing is in point 2: Application of the National Plan of Construction; it puts forward that one must subject oneself to the National Plan of Construction, that construction is the problem of developing Party, United Front, and Armed Struggle. Directive for Regional Committees: Construct in function of INITIATING ARMED STRUGGLE and making a Base Area. In that sense the regional committees are conceived.
In the meeting of the Political Bureau it says to lay bases for initiating armed struggle, but here it already says to initiate, and that requires fixing a time, and this is going to sharpen the struggle more. Also important is how the question of zones is seen: to attend to the peculiarities of each zone, to see today too the differentiation of the zones. It says organized zones and then zones in organization, and on putting forward zones in organization, to differentiate zones about to initiate work, zones with initial work, from zones with previous work. Develop zones to support national construction; it means that the organized zones must be developed and that must be support for the entire national system. In the zones in organization, develop regional construction as a base of national construction. It is a good specification of how to differentiate and how each one must have specification in order to serve the National Plan of Construction. The directive for the cities is also put forward: Construct in function of supporting the Initiation of Armed Struggle and developing the accumulation of forces. Obviously this too is a motive of struggle, since some comrades thought that the cities were left on the margin. The Outline of countryside-city is not yet put forward, but it is important because it links the city; it puts forward supporting ILA14 and accumulation of forces because it has a final direction, which is insurrection. It puts forward peasant work as the base of construction. Countryside and city. The problem of the Outline is gestating.
The point concerning: National Plan of Construction and period of 5 years. What it does is establish a relation between the Plan of Construction and a period of 5 years, that that plan must be applied in a period of 5 years. This is November of 1977; it was initiated in 1980 within the established period.
Lesson: Construction - War - Period. Deep analysis and a foresighted plan that had a period within which the initiation had to be concretized. Today we enter another period; it also requires deep analysis and a foresighted plan for a period, for the Conquest of Power with much flexibility in function of the entry of imperialism, but that does not remove the fact that there has to be a period. When a period is put forward, one is prepared for when the situation comes about.
Something of the National School of Cadres. It is an important lesson because it is necessary to prepare cadres, a contingent, mainly cadres. Now, forging cadres too is part of three bases and three guides. Eight themes were unfolded. This School is for construction.
In On the United Front and Construction. The problem of the tactic is a key question of the line; it has to do with which classes are grouped together, and the debate was around what the tactic to be applied was, which classes to bring together. We concluded that the Party’s line, Mariátegui’s, defined a front line that implied uniting as far as the middle bourgeoisie or national bourgeoisie, but under the leadership of the proletariat, of the Party. This line was abandoned, a grave error that was corrected in the Fifth National Conference of 1965, where we reached the conclusion that the problem is to unite four classes based on the worker-peasant alliance; the petty bourgeoisie joins, and that is the constant trunk of the United Front in the revolution, while the national bourgeoisie is fluctuating until at a certain moment it joins the revolution.
Opportunist practice has supported the big bourgeoisie or a faction of it, putting forward that it was supporting the middle or national bourgeoisie; that is the question of the deviation in the problem of the front, a rightist deviation that has occurred from the 1930s onward. If one looks at the Fourth National Conference of 1962, it supports the faction of the big bourgeoisie that propels industrialization. It is the most important debate we had as to the Front. Tactics, key question of the line. It is the problem of the application of the line in a period of the revolution within the strategy of the revolution, within the character of the revolution, but any tactical variation that there may be cannot go against the character of the revolution, toward supporting the enemies of the revolution. Taking strategy and period into account, there may be variations in strategy and tactics if the character of the revolution changes within the democratic revolution; there the problem is to handle the contradictions within the big bourgeoisie, insofar as in the big bourgeoisie there are factions linked to imperialism that contend for hegemony. It is a problem that we would have to analyze were direct or indirect intervention by imperialism, by the United States, to be concretized. It is a key problem.
They put forward many questions such as “Would imperialism intervene?” At bottom is the question of not seeing the role of imperialism, as aggressor, that in the world there are oppressed nations and aggressor States that seek to divide up the world as booty; the problem of Cuba is exceptional. We put forward that imperialism always intervenes directly or indirectly; the facts are showing that if it cannot intervene directly because the conjuncture does not favor them, they resort to all means to crush the government that does not suit them. Thus we see that there are fundamental questions when the question of the united front is put forward. “Fluctuating national bourgeoisie?” “That is to say, does it place itself on the margin or in the middle?” It is not so; it does not place itself on the margin or in the middle; it means that it places itself at the tail of the reaction or it places itself at the side of the revolution. These things have to do with a long rightist frontist tradition in the country.
From the debates one arrives at which line is key for construction. Another question: “Is Mariátegui developed or not?” We were speaking of construction and an ideological political problem emerges; it is to strike politically against the development of the line. From there comes this conclusion: to oppose that the line is being developed is to oppose reconstitution. It was not only to remain at reconstitution, that it be culminated, but rather it is to oppose reconstitution itself because it has unfolded on the basis of a developed line.
In organizational questions, open work and secret work; the principal opposition to culminating reconstitution is to center on masses, on Generated Organisms. Secret work is principal; it is to oppose the construction of the Party. It points to negating the Party. Negation of the Party is to point to destroying it. In service of whom? Do they want another type of Party? If one does not want a Communist Party, it would have to be of another type.
The problem is the ideological line; when problems of construction are dealt with and one goes deeper, the line leaps out because it is the base. The theory of the leaders is also debated: do they question all of them? For what? To substitute them with positionism, revisionism. That is a right opportunist line in organization behind an opportunist political line; problems of demandism arise, problems linked to daily policies: “Is the state monopoly better than the non-state one?” The problem is that they are monopolies.
All this demonstrates to us that at the bottom of organic problems there are questions of ideological-political line. It leads us to two questions to resolve: characteristics of the contrary line in construction, the opportunist line in organization, and how to develop construction.
Meeting with the Department of Propaganda
Not paying attention to construction. It leaps out in propaganda because it has to disseminate the conception, the line, the politics. Is it necessary that each militant adjust himself to the Sixth and Seventh Plenums? Indispensable and urgent, especially if some are beginning to crash against those Plenums. Quotation from Stalin on a dangerous turn for those who are not firmly attached to the cart of the Party. Like the whole Party, Propaganda too has to move in function of the political line, of culminating reconstitution; in propaganda too, apply the National Plan of Construction. The period is very important because it is to build in order to initiate the armed struggle.
The National Plan of Construction will develop in struggle with the old plan that is known, including with the transition plan that we make as a pilot plan, and this pilot plan, insofar as it is new, is combated; insofar as it is old, it is accepted. This transition plan comes out successful; although the new predominates, it drags along part of the old; some want to remain in the transitory. The old will be strengthened in its tendency to survive by the weight of the tradition of consecrated forms of organization and struggle; do not forget the colossal heap of garbage. The new Plan will impose itself; the new always imposes itself in struggle.
The Department of Propaganda itself agreed on a new national plan of construction of the Department of Propaganda. All the apparatuses have to adjust themselves. Lesson: a Department or any apparatus has to adjust itself and have its proper National Plan of Construction. It shows us how the apparatus must serve the National Plan of Construction; otherwise it cannot fulfill its task.
Summing-up on construction
Why did the contrary line in the peasant movement arise as a basic question in the Sixth Plenary Session? The Sixth pointed to the National Plan of Construction, because the base of our construction work is peasant work, important! The peasantry is the principal force; the revolution depends on its location. Would the struggle have the peasant question as its base? Yes, and this is a basic question of the reconstitution of the Party, of culmination and laying bases. What has been the base of the most important struggles within the Party? All had, have, and will continue having the peasant question as their base. Perfect. Today with the problem of war, war is based on the peasantry; it is the same.
Construction. Unequal development is a law. Generalize and differentiate. Generalize for the entire country and differentiate for the regions; within each region likewise, in a zonal, in a Department likewise. Not grasping firmly has a root: having a contrary line; consequently one neither wants nor can grasp firmly. The problem is the greater or lesser degree. There is a circumstance because it is put forward that there is a contrary line.
Organization. Open work and secret work. How are the United Front, armed struggle, and the Party concretized today? What relation is there among them? Reconstitution of the Party from the countryside, place the base of construction work in the countryside in order to follow the road of encircling the cities from the countryside in order to apply the line. According as the road is applied, the Party, the Army, the United Front, Power are concretized. Party, two aspects: one right, (revisionism); two, left (Mariátegui’s Line and its development). Which aspect predominates is decisive. The left predominates.
Magnificent relation. Thus it could be put forward: Contrary conception implies contrary line, implies contrary tactic, implies contrary organizational line, implies contrary construction plan, implies contrary work plan. This in relation to the Party, likewise in the Front, in Armed Struggle, in Mass Work, etc., etc. In everything. In the case of the right it is the opposite of this: Marxist conception implies General Political Line, implies Marxist tactic, implies organizational line for conquering Power, implies construction plan, implies work plan, implies conquering Power. The left predominates; therefore we are advancing.
Reflection. What is the 5-year plan for? To concretize the National Plan of Construction, to build in function of initiating armed struggle. This is the period; if you are prepared, the occasion presents itself to you, you seize Power; if not, you will continue dreaming.
Summing-up of the Department of Front
How the Front unfolds within the National Plan of Construction and how it has to reorganize itself.
United Front and General Political Line: National democratic revolution. Develop oneself and forge oneself within the General Political Line. What is the tendency of the Front that has predominated in the country? If we do not take the united front according to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and Mariátegui’s line and its development, the opportunist line in the Front will continue imposing itself; consequently we will fall at the tail of the big bourgeoisie. Fully valid; today this is put forward to us. Peasant process, tactic. The question is to capitulate before the big bourgeoisie or to ally oneself with the poor peasantry, mainly for the worker-peasant alliance, in order to guarantee the hegemony of the proletariat and develop the road. Struggle for demands in function of Power, concretion of a Marxist thesis: Power is the central problem.
National Plan of Generated Organisms. Development of the generated organisms, course and role, ideological political development, principles and program, organizational construction, leaderships, national construction, mass work, conventions, events, propaganda. It concludes with how to develop the generated organisms. It was a very important meeting. Today we have Power and these things to keep in mind; it is a good base for working. The different mass fronts are specified: five fronts and generated organisms, and the sidestepping of them starts from the sidestepping of the mass work.
March Circular of 1978. The problems began to sharpen more. The Party distributed a circular to the bases in March 1978; it puts forward to us that all work has to develop in the concrete and daily class struggle, thus serving ILA; initiating was the high point, point there.
Circular to the bases, June 1978, both signed by the Department of Organization. It falls to this Department to see how organization is proceeding, from politics to organic problems. In this circular it warns that notwithstanding the agreement, a tendency of the deviation to establish itself is unfolding; it is an unstructured tendency; if it were to become established, it would be a contrary line, and it calls for transforming oneself to serve the revolution and struggle against revisionism.
This falls to the Department of Organization: the function that the circulars fulfill. What the Party has ordered, what problems there are, and how to correct them.
Thus the left was laying bases.
EIGHTH PLENUM, July 1978
The Party on the edge of a split, in which 2/3 of the Central Committee wavered. One third maintained a firm position; in astute and forceful struggle it imposed conditions and marked the course and overcame the difficult juncture in which we were unfolding.
On July 11. Summing-up of four parts of construction. Ideological-political construction, organizational construction, and on the construction of class struggle among the masses. On July 13 an intervention of the Leadership puts forward that the Fifth Congress cannot be realized on the planned date. On July 14, 1978, the fourth part of the summing-up of construction is seen: On construction and two-line struggle.
The Leadership synthesized the 5 problems that presented themselves: 1) In the ideological: Armed struggle as concretion of violence; 2) In the political: General Political Line and its development; 3) In the organizational: Develop construction in function of armed struggle, taking the peasant problem as the base; 4) In the class struggle of the masses, raise up the peasantry under the leadership of the proletariat represented by the Party; and 5) two-line struggle, avert the prospect of establishment, correct deviation, and sweep away revisionism. It is very good to establish differences: establishment, correcting deviation, and then sweeping away revisionism; differentiate so that a clear position is taken.
The Leadership insists on the problem of the construction and concretion of the National Plan of Construction and criticizes anarchist and anarcho-socialist criteria. The meeting begins to enter into difficulties, begins to enter into pessimism.
On July 22, 7 preliminary questions are put forward; the necessity of putting forward anew the content of the Eighth Enlarged Plenum is put forward, and as content “construct in function of armed struggle” and “Develop the construction, mainly of the Party, in the class struggle of the masses”; these are two slogans sanctioned by the Sixth and Seventh Plenums. It was said with clarity: they are against the Sixth and Seventh Plenums. An agenda is put forward: 1) International situation; 2) Economic situation and period of 4 to 5 years, the problem is to initiate; 3) Political situation and period, the problem was to move ourselves in the period; 4) Summing-up of the Reconstitution. Outline of ILA. Perfect! A Leadership cannot abandon its goals; for that they are leaders; point 6) Summing-up of the Plan of Construction, and point 8) Fifth Congress. Measures and tasks. Here it is defined; the game is very simple, they have been placed in the situation of whether they go or do not go against the Plenums; then where would one return? Each one now sets himself to thinking.
On July 23, the Leadership presents a report on Construction, based on principles of construction established by Chairman Mao, Lenin, Stalin; an important point is on the plan of construction and contradictions; a summing-up of reconstitution was put forward. In point 3 of the Plan of Construction for Armed Struggle. OUTLINE FOR THE ARMED STRUGGLE: countryside-city is developed. Countryside principal, city complement. How it is defined and 5 questions.
On July 25, the Leadership puts forward that the majority are of the left and want the revolution. It is very good that reality be seen and reflected. Debate. Intervention of the Leadership, and it puts forward that at the bottom of the prolongation of the preparatory session is that it is believed that the right is advancing; at the bottom of it: questioning of the General Political Line and its development, questioning of the Party, and it gives an offensive on the basis of what Chairman Mao puts forward on struggle in Volume V.15 An onslaught on the basis of principles.
On July 26, the Leadership puts forward: Does a leftizing line exist? It analyzes and confronts 11 members of the Central Committee on semi-feudality, plan, sector, method, attitudes and clashes, divergences in the circular. Position of the like-minded: let two tigers fight and see what happens (they had an intellectual origin). First the struggle against the anarchists, then against the like-minded. The Leadership warned that the Eighth Plenum is in danger. At bottom, it is believed that we are ultra-leftists; a barrier was produced, convergences. At the bottom of the barrier: “they are for repeating another 1968.” Solution: apply the plan of the Sixth Plenum; it said that the Party had an objective and that the Party fulfilled it with those who wanted and could do it; at bottom, a split. The Leadership establishes the relation of the rightist line of countryside and city; they have to come together, the waters clash and the two poles place themselves; otherwise antagonistic struggle cannot unfold. We have to make them see their connections so that polarization is entered into.
On July 27 the method of taking the course of their ideas and of the Party documents is applied; it is made visible that they throw themselves against Party documents. At bottom? Rotten revisionism. Therefore it is suggested that so-and-so is ultra-leftist and imposes his line; that is seen in the ideas presented in the national summing-up of construction of 1977: “only Gonzalo,” “there is a great difference between Gonzalo and us”; they go for wool and come out shorn. Faced with what they say, it is put forward to them that at bottom there is revisionism. To what did this event lead?
On July 29 the Leadership intervenes, puts forward that there has to be a purge and for that a Control Commission; a close relation is established between: Leadership and General Political Line and its development. Therefore, as they oppose the Leadership they oppose the General Political Line and its development; they oppose the Leadership, then it is a problem of opposition to the line. Consequently here we debate line; never let oneself be boxed into a problem of leadership; errors of the leaders are another thing. All this will lead to a purge and to there being a new Central Committee, to resolving in the facts a head that leads the Party; every revolution has it. Thus it is a problem of Line, Leadership, and of defining a head. An incident occurs, double-dealing; one acts one way in the event and another outside it. At the bottom of the incident is grouping together. Whoever believes in a line must strive to impose it.
The Leadership asks for an opinion, puts forward that a leadership be selected so that the struggle may unfold; the event had to decide whether it changed leadership or not; it was ratified and it was demonstrated that there is no desire to continue leading.
On July 30 and 31 the Leadership puts forward that the problem is to form public opinion against a supposed ultra-leftist line and it is imputed that whoever leads would head it; that in internal struggle one names, one personalizes and cowardice is not permitted. In what situation is the struggle? It is defined in the position before the outline of the armed struggle; they are for whether or not to enter into armed struggle. Without establishing the development of the General Political Line there is no head of the Party. On the supposed leftizing line, it criticized the like-minded and called upon the Central Committee to criticize them and called for demarcating from revisionism. In synthesis, symptomatic that they point against members of the Central Committee who develop work, while to those who did not work nothing was said; shameful. One third of the Central Committee fulfills the tasks and confronts the two thirds in collusion to expel the third. They did not know what to do; at bottom they were frightened by what was to come.
On August 1st the Leadership puts forward: 1) let us subject ourselves to Marxism; 2) See decisive moments of the parties, and 3) The Party begins to define its destiny. Thus the meeting begins to advance and develop.
On August 2. Two lines and a plan for a split; the Leadership synthesizes from the Fifth Conference and confronts: who wants to split? A communist can have grave errors, but split? The comrades reconsidered; we ended with there being no split. It was the most complex moment that the Party had in this process of reconstitution, on the edge of a split, but after intense struggle we recovered unity. Why? Because of the firm position of one third of the Central Committee in hard, demolishing struggle; one cannot leave a stone unturned; only thus did we avert the split. Chairman Mao tells us that one must let them pass beyond the line; then the communists begin to reconsider. We enter into cohesion: I) International Situation, II) Political Situation. Period. Our problem is how to specify in the Third moment.
On August 5, the Leadership puts forward: the political question is the problem of the OUTLINE FOR THE ARMED STRUGGLE; that is the center and axis on the economic and political situation and the period, and there is nothing to discuss but to define oneself. It has been approved unanimously. Our Party is a party.
It is concluded that there is a structured contrary line, that this line is developing. There is a contrary line that has been revealed; see the bitter truth face to face, as Lenin said. Two syntheses: 1) how the struggle develops and 2) pay attention and be careful when selecting the Central Committee.
We pass to analyzing the international experience of armed struggle; the bases, the fundamentals of the Outline in order to cohere ourselves; experience of China, Albania, Algeria; the problem of class struggle for power is the question of mass work. The road is to raise up the peasantry. We analyzed the rebellion of Túpac Amaru and its magnificent lessons; guerrillas of 1965 of the MIR.16 The problem was concentrated in this: how to raise up the peasantry under the leadership of the party of the proletariat. Process of the peasantry, caudillismo, gamonalismo, myths of the peasantry. Concern oneself with the history of Peru.
On August 11, a year of application of the National Plan of Construction was analyzed in contradiction. To apply the outline of the armed struggle was to initiate the armed struggle to destroy the old order and build the new order) (contrary line: sustain the old order, evolving it. International contradiction: flag of the world revolution; the other, flag of the superpowers. In the political: Outline of the armed struggle, Power, raise up the peasantry led by the Party; contradiction: follow the big bourgeoisie. National Plan of Construction; counter-plan to change the line. Summing-up: culminate reconstitution, lay bases, sanction the General Political Line and its development and sweep away the revisionist line, against opposing culmination, branding the line leftizing and pointing to substitute it with a revisionist line. It is a good method of contradictions; thus we know what to follow and what to combat. It is good experience of the Party.
August 12. The Leadership puts forward instructing cadres on the basis of errors; it is a good method. It is not a simple problem but a complex one; we had already resolved a thorny problem because a problem of that type had led us to the split in 1968. Know how to treat the militancy, the cadres, and the leaders; once the error is acknowledged, give the hand in order to advance.
On August 13, conclusion: 1) key to define and sanction the General Political Line and its development and 2) Let us define in practice the end of reconstitution and lay bases for armed struggle without waiting for an event.
All this demonstrates to us that after establishing an entire political base, when one enters into concretizing the National Plan of Construction it is done in intense struggle; approval in struggle, application continues in struggle; the old resists, after all two-line struggle and an ideological and political problem; firm and well-led struggle is necessary for the Party to advance, and the Central Committee is key in that because it is the center of the Party. If one part remains firm, it imposes itself.
Thus line, struggle, organizational problems, plan; it fell to us to apply the plan, we have the outline. The struggle does not end; it continues.
Work session of the Central Committee. December 1978. The Political Bureau puts forward its position on: I) Party building at the national level, destroy what was constructed with opportunist line and overcome the obsolete, the useless; II) Course of the organizational line. 1. Reconstitution; 2. Initiate the armed struggle; 3. Lay bases. Achievements and problems; III) The perspective of the organizational line and the decade of the 1980s. Very important. Keep in mind that when the Party has established the line of organization, it puts forward seeing the perspective within the decade of the 1980s, a critical period, handling the problem of the crisis that presents itself more acutely in each second five-year period. Chairman Mao has taught us that when one constructs, one must see the long years to come; each time one has not acted thus, grave errors have been committed. Now think of the decade of the 1990s and, if possible, see the third millennium. IV) Five points for application of the Outline; V) Ideological-political construction, Program, line, tactic, organizational construction, problems of construction; VI) Statutes; VII) National Plan of Construction. On mass work, two roads, two initiatives. Parliamentary cretinism; economic basis, bureaucrat-capitalism. Workers’ movement, its role. Peasantry. Period: elections, overflow. Decade of the 1980s. Readjustment of the Party to the Eighth Plenum.
Thus construction and mass work, long periods, how historical processes are conceived, period. Two decades, see a long perspective. Plan for the conquest of Power today and that has to do with how we make the State, with how to advance in socialism.
Debate. The meeting develops without seeing the other headquarters; not because we have cohered does the struggle stop. Vindicate the headquarters of the Party; the other is not it, it is of the reaction, it is a black headquarters; the struggle continues because classes exist. The Leadership calls for storming the black headquarters and beating it, for demanding from the two heads the surrender of the black headquarters and that they destroy the headquarters.
Lesson: Storm, destroy, make headquarters surrender. This was in the ROL,17 it is not the present case, but the law is general; therefore we act in class struggle. The triumph is complete: One single headquarters of the Party. Page 409 of the Documents of the faction; the plan that we already had is going to be adjusted to the Eighth Plenum and to the Outline; five questions are specified for the application of the Outline. Lesson: In the problem of People’s War, put forward to ourselves what our laws are and establish the Outline for the Conquest of Power, because we have particularities.
Page 411. The Ninth Plenum is convened, new phase of struggle and opposition to the reorganization, entangled because the majority of the Political Bureau chose distribution of the Committees according to their personal interests. The objective was put forward: General reorganization of the party. Page 412, general report, part II. The Central Committee passes to applying the general reorganization of the Party; how to reorganize the Party was proposed, specifications of the Political Bureau: 1) general reorganization; 2) intense organizational period; 3) clandestinity; 4) displacement and distribution. Carry forward the reorganization immediately.
Meeting of the Political Bureau. The debate is summed up, it specifies a new phase of struggle and it had to be linked to the general reorganization of the Party. Debate (page 413): analyze the political root of the new phase, the reorganization and how each one participates within the new phase. Two members of the Political Bureau generate problems attempting to revoke the existence of a new phase; the problem is disagreement with the Line. Prior problem: resolve the struggle; the problem was distribution. Necessity of an Enlarged Central Committee, to enlarge the Central Committee. The new phase of struggle was being denied, a difficult perspective. (page 413) The Ayacucho Local Committee has passed to being a base of the ROL to throw itself against the Leadership. Two members of the Political Bureau want to advance and two heads join together. Plan of the Sixth Plenum: commit oneself not to split but also split; if 10% remained, it continued forward. (Page 414) “two antagonistic lines are contending.”
Again a meeting of the Political Bureau. Although there has been an advance in the situation, it is not defined. See the new phase; see the correlation of forces in the Central Committee and the entire Party organization. One enters a splitist situation; things worsen. Quotation from Marx: in moments of crisis, to lose one’s head is a crime against the Party (page 415); course of the struggle against the ROL and the new phase. New phase in the entire Party, it is generalized: Two courses, two programs, two lines, two plans, two leaderships and two contingents contend in the general reorganization. Generalization and differences, January 24, 1979. From there derive headquarters, the fief of Ayacucho, the little fief of Cuzco, the fief of Lima. Situation and distribution of forces. Strategic plan, situation and distribution of the two lines. It means that the Leadership has to see which positions are controlled or can be controlled. Strategic Plan of the Party’s line. Develop one’s own forces, etc. Tactic: combat those who oppose the General Political Line and its development, mainly leaders in the new phase of struggle for the general reorganization of the Party. Make the 90% advance, including cadres and leaders. Particularity: only through a process of struggle will reorganization of the Party be carried out. “The Party’s line will triumph. The contrary line and its defeat.” The split and its capitulation. Contradiction: camouflage oneself and accumulate forces; do not permit accumulation; in order that they not split, unmask them. Purge (we) and evacuate (they leave little by little): split and camouflage oneself; some split, the heads seek to split, and others who remain inside are camouflaged. Measures to take. Set in motion the plan of reorganization. It is an entire plan of how two-line struggle has developed; see that each meeting has its law. It is a valuable lesson that we have.
Hard and evenly we have fought so that the already defined plan passes to being applied.
Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee, July 1979, and Enlarged National Conference,18 November 1979; it is contained in two documents: Toward Armed Struggle and Long Live Armed Struggle.
Up to the year 1981 we have the events published; they are 10 years behind. The publication of the other events is advisable. Military School, February 1980, quite necessary for seeing the military problem (more than 300 pages).
Enlarged Central Committee of 1983: The Four Tasks and Great Plan of Conquering Bases. The four tasks: 1. General reorganization of the Party; 2. People’s Guerrilla Army;19 3. Revolutionary Front of Defense of the People and People’s Republic of New Democracy; and 4. Great Plan. “Plan of Conquering Bases,” page 62 of the May document. Study this material; it is very important because there are the debates to define the problem of the Party; more important is the problem of the Army, there are many particularities proper to us. New State, central problem, how to develop the New State. In the military, Great Plan, an entire set of ways and procedures that we can develop, the four forms, are procedures that we are not even applying.
Meeting of February 1986. Mass Line. Metropolitan Committee. It is put forward what the qualitative change in mass work is, and the central problem is Power, that for the first time the peasantry, the proletariat assume leadership of the State in a joint dictatorship.
On the history of two-line struggle in the Party. February 1986, Metropolitan Committee.20 From page 203 through 216 it enumerates for us the problems that are debated; that is the most important thing, apart from the history of the Party.
Another key moment of construction: the Third Session of the Enlarged Central Committee, ECC:21 January 1983. How we develop in order to raise the war and build the New Power. To raise the war, developing an army implies developing a broader war; it has to confront an armed force and build the New Power, and how the Party has to develop in order to lead that entire process. It took place in intense struggle. Key document, of transcendence in construction. The Plan that is elaborated here is very important for us to study. It was a great leap, where we laid bases for what we have done up to today.
After 1983 there are other questions. Conclusions of the Armed Struggle Process22 of the year 1984. An investigation was carried forward in March 1986 in the Committees according to a questionnaire, to see how we could carry out investigation now. Limitation: to evade opinion on key problems.
Develop the People’s War, Serving the World Revolution puts forward to us a problem on construction; it puts forward the form in which we have disseminated our criteria and form of construction. Very important on Party, People’s Guerrilla Army, New Power.
Historic milestone: Congress. 1987-1989. Bases of Discussion, General Political Line; in the problem of construction are the ideological political fundamentals of our line on the basis of which we build. We come from the Congress. Summary document of the Congress. The Congress is the base of all the work that we have to develop. Fundamental Documents: there is the ideological problem, the program, General Political Line. It is the axis of everything; it is the Basis of Party Unity: On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; Concerning Gonzalo Thought, Program and Statutes and General Political Line.23 Debate and meetings of the Political Bureau.
First Session of the Central Committee. February 1990. Political problems, problem of masses, how to work.
Document of May 1990, Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!24 the fourth part is fundamental for problems of construction.
After 1979, which leads us to initiate the armed struggle, it leads us to the milestone of 1983 in construction; on that base we have built, and then today the problem of building the conquest of Power presents itself to us, and the immediate axis of that conquest of Power in the entire country and of building that conquest is the Congress; to link all the prior experience is a foundation that gives us rich and valuable experience. Taking that base, mainly the positive lessons as development and negative experiences, the axis of the new leap of building the conquest of Power is the Congress.
What we have reported comes to be a general summing-up of our experience in construction, pointing to establishing fundamental milestones of our process so that it may serve us as the base of the very high task of building the conquest of Power. It has pointed to ordering by milestones. One must see a milestone and establish the connection with the other milestone, how we have developed a line of construction that enables us to structure today a much higher and more powerful line of construction, that permits us to build apparatuses superior to those of the reaction; to raise the organic to the level of political leadership; to develop leadership, to forge cadres, to strengthen the Party, all the militancy, that permits us to potentiate the People’s Guerrilla Army, to make of it the highly bellicose, demolishing war machine that we need and that permits us to develop the conquest of Power in the entire country, developing the New State that is being built; guiding ourselves by what the Congress has said, to arrive at relative stability, to extend that State in the midst of the People’s War and, with the conquest of Power, the establishment of the People’s Republic of Peru.
We have a powerful treasure that must potentiate us toward a grandiose process of construction that we need.
We have dealt with construction of the three instruments and highlighted the problem of the masses. Consequently, with this report what we have done is to give a summing-up, milestones, and to give materials, experience to points II, III, and IV of the Outline that we are developing. It is an Outline of the Strategic Plan of Construction, which has three strategies: Political strategy, military strategy, and strategy of construction. The fundamentals are already set forth; what we have done is a summing-up, of milestones, rich experience that will serve to develop the construction that we need.
We should not develop points II, III, and IV further because it is an Outline. What we need is to think well, taking the foundation into account, and to give our opinion on whether this Outline suits us: what to subtract from it? What to add? What to develop? What we approve must bring down clear questions and apply without generating a greater problem. Define slogan: Develop, build, conquer! in point II; because the principal question is to develop the People’s War, construction is a derivative and Conquering Power is the summit that we will reach, developing the People’s War and building it. In point IV on the Strategic Plan of Construction, in order to elaborate it the Political Bureau must form a Commission, work three months.
Consider this Outline as a Pilot Plan and unfold it in the Third Campaign; apply it as a pilot plan for laying bases of the Plan of building the conquest of Power, so that later, when the Commission finishes, approve definitively the Strategic Plan of Construction within the new plan within the Great Plan of Developing Bases in Function of Conquering Power.
The Strategic Plan of Construction has a solid ideological-political foundation, very rich material for working. Our problem is to define, to give an opinion on how this outline can remain.
(. . .)
Peru, August 1990, National Leadership25
Red Library: https://vnd-peru.blogspot.com/2026/09/pcp-derrotero-y-balance-de-la.html, the bolding and underlining were done by the Peru People’s Movement to contribute to the study of the document.↩︎
Red Library: Read Chairman Gonzalo’s Speech at https://redlibrary.info/works/pcp/chairman-gonzalos-speech-shines-victorious-and-vigorous-before-the-world-as-a-weapon-of-combat.html.↩︎
Red Library: Communist Party of Peru (Partido Comunista del Perú).↩︎
Red Library: Red Flag (Bandera Roja); the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru.↩︎
Red Library: “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.” — Karl Marx, “Preface,” A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859.↩︎
“The Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Reply to the Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963,” contained in the work A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963.↩︎
Chairman Gonzalo, who is the one making the report to the Second Plenum of the Central Committee, 1990.↩︎
Red Library: MRTA is the acronym for Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement), an armed revisionist organization founded in the 1980s. Chairman Gonzalo in his 1988 interview said that they fall into the category of Cubanism and its five characteristics: “an insufficient class differentiation which demanded that saviors save the oppressed; socialist revolution or a caricature of revolution; United Front but without the national bourgeoisie; no need for Base Areas; and as noted, no need for a Party.” The Communist Party of Peru wrote regarding the MRTA: “They have been recast, but they do not have a definite Marxist conception. Thus, they march to serve imperialism, social-imperialism, and the supposed fascist dialogue to which they have already given unilateral truces.” — Communist Party of Peru, “Military Line,” General Political Line, 1988. Read: https://redlibrary.info/works/pcp/military-line.html.↩︎
Red Library: The Spanish text alternates between the abbreviation CC and the full form Comité Central. In this translation, all occurrences of CC have been expanded as “Central Committee”; no difference in meaning is intended.↩︎
Red Library: Mao Tse-tung, “Problems of War and Strategy,” Selected Works, vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 224.↩︎
Red Library: Supreme Decree.↩︎
Red Library: “Armar” was the verb used, which could either mean “to arm” or “to assemble.”↩︎
Red Library: The Spanish text alternates between the abbreviation B.P. and the full form Buró Político. In this translation, all occurrences of B.P. have been expanded as “Political Bureau”; the source’s variation between the abbreviated and full forms is not reproduced.↩︎
Red Library: The Initiation of Armed Struggle (ILA 80).↩︎
Mao Tsetung, Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. 5 (Foreign Languages Press, 1977).↩︎
Red Library: The Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria). Waged armed struggle in Peru from 1962 until its defeat in 1965. It followed foquista military theory.↩︎
Red Library: The Spanish “lod” (likely línea oportunista de derecha) is translated as “ROL” (right opportunist line).↩︎
Red Library: Spanish original reads “CNA” (likely Conferencia Nacional Ampliada).↩︎
Red Library: The Spanish text writes Ejército Guerrillero Popular in full at its first occurrence and uses the abbreviation EGP for the subsequent two occurrences. In this translation, all three occurrences are rendered “People’s Guerrilla Army”; the source’s variation between the full name and abbreviation is not reproduced.↩︎
Red Library: Spanish original reads “C.M.” (likely Comité Metropolitano).↩︎
Red Library: Spanish original reads “Comité Central Ampliado, CCA.”↩︎
Red Library: Conclusions of the Armed Struggle Process, Communist Party of Peru, 1984. Read: https://redlibrary.info/works/pcp/conclusions-of-the-armed-struggle-process.html.↩︎
Red Library: Fundamental Documents, Communist Party of Peru, 1988/89. Read: https://redlibrary.info/works/pcp/#first-congress.↩︎
Red Library: Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru, May 1990. Read: https://redlibrary.info/works/pcp/elections-no-peoples-war-yes.html.↩︎
Red Library: The Spanish original reads D.N. (likely Dirección Nacional), expanded here as “National Leadership.”↩︎