by the Editorial Board
The International Communist Movement celebrates May 17 as the glorious day on which the Communist Party of Peru made an indelible mark on human history with the initiation of armed struggle 1980 (called ILA 80 in Spanish). With the beginning of the People’s War in Peru, the World Proletarian Revolution entered its most decisive moment—the Strategic Offensive of World Proletarian Revolution. This means the final end of the imperialist system and a new socialist world won by force of arms on the path to communism.
The armed work of the Communist Party of Peru, the PCP, that began May 17 1980 continues to this day. It uplifts the workers and peasants of Peru under the unfading flags of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. At the moment when the capitalists of the world proclaimed that Communism had been beaten, the PCP, led by Chairman Gonzalo, the greatest Marxist-Leninist-Maoist of our era, initiated the people’s war.
The capitalists were only dreaming the dreams of a depraved class, a class whose end is already in sight. Today, the reactionaries will insist that the communists have been beaten and that the People’s War in Peru has failed; they are no less mistaken that their counterparts of the 1980s. On the contrary, the People’s War continues, and more and more people’s wars will follow it.
The People’s War in Peru is of significant importance as the war where Maoism was defined as the new, third and superior stage of the ideology of the international proletariat. For this contribution the PCP stands out, comprising the red fraction of the International Communist Movement. They prove that the all-powerful Thought of Chairman Gonzalo lives on in the struggle to impose Maoism as the command and guide of the World Proletarian Revolution, as more and more revolutionaries internationally unite around it.
The most vile and repugnant anti-Communism is deployed to besmirch the People’s War in Peru, to pile infamy upon it and upon Chairman Gonzalo. This is nothing new. As long as there has been revolution there have been counter-revolutionaries who spread distrust, defending the violence of reaction by condemning revolutionary violence. Be wary of these people—they will weep for the Girondin just as the priests of the Vondée. They will weep for Trotsky just as they will weep for the Kulak, and they will weep and weep for Lucunamarca just as they have for the reactionaries who perished in the Antov rebellion. See them for what they are, nothing but fleas sucking the dead blood of a purifying beast. The rest are those who shout “Long live the PCP!” They are the communards of the present era, men and women who see that the path forward is through blood, and that the blood dyes our flag an unfading red.
We provide a brief timeline of the milestones of the People’s War in Peru.
1970—The Communist Party of Peru issues the document People’s War, Great Victories, and Brilliant Perspectives in which they express that the world political situation has entered a new era of Mao Zedong Thought. The National Liberation struggles were advancing, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China had achieved great victories, the International Communist Movement had been strengthened, and the masses of the world had unleashed furious revolutionary storms which shook the entire, obsolete, and rotten system of exploitation. The Party exposed the falsehoods and failures of the replication in Latin America of “focoism”, the military theory espoused by the petty bourgeois Cuban revolutionaries who had won a victory in 1959. The Party expressed that all attempts following the Cuban model which seek to postpone the question of the Communist Party and circumvent the masses are doomed to defeat. The Party insisted that it is only by firmly struggling against revisionism and all revisionists, by discrediting them thoroughly and completely (including the followers of the petty bourgeois terrorists Castro and Guevara), will it be possible to fight truthfully and resolutely against imperialism and feudalism.
June 1979—The PCP agrees to initiate the people’s war at the IX Expanded Plenum, achieving strict unity around people’s war. They defeated the right opportunist line and expelled the factions opposed to initiation as “suicidal,” or who argued that conditions were not ripe for armed struggle.
December 3 1979—Formation of the First Company of the First Division of the Red Army.
March 17, 1980—The First Military School is held by the Party in preparation for the initiation of armed struggle; this was mainly an ideological school.
May 17, 1980—Initiation of Armed Struggle with the seizure of election offices in Chuschi and the burning of ballot boxes, declaring the election boycott which is critical to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist worldview and methodology, rejecting parliamentary cretinism and proclaiming that the time for revolutionary overthrow of the old order has come.
December 29, 1981—The old Peruvian state declares a State of Emergency in the three Administrative Regions of Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Apurímac, giving governmental control to the Peruvian Army, signaling that civilian authority in these regions had been expelled or was in crisis facing the growing people’s war.
March 2, 1982—PCP Guerrillas attack the Ayacucho prison in the regional capitol city of Ayacucho, taking the police by surprise and freeing dozens of political prisoners and prisoners of war.
May 1982—Second National Conference defining Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the third and highest stage of the ideology of the proletariat, assuming the task of defending the ideology of the proletariat, in the international context defending from the “triple revisionist attack” of Deng, Brezhnev, and Hoxha, and taking up the task of struggling for unity internationally around Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
1983—The armed forces of Peru enter the fight against the People’s War as the police and local forces are crumbling before the onslaught of the armed and organized masses.
Formation of the People’s Guerrilla Army, incorporation of the militias into the PGA; expressing a specific feature of the ideology applied to the revolution in Peru, where the gradual arming of the masses is taken into account as well as concentrically constructing the three instruments of revolution (Party, Army, Front) with the Party at the center leading all three.
March 1983—Ronderos, counter-revolutionary paramilitaries, brutally kill Olegario Curitomay, commander in the People’s War in Lacunamarca.
April 3, 1983—In response to the brutal assassination of Curitomay, the Party mobilizes the people’s army and the masses to assault Lacunamarca; dozens are killed in reprisal. Chairman Gonzalo says there were excesses but that the point was to show that the revolution was a tough nut to crack and was of a different order than previous Peruvian guerrilla wars.
1985—Expansion of the People’s War from Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Apurímac into the regions of Pasco, Huánuco, and San Martin.
Social-fascist APRA president Alan Garcia Perez orchestrates massacres against prisoners of war in Lurigancho, 30 are killed.
February 1986—Declaration of State of Emergency in Metropolitan Lima as armed actions grow in frequency and intensity in the capital city. This follows the theory of Unified People’s War, where the growth of mega-cities in the third world necessitate the weight of the war being concentrated in the countryside but for supplementary actions to also take place in the cities, in preparation for insurrection as the strategic offensive of the people’s war culminates.
June 19, 1986—Day of Heroism, massacres of PCP and supporter prisoners take place at Lurigancho, Callao, and El Frontón prisons, culminating in a military, political, and moral defeat of the Peruvian old state and its armed forces due to the resistance of the prisoners of war and the exposure of the old state’s fragility and moral barbarism. Over 250 combatants were killed in the battles. President Alan Garcia ordered the genocidal actions, covering this up with concern over supposedly-planned prison uprisings. The old state’s army carried out the massacres while Garcia hosted the social-chauvinist, “socialist” 2nd International in Lima.
October 1986—The PCP writes a letter to the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement explaining their opposition to the formation “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought” as the ideological command and guide of the World Proletariat Revolution, and explaining the path forward to resolving issues in the RIM, setting themselves as the left line in the International Communist Movement towards the reconstitution of the Communist International.
1988—The First Congress of the PCP is held, defining Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought as the command and guide of the revolution in Peru, elevating from “Guiding Thought,” unspecified, to naming the Thought after the Great Leader of the revolution. The General Political Line of the Communist Party of Peru is formulated and put forth, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought document and a shining and guiding document of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, with the contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo.
Chairman Gonzalo gives his Interview with the revolutionary, new democratic newspaper El Diario.
1989—Establishment of Open People’s Committees, the form taken by the New State, The People’s Republic of New Democracy, New Democratic revolutionary and in open contention with the old, bureaucrat capitalist landlord state. In the people’s committees the people, organized and armed, managed their own affairs, organized economically, governed, executed justice, and defended and expanded the revolution.
1990—The people’s war approaches strategic equilibrium, where the balance of forces between the old state and the new state in formation reaches a temporary stalemate. The old state had spilled a lot of ink denying that equilibrium was reached in its anxiety, but the Communist Party proved the defenders of the old order wrong. The US government acknowledges the serious threat to US imperialist interests posed by the people’s war and its serious potential for total country-wide success.
1991—Chairman Gonzalo leads a rectification campaign (unfinished), preparing for the transition from strategic stalemate to strategic offensive and the seizure of power country-wide. Corresponding to this, the Party plans to shift legal workers from the cities to the countryside to prepare for the achievement of strategic stalemate.
September 12, 1992—Capture of Chairman Gonzalo and much of the Central Committee of the PCP in a CIA-led operation carried out by the Peruvian state.
September 24, 1992—Chairman Gonzalo is displayed in a cage surrounded by journalists by the old state in an attempt to humiliate him and parade the old state’s victory. Instead, Chairman Gonzalo gives his transcendental speech proclaiming the victorious advance of the people’s war and calling on the people of Peru and the peoples of the world to revolution.
The Second Right Opportunist Line develops, led by “Miriam” and the old Peruvian state and the CIA, claiming that Chairman Gonzalo capitulated, forging documents of capitulation, and spreading capitulationists and traitors from the prisons to the Party apparatuses across the country.
May 4, 1996—Prominent capitulationist “Negro José” is assassinated by the Party in Lima.
July 14, 1999—The highest leadership of the Party, Feliciano, is betrayed by the right and led into an ambush and captured.
The third Right Opportunist Line develops, taking over the Party’s regional apparatuses in a series of coups.
2012—The Peru People’s Movement interviews Comrade Laura in the bases of the Vizcatán Mountains, published first in 2017. The conversations published show the continuing defense of Chairman Gonzalo, the First Congress of the PCP, the ongoing people’s war, and the struggle to reorganize the Party in the midst of the people’s war in contention with the 2nd and 3rd Right Opportunist Lines. This document expresses the left line in Peru and exposes the lies cooked up by the CIA and the Right in Peru and internationally that the people’s war is defeated.
September 11, 2021—The Old State assassinates Chairman Gonzalo in the Callao Naval Base prison. Chairman Gonzalo died without capitulating, defeating the reaction’s counter-revolutionary plans and culminating Chairman Gonzalo’s victory in the most shining trench of combat—his resistance in the naval base prison.
December 26, 2022—The International Communist League is declared after the successful holding of the Unified International Maoist Conference. The PCP plays a role in the Conference and the League, advancing in the task set forth by the 2nd National Conference of the Party in 1982 and internationally achieving a leap in the overcoming of the dispersion of communist forces in the world.
