Impressions of the Initiation of Armed Struggle in Peru on its 45th Anniversary

Editorial Board

The Initiation of Armed Struggle in Peru has reached its victorious 45^th anniversary. The Worker commemorates this event of utmost importance to the communists of the world with the following impressions.

The Peru People’s Movement, the organism created for the Communist Party of Peru’s party work outside of Peru wrote in 2021:

“On May 17, 1980, the PCP under the Great Leadership of Chairman Gonzalo Initiated the Armed Struggle (ILA 80, Inicio de la Lucha Armada 1980), since then developing the people’s war, which has never stopped, despite the difficult and complex situation it has traversed with the arrest of the leadership, Chairman Gonzalo, and the betrayal of the revisionists, both because of the rats of the revisionist and capitulationist Right Opportunist Line (ROL), of the so-called ‘letters and peace talks’ put together in the prisons with the help of the Yankee CIA-Peruvian reaction, as well as the rats of the VRAEM [Valle de los Ríos Apurímac, Ene y Mantaro] headed by José. The People’s War has not stopped nor can it ever be stopped because the life of the party that leads it cannot and will never stop until we enter communism.

“The People’s War is a revolutionary war, a just war, which can only be led by a Communist Party; it leads it because the masses make it, the Party is the light that tears the shadows, the masses are the force, the life that transforms and changes everything generating the dawn forever. The masses without a Party stumble and grope, incessant in combat, that is, shedding their blood because they has never stopped doing so, as shown by the long and heroic struggle of the people of Palestine occupied by Zionist colonialism, which despite lacking the leadership of the communist party persists shedding their precious blood in abundance, because that’s the way the masses are; but without a Party, all that struggle of the masses, the people and the glorious international proletariat, without that axis, which leads, which guides, nothing will be done, because if the masses have the strength, the party has the course, it is the axis. The Party is the one who arms the people, arms their minds and produces their inexhaustible combatant branch. The party with people’s war carries out the new democratic revolution as part of the world proletarian revolution [sic. revolución proletaria en el globo].

“That is the path of people’s war, which the PCP led by Chairman Gonzalo, is solemnly committed to develop until we enter communism, without ever laying down arms: ‘We wanted, want and will want the people’s war; no one will get us out of there, with it commenced the seizure of power. This is how it has to be, more time, less time, and time has already begun to tick for this conquest, it seems that it, has not but if we go in depth, it is so; but the People’s War will continue to accompany us, because with it we will defend the New State and with it we will ignite the parts of the world that are still shackled and we will not stop until we see, partisan speaking, that the iron legions converge in a red sea, armed, that ripple on the Earth, makes it tremble and stirs it and turns it upside down. It must be so.’ This is the promise of the Chairman and the communists before the First Congress and it is fulfilled, because there is nothing impossible for the Party.”

In 1980 the PCP declared that:

“It has befallen to us the historical mission of launching the armed struggle in our country and to develop it and sustain it as part of the struggles of Latin America, the international proletariat, the peoples of the world and world revolution, which we serve by adhering faithfully to the principle of proletarian internationalism. The struggle will be long but fruitful, bloody but brilliant, and hard but vigorous and omnipotent. It has been said that the world will be transformed with arms, and that is what we are doing now. From the barrels of guns everything will come. We are already living it and we will see it more as the People’s War develops.

“To the Communists members of this Party, in this country, who have broken the stonewall of more than fifty years, their spirits must be no less than vibrant today with the realization of this great balance which proves and tests the achievements, counting, measuring and weighing the future. We are very conscious of and responsible for our actions. We have nothing to be vain about except to fulfill our duty. We have nothing to brag about, since glory is for the class, the people and the Party. Nevertheless, we need to be optimists, assured that the pebbles of the new order begin to fall into place. The future begins to be written. We will write the new history with flowers of stone in bronze forever more. We will tame the hills, we will write a new history with the points of swords, the light of fire, tearing down iniquity and giving birth to the future. For every Communist Party that assumes its role as the armed vanguard of the proletariat, there comes a time to tear away the centuries of oppression.

“It lets out its war cries and assaults the heavens, the shadows and the night. It begins to tear down the old and rotten reactionary walls, it begins to rattle and crackle like dry leaves before new and tender flames, before young but crackling bonfires. The People’s War begins to sweep away the old order in order to inevitably destroy it. From the old, the new shall be born. And finally, like the pure and glorious phoenix bird, Communism will arise for all time.

“We should unfurl optimism and overflow with enthusiasm, furthermore thinking that we serve to carry out a task that will last forevermore. We humans are mere fragments of time and heart beats, but our deeds will remain for centuries stamped on generation after generation. Men march inevitably towards their end, but humanity, the working class and their creations will never end. We will people the Earth with light and happiness. With us, with our armed struggle, the authentic and only true liberty begins to be born. We are trumpets of the future, the inextinguishable fire that crackles in the stormy present. Long Live The Irresistible March Towards Guerrilla Warfare!”

The Center for Studies on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in Brazil wrote in 2021:

“In 1980, the PCP began the armed struggle, the ILA-80. An event of historical significance for communists around the world, it would have a unique importance for Peru. Chairman Gonzalo states in the Interview of the Century that ‘with the beginning of the people’s war in 1980, we entered the third phase of the general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism; the destruction of contemporary Peruvian society began because it had historically become obsolete. As a result, what we are seeing is its end and what we must do is fight, combat, struggle to bury it.’

“Initially with a relatively small and inexperienced detachment, formed mainly by Party members, the years following the ILA-80 will be of great and powerful development of this struggle to bury the old Peruvian State by the popular masses.

“The PCP’s first actions in these years were defined in the first military campaign of the People’s War, which was called Initiating the Armed Struggle. The actions were centered in the countryside: attacks on large landowners’ plantations, land seizures, sabotage of large landowners’ infrastructure, electoral boycotts and armed propaganda. They also organized confiscations of goods stockpiled by large landowners and distribution to the masses, along with the punishment of large landowners’ employees (gunmen and paramilitaries) who terrorized the masses of peasants. During the years of this plan, it was common to see huge, flaming hammers and sickles on the mountain peaks surrounding cities.

“In the cities, the PCP established as part of its first military plan the task of developing work in the slums, in addition to forming armed detachments to lead mass mobilizations. During the period covered by this plan, a series of mass demonstrations, blackouts and attacks on reactionary targets took place in Lima.

“In 1981, the CC [Central Committee] defined Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the guiding ideology of the PCP. By the end of that year, the guerrilla forces were moving freely in a number of areas. The PCP launched its second military campaign, Shaking the Countryside and the City with Armed Struggle. It consisted of attacks on troops and police stations, confiscating their weapons, building large armed units and constructing support bases. With its implementation, the old political power was destroyed in five provinces of Ayacucho and the first support bases (New Power) were created.

“In March 1982, a major guerrilla action took place in Ayacucho prison, which managed to free more than 300 political prisoners and prisoners of war. Hundreds of people, including PCP militants, guerrillas from the People’s Guerrilla Army (EGP) and the masses, left the prison yard waving red flags and singing The Internationale.

“Among those fighters released by the EGP [People’s Guerrilla Army] was Edith Lagos, a longtime PCP activist. Edith would be assassinated in a confrontation with police troops six months later, in September. Her funeral was an impressive demonstration of the revolutionary fervor of the masses. Carrying PCP banners and posters, more than 30,000 people took to the streets of Ayacucho in a city of 80,000 inhabitants. The demonstration had repercussions throughout Peru.

“At the end of that same year, apprehensive about the growth of the guerrilla movement, the reactionary president Belaúnde ordered the Armed Forces to intervene directly in the repression of the People’s War throughout the country, but especially in the Ayacucho region.”

Image: Macarí, Puno, 1989. Grafitti next to a destroyed communications tower that reads: “LONG LIVE THE 9th ANNIVERSARY OF THE P.W. PEOPLE’S WAR!,” Photographer: Jacinto Chila.

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