“The road is long and we shall arrive at our destination”: Learn From Chairman Gonzalo’s Transcendental Speech

Editorial Board

September 24, 2026 marks the 34^th anniversary of Chairman Gonzalo’s speech of the century. Chairman Gonzalo, leader of the Communist Party of Peru and its ongoing people’s war, was captured by the fascist Peruvian government in 1992 with the support of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and displayed in a cage in front of the reactionary monopoly press with the aim of humiliating him and dealing a blow to the people’s war. The Chairman transformed the situation into its opposite, using the cage as a platform to deliver a transcendental speech foretelling the development of world revolution and commanding revolutionaries and all who oppose imperialism to take up their post in this final battle against world reaction.

Chairman Gonzalo would later be assassinated by the Peruvian government in September 2021 after being held captive in solitary confinement for nearly 30 years on a naval base. The old state and CIA were never able to break him and his unwavering support for the revolution.

The Chairman led the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Peru through years of hard two-line struggle (ideological struggle internal to the party), culminating with the preparation for and the initiation of its people’s war on May 17, 1980.

Within the furnace of the people’s war, Chairman Gonzalo made his greatest contribution: defining Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism as the third and superior stage of the ideology of the international proletariat, and by applying it he developed Gonzalo Thought, which still shines all-powerful throughout the world today.

As part of the process of defining and applying Maoism, he made contributions of universal validity that are being applied in the class struggle internationally in an ongoing process to impose Maoism as the sole command and guide of the world proletarian revolution.

His speech on September 24, 1992 holds many valuable lessons for revolutionaries.

Revolutionary Optimism and the Inevitability of Victory

In the beginning of Chairman Gonzalo’s speech, he dispels the visions of reaction that his capture would result in the end of the people’s war: “Some think that this is a great defeat. They are dreaming! We tell them to keep dreaming. It is simply a bend, nothing more! A bend in the road! The road is long and we shall arrive at our destination. We shall triumph! You shall see it! You shall see it!”

This contains several important principles: 1. Setbacks for revolutionary forces are temporary, 2. Setbacks are a part of the road to victory, 3. The victory of revolution is inevitable.

Every process develops according to its own laws, including the development of society. The basic contradiction of imperialism between private ownership of the means of production and socialized production will inevitably be resolved by socialized ownership and production.

Workers inevitably come up against their productive relations. Production and distribution are stunted and irrational, and life becomes increasingly intolerable for workers while a few profit immensely from their labor. This irrationality is rooted in the fact that a few own everything while the immense majority of the world’s people slave away for their benefit.

From this follows a logic that all generally accept, even the imperialists: where there is oppression, there is resistance to it, and where there is greater oppression there is greater resistance. The imperialists are bound to increase exploitation and oppression, and the people are bound to respond with more intense resistance. The conditions of greater resistance forges proletarian leadership, leading the class to constitute or reconstitute its party and initiate people’s war for the conquest and defense of political power for the proletariat until communism.

The inevitability of communism is the scientific basis of revolutionary optimism.

The Strategic Offensive of the World Proletarian Revolution

Chairman Gonzalo indicates in his speech, “As we see in the world, Maoism is marching relentlessly forward to lead the new wave of the world proletarian revolution.”

As mentioned earlier, every process develops according to its internal laws. Capitalism developed into its highest stage, imperialism, independent of anyone’s will. Imperialism is monopoly capital; it is parasitic, moribund, and decaying. It is the most intense aggravation of the contradiction between private ownership and social production, because monopolies concentrate ownership globally in few hands while turning the international proletariat into a giant assembly line.

Capitalism creates its own gravediggers—the proletariat—and imperialism accelerates this process. Today, after about 130 years of imperialism, we are in its last stage, the final 50-100 years of world reaction as Chairman Mao delineated. Corresponding to this, Chairman Gonzalo established that the proletariat entered the strategic offensive of the world proletarian revolution beginning in 1980.

These two processes are a unity that cannot be separated: that imperialism has reached its most advanced decomposition and that the world proletarian revolution is in its final stage.

The strategic offensive of the world proletarian revolution is the historical context of the development of the ideology of the international proletariat to its third and highest stage: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism with contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo. It is Marxism in the epoch of the most advanced decomposition of imperialism and people’s wars.

The fact that the ideology has answered the problems of seizing power, defending it, and continuing revolution in transition from socialism to communism is evidence that the material conditions for such a transformation are already in place. As Marx says, “Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.”

Some confuse form and content, believing that because there are such few communist parties in the world today and no socialist countries, world revolution is at a lower stage than when there were socialist countries. But what takes precedent is not the subjective conditions alone, but the confluence of the objective and subjective conditions.

The converging of these conditions today means the rapid transformation of quantity into quality in earth-shaking leaps. In the three years since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, resistance groups across the Middle East have united in transforming decades of US military equipment buildup and strategy into heaps of flaming debris. Today, US imperialism, the sole hegemonic imperialist superpower, is afraid to go to war with Ansar Allah, which has transformed its poorly-armed resistance forces into the dominant power in Yemen by incorporating and mobilizing the people against imperialism.

Don’t be fooled by the lack of communist parties in the world today; the conflagration of the national liberation struggles necessitates that new communist elements will be forged in the coming years, and the two trends will combine into an invincible torrent sweeping away all reaction.

The development of world revolution unfolds unevenly, and the storm centers of the world—the Third World where the contradictions are most aggravated and the weight of the masses is most concentrated—will lead the way, with New Democratic Revolution serving as the key link in the chain.

Reconstitute the Communist Party by Learning From Chairman Gonzalo, Uniting Under Maoism, and Making Maoism Incarnate

After citing the new wave of the world proletarian revolution, Chairman Gonzalo commands: “We need Maoism to be a living force, and this is happening. We need Maoism to generate Communist Parties to lead this new great wave of the world proletarian revolution that is coming.”

To make Maoism a living force, it needs organization. The proletariat has no other weapon but organization because it is the means by which it can act as a class. Its highest form of organization is the Communist Party, which concentrates the best elements of the class and leads all other instruments in the conquest of power. Chairman Gonzalo teaches that the party is the axis of everything.

In the US today, the proletariat lacks its own party, manifesting in a crisis of leadership felt by every advanced worker across the country. Therefore, the principal task of revolutionaries is to reconstitute the Communist Party USA, to generate the proletariat’s leadership through the class struggle and two-line struggle so that people’s war can be initiated and power can be conquered. Power is fundamental to Maoism, because it is through power that everything is transformed.

The process of reconstitution requires that revolutionaries and advanced masses (principally among the proletariat) unite under Maoism. This process must take place nationally and not locally or regionally, because the party is the organization and leadership of the class struggle of the proletariat, of the whole class against the entire class of imperialists and their government.

In order to unite under Maoism, it is necessary to grasp Maoism, which means learning from Chairman Gonzalo, who defined the ideology. The process of uniting under Maoism takes place bit by bit; where this unity is forged, it is organized and applied, and Maoism is made incarnate.

LEARN FROM CHAIRMAN GONZALO, UNITE UNDER MAOISM, AND MAKE MAOISM INCARNATE TO RECONSTITUTE THE COMMUNIST PARTY USA!

Image: Chairman Gonzalo delivers his transcendental speech, September 24, 1992.

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