NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/10291

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From: Hank Roth <[e-mail]>
Subject: PLP on SANDERO (2)
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/* Written 10:16 pm  Jan 23, 1993 by [e-mail] in igc:p.news */
/* ---------- "PLP on SANDERO (2)" ---------- */
<<< via P_news/p.nes >>>
{From THE COMMUNIST, the political journal of the Progressive
Labor Party, Number 6/Fall/1992}

[I am presenting this article, by the PLP, on Sandero Luminoso,
for informational purposes. It contains an accurate picture of
life in Peru and provides, in my opinion, a better understanding
of how different politics happens in the Third World. Be aware
also that theory and practice tend to converge at first, but
then they diverge from orthodox analysis and practice due to those
exigencies that are caused by circumstance which are particularly
peculiar to Latin America and specifically to Peru.

The article is naturally critical of Sandero because of a
difference in political analysis and process between the PLP and
the SL, and anyone reading this material should bare that in
mind. This article should thus be read with a certain objective
`truth seeking' detachment and a degree of skepticism, no less so
than reports coming in from various amnesty groups and other
tendencies with a possible ax to grind, and in that respect this
reading and further reading from other sources should [can]
present a totality that will be closer to the truth.---Hank Roth]

                            Part 2 (of 4)

In 1985  SHINING PATH took the next step with its "Plan to
Develop Base Areas." The result [The following account was given
by representatives of the CPP leadership to a PLP delegation,
February, 1992] was a string of base areas running throughout the
central highland, led by secret SHINING PATH controlled "Peoples'
Committees." They ruled these base areas in the way they thought
appropriate for the "united-front' new bourgeois revolution."
The "Peoples' Committees" maintained security, distributed land,
administered market relations by setting production targets and
prices, ran a school system, judged civil disputes, provided
welfare for th eelderly and recruited new members for the
revolutionary forces. One policy the SHINING PATH is proud of is
its effort to convince coca farmers to stop growing coca and grow
food and fruit instead. They claim this policy is successful in
their base areas. Other policies they are proud of include
eliminating drug use and prostitution in their base areas, and
not tolerating wife or child abuse, going so far as to shoot
offenders. By 1990 SHINING PATH felt so strong that they revealed
the membership of the Peoples' Committees. They also decided to
set up a national government, based on the twenty-four base areas
and led by "President Gonzalo," to rival the bourgeois state led
by Fujimori. (But a SHINING PATH leader told a PLP delegation he
did not know how this new "Republic of New Democracy actually
functions.)

The army high command, who control an 80,000 man force, revealed
in Novemeber, 1990 that it was prepared to crush the SHINING
PATH, and they thought it would take a 20-year military
dictatorship and killing 600,000 people to do it. [Nelson
Manrique, "TIME OF FEAR," in NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol
24, #4, pg 38] More than half the country was already under
military rule when, on April 5, 1992, President Alberto Fujimori
took what looks like the next step in the army high command's
plan and suspended the constitution and the judicial system in
the rest of the country and dissolved the Congress altogether.

Just because the army plans to suppress the SHINING PATH doesn't
mean it will be able to. But that is the army's concern. We have
a different concern. What if SHINING PATH wins? If SHINING PATH
wins, will it bring about a classless society---no exploitation,
no oppression, no privilege, equality for all in satisfying
everyone's needs--in short, communism? Nothing short of communism
will solve the problems of Peru's working people. And communism
is what SHINING PATH seems to be promising. This is what has won
them a huge following from Peru's young people and from the
poorest of Peru's poor, who know they have no future in
capitalism, and who desperately want a complete change in
society. They think that by supporting SHINING PATH they are
fighting for a communist Peru. They admire SHINING PATH because
it kills oppresssors, crooks and thugs; because it seems to know
what it is doing and seemingly can't be stopped; because its
cadres are disciplined and moral. The poor look on it as their
avenging angel. We decided to meet with the SHINING PATH to learn
from them directly what they are all about.

We concluded, unfortunately, that SHINING PATH doesn't aim to,
and isn't capable of, leading Peru to communism. After speaking
to their representatives, and studying their material, it is
clear to us that no one should count on SHINING PATH for this.
Despite all the "communist" hoopla, their politics are really
very reactionary.

SHINING PATH'S `MAOISM'

SHINING PATH promotes something they call "Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism, principally Maoism, and Gonzalo Thought," as the latest
word in revolutionary Marxist thinking. As they describe this
"new, third and higher stage of Marxism:"

  "..Marxism leads us to Leninism and Leninism to Maoism. Of all
  these three, Maoism is principal. Moreover, Maoism leads us to
  Gonzalo Thought, which is the universal truth specific to the
  concrete reality of Peruvian society and specific to the concrete
  conditions of the class struggle today." [Guzman, SPEECH: "On
  the Rectification Campaign Based on the Study of the Document NO
  TO ELECTIONS, YES TO PEOPLES' WAR," Central Committee, Communist
  Party of Peru, Aiugust 1991, pg 4]

There is not much in this "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally
Maoism, Gonzalo Thought," and what little there is in it is
false. As the above quote makes clear, it all hinges on whatever
it is they call "Maoism." But a problem arises immediately when
you try to learn what exactly is in "the new, third and higher
stage of Marxism." After all, Mao himself never claimed to have
developed a new stage of Marxism, so you can't refer to his
writings for all insight. In fact, SHINING PATH tells you
outright that Guzman, not Mao, invented "Maoism." "The principal
contribution of Gonzalo Thought is to have developed the
definition of Maoism as a new, third and higher state of
Marxism." [Guzman, Speech, pg 24] But what is it? The closest
Guzman gets to "defining" "Maoism" is this:

   "Revolutionary violence, class struggle, socialism,
   proletarian dictatorship and struggle against revisionism. Of
   these four, socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are
   principal. [Guzman, Speech, pg 24]

GBut this combination of ideas originated with MArx many years
before Mao was born. They were more fully developed by Lenin when
Mao was still a child. Lenin added to these ideas the idea of the
revolutionary, democratic-centralist working class party, and
altogether this was the legacy of the Bolshevik revolution to all
communists. Mao was one of the inheritors of this legacy, which he
applied unchanged ot Chinese conditions.

The only conclusion which Mao drew from Chinese revolutionary
experience which he felt was a new, unique contribution to
Marxism-Leninism which could be applied by revolutionaries in
other countries besides China was what he called "peoples' war."
He held that whenever the working class had to make war, whether
to seize power in a revolutionary civil war of class against
class, or in a war of national defense against imperialist
aggression, that war should be fought in a protracted way, based
on communist political organizaing, and emphasizing guerrilla
warfare to annihilate the enemy army. Important as this is, and
true as it may be, it is not an ideology. Mao never claimed it
was anything more than a contribution to Marxism-Leninism in the
political and military fields.

There was one other area where Mao began to develop a distinctive
body of ideas, but he didn't get too far before he died. These
ideas were conclusions Mao drew from the experience of all the
socialist countries, and not only of China. Mao concluded that in
socialism there is a constant movement to restore private
capitalism. This movement has a social base in socialist
society's new privileged elite groups, such as managers,
professionals, intellectuals, artists and bureaucrats, rather
than in the old dispossessed classes. The movement's leadership
was within the leadership of the ruling communist party itself.
So Mao felt the working people should rise up, overthrow the
party leadership and institute new social policies which
restricted privilege, with the long term goal of eliminating it.
The workers should be prepared to do this over and over again, as
needed. This process he called "Cultural Revolution." But he had
no clear idea how to do these things successfully, or how to
ensure that privledged groups don't arise to begin with, and he
opposed those within the Cultural Revolution---the Left---who did
have such a program.

In developing his ideas, both about "peoples' war" and about the
need for "cultural revlution," Mao relied on the characteristic
method of Marxist-Leninist reasong, called the principle of
contradiction. Mao developed a slogan to help people use this
method: "One divides into two." Other phrases with which he, and
other Cultural Revolutionairies, expressed the same idea, were:
"Analysis is primary, synthesis is secondary," "Struggle is
constant, unity is temporary."

During the Cultural Revolution this slogan, "One into two,"
became an important political issue. Mao's opponenets--Liu, Deng
and the other "capitalist roaders"---were accused by Mao of
betraying Marxism-Leninism by misstating the principle of
contradiction. They were charged with putting unity first and
class struggle second---or "two into one." For this they had to
be struggle against and overthrown.

Now, bearing all this in mind, when we return to considering
SHINING PATH's "Maoism" we find a very curious thing. They oppose
Mao's insistence on the primacy of the idea of "One into two."
Instead they support the capitalist roaders' formulation of "Two
into one." "President Gonzalo" said this very clearly:

  "Pay attention to analysis and synthesis. These are two aspects
  of a contradiction and synthesis is the principal one...Synthesis
  is the decisive aspect, the main aspect...from the standpoint of
  Marxism-Leninism-Maoism..synthesis is the principal aspect."
  [Guzman, SPEECH, pg 3]

While SHINING PATH states that the "Cultural Revolution is the
greatest achievement of Chairman Mao," they oppose Mao's whole
idea for the Cultural Revolution. Mao felt there was a ruling
socialist elite class, led and protected by the Communist Party
leadership, which was implementing policies and laws which were
capitalist. They had to be thrown from power, and society had to
be reorganized to eliminate privilege.

SHINING PATH opposes this. They don't see any privileged social
class or even any social process. They oppose Mao's conclusion
that capitalism develops out of socialism. As they see it,

  "The revisionists..in China with Deng from 1976 to the present
  usurped the dictatorship of the proletariat, restored capitalism
  and destroyed socialism." [Guzman, SPEECH, pg 6]

>From the viewpoint there was no point to the Cultural Revolution,
which began in 1966--ten years before the "revisionist conspiracy
destroyed socialism."

There is not much one can say about a "Maoism" which crucifies
Mao, and then pretends to worship him. Instead (and more
fruitfully) we examine the three most important elements of
SHINING PATH's politics. They are all reactionary.

The imperialists are cocky and arrogant these days, and it would
be nice if some revolutionary communists were already strong
enough to really hit them in the head with a two-by-four. But it
won't be the SHINING PATH.

1. SHINING PATH'S AIM

First--- the most reactionary thing---is what they aim for. They
are trying to reform capitalism. They are not trying for
communism. They talk a lot about communism, but the talk is all
deception. Communism for them is a goal for the distant, unknown
future, a goal they don't believe the Peruvian working people can
reach through their own efforts and, moreover, a goal they
themselves hav eno idea how to reach. As Guzman put it:

  "...as a Communist Party we have one goal: communism...This is
  our final goal..But until everybody on earth will arrive there,
  nobody enters communism..Either everybody or nobody will enter
  communism...[So] we believe the road to communism is a long one."
  [Guzman, INTERVIEW, pg 110]

Everybody at once? [This reminds us of the fight in the Bolshevik
party in the mid-1920s over whether they could build socialism in
the Soviet Union even though the socialist revolution in the main
European industrial countries had failed. The rightwing, then led
by Trotsky, argued that the Bolsheviks could not go forward alone
to socialism, and they shouln't gtry. But even Trotsky didn't
demand that "everybody on earth" be ready to spring into
socialism. HE would have been cohntent with Germany. Is
Presidente Gonzolo more rightwing than Trotsky?] How in the world
could this ever happen? It seems childish, but really it is just
reactionary politics.

SHINING PATH apparently has decided that Marxism-Leninism is
wrong in its conclusion that capitalist societies develop
unevenly, some faster, others slower. It is this uneven
development that produces a world capitalism that can be imagined
as a chain with some strong links and some weak links. It is in
the "weak links" that proletarian revoluion has its best chances
of succeeding. That was Lenin's idea. It is the basis of the
communist movment. It was the basis for Mao's work. Guzman
obviously disagrees with Lenin and world communism, and instead
agrees with the old rightwing social democrats, from whom Lenin
split to form the communist movement in the first place.

SHINING PATH obviously believes the oppressed can't free
themselves from oppression. They are not bashful about calling
their revolution a "BOURGEIOIS REVOLUTION [our emphasis] of a
new type, which only the proletariat can lead...[and which] is
the only way to transform the world." [Central Committee,
Communist Party of Peru, "On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism," in
FUNDAMENTAL DOCUMENTS, Red Banner Editorial House, 1988, pg 12.
This document also was given to a PLP delegation in February,
1992 by representatives of the CPP leadership as an authoritative
document of the CPP.] This is what they mean by "New Democracy.")
Where they have political power, and the ability to put their
plans into practice, they do no more than supervise capitalism to
smooth out its roughest edges.

Mariategui--whose heritage SHINING PATH claims to be redeeming--
must be turning over in his grave at this. He completely
disagreed with any kind of bourgeois revolution, either the "old
type" or the "new type."

When people claiming to be communists get involved with "new
type" or "new democratic" bourgeois revolutions it is because
they are trying to win over peasants, a group they believe are
really capitalist. The problem for these would-be communists is,
what should you do with the land owned by the feudal landlords?
The "new style" bourgeois revolution breaks up the huge
latifundia into small farms and distributes them to the peasants,
who become small landowners. This "fulfills" the peasants'
presumed capitalist dreams. SHINING PATH follows this policy in
th areas they control. But, of course, this is exactly what
happened in the "old style" bourgeois revolutions the capitalist
led! SHINING PATH deludes itself into thinking it is doing
something new because it concerns itself with the problem "Who
should get what?" Should the poor peasants get everything? Should
the middle peasants get anyathing? What about the rich peasants?
How do you distinguish between one group and another? But in the
end, what's the difference? The end result will be that some
group will become property owners, (just as in Poland, for
example, where the communists followed the same policy. That was
a great success!) What the capitalists did, and what SHINING PATH
is doing, is the same. Capitalism is being reporduced and
expanded.

SHINING PATH's policy is completely opposed to what Peru's
peasants need or want. Marategui himself (and not PL) was the
first to point this out. As far back as 1928 he wrote:

   "Everyone mus tknow that according to individualist ideology,
   the liberal solution to this problem [the problem of how to
   abolish the grat feudal farms] would be the breaking up of the
   great feudal farms to create small property...[This is]
   orthodox...capitalist and bourgeois..."

   "I believe that the moment for attempting the liberal,
   individualist method in Peru has already passed. Aside from
   reasons of doctrine, I consider that our agrarian problem has a
   special character due to an indisputable and concrete factor: the
   survival of the Indian "community" and of elements of practical
   communism in indigenous agriculture and life." [Jose Carlos
   Mariategui, "The Problem of Land," in SEVEN INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS
   ON PERUVIAN REALITY, University of Texas Press, 1990, pg 33]

This is the key to Mariategui's unique contribution to communist
theory, his actual "SHINING PATH." He felt Peru needed a
communist revolution as the only way to end the oppression of the
Indian and the worker. He felt Peru was ready for communism
because there already existed a communist structure on which to
build a communist Peru.

This structure is the traditional Indian AYLLU ("community"0 with
its collective ownership of land and cooperative labor. The ayllu
existed a thousand years before the Inca, who founded their
empire only in 1400 A.D. Inca civilization used the ayllu as its
social basis. (For this reason Mariategui characterized the Inca
period as "Inca communism," even though the Inca ruling elite
forced the ayllus to support their parasitical aristocratic class
system.) ["If the historical evidence of Inca communism is not
sufficiently convining, the `community'---the specific organ of
that communism--should dispel any doubt...Modern communism is
different from Inca communism...The two communisms are products
of different human experiences. They belong to different
historical epochs. They were evolved by dissimilar civilizations.
The Inca civilization was agrarian; the civilization of Marx...is
industrial...It is therefore absurd to compare the forms and
institutions of the two communisms. All that can be compared is
their esential and material likeness, within the essential and
material difference of time and space." Mariategui, IBID, pg 74]
The ayllu continued a vibrant existence in Mariategui's time (he
argued in 1928 that "the Indian `community' is still a living
organism and .... shows unmistakable potentialities for evolution
and development." [Mariategue, IBID, pg 56] The ayllu is alive at
this very moment.

   "The Indian...has not become an individualist. And this is not
   because he resists progress, as is claimed by his detractors.
   Rather, it is because individualism under a feudal system does
   not find the necessary conditions to gain strength and develop.
   On the other hand, communism has continued to be the Indians's
   only defense. Individualism cannot flourish or even exist
   effectively outside a system of free competition. And the Indian
   has never felt less free than when he has felt along..."
   [Mariategui, IBID, pg 57]

In Peru, communal property does not represent a primitive economy
that has been gradually replaced by a progressive economy founded
on individual property... The latifundium compares unfavorably
with the `community' as an enterprise for agricultural production
[in terms of crop yield]..." [Mariategui, IBID, pg 58-60]

<continued in Part 3>