President Gonzalo takes into account the specific conditions of Peru that are characterized as follows:
In characterizing contemporary Peruvian society, President Gonzalo says: "... contemporary Peru is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society in which bureaucratic capitalism develops." Although Mariátegui had defined it well in the third point of the Program of the Constitution of the Party, this character is the light of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly of Maoism. President Gonzalo has demonstrated how this semi-feudal and semi-colonial character maintains and develops itself through new modalities, and in particular how bureaucratic capitalism has developed on this base throughout the entire process of contemporary society. This a problem of transcendental importance in order to understand the character of society and of the Peruvian revolution.
Bureaucratic capitalism is a fundamental thesis of Chairman Mao that it is not yet understood nor accepted by all the Marxists throughout the world, which for obvious historical reasons was not known by Mariátegui, and that President Gonzalo applies to the concrete conditions of our country. He maintains that in order to analyze the contemporary social process, one must start from three intimately linked problems: The periods that bureaucratic capitalism is going through; the process accomplished by the proletariat in its highest expression, the Communist Party; and the road that the revolution must follow. He teaches us that since 1895 three historical moments can be differentiated in contemporary Peruvian society:
1st moment. The development of bureaucratic capitalism. The constitution of the PCP. Definition and outlining of the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside;
2nd moment. The development of bureaucratic capitalism. Reconstitution of the PCP. Establishment of the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside;
3rd moment. The general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism. The leadership of the PCP in the People's War. Application and development of the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside.
At the same time, he proposes that contemporary Peruvian society is in a generalized crisis, a serious and incurable illness that can only be transformed through the armed struggle. The Communist Party of Peru is leading the people in this, as there is no other solution.
Why is Peru semi-feudal? President Gonzalo states: "The decrepit semi-feudal system continues subsisting and characterizes the country from its deepest foundations to its most elaborate ideas. In essence, it persistently maintains the land question unresolved, which is the motor of the class struggle of the peasantry, especially of the poor peasants that are the immense majority." He stresses that the land question continues subsisting because the semi-feudal relationships of exploitation allow semi-feudalism to evolve, and it is the basic problem of society that is expressed in land, servitude, and gamonalismo. ["The term gamonalismo designates more than just a social and economic category: that of the latifundistas or large landowners. It signifies a whole phenomenon. Gamonalismo is represented not only by the gamonales but by a long hierarchy of officials, intermediaries, agents, parasites, etc. The literate Indian [sic, -- Trans.] who enters the service of gamonalismo turns into an exploiter of his own race. The central factor of the phenomenon is the hegemony of the semi-feudal landed estate in the policy and mechanism of the government." J.C Mariátegui, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, p. 30. Quote added by translator.] We must see these conditions in all their aspects, economic, political, and ideological, in both the base and superstructure. The peasantry constitutes about 60% of the population, which for centuries has worked the land but it is tied to the big property and to servitude. Hence, a great concentration of land exists in a few hands, with both associative and non-associative forms. The immense majority of the peasantry are the poor peasantry that do not have land, or if they have it they are very few, thus giving the position of the minifundio [small landowner] submitted to the voracity of the latifundio. [Large landowner--Trans.]
This condition crushes the peasantry in a system of servitude that as Lenin taught presents itself in a thousand forms, but its essence is personal subordination. Thus we see forms centered around servile relationships such as unpaid work in the SAIS [agrarian societies], CAPS, peasant groups, in Cooperación Popular [Servile labor in government works during the Belaúnde regime.], PAIT [Assistance programs], PROEM [Emergency program run by the government.], etc. Beyond this, it is known that in the countryside for every three peasants able to work only one works, and the State tries to channel the unused labor to benefit itself with unpaid labor. We can also observe (particularly in the Sierra region) an autarchic economy outside of the national economy.
Reaffirming himself in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, President Gonzalo unfurls the principle that the agrarian reform consists in the destruction of the feudal landlord property; in the individual distribution of land to the peasantry under the slogan of "land to the tiller" ["tierra para quien la trabaja"], which is achieved through the People's War and the New Power, led by the Communist Party. This is equivalent to Lenin's thesis that there are two roads in agriculture: The landlord's road which is reactionary, evolves feudalism and supports the old state, and the peasant's road which is advanced, destroys feudalism and tends towards a new state.
He analyzes the character and the results of the agrarian laws passed by the old state, proving with certainty the subsistence of semi-feudalism, whose existence today is often denied. Thus, the Law of Bases of Pérez Godoy of 1962, the Law 15037 of 1964 and the Law 17716 of 1969 (essentially corporative that encourage big associative property) are characterized as being three laws of purchase/sale, executed by the bureaucratic apparatus of the state to develop bureaucratic capitalism. He warns that the Law of Promoting Cattle Ranching of 1980 treats the land question as resolved and at the same time advocates associative property and the return of the gamonales to invigorate bureaucratic capitalism, which is also under the control of the big bankers with the direct participation of Yankee imperialism. This is the path that the fascist and corporativist Aprista government takes [referring to the government in 1988--Trans.], which is returning to the fascist and corporative "agrarian reform" of Velasco, raising cries of "revolutionizing agriculture" and thus strengthen gamonalismo, which treats the land question as resolved and centers around productivity, gives the law of communities, the law of peasant rondas in order to deepen bureaucratic capitalism and to spread it to every corner of the country, calling the masses to corporativization, aiming at the peasant communities as the base of their corporative zeal, which equally serve the creation of the micro-regions, the regions, CORDES [A development corporation] and other fascist and corporative creations. All of this does not mean anything except new modalities of concentration of the old latifundista property, still not destroyed, and it is the old path of landowner policies followed in contemporary Peru that was brought up in the 1920s, deepened in the 1950s and especially in the 1960s, which is followed today under new conditions.
This road of the landowner is expressed politically in the old state through gamonalismo; as Mariátegui says, gamonalismo does not only designate a social and economic category but an entire phenomenon represented not just by the gamonales, but which also encompasses a large hierarchy of officials, intermediaries, agents, parasites, etc., and that the central factor of the phenomenon is the hegemony of big semi-feudal property in politics and in the mechanism of the state, which should be attacked at its root. President Gonzalo specifically emphasizes the manifestations of semi-feudalism in politics and in the mechanism of the state by conceiving that gamonalismo is the political manifestation of semi-feudalism upon which this regime of servitude is supported, in which bosses and lackeys, who change outfits according to the government in turn, represent the old state in the most remote villages of the country. Since this is an agrarian war, this is the factor which the spearhead of the democratic revolution is targeted at.
Why is it semi-colonial? Modern Peruvian economy was born in submission to imperialism (the final phase of capitalism), which was masterfully characterized as monopolistic, parasitical and dying. Imperialism, even though it allows our political independence, as long as it serves its interest, still controls the entire economic process of Peru: our natural wealth, export products, industry, banking and finances. In brief, it sucks the blood of our people, devours the energies of a nation in formation, and most strikingly today it squeezes us and other oppressed nations with the external debt.
President Gonzalo reaffirms himself in Lenin's thesis, later accurately developed by Chairman Mao, to define the semi-colonial character of our society. In synthesis, Lenin outlined that there are many forms of imperialist domination, but two are typical:
Bureaucratic Capitalism. President Gonzalo states that the understanding of this issue is key to the comprehension of Peruvian society. Following Chairman Mao's thesis, he specifies five characteristics:
He analyzes the process that bureaucratic capitalism has followed in Peru, the first historical moment in which it develops from 1895 to the Second World War, in which, during the 1920s, the comprador bourgeoisie assumes control of the State, displacing the landlords but preserving their interests. The second moment is from the Second World War to 1980, a period of its expansion, during which a branch of the big bourgeoisie evolves into the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, which began in 1939 in the first government of Prado, at the time when the participation of the State in the economic process begins. Subsequently, this participation has grown even more, and was due to the fact that the big bourgeoisie, due to a lack of capital, is not capable of deepening bureaucratic capitalism. Thus a clash between both factions of the big bourgeoisie was generated, between the bureaucratic and the comprador. In 1968, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie takes the leadership of the state through the armed forces by way of the military coup of Velasco, which in turn generated a great growth in the state economy. The number of state-owned companies, for example, increased from 18 to 180; the state passes has become the motor of the economy led by the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, but it is during this moment that the economy enters into a deep crisis. The third moment is from 1980 onward, in which bureaucratic capitalism enters into a general crisis and its final destruction, a moment which begins with the People's War. Since it is a capitalism that is born critically, sick, rotten, and bound to feudalism and subjugated to imperialism, at this time it enters into a general crisis, to its final destruction, and no measure or reform can save it. It will lengthen its agony at best. On the other hand, like a beast in agony, it will defend itself by seeking to crush the revolution.
If we see this process from the people's road, in the first moment the PCP was constituted with Mariátegui in 1928, and the history of the country was split into two; in the second, the PCP was reconstituted as Party of a new type with President Gonzalo and revisionism was purged; and in the third, the PCP entered to lead the People's War, a transcendental milestone which radically changes the history by taking the superior qualitative leap of making the conquest of power a reality by way of armed force and the People's War. All of this merely proves the political aspect of bureaucratic capitalism that is rarely emphasized, but which President Gonzalo considers as a key issue: bureaucratic capitalism ripens the conditions for revolution, and today as it enters into its final phase, it ripens the conditions for the development and victory of the revolution.
It is also very important to see how bureaucratic capitalism is shaped by non-state monopoly capitalism and by state monopoly capitalism, that is the reason why he differentiates between the two factions of the big bourgeoisie, the bureaucratic one and the comprador, so as to avoid tailing one or the other, a problem that led our Party to 30 years of wrong tactics. It is important to conceive it this way, since the confiscation of bureaucratic capitalism by the New Power will facilitate the completion of the democratic revolution and to advance into the socialist revolution. If only the state monopoly capitalism is targeted, the other part would remain free, the non-state monopoly capital, and the big comprador bourgeoisie would remain economically able to lift its head to snatch away the leadership of the revolution and to prevent its passage to the socialist revolution.
Furthermore, President Gonzalo generalizes that bureaucratic capitalism is not a process peculiar to China or to Peru, but that it follows the late conditions in which the various imperialists subjugate the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, at a time when these oppressed nations have not yet destroyed the vestiges of feudalism, much less developed capitalism.
In synthesis, the key issue to understand the process of contemporary Peruvian society and the character of the revolution, is this Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Though thesis on bureaucratic capitalism, which is a contribution to the world revolution that we Marxist-Leninist-Maoists have firmly assumed with Gonzalo Thought.
What type of state is sustained by this semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, upon which bureaucratic capitalism is unfolding? Based on the analysis of contemporary Peruvian society and the masterful Maoist thesis "On New Democracy" which proposes that the many state systems in the world can be classified according to their class character into three fundamental types:
At the same time there are differences between the state system and the system of government. They are parts of a unity of opposites; the state system is the place that classes occupy within the state and the government is the form in which power is organized. Chairman Mao taught that the main thing is to define the class character of a state. The forms of government that are introduced can be civilian or military, with elections or by decree, liberal-democratic or fascist, but they always represent the dictatorship of the reactionary classes; to not see the old state this way is to fall into the trap of identifying a dictatorship with a military regime and to think that a civilian government is not a dictatorship, thus tailing one of the factions in the big bourgeoisie behind the tale of "defending democracy" or "avoiding military coups", positions that instead of destroying the old state support it and defend it, as is the case in Peru with the revisionists and opportunists of the United Left.
The old state is subordinated to imperialism, in our case mainly Yankee imperialism, which is propped up by its spinal column, the reactionary armed forces, and counts on a increasingly growing bureaucracy. The armed forces have the same character as the state that they support and defend.
President Gonzalo tells us clearly: "It is this social system that yields their usufruct that the ruling classes and their master Yankee imperialism defends with blood and fire, through their landlord-bureaucratic state, sustained by their reactionary armed forces; constantly exercising their class dictatorship (of the big bourgeoisie and landlords), either through a de facto military government ... or through governments stemming from elections and so-called constitutional ones..." and, "...this decrepit system of exploitation, destroys and halts the powerful creative forces of the people, the only forces capable of the deepest revolutionary transformation...".
Imperialism, mainly Yankee, because for us it is the principal imperialism that dominates and that tries to ensure its dominance more and drives home our situation as a semi-colonial country; but we must also ward off penetration by Russian social-imperialism and of the other imperialist powers. We must use the various factions of the old state to sharpen their contradictions and isolate the principal enemy in order to defeat it. Bureaucratic capitalism is the constant obstacle of the democratic revolution that acts to maintain semi-feudalism and semi-colonialism at the service of imperialism. And semi-feudalism that subsists today with new modalities but that still constitutes the basic problem of the country.
2nd: To destroy bureaucratic capitalism, confiscating both the big state and non-state monopoly capital.
3rd: To destroy the property of the feudal landlords, confiscating both the big associative and non-associative properties, with individual distribution of the land under the slogan "Land to the tiller" [La tierra para quien la trabaja], primarily and principally to the poor peasants.
4th: To support middle capital, which is allowed to work while imposing conditions. All of this implies the collapse the old state through the People's War with armed revolutionary force and the leadership of the Communist Party in building a new State.
President Gonzalo tells us: "... the peasantry is the principal motive force.... who for centuries fundamentally demand 'Land to the tiller', which despite their courageous struggles has yet to achieve it"; "... the proletariat... the leading class of our revolution... that in the long, arduous struggle has torn only starvation wages and has conquered only crumbs from their exploiters, only to lose them through each economic crisis that the society suffers; a proletariat that debates within a sinister iron circle..."; "a petty bourgeoisie with broad layers, which corresponds to a backward country, who sees their dreams shattered in time to the inexorable pauperization that the prevailing social order imposes to them"; and, "a petty bourgeoisie, a national bourgeoisie that is weak and lacks capital, which develops unevenly, zig-zagging and split between revolution and counter-revolution....". "Four classes that historically make up the people and the motive forces of the revolution, but of them all it is mainly the poor peasantry who are the main driving force".
A particular importance is attached to the scientific organization of poverty, a thesis that comes from Marx and that for us implies organizing the mainly poor peasantry and the poorest masses in the cities into a Communist Party, a People's Guerrilla Army and a New State that is concretized through People's Committees. A series of relationships is established. Thus, to speak of the peasant question is to speak of the land question, and to speak of the land question is to speak of the military question, and to speak of the military question is to speak of the question of power, of the New State which we will reach through the democratic revolution led by the proletariat through its Party, the Communist Party. In the People's War, the peasant question is the base and the military question is the guide. Furthermore, without the peasantry in arms there is no hegemony in the Front. It is, then, of great significance to understand that the peasant question is basic and it sustains all of the actions in the democratic revolution. It is important even in the socialist revolution.
The proletariat is the leading class. It is the class that guarantees the Communist course of the revolution, that unites with the peasantry, it makes up the worker-peasant alliance, the basis of the Front. The Peruvian proletariat that is concentrated largely in the capital and is proportionally greater than in China, but in terms of percentage decreases day by day, a specific situation that presents itself as we apply the democratic revolution, for which we wage the People's War in the cities as a complement. A class that has arrived today to the formation of a Communist Party, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought party that has generated a People's Guerrilla Army which it leads absolutely and a New State which it leads in a joint dictatorship, a Party that through almost 20 years of reconstitution and seven in leadership of the People's War has given the people a great historical leap. It is vital to understand its leading role in the democratic revolution, since it guarantees the correct course towards Communism; and, without the leadership of the proletariat the democratic revolution would evolve into an armed action under the leadership of the bourgeoisie and would fall under the tutelage of a superpower or imperialist power.
To the above two classes are added the petty bourgeoisie, and taken together they are the solid trunk of the revolutionary Front, which is no more than a Front for the People's War and a framework of the alliance of classes that make up the New State, the People's Committees in the countryside and the Revolutionary Defense Movement of the People in the cities.
Concerning the middle bourgeoisie, today it does not participate in the revolution but its interests are respected. It is not a target of the democratic revolution; it is a class that suffers ever-greater restrictions from the reactionaries but it is of dual character and in the course of the democratic revolution can join the side of the revolution at any moment. If the interests of the middle bourgeoisie are not taken into account then the revolution would change character, it would no longer be democratic but socialist.
In sum, the New State that we are forming in the democratic revolution will be a joint dictatorship, an alliance of four classes led by the proletariat through its Party, the Communist Party: a dictatorship of workers, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and under certain conditions the national or middle bourgeoisie; a dictatorship that today is of three classes, since the middle bourgeoisie do not participate in the revolution, but their interest are respected. These classes make up the dictatorship of New Democracy in the state system, and a People's Assembly as a system of government.
President Gonzalo stated: "What in essence is this democratic revolution? It is a peasant war led by the Communist Party, which intends to create a new state comprised of four classes to crush imperialism, the big bourgeoisie, and the landlords in order to fulfil its four tasks. The democratic revolution has a principal form of struggle: The People's War, and a principal form of organization: the armed force, which is the solution to the land question, the national question, and the question of the destruction of the landlord bureaucratic state and the reactionary armed forces, the vertebral column that sustains it, in order to fulfill the political objective of building a new state, a state of new democracy, and to make the People's Republic of New Democracy, advancing immediately to the socialist revolution. In synthesis, the democratic revolution is concretized by a peasant war led by the Communist Party; any other modality is only a service to the landlord bureaucratic state."
In synthesis, President Gonzalo demonstrates the force of the two stages of the revolution in the oppressed nations and establishes that the world proletarian revolution has three types of revolution. As such, by making the democratic revolution, the Communist Party of Peru is serving the world revolution and President Gonzalo is contributing to the world revolution. We, with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, have assumed the line on the democratic revolution established by President Gonzalo.
And on the basis of this new politics and new economy, a new culture is being erected that beats in the hearts of mainly the poor peasants; basic education is a problem that deserves our fundamental attention and is unfolding under coeducation, education and work, with a basic program for the children, adults, and for the masses in general; it is truly important. The problems of health and recreation of the masses are also of vital importance. Thus, the masses are organized, forming their mobilization, politicization, organization and armament, aiming towards the armed sea of masses, based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, under the leadership of the Party, with the experience of the People's War and above all and principally with the new power, exercising it, conquering it, defending it and developing it, as People's Committees, Bases of Support and advancing the People's Republic of New Democracy.
This is the democratic revolution that the Party is specifying for Peruvian society, overthrowing imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudalism in the country through a united People's War, principally in the countryside and with an urban complement, and it is not the "democratic revolution" falsely proclaimed by the current fascist and corporatist Apra government that denies the character of Peruvian society, classes and the class struggle, especially the landlord-bureaucratic dictatorial character of the old state, as well as the need for violence to topple it. It is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought democratic revolution that constitutes an ardent and growing flame serving the world proletarian revolution which is guaranteed by the masterful leadership of President Gonzalo.