[Editor's Note: This is the introduction to the book Glory to the Day of Heroic Resistance! published by Socorro Popular del Peru in celebration of the First Anniversary of the genocide of 100 political prisoners and prisoners of war (POW) by the armed forces of Fujimori, in the luminous trench of combat (prison) of Cantogrande in Lima, in May 1992. Six years earlier, in June 1986, the same genocidal armed forces assassinated 300 POWs in the prisons of El Fronton, Lurigancho and Callao during the regime of Garcia Perez.]
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
"To struggle or to die, the bloody struggle or nothing. That is the unavoidable dilemma."
Karl Marx
"We must not ever allow the morale of the class to be blunted, it does not matter how many leaders fall."
Lenin
"Whoever falls in the struggle has the right to resurrection."
Lenin
"Wherever there is struggle there are sacrifices, and death is a frequent thing. But for us, whose minds are set upon the people's interests and the sufferings of the immense majority, to die for the people is a dignified death. Nevertheless, we must reduce to the minimum unnecessary sacrifices."
Chairman Mao Tsetung
"The reactionaries try to stop the Revolution by mass slaughter. They think that by murdering more people the revolution gets weaker; but contrary to such a subjective wish, facts show that the more people the reactionaries murder, the closer they get to their end. That is an inevitable law."
Chairman Mao Tse-tung
"I accept the revolution with all its horrors, without cowardly reservations."
José Carlos Mariátegui
"Communists, being such, fear nothing; and the Party has forged us to defy death and carry life on our fingertips to deliver it whenever the revolution demands it."
President Gonzalo
Q: Do you have friends? "No, I don't; comrades, yes. And I am very proud to have the comrades I do."
President Gonzalo
"The forging of a revolution is thus, never in dead calm, but in turbulence and difficulties."
President Gonzalo
"Nothing restrains us. We know how to navigate in turbulent waters. Danger does not contain us, risk does not stop us, it's an enticement to better fulfill our tasks. This is a test, we welcome it. The life of a communist is never tranquil, our life is struggle and more struggle; that, precisely is our happiness."
President Gonzalo
"It's fought with more cruelty, we keep up the struggle; a part of this struggle is the sinister persecution against the prisoners of war; but those who are persecuted today are tomorrow's heroes, the ones who make the future, the ones who make a way in history."
President Gonzalo
Declaration on the Day of Heroic Resistence.
The everlasting bosom of the people nourished them with sober food and set them to walk; the class struggle shaped their minds; and the Party, as the premier and highest social formation, elevated their political consciousness, arming them with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, guiding thought; it empowered their combativity, organizing them in the People's Guerrilla Army, and fusing them with the masses of poor peasants, steeled their bodies and spirits in the inextinguishable forge of the People's War. Becoming Prisoners of War, they never bent their knees, but continuing to fight, mobilize and produce through hard work, they transformed the sordid dungeons of the obsolete, putrid Peruvian State into Luminous Trenches of Combat.
The ruthless, pounding, well aimed blows of the People's War in its unstoppable advances have gutted the reactionary beast, reverberating like a ceaseless lashing or an insistent demand in the tossing and turning nightmares of the Aprista government, already fascist and corporativist, and headed by the genocidal Garcia Perez. They dreamt up the dark and bloodthirsty plans for a devastating, decisive blow to crush the People's War. The rebellion of the Prisoners of War, in defense of the Revolution and of their own lives, unmasks and condemns before the world those sinister plans for mass murder, and exposes the monstrous and disgraceful genocide perpetrated through governmental order and with a free hand, by the armed forces and repressive bodies, carried out with a blind hatred for the people and a perverse homicidal fur ironlike and fierce resistance of the comrades, fighters and children of the masses, who showed their ideology, courage and heroism, who boldly deployed themselves in a pitched battle. Thus the reactionary beast drank blood to satiety in order to impose its peace of the dead; the lives miserably and cowardly laid waste become immortal, forming the monumental trilogy of Shining Trenches of Combat of El Fronton, Lurigancho and El Callao, a historical landmark which will proclaim more and more the greatness of the Day of Heroism.
The attempted devastating and decisive strike ended up falling on the heads of those who engendered it, sinking the fascist and coporative Aprista, government along with its president, who violated the norms of his own State, precipitating a grave political crisis and a great loss of prestige which they still cannot overcome. Thus the rebellion of the Prisoners of War, at the cost of their own lives, earned for the Party and the Revolution a magnificent political, military and moral victory; moreover, they contributed enormously to successfully sealing off the great leap with a golden seal and laying the foundation for the new plan of developing bases, whose first campaign has been the greatest shakeup the Peruvian State has experienced so far, and the greatest repercussion of the People's War, both inside and outside the country. Thus, the prisoners of war, as historical figures, go on winning more battles beyond death, since, living and fighting within us, conquering new victories, we feel their firm and indelible presence vibrating and shining, showing us today, tomorrow and forever how to give our life for the Party and the Revolution.
Glory to the Day of Heroism!
President Gonzalo.
Peru, June 1987.
"We must recognize the heroism of the participants in the Luminous Trench of Combat, obviously that is a place that has impressed itself on the people, and is an example of what it means not just to live for a just cause, but to die for it; a heroic lifetime after a heroic death; that exemplifies what the Peruvian people have done since the beginning of their history, only today the offering is much higher because the goal is much higher and because it is led by a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought Party."
Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP).