SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY (SWP): A CULT AT THE SERVICE OF IMPERIALISM

It is not a bad thing but a good thing to be attacked by the enemy.

Mao Tse-tung

For the last few years, a Yankee cult named the "Socialist Workers Party" (SWP), historically engaged in the trafficking of international "solidarity movements" and with a long history of COINTELPRO infiltration, has been involved in an ignominious campaign of spreading the lies of the U.S. State Department and the CIA against the Peruvian Revolution led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) around the world. A summary of the SWP's defamations, along with their "reputable" sources are presented below:

SWP Slander and Distortion Source Fact

1. PCP crushes workers and
their organizations. It keeps them out of politics. Also kills leftists, priests, nuns, engineers, and gays. It cuts off fingers, gouges eyes, cuts pieces of flesh off living bodies, drinking people's blood.
1. CIA World Fact Book 1992.
2. Testimony to U.S. Congress from felon Elliot Abrams 3/90.
3. Testimony to U.S. Congress from US State Dept.'s Bernard Aronson 3/23/94.
PCP leads 16 year revolution of workers, peasants and progressives against the 3 mountains oppressing the people: semi-feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism. It's destroying the old state to build New Power: The People's Republic of Peru. It is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought Party of a new type.

2. PCP is terrorist. Peru's regime is a democracy. Reagan, Bush and Clinton Even Senderologist David Scott Palmer admits, "Sendero uses terror to further its revolutionary ends but it is not a terrorist organization...they do not use indiscriminate violence and should not be compared with Pol Pot." (P. 244, "Shining Path," 1992)
It is nothing new for U.S. imperialism to call a murderous regime hatched from a military coup and 18% of the vote a "democracy".

3.Fujimori's popularity is high. He had 65% of vote. George Bush
Bill Clinton
U.S. puppet Fujimori is hated by the people. He obtained only 18% of registered voters.

4. "PCP believes Fidel Castro is a U.S. lackey" Bernard W. Aronson, State Dept., 3/23/92 False. Actually Castro was a lackey of Nikita Khrushchev.

5. At the Santa Lucia U.S. military base in Huallaga, a PCP stronghold, U.S. Green Berets fight against drugs. Every U.S. government since Reagan's time. Senderologists Scott Palmer and Cynthia McClintock U.S. military at the base leads the counterinsurgency war against the People's Army. "War on Drugs" is a disguise. Open People's Committees of Huallaga have more than 100,000 people who have risen up in arms and are re-making their society, ending dependency on the coca trade.

6. After Fujimori's self coup, Bush cut him off of military aid, Clinton resumed it. The New York Times. The military coup was planned by Yankee imperialism to take command of the war. Aronson was in Lima coordinating the coup. The "cut in aid" was purely rhetorical.

7. During armed strikes, PCP orders workers (under death threat) to go home. PCP considers workers as enemies. "Peru's Brutal Insurgency: SL", 1992 U.S. Dept. State Dispatch. Complete lie. Workers and masses organized in PCP-led organizations (MRDP, MOTC) participate actively in armed strikes; the proletariat is at the forefront.

8. PCP killed miners' leader Saul Santoral, textile worker Enrique Castilla and others. National Intelligence Services (SIN, the Peruvian CIA) False. In 1994, turncoat Army General Rodolfo Robles denounced the SIN death squads killed them in 1994 as part of psychological warfare.

9. PCP recruits women whose husbands left them to seek jobs in the cities. Senderologist Degregori and human rights trafficker Robin Kirk. Women participate at all levels of the Party and the People's army because the oppression of women will be solved only as part of the liberation of the working class through People's War.

10. PCP is like Pol Pot. It has killed 250 authorities. A Sendero victory would compare not to Cuba's Castro, El Salvador's FMLN, Nicaragua's Sandinistas, the Vietnam's guerrillas, but Cambodia under Pol Pot. Luis Arce Borja says over a million will die. 1) US State Department 3/23/92. B. Aronson.
2) The filthy "liberal" Robert Torricelli.
1) the PCP is a self-reliant and self-sufficient Communist Party that puts politics in command of the gun; the Khmer Rouge was a "movement" supported by the CIA and the Chinese revisionists. 2) The Vietnamese executed 13,000 "authorities"; and compared with its populations the FMLN and Castro's revolution executed more than the PCP. That's part of revolutionary violence. 3) Arce Borja speaks only for himself

11. At its best, PCP only had 5,000 militants active in 19 out of the 24 Departments. CIA's World Fact Book. Senderologists Raul Gonzales and Carlos Tapia and SIN For the CIA "facts" means "lies". On April 1996 (Caretas 1408), Carlos Tapia said: "I have the hard drive of Guzman," there are 23,430 fighters not counting PCP Huallaga Base.

12. Sendero's leader Guzman is pleading for Peace Talks. Sendero is split. CIA, SIN and a few capitulators in prison. Counterrevolutionary hoax smashed with more People's War. Party is united as steel.

The above are but a few examples where the SWP helps promote the psychological operations of imperialism in order to hinder international support for the People's War. In addition, SWP borrows Troskyite mythology to mischaracterize the PCP by calling it "bonapartist', "Stalinist", even suggesting the crazy idea that the Party is "anarchist"! In its tabloids The Militant and New International, which are distributed in their Pathfinder Bookstores, it defames as "terrorists" the heroic people of Peru, fighting an armed struggle under the leadership of the PCP against the brutal regime of dictator Fujimori. Although for a person who is fairly informed on Peru the SWP's "information" is laughable, it is fair to ask the question: Are they acting consciously on behalf of Yankee imperialism like Trotsky did in the past on behalf of Hitler, or do they simply lack real information on the People's War?

For example, in its 1994 Spanish language pamphlet Sendero Luminoso, Evolution of a Stalinist Sect, (published in English in 1993 as Peru's Shining Path, Anatomy of a Reactionary Sect), the SWP reveals its gross ignorance of our country.

Page 9. SWP states that "Fujimori defeated Alan Garcia in the 1990 elections." False, Garcia didn't run in 1990. APRA's candidate was Luis Alva Castro.
Page 10. SWP states: "Fujimori is the product of the acute social crisis, collapse of the economy, and the discrediting of the political parties, including most of the Socialist and Communist parties." So, for SWP puppet Fujimori is a sort of "revolutionary" who suddenly pops up to save Peru! Here, SWP's imperialist position is crystal clear. The fact of the matter is that the People's War in 1990 was already involved in 10 years of successful armed struggle. The revolution has clearly exposed the semi-feudalism of the country, its semi-colonial condition and the inability of bureaucratic capitalism to solve the problems. The PCP has combated both imperialism and revisionism (agents inside of the working class), and the old State was already shaken to its roots. It is at that point that the People's War reached the stage of strategic equilibrium. The Peruvian revisionists (IU, PUM, Patria Roja) have been completely discredited and smashed by the revolution, even in the area they most cherish, the bourgeois elections, when they obtained 0.5% of the vote and had no other choice than to support the APRA and Fujimori governments to save the old State.
Page 13. SWP confuses the eclectic positions of the RCP with those of the PCP. The People's War is not a "peasant revolution" or a racial struggle, but a New Democratic revolution based on the worker-peasant alliance. SWP even borrows MIM's positions, comparing the PCP to Pol Pot, and claims that the PCP rejects the struggles of unions for better wages and other demands because it considers them a "labor aristocracy." The fact is that the Party leads those struggles from the bases, unmasking the revisionist leaders who seek to sell out the workers' interest in favor of the exploiters and the regime. Let's quote the great Lenin to explain why the PCP stands for democratic revolution in its uninterrupted path to socialist revolution and Communism:

"The proletariat must carry to completion the democratic revolution by allying to itself the mass of the peasantry, in order to crush by force the resistance of the autocracy and to paralyze the instability of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyze the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie". (V.I. Lenin, Two Tactics of SD, 1905, see Lenin CW, Vol 8, p. 96)

"From the democratic revolution we shall at once, and just to the extent of our strength, the strength of the class conscious and organized proletariat, begin to pass to the socialist revolution. We stand for uninterrupted revolution. We shall not stop halfway." (CW, Vol 8, pp 186-87)

"Without succumbing to adventurism or going against our scientific conscience, without striving for cheap popularity, we can do and say only one thing: we shall put every effort into assisting the peasants to carry out the democratic revolution in order to make it easier for us, the Party of the proletariat, to pass on, as quickly as possible, to the new and higher task, the Socialist Revolution" (Lenin, ibid.)

Page 17. SWP states that the Party does not recruit the "experienced" workers, the union leadership. It attracts residents of the shantytowns, peasants in poor areas, unemployed youth. TRUE! That's the majority of Peru. That's the expression of the worker-peasant alliance in the People's War. The corrupt revisionist union leadership has a long history of treason. They helped to put into power military and civilian dictators (Velasco, Morales, Garcia, Fujimori), and although the unionized proletariat is small in Peru, the PCP reaches out and has influence in this important sector. But, SWP is right that most of the support for the People's War comes from the proletariat in the informal sector, the peasants (mostly poor peasants), the petty bourgeoisie (students, teachers, public employees, owners of small shops, etc.) and the underemployed, which is the majority of the population. This reflects the mass character of the Peruvian revolution.
Page 19. SWP totally contradicts its position that the PCP is isolated from the people by stating that the capture of President Gonzalo has resulted in the unleashing of State repression against "democratic freedoms." Exactly! This is precisely because the PCP is intrinsically linked to the popular movement. If not, why would the capture of its leader affect the people? The bold recovery of the People's War from that "bend in the road" has also resulted in the sharpening of the class struggle by the popular movement.
Page 22. SWP claims that the Party seeks to put in Power a petty bourgeois privileged clique that would smash the workers and peasants. However, it is precisely that type of petty bourgeois movement that SWP has historically promoted with its "support." How about the SWP's icons the slave traitor Nelson Mandela and the "reinserted" Castro already in power? In contrast, the leadership of the New Power being built in Peru's People's Committees consists of 1/3 proletarians, 1/3 peasants and 1/3 progressives from other classes.
Page 23. SWP supports the low intensity warfare tactics of Yankee imperialism when it advocates a "counter-terrorist front." "Workers and peasants must confront Sendero Luminoso to defeat it." That's exactly what the armed forces, advised by the Yankees are doing in Peru. They are organizing paramilitary forces known as Civil Defense (peasant rondas) and urban rondas, which are being smashed by the Peruvian people through People's War.

Many revolutionary activists in the U.S. wonder why the SWP is blatantly reactionary on Peru when they have advocated some progressive causes in the past. It's interesting to note that just recently they have even reprinted in The Militant one of our statements on behalf of a Peruvian immigrant arbitrarily arrested in New York City.

Our answer is simple: SWP is not a counter-revolutionary group at all times and periods. This would be like saying Trotsky was always a counter-revolutionary, which is not true. During the October Revolution he was a revolutionary. Even Stalin said "Trotsky fought in October and fought well." But just like Trotsky, the SWP has been totally inconsistent with revolution here and with proletarian internationalism; and with respect to the Peruvian revolution SWP is definitely playing a counter-revolutionary role at the service of U.S. imperialism and the fascist Fujimori dictatorship. The imperialist slanders against the PCP are feeble and especially designed to fool the uninformed.

SWP and other academic "leftists" in the U.S. also attempt to ridicule the ideological developments of Marxism by the PCP known as "Gonzalo Thought". Yes, Lenin said that Marxism is complete and harmonious and needs no providential discoveries. However, the science of Marxism is not static; it develops not by negating itself and coming up with a new "improved formula", but by deepening its understanding of society and the laws that govern it, and that can only come from the application of this understanding to society in order to change it. In other words, Marxism does not "change" but it becomes more clear, more easily understood by the masses, deeper and more radical.

On the question of Stalin as set forth by the Trotskyites, the PCP upholds the dialectical analysis of Chairman Mao Tsetung (Vol. V, Collected Works) which debunks the Trotskyite and Khruschovite lies of accusing of every crime under the sun to Comrade Stalin. It's not true that Stalin did away "administratively" with political opponents, but it is what Fujimori does now in Peru with hundreds of political prisoners when he perpetrated genocides in the prisons of El Fronton (300), Cantogrande (100), and more than 30,000 murdered by Fujimori's U.S.- trained and funded army.

SWP doesn't rven mention those crimes of the regime, but saves its most savage denunciation for the People's War and its armed attacks against the old State.

Let's look at Trotsky's desertion of the revolution to explain the SWP position with respect to the PCP and the People's War. Isn't that true that once Trotsky abandoned the cause of the revolution, he was already associated with the bourgeois press and the slanders of the U.S. government in spreading anti-communist propaganda? The Trotskyites and imperialists accuse Comrade Stalin of killing Trotsky. The fact is that he died as a result of internal splits of the Trotskyists organisations.

The SWP knows that Mercader was an agent working for the anti-Stalin faction who, realizing that Trotsky would be more useful to them dead than alive, did away with him, to later present themselves as victims of the "Monster Stalin". This analogy is interesting because in Peru, where Trotskyism has no political relevance at all, the SWP accuses the PCP of killing a Troskyite worker even thought the PCP does not target anyone for their political or religious beliefs, unless they are involved in specific and proven actions on behalf of the regime's intelligence services and/or imperialism.

Peru's most prominent Trotskyite leader Hugo Blanco, and the Peasant Federation which he infiltrated for years, ended up on the payroll of the CIA (See the transcript of CBS's Mike Wallace "In the Pay of the CIA, an American Dilemma," March 13, 1967, cited in The New Flag, Vol.2, No.1, p.28). No wonder Blanco's irrational hatred for the People's War! In 1992, Blanco was presented by the SWP, the United Left and a Church group at the New School of Social Research in NYC to spread his anti-PCP diatribes.

Another Peruvian Trotskyite is the journalist Nicholas Lucar, now one of the TV propaganda chiefs of butcher Fujimori in Lima (Channel 4). Are those the "workers" attacked by the PCP the SWP is referring to? Imperialism blames the People's Army of Liberation for the murders of worker and peasant activists committed by the death squads of Fujimori. The case of miners leader Saul Cantoral is such a case.

Mao says that to be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing. It is part of the contradiction between revolution and counterrevolution. This only goes to show that the People's War is the most advanced and revolutionary one, otherwise imperialists and revisionists of all sorts would not bother to slander it. Without this genuine revolutionary character, it would never have won the praise of the people in Peru and abroad. That's one more reason why people all over the world want to learn more about the PCP, President Gonzalo, the People's Army of Liberation, People's Committees, Armed Strikes, the Shining Trenches of Combat in the prisons. The PCP's reputation and prestige at home and abroad have been rightfully won and deserve your support.P

PROLETARIANS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

VICTORY TO THE PEOPLE'S WAR!

VIVA EL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DEL PERU!

HONOR Y GLORIA AL PUEBLO PERUANO!

SWP Slander and Distortion	Source	Fact
1. PCP crushes workers and their organizations. It keeps them out of politics. Also kills leftists, priests, nuns, engineers, and gays. It cuts off fingers, gouges eyes, cuts pieces of flesh off living bodies, drinking people's blood.	1. CIA World Fact Book 1992. 2. Testimony to U.S. Congress from felon Elliot Abrams 3/90. 3. Testimony to U.S. Congress from US State Dept.'s Bernard Aronson 3/23/94.	PCP leads 16 year revolution of workers, peasants and progressives against the 3 mountains oppressing the people: semi-feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism. It's destroying the old state to build New Power: The People's Republic of Peru. It is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought Party of a new type.
2. PCP is terrorist. Peru's regime is a democracy.	Reagan, Bush and Clinton	Even Senderologist David Scott Palmer admits, "Sendero uses terror to further its revolutionary ends but it is not a terrorist organization...they do not use indiscriminate violence and should not be compared with Pol Pot." (P. 244, "Shining Path," 1992) It is nothing new for U.S. imperialism to call a murderous regime hatched from a military coup and 18% of the vote a "democracy".
3.Fujimori's popularity is high. He had 65% of vote.	George Bush Bill Clinton	U.S. puppet Fujimori is hated by the people. He obtained only 18% of registered voters.
4. "PCP believes Fidel Castro is a U.S. lackey"	Bernard W. Aronson, State Dept., 3/23/92	False. Actually Castro was a lackey of Nikita Khrushchev.
5. At the Santa Lucia U.S. military base in Huallaga, a PCP stronghold, U.S. Green Berets fight against drugs.	Every U.S. government since Reagan's time. Senderologists Scott Palmer and Cynthia McClintock	U.S. military at the base leads the counterinsurgency war against the People's Army. "War on Drugs" is a disguise. Open People's Committees of Huallaga have more than 100,000 people who have risen up in arms and are re-making their society, ending dependency on the coca trade.
6. After Fujimori's self coup, Bush cut him off of military aid, Clinton resumed it.	The New York Times.	The military coup was planned by Yankee imperialism to take command of the war. Aronson was in Lima coordinating the coup. The "cut in aid" was purely rhetorical.
7. During armed strikes, PCP orders workers (under death threat) to go home. PCP considers workers as enemies.	"Peru's Brutal Insurgency: SL", 1992 U.S. Dept. State Dispatch.	Complete lie. Workers and masses organized in PCP-led organizations (MRDP, MOTC) participate actively in armed strikes; the proletariat is at the forefront.
8. PCP killed miners' leader Saul Santoral, textile worker Enrique Castilla and others.	National Intelligence Services (SIN, the Peruvian CIA)	False. In 1994, turncoat Army General Rodolfo Robles denounced the SIN death squads killed them in 1994 as part of psychological warfare.
9. PCP recruits women whose husbands left them to seek jobs in the cities.	Senderologist Degregori and human rights trafficker Robin Kirk.	Women participate at all levels of the Party and the People's army because the oppression of women will be solved only as part of the liberation of the working class through People's War.
10. PCP is like Pol Pot. It has killed 250 authorities. A Sendero victory would compare not to Cuba's Castro, El Salvador's FMLN, Nicaragua's Sandinistas, the Vietnam's guerrillas, but Cambodia under Pol Pot. Luis Arce Borja says over a million will die.	1) US State Department 3/23/92. B. Aronson. 2) The filthy "liberal" Robert Torricelli.	1) the PCP is a self-reliant and self-sufficient Communist Party that puts politics in command of the gun; the Khmer Rouge was a "movement" supported by the CIA and the Chinese revisionists. 2) The Vietnamese executed 13,000 "authorities"; and compared with its populations the FMLN and Castro's revolution executed more than the PCP. That's part of revolutionary violence. 3) Arce Borja speaks only for himself
11. At its best, PCP only had 5,000 militants active in 19 out of the 24 Departments.	CIA's World Fact Book. Senderologists Raul Gonzales and Carlos Tapia and SIN	For the CIA "facts" means "lies". On April 1996 (Caretas 1408), Carlos Tapia said: "I have the hard drive of Guzman," there are 23,430 fighters not counting PCP Huallaga Base.
12. Sendero's leader Guzman is pleading for Peace Talks. Sendero is split.	CIA, SIN and a few capitulators in prison.	Counterrevolutionary hoax smashed with more People's War. Party is united as steel.