Greetings to the Peruvian Revolution from New Delhi! I read The New Flag with great interest, and yesterday I downloaded some valuable information about the People's War in Peru, and the Communist Party of Peru from the world wide web (PCP Web Page). I was desperately looking for information about the Maoist Revolution in your country, and am really grateful to MPP (USA) for that. As a journalist and as an avid student of the revolutionary movement, I am keenly interested in people's armed struggles going on in different parts of the globe. I consider the Communist Party of Peru one of very few genuine torchbearers of the communist movement today.
In India we also have several Maoist outfits which have been waging guerrilla warfare in some pockets of Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and the northeastern part of the country. The main organization is known as the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War Group, popularly known as the PWG. In December 1996, I visited their stronghold in the forest tribal area in Madhya Pradesh (another Indian state). For about 10 days, I was around in the tribal belt with the armed guerrilla groups. Outlook magazine carried the story as a cover. Unfortunately, very little information about the PCP and the People's War it leads is known here. I am anxiously waiting for the next issue of the New Flag. Revolutionary greetings and best wishes.
R.J.
OUTLOOK Magazine
New Delhi, INDIA.
Enclosed for publication, is my essay "Poverty and Revolution. Please highlight the second part of the essay "Poverty in the Times of Imperialism" for the benefit of your readers as follows: "The biggest concentration of the social power of production is in the countries oppressed by imperialism, in which the labor costs are cheap. Among the imperialist countries, a larger legal or illegal labor force comes from the Third World, which is also forced by the conditions of oppression that imperialism imposed on their countries. One portion of the national working class in the imperialist countries is blackmailed with high salaries (labors aristocracy), which is also paid with the surplus generated by the merciless exploitation of the cheap foreign labor force (immigrants). Even the bourgeois economists acknowledge this fact as follows: "Contrary to the contention that there is a convergency between rich and poor workers, the poor gets poorer and will be even poorer in the future." (Source: "Le Monde Diplomatique," September 1995.) The imperialist powers are the cause of the worsening of the economic crisis in Africa, Asia and Latin America. According to the World Bank, in 1870, the gap in average per capita income between the rich and poor countries was 11%. In 1968, the gap grew to 38%, and in 1985, reached 52%. It has surely grown even more in 1997. The increase in poverty goes along with the increase in wealth. Le Monde reported, "from 1975 to 1985, the Gross National Product grew 40% and the number of poor people in the planet did not decrease but increased 17%" (Le Monde, Balance of the World, 1997.)
What does this mean? This means that imperialism always creates exploitation and poverty in the masses to satisfy the interests of a few (the international financial oligarchy and its allies, the big capitalists in the oppressed countries).
LT, Nantes.
Reading TNF Vol. 4, No. 1, I understood this well and agree with the position of the MPP with the Co-RIM and RCP(USA), but I could not grasp quite well your differences with the line of Arce Borja (LAB) and EDI. I also read previously, an interview with him in a positive light. Please clarify.
JR.
Reply: The line of the PCP is very clear. It is not enough to know and understand Marxism, this stage is only the starting point. The most important thing is to apply Marxism, to analyze, synthesize and transform society, the world of today. Keep this in mind. Lab calls to "defend" Maoism, period. This is a different line. The PCP establishes that the People's War (the revolutionary class struggle) generates Gonzalo Thought. LAB sustains that MLM, Gonzalo Thought, is based only on the opinions and "legacy" of President Gonzalo. Thus, he only focuses on the individual and rejects the class struggle, the People's War, and the actions of the masses, as the basis for the development of MLM, Gonzalo Thought. This is the same mistake of the reactionaries after the bend in the road." Based on their bourgeois individualistic conception, they boasted that the People's War was over by 1995, and the PCP was already decapitated.
Also note that the PCP denounced correctly that the "peace talk" was a counterrevolutionary hoax to annihilate the People's War, but LAB claimed that the hoax was to "annihilate Gonzalo Thought." (See "Operation Capitulation, ") Again, this is an erroneous conception and a different line. According to LAB, if the person "Gonzalo" disappears, then Gonzalo Thought disappears, because according to his conception, it is the "private property of the President," which is erroneous. Furthermore, when the PCP calls to defend the life of President Gonzalo, LAB calls it "defend Abimael Guzm…n," just like some revisionists and liberals do. That's also incorrect. It is also clear that LAB and his apostle (the British provocateur Olaechea) always distort and reject the directives of the Party's CC. They only abide by it when it is convenient to them, and play with words and quotes in order to impose their bourgeois opportunist line. Stalin states that opportunists are experts in manipulating quotes and practitioners of a "stagnant Marxism." ("Marxism and Problems in Linguistic, 1950) Another example is the Yankee Revisionist, Robert Avakian and his Co-RIM, who manipulating quotes such as "Mao negotiated with Chiang Kai Shek in 1946" are trying to cover up the imperialist low intensity warfare. In sum, the current situation is more important than the past, and we need to interpret it with creativity and audacity, and apply MLM, Gonzalo Thought.
The remnants of revisionism are split (MBL, EJE-P, PCB, MIR-M, etc.), and some of them support the current regime (MNR), and others have jumped into the wagon of Banzer. They worship the electoral carnivals and have stabbed the masses in the back long ago. Let's learn the lessons from the Bolivian peasant-worker revolution in 1952, and crush imperialism and revisionism with the ideology of the proletariat: MLM, Gonzalo Thought.
La Paz, MD.
The Mexican people are being exploited by Yankee imperialism on both sies of the border and need to organize today, for the revoltuionary work of tomorrow.
Workers from Mexico have come to the U.S. to slave in factories, on construction crews, in the fields, and in many different work places throughout the U.S. Why? Because Yankee imperialism has driven the economy of Mexico into the ground, and as a result, masses of people are now living worse than animals.
All along the border in Mexico, the Yankees and other imperialists are building factories in a frenzy in order to exploit the Mexican people, especially poor women. You can see signs all over advertising "Hiring Women."
Mexican proletarians! You stand in the forefront of the Worldwide Revolutionary Movement that is headed by the Communist Party of Peru, now engaged in 17 years of the victorious People's War against a rotten system propped up by imperialist powers, mainly Yankee. There is no doubt that the people of Mexico will rise in rebellion against the corrupt system in place.
These times call on us to organize the masses in different kinds of committees to defend the rights of the workers on both sides of the border. We must defend the rights of our children in schools, defend ourselves against the attacks of the police, INS, and the racists, and finally build the Party of the proletariat and lead the mass movement in the USA.
We are the ones who feed and clothe this imperialist nation, so we will hold the future in our hands now. Take up the weapons of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought! Onward to Socialism! Prepare for the People's War! TC.