Whether in the economic struggle, or the political struggle, or in exercising their right to rebel in an armed struggle whose highest expression is the People's War, the peoples of the world have not ceased struggling in defense of their class interests. Likewise, the Peruvian revolution, which today celebrates 18 years of People's War has not paused for even a moment.
The People's War in Peru is framed within the150 years of the world proletarian revolution, since the publication of the "Communist Manifesto" that continues to be the program for Communists, and will remain valid until Communism. Similarly, the People's War launched in May 1980 (ILA-80) is advancing victoriously until the final slope has been climbed: the conquest of power and the installation of the People's Republic of Perú.
The international proletariat and the peoples of the world, through the Communist Parties, have achieved great historical milestones. Today, at the beginning of this New Great Wave of the World Proletarian Revolution, what is coming is an even higher milestone with more People's Wars emerging in several countries, especially in the oppressed nations. This will be the product of the embodiment of Maoism after the creation or the reconstitution of the Communist Parties.
The masses follow those who affirm, not those who doubt. Marx, Lenin and Mao Tse-Tung, who are the great titans whose light and incandescence will endure forever, have taught us the path to follow. But Marxism continues to develop, because it is new and young. In its development it has reached three stages, which is concretized today as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), and is the most advanced scientific ideology in today's world. Its development continues as a result of the application of MLM, principally Maoism, to the concrete conditions of each revolution. In the case of Peru it is the great leadership of President Gonzalo, which is sustained by Gonzalo Thought, the application of MLM, principally Maoism, to the concrete conditions of the Peruvian Revolution. This does not deny the general ideological and political validity of Gonzalo Thought to the world proletarian revolution. For this reason, President Gonzalo's contributions to the development of a fourth stage of Marxism are recognized by the communists and peoples of the world. And this recognition has the strategic character of defending his life. Reaction is aware of that and utilizes lies and hoaxes to cast doubts about him. And those who claim to be revolutionaries and communists, trying to cast doubts about him, are not serving the development of the New Great Wave of the World Proletarian Revolution but are serving the interests of imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism.
We are participants of a great struggle between revolution and counterrevolution. On one side is imperialism, revisionism and world reaction, and on the other, the proletariat and the peoples of the world, principally in the oppressed nations. Revisionism that has carried out the restoration of capitalism, today is in complete bankruptcy. Both the old revisionism of Bernstein and Kautsky as well as the modern revisionism of Khrushchev and Gorbachev, are inseparable parts of the counterrevolution. The failure of revisionism is good for the revolution. It clears the field and is the prelude that comes before the arrival of the great waves of the world proletarian revolution. Since revisionism is the principal danger, it must be combated constantly. It infiltrates the Communist Party, and sabotages it from within. Before the conquest of power revisionism opposes the armed struggle, enters into agreements and alliances with reaction to maintain the system. After the seizure of power, revisionism is the political direction toward the restoration of capitalism. That is how revisionism operated in the formerly socialist countries. Revisionism is capitulation, capitulation before the internal reaction in each country, and capitulation before imperialism at the international level.
At the end of the last decade, the revisionist offensive headed by Gorbachev and Teng converged with the offensive of imperialism and reaction against Marxism, socialism and the revolution. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of revisionism, Yankee imperialism begins to lead this general counterrevolutionary offensive in the current decade. This offensive has intended to crush the proletariat as a class, aiming at its heart, its ideology: Marxism. Thus, they sought to turn around the historical and political tendency of revolution. This general counterrevolutionary offensive, in its reckless eagerness to deceive, has spread ideas such as "capitalism is eternal," "the new era of peace" that Socialism and Communism are "utopian," that the dictatorship of the proletariat is "repressive," that "Marxism is extinct," and that we have arrived at the "end of ideologies," etc. They have developed the so-called low intensity warfare with the political objective of "legitimizing" governments "through elections" at gun point, and promoting the so-called "human rights." In economics they have recycled the old liberalism (as neoliberalism), privatization and are using religion as an organizational and ideological shield. As is the case, for example, of the trips by the old Pope through all the world, to bless the bayonets of genocide, because basically all their strategy is to drown the revolution in blood.
Far from warding off the revolution as the principle historical and political tendency in the world today, the general counterrevolutionary offensive has sharpened the contradictions at the world level. The contradictions are: proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, the inter-imperialist contradictions, and the most important one today, imperialism versus oppressed nations. Along with this, the class struggle and the struggle of the masses has sharpened even in the imperialist countries. The New Great Wave of the World Proletarian Revolution has begun to unfold, thus facilitating the conditions for the triumph of the People's War in Perú.
President Gonzalo taught us, the main requirement of today is that Maoism be ingrained in the masses, and to impel the reconstitution of the Communist Parties at a world level. Today Socialism does not exist as a State, because revisionism restored capitalism in all the countries that made up the socialist camp. In addition, revisionism has destroyed the International Communist Movement, as it had happened in the days of the old revisionism and the parties of the second international.
The World Proletarian Revolution has achieved three great milestones in the 20th Century: the October Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It also has two great defeats (the capitalist restorations in the Soviet Union and China) due to the sinister work of revisionism. History has shown us that these temporary restorations and even regressions occur, but at the end, the new system imposes itself definitively. Capitalism is the old system, it must yield its place to Socialism, which is the new system. All the efforts to immortalize the capitalism or rejuvenate it with cosmetics (e.g., market socialism) only make conditions more ripe for the development of revolution, the People's War.
The banners of the People's War continue to wave defiantly before the world and not only in Perú, but also, with different degrees of development, in Nepal, Turkey, India, and Philippines. Also, it is important to highlight how the masses are ready to taking up arms in Colombia, Mexico, and Indonesia among others. This reality brings to mind the necessity of the reconstitution of the Communist Parties as a mandatory condition. President Gonzalo correctly pointed out that, "Maoism is marching unstoppably to command the New Great Wave of the World Proletarian Revolution," it is generating genuine parties, since without a Communist Party, reconstituted as a proletarian party of a new type, a militarized party, a People's War cannot be developed.
The main contribution of President Gonzalo to the world proletarian revolution is having established that Maoism is the new, third and a superior stage of Marxism. He also called that communists must unite under Maoism! To understand this, takes some time, and above all developing the People's War.
With Teng's counterrevolutionary coup in 1976 and the restoration of capitalism in China, Communists were left without a center and a base; nonetheless today there are millions of Communists in the world who struggle for the embodiment of Maoism and the reconstitution of their parties. This is because revisionism not only destroyed the Communist Parties in the Soviet Union and China, but also destroyed the rest of the Communist Parties in the world. That's why President Gonzalo, understanding this situation and experiencing it, carried out forward the first process of reconstitution, according to the following three strategic policies:
It has been, then, a process of an embodied struggle of two lines, led by President Gonzalo which concluded when the Party, reconstituted as a proletarian party of a new type, passed to "militarizing itself through actions," initiating the People's War in 1980.
At the world level, this process of reconstitution of the Communist Parties is an immediate and necessary task. We know that the Communist Party of Nepal has followed this process, and launched the People's War in that country, which we greet with jubilation. There are other parties as well that are on this road.
Before the initiation, during the definition and preparation of the People's War in Perú, there was a right opportunist line opposed to the Initiation of the Armed Struggle (ILA 80). At that time the dividing line with all the revisionists centered around the existence or nonexistence of a revolutionary situation in the country. Revisionists said there was no revolutionary situation and were not in agreement with initiating the armed struggle. They wanted to participate in the elections for the Constituent Assembly in 1978. The revisionists in those days (still inside the Party), predicted that "the Party would crash at the start." At the end, the leaders of that line were expelled from the Party. President Gonzalo said: "Don't question how many we are, but ask yourself whether you are willing or not!" And doubts were swept away, sparks burned with passion, and ignited the dry prairie. Thus, the night was ripped, and the Party entered its third stage, the direction of the People's War. The reconstitution of the Party had been completed with the initiation, the initiation was a trial by fire, and the PCP passed it. Since then the proletariat and the peoples of the world have followed with great interest, the developments of this torch of hope which, was ignited in the Andes 18 years ago, on May 17, 1980. This was not the case of an armed struggle like some others which, no matter how heroic and revolutionary they were, did not carry (in the knapsacks of the combatants), the New Power. It is a Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought People's War. Within two years of the initiation, the People's Committees emerged as forms of the New Power which rapidly began to expand like mushrooms throughout all of the areas of the Andes, penetrating many regions of the jungle and the coastal headlands. Similarly in the cities, the actions of the People's War began to be felt with more and more insistence for each time, particularly in Lima.
After defeating the genocide of the years 1983 and 1984, the Party reached the principal milestone of its history until today: the First Marxist Congress of the Party, a Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought Congress. In 1989, the Open People's Committees were achieved, and in 1991 the Strategic Equilibrium. The enemy understood that the People's War was eating them alive bit by bit, and understanding that the struggle was all or nothing. It recurred to the policy of war without prisoners and genocide. Later came the coup of 1992 led by the United States, which began to lead the countersubversive war. The enemy's offensive had its first assault with a new genocide in the prisons, selectively murdering firm and consequential comrades. Later came the arrest of President Gonzalo (with the collaboration of traitors). But this wasn't the "end of the People's War," nor was there a "turn or twist in the People's War," it was only "a bend in the road" as President Gonzalo himself defined it in his historic speech of September 24. The war continued and the Central Committee of the PCP with the tested leadership of Comrade Feliciano, assumed its role to uphold, defend and apply Gonzalo Thought toward the conquest of power.
When imperialism and reaction, with the collaboration of a handful of capitulators and revisionists, succeeded in capturing President Gonzalo, the strategy of imperialism was not to assassinate him immediately but intensify the psychological operations. Indeed, later came the hoax of the peace accord launched by imperialism, revisionism and reaction, attributing to President Gonzalo the authorship of letters, and pre-recorded videos. Soon they turned out to be hoaxes fabricated by the intelligence services with the collaboration of capitulators that were purged from the Party. Meanwhile, the PCP carried forward the Plan of "Overcoming the Bend in the Road, Developing the People's War!" which is part of the VI Military Plan with its six objectives:
Peruvian society is today in a general crisis, in its third moment. The general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism leads to its destruction. Bureaucratic capitalism is the capitalism, which imperialism propels in the backward countries. It is a capitalism subjected to imperialism which accentuates semi-colonialism. In Perú, imperialist penetration, principally Yankee, is greater each day. But it is necessary to emphasize that the puppet government of Fujimori is the most unbridled country-selling one in the history of Perú to date; unemployment has reached unprecedented levels, industry continues to decline, agriculture remains in extreme prostration, and the foreign debt has reached levels never before seen. The task of the reactionaries to restructure the old and decrepit State is a historic impossibility. Now they have begun to apply a fascism adapted to their necessities of combating the People's War. The ruling clique, in reality headed by Hermoza Rios, an apprentice of Pinochet, with the puppet Fujimori as a vulgar, cheap figurehead, blatantly violates their own judicial order. The U.N., that procurer for imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism, even had to recommend that the regime needs to moderate its barbaric atrocities.
The task of reaction to annihilate the People's War, is a complete failure. All of their campaigns of "encirclement and annihilation" have been defeated by the People's War, which under the leadership of the PCP is growing stronger and developing. The People's War, today in the Strategic Equilibrium, is leaving the "bend in the road" of 1992. After 18 years, not only has it destroyed old relations of production, it has created new relations of production, principally in the countryside, which the New Power is based on, where the organized masses defend their new economy, their new politics and their new culture; a People's War which is preparing a great leap and which promotes and brings the revolutionary crisis closer: That's the moment when the urban insurrections will lead to the Conquer Power throughout the country.
Finally, the erroneous criteria expressed by Co-RIM and others must be criticized because it echoes the psychological operations propagated by the Peruvian regime and imperialism. Consequently, we emphasize that President Gonzalo is the Great Leader of the PCP and the Peruvian revolution, and the PCP has defeated the psychological operations of the enemy. Let it be clear that the rol (capitulators) only became structured as a group in few prisons (outside the Party), nursed and sponsored by the Armed Forces and the puppet Fujimori; there has not been a division of the Party at all, rather, the PCP as a whole reaffirmed itself on the Basis of Party Unity. The PCP, as a heroic combatant guided itself with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, and now leads and guarantees the revolutionary road.
Also, we repeat (and the regime is well aware of this), that we will not permit that anyone raises their hands against the moral and physical integrity of President Gonzalo.
The People's War is developing the plans approved by the Third Plenum (personally led at the time by President Gonzalo), the IVth Plan of "Strategic Development to Conquer Power" and the VIth and penultimate Great Military Plan of "Build the Conquest of Power" among others. Currently, as part of the VIth Great Military Plan, the second part of the plan to "Overcome the Bend in the Road, Developing the People's War" is being completed. There is a revolutionary situation in Peru, and the revolutionary crisis is drawing closer, promoted by the People's War. That is to say, the conditions of revolution are improving day by day. .
After their psychological operations have failed, imperialism, reaction and revisionism wish to kill President Gonzalo (there were rumors in Lima of his assassination on June 19, 1998, but were promptly denied by Fujimori.) He knows the response of the PCP will be vigorous and swift. Therefore, we must mobilize the international proletariat and the peoples of the world to defend the life of President Gonzalo.
On this 18th anniversary of the People's War, we reaffirm ourselves in our conviction that the People's War will inevitably triumph, and that our people, under the leadership of the proletariat through its Party, will complete the democratic revolution and immediately begin the socialist revolution. Afterwards with successive cultural revolutions, it will continue the march to our final goal: Communism.
LONG LIVE THE 18th ANNIVERSARY OF THE INVINCIBLE PEOPLE'S WAR IN PERU!
LONG LIVE PRESIDENT GONZALO AND GONZALO THOUGHT!
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERÚ!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, PRINCIPALLY MAOISM!
DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM, REVISIONISM AND WORLD REACTION!
UNITE UNDER MAOISM!
