At the University of Arequipa, he wrote his doctoral dissertations in Philosophy on "The Kantian Theory of Space" and in Law on "The State in the Bourgeois Democracy." After graduation, he moved to Ayacucho to teach in the schools there and became one of the leaders of the Party's Regional Committee. At the height of the cultural revolution, President Gonzalo traveled to China and witnessed the revolutionary transformation occurring there first hand. This experience profoundly influenced his decision to combat relentlessly revisionism [the abandonment of Marxist principles by self-professed Marxists.] After an exhaustive research of Peruvian society, the PCP led by President Gonzalo, concluded that Mao Tse-tung's strategy of surrounding the cities from the countryside was applicable to Peru and that the thesis of Mariategui that Peru was a semi-feudal and semi- colonial society was still valid." The struggle against revisionism and the rebuilding of the party intensified. "...I committed myself to work within the Party and to wipe out revisionism and I believe that together with other comrades we achieve it. We gave up on one or two who were too far gone, they were died-in-the-wool revisionists. Ayacucho was of enormous importance to me. It had to do with the revolutionary road and Chairman Mao's teachings." [see The Military Line and Interview with Chairman Gonzalo for details.]
President Gonzalo led the Red faction of the PCP that dedicated itself to rebuilding the Party with the goal of launching the armed struggle. In the mid-1960s, armed groups inspired by the Cuban revolution followed the strategy of attempting to trigger revolution through "foco" tactics [forming small guerrilla bands in focalized geographic areas.] President Gonzalo opposed this because he realized that without building a mass-based revolutionary party, a revolution could not succeed. When the military dictatorship of General Velasco began a limited land reform and tried to reform bureaucratic capitalism to pre-empt the preparations for revolution, he analyzed how capitalist domination and semi-feudal relations were still largely intact, and how the problem of exploitation of the peasantry was worsening. In the late 1970s, when most of the old left was engaged in building an electoral coalition for the scheduled "return to democracy" in 1980, the PCP led by President Gonzalo launched the armed struggle, seeing through the facade of democracy, to build real power for the masses of exploited people.
President Gonzalo led the armed struggle until his capture in August 1992. The last time he was seen was on September 24, 1992, when he delivered a inspiring speech from a tiger cage calling the Party to continue the People's War. Despite of this "bend on the road" and thanks to the ideology and the strategy he forged, the PCP Central Committee continues to lead the raging People's War.