From the coming issue #38 of the magazine Red Sun:

CRUSH THE NEW REVISIONISM WITH PEOPLE’S WAR

“History teaches us that a correct political and military line does not appear and is not developed in a spontaneous and gentle way, but in struggle against “left” opportunism on one hand, and against right opportunism on the other hand. Without combatting these harmful deviations that undermine the revolution and the revolutionary war, and without completely overcoming them, it will be impossible to work out a correct line and reach victory in the revolutionary war.”

(Chairman Mao, Selected Military Writings)

“This convergence of the new revisionist counterrevolutionary offensive in collusion with imperialism dreams of the definitive destruction of Marxism. It dreams of sweeping away all that the revolution has done, all its achievements, all its heroic actions. They seek to enthrone the old once again, that wicked domination by reaction in the most sinister moment of imperialism. This has repercussions and we see capitulation and monstrous apostasies.
We see this among the petty bourgeoisie, among the scabs of the working class. The MRTA, for example, is the chief hawker of capitulation in the country. They spread "peace," bourgeois democracy, the market economy, human rights, reactionary ideologies, and bourgeois culture. They capitulate in the face of imperialism. Capitulation expresses itself in two ways: capitulation in the face of native reaction and capitulation in the face of world reaction. It is always this way. Its objective is to sell out the revolution. It is rot that needs to be rooted out ruthlessly and this requires a strategy and a tactic.”

(Construct the Conquest of Power in the Midst of People’s War!, II Plenum, PCP)

 

The appearance today of a great number of organizations calling themselves “Maoist” by name confirms and clarifies, concerning the analysis of the context of the world revolution, the fact of what is the new strategy of the reaction and of imperialism, mainly yankee.

New revisionism has appeared with the “maoist” title, nursed by old revisionism, reaction and imperialism. The main purpose of this new revisionism is to abort the revolution, break the morale of the masses, and finally crush any armed struggle that wants to develop as people’s war applying the principles of Maoism to the concrete conditions of each country – just as it has been applied and is being developed in the case of the people’s war in Peru.
What do they need in order to do this?

New Revisionism, Old Revisionism

Showing that new revisionism dressed up as “Maoism” (Maoism in words, opportunism in deeds) is in its essence based on the same arguments that old revisionism covered itself up in – this is a task of great importance.

Which are the key points to elucidate revisionism, that, like Lenin stated, has the talent of evading the principles of Marxism in order to thus distort them: “In general, it may be said that evasiveness as regards the question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the state -- an evasiveness which was to the advantage of opportunism and fostered it -- resulted in the distortion of Marxism and in its complete vulgarization.” (The State and Revolution, Lenin).

What did “Che” Guevara say about “Agrarian Reform” in Cuba? In December 1964 he said that:

“Due to the predominance that the latifundio maintained in the organization of agricultural production, and to the enormous sugar plantations organized in a capitalist way, it was relatively easy to convert this type of unit into state-owned and cooperative farms that covered enourmous areas. In this way, Cuba avoided the slow process that other agrarian revolutions have gone through: dividing the land into a fantastic number of minifundios and then starting to group these with the purpose of applying more modern techniques, which are only feasible with production at a certain scale.” (Temas Economicos, Ernesto Che Guevara).

A year before, in a speech at the Planning Seminar in Algeria, he had corroborated that the Cuban revolution:

“Was a revolution that came to power. It was a movement of the people that had destroyed the political and military power of the puppets of Yankee imperialism. But its leaders were a group of combatants with high ideals and limited preparation. The superstructure of the neocolonial capitalist State was intact… The old ministries were dens of bureaucrats and parasites without internal life, without internal harmony inside the government. Without their fundamental leaders uniting with the fundamental line of the Revolution. These organs of power of the bourgeoisie vegetated inside the new state that started to hatch, and they were like reefs in the ocean, independent from it, isolated from this ocean, from the human flood that was advancing.”

Never at any time in the history of the liberation struggles “guided” by the Cuban or “Guevarist” example did they aim at destroying the old state, never did they have as their goal to crush imperialism. They were movements born deformed, with the principles twisted, with pseudorevolutionary phraseology that aimed to build more “benevolent”, less predatory governments, mere administrative substitutes, but that in essence only maintained the structure of the old state and the domination of imperialism (in the case of Cuba, social imperialism). None of these “revolutions” aimed to build new power, and they were submitted to the baton of Russian social imperialism.

The cost in lives that each of these struggles meant has as its reality the sacrifice of the class and the betrayal of revisionism: the proletariat, the peasantry, the best sons and daughters of the people sacrificed themselves in order to found a new society, a new economy, a new culture. And what did the group of revisionists, mounted in the fief of leadership give them? Betrayal and capitulation. For what purpose were the living forces of the exploiting enemy destroyed? For nothing. Because there was a betrayal of principles and capitulation. Because they never aimed to build a new state of new democracy in order to then, without any interruption, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and build socialism: they never aimed to carry out people’s war until Communism.
And if any doubt remains, let us show some facts concerning the norms and principles of these movements:

Statutes of the FSLN:

“Article 4. The Sandinist Front struggles for a society without discriminations because of class, race or gender, sexual choices, culture or religious beliefs, in which all human beings be dignified with equal duties and rights and may fully enjoy sufficient material goods to satisfy their personal and family needs. A society in which everyone can develop completely in the material and in the spiritual.”
“Article 5. The FSLN is for a socialism that corresponds to the current historical circumstances. Its essence consists in securing, for all Nicaraguans, a dignified life, with work opportunities, access to healthcare, education, housing, culture, sport and, in global terms, a just distribution of riches by taking advantage of our natural resources.”
What rights do their members have?
“e. To criticize in private, or in meetings of the party organizations, any party member, whatever post he may occupy. The criticism shall have to be objective, appropriate, brotherly and constructive.”
(Source: http://www.fsln-nicaragua.com/documentos/estatutos/index.html)

Letter of Principles and Objectives of the FMLN:

“ONE. The conquest of peace and of the democratic revolution.
Consolidate the peace by carrying out the established changes in the Chapultepec Agreements and deepen the democratic revolution, stimulating the economic, social and political changes that the country needs.
“TWO. Strengthen the Civil Society.
Strengthening and invigorating the Civil Society, and dismantling militarism in the country, constitute a goal in order to clear the road for democracy and modernize the Salvadorian society.
“THREE. Conquer political democracy.
Build a real and participative political democracy, in which the citizens may enjoy all the political liberties and exercise their rights, especially their right to elect or remove their rulers from their posts, the right to a correct administration of justice, the right to legal security, understood as a guarantee and service to society, the right to freedom of association, to freedom of expression and freedom of belief and religion, as well as the exercise of all the fundamental liberties that make it possible for them to fully enjoy their rights.
“FOUR. Secure the validity of the Human Rights.
Achieve the validity, development and guarantee of the Human Rights in Salvadorian society, as an indispensable condition for pacific coexistence, democracy and national development.
“FIVE. Give impulse to economic development.
Conquer the national economical development and modernization, based on social justice, democratization of property, revenue and economy as a whole, promoting the integration in Central America and international cooperation.
“SIX. The reconstruction of the country.
El Salvador suffers from the effects of a very recent civil war, as well as the consequences of long decades of militarism and an economic-social regime that sank the country into a deep crisis. To overcome this situation, eradicate the misery and put ourselves on the road to a self-sustained and fair development, the nation needs to be rebuilt in the economic, social, cultural, moral and ecological aspects.
“SEVEN. National Sovereignty and Independence.
Reclaim the sovereignty and strengthen national independence, based on the self-determination of the Salvadorians, in order to promote and develop the democracy and our true national identity, within a framework of international relations of cooperation, friendship and mutual respect.
“EIGHT. Struggle to build an economic, social and political regime of socialist character.
Aim the struggle of the Party in search of political, economic, social and cultural changes that guarantee, in the long run, the realization of a system of a new social coexistence; this system will be based on the essential postulates of liberty, justice, humanism, solidarity, gender equality and fairness, economic fairness and democratic participation, directed towards overcoming the exploitation and marginalization between a minority of people over the majority, and/or the state or the market over the whole of society, all this based on our own experience and critically and creatively assimilating the universal experiences and humanist and socialist thought.  Socialism will thus be able to realize a sustainable human development.
“NINE. Promote and defend the human rights of women.
As a fundamental goal, taking into account that women, being more than half of the population, are victims of discrimination and violation of their most elementary rights just for being women, and that this becomes an obstacle for any democratic process and any development project, principally for our project for a socialist society.”

In conclusion, what is it that we see with new revisionism?

After the initiation of the People’s War in Peru led by the PCP, a militarized Party of new type, many Communist Parties have reconstituted themselves on the basis of Maoism, putting forward Maoism as new, third and higher stage of Marxism. Communist Parties have initiated people’s war or armed struggle following the road of the PCP, like in Nepal, India, Turkey, Philippines, and others are preparing to initiate. The importance of the people’s war in Peru has not only been recognized by the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples, but it has also been recognized by imperialism, reaction and revisionism that fight against the PCP and its Great Leadership, with the goal of destroying the people’s war by any means and for Maoism to not go on to taking command of the new great wave of the world proletarian revolution. The people’s war in Peru was the first to be initiated after the Teng’s revisionist coup in China, and it was Chairman Gonzalo who defined Maoism as third, new and higher stage of Marxism in hard struggle against revisionism. Gonzalo thought is synonymous with people’s war, and that is why they want to destroy it.

32 years after the initiation of the people’s war in Peru, today we can confirm how the peoples of the world rise up in the name of Maoism, that the masses want the revolution and that they give their lives fighting against this rotten society. Currently, the struggles of the peoples of the world, including the imperialist countries, show that revolution is the main tendency.

Imperialism, reaction and revisionism, in their goal of destroying the revolution in Peru and Maoism in the world, have made their own plans. In Peru, the ROL and the hoax of the “peace accords” were a pilot plan that they afterwards applied in Nepal and that they try to apply in other countries. The PCP, basing itself on its experience, has established that the ROL and the hoax of the “peace accords” were a plan created and led by the Yankee superpower, and basing itself on the analysis of the international situation it has established that there is an international plan for “peace accords”, the objective of which is to finish every revolutionary armed struggle, and especially the people’s wars that are led by Maoist Parties, with the purpose of converting them into Maoist parties “by name only”, that run for elections and are part of the old state or convert into armed revisionism, carrying out armed struggle to put pressure on and reach agreements with the old state. It is within this plan that they have lifted up the ROL and the LOL ["Left" opportunist line] in Peru. To carry out their plan for “peace accords” in Peru as well as in other countries, it is fundamental that old revisionist positions gain influence within the ICM. Revisionism is capitulation, capitulation before domestic reaction in each country and before imperialism on international level.

 

The LOL in Peru, armed revisionism

Imperialism, reaction and the new and the old revisionism attack the Great Leadership of the Party because it is the PCP’s Central Committee’s subjection to the Great Leadership of Chairman Gonzalo and his all-powerful thought that has made it possible to maintain the course of the revolution under very difficult circumstances, people’s war that has not stopped for a second since 1980. With a CC of the PCP that continues leading the people’s war in combat against the ROL and the LOL, with arms in hand.

What the LOL puts forward is a Party without Great Leadership, without Gonzalo thought, a Party that does not strike against bureaucrat capitalism, that develops armed actions without building the new power, that denies the fundamental point of Maoism, the power, that denies the proletarian leadership of the revolution. The fact that one of their leaders is a direct collaborator of the reaction shows how imperialism, reaction and new revisionism move together and with a plan under the leadership of imperialism, principally Yankee. It is a militarist line that only focuses on military actions. Annihilation of the enemy, confiscation of weapons respecting bureaucrat capitalism and semifeudalism. The LOL attacks Chairman Gonzalo and Gonzalo thought because it is opposed to the concrete application of Maoism to the Peruvian reality, to the developments of Maoism and especially the people’s war; it opposes, finally, the proletarian leadership of the revolution in Peru and talks about Maoism in general. It is modern revisionism that raises the concept of “two unite into one”, and therefore this revisionism is opposed to a Great Leadership based on a thought: it is opposed to one class (the proletariat), with its Party and its ideology leading the world proletarian revolution. Instead they raise, like in the case of Nepal, a “council of elders” in which several lines traffic with the blood of the masses. This is also the case with “Avakian’s new synthesis”, where this individual puts forward that in socialism (seeing only individuals and not classes), other bourgeois lines will coexist, and which will “supposedly” “help” to build “communism”. This individual says: “there will necessarily be many different people and trends in socialist society pulling in many different directions – and all of this can ultimately contribute to the process of getting at the truth and getting to communism.” (Letter to Participating Parties and Organizations of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, RCP-USA).
In the same way, the LOL holds up a maoism in general and attacks Gonzalo thought, i.e. the concrete application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, to the reality of Peru.

Concerning the construction of the New State, the LOL puts forward that “under the erroneous concept ‘generate power vacuum” thousands of governing councilors, hundreds of mayors, congressmen; thousands of representatives of the communities and small towns were annihilated because they were supposedly black heads representing imperialism”, and labels Chairman Gonzalo as a terrorist. With the LOL, the masses do not exercise their dictatorship over the exploiting, oppressing classes, gamonales or lackeys. They continue to apply the old politics, they respect the authorities of the reactionary state. Here is the essence of the LOL: defending the old state.

Concerning the Front they put forward that Chairman Gonzalo “generated genocide with the comrades of the MRTA, Patria Roja, PCP-U, MIR and others who were on the path of the armed struggle”. They build the Front as a revisionist front of organizations without proletarian leadership, a front to negotiate, and not one of classes with the all-embracing leadership of the working class through its Party. It builds bridges to the old state and presents itself as a “good” guerilla. They say: we are not terrorists, Chairman Gonzalo is the terrorist. As revisionists they think that the strength comes from unity without principles, proposing a revisionist “United Front” that opposes the Maoist thesis that the line decides everything. They share the old revisionist thesis that the Party does not lead the Front, but merges with it.

The LOL opposes the militarization and concentric construction of the Party, because it builds according to negotiations, not according to the demolition of the old state with the Party all-embracingly leading the Army and the Front aiming to take the power. “The concentric construction is the organizational concretization of the militarization of the Party, and in synthesis it is summarized in what Chairman Gonzalo teaches: The Party is the axis of everything, it all-embracingly leads the three instruments, its own construction, absolutely leads the army and the new state as a joint dictatorship aiming for the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Line of Construction, PCP). Thus we see why the LOL attacks Gonzalo thought, because it is what guarantees the course of the revolution, guarantees the proletarian leadership of the people’s war with proletarian ideology, its own apparatuses and proletarian forms of organization, aiming for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Concerning the mass work, the LOL puts forward that the PCP’s creation of generated organs causes division, parallelism, sectarianism and destruction of the social organizations. On the contrary, in its Mass Line the PCP affirms that the principal point of the mass work is the power and that the masses should be organized serving the purpose of the power, power for the class, power for the proletariat, power through the war. “Focusing on the power also demands organizing them in the different new forms that the new forms of struggle demand, because the war introduces changes in the struggle and the organization of the masses. As Lenin teaches us, in times of revolution new organizations must be formed and one must go against the old leaders who intend to sell out the revolution in order to settle down within the reactionary system. One can therefore no longer use the old forms of struggle or organization of the masses” (Mass Line, PCP). The objective of the conquest of power in the whole country thus demands new forms of organization around and serving the people’s war and led by the Party, this is the only way to guarantee the proletarian leadership of the revolution. What the LOL puts forward, like all revisionism, is condemning the masses to spilling their blood for reforms and lose their conquests when the crisis comes, in a never-ending circle.

The generated organs were defined by the PCP at the III Plenum in ’73 as “organizations generated by the proletariat in the different fronts of work; their three characteristics are 1) They adhere to Mariátegui, 2) They are mass organizations and 3) They strictly apply democratic centralism” and all the mass work of the Party focused on the initiation of the people’s war. In the generated organs we can see a concretization of the communist principle that the masses are the ones that make history and the Party that leads them. The masses, under the leadership of the Party, go further than the bourgeois order and its legality, while forging themselves in and for the people’s war; the struggle for demands is developed around and serving the power. The LOL opposes the proletarian leadership of the revolution because it opposes the demolition of the old state. Therefore, it opposes the construction of generated organs and that the masses surpass the bourgeois order led by their Party.

The LOL, evaluating one year of its activity, only holds up military actions, annihilations of the enemy and confiscation of weapons, but does not present one single action against bureaucrat capitalism or against semifeudalism. There is no construction, no new economy. They talk about the Yankee superpower trying to monopolize the oil and monopolize the drug trade in Latin America. They uphold Venezuela and its “social fascism of the 21st century”, showing that they are not for carrying out the New Democratic Revolution and that they are only for following behind a faction of the big bourgeoisie. Therefore, they defend Venezuela, because they are not for developing a new economy to serve the needs of the masses, but for defending the old economy that is developed in the semicolonial countries, bureaucrat capitalism, serving the needs of the imperialist countries, providing them with raw materials and unfinished products.

Concerning the economy the LOL defends that one must wait until the Communist Parties in the whole world concretize “a revolutionary transformation of the imperialist system of exploitation and oppression all over the world” in order to end the old economy, and waiting for this moment to arrive, like in Venezuela, that with Chavez continues to develop the old economy where the monoproduction of oil coexists with the big latifundios serving imperialism, the LOL does not carry out the New Democratic Revolution. They do not question the monocultivation of coca in service of imperialism, principally the yankee superpower, but only the monopoly of this business. It is important to emphasize how the LOL respects the interests of the multinational companies and of the Peruvian big bourgeoisie; in the case of the Camisea Consortium dedicated to the oil trade, they have promised to respect this company operating in the VRAE as long as they fulfill the LOL’s demands. The LOL develops an armed struggle with the goal of putting pressure on imperialism, mainly yankee, and on the old state in order to reach agreements. They have usurped the principal force of the Principal Regional Committee, and with that they develop foquism; but the local forces and base forces are with the Party and its Central Committee. The perspective of the LOL is black. They oppose the armed sea of masses and the joint dictatorship led by the working class. They oppose the New Democratic Revolution.

Concerning the armed struggle, their goal is to defend the old system without overstepping the limit of reform within the decrepit exploitative system, and they understand the armed struggle as a defensive struggle “because there is no other way, nor any other solution”, in order to adapt themselves to the old state.

The LOL as well as the ROL in Peru, as part of the imperialist plan of “peace accords”, just like the new revisionism, attack the great leadership, Gonzalo thought, the new power, which means attacking the proletarian leadership of the revolution trying to settle down within the old state.