Re: New Flag - two questions?

[hariette@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (hariette spierings)]

>1) I was interesting in the information that the origin of the
>"shining path" phrase was from young militants who promoted
>what they called "the shining path of Mariateugui"
>
>I would be interested to know what that path was, to understand
>how much it was an emphasis of one aspect of Mariategui's
>politics.
>
>What I am hoping to understand here, is to what extent
>the attempt to find a revolutionary road for the people of Peru
>has developed from local currents of thinking, rather than being
>influenced by importing, and adapating, revolutionary ideas from
>outside, prinicipally China.
>
>
>
>2) You probably have contempt for spin doctors, but I can see why
>the news agencies of the Fujimori regime  are happy to make sure
>the phrase, Shining Path, occurs frequently in their press releases.
>
>In two words, (in English only three syllables) it conveys the marketing
>message in a highly concentrated form, these people are on a crazy trip.
>
>I know how between the unbanning of the ANC and the democratic election
>how often the phrase "Black on Black violence" occurred in news reports
>about South Africa. It was very difficult to dent that impression.
>
>So I sympathise and respect that the Peruvian revolutionaries do not
>wish to be called Shining Path. My question is, what do they want to
>be called?
>
>Presumably the PCP is not a mass party. That would not be consistent with
>Mao's theories. Most of the supporters of the Peoples War and the united
>front will not be members of the PCP.
>
>It seems strange that we do not know what they call themselves.
>
>Chris
>London
>
>
>
>
>
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>




Dear Chris:

My name is Adolfo Olaechea and I have been observing your participation on
the Peru debate in the "Marxism" list.

I think you are contributing thoughtful and honest questioning on this issue.

Therefore I would like to do two things.  First I would try to answer your
two questions on this mailer, and second to ask you if you are interested in
receiving some of Sol-Peru's documents (you may be aware that I am the
Spokesman for Sol Peru Committee in London) you may ask me to post them to
you in a separate form, and I will comply.

As for your questions:  What is Mariategui's road?

Mariategui's road is the General Line of the Peruvian revolution.
Mariategui analysed Peruvian society determining its SEMI-FEUDAL and
SEMI-COLONIAL condition, pointing out that only socialism could resolve the
problems of our society. He, however, well understood the question of the
democratic revolution (the bourgeois-democratic or national democratic
revolution in Lenin's terms) as the necessary precondition to make this
advance to socialism possible.

It stands to reason - and any one with a bit of common sense would immediate
realise that without smashing feudal relations and breaking colonial or
semi-colonial dependence - that is, to make the masses of the people into
CITIZENS of a FREE and INDEPENDENT country, socialism can not be but a
feudal or imperialistic socialism - something on the lines of the Jesuit's
Paraguayan experiment or a dependent showcase country lavished by
"internationalism" of the Khuschov type, like Cuba, where today such
"socialism" - deprived of the financial support of its patron - must depend
on charitable drives by condescending saviours.  This question is not
unrelated to how today the ANC, a movement where many socialist minded
people were active and gave their efforts is today managing the social
transformation in South Africa hand in hand with monopoly capital.

Mariategui's road therefore implies the leadership of the proletariat in the
revolution.  Thus Mariategui founded the PCP (The Communist Party of Peru in
1928 - its original name was the Socialist Party of Peru, but that was
changed to Communist Party in 1930 - in order to provide the Peruvian
proletariat with its leading party, the Party of the revolution.

Mariategui was a great advocate, not only of the Party, but also of the
United Front and the People's Army as the instruments to develop and realise
this revolution.  He based, as a correct Marxist-Leninist, the United Front
of the revolution upon the basic masses:  The Worker-peasants alliance and
specified the road of peasant war led by the proletariat in complete
accordance with Leninism.  V.I. Lenin said: "Marxist politics propel the
proletariat to the role of leader of the peasantry".   Therein the agrarian
program of the revolution in Peru "Land to the tillers" and that, in the
words of Lenin, "The transfer of the land to the peasants is impossible
without armed insurrection".

Mariategui advocated that the proletariat, by means of its Party, should
give a modern content (national-democratic with a socialist perspective) and
leadership to the peasant ARMED RESISTANCE turning it into the BACKBONE of
the People's War for POLITICAL POWER FOR THE CLASS AND THE PEOPLE.

The history of the Peruvian people, particularly the peasantry, is a history
of rebellion and resistance against landlordism and the feudal conditions,
even before republican times.  In referring to the immense revolutionary
potential of the peasntry in our country, Mariategui pointed out that their
heroic struggles were always defeated because - as he put it - "their ideas
were as old as their ancient musquets", and that the quesstion - a
fundamental question of Leninism - was to "arm ideologically and militarily
the mighty hands of the peasantry" - that is to provide them with the
outlook and leadership of the ADVANCED CLASS in society, the proletariat.

That, in a nutshell is Mariategui's road.

As to the phoney "mariateguist left" in Peru, the facts are that during more
than 50 years they - in their various incarnations - SPOKE about the peasant
war, the armed struggle, etc. However, their real line was electioneering
and parliamentary cretinism.  Today, such a "left" who deceived at one point
a large chunk of the revolutionary masses with their promises of revolution
and armed struggle, has gone from 40% + share of the vote in the last
elections of the bourgeois regime before the onset of the People's War to a
miserable 0.4% in 1995!.  They are nothing but an empty shell of drones
eking a living from the imperialist bourgeoisie and their NGos!.  The masses
have deserted them and gone over to the People's War, to Mariategui's Road!.


Finally, it is true what you say about the name "Shining Path".  In fact the
psicological warfare - low intensity warfare - of imperialism, with the
assistance of the opportunist left have spent million of dollars in trying
to obscure the FACT that the PCP is the Communist Party of Peru, founded by
Jose Carlos Mariategui and reconstituted on the base of his GENERAL LINE for
the revolution.  Therefore, it is simple, what the revolutionary leadership
today in Peru would like all sincere anti-imperialists and socialist minded
people to call them is by their REAL name:  Communists!


Thank you


Adolfo Olaechea



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