Re: Peruvian Maoism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:52 AM 3/31/98 -0500, you wrote:
>	Palmer is absolutely correct on the precision of Sendero's use
>of violence.  Sendero regularly targeted political activists whom
>most people on this list would consider on the Left.
>
>	Finding the Communist Party of Peru incomparable to Pol Pot and
>the Khmer Rouge hardly excuses them of their political crimes.
>
>Sincerely yours,
>
>
>Robert Saute

The problem is that the mainstream left in the US, especially NACLA, was a
supporter of the Alan Garcia government. Garcia was a close ally of Fidel
Castro. The United Left activists who clashed with the Shining Path were
critical of Garcia but supported him. This is the political context. You
have one section of the Peruvian left that is trying to prop up a reformist
government, while another section is trying to overthrow it. In these
circumstances, which involved civil war, it is not surprising that there
leftists who were killed. This does not excuse it, it simply explains it.

Revolutions are not tea-parties. They often involve bloody reigns of
terror. The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese
Revolution all entailed the loss of innocent lives. Castro imprisoned his
anarchist opponents and threw away the key. Ho Chi-minh killed the
Trotskyists. We simply can not make a political judgement on these
struggles based on such casualties. If you want to avoid the loss of
innocent lives, then don't take up the armed struggle.

There is nobody who was a more ardent supporter of the Sandinistas than me.
Rob Saute can testify to this, since he was a Tecnica volunteer who did a
great job repairing computers in Nicaragua. But the truth is that the FSLN
not only put the Miskitos into concentration camps, they also killed them.
I have tried to explain the origins of this problem, which was rooted in
dogmatic Marxism. The solution to the problem is better Marxism, not
accomodation to the status quo. Parenthetically, what I wrote about the
Miskitus got me an invitation to a conference in Bluefields which I might
take up.

The simple truth of the matter is that the PCP is a Maoist guerrilla group.
It has modeled itself on the Chinese Communist Party. My goal was not to
whitewash them, but to make clear that they are part of the revolutionary
movement in the 20th century. Mao's revolution--no matter how degraded it
has become--was one of the great achievements of the oppressed masses in
the 20th century. The common perception that the PCP was like the Khmer
Rouge was unfortunately abetted by the NACLA articles. They did not deserve
this reputation.

Louis Proyect