Eternal Glory to Chairman Gonzalo!

Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction) - P.C.B. (FR)
Communist Party of Peru - PCP

September 2022

“Finally, listen to this. As we see in the world, Maoism is marching relentlessly forward to lead the new wave of the world proletarian revolution. Listen well and understand. Those who have ears, use them. Those who have understanding — and we all have it — use it! Enough nonsense! Enough confusion! Understand this! What is unfolding in the world? What do we need! We need Maoism to be a living force, and this is happening. We need Maoism to generate Communist Parties to lead this new great wave of the world proletarian revolution that is coming.”¹

When, thirty years ago, Chairman Gonzalo delivered his masterly speech on September 24th, 1992, his enemies dreamed that this would be the sunset of his work, but this fearless rallying cry was more a ray of dawning sunshine. Today, thirty years after his speech, his stature and importance in history has not stopped growing.

We are living through an extraordinary period in world history, the result of this confrontation between revolution and counter-revolution, the product of the hard struggle of the international proletariat, past and present, which we are fighting to impose Maoism as the sole command and guide of the world revolution. Chairman Gonzalo pointed out that we are in the stage of the Strategic Offensive of the World Proletarian Revolution, and within it, we are in its defensive phase and that, therefore, it is up to us to advance to the strategic balance, within the Stage of the Strategic Offensive. We stress that the development of the contradiction between revolution and counter-revolution takes place on the basis of the general crisis of imperialism, because imperialism, being the last stage of capitalism, also has phases and we are in the last of them.

This is a context in which, as at few other moments in history, the objective situation and the subjective conditions, which are prone to development by leaps and bounds, converge. In the objective situation of the unprecedented crisis of imperialism that formidably aggravates the crisis of bureaucratic capitalism in the countries of the Third World, it launches millions of masses in explosive revolts, characterised by an uneven development of the revolutionary situation all over the world. Three decades earlier, Chairman Gonzalo, analysing the world situation of the general crisis of imperialism, said that a counter-revolutionary offensive of a general character would be unleashed and saw, as an eagle of the mountains, that imperialism needed such an offensive to extend the exploitation and oppression of the proletariat and the nations and peoples of the world to avert its collapse and the revolution, and that this, as can already be seen, would generate the explosiveness of the masses, in a new situation, and that the communists of the world should strive to impose Maoism as the sole command and guide of the world proletarian revolution, through reconstituting/constituting militarised communist parties, arming the international proletariat with the strategy of unleashing more and more people’s wars until they are transformed into world people’s war.

If we look at the international situation as a whole, the decomposition of imperialism is increasing with each passing day, confirming that it is in its final collapse and is only to be swept away by the world revolution through people’s war, when revolution has become the principal historical and political trend in the world today and the world revolution has entered the phase of its strategic offensive.

Imperialism, principally yankee imperialism, as the sole hegemonic superpower, in collusion and struggle with its imperialist rivals, extends and deepens more and more its war of aggression and plunder for the spoils of the oppressed nations and to conquer positions in order to secure its world hegemony. But imperialism only marches from failure to failure in the face of the resistance of the oppressed peoples and nations in struggle for revolution, liberation and sovereignty, as was demonstrated by the expulsion of its invading troops and allies with iron and fire from Afghan territory by the forces of national resistance and by the increased explosiveness of the masses. Additionally, the persistence of the resistance wars in the occupied countries of the Middle East, Asia and Africa and the people’s wars in India, Peru, the Philippines and Turkey.

Analysing the crisis of imperialism in the early 2020s as symptoms of an unprecedented leap in its decomposition and the confluence of all these factors, we conceive that world history has entered a particular situation in which a new period of revolutions has opened, a new moment of the World Proletarian Revolution, which falls within the “50 to 100 years” foreseen by Chairman Mao and highlighted by Chairman Gonzalo.

In this situation and at the juncture of the coming years and decades, Maoism will advance to lead the New Great Wave of the World Proletarian Revolution, confronting the world counter-revolution, preparing and unleashing more and more people’s wars, carrying this new great wave to the heights to avert a new world war and in case it breaks out, fighting to transform the people’s wars into a World People’s War to smash it, in what we already preach as a powerful slogan of combat. Starting from the law of the unequal development of matter and applying it to the process of the world proletarian revolution, we understand that in the process of the world revolution there is always the successive transfer of the center of the world revolution, where problems and their solutions accumulate, where the leaders are produced in accordance with the historical demands of each moment.

The center of the World Revolution is constituted as the principal contradiction, where the qualitative leap takes place; This does not mean that there are not other points of tension and ruptures, minor and secondary, but important, which are part of and can assume the principality, according to the development of the class struggle, as was presented at the time, the relation between the German Revolution and the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, between the defence of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War and the Chinese Revolution and as part of them, the anti-fascist wars in the Balkans, Spain, France, Italy, etc. Throughout the last two decades, principally Latin America, which being one of the revolutionary storm zones of the globe, is becoming the weakest link in the chain of imperialist domination and expressing in a concentrated form the world explosiveness of the masses and the powerful center of the world revolutionary storm.

Given the depth and complexity of the crisis of bureaucratic capitalism in Latin America and the fact that Latin America is the “backyard” of the single hegemonic superpower USA, the situation is aggravated with all the implications that these objective and subjective conditions represent.

In Peru, the People’s War has become the center of the World Proletarian Revolution, the center of the ideological struggle between Marxism and revisionism, as the struggle to impose Maoism as the new, third and higher stage of Marxism, fully valid throughout the world, brilliantly established and led by Chairman Gonzalo. Concretely in Peru, the most advanced ideology and the one that most threatens imperialism, which is Gonzalo Thought, and its universally valid contributions, emerged and took shape.

The ideological question, that is, the struggle between Marxism and revisionism, has become more than ever the fundamental question in the struggle in the ICM and it is for the raising of the understanding, assimilation and embodiment of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, with the universally valid contributions of Chairman Gonzalo as a preparation for the greatest ideological and political storms of the World Proletarian Revolution.

Was this not also the case with the ideological struggle in the ICM over the role of the great comrade Stalin after his death and over the capitalist restoration unleashed by the coup of the Khrushchevite clique and the 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U.? In order to attack Marxism-Leninism the Soviet revisionists will impute to comrade Stalin the most infamous crimes, accusing his firm leadership of “personality cult,” “followership,” “sectarianism,” etc. With this, the Soviet revisionists will throw sand in the eyes of the communists in order to revise Marxism-Leninism and replace the Communist Programme with the bourgeois slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity, hoisting their rotten “Two Alls” and the “Three Peacefuls” and try to impose the rotten revisionist, bourgeois and social-imperialist line on the ICM.

All these treacherous attacks were exposed and smashed by Chairman Mao in the midst of the death struggle against the right-wing capitalist roaders in the CPC led by the Chinese Khrushchev Liu Shaoqi. Chairman Mao has firmly defended comrade Stalin and Marxism-Leninism and formulated the General Political Line for the ICM, rejecting any appeasement of the revisionist right wing. In this fight against revisionism it has stressed that the slogan “against the cult of personality” is opposed to Lenin’s comprehensive theory of the “interrelationship between leaders, party, class and masses” and undermines the “principle of the democratic-centralism of the Party.”² In this struggle, not a few parties opportunistically maintained a certain defence of Stalin in order to conceal the denial of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism, which they themselves soon revealed and then went on to attack Chairman Mao’s positions. In chorus with the Soviet revisionists, such as the treacherous revisionist Hohxa, whom these parties will pass over to their worshipers.

Imperialism, reaction and revisionism had to concentrate their most furious attacks against Comrade Stalin, because he stood as the principal theoretical and practical leader of the ICM and the World Proletarian Revolution. It was Comrade Stalin who in a hard two-line struggle against revisionism and all the rightist positions in the Communist Party of the USSR and in the Communist International, against the rightist and revisionist positions which sought to subtract Leninism from a Russian particularism, masterfully defined, defended and applied Marxism-Leninism. Were there not others who dared to postulate a position contrary to Comrade Stalin by postulating their own definition of “Leninism”? Yes, like the infamous acrobat Trotsky or the rat Zinoviev, when the great Comrade Stalin defined that “Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.” This was an ideological leap, a product of the class struggle for the construction of socialism in the USSR and the two-line struggle in the C.P.S.U.(B.) against Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and others, as well as in the development of the International Communist Movement and the development of the World Proletarian Revolution.

This definition, among so many other universally valid contributions of the great Stalin, has represented his principal contribution to the development of the ideology of the international proletariat. Only through this masterly theoretical and practical work could the international proletariat recognise and assimilate the universal truths of Leninism. Therefore, from this great leap it is only possible to be a Marxist-Leninist (today, Marxism-Leninist-Maoist) by assuming the theoretical and practical definition made by comrade Stalin and recognizing his great role in history.

We ask, is it possible for any communist in the world to separate Leninism from Comrade Stalin’s definition of Leninism? No true communist can deny the role that Comrade Stalin played in the theoretical and practical defence of Leninism, that is, Marxism-Leninism, today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

In relation to Maoism, the problem is the same. However, its establishment as a new, third and higher stage does not take place within the CPC itself. The highest point that this definition has reached in China was with the glorious Ninth Congress, when it was established that the ideology of the CPC was Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. The Ninth Congress in 1969, in the midst of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, corrected the rightist deviation of the CPC at its Eighth Congress in October 1956, when the definition established by the Seventh Congress in 1945, which defined the ideology of the CPC as Marxism-Leninism, ideas of Mao Zedong Thought, was abolished. Already the Tenth Congress, held in 1973, represented a composition of proletarian revolutionary positions with a certain recovery of revisionist positions, a decline of the GPCR, and a return of Deng Xiaoping’s power to the Central Committee. The Ninth Congress, therefore, was the high point of the CPC’s own formulation of the development that the ideology of the proletariat had produced.

Through the influence of the GCR, many parties and organisations in the world were those who have assumed themselves to be “Mao Zedong Thought” or even “Maoist.” Although the left line in the CPC has played an important role in defending Maoism, especially comrade Jiang Qing and comrade Zhang Chunqiao, both arrested and killed in prison by the social-fascist Deng dictatorship, they could not, in the midst of the class struggle in socialism and the two-line struggle in the CPC, establish Maoism as a new stage of the ideology of the international proletariat.

Maoism, the work of Chairman Mao and the CPC, forged in the course of the glorious Chinese Revolution as part of and in the service of the world proletarian revolution and its stages, in the course of twenty-five years of armed struggle in the class struggle in the construction of socialism, of the unmasking of Khrushchev’s revisionism in the ICM and of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the highest milestone already reached by the proletariat in the course of luminous communism. Meanwhile its definition and establishment, as a great leap in the three constituent parts of Marxism as a unity, was a historical necessity, which was formulated by Chairman Gonzalo, the great leader of the PCP, in the midst of the Protracted People’s War in Peru.

The definition of Maoism as the new, third and higher stage of the ideology of the international proletariat was Chairman Gonzalo’s principal contribution of universal validity. It fell to Chairman Gonzalo, in a hard struggle against revisionism, inside and outside Peru, combating the emerging avakianist positions, to unravel the essence of Maoism, demonstrating that the essence of Maoism is Power: “Power is fundamental in Maoism. Power for the proletariat, power for the dictatorship of the proletariat, power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party. More explicitly: 1) Power under the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution; 2) Power for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the socialist and cultural revolutions; 3) Power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party, conquered and defended through people’s war.”

We start from Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, with the universally valid contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, why principally Maoism? Because Maoism is the highest stage of the development of Marxism, it is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, without Marxism-Leninism there would be no Maoism. Maoism is the Marxism of today, defined by Chairman Gonzalo as the “elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a third, new and higher stage in the struggle for proletarian leadership in the democratic revolution, the development of the construction of socialism and the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat as a proletarian cultural revolution; when imperialism is deepening its decomposition and revolution has become the principal trend of history, in the midst of the most complex and great wars ever seen and the relentless struggle against contemporary revisionism.

Meanwhile, some claim that Gonzalo Thought is only the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete conditions of Peru. This assertion is only part of the truth. Gonzalo Thought is the creative application of these universal truths to the concrete reality of Peru and its integration with the practice of the Peruvian revolution, which in eight years of people’s war could be sanctioned in the historic First Congress, the child of the PCP and the people’s war it leads. That is, Chairman Gonzalo creatively applied Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought to the particularity of Peru, defined Maoism and developed it, therefore Gonzalo Thought is part of and development of Maoism. This development is the universally valid contributions of Chairman Gonzalo.

Therefore, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, with the universally valid contributions of Chairman Gonzalo is the Marxism of the epoch of the most advanced decomposition of imperialism and people’s wars, of the most stormy epoch of world history, of the strategic offensive of the world proletarian revolution, of the most implacable and relentless struggle against all forms of revisionism and opportunism and of the most desperate and violent struggle of imperialism, in which it will be swept away with all reaction from the face of the earth by the world people’s war.

In synthesis it is the Marxism of the epoch of the people’s wars and the world people’s war. It is part of and a development of Maoism in the struggle for proletarian leadership in the restoration/counter-restoration confrontation specifically where the proletariat had established its dictatorship and joint dictatorship and in the revolutions of new democracy and in the socialist revolutions and successive cultural revolutions, when the decomposition of imperialism has reached an unprecedented degree and as such the degradation of the natural environment, when it is confirmed that revolution has become the principal historical and political trend, in the midst of the most complex wars of all kinds, when the world proletarian revolution has entered the moment of its strategic offensive and the deepening of the relentless struggle against revisionism of all kinds, within the period foretold by Chairman Mao of the “50-100 years” when imperialism and all reaction will be wiped off the face of the earth by the world proletarian revolution, as a world people’s war.

Therefore it was against Chairman Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru, like no other, that imperialism and reaction aimed and threw their fiercest weapons, counting on the sinister help of revisionism all over the world and principally the revisionist and capitulationist ROL,³ to attack Maoism and the World Revolution.

Those who want to ignore this fact, Chairman Gonzalo’s decisive role in defining Maoism, are inevitably being pushed to reduce Maoism to the Chinese particularity, just as all those who opposed Comrade Stalin’s definition of Leninism did, and therefore will not be able to understand and correctly apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Comrades,

One year ago, the indomitable and generous heart of the great titan of the international proletariat of the present epoch, the continuator of Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao Zedong, the greatest Marxist-Leninist-Maoist of our times, our respected, dear and forever beloved Chairman Gonzalo, Great Leader of the PCP and of the Peruvian Revolution, Leader of the international proletariat, of the Red Faction of the International Communist Movement and of the World Revolution, stopped beating. On this day, the proletariat and oppressed peoples of the whole world mourn, their hearts are beating with grief, their eyes full of tears, we, communists of the whole world, once again bow our red flags and our heads in solemn reverence of proletarian and revolutionary salute to our beloved great Leader.

On this day the henchmen of imperialism and reaction, hand in glove with the revisionists and capitulationists of the ROL, dreamed that they had defeated him, they were too late! When the terrible news of his death was heard all over the world, a fierce storm was unleashed, and the international proletariat, through its vanguard, raised a mighty war cry raising the red banner of Chairman Gonzalo against imperialism, all reaction and all revisionism, writing his name forever in the pantheon of the great titans of the international proletariat.

The twenty-nine years of absolute isolation at the hands of reaction and revisionism, the iron claws and atomic teeth of the yankee imperialist monster, added to all the terrorist bloodshed of fascism and all reaction, were not able to break this invincible giant of the international proletariat.

Chairman Gonzalo in his glorious course as a communist, for more than half a century, smashed all the plans of imperialism, reaction and revisionism. Chairman Gonzalo is still alive, invincible, his heart beats in the hearts of the communists of the whole world, of the international proletariat and the oppressed masses of the earth. His great mind continues to guide the international proletariat, absolute and incontestable, because he has forged his continuators, to the measure of his great tasks of the Revolution in the days of today. Chairman Gonzalo is invincible!