Excerpt on Capitulation^1 2

5.- On Capitulation

It must merit our attention because many are capitulating in the world and in the country. The phenomenon of the new revisionist counter-revolutionary offensive is serving world imperialism and reaction as no one has ever served them so much and is rotting part of the people insufficiently grounded in principles, in the dialectical comprehension of the world; it has repercussions on the intellectuals, yesterday in the 1960s they tired themselves out calling themselves Marxists, better said dressing as such to now repudiate and be ashamed of having put on that mask, for they are earning merits to better serve imperialism, revisionism, reaction. This convergence of the new revisionist counter-revolutionary offensive colluding with imperialism dreams of the definitive destruction of Marxism, dreams of sweeping away everything that the revolution has done, all its achievements, all its heroic action, they want to enthrone the old once again, the perverse domination of reaction at the most decrepit and sinister moment of imperialism. This has repercussions and we see capitulation and monstrous repudiations; it occurs in the petty bourgeoisie, in the workers’ crusts, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement for example is the proclamation of capitulation in the country; they disseminate “peace,” bourgeois democracy, market economy, human rights, reactionary ideologies, bourgeois culture; they capitulate before imperialism. Capitulation expresses itself in two facets: capitulation before native reaction and capitulation before world reaction, it is always thus; its objective is to sell the revolution. It is rot, then, which must be razed with blood and fire and that requires a strategy and tactics.

In Peking Review 37/1975, page 7. Criticism of Water Margin. Chairman Mao in the struggle against the rightist wind of reversal initiated the struggle against capitulation. He takes a literary work and criticizes it, for art, comrades, has a class character; he says this novel is an example of what capitulation is. It is criticism that forms part of the efforts to apply Chairman Mao’s policies on the study of theory and on the prevention of and opposition to revisionism.

Let us take note of the importance of theory, theory is a great battlefront, it is an international necessity; we communists need to handle Marxism–Leninism–Maoism, principally Maoism. We need to apply it and defend it and, with it, to defeat the entire onslaught that there is against Marxism. For us it is also a necessity, it is indispensable for handling the new State, for building socialism, the May document must be studied well and thoroughly, therein is how we see Marxism and what questions we must resolve today in the light of that, therein is how to build the new State, democracy and dictatorship, private property, the problem of the front, etc., these are then living problems that present themselves to us communists of Peru and of the world today. For victory we need a contingent of Marxist theoreticians, obviously indispensable for maintaining the course of the revolution and building socialism. Chairman Mao called on the Party to study theory.

The merit of the novel is that it describes capitulation, it is aiming against corrupt officials and saving the emperor. We see this in the country, for example the Mariateguist Unified Party aims against Minister Hurtado and exempts Fujimori, this is capitulationism. To practice capitulationism is to practice revisionism, amnesty, and enlistment, that is what the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement seeks, it is what the Socialist Left, the United Left, the Movement of Socialist Affirmation, Minister Amat, Minister Helfer seek. And those who capitulate await the offer of amnesty and enlistment, that they be offered it, but the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, what does it do? It does not wait, it demands it, it offers it.

Combating capitulation is important because it is part of the struggle of the Party and of the people in their efforts to adhere to Marxism, to combat revisionism, and to persist in the revolutionary line. This is a more important problem than yesterday because the next 50 to 100 years are at stake.

To combat capitulation we must concern ourselves with differentiating well the specific characteristics of the capitulators. In the case of Del Prado, his problem is to adjust to perestroika; in the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, Polay, they capitulate from Castroist positions but through arms; the Movement of Socialist Affirmation starting from the supposed obsolescence of Marxism and that there must be a reformulation with social-Christian positions; Red Homeland, like the Chinese revisionists of today, poses that Marxism is undergoing a set of reforms to advance and that world reaction or the bourgeois try to use them to combat socialism. Internationally they kneel before imperialism and the various revisionisms, within the country they capitulate before the big bourgeoisie, the landlords, and all are against the People’s War; do not forget that there are two factions in the big bourgeoisie and that in each one there are also groups. Revisionists are all those who call themselves Marxists but revise Marxism; the opportunists are those who accommodate themselves to any faction to subsist; and the bourgeois are those who underpin themselves with the ideology of the bourgeoisie and defend it.

Study Marxism well to combat revisionism, imperialism, and reaction; apply elevation and popularization and differentiate among the leaders, cadres, and militants, in the army, and among the broad masses.

In Peking Review 9/1976. (Attached quotation). The novel is a negative example, it propagates the capitulationist line; and what does perestroika propagate? It propagates capitulation before imperialism, the most unbridled capitalist restoration, it propagates revisionism.

To oppose corrupt officials, not even to aim against the entire bureaucracy as a component part of the old State but only against the corrupt ones, what do they seek? To moralize in order to make the old order more bearable; we have an opposite position, we aim against the recalcitrant representatives of the old State, selective annihilation to bring down the decrepit order.

The entire novel is imbued with the idea that the officials are bad and that the emperor is good, this is what lies behind it, that is why they aim against Hurtado because they believe that Fujimori is good but that they force him, that they impose on him; they ask Fujimori to moralize, to renew his justice, we ask him for nothing, we wrest Power from him. To oppose corrupt officials is to be loyal to the emperor, if they aim against Hurtado they defend Fujimori, if they are for moralization they defend the system.

Within the reactionaries the contradiction presents itself, some aim to annihilate the revolution and others to disintegrate it from within. Both defend the system and oppose the revolution. They are two sides of a coin.

Facing the revolution the reactionaries adopt a double tactic, armed repression and the offer of amnesty and enlistment, capitulation. But rejecting or accepting capitulation constitutes the focus of the struggle of the two lines.

The trilogy of the capitulationist line is (1) to aim against the officials, not against the emperor; (2) amnesty and enlistment; and (3) to repress the revolution.³

Do not confuse the limitations of those who struggle with those who surrender to the enemy. In China the peasants struggled but were defeated, it is that without the leadership of the proletariat they could not triumph, this was their limitation; those who, being in the struggle, capitulated, surrendered before the enemy, these sought posts and in this manner formed their armed base to later divide the peasant movement.

One of the characters, the capitulator, under a revolutionary disguise practiced revisionism, unfolded counter-revolutionary activities, and aimed to replace the revolutionary line with a capitulationist line. He was not even a fellow traveler but a traitor, an arch-criminal.

The philosophy of the capitulationists was feudal and bourgeois, loyalty and justice were synonyms they used, in their name they acted. If one has a bourgeois conception while being in the revolution, then one will capitulate.

They apply an idea and a tactic that is more perverse than violent action against the revolution, they use feudal ideology dressed in the words peace, justice, equality, democracy to place them as a rope and pull the masses after them.

The philosophy of life of all the exploiting classes is characterized by drawing close to high posts, and these are baits for recruiting lackeys.

In all times, capitulationists inevitably arise in the revolutionary camp. There are ancient and contemporary capitulators, they practice class capitulationism in the country and national capitulationism abroad, class capitulationism, they submit to the bourgeoisie and they submit to imperialism. This fits like a ring on the finger today for those who act thus outside and inside the country.