Chairman Gonzalo established the line of building the three instruments of the revolution by upholding and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.
He teaches us that Marx said that the working class creates organizations in its image and likeness, in other words, its own organization. In the 19th century, with Marx and Engels, we started off provided with a specific conception, our own doctrine, our own objective, our own goal, how to seize Power and the means of doing it: Revolutionary violence; all that was achieved in a very hard two-line struggle. Marx established that the proletariat can only act as a class by constituting himself as a political party different and opposite to all the political parties created by the propertied classes. Therefore, since its appearance in a prolonged process the proletariat has created its own forms of organization. As a result, the Party is the highest form of organization, the army the principal form of organization and the Front is third instrument, these three instruments are to seize Power by means of revolutionary violence. He tells us that by the end of the 19th century, Engels came to the conclusion that the class did not have either the proper organizational forms or the proper military forms to take Power and hold it. Yet, he never said we should abandon the revolution but the we should be working on finding a solution to these pending problems. This must be well understood since the revisionists twist it to sell their opportunism.
In the 20th century Lenin understood that the revolution was ripe and created the proletarian Party of a new type, molding the form of struggle: The insurrection; and the form of organization: The detachments, which were mobile forms and superior to the barricades of the previous century, which were stationary forms. Lenin set forth the need to create new, clandestine organizations, since going on to revolutionary actions meant the dissolution of the legal organizations by the police and that step was only possible if it is taken by going over the old leaders, going over the old Party, destroying it. The Party should take as example the modern army, with its own discipline and with its united will and be flexible.
With Chairman Mao Zedong, the class understands the need to build the three instruments of the revolution: Party, Army and United Front in an interrelated way. That way it solves the building of the three instruments in a backwards, semi-feudal and semi-colonial country, by way of the People’s War. Concretely, it resolves the issue of building the Party around the gun and that it is the heroic fighter who is the one leading its own building, the Army and the Front.
Chairman Gonzalo set forth the militarization of the Communist Parties and the concentric building of the three instruments. The militarization of the Communist Parties is the political directive with a strategic content, since it is “the set of transformations, changes and readjustments it need to lead the People’s War as the main form of struggle that will generate the new State.” Therefore, the militarization of the Communist Parties is key for the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and the cultural revolutions.
He defines the principle of building: “Based on the ideological-political base, to simultaneously build the organizational forms in the amidst of the class struggle and the two-line struggle, all of these within and as a function of the armed struggle and the seizure of Power.”
In addition, he links the entire process of building with the fluidity of the People’s War, which based on Chairman Mao’s theses that “the mobility of military operations and the variability of our territory provide all works of building with... a variable character.”
Hence, to understand the line of building, we must start from the form of struggle and the forms of organization; from the principle of building and building linked to the fluidity of the People’s War which is the main form of struggle in today’s world.
We base ourselves in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, principally Gonzalo Thought, on the ideology of the proletariat, the highest expression of humanity, the only truthful, scientific and invincible. We struggle for the Communist Program whose essence is to organize and lead the class struggle of the proletariat so it can seize political Power, carry out the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and the cultural revolution on the way to Communism, the unwavering goal which we march towards. We rely on the general political line of the revolution, based on the laws governing the class struggle for the seizure of Power, which was established by Chairman Gonzalo with its five elements:
International line;
Democratic revolution;
Military line;
Line of building the three instruments of the revolution;
Mass line.
The military line is the center of the general political line. We forge ourselves in proletarian internationalism as we conceive our revolution as part of the world proletarian revolution. And we maintain ideological, political and organizational independence supported by our own efforts and by masses.
Party of a new type which generated the leader of the Peruvian revolution, Chairman Gonzalo, the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, who leads the Party, the guarantee of the triumph of the revolution and will carry us to Communism.
Chairman Gonzalo established the thesis that the Communist Parties of the world should militarize themselves for three reasons:
First, because we are in the strategic offensive of the world revolution, we live during the sweeping away of imperialism and reaction from the face of Earth within the next 50 to 100 years, a time marked by violence in which all kinds of wars take place. We see how reaction militarizes itself more and more, militarizating the old States, their economy, developing wars and aggression, trafficking with the struggles of the peoples and aiming at a world war, since revolution is the main tendency in the world, the task of the Communist Parties is to raise revolution making reality the main form of struggle: The People’s War, to oppose the world counter-revolutionary war with world revolutionary war.
Second, because capitalist restoration must be confronted. When the bourgeoisie loses Power, it reintroduces itself inside the Party, uses the army and seeks a way of usurping Power, of destroying the dictatorship of the proletariat to reinstate capitalism. Therefore, the Communist Parties must militarize themselves and exercise the overall dictatorship of the three instruments, forge themselves in the People’s War and empower the armed organization of the masses, the people’s militia, so as to engulf the army. Towards this end, Chairman Gonzalo tells us to “forge all militants as Communists, first and foremost, as fighters and as administrators”; for that reason every militant is forged in the People’s War and remains alert against any attempts of capitalist restoration.
Third, because we march towards a militarized society. By militarizing the Party, we complete a step towards the militarization of society which is the strategic perspective to guarantee the dictatorship of the proletariat. The militarized society is the sea of armed masses which Marx and Engels spoke about, that guarantees the conquest and defense of the conquered Power. We take the experience of the Chinese Revolution, of the anti-Japanese base at Yenan, which was a militarized society where everything flowed out of the barrels of guns, Party, Army, State, new politics, new economics, new culture. And that way we develop war Communism.
In the First National Conference, November 1979, Chairman Gonzalo proposed the thesis of the necessity to militarize the Communist Party of Peru; then, in the early months of 1980, when the Party was getting ready to launch the People’s War, he proposed to develop the militarization of the Party by ways of actions, based on what the great Lenin said about reducing the non-military work and to center it in the military, that the times of peace were ending and we entered the times of war so that all forces should be militarized. Thus taking the Party as the axis of everything, build the Army around it and with these instruments, with the masses in People’s War, build the new State based on both. The militarization of the Party could only be carried forward through concrete actions of the class struggle, concrete military type actions; this does not mean we will carry out various types of military actions exclusively (guerrilla actions, sabotages, selective annihilation, propaganda and armed agitation) but that we must carry out mainly these forms so as to provide incentive and development to the class struggle, indoctrinating it with facts, with these types of actions as the main form of struggle in the People’s War.
The militarization of the Party has precedents in Lenin and Chairman Mao, but it is a new problem developed by Chairman Gonzalo taking into account the new circumstance of the class struggle and we must realize that new problems will arise which will be solved through experience. This will necessarily imply a process of struggle between the old and the new in order to develop it further, with war being the highest form of resolving the contradictions, empowering the faculties people have to find solutions. It is the militarization of the Party which has enabled us to initiate and develop the People’s War; and we consider that this experience has universal validity, for that reason, it is required and necessary for the Communist Parties of the world to militarize themselves.
The concentric building of the three instruments is the organizational fulfillment 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 leads the three instruments overall, its own building, absolutely leads the army and the new State as joint dictatorship aiming towards the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
The militancy is forged on the base of Party unity with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, principally Gonzalo Thought. We say Marxism-Leninism-Maoism because it is the universal ideology of the proletariat which is the last class in history, an ideology that must be applied to the concrete conditions of each revolution and generate its guiding thought. In our case, the Peruvian revolution has generated Gonzalo Thought because Chairman Gonzalo is the highest expression of the fusion of the universal ideology with the concrete practice of the Peruvian revolution.
Militancy is forged in the Program and Statutes; the general political line and the military line as its center, specific lines; general policy, specific policies and the Party’s military plans. Politics must always be in command and that is our strong point.
The organizational building follows the political building and taking into account that line is not enough, the organizational apparatuses must be simultaneously built taking into account the organizational structure, the organizational system and the Party work. In its organizational structure, the Party is based on democratic centralism, mainly centralism. Two Party armed networks are established, the territorial network which covers one jurisdiction and the mobile network whose structure is deployed. The organizational system is the distribution of forces in function of the principal and secondary points wherever the revolution is acting. Party work is the relationship between secret work, which is the principal, and open work; the importance of the five necessities: Democratic centralism, clandestinity, discipline, vigilance and secret work. Of the six, democratic centralism is the most important.
We are fully conscious that no class in history has ever achieved the installation of its rule unless it promotes its political leaders, its vanguard representatives, capable of organizing the movement and leading it. The Peruvian proletariat in the midst of the class struggle has generated the revolutionary leadership and its highest expression: The leadership of Chairman Gonzalo, who handles revolutionary theory and has a commanding knowledge of history and a profound understanding of the revolutionary practice; who in hard two-line struggle defeated revisionism, the right and left liquidationism, the right opportunist line and rightism. He has reconstituted the Party, leads it in the People’s War and is the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, a great political and military strategist, a philosopher; teacher of Communists, center of Party unity. The reaction has two principles to destroy the revolution: To annihilate its leadership and to isolate the guerrilla from the masses. But in synthesis its problem is to annihilate the leadership, because it is what enables us to maintain our perspective and reach our objective. Our Party has defined that leadership is key and it is duty of all militants to constantly work to defend and preserve the leadership of the Party and very especially the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo, our leader, against any attack inside or outside the Party and to abide his personal leadership and command by raising the slogans of “Learn From Chairman Gonzalo” and “Embody Gonzalo Thought.”
We base ourselves in the collective leadership and the individual leadership and we keep in mind the role of the leaders and how through the People’s War, through the renewal of the leadership, the direction of the revolution fulfills and tempers itself. We maintain the principle that the leadership never dies. We who follow Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, subject ourselves to Chairman Gonzalo and embody Gonzalo Thought.
The Party is a contradiction where the class struggle expresses itself as the two-line struggle between the right and the left. It is the two-line struggle that propells the development of the Party, its just and correct handling requires that the left must impose itself. We fight conciliation because it nourishes the right; and the principle of criticism and self-criticism must be practiced by all: militants, cadres, leaders, combatatants, masses too, assuming the philosophy of the struggle and then going against the current, keeping in mind that the Central Committee is the vortex of the storm, since there the class struggle expresses itself the sharpest. The just and correct handling that Chairman Gonzalo makes of the two-line struggle has helped maintain the unity of the Party and develop the People’s War even further. In general the main danger the Party faces is revisionism, although inside the Party it continues to develop a struggle against rightist criteria, opinions, attitudes and positions, in the midst of the people. It is necessary to organize the two-line struggle to impose the Party line, through a plan to develop it in an organized manner.
We apply the principle that: “The masses make history.” The Party leads the mass struggle in function of Power, which is the principal economic and political right; we develop the mass work in and for the People’s War basing ourselves on the basic masses, workers and peasants, mainly the poor, in the petty bourgeoisie and we neutralize or win over the middle bourgeoisie, as conditions may demand. We subject ourselves to the law of the incorporation of the masses and the only Marxist tactic of “going to the deepest and most profound masses,” educating them in revolutionary violence and in the relentless struggle against revisionism. The mass work of the Party is done through the Army and the masses are mobilized, politicized, organized and armed as the new Power in the countryside and in the Revolutionary Defense Movement of the People in the cities.
In synthesis, it is through the forge and the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo that we have a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought Party of the a type which leads the People’s War and has opened up the perspective of the seizure of Power countrywide serving the world revolution.
The People’s Guerrilla Army is an army of a new type which fulfills the political tasks of the revolution established by the Party. It applies the Maoist principle: “The Party rules the gun and we will never allow the gun rule to rule the Party.” It fulfills three tasks: To fight, which is the main task, as it corresponds to the principal form of organization. To mobilize, which is very important and by which the mass work of the Party is fulfilled, educating the masses politically, mobilizing, organizing and arming the masses. To produce, applying the principle of self-sufficiency, trying not to be a burden for the masses. Fundamentally it is a peasant’s army, absolutely led by the Party. Chairman Gonzalo teaches us: “The legions of steel of the People’s Guerrilla Army sustain themselves on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, guiding thought, which is the basis of its invincibility; and are forged in the hard life, the sacrifice and the challenging of death, which elevate them to revolutionary heroism.”
Marx set forth that the proletariat needed its own army and the thesis of the general arming of the people. Lenin created the Red Army and established the thesis of the people’s militia with the functions of the police, army and administration. Chairman Mao developed the building of the revolutionary armed forces with the immense participation of the masses. The People’s War materializes its mass character in three great coordinations.
Chairman Gonzalo, based on these Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theses and taking into account the specific situation of the People’s War in Peru, proposed the forming of the People’s Guerrilla Army. Since the Preparation of the war, Chairman Gonzalo conceived the need of building the principal form of organization to carry forward the People’s War, defeat the enemy and build the new State. On December 3, 1979 it was agreed to form the “First Company of the First Division of the Red Army,” in 1980, with the Initiation, the platoons and detachments were materialized and we proposed to transform ourselves from unorganized masses to militarily organized masses.
In 1983, we needed to take a leap forward in the building of the revolutionary armed forces, we faced a large growth of the people’s militias, which demonstrated how the masses wanted to fight; besides, that year the reactionary armed forces had entered the fight against us. That way, in the Expanded Central Committee meeting (CCA) of March 1983, Chairman Gonzalo proposed the materialization of the People’s Guerrilla Army. Why an Army? Because it was a political need to confront the enemy and develop the People’s War. All the Party thus agreed, amidst the two-line struggle against the rightism opposed to incorporating the militias into the Army. Why a guerrilla? Because it applies guerrilla warfare in the milestone of “Developing guerrilla warfare”; it is not a regular army but a guerrilla army and its characteristics enable it, if needed, to develop itself as some sort of regular army. Why people’s? Because it is formed by the masses of the people, by the peasants, especially the poor ones; they serve the people, since they represent the interests of the people. A very important situation is how Chairman Gonzalo conceived the People’s Guerrilla Army by incorporating the people’s militias, made up of three forces: Principal, local and of the base, which acts mainly in the countryside and in the city as complementary; that is a great step towards the sea of armed masses.
The character of the army is based on the fighters and not on the weapons; our army is made up of peasants, mostly poor, proletarians and petty bourgeoisie; it wrests weapons away from the enemy and also uses all sorts of elementary weapons. Our slogan is, “Conquer Weapons!” from the enemy by paying whatever cost is necessary. The formation of the People’s Army must be distinguished from its building.
The ideological-political building is principal, based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. In the political and military lines of the Party, all its political and mass work are being implemented under the Party’s leadership. The Party is organized at all levels of the army, the double command is applied: political and military, and the two-line struggle develops between the proletarian military line and the bourgeois military line. In addition the revolutionary armed requires the formation of three Departments: Political, Military and Logistical.
The military building is important. Armed with the theory and practice of the People’s War, the military line and the Party’s military plans, it is organized in platoons, companies and battalions in the countryside and in special detachments and people’s militias in the cities. This building is also based on the two-line struggle. The three main forces: principal, local and at the base level fulfill the specific role as supporting the new State. “Develop the companies, strengthen the platoons aiming at battalions!” is still a valid slogan.
The instruction is necessary and indespensible. It aims at increasing war readiness; testing is unavoidable and the ability to command is the key to action. Instruction specializes, elevates the forms of struggle. The organization of courage has a class character and strengthens war readiness because it is fought with absolute unselfishness and fully convinced of the justness of our cause.
In synthesis, Chairman Gonzalo created the People’s Guerrilla Army, an army of the new type, he established the line of its building based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought so it can fulfill the specific tasks of the revolution. It is an example before the world and serves the world revolution.
Power is the central task of the revolution and the Front is the third instrument. By applying the masterful thesis of Chairman Mao On New Democracy, Chairman Gonzalo teaches us our conception of joint dictatorship which materializes the People’s Republic of New Democracy. Starting from the link between State-Front, the Revolutionary Front for the Defense of the People is materialized which began in the People’s Committees in the countryside, and in the cities it is simply the Revolutionary Defense Movement of the People. We build the New State in the countryside until finally Power extends throughout the entire country.
As a state system, it is a joint dictatorship of workers, peasants, mainly poor, and the petty bourgeoisie, that respects the interests of the middle bourgeoisie, under the leadership of the proletariat represented by the Party, which applies it functions through the People’s Assemblies.
The building of the new State follows the fluidity of the People’s War, it can expand or contract, disappear in another place to appear in another. It is fluid. As Chairman Mao teaches us: “Our workers’ and peasants’ democratic republic is a state, but today it is not yet a full-fledged one... the form of our political power is still far from that of a full-fledged state... ur territory is still very small, and our enemy is constantly out to destroy us.”
Always keep in mind the system of Support Bases, of guerrilla zones, of zones of operations and points of actions, because those constitute the environment in which the new State develops and are key to maintaining a strategic course; within this environment the EGP (People’s Guerrilla Army), under the leadership of the Party, moves as its backbone.
“Strengthen the People’s Committees, develop the Bases and contribute to advance the People’s Republic of New Democracy!” That is the slogan which continues to guide its building.
We struggle for Power for the proletariat and for the people and not for personal power. We are against roving and wandering and sidestepping the Base Areas.
The new State is built amidst the People’s War and follows a process of specific development, being built in our case first in the countryside, until the cities are surrounded, to materialize it through the entire country. This is a process in which the deterioration of the old State continues and the expression of the contradiction old State-new State; which causes all the political and military plans of reaction to fail and incorporates the masses to the struggle.
At the Expanded PCP National Conference of November 1979, Chairman Gonzalo established the relationship between Front-New State applying the theory of Chairman Mao. In the First Military School of April 1980, he told us: “...In our hearts, minds and wills, the power of the people is alive, and we carry it with us... Comrades, we must never forget the people’s power, the State of the working class, the State of workers and peasants. This State marches with us, we carry it on the muzzles of our rifles, nestled in our minds, throbbing in our hands, and it will always be burning in our hearts. It is the first thing on our minds. We should never forget it. Comrades, the armed struggle will be born fragile and weak because it is new, but its destiny will be to develop through change, from the variation of fragility like a tender plant. The roots we plant at the beginning will be the future of a vigorous State. Comrades, all this begins to flourish with the modest and simple actions that tomorrow we will carry out.” In 1980, the Committees of Distribution emerge, the embryo of the new State; in 1982, the first People’s Committees emerge, which would multiply towards the end of that year, forcing reaction to order their armed forces to enter the fight against the People’s War, since the reactionary Power itself was threatened. In 1983, we agreed upon the Great Plan to Conquer Bases, one of its tasks was to form the Organizing Committee of the People’s Republic of New Democracy. Starting from there, we have followed the struggle between the counter-reestablishment of the old Power by the enemy and the counter-establishment of the new Power, applying defense, development and building.
Thus the new Power passing through the blood bath develops the People’s Committees, is tempered in hard battles against the enemy in which the blood of the masses of peasants, of the fighters and of militants is spilled.
At the Expanded Central Committee of March 1983, Chairman Gonzalo further develops the line of building the Front-New State. He proposes the levels in which the new State is being organized: People’s Committees, Base Areas and People’s Republic of New Democracy. The functions of the Base Areas and of the Organizing Committee of the People’s Republic of New Democracy are that of leadership, planning and organization; and each Base must elaborate its own specific Plan.
He establishes that the People’s Committees are materializations of the new State, they are Committees of the United Front; led by Commissars who assume their State functions by commissioning, elected by the Assemblies of Representatives and subject to removal. They are, up to now, clandestine, they march forward in Commissions, led by the Party applying the rule of the “three thirds”: One third of them are Communists, one third are peasants and one third are progressives, and are sustained by the Army. They apply people’s dictatorship, enforcement and security, exercising firmly and resolutely revolutionary violence so as to defend the new Power against its enemies and to protect the rights of the people.
The set of People’s Committees constitute the Base Areas and the set of Base Areas is the ring that arms the People’s Republic of New Democracy, now being formed. We have gone from Conquering Bases to Developing Bases, which is the present political strategy. We have to plant the new Power more and more for which we have to apply the five established forms, especially today when the conditions point towards the perspective of conquering Power throughout the country.
In synthesis, Chairman Gonzalo has established the line of building the new State and two republics, two roads, two axes are counterpoised. We have advanced in establishing new social relations of production and the People’s Republic of New Democracy now being formed shines defiantly against the old State and opens up the perspective of conquering total Power. This example encourages the revolutionaries of the world, especially the international proletariat.
As followers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, we assume the line of building the three instruments of the revolution, of the Communist Party of Peru, The highest form of organization and the first political society; of the People’s Guerrilla Army, principal form of organization; and of the Front — New State, central task of the revolution. These are the Instruments which are being built in our country in the heat of the battles of the People’s War, crossing the rivers of blood spilled by the reactionary army in which with much heroism, the Communists, fighters and masses give their lives to materialize the just and correct political line established by Chairman Gonzalo, and that those who survive will carry the flag of continuing it in the service of our goal, Communism.
LONG LIVE THE MILITARIZATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU!
LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S GUERRILLA ARMY!
LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF NEW DEMOCRACY IN FORMATION!
FOR THE CONCENTRIC BUILDING OF THE THREE INSTRUMENTS!