Proletarians of all countries, unite!

REPORT FROM THE FIRST CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU ON THE STUDY AND TAKING THE POSITION OF THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCUMENTS.

Peru, 1988¹

I. ON MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM.

- Understand first to whom our documents are addressed, they are not for Europe, that is not our circumstance. Our documents are addressed to the Party, to the class, to the poor peasantry, to the petty bourgeoisie.

- In the first paragraph, emphasize:

* Ideology of the international proletariat: conception of the proletariat, the last class of history, whose understanding of the world is scientific. Conception is the understanding of all that exists and our conception has 2,500 years of ancestry, it condenses 2,500 years of western thought elaborated from the position and interests of the international proletariat.

* Insurrection: A combative and revolutionary rupture.

* It is all-powerful because it is true.

* Three stages. We make a great affirmation that’s essential, they are three stages; 1) Marxism, 2) Leninism, 3) Maoism, of a dialectical process of development, because being a reflection of matter in the mind and being matter in motion is dialectical, and is not a simple method (to reduce it to that is a concession to the bourgeoisie). It is a dialectical process because it is reality itself, and its laws are correctly grasped through practice.

* Only the class struggle could generate our conception, only the proletariat with its great incessant transformation of the material reality in the class struggle, as the conquest of the power of the class by overthrowing other powers, only in the practice of research, could the proletariat be embodied in ideology.

* Immense work of titans of thought and action, with three unfading luminaries standing out: Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tsetung. It is a pleiad, a considerable group of great figures, of titans of thought and action. We have not listed them so that the three summits remain clear: Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tsetung. Our ideology unfolds by means of great leaps, as well as three great leaps. It is with a great dialectical process of the proletariat generating titans that we have arrived at Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

- Behind every assertion of the great Marxists, there is a whole dialectical process that they assume and further embody.

- In the second paragraph:

* Marxism-Leninism is recognized with universal validity and Maoism is not recognized as a third stage, that is the current situation: some deny, others only reach Mao Tsetung Thought, in essence they do not recognize the “ism.” “Ism” has a clear meaning. Thought is nothing but a set of ideas, while “ism” is a doctrine that fully interprets all matter in its three forms: nature, class struggle, and knowledge. It is not a problem of term, the problem is whether it has universal validity or not, if it is “ism,” it does, if it is not “ism,” it does not.

- As for the INTRODUCTION we take two issues, an accurate theory of the great Lenin, and a great defense of Leninism made by comrade Stalin.

* As the revolution moves into the East, it expresses specific conditions. See the peculiarities, see the specifics. Lenin said: “be surprised by the Russian Revolution, but you will fall backwards when you see the revolution in the East,” and he said to the comrades of the East that their task was to resolve the revolution in backward countries. That is fulfilled, the Chinese revolution expresses it. Thus the same thing that happened to Lenin is happening to Chairman Mao, the deep cry of the opportunists weighed down with revisionism, of the parliamentary plumblers and cretins.

* As for comrade Stalin: In Russia itself it was said that Leninism is true, but only for Russia, because it was said that what’s fundamental for Leninism is the role of the peasantry and that it is consequently not the dictatorship of the proletariat. Therefore, Lenin is not universal. It is an infamy to say it. Stalin defended Leninism by crushing these positions. In Marxism, history shows that the great truths have to be reiterated because they are powdered or incense is thrown on them, turning them into icons.

* From the two previous questions we derive that today Maoism faces similar situations, and that as Chairman Mao said: Marxism has never taken a step in life outside the midst of struggle. Thus Marxism gives us weapons, it has had the wise capacity to arm us for the future, it arms us for decades.

- In terms of CONTEXT, because a historical character cannot be understood apart from its understanding as an expression of the class struggle and being at war in that crucible. See:

* Internationally: three great historical milestones: 1) the October Revolution, which opens the era of the world proletarian revolution, which implies that the world revolution is led by the proletariat through Communist Parties, 2) The triumph of the Chinese revolution in 1949, and 3) the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao has been the protagonist in two of them, leading fabulously mobilized masses.

* As for China: from a set of facts we can extract the most outstanding, the most important: Foundation of the CPC,² because without the CPC there would have been no Chinese revolution; the Autumn Harvest Uprising stands out because there begins the road to encircle the cities from the countryside; the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, because 650 million masses are those who pass to the then socialist camp; and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966–76. The Chairman has been the highest leader and head of the Chinese Revolution and the world revolution, more, the center of the revolution moved to China, as before from France to Germany, from Germany to Russia, from Russia to China, and today? We do not know where, the backward countries have conditions for that.

* There is a short biography that teaches us how to trace the life of a great character. That is irrefutable and what we must seek is to uphold solid, defensible, and irrefutable things.

* This is the national and international context in which the Chairman has become the highest peak of Marxism, historically this is how it has been defined, and in the face of this, what can the denials, questionings, and interrogations be. The more time passes, the clearer it becomes, but in life there are always a handful of people who see first and they have the obligation to make the others see, going against the tide.

- This document, these are the generalizations of everything that Chairman Mao has done throughout a whole process. Take all of Maoism as a whole, and think about the importance that Chairman Mao gave to the world revolution.

- On the CONTENT of Maoism:

1. Theory

* He reaffirms that Marxism has three parts, this is very important. There are three parts: Marxist philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism.

* If there is a development at the highest level in all three parts, then we have a universal qualitative leap, so we must:

* Show the developments in these three parts made by Chairman Mao. Note that of the three parts, the most developed in the document is the economy, and the reason is given.

In Marxist philosophy:

* Chairman Mao establishes contradiction as the only fundamental law, because there is no other law, that is why it is not called the main law.

* Chairman Mao’s understanding of the laws of knowledge was achieved only by Chairman Mao, developing what Lenin said, and building on Engels.

* He universally applied the universal truth, the law of contradiction to politics.

* He emphasizes that he took philosophy to the masses. He gives us a masterful definition of philosophy as a weapon to clear cobwebs from the mind.

In political economy:

* Applying dialectics to the base-superstructure relation and crushing the revisionist thesis of the “productive forces,” he establishes that the superstructure can modify the base and with political power can develop the productive forces.

* He established that politics is command and political work is the lifeline of economic work which leads to a true management of political economy.

* The Maoist thesis of bureaucrat-capitalism, is in On Coalition Government, in volume IV, page 166³ onwards, and in Unpublished Articles he states that the confiscation of bureaucrat-capitalism is key because otherwise there is no economic base to develop the socialist revolution. He tells us that bureaucrat-capitalism matures the conditions for the democratic revolution and its triumph. The revolution is an uninterrupted unity with two stages.

* Principal: It is the Chairman who has developed the political economy of socialism. Emphasize the Great Leap, the agricultural cooperativization, and the people’s commune.

* It is important to understand and handle the laws of socialism. It has taken centuries for capitalism to express its laws that were apprehended by Marx. We do not know the laws of socialism in depth, nor how to handle them. Keep in mind that the socialist forms are only created in the socialist revolution, in the democratic revolution as progress, that is why it is an uninterrupted process. It is the dictatorship of the proletariat, which carries forward the fierce class struggle. It still remains for the socialist relationship itself to express itself, for the dictatorship of the proletariat to develop, there we can take its laws to see our reality and maintain the only course of humanity.

* We, what importance do we give to the political economy of socialism? That is why collective work and mutual aid are not seen because that is where we are sowing socialism, that is why they do not understand that we are changing production relations, because they do not understand the process of advancement, leaps, final goal. Collective work and mutual aid are elementary forms that we are sowing, in democratic revolution we make small socialist advances, otherwise there is no uninterrupted revolution.

In scientific socialism:

* Chairman Mao developed the theory of classes, it is Chairman Mao who takes, develops, and clarifies well the problem of class in the economic, political, and ideological fields, and that the economic is its base, the political is principal, and its base is the ideological, and in the three fields he fights.

The Chairman once again reaffirms and upholds revolutionary violence as a universal law without any exception, this is extraordinary. Chairman Mao specifies violence as war and army, and upholds its character of universal law.

* “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” 1927, that’s where he lays out the road.

* Autumn Harvest Uprising, September 9, 1927, the beginning of the road. He marched to Jinggang and created the power, and it was in 1936 that he established the laws for the first time, 9 years later. With this, he solved a pending problem, because it was not known until him how to make revolution in a country under imperialist domination with feudalism at its base and with a bureaucrat-capitalism.

* Emphasize the continuation of the antagonistic struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between capitalism and socialism, between the capitalist road and the socialist road. The Chairman is going to put forward the fundamental law of socialism, the general political line of socialism, that it is not defined who will defeat whom and that it is an arduous and fierce struggle.

* Restoration and counter-restoration. Lenin said that it was necessary to prevent against restoration. The Chairman, developing this idea, which in Lenin was germinal, establishes a struggle between restoration and counter-restoration, and the problem is to see the milestones in the process in which the dictatorship of the proletariat will take root: 1871: The Commune, 1905: The Soviets, 1917, 1949, 1966 are steps of development of the power of the proletariat towards the entrenchment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I do not say “definitive,” because as Marx said, the establishment of the dictatorship is the beginning of its extinction, it has to take root for a long time until it is extinguished in Communism. Thus, to see how the dictatorship of the proletariat advances in its establishment, advances in leading the revolution until communism, this was resolved by Chairman Mao.

2. New Democracy

* The theory of the State has been developed by Chairman Mao.

* The problem of New Democracy, the Chairman establishes it as a function of developing the theory of the State by proposing joint dictatorship as a State system, that is the basis of New Democracy.

* Chairman Mao gives precise content to New Democracy: New Economy, New Politics, and New Culture. He tells us how to do it: “with guns can the whole world be transformed.”

* The democratic revolution fulfills democratic tasks but at the same time fulfills socialist advances, that is one of the questions of the uninterrupted process.

* It is these conditions that allow for uninterrupted revolution and give no room for a breakthrough. Thus Chairman Mao has resolved the democratic revolution and its condition as a stage followed uninterruptedly by socialism. It is Chairman Mao who resolves the uninterrupted revolution, giving it political, economic, and ideological basis.

3. The Three Instruments

What we are raising here is not in any text of Chairman Mao. In order to understand it, we must see Maoism as a whole, as a unity.⁴

Regarding the Party

* It should be noted that the Chairman has been reiterative in pointing out “to prepare for war” and even says “I fear peace more than war.”

* It is Chairman Mao who says that the Party is built according to the stage, he says, the Party is like any unity: it is born, grows, develops, and dies.

* Chairman Mao says that the Party is a contradiction, because if it were not, it would not exist; the Chairman generalizes that revisionism is the danger, and mainly where? In the Central Committee.

* Emphasize Rectification Campaign, that is Chairman Mao’s theory.

* The Party is not an entity in itself and for itself, it is an instrument, if it is not conceived in this way, as a vanguard that leads the revolution in the name of the proletariat, it has no sense, it is useless, it would be a piece of junk.

* From the above, it follows that the Party comes to lead everything omnipotently. It is a process, first the Party directs, second, the Party directs everything, and then, the Party directs everything omnipotently (omnipotently = in all possible ways and manners).⁵

Regarding the Army

* The Chairman is the true creator of the Army of a new type because it is only with Chairman Mao that the military theory of the proletariat begins to be established.

* Lenin already warned that the Army could be used to usurp power; that’s why he advocated for the people’s militia. Chairman Mao organized up to 80 million militiamen in China, but his goal was to establish the general arming of the people. That was the objective, what we call the sea of armed masses: a new type of armed force with general arming. With this, Chairman Mao aimed to overshadow the regular army; he is the one who has developed the general arming of the people the most, who has further developed the militia based on what Lenin laid as the foundation.

Regarding the Front

* The problem of the front begins to unfold when in the CI,⁶ Lenin himself presents and it will gain more significance in the struggle against fascism. It is the Chairman who establishes the 6 laws of the united front.

* The Chairman presents the theory of the front and the world front.

* Highlighting particularly the relationship he establishes between the front and the State because he states that in new democracy, the front is equivalent to the joint dictatorship.

4. The People’s War

* People’s war is the military theory of the international proletariat. Every class generates its way of waging war; the bourgeoisie generated it, and without doing so, it could not have seized power, in this regard, Napoleon did quite a bit. The military theory of the proletariat is people’s war, and this is even acknowledged by reactionary strategists.

* People’s war is universal; it is applied in every circumstance in which the proletariat leads, taking into account the nature of the democratic, socialist, or cultural revolution and considering the specific conditions of each country.

* An important key leap in Chairman Mao’s thinking is in guerrilla warfare as a strategy.

* The key point is that in the people’s war in China, we have everything, from a cadre sent to engage in guerrilla warfare at a specific point to the capture of cities with street fighting, including positional warfare, mobile warfare, fluidity, assaults on small, medium, and large cities, street battles, insurrections, etc. In other words, it lacks no form, which is why we believe that people’s war is applicable in any circumstance. Chairman Mao even planned the development of people’s war with atomic bombs, as the atomic bomb is just another weapon and does not change the nature of war.

* Can people’s war, being the military theory of the proletariat and the latter being the final class, be surpassed? No. People’s war is the military theory of the proletariat; that’s why it is universal, as demonstrated by the people’s war in China. It can even be developed with atomic bombs and is insurmountable. The bourgeoisie will never be able to create a higher theory.

5. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

* It is very important to see this because the PCR has launched a campaign. We ask, is the Cultural Revolution on the agenda? No, the GPCR is not on the agenda. What is on the agenda is defining ideology, Maoism, the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution, and primarily the democratic revolution. The cultural revolution is a resolved pending issue. If it had not been resolved, we would have been defenseless against peaceful restoration.

* The Cultural Revolution represents a new and higher stage; we have considered transcribing the resolution of the CPC.

* Two questions: 1) The Cultural Revolution, the GPCR, represents a milestone, 2) The restoration of capitalism in China is not a denial of the GPCR. The GPCR remains as a granite that all communists will have to raise when the time comes. The Chairman spoke of successive cultural revolutions.

6. World Revolution

* Conceiving world revolution as a unity, Marx established this principle, Lenin also thought along these lines, and he faced the opportunity to initiate a revolution in a single country, establishing long-term strategic guidelines. As for Chairman Mao, he encountered a different circumstance and once again proposed the concept of a worldwide revolution as a unity. That’s why he asserted that China is a cornerstone for the world revolution.

* The world revolution is the historical and political trend; it is already on the agenda, which is why it mentions 50 to 100 years because within that period, it must sweep away imperialism and reaction from the face of the Earth.

* Another key issue: period. Everything is intertwined: world revolution, 50 to 100 years, trend, period.

How to define this period: increasing decomposition of imperialism, the destruction of the exploiters is approaching, and they are decomposing. The decomposition of imperialism and its increasing militarization every day is a sign of weakness, not strength.

* The weight of the masses in the oppressed nations of imperialism and the decomposition of imperialism lead to the “Three worlds are differentiated”, and this is not a matter of tactics but of strategy. It is the issue of the weight of the masses in history, the relationship between imperialism and oppressed nations, and the problem that can only be analyzed starting from the economic relations of imperialism. With this, the Chairman lays the groundwork for developing both strategy and tactics.

7. Superstructure, Ideology, Culture, Education

This point has been introduced to take into account that there are other issues, such as the development of proletarian art.

What is fundamental in Maoism? 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.

- WHAT IS MAOISM?

What is stated in the document best expresses what Maoism is.

“Maoism is the elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third, and higher stage in the struggle for proletarian leadership of the democratic revolution, the development of the construction of socialism and the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship as a proletarian cultural revolution; when imperialism deepens its decomposition and revolution has become the main tendency of history, amidst the most complex and largest wars seen to date and the implacable struggle against contemporary revisionism”.

- In what moment? When imperialism deepens its decomposition and revolution has become the main tendency of history, amidst the most complex wars seen to date and the implacable struggle against contemporary revisionism.

- Regarding STRUGGLE AROUND MAOISM

* 1935 is a milestone, but we need to consider precedents.

* The 50s are going to spread Maoism worldwide, and thus, the formulation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Mao Tsetung Thought begins to be adopted worldwide.

* In our country, the revisionists have always opposed it. That is currently the case.

* Currently, we see a triple attack of revisionism.

* In our Party: it is the people’s war that has allowed us to understand Maoism as a new, third, and higher stage of Marxism.

- Erroneous ideas: “The decline of Chairman Mao”; conciliating with Hoxha, “the genuine development of Lenin”; “the mistake of not killing Teng”;

SYNTHESIS:

- What’s central is in the Content, particularly in the development that Chairman Mao has made of the three parts of Marxism.

- It is essential to emphasize the fundamental aspect and place Maoism in its historical context, with the main point of Maoism lying in being the great summit of Marxism in its glorious epic.

Peru, 1988