Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Third Plenum of the Central Committee
Central Document1

Central Committee
Communist Party of Peru

March 19922

Bear in mind the documents of the Third Plenum; publish the ones approved in the Second Plenum; print the document Let the Strategic Equilibrium Rock the Country More! for the comrades in the leadership. Send the document The Two Hills to the combatants, so that they can reproduce it; spread The Promise, etc. These are the official documents, apply them at once. They contain the fundamental positions of the Party.

On Karl Marx. We must see how the comrades manage Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. There is empiricism, and we must see how to combat it. There are serious difficulties on this; there is too much subjectivism and individualism, and they are problems of ideology. In the Communist Party of China, at one time they studied On Practice and On Contradiction. It is very important that these issues be understood. If not, reality cannot be understood; so how can it be managed? If contradiction is not studied, how can revolutionary leaps be managed? These are problems we must think about. Karl Marx is a text of Lenin’s. Chairman Mao developed some points further. For example, he developed the issue on contradiction. By studying this text there is a risk of falling into the criteria of Stalin; we must know when and how to study it, or it must be noted.

The comrades XX say that there is empiricism, it is matter of ideology. A problem that will present itself more and more is that we must investigate reality; if not, how are we going to face new problems? Chairman Mao, at important moments of the revolution expounded on the necessity of understanding our conceptions by applying the practice of contradiction, and this is a task for the entire Party. We must understand what to do and what to study. There is a lack of knowledge and reactionary ideas have repercussions. It would be better to address some of our specific problems and study them, analyze them by Committees, and see what ideological problems occur. It seems that there is much repetition but little understanding.

Second Part: Development of the Third Plenum and Other Problems

We have addressed the contents of the Third Plenum in the January meeting. There was a conclusion to elaborate a Central Document with the following parts:

I. International Situation. We must examine the theme of imperialism. Taking into account the thesis of Lenin and Chairman Mao: See the characteristics of imperialism’s collapse; contradiction of collusion and struggle of the superpowers and powers; the bankruptcy of revisionism; oppressed nations; third world and strategy and tactics of the world revolution. Aim to see revolution as the main tendency.

II. Analysis of Contemporary Peruvian Society. Focusing on bureaucrat-capitalism, we must base ourselves on our positions on this. For example, in the August document (On the Rectification Campaign Based on the Study of the Document “Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!”). Bureaucrat-capitalism is ripening the conditions for revolution. We must consider the reactionarization of the old Peruvian state, with the Armed Forces as their vertebral column and the groups and factions of the big bourgeoisie, both the comprador and the bureaucratic ones, the Church and its growing influence, particularly, the Catholic church. We must look into the importance of the land question; we must examine semi-feudalism and how the People’s War has had an impact on this problem. How is the fundamental contradiction between masses–feudalism, nation–imperialism, people–bureaucrat-capitalism materializing? How about the democratic road and the People’s Republic of Peru? We must aim to see Peruvian society and its collapse in the process of its inevitable destruction.

III. Status of the People’s War. The Strategic Plan of Development of the People’s War. Campaigns and counter-campaigns and the transfer of the center and the insurrection. How to finish off the democratic revolution by taking the cities on the road to encircle the cities from the countryside.

IV. Problems of the Construction. Highlight the most urgent and important problems: The United Front of the Revolution to conquer Power, construction of the New State, exercise of democracy. The People’s Guerrilla Army, to develop it and enhance its weaponry to a higher degree of bellicosity. The Party, how to conceive the Rectification Campaign. The Party maintains the road, the immediate goal, and the definitive goal. The content of the Rectification Campaign should be on the construction. See the desirability of studying Lenin’s Karl Marx. The documents for the Rectification Campaign of the Great Conclusion are three: 1) Quotations from Chairman Mao on People’s War; 2) On Policy by Chairman Mao, Volume II, page 441; 3) On Party Building (Red Flag [Bandera Roja] 46). Highlight that everything serves to lay the foundations for the Sixth Plan and the Strategic Plan of Construction.

In summary, the document should have five parts: World Revolution; Peruvian Society; On the People’s War; Construction and other problems, Concrete Program, etc. New Plan and Strategic Plan of Construction. We have been handling these problems, and our ideas reflect reality. In the beginning they were not so clear, but later the unfolding of actions and debates allowed ideas to consolidate and explain the problems with greater clarity. It is very good that we have defined these fundamental documents of the Session. The Central Document must be developed in accordance with what was covered in the Preparatory Session. We must prepare progress reports and work on this in two or three months, to complete it. These are serious and complex problems. For example, the strategy and tactics of the world revolution or the questions of the People’s War in Peru. This report should not be too extensive. It should be simple and clear, so that they can be spread easily. The revolution needs ideas that are more elaborated, plain and simple ideas and clear truths. We must address the issues that the militants require and not fall into subtleties or ambiguities. Sometimes we are pressured by the criteria of the reactionary hacks, specialists in subtleties, double talk, and the twisting of ideas. Where does the document go? It goes to the public, to the masses. The masses are engaged in solving decisive and fundamental problems, things will not be resolved by superficialities, but with well worked-out thoughts, clear ideas, a fusion of our general theory. The document should be geared to the masses that it is aimed at. Some documents are for leaders who have the obligation to study classic works and analyze reality. They should master theory well and apply it with audacity. If we do not handle dialectics well, if we are not sure and astute, then how will we handle things, how will we lead, how will we keep our course? We must give the cadres broader texts, in order to spread ideas more widely. We have peasant militants so we must teach them with concrete and applicable words. Marx founded our theory and we are applying that theory in a proven and true way. Our efforts aim at discovering specific conditions and the appropriate laws as the circumstances demand them.

Following the Outline:

Introduction:

I. Socialism, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

These are the four points systematically and maliciously attacked by the enemy. Socialism is negated, the dictatorship of the proletariat is attacked, the need for the Party is denied, and the obsolescence of Marxism is proclaimed.

We should recall the fourth Chapter of Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!, which contains lessons and truths of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, how to uphold our principles, the declaration of our convictions, principles, and great truths. Although the document is good, it has been said that some comrades have shown problems in studying that part. The document spells out the truth.

We must aim to defend socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party, and Marxism, and to uphold the extraordinary transformations and the unique grandeur that socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party, and Marxism have impressed on the Earth in a few years. It must be made clear that the benefits received by the people and the proletariat were immense, like never before, because before, progress was always for the benefit of small groups. It must be made clear that the temporary disappearance of this socialism and the attacks on the ideology of the class have caused so much harm. But soon they have realized that what they lost was immense and it will be restored through fire and blood. It was heaven that was lost and we must reconquer it. We must storm the heavens again; it is not so complicated.

Mao said: In a few years the world has been transformed like never before; what it took England 250 years to develop as is, it will take China 50 years to do it. Here we see the potential of the relations of production.

The old Tsarist Russia, burdened with centuries of backwardness, with a stifling feudal system that gripped the system from the deepest roots to the most volatile, with a brutal, autocratic dictatorship known as the gendarme of Europe, was toppled by the revolution. Centuries of oppression were swept away and in few decades, which reached highest levels of production and provided the basis of what the revisionists have later used and profited to their advantage, a powerful economy and superpower status.

We should look at the five-year plans, which according to non-Marxist authors like Bernard and Colin, the USSR in the first five-year plan from 1928 to 1932 gave priority to the development of heavy industry, the second five-year plan from 1933 to 1937 prioritized the iron and steel industry, and the third five-year plan from 1938 to 1942 focused on the future mechanical industry. With the Nazi attack in 1941 this plan was interrupted. In sum, the USSR did not even complete the third five-year plan. Before 1928 they had taken power and had to complete pending democratic tasks; later on the New Economic Plan (N.E.P.) was developed, which was a step back in maintaining the new Republic. They had to struggle to stabilize that economy. Therefore, they did not even carry out fifteen years of the five-year plans since the planning system began in the late 1920s. They attack the planning system when in reality it was the basis that allows the handling of the economic process serving the interests of the class, exercising its class dictatorship, moving the masses with people capable of managing the society and imposing conditions on the world, planning its laws. That’s an expression of freedom, not a puppet show. Economic planning permits the strengthening and unfolding of the social character of production, managing to serve the interests of the majority, and this is something that they do not like at all. We repeat that economic planning in the USSR begun only in the 1920s since there were serious problems before that period of time. The new state was being born.

The fourth five-year plan was from 1946 to 1950, which was formulated to organize the reconstruction; the fifth plan was from 1951 to 1955, which gave preference to the building of the means of production. Stalin died in 1953.

There were five five-year plans, for a period of 25 years, with a world war in which the Soviet Union had 25 million dead and had to apply a scorched earth policy. The force and conditions created in those times allowed a forceful advance and development until the 1960s, and the drove of revisionists could not contain such a powerful force, the momentum and vigor of the forms generated by the new system which continued to express itself. The five-year plan from 1961 to 1965 gave priority to the economic bases; the plan from 1966 to 1970 and the one from 1971 to 1975 were for the purpose of maintaining the economic bases.

The first five-year plan gave priority to heavy industry, and on this plan Chairman Mao said that Stalin did not know how to manage the system of production very well. He bypassed it and did not allow it to walk on its two feet: agriculture and industry. Nevertheless, despite the errors committed, the momentum of the power of these new social relations created a complete revolution and determined the bases of economic development that met the needs of millions of people.

What system has done anything similar? The United States? This country for example had its umbilical cord tied to England, which was already bourgeois; upon reaching the USA the British did not find a feudal base. How many centuries did they need? More than three centuries, 350 years, which cannot be separated from England. In 30 years, were they able to make a nation like the USSR? Were they able to overcome hunger like in China? What can they boast about? Nothing.

A book issued by the World Bank analyzes 30 years of development in the backwards countries, it also analyzes England, USA, Germany, Japan, and China, and says that the one which made the greatest leap in the shortest time to date was China. These are not the laws of Teng, it is the economic development of China based on the accomplishments of the Democratic Revolution and the bases created after Liberation in 1949. These statistics demonstrate that the system made an extraordinary leap in the shortest time.

On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

They say it is totalitarian: Let us see what Chairman Mao said in On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, and see who benefits the most: the people and the class. Let us sweep away the trifle double talk of “totalitarianism,” this old tale they use to confuse the people. Let us show the benefits of socialism, and the advantages the people had. What about the reactionaries, what does the bourgeoisie give to the people?

They proclaim the non-partisanship, which aims to dissolve the politics of the working class, the proletariat, and seek only to keep bourgeois politics. To impose their policies they don’t even need political parties any longer, see how they kill. Our politics require our concerted actions to conquer Power.

On the Question of Marxism

The bourgeoisie is so decrepit that it does not attack it directly, rather it recycles ideas from two centuries ago, resuscitating ultra-reactionary persons, fools like de Tocqueville, a rose-tinted version of the North American bourgeois dictatorship. This is a complete pastime. They say that Marxism is obsolete and that it doesn’t work, but they don’t attack it openly. When have they found a basis for this? No one has ever proven the obsolescence of Marxism. Apprentices and charlatans like Dühring and other pack of plunderers of Marxism are the ones who have boasted about it.

In synthesis, we must defend Marxism, socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party, seeing the great things they have generated, whose interests they serve, and counterpose them to the interests served by capitalism, imperialism, the bourgeois dictatorship, the parties. We are not living in ambiguous times. In order for the revolution to advance, it requires struggles with violence for big ruptures. Chairman Mao said: Only a great chaos can generate a new order.’” We have had insufficient chaos, we must generate more, do it at the level of ideas. Moving ideas is vital to shape public opinion, without this we cannot conquer Power.

II. Revolutionary Violence

Lenin said that Engels made the panegyric to revolutionary violence; to a Marxist, a revolutionary it is appropriate. Praising pacifism, the false peace of bayonets, is appropriate for a reactionary. These are two positions, each one has its peace and each one manages its war. In the world there is an unchecked insistence of talking about peace, pacification, dialogue, an unchecked overflow of bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideas of the most uninspiring pacifist positions, a stupid venom to poison the class and the masses. Peace, is an end to the cold war, but the world continues to be rocked by brutal conflicts like Iraq, with weapons not seen until now, except the atomic bomb. We see massacres, the war in Yugoslavia, in the Caucasus, in Ukraine, and Moldavia.

There is a combination of repressed things which are going to burst. Look at the imperialist scramble, the U.S. systematically shouting that it has power, the rest feeling a mortal panic, similar to Khrushchev who said that if the U.S. and USSR joined forces, if they raised their little finger, the rest of the world would die of fear. Pomelli said that the U.S. is the only one that can rule. The new gendarme can present itself as all-powerful, each day as it relies more and more on nuclear weapons, raising up military and atomic blackmail. They dream of their “Roman peace,” but that peace was imposed by legions of iron on the oppressed.

We must unmask this monstrosity, just like we must unmask all that propaganda about pacification which is a closed defense of the exploitative and oppressive order which that pack of imbeciles defends and sustain to defend their daily bread. The question of violence must be made clear, and as a counterpart we have seen the Outline of IAS,3 an outline on revolutionary violence.

This is an INTRODUCTION, we must demonstrate our conception, which our line, dictatorship, socialism under the hegira of Marxism gave the greatest thing the Earth has seen, and it was lost by a traitorous revisionism. We must see the process of revolution and counter-revolution; We must not be pessimists, the transitions from one system to another are complex, hard, and brutal.

III. International Situation

The documents show the basic ideas that need to be developed, we must work on them well since these are the sources that will serve as our basis. In addition, bear in mind the experience of the Party and the experience and lessons to be learned from the work of the Communists. Communists do not always have a clear understanding of this process:

Imperialism. We must see Lenin’s thesis that imperialism is monopolist, parasitical, and in its death throws and that it is the last phase, is like a cancer. We must see Chairman Mao’s thesis that imperialism is a paper tiger, that the USA and USSR are paper tigers; where is the USSR? It was also a paper tiger. We must understand the law of imperialism and the law of the people. The peoples do not need imperialism, this plague is not needed at all.

One problem is to aim to see how empires sink and to understand how imperialism and the great empires collapse, the existing states, and see how the USSR burst. This was a social-imperialist power with a mask, and we saw how a giant with feet of clay burst apart. The collapse of systems happens over long periods of time, so this one must be understood as an unburied corpse. They have a moment of recuperation before even steeper declines and until their total extinction or crushing. Many years may elapse after they are swept away and reappear in other conditions; Spain, for example, has recovered in the capitalist order but it had sunk before. It is a long but inevitable agony. We can look into history to understand this process.

The current state of the big imperialists, the current economy of imperialism after World War II, is undergoing a serious problem. For example, the USA: How can this country use a quarter of its budget to pay interest? It is parasitical, and every day more so. It has four trillion dollar debt, $700 billion in foreign debt, and its production is in recession. It has massive unemployment, and millions of people who work only to put the food on the table. It is a rotten colossus with feet of clay.

The German economy is trapped in the incorporation of East Germany; it cannot digest what it has swallowed. Japan has serious problems; for example, its finances and real estate. It is not the way they portray it.

We must see the unchecked and relentless manner in which they launch their new policy of collusion and friction. The areas of domination and influence frequently intertwine and frictions have already began. Germany and Japan have to militarize rapidly; we said this before and it turned out to be right. The Japanese military budget is increasing. For example, Japan has a minesweeper in the Gulf and it doesn’t want to withdraw it. Japan is desperate to be recognized as a power, and for this reason it developed great power politics. It is galloping to become a military power and it tangles with other powers and clashes with the oppressed. We see contradictions, powers, superpowers, readjustments, modifications, and problems with the Third World, which show that the privileges they enjoy are all tinsel, rubbish, and smoke. Their parasitical actions have caused dead in Africa and has brutalized people in Asia. Because of the policies of imperialism, there are 15 million children who die each year in the world to the benefit and greed of the big magnates in the US, not the people of the US. We must unmask how vile they are. It is clear how they are sinking in a long death agony, in their inevitable death, their thievery, collusion and contention. These are times of great bellicose clashes. They stoke nationalism to serve their interests. The scramble for the Caucasus began in Central Asia and extended to Mongolia; but their aim is the Third World, which is every day more exploited and oppressed. They achieved some victories with the disintegration of the USSR, proclaiming their “victory” and have presented it as a “revolution,” when it was actually the Eastern European counter-revolution. All of this put the ideas of neoliberalism, pragmatism, and bourgeois democracy up in the clouds. Their purpose was to secure the greatest exploitation, to devour as rapidly as possible the gains made by those states over decades of this century.

The concentration and dispossession, starting with the movement to expropriate, are in charge of a handful of magnates who seek to impose their bourgeois democratic system through blood and fire. They developed the great power politics and denied the sovereignty of nations. There is a tendency to collude themselves under the lead of Yankee imperialism to subjugate the oppressed nations. There are clear indications of this policy in Iraq, the threats against North Korea, the aggression against Cuba. What they are scheming will not only be implemented by the USA, but it will involve a group of superpowers and lackeys that seek loot. They will attack Cuba and dream and plot about attacking Korea. They will continue to wage military blackmail against the oppressed nations. But this plundering will generate a reaction. It generates the development of the national struggles. The crisis that grips the imperialist countries will lead to the awakening of the proletariat, which cannot remain as lethargic as in Europe. The problem is that the oppressed nations are the key, the base, the very foundation of the anti-imperialist struggle. There is one main problem: revolution is the principal historical and political tendency, therefore we must show it. Contradiction unfolds progress, and the majority are for progress, and for achieving basic living conditions and human development in accordance with the advances of the times. Lenin said in 1913 that the masses don’t want to keep living with conditions that don’t correspond to the 20th century. According to economic overviews of the 1950s and 1975, it was concluded that a fabulous wealth was being generated; there were specific conditions to live better, therefore, then and now the masses cannot coexist in the world in subhuman conditions, in contrast with the colossal wealth and waste of a few.

The world has to advance; progress, development and the revolution are the historical tendency. For this reason the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois lackeys uphold the negation of progress, development, and advancement. They say that these are erroneous and bourgeois ideas. A bourgeois idea is to believe in progress as “a bourgeois development with the mere passage of time.” We conceive progress as a consequence of revolutionary transformation of the class struggle that generates more advanced classes and a more combatant people. History has a tendency that goes toward broader freedom for man. This is undeniable, but it is denied claiming these are pseudo-Marxist ideas. However, a contradiction between the new and old exists, and this generates the concept that revolution is the principal tendency. Let us review the editorial from Peking Review in May 1976: “The new always triumphs; the struggle between the new and the old is a form of contradiction.” Chairman Mao said that “the future is bright; the road is tortuous.” Either this contains a contradiction, a reality, or it is a contrivance of brilliant phrases. Nothing follows a straight road, there are always contradictions. Two things contend and tug, for that reason the road is zigzagged; the flow of the rivers whether turbulent or laminar goes through nooks and whirlpools; it overcomes them and reaches the sea. These are material realities; flows and rivers are matter.

We must see how in the development of our people, they were exterminated from more than 10 million to two million. Now we have grown and the entire country is tinged with mixed race. Historically and politically, revolution is the principal tendency, the other tendency is a temporary reversal. When there are problems, pessimism is generated, people say “so much struggle and for what?,” but what has been done is never lost.

There is contention between the positive and negative, because the new is superior, it imposes itself. We must see the contradiction, the history, the interests of the masses which will define their future, the socialist future, not one shackled to a master, to imperialism. We must see and understand what the masses want. Their socialist future or their survival under a imperialist. To see what the masses want, we must define their historical and political consciousness.

The Bankruptcy of Revisionism

Revisionism entered into bankruptcy without a war, the old revisionism went bankrupt with the war, while the second revisionism came from Khrushchev. It was bankrupt and its regimes were disintegrated. We must link the process of socialism’s regression, and then the triumph of revolution, with revisionism. The revisionists are the vanguard of restoration. The revisionists are responsible for it. Socialism did not fail, what has failed was the abandonment of the socialist principles by a revisionist clique in order to adjust it to the old imperialist world order. They have disintegrated their system to be part of the imperialist world order.

We must see the historical period of the struggle against Yankee imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. We must study whether or not it is changing or ending. One of the superpowers is disintegrating. It is becoming disarticulated, and its economic system is being scattered. Its system of semi-colonies is scattering, but it has not completely ended. One of them is dissolving and the other has serious problems and is following the politics of a lord’” based on military power, however, there are others that are stronger and more aggressive, and they are preparing their assault. The document Let the Strategic Equilibrium Rock the Country More! says: “In perspective, the principal enemy is the USA,” which meant that another will come, it says “principally the USA,” and later bitter struggles. We must develop further the theory of the three worlds, two worlds in dispute for world hegemony while the other power seeks to benefit itself. Then there are the masses of the oppressed nations. Furthermore, the first world is redefining itself.

IV. Peruvian Society

There are many Party documents that address this topic, however, we look at the Preparatory Session of the Second Plenum. Bureaucrat-capitalism is evolving in cycles with gradients. It has temporary recoveries but each new cycle starts from a lower point than the previous one. It has been this way for thirty years. We must see how it is evolving: The third stage of bureaucrat-capitalism, of contemporary Peruvian society, began in 1980. The general crisis is evolving. It can have recoveries until its destruction, and with the People’s War the process of destruction of the economic system will aggravate. The People’s War has been added to the process of destruction of bureaucrat-capitalism, and for this reason its economy cannot recover like of the neighboring countries. Our war is being managed politically, with sabotage and armed strikes, which limits investments. The security factor raises insurance rates, etc.

Bureaucrat-capitalism is in decline. It is in decomposition since the 1980s and it is being sunk by the People’s War. The loans it gets from imperialism have harsher conditions for the oppressed nations. They can only expect major investments when imperialist interests heightens. When they say “what a bad example, we must crush it, send in money,” this in turn leads to a more general putrefaction, such as in Vietnam and Korea.

It is necessary to develop the criteria of the two roads. We must see how the peasant road is developing, and how the new economy is developing in contrast. Pedraglio4 says there are beneficial conditions for the Huallaga Zone. We see a decline due to the war. We must see how the peasantry is developing, and see also how the seeds and flowers of the New State are opening the way to a new economy.

V. People’s War

We must develop the understanding of our specific war. See what are its own laws, how campaigns are being developed, why don’t they clearly and fully develop. We have our own programs and politics to destroy the system. There is something particular about this war or the circumstances in which it is being fought. Consider the fact that the reactionary Armed Forces entered the war on the third year, what is the particularity on this? How did the Initiation develop? The plan to undermine the old order, how do the campaigns develop? How did the stages occur? How does the intervention or aggression by imperialism occur? We must see the peculiarities within the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside, see the scheme, with the countryside as the primary scenario and the cities as a complement. We must find what is specific in our People’s War, even in the forms of struggle. For example, the armed strikes are very important.

All of this serves to understand the laws of our war. We are now in the Strategic Equilibrium. We must prepare the synthesis of the laws of war of the entire first stage, and on that basis establish the laws of the second stage and outline the laws of the third stage in order to choose the appropriate, specific road of the People’s War.

Thus, we will handle and crush the acts, activities, and campaigns waged by the reactionaries who try to recover themselves, and thus we must persist in the conquest of power. We must be clear on the road to follow and define the laws of the war well. We must see the nature of our army, see how we built it, and have transformed into a more developed organization. The legions of iron have their own particulars. See Strategy and Tactics.

There are three parts to define. In the first we must spread a clear understanding of the war, its course, situation, and perspective so that the masses, the class, and the peasantry know this. By taking up and applying our laws, we will reach to our inexorable goal. If we commit no errors, the time span will be less. There is a variable of repercussion, that is the international situation, but the revolution is sustained here. Although outside support is indispensable; one of the considerations focuses on this. They may intervene. The political conditions demand that they expand and exemplify that such a bad example doesn’t spread. They may launch their system and give a crushing blow and things may become more serious. It is a probability, but another Vietnam is not convenient for them, however, the turn that things are taking in the USA is like saying “they should tremble” and “no one should dare to raise their voice” before an empire that impose its will on small nations. So how can they let a youngster impale them up front? Their necessity may demand to crush us, but we will keep on fighting. It is better to be prepared for all conditions.

(1) The importance of this, which is a limitation, is that it doesn’t consider the specific character of our People’s War, and that they don’t apply their tactics to the specific conditions. Thus, each day we will have to confront new problems… (2) They talk and talk, and what do they get out of this? We must understand basic things, understanding what is specific and what is the principal thing. Some make mistakes, they prefer to keep moving their heads out of rightism, because at heart they don’t want the war. The situation in Peru will become more acute.

The cadre and militants must be forged in general warfare, in revolutionary warfare, and the war in this country.

VI. Construction

… (3)

VII. Strategic Plan of Development

A new plan that takes into account all the experiences of these years has been prepared. It will again establish the main points, derived points, directions, and lines of movement with an outline of its general characteristics. In 1978, we said that the countryside was principal, the cities complementary; the situation of Peru, etc. In the Party document of 1986 there was a sketch. We must outline all of Peru and its regions, to build it in a great unity; for example, to see the sierra, the south, the east, Loreto, Madre de Dios, which is a weak point in this state; see the borders, and the coast. If we don’t handle things this way, what plan are we talking about? We must see the principal regions, the fundamentals, and others defining each one.

See the city and countryside. Yesterday we saw the transfer of land in the countryside. We must develop the People’s War and prepare conditions for the insurrections in the cities.

We must see and understand the countryside–city, develop the war in the countryside and see how to manage it in the cities. The reactionaries are proposing to pass over to defend their cities, which are their strong points. See how they develop civic actions, intelligence, and control in the slums. The revolution from the countryside to the city begins to touch points in the cities; they are retreating, this is revealed by seeing the work plan in the cities… we must seek other forms of developing, and launching military campaigns of the strategic plan, fixing our sights, for example, on such objectives and completing them in time.

…Their necessity is to develop campaigns to recover and hold, therefore, we must prepare ourselves for that…

We must resolve the question of the General Command Centers. This is a complex issue. Look at its personnel, System; a Command Center that must decide what force must go there and develop, for example, in the northeast campaign in China, see Volume IV.5 They sent cadre, troops, and arms. Thus, the more the plan is managed the more it develops. It must have more initiative and give more weight to the subjective capacity and have a greater criterion of a unified work. The war needs more thought. We see too many wandering local forces. Either we see the war as a great unity or some will be thrown out.

We must see the Strategic Plan of Construction. It is already being applied as a pilot plan. Very little is reported about the construction, only that it is being applied. And the experiences? In the meetings of the committees we must plan the Strategic Plan of Construction. We must see that there are documents from the preparatory session of the Second Plenum where we see the course of the organic line, and always see our own experiences in everything, first and foremost. We must develop a Strategic Plan of Construction based on three bases and three guides, bearing in mind the following: In the general orientation of Party work, the construction is the base, the People’s War is principal, and the Congress is the guide. In the work of construction, the Party is the guide, the Army is principal, and the New State is central.

“Develop, Construct, and Conquer!,” this slogan is appropriate.

Regarding the three instruments. The Party says develop them. The Strategic Plan6 which refers to the Strategic Plan of Construction, this is not quite accurate. It should say “Develop the Strategic Plan of Construction of the Party, the Army, and the United Front.”

We must develop our work with initiative, flexibility, and planning. We must make a Strategic Plan of Construction for each apparatus, seeing its base and guide.

For the Party: Specify its growth and consolidation.

For the Army: develop and strengthen its structure, its construction, its training.7 See institutions, infantry, artillery, for example grenades and mortars; the immense mass is infantry, cavalry to develop faster deployment; communications, health. Give training in improvement. In warfare, elevate the bellicosity and seize arms. Strengthening has to do with bellicosity.

In the New State, it must be extended and given stability.

In the Party, organize the Central Department. Expand the Central Committee. (8)

In the Army, strengthen the army in mobile warfare, develop and raise its fighting capacity.

In the New State, form a government and develop the state organization, have a plan, a base, and a guide, and a key problem. Always take up key problems.

In the Front, see how we are materializing it; (9)

The axis for the Front is the concrete program. We must see the alliance, the hegemony of the proletariat, and the four classes. We need the Front to Conquer Power. If there is an imperialist aggression, it will be converted into a National Front, which will also lead to contradictions. When we propose to strengthen the national production, even the national bourgeoisie is in agreement with this proposal. On this issue there are convergences and divergences. The Sixth Plan to Build the Conquest of Power. In 1981, we implemented a plan based on an in-depth study of the country. Ten years later, it would be a good idea to return to this study of the country. This plan will be applied here, in this old society, but it will surely serve the interests of the new society that is being developed today, led by the Party.


  1. Transcription of Chairman Gonzalo’s report; pending correction.↩︎

  2. https://web.archive.org/web/19980220142529/http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/docs_en/third-p.htm↩︎

  3. RedLibrary: “IAS” stands for Initiation of Armed Struggle.↩︎

  4. RedLibrary: A legal-left politician.↩︎

  5. RedLibrary: Of Chairman Mao’s Selected Works.↩︎

  6. See the Preparatory Session of the Central Committee, outline point 2.↩︎

  7. See the consolidation in Introducing “The Communist.”↩︎