Date: Sun, 22 Dec 1996 03:17:03 -0800
Subject: M-G: "Feliciano Against Gonzalo" by LAB (english)





New lies against the Communist Party of Peru (PCP)

"FELICIANO AGAINST GONZALO"

By: Luis Arce Borja


For quite sometime now the Peruvian regime and its media have been 
loudly prattling about a purported split within the Central Committee 
of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). Their official propaganda 
presents "comrade Feliciano" and Chairman Gonzalo as if these two were 
factional leaders promoting a split within the PCP. According to the 
regime's script, both these people head separate and openly 
antagonistic tendencies. "Feliciano" is portrayed as the leader of 
"Red Path" - supposedly a fraction in favour of persevering with the 
armed struggle. Chairman Gonzalo is presented as the author of the 
"peace letters" and as an opponent of continuing with the development 
of the People's War.

Around "Feliciano" (whose real name - according to the police - would 
be Oscar Ramirez Durand) many absurd allegations have been made. In 
Peru, his enemies (capitulators, police agents and the media serving 
the regime), accuse "Feliciano" of having "usurped the leadership of 
the PCP" and of being a "traitor to the Party's ideology".  
"Feliciano" is portrayed as the head of "the hard liners" and made 
responsible for "delays in implementing the peace agreements". He is 
also deemed responsible for the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo and for 
"taking the PCP down the road to defeat"

"Feliciano" is alleged to be the "black head of the divisionists' 
block". It is said that "Feliciano" has taken over the position 
vacated by Chairman Gonzalo. 

"Long Live Chairman Feliciano!", read bombastic slogans painted in the 
walls of various Peruvian cities by members of the National 
Intelligence Service (SIN) of the Fujimori regime. The media, on the 
other hand, does nothing but propagandise that "Feliciano's partisans 
acclaim him as Abimael Guzman's succesor". 

In foreign countries, this campaign speaks from both sides of the 
mouth.  While one lot openly regurgitates the Peruvian regime's 
propaganda there are others who do the same in an underhand manner.  
These others use a language designed to appeal to a "Left-wing" 
audience. 

The first kind of Fujimori's stunt publicists are to be found within 
the international media arbitrarily speaking of a "Shining Path led by 
Feliciano".  The second type works by means of murky grouplets of 
self-proclaimed "maoist supporters of the armed struggle in Peru".  
Two of these grouplets work in the USA. In New York, a bogus "Peru 
Peoples' Movement (Movimiento Popular Peru-MPP)"  portrays itself as a 
supporter of "comrade Feliciano".  

On the other hand, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP-USA), 
combines is hypocritical support for the People's War with a filthy 
campaign portraying Chairman Gonzalo as the author and leader of the 
"peace letters". In London, the leaders of the Revolutionary 
Internationalist Movement (RIM) are busy slandering the leader of the 
Peruvian revolution and slurring him with accusations of being the man 
behind the "line in favour of negotiating with Fujimori".

What Is The Truth Behind All This?. 

This bogus "struggle between Feliciano and Gonzalo" carries the same 
manufacturers label as does the "peace letters" plot: Made in SIN-CIA. 
 It is nothing but part and parcel of the web of disinformation 
launched in October 1993 by the Peruvian National Intelligence Service 
(SIN) in cahoots with the American CIA. 

It is nothing but another specific element in the Peruvian police's 
plans against Chairman Gonzalo, the PCP and the revolution. Its 
principal objectives are: To continue promoting the idea of the leader 
of the People's War having capitulated.  To give "official" currency 
to a purported "division within the ranks of Shining Path".  To aim 
their spears against the political content of Gonzalo Thought.  
Additionally, to promote the idea of the PCP as a party led by 
kingpins, chieftains and caudillos, lacking the organic structure of a 
legitimate revolutionary party.


Feliciano: Fiction or Truth?.

Firstly, we should note that in this affair, "Feliciano", may or may 
not be the pseudonym of this or other militant or cadre of the 
Communist Party of Peru (PCP).  However, whether there is really such 
a person, no one except the PCP would know if that appellative 
corresponds or not to a pseudonym used by any of its current leaders. 
 All that has been said or published about "Feliciano" comes 
exclusively from sources within the police and the National 
Intelligence Service (SIN).  The PCP has never said a single word in 
this respect. 

The fact is that for the strategic aims of the Peruvian regime it does 
not really matter whether the name they exploit may be that of 
"Feliciano", "Mario", "Facundo", or any other. What really matters to 
them is to invent an opponent and rival for Chairman Gonzalo.

For the regime the main target is Chairman Gonzalo. "Feliciano" is an 
incidental accessory to their plans.  The police strategists have 
always thought that in order to weaken the PCP and the revolutionary 
process it is a key and important question to be able to deal blows 
against the image and prestige of the foremost leader of the 
revolution. 

>From the beginning of the armed struggle in 1980 the different 
regimes in Peru have invented the most absurd stories concerning Dr. 
Abimael Guzman. They have called him all sort of names, from drunkard 
to sexual degenerate.

It is within that context that the plots to "demolish" the legendary 
political personality of Chairman Gonzalo intensify after his capture 
in September 1992. The "peace letters" and the proposals for 
negotiations are nothing but elements of the plot concocted against 
the leading Maoist in Peru.  

During the last 16 years at least a dozen alleged "rivals of Gonzalo" 
have been manufactured. One of them was Julio Cesar Mezzich, a man who 
was - curiously - not even a sympathiser of the PCP or of the armed 
struggle. In another occasion they talked-up the "figure" of Osman 
Morote Barrionuevo, a man who is today working for the Peruvian 
police.  Even comrade Norah, the PCP heroine and the beloved comrade 
in arms of Chairman Gonzalo, was at one time portrayed as an "opponent 
of Chairman Gonzalo". 

The PCP: A Party with Two "Chairmen"?

Why is the government interested in promoting the falsehood that 
Chairman Gonzalo has betrayed the revolution and that he has been 
replaced by another leader?. 

The basic element in the propaganda around the ruse of "struggle 
between Feliciano and Gonzalo" seeks to reinforce Fujimori's 
slanderous lies alleging a so called "treason on Gonzalo's part" while 
hanging around the revolutionary leader's neck the millstone of being 
the main author of the "peace agreement" and a partner of Fujimori in 
this plot. 

To these propaganda elements, the psycho-warriors of the Peruvian 
regime add a number of other ingredients to complement the heady brew 
of their anti-insurgency strategy. For example: the government, using 
this campaign, asserts that "Gonzalo" has been gainsaid and displaced 
by another leader, in this case, "Feliciano". That is why the police 
and media in Peru hammer day in and day out at the idea of "Chairman 
Feliciano".

The aims of the police are very simple. They seek to use intense 
publicity capable of establishing and rooting as truthful the idea of 
"Feliciano" as the "new leader of the Party".  Thus, they try to 
portray the PCP as an organisation "torn between two Chairmen".  A 
Party with "two different kingpins". They aim at fooling the masses 
into believing their baseless allegations about the "failure of the 
Shining Path". 

According to the police's laundry list of wishful thinking, this would 
bring about the final bankruptcy of Gonzalo Thought and the end of the 
ideological motive force of the Peruvian guerillas. 

The press in Peru has spared nothing in its propaganda about the 
alleged "split within Shining Path". They have even forecasted that 
"both factions were to hold two different Party Congresses". Here are 
a few examples: Santiago Pedraglio, a leader of the United Left and a 
political analyst in the media, said : "Meanwhile the two factions of 
Shining Path are advancing towards their own separate Congresses which 
would seal their final split ...".  (SI Magazine, 7 February 1994).  

On the other hand, the newspaper La Republica (28/12/95) announced: 
"The letters generated a split within Shining Path between those who 
supported Guzman's decision and those who opted for the continuation 
of the struggle under "Feliciano's leadership".  This gave rise to a 
veritable war between the two factions". 

This persistent publicity campaign centred around a purported war 
between "Gonzalo the capitulator" and a man called "Feliciano" who 
supposedly heads a faction within the PCP, aims to undermine the 
leadership of Chairman Gonzalo and his theoretical contribution 
(Gonzalo Thought).  Historically, within the political logic that any 
revolutionary Party applies, the place that the concept that leaders 
and cadres occupies is based upon a solid theoretical framework which 
does not separate theory from practice. In this case the determining 
factor is always the courage, behaviour, revolutionary ethics and 
communist morale of those who are in the forefront of the Party and 
the revolution. 

A communist can only demonstrate his condition as such in his concrete 
practice, in deeds. A true revolutionary combatant for socialism and 
communism is not a person in the abstract.  Such a person is, above 
all, a man of absolute integrity acting within a concrete process of 
transformations and real struggles. A communist is superior to the 
class enemy. Neither hunger or misery, nor the worse human 
difficulties can cause him or her to deviate from the supreme aims of 
his or hers life struggle.

A communist, specially a communist who leads and heads a concrete 
social movement, embodies the strength and heroism of the proletariat 
and of those classes who struggle against oppression. In this 
historical framework is where the leader of any class would achieve 
the stature which raises him or her to the same higher plane as that 
of these great historical processes.

As the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) has pointed out, "It is in its 
process of development that the revolution generates its own leaders 
and guides".  There is no doubt that the leadership of Chairman 
Gonzalo inscribes itself within this phenomena of the class struggle 
and of the development of the proletariat. 

This truth, valid in Peru as well as in any other place in the world, 
is also the fundamental plank which the regime uses in its plans to 
portray the leader of the Peruvian guerillas as a vulgar capitulator 
betraying the interests of the masses. The enemies of the PCP and of 
the People's War have made a very simple and calculated gambit: They 
expect to obtain the highest dividends by creating the false 
impression that Gonzalo Thought - once its creator was "arrested and 
turned into a negotiator" - would become a useless burden for the 
Party and the revolution. 

The regime's analysts are banking on the "peace letters" as the 
trigger for compelling "Shining Path" to "cast around for a different 
ideological basis, a different Thought". 

Resuming the aims of the regime in reference to the "peace letters" 
plot, Fernando Rospigliosi, a senderologist who works for Caretas 
magazine has this to say in an article entitled "The End of the 
Legend": "To take part in a revolutionary process such as the one 
represented by Shining Path implies not only ideological conviction 
but also very strong confidence in its leaders, including in their 
physical courage. Guzman is therefore completely finished ... In 
synthesis, Guzman himself has destroyed the "legend of Chairman 
Gonzalo". Now he cravenly serves the aims of Fujimori and Montesinos 
.... ". (Caretas, 14 October, 1993).

The issue of the leadership and Gonzalo Thought are two key and 
fundamental elements for the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and for the 
Peruvian revolution. Neither has been changed. On the contrary, the 
PCP has reaffirmed its basis of Party Unity around the leadership of 
Chairman Gonzalo and the armed struggle continues to develop in 
application of the general political line for the revolution 
established by Chairman Gonzalo himself.  Equally, Gonzalo Thought 
(Marxism-Leninism-Maoism applied to the concrete reality of Peru)  
continues to be the kernel and ideological bulwark of the PCP and of 
the Maoists in Peru. To understand this issue it is sufficient to 
quote the words of the following PCP document: 

"With fervent and profound communist feeling the Central Committee of 
the PCP salutes our dear and heroic Chairman Gonzalo, leader of the 
Party and the revolution, the continuator of Marx, Lenin and Chairman 
Mao Tse-tung. The Central Committee reaffirms its complete, conscious, 
voluntary and unconditional submission to his just, correct, and 
masterful leadership.  The Central Committee firmly upholds Chairman 
Gonzalo's call made in his glorious, historical and transcendental 
speech of September 24, 1992 - a great political, military and moral 
victory of the Party and the revolution dealing a most telling blow 
against US imperialism and the dictatorial mass murdering and sell out 
the nation and treacherous gang headed by Fujimori". (Work Session of 
the Central Committee, August, 1993).

We should stress that the Peruvian revolution, unlike the present 
majority of revolutionary processes in Latin America and other parts 
of the world, gives the issue of the leaders, and that of the 
development of the guiding thought of the revolution, a fundamentally 
strategic character. This is clearly explained by the PCP itself:

On the question of leaders: "Given the struggle of the proletariat as 
its leading class, and above all, that of a Communist Party which 
unflinchingly upholds the interests of this class, every revolution 
generates a group of leaders.  Every revolution generates a 
leadership, and, principally, one leader who represents and guides it 
in its process of development.  One leader whose supremacy and 
authority becomes fully acknowledged.  In the concrete situation of 
Peru, and given our historical needs and root causes, this phenomena 
has become embodied in the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo, the leader 
of the Party and of the revolution".

On the question of Gonzalo Thought: "Revolutions generate a guiding 
thought arising from the application of the universal truth of the 
ideology of the international proletariat to the concrete conditions 
of each revolution. This guiding thought is something indispensable 
for the achievement of victory and for the conquest of political power 
... In our concrete situation, this phenomena first became 
specifically known as "Guiding Thought", then it became known as 
"Guiding Thought of Chairman Gonzalo".  Later this came to be known as 
Gonzalo Thought.  This is because it is a guiding thought elaborated 
by Chairman Gonzalo in creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism 
to the concrete conditions of our Peruvian reality.  With this 
thought, Chairman Gonzalo has contributed to the Party and to the 
revolution with an indispensable weapon guaranteeing its victory". 
(Basic Concepts for Study, 1988, On the Question of Gonzalo Thought).

The PCP and the "struggle between its kingpins"

Besides all this, the so called "struggle Feliciano vs Gonzalo" also 
carries within itself a series of other elements of Psychological 
warfare.  The targets of this ruse are to be found outside the ranks 
of the PCP, in the most ideologically backward strata of the Peruvian 
population, those who do not play an active role but who remain 
expectant on the sidelines of the revolutionary process.  The aim of 
the regime is to rope along these masses - principally sections of the 
petty bourgeoisie and middle peasantry - and to sink them into total 
despondency, scepticism, and lack of faith in the revolutionary 
process began in 1980. The regime wants these people to come to reject 
both, "Feliciano and Gonzalo". 

Within this political framework generating obvious uncertainty among 
the poor, the ruling political circles of the Peruvian state are 
attempting to revive their own currently bankrupt political 
organisations. 

This ruse tries to act upon the "disenchanted masses" ensnared by a 
gigantic propaganda machine and to lead them by the nose into thinking 
that they should not hope for anything from a "divided" party corroded 
by an acute internal struggle. Concretely, they spread the idea that 
neither a Feliciano, advocate of a people's war with no perspectives, 
nor a Gonzalo, depicted as a renegade from his own ideas, would be 
capable of keeping the revolution on course. The publicists of the 
regime say:  All is lost and "Shining Path has been defeated". 

It is something evident that the masses would not be attracted at all 
by a party whose leader - considered as the most advanced 
representative of today's Marxism - has ended up as a collaborator of 
the present regime in Peru.  Within the parameters of 
counter-insurgency warfare, this concept is used with the exclusive 
purpose of isolating the PCP from the masses ("to bring the fish out 
of the water").  

That is the reason why the regime makes persistent and insidious 
propaganda efforts to depict the panorama of a party riven by dissent 
and under the sway of "two kingpins", one in prison, and another one 
still at large.  A party led by people who act as the "caudillos" of a 
pitiless elite that does not hesitate for a moment in using neither 
bloody warfare nor shameless capitulation in order to retain their 
condition as leaders. 

There is no basis in reality for this infamous portrayal of the PCP as 
a party under the sway of ambitious chieftains, kingpins or caudillos. 
One of the fundamental characteristics of the organisational aspect of 
the PCP is its structure as a party of the revolutionary type.  The 
PCP is a "system of organisations" based upon democratic centralism, 
and moreover, its development is based on a permanent two line 
struggle. The Communist Party of Peru (PCP) is the "highest form of 
organisation of the proletariat". 

As Lenin pointed out, "the Party is the most advanced detachment of 
the working class". The PCP insists that the development of the 
Party's work is based upon its ideological and political construction. 
 The organic aspect directly reflects the ideological aspect. In the 
organisational and developmental work of the PCP, more than 50 years 
of the experience of the class struggle in Peru are reflected. And 
this wealth of the Party has been, moreover, nourished by the highest 
experiences of the class at the international level. This Party 
sustains itself upon the fundamental thesis and the outlook of Marx 
and Engels, and principally that of Lenin and Chairman Mao, on the 
questions of the Party and of the revolution.  And - fundamentally - 
it is a Party that bases itself upon the masses under the principle 
that "the leadership never dies".

It is no accident that today the PCP is one of the best revolutionary 
parties in Latin America.  On the contrary, this phenomena is in full 
correspondence with the laws of the historical process in Peru. This 
is a phenomena umbilically linked to the development of a powerful 
Peruvian working class and directly related to the theoretical and 
practical work of two great Peruvian Marxists: Jose Carlos Mariategui, 
founder of the PCP and a remarkable guide of the proletariat, and 
Chairman Gonzalo, to whom the historical tasks of the reconstitution 
of the PCP, the formation of the People's Guerilla Army (EGP - today 
EPL), the organisation of the United Front and the initiation of the 
armed struggle for the conquest of power have corresponded. 

The contributions of Chairman Gonzalo do not only encompass the 
ideological, political and strategic aspects. He also carried out 
extremely important tasks in the organisational field.  The 
reconstitution of the PCP is one of his great revolutionary 
achievements.  Chairman Gonzalo dedicated 17 years (1963-1980) of his 
political life to organising and developing a Party of the Bolshevik 
type, capable of struggling for the conquest of political power. A 
"war machine", prepared to face up to a gigantic state apparatus of 
repression. This explains why the PCP has been able to withstand the 
heavy blows of the reactionary forces, and even the very capture of 
Chairman Gonzalo. This is, essentially, because the PCP is an 
authentic Marxist Party, a Party very distant from the slightest 
similarity to the bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties which revolve 
around chieftains and king-pins.

In synthesis, the purported "war between Feliciano and Gonzalo", is 
nothing but another silly yarn spun by the Peruvian regime and the 
American CIA. This affair should be seen as part and parcel of the 
struggle between the revolution and its enemies. Today they speak of 
"Feliciano", tomorrow it would be someone else. What matters is to be 
clear about two basic points:  Firstly, every lie and every ruse aimed 
against the revolution and against Chairman Gonzalo has not even the 
slightest chance of success. Its failure is insured as a direct 
byproduct of the development of the armed struggle and the 
strengthening of the PCP.  Secondly, the Communist Party of Peru 
(PCP), its political line, its leaders, and Gonzalo Thought, are part 
and parcel of an unbreakable and indestructible unity which is the 
sole guarantee of victory and of the conquest of power. 

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