File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-01-04.073, message 73


Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 09:36:51 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Proyects "Comrade" Aldolfo! Part 2


continued from part 1..

SIN was more intelligent. It managed to use persuasion to influence the
"great leader".

Gonzalo's capitulation has to be investigated in his program and policies.
Most people would denounce him as a coward but that's not my position. In
the early 1980s Poder Obrero always wrote that the PCP-SL would capitulate 
to the reaction. Why?

In the third world we always have very radical anti-imperialist petit
bourgeois movements which are not based in the working class. We defend them
against the reaction but we try to organise the working class as a separate
class with its own revolutionary party, councils and militias. The small
property is against the big property but also against the wage workers. In
some moment the small property would need to shift towards the big property
with the aim to develop an stable state and to smash the wage workers.

In the Andes the APRA (Peru) and the MNR (Bolivia) made many militarist
actions in their "anti-imperialist" early days. Nevertheless, all of them
became imperialist puppets. In the recent years we saw how the FSLN, the
FMLN, the Colombian M-19, the Bolivian MIR, the Ecuatorian Alfaro Vive, etc.
became part of the establishment and how they use their forces to attack the
working class strikes.

Marxist policies in relation to the petit bourgeois militarism are based on
the following criteria:

* The capitalist state is the main enemy and we would never support any
state's action against the guerrillas.

* We call the anti-imperialist petit bourgeoisie to mobilise the masses and
to allow the creation of big unions, councils and militias subordinated to
rank and file assemblies.

* At the same time that we call for the anti-imperialist petit bourgeoisie
to take part in a united front, we need to criticise them and to organise a
separate WORKERS party in OPPOSITION to them.

* We need to always denounce that the radical petit bourgeoisie WILL
capitulate. They don't centre their work amongst the industrial proletariat
and they don't reflect it. It is inevitable that the guerrillas would end on
the opposite side of the barricades. All the petit bourgeois guerrillas
finished in one of these 4 ways:

1) Destruction or marginalisation (like the armed groups in Italy, Germany,
Bolivia, etc.)

2) Capitulating to the establishment (Colombia, Peru, Central America, etc.)

3) If they took power they would rebuild a bourgeois state (Angola,
Mozambique, Nicaragua, etc.). The right wing would use the left
"anti-imperialist" guerrilla to demobilise the masses and to prepare the
conditions for its reactionary return to power. In Palestine and South
Africa the former anti-imperialist fighters today are trying to
reform-maintain the racist states.

4) In a few circumstances (like in east Asia, east Europe and Cuba) the
guerrillas could expropriate the bourgeoisie and create a bureaucratic
stalinist workers state which suppress workers democracy and active
proletarian internationalism. The destruction of the USSR and the process of
capitalist restoration in the east will prevent such an outcome in the near
future. A ruling bureaucracy from a degenerated workers state always has
the possibility of destroying its own previous creation and starting to
restore capitalism.

In no place in the planet did the anti-imperialist petit bourgeois 
guerrillas
lead to a workers council state, to a semi-state like the Commune of Paris 
or
the Lenin and Trotsky Russian Soviet state.

* A revolutionary workers party has to use the parliament and electoral
tribune and the union and mass struggle to organise itself and to mobilise
the toilers. We are against a military-political party because it creates a
bureaucratic authoritarian machine which kills workers democracy and
Bolshevik discussion and democratic-centralism. The workers would have arms
when they became a class so politically active they could attract the majority
of the population and several layers of the troops to their power bodies. We
are for patient work amongst the masses and for a future insurrection led
by workers and peasants councils and militias and supported by significant
sections of the army's rank and file. We are against all the guerrillerist
strategies because they are not led by the workers and often they would
end up attacking the workers. We are for THE SAME STRATEGY AS THE BOLSHEVIKS:
the priority is the work amongst the workers and to prepare councils and a
MASS revolutionary party that could prepare an insurrection in a
revolutionary crisis.

In the Andes we are not in favour of launching today a war or armed
struggle, but we are in favour of self-defence committees. In Peru we don't
have a revolutionary crisis. On the contrary, we have a period of
reactionary offensive in which the masses have to defend themselves and the
left and unions need to grow.

Gonzalo and the historical leadership in jail are promoting a "peace
agreement". In Palestine the Hamas and the different "people's liberation
fronts" and former PLO left-wingers are openly attacking Arafat, the
Palestinean great leader, as a a traitor. In Colombia the guerrilla forces
which opposed the peace process organised by the M-19, PRT, Quintin Lama and
some wings of the EPL and ELN are openly denouncing their former leaders and
comrades as traitors.

The PCP-SL pro-war faction doesn't want to break with Gonzalo. Why?
The only explanation is that they don't want to break all the bridges
towards a "peace agreement". The existence of a militarist PCP-SL faction is
no longer considered as a risk for the state. Of course the army would
like to finish it. Nevertheless, everybody is taking advantage of the
existence of a very small militarist group.

The army and Fujimori are using the "phantom" of "terrorism" to impose the
worst anti-union laws in the continent. In Peru Fujimori was able to smash
labour security and most of the rights to strike and unionise because he
used an "anti-terrorist legislation". The universities and factories have
police and military control. The left, the street demonstrations and the
unions are under big intimidation. In short, the existence of a diminished
guerrilla activity is being used to justify terrible attacks against the
workers and poor people under "anti-terrorist" laws.

Gonzalo is using the existence of a militarist faction to press Fujimori for
more concessions. He is trying to convince the military that if he and his
supporters were released he would be capable of ending the war. Gonzalo
would not be completely happy if all the military actions would finish
because it would mean that he doesn't have anything to use to press and make
deals.

I am not suggesting than Gonzalo is leading Feliciano's anti-peace
agreement faction. Most probably Feliciano and his people have their own
independence and their own agenda. I am suggesting that there is some kind
of co-habitation and mutual interests. Gonzalo in a way try to take
advantage of Felciano's military actions to obtain more concessions.
Feliciano doesn't want to break with Gonzalo and to any possibility for a
future reconciliation with him.


                                Appendix

After I sent the message "The crisis of the PCP-SL" I received two messages
sent to the marxist-list which confirms what I said:

For "The Red Flag": "The handful of capitulating opportunists in Yanamayo
have abandoned the revolutionary struggle and have enlisted themselves in
the ranks of the counter-revolution.  Now, are Luis Arce Borja and Adolfo
Olaechea proposing to defend the black clique in Yanamayo as
"political prisoners"? It is clear that international supporters of the
People's War should never defend those "historic" revisionists (Osman
Morote, Cox, Meche, etc.) who struggle for class treason and
capitulation, and oppose the construction of the Conquest of Power
nationwide.  The "historic" clique of renegades operating from Yanamavo
cannot be defended. On the contrary, they must be crushed, as the
PCP-Central Committee has clearly indicated in February 1994. In Europe,
a follower of the black clique, Javier Esparza "the individual in
Sweden," is a close partner of the Yankee revisionist Robert Avakian
(RCP-USA) who also imposes a right opportunist line in CORIM.  The
disagreements and partial split between the Esparza+Avakian group and
the LAB+AO gang (because they compete for "recognition" as world
"leaders") could end in the WMC, and could lead to a new call for a new
"peace accord" in order to "defend the life of prisoners."

"The Red Flag" recognized the fact that the majority of the PCP-SL leadership
in jail is for a "peace agreement". It is also denouncing the possibility
that some leading supporters of the PCP/SL people's war faction in Europe
are interested in supporting the liberation of the political prisoners
which agree with the peace agreement because they are preparing a new "peace
agreement".

In fact, it is the line of not breaking openly with Gonzalo which could lead
to a new capitulation. "The Red Flag" and "El Diario Internacional", the MIM
and the RIM could be involved in a future "peace process". It would not be
the first time than Maoism could end making peace deals with their former
enemies.

In a recent post from Olaechea "El Diario Internacional" recognized that
most of the people which defended the PCP-SL abroad are now with the "peace
agreement":

"It is good to remember that - up until October 1993 - the
*most active people in publicising the documents of PCP and in
cheer-leading the People's War*, were those who are now working
for the "peace agreement" and for the Peruvian regime."

Olaechea and Quispe wants to cover the sun with a finger. Why people which
led the Gonzalo's party and army and which sacrifice their life could became
suddenly "agents" and "spies"? How it is possible that most of the PCP-SL
active supporters abroad and that most of the PCP-SL leaders in jail could
agree with Gonzalo's peace process if it is not organise by "Chairam
Gonzalo" himself?

In their incapacity to try to see the reality they create "phantoms". "All
is a big plot". "Everybody are spies and agents".

The PCP-SL supporters abroad are so disoriented that they don't know what is
happening in Peru and instead of using political arguments to deal
with their differences, they are accusing each other to be agents, etc.

Arce Borja was a very valiant journalist which risk his life for writing
every day in favour of the PCP/SL. Olaechea was not the leader of a Soviet
in Lima in 1963 but he was an student activist before he travel to London
and, despite all his lies, he has the merit of publicly defending the
PCP/SL and he can't return to his fatherland. The people which are making
the PCP/SL Web page and publishing "The Red Flag" are also very dedicated
activists. They are not CIA or Fujimori agents. They are extremely confused
fighters. They should stop slandering themselves with all kinds of labels and
they need to discuss their real differences in a high political level.

For Olaechea everybody which disagree with him is an agent. He sent another
message:

"The campaign in Peru - sponsored by the CIA and a group of FBI agents in
this list - carried out by the Fujimori regime and its National Intelligence
Service is also centered in trying to slur the communist credentials of the
Chairman of the Communist Party of Peru, taking advantage of the fact that
they have him in prison.  They too have engineered a plot to undermine the
revolution by portraying its leader as a capitulator and collaborator with
the pro-imperialist regime which oppresses the Peruvian people....
The Fujimori regime, together with a group of US intelligence operatives,
have even mounted a phoney "PCP-Web page"....
Now, according to the Fujimori Zoo of "Quispe-Ponce-Chiara-Huillca and Co"
Gonzalo THOUGHT has become "separated" from the person of the leader of the
Peruvian revolution.  When was the last time your thoughts separated from
your body Lou?  Malecki's did long ago, after the 2023 Lsd overdosis, or
thereabouts!"

To the credit of Olaechea we have to say that he doesn't need any doses of
LSD to write the most incredible nonsense. Quispe is a supporter of the
Central Committee of the PCP-SL, Ponce is a not very important Peruvian
trotskyist militant and Huillca and Chiara were killed before the "peace
agreement". How can they could have a common position on the "peace
agreement"?

Does he think that Huillca and Chiara spirits are participating in the
debate using Quiospe or Ponce as their mediums? We know that he likes Hare
Krisna but we didn't know that he liked the witches and the Voodoo.

Olaechea and Quispe have a different approach to the Gonzalo betrayal.
Quispe and the "Red Flag" are trying to find a way to divorce themselves
>from Gonzalo the real person who capitulated to the regime. They are trying
to separate the body and the ideas. They would like to condemn the body
which capitulated to the regime but not their religious thought. Olaechea is
right, it is not possible to separate the body and the ideas. Nevertheless,
he simply ignores the reality. For him everything that can not fit in his
schemas is a CIA plot and every person in this list who don't agree with him
is another fascist CIA agent.

Appendix 

Rolf Martens recently wrote:

"Is it true, as Ponce-Rodwell allege, that comrade Gonzalo has
capitulated in prison, of his own free will or under the pressure
of those conditions under which he has been held captured,
the barbarous character of which are known to all? I on my
part *cannot know for certain whether this is true or not*. However,
these allegations are not based on anything but *rumours*
and must be repudiated as such. Those people who're
advancing them by no means are to be trusted."
[Condemn the vile Ponce-Rodwell campaign against the PCP!
Posted: 13.10.96]

Is good that Rolf admits his doubts. He think that all is rumours. On the
contrary, the information that Gonzalo didn't capitulate is based on
rumours. What is the evidence of his capitulation?

1- In the last 3 years Gonzalo appeared several times in TV proposing the
"peace agreement". It was his voice and his face.

2- In the last 3 years tens of pictures were taken with Gonzalo in jail with
all the supporters of the "Peace agreement".

3- In the last 3 years several of Gonzalo's pro-peace agreement handwritings
were circulated.

4- The people which Gonzalo must trust in Europe received phone calls from
him. After them they became convinced that Gonzalo was in favour of the
"peace agreement". Gonzalo's relatives abroad and the majority of the
pro-PCP-SL forces in Europe are today advocating a peace agreement.

5- ALL the members of the PCP-SL's Central Committee and Regional Committees
which are in jail and in contact with Gonzalo are advocating the peace
agreement. Crespo, Gonzalo's lawyer in his trial, declared on TV from the
jail that he agrees with the peace agreement.

6- In the last 3 years Gonzalo received the visit of many people (including
the Red Cross and some Human Right delegations). None of them said that
Gonzalo is against the peace process. On the contrary, they confirmed that
position.

7- Nearly all the thousands of PCP-SL prisoners are for the "peace
agreement".

8- The possibility that Gonzalo was under drugs or that all of this is a big
farce is completely rejected by the reality. The MRTA, the other armed
movement in Peru, is against the "peace process" despite that nearly all
its leaders are in jail and Fujimori *until now* was incapable of pressuring
them to capitulate in the way Gonzalo did.

9- If Fujimori would like to make a farce, why not with the MRTA? Why not
any single voice in the opposition denounced the "peace agreement" as a
farce? For all the oppositionist media and for all the left it is 100% sure
that Gonzalo's raprochment with Fujimori is complete truth. Only a few
fanatics want to ignore the reality!

10- The PCP-SL is based on a cult of a semi-god. Do you think it is possible
that all the leaders and prisoners which risk their life and which made very
valiant actions in the past could change to a peace agreement without the
explicit order of the great chairman?

11- Who are the people which are telling lies about Gonzalo? If you read
several messages in this week you can see which kind of moral authority have
people which wrote that they led an non existent Soviet in Lima (1963), that
the working class doesn't exist in Peru and that all their organisations are
fascist, etc.

12- This is not the first time that Maoists and Stalinists did that. Stalin
massacred Spanish revolutionaries with the aim to have a deal with
imperialism. Stalin invaded Poland in alliance with Hitler. Stalin sabotaged
the French and Italian post-war revolution and he supported the
reconstruction of western capitalist democracies. Mao supported the
repression of the Sri Lanka rebels, pro-imperialist reactionary movements in
Sudan and Angola, etc. Mao had diplomatic relations with Pinochet when all
the "socialist" countries broke relations with Chile. Mao made a "peace
agreement" with Nixon and Kissinger.

Rolf said:

"I on my part have been criticising, since mid-September, some
of those comrades who're supporting the PCP, namely those who
initiated the call for the WMC, which received the endorsement
of a number of organizations and also some individuals including
myself, but then went ahead and constituted such a "WMC"
practically all by themselves without consulting all those other
endorsers, and who also undertook some actions in the direction
of deceiving the masses on how this "WMC" had been constituted.
These were *actions in flagrant disregard of international
proletarian democracy*."

Rolf has to understand that the actions against proletarian democracy are
the essence of the PCP-SL and mao-stalinism. Every person which disagrees 
with
the PCP-SL is characterised as a CIA agent or fascist. You saw that in all
the debate! Members of all the significative left currents in Peru have been
physically attacked by the PCP-SL. Inside the PCP-SL there is no kind of
internal democracy. If the leaders don't want to listen to  criticisms they
accuse that person as an agent and expel or kill him, if he
doesn't decide to capitulate to the apparatus.

Last point. Rolf criticised the lack of proletarian democracy of the WMC-El
Diario grouping. Nevertheless, he is repeating the same kind of accusations
without proofs. If he wants to break with those methods and if he is in 
favour
of proletarian democracy he has to discuss with political ARGUMENTS against
his opponents. He should not write things like this:

"I hold that all fair-minded persons must agree: These writings
very much look like something manipulated by the CIA or a
similar intelligence organ of the US imperialists, a
CONTINUATION, in fact, of their old AVAKIAN-"QUISPE"
SUBVERSION MANOUEVRE. That's their real political
content and role. "


J. Ponce











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