From: detcom-AT-sprynet.com
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 22:16:47 -0800
Subject: M-G: Part 1: OLD AND NEW FASCISM AND THE REVOLUTIONARY TASKS OF THE



OLD AND NEW FASCISM AND THE REVOLUTIONARY TASKS OF THE PROLETARIAT

By Adolfo Olaechea
Spokesman for Sol Peru Committee - London

(Address given to The Stalin Society, London, September 25, 1994)

I would like to express my thanks to The Stalin Society for this opportunity
to speak on fascism, old and new, in the context of the current world
situation.  Thus the Stalin Society plays once again its role as a platform
for the class, honouring the name and ideology of the great proletarian
leader.

Yesterday was the second anniversary of the speech delivered on the 24th
of September 1992 by Chairman Gonzalo, leader of the Communist Party of
Peru.

We know that this speech was given under the most difficult circumstances,
facing the guns of a fascist regime.  With this speech, the illustrious
prisoner of the People's War in Peru snatched an ideological and political
victory from inside the cage of the tyrant Fujimori.  Chairman Gonzalo
emulated the example of Georgi Dimitrov when that comrade faced the courts
of Nazi Germany.

But what should interest us specifically today is that this speech 
contains important historical guidelines for the struggle against fascism
in the present era.  Therefore I would like us to link it with the study
we are presently undertaking.

In his speech from the jail of the fascist tyrant Chairman Gonzalo said:

	"We have a fact, a Peruvian revolution, an advancing powerful
	fire of people's war that continues and shall continue to 
	develop.  What has this resulted in?  In strategic equilibrium.
	And we must grasp well this issue.  It is an strategic 
	equilibrium, a concrete reality within an essential situation.
	What have twelve years of war served for?  To clearly demonstrate
	before the eyes of the world and principally before the 
	Peruvian people that the Peruvian state, the old Peruvian state,
	is a paper tiger which is rotten to the core.  That has been
	demonstrated!"

For the last fourteen years in Peru the revolution and the counter-revolution
have been in armed conflict.  This process develops today within its 
strategic equilibrium.  In 1992 the development and growth of the People's
Committees, of the people's organs of power in the countryside and the
cities, the peoples' advance in dismantling the old state, generated a 
mighty wave of revolution that threatened, in the eyes of reaction, a 
speedy outcome of the war and the seizure of power by the Maoists.  This
development in the Peruvian revolution forced the bourgeois regime to
drop the mask of democracy and install its open dictatorship.  A fascist
regime fostered by imperialism and local reaction was set up to face
the most advanced struggle of the proletariat for political power in
our time.

Fascism and communism, fascism and a popular front of liberation under
proletarian leadership are, as in no other place in the world, fighting
a merciless war in this acute class struggle in the Andes.  In Peru
today the destiny of the current revolutionary wave is being decided.  
As in republican Spain from 1936 to 1939 the imperialist circles are
conspiring to ensure the fascists' victory as a prelude and general
rehearsal for imposing their reactionary program at the world level.
This is how we should understand the Fujmori dictatorship.  It is the
dark model that imperialism is designing for the submission of the 
people.  It is no accident that in Russia the Yeltsin government is
busy trying out the same recipe pioneered by the tyrant Fujimori.

In Peru we have an unscrupulous enemy ready to do its worst in defence
of the counter-revolutionary imperialist order.  On the other hand we
also have the most advanced and consistent Marxism of our era, embodied
in a communist party of the new type.  We have a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
party that leads the people's war, the highest and most complete
military theory and practice of the proletariat, standing defiant and
pointing out for us a hopeful and bright alternative path.

Therefore in dealing with the theme of fascism today it is necessary 
to deal simultaneously with the theme of the revolution in Peru.

The capture of Chairman Gonzalo should be viewed as an occupational
hazard that revolutionaries must face, a harsh blow against the
revolutionary leadership but not a real and lasting victory, instead
a temporary setback.  The brutal repression of the regime comes backed
by the most modern psychological warfare techniques designed to set
masses against masses - low intensity warfare, the current military
doctrine of imperialism.  Trying to induce the revolution and the 
proletariat onto the road of capitulation they enlisted the services 
of a handful of opportunists to assist them in concocting a plot of
peace negotiations.  In this plot, the regime has tried to use the 
figure of Chairman Gonzalo and, with the help of traitors and
revisionists, it has succeeded to a degree in creating a certain amount
of confusion.  Within the movement of support for the Peruvian revolution
that is developing abroad these manoeuvres of the fascist Fujimori
government have also had some effect.  One sector has gone over to the
counter-revolution.  Among those who rejected treason however, there are
some who objectively developed a sectarian and dogmatic line that played
into the hands of fascism in fostering splits and exaggerating problems.
There are even others who, in adopting liberal positions, dither in
condemning treason out in the open.  They claim that this is a case of
"ideological differences' which they propose should be studied.

We must emphasise that these are secondary problems, common whenever the
revolution goes through a difficult moment.  The blows of the reactionaries
always generate vacillation among the intermediate elements.  Always two
different kinds of opportunism arise at such monments.  One toys with
capitulation in front of the enemy.  Another clouds the issues and hits
wildly in all directions regardless of maintaining the necessary unity in
the people's ranks.

It is important to bring these problems out into the open so that the
international communist movement may find its bearings correctly and have
the capacity to lend its support in upholding the correct Marxist line.
The revolution in Peru is led by the proletariat and the proletariat is
an international class.  It is true that the Peruvian proletariat directs
its own revolutionary struggle but it is also true that the opinions and
feelings of the international proletariat have important repercussions
among those who are directly leading it, as well as among the wide masses
of the people.  In Peru the proletarian leadership has remained firm in
upholding the revolutionary line of Chairman Gonzalo.

The question of the prosecution of the war has been totally settled and
the sectarian positions have not been echoed.  Today the problem is in
finding the means of developing a new upsurge towards the seizure of
power in the whole country.  It is not enough that the war should go on.
The revolution needs to find the means for victoriously concluding it,
to fully develop the necessary instruments for its victory and to mobilise
the necessary public opinion to back them up.

Thus, our study of fascism, of the United Front and or Marxists politics,
relates to establishing the line that Chairman Gonzalo had already 
developed before his capture in the forefront of the struggle.  This is
something that certain people have attempted to conceal:

	"We must bear in mind that both the revolution and the people's
	war are intensifying and that we are the leading centre, the
	axis of the polarisation; taking this into account as the basic
	fact, let us develop the United Front of the revolution based on
	the worker-peasant alliance and integrated by four classes:
	proletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie,
	who together constitute 90% of the people.  A front that should
	unite all those persons and organisations who are truly in 
	favour of the revolution and its realisation by means of the 
	people's war; if we were not to see things in this way we would
	not be able to develop the third instrument and, within a 
	perspective of revolutionary crisis, we shall fail to contribute
	to break the influence that the different cliques wield over the
	masses, and in turning the Party into the centre of the people's
	camp; if we do not act in this fashion how are we to develop
	the polarisation, the upsurge of the masses and the seizure of 
	the cities?  Therefore we must clearly see the importance of the
	United Front.  In the revolution there are constant forces:
	proletarians, peasants, petty bourgeois; but the national
	bourgeoisie must come over to the side of the revolution, 
	expressing its class nature, and we must develop unity and struggle
	towards them; if we do not act in this fashion we shall be committing
	sectarian errors.  Closed doors amounts to sectarianism.  The 
	question is one of unity and struggle.  The time has arrived to 
	open doors for a great incorporation into the revolution; for 
	example, the greater portion of the intelligentsia is petty
	bourgeois and the intellectuals are indispensable for the revolution;
	these are more complex problems, problems that entail a greater
	danger of rightism and demand more open minded work.  There will
	be a version of the People's Consultative Council, otherwise how are
	we to set up the democratic government?  (Chairman Gonzalo, November
	1991 - Let Strategic Equilibrium Shake-up the Country Even More).

Taking this into account we can see the importance of undertaking this study
of fascism.  We shall try to clarify the issues that today are being debated
in the process of the Peruvian revolution, and to contribute so that the
international proletariat may organise its united front in support of the
revolutionary line.  In my opinion victory in the Peruvian revolution, as
an integral part of the world revolution, necessitates a thorough
understanding and application of the historical lessons of the anti-fascist
struggle.

I believe that this is the true Marxist way of undertaking any study.  
Concretely, I am fully convinced that today, within the belly of this 
imperialist power of Great Britain, there is no better forum for these ideas
and these studies than the one afforded by this Stalin Society, a society
that, as indicated its very name, is dedicated to the defence of the 
revolutionary ideals of the proletariat.  I harbour the sincerest hope that
all of us may jointly undertake this study and exert the greatest efforts in
applying the most advanced Marxist ideology, thus making our contribution
today to the resolution of the vital and critical problems facing the class.

	In his speech Chairman Gonzalo pointed out:  "Today there is but
	one reality.  The same contenders of the First and Second World Wars
	are generating and preparing the Third new World War.  This we must
	be aware of, and that we, as people from an oppressed country, are
	regarded as part of the loot.  We can not allow it!  We have had
	enough with imperialist exploitation!  We must do away with it!"

Continued in Part Two
The Old and New Fascism and the Revolutionary Tasks of the Proletariat
By Adolfo Olaechea
==================================================== 


     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---