From: Klasber-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 17:49:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: M-I: NEUE EINHEIT:  Chairman Gonzalo of the PCP about MRTA and about efforts to  tr


NEUE EINHEIT: 
Chairman Gonzalo of the PCP about MRTA and about efforts to 
trade upon the revolutionary party in Peru

The MRTA which has taken hostages in Lima in Dec. 1996 was 
severely denounced by the chairman of the PCP in 1988, when 
he gave a large interview touching also the experiences with 
this organisation. His estimation was in many ways similar to 
our analysis and evaluation of their action. The Chairman Gonzalo 
was captured in Sept. 92 and  since then he has been kept in 
prison under conditions of absolute isolation.
His teachings are still of great interest.


The MRTA was built up in 1984 as a competing party and competing 
armed units with regard to the PCP.
The Peruvian army in 1983/4 lead a very bloody offensive against 
the rebellion in the mountains, the PCP spoke of genocide. Perhaps 
the MRTA made use of some weak points of the armed struggle of the
PCP when it attempted to establish itself as a competing force. It
was quite clear that its creation closely corresponded to the 
APRA'sgrasp of power in the mid eighties. During all the following
years there was a symbiosis between the whole system of increasing 
cultivation of coca, of APRA's regime and the real dictatorship 
of the US. The system of "two armed organisations" which spread 
disorientation and of a demagogic "anti-imperialist" government 
provided ground for the imperialists to develop their system of 
influence.

  "When the armed forces did come in we had to wage an arduous 
  struggle.They fought to re-establish the old order, and we 
  fought to counter this re-establishment in order to again set 
  up the New Power.
  An extremely bloody and absolutely merciless genocide took 
  place. We fougth fiercely. In 1984, the reaction,  and in 
  particular the armed forces, believed they had defeated us. 
  Here I'm referring to documents that they are very familiar 
  with, because they are theirs, in which it was even said that 
  we were no longer a danger, but that MRTA was the 
  danger. But what was the outcome? The People's Committees 
  and the Base Areas multiplied, and later that led us to continue 
  the development of Base Areas. That is what we are doing 
  today."p.36

  "These are questions of Cubanism and its five characteristics: 
  an insufficient class  differentiation which demanded that 
  saviors save the opressed; socialist revolution or a caricature 
  of revolution; united front but without the national bourgeoisie; 
  no need for Base Areas; and as noted, no need for a Party. What 
  we are seeing  in Latin America today is just the development of 
  these same positions, only more and more at the service  of 
  social-imperialism and its contention with Yankee imperialism for
  world hegemony. We can see this clearly in Central America. The 
  MRTA, the little that we know of it, falls into the same 
  category."p.35

This indeed needs some commentation. Apparently, Gonzalo still saw 
social imperialism as being relatively strong. In 1988, however, it 
was already decomposing seriously. As it was validated subsequently, 
the USA at that time had its fingers in the whole Soviet system to a 
considerable extent. Thereupon the camp of detente policy more or less 
completely went over to the US which became the sole guarantee for what 
had previously been guaranteed by the so-called detente. It became the 
only world-dominating power. Today this hegemonism is being covered all 
the more by almost the whole of revisionism. Looking at the MRTA which 
advocates pacifist slogans and simultaneously, significantly enough, 
for some time already and especially now at this hostage taking has 
been hitting above all the Japanese, one feels from where today the 
wind is blowing with this organization. For that reason this quotation
is of interest, indeed, also for today's evaluation of the MRTA.

  "The MRTA has positions that should make one think. For example, the 
  truce they granted to APRA until, as they said, APRA attacked the 
  people. But we all know that the same day that Garcia Perez assumed 
  the presidency,he repressed  the masses in the very capital of the 
  republic. In October 1985 there was genocide at Lurigancho prison. 
  Were the people being attacked or not? And how long did they wait 
  to put an end to their truce? These are things one must ask 
  oneself."p.35

Quite close to these reflections in the section 'People's War'  there 
is to be found one more very interesting passage in the Gonzalo 
interview. It also reflects critically the own role.

  "We must be very clear on one thing: Insurrection is not a simple, 
  spontaneous explosion. No, that would be dangerous. Nevertheless, 
  this could happen, and that's why we must and do concern ourselves 
  with insurrection, starting right now. We think there are those who 
  might want to use the people's war for their own benefit. Some time 
  ago, in a session of Central Comittee, we analyzed the possibilities.
  And one of them is that the revisionists or others may provoke 
  `insurrections', either to abort the process of development or to 
  gain positions and serve their social-imperialist master - or 
  whatever power directs them, since many centers could want to use 
  us this way."p.39

This shows that already then the matter of trading upon the 
revolutionary efforts in the interest of imperialist and bourgeoise 
forces was seen. This is very remarkable. The PCP derives the 
revolutionary people's war and also its concrete beginning from 
the history of the PCP and from the perennial suppression and the 
outlawry of the masses during several decades. They resolved at a 
time when, by the overthrow in China, the propaganda manifested on 
a world wide level that revolution had well now come to an end. In 
this way, the PCP under difficult conditions already made an 
important contribution. At the same time this struggle necessarily 
is loaden with utmost difficulties as Peru is not only a 
semicolonial country, it is also not very large with regard to the 
population, and the opportunities of the USA to undertake concentrated 
moves against this revolution are relatively favourable ones because 
of several important deposits of raw materials, not the least also 
because of Peru's role as a coca grower. We have been knowing for a 
long time - even magazines like "Der Spiegel" comment on this - that 
the drug machinations are being covered by decisive circles within 
the rich countries, by the financial oligarchy. The drug machinations 
play their role in the putrefaction of the population in the whole 
world, they are a component of the suppression by the bourgeoisie of 
the whole world and by international imperialism. And what is even 
more: talking of anti-drug squads and war against drugs the US in 
fact fight the revolutionary movements in the region and quite 
frequently collaborate with the militias of the drug traders. In 
the guise of alleged anti-drug actions, in reality `anti-terrorism' 
is being practised along with the permanent attempts to couple 
insurrectional movements with the drug machinations in order to 
create a completely desolate situation.

We do not agree with all points, in some points he has idealistic 
views which result also from the isolation of this revolution, 
>from its relatively peripherical position, from the special 
conditions of this revolution. But nevertheless his teachings are 
important for the understandig of the situation.

And we are of the opinion that it is necessary not to fall behind 
this former analysis.
His theories and political explanations are in this way a blow 
against those who try to veil the backgrounds and want to explain 
complex relations by simplified theories, for example by denying 
US-imperialist influence and acknowledging some justified motives 
of the members of the MRTA, as if this was a contradiction.

So much for now on the specific event.

				In the beginning of February 97
				Editorial Staff of NEUE EINHEIT

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	Zeitschrift fuer Politik, Oekonomie und Kultur
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