Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 22:38:34 -0500 (EST) From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena) Subject: M-I: The Communist Party of Peu and Its Role in the Peruvian Revolution A TALK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL Instittue of Latin American Studies February 21, 1997 by Adolfo Oleachea, Spokesman for Sol Peru Committee - London First of all, I would like to thank the Latin American Society and the students of the Institute of Latin American Studies of Liverpool University for their cordial invitation. The theme is a very important one, dealing as it does with possibly one of the most controversial issues of our day. It is thus important, not only in the context of Latin America, the primary field of interest here, but at the world level as well. I am referring to the Peruvian revolution and the true role and character of the Communist Party of Peru -- what the media describes as "The Shining Path". My prupose is to attempt an explanation of the mechanism behind the demonising of the Communist Party and the Peruvian revolution. In this context I shall also address the root ideas distorting a correct understanding of this revolution, the PCP, its ideology and its role. I will try to contribute, too, some theoretical weapons that may serve progressive people in debunking the reactionary Academic constructions thickly woven around this topic. I contend that these constructions are not merely scientifically invalid, but thorougly outdated as well -- having therefore no place in any legitimate and up to date seat of learning. THE MEDIA IMAGE OF THE PCP AND THE PROCESS OF ITS FORMATION For the unbiased student of this theme, a glaring fact towers over every aspect of this issue: In this theme, we have a carefully crafted orthodoxy presisting to this day. This orthodoxy I had, back in 1985, characterised thus: "Today, the facts about the events unfolding in Peru are being distorted, suppressed, minimised and hidden away by the imperialist bourgeoisie and by the opportunist left in equal measure". "However, people have heard news about massacres, battles, black-outs, mass graves, prison massacres, waves of strikes, riots, rampant corruption and state-sponsored drug dealing on a gigantic scale. They have read about counter-insurgency operations, strategic hamlets, states of emergency and of elections and armed electoral boycotts". "Moreover, they have been told that a 'left wing socialist' government has come into office; that 'communists' enjoy large parliamentary representation, control many municipal councils, etc. They have also heard that all this 'progressive advance' is endangered, frustrated and overshadowed by an 'obscure' organization with a fancy name, 'The Shining Path'. An organization described as ruthless, murderous terrorists, a freak phenomenon of 'Indigenous ideologists' with Pol - pot like ideas, dogmatic, sectarian, and intractable". "Curiously, this image comes from such different sources as the U.S. magazines Time and Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Herald Tribune and others. It also comes from French sources such as Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Monde, Liberation, L'Humanite -- the organ of the French CP -- and also British, German, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, etc". "Here in Britain, a consensus exists on this issue ranging from The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph to 'socialist' sources such as The Morning Star, The New Statesman, City Limits, the Trotskyist Press, etc". "Anyone would have thought that such unanimity, from Murdoch to Tariq Ali and beyond, should have set alarm bells ringing among our 'Marxist specialists'. After all, the 'Shining Path', although people from darkest Peru, were part of the known universe and hardly non-human invaders >from outer space against whom all classes could unite in defence of humanity's home". "Therefore, either 'absolute truth above class' had been arrived at -- uniting all schools of thought and bringing the historical and political process to its ultimate end and thus dispensing wth the need for Marxist theoreticians of all sorts -- or the facts (stubborn facts) would be a little different indeed. In any case, a bit of class analysis should of necessity be undertaken by our 'non-specialist', our generalist Marxists". (1) THE SHAPING OF A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY AND ANTI-COMMUNIST ORTHODOXY The question is, how did such a unanimous -- and demonstrably false -- orthodoxy arise? How was this "absolute truth above class" fabricated? We all know about what is these days billed as "the power of the media". We understand well the fact that ruling classes shape and distribute ideas by means of their gigantic propaganda machine involving newspapers, radio, television, film, books, etc. Blaming the media for the distorted views it distributes is fashionable, even if everyone with an ounce of sense can perceive that these have almost no relation to reality. However, the "media", as its very name shows, is but the vehicle for the distribution of these ideas. The factories, the means of production fashioning these ideas, lie elsewhere. What are the sources of bourgeois orthodoxy mystifying the issues around the Peruvian revolution and demonising the Communist Party of Peru in its just struggle for social and political emancipation? ASSEMBLY LINES It is in the Universities, Institutes, Think Tanks, policy groups and such like, where the handful of reactionaries and imperialist subjecting the world to their catastrophic dictatorship have installed their assembly lines for such ideas. It is in such "factories" and "laboratories" where their prototypes are designed, sampled and tested, before entering the media mills for mass distribution. As I have noted above, with the Peruvian revolution we could classify the sources of these ideas into two. These, for convenience sake we could speak of as "right-wing" and "left-wing", according to the different frameworks and styles in which the very same reactionary message is presented: The Peruvian revolution is bad and inhuman. The Communist Party of Peru is nothing but the devil incarnate and the direst enemy of all humanity. RIGHT WING IDEA FACTORIES However, here, the idea factories of the Right should not concern us overmuch. It is more than clear that beyond reactionary and obscurantist tenets openly justifying oppression and exploitation. Beyond bestowing moral virtue upon the alleged right of a tiny minority to live the life of Riley at the expense of the great masses of working people, or beyond simple racist and jingoistic demagogy for inflaming the most backward instincts against the so-called dangers of foreign, foreign, barbarian peoples -- be it the yellow, the black or the brown peril -- the overt Right has not very much to offer to delude enlightened persons everywhere. And here we are, I assume, among enlightened people. "HUMAN RIGHTS' AND COUNTERINSURGENCY ADVISORS TO THE WORLD'S TYRANNIES Nor are we concerned with those disguised defenders of imperialism who speak in the name of democracy and human rights, while fawning upon the ugliest satraps of this world. People who speak today like the old Constitutional Democrats spoke yesterday under the Tsar's government in Russia. People such as David Scott Palmer or Cynthia MacClintock, to name but two among many, also instrumental in demonsing the Communist Party of Peru in this country and at the international level. We can synthesise the entire content of their ranting againt the PCP and the Peruvian revolution, together with their role as apologists and counterinsurgency experts to the criminal regimes in Peru, in the same phrase the old Russian Constitutional Democrats used to apologise for Tsardom; "We should bless this government, which alone, with its bayonets and jails, protect us from the ire of the people'. ANTI - PCP IDEA FACTORIES FROM THE "LEFT" What shall we say then about an alleged "Left - wing body of public opinion", comprising all those who, while invoking inspiration in different authorities -- in particular the doctrines of the Marxist Classics -- that comes, by roundabout ways, and making use of a different jargon full of socialistic and even revolutionist catchwords, to equally right-wing and counter-revolutionary conclusions? Moreover, to conclusions that -- in essence -- are as similar in content and spirit to those of the overt Right as one drop of water is to another? Would it not be enough to just say that such "left" is nothing but a concealed, hidden, masked, Tweedledee to the Tweedledum Right? Should we just dismiss them in the same manner? It surely would not be something unjust or undeserved. However, in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, justice or injustice, guilt or punishment, are but secondary considerations. That factor compels us to dig deeper into the roots of why these "left" organs manufacturing ideas in countries such as Britain, Germany, France, or the USA, etc., have landed themselves into such an awkward position. I want to ask the question of how these people arrived at playing a role, which in the face of it, seems so contrary to all their proffered beliefs, moreover, so antagonistic to the most vital interests of the working people, those upon whom their existence and the very ground -- the very life -- of what we understand as "the left" and its values -- in the last analysis depends? THE SOURCES OF RAW MATERIALS FOR THE ELABORATION OF ANTI - PCP "LEFT - IDEAS" Another level where the "raw material" for the key ideas elaborated by centres of knowledge comes from does exist. I am referring here to the sources back in Peru -- and other similar oppressed countries -- with which the "left", particularly the academic left, holds direct relations. In the oppressor countries, what Lenin in his work *State and Revolution* described as "the elements of opportunism that accumulated over the decades of comparatively peaceful development" whose existence has "given rise to the trend of social - chauvinism which dominates the official socialist parties" pervade also today even the most faithful Marxists in these countries. Moreover, it manifests itself as a strong liberalistic tendency both in its theory and practice, mostly everywhere. We can, for convenience's sake, describe these people as "Western Marxists" or "Left - wing intellectuals or academics of the West" in particular. How do these people obtain the "raw materials" for assembling these ideas in their "academic factories"? It is not surprising that in their relations with those in the oppressed countries who also portray themselves as Marxists, revolutionaries, of the left, progressives, etc., the "Western Left - wing intellectuals" should gravitate towards the "raw materials" provided by those sources within the oppressed countries that best fit with their own trends of thought and liberal prejudices. In studying the politics and social conditions in the oppressed countries -- there where the very spirit, then temper of Marxism -- given the concrete conditions -- tends to be undoubtedly and viscerally more militant and uncompromising, our Marxist intellectuals and academics of the oppressor countries, understandably and most spontaneously, gravitate towards the "Marxist compromisers" and towards those "intellectual circles" most inclined to partake, spiritually and ideologically of their own penchant for accomodation and peaceful development. People of like minds who think and orient their politics along the very lines demanded and imposed by the weight of the ruling class state and its institutions, including the political and academic ones. TO BE CONTINUED... --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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