Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 00:42:12 GMT
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (Hariette Spierings)
Subject: M-I: PCP and its Role in the Peruvian Revolution (Part III)


A TALK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL
Institute of Latin American Studies

February 21, 1997

by Adolfo Oleachea,  Spokesman for Sol Peru Committee - London

(PART III)

REACTIONARY ORGY

The orgy of reaction unleashed upon the world by imperialism is today so
evident for all, that we shall only illustrate the state of affairs for
imperialist bourgeois democracy today, with a comical - albeit also
sinister - occurrence during the recent visit of the dictator Fujimori to
this country.

Fujimori's regime - having been exposed as nothing but a nationwide
concentration camp in the Japanese fascist imperial army style due to the
events surrounding the seizure of many hostages by the MRTA group last
December - was suddenly discovered by the bourgeois imperialist
"democratic" press and media  - people who certainly knew well of this all
along - to be somewhat beyond the pale of what passes for "civilized
behaviour" these days. 

Even The Times - not known for any frequent leftwing opinions - denounced
Fujimori on the very eve of his arrival as "a dictator" and berated him for
his "barbaric and medieval dungeons"

However, very soon they were reminded that their lot - whatever humanitarian
qualms they may feel about it - is merely to "....bless this government,
which alone, with its bayonets and jails, protects us" - and our most
important class interests - "from the ire of the people", and - most
importantly - the dreaded spectre of a communist revolution.

Once in London, Fujimori himself took charge of reminding the British
government and media that his derided jails "were constructed in accordance
with international standards for terrorists".  What could then the
government - or the media - of a country whose Home Secretary - besides
having exponentially increased the prison population and worsened the
conditions inside its own jails to absurd levels, actually even chaining
dying cancer patients and women giving birth to their hospital beds, say
about that?

What could "zero tolerance" society - and its political parties both inside
and outside the government - argue about such trifles with the tyrant from
the Banana Republic?.  Next day, The Times decided that Fujimori was "a
democrat" after all, and even greeted him with a short editorial piece.

We observe that all the social-democratic and welfare settlements with which
revolution was stifled in Europe and America after the overthrow of fascism
- are being dismantled and no one can see an end in sight to the
reinstatement of reaction in every field.  It is within this situation,
that the petty bourgeois democratic trend - of which even the revolutionist
left and workers=FE movement of the western world almost partakes - is
casting around for a new understanding and beginning to ask the question
they asked when Hitler barbarism appeared in the horizon:  Where are the
communists? 

CHANGE OF FRONT BY PETTY BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY?
The Peruvian revolution whose small beginnings they despised and derided.
The Peruvian revolution whose success they thought of in the early 1980s as
an "extremely unlikely course of development" has grown from strength to
strength overcoming the most severe blows, and now develops in strategic
equilibrium while preparing for the strategic offensive and final victory. 

On the other hand, that what appeared to these people as unshakeable and
eternal - revisionist "socialism" - fell to the ground in a short time
span. These "Marxists" had forgotten their ABC:

Engels said: "All nature, from the smallest thing to the biggest, from a
grain of sand to the sun, from the protista to man, is in a constant state
of coming into being and going out of being, in a constant flux, in a
ceaseless state of movement and change" - (3)

The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (b) - Short Course -
also teaches: "The dialectical method regards as important not what at the
given moment seems to be durable and yet is beginning to die away, but that
which is arising and developing, even though at the given moment it may
appear to be non durable, for the dialectical method considers invincible
only that which is arising and developing". (4)

However, today - and this occasion is a sign of this - under the current
circumstances there are evidently already symptoms of a change of front
among the petty-bourgeois democrats, a change of front "among a whole
class" of people - including masses of working people whom petty bourgeois
democratic illusions in all countries still influence.

Lenin put it thus: "A split among them is inevitable: one section will come
to our side, another section will remain neutral, while a third will
deliberately join forces with ....(those).... seeking to crush the
revolution with the aid of foreign bayonets" - in this case, the bayonets
of their own imperialist bourgeoisies. (2)

VALUABLE ADMISSIONS ARE REQUIRED

Historical development has proven that things have "turned out as we had
said", and, moreover, that the Peruvian revolution - despite everything
said and done against it - "has turned out to be true".

The question remains not of whether, but of whom and how many, among the
intellectuals of this left, will now make a frank and honest admission of
their theoretical and political errors?  I am reminded here of Lenin's
saying in this same regard:  "An honest confession of a political error may
be of great political benefit to many people if the error was shared by
whole parties which at one time enjoyed influence over the people".(2)

Since we are in this Institute of Liverpool University, let us take just one
representative of this trend, who is among those that in his "intellectual
production" has simply processed the "raw materials" supplied to him by the
phoney Marxists of the Peruvian United Left, representatives in Peru of the
various trends of modern revisionism.

I am referring here to a work by Lewis Taylor entitled "Maoism in the
Andes". I hope Professor Taylor does not see this as an attack on him
personally.  It is meant to be an attack on ideas that - because of their
evident falsehood and the prestige and responsibility of his own academic
position - weigh heavily upon the formation of future generations. 

Let us see what "Maoism in the Andes" had to say about the PCP back in 1983:

"Sendero (the PCP) sees Peru as a semi-feudal and neo-colonial society,
claiming that 'the Peruvian state is bureaucratic and landlord, dominated
by a dictatorship of feudal landowners and the big bourgeoisie under the
control of imperialism'.  Elsewhere, one of their leaders sustains
that:'Belaunde's government represents the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, which
heads the counter-revolutionary camp, leads the feudal landlords and the
comprador bourgeoisie and is tied with Yankee imperialism'."(5)

>From this the work concludes: "....that Sendero Luminoso holds an outdated
image of EL PERU AGRARIO, that is of a predominantly rural pre-industrial
Peru dominated by so-called 'feudal landlords'.......Obviously this
perception of contemporary Peru is hopelessly mistaken.  'Feudal landlords'
play no role in today's Peru, while large-scale landlordism (feudal or
otherwise) as an economic and political force was decimated by the military
government's enactment of a thoroughgoing agrarian reform between 1969 and
1976". (5)

We shall - for the moment - leave aside in this occasion the question of
neo-colonialism, only noting that such has never been the formulation of
the PCP, who instead and with good reason, uses the term semi-colonial. 

We shall even pass quickly over the interesting dialectical leap of charging
the Communist Party with having "an outdated image of a Peru DOMINATED by
so-called feudal landlords" on the strength of a quotation which - to the
contrary - actually affirms that THE LANDLORDS DO NOT HEAD THE
COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY CAMP IN PERU.  The quote from that PCP leader instead
affirms that this regime is in fact headed by the BUREAUCRATIC BOURGEOISIE,
which in turn "LEADS THE FEUDAL LANDLORDS". There seems to be no questions
that back then, in 1983, "the bitterness, resentment, and violent
indignation" against the PCP was so strong that it even seriously impaired
the most basic reading abilities!

We shall also leave aside other similar amusing anecdotes appearing in this
work, such as for example the conclusion that the PCP holds an
"INDIGENISTA" outlook just because some drunkards at the back of a peasant
assembly would have been heard to shout "we need a government of Indians"
and "let's kill the whites and destroy the cities", or that "Sendero's
cadres possess a strong millennial streak" just because these military
cadres would study - as they should - the experiences of Juan Santos
Atahuallpa and Tupac Amaru". (5)

I should think that anyone concerned with the successful waging of
revolutionary war in England - if it came to that - would then care to
study the campaigns of the New Model Army, just like no one seriously
interested in the development of the revolutionary movement in this country
should neglect to study the experiences of the diggers, the chartists, and
the ideas of Gerald Winstanley, and other important radicals of the English
past.

Alas, all that, along with the customary gratuitous comparisons with
Pol-pot, a good measure of innuendo about drug dealing connections, the
baseless allegations of some pathological hatred for anything COSTENHO  - I
am a costenho myself - Limenho, in fact - etc., is not only trivial but so
easy to debunk as catching fish out of a barrel of mackerel.

(CONTINUES IN PART IV)



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