From: detcom2-AT-sprynet.com
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 00:24:47 -0700
Subject: M-I: OPEN LETTER FROM THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CATALONIA (EDI #38)



======================================================================Continuing with circulating some of the documentation pertaining to the
struggle against opportunism within the Maoist movement, we publish this
article taken from the pages of El Diario International number 38.

Adolfo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rebelling Against Opportunism

OPEN LETTER TO THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY
INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT (RIM)

"Rebellion is Justified", the official voice of the Communist Party of
Catalonia, has just published an extensive letter addressed to the Committee
of the RIM (Co-RIM).

In this document the opportunist dalliances and Right-wing deviations of
those  alleged leaders of the RIM are subjected to a solidly based
questioning. The letter assumes the defence of Chairman Gonzalo's integrity
as a revolutionary. The thesis that the great Peruvian Maoist would have
anything to do with the "peace letters" is rejected.  The transcendental
significance of the People's War in Peru is affirmed.

The Catalonian communists take up position in favour of developing a
tenacious struggle to rid the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement of
this dead weight objectively serving the interests of the Peruvian regime
and US imperialism.

El Diario Internacional reproduces the relevant parts of this document in
relation to the issue of the RIM and the Peruvian process.  We also publish
part of the conclusions accompanying the letter. We consider these to be
extremely important in grasping well the task of reconstituting the
International Communist Movement.  Here the document in question:


THE REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT - ITS COMMITTEE

Not a year had gone by (since the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo - T.N.) when
the Peruvian government and the CIA engineered a ruse aimed against the PCP
and the People's War in Peru (and in consequence, against the
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and the revolutionary forces at the international
level).  This was the so called "Peace Agreement" or "Peace Letters" plot.

The Central Committee of the PCP responded to this attack by launching a
counter-offensive. The PCP denounced this fraudulent plot of the repressive
forces and any possible hidden agents working in favour of it, as so many
police tools.

The Co-RIM - faced with communiques from both sides, decides not to take up
a position for the time being, and instead proposes to carry out itself an
"investigation" of whether the Peruvian government's allegations or the
words of the Central Committee of the PCP should be believed.  

One year and a half later, they come out saying that they support the CC of
the PCP. What else could they ever have done?

Then comrade "Nancy" is arrested in 1996 and she expresses her rejection of
the Peruvian regime and the CIA by taking up the PCP slogan "Persist" (that
is - persisting in developing the People's War).

During the months in which she is subjected to a secret police "work over",
her torturers - according to the reactionary Peruvian press' own reports -
"recognise" the "difficulties" their "work" encounters in her.    

Eventually, the Peruvian regime issues a communique in which Margie Clavo
"Nancy" recants her former declarations and even asserts that "the peace
letters are real" alleging to have been told so by Chairman Gonzalo himself.

This last declaration is accepted as the "golden truth" by the Revolutionary
Communist Party of the USA and its official press organ "Revolutionary
Worker". From their "maybe true" position, they slide further into alleging
that this meant that the Fujimori regime and the CIA were not the forgers of
the "peace letters", but that their author is really Chairman Gonzalo.

Exactly what Fujimori and the CIA assert!  And the Co-RIM immediately echoes
what the RCP-USA publishes.  We curiously await to see if the same thing
will happen when the next press release from the Peruvian government and
their US government "advisers" comes out.

The Co-RIM has blamed its "delay" in publishing a position of sorts in their
document "Our Red Flag Continues to Fly in Peru" on the difficulties they
faced in deciding whether to believe those who the PCP regarded as snitches
and hidden traitors serving this reactionary plot, or to believe the PCP's
own position, as presented by its Central Committee.

As a representative of the RIM Committee told us in 1994 after delivering us
a document in English: "the question was very serious, and we had to prevent
a split".

Later, this same comrade went on to hold a meeting with V. Fernandez,
despite our disagreement with his action.  We regarded then V. Fernandez as
a complete opportunist, and now that he has openly come out in support of
the Peruvian regime, against the People's War and the PCP., we re-affirm
ourselves in our opinion.

The basic argument that the RIM Committee alleged - opposing the very views
expressed by the CC of the PCP - was that this ("peace agreement") issue was
a question of "two line struggle".

They took no notice of the enforcement of a regimented system of
registration organised by the political police of the Fujimori regime
regarding prison visits, nor of the protests of the organisations
representing the political prisoners and their families aimed at the
campaigns of lies and harassment against those who reject Fujimori's fraud
(including even assassinations).

On the face of all this, we openly state the following:

1)	The two line struggle was already in progress for a number of years
within the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.  Such was the struggle
led by the PCP against Co-RIM and some other participating organisations in
RIM.  The acceptance of Maoism as a third stage (of Marxism) has in fact
been turned into an empty phrase.

2)	The activities of Co-RIM and its attempts at developing an opportunist
line, have generated a split within the International Communist Movement
with those of us firmly supporting the process of People's War in Peru and
the Party leading it.

3)	The organisation of the II, III, and IV International Conferences in
which the leadership of the so called "MPP-Europe" has taken part, show
clearly the intent of organising a split within the movement of support for
the People's war in Peru.  

The line of this so called "MPP-Europe" is to pretend opposition to Esparza
and company (the direct promoters of the "peace agreement" plot abroad -
T.N.) in an attempt to recapture the leadership of the movement.  

However, these people are still in cahoots with Esparza.  Against this, the
cudgels have been taken up by El Diario Internacional and all the Committees
and organisations rejecting this right-wing opportunist action.

4)	As a practical consequence of the position adopted by Co-RIM, it can 
be said that the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of
Abimael Guzman (IEC) has been liquidated.
Its work in support of the People's War has ended up in the churning out of
vacuous statements and in engaging in developing two line struggle against
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru. However, they do
actually bestir themselves in carrying out systematic attacks against Luis
Arce, the editor of the only press organ dedicated to the defence of the
People's War in Peru and the PCP.

In synthesis, we would like to express the following:

A) The Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement has
generated a split within the International Communist Movement by adopting
a rightist position within it.

B) The strategy that should be applied at the international level should be
to support the People's War as a contribution to Maoism, and that is the
platform insisted upon by the Communist Party of Peru.  This platform
emphasises the role of the Third World as the motor impelling the revolution
worldwide, and the extrapolating of these factors to the intermediate
countries and the imperialist heartlands.

C) The revolutionary process of each country should be the concrete work of
each Party - in accordance with the concrete analysis of the concrete
situation - and approaching the question from the standpoint of serving for
the development of the Universal People's War at the world level.

We would like these concepts to illustrate our position regarding what we
perceive as the real two line struggle taking place today within the
International Communist Movement. The struggle for the continuation of the
revolution - led by the torch which the PCP continues to be - and against
all the vacillations and opportunism that arises and continues to arise at
the world level, as well as within the movement to support the People's war
in Peru.  

This struggle encompasses also that aimed against the repercussions - very
serious ones in some occasions - arising within the work of reconstitution
of the Communist Party of Spain.

Today, as always, our approach is "treating the illness to save the
patient".  It is in this spirit that we publish this open letter addressed
to all Marxist-Leninist-Maoist of the Spanish state as well as at the
international level.  

We hope that the clash of opinions would serve to achieve the unity of the
majority of communists, and to combat the erroneous positions lately
spreading around and that are causing great damage to the International
Communist Movement.

Communist Party of Catalonia (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)


Translated and Published in Internet by

Committee Sol Peru - London
Press Commission
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