From: yjj@janus.ctr.columbia.edu (Yuan Jiang)
Subject: (Forward) An interview with a Peruven Maoist.
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 21:19:59 GMT
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From: SCIENCE%MITVMA@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
Subject:      Re: Interview with Maoist in Peru

Interview with Comrade Gonzalo translated

from MIM Notes Number 42, 6/18/90
by MC5

The general political economy of Peru is now well-know even in
the bourgeois press. Peru is experiencing 2000% inflation,
double-digit unemployment, widespread and worsening starvation
and death squad government.

What is somewhat more controversial is that many believe the
guerrillas are almost as violent as the army, that there is
democracy in Peru and that there is some popular force in Peru
other than the Senderos that the masses support.

Peru is an excellent case study of who the real leaders of
social change in the world are -- Maoists. Every other
ideologically organized group has involved itself in the
parliamentary charade in Peru, with the exception of the pro-
Cuban guerrillas.

The Maoist revolutionaries in Peru have understated their case
against their revisionist and opportunist opponents, perhaps
in an effort to rally all democratic forces against fascism.
Yet, for outsiders to understand Peru, illusions should be
cast aside.

All the social democrats including outgoing President Garca
and all the revisionists (with the exception of the pro-Cuban
forces) have decided to serve as figleaves for a military
fascist regime. That includes the pro-Soviet and pro-Deng
Xiaoping phony communists and various so-called democratic
socialists.

What does it mean to be a democratic socialist in Peru? It
means providing a cover for fascism and a prolongation of the
starvation and grinding poverty of the masses. It means
pretending that democratic processes have a meaning where the
military slaughters entire villages and massacres prisoners.
It means deceiving the masses about the fundamental nature of
society in order to grab a share of power for yourself.

The following is an an unauthorized translation of some
excerpts from an interview with the Peruvian newspaper El
Diario and Communist Party of Peru Chairperson Gonzalo.
("Entrevista Al Presidente Gonzalo," Comite Central Partido
Comunista Del Peru, 1989)

El Diario: Chairperson. In Peru's case, what has been the
highest expression of revisionism? Who are its proponents?

Chairperson Gonzalo: It is formally called the Peruvian
Communist Party that is known publicly through the publication
(Unidad) Unity, fifth column of Soviet revisionism, which is
headed by the revisionist Jorge Del Prado, who some consider a
"dedicated revolutionary." And, in the second place, (Patria
Roja) Red Country, is the agency of Chinese revisionism with
its leaders adoring Deng Xiaoping. (p. 15)

El Diario: Why characterize the APRA government as fascist and
corporatist? What is the basis for this?

Gonzalo: On the characterization of the Aprista government
without treating the historical problems. . . . The APRA is in
a dilemma [contradiction?] with two tendencies, one of fascist
criteria and the other of liberal democratic criteria. . . .

When does the dilemma become defined? The dilemma is resolved
with the genocide of 1986, the class struggles of the masses,
the people's war, principally the genocidal action carried out
by the APRA to define itself as fascist with the triumph of
the fascist faction.

Why do we ay fascist? The fascist faction that has existed in
the APRA is going to take political measures for the
implementation of corporatization. . .

What do we mean by fascist and corporatist? For us, fascism is
the negation of the principles of liberal democracy; it is the
negation of the principles of the democratic bourgeoisie born
and developed in the 18th century in France.(pp. 80-3)

El Diario: During eight years [of armed struggle -- ed.] the
groups and parties of the right, of revisionism, of
opportunism and of all the parties of the reaction have
screamed and yelled that the PCP is "insane," "messianic,"
"bloodthirsty," "Pol Potian," "dogmatist," "sectarian,"
"narcoterrorist," . . . What do you say to these charges?

Gonzalo: [It is their] incapacity to understand People's War.
The enemies of the revolution are never able to understand it.
As regards taking the peasants under fire...because it is
precisely the immense majority of peasants that fall in with
the People's Guerrilla Army. The problem is understanding the
Peruvian state with its armed and repressive forces, which
want to drown the revolution in blood. It is our understanding
and recommendation that these mssrs. study a little about war
in general, revolutionary war and principally People's War and
Maoism; although we doubt they can understand it because of
the class position they hold. (p. 69)

El Diario: The reaction and the revisionists and the
opportunists of the United Left (IU), say the [Senderos] are
isolated from the masses. What can you say in this regard?

Gonzalo: To these revisionists and opportunists, I have a
question: "How do you explain the existence of a movement that
developed a people's war in eight years without international
support if you have no support from the masses?"

El Diario: What do you think of the political line of the IU?
What destiny do you assign to this revisionist front? And
about the ANP, what position does the PCP take?

Gonzalo: About this we want to be especially brief, first
because, "what is the line of Izquierda Unida (United Left) in
these moments?" We don't know it. From previous documents it
is "a front of masses of socialist tendency," and it makes
evident the fact that it is involved in parliamentary
cretinism. At the bottom of these positions what is there? A
question very simple --  to believe that they are able to
capture the government and immediately take power; since they
intend not to capture one without the other . . . because the
essential problem of the state is the system of the state, who
is to decide the dictatorship that is exercised, which class
is, and derive from this the system of government. The rest
are cheap elaborations of the rotten revisionists. . . . They
are not for the destruction of the state but are for  a
government that permits them to continue evolution of this
dying and rotten order, that is what they seek proclaiming
that with this government and reforms they are able to march
to socialism; and all this is simply unbridled revisionism
condemned by Lenin. . . .

As for the Popular National Assembly [ANP]. Good, the ANP is
an interesting case, for on the one side, it says, "it is the
birth of power," [connoting grassroots power -- ed.] very good,
"grassroots power." The question is are they desiring to form
soviets? Are they republishing the Bolivian experience with
Juan Jos Torres? Are they able to create a a power in this
way? Raising this supposed "grassroots power" is simply
building opposition to the New Power that we have been
constructing really and concretely.

On the other side, is also the ANP that says it is "a front of
the masses," oh, is that a competitor of the IU, also a "front
of the masses?" Good, that defines that case then. Is it
"grassroots power" or is it "front of the masses"? That case
concretely and clearly establishes it as invention of power.
What is the truth? Simply that the ANP is managed by the
revisionists.

El Diario: How do you define the politics of the front?

Gonzalo: We are absolutely opposed to the revisionist theory
that they apply in Central America and they want to send out
to other parts, of "all are revolutionaries," "all are
Marxists," "there is no need for a Communist Party to direct,"
"it is enough to simply unite everybody and base themselves in
a front for conducting a revolution." That is the negation of
Marxism; it is the negation of Marx; it is the negation of
Lenin; it is the negation of Chairperson Mao. . . .

[The party provides] the necessary direction, but we don't
want to make the revolution because it is the masses that want
to make the revolution, consequently the necessity of the
front's uniting 90% of the population, the immense majority;
that is what we are searching for, that is what we are
pursuing and that is what we are doing.

____________

If you had subscribed to MIM Notes, you knew this all already
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Here is just another piece of what is available on Peru:

(Question about political leadership leadership:)
Gonzalo: Here we have to remember the thesis of Lenin's about
the problem of the relation masses-classes-party-leaders. We
consider the revolution,  the party, the class generates
leaders, generates a group of leaders; in all revolutions
there is this aspect. If we think, for example in the October
Revolution, we have Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov and some others in
addition, a small group; the same in the Chinese Revolution,
again we have a small group of leaders: the Chairperson Mao
Zedong and the comrades Kang Sheng, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao
among other. All revolutions are this way. This is also the
case in ours. We are not able to be the exception. . . . All
processes, then, have leaders. . . . According to these
conditions, we are not able to assign all the leaders an equal
dimension: Marx is Marx; Lenin is Lenin; Chairperson Mao is
Chairperson Mao and each will never be repeated and no one is
equal to them.


>From MIM Notes 43, August 1, 1990

translated by MA10

The following is an excerpt from an  interview conducted in
1989 by the Peruvian newspaper El Diario which supported the
PCP and the people's war in Peru. This is the first in a two-
part series; next month MIM Notes will publish Chairperson
Gonzalo's discussion of the conditions for world revolution.
The interview is distributed by Red Flag Editions and is
available (in Spaninsh) from MIM for $6.00. (This is first
class mail; send  only cash or check made out to "ABS," MIM,
PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576)

Note: Where MIM translates "popular war," we should say
"People's War" in Maoist idiom.

Bureaucratic capitalism
El Diario:  Chairperson, what is the analysis of the PCP
(Communist Party of Peru) on the process of the Peruvian state
and where is it going? (p. 77)

Gonzalo:  We have an understanding of the contemporary
Peruvian society, understood as that which began in 1895, we
consider that from there began the process which we are living
and we think there are three moments. The first moment in
which were established bases for the (disentanglement) of
bureaucratic capitalism; a second moment after the second
world war because until then embraces the first, to go deeply
into bureaucratic capitalism; this (deepening) of bureaucratic
capital will mature the conditions for the revolution and with
the beginning of the popular war, in 1980, we entered the
third moment of general crisis of bureaucratic capitalism; the
destruction of the contemporary Peruvian society because it
historically lapsed/expired, consequently, what we see is its
finale and that which fits is hard work, and combat, and a
struggle to bury it.

Diario:  Why do you consider the thesis of bureaucratic
capitalism fundamental?

Gonzalo:  We consider this thesis of Chairperson Mao Tse-tung
key because without understanding it and acting on it, it
isnUt feasible to develop a democratic revolution without
conceiving of its uninterrupted continuation as a socialist
revolution.

We understand that bureaucratic capitalism, which began to
occur in Peru since (1895), in the three moments which we just
sketched. We conceive of this form, on a semifeudal base and
beneath a dominant imperialism develops a capitalism, a late
capitalism, a capitalism which was born from feudalism and
submitted to dominant imperialism. It is these conditions
which generated that which Chairperson Mao Tse-tung designated
bureaucratic capitalism. So, bureaucratic capitalism developed
the large monopoly capitalism which controlled the economy of
the country, capitalism made up of, as Chairperson Mao said,
the large capital of the large landowners, of the comprador
bourgeoisie and the large bankers; from here was generated the
bureaucratic capitalism (tied up/reiterated) with feudalism,
submitted to imperialism and monopoly, and this one must keep
in mind, is monopoly.

This capitalism reached a certain moment of evolution and
combined with the power of the state and used the economic
means of the state, utilized economic influence and this
process generated another faction of the grand bourgeoisie,
the bourgeois bureaucrat; in this way it will give a
development of bureaucratic capitalism which is
monopolistic... but this process will lead to generate
conditions which mature the revolution; this is another
important concept, speaking politically, which the Chairperson
raised regarding bureaucratic capitalism.

It is erroneous to consider that bureaucratic capitalism is
the capitalism which the state develops with the economic
means of production it has in its hands; it is erroneous, and
doesnUt (agree) with the thesis of Chairperson Mao Tsetung. It
would be enough to think this way, if bureaucratic capitalism
was only the state, if this capitalist state was confiscated
and the other, monopoly capitalism, wasn't, in whose hands
would it be? In those of the reactionary of the grand
bourgeoisie.

Besides, politically we permit a differentiation with much
clarity between the grand bourgeoisie and the national or
middle bourgeoisie, and this we see as instrumental to
understanding so as not to put ourselves at the tail of any of
the factions of the grand bourgeoisie, nor of the comprador
nor of the bureaucrats, which in Peru is what the revisionists
and the opportunists have done and continue to do, decades of
this sinister/left politics of labeling a faction of the grand
bourgeoisie as national bourgeoisie, progressive and
supportive. The comprehension of bureaucratic capitalism
allows us to understand the difference, reiterated, between
national bourgeoisie and grand bourgeoisie, and to understand
the correct tactic which we must follow: precisely that which
Maritegui established. For this we consider extremely
important the thesis of bureaucratic capitalism. (p. 79)

On Nicaragua

Diario:  What is your opinion of Nicaragua, what of Cuba? (p.
123)

Gonzalo:  I would like to reiterate that which I said in a
conversation with friends on these problems. Nicaragua had an
inconclusive revolution and its problem is that is didn't
destroy the power of all the grand bourgeoisie, it was
centered in antisomocismo, and I think this is a problem. A
democratic revolution must remove the three mountains and here
that wasnUt done. On the other hand, it developed within Cuban
criticisms readjusted in recent times and this simply lead it
to depend, in the final analysis, on the Soviet Union. How can
we understand this? Because in the conversations between
diplomatic representatives of the two superpowers is where...
we see and act the situation of Nicaragua, like that of
Afghanistan or that of the Middle East; they are all very
symptomatic of the steps of progress and counterprogress that
it is very coincidental with reunions and agreements of the
superpowers the measures taken in Nicaragua, in its
relationship with the contra.

We think that Nicaragua, as well deserves this heroic country,
to follow the correct road must develop the democratic
revolution completely, and this will demand a popular war, it
must break with the stick of command of the Soviet Union,
assume in its hands its own destiny and defend its class
independence and this demands a party, and obviously, to
subject to the concept of the proletariat; otherwise continue
being a pawn and this is lamentable. We think that this
country has shown the sign of great combativeness and its
historic destiny cannot continue without developing the
revolution as corresponds with a party based in Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism and a popular war, and develop itself
independently without guardianship of anyone, and no-one,
neither near nor far.

On Cuba
Of Cuba, I can only say this concretely, the game of a role in
service to the Soviet Union is not only in Latin America, it
is carried out in Angola for example, and in other places.
Passed from one hand to another hand, from one owner to
another; a process presented as an "exceptional case" to the
Cubans themselves.

Cuba has a high responsibility in America because it was a
hope; but we must record well what happened in 1970, Fidel
Castro said that the strategy of armed revolution had failed,
looked to abandon it, to leave that which was it incentive and
support. Douglas Brava left the front arguing that it wasn't
the fault of the strategy but of the "Castro" tactic, but also
unfortunately after Brava sought amnesty. We think these
situations have generated many problems in America, but today
these same criteria readjusted will be the voice of the social
imperialist owner spread and presented as a new revolutionary
development which will be concretized in Nicaragua. This is a
falsehood. That which we must affirm, is that Latin America is
already mature (enough) for popular war, and this is its road.
Latin America has an important role to carry out, we donUt
forget "backyard of the U.S." as the insolent imperialist
yanqui continues to say. Latin America also has importance in
the world, fulfilling the ideology of the proletariat, the

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, of forging
communist parties and moving toward popular wars within the
world revolution.

Latin America at the end of the century will be more than 500
million people. We have many things which unite us and we must
work together for closeness. I don't want to say that we will
disentangle from the world revolution, because we will only
fulfill our work as part of the world revolution; not enough
with Latin America, communism is for all the world or for no-
one. (p.125)

Peru and the world revolution

Diario:  What is the contribution of the Communist Party of
Peru to the world revolution?

Gonzalo:  The principal contribution is to (plan/outline/carry
out) Maoism, as the new, third and superior stage of Marxism;
we assumed serving and contributing what this ideology
constitutes in commanding and guiding the world revolution.
The question derived from this is to show the strength, the
transcendental perspective of Maoism. Also to show that it
principally supports the proper efforts, without continuing
the staff of command of the superpower, nor any imperialist
power, it's possible to make the revolution, and even that
it's necessary to do it thus; and demonstrate the potential of
popular war which is expressed in spite of all our
limitations. And if it happens, we will be as some say a hope,
that which implicated responsibility and will be a torch for
the world revolution, an example which can serve other
communists. In this way we are serving the world revolution.
___________________
Postcript by mc5:
The most difficult point above is the one concerning
bureaucrat capitalists. The context is the common revisionist
practice of seeing state-capitalists as progressive or at
least a certain wing of the bureaucratic capitalists as
progressive. Gonzalo is not attributing a "progressive" role
to state-capitalism the way many revisionists and "leftists"
do. In seeking temporary allies in a national bourgeoisie,
Gonzalo looks outside of the bureaucrat capitalist class.

________________

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