New edition (Issue 5) appeared of the Irish revolutionary journal , An Ghrian Dhearg (The Red Sun) – “Voice of MLM [Marxism-Leninism-Maoism] Ireland”.
* Front Cover: RESISTANCE IS NOT TERRORISM! * Editorial: * James Connolly: Irish Republican and Scientific Socialist * Revolutionary Contributions of LEILA KHALED * AR SON NA POBLACHTA: Putting Politics in Command * Revolutionary Contributions of COMRADE NORAH * Doctor Who: And the Horror of Liberalism * Against the Sex Trade * Revolutionary Contributions of LIAM MELLOWS * Class Structure and Mode Of Production In IRELAND
contactAn Ghrian Dhearg (The Red Sun)Send all correspondence and other materials to:email:isrmedia@protonmail.com
++++++++++++++ There was the reappearance this year of the political review, after a few years absence, of the online review, Communism from vivelemaoisme.org / materialisme-dialectique.com. COMMUNISM #17 September 2026 | Special issue : Summer 2026: a major crisis for the Communist Party of India (Maoist) https://materialisme-dialectique.com/communisme/Communism-17-September-2026.pdf
Maoist Road
In the last few days of September there was a minimal note on Maoist road blogsite stating
“Blog has been removed
Sorry, the blog at maoistroad.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.”
There was no access to its archive material just the statement of removal.
Good news, it was restored and reinstated by 30th September
LONG LIVE MAOISTROAD! FORWARDS UNITY OF COMMUNIST MARXIST-LENINIST-MAOISTS IN THE WORLD
AGAINST REVISIONISM, RIGHT OPPORTUNISM AND ‘LEFT’ OPPORTUNISM ‘ULTRAMAOIST’
What happened?
Google informed Maoist Road that it had removed the site under the conditions of “our Community Guidelines (https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy)”. They had “received a request to review your blog, “maoistroad.” We determined that it violates our policies… of what we allow—and do not allow—on Blogger…Your content violated the policy regarding Violent Organizations and Movements.”
Obviously what the incident illustrated is the vulnerability for communicating and ability of the internet to close down channels at whim. Some bogus mischievous “report” is made, supposedly evaluated according to self-regulation guidelines and then the decision rescinded upon appeal to those vey same guidelines. This came at a time when issued its monthly September visitors’ numbers of 262,432 up to the 26th.
Uganda
The American site, Breakthrough News, along with other leftist sites carried a report at the beginning of September on the Uganda’s state harassment of newly form political group in the African country. Nicholas Mwangi, September 2 2026.
Uganda Communist League members arrested after inaugural congress
Members of the newly formed Communist League of Uganda were arrested recently just after holding their inaugural National Congress in the country.
The Communist League of Uganda said several of its members, including Vice Chairperson Habibu Twahala, Odeke Dan, and Namususwa Patricia, were arrested on August 29, 2026, while participating in a mobilization drive.
The arrests came shortly after the League held its first National Congress, marking the organization’s formal effort to establish itself as a political organization representing working-class interests in Uganda.
According to the League, however, its members were targeted for engaging in political mobilization.
Their “crime,” the organization said, was “nothing more than standing up, in public, for the dignity of the working people of Uganda.”
“For this, they were seized, detained, and held against their will by a state apparatus that fears the organized power of its own people,” the League said.
Allegations of mistreatment
The League alleges that the arrested members were severely beaten while in detention.
Those involved in securing their release said they remained concerned about their physical condition, with the detainees reportedly not feeling well following their treatment in custody. The League said the detained members were eventually released following pressure and mobilization from supporters in Uganda and abroad.
“We are relieved to report that, following sustained pressure, mobilization, and the unrelenting demands of comrades both at home and abroad, all those detained have now been released,” the statement said.
But the organization insists that it did not regard the release as an end to the matter.
“But their freedom was not given, it was extracted, bitterly and only after our collective refusal to remain silent,” the League said.
League calls out wider repression
The Communist League of Uganda said the arrests should be understood within a wider political context.
“This arrest did not occur in a vacuum,” the League said. “It is part of a broader pattern of state repression against organizers, trade unionists, and left political movements across Uganda who dare to challenge entrenched power, corruption, and the economic order that keeps the majority of our people in poverty while a small elite enriches itself.”
The organization argued that the criminalization of political mobilization was directly connected to the ability of working people to organize collectively.
“Mass mobilization is criminalized precisely because it is effective, because when working people organize and raise their voices together, they threaten the interests that depend on their silence and division,” it said.
The League further said that the arrests represented an attempt to discourage political organizing beyond the individuals detained.
“The targeting of Comrades Twahala, Odeke, and Namususwa is an attack not just on three individuals, but on the right of all Ugandans to organize, assemble, and demand a better future,” the statement said.
“It is an attempt to instill fear in our ranks and to deter others from joining the struggle. We say clearly it will not work.”
Calls for political freedoms
Following the arrests, the Communist League of Uganda demanded an end to what it described as harassment and surveillance of its members and other activists involved in peaceful political organizing.
The League called for guarantees of the constitutional rights to freedom of assembly, expression and political association for all Ugandan citizens.
It also demanded that any remaining charges or conditions imposed on the released members be dropped.
The organization appealed to communist, socialist and progressive organizations internationally to publicize what it described as an act of repression.
“We call upon fraternal communist, socialist, and progressive organizations across the world to publicize this act of repression through your own networks, publications, and platforms,” the statement said.
The Communist Party Marxist of Kenya also expressed solidarity with the Communist League of Uganda and called for the release of its members.
Arrests follow inaugural congress
Notably, the arrests came immediately after the Communist League of Uganda’s inaugural National Congress, at a moment when the organization is attempting to consolidate its structures and expand its political work.
The emergence of the League adds another left-wing organization to Uganda’s contested political realities, where opposition politicians, activists, trade unionists and civil society groups have raised concerns over restrictions on political organizing and public assembly.
The political environment has also included the continued detention of opposition figure Kizza Besigye, whose case has drawn international attention and renewed scrutiny of political freedoms in Uganda.
Communist League of Uganda
Past Polemic Revisited – Bangladesh
From November 2023, Our Position/Views on some of the subjects of Debate on the International Line by the Proletarian Party of Purba Bangla /Bangladesh, “the formation of the ICL not only created a sectarian wound in the ongoing unity process of international Maoists”. Read more
In the years since Chairman Gonzalo’s arrest in 1992, the people’s war has suffered very serious setbacks. The level and geographic extent of the fighting has declined dramatically, especially since the late 1990s. It is not clear how many if any Open People’s Committees – the revolutionary political power of the peasants the party established in the countryside during the high tide of the people’s war – and how many clandestine People’s Committees survive.
Chairman Gonzalo’s conduct in the course of this current trial has added even greater weight to the serious and concurring evidence from many different sources over the years that he is very likely to have been the source of the call to end the war. How the PCP faced this situation has been central to the development of the current state of affairs.
The People’s War led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) has advanced to a new stage: strategic equilibrium. The revolutionary army has become strong enough to win relative stability for the revolutionary base areas, where the poor peasants and other masses in the countryside hold political power. The political power of the masses is the guerrillas’ “secret weapon”, driving forward the development of the whole war. Today, Yankee analysts and politicians are considering the prospects for a countrywide PCP victory – and planning out a whole new level of aggression to try to prevent it. MARCH 1992
Armed Shutdown in the Jungle Hills: An Eyewitness Account ~ An account of the recent resounding advances in the people’s war in Peru being led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP).
Develop the People’s War to Serve the World Revolution
An important new document from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru describes the progress in constructing a new people’s regime through the people’s war against the reactionary Peruvian state.
Message of the Second International Conference Letters from the PCP
The PCP Speaks on “Terrorism”
The Andes mountains are the birthplace of the most significant revolutionary struggle in the world today-the People’s War being led by the Communist Party of Peru, sometimes referred to as Sendero Luminoso. Today this struggle is quickly developing in scope and breadth as the “armed battalions of the poor “take on · · the Peruvian government throughout the country. “When the Andes Roar” examines the · latest offensive, as well as ·the history· and aims, of the Peruvian guerrillas.
Sample primary source documents from the various groups engaged in the rhetorical polemics generated digitally and in print. Twenty-three documents drawn from the era of Guzman’s imprisonment and reflecting the variety of evaluation within the self-declared solidarity groups . 171 pages [Machine assisted translations]
The online Redlibrary reflects that historic fragmentation and polemics that engulfed supporters of the Peruvian revolution. In the aftermath of the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo there was real confusion on what was the authentic voice of the Party.
Amidst this fragmentation, overseas sympathsiers mirrored the division of competing claims as each faction claimed fidelity as the PCP of Gonzalo Thought. The polemical wave unleashed, all sound and fury directed at the opportunists, revisionists, and capitulators in other groups.
Divisions are reflected in the information ecosystem as opposing tendencies host selection of writings attributed to the rival post-1992 leadership claims to the Communist Party of Peru.
This is acknowledged on the unaligned Gonzalist RedLibrary site, structured with sections that accredits works issued “After the Usurp of the Main Regional Committee of the PCP (1999)”, and “Works After the Usurp of Red Sun (Sol Rojo) (2011-Present)”
Their explanation why some Peruvian related work were being removed from the site’s public access and would not be hosted on Red Library reflects the political decision on which is the authentic voice of the PCP. It reflects the doubt of whether you can trust the posting of new additions and editions with corrections?
Since 2026, various Chairman Gonzalo, Communist Party of Peru, and Peru People’s Movement works that were sourced from “The New Flag” have been gradually taken down from Red Library.
Redlibrary’s explanation is that “The New Flag” (associated with Luis Quispe) has issues of legitimacy that can be seen through comparison of the works of the Communist Party of Peru that they hosted, as well as the works of their “Peru People’s Movement” that they hosted, which contradict those of the—until May 2011—verified and reputable Peru People’s Movement promoted on Red Sun, before it was usurped by reaction in May 2011.
Due to the below examples, which strongly suggest
1) tampering of Communist Party of Peru documents to remove explicit mention of the Revisionist and Capitulationist Right Opportunist Line, and
2) promotion of a fraudulent Peru People’s Movement, “The New Flag” will no longer be used as a source on Red Library.
Redlibrary state that SolRojo.org, and its English counterpart, RedSun.org, used to represent the genuine and correct Peru People’s Movement up until May 2011 when Red Sun was usurped by the “Left” Opportunist Line of José. However, since the Main Regional Committee of the PCP was usurped in 1999, the hosted PCP documents written after that point have been fraudulent even before 2011.
It claims that “This is the only known website with a comprehensive collection of post-1999 genuine PCP documents in English. All of the pre-1999 PCP works hosted are also legitimate.”
This is a brief comparison of certain websites that host works by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), given that the situation regarding legitimate sources for PCP works online is somewhat hazy for the uninformed. So these comments involve groups who self-identify as MLM with a Gonzaloist predominance but politically question the others evaluation and honesty which can be perplexing for those unfamiliar with the byzantine evolution of the groups involved. This is RedLibrary’s guide and neither endorsed nor condemned in the usual centrist dilemma, so FYI:
BanderaRoja.org is probably the best online resource for PCP works, given that it hosts entirely legitimate works spanning from 1968 to the present day (2024 as of writing this). Spanish only.
Pagina-Libre.org is the supposed former website of the Peru People’s Movement – Germany, although this represents the Revisionist and Capitulationist Right Opportunist Line in Peru. This site has Spanish and German translations of certain PCP works, but there is not much point to using it as a resource for genuine PCP works given its lack in quantity and high prevalence of works from the Revisionist and Capitulationist Right Opportunist Line. Just check BanderaRoja.org for Spanish works.
pcp71028.wordpress.com is a website that hosts many supposed “PCP” works in Spanish, English, and occasionally other languages such as French. This website is representative of the Revisionist and Capitulationist Right Opportunist Line in Peru and therefore represents a fraudulent “Central Committee” of the PCP. This has been the case in all of their post-1992 works in hand with the fabrication of the “peace accords.” Here is an example of a capitulationist work they host, in favour of the “peace accords”: ¡LUCHAR POR UN ACUERDO DE PAZ Y SENTAR BASES PARA EL II CONGRESO! (STRUGGLE FOR A PEACE ACCORD AND LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE SECOND CONGRESS!)
RedLibrary.info (as they assert) hosts exclusively English translations of legitimate PCP works, mostly sourced from BanderaRoja.org or The New Flag website. This is the only known website with a comprehensive collection of post-1999 genuine PCP documents in English. All of the pre-1999 PCP works hosted are also legitimate.
SolRojo.org, and its English counterpart, RedSun.org, used to represent the genuine and correct Peru People’s Movement up until May 2011 when Red Sun was usurped by the “Left” Opportunist Line of José. However, since the Main Regional Committee of the PCP was usurped in 1999, the hosted PCP documents written after that point have been fraudulent even before 2011. This can be read about here.
The Communist Party of Peru [PCP] led by Chairman Gonzalo (aka Sendero Luminoso) did looked beyond the Peruvian borders for its transnational connections with international support coming from political sympathisers – mainly within the Peruvian diaspora and , from the mid-1980s the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, and those with humanitarian concerns about the situation in Peru.
Without the backing of any national state support – China, the cradle of Maoism, along with the revisionist-laden Soviet Union and Cuba, condemned the Sendero Luminoso as terrorists – the various intelligence and state propaganda offensive against the overseas solidarity network ,severely limited the international audience for the Communist Party of Peru, what Western media generally referred to as Sendero Luminoso / Shining Path’s support.
Throughout the 1980s the Peru People’s Movement operated to communicate and amplify the views of the Communist Party of Peru. The Peru People’s Movement (MPP), sustained initially by exiles in Sweden, had in their own fashion agitated and propagated for the cause of the revolution in Peru. Practically every article posted contains the assertion of a heritage that MPP is “the body generated by the Party for party work abroad”.
Founded in Malmö, Sweden by Javier Esparza (brother-in-law of Abimael Guzmán) , there was a central MPP and several MPPs organized in grassroots committees, notably in the United States, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain. It was the presence of a Peruvian emigrant community that was decisive in the existence of these local MPPs. and later expanded to other countries including Germany, Norway, and the United States.
The assessment of a French online review Communism recalled that “the MPP has exerted a notable influence on the Peruvian community in Paris, being able to carry out several major initiatives, such as concerts. The impact of the People’s War in Peru was such that there was a real keen interest Peruvians abroad. The peak is in 1992-1993.” history of the MPP
“Gonzalo’s arrest in 1992 and the ensuing ebb of People’s War made a big difference to the MPP. Previously, the mass dimension took precedence. Henceforth, ideological questions came to the fore. However, the MPP was to serve as a sounding board only. With the arrest of Gonzalo and the political issues that arose out of it, the MPP unwittingly found itself embroiled in some very bitter debates. It was by no means ready for this and it made it partly fall back to a very formal style.”
“The consequence was a split within the MPP, local groups taking their autonomy and claiming to be the historical channel of the MPP, as opposed to the usual channel of central leadership. It wasn’t the only problem. When in 1993, Alberto Fujimori claimed that Gonzalo was calling for peace, for an end to the People’s War, it caused a split in the MPP in the sense of establishing support for the surrender, for the renegades in Peru. There were thus three camps: the central MPP, the MPP having taken their autonomy, the post-MPP structures holding the end of the people’s war and advocating peace agreements (and initially sometimes keeping the name of MPP). It goes without saying that in the first part of the 1990s, all this entailed great confusion among those who supported the MPP. This is all the more true since there were free electrons. In Belgium, Luis Arce Borja published “El Diario Internacional” claiming to be the voice of the PCP, just like Adolfo Olaechea in England.”
“Gonzalo’s arrest caused internal unrest. The left-wing splits of the MPP then launched the offensive by saying that the RIM was blocked, that its London-based Committee (held by the American and Iranian sections) was rotten, that we had moved to a new stage and that we had to move on. The (central) MPP refused open battle, the left-wing splits of the MPP led it all the more open, especially in the United States (with the review “New flag”) and in Switzerland.” Communism #15 September 2021
The Peru People’s Movement (MPP maintained the flames, even it faced numerous splits criticised as both rightist (for example in Germany and France) and leftist (for example in Switzerland and France).
“For the leadership of the MPP, as a generated body, it was necessary to await the instructions of the Party. But these did not come, and by the way never came; it was therefore necessary to continue everything as before. This can be seen in the publications of its organ, Red Sun / Sol Rojo. It’s the same rhetoric over and over again and nothing new is ever brought forward.” Communism #15 September 2021
The main purpose of the MPP was to spread ideological materials and propaganda abroad, with emphasis on drawing international support for the Shining Path’s people’s war. Another purpose was to make links with local Maoist or left-wing parties, whether to propagate propaganda or to try to influence them into the Gonzalo Thought. It sought to organize public meetings bringing together very few people and without impact, but playing a symbolic role. There were international conferences of varying success. MPP were listed as sponsoring organisation but the number of additional signatures had diminished. In the 2000s, the MPP signed a large number of documents with what became the Maoist Communist Party of Italy and the TKP (ML), the Communist Party of Turkey (Marxist-Leninist)
The MPP went more and more isolated; in 2013, it worked closely with the Communist Party of Ecuador – Reconstruction Committee, but this new organization collapsed.
Elsewhere the gravity has shifted to German based activists. Those at vnd-peru at nuevo_peru@yahoo.de transformed to represent the Peru People’s Movement (Reorganization Committee) which works to represent the left line on the international stage. The media “Dem Volke dienen” (Serving the people) became its vector, systematically opening the floodgates to recruit around a new ideology: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Gonzalo- Thought.
The central MPP, the usual channel, was denounced as having fallen into the hands of secret agents and the new MPP (Reorganization Committee) benefited from more and more support: Red Flag Committee – Germany, Red Flag Collective – Finland, Maoist Communist Party (from France), Serve the People – League of Communists – Norway, Committee for the Foundation of the (Maoist) Communist Party of Austria, Communist Party of Brazil (Red Fraction), Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun.
Peru People’s Movement, upheld Gonzalo Thought and exerting leadership over international organizations in its tendency, expressed “its full, voluntary, unconditional and conscious subjection to our Great leadership Chairman Gonzalo, the invincible people’s war in the complex situation of overcoming the bend in the road, a struggle to death against the ROL and the LOL. And, being a people’s war that is part of and serves the world revolution, the Party strives accordingly for the struggle to impose Maoism and against revisionism on world level.”
Political opponents in the wider solidarity movement, argue otherwise arguing there has been so much confusion due to the enemy’s misinformation about developments and political line : “what the counterrevolutionary element, which Sol Rojo magazine and its website has usurped, affirms is a pure lie. It’s story. It is part of the enemy’s disinformation campaign, it is part of psychological warfare (a fundamental and indispensable component of the “low intensity war” led by Yankee imperialism).” [2012 Critical document of the New Democracy Association. (Germany)]
While each group claims loyalty to Gonzaloist Thought, they condemn the others as either counter-revolutionary, revisionists or just plain liars. VND’s warning to fellow solidarity activists was that “solrojo.org” and fellow thinkers in the Swedish “maoistiskforum.org” publish documents from a “central committee” that does not exist.
“They pretend to have a functioning central committee fighting for the political line chaired by President Gonzalo. In statement after statement, they have stated that the People’s War is strong and that the party leadership works satisfactorily. That way, people in Peru wonder as “waiting for the party to come back” instead of taking up the struggle to rebuild the party. Through these lies, the website solrojo.org is politically entirely in the service of US imperialism and the Peruvian reaction.
We hoped that the people behind solrojo.org would shut down the business when people around the world have seen them and instead work with the comrades of the New Democracy Association in Germany, which reflects a true perception of the situation. Now it has been a long time since their lies became widely known but they continue to spread them on the internet. We therefore feel obliged to issue this warning.”
For over a quarter of the century, Sol Rojo website has consistently reiterated the claim that MPP is “the generated organization of the Communist Party of Peru for the international work”, and been the source of numerous delusional rhetorical statements, such as at Mayday 2023 in its’,
“call all the communists and revolutionaries of the world to continue struggling implacably to assume and apply Maoism to the concrete conditions, crushing revisionism within and outside the Parties, to be able to build or reconstitute the Communist Parties in each country as militarized Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties and fulfill their task of preparing, initiating and developing the people’s war in each country.”
LONG LIVE MAY 1st, THE DAY OF THE INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAT! MAOISM MARCHES UNSTOPPABLY TO TAKE COMMAND OF THE NEW WAVE OF THE WORLD PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION!
————————————————
In Europe, Sendero Luminoso /Shining Path advocacy groups called Sol Peru Committees were working in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
These groups narrowed their appeal to those favourable to revolutionary politics as overtly the objectives include performing proselytism, collecting funds, making propaganda, and spreading a positive image of Sendero Luminoso.
The committee’s financial support for the Shining Path was raised through cultural and artistic events such as the Musical Guerrilla Army, conferences, and selling brochures such as El Diario, when the official newspaper of the group. Materials include literature, leaflets, posters, and even music. For example, in 1999, the MPP helped create and distribute an album called Songs of the Shining Trenches of Combat from Shining Path prisoners held in Miguel Castro Castro prison. Years before, the Musical Guerrilla Army made tours to perform pro-Shining Path songs.
In the United States, the cause of the Sendero Luminoso was embraced by the Revolutionary Communist Party, a New Communist Movement organization that distributes material on the revolution in Peru, pamphlets and books, leaflets and posters through Revolution Books, a nationwide network of radical bookstores. Heriberto Ocasio, the effort’s American leader, says there are chapters in Berkeley, Chicago and New York. There was significant overlap between the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru, formed in 1985 and headquarters in Berkeley, San Francisco.
The emergence of another group associated with Peruvian exile Luis Quispe served to provoke sectarian enmity before his departure to Danish exile.
London’s Sol Peru Committee, headed by exile member of one of Peru’s oldest and most traditional oligarchical families, who ran an 11-language translation service, Adolfo Olaechea sponsored “solidarity events,” often accompanied by music from a London band called the Musical Guerrilla Army. Set up in 1991, regular street performances around Covent Garden and other tourist hotspots, performed concerts in such places as the Old White House in Brixton and the Emerald Centre in Hammersmith, England. Typical lyrics were: “The people’s blood has a beautiful aroma…. Chairman Gonzalo, Light of the Masses…. The blood of the armed people nourishes the armed struggle.”
Abimael Guzman (also known as Chairman Gonzalo), the leader of the Communist Party of Peru, was captured by Peruvian state forces on September 14, 1992, in Lima, Peru. Sentenced by military tribunal, he died still imprisoned on September 11, 2021.
Within days of his arrest Senderista supporters abroad mobilised “To move heaven and earth to save the life of Chairman Gonzalo”. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, whose magazine, A World to Win, sponsored the global campaign, was instrumental in creating the ‘International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzman’ to defend his life from possible execution after he was convicted for committing terrorism.
International Committee(s) to Defend the Life of Dr Abimal Guzman were set following a founding congress in Duisburg, Germany although its co-ordinating Headquarters was established in London, the same location for CoRIM (Committee of the RIM, CoRIM, the leading body of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement) https://archive.org/details/SpeechesFromTheFoundingConferenceOfTheIec
By September 20th 1993, the IEC began issuing regular bulletins and other messages by fax to the local defence committees that were being established in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and North and South America. Among them was a letter from Alfredo Crespo, Chairman Gonzalo’s lawyer, who wrote, “My client is aware of the concern of your organization and appreciates all of the efforts that are being undertaken.”
The launching of a vigorous international campaign in a brief period of time, saw various forms of activities had started to mushroom in a number countries, Nepal, Germany, Turkey, Columbia and US. These included sending delegations to present demands at Peruvian embassies, street marches, vigils, public meetings, graffiti writing, protests against the press and collecting money for newspaper advertisements.
A 1994 production , You must tell the world~ tells the story of Dr. Guzman’s capture and imprisonment, in a video-documentary, in Spanish with English subtitles and the international campaign which arose to defend Dr. Guzman’s life and to stand with the struggling people of Peru. Available on the internet: https://archive.org/details/YouMustTellTheWorld
October 7th, the IEC called for an International Day of Action: actions took place in Mexico City, in San Diego, San Francisco, and New York in the U.S., in London, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Hamburg and other German cities, and in Copenhagen, Denmark. Even the Peruvian Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands was not spared. In South Africa, students protested outside the U.S. Consulate in Durban and held a meeting in Cape Town, and in Asia there were demonstrations in several cities in the Indian state of Kerala, as well as in Dhaka and other parts of Bangladesh, and in Canberra, Australia. There were mobilisations worldwide.
The regular publication of an ‘Emergency Bulletin’ (some 61 issues by February 2001) kept subscribers informed. Besides local meetings and protests arranged, between 1992-2001 seven International Delegations to Peru were organised.
Other International publications either published by or in support of the Communist Party of Peru – Sendero Luminoso, the revolutionary struggle that was taking place in the country in the 1990s and the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr Abimael Guzmán (IEC).
El Diario Internacional , In Spanish occasional English ed., based in exile in Beligum was Luis Arce Borja edited El Diario, receiving fraternal support from the PTB/PVAD,and La Nueva Bandera and Peru Emergency Newsletter/Noticiera de Emergencia del Peru.
On September 24th when Guzman/Gonzalo was “exhibited” striped uniform with a large prisoner’s number on his chest, enclosed in a steel animal cage, surround by armed troops, refusing to be intimidated or distracted, delivered an historic message to the Party and the people of Peru and the world. The arrest was nothing more than a “bend in the road” of the people’s war, he said, shouting to be heard over the roaring motors of a hovering military helicopter. He called for the party to persist. Cage speech, AWTW no. 18.
More contentious reaction came in 1993 with the allegation that, from jail, Guzmán had called for an end to the armed struggle and negotiated a “peace accord” with the government. This situation was presented by MPP not as a struggle within the party but rather as a straightforward attack upon the party line by hostile and reactionary forces from outside and within the party. It was the peace accord hoax vs people’s war.
In October 1993, Peru’s Alberto Fujimori triumphantly announced that Abimael Guzman had written him a letter asking for negotiations to end the people’s war. Afterwards he released a video of the chairman and Elena Iparraguirre (a top party leader known as Comrade Miriam, Chairman Gonzalo’s companion) reading the letters. Still photos showed the two flanked by other prisoners, some known to be prominent Sendero leaders.
The party’s Central Committee, comprising those party leaders remaining free, rejected this call as a “Right Opportunist Line” (ROL). “What goes against principles cannot be accepted,” the party said, adding, “It is an international communist norm that one cannot lead from inside prison.” But they said more than that: The whole thing was a “hoax” concocted by the regime in collaboration with the US and a “black grouplet” of renegade imprisoned (and now expelled) party members. The idea that Chairman Gonzalo could be associated with it was a “plot”, part of US-sponsored “low intensity warfare” against the people’s war. The man who looked like Gonzalo, the party told people, was an actor.
Gonzalo made this demand from prison, which would immediately be treated as dubious (i.e. someone in prison should no longer lead and any statement made by a political prisoner should be treated as suspect due to the possibility of coercion). The calls for peace accords really did go against what Chairman Gonzalo had previously stood for.
The MPP has continued to support both Chairman Gonzalo and the “people’s war.” The emphasis may have moved to stress Gonzalo Thought however Guzmán had called for an end to the people’s war and allegedly condemned those who continue it as ‘mercenaries for criminal organizations.’ Although totally inconsistent with the stand that the MPP had expressed, others sought to also concentrate on political line rather than authorship, most prominently in the interventions of A World to Win, magazine of the Maoist Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) that published the call to “Move Heaven and Earth to Defend the Life of Chairman Gonzalo”. A WORLD TO WIN #18 (1992)
What became clear after Guzan’s arrest was that those who were in charge of the PCP’s military structure had a different plan for the party. Over the following years the PCP splintered into various factions––the VRAE faction of José (Victor Quispe Palomino), and the Huallaga Valley faction of Artemio (Gabriel Macario), and various other factions including those who were in exile in Europe and still devoted to Gonzalo.
Guzmán captured in Lima in 1992 and later called for a “peace accord” precipitated a split in the PCP with those who maintained the armed struggle; a group led by the Quispe Palomino clan based in the VRAEM region eventually declaring Guzmán to be a traitor, while another group, based further north in the Huallaga Valley, remained loyal to the pre-1992 line.
Led by Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, alias “Comrade Artemio,” the last senderista to have fought alongside with Abimael Guzman from the first days of the Shining Path insurgency in the 1980s.
The VRAE and Upper Huallaga Valley factions split in 1999 after the capture of then leader Comrade Feliciano (Oscar Ramirez Durand). After Feliciano’s capture, Comrade Jose’s faction disavowed the Shining Path of Guzman, Feliciano and Artemio, who they criticized for alienating the campesinos during the war against the State in 1980s and for offering truces to the government once Guzman was captured.
Reportedly now there is no link between the senderista guerrillas still in the field and the high commanders in prison, although allegations appear in the Lima media of relations with armed militants and Movadef, a rising political movement that the government sees as a “front” for the Shining Path following Guzman’s line. The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (Movadef), founded in 2009 by Abimael Guzman’s lawyers and admirers of “Gonzalo Thought (pensamiento Gonzalo),” identified as the “peace accord” aligned Communist Party of Perú that still publishes statements under the imprint of Red Flag Editions produced using red print eg ONE YEAR AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF CHAIRMAN GONZALO from September 2022 that ”condemn his infamous assassination, the cremation and disappearance of his remains, and the impunity of this crime. Therefore, it is necessary to continue fighting for its clarification and for his assassins’ conviction.”
There were reports shortly after Feliciano’s arrest in 1999 (who was leading the PCP after Gonzalo’s arrest) of Senderistas entering villages and self-criticizing for what they deemed were excesses performed under Gonzalo’s leadership. It became clear that these activities, which were performed by the VRAE faction, signalled the end of the PPW––that is, the end of actually attempting to seize state power. Jose’s faction mainly engaged in spectacular armed stunts but does so without any clear strategy; regarded by many ways as resembling a warlord rather than a maoist organization. Artemio’s faction, on the other hand, fought for the “peace accords” Gonzalo supposedly demanded.
A series of captured militants were paraded in front of the media to report their conversion to supporting the peace accord, often after claiming to speak with Chairman Gonzalo, only to be insulted and label by former comrades as with the 1999 arrest of one of the last militarily active, “Feliciano, bourgeois militarist leader, usurper, black head of the splitist bloc and revisionist line, have served the government’s plans, its pacification plan”.
Most of his followers laid down their arms, but nevertheless, even after Guzmán’s capture, Sendero Luminoso splinter groups, each asserting a linage to or as the PCP, continue a low-level guerrilla war in isolated areas of Peru for years, but they ceased to be a significant political threat to the Peruvian state.
The number of large-scale military actions in general declined considerably : Overcome the Bend in the Road by Developing the People’s War, a report adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) in October 1995 [A World To Win #23 1998] resembled less a blueprint and more a reading list and motivational mottos.
The narrative of the Peruvian authorities is that the remnants of the Shining Path prefer to identify themselves as the Militarized Communist Party of Peru (Militarizado Partido Comunista del Perú – MPCP) and criminally engaged in a narrow but strategic drug trafficking corridor between the departments of Junín, Ayacucho, and Huancavelica in the VRAEM, the country’s main drug producing region.
ACCUSATIONS WITHIN THE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
What happened was the splintering of the solidarity effort as events in Peru was subject to differing analysis among overseas supporters. Factionalism and sectarianism was prevalent in all shades of political solidarity work and dominate in relations for the last three decades with charges of state agents infiltrating the revolutionary and democratic forces engaged in solidarity work around the struggle in Peru.
The work of academics and journalists were long regarded as bourgeois-tainted serving the interest of the Peruvian State. There was a digital flame war, a wave of accusations and counter charges, slanderous style in personal attack and defamation of named individual activists labelled outright “police agents” or “agents of reaction”.
For the Peru People’s Movement’s truth cannot be suppressed,
“To us, Chairman Gonzalo is the Great Leadership of our revolution in Peru, center of Party unity and guarantee of triumph until communism, because he is a Great Leadership based on Gonzalo Thought, the creative application of Maoism to our reality in Peru – based on the whole practical experience of our revolution. It is not, and it has never been the PCP’s position that Gonzalo Thought has universal validity. However, we do insist that 1) Chairman Gonzalo and Gonzalo Thought have had, and continue to have today, a decisive role of undeniable importance in the struggle to defend and apply the principles of Maoism and impose it on world level and 2) Chairman Gonzalo and Gonzalo Thought give contributions to Marxism, like the militarization of the Communist Parties, and “we consider this experience to have universal validity, which is why it is a demand and a necessity that the Communist Parties of the world be militarized”. – MPP speech at the International Conference in Madrid, October 27 2012
Its politics remains frozen: from its position in exile, the MPP propagated the leadership cult that had germinated under Gonzalo’s active leadership. However the discrepancy in its position was a fundamentalist belief the allegation of the “peace accords” were a state-inspired hoax unrelated to the imprisoned Chairman. He was regarded as the symbol of intransigence, perseverance, the affirmation of the red line in the 1980s.
The theoretical guidelines have remain consistent, grounded for them in their reality that the PCP, through the People’s War, has been upholding and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, (principally Maoism), and its creative development Gonzalo Thought, since 1981. That is, more than 12 years before RIM’s adoption of MLM at the prompting of the Peruvian party.
“The Peru People’s Movement expresses its full, voluntary, unconditional and conscious subjection to our Great leadership Chairman Gonzalo, the greatest Marxist-Leninist-Maoist living on the face of the Earth, center of party unity and guarantee of triumph until Communism, to the whole Party, the heroic combatant, to its Central Committee and to the whole system of Party leadership.”
“Our Party, the Communist Party of Peru, firmly led by its Central Committee, continues to carry forward the invincible people’s war in the complex situation of overcoming the bend in the road, advancing in the mass work in the midst of a struggle to death against the ROL and the LOL. And, being a people’s war that is part of and serves the world revolution, the Party strives accordingly for the struggle to impose Maoism and against revisionism on world level.”
“Fundamentally, these ideological and political problems in the ICM have their origin in the negation of Maoism as third, new and higher stage of Marxism. Only Communist Parties built on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism can maintain the course of the revolution. This cannot mean taking up Maoism only as a label, or taking Chairman Mao’s theses as mechanical formulas” – RED SUN #44: DEVELOP THE DEBATE IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT ABOUT THE APPLICATION OF MAOISM!
Uphold, defend and apply Maoism and crush revisionism
MPP and others celebrated and reference the defiant “bend in the road” and documentation prior to Gonzalo’s arrest as the authentic line to follow. Although a minnow in the international Gonzaloist camp, the MPP is unwavering in its position that Gonzalo played a leading ideological role by being the great commentator on Maoism. He formulated the general principles of Maoism, he indicated how to proceed to grasp it. It was an unquestioning implementation of that line, and publicising its continued application and success that characterised MPP’s propaganda. The argument is clearly stated (but not substantiated) the People’s War in Peru was never defeated. Yes, it experienced a great deal of setbacks, none of this however at any point resulted in the People’s War ending. For the MPP, in whatever remnant remains, there is still a Party, Army, and New State/Front actively continuing it, at the moment the party is reorganizing however which is why you don’t hear of many attacks.
The grandstanding calls on their website, Red Sun provides nothing more than generic positions derived from position established more than thirty years ago that have not progressed any further.
At best, MPP illustrate evidence of resilient idealism, an acceptance of protracted struggle but free of tactical or analytical content on the practice and progress within the Peruvian national arena, let alone on the global stage. On the website there is little that go beyond the fundamental assertions (this from October, 2013) that
“in the midst of the people’s war, the First Congress of the Party was realized in 1988, the first Marxist Congress, that defined our Basis of Party Unity that continues to be valid and is the BPU to which the whole Party subjects; with its three elements, the ideology, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo thought, principally Gonzalo thought, the Program and the General Political Line with its center the Military Line. And with this BPU, with this Great leadership and its all-powerful thought, with the principles of our class, the victory is guaranteed. Therefore, the struggle to death against revisionism as the main danger is decisive for the people’s war.
COMBAT THE IMPERIALIST PLAN OF “PEACE ACCORDS” AND PARLIAMENTARY CRETINISM! UNLEASH THE TWO LINE STRUGGLE IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AGAINST REVISIONISM AND OPPORTUNISM! LONG LIVE MAOISM! DOWN WITH REVISIONISM! PEOPLE’S WAR UNTIL COMMUNISM!
Peru People’s Movement | Madrid, 19th of October, 2013
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The fractured solidarity camp saw each organisation swearing fidelity to the PCP-SL but critical of other groups. The political attacks upon differences with comrades, often posted on Marxmail List, occurs against a background of “shared” dedication to the imprisoned Chairman. Scathing sectarian attacks and accusation made without proof masquerading as forthright criticism and initiating line struggle in its wake. The internecine fighting amongst PCP supporter factions abroad occurred when there was in fact no official PCP representatives abroad at this time other than the claimed representative status that the Peru People’s Movement, advertised as the generated organization of the PCP for the Party work abroad. There were Peruvian exiles given almost “ambassador” status by other supporters, individuals like Luis Arce Borja, and London-based Adolfo Olaechea, to militants in Scandinavian exile.
The MPP argued that the RCP/CoRIM (Committee of the RIM, CoRIM, the leading body of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement) had sought to take advantage of the arrest of Gonzalo to put new organizations in place in Europe to replace those sanctioned [i.e themselves] while Gonzalo was still free, and that activists should choose to rally around what was already in place before the arrest of Gonzalo. The RCP/CoRIM’s attempts to do otherwise were described as a continuation of the split-and-wreck activities that the Peruvian police initiated.
Others had a case to make, namely the El Diario of Luis Arce Borja. The Peruvian journalist “LAB” fled Peru, after the closing of the pro-Senderos El Diario, to install himself in Brussels (Belgium). It was also in Brussels where LAB published his El Diario International (EDI), and where he established links with the old MPP-France and CoRIM, who supported him as “PCP representative” abroad.
That function was challenged from within the overseas supporters stating that LAB, together with his accomplice, the British provocateur Olaechea, aim at spreading confusion and splits between individuals and organizations that honestly support the People’s War in Peru. LAB , MPP highlights, focuses his attacks on the PCP-generated abroad, and mainly against the brave comrades of the MPP (USA) who exposed his treacherous position, and who at the same time, have been conducting the struggle against the opportunism of CoRIM (and Avakian).
March 10, 1996, Luis Arce Borja’s site issued the World Mobilization Commission Call for Mobilising for Struggle, which stated:
“…The opportunist leadership of Co-RIM, is the main cause of immobilism in the international movement of support for the People’s War in Peru.
Since October 1993 their nefarious activities have been geared to paralysing any show of support for the People’s War and to cast doubts upon the revolutionary condition of Chairman Gonzalo. Both bureaucratic organisms, the Co-RIM and the IEC, are not in any way politically and morally capable to call upon the masses and political organisations to the defence of the Peruvian revolution.”
“No working class individual would listen to or follow the calls of an eclectic leadership who took a conciliatory position towards the police fraud for over a year and a half and kept during that time secret relations with the promoters of the police and capitulators’ plot abroad, a leadership, moreover, that took steps to pigeonhole documents of the PCP.”
“No political organisation abroad can take seriously the proclamations of the International Emergency Committee (IEC), while the bureaucracy in charge of that organism is the same bureaucracy in charge of the Co-RIM. No one with elementary political sense would want to offer their support and solidarity to Chairman Gonzalo if this must pass through the IEC, an organism in whose ‘leading body,’ three individuals who are working and coordinating actions with the Peruvian government remain….Given the ideo-political considerations above, we issue this call to set up and organise a WORLD WIDE MOBILISATION COMMISSION (WWMC) to defend the Peruvian revolution.”
Those listed on the 1992 Peruvian state of Sendero Luminoso’s oversea supporters include Luis Arce Borja, a Peruvian resident of Brussels and editor of El Diario International, a pro-Sendero periodical published in Brussels, by Luis Arce Borja. Incorrectly described by the Peruvian state as chief of Sendero Luminoso propaganda in Europe, LAB was critical of Guzman and those who supported him. El Diario argued to support the people’s war was to support the People’s Liberation Army. That means supporting the faction headed by Quispe. This, as LAB reported saw a deterioration in relationships: “since October 1993, some organisms closely linked with the leadership of RIM have initiated an underhanded struggle against EDI. In some cases, they have even prevented its distribution. EDI is a publication translated into several languages and well known nearly all over the world…… an important base of RIM in the USA in charge of translating EDI into English stopped doing this work. Moreover, they also suspended their sales of EDI. How do the leaders of RIM explain this fact?…” A Response to the ‘Investigators’ of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. A World To Win #22 1996.
MPP raise the accusation that: Some individuals in Europe use the fight against the opportunists of Co-RIM as a Trojan horse to advance individualistic ideas that are nothing more than revisionist trash. Others follow the Co-RIM to sustain that the two line struggle undertaking by the Party amongst the masses in the midst of the armed struggle is principally the issue of “peace talks” and not the Conquest of Power and the smashing of imperialism and the genocidal regime. That’s also right opportunism. Both are the two sides of the same coin that must be combated based on the principle of Unity-Struggle-Transformation.
Internet postings saw Quispe, associated with New Flag, New York, called El Diario Internacional “fake,” and, in reference to Luis Arce Borja and Adolfo Olaechea posted, “OVERTHROW THE ‘AMBASSADORS’ OF FUJIMORI” , “CHARLATAN OLAECHEA AND THE ‘MOTHER COURAGE’ ARCE BORJA WILL BE JUSTLY JUDGED BY THE PEOPLE, ONLY THE PEOPLE TRY AND PUNISH THE SNITCHES AND PROVOCATORS.”
The “MPP-Malmoe” and the newsletter Sol Rojo, asked, “IS OLAECHEA A PLANT OF THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES?”
The Maoist magazine inspired by the formation of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, and published in multi-language editions, did not rush to judgement on what it described the two-line struggle in Peru, however, this did not spare them from criticism, nor deter them from naming names. RIM, and by inference the RCP, USA, did address some of the charges hurled at them: publishing a polemical critique in “Anti-RIM Critics from the Cyberswamp: ‘Virtual Maoism’ and Real Opportunism,” by R. Voina, in A World To Win (#22, December 1996), and a decade later, in A Sober Look at the Situation of the Peru Revolution, A World To Win 2006 #32.
“some forces who claim to support the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and the People’s War there have not only opposed the struggle against the Right Opportunist Line but have recently launched a campaign of vicious attacks against the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) and especially the Committee of RIM (CoRIM). As we go to press, the hard core of this anti-RIM cabal includes Luis Arce Borja, a Peruvian exile who edited El Diario Internacional, published in Belgium; Adolfo Olaechea, a close ally of Arce, who distributes his publications on the Internet and usually signs himself as the Committee Sol Peru, London; New Flag, an occasional magazine also edited by a Peruvian exile, which comes out in New York City; and a small group in the US called the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), which, despite its name, has nothing to do with RIM. There are a few other groups and individuals scattered around Western Europe and North America who are more loosely associated with this hard core.” – R. Voina Anti-RIM Critics from the Cyberswamp: “Virtual Maoism” and Real Opportunism [A World To Win #22, December 1996]
Deserving of a mentioned but un-named was the Swedish activist Rolf Martens who asked, “Why does the RIM help US Imperialism encircle the PCP?” in his internet publication Informationsblad #24 12.8.1994
The question of “Maoism and the Two Line Struggle within the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM)” was explored in the document from Adolfo Olaechea produced by the Committee Sol Peru – London October 1994. “… Working first around Red Star Information Bureau and agitating by means of the Yenan Society, later grouped in the Maoist London Committee (of Supporters of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement), and today, rallying round Committee Sol Peru, the proletarian revolutionary line in Great Britain has staunchly fought.”
“The smashing blows of the People’s War in the countryside and in the cities have fully demonstrated today that the purported peace negotiations between Fujimori and Chairman Gonzalo were nothing but a fraud engineered by imperialism. Moreover, the Central Committee of the Party has issued numerous documents denouncing this fraud and rejecting any negotiations with the fascist tyranny aimed at ‘bringing the People’s War to an end’. It has been clearly established that this reactionary plot was hatched with the complicity of a handful of opportunist traitors and infiltrated agents. It has also been established that, at the international level, these traitors are led by ‘the individual in Sweden’ and the sidekicks he had appointed as heads of the Peru People’s Movement (MPP) of certain European countries. It is also a fact that these turncoats who serve the fascist Fujimori tyranny were representing the PCP within the International Committee of the RIM, and that now, they have been unmasked, condemned and denounced by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru. Currently, within the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement itself, and taking advantage of the confusion generated by the liquidators’ plot, opportunism has again lifted its ugly head and is generating problems that, if not correctly solved, can have negative effects on the advance of Maoism in the world and damage the international movement in support of the People’s War in Peru.”
The pages of the Malmo MPP’s Sol Rojo/Red Sun blasted out:
“”Today, there are those who brand the [Revolutionary Internationalist Movement] and/or the [Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement] as opportunists for acting contrary to the provisions of the [Communist Party of Peru]’s documents and events. Currently, those leading these underhanded attacks on the [Revolutionary Internationalist Movement] are the Arce–Mårtens duo, through articles in El Diario Internacional, on the Internet, and in slanderous letters, which, of course, the [Peru People’s Movement] and the overwhelming majority have condemned and rejected.” http://solrojo.org/mpp_doc/mpp_010596.htm
As the politics of the Revolutionary Communist Party changed, their conclusion attributing the peace call to Gonzalo hardened, and scepticism deepened: “even if Chairman Gonzalo had turned out not to be behind the call to end the people’s war, it would not have been true that, as the Persist forces claimed, the thinking and line developed under his leadership to that point was sufficient to lead the people’s war to victory.” A Sober Look at the Situation of the Peru Revolution and Its Needs. A World To Win #32 (2006)
Sol Rojo’s denunciation was raised: both the Peru People’s Movement and their support organization in the US, the New Peru Friendship Association, USA, criticized both the Revolutionary Communist Party and later the Kasama Project, prominent Maoist groupings in the US.
– In 1994 the United States-based Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) published a complaint against Luis Quispe, the sinister police officer sent by Montesinos and the SIN to New York. His disruptive actions in the solidarity movement described by critics was to attack and denigrate those who sympathized with and supported the people’s war.
– Thomas Perez left Peru in the mid-80s and settled in Malmo (Sweden). At the beginning he kept a low profile and joined the MPP that Javier Esparza, brother of Abimael Guzmán, was running from Stockholm (Sweden). In 1993 Fujimori published the “peace letters” and this generated tremendous confusion in all the organizations generated and in support of the PCP. That moment was magical for Pérez, who immediately formed his own “Peru People’s Movement,” “the only representative of the PCP abroad,” he said to himself. The accusation is that “, the “Maoist Pérez” is dedicated to defrauding revolutionary groups in Turkey, India and other countries. It makes them believe that the people’s war in Peru is at the top and that it is urgent to have “economic aid”. In this way, Turks, Indians and others in the name of proletarian internationalism have delivered thousands of dollars that went directly into the pockets of the publishers of Sol Rojo.”
An Article from El Diario Internacional from August 2011 speaks of a “police connection” about the individuals who set up around 1999-2000, between Denmark and Sweden, the MPP and its website “Sol Rojo” (long glorifying the VRAE maquis). MPP/Sol Rojo found itself marginalised. A rare Internet defence of MPP were published such as in May 2012 IN DEFENSE OF WAR POPULAR IN PERU on dazibaorojo08.blogspot.com, and in September 2012 the “p”c’mlm” denounced the “attacks” “against the MPP”
Counter accusations were raised because El Diario Internacional and its editor-in-chief Luis Arce Borja are also known for their important “ultra-left” undermining work against the PCP, Gonzalo, its “Thought” and its “Jefatura” (leadership), the supposed “reality” of its leading role in the capitulationist line of the “peace accords” etc.
Luis Arce Borja, publisher of El Diario International, called Guzmán a traitor when reviewing his prison written autobiographical manuscripts stating “The political and ideological content of this book reaffirms once again the treacherous conduct of Guzman, in 1993 a sort of peace pact cemetery with Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro Montesinos. “ [“Handwritten” DE GUZMAN “AND APOLOGY OF BETRAYAL .Friday September 18, 2009]
The “New Democracy Association” of Germany, which attacked the MPP Sol Rojo website as “usurped” by an “agent of reaction”, commented that
“It´s necessary to make clear, until the first week of May 2011, Red Sun / Sol Rojo was a red banner; during a long time revisionism has infiltrated with its positions, that’s why we can find positions that is eclectic in it, with expressions of convergences and nuances, but it´s fundamental character has been that of a red banner. Since May 2011 the left has been totally suppress in the organization and no opposition to the sinister work of the cronies of José abroad remained and with this the Red Sun / Sol Rojo changed colour, and is now a black banner. That explains their desperate cries and vulgar attacks against the left. That is why they gone so far as spreading a video from the reaction, spread during years by the miserable “Victor Fernandez” , from Spain, they want to paint themselves red but their reactionary class position make them so stupid that cannot differentiate between red and black.”
The New Democratic Association Germany, October 2011, in a call headed,
FOR THE GENERAL REORGANIZATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU AS PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S WAR TO CONQUER POWER IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY! GRASP GONZALO THOUGHT TO SOLVE NEW PROBLEMS!
In the aftermath of such dissidence what emerged from competing interpretations and claims was an argument that the Peruvian revolutionary forces were, in Peru and abroad, undertaking a reorganization process. The mantle of MPP – Reorganization Committee was taken on by “VND” = Verein der Neuen Demokratie /”Association of New Democracy” in Germany around 2011-2012 publicised onvnd-peru.blogspot.com
Steadfast and unyielding politics
MPP reiterated its basic arguments, using arguments, repeated and explained ad nauseam over two decades, MPP set out its positions in June 2011 publication of a statement attributed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru
TO THE PERU PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT: APPLY MAOISM AND CRUSH REVISIONISM! MAY MAOISM ASSUME THE COMMAND OF THE NEW GREAT WAVE OF THE WORLD PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION!
“…the revolution is not led from the prisons. That being firmly settled in and starting from communist principles allows us to maintain the course of the revolution laid down by the Party and the Congress; this has allowed us to confront the arrest of the Great Leadership and of leaders of the Central Committee,”
[Red banner Publications, June 2011, prepared for the Internet by Red Sun magazine]
MPP position for over three decades, has been to maintain the pre-1992 arrest positions as the only legitimate stance and denounce the “peace accord” as a hoax and regardless of the emergent evidence, retained the view and arguments that
“considered that a ROL could be structured and raise its head intending to take the Party by assault, and in the name of Chairman Gonzalo raise red banners to combat the revolution, wanting to sustain and promote capitulation; they resumed this saying that “…the PCP made the strategic turnabout after the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo and the Historical Central Leadership, where they had to develop a New Strategy, new GPL [General Political Line – transl.], new tactic, new construction work, mass work, etc. A new line that would have to be imposed in struggle defeating the previous line…”
There they argue for the retreat of the world revolution, there these miserable ones, now in detention, say: “that the people’s war should not have been initiated in 1980, we are in retreat, …imperialism is strong”, negating the strategic offensive of the world revolution, when they some months before were boasting, without meaning it, that “the strategic equilibrium shakes the country more”. Facing the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo, the whole Party closed ranks around the Central Committee, all the Party members reaffirmed themselves in maintaining the course of the revolution and applying the Speech of Chairman Gonzalo, in warding off and crushing every attack from within and outside the Party. Defend Chairman Gonzalo’s life….. The concrete fact is that the Chairman has not made any public declaration! No one can affirm that the Chairman has expressed himself publicly after the Speech; everything else is: letters, videos, that “he told me or they said”, that he “wrote a book” etc.: anything and everything can be said on paper.”
The propaganda of Red Sun is cemented on the foundations that “the war is not stopped for a minute, it is that simple and concrete; to not lower the banner of the revolution under any circumstance, the point is to continue applying the principles, for us principally Gonzalo thought.”
The division in the international movement is reflected in this demarcation line with Red Sun religiously maintain the cult-like adherence to powerful Gonzalo thought.
Regardless of the historic record, the idealist objective remains dominant; uncritical defense of the attributed contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo. The foundational position is that “it is only by starting from what was scientifically established by Chairman Gonzalo that we can understand Maoism as one unit, as one harmonic system.”
RED SUN #44: DEVELOP THE DEBATE IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT ABOUT THE APPLICATION OF MAOISM!
“Fundamentally, these ideological and political problems in the ICM have their origin in the negation of Maoism as third, new and higher stage of Marxism. Only Communist Parties built on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism can maintain the course of the revolution. This cannot mean taking up Maoism only as a label, or taking Chairman Mao’s theses as mechanical formulas”
Uphold, defend and apply Maoism and crush revisionism”
A Joint statement from Gonzaloist supporters, in September 2018, “In defence of the life of Chairman Gonzalo, hoist higher the flag of Maoism!” stated,
“There are those that until now insist on spreading the counterrevolutionary hoax (that Chairman Gonzalo is the head of the opportunist, revisionist and capitulationist right opportunist line,).They argue with what was stated by traitors (“he told me” or “he embraced me” and other gossip), with what is controlled by imperialism and the psychological warfare of the reaction (“courts” and “filtered” videos). Anything that comes from whoever wants to throw mud at Chairman Gonzalo supposedly has to be taken very seriously, has to be “analyzed” and has to break our heads to enter into a discussion “whether or not it is him”. They are wrong, because they do not understand that “the debate” has already been closed, the communists have already taken a position and the matter is settled:”
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The party had claim “strategic equilibrium” in the struggle against the Peruvian state, the arrests of the Chairman and members of the Central Committee, and lack of contingency proved to tip the balance. The loss of centralised leadership – the charismatic personality and bureaucratically dominant role of its leader – was not something the organisation could absorb and adjust as what followed was a period of confusion and political dissention and factional claims for ascendancy.
While the importance of the capture of Sendero’s leadership is incontrovertible, further study indicate that the underlying problems that fuelled the Sendero insurgency contributed to the inability to overcome the political chaos and state repression following the decapitulation of its strategic organisational leadership. If historically the arrest of Gonzalo was indeed a “bend in the road” for the revolution, this bend will have been much longer than initially expected and, moreover, with the lessening of the revolutionary tempo and weakening of its forces, we do not see the outcome yet.
Despite the degeneration of the PCP, its experience of revolution is significant for the international communist movement because it conceive of Maoism as a “third stage of revolutionary science”, thus popularising the promotion of the terminology Marxism-Leninism-Maoism instead of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, and it was its influence in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement that led to the RIM also adopting Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideology in 1993. The transformation of Maoism into a third stage of revolutionary science rather than the rubric for a proper anti-revisionist Marxism-Leninism would be significant for many revolutionary organizations engaged in armed struggle after the PCP (i.e. the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Communist Party of India (Maoist) who both accepted MLM instead of ML-MZT).
Regardless of its significant influence and the importance of its people’s war, there are still aspects of the PCP’s maoism that were subject critiquing by other self-identifying maoists. For one thing, it had a theory of People’s War that, while agreeing in the universality of the strategy for making revolution, went further with “People’s War until communism”––that is, that the People’s War should continue, somehow, during the dictatorship of the proletariat (the period of consolidating socialism.
Most importantly, however, is its endorsement of a doctrine of “the great leadership” that led to claims about Gonzalo being “the fourth sword of communism” and the addition to MLM of “Gonzalo Thought”. Indeed, the faction of the PCP that still maintains fidelity to the People’s War (and those exiled in Europe and the USA) expressed in the first issue of the Maoist Road journal, from 2010, where it argues for the importance of the theory of “great leadership” and the primacy of “Gonzalo Thought”.
Other maoist organizations have criticized the doctrine of “great leadership” as dogmatism, some even going so far as to suggest that this doctrine was partially responsible for the degeneration of the PCP’s people’s war––that is, although the PW continued after Gonzalo was arrested, the moment that Gonzalo made a call for “peace accords” caused a certain level of confusion to spread amongst cadre who had been taught to see Gonzalo as the authoritative voice of the revolution. And though it is doubtful that the PCP’s defeat can be reduced to the problem of the personality cult, it might not be erroneous to suggest that it contributed to the organization’s collapse and splintering.
While shifting attention to other regions, and factors such as struggles of a younger generation of activism has already engaged the concern of the Indian state and its defenders, reports in the Indian media at the end of July announced the arrest of senior Communist Party of India (Maoist) Politburo member, the 65-year-old Misir Besra in Jharkhand.
The Maoist Road website carried a posting calling for support for an ICSPWI platform of demands on the treatment and safety of captured political activists.
For nearly four decades, Besra remained one of the organisation’s most influential leaders in the Jharkhand-Bihar region, surviving repeated security offensives even as the rest of the Maoist leadership was steadily eliminated through encounters, arrests, and surrenders. With his arrest, the CPI (Maoist) has effectively lost the last active member of the leadership that built the organisation into a nationwide insurgent force.
“Besra was widely regarded by security agencies as the last operational heavyweight of CPI (Maoist). His capture is not merely another arrest; it symbolises, in more ways than one, the closing chapter of a conflict that, at its height, stretched across what was once called the “Red Corridor”—a belt of forests and tribal districts extending from Andhra Pradesh to Nepal’s border.”
That closure is the dominant state narrative, the success of repeated security offensives and Besra’s arrest marks the culmination of one of India’s longest counter-insurgency campaigns. Small armed groups remain active, particularly in parts of Bastar, but security officials believe the CPI (Maoist) no longer possesses the leadership, territorial control, or organisational depth needed to regenerate itself as a nationwide insurgency. Roads, mobile connectivity and a stronger administrative presence have also reduced the isolation that once enabled the movement to flourish.
“an uncomfortable truth about India’s Maoist conflict: the insurgency fed not only on political conviction but also on deep social and economic deprivation….. The Maoist movement emerged from genuine grievances—land alienation, tribal displacement, exploitation by contractors, poor governance and the absence of state institutions in remote regions. Security operations have succeeded in weakening the armed organisation. Whether those underlying conditions have been addressed remains a more complicated question.”
Many reports acknowledge that the Maoist movement drew strength from regions where the state was absent or perceived as unjust, speculating sustaining the gains of the past two years will therefore depend as much on effective governance as on continued security operations.
More summer reading orbiting the theme debating Maoism.
Kerry Brown
Adding to the shelves about Mao Zedong is Professor Brown’s study Mao: Power and Contradiction: (Reaktion Books. 2026). Its crafted contribution to be expected from an accomplished professor and former British diplomat, Kerry Brown, a prolific author and commentator on modern China. Because, he believes “we’re all misinformed in different ways” his synthesises the current standard academic canon in this short introduction to Mao and China’s revolutionary experience.
In contrast to the more familiar effort to articulate Maoism in its current determinate form that came from the Long March website in May 2026 entitled, “On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, fellow American Kenny Lake, associated with the OCR/ Going Against the Tide, produced a critical intervention on ongoing monologues, and was designed less to participate in the collective process than dismiss others contributions to the rectification of the general line of the anti-revisionist communist trend.
Indeed, “Problems of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism” argues that “ rigidification and dogmatization of communist principles, is evident practically in the schematic and often downright idiotic thinking that has dominated most communist parties throughout history, and led them to either give up on revolution in favor of reformism or spout revolutionary rhetoric with no ability to make revolution in practice.”
+Inspite of making some interesting observations, the conclusion that “setting out on a different path than those available as “Maoism” today” raises an identifiable trend towards destructive sectarianism of the “True Believer” type rather than party building.
“We might be stuck with the appellation Marxism-Leninism-Maoism for now, but regardless of what we call it, communist ideology and politics have to break out of rigidity if they are to guide us in making revolution. This last cycle of creative development to dogmatization has gone on far too long, as evident from the fact that no communist revolution has succeeded in seizing state power and building a new socialist state in the fifty years since the defeat of socialism in China. To break the cycle, we need to cast off dogma and rigidity, rescue and reinvigorate communist principles, and strike out in new directions, treating communist ideology and politics as both firm and flexible, neither a closed system of thought walled off from intellectual life outside itself nor as a system whose components can be easily discarded.”
Aminda Smith |, “A Note on the Origins of Maoism” The PRC History Review Vol. 8, No. 1 (June 2023): 1 – 4.
Mao reputedly disliked the addition of an ism to his name. Amina Smith traces the emergence terminology and use of the concept from 1940s onwards.
Zhongkai Qian | “Maoism Moving as a Political Machine” The PRC History Review Vol. 10, No. 2 (December 2025): 1–10.
A contemporary exploration of what form applied Maoism is taking, framed within the issue that Maoism today oscillates between being a methodology and being an ideology.
Elizabeth Perry |
Debating Maoism in Contemporary China: Reflections on Benjamin I. Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao | The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 19 | Issue 1 | Number 1 | Jan 01, 2021
The insertion into the Party Constitution of a reference to “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in 2018 was the first time since Mao Zedong (in 1945) that a sitting CCP leader received such recognition. The discussion of Xi Jinping’s Maoist tendencies evokes a previous debate, conducted during the Cold War, over the authenticity and import of Maoism itself. In revisiting a previous contentious academic spats that reverberates Professor Perry recounts argument about the origins and evolution of Maoism.
Workers Weekly again failed to sugar the pill when reporting that “Left election results were, in general, dismal” and dismissed as more “self-delusion and official optimism that is of absolutely no use to the working class.” [Issue 1585 – 14 May 2026]
There were 25 Your Party candidates and 22 “Your Party-backed candidates”. None of them came anywhere close to winning a seat. Narendra Kandel in Greenwich (coming sixth with 720 votes), Laura Graham in Lambeth (470 votes) and Ron Cooper in West Lancashire (18%) are the best of the not very successful YP bunch”
Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain celebrated the election of eight councillors – all in areas with a high Muslim population.
A handful of SWP members stood as part of Haringey Socialist Alliance, Ealing Community Independents and as ‘independents’, getting generally bad results very similar to the 289 candidates who stood under the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition [Tusc] label, with permission of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) formerly known as Militant Tendency, up until 1991 an entryist group in the Labour Party.
Apart from a couple of odd exceptions (chief among them Nadia Noreen Ditta, who in the Bevoir ward in Southampton, managed to come second with 23.8%), the average vote for the left is under one percent.”
“Perhaps in an attempt to downplay the desultory results, the Tusc website identifies “750 or so” candidates “who stood on an anti-austerity and anti-war platform” and claims that “the election of a number of anti-austerity and anti-war councillors under a variety of banners, including some of the Green victors, offers the chance of a fightback, combining council positions with a grassroots campaign”.
“the MLM Parties and Organizations must unite to carry out together the national and international tasks of the MLM communist movement. They must unite on two fundamental issues: unity based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; the intransigent struggle against revisionism, as a secondary enemy the sectarian, ideological and purely propagandist petty-bourgeois currents that use Maoism as a weapon of division from Marxism-Leninism, from the relationship between communists, proletariat and masses for the affirmation of Maoism.
And to this aim also it is necessary to create today a unitary International Communist Forum capable of helping to lead the proletariat in the capitalist and imperialist countries and in the countries oppressed by imperialism in the struggle, mobilizing all the anti-imperialist forces, the national liberation movements and the advanced parts of the movements against war, fascism, reaction and repression, genocides, territorial and environmental devastation.”
India
Reports in the Indian media suggests that top Maoists Misir Besra and Asim Mondal have evaded the encirclement with key aids and “succeeded in sneaking out of Saranda through Khunti and Purulia and parted ways from thereon.” [Story by Debashish Sarkar, Jamshedpur . • Hindustan Times 22/05/ 2026]
An Indian intelligence officer is quoted speculating that “Misir Besra, covered by Ajay Mahto alias Tiger, Mochu alias Mehnat, Chandan Lohra and Saluka Kayam, all with bounty of ₹10 lakh each, are headed towards Odisha-Telangana border while Mondal, covered by Ramprasad Mardi alias Sachin, his wife Mita alias Nayantara alias Jhumpa and Madan Mahato and his wife Joba, all with bounty of ₹15 lakh each, are headed towards West Bengal”.
Officials said that 21 new Advanced Camp Locations (ACLs) and Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) have been established in the Saranda region to strengthen security presence in Maoist-affected areas. It seems the encirclement of the forest region proved unsuccessful in the State’s deadly hide-and-seek strategy, and prior to the reported escape of Misir Besra and Asim Mondal the safety was secured of the lives of the remaining cadres linked to the CPI (Maoist) squads in the area.
There was a formal surrender reported Press Trust of India on May 21st at the police headquarters in Ranchi of 27 Maoists. Police said the surrendered cadres include top commanders and members associated with the teams of Misir Besra, alias Sagar Ji and Asim Mandal. Among these were six Special Zonal Committee Members (SZCM), six Area Committee Members (ACM), and 13 squad members of the banned CPI (Maoist). Two cadres of the Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad (JJMP), a Maoist group active in Gumla district, also surrendered.
The operation involved personnel from the specialised counter-insurgency force CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action), the Central Reserve Police Force, Jharkhand Jaguar and district police teams that failed so far to secure their priority targets, Misir Besra and Asim Mondal. The Indian Express were told that police expect to capture both leaders soon, although admitted it remains unclear where they are. “They are both believed to have abandoned Saranda but cannot evade capture for long. Jharkhand is almost free from Maoism” he said.
All this happens one month after the Indian state had declared 31st March as “Naxal MuktBharat: The End of Maoism in India”.
New Publication
From Foreign Languages Press, Issue #4 of the theoretical magazine Materialhas been published focusing on the theme of political prisoners. Material’s editors decided on this theme, because of the belief that it
“is relevant to the current conjuncture and will remain relevant for as long as capitalism dominates the globe. A particular dialectic of political prisoners and the politics of imprisonment is essential to the reproduction of capitalism. To paraphrase Lenin: ‘One class in power and another in prison.’ As long as there are political classes and struggle between classes there will be prisons, and the class in command will determine the rules of imprisonment.”
Its contents include,
We have no choice but to navigate against all odds”: Interview with Georges Ibrahim Abdallah Political Imprisonment and Lawfare in the Philippines – Cristina Palabay, Secretary General, Karapatan Philippines Joint Interview: Samidoun (Paris-Banlieue) & International Red Aid (Toulouse) Contribution from the Secretariat of the International Red Aid Political Prisoners, Lawfare, and the Revolutionary Response in the US – Comrade B, General Secretary of Lal Morich Conditions and Rights in Jails: My Experiences – N. Ravi From the Archives: Excerpts From Rosa Luxemburg’s Prison Letters Cinema Against Confinement: The Political Prisoner in Selected Filipino Film Productions (1984–2025) – Epoy Deyto Regulated Filmmakers, Deregulated Film Industry: Some Problems in the Philippine Film Industry and Their Solution – A. Hunt Artwork – Rehab Nazzal
“This article exposes Hoxha’s opportunist and centrists vacillations away from Marxism Leninism; his complete and utter betrayal of the principles of Anti-Revisionism, as well as his repulsive attempt to cover it up and lie about it.” From a German group renouncing their former allegiance to the politics of Enver Hoxha (and Unwaveringly Against Khrushchevite, Maoist, And Hoxhite Slander!)
In 15,000 words “we have displayed our reasoning in full as to why we shifted away from Hoxha. We believe it is the most complete polemic regarding this topic (especially if one disregards the sheer nonsense made by Maoists, as nonsense cannot be used to refute nonsense).”
Written by Philip Kovalchik and Heather Mason (Red Spectre Writers) June 2024
