Floating around the internet is a 4 volume English language compilation entitled “The Collected Writings of the Communist Party of Peru 1968-1999” comprising some 1116 pages. A few are in Spanish. It has been seen in pdf and epub file format. Production wise it has some obscure last lines on various articles where the spacing and setting is off but the entries seem to be of released material from the CPP. No formal identification to its production is evident.
This contents listing is a research aid to the material.
The death of Chairman Gonzalo in the high security centre of the Callao Naval Base was always the intended outcome of the Peruvian state. His imprisonment, and three separate trials, for 29 years was envisioned both to diminish his influence and serve as a warning to any who took up arms in resistance with the intention of creating a better society. In a real sense, both objectives failed. The death of a revolutionary doesn’t kill the revolution, and the drive for a just society is created in the lived experience of those striving for change.
The response to the announcement of his death saw the usual life story obituaries in the mainstream media and different narratives from the communist press. There were contrasting perspective of the revolutionary achievements of Chairman Gonzalo among the tributes and homage paid to the leader of the decade long People’s War that begun in the countryside and swept into the capital before it strength diminished with his capture in 1992.
He was more than just a provincial academic, a Professor of Philosophy, who initiated an armed revolutionary struggle, a protracted people’s war, which he later saw as launched at the ebbing of the global revolutionary wave. The conduct of that struggle divides opinion over some of it features and the emphasis drawn by others seeking to establish the lessons of the revolution. His arrest did materially affect the course of the struggle, in the complexity of revolution remaining a symbol for some and an inspiration for a new tact for others. There is an opinion, voiced in the Kites journal, that
“Since Gonzalo was held in isolation in Peruvian prisons and denied contact with the outside world, it is impossible to know for certain what his political views and state of mind were since his capture. His death now means that we will likely never know. Moreover, while revolutions can take great inspiration and even strategic guidance from revolutionary leaders who have been imprisoned, revolutions can never be led from inside a prison cell for obvious reasons.”
Regardless of the judgement on his place in history, Chairman Gonzalo – party name of Abimael Guzmán, (1934-2021) Maoist guerrilla leader – contributed to the new democratic revolution of Peru, the revolutionary internationalist movement and in holding high the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
These readings from across the spectrum of reaction to the passing of Chairman Gonzalo reflects the contentions that is less about the person and more about the political actor, thinker and leader.
El Pueblo newspaper ,Chile:
September 24 – International Day of Actions in honor of Chairman Gonzalo
Statement on The Death Of Dr Abimael Guzman Reynoso | Marco Valbuena | Chief Information Officer | Communist Party Of The Philippines. September 12, 2021
woodsmokeblog 