(Marxist-Leninist) Workers’ Party – Spanish State: In defense of Chairman Gonzalo’s memory!

In defense of Chairman Gonzalo’s memory!

September 11, 2021

 

From the (Marxist-Leninist) Workers’ Party we want to make a call to defend and vindicate the memory of Chairman Gonzalo.

 

Abimael Guzmán, Chairman Gonzalo, was born in Mollendo (Arequipa) in 1934. The importance of José Carlos Mariátegui’s work was very important for Chairman Gonzalo’s political development, who with his ideological awakening joined the Communist Party of Peru.

 

After the triumph of the revisionist theses in the PCP, following the logic of the International Communist Movement, he visited the People’s Republic of China and saw first hand the construction of socialism and the struggle of the masses to carry it forward victoriously, aligning himself with the positions defended by Chairman Mao Tse Tung. He led the Red Faction of the PCP from Ayacucho, where he was a professor at the National University of San Cristobal de Huamanga. There, he was linked to the struggles of the peasants and the popular masses, confronting the old State and its semi-feudal and semi-colonial character.

 

In this way he expressed himself:

“…we must aim to defend socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party and Marxism taking the extraordinary transformation and unprecedented greatness that socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party and Marxism have impressed on the Earth in short years. Let it be clear that the benefit received by the people, by the proletariat was immense, as never before because before it was always the benefit of small groups; let it be clear that the transitory disappearance of that socialism […] soon they are realizing that what was lost is immense and that will be reconquered with blood and fire; it was the sky that was lost and it is necessary to reconquer it, to storm it again, it is not so complicated.” (Transcription of Chairman Gonzalo’s Report, III Plenum of the Communist Party of Peru, 1992)

 

The Red Faction, after breaking with the revisionist PCP, embarked on the task of reconstructing that party, both ideologically and politically, linking it especially with the masses, and testing its positions in these, always under the clear premise that the masses make history.

 

Once the PCP was reconstituted, the Protracted People’s War in Peru began, developed along the lines of Chairman Mao Tse Tung, starting, in its concrete case, by encircling the city from the countryside, generating the People’s Guerrilla Army. The development of the People’s War in Peru should always be understood as a war of the masses led by the Communist Party, always assuming that the Party is the one who commands the gun.

In 1992 Chairman Gonzalo, great leader of the Communist Party of Peru and of the Peruvian revolution, was arrested. Chairman Gonzalo was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Peruvian government, in revenge for developing and leading the People’s War that took place in Peru since 1980, with the famous ILA 80.

 

Chairman Gonzalo became the main architect of the important task of equipping the working class with its Party, so that the workers and peasants could take up arms, in People’s War, against the old State in the hands of its enemies and begin to build the new State for the benefit of the working masses.

 

Chairman Gonzalo and the PCP carried out the important task of synthesizing the important contributions of Mao Tse Tung giving rise to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. He also contributed to fundamental questions, such as the concentric construction of the three instruments of the revolution and the character of the Communist Party.

 

In order to leave no doubt about the deep hatred felt by the Peruvian bourgeois class towards his figure, not only did they condemn Chairman Gonzalo to life imprisonment in complete isolation in a naval base, but they also spread slander portraying him as a dangerous terrorist murderer, responsible for the thousands of deaths in Peru… and, furthermore, as a traitor, a question which has been proven to be totally false.

 

The last opportunity Chairman Gonzalo had to express himself freely and publicly was in 1992, right after his arrest. At that time, Chairman Gonzalo rejected any and all possibility of signing peace agreements with the old Peruvian State, and, from a cage and wearing a striped uniform with which they intended to humiliate him, he delivered a speech addressed to the members of the PCP, the fighters of the People’s Guerrilla Army, to the Peruvian people, calling to continue the People’s War until the conquest of power throughout the country. On that occasion he also made an important appeal to revolutionaries all over the world to raise the red flag of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism all over the world.

 

From the very moment of his arrest, an international campaign for his freedom and in defense of his life and health was launched. The campaign had international repercussions, with actions in defense of Chairman Gonzalo. Activities were carried out in all continents, covering several dozens of countries. Lawyers from all over the world came forward to unmask the farce of his conviction and make his legal defense, a matter that was never allowed by the reactionary Peruvian State.

 

In 2000, the Right Opportunist Line (ROL) declared that it was no longer necessary to defend Chairman Gonzalo’s life, thus wanting to fight against the campaign that was being carried out. This ROL line only intended a total change of revolutionary line and to put an end to the People’s War in Peru.

 

Finally, Chairman Gonzalo’s life, after almost 30 years of harsh isolation, has come to an end.

 

In 2020, his lawyer filed a request for house arrest. The request came in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the high rate of infection inside Peruvian prisons. The request was denied by the Peruvian State, while Fujimori, executioner and genocidal of the Peruvian people, received a humanitarian pardon in the same period.

 

According to a statement issued by the Peru Peoples Movement, the current objective of the old Peruvian State is, with the application of Low Intensity Warfare tactics, to assassinate Chairman Gonzalo. To this end, it is using the means of maintaining his absolute and perpetual isolation in the Naval Base, in an individual underground cell and only having contact with the outside world through his executioners, susceptible to manipulations and all kinds of psychological tortures. They have achieved it.

 

Our Party calls to defend his legacy, his memory, his struggle, a work that belongs to the entire International Communist Movement. His legacy is for all those who are clear that except for power everything is illusion, and only with the revolutionary path it is possible to lead the proletariat to the seizure of power.

 

LET US DEFEND AND VINDICATE THE LEGACY, THE MEMORY AND THE STRUGGLE OF CHAIRMAN GONZALO!

 

LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN GONZALO!