Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Central Committee
Communist Party of Peru
1982

[Prepared for the Internet by the magazine Red Sun]

LET US DEVELOP GUERRILLA WARFARE!

I. The Armed Struggle Blazes Victoriously

The Communist Party of Peru, the organized vanguard of the proletariat founded by Mari tegui, reconstituted through more than fifteen years of hard struggle as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party of a new type, and assuming its historic role and duty of fighting for the conquest of power for the proletariat and the people, in May of 1980 has set burning the invincible and ever-growing flames of the armed struggle, of guerrilla warfare in our country. This struggle, which is rooted every day more deeply in the class struggle in our land, soon will become a raging hurricane of armed battle to demolish the old, rotten prevailing order, and to bring to life a really free, sovereign country that provides for the well-being of the millions of exploited and oppressed.

In twenty-one months the Party has vigorously initiated and developed the only means for our people's and nation's emancipation: the armed struggle, the guerrilla war which blazes victoriously in the two thousand nine hundred armed actions that have swept the land in all but four departments that stirs the jungle, the coast, and the highlands most of all, that shakes the city and especially the countryside, whose struggle is served by the former. Thus, highlands and mountains, which made the countryside are the powerful and natural support for any possible revolutionary war in our country. Therefore, this is a peasant war that is being led by the Party of the proletariat. It is converting the countryside into an armed bastion of the revolution, concentrated in base areas -in bases of the New State of workers and peasants, isolating the reactionaries and their imperialist masters in the cities, where the proletariat and the masses, by burning the soles of the enemy's bloody paws mainly through armed actions that serve the struggle in the countryside, the center of the storm, prepare conditions for the final assault on the cities and the total, complete and thorough defeat of the reactionary order and the reactionary army that maintains it. This road, the only road to revolution, is now open; this is the road on which more and more of the proletariat and the masses, our people, are moving toward their own armed emancipation, by their own hands, since: "The people, and the people alone, is the motive force in the making of world history."

Two thousand nine hundred actions! These actions that began with the boycott of the general elections of 1980, carried in Chuschi and many other places, striking with agitation and armed propaganda through the seizure of radio stations, leaflets, and posters, and direct actions that sow panic between the reactionaries and arouse the enthusiasm of the people with our rallying cries of "Armed struggle," "Government of workers and peasants," and "Down with the reactionary government " This showed a new world to win through the hammers and sickles that light the hills, and through the unfading red flags proudly waving on top of hills and heights proclaim "It's right to rebel!"

These actions are armed mobilizations that arouse the peasants, teach the people, and alarm the reactionaries such as those in Miraflores and San Isidro. Sabotage weakens and undermines the social and economic system of the ruling exploiters, as in demolishing electrical towers and producing blackouts in wide areas in the center and north of the country, including in the capital itself. Fires have hit ENCI in Huacho, San Martin de Porres, Fiat, Toyota, Hindu-Hogar in Lima , and in the cane plantations of the north. Repeated actions have been taken against banks throughout the country, and against reactionary companies like Bata, Hartinger, Centromin, etc., or against renowned elitist colleges, which are concentrated and humiliating expressions of a fierce reactionary, pro-imperialist foreign education.

Overwhelming actions that rock the semifeudal foundations of the state, unleashing armed vindicating actions against big land owners lords of the new and old type, like in Airabamba, Aisarca, Urpihuata, Palermo, Toxama, and Pincos, among others, truly rejoicing of the peasants witnessing a vibrant reemergence of their hopes and combativity which has never languished. To this list could be added the very important takeovers of cities like Acosvinchos, Vinchos, Cayara, Pomatambo, and Occroro, which intensely and profoundly stir the countryside and promoting the participation of the masses in the armed struggle.

Solid actions have hit directly the interests of Yankee imperialism, the principal imperialist power on our soil, such as the attack against Southern in the south of the country, the series of actions against U.S. companies or those connected with them in the capital, and, especially, the resounding blows against the U.S. embassy and the symbolic blasting of Kennedy's statue in Miraflores, as well as the blows at the Chinese embassy, the sinister cave of the revisionist Deng Xiaoping and his lackeys, who is a notorious chum and accomplice of A Yankee imperialism, and vile traitor to the international communist movement and principally to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

In addition, powerful and important actions have been carried out against the state, its repressive apparatus and especially against the police forces. Many actions have been conducted against the courts, government offices, tax offices, voters' registration offices, city halls and ministries, and a great number of the offices of Acción Popular in all over the country, including their central headquarters in Lima, and even the National Parliament and local offices of the police (GC), and the Republican Guard (GR), and PIP throughout the country, as well as the punishment against known agents of repression like those in Arequipa and Huaraz among others, and against certain arrogant landlords and petty landowners known to be enemies of the people and murderers of Maoist combatants. Above all, the very important and audacious assaults on police stations and outposts like those of Ocobamba, Luricocha, La Ramada, Quinua, Tápuc, Yauli, Tambo, Quicapata, Totos, Yanahorco, Acchi, and in Puno and Tacna, whose effectiveness was highly expressed in the recent assault on San Jos&eactute; de Secce; in the disarming of police in Lima and especially Ayacucho; and in the important raid on the naval air base at Callao which they have unsuccessfully tried to cover up.

All these actions have hit powerfully at the reactionary armed forces, their personnel contingents who, as mere cannon fodder, are being used for interests other than their own; actions that have allowed us to capture arms from the enemy, the main source of our weapons and, what is most important, it has delivered powerful blows to the morale of the reactionary state apparatus and its support base.

Also there has been a brilliant and successful application of the policy of jail breakouts, whose greatest expression was the March 2 [1982] assault on the Public Jail of Ayacucho. This was a heroic action that marks an historic milestone in our armed struggle and in the annals of the Peruvian revolution: freeing our comrades and fighters from the dungeons of the reactionary Peruvian state. With the courage, strength and blood of the people s soldiers, our guerrilla war has been strengthened and has taken a great leap in its development. But in the same way we celebrate this undeniable victory, we protest, denounce, and condemn the despicable murder and massacre of three of our brave comrades by the police who, rabid in their defeat and hatred has carried out a vile, cowardly murder in the Regional Hospital of that city (Ayacucho) and attempted to execute two other sons of the people (who were saved by other patients and employees who snatched them from the claws of the regime's henchmen.) The five were recovering in the hospital under police custody. The people will not allow this detestable murder to go unpunished! We are fighters and we know that the armed struggle demands its measure of blood and, as the people and the proletariat have taught us and as the revolution demands, we offer our lives, our practice proves it. But in our revolutionary war, we apply and we will continue to apply a policy toward prisoners which corresponds to the laws of war, and as we do practice it we demand the other side do the same. But the tortures, the rapes, the crimes against the sons and daughters of the people, and especially against our combatants, will be punished as the justice of the people demand, and we, their soldiers will carry them out no matter how long it takes from the time of the crime to the fair and just punishment we will impose. Peruvian reaction and its government, led by Bela£nde and his gang, using its police forces have mounted a new campaign against us. Basing ourselves on our just and revolutionary war, we will only say that like the previous ones, will fail. And finally, we can say that the demagogue Belaunde has already directly received our replay: On the 10th of march we rocked his "Government Palace" with a dynamite blast so that he might continue to hear the voice of the armed people.

The twenty-nine hundred actions clearly proved our combativeness and bellicosity of our emerging revolutionary armed forces, guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, led absolutely by the Party. The armed actions take place in the countryside and in the cities, mainly in the former, is an armed struggle that assumes diverse forms of action but whose axis is the guerrilla war, which is complemented by other forms of the struggle. These are the armed actions whose support and fuel are the class struggle of our people and thrive solely on the inexhaustible energy of the people themselves, especially the workers and peasants.

The successful armed actions, offer a bright future and have so far achieved four great victories: First, the tempering of the Party, of leaders cadres, militants, and fighters together in the struggle, they become forged and steeled in the only definitive revolutionary crucible: the armed struggle. Although this is already a great victory, we must add another achievement of obvious and clear significance: the formation and construction of an armed force led by the Party which surges into flames of the guerrilla warfare that will never be extinguished, and is the principal instrument for completing the political tasks of the Peruvian revolution and which, under proletarian leadership, has established an armed force that is developing as an arm of the New State of workers and peasants. A third victory is to be found in the increasing quantity and growing quality achieved by our armed actions, actions that have been taken mass character both in their number and the ability of the sons and daughters of the people to carry them out, as well as the increasing quality shown by the higher level that has been achieved. Finally, a fourth victory, which is the most important and principal: the emergency and development of guerrilla zones within whose boundaries, the vigorous and growing advanced of the guerrilla warfare, we will build our future support bases, those advance revolutionary bastions that are the legacies of the military thought of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, base areas that are the very essence of the road of surrounding the cities from te countryside base areas that are the very essence surrounding the cities from the countryside, the very essence of the People's War.

Because all of this, we say to our class, the proletariat, and to the people of our country, especially to our indomitable peasantry, THE ARMED STRUGGLE BLAZES VICTORIOUSLY. Through its initial flames signaling the great blaze to come, the masses themselves will take their own destiny in their triumphant, creative, and sure hands, the makers of history and every revolution.

II. Counterrevolutionary Action Fuels our Struggle

What has been the reactionary response? What has been the reaction of the democratic government, as it calls itself, that self-proclaimed upholder of the constitutional order and defender of the sacred human rights? It has responded in the way that its reactionary class character and logic demand. Since the beginning, it has unleashed persecution, repression, torture, imprisonment and murder against the revolutionary combatants and people. The government of Belaunde, a phony democracy, a hypocritical and demagogic government has used its forces of repression, mainly its police, to drown in blood our nascent armed revolution.

They are trampling on the most basic, universally recognized rights embodied in its constitution of 1979, the reactionary government of Belaunde and its so-called forces of order have brutally broken and stolen from whatever homes they'd wanted; they have persecuted, arrested, and jailed whomever they want to; they have burned, robbed, raped, and murdered with impunity to sons and daughters of the people in accord with their lowest instincts; they have gorged their dark, reactionary zeal on savage beatings of the masses, mainly the peasants, in a stupid attempt to intimidate them and driven away from the armed struggle; they have generalized the use of torture, trying to crush their will and extract false confessions, despicably and perversely humiliating people so as to bend the revolutionary morale and annihilate the combatants; they have used rapes as an infamous, vile, and abusive means to force submission and to tarnish the pure, resolute, and firm spirit of the daughters of the people; they have denied all rights and guarantees to prisoners, forcing them to endure continuous persecutions even behind bars in filthy dungeons, and they have extended their harassment and repression to include the prisoner's families. Thus, the persecution and repression of the armed struggle and the people expose them as a treacherous farce, their claims to respect even the most basic human rights, which in reality is a sinister plan to crush the people through counterrevolutionary violence. But all this has failed to achieve their dark hopes, because the sons and daughters of the people, the class and the Party, hold their heads high, victorious and firm in their trenches of combat wherever they are.

The despicable Belaunde government has also appealed to the legislature promulgating Law Decree (D.L.) No. 46, a terrorist law to be used as a club against the armed struggle and the people. This cavernous decree violates the most elementary principles of the bourgeoisie's own criminal law, and establishes widespread and indiscriminate repression. And if they have not yet instituted the death penalty that they so eagerly and cunningly seek it is because the present constitution prohibits it and they have not yet found the conditions to amend it. The whole reaction, especially its mercenaries (ganapanes) and media hacks, all in the name of "order" and "social peace," call for the "drastic application of the law." Thus, the so-called autonomous judicial system has carried out its sinister intrigues; of manipulating the oppressive laws, hanging judges, kangaroo trials, and prisons; utilizing contrived evidence, accelerated procedures, twisting laws and selling the principles that they claim to safeguard. They have begun to swing their rotten club on the sons and daughters of the masses, imposing monstrous punishments that even some reactionaries have criticized for being vile and counterproductive. A blind and dumb reactionary justice has been put in motion, as it must, in defense of the dying, exploitative, and repressive order. But in so doing, it cannot but reveal it's profoundly counterrevolutionary essence, and exposes even more the dark nature of the legal system and the sacrosanct judicial power. But even this old legal butchery cannot bend the sons and daughters of the people who proudly defy it in the revolution.

But in addition to the persecution and repression, torture and jail, legal club and judicial machinery, and the actions of their police blood hounds of the security and intelligence units, some of whose henchmen the people have and will keep clearly in mind, the government has mounted independent police operations and joint actions with the police forces of the GC, GR, and PIP and their corresponding anti-subversive Sinchi and Dircote units in particular. They have mounted two large operations to date: the first in January 1981 and the second, of a larger magnitude and importance, in October of the same year, where they declared a state of emergency in five provinces in the department of Ayacucho in order to give themselves more firing power and broader impunity, counting upon the support and advice of the armed forces.

What has been the result of the well-publicized October operation? It was a categorical failure. It ended quietly without fanfare or glory and without even the merest public report summing up the results of the vast police mobilization which obviously entailed enormous expenses. That the "final and definitive operation," as it was called. It looked like a delivery in the desert, with more noise than substance as proven by the facts. They failed in its obscure goal of wiping out the armed struggle, to smash the armed organizations and annihilate the Party in that region. On the contrary, the facts show that on December 10, during the state of emergency and their "definitive operation," the guerrilla carried out an assault against the police outpost of Totos, and other actions immediately followed in the region of Ayacucho culminating in the resounding action at San Jos‚ de Secce.

What did the anti-subversive operation show? Plainly and simply that the masses reject and resist aggression; that reactionary brutality, arrogance, and violence did not dishearten them, but rather it so aroused their just class anger that they even confront with their bare hands the armed aggressors protected by the structure of the state. It shows that the people support and protects the armed struggle, the guerrilla warfare that they sustain and defend with their lives, and that their understanding, hearts, and will, go out to the guerrilla war because it advances and serves their liberation. The police operations and all the repressive actions only confirm that the war is gaining in strength and developing, and that if we pay with our sweat, suffering, and blood, this is no more than our quota for having risen in arms in a just and necessary rebellion for the class and the people. It is proven that we are learning warfare through waging warfare, and that we have advanced and will advance further as we follow the leadership of the Party more closely and better, whose just and correct ideological and political line is expressed and molded in irrefutable deeds like those that mark the past twenty-one months of vigorous revolutionary armed struggle.

And what is the essence of the government's political and military position with regard to the guerrillas? It is to combat them as "terrorists." But in this, Peruvian reactionaries, their state, and the government of Belaunde are only following the model set down by their Yankee imperialist masters how to counter the armed struggle. It is known to all that Reagan, the President of the United States, his Secretary of State Haig, and their followers put the brand of "terrorism" on revolutionary wars now being waged in the world. With this scheme they try to discredit armed action, trafficking and playing on the masses' correct rejection of the old individualist, anarchist, and aimless terrorism long condemned by the classics of Marxism, lumping together the defense of property and so-called "social peace" along with what they claim is the defense of life, dreaming to win the masses to their side or at least neutralizing them.

Therefore, to label the armed struggle as "terrorism" is nothing but the demagogic and reactionary position of Yankee imperialism, raised up in order to oppose the armed revolution, seeking to cover it in a cloak of slander while they mount the bloodiest repression and genocide. Further, they use this rotten maneuver in their contention for world hegemony with Russian social-imperialism, trying to link revolutionary action, through so-called "terrorism," to the social imperialist superpower. In this way they seek also to discredit genuine revolutions, which can in no way be compared with the sinister center of contemporary revisionism which has converted Lenin's and Stalin's homeland into the hegemonic superpower of today.

As expected, the Peruvian reaction, the government of Belaunde, and their media mercenaries can do nothing else but apply at all cost the orders and directives of their master, imperialism. But they are not the only ones who condemn our armed struggle as "terrorism." Also jumping on this bandwagon, are the opportunists manipulated by the hardened revisionist Jorge Del Prado and his clique, who obediently follow the baton of the Russian imperialist boss and imperial bludgeon Brezhnev. And it is only natural that these enemies of the revolution act this way since they cannot remain with their arms crossed while their position over the masses, as old-time sellouts in the service of the collusion and contention between social-imperialism and Yankee imperialism, is being undermined. In this same chorus we find "Patria Roja," which calls furiously to the self-proclaimed "left" to unleash a holy war against the supposed "terrorism," and in their role in an ominous division of labor calls for waging an ideological and political struggle against "terrorism," leaving the task of physical repression to the government. Yesterday's enemies of Deng Xiaoping, and today his admirers, they must attack us for fighting Yankee imperialism, the partner of their new revisionist boss, and even more so, for applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which they yesterday invoked, and today rejects. Nevertheless, others have united with this chomp of clowns, still dazzled by the so-called "democratic opening" and "parliamentary road," who've yet to realize that the world has smashed their dreams into the smithereens, and who continue to be deluded by parliamentary cretinism and daydreaming on the forthcoming 1985 elections.

But in the end, while some these and others there added up may seem to be a lot, in reality they are nothing but representatives of a thin film floating on the fathomless sea of the masses of our country. And we must keep in mind that for Marxism, there is only one tactic with regard to the masses, to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the broad masses, who ascend from the depths, and the filthy, decaying scum that floats unsteadily on the waves as a fragile base for bureaucratic trade unionism and counterfeit workers' parties, truly "bourgeois workers' parties." This tactic impels us to educate the masses, theoretically and practically in revolutionary violence and in the consequent resolute and firm struggle against opportunism.

To those and all who claim to be Marxists and revolutionary fighters, whether they lead, go along with, or embrace the imperialist perversion of labeling the armed struggle that emerges from the very heart of the class struggle of our people as "terrorism," we reprint these paragraphs from the great Lenin:

"And so matters are moving ahead! Despite the incredible and utterly indescribable difficulties, a headway is being made in the matter of getting armed. Individual terrorism, bred of intellectualist impotence, is gradually becoming a thing of the past . . . military operations together with the people is now commencing. It is by engaging in such operations that the pioneers of an armed struggle become fused with the masses not merely in word but in deeds, assume leadership of the combat squads and contingents of the proletariat, train in the crucible of civil war dozens of people's leaders who, tomorrow, on the day of the workers' uprising, will be able to help with their experience and their heroic courage thousands and tens of thousands of workers. . .

"Long live the pioneers of the people's revolutionary army! "It is no longer a plot against some detested individual, no act of vengeance or desperation, no mere 'intimidation,' no, it was a well-thought-out and prepared commencement of operations by acontingents of the revolutionary army, planned with due regard for the correlation of forces . . . "

"Fortunately, the time has passed when revolution was 'made' by individual revolutionary terrorists, because the people were not revolutionary. The bomb has ceased to be the weapon of the solitary 'bomb throwers,' and is becoming and essential weapon of the people." . . .

"We went from experience to experience. We sought to create a willful army marching blindly, groping our way, searching for the path to fulfill the task in that situation. And the task was clear. At present we are still very far off from having freed ourselves from these difficulties. At first we acted in a completely abstract way, like revolutionaries who make speeches but who completely ignore ways to overcome problems. Naturally, many people accuse us, and all the socialists and social democrats continue to accuse us even today, of having started something without knowing how to carry it through to the end. But these are no more than ridiculous accusations of the living dead. How could it be possible to launch into making the greatest of revolutions knowing beforehand how to carry it to the end? No, our decisions could only arise out of the experience of the masses."

In conclusion, while the initiated armed struggle develops as fiery guerrilla warfare with brilliant prospects, the counterrevolution, following its reactionary logic, fights and attacks us. And there are those who, serving distant revisionist masters, join the chorus, while others follow in this same vein or approach this path. And even as the people support and encourage us, further strengthening our forces, there are those who want to smother our revolutionary advances under the ragged cloak of "terrorism," since we are the advancing armed revolution. There are those who call us "Sendero Tenebroso," the gloomy path, while trying to perpetuate the shadows that begin to recede from the brilliant light of our actions guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

There are those who call us "unpatriotic" while continuing to sell the country to imperialism. There are those who call us "infantile" without any proof whatsoever and without even seeing that even if such was the case, the genuine struggle of the class and the people teaches and matures while opportunist senility rots and is a disease that contaminates without regard to age. There are those who brand us as "provocateurs" without ever noticing in their blindness that they are persistently provoking the righteous anger of the people for their frustrated and unrepentant promotion of mass capitulation. And finally, there are those who call us "adventurists" without noticing in their political stupidity that they are just the same old political swindlers and petty professional social climbers. Nevertheless, they are totally and completely right about one thing: we have no love for parliamentary cretinism and we do not worship electoral opportunism. We are simply and plainly Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.

Chairman Mao Tse-tung has taught us: "It is a good thing to be attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between ourselves and the enemy. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black without a single virtue. It demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves, but achieved a great deal in our work."

For all that has been said, we reaffirm that COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY ACTION IS THE FUEL OF OUR STRUGGLE!

III. The Crisis of the Reactionary Order Deepens and the People Call for Armed Revolution

What is the current situation of the reactionary forces? The former military government, which lasted twelve years, came to power with two goals to achieve:
1. to strengthen bureaucratic capitalism, and
2. to reorganize Peruvian society.

To complete the first task, it took as the driven force the state-controlled economy. In order to fulfill the second task, the government was guided by a fascist political outlook and promoted the reorganization of society along corporate lines. In its first phase it made advances in obtaining its objectives, but the economic crisis generated by itself, and especially the persistent struggle of the masses, forced the military government to reexamine its objectives and limit itself to a general readjustment of its plan to subsequently proceed with the corporate reorganization in order to institutionalize those changes that they had set out from the beginning, and, moreover, to proceed to a future transfer of state power. Nevertheless, the deepening of the economic crisis and the intensification of the class struggle cut short their goals, and the new constitution, thus representing the third reorganization of the Peruvian state in this century did not achieve the molding of a corporate Peruvian society. It only allowed for the strengthening of executive power at the expense of the parliament, and a greater participation of the armed forces in the running of the state. As a corollary to the military measures, two elections were held, the elections for the constituent assembly and the general elections of 1980. In both, voter turnouts declined, part of a trend common throughout Latin America, showing a loss of faith in elections and government.

Under these conditions' Bela£nde took over the government, and today, more than one and a half years since his term began, the economic crisis continues, the publicized resurgence of the economy is nowhere in sight, a persistent, growing inflation continues to pound any economic advance, and the budget deficits, the very basis of the government's measures, increase uncontrollably, gravely threatening an increasingly battered Peruvian economy. Imperialist domination sinks its nails deeper in our country, taking over more and more of our natural resources, especially oil, extending its grip into the peasant's areas, and broadening its control over the country's commerce and finance. The so-called "agrarian reform" has been concluded.

The electoral opportunists join the chorus of those claiming that the land problem is ended and resolved. They try to fool the peasants with the botched "farming and cattle-raising programs" at the same time as they advocate the development of the "associative property" to cover up the return of the big landowners to promote bureaucrat capitalism in agriculture under the control of the big banks and with the direct participation of Yankee I imperialism. The proletariat and workers are burdened with growing unemployment and declining wages while working conditions deteriorate and prior gains are negated or threatened every day, such as the right to strike. The petty bourgeoisie suffers increasing pauperization, the intellectuals in particular are thwarted and the people in general face hunger while the new reactionary government tries to subjugate them even more. The national bourgeoisie and medium-sized capitalists see growing restrictions on their businesses, suffering also the consequences of the government's intensified undermining of national industry. Meanwhile, in the very bosom of the big bourgeoisie, a sharp struggle between the bureaucratic and comprador factions, and even within these factions is taking place over who will reap the most profits or benefits.

In sum, then, guided by an orientation that sees developing big monopoly, mainly Yankee capital, as the motor of economic development, the present government aims at further developing the subjugating semifeudal structure, that still rules the country, for the direct benefit of the old and new type landowners and the old type rich peasants. The current government undermines the basic industrial structure of the country in order to direct even more the economic trend toward extraction and production, particularly mining and petroleum. And now, it transfers and seeks to auction off the state enterprises, those which the former government had concentrated in the hands of the state at the cost of a staggering public debt placed on the backs of the people. Thus, preparing a succulent offering to the insatiable appetite of big capitalists, particularly imperialist capital. The current reactionary government, whose head, prime mover, and most responsible representative is Bela£nde, is as servile as any before it in its eagerness to build up bureaucratic capital (big monopoly capital, vassals to the feudal landowners and subjugated to imperialism) principally to the benefit of big monopoly capital, especially big banking and finance capital under the asphyxiating and ever widening expansion of U.S. imperialism. But even if this is the outline and scheme of the government, the same complex conflict of interests among the exploiters, the persistent and deepening crisis, and even more, the class struggle which sharpens day by days does not allow the government to overcome its present difficulties, a crucial matter in order to organize and work out a coherent plan based on the clear and defined program that the ruling order loudly demands.

On the political plane, the government continues to face the complex and entangled turning point of the class struggle which generates the introduction of a new constitution, the consolidation of a bureaucracy totally devoted to it, and a regrouping of reactionary political forces placed in hibernation during the previous twelve years, and, principally, generated the need to rein in the masses who have been drowning in years of stifling crisis that propels them one more time into action to defend their own vital interests, these are the masses deceived by the long harsh years of a demagogic government pretending to be "revolutionary" and aided (as always!) by the same opportunists, have seen their most basic needs denied and their aspirations mocked. All this has created a complicated political situation for the reactionary rulers. Nevertheless, the reality is crystal clear.

In a year and a half the decrepitude of the democratic/ bourgeois order has become evident to the people, who see the contrast in a hypocritical invocation of human rights and liberties alongside their brutal negation of what they preach. The obsolete parliamentary institutions are coming apart like an empty barrel rolling downhill, sinking in the pompous and sterile rhetoric of the anointed "fathers of the country," while basic legislative functions give in to the arrogant invasion of jurisdiction by the Executive. And an arthritic and anemic so-called judicial power carries out its functions, compelled only by the mountains of pending proceedings, crooked dealings and servile subjugation to whatever arrogant authority is in charge, and in constant violation of its own reactionary laws, directed, as always, against the people and which, especially today, feeds on revolutionary fighters. And then there is also the so-called autonomous electoral power that routinely rigs elections, covering up its crudest manipulations. Added to this are the sharp contention and split between the reactionary parties that are repeatedly revealed in public scandals and which find expression in all kinds of lawless proceedings. Thus the reactionary political system clearly reveals the frailty and rottenness that it attempts to hide behind the mask of democracy and its phony concern for the masses (who are needed only for occasional voting and for demagogic drum beating). In this way, as Marxism teaches, the armed forces and the police, mainly the former, are ever more the true backbone of the reactionary state and their true bastion, hence their growing importance and growing interference in the running of the state. Nevertheless, we can never forget that an armed force, in essence, strategically is only as strong as the social order it defends, no matter how heavily armed it may be tactical.

The ruling, exploitative, oppressive order is also in an ideological crisis despite its hypocritical hand wringing over the so-called "moral crisis of the people," which is nothing but the destruction of old principles shattered by the blows of acute economic crisis and the political feebleness of the reaction. And, this is precisely what is principal, the crisis of bourgeois-democratic principles and the social order that, superseded by historical development, by the class struggle, by the vigorous rise of the proletariat and the popular masses, and the great radical transforming process that has put the stamp of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism the world over, is left more exposed in the light of day not only in the historical sense, but also in the sense that every day its political decrepitude grows more pronounced. Every day witnesses a decline in the influence of bourgeois-democratic principles which, if in centuries past were revolutionary, have for decades been reactionary. That their hold on people is waning can be seen from the results of the last election. Bela£nde took office with 46 percent of the votes and felt exalted to the heavens, the holder of absolute power, the unchallenged voice above the class struggle and contentions. Nevertheless, a year and a half have been enough to smash his electoral sand castle, dissolving it like sewage foam, with his fictitious "great authority" cast between the pounding waves and swirling vortexes, marches to its total ruin.

Finally, we should speak, even quickly and briefly, on the question of Ecuador. Ecuador's questioning of the R¡o Protocol of 1942 goes back many years. This situation has become aggravated in recent years as proven by the border incident of the Cordillera del Condor of January 1981. But the present Peruvian government and Belaunde who heads and leads it (even more, being the person who directly conducts international politics and who consequently is principally responsible) has been dealing with this delicate and important problem in a totally erroneous and irresponsible way; instead of looking for a means to clarify the border question, they adopt an alarmingly superficial and frivolous attitude: if the Ecuadoran question is not treated justly and correctly, it has the potential to become a serious problem of grave and vast consequences. This problem, obviously, has never been addressed directly by anyone but the people themselves, who with their own blood and efforts have given us the territory which makes up our country. Here too, the reactionary politics and measures of the government of Belaunde are evident, since everyone can see that the many conflicts in our Latin American countries and the many wars our people have been involved all derive from the union of interests of the imperialists, in contention with those of its agents and internal partners who govern our republics. And this is a greater worry today when the Latin American scene reveals various potential conflicts unfolding in the stirred-up climate of contention between the superpowers in their pursuit for world domination. In sum, we see the sharpening crisis of the reactionary order, which approaches the year 1982 with dark perspectives.

And what is the present situation of the people? A peasantry with a centuries-old fundamental goal, "Land to the tiller, " whom despite its undaunted struggle, has yet to achieve its goal. This is a peasantry whom they have tried to deceive with three supposed agrarian reform laws in the past twenty years. And yet, after the bombastic demagoguery and their full implementation, the peasants were left with the same old unsatisfied thirst for land.

A proletariat, whose long, vigorous struggle has yielded only miserable wages and other concessions from its exploiters, only to lose them in each economic crisis society endures. This is a proletariat whose struggle rotates on a vicious iron circle and who once again today is involved in the unending battle over wages, working hours, and working conditions.

A petty bourgeoisie, making up a broad stratum characteristic of a backward country, that sees its dreams ruined by the relentless impoverishment to which the ruling order subjects it. There is a middle bourgeoisie, a national bourgeoisie that is weak and lacks capital, that totters between revolution and counterrevolution, while each new crisis crushes it nearly to the point of suffocation.

These are the four classes that historically make up the people of our land. Of them, it is the peasantry which is the principal driven force, as much as it is the proletariat that rises and develops as the class leading our revolution. United, they make up the worker-peasant alliance, the only possible solid base for any possible revolutionary front. The petty bourgeoisie unites with them, and together, the three, under the leadership of the proletariat, are the backbone of the revolutionary front, which is nothing if it is not a front for the armed struggle and the class framework for the New State. This solid union, this solid front, is held together so long as the proletariat firmly retains its hegemony, bases itself on the worker-peasant alliance, forged and developed in the heat of the armed struggle, of guerrilla warfare. It is this front of classes that the national bourgeoisie will sometimes join (and sometimes leave) depending on the raging winds of the class struggle.

And the Peruvian people, this immense majority, these masses that are the true makers of history, these powerful productive forces, are constrained by the persistent decrepitude of the exploitative social relations that impose unemployment and underemployment on 56.3 percent of the "economically active population" (according to the government's own statistics), and in the countryside, two of every three peasants are underemployed. Thus the decrepit system of exploitation destroys and holds back the powerful creative forces of the people, the only forces capable of the thorough revolutionary transformation for which our country has fought for too long. Furthermore, the reactionaries defend this evil destructive system with blood and fire to the benefit of the big landlords, of the old and the new type, of a big comprador or bureaucratic bourgeoisie and their masters, Yankee imperialism that for each dollar it invests extracts five.

This rotten, bloody system is held together by the oppression imposed by the reactionary landlord-bureaucratic state, through its state apparatus, its bureaucracy, its armed forces, its judiciary, its jails, and its ancient and repression of murderous proportions, principally through the armed forces, which are the real backbone of the ruling-class dictatorship that dominates and increases its profits extracted from the sweat, toil, and blood of our people.

If you are talking about exploitation and oppression, you are talking about the state; if you are talking about the state, you are talking about classes, if you are talking about classes you are talking about class struggle; if you are talking about class struggle, you are talking about people's struggle; and, as facts have shown in history, if you are talking about people's struggle you are talking about rebellion, an armed struggle, guerrilla warfare, as the situation in the America's show today. Our people, like all the peoples of the world, have their own proud history of struggles etched with their blood and heroism. The most earthshaking, turbulent, and splendid battles have been those waged relentlessly by the peasantry, especially the poor peasants, through the centuries. It is sufficient to remember here that our republican emancipation was won as a result of the great armed peasants' actions of the 18th century, and our own 20th century has been marked by big peasant struggles in the 1920's and 1960's. These and the powerful struggle of 1963 are sources of extraordinary experiences, to which it is necessary to add the armed struggle led by MIR back in 1965, a struggle which left us invaluable lessons which every revolutionary must know about. Nevertheless, it is with the appearance of Marxism and the Communist Party that the peasant struggle acquired its full revolutionary expression. With the leadership of the proletariat, through its Party, the peasantry has met with and is following the real road to the overthrow of the present exploiting order, that is, People's War, the highest expression of proletarian military thought established by Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

Thus our people, as all people in the world, have been nurtured and have advanced in the course of revolutionary violence. It is here, in its diverse forms and levels of struggles that our people have won demands, rights and liberties. None of these conquests have fell from the skies, nor was it given; "despite what traitors might say." In the final analysis all was conquered and defended with revolutionary violence in fierce fight against reactionary violence.

That is how the 8-hour day was won, how territory was won and held, and how rights were won and tyrants overthrown. Revolutionary violence is the essence of our historical process and, if the freedom of the republic was won with arms on the battlefield, it is easy to understand that the development and triumph of the Peruvian revolution, of our democratic revolution, of the emancipation of the people and the class, will be won only through the most splendid revolutionary war of our people, rising in arms en masse through People's War.

And today, our heroic people, inheritors of such a rich history and following this glorious road, wage battles against the new reactionary government, wage battle in the countryside against the big and small landlords, the social base of reactionary state power in agriculture; wage battle in the factories and mines against their exploiters and oppressors, wage battle in the countless barrios, striking out against hunger and misery; wage battle in the universities and colleges for their need to learn and become educated; wage battles in the small and medium sized cities against a suffocating centralism; wage battle in education, science, and culture for the undeniable right to nourish the spirit and enjoy peace of mind; wage battle in the streets for the right to earn a living; wage battle to maintain rights and liberties already won, for freedom of thought, the freedoms of speech, of organization, of assembly, for the right to strike, and numerous other victories wrenched through their struggle and toil which, despite being stamped into law and in the National Constitution, are trampled on, questioned, and denied twenty-four hours a day by the arrogant and abusive actions of those in power, and by whatever highly placed social climbers, which is in a position of authority (as is the natural order of things among those who run the state). If our people are more conscious than yesterday, more politicized than yesterday, and more organized, firm, and decisive than yesterday, it is because of the enormous presence of the proletariat guided by unconquerable Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that arms their minds and fists.

Our heroic fighting people enter into battle even when this means facing against the clubs, bombs, bullets, and fierce battalions of reaction. They do it in certainty because that struggle tempers, mobilizes, organizes, politicizes, and arms and prepares them for the great battles to come. And if our people are learning anything, today more than before, it is that the class struggle necessarily leads to the struggle for power, and that this can only be won through violent revolution which for us means revolutionary war, armed struggle, the guerrilla warfare of People's War. Only in this way can power be conquered by the class and people. And only in this way can the New State arise and the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, so as to carry out the great and complete transformation of society so that, finally, the brilliant, resolute light of communism will shine in our own land. This spirit already dwells among the people. This is clearly shown in the countryside and in the cities where the people begin to once again use violence to repel reactionary violence in defense of their rights. And, more important and demonstrative still is the greater support the people give the armed struggle, the guerrilla war, led by the Party. Though they may not yet understand t in its total depth and scope (that requires its continued development), with the wisdom of collective action the people are fully capable of seeing that these flames of today begin to presage the armed bonfires to come, and in this the real hope for inexorable emancipation is bellowed and welded.

This is, according to the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism way of seeing things, the situation of the reactionaries and of the people. In this contradictory situation we see the two concrete aspects and specifics of today's revolutionary situation. So we can see clearly the revolutionary situation manifesting itself and how Lenin understood it: today those on top can no longer continue ruling as they did yesterday, and those on the bottom are no longer willing to live as they have until now. In the reactionary camp, we can see the lack of a precise and defined acceptable program capable of welding the reactionary forces and the erratic jumble of moves and counter moves that betray the lack of a fixed course, the understandable result of the lack of a unified program and much less an accepted one. Among the people we can see the firm and decisive move toward armed revolution, their will for revolutionary transformation, although as a limitation they sometimes may express themselves in a simple desire to overthrow the decrepit ruling system. But still, if this was all there was to it, this is the basic and enough reason to meet the correct course of action, because it is the armed struggle itself, through its accomplishments, that open even wider the road of armed struggle and, likewise, shows in deeds the correctness of this road in the minds of people, and thus the masses become more and more part of this great road of People's War.

Such are the concrete issues of the developing revolutionary situation. We have reached this point due to two factors:

1. The polarization of the class struggle, and
2. The armed struggle that evolves as guerrilla warfare sprung from the very heart of the class struggle in the country.
The polarization of the class struggle and its further development as armed struggle has intensified the preexisting revolutionary situation. Thus, today, and in perspective, we can see that as the developing revolutionary situation heats up, it will further deepen the class struggle and both will strongly impel the further advance of the armed struggle. This is, in synthesis, the current situation of both the people and the reaction. The latter propose, through the government of Belaunde, a "social pact" or "concertation" (reconciliation or class collaboration) which is nothing more than a rehash of the position of the previous government, but the people's position in perspective is: support the armed struggle.

Thus, today the class struggle is polarized and will continue to be polarized even more in the future: "concertation" vs. support for the armed struggle. Reconciliation is the black flag of the reaction; support for the armed struggle is the red flag of the people. Reconciliation is the flag of reaction bent on binding the people's hands and feet, and, in more limited terms, to weld together the contending factions in the reactionary camp. To achieve this, the reactionary regime will resort to whatever means, including repression, with the objective of maintaining their dominance. In the last resort they increase the use of armed force, since that is the card reaction keep up its sleeve for the opportune moment. Support for the armed struggle is the red flag of the people and must be their necessary perspective since, for the people, reconciliation is capitulation. The road for our people begins to manifest itself with greater clarity and determination: supporting and building the armed struggle is the only historic road that corresponds to the path of the people, there is no other. Supporting the armed struggle today means simply to develop guerrilla warfare.

For all that has been said we conclude: THE CRISIS OF THE REACTIONARY ORDER DEEPENS AND THE PEOPLE CALL FOR ARMED REVOLUTION.

IV. Develop Guerrilla Warfare

Chairman Mao Tse-tung states: "The central task and highest form of revolution is the conquest of power by means of armed struggle, that is, the settlement of the issue through war. This revolutionary Marxist-Leninist principle is a universal truth applicable in China as in all countries."
Further he says: "Before the outbreak of war, all organizations and struggles have as their goal preparing for it . . . After the outbreak of war, all organizations and struggles must be coordinated directly or indirectly with the war effort."

The Communist Party of Peru, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party of a new type, loyal to its principles and program, conscious of its historic mission as the organized vanguard of the Peruvian proletariat, has assumed its responsibility to launch the armed struggle to fight for the conquest of power for the working class and the people, and today is developing guerrilla warfare, learning from advances and setbacks, fanning more widely the living flames of armed conflict and rooting them more deeply among the poor peasants, principally, and will lead in building revolutionary base areas that will finally give concrete form to the triumphant road of People's War. Prior to the launching of the People's War, the Party had to be reconstituted, following the expulsion of Del Prado and Co., the standard bearers of revisionism in the Party's ranks. In the IV National Conference of January 1964, we entered the long and complex process of reconstitution, it agreed later by means of the VI Conference of January 1969 in which the Party threw off the weight of revisionism and became a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party of a new type. With the completion of this arduous and glorious task, the 9th Plenary Session of the Central Committee in 1979 approved the launching of the armed struggle. Once this historic mandate was completed, in May 1980, the armed struggle was initiated with the proclamation of the two basic slogans: "Armed Struggle!" and "Workers' and Peasants' Government!" Thus, our actions were initiated, unfolding as guerrilla warfare, and now, in accord with the Central Committee of January 1981, we are further developing the guerrilla warfare. The armed struggle initiated and led resolutely by the Party is the continuation of the class struggle of the Peruvian people; it is the armed continuation of its political struggle and is profoundly linked to and indissolubly united with the masses, mainly the poor peasants. The masses are our only base and support, the source of our strength and vigor. We are firm practitioners of the great principle of relying on our own strength, as we are firm followers of proletarian internationalism, unfurling that immortal call of Marx and Engels, "Proletarians of All Countries Unite! ," And as communists we always raise highest the three great banners of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Marx, Lenin, and Mao, which demands us to be irreconcilable enemies of revisionism and all forms of opportunism.

In waging the revolution in our country we are serving the world proletarian revolution, which will not rest until communism shines over the face of the earth. The revolutionary reality of our country shows that in fact the armed struggle burns victoriously, that the counterrevolutionary actions fuel our struggle, that the reactionary order sinks in crisis, and the people call for armed revolution. Thus our heroic people are faced with the pressing historic necessity to support the armed struggle, which today means developing guerrilla warfare. The Communist Party of Peru, the Party founded by Mariá tegui, the Party reconstituted as a Party of a new Marxist-Leninist-Maoist type, has begun the armed struggle in our country and had, through twenty-one months of the enrichment of combative life, developed it as guerrilla warfare. The Communist Party of Peru, which has risen to the heavens the red flags of rebellion to serve the working class and the people in their emancipation, calls on the Peruvian proletariat, and especially the poor peasantry and broad masses throughout the country, to take our historic destiny in our hands and overthrow the existing rotten, reactionary ruling order and build the new revolutionary social order that the people demand and cry out for.

Peruvian people ! Workers, peasants, women, youth, and intellectuals, support the armed struggle! Support the development of the guerrilla warfare!

Peruvian people! Your vigorous voice, like furious thunder, has begun to express itself in the vibrant and purifying language of revolutionary violence, in an armed struggle. Through guerrilla actions, through guerrilla warfare, you are creating milestones in your new history, your definitive history. We have embarked on a great road, a long and arduous one, but victory will be decisive, since "except for state power, all is but illusion!"

DEVELOP GUERRILLA WARFARE!
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU!
GLORY TO MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM!

March, 1982

PCP-CENTRAL COMMITTEE

¹This is a temporary.translation, final correction is pending.