MIM Notes 42

MIM presents world's first translation of excerpts of Comrade Gonzalo's "Interview" into English:

Comrade Gonzalo speaks on FMLN, social-democracy, revisionism generally

Interview with Comrade Gonzalo translated
from MIM Notes Number 42, June 18 1990
by MC5
The general political economy of Peru is now well-know even in the bourgeois press. Peru is experiencing 2000% inflation, double-digit unemployment, widespread and worsening starvation and death squad government.
What is somewhat more controversial is that many believe the guerrillas are almost as violent as the army, that there is democracy in Peru and that there is some popular force in Peru other than the Senderos that the masses support.
Peru is an excellent case study of who the real leaders of social change in the world are -- Maoists. Every other ideologically organized group has involved itself in the parliamentary charade in Peru, with the exception of the pro- Cuban guerrillas.
The Maoist revolutionaries in Peru have understated their case against their revisionist and opportunist opponents, perhaps in an effort to rally all democratic forces against fascism. Yet, for outsiders to understand Peru, illusions should be cast aside.
All the social democrats including outgoing President Garcia and all the revisionists (with the exception of the pro-Cuban forces) have decided to serve as figleaves for a military fascist regime. That includes the pro-Soviet and pro-Deng Xiaoping phony communists and various so-called democratic socialists.
What does it mean to be a democratic socialist in Peru? It means providing a cover for fascism and a prolongation of the starvation and grinding poverty of the masses. It means pretending that democratic processes have a meaning where the military slaughters entire villages and massacres prisoners. It means deceiving the masses about the fundamental nature of society in order to grab a share of power for yourself.
The following is an an unauthorized translation of some excerpts from an interview with the Peruvian newspaper El Diario and Communist Party of Peru Chairperson Gonzalo. ("Entrevista Al Presidente Gonzalo," Comite Central Partido Comunista Del Peru, 1989)
El Diario: Chairperson. In Peru's case, what has been the highest expression of revisionism? Who are its proponents?
Chairperson Gonzalo: It is formally called the Peruvian Communist Party that is known publicly through the publication (Unidad) Unity, fifth column of Soviet revisionism, which is headed by the revisionist Jorge Del Prado, who some consider a "dedicated revolutionary." And, in the second place, (Patria Roja) Red Country, is the agency of Chinese revisionism with its leaders adoring Deng Xiaoping. (p. 15)
El Diario: Why characterize the APRA government as fascist and corporatist? What is the basis for this?
Gonzalo: On the characterization of the Aprista government without treating the historical problems. . . . The APRA is in a dilemma [contradiction?] with two tendencies, one of fascist criteria and the other of liberal democratic criteria. . . .
When does the dilemma become defined? The dilemma is resolved with the genocide of 1986, the class struggles of the masses, the people's war, principally the genocidal action carried out by the APRA to define itself as fascist with the triumph of the fascist faction.
Why do we say fascist? The fascist faction that has existed in the APRA is going to take political measures for the implementation of corporatization. . .
What do we mean by fascist and corporatist? For us, fascism is the negation of the principles of liberal democracy; it is the negation of the principles of the democratic bourgeoisie born and developed in the 18th century in France.(pp. 80-3)
El Diario: During eight years [of armed struggle -- ed.] the groups and parties of the right, of revisionism, of opportunism and of all the parties of the reaction have screamed and yelled that the PCP is "insane," "messianic," "bloodthirsty," "Pol Potian," "dogmatist," "sectarian," "narcoterrorist," . . . What do you say to these charges?
Gonzalo: [It is their] incapacity to understand People's War. The enemies of the revolution are never able to understand it. As regards taking the peasants under fire...because it is precisely the immense majority of peasants that fall in with the People's Guerrilla Army. The problem is understanding the Peruvian state with its armed and repressive forces, which want to drown the revolution in blood. It is our understanding and recommendation that these mssrs. study a little about war in general, revolutionary war and principally People's War and Maoism; although we doubt they can understand it because of the class position they hold. (p. 69)
El Diario: The reaction and the revisionists and the opportunists of the United Left (IU), say the [Senderos] are isolated from the masses. What can you say in this regard?
Gonzalo: To these revisionists and opportunists, I have a question: "How do you explain the existence of a movement that developed a people's war in eight years without international support if you have no support from the masses?"
El Diario: What do you think of the political line of the IU? What destiny do you assign to this revisionist front? And about the ANP, what position does the PCP take?
Gonzalo: About this we want to be especially brief, first because, "what is the line of Izquierda Unida (United Left) in these moments?" We don't know it. From previous documents it is "a front of masses of socialist tendency," and it makes evident the fact that it is involved in parliamentary cretinism. At the bottom of these positions what is there? A question very simple -- to believe that they are able to capture the government and immediately take power; since they intend not to capture one without the other . . . because the essential problem of the state is the system of the state, who is to decide the dictatorship that is exercised, which class is, and derive from this the system of government. The rest are cheap elaborations of the rotten revisionists. . . . They are not for the destruction of the state but are for a government that permits them to continue evolution of this dying and rotten order, that is what they seek proclaiming that with this government and reforms they are able to march to socialism; and all this is simply unbridled revisionism condemned by Lenin. . . .
As for the Popular National Assembly [ANP]. Good, the ANP is an interesting case, for on the one side, it says, "it is the birth of power," [connoting grassroots power -- ed.] very good, "grassroots power." The question is are they desiring to form soviets? Are they republishing the Bolivian experience with Juan Jos Torres? Are they able to create a a power in this way? Raising this supposed "grassroots power" is simply building opposition to the New Power that we have been constructing really and concretely.
On the other side, is also the ANP that says it is "a front of the masses," oh, is that a competitor of the IU, also a "front of the masses?" Good, that defines that case then. Is it "grassroots power" or is it "front of the masses"? That case concretely and clearly establishes it as invention of power. What is the truth? Simply that the ANP is managed by the revisionists.
El Diario: How do you define the politics of the front?
Gonzalo: We are absolutely opposed to the revisionist theory that they apply in Central America and they want to send out to other parts, of "all are revolutionaries," "all are Marxists," "there is no need for a Communist Party to direct," "it is enough to simply unite everybody and base themselves in a front for conducting a revolution." That is the negation of Marxism; it is the negation of Marx; it is the negation of Lenin; it is the negation of Chairperson Mao. . . .
[The party provides] the necessary direction, but we don't want to make the revolution because it is the masses that want to make the revolution, consequently the necessity of the front's uniting 90% of the population, the immense majority; that is what we are searching for, that is what we are pursuing and that is what we are doing.
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Here is just another piece of what is available on Peru:
(Question about political leadership leadership:)

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