Shining Path kill 12 soldiers, wound 14, biggest attack in 10 years

[Saorsa]

Peruvian guerrillas kill 12 soldiers, wound 14



By Diego Ore
LIMA (Reuters) - Suspected members of the Shining Path guerrilla group killed 12 Peruvian soldiers and wounded 14 others in an ambush near the mountain town of Tayacaja in southern Peru, the military said on Friday.
It was the deadliest attack by suspected rebels since President Alan Garcia took office in July 2006 and came just before Garcia was forced to reshuffle his entire cabinet over a corruption scandal.
Four military vehicles returning to a base in the coca-growing province of Huancavelica were attacked in the middle of the night when a bomb was tossed in front of one truck and shots were fired into the convoy. Two civilians were killed and three were injured.
The guerrillas did not suffer casualties.
"Military operations are underway to capture the terrorists," the army said. It initially said up to 19 people died in the attack but later revised the death toll.
Including the latest attack, about three dozen police, soldiers and anti-narcotics workers have been killed since Garcia began his term.
Garcia's approval rating has fallen to 19 percent, an all-time low, and since August he has been sending soldiers to the country's coca-rich regions in an effort to destroy what is left of the organization, which security officials say includes around 300 guerrillas.
"The presence (of the Shining Path) is growing everyday. If the government does not do something, this is going to become a national problem," said Federico Salas, president of Huancavelica province.
The clash occurred near the Apurimac and Ene valleys, which are important coca-growing regions. Peru is the world's second largest producer of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine, after Colombia.
The Shining Path led a deadly insurrection that started in 1980. During two decades of conflict, 69,000 people were killed in Peru as government forces battled leftists.
The Shining Path largely collapsed in 1992 after its leader was captured, but holdout members of the group are still active. The government says they have mostly abandoned their Maoist ideology in favor of running drugs.
The ambush in Huancavelica, one of the poorest areas of Peru, was carried out as the country prepares to host the APEC forum in November, when 21 heads of state will visit Peru, including leaders from the United States, China and Japan.
A government critic and former interior minister blasted the army for getting caught off guard.
"This shows the military is inept and incompetent when it comes to dealing with terrorism," said Fernando Rospigliosi.


http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE49A0CA20081011?sp=true

[Saorsa]

Bump. Not even a single denunciation of Maoist adventurism?

[Mather]

Bump. Not even a single denunciation of Maoist adventurism?


My guess is that the massive decline in fortunes for the Shining Path and it's near state of non-existence, means that both it's former supporters and it's detractors have more or less written the Shining Path off.

To be honest, when a social/working class revolution does occur in Peru, I don't think the Shining Path will have any role in it whatsoever.

The Shining Path is now more of historical interest than it having any relevance to working class politics in Peru today.

[Revy]

The 2 remaining members of the Shining Path came out of their hiding hole I see. As always, their activities lead to anything but revolution. :rolleyes:

[KurtFF8]

My guess is that the massive decline in fortunes for the Shining Path and it's near state of non-existence, means that both it's former supporters and it's detractors have more or less written the Shining Path off.

To be honest, when a social/working class revolution does occur in Peru, I don't think the Shining Path will have any role in it whatsoever.

The Shining Path is now more of historical interest than it having any relevance to working class politics in Peru today.

I did actually see an article within the past few months (written by a corporate outlet) about the "resurgence" of Shining Path. I wish I could find the link (maybe I posted it over at PoFo)

[Sendo]

Hopefully they keep up momentum or do something. I don't much about Shining Path, but it would be sad to see those bullets and risk and lives gone if nothing comes of it. Hopefully it gets publicity where it counts, in Peru.

Oh yes, and curse the maoist adventurism. Those people should be selling newspapers, not gallavanting about like Che Guevara wannabes. Harumf!!!

[Revy]

Hopefully they keep up momentum or do something. I don't much about Shining Path, but it would be sad to see those bullets and risk and lives gone if nothing comes of it. Hopefully it gets publicity where it counts, in Peru.

Oh yes, and curse the maoist adventurism. Those people should be selling newspapers, not gallavanting about like Che Guevara wannabes. Harumf!!!

The Shining Path has killed the working class too, not just soldiers.

[Panda Tse Tung]

The Shining Path has killed the working class too, not just soldiers.

Pom pom pom. Horrible fiends
Did you know that Che killed members of the working class as well?
Did you ever even consider the fact that not every single member of the working class might be supportive of the revolution?

*ohw the n000z. an entire dream to shackles*

[Yehuda Stern]

Well, I'm not going to denounce them, that would be hypocritical - revolutionaries should denounce the comprador Latin American regimes that oppress their peoples and provoke such actions. I think the action in itself is very brave, but that such guerrillaism leads nowhere, and that brave anti-imperialists would better serve the revolution as part of a Marxist International.

[Herman]

Yes, join an organization which likes to sell newspapers and meet once every year! Stop your guerrilla warfare, drop your weapons! Revolution happens by talking about it.

[ROM]

This is an informative article. The war goes forth once again.
It.s terrible to think DRUG CZARS wish to turn the jobs of the coccoa farmers into cocaine and poppy fields for thier own exploitation and personal wealth.
DOWN WITH ALL DRUG CZARS

[Yehuda Stern]

Yes, join an organization which likes to sell newspapers and meet once every year! Stop your guerrilla warfare, drop your weapons! Revolution happens by talking about it.

It's not my fault that your conception of a revolutionary organization is that limited, troll. Do you ever have anything real to say, or do you just talk shit all the time?

[Hessian Peel]

Such actions are the only meaningful resistance to capitalistic imperialism in the world today, and on that basis should be applauded even though they may not lead to greater things. The first-world Left are in no position to criticise anyone as despite the arse falling out of capitalism they have nothing to show for it. :crying:

[Herman]

Read above. I agree with that.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Red October]

Such actions are the only meaningful resistance to capitalistic imperialism in the world today, and on that basis should be applauded even though they may not lead to greater things.

Then what the hell is the point? Sure, it's brave and hurts the government by taking away 12 of it's soldiers, but the Shining Path used to do a lot more than this and Peru didn't stop being capitalist. We've got to ask what use these kinds of actions really have. I could run out and torch a cop car right now if I wanted, which would surely be a blow against the government in some way, but what good would it actually do? I could do far more good by devoting my energies to supporting the mental health workers who are struggling in my city.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well, at least they're killing soldiers now, instead of butchering peasants.

[JimmyJazz]

What really moves the revolution forward is debating vigorously on discussion boards about what moves the revolution forward.

[KurtFF8]

Such actions are the only meaningful resistance to capitalistic imperialism in the world today, and on that basis should be applauded even though they may not lead to greater things.

If resistance isn't going to lead to better things then why support it? Isn't that the point of supporting any type of revolutionary situation: because it will lead to "better things"?

[Saorsa]

Shining Path are ultra-left wackos who serve the interests of the right-wing. The left can win politically right now and probably will by a huge majority next national election unless the right-wing will capitalize on the situation of these terrorists.

Shooting a bunch of soldiers in a remote part of Peru is not meaningful resistance in fact its going to back fire immensely.

Yeah, don't bother struggling for revolution through armed struggle and/or militant resistance. Keep your mouths shut and your fists unclenched so that the nice reformists can be elected and make everything better!

You're a liberal reformist.

[Sendo]

^
Maybe if we play nice nobody will won't fear leftists anymore and we can assume the halls of power the old-fashioned way. :)

[Yehuda Stern]

Everyone here is mocking discussion, but yes, I think discussion is the first step in building a revolutionary organization. We have to decide what we want to do, and then in order to do it, we can use whatever tactics we want: we can use the parliament, we can use strikes, we can use guerrilla warfare, anything, as long as we know where we're going with it. The problem with the way people argue their views in here is that they seem to be suggesting that all radical people in Latin America strap on an AK and go around shooting soldiers. There must be an aim in sight. There must be a goal.

If the ISL had a section in Peru or in any other Latin American country where there are guerrillas, we would not condemn the guerrillas - we would condemn the state. We might even use guerrilla warfare ourselves, if we thought that it would advance the revolution at that point in time (personally, at the moment, I think it's more important to concentrate on building a working class vanguard party). But only after we understand for what purpose we use it. Mindless guerrillaism got many good working class fighters killed back in the 60s and 70s for mostly nothing.

[Vendetta]

Mindless guerrillaism got many good working class fighters killed back in the 60s and 70s for mostly nothing.

Gotta somewhat agree with you there.

[Charles Xavier]

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[JimmyJazz]

Everyone here is mocking discussion, but yes, I think discussion is the first step in building a revolutionary organization. We have to decide what we want to do, and then in order to do it, we can use whatever tactics we want: we can use the parliament, we can use strikes, we can use guerrilla warfare, anything, as long as we know where we're going with it.

I didn't mean to make fun of all discussion, just this one. Debating "you just wanna sell newspapers" versus "you just wanna shoot random cops and soldiers in the name of the working class" is missing the whole point. Because I think we do all agree on two things: building a mass organization is crucial, and unleashing violence at the decisive moment is acceptable (and probably necessary).

So the debate should not be over those two things that we all essentially agree upon. What we should be having a huge discussion on is: why is it that the working class whom the Trotskyists are selling their newspapers to, and the guerrillas claim to be shooting soldiers for, seem to be so unaffected and apathetic about it all? We all agree that violence should be backed up and legitimized by mass support from the working class...so why can't we seem to achieve that support these days? I see lots of people posting essays and articles which shoot down various theories of why (the theory of labor aristocracy, the theory of cultural hegemony, etc.), but then they don't propose their own idea. Which seems kind of crazy, because what question could possibly be of more importance to our movement?

[Sendo]

that is the question. but we can't devote all of our time to it. Waiting to act until we've perfected ourselves We can't be obsessive. We need to always work for improvement and look inside our selves and among each other. It takes both. It's silly to think that we'll take action once we've "figured it all out", you never will "figure it all out", that goes for life, politics, people, friends, the cosmos, everything. I'd rather see people try and fail then not try. I think for those "socialists" who've done more harm than good (like Pol Pot, an extreme example) I doubt the motives were heartfelt and sincere.

As for Shining Path, it's hard to pas judgment since there doesn't seem to be much journalism down there. The fact that a group like exists speaks a lot about the living and political conditions of that country at some point. For now I'm guessing they want to change things for the better and aren't looking for power. There's easier ways to get power and wealth in the world. Hell, even in Latin America, there's better options if all you want is glory and power. But that's another discussion altogether.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Yehuda Stern]

JimmyJazz: There's no magic formula. Even if you're the best Marxist and Bolshevik in the world, there's no guarantee you will lead a mass party (just look at Marx himself, and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky in their "dog years"). In times like ours, where the great majority of the working class is not yet ripe in consciousness (though it's getting there), the most important thing is to improve ourselves and our grasp of theory and to try and recruit the most politically advanced workers, the vanguard of the class.

Why many left groups can't manage to do that? Simple - they're not trying to. Almost every leftist group thinks it has a genius cure to isolation: maybe enter a reformist party and moderate your demands to appeal to less advanced activists (mostly not even working class people). Maybe open up a front with other left groups on no principled basis to look bigger to workers. Maybe support bourgeois electoral campaigns to attract people who are not interested in a revolution.

The success of these methods depends firstly on how you define success. If you define it by numbers, then Militant pulled it off in the past. The SWP is riding a high wave for quite some time. But like Militant has shown, recruiting on a low political level leaves you at a low political level. That eventually leads to the implosion of your organization. If you define success by whether or not you have managed to build a hardcore of revolutionary Marxist workers, then these methods will fail every time, and miserably.

[Chapaev]

Two soldiers were killed and another five injured in an attack by militants of the Maoist Shining Path group in southern Peru, local media reported Wednesday, citing the country's military.
http://www.topnews.in/two-soldiers-killed-new-attack-shining-path-rebels-peru-276483

[Panda Tse Tung]

The working class and its parties should be peaceful whenever possible, violent whenever necessary. In Peru peaceful political struggle is currently possible, it doesn't mean that the ruling classes will peacefully hand over power.

Luckily the Nepali Maoists never listened to this advice.

[Yehuda Stern]

They have listened to the advice which said not to overthrow capitalism, which is probably even worse. It will theirs and the revolution's undoing.

[Trystan]

Killing 12 soldiers who were probably working class. This is sure to get the masses to rise up against the bourgeoisie. :rolleyes:

[Yehuda Stern]

I understand we are supporting the bourgeois army, now.

[Panda Tse Tung]

They have listened to the advice which said not to overthrow capitalism, which is probably even worse. It will theirs and the revolution's undoing.

Thats a wholly other discussion, just saying that he shouldn't be telling them what to do when he doesn't really know what to do himself.



Killing 12 soldiers who were probably working class. This is sure to get the masses to rise up against the bourgeoisie.

Always the same kind of shit with these Leninists, killing working class people carrying guns which they will use against them. Darn it! Why do they.

[Yehuda Stern]

I agree that his position was ridiculously pacifistic. It's like we're living in the times of Detente and Stalinists are trying to convince everyone to tone it down.

[Saorsa]

The Maoists in Peru, are a cult. To say they are revolutionary would be like saying the Scientology Church in the US is a Vanguard Party.

Yeah, because Scientologists do kill landlords and distribute land to the peasants while struggling to bring down the capitalist state and build a revolutionary society. What a shit analogy.


The Maoists, blew up City Buses with people on it as part of their plan to Economically strangle Lima.

People die in armed struggles, and sometimes these people are innocent.


They chopped off peoples arms and legs really sadistically.

Source this bullshit.


They murdered Community organizers and trade unionists, peasant and so on.

Give me some specific cases. When they executed so-called "community organisers" they were killing spies and informants of the state, and good on them for doing it.


They have no alliances with Trade Unions or Peasant organizations, in fact all other left organizations are their enemy.

The Shining Path today is a shadow of it's former strength, so it's hardly surprising they don't have links with many mass organisations. But back during the People's War they had links with a whole number of mass organisations, from the Popular Women's Movement to the Association of Democratic Lawers and the Shanty Town Movement. During the People's War when they were in a life and death struggle with the state, some "left" groups were participating in elections, the parliament and even Fujimori's government! They chose their side and they paid the consequences. Tough shit.


They are trying to go into a civil war alone and its bound for failure and not just for them but for the left and working class in general.

No, they're recovering from a massive defeat that largely ended a civil war they succesfully waged for over a decade and almost won.


The Left, as in socialist left and Nationalist Parties are poised for an electoral win in 2 years.

Vote Labour! Reformism for life!

[Saorsa]

Killing 12 soldiers who were probably working class. This is sure to get the masses to rise up against the bourgeoisie.

The only people who are more repressive of workers struggles than the military are the pigs.

[Devrim]

Source this bullshit.


In April 1983 Shining Path militants responded to the death of Olegario Curitomay by entering the province of Huancasancos and the towns of Yanaccollpa, Ataccara, Llacchua, Muylacruz, and Lucanamarca, and killing 69 people. Of those killed by the Shining Path eighteen of were children, including one who was only six months old.[1] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucanamarca_massacre#cite_note-Huancasancos-0) Also killed were eleven women, some of whom were pregnant.[1] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucanamarca_massacre#cite_note-Huancasancos-0) Eight of the victims were between fifty and seventy years old.[1] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucanamarca_massacre#cite_note-Huancasancos-0) Most victims died by machete and axe hacks, and some were shot at close range in the head. Shining Path members also scalded villagers with boiling water.[1] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucanamarca_massacre#cite_note-Huancasancos-0) This was the first massacre by Shining Path of the peasant community. Abimael Guzmán (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abimael_Guzm%C3%A1n), the founder and leader of the Shining Path, admitted that the Shining Path carried out the massacre and explained the rationale behind it in an interview with El Diario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Diario) , a pro-Shining Path newspaper based in Lima. In the interview, he said:"In the face of reactionary military actions... we responded with a devastating action: Lucanamarca. Neither they nor we have forgotten it, to be sure, because they got an answer that they didn't imagine possible.More than 80 were annihilated, that is the truth. And we say openly that there were excesses, as was analyzed in 1983."

What does 'hack' mean?

Devrim

[Saorsa]

It was a war. Excesses occur. It's not like the PCP had an official policy of chopping so many arms off every week!

[Devrim]

You said it was 'bullshit' and asked for a source. I provided one.

Now unless you are going to claim that it was a sort of non sadistic hacking, I suggest that you admit you are wrong.

In fact worse than wrong, you are actually lying as you knew this happened. You were not excusing it there with you 'oh it is a war nonsense'. You said it didn't happen despite knowing that it did.


More than 80 were annihilated, that is the truth. And we say openly that there were excesses, as was analyzed in 1983

Does the quote ring a bell?

Devrim

[Saorsa]

I never said that it didn't happen. I was quoting a single line from a paragraph in which a whole string of attacks were being leveled at the Shining Path, and the guy was implying that the PCP were just running around Peru hacking off limbs all over the place. They weren't.

And since when was Wikipedia such a reliable source when it came to communists anyway? The massacres certainly took place, but the sheer scale and barbarity of them is likely to be extremely exagerated.

[black magick hustla]

Sendero Luminoso was the most disgusting group of all the other south american guerrillas. I oppose all sorts of guerrilla adventurism, but in terms of sheer inhumanity, I think Sendero Luminoso takes the cake. I know how guns and red banners and violence can be appealing to maoists (especially people with anime avatars), but annhiliating a whole peasant village just as a way to "show the state" that a bunch of disgruintled philosophy students were ready to flex their muscles, is as low as any other criminal murder gang. Putting bullets in the heads of trade unionists was also part of their campaign of terror.

I really feel like strangling with my bare hands any time I hear someone expose the virtues of Sendero Luminoso's petty "peopleś war"-

[Enragé]

Those people should be selling newspapers, not gallavanting about like Che Guevara wannabes. Harumf!!!

well
yea.

Though not selling newspapers per say, they should be trying to build a movement instead of engaging in acts to enhance their machismo or what not. Not to mention, any revolution built on protracted guerilla war leads to a government of the former guerillas, not socialism, let alone communism/anarchism.

[Hessian Peel]

Both the IRA and INLA killed many civilians throughout the recent conflict in Ireland; that hardly discredits their campaigns entirely or indeed the struggle for Irish national liberation.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

I can only approve this act.
As long as they keep targeting soldiers I'm fine with it.

[A New Era]

I personally think isolated groups of guerillas will only work if the society is ripe for revolution. Most countries where such guerilla groups have existed, have not been ripe.

This rebel group must be pretty large though in order to go through with such a large attack?

[Yehuda Stern]

It doesn't discredit the struggle for national liberation. It does, however, discredit guerrillaism in general and those organizations in particular.

[zimmerwald1915]

It doesn't discredit the struggle for national liberation. It does, however, discredit guerrillaism in general and those organizations in particular.
Indeed. National liberation is self-discrediting:tt2:

[Yehuda Stern]

It is terrible when those bad people don't want for noble Westerners to liberate them, but try to liberate themselves. A crying shame. Really.

[zimmerwald1915]

It is terrible when those bad people don't want for noble Westerners to liberate them, but try to liberate themselves. A crying shame. Really.
Oppressed nations will be able to liberate themselves only when they have abandoned the concept of nationality. It's quite simple, really.

[Yehuda Stern]

Obviously, since Britain still occupies India and the US China.

[black magick hustla]

It is terrible when those bad people don't want for noble Westerners to liberate them, but try to liberate themselves. A crying shame. Really.

yeah, now western bosses wont liberate them, but national bosses. :rolleyes:

[Yehuda Stern]

I never said those countries are free of imperialism - that is impossible without a socialist revolution. It's nonsense, though, to still claim that things are exactly the same as they were in the 19th century.

[zimmerwald1915]

I never said those countries are free of imperialism - that is impossible without a socialist revolution. It's nonsense, though, to still claim that things are exactly the same as they were in the 19th century.
Who said they were?

[black magick hustla]

I never said those countries are free of imperialism - that is impossible without a socialist revolution. It's nonsense, though, to still claim that things are exactly the same as they were in the 19th century.

Nobody is claiming they are. In the contrary, national liberation may have been justifiable in the 19th century, but in this epoch of world imperialism and decadence, absolutely not.

[Yehuda Stern]

Who said they were?

If no one did, that's good.


Nobody is claiming they are. In the contrary, national liberation may have been justifiable in the 19th century, but in this epoch of world imperialism and decadence, absolutely not.National liberation is part of the democratic revolution. It's obviously justifiable, since it is a progressive task. What the epoch of imperialism means is that it can no longer be carried out by the ruling class. Like other tasks of the democratic revolution, it can only be fulfilled by the working class.

[zimmerwald1915]

If no one did, that's good.
Well, two left-commies (that is, absolutely unimpeachable sources) claimed that nobody did, so I guess nobody did :D


National liberation is part of the democratic revolution. It's obviously justifiable, since it is a progressive task. What the epoch of imperialism means is that it can no longer be carried out by the ruling class. Like other tasks of the democratic revolution, it can only be fulfilled by the working class.
Here's where we part ways. You insist on seeing the "democratic revolution" as necessary to historical development. Put more specifically, in what I think your terms are, capitalism can't develop to its fullest extent (and it can't be overthrown until it's reached its fullest extent) until the worldwide democratic revolution has taken place. I see this as an incredibly mechanistic and determinably false worldview. In the first place, the "democratic revolution" is nothing more than a certain set of social relations of production, not all of which are necessary for capitalism to work properly, and not all of which can be achieved in the current epoch.

Indeed, the "democratic revolution" in our age is nothing more than a reworking of naked state-capitalism into a more "humane" "responsive" or "socially responsible" form. It remains state-capitalism; nothing changes in regards to the social relations of production, unlike in the true democratic revolutions in the nineteenth century, which were necessary in order to abolish certain remnants of the feudal relations of production. Imperialism has already abolished both asiatic and feudal relations of production where they have existed; at bottom, every state is state-capitalist and the world is one capitalist market.

The working class having to fulfill the "democratic revolution" apart from being an artificial and mechanistic interpretation, is also dangerous to the course of any revolution. In essence, it is a Menshevik or Girondist attitude, telling the workers "stop here, we need to consolidate the gains of the democratic revolution before even beginning to consider the socialization of society". While this may not be, and is probably not, your personal viewpoint, it is what this sort of interpretation tends to lead to. In essence, if revolutionaries argue this, we give the opportunists a weapon to use against any revolution.

Better to avoid that, don't you agree?

[Pogue]

Both the IRA and INLA killed many civilians throughout the recent conflict in Ireland; that hardly discredits their campaigns entirely or indeed the struggle for Irish national liberation.

How can you say that? The IRA, as in the more recent one, as opposed to the historical, Irish War of Independence/Civil War one, carried out bombings which killed innocent people. That discredits them a great deal, and is the reason why I and many others have been less likely to support them either fully or at all.

[Yehuda Stern]

Zimmerwald: No, no, no, I really don't see how that's what you've got. The bourgeois revolution can't be carried out by the bourgeoisie - therefore it must be part of the tasks and the revolution of the working class. I have never argued that the democratic revolution needs to occur before the proletarian revolution, or that it can occur in our time. I am a supporter of permanent revolution, after all.

[Trystan]

I agree that his position was ridiculously pacifistic. It's like we're living in the times of Detente and Stalinists are trying to convince everyone to tone it down.

Pacifist or not, the entire "Shining Path" fiasco is pointless, counter-productive nonsense.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Oppressed nations will be able to liberate themselves only when they have abandoned the concept of nationality. It's quite simple, really.

“Race” and “nationality” are not biologically hard-wired into humans, yet they still play a role in maintaining caste-like oppression, so it's essential to not abandon an issue that is important to many people.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

1) Guerilla warfare is not a "tea party". It seems many of you have an idealised view of revolutionary struggle.Guerrilla warfare is worthless substitutionalism of a few self-assigned "heroes of the working class" which in reality are very few times working class trying to do the revolution for others. proletarian revolutions have other vehicles, and guerrilla isn't one of them. This is why groups like this degenerate into murderers and criminals that shoot trade unionists and innocent villagers.

I find it hilarious when revleft kids use the whole "tea party" argument. Yeah, I doubt you would react yourself the same if the people shamelessly hacked to pieces were your family or friends, just because a criminal murder gang has some vendetta with the state.


You're not there, so why should you decide what is an appropriate action for them or not?I used to live in Latin America, so I am familiar with the political climate. Doesnt really matter though - I wasnt in nazi germany and I still condemn the nazis, nor I was in Georgia when Russia invaded and I still condemn the war. That argument is baseless.


I find it shocking that when they directly attack government forces, Shining Path are accused of "machismo" or "enhancing their status". Just what the fuck do you think we're going to do in our own respective countries in a revolutionary situation? Throw flowers at them?My criticism isnt really that they attack government forces, but that they liquidated a whole village and the chairman shamelessly accepted it. They operate as a gang with their own self-interests, as they were clearly willing to murder a whole lot of unarmed villagers to "retaliate" against the losses they suffered with the state.


I refuse to condemn the actions of Shining Path. For all I know they have damn good reasons for carrying out the actions that they do. What I do know is that imperialist quisling governments are not weakened by reformist pandering.Yet you still condemn real working class insurrections like the russian revolutions and call them bourgeois.

[Saorsa]

Sendero Luminoso was the most disgusting group of all the other south american guerrillas. I oppose all sorts of guerrilla adventurism, but in terms of sheer inhumanity, I think Sendero Luminoso takes the cake.

You base these allegations of "inhumanity" on what exactly? War isn't pretty - shit happens. The responses people give in threads like these are always useful for seperating the revolutionaries from the liberals.


I know how guns and red banners and violence can be appealing to maoists (especially people with anime avatars)

First of all, I'm not a Maoist. I'm a Marxist-Leninist who supports revolutions and revolutionaries of all stripes. And secondly, exactly what does the fact that I enjoy watching anime have to do with anything? All you're little statement here does is show how shit your arguments are, and how you need to resort to personal insults to hide the fact that you're a liberal with nothing intelligent to say.


but annhiliating a whole peasant village just as a way to "show the state" that a bunch of disgruintled philosophy students were ready to flex their muscles, is as low as any other criminal murder gang.

Excesses occur. I'm not going to denounce an entire revolutionary movement because of a few screw-ups.


Putting bullets in the heads of trade unionists was also part of their campaign of terror.

Informants and counter-revolutionaries should be shot regardless of what their day job is.


I really feel like strangling with my bare hands any time I hear someone expose the virtues of Sendero Luminoso's petty "peopleś war"-

I don't feel any need to bother with strangling liberals like you. The working masses will continue to reject your approach while revolutionary communists seize power and transform society, all the while ignoring the likes of you shouting on the sidelines.

[black magick hustla]

1) Guerilla warfare is not a "tea party". It seems many of you have an idealised view of revolutionary struggle. Guerrilla warfare is worthless substitutionalism of a few self-assigned "heroes of the working class" which in reality are very few times working class trying to do the revolution for others. proletarian revolutions have other vehicles, and guerrilla isn't one of them. This is why groups like this degenerate into murderers and criminals that shoot trade unionists and innocent villagers. [/quote]

I find it hilarious when revleft kids use the whole "tea party" argument. Yeah, I doubt you would react yourself the same if the people shamelessly hacked to pieces were your family or friends, just because a criminal murder gang has some vendetta with the state.



You're not there, so why should you decide what is an appropriate action for them or not? I used to live in Latin America, so I am familiar with the political climate. Doesnt really matter though - I wasnt in nazi germany and I still condemn the nazis, nor I was in Georgia when Russia invaded and I still condemn the war. That argument is baseless.



I find it shocking that when they directly attack government forces, Shining Path are accused of "machismo" or "enhancing their status". Just what the fuck do you think we're going to do in our own respective countries in a revolutionary situation? Throw flowers at them? My criticism isnt really that they attack government forces, but that they liquidated a whole village and the chairman shamelessly accepted it. They operate as a gang with their own self-interests, as they were clearly willing to murder a whole lot of unarmed villagers to "retaliate" against the losses they suffered with the state.


I refuse to condemn the actions of Shining Path. For all I know they have damn good reasons for carrying out the actions that they do. What I do know is that imperialist quisling governments are not weakened by reformist pandering.Yet you still condemn real working class insurrections like the russian revolutions and call them bourgeois.



You base these allegations of "inhumanity" on what exactly? War isn't pretty - shit happens. The responses people give in threads like these are always useful for seperating the revolutionaries from the liberals. The fact that they decimated a whole village with a bunch of machetes? Do you think condemning a group for hacking into pieces 80 villagers where at most, some of them (not the whole village), were just "informants"? What the fuck is wrong with you? People who protest that are......liberals?heh liberals...............whats a life anywyay? the revolutionary struggle isd more important than "life".......life is just a bad dream*comrade alastair types while quoting his favoriteanime chartacter*





In the face of reactionary military actions... we responded with a devastating action: Lucanamarca. Neither they nor we have forgotten it, to be sure, because they got an answer that they didn't imagine possible. More than 80 were annihilated, that is the truth. And we say openly that there were excesses, as was analyzed in 1983. But everything in life has two aspects. Our task was to deal a devastating blow in order to put them in check, to make them understand that it was not going to be so easy. On some occasions, like that one, it was the Central Leadership itself that planned the action and gave instructions. That's how it was. In that case, the principal thing is that we dealt them a devastating blow, and we checked them and they understood that they were dealing with a different kind of people's fighters, that we weren't the same as those they had fought before. This is what they understood. The excesses are the negative aspect... If we were to give the masses a lot of restrictions, requirements and prohibitions, it would mean that deep down we didn't want the waters to overflow. And what we needed was for the waters to overflow, to let the flood rage, because we know that when a river floods its banks it causes devastation, but then it returns to its riverbed.... [T]he main point was to make them understand that we were a hard nut to crack, and that we were ready for anything, anything.

Excesses occur. I'm not going to denounce an entire revolutionary movement because of a few screw-ups. Do you think murdering 80 peasants with machetes is just a mere "excess"? Do you think there is nothing more to it than that?

bbbut.................alife is a tragedy many deaths is a statistic----dear comrade stalin



el any need to bother with strangling liberals like you. The working masses will continue to reject your approach while revolutionary communists seize power and transform society, all the while ignoring the likes of you shouting on the sidelines.i am sure the working masses are doing great embracing the australian workers' party - after all its full of real revolutionary communists like comrade alastair. after all this guy is the real deal, quoting mao zedong on revolutions not being a dinner party while sitting comfortably behind a computer and chillin in australia.

[zimmerwald1915]

No, no, no, I really don't see how that's what you've got. The bourgeois revolution can't be carried out by the bourgeoisie - therefore it must be part of the tasks and the revolution of the working class. I have never argued that the democratic revolution needs to occur before the proletarian revolution, or that it can occur in our time. I am a supporter of permanent revolution, after all.
If the bourgeois revolution cannot be carried out by the bourgeoisie, then it is not an essential part of modern capitalism (i.e., the bourgeoisie has learned to do without it) and is thus unnecessary for the proletariat as well. I'm still going to cry mechanisticism.

[Small Geezer]

i am sure the working masses are doing great embracing the australian workers' party - after all its full of real revolutionary communists like comrade alastair. after all this guy is the real deal, quoting mao zedong on revolutions not being a dinner party while sitting comfortably behind a computer and chillin in australia.

Dude you really are trying to piss him off, as if he isn't pissed off enough- he's from New Zealand.

[Yehuda Stern]

Pacifist or not, the entire "Shining Path" fiasco is pointless, counter-productive nonsense.

Ah, yes, that's true. But that's also not the way I'd choose to appeal to these people. In every guerrilla groups there are many middle class people who see themselves as substitutes for the working class, and if they win, enforce their rule over the working class. But there are also people who really want a revolution and I think revolutionaries should be honest and tell these people that they're going down a dead end, and explain to them how a revolution could really be won.


If the bourgeois revolution cannot be carried out by the bourgeoisie, then it is not an essential part of modern capitalism (i.e., the bourgeoisie has learned to do without it) and is thus unnecessary for the proletariat as well. I'm still going to cry mechanisticism.

The logic here is kinda faulty and history does not really go along with it. The Bolsheviks carried out many tasks of the bourgeois revolution as part of their revolution: land reform, ending national oppression, and in some cases allowed groups to secede from the union. The tasks of the bourgeois revolution are essential - it is just not essential to go through a capitalist phase. That's what makes the theory of permanent revolution non-mechanical. Arguing that the tasks of the bourgeois revolution themselves are unnecessary would just make it delusional.


Dude you really are trying to piss him off, as if he isn't pissed off enough- he's from New Zealand.

I'm not a big fan of the "you're well-off and I'm not so I'm right" argument. There's no knowing who's telling the truth on his class background either, and even if everyone were telling the truth, so what? Are we going to judge people's arguments by their social class, or by the arguments themselves?

And on the Australia/NZ thing, I've made the same mistake before. To non-commonwealth people, it apparently seems like all the same. They're all like Brits, but stranger, and they've got kangaroos too.

(Note: before I'm accused of racism or anything, the last paragraph was a joke, in case that was not clear)

[Hessian Peel]

How can you say that? The IRA, as in the more recent one, as opposed to the historical, Irish War of Independence/Civil War one, carried out bombings which killed innocent people. That discredits them a great deal, and is the reason why I and many others have been less likely to support them either fully or at all.

The IRA in the 1916-1923 period carried out bombings too.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I find it hilarious when revleft kids use the whole "tea party" argument. Yeah, I doubt you would react yourself the same if the people shamelessly hacked to pieces were your family or friends, just because a criminal murder gang has some vendetta with the state.

Emotionalism is not a substitute for argument.


I used to live in Latin America, so I am familiar with the political climate. Doesnt really matter though - I wasnt in nazi germany and I still condemn the nazis, nor I was in Georgia when Russia invaded and I still condemn the war. That argument is baseless.

So you used to live in Latin America, yet you still consider yourself in a better position to judge than the people who are still there actually fighting?


My criticism isnt really that they attack government forces, but that they liquidated a whole village and the chairman shamelessly accepted it. They operate as a gang with their own self-interests, as they were clearly willing to murder a whole lot of unarmed villagers to "retaliate" against the losses they suffered with the state.

The Red Army weren't perfect angels either. Did that make them a "gang"?


Yet you still condemn real working class insurrections like the russian revolutions and call them bourgeois.

Recognising that a bourgeouis state was the result is not the same as condemnation. Maybe in your sectarian eyes, but I don't think so. What I do condemn is the attempts by Marxist-Leninists and others to replicate the same failed experiment today in the West.

[Bilan]

The comments on this are actually pissing me off.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well, I'm not particularly against this attack.

The wholesale slaughter of eighty people just to prove that "we mean bizness!", though? No, there's a difference between war "not being a tea party" and heinous atrocities.

[Charles Xavier]

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[leftist manson]

Yeah, don't bother struggling for revolution through armed struggle and/or militant resistance. Keep your mouths shut and your fists unclenched so that the nice reformists can be elected and make everything better!

You're a liberal reformist.
:)true. Unfortunately, this obamabotism and chavezism goes as 'marxism' on this website.

[leftist manson]

Pom pom pom. Horrible fiends
Did you know that Che killed members of the working class as well?
Did you ever even consider the fact that not every single member of the working class might be supportive of the revolution?

*ohw the n000z. an entire dream to shackles*
Thankyou

[black magick hustla]

i like how stalinists do not see why "hacking 80 peasants" denotes a deep flaw on strategy and an overall organization - not just an excess. mere uncalculated "excess" would imply that there where bombs and machine guns and therefore many stray bullets, however this was a very calculated massacre brought about by hand guns and machetes. I guess this is what you get when first world maoists pontificate about how "informants must be shot" while chillin in their comfortable dorms.

[Madvillainy]

The IRA in the 1916-1923 period carried out bombings too.

And just like the Ira of modern times, they achieved nothing.

Attacks like this by the Shining Path and other guerilla groups do nothing to revolutionise the working class and most likely discredit leftism in they eyes of normal people.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Madvillainy]

I would point out that comparing the shining path to the IRA is like comparing apples to oranges. The Shining path is a cult, the IRA were a revolutionary organization who fought the struggle for independence against Britain. The IRA is by no means an Ideal organization. But their goals were for national liberation bringing in alliances of various progressive circles all across Irish Society while the Shining Path on the other hand is a sectarian organization interested in their own development at the expense at the working class movement in general.


Well I would point out that it was not I that compared the two. I'd also like to point out that nationalist thugs like the IRA have nothing to offer the working class, period.

[Labor Shall Rule]

The peasants’ revolt disturbed the gentry’s sweet dreams. When the news from the countryside reached the cities, it caused immediate uproar among the gentry. Soon after my arrival in Changsha, I met all sorts of people and picked up a good deal of gossip. From the middle social strata upwards to the Kuomintang right-wingers, there was not a single person who did not sum up the whole business in the phrase, “It’s terrible!” Under the impact of the views of the “It’s terrible!” school then flooding the city, even quite revolutionary-minded people became down-hearted as they pictured the events in the countryside in their mind’s eye; and they were unable to deny the word “terrible”. Even quite progressive people said, “Though terrible, it is inevitable in a revolution.” In short, nobody could altogether deny the word “terrible”. But, as already mentioned, the fact is that the great peasant masses have risen to fulfil their historic mission and that the forces of rural democracy have risen to overthrow the forces of rural feudalism. The patriarchal-feudal class of local tyrants, evil gentry and lawless landlords has formed the basis of autocratic government for thousands of years and is the cornerstone of imperialism, warlordism and corrupt officialdom. To overthrow these feudal forces is the real objective of the national revolution. In a few months the peasants have accomplished what Dr. Sun Yat-sen wanted, but failed, to accomplish in the forty years he devoted to the national revolution. This is a marvelous feat never before achieved, not just in forty, but in thousands of years. It’s fine. It is not “terrible” at all. It is anything but “terrible”. “It’s terrible!” is obviously a theory for combating the rise of the peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is obviously a theory of the landlord class for preserving the old order of feudalism and obstructing the establishment of the new order of democracy, it is obviously a counterrevolutionary theory. No revolutionary comrade should echo this nonsense. If your revolutionary viewpoint is firmly established and if you have been to the villages and looked around, you will undoubtedly feel thrilled as never before. Countless thousands of the enslaved–the peasants–are striking down the enemies who battened on their flesh. What the peasants are doing is absolutely right, what they are doing is fine! “It’s fine!” is the theory of the peasants and of all other revolutionaries. Every revolutionary comrade should know that the national revolution requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 [3] did not bring about this change, hence its failure. This change is now taking place, and it is an important factor for the completion of the revolution. Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or he will be taking the stand of counter-revolution.

It's not hard to see that Gonzalo (once) had a 'religious' hold over the Peruvian revolutionary movement as it's chief theorist and political leader, and the brutality of Sendero (even if 60% of all deaths were attributed to goverment or "rondos" forces) is unquestionable. But it's important to not get caught in the twisted moralism surrounding terrorism.

Sendero Luminoso set up "people's committees" that re-distributed land, set production targets and prices, ran a free school system, dealed with disputes and managed income for the elderly and disabled. It was more effective in eradicating the growing of coca then the U.S.-imposed "drug war" ever was.

[black magick hustla]

So your standard for a political group is just that they have charity wings? Yet you talk about not getting caught in the "twisted moralism" while you, in reality, are getting caught in moralism because rather than looking for workers revolutions, you are looking for pseudo charity churches.

Nobody is denying the brutality of the peruvian state, but the thing is, that I, as a communist, wont choose a side based on who murdered less workers.

Ran a "free school" system? By the 90s, I doubt that there was any latin american country left that didnt have a free school system.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It was more effective in eradicating the growing of coca then the U.S.-imposed "drug war" ever was.

Coca has been grown in Peru and Bolivia for thousands of years, so I'm not exactly sure why this is a mark of honor.

[Labor Shall Rule]

So your standard for a political group is just that they have charity wings? Yet you talk about not getting caught in the "twisted moralism" while you, in reality, are getting caught in moralism because rather than looking for workers revolutions, you are looking for pseudo charity churches.

Nobody is denying the brutality of the peruvian state, but the thing is, that I, as a communist, wont choose a side based on who murdered less workers.

Ran a "free school" system? By the 90s, I doubt that there was any latin american country left that didnt have a free school system.

Are you denying that workers ever sympathize with counter-revolutionaries? If so, you must reject the idea of the political supremacy of the working class and its revolutionary dictatorship.

The excesses were a negative aspect of war—the People's War in Peru was not 'forced' on anybody—middle and lower peasants could no longer take the chronic unemployment, under-funded, under-staffed medical facilities and outdated or non-existent medical services, the mounting taxes, and the horrific housing conditions that they lived under, so they fought back, sometimes killing those from their own class rank.

My criteria is whether they press the demands of the Peruvian people, and if they have a correct revolutionary strategy. I will not repudiate their measures of supression and intimidation towards determined and armed counter-revolution.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Coca has been grown in Peru and Bolivia for thousands of years, so I'm not exactly sure why this is a mark of honor.

They paid and encouraged them to grow food, which is a little bit more helpful to have access to when you have villages full of starving paupers.

[black magick hustla]

The excesses were a negative aspect of war—the People's War in Peru was not 'forced' on anybody—middle and lower peasants could no longer take the chronic unemployment, under-funded, under-staffed medical facilities and outdated or non-existent medical services, the mounting taxes, and the horrific housing conditions that they lived under, so they fought back, sometimes killing those from their own class rank.
Lol, how was it not "forced" on anybody? The people that started it where philosophy faculty dropouts who paid lip service to the peasantry.



My criteria is whether they press the demands of the Peruvian people, and if they have a correct revolutionary strategy. I will not repudiate their measures of supression and intimidation towards determined and armed counter-revolution.

I guess hacking into pieces 80 unarmed folks is their "measures of intimidation" towards "counterrevolution"?

[Labor Shall Rule]

It wasn't. You do not come to control 45% of the country through mere force. I already told you about the People's Committees, and the services they provided. I highly recommend you watch People of the Shining Path.

[Saorsa]

Marmot obviously has massive contempt for the working classes if he thinks they're weak and stupid enough to join a movement in the tens of thousands just because they felt "threatened". The masses in Peru supported the PCP because it offered a revolutionary alternative to the concrete problems they faced, and in the areas it liberated it implemented these.

I always find it interesting too how the people who start lashing out with the tired old line about "priviliged first world Marxists playing at revolution" are always the people with the most absolutely shit arguments. Here's a bit of info for you - Marx came from a middle class background and wrote Capital while living off money sent to him by Engels, a capitalist. Almost every great revolutionary leader has come from the middle or upper classes, whether they were anarchist, Maoist, Trotskyist or whatever, and this just goes to show how ridiculous it is to try and attack someones arguments by saying they're not poor enough to have any credibility. The fact that everyone on this site has access to the internet puts us in a priviliged minority in the world, so we can all get down from our high horses!


I highly recommend you watch People of the Shining Path.

http://www.revmedia.net/tpsp.html

[black magick hustla]

Marmot obviously has massive contempt for the working classes if he thinks they're weak and stupid enough to join a movement in the tens of thousands just because they felt "threatened". The masses in Peru supported the PCP because it offered a revolutionary alternative to the concrete problems they faced, and in the areas it liberated it implemented these.

I always find it interesting too how the people who start lashing out with the tired old line about "priviliged first world Marxists playing at revolution" are always the people with the most absolutely shit arguments. Here's a bit of info for you - Marx came from a middle class background and wrote Capital while living off money sent to him by Engels, a capitalist. Almost every great revolutionary leader has come from the middle or upper classes, whether they were anarchist, Maoist, Trotskyist or whatever, and this just goes to show how ridiculous it is to try and attack someones arguments by saying they're not poor enough to have any credibility. The fact that everyone on this site has access to the internet puts us in a priviliged minority in the world, so we can all get down from our high horses!


http://www.revmedia.net/tpsp.html

Actually, i am not like that. I am not a "workerist", nor I believe in bankrupt thirdworldism. Notice how I referred to maoists, not "marxists" because I believe maoism in the first world is ridicolulous and the people who are into it, except the black workers who found maoism appealing in the US, support all sorts of disgustingly brutal murder gangs because their non-proximity to this type of disgusting groups makes it possible to find all this stuff somehow aesthetically appealing.

I was attacking your arguments, me refering to your upbringing is just my attempt to show why people like you come up with this ideas. I already mentioned why this type of brutal massacres carried out with machetes and handguns are not just some mere "excess", but a symptom of why this groups are fundamentally wrong. It is not only brutal massacres like this, but their whole approach, including mock trials were they burnt alive cattle thieves and other sort of petty criminals is not something real communists want to associate with.

[Labor Shall Rule]

You just think that one day some theoretical Maoist from the university of Lima or Kathmandu walked up to a village and started handing out pistols left and right, while threatening and scaring anyone else that did not want to do it. It was a process where the people had to come along and had to be shown through experience the limitations of reform and the necessity for revolution through their own struggles.

Maoism was important in that there were substantial lessons from Chinese history that apply to countries that are in a similar enough situation that they can learn from his thought. If it is your position that the exceptional or distinctly unique features of China make the history and development of it incomparable in any meaningful or categorical way to other regions or peoples, then I'd argue that your wrong, since land reform and capitalist development is still on the order of the day.

To develop a communist party that is capable of navigating complex political situations and that can lead the fight to establish working class political power is Marxist-Leninist theory. Mao emphasized, however, that you engage with those who are resisting, you highlight and promote the radical directions, you dialog (i.e. the mass line). It is the anchor of revolutionary Marxism; the basic political/organization method of communists. This “renovating and making ‘critical’ [of] an already existing activity” (as Gramsci put it) was solidified by Mao. The united front is also useful, especially in the U.S. - oppressed nationalities will need a multi-national alliance to combat monopoly capitalism.

[Saorsa]

Well Marmot, when a nice, peaceful, friendly, calm and entirely disciplined and controlled revolution occurs I'll be the first to let you know and I'll probably support it. In the meantime though, I'll continue to support all revolutionary struggles waged by the oppressed against their oppressors, regardless of whether or not they get messy and out of control at times. That's the difference between a revolutionary approach and a liberal one.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Labor Shall Rule]

Which is true but this isn't revolutionary struggle this is like some anarchist group causing shit at a labour day protest.

What? The Shining Path is?

[Charles Xavier]

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[black magick hustla]

Well Marmot, when a nice, peaceful, friendly, calm and entirely disciplined and controlled revolution occurs I'll be the first to let you know and I'll probably support it. In the meantime though, I'll continue to support all revolutionary struggles waged by the oppressed against their oppressors, regardless of whether or not they get messy and out of control at times. That's the difference between a revolutionary approach and a liberal one.

The thing is this isn't revolution.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Yes the shining path are a cult.

They unjustly claim they are a continuation of the line of Mariategui.

So a 'cult' can not lead a revolutionary movement?

In Peru, the SL lead the Union of Peruvian Education Workers and Peruvian Peasant Federation, along with multiple student (such as Federation of Revolutionary Students and Movement of Popular Intellectuals) and women groups. They organized several marches in Lima, despite of the tight-nit police state security, and were noted for being the biggest "obstacle" to silencing dissenting miners.

[Valeofruin]

Hopefully they keep up momentum or do something. I don't much about Shining Path, but it would be sad to see those bullets and risk and lives gone if nothing comes of it. Hopefully it gets publicity where it counts, in Peru.

Oh yes, and curse the maoist adventurism. Those people should be selling newspapers, not gallavanting about like Che Guevara wannabes. Harumf!!!

Seconded, screw armed revolution, can't we all just get along?

[Lenin II]

Why don't we figure out exactly how many working class people the police force and government of Peru killed that day, and write an article about them instead?

[Valeofruin]

Yes the shining path are a cult.

They unjustly claim they are a continuation of the line of Mariategui.

Probably, they are nut jobs, but unlike the liberals i support an armed approach. Albeit a smart one. You have to be a terrorist when its convenient to be a terrorist, and pass out fliers when its convenient to pass out fliers.

I believe that certain concerns and criticisms are appropriate when discussing an armed group and some are not. having an idealogical difference is acceptable, disagreeing with certain tactics is acceptable, protesting "Maoist adventurism' is not.

Lenin described adventurist groups as:

"tiny groups, which sprang up for an hour, for several months, with no roots whatever among the masses (and politics without the masses are adventurist politics), and with no serious and stable principles"

With the deffinition being known it seems a bit unfair that certain individuals from the comfort of their homes, would accuse people, (in this case usually recruited from the poorest rural regions, people who grew up in the armpit of exploitation), out in the mud spilling blood in the name of the working class, of having no connection or roots in the working masses, and as being unstable, and having no serious principles.

Elaborating a bit on this, would you DIE for a group if it had no serious principals? I know i would not.

for this reason i believe accusing any armed, socialist group of mere adventurism is a bit unfair, to say the least.

[Valeofruin]

Why don't we figure out exactly how many working class people the police force and government of Peru killed that day, and write an article about them instead?

Very well put comrade.

[YSR]

I support the Shining Path and all others who kill workers in the name of revolution! Keep up the good work, companeros.

[black magick hustla]

I think people misunderstand when marx and other communists referred to "violent revolution". Proletarian violence is very different from the self-appointed heroism of guerrillas. Proletarian violence is when workers confront the cops and bosses in the workplace, where there are massive riots to the point that workers are getting guns from the gunshops themselves. Proletarian violence is 1936, or to an extent, the strikes of oaxaca before they became coopted by the unions and the left-capitalists, the red years of italy, etc.

THis is very different from the professional aspect of guerrillas. Guerrillas tend to also develop their own cultures due to their isolation, which encourage things like decimating a whole village, for example.

If I formed a guerrilla with other students that is not "proletarian violence", that is more similar to the approach of the russian nihilists and the early individualist anarchists.

I think the difference is big. Armed revolution doesnt just means a bunch of people making up a leftist program and then killing cops

:shrugs:, still there where other guerrillas who considered themselves communists in peru and werent as particularly disgusting as gonzalośhenchmen.

[Panda Tse Tung]

I think people misunderstand when marx and other communists referred to "violent revolution". Proletarian violence is very different from the self-appointed heroism of guerrillas. Proletarian violence is when workers confront the cops and bosses in the workplace, where there are massive riots to the point that workers are getting guns from the gunshops themselves. Proletarian violence is 1936, or to an extent, the strikes of oaxaca before they became coopted by the unions and the left-capitalists, the red years of italy, etc.

Yes, because unorganized eruptions are the only possible way for revolution :glare:.


THis is very different from the professional aspect of guerrillas. Guerrillas tend to also develop their own cultures due to their isolation, which encourage things like decimating a whole village, for example.

Because thats a fact :glare:.


If I formed a guerrilla with other students that is not "proletarian violence", that is more similar to the approach of the russian nihilists and the early individualist anarchists.

Only the shining path has roots amongst the masses.

[bcbm]

Because thats a fact

Actually its pretty well documented by a number of former guerrilla fighters that the guerrilla develops a very different mentality that is focused more on spectacular actions and violence than results.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Saorsa]

I dunno which masses you are talking about because its not the peruvian masses

Perhaps not these days, but if you try to argue that they didn't have mass support amongst the peruvian masses during the late 80s and early 90s, you're either insane or stupid.

[black magick hustla]

Perhaps not these days, but if you try to argue that they didn't have mass support amongst the peruvian masses during the late 80s and early 90s, you're either insane or stupid.

First, I hate the word "masses", masses include a shitload of classes, from lumpen, peasant, to the working class. If by "masses" you meant that a very small, but somewhat considerable, minority of really poor peasants and some students, then yes, it had somewhat of a base. However, this was not a working class base. Marxist class politics arent based on who "are poorer". As a matter of fact, the working class is not the poorest class, nor the most militant workers have ever been the poorest. And as a matter of fact, it was just a "fanbase", because these people werent consciously involved in politics i.e. they just were spectators of the shining path's "revolutionary" violence.

[Charles Xavier]

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[bcbm]

Perhaps not these days, but if you try to argue that they didn't have mass support amongst the peruvian masses during the late 80s and early 90s, you're either insane or stupid.How can the working class empower itself if it is not the actor struggling to do so, but merely a spectator to the armed masturbation of others?

[Labor Shall Rule]

It's important to establish that Sendero Luminoso did not exclusively endorse using irregular warfare as it's only revolutionary tactic. As I mentioned (it seems as if it has fallen deaf to many people's ears), they were involved in the national trade unions, and student and women organizations. The mass street rallies, barrio mutual support groups, and their child care and breakfast programs bloomed in the cities. It was 'kept in the cities' before a single party declared 'emergency powers' to dispel of urban class struggle - the geographical terrain of the Andes, believe it or not, makes it harder to militarily defeat an army, so it was more suitable to switch to revolutionary protracted warfare.

Second off, they came to control most of the country - certainly indicative of the vast pro-SL sentiment in Lima and other industrial cities.

Third off, the long history of anti-landlord and anti-rentier resistance in the countryside went back to the sixties and seventies - prior to the Peruvian CP split into Soviet and Chinese sections, and most importantly, before the government declared dictatorial powers.

[Saorsa]

A guerrilla army and a revolutionary political organisation simply does not seize control of half a country without mass support, especially when this organisation has no foreign backing and no backing from the wealthy classes.

Read up on the work the PCP did in the shanty towns, particularly Raucana. They were not just a bunch of students with guns in the countryside, they were a powerful, disciplined communist party with a military wing of thousands and underground membership and activities extending throughout the country, including very much the shanty towns and working-class urban areas of Peru.

Guerrilla warfare is a tactic and a very useful one. An organisation's use of it does not in any way mean they are a sect isolated from the working class, any more than an organisation that does not practice guerrilla warfare inevitably has any kind of support within the class.

[Charles Xavier]

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[alternate_redstar]

And why are you here blogging instead of leading some dead-end campaign in the bushland. Shining Path are primitivist whackos driven by a suicidal sense of desperation. Violence liberates the masses when it is the violence of the masses, not when it is the meaningless propagande de l'acte of those who would lead us into a Kmher Rouge style madness. Communism is a force of modernism, not a path back to some peasant garden of eden.:D:D

[Saorsa]

Shining Path are primitivist whackos driven by a suicidal sense of desperation.


That's slander. The PCP did not advocate going back in time to an earlier level of development and property relations, and I challenge you to provide a shred of reliable evidence to back up your absurd claim.



Violence liberates the masses when it is the violence of the masses, not when it is the meaningless propagande de l'acte of those who would lead us into a Kmher Rouge style madness.


Tens of thousands of peasants joined the Maoist army and participated in the revolutionary struggle. People's War is the synthesis of organised military violence and the class-struggle violence of the masses. And explain exactly how the PCP was going to "lead us into a Kmher Rouge style madness."



Communism is a force of modernism, not a path back to some peasant garden of eden.http://www.revleft.com/vb/shining-path-kill-t91803/revleft/smilies/biggrin.gifhttp://www.revleft.com/vb/shining-path-kill-t91803/revleft/smilies/biggrin.gif


And the Communist Party of Peru agreed with that. Please provide evidence to the contrary.

[Sankofa]

This is a great thing. It's good to see our comrades in Peru and Latin America in general aren't down for the count and can still stick it to their oppressive capitalist governments.

In fact, just as in Colombia, the Peruvian government would have been over thrown by the guerilla decades ago if it wasn't for millions of dollars in American intervention.

What's sad is the fact that "revolutionaries" here will consistently gobble up any Faux News propaganda that the bourgeois cook up with out a second thought. No one's said even a word about Peru's late president Alberto Fujimori, who came to power illegally in '92 by a military coup.

He and his CIA trained death squads are the ones really responsible for massacres across the Peruvian countryside. He even went into exile in Japan to escape being brought to justice for his numerous human rights abuses.

In the end, it doesn't really matter, I suppose. I had to defend FARC against scores of people with the same bullshit, and I'll do the same for the Shining Path.

[redguard2009]

And calling them terrorists only adds to the quagmire of bullshit sensationalism that the far-right tacks onto any form of violent resistence to their global imperialist transgressions. If anybody is serving the aims of the ruling class, it is reformists like you who act as left-wing posterboys and appeasers of the status quo and the continuation of bourgeois democracy and legitimization of its useless election system.

I have a lot more respect for those with the balls to stand up and fight oppression, than those who sit at home and criticize them from the safety of their homes and bourgeoisie-sanctioned parties and organizations.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Sankofa]

Maoists would be good if they fought oppression, but rather they bomb buses, chop off limbs, and kill other leftists, trade unionists and community organizers for not being Maoist.

:rolleyes: I see nothing's changed during my short break from Revleft.

Liberals whining about the deaths of soldiers serving a bourgeois army who just happen to be working class is one thing...but to take the one incident of Luncanamarca, use it to discredit the Shining Path's entire revolutionary struggle, while at the same time outright denying the merciless, bloodthirsty oppression that the U.S. supported ruling classes projected on Peru's students, workers, peasants, and becoming a mouth-piece for their propaganda serves the interests of the bourgeoise more than any "mindless guerillaism" ever has.

Any wrongs on the side of the communists are mere child's play compared to what Fujimori and his cronies were getting away with. However, this isn't to justify them, Gozanlo, himself, accepted responsibility for all of their actions, unlike Fujimori who used his governmental powers and imperialist support to cover up all of the killing, rape, and torture he authorized and then fled the country.

The Shining Path definitely wasn't perfect, the clashes with MRTA and the actions in Lucanamarca are evidence of that, but they were committed comrades who did make a difference to the oppressed people of Peru. They were not savage murderers who went around killing innocent people left and right.

And no Reformist asshole who thinks that they're hot shit because they having the ability to pull up a fucking wikipedia article and recite the first paragraph will ever change that.

[RedSonRising]

From what I understand the Shining Path were at one point a very present and honorable force in fighting Imperialism. Though they did not have popular support, which in my opinion is essential, they fought like the heroes of old in Latin America to preserve the interests of the people and the working class. They have deteriorated, however, as is obvious by their apparent use of drug exportation. I will never support such exploitation and manipulation of workers; it is pure hypocricy, and I have witnessed what those decaying organizations like the FARC in Colombia do to a country and to the good name of socialism.

[redguard2009]

The idea they deal with drug trading and trafficking is unsubstantiated.

[RedSonRising]

This is a great thing. It's good to see our comrades in Peru and Latin America in general aren't down for the count and can still stick it to their oppressive capitalist governments.

In fact, just as in Colombia, the Peruvian government would have been over thrown by the guerilla decades ago if it wasn't for millions of dollars in American intervention.

What's sad is the fact that "revolutionaries" here will consistently gobble up any Faux News propaganda that the bourgeois cook up with out a second thought. No one's said even a word about Peru's late president Alberto Fujimori, who came to power illegally in '92 by a military coup.

He and his CIA trained death squads are the ones really responsible for massacres across the Peruvian countryside. He even went into exile in Japan to escape being brought to justice for his numerous human rights abuses.

In the end, it doesn't really matter, I suppose. I had to defend FARC against scores of people with the same bullshit, and I'll do the same for the Shining Path.
Have you ever been to Colombia and seen the suffering the FARC cause? I am by no means a champagne socialist and admire your dedication to real and effective fighting, but I must respectfully disagree and state my opinion in saying that injustice by one group, such as the US, does not justify injustice by another, such as the FARC or the Shining Path. I am not to educated on the Shining Path, but from what I have seen they have taken the same path as the FARC. Now the FARC have an important history as an example to latin american marxism, but the harm done to civilians is unjustified. By injustice by another group I do not mean that the people may not take arms against an oppresive nation or their puppet government, but violence against the people is against socialism. Casualties happen, yes, but one cannot accept a group as justified simply because their injustice in comparison is lesser. There is a certain way to go about things, and there are certain extremes people must take, and I support revolutionary armed struggle, but civilian oppression and a lack of education of populations from such organizations do not seem to answer the problems of capitalism in my opinion.

[Sankofa]

From what I understand the Shining Path were at one point a very present and honorable force in fighting Imperialism. Though they did not have popular support, which in my opinion is essential, they fought like the heroes of old in Latin America to preserve the interests of the people and the working class.

How does an independent guerilla movement survive for four decades in order to hold control over large parts of Peru against a conventional government and army who are being showered with millions of dollars of aid in arms, training and intelligence by the largest imperialist power on Earth not have popular support?


They have deteriorated, however, as is obvious by their apparent use of drug exportation. I will never support such exploitation and manipulation of workers; it is pure hypocricy, and I have witnessed what those decaying organizations like the FARC in Colombia do to a country and to the good name of socialism.

*yawn* Again, people calling themselves Marxists have no issues with completely foregoing research in order to embrace reactionary propaganda.

Neither the Shining Path nor FARC practice in drug exportation. Even if they wanted to, The CIA and Dyncorp (U.S. based military contractors) beat them to the punch.


On May 12, 2000, according to an official U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration document obtained by The Nation magazine under the Freedom of Information Act, Colombian police intercepted a parcel sent from DynCorp's Colombia offices to its air base in Florida.

Colombian authorities discovered two small bottles of a thick liquid in a package which, when tested, was found to be laced with heroin worth more than $100,000. When authorities discovered the name of the company responsible for shipping the heroin they turned the results of the 'narcotest' over to the Immediate Reaction Unit, which then set into motion prosecution procedure 483064. However, the heroin bust remained a secret for more than a year until The Nation began its investigation and now it seems the evidence has simply disappeared.

[Source→DynCorp:Beyond the Rule of Law (http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia78.htm)]


A private jet that crashed last year in eastern Mexico and was found to be carrying more than 3 tons of cocaine was also used by the Central Intelligence Agency for clandestine operations, the Mexican daily El Universal reported September 3.

[Source→Crashed Jet carrying Cocaine linked to the CIA (http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3745.shtml)]


I am by no means a champagne socialist and admire your dedication to real and effective fighting

After your track record in this thread, I have absolutely no idea why you call yourself a Socialist at all.


Have you ever been to Colombia and seen the suffering the FARC cause? I must respectfully disagree and state my opinion in saying that injustice by one group, such as the US, does not justify injustice by another, such as the FARC or the Shining Path. I am not to educated on the Shining Path, but from what I have seen they have taken the same path as the FARC.

Perhaps if you took time to educate yourself instead of repeating things you heard on CNN you wouldn't look like such a dumb shit.



Now the FARC have an important history as an example to latin american marxism, but the harm done to civilians is unjustified. By injustice by another group I do not mean that the people may not take arms against an oppresive nation or their puppet government, but violence against the people is against socialism. Casualties happen, yes, but one cannot accept a group as justified simply because their injustice in comparison is lesser. There is a certain way to go about things, and there are certain extremes people must take, and I support revolutionary armed struggle, but civilian oppression and a lack of education of populations from such organizations do not seem to answer the problems of capitalism in my opinion.

When are you going to stop talking shit and post something reputable? You've proven you know absolutely jack fuck about anything.

The fact people like you claim to share the same ideology as I do makes me want to fucking puke.

[Wanted Man]

Maoists would be good if they fought oppression, but rather they bomb buses, chop off limbs, and kill other leftists, trade unionists and community organizers for not being Maoist.
Don't generalise against maoists, comrade. We can disagree on the groups in Latin America (I once heard a maoist praise Shining Path, while damning the FARC to hell for being "out of touch with the people"...). But in the end, they are marxists-leninists like us. Uniting the former "Russian", "Chinese", "Albanian", "Cuban" and "independent" currents of the communist movement is important, so it's wrong to insult all maoists. This (http://www.wpb.be/icm/95enprop.htm) is a good read on the matter.

[Charles Xavier]

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[redguard2009]

1) "Legitimate communists" holding mayorial and other beauraucratic positions within the bourgeois state?

2) Do you even know why the conflict in India has seen Naxalites opposing their "communist" provincial governments?

3) I don't take members of the CPC seriously. Sorry.

[Leo]

Because the Maoists kill other communists, and friends of comrades of mine, in Turkey...That's very outdated, about thirty years, and of course the official CPers were killing militants of maoist and hoxhaist groups they had feuds with as well.

The hoxhaists and the old official CP are practically nonexistent now, and the maoists have an army of two hundred and fifty people somewhere far away, making the "people's war".

[Charles Xavier]

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[redguard2009]

1) Yeah fucking moron communists who actual have mass support of the people, who weren't reformist sell outs and had an actual marxist-leninist platform had the experience of state building from Velasco, the theoretical underpinnings of Mariategui, and the revolutionary spirit of Tupac Amaru II, I don't get why they didn't go to the hills and chop off limbs, kill trade unionists and kill community organizers.

My my, are you getting angry?

Let's see. Communists who achieved beauraucratic positions in the bourgeois government by:


who weren't reformist sell outs

Mhm.


2) Because they find attacking other progressives easier than the actual bourgeioisie state.

You assume there is some differentiation between Indian electoral communists and the bourgeois state. It is your friends the electoral communists who have caused such an uproar in civil unrest which bred the Naxalite movement in the first place.


3) I don't take sectarian loud mouths seriously. sorry.

LOLOL I see what you did there, you took what I said and then changed it slightly into a stringing remark about me being "sectarian" even though you were the one who originally came into this thread tossing "stupid Maoists" about.

Please, just go back to licking Figueroa's balls, voting for your defunct party along with the other 30 people in your clique and leave the real stuff to the big boys.

[Devrim]

The CP was an underground organization for the longest time, the CP of Turkey is quite big and strong, much bigger than any maoist bs.

Well yes it is stronger than any Maoists. I think that we should look at what sort of organisation it is though.

It is, in my opinion, on the edge of open outright social chauvinism. It runs a front organisation called the 'Patriotic Front' (yurtsever cephe) and when the Turkish troops attacked Northern Iraq, their slogans weren't to denounce Turkish imperialism but to proclaim that 'We won't let the US divide our country'.

Devrim

[Leo]

The CP was an underground organization for the longest time

Ehh, not really, from 1925 onwards it became was a very tiny pro-Kemalist group which eventually became nothing more than a small circle of exiled Turks in East Berlin till they started gaining an influence in the 70s. They lost all the significance they had after the coup and practically vanished around 1990.


the CP of Turkey is quite big and strong, much bigger than any maoist bs.

The current CP of Turkey doesn't even have any organic links with the old CP.

[Charles Xavier]

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[redguard2009]

I am not angry, just think you're being silly. Do not forget that the Maoists in Nepal participate in bourgeioisie elections, the Bolsheviks Participated in Bourgeioisie elections, the CP of Bulgaria participated in Bourgeioisie elections,

After fighting for over 10 years to force the downfall of the government.


Yeah naxalites have to highlight the difference by killing communists who use the electoral option (which by the way isn't even closed to the Maoists in most states).

The Communist parties which make up provincial governments in India are no more communist than you; they have acted hand-in-hand with the bourgeois national government in suppressing and oppressing workers and in many states in India are the main opposition to the revolutionary movement.


I'm not being sectarian, sectarian would be putting organization interests over class interests.

So what were those multiple sweeping universal statements about Maoists and Maoism?

[Charles Xavier]

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[Saorsa]

2. Yeah stupid land reform and giving trade unions say in the state, what dumbasses they are for oppressing people the wrong way. They actually should go around killing other communists and trade unionists that would make them more oppressive, I mean oops, less oppressive.

They're too busy shooting down peasants trying to defend their homes and fight being evicted to make way for an SEZ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandigram

[BobKKKindle$]

Life Long revolutionaries died in this so glorious cultural revolution

The GPCR was directed against party bureaucrats who were determined to remove China from the road to socialism and restore capitalism from inside the revolutionary party, by means of gradual reforms intended to undermine the gains of the revolution, including the collectivized property base which allowed the government to abolish unemployment and maintain a consistently high rate of economic growth over several decades, despite isolation from the rest of the world and internal disruptions. The leader of the counter-revolutionary faction within the party was Liu Shaoqi, who attributed the problems of the GLF to the collective farming system and argued that a rich peasant economy should be allowed to develop by keeping the collective units as small as possible and encouraging private economic initiatives. If Liu Shaoqi had not been exposed as a capitalist-roader, China may have experienced a return to market capitalism much earlier.

[Charles Xavier]

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[Devrim]

Here is the position of the TKP concerning Iraq
http://www.tkp.org.tr/en/system/files/images/iraq.jpgTKP opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning on and utilized all its forces in 2003 to mobilize people in Turkey against the war. In 2003, TKP not only struggled against the occupation of a neighboring country by imperialists, but it also contributed to the prevention of Turkey's involvement into the war, with its troops or with its logistical support to the USA. Today TKP still warns the people about the government's continuing attempts to send troops to Iraq, while revealing the capitalists, which support the imperialist occupation by doing business in Iraq.

and obviously this needs a little update but they are a turkish party not an english party.

Well it needs more than a little update as we are not even talking about the same war. I was talking about the last Turkish invasion of Iraq. Of course the TKP opposed the US invasion of Iraq. They are anti-American. It was the Turkish invasion I was talking about.


First of all Turkey isn't imperialist, it holds no colonies, its military is being used to help the US in its war against the Iraqi People, for many many many years the Turkish ruling class have been agents in US Imperialism. The new TKP is not a split from the old TKP, the old TKP has become a reformist party and had abandoned the name years ago. The new tkp (2001) has many members from the old TKP.

In the current epoch all countries have imperialist aspirations. Imperialism is a world system not a policy of particular countries. Though even within your logic how would you classify TRNC if not as a colony?

Devrim

[redguard2009]

1. so the only way I'm allowed to participate in bourgeioisie elections if I go around shooting shit up?

No. The only way you're allowed to participate in bourgeois elections is by pursuing an adaptable and realistic course of action. Unless you hadn't noticed, the CPC throughout its entire history has not had a single member win any riding, except for the occasional candidate -- who had to run as an independant. The CPN(M) on the other hand, through self-sacrifice and strategic genius, managed to win national control in their first-ever attempt at the elections after going around, as you call it, "killing trade unionists" and other "left-wing people". Obviously, the CPC is doing something wrong and the CPN(M) something right.


2. Yeah stupid land reform and giving trade unions say in the state

Your illiterate sarcasm aside, those land reforms have been the main cause of popular upheaval in provinces under the control of Communist party authorities. Peasants, which make up the majority of the population in provinces such as Andhra Pradesh, have been heavily abused and exploited under your "communists", their "land reforms" amounting to little more than bulldozing people's livelihoods to build corporate sweatshops and dollar-a-day factories. Not to mention the federally-ordered crackdown on dissidents which has seen many people, Maoist and non-Maoist, harassed and arrested under anti-terrorism laws for doing such anti-communist things like protesting and striking.


3. I don't know maybe because Maoists go around kill all left-wing forces around them.

As I said above, your glorious left-wing comrades who occupy individual seats of power in bourgeois governments (as opposed to the entire government itself) are more than deserving of being killed. In either case, you're playing into little more than sensationalism -- any way you look at it, the vast, vast, vast majority of Maoist insurgents' "victims" are state police, army and security and intelligence forces. Those Maoists are no more guilty or innocent of targetting innocent civilians than your "left-wing" governments are.


Life Long revolutionaries died in this so glorious cultural revolution.

This is probably the first correct thing you've said. Many revolutionaries died during the cultural revolution -- and many who were fortunate enough to avoid execution are still in Chinese prisons to this day, mainly for refusing to denounce Mao and embrace Dengism. Of course, being the intelligent communist you are, I'm sure you knew this -- as well as the fact that after the GPCR, Mao's supporters were rounded up and executed or given life-long prison sentences. And I'm sure you know that those whom the cultural revolution targetted won that miniature civil war and went on to establish the China we know and love today.


Then invading a recently victorious socialist Vietnam out of Chinese nationalism

Yeah, Vietnam is so socialist now, isn't it. You should, however, take a look at history; it wasn't until after the defeat of the cultural revolution and abolition of Maoism in China that hostility towards Vietnam materialized. During Mao's tenure, China was Vietnam's most active supporter in every sense of the word.


killing communists, trade unions and anyone who is leftist and isn't maoist in Peru, in Colombia, in Venezuela, in Turkey, and Nepal.

As I've said before, most of them deserved it.


In Canada they are so brillant they think they are so bad ass by boycotting the election, what trife anarchists.

I'm sure the RCP should try and learn from the CPC's gloriously successful adventure into electoral politics which has seen it rocket into the stratosphere of popularity. If it weren't for fact that the CPC's electoral performance has been steadily dwindling and dying over the past 60 years, I'd question why Canada isn't a communist society by now. On a more serious note, if you really want to split hairs, I'd suggest taking a look at electoral turnout figures for our latest federal election. According to results, your CPC managed to catch, nationwide, a blistering 3,639 votes. By comparison, just shy of 10,000,000 eligible Canadians didn't bother voting. Between the 2006 and 2008 elections, over 900,000 additional people decided not to go to the polls this time around. So you tell me, which policy is more indicative of the people's opinion of politics?

And if you want to further split hairs, when you guys had your laughable 35th national convention in Toronto in 2007, what was it, 65 people showed up? The RCP had a congress in Montreal a few months earlier, its "first convention" one could say, and twice as many people took part.

So yeah, thanks for giving me the oppurtunity to show how we "crazy Canadian frothing-mouthed baby-killing Maoists" are more in touch with revolutionary activism in this country than your impotent CPC.


There are like 50 different communist parties in India I don't think they are all good but the left front is definitely something to support and not go around killing them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Front (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Front)

Thank jesus you've got wikipedia to light your way. No wonder you're such a well-adjusted revolutionary activist. :rolleyes:

[Charles Xavier]

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[Charles Xavier]

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[Charles Xavier]

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[Wanted Man]

Because the Maoists kill other communists, and friends of comrades of mine, in Turkey and Peru. And while I do not know people in India, the Maoists target the majority of their attacks against the communist government in Bengal.
I don't know about the situation in Turkey and Peru. But in the case of India, I don't think there is much communist about the CPI, CPI(Marxist), etc. anymore. Their actions have been discussed so much already, they basically just seem like social-democrats who've joined the government on a platform of class betrayal. The naxalites didn't just come falling from the sky, there is a very real reason why people go in that direction.

These reformist and right-opportunist tendencies, as well as gambling on populism, has also caused the defeat of the CPN(UML) in Nepal, even in their largest strongholds, while the CPN(Maoist) grew leaps and bounds. One sat in parliament, wheeling and dealing, while the other was waging people's war. Even for marxist-leninists who aren't maoists, these are interesting developments to follow.


Further I would like to extend that the world is not black or white, we view the take over of Nepal by Maoists is a positive development. Despite the criticism I have of them, they are obviously a 1000x better than the former government.

Further I would like to address a question that Maoists throw mud at all the time, building a straw man to attack. It is this Khruschevite label. This is a label ungrounded in actuality. True, our party sided with the Soviet Union against China in the Sino-Soviet split. But this was not over support of Khruschev but out of not supporting Maoism. The Soviet Union was not supported by our party uncritically, further we recongize the banner of "anti-stalin" formulated within the Soviet Union and further accross the world was more of an attack not on Stalin but on Socialism and Marxism-Leninism itself. Our party upholds of Marxism-Leninism, we are for the dictatorship of the Proletariat, for the nationalization of the economy, we do not see the struggle for democracy and social emanicipation as an electoral question. We use the elections in the same way that lenin explains:
I do agree with this.

[Charles Xavier]

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[chegitz guevara]

Luckily the Nepali Maoists never listened to this advice.

Actually, they did. Or are you privy to some civil war in Nepal that I am not?

[chegitz guevara]

The responses people give in threads like these are always useful for seperating the revolutionaries from the liberals.

True enough, but not in the way you suppose.

[redguard2009]

We are using the elections to advance a people's platform, the 10,000,000 who didn't vote didn't do so out of lack of knowledge on the parties who ran not support of the RCP

Yes, I am well aware of the revisionist claim that participation in the bourgeois electoral system is a tactic to advance your party's platform by using the forum of an election campaign. However, my statement and claims are the same -- despite this "tactic", your party's popularity, in the polls, in the ballot box and on the street, have steadily decreased over the past 30 years. In my opinion, while I do not universally eschew political platforming as a tactic (I support its use), I do believe that the CPC's inability to adapt to a successful tactic and its belligerent reliance upon one repeatedly failed tactic is in error.

And I made no claims that the 10,000,000 Canadians who did not vote did so out of support for the RCP. I said simply that while your party supports the elections (and participates in them) and gained a few hundred votes nationally, those of the broad and generic ideological tendency of rejecting the elections represent a far greater and far more important tendency in the population. It is those 10,000,000 Canadians who, be it out of apathy, active dissent, rejection or otherwise, who show the most revolutionary potential -- not those who show up at the polls, the vast vast majority to vote for the Conservatives or the Liberals.

Third, do you even live in Canada? For the month and a half between the call for the election and the election itself, all time and activity globally ceased to exist within Canada as every media station, newspaper and magazine focused almost solely on the election. Countless televised leadership debates, political specials, policy editorials and other informative medium plagued every station and every website, leading to what I personally believe to be the most informative electoral coverage in Canadian history. That the majority of those who did not vote did so out of "lack of knowledge" is silly -- if anything, their greater understanding of the political bankruptcy of the bourgeois electoral system is what led to our record-breaking low turnouts, not any "lack" of knowledge.


A rejection of political struggle is anarchism plain and simple

This statement is indicative of two facts: First, you do not understand what political struggle is, and second, you do not understand what anarchism is.

The RCP does not reject political struggle -- that is the essence of our work and the work of the majority of "leftist" and "revolutionary" organizations. On the contrary, our political work has been adapted and transformed to apply to situations outside of the electoral circus while the practices of the CPC are sadly limited by force to that medium. The RCP has the hindsight to recognize when and where to apply political struggle, while the CPC is incapable of struggling outside the electoral arena (which occurs for a handful of months every handful of years).


And do not attempt to compare Canada to Nepal or Peru or any oppressed semi-colonial country.

This statement is blissfully ironic, due to the fact that it is the CPC who laid claim during the 2007 convention that Canada's bourgeoisie and imperialist tendencies are wholesale submissive to American imperialism. The RCP has since its inception made the claim that Canada is a full-blown imperialist countries engaged in imperialist endeavours in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan and elsewhere.


I know though that that Naxalites if they truly were a mass uprising of the people they would focus their efforts fighting much more reactionary governments. Than some opportunists who while fail to meet the people's needs are better than some of the other parties that rule the proviences of India.

It is highly telling that you did not bother to contemplate the fact that the anger of the uprising masses in provinces throughout India are aimed at co-called "Communist" provincial governments for a reason! The CPI(M) did not arbitrarily decide to go after India's electoral communists -- resistence movements develop where there is cause for resistence.


And if China was so supportive of Vietnam why did the Chinese invade Vietnam in 1979 after 5 years of hostility towards Vietnam, right after fighting 30 years non-stop from French Imperialists to American Imperialists. The Vietnam Peasant Militia cut into the Chinese regulars forces like a hot knife through butter. The Vietnam general was so brillant he left the regular forces in reserve.

I will explain this as simply as I can.

Starting as early as the late 50s, and developing into a storm during the 60s, there existed in China and the Communist Party a reactionary tendency embodied in several high-ranking officials and many mid-ranking officials who sought to take control of the Communist Party and the Chinese government for their own gains. Starting in the early 1960s Mao led a broad movement (which we know as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, or just "Cultural Revolution") in which he urged the masses to "bombard the headquarters" -- that is, to recognize the increasing despotism and corruption in the Communist Party and to struggle against it to free themselves from liberators-turned-oppressors. By the 1970s the Cultural Revolution was defeated (a defeat which many leftists applaud); the top supporters of the anti-government movement were arrested and executed while Mao, elderly and growing senile, was puppeteered until his death. After this coup, which essentially took the form of a civil war, these reactionaries began introducing right-wing reforms into Chinese society and the economy, rewriting "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" and essentially rebirthing capitalism in China under the guise of state control. They were led by a man called "Deng" who led a campaign to villify the revolutionaries of the 1949 victory, Mao inparticular, and manipulated the prosperity of the people's revolutionary movement (in the form of the Chinese Communist Party) into a tyrannical, oppressive state regime. Since then, China has made a number of high-profile right-turns, from its invasion of Vietnam, introduction of western capitalist investment, the selling-out of millions of working-class Chinese, the military support of Myanmar and the suppression of the student uprising at Tiananmen. These activies were carried out by Mao's opponents, and I would ask for you to give some evidence that "the majority of Maoists supported the invasion" of Vietnam.


I don't know about you but if any Maoist starts bombing city buses in my city, planting bombs in the downtown square of my city, starts killing off community organizers and trade union leaders I'll fight them.

I doubt you will see bombings or assassinations -- this is Canada, not Peru or Nepal, and the revolutionary struggle will take the form dictated by the conditions inherent in our country, not in any foreign "template". And the legitimacy of community organizers and "trade union leaders" will dictate any action taken against them -- and please do not tell me that you do not recognize the degenerative state of modern big-business unions and their petty-bourgeois leadership and the adoption of "working with capitalism" policies. Most unions today -- especially the large ones -- have become completely subservient to the needs of the ruling class and have adopted a policy of working with the corporate interests in order to maximize manufacturing and services efficiency, not protecting, defending and fighting for workers' rights.


And our 2007 Convention was just that a Convention, where each club sends delegates with voting power to decide party policy, the convention is not some sort of Social event where everyone and everybody gets together and sings and dance.

It was not just voting-power delegates; the convention also established general elections to the Central Committee as well as inter-committee policy establishment.


And opportunist practises such as inflating yourself and going door to door to talk about how undemocratic the elections are and to boycott them won't last in the long run. Fightback for example practises entryism into the NDP, a very dishonest way of growing their membership. Eventually the dishonesty and opportunism will catch up to you. What the major issues are Class politics. Combining Political Struggle with Economic Struggle.

Obviously not; the election boycott campaign ended the same night as the elections. It is not the sole platform on which the RCP and dozens of its allied organizations campaign on -- inherently, the election boycott calls only occur when there is an actual election.

And even if it were true, it's a bit hypocritical, don't you think? Electioneering and platforming is essentially the sole source of political activity available to the CPC -- physically limited their campaigning exposure to the few months every few years when an election takes place.

As for "dishonesty and oppurtunism" -- you sure do know how to emulate the most common anti-capitalist rhetoric, but I don't see how you came to this conclusion. The facts speak for themselves -- there is nothing "dishonest" about it. In the entire history of the bourgeois electoral process not a single revolutionary government which relied solely on electoral platforming was elected to establish a revolutionary government. Even the CPN(M) does not fancy itself bringing the people's revolution to Nepal on the wave of its electoral victory -- it established its goal of introducing economic reform to bring Nepal to the state where the people's revolution is possible and necessary. Over the history of the CPC, only a single CPC candidate has been elected to Parliament -- and even then it was as a member of the Labour Progressive Party, and even then it was when the LPP managed over 100,000 votes nationally (2.1% of the vote; compared to the 3,600 votes you received this year). And since then, support for the CPC and election results have plummeted; 1.06% of the vote in 1953, 0.13 in 1974, 0.05 in 1988, 0.03 in 2000 and 0.02 in 2006. In short, since 1945, your party's popularity has fallen by a factor of 100, from 2% of the popular vote in 1945 to 0.02% in 2006. Yet you cling to your platformist strategy like a baby to its mother's bussom.


That being said I do think the RCP have done some good work over the years, but the Cult over Bob Avakian is weird.[/qupte]

*Sigh*

I'll say it once to you. The RCPUSA and the RCP here in Canada have nothing to do with one another. They are two completely different organizations. Even though they both have the same name and both claim adherence to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism their practices and situational policies are very different. The RCP of Canada has no official position that I know on the question of Bob Avakian, though it is definately not unanymously supported. And when the RCP of Canada held a congress in 2006, it received messages and delegates from a dozen different organizations, from the Communist Party of the Philippines, Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan, Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) and other organizations from Italy, Iraq, Bangladesh and Colombia -- but not a single message, not a word, from the RCPUSA just next door. As far as I know and am concerned there is not even communication between the RCPUSA and RCP of Canada.

[quote]It is this Khruschevite label.

There is no "Kruschevite" label -- I believe the term you are looking for is "revisionist", which is a label given to those who have revised Soviet history (a la Kruschev and Breznev) to demonize Stalin and his contributions and the development of the Russian Revolution, and further degredation of the USSR under party domination and dictatorship.

Tell me something: Lenin did indeed support parliamentarism (though his support for it was during the 1910s, a time where he could not hope to fathom the state of electoral practices in capitalist countries in this day and age, where every single facet of information is so absolutely controlled by the ruling class), and yet the Bolshevik Revolution was not "voted in". Infact, the only "voting" that took place was for the formation of the provisional government -- largely composed of social-democrats and left-liberals -- and it was Lenin who called for the taking-up of arms against this government-in-birth. The question is, do you honestly believe that the entirety of the CPC's electoral history is simply "for show" and that when the time comes, it will spontaneously pick up arms to overthrow the government? That the two-dozen or so candidates put forward by the CPC will drop their pens and suits and pick up assault rifles and combat fatigues?

As I said, no Maoist that I personally know of dismisses out-of-hand the tactic of parliamentarism -- as much should be obvious by the goings-on in Nepal. What we believe in is "socialism in one country", by its original definition -- that the revolutionary tactics and strategies a movement undertakes is specific to the political, economic and social situation in any given country at any given time. We do not attempt to adhere a cookie-cutter, pre-fabricated archaic belief or design to every situation we come across. Adaptability, and the ability to comprehend and analyze differing situations worldwide is at the core of MLM. In some countries this may mean electoral practices -- in others this means insurrectionary tactics and revolutionary warefare. In Canada's case, it is our opinion that the electoral process holds absolutely no dividends or benefits for truely revolutionary causes, and that it is, quite simply, a vessal to propagate and maintain bourgeois rule and to that effect serves no other purpose. Therefore, we reject parliamentarism here, and focus on other political work, such as mobilizing workers outside of the constraints of the bourgeois electoral and union system, urging the rejection of the bourgeois state and all its machinations and structures of control as the first step towards developing a revolutionary movement to topple it.

If you don't mind me asking, where in Canada do you live? The RCP has worked with elements of the CPC before in the form of the CPQ, though I don't know if it was the CPC-affiliated faction or the "Parizeauists" -- I just know that members of the CPQ were present when an RCP rally in St Jerome, Quebec was attacked by the Police.

And a personal question for you: Do you support the CPC under Figueroa focusing its electoral practices on targetting the Tories in the elections, urging that Canadians first and foremost topple the Tory government and replace it with "more progressive" MPs (which is in effect a sponsorship of any non-Tory candidate)? Of his support for Elizabeth May and effective sponsorship of the televised leadership debates (which involved only the four most popular bourgeois parties)? And lastly, do you recognize that support for the CPC has been dwindling over the past 50 years?

[redguard2009]

However for the Maoists in India, waging a war of sabotage against these Left governments, regardless if its revisionists in charge serves reaction rather than the Left.

The provisional government set up in Russia after the departure of the Tsars was by definition leftist. Do you therefore condemn the Bolsheviks for sabotaging that leftist government, beginning a civil war, and killing thousands of them?

[Charles Xavier]

blank

[YKTMX]

Whilst my reading on the matter has made me fairly sympathetic to the Shining Path (relative to most groups of its kind), I don't see how any return to armed revolution can be justified at this time. Given the current political climate in Latin America, the notion that political change can't be effected by mass mobilization from below is thoroughly discredited. Any move back to armed struggle would be pure Blanquism.

[redguard2009]

Stop throwing shiny labels around. If you haven't got any arguement outside of lambasting an opposing opinion of yours as "____ist" then don't bother.


Give our party the budgets of the big parties and I'm sure our popular support will rise alongside it. In fact do no forget millionaire Ross Perot put 60 million into his electoral campaign and all a sudden became front runner in the US Election. Money buys power, money buys election.

Please, you're preaching to the choir. Both of us are critically aware of why the CPC has failed at the polls -- hell, we're the ones who reject further use of parliamentarism in Canada, so don't tell me about why it isn't working.


To pretend that people were well informed on the issues is quite a fallacy, if they were would the conservatives secure more seats?

Your misunderstanding of the norms of federal bourgeois democracy is troubling and highly dangerous. The issue here is not that bourgeois democracy is the dominant power in imperialist politics simply because they are "pulling the wool over the eyes" of the masses. The structure of power and authority goes far, far, far deeper than our ritualistic gatherings every few years to drop tagged pieces of paper into steel lockboxes. Corporations, the police, the military and the halls of government are intricately connected into a symbiotic all-powerful system which rules in our country. "Informing" people isn't going to shatter that centuries-old domination.


The reference to the invasion by China into Vietnam was produced in Newspapers by the M-L when they were Maoists.

Given that the M-L probably has less of an idea of what exactly their ideology is than a 4 year old, I don't take anything they say or have said very seriously. After their supposed "Maoist" roots, they turned to Hoxhaism and then to some distorted Hardial Bains sub-cult -- please do not draw erroneous conclusions based on a single obscure quasi-religious organization.


Concerning the RCP fair enough you aren't the one in the US, why name yourself the same way then?

I didn't name anything, so why are you asking me? Drawing such simplistic conclusions is as silly as me claiming that the CPC and the Communist Party of Albania are somehow identical despite the very obvious ideological differences. The RCP promotes revolution, promotes communism, and is a party -- badda-bing badda-boom.


And I ask once again tell me when we should participate in elections, maybe you can change history. If we don't participate in elections will it show how illegitment electoral politics are? I fail to see the connection.

I'm sorry if you can't recognize the obvious flaw in believing that the machinations of the bourgeois state can be utilized as-is by any sort of serious progressive movement. The overwhelming tendencies of oppression and exploitation which form each and every aspect of bourgeois democracy can not be undone because you win some seats in Parliament. The only way at this point to "cultivate" this system is by introducing radical changes through external mobilization of revolutionary forces to severely and dramatically change our system, before we can even think about using it ourselves.


I support my party under Figueroa. I support the focus of our electoral attacks on the conservatives, this electoral position was based on trying to prevent a majority government. and more progressive MPs doesn't mean liberal, we mean left-wing green and left-wing NDPers.

So you support electing Green and NDP candidates?

So, how are you revolutionary again?


Our party supports all parties having a say at the televised debates not just rich ones. And yes the support of the CPC has been dwindling for the last 50 years it is sad but true but it is not just our party but every left party in Canada. I am in favour of having the communist parties working more closely together, in a united front. But this question has to be approached by all.

Yes, it has been occuring to the CPC-ML as well, and every progressive party that has become involved in the electoral process has been met with increasing failure over the past half-century. So why the hell do you still tread down that path? You've said yourself that your party is resorting to supporting Green Party and NDP candidates, you've admitted that your electoral results have been dwindling, so why? What do you seriously expect to gain? Will you keep up this useless activity until the very last voter has given up on your party, until the CPC becomes nothing more than a left-wing sponsor of the NDP, failing to field any candidates and campaigning for candidates of other parties?

Even in Quebec, both the Parizeauist and CPC factions are sub-members of sub-member parties; the only place you have in Quebec elections are as part of a broad centrist alliance which itself is part of a broad centrist alliance (Quebec Solidaire). And I expect this trend will continue until the CPC either dissolves completely or merges with a centrist party itself (or loses its identity completely in a national centrist alliance).

Now, back to the CPI(M) and your accusations that the Maoists in India are "killing leftists". I happened upon this news report from Indian news:

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200811180334.htm

The article is about the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleging that "outsiders" are provoking civil unrest in West Bengal province.

The article details increasing public outrage and rebellion; just within the past couple of weeks, thousands of native West Bengalese took to the streets in a mass protest over alleged abuses being carried out against "political dissidents" and "terrorists" protesting the Communist-controlled provincial government, starting after several beatings and arbitrary arrests were carried out against locals by the provincial police. Several major roads and highways were shut down by sit-ins organized by a popular opposition front.

And this is only what has occured during this month. Throughout its "career" the activities of the CPI(Marxist) have led to countless uprisings and protests across all provinces which they have control over, due to increasingly harsh pro-business land reforms and political oppression. These Communist Parties routinely exchange accusations of "terrorism" and "being a Maoist sympathizer" to justify their brutality, largely but not exclusively aimed towards poor farmers and proletarians in poverty-stricken neighbourhoods and towns.


Any move back to armed struggle would be pure Blanquism.

Why? Because the totalitarian dictatorship in Peru has been replaced with western-controlled bourgeois democracy? Should the German revolutionaries of the 1920s given up arms because the dictatorship of the Kaiser was replaced with bourgeois republicanism? Should the Bolsheviks had shrugged their shoulders and gone home when the Tsars were brought down and replaced by a social democratic provisional government? You should be careful -- what you are claiming sounds an awful lot like support for bourgeois democracy.

[YKTMX]

Should the German revolutionaries of the 1920s given up arms because the dictatorship of the Kaiser was replaced with bourgeois republicanism?

The situation does not bare comparison. The revolution in 1919 was a revolution of workers' and soldiers against the Kaiser and the war. The transition to democracy in Peru was brought about on some level by popular mobilization, but principally by a different faction within the elite getting fed up with Fujimori and his fecklessness.

The Shining Path did have a mass base of popular support in Ayacucho (I doubt this still exists) but the problem with them (and it's the same problem with all these groups) was that they treat the masses simply as that: a support. They have no sense whatsoever of mobilizing communities so they can effect their own social emancipation.

Any return to armed struggle now belies not a radicalism, but a rather deep-seated form of reaction. If SL have any popular base (as you would no doubt claim they do) they should mobilize it and let it take them to power, just as has happened in so many LA countries this decade.

The idea that the state can be defeated militarily and liberation brought to the people by a disciplined band of battled-hardened warriors is utterly ludicrous.

[redguard2009]

just as has happened in so many LA countries this decade.

Like?

Last I checked, the majority of Latin America langers in poverty, governed by rich pro-Washington ruling classes. Evo has proven himself a weak "socialist", the jury's still out on whether Chavez will actually conclude any sort of socialist development, and infact the only long-standing near-socialist project that has existed in Latin America for more than a few years (before being crushed by US imperialism or right-wing militias taking control violently) is Cuba -- which, ironically, saw through its revolutionary stage beginning with a dozen-man disciplined banned of battle-hardened warriors.

Guevarism (the revolutionary tactic of a small group of revolutionary militants engaging in violent pro-active insurrection, which develops broader support by introducing the aspect of revolutionary insurrection against the state into the minds of the people) has its down-points; it has failed more often than it has succeeded, but I do believe that there is something to gain -- as I said, even a small group of determined, self-sacrificial comrades carrying out revolutionary actions, while those acts alone will not bring about a revolution, is a strategy in and of itself of polarizing revolutionary inspiration and drawing like-minded revolutionaries and progressive activists into action of their own. In other words, acts like as these can and have acted as the spark which starts the prairie fire.