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Homage to Peruʹs Communist Revolutionary leader Comrade Gonzalo !

13-09-2021

CPI (ML)-New Democracy Central Committee Statement Full Text

CPI (ML)-New Democracy pays homage to revolutionary memory of Com. Abimael Guzman (popularly known as Comrade Gonzalo), leader of revolutionary movement of Peru, who died on September 11, 2021 at the Callao naval base near capital Lima. He was 86 year old. He was arrested on September 12, 1992 and for last 29 years was kept in maximum security prison. He was tried by hooded judges in a military court. This trial was declared unconstitutional by Peruʹs Constitutional Court in 2003.

His retrial began in 2004 and third trial in 2005 and he was sentenced to life in prison. In 2018 he was given another life term in prison. Conduct of his trial and holding him in a specially made prison showed how much the reactionary state of Peru feared this fearless revolutionary. His trial and punishment were a mockery of trial. He had been seriously ill for last two months but was denied proper medical treatment.

Com. Gonzalo was attracted towards communist movement during his student days. He was appointed as Professor of Philosophy in a University in Central Peru. From his early days in the revolutionary movement, Com. Gonzalo identified the main force of the revolution in Peru as peasants and learnt the language of indigenous people. He firmly supported Communist Party of China led by Mao in the Great Debate and emerged the leader of the section of the Communist Party of Peru called Shining Path supporting revolutionary positions of CPC.

He became a firm adherent of armed revolution with peasantry as the main revolutionary force in Peru and upheld Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Subsequently he left job and went underground and remained so till his arrest. In this period, a base for revolutionary politics was created among intellectuals. This was the period when the division among revisionist and revolutionary sections was occurring in different countries in which struggle of CPC led by Mao against Modern Revisionism spearheaded by CPSU under the leadership of Khrushchev and those who came after him played a pivotal role.

This struggle helped revolutionary communists shake off modern revisionism and uphold revolutionary positions. In several countries especially third world countries the revolutionary sections demarcated themselves from revisionist leadership and went on to advance towards unleashing revolutionary struggles.

In 1980 Shining Path under the leadership of Comrade Gonzalo launched their war against Peruvian state. Under his leadership, Shining Path controlled vast rural areas in Peru and developed strong presence in the urban poor including in capital Lima. To suppress this movement US imperialism helped install fascist Fujimori Govt. in Peru.

A significant feature was that this struggle was launched at a time when revisionists had captured party and state power in China and embarked on building capitalism in that country. At that time influenced by Deng revisionism dominating CPC, several sections of revolutionary communists in different countries had embraced revisionism.

Com. Gonzalo repudiated revisionist turn of the CPC and became a fierce critic of Deng revisionism. Struggle in Peru added to the shining examples of movement continued under the leadership of revolutionary communists. These movements reaffirmed that revolutionary communists guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought were the real inheritors of the communist movement and Mao Zedong Thought was all round development of Marxism Leninism in the era of Lenin.

Death of Com. Gonzalo in Govt. captivity, denied of proper medical treatment, is an occasion for communist revolutionaries world over to take inspiration from his dedication and sacrifices for the revolutionary movement. It is also an occasion to draw upon the experiences of the revolutionary war led by PCP (Shining Path) assimilating what has been positive and taking lessons from what has been negative. It is the time for communist revolutionaries to intensify their struggles against imperialism and reactionary ruling classes.

Central Committee of CPI (ML)-New Democracy paying its homage to Com. Gonzalo vows to intensify struggle for New Democratic Revolution in India.

Red Salute to Com. Gonzalo !

Central Committee,
CPI (ML)-New Democracy
September 12, 2021