The U.S. media and the reactionary Peruvian government have tried to block true news of
the People's War in Peru -- alternating walls of lies and slanders with walls of silence. The CSRP is on the internet and in our communities to help break down those walls.
Since 1980, the PCP had been advancing along the road of New Democratic Revolution, developed by the great Chinese revolutionary Mao Tsetung. This New Democratic Revolution aims to topple the "three mountains of oppression" weighing on the Peruvian people, and to establish a People's Republic as a first step toward socialism and communism.
The People's War has struck powerful blows against these three mountains: Imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, which totally dominates the economy of Peru, distorting it to serve imperialist profits, and sucks the lifeblood from the masses; semi-feudalism in the countryside, which perpetuates a state of backwardness, keeping the poor peasant masses landless and brutally oppressed, without any semblance of democratic rights; and bureaucrat-capitalism, the main form of capitalism in Peru, which is based on superexploitation resulting in a stunted and deformed economy subservient to imperialism.
The The revolution is based on the Maoist strategy of protracted People's War. This means arousing the masses and initiating the armed struggle in the countryside where the reactionary state power is weakest. It means building up the armed forces of the people, and wresting political power bit by bit from the reactionary classes and their imperialist overlords. Protracted People's War means forging revolutionary base areas, and, step-by-step surrounding the cities from the countryside.
In 1980 the People's War began with a handful of fighters and almost no weapons. By 1992 it had established hundreds of Base Areas and People's Committees throughout the countryside. Its armed forces had become able to strike at the armed forces and police of the old order from one end of Peru to the other. And it was accelerating work in the cities in preparation for the time when the battle for the nationwide seizure of power would come into sight.
Beginning in 1992, the US-backed regime's intensified counterinsurgency inflicted losses on the revolutionary forces, the most important one being the capture of Chairman Gonzalo. This vicious counterinsurgency has presented new and serious difficulties for the Peruvian revolution.
But the armed People's War is continuing: the People's Liberation Army and revolutionary Base Areas still exist, and the forces of the revolution are engaging the enemy. This has been quite a blow to the reactionary regime which had promised that it would have the revolution defeated by July, 1995.
We must not underestimate how difficult it is for the reactionaries to root out a Maoist People's War, where the oppressed have been aroused and led to take their destiny into their own hands. They have taken up guns, and gained a real sense of power and a new life. The masses still thirst for liberation, and their fundamental strength lies in continuing to wage war in their revolutionary interests. And the PCP has armed many peasants with an ideology and program that they can wield in their interests to change the world.
It is very difficult to obtain reliable news of the People's War in Peru because the revolutionary forces are under constant military attacks or blockades in the countryside, and carrying on their revolutionary struggle under severe, fascistic conditions. Journalists, especially those who dare to print any of the truth, are subject to brutal repression. This has resulted in the Peruvian press being effectively run by the military. However, through tracking the mainstream bourgeois media in Peru, the US, and internationally, it is possible to glean some reports on the continuing battles between the government and the revolutionaries. What follows here are selected news items, from various sources, which detail the continuing People's War in Peru. Check back regularly for updates.