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Women Hold Up Half the Sky
The Role of Women in the Revolution in Peru
The following was a short presentation given by a Committee to Support the Revolution in Peru member at a gathering in San Francisco celebrating International Women's Day, March 1999.Let me start out by saying that it is wonderful to see you all here gathered for this important event. I know that our brothers and sisters in Peru would wholeheartedly be in support of this gathering. This is what I want to talk to you about today.
Peru has for centuries been a hotbed of oppression for the vast majority of masses, particularly the indigenous peoples. And women in Peru have faced the worst kinds of oppression, from family to school to everyday societal life, like so many other countries including the U.S.
However, since 1980, the Communist Party of Peru has been leading a protracted People's War -- a revolution -- to overthrow all the inequalities and atrocities of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. Unlike the role women have played in many other armed movements of resistance, women in Peru have participated equally in the Party and the People's War. Under the leadership of the Party that was started by (the now imprisoned) Abimael Guzman, known as Chairman Gonzalo, women in the thousands have joined up with the Party to create a new society where both men and women would be equal in all aspects of society -- from leadership roles in the Party to land ownership in the new economy.
  In 1982, Edith Lagos was a young 19-year-old guerrilla fighter. She led a small detachment of guerrillas to blow a hole in the Ayacucho jail which freed all of the prisoners, including captured revolutionaries, and seized weapons. Edith was later captured by the police in Ayacucho and bayoneted to death. Edith was loved by the people for her revolutionary actions. The government declared her funeral an illegal gathering. But 30,000 people came to her funeral in Ayacucho -- a town of only 70,000 people. |
For the PCP and other parties affiliated with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement the issue of breaking the chains of oppression of women is an issue that has to be dealt with now, while fermenting revolution, building support and fighting the oppressors. Like other forms of social inequality, the oppression of women has to be fought now while building towards a new society. This is exactly what the PCP is doing.
What has the People's War signified for women in Peru? Just by seeing the opening clip of the video you could sense how women peasants who have historically been oppressed and abused by the state and their families for hundreds of years, now fight for the revolution alongside male comrades who themselves are transforming and changing old traditions. Revolutionary ideology [of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism] is being taken up along with arms in a fury of a new revolutionary liberation, a true liberation where women would be equals in all aspects of society. This is evident in Peru. The People's Liberation Army is the backbone of the revolution, yet women are not solely being emancipated as fighters but in all sectors of the new society.
The Base Areas give us the shining example of what the new state would look like, a revolutionary model. In the base areas, areas where the PCP has managed to eradicate the Old World Order of mayors, landlords, and military rule -- society is changing. Women are equally given ownership of land -- land that neither peasant women or men had previously controlled, but which had belonged to only a select few. They are using the land for the new economy. Equal distribution of food, food for the people themselves, for the community not for export and exploitation.
 Revolutionary women prisoners |
The new economy has enabled these areas to be self-sufficient and provide for all its inhabitants. Women are equally represented by the local people's committees that make laws of order and justice. For example, the Justice System is no longer that of the old state but of People's Trials. The community gathers together to denounce and punish those who steal and kill. And those who oppress women like wife-beaters, rapists, and other abusers. Women can safely walk the streets at any time without feeling threatened and women can also have social relations free from oppression confident the new society will stand by its principles when people think of doing harm. Divorce is granted on demand no matter who is demanding it be it man or woman. These are not simple laws, but a foundation of a completely new society that will bring true equality, new justice, new social relations, and a new economy.
Peruvian women -- oppressed for hundreds of years, and in particular indigenous women -- now are the co-builders of this new society with nothing to lose but their chains holding them back. The women of the PCP and the Party are internationalist. They want people all over to build solidarity and see their example as a possible world model.
This is what the reactionaries hate. They hate to see oppressed people, particularly women, stand up and defy the old order. It scares them! They don't want the revolution. This is why with the help of the U.S. the Peruvian government has unleashed a major counter-insurgency campaign comprised of massive genocide and repression. Thousands of political prisoners are serving life sentences for being a part of this revolutionary movement.
   Women prisoners continue to organize in prisons -- when possible, these dungeons have been transformed into "Shining Trenches of Combat." |
Celebrate International Women's Day: The Fighting Women of Peru
Revolutionary Worker reprint * March 19, 1995
