Re: Peruvian Maoism
Tom Kruse: Is this the case? Have ideas won allegiances? Relevant to the this line of discussion is Fernando Mires' work on revolutions in Latin America. He does a very good analysis on what sorts of conclusions we can/should draw from indigenous peoples' participation in social struggles over the years. He studies both the period 1780-1 (Tupaj Katari and Tupaj Amaru), as well as the Bolivian "national revolution". He suggests that the relationships between the ideas, leaders and followers in such processes is very problematic. Many thanks to my friend Tom Kruse for his thoughtful post. I told another friend that I had some worry that my Shining Path piece would make me persona non grata with my professor pals on PEN-L. If Tom hasn't disowned me, then I feel I have done an adequate job. Who knows, I might end up in Bolivia one of these days where we can have a nice chat in person. The point he raises above is key not only to Peru, but all revolutionary situations. The masses take up the gun not because somebody has intellectually convinced them of the merits of socialism, but because the day-to-day oppression of capitalism is unbearable. On the Marxism lists, Doug raised the question of the PCP's rejection of indigenism. Geraldo Renique, who wrote "Time of Fear" with Deborah Poole, argued that many Quechua youth are attracted to Maoism because it is a form of rejection of a cultural identity that has a degraded status in Peru. I replied that there are many Senderologists who argue just the opposite. They claim that there are subtle appeals to Inca nationalism in the PCP propaganda and that Gonzalo was presented to the rural masses as a sort of Tupac Amaru figure. I thought that the problem with these types of analyses is that they are much too open to conjecture. My guess is that the peasant would be open to just about any ideology that promised that the system that oppressed them be demolished. I suspect that the growth of Christian Protestant millenarian cults in Latin America is another reflection of this sort of desperation. When you read the Senderologists, the thing that strikes you is HOW LITTLE actual engagement there is with the rank-and-file Senderoso. Robin Kirk has a new book called "The Monkey's Paw" on the movement which attempts to put a spotlight on the motivations of the membership, but unfortunately she is just too biased to let them speak for themselves. I will tell you that she is much less severe in her judgements than she used to be. What the Shining Path needs is a advocate who will approach them with the sort of even-handedness that I tried to muster. Of course, they should be able to speak Quechua and be an expert in Peruvian politics as well. A tall order. My goal was a simple one. It was to rescue the reputation of the Communist Party of Peru from the charge that it is Pol Pot-ist. I urge people who have more than a passing interest in Peru to look for Diaz Martinez's book on Ayacucho. It is a powerfully reasoned, sensitive attempt to make the case for sweeping change in the Andean countryside. I should mention, by the way, that Diaz Martinez was killed in prison during a confrontation between the Shining Path inmates and their guards. Louis Proyect
[Fwd: M-I: Re: M-TH: Re: Peruvian Maoism]
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --6D0B31EBEF66B8470C90ED13 Adolfo Olaechea, chair of Committee Sol Peru in London, commented on my posting and I am forwarding it, appropriately, to Pen-L. Mark --6D0B31EBEF66B8470C90ED13 Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 17:27:59 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Hariette Spierings) Subject: Re: M-I: Re: M-TH: Re: Peruvian Maoism Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Didn't take long for the tame Senderologists to show their head, did it? The problem with the kind of thinking Rob Saute exemplifies is that his alternative is, well, what they've got: Fujimori and all the things which give him aid and comfort. Jim Craven asks why the bile? I believe it's this: the left is so exercised by the PCP's alleged 'human rights' violations because the answer the PCP gave to left-wing hypocrisy was definitive. That's why it hurts. Mark Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center wrote: On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: We sometimes forget that the Shining Path is in a war with the Peruvian state and not the American left and its allies in Peru. Of course, Louis Proyect is partially correct in the above statement. The Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso is not at war with the U.S. Left; they could probably care less. On the other hand, many a labor leader, leftist party militant, shanty-town organizer or peasant activist killed at the hands of Sendero Luminoso cadre might from the grave, were that possible, find his characterization of Shining Path's enemies a bit disingenuous. Seen through the lens of a debate on just how semi-feudal Peru is or is not, the endless preoccupation with human rights does seem to be so much drivel. Sub-comandante Marcos take heed, knock off a few human rights workers from the Catholic Church, execute a doctor or two from San Cristobal, murder local activists from the PRD, and Zapatista stock will rise in Lou's eyes. May a thousand dead dogs hang from the lampposts of a land purged of petty bourgeois revisionists and misleaders of the working class! Sincerely yours, Robert Saute Dear Mark: I will like to comment with you the question of the real significance of all this "human rights" and "murder of union and local activists" that the mouthpieces of US imperialism posing as "people of the left" lay at the door of the Peruvian Maoist revolutionaries of the PCP. You are absolutely right that behind all this talk about "Human Rights" there is only concern for BOURGOIS PROPERTY RIGHTS and Maria Antoniette style "aristocratic altruism" of the kind of "if there is no bread, serve them cakes" which permeates the mentality of the liberal or social imperialist of the Western "leftist" variety from the cradle to the grave! Not in vain these are basically the same people who thought nothing of advancing slogans such as "we are the world" and other condescending saviour Amnesty International kind of "solidarity". But, let us address the concrete accusation of "killing union and community activists" which these gentlemen apologists of the ruling classes shamelessly lay at the Peruvian communists. Recently in Peru, the Fujimori intelligence services have released the true curriculum of the scab Huillca, chief of the so called GGTP (Peruvian TUC) who was, according to El Diario Internacional, executed by a guerilla detchment of the PCP a few years ago. It is well known that about Mr. Huillca and his fate, all the international Trade Union bureacrats and all the bogus leftists in the world have not ceased to shed tears and express outrage against the revolutionaries. Now, from the Intelligence Services of Fujimori's dictatorship, it is officially acknowledged that Mr. Huillca did indeed work as an agent, informer and organiser of paramilitary death squads. The eternal gratitude of the sinister organism headed by Fujimori's bloodthirsty "Rasputin", Vladimiro Montesinos to Mr. Huillca, whom they themselves have called "our comrade in arms" has now been revealed in full. What have the "defenders of the Peruvian Union and community leaders" have to say to this? Not much, since Orwell, Isaiah Berlin, and company, people whom they likewise promote as "representatives of the popular cause" have also recently been exposed by their former imperialist employers as playing the same role in European working class politics as those putative "Union and community leaders such as Huillca, Maria Elena Moyano, etc. play in Peru: Counter-revolutionary activities and DEFENSE OF THE SOCIAL ORDER OF EXPLOITATION AND OPPRESSION, at the very basis of which lays the same BOURGEOIS PROPERTY RIGHTS which they wave as "Human Right"
Re: Peruvian Maoism
At 09:09 PM 4/1/98 -0500, you wrote: Friends, There is a book reviewed in the 12/97 "Monthly Review" by Bruce Cumings. The book is writtne by Maurice Meisner and is titled "The Deng Xiaoping Era: An Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism." Cumings gives it a rave review. Has anyone on the list read it? It sounds like it has a lot to say about Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Michael yates Meisner's book is first-rate. As far as I know, it is one of the only Marxist appreciations--as opposed to a Maoist hagiography--of Mao and his successors. I strongly urge it for anybody who has even a cursory interest in China. Louis Proyect
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Brian Green wrote: However, with Robert Saute, I would add that it is not possible, nor desirable, to ignore the human rights issues Meaning, we must take the PCP at your evaluation rather than it's own. Fine, if you also permit us reciprocally to question the totality of your own commitments/accommodations, the degree to which your participation in intellectual and political life in the west opposes or colludes with the existence of world-capitalism as the defining last instance which determines the misery of the Andes indigenous peoples, and marginal peoples everywhere. Do you allow us to do this? Or do you claim some special privilege which allows you to question their 'human rights record' but not them to interrogate yours/ours? More specifically, do you think that our position, socially, as members of a salariat engrossing far more of the labour of others than they of ours, qualifies us as being disinterested, morally-competent observers? Do you think that your position within the academy is on balance a support to the status quo or an assault on it ? (and I am not answering the question for you, since I have no idea who you are, nor do I doubt that you are well-meaning and genuinely fraternal). This is the status quo which privileges us and grinds their faces in the dust, that I'm talking about. Unless the answers amount to more than expressions of wounded pride, indignation, perhaps a sanctimonious insistence that we 'all' enjoy the right to criticise 'human rights abuse', even those of us morally disadvantaged, as it were, by our phenomenal (comparatively speaking) wealth and personal opportunity -- the answers will not satisfy the average Senderista, I fear. He/she (it is likely to be a she) may retort that you are a damn Yanqui (even if you are not), that you have enjoyed the good life long enough, and that the only reason you continue to enjoy it, and to snide about human rights violations, is because you are protected in your ivory towers by shadowy legions of stranglers, poisoners, dark forces, clever propagandists masquerading as aid workers, 'human rights' advisers just as interested in Peruvian government crimes as SL crimes; as labour activists freshly returned from up-to-the minute CIO-AF of L funded (ie, CIA funded) courses in human rights etc or as Americas-Watch sociologists interested in the *anthropology* of PCP women prisoners herded like pigs in Fujimoris pens ... Yes, on the whole, I think the average Senderista might well regard anyone who did not clearly take a stand against the millenial immiseration of his people -- who continued with weaselly words to support Garcia's 'land reforms' etc -- as part of the problem, as merely another claw of another finger of the Great Satan, to be cut off without mercy. Mark
Re: Peruvian Maoism
James, and anyone else disposed to misread me in the same way, for the sake of clarity let me confirm that I merely enjoin Brian or anyone else seeking to criticise the PCP on 'human rights' grounds, to permit the existence of a level playing field (check the mote in our own eye etc), ie, there must be a quid pro quo and that is, fully addressing the PCP's own analysis of the evils of late capitalism. Otherwise what we are doing is high-minded, but hypocritical. My attack on Brian's stance was NOT a personal attack on Brian, as is clear if you read iot attentively. Mark James Devine wrote: Mark Jones replies to Brian Green, saying (among other things): Meaning, we must take the PCP at your evaluation rather than it's own. I believe that it was Marx and Engels who argued that we should judge no-one according to their own self-evaluation (in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY, I believe). The same applies to societal movements. So instead of indirectly attacking Brian on a personal level, how about responding to his evaluation in a materialist way, i.e., with reference to empirical evidence, theoretical flaws in his argument, etc. It is quite possible, of course, that both the PCP's self-evaluation and Brian's evaluation of them are inaccurate. in pen-l solidarity and for socialism from below, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Brian Green: Next time, read a post and consider what it actually says before assuming that everyone besides you is a counter-revolutionary in hiding I didn't find your post very useful at all. It simply recycled the same old charges against the Shining Path. I myself have made them against Sendero supporters on the Spoons Marxism lists. And they came from the same source: books and articles by opponents of the Maoists written long ago. The political context of that period is one of a civil war launched by the Maoists to overthrow the nationalist-reformist government of Alan Garcia, while the leftists you and NACLA identified with supported this government. In Nicaragua under Somoza, and El Salvador under Duarte, the left was united. No significant section of the left was opposed to the armed struggle. In Peru this was not true. This accounts for the internecine bloodshed, not Maoist fanaticism. There are parallels for this. In Colombia, the guerrilla groups have often clashed over whether or not to enter into negotiations with the government. This has led to bloodshed. During the 1970s, there were numerous armed groups trying to overthrow the government in Argentina. The Montoneros were Peronista, while other groups were Maoist or Castroite. They had violent clashes from time to time. Whatever abuses they were guilty of, their general goal in Argentina and Colombian was progressive: to overthrow neocolonial regimes that were plundering the nation. There is no question that the Shining Path has a worse record than these other groups, but we have to be clear that most of these offenses took place while Garcia was in power. Since Fujimoro's coup (in the guise of an election), the left now faces a common enemy. There are fewer illusions in the ability of this dictatorship to make life better for the average Peruvian. This no doubt explains the decrease in tension between the Maoists and the rest of the left. While it was no doubt important for NACLA and MR to highlight these offenses of over a decade ago, it is also important to take note of their decline. It is also important to understand that the PCP WAS NEVER a Khmer Rouge type formation. I am pleased that this slander has finally disappeared into the garbage can, where it belongs. Louis Proyect
Peruvian Maoism
Brian, Apparently you haven't been on this list terribly long. In fact Louis Proyect's behavior has drastically improved over the last year or so. He used to one of the biggest and worst flamers on the internet, but has morphed (almost completely) into a model of reasoned discourse and decorum. I suspect that the reason he flared up at you is that he was recently roasted severely over on marxism-international by the infamous Adolfo Olachea. Adolfo had been off that list for some time over, having left it in a huff when he couldn't take it over, to go to the fervently Stalinist Lenin List, until it (unsurprisingly) splintered in an orgy of flaming and ideological warfare. Adolfo is a leading spokesman for a faction of the PCP and is quite brilliant, knowledgeable, and eloquent. He also believes that anybody who is not fervently kissing his behind at any given moment is a worthless imperialist flunky or even police spy, including many other people who claim to be supporters of the PCP. Indeed, a particularly touchy point was Adolfo's savaging of Louis's support of Castro. So, now you have the context of Louis's unhappy disclaimer about being a supporter of the PCP and his statements about being a "Castroite" (don't you want to say "Castroist," Louis?). Barkley Rosser -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Louis wrote: We should not sweep these [human rights] issues under the rug, but neither should we neglect the Maoist analysis of the Peruvian class struggle. Since these ideas have won the allegiance of massive numbers of the most exploited and oppressed peoples on the continent, they are certainly worth a closer look. Is this the case? Have ideas won allegiances? Relevant to the this line of discussion is Fernando Mires' work on revolutions in Latin America. He does a very good analysis on what sorts of conclusions we can/should draw from indigenous peoples' participation in social struggles over the years. He studies both the period 1780-1 (Tupaj Katari and Tupaj Amaru), as well as the Bolivian "national revolution". He suggests that the relationships between the ideas, leaders and followers in such processes is very problematic. Far from indigenous people swept into struggles by ideas (independence from Spain, revolution) communities and groups found opportunities to unleash their own particular social/rebellious energies for reasons often quite distinct from what the leaders were saying and carrying around in their heads. He suggests they marched to their own very different drummers, and found in rebellious/revolutionary criollo elites and opportunity to go for what they wanted (1780-1: alternately back to a "dual republic" scheme of the Toledan reform period, or forward to annihilation of the Spaniards; 1952: land reform in Bolivia, NOT initially on the "national revolutionaries" agenda, but forced on by the action of indigenous peoples. Another example of this "different drummer" business was the Federal War in Bolivia of 1899, when one side of the classic liberal - conservative divide made the very stupid move of arming and enlisting indigenous people to help their side in the war. The indigenous people took the opportunity to kill criollos on both sides; the criollo elites never made the same mistake again. This way of understanding struggles also pre-empts the argument that indigenous people are simply cannon fodder for elite-led political projects. For example, the much (and justly) reviled miltary-campesino pact that was effective through the 60s and early 70s in Bolivia was made palatable to peasants by the military's promise to NEVER revert the '53 agrarian reform, resonating powerfully with the campesino's experience of "land hunger", as Louis puts it. I don't know, but might not the very significant support for SL, fueled by land hunger, be likewise ambiguously associated with Maoism? Craven wrote: but all of this has to be placed in concrete contexts rather than discussed on the abstract theoretical level. and: That the issue is violence or the forms of violence and not violence by, for and against whom leads to the moral sterility and armchair bleeding (bleeding hearts bleeding with other people's blood) of the liberals who in many ways are even worse scum for their abstract and uncommitted morality, sensibilities and concern for the oppressors as "human beings" even as they do very inhuman stuff to oppressed "human beings." On human rights: I am of course for them, along with apple pie and chuño; who couldn't be? And therein lies the problem. Talking human rights plunks you in a de-politicizing discursive arena populated by liberal moral entrepreneurs in transnational bureaucracies who are usually -- in my experience -- blind to history, social processes, etc., as well as being politically incapable of stopping the carnage they chronicle. Human-rights-think suggests that by simply generating data on abuses, something will change. Granted: better to have a record of the crimes of empire than not; I cite their reports all the time. But better still to be effective politically. I remember a human rights delegation that came to Bolivia to look at the collateral human damage in the war on drugs. A fine and admirable purpose; much useful data was generated. In a meeting near the end of their stay they started to complain about how Bolivians "didn't have a culture of human rights." What they were referring to was the disinterest many Bolivian human rights workers show when asked to provide depositions that will hold up in the Hague of some US court of law. In short, the protocols of litigation. In Bolivia in the late 1970s a coalition of the legal fronts for illegalized unions and popular organizations, radical priests, disenfranchised leftists and others engineered the mass mobilizations that resulted in the ouster of a bloody dictator. The leadership was a "human rights" coalition -- the dictatorship called them the "izquierdos humanos [human lefts]". People here forged a "culture" of human rights that WORKED politically to bring an end to that particular dictatorship. Yet these yuppie legalese-meisters come here to tell folks that their brand of "rights work" is the effective kind, so please have the depositions signed in triplicate when you send them
Re: Peruvian Maoism
The political context of that period is one of a civil war launched by the Maoists to overthrow the nationalist-reformist government of Alan Garcia, while the leftists you and NACLA identified with supported this government. I don't know where you get this assumption from...I have never supported Garcia, APRA, nor any other of the Peruvian liberal political projects, nor do I intend to heap praise on them or their followers now. But neither will I overlook power-hunger and brutality on the left...Sorry, Louis, but I don't assume the ends justify the means; on the contrary, the means of struggle can be a pretty good indicator what the "revolutionary" end might look like. In Nicaragua under Somoza, and El Salvador under Duarte, the left was united. No significant section of the left was opposed to the armed struggle. In Peru this was not true. This accounts for the internecine bloodshed, not Maoist fanaticism. There are parallels for this. In Colombia, the guerrilla groups have often clashed over whether or not to enter into negotiations with the government. This has led to bloodshed. During the 1970s, there were numerous armed groups trying to overthrow the government in Argentina. The Montoneros were Peronista, while other groups were Maoist or Castroite. They had violent clashes from time to time. Whatever abuses they were guilty of, their general goal in Argentina and Colombian was progressive: to overthrow neocolonial regimes that were plundering the nation. Well, on most of this it appears we can agree. But I would reiterate my point re: ends and means above. There is no question that the Shining Path has a worse record than these other groups, but we have to be clear that most of these offenses took place while Garcia was in power. Since Fujimoro's coup (in the guise of an election), the left now faces a common enemy. Yes, the left does face a common enemy in Fujimori -- as they did in previous decades. If you have any information regarding an attempt by Sendero to reach out to other left movements in hopes of building a united and democratic alternative -- whether armed or otherwise -- I'd be thrilled to hear about it. To date, though, I haven't heard of any such coalition-building. Brian - Brian Green| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Received: from MAILQUEUE by OOI (Mercury 1.21); 31 Mar 98 08:08:12 +800 Return-path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from galaxy.csuchico.edu by ooi.clark.edu (Mercury 1.21) with ESMTP; 31 Mar 98 08:08:03 +800 Received: from host (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by galaxy.csuchico.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA26683; Tue, 31 Mar 1998 08:04:01 -0800 (PST) Received: from broadway.gc.cuny.edu (broadway.gc.cuny.edu [146.96.128.10]) by galaxy.csuchico.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id HAA26529 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tue, 31 Mar 1998 07:53:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (rsaute@localhost) by broadway.gc.cuny.edu (8.8.5/ankDU-96) with SMTP id KAA15128; Tue, 31 Mar 1998 10:52:18 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 10:52:18 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Peruvian Maoism In-Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN X-PMFLAGS: 34078848 On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: We sometimes forget that the Shining Path is in a war with the Peruvian state and not the American left and its allies in Peru. Of course, Louis Proyect is partially correct in the above statement. The Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso is not at war with the U.S. Left; they could probably care less. On the other hand, many a labor leader, leftist party militant, shanty-town organizer or peasant activist killed at the hands of Sendero Luminoso cadre might from the grave, were that possible, find his characterization of Shining Path's enemies a bit disingenuous. Seen through the lens of a debate on just how semi-feudal Peru is or is not, the endless preoccupation with human rights does seem to be so much drivel. Sub-comandante Marcos take heed, knock off a few human rights workers from the Catholic Church, execute a doctor or two from San Cristobal, murder local activists from the PRD, and Zapatista stock will rise in Lou's eyes. May a thousand dead dogs hang from the lampposts of a land purged of petty bourgeois revisionists and misleaders of the working class! Sincerely yours, Robert Saute Response: What is the reason for this vitriol? Does strident language somehow prove or indicate the real or concrete content and extent of one's own commitment and credentials in struggle? If you disagree on the question of the revolutionary nature and practice of any group such as "Shining Path" or the Zapastistas, or you feel that those who support such groups are misinformed, then make your case; the strident language does not make the case or prove anything. For what it is worth, Louis Proyect is making concrete contributions to real struggles against Genocide that will never appear on pen-l. Jim Craven *---* * "Let me be a free man, free to travel,* * James Craven free to stop, free to work, free to * * Dept of Economics trade where I choose, free to choose * * Clark College my own teachers, free to follow the * * 1800 E. Mc Loughlin Blvd. religion of my fathers [and mothers], * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 free to talk, think and act for * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] myself--and I will obey every law or * * (360) 992-2283 (Office)submit to the penalty." * * (360) 992-2863 (Fax) (In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat, Chief Joseph * * of the Nez Perce.)* * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
Re: Peruvian Maoism
At 11:52 AM 3/31/98 -0500, you wrote: Palmer is absolutely correct on the precision of Sendero's use of violence. Sendero regularly targeted political activists whom most people on this list would consider on the Left. Finding the Communist Party of Peru incomparable to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge hardly excuses them of their political crimes. Sincerely yours, Robert Saute The problem is that the mainstream left in the US, especially NACLA, was a supporter of the Alan Garcia government. Garcia was a close ally of Fidel Castro. The United Left activists who clashed with the Shining Path were critical of Garcia but supported him. This is the political context. You have one section of the Peruvian left that is trying to prop up a reformist government, while another section is trying to overthrow it. In these circumstances, which involved civil war, it is not surprising that there leftists who were killed. This does not excuse it, it simply explains it. Revolutions are not tea-parties. They often involve bloody reigns of terror. The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution all entailed the loss of innocent lives. Castro imprisoned his anarchist opponents and threw away the key. Ho Chi-minh killed the Trotskyists. We simply can not make a political judgement on these struggles based on such casualties. If you want to avoid the loss of innocent lives, then don't take up the armed struggle. There is nobody who was a more ardent supporter of the Sandinistas than me. Rob Saute can testify to this, since he was a Tecnica volunteer who did a great job repairing computers in Nicaragua. But the truth is that the FSLN not only put the Miskitos into concentration camps, they also killed them. I have tried to explain the origins of this problem, which was rooted in dogmatic Marxism. The solution to the problem is better Marxism, not accomodation to the status quo. Parenthetically, what I wrote about the Miskitus got me an invitation to a conference in Bluefields which I might take up. The simple truth of the matter is that the PCP is a Maoist guerrilla group. It has modeled itself on the Chinese Communist Party. My goal was not to whitewash them, but to make clear that they are part of the revolutionary movement in the 20th century. Mao's revolution--no matter how degraded it has become--was one of the great achievements of the oppressed masses in the 20th century. The common perception that the PCP was like the Khmer Rouge was unfortunately abetted by the NACLA articles. They did not deserve this reputation. Louis Proyect
Re: M-TH: Re: Peruvian Maoism
Didn't take long for the tame Senderologists to show their head, did it? The problem with the kind of thinking Rob Saute exemplifies is that his alternative is, well, what they've got: Fujimori and all the things which give him aid and comfort. Jim Craven asks why the bile? I believe it's this: the left is so exercised by the PCP's alleged 'human rights' violations because the answer the PCP gave to left-wing hypocrisy was definitive. That's why it hurts. Mark Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center wrote: On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: We sometimes forget that the Shining Path is in a war with the Peruvian state and not the American left and its allies in Peru. Of course, Louis Proyect is partially correct in the above statement. The Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso is not at war with the U.S. Left; they could probably care less. On the other hand, many a labor leader, leftist party militant, shanty-town organizer or peasant activist killed at the hands of Sendero Luminoso cadre might from the grave, were that possible, find his characterization of Shining Path's enemies a bit disingenuous. Seen through the lens of a debate on just how semi-feudal Peru is or is not, the endless preoccupation with human rights does seem to be so much drivel. Sub-comandante Marcos take heed, knock off a few human rights workers from the Catholic Church, execute a doctor or two from San Cristobal, murder local activists from the PRD, and Zapatista stock will rise in Lou's eyes. May a thousand dead dogs hang from the lampposts of a land purged of petty bourgeois revisionists and misleaders of the working class! Sincerely yours, Robert Saute --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: Peruvian Maoism
It appears to me we are getting bogged down with the wrong question, as far as Sendero Luminoso is concerned, becoming locked into a debate which pits theoretical heritage vs. human rights. Louis' initial post makes an important point...Sendero's use of indigenous imagery and its attempt to marry Marxism and traditional Inca culture is radically different from the practice of revolutionay movements elsewhere, i.e Nicaragua ( yes, the Sandinistas deserve all the criticism they get for their treatment of the Miskito nation). And if the purpose of the initial post was to raise some discussion along these lines, then I think that's a very worthwhile task. However, with Robert Saute, I would add that it is not possible, nor desirable, to ignore the human rights issues at play here; as far as I'm concerned, the true measure of a revolutionary movement, like any political entity, is its political behaviour, not its rhetoric. And while Sendero's marriage of Inca tradition and Maoism is well- worth investigating, it is important to bear in mind that Sendero has been responsible for the murders of community activists, indigenous leaders and labour organizers. Furthermore, Sendero's alienation from the rest of the Peruvian left and international Marxist movement is as much Sendero's responsibility as anyone else's...Guzman from the beginning condemned virutally and and all socialists outside of Sendero as capitalist-roaders, fascists and cretins. The Party's leadership has shown utter contempt for anyone and everyone who may disagree with its theory, organization, or strategy, and that contempt frequently been demonstrated by physical abuse, torture and murder -- this is not armed conflict with the state we're talking about, it is execuation and slaughter of working people who engage in struggle outside of Sendero's leadership. Finally, on the topic of ingigenism, the Shining Path is by no means an indigenous movement...Its leadership has been generally white, university-educated, and middle class, and the adoption of Quechua and Inca symbolism represents a political strategy designed to gain support in a country with a massive indigenous population. Louis does provide a brief but useful outline Peruvian left-wing political history. He discusses APRA, founded by Haya de la Torre, and the limit of its political programme to some form of cross-class social democracy favouring liberal professionals and skilled urban trade unions, positing Sendero as a radical and Mariategui-inspired alternative to the APRA project. There are, however, a few points that are missing from the outline Louis presents. First, APRA and Sendero have not been the only Peruvian political movements claiming to represent the political Left, nor has Sendero been unique in its demand for a radical socialist revolution. In thelate 1950s and early 1960s three different revolutionary groups emerged: the MIR (Revolutionary left Movement, founded by more radical elements of APRA and influenced by Che Guevara); the ELN (National Liberation Army, a slinter group of the Communist Party of Peru, also heavily influenced by the Cuban example) and the the POR (Peruvian trotskyist party, which worked with select other leftist organizers to found the Revolutionary Left Front). While these groups certainly all had their weaknesses, and were individually crushed by the Peruvian state's (CIA-funded) counter-insurgency campaign, it is important to mention them, and to consider their revolutionary heritage in any discussion of armed struggle in Peru. Indeed, Sendero did not emerge until over a decade later, and seemed to entirely miss the point that it was each group's isolation from the others that allowed the Peruvian military to crush what had been a mass discontent with a great deal of revolutionary potential. Secondly, (and this just a quick point) it is important not to confuse Mariategui with Sendero. Mariategui was an important thinker and militant of the Peruvian left in the 1920's, who pointed out the importance of linking the struggle for socialism to Peru's indigenous struggles. Sendero has simply taken up the name of Mariategui, using his work to inform its own brand of Marxism. To criticize or even condemn Sendero's methods is by no means to attack Mariategui's legacy. That being said, I was glad to see Louis' post on the issue...Let's discuss Sendero, let's discuss the failure of Marxists to adequately address racism and indigenism...But let's not form a Sendero fan club in some attempt to erase years of top-down leadership, personality cult and brutality in the name of Marx, Mao and Mariategui. In solidarity, Brian Green You have one section of the Peruvian left that is trying to prop up a reformist government, while another section is trying to overthrow it. In these circumstances, which involved civil war, it is not surprising that there leftists who were killed. This does not excuse it, it simply explains it. Revolutions are not
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Friends, It is one thing to discuss the Sendero Luminoso movement in Peru and to try to get through all of the propaganda put out about it. It is also one thing to understand that people ravaged by brutal repression will often react vioently when they are organized. It is one thing to say that the U.S. has a lot of nerve to condemn violence by oppressed peoples. However, it is another to condemn a person who provides us with some additional information about Sendero and the Peruvian left (always badly divided as I remember) and raises issues about the class background of Guzman and SL leaders and their record to date. It is another to suggest that anyone who raises such issues is some comfortable jerk in a wealthy country without a real clue. Believe me I am no enemy of revolutionary violence. Allende and even the Sandinistas (before so many of them abandoned thier cause) could have uses more of it or some of it. Michael Yates p.s. I would like to see some more discussion of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Mark Jones wrote: Brian Green wrote: However, with Robert Saute, I would add that it is not possible, nor desirable, to ignore the human rights issues Meaning, we must take the PCP at your evaluation rather than it's own. Fine, if you also permit us reciprocally to question the totality of your own commitments/accommodations, the degree to which your participation in intellectual and political life in the west opposes or colludes with the existence of world-capitalism as the defining last instance which determines the misery of the Andes indigenous peoples, and marginal peoples everywhere. Do you allow us to do this? Or do you claim some special privilege which allows you to question their 'human rights record' but not them to interrogate yours/ours? More specifically, do you think that our position, socially, as members of a salariat engrossing far more of the labour of others than they of ours, qualifies us as being disinterested, morally-competent observers? Do you think that your position within the academy is on balance a support to the status quo or an assault on it ? (and I am not answering the question for you, since I have no idea who you are, nor do I doubt that you are well-meaning and genuinely fraternal). This is the status quo which privileges us and grinds their faces in the dust, that I'm talking about. Unless the answers amount to more than expressions of wounded pride, indignation, perhaps a sanctimonious insistence that we 'all' enjoy the right to criticise 'human rights abuse', even those of us morally disadvantaged, as it were, by our phenomenal (comparatively speaking) wealth and personal opportunity -- the answers will not satisfy the average Senderista, I fear. He/she (it is likely to be a she) may retort that you are a damn Yanqui (even if you are not), that you have enjoyed the good life long enough, and that the only reason you continue to enjoy it, and to snide about human rights violations, is because you are protected in your ivory towers by shadowy legions of stranglers, poisoners, dark forces, clever propagandists masquerading as aid workers, 'human rights' advisers just as interested in Peruvian government crimes as SL crimes; as labour activists freshly returned from up-to-the minute CIO-AF of L funded (ie, CIA funded) courses in human rights etc or as Americas-Watch sociologists interested in the *anthropology* of PCP women prisoners herded like pigs in Fujimoris pens ... Yes, on the whole, I think the average Senderista might well regard anyone who did not clearly take a stand against the millenial immiseration of his people -- who continued with weaselly words to support Garcia's 'land reforms' etc -- as part of the problem, as merely another claw of another finger of the Great Satan, to be cut off without mercy. Mark
Re: Peruvian Maoism
As someone who is just an uninformed yet interested bystander in this debate/dialogue, I am curious where Tupac Amaru fits into the tapestry of the Peruvian left. John Gulick John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Mark Jones replies to Brian Green, saying (among other things): Meaning, we must take the PCP at your evaluation rather than it's own. I believe that it was Marx and Engels who argued that we should judge no-one according to their own self-evaluation (in THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY, I believe). The same applies to societal movements. So instead of indirectly attacking Brian on a personal level, how about responding to his evaluation in a materialist way, i.e., with reference to empirical evidence, theoretical flaws in his argument, etc. It is quite possible, of course, that both the PCP's self-evaluation and Brian's evaluation of them are inaccurate. in pen-l solidarity and for socialism from below, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Although not directly related to this topic I would like you to refer to my first published paper while in the US titled "The Exhaustion of the National Model of Development: Depeasantisation and Industrialisation In Peru", Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives, Vol.X, No.4, December 1991 (pp. 5-35). This paper was written after having taken a seminar course with Professor Henri Favre (a social anthropologist), a well known French scholar specializing in the Andean region. He has spent time with the SL. The paper is more descriptive but does provide, I think, a good context to evaluate contemporary Peruvian development. Cheers, Anthony D'Costa
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Palmer is absolutely correct on the precision of Sendero's use of violence. Sendero regularly targeted political activists whom most people on this list would consider on the Left. Finding the Communist Party of Peru incomparable to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge hardly excuses them of their political crimes. Sincerely yours, Robert Saute On Tue, 31 Mar 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: Rob Saute: Of course, Louis Proyect is partially correct in the above statement. The Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso is not at war with the U.S. Left; they could probably care less. On the other hand, many a labor leader, leftist party militant, shanty-town organizer or peasant activist killed at the hands of Sendero Luminoso cadre might from the grave, were that possible, find his characterization of Shining Path's enemies a bit disingenuous. Seen through the lens of a debate on just how semi-feudal Peru is or is not, the endless preoccupation with human rights does seem to be so much drivel. David Scott Palmer: "The insurgency has rarely engaged in indiscriminate violence and should not be compared with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in this regard."
Re: Peruvian Maoism
Rob Saute: Of course, Louis Proyect is partially correct in the above statement. The Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso is not at war with the U.S. Left; they could probably care less. On the other hand, many a labor leader, leftist party militant, shanty-town organizer or peasant activist killed at the hands of Sendero Luminoso cadre might from the grave, were that possible, find his characterization of Shining Path's enemies a bit disingenuous. Seen through the lens of a debate on just how semi-feudal Peru is or is not, the endless preoccupation with human rights does seem to be so much drivel. David Scott Palmer: "The insurgency has rarely engaged in indiscriminate violence and should not be compared with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in this regard."
Re: Peruvian Maoism
On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: We sometimes forget that the Shining Path is in a war with the Peruvian state and not the American left and its allies in Peru. Of course, Louis Proyect is partially correct in the above statement. The Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path/Sendero Luminoso is not at war with the U.S. Left; they could probably care less. On the other hand, many a labor leader, leftist party militant, shanty-town organizer or peasant activist killed at the hands of Sendero Luminoso cadre might from the grave, were that possible, find his characterization of Shining Path's enemies a bit disingenuous. Seen through the lens of a debate on just how semi-feudal Peru is or is not, the endless preoccupation with human rights does seem to be so much drivel. Sub-comandante Marcos take heed, knock off a few human rights workers from the Catholic Church, execute a doctor or two from San Cristobal, murder local activists from the PRD, and Zapatista stock will rise in Lou's eyes. May a thousand dead dogs hang from the lampposts of a land purged of petty bourgeois revisionists and misleaders of the working class! Sincerely yours, Robert Saute
Re: M-I: Peruvian Maoism
Received: from MAILQUEUE by OOI (Mercury 1.21); 30 Mar 98 18:22:58 +800 Return-path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from galaxy.csuchico.edu by ooi.clark.edu (Mercury 1.21) with ESMTP; 30 Mar 98 18:22:51 +800 Received: from host (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by galaxy.csuchico.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id SAA10851; Mon, 30 Mar 1998 18:19:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from avalon.netcom.net.uk ([EMAIL PROTECTED] [194.42.225.7]) by galaxy.csuchico.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA05596 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 12:26:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from netcomuk.co.uk (dialup-20-54.netcomuk.co.uk [194.42.233.54]) by avalon.netcom.net.uk (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA04563; Sun, 29 Mar 1998 21:25:02 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 21:24:47 + Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Mark Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: M-Th [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: M-I: Peruvian Maoism References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN X-PMFLAGS: 34078848 In his series of postings on indigenism generally, Louis Proyect has rendered Marxism a service and there are many in his debt, who do not yet know his name. He has succeeded in connecting in intelligible, politically-meaningful ways some of the complex of issues which define the era: the dynamics of core-periphery relations in the phase of so-called 'globalism'. The dynamics of plunder by the imperial metropoles of the margins, and the consequent impact on ecosystems and biodiversity; the process of international class struggle in what is opening out into an era of People's War, and the tasks of the working class and its allies in that era: to form new kinds of strategic alliance and to develop shared understandings and analyses of the workings of late imperialism and of the tasks involved in its revolutionary overthrow. I am hopeful that this posting will launch real debate about the politics and strategies of the Peruvian Communisty Party, and the lessons to be learnt. Mark Jones I certainly second these sentiments wholeheartedly and also with respect to questions dealing with Indians of the Americas in general. Jim Craven *---* * "Let me be a free man, free to travel,* * James Craven free to stop, free to work, free to * * Dept of Economics trade where I choose, free to choose * * Clark College my own teachers, free to follow the * * 1800 E. Mc Loughlin Blvd. religion of my fathers [and mothers], * * Vancouver, Wa. 98663 free to talk, think and act for * * [EMAIL PROTECTED] myself--and I will obey every law or * * (360) 992-2283 (Office)submit to the penalty." * * (360) 992-2863 (Fax) (In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat, Chief Joseph * * of the Nez Perce.)* * MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION *
Peruvian Maoism
There has been an abysmal failure on the part of mainstream Marxism in the United States to engage with Peruvian Maoism on its own terms. Journals like the Monthly Review and NACLA have written about the human rights aspect of the struggle, while paying scant attention to the underlying theoretical issues. We sometimes forget that the Shining Path is in a war with the Peruvian state and not the American left and its allies in Peru. We should not sweep these issues under the rug, but neither should we neglect the Maoist analysis of the Peruvian class struggle. Since these ideas have won the allegiance of massive numbers of the most exploited and oppressed peoples on the continent, they are certainly worth a closer look. It is my goal in this post to do exactly that. The social base of the guerrillas is primarily Quechuan Indian, but the Maoist leadership of the Peruvian Communist Party has tended to discount this aspect of the struggle. It does, however, identify the agrarian crisis as key to the Peruvian revolution. This problem implicitly addresses Indian needs, since land hunger has been the primary social contradiction of Peruvian society for the past 400 years. The Communist Party of Peru--dubbed the "Shining Path" (Sendero Luminoso) by the bourgeois press and its leftist opponents--got its start in the 1960s. Anibal Guzman, a philosophy professor at the University of Ayacucho, decided to construct a new revolutionary movement in Peru, one that combined the ideas of Mao Tse-tung and José Carlos Mariátegui. From Maoism it would draw upon the strategy of "People's War," that envisioned encircling the cities from the countryside. From Mariátegui it adopted the analysis of Peru as a country that was in the grips of semi-feudal relations. While it was nominally a modern bourgeois democracy, it still had failed to achieve genuine national independence and land reform, the hallmarks of the class bourgeois-democratic revolution. The leftist opponents of the PCP accused it of being trapped in a time-warp. While it was true that Peru had suffered from latifundism in the 1920s, there had been significant changes over the half-century. Most importantly, the leftist military dictatorship of General Velasco had pushed through an ambitious land reform program in the 1960s that seemed to have broken the back of the old landed estates. We find such support of the Velasco reforms in the preface to "The Break-up of the Old Order." This is a section in the "Peru Reader." Orin Starn, Carlos Iván Degregori and Robin Kirk, three leading "Senderologists," put together this very worthwhile collection of articles. A Senderologist is an academic expert on the Shining Path insurgency, who is also a political opponent. Such experts have largely shaped our understanding of the Peruvian insurgency in the pages of NACLA. This would be analogous to understanding the Sandinista movement from the hostile articles written by people like Paul Berman in the 1980s. If you read Berman's articles in the Village Voice, you would get the impression that the FSLN had no other agenda except to censor La Prensa and harass Cardinal Obando Y Bravo. That the title of the section is "The Break-up of the Old Order" should give you some sense of the critical support the "Senderologists" had toward Velasco. In 1963 a coalition of Popular Action and Christian Democrats won the election in Peru. The social base of this coalition was urban professionals who had a strong affinity with the USA and the Alliance for Progress, which would supposedly modernize Peru. The losers in the election were the old-line Creole elites who were the main target of Mariátegui's attacks. This section of the ruling class had roots in the guano and nitrates fortunes made in the 18th and 19th centuries, and also in the latifundios. Certainly we could describe this section of the ruling class as semi-feudal. Was its loss of power a "break-up of the old order?" Social tensions unleashed by the new government's first attempts at reform prompted a military coup led by General Juan Velasco. To everybody's surprise the Velasco government threw its weight behind the new reforms. It nationalized the oil wells of the International Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey. Most importantly, it enacted a sweeping agrarian reform, which abolished the old Andean estates as well as newer coastal plantations. While Velasco was overthrown by another military coup that implemented some counter-reforms, the general direction of Peruvian politics took a sharp left turn in this period. Eventually Alan Garcia became president. He was the candidate of the APRA party, a left-wing nationalist formation that rejected socialism. Mariátegui had engaged in sharp polemics with Hay de la Torre, the founder of APRA, in the 1920s. Against the radical nationalism of APRA, Mariátegui countered with
Re: M-I: Peruvian Maoism
In his series of postings on indigenism generally, Louis Proyect has rendered Marxism a service and there are many in his debt, who do not yet know his name. He has succeeded in connecting in intelligible, politically-meaningful ways some of the complex of issues which define the era: the dynamics of core-periphery relations in the phase of so-called 'globalism'. The dynamics of plunder by the imperial metropoles of the margins, and the consequent impact on ecosystems and biodiversity; the process of international class struggle in what is opening out into an era of People's War, and the tasks of the working class and its allies in that era: to form new kinds of strategic alliance and to develop shared understandings and analyses of the workings of late imperialism and of the tasks involved in its revolutionary overthrow. I am hopeful that this posting will launch real debate about the politics and strategies of the Peruvian Communisty Party, and the lessons to be learnt. Mark Jones
