OVERCOME THE BEND, DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE’S WAR!

(Outline)1

Central Committee
Communist Party of Peru
1995

POLITICAL STRATEGY: CONQUER POWER.

MILITARY STRATEGY: PEOPLE’S WAR, “GUERRILLA WARFARE IS FUNDAMENTAL, BUT LOSE NO CHANCE FOR MOBILE WARFARE UNDER FAVOURABLE CONDITIONS.” PREPARE INSURRECTION IN THE CITIES.

STRATEGY OF CONSTRUCTION: CONSTRUCT THE CONQUEST OF POWER IN MIDST OF THE PEOPLE’S WAR.

Take as a political foundation everything previously expounded by CHAIRMAN GONZALO AND THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, particularly in the THIRD PLENUM AND THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE’S WORK SESSIONS; as well as the document AGAINST THE GENOCIDAL AND HOMELAND-SELLING DICTATORSHIP, PERSIST IN THE PEOPLE’S WAR!.

Analyze Fujimori’s speech; which briefly summarized, expounds to repeat what he did in his first term, within the framework of the three tasks of reaction, the imperialist plans, principally Yankee imperialism and the armed forces.

  1. Overcome the bend.

  2. Combat reaction and imperialism’s plan.

  3. Crush the hoax of “pacification.”

  4. Crush the revisionist and capitulationist ROL.2

  5. Lay bases for the realization of the FOURTH PLENUM.

  6. General Reorganization of the Party.

Chronology: …

Chronology: …

(Before, during or after the important dates, make every effort to develop offensives and counter-offensives according to the national situation and the specific conditions of each Committee. And in the framework of our counter-campaigns (campaigns))

Development of Overcome the Bend, Developing the People’s War!

Quotes

  1. “The correctness or otherwise of the ideological and political line decides everything. When the Party’s line is correct, then everything will come its way. If it has no followers, then it can have followers; if it has no guns, then it can have guns; if it has no political power, then it can have political power. If its line is not correct, even what it has it may lose.”3

  2. “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries.”4

  3. “In China war is the main form of struggle and the army is the main form of organization. Other forms such as mass organization and mass struggle are also extremely important and indeed indispensable and in no circumstances to be overlooked, but their purpose is to serve the war. Before the outbreak of a war all organization and struggle are in preparation for the war, as in the period from the May 4th Movement of 1919 to the May 30th Movement of 1925. After war breaks out, all organization and struggle are coordinated with the war either directly or indirectly…”5

  4. “Without armed struggle the proletariat and the Communist Party would have no standing at all in China, and it would be impossible to accomplish any revolutionary task.”6

  5. ”…without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and that it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph. In these years the development, consolidation and bolshevization of our Party have proceeded in the midst of revolutionary wars; without armed struggle the Communist Party would assuredly not be what it is today. Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood.”7

  6. “According to the Marxist theory of the state, the army is the chief component of state power. Whoever wants to seize and retain state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the ‘omnipotence of war.’ Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist. The guns of the Russian Communist Party created socialism. We shall create a democratic republic. Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed.”8

  7. “The Red Army’s operations take the form of counter-campaigns against ‘encirclement and suppression.’ For us victory means chiefly victory in combating ‘encirclement and suppression,’ that is, strategic victory and victories in campaigns. The fight against each ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaign constitutes a counter-campaign, which usually comprises several or even scores of battles, big and small. Until an ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaign has been basically smashed, one cannot speak of strategic victory or of victory in the counter-campaign as a whole, even though many battles may have been won. The history of the Red Army’s decade of war is a history of counter-campaigns against ‘encirclement and suppression.’”9

  8. “In the enemy’s ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaigns and the Red Army’s counter-campaigns against them, the two forms of fighting, offensive and defensive, are both employed, and here there is no difference from any other war, ancient or modern, in China or elsewhere. The special characteristic of China’s civil war, however, is the repeated alternation of the two forms over a long period of time. In each ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaign, the enemy employs the offensive against the Red Army’s defensive, and the Red Army employs the defensive against his offensive; this is the first stage of a counter-campaign against ‘encirclement and suppression.’ Then the enemy employs the defensive against the Red Army’s offensive, and the Red Army employs the offensive against his defensive; this is the second stage of the counter-campaign. Every ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaign has these two stages, and they alternate over a long period.

    By repeated alternation over a long period we mean the repetition of this pattern of warfare and these forms of fighting. This is a fact obvious to everybody. An ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaign and a counter-campaign against it–such is the repeated pattern of the war. In each campaign the alternation in the forms of fighting consists of the first stage in which the enemy employs the offensive against our defensive and we meet his offensive with our defensive, and of the second stage in which the enemy employs the defensive against our offensive and we meet his defensive with our offensive.” 10

  9. “The subjective forces of the revolution have indeed been greatly weakened since the defeat of the revolution in 1927. The remaining forces are very small and those comrades who judge by appearances alone naturally feel pessimistic. But if we judge by essentials, it is quite another story. Here we can apply the old Chinese saying, ‘A single spark can start a prairie fire.’ In other words, our forces, although small at present, will grow very rapidly. In the conditions prevailing in China, their growth is not only possible but indeed inevitable…”11

  10. “With the exception of a few short chapters every important part of the annals of the revolution from 1848 to 1849 carries the heading: Defeat of the revolution! What succumbed in these defeats was not the revolution. It was the pre-revolutionary traditional appendages, results of social relationships which had not yet come to the point of sharp class antagonisms — persons, illusions, conceptions, projects from which the revolutionary party before the February Revolution was not free, from which it could be freed not by the victory of February, but only by a series of defeats.

    In a word: The revolution made progress, forged ahead, not by its immediate tragicomic achievements but, on the contrary, by the creation of a powerful, united counter-revolution, by the creation of an opponent in combat with whom the party of overthrow ripened into a really revolutionary party.” 12

  11. ”…the major prerequisites for helping the struggle in the cities and hastening the rise of the revolutionary tide are specifically the development of the struggle in the countryside, the establishment of Red political power in small areas, and the creation and expansion of the Red Army.”13

  12. ”…only the concentration of our forces will enable us to wipe out comparatively large enemy units and occupy towns. Only after we have wiped out comparatively large enemy units and occupied towns can we arouse the masses on a broad scale and set up political power extending over a number of adjoining counties. Only in this manner, can we make a widespread impact on other populations (that’s what we call ‘extending political influence’), and thus, effectively contribute to the advance of the revolutionary tide.”14

  13. “As to dividing our forces over a wide radius, it is possible only under two conditions: that the circumstances are comparatively favorable and that the leadership be fairly strong.”15

  14. “The most adverse the circumstances are, the greater the need for concentrating our forces and for the leaders to be resolute in struggle, because that’s the only way we can have internal unity against the enemy. Only in favorable circumstances is it advisable to divide our forces for guerrilla operations, and it is only then, that the leaders need not stay with the ranks all the time, as they must in adverse circumstances.”16

  15. “To extend stable base areas, employ the policy of advancing in waves; when pursued by a powerful enemy, employ the policy of circling around.”17

  16. “Revisionism is an agent of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the proletariat, and so it provokes splits. It divides the Communist Movement and Communist Parties, divides the trade union movement, andt breaks up and divides the people’s movement.”

    “Revisionism obviously is a cancer, a cancer that must be eliminated. Otherwise we won’t be able to advance the revolution. Let us remember what Lenin said, ‘in a concise way, we must forge ahead two questions, the question of revolutionary violence, and the relentless struggle against opportunism, against revisionism.’”

    “Revisionism has already lost out, it’s only a matter of time. The problem is already defined, the rubbish has begun to be swept away, burned away; as I said, it’s only a matter of time. The process of their demise began years ago. And if we go back further, to the beginnings, the ball game was lost when they became revisionists, when they abandoned their principles…” 18

  17. “Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again… till their doom; that is the logic of the imperialists and all reactionaries the world over in dealing with the people’s cause, and they will never go against this logic. This is a Marxist law. When we say “imperialism is ferocious”, we mean that its nature will never change, that the imperialists will never lay down their butcher knives, that they will never become Buddhas, till their doom.

    Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again… till their victory; that is the logic of the people, and they too will never go against this logic. This is another Marxist law. The Russian people’s revolution followed this law, and so has the Chinese people’s revolution.” 19

  18. “The existence of serious weaknesses in the War of Resistance may lead to many setbacks, retreats, internal splits, betrayals, temporary and partial compromises and other such reverses. Therefore it should be realized that the war will be an arduous and protracted war. But we are confident that, through the efforts of our Party and the whole people, the resistance already started will sweep aside all obstacles and continue to advance and develop.” 20

  19. “We are here in these circumstances. Some think that this is a great defeat. They are dreaming! We tell them to keep on dreaming. It is simply a bend, nothing more! A bend in the the road. The road is long and we shall arrive to our destination. We shall triumph. You shall see it!”21

  20. ”…one does not play at insurrection, one does not play at revolution. But when one raises the banner of insurrection, when one takes up arms, there’s no taking down the banner, it must be held high and never lowered until victory. This is what he taught us, no matter how much it costs us! Marx has armed us then, as Lenin has, and, mainly Chairman Mao Zedong taught us about the price we have to pay — what it means to annihilate in order to preserve, what it means to hold high the banner, come what may.”22

  21. “Have we gone through difficult times? Yes. But what has reality shown us? That if we persist, keep politics in command, follow our political strategy, follow our military strategy, if we have a clear and defined plan, then we will advance, and we are capable of facing any bloodbath.”23

  22. “The people’s war will inevitably triumph!”

New Plan: Part of the Sixth Great Military Plan.

Political Strategy: CONQUER POWER.

Military Strategy: PEOPLE’S WAR, “GUERRILLA WARFARE IS FUNDAMENTAL, BUT LOSE NO CHANCE FOR MOBILE WARFARE UNDER FAVOURABLE CONDITIONS.” PREPARE INSURRECTION IN THE CITIES.

Building Strategy: CONSTRUCT THE CONQUEST OF POWER IN MIDST OF THE PEOPLE’S WAR.

IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL FUNDAMENTALS

Take as a political foundation everything previously expounded by Chairman Gonzalo and the Central Committee, particularly in the Third Plenum and the Central Committee’s work sessions; as well as the document Against the Country-Selling and Genocidal Dictatorship, Persist in the People’s War!

Analyze Fujimori’s speech; which briefly summarized, expounds to repeat what he did in his first term, within the framework of the three tasks of reaction, the imperialist plans, principally Yankee imperialism and the armed forces.

Documents for Study

Notes for the Assessment of the Great Completion.

The People’s War is developing victoriously against wind and tide, and in July has successfully completed the first part of the Great Plan to Build the Seizure of Power! In Defense of the Leadership, Against the Genocidal Dictatorship! It set up the basis for the development of the second part which shall be guided by the slogan OVERCOME THE BEND, DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE’S WAR!.

Once again, the country was trembled by the blazing fires of the People’s War, from the Principal Regional Committee to the capital itself, the area of the Metropolitan Committee. Similarly, in the Ayacucho Zonal Committee, we defeated the sinister campaigns of “encirclement and suppression” implemented by the genocidal and sellout armed forces. We advanced through Base Seven and Base Fourteen, agitating and mobilizing the masses, developing the take over of cars on the Ayacucho-San Francisco highway, and annihilating the mesnadas [army run paramilitary forces] in the locality of Ccano; conducting sabotage against the old State’s tractors in Yanamonte, and annihilations, confiscation of cattle to supply the Revolutionary Base Area “Red Bastion” and the forces of the People’s Liberation Army. This was complemented with ambushes, annihilating and scourging enemy bases located in the vicinity of Revolutionary Base Area 33 (river Ene.) In the same manner, the Cangallo-Fajardo Zonal Committee conducted a magnificent incursion [in the provinces] of La Mar, Vilcashuaman and Cangallo, right under the noses of the anti-subversive base, and later confiscated more than 30 boxes of dynamite and a radio transmitter. Meanwhile, the PCP27 Huancavelica Zonal Committee carried out a powerful ambush at the locality of Supuymayo-Lachoc, annihilating nine police members, including a Major, and confiscating the same number of HK rifles. In addition, devastating were the ambushes unfolded in the Huallaga Regional Committee, in which more than 50 troops of the special forces were annihilated, capturing a MAG machine gun, an RPG rocket launcher, more than 30 FAL, M-16, AKM automatic rifles, and a radio transmitter. In Lima, the Metropolitan Committee and People’s Aid carried out powerful car-bombs against tourist Hotel Maria Angola, and the house of the lackey Congressman, Joy Way. These are only some of the outstanding actions conducted as part of the offensives unfolded in the month of July. There were also other actions carried out in the North, in the South, and in the Central region, such as the ambush [to a military convoy] in the locality of Pichanaki.

Because of all this, we say that our plan has been successfully achieved. We are now celebrating the 15 years of the invincible People’s War crushing the rotten cackling of the genocidal sellouts Hermoza Rios and Fujimori, who repeatedly claimed that “in July 1995 Shining Path will be liquidated.” Once again, they were defeated and had to swallow back all of their black vomit. The same has also occurred with the revisionists and capitulators of the right opportunist line, who in black omens said in 1993 that the People’s War could not be maintained “because there are no conditions.”

It is important that we take into account and greet with revolutionary fervor the extraordinary Heroism and the Great Firmness of the Base Areas, in enduring suffering and sacrifice. These masses are an example for all the Peruvian people and deserve all of our respect and admiration. They fight shoulder to shoulder with the People’s Liberation Army and the Communist Party of Peru, to maintain new power no matter the cost, developing a new economy, new politics and a new culture.

At the same time, we salute the heroic militants and combatants of the Communist Party of Peru and the People’s Liberation Army, who have always been guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. They place politics in command and achieve victory after victory overcoming all difficulties and always maintaining the flags of the People’s War to the very end; combating imperialism, reaction and revisionism.

Take Into Account the Following Conditions:

People’s War: Must be developed with a Proletarian Military Line as a basis and the experience of more than 15 years of victories and setbacks, particularly in the countryside, with utmost attention to the handling of the campaigns and counter campaigns, the main form of the Civil War. The enemy campaigns are being conducted within the strategy of the so called “Low Intensity Warfare”; which are its principal form, and are complemented by population control, civil control and “intelligence” work, including psychological operations. We must carry out our offensives and counter-offensives within this context, not out of it, and always considering the national political situation and the specific situation in each Committee, without underestimating nor overestimating the enemy. Apply the Great Strategic Concept.28

With respect to the cities, maintain the criterion of a unified People’s War. In this period it has the specific characteristic of unfolding a gradual advance, seeking to fuse the People’s War with the class struggle of the proletariat, and with the masses of people in the neighborhoods and shanty towns, managing at every moment the two hills, and setting up the basis for the insurrection.

Building: Crushing revisionism, unfolding a General Reorganization of the Party. In the countryside, a corporative militarization has been implemented for some time, which seeks to subjugate the peasant masses; therefore, only through armed struggle and political mobilization can we incorporate such masses to the People’s War, and wipe out little by little the repressive control imposed upon them by the reactionary armed forces and the paramilitary (Resettlement without repressive force! Resettlement without mesnadas! Civil Defense is criminal defense!).

In the cities, the regime has imposed a semi-fascist police control, directed by the armed forces. This must be exposed and crushed. Because of this, it will be necessary to pay much attention to the relationship between open work and secret work, aiming toward the development the secret work. In everything we do, we must be superior to the reactionaries!

Two-line Struggle: Develop the two-line struggle against the revisionist and capitulationist right opportunist line (ROL).

Study the documents, Lenin on the The Struggle Against Revisionism, and The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchev’s Revisionism.

OVERCOME THE BEND, DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE’S WAR!

OBJECTIVES:

  1. Overcome the bend.

  2. Combat reaction and imperialism’s plan.

  3. Crush the hoax of “pacification.”

  4. Crush the revisionist and capitulationist ROL.

  5. Lay bases for the realization of the FOURTH PLENUM.

  6. General Reorganization of the Party.

First part: OVERCOME THE BEND, DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE’S WAR!

Schedule: …

Second part: OVERCOME THE BEND, DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE’S WAR!

Schedule: …

CELEBRATIONS:

…

…

…

…

ATTITUDE:

Nothing is impossible for whoever dares to scale the heights!

Be superiors to the reaction!

Nothing and nobody can stop us: Not imperialism, not reaction, not revisionism, not nature!

September 1995
COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU-CENTRAL COMMITTEE

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20090205165557/https://solrojo.org/pcp_doc/pcp_0995.htm↩︎

  2. Red Library: Right Opportunist Line.↩︎

  3. Chairman Mao Zedong, Talk with Responsible Comrades At Various Places During Provincial Tour, 1971.↩︎

  4. Chairman Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, November 6, 1938.↩︎

  5. Chairman Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, November 6, 1938.↩︎

  6. Chairman Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, November 6, 1938.↩︎

  7. Chairman Mao Zedong, Introducing “The Communist,” October 4, 1939↩︎

  8. Chairman Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, November 6, 1938.↩︎

  9. Chairman Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, November 6, 1938.↩︎

  10. Chairman Mao Zedong, Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War, December 1936.↩︎

  11. Chairman Mao Zedong, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, January 5, 1930.↩︎

  12. Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 (Jan.-Oct. 1850), as quoted in Elections, No! People’s War, Yes!↩︎

  13. Chairman Mao Zedong, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, January 5, 1930.↩︎

  14. Chairman Mao Zedong, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, January 5, 1930.↩︎

  15. Chairman Mao Zedong, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, January 5, 1930.↩︎

  16. Chairman Mao Zedong, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, January 5, 1930.↩︎

  17. Chairman Mao Zedong, A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire, January 5, 1930.↩︎

  18. Interview with Chairman Gonzalo, July 1988.↩︎

  19. Chairman Mao Zedong, Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle, August 14, 1949.↩︎

  20. Chairman Mao Zedong, On Protracted War, May 1938.↩︎

  21. Chairman Gonzalo, Speech, September 24, 1992.↩︎

  22. Interview with Chairman Gonzalo, July 1988.↩︎

  23. Interview with Chairman Gonzalo, July 1988.↩︎

  24. Red Library: Six Essays on Military Affairs is a compilation of Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War, Problems of Strategy in Guerilla War Against Japan, On Protracted War, Problems of War and Strategy, Concentrate a Superior Force to Destroy the Enemy Forces One by One, The Present Situation and Our Tasks (Sections I, II, and III). All written by Chairman Mao Zedong. The written page range covers the work On Protracted War up to the section “The Three Stages of the Protracted War.”↩︎

  25. Red Library: Great Strategic Concept is a compilation of the works Great Strategic Concept by the People’s Daily [Renmin Ribao] Editorial Board, We Are Fearless by the People’s Liberation Army Daily [Jiefangjun Bao] Editorial Board, The Naturre of U.S. Imperialism as a Paper Tiger–Seen from Its Repeated Failures by Jen Ku-ping, The Fatal Weakness of the Military Strategy of U.S. Imperialism by Jen Ku-ping, U.S. Imperialism’s Strategic Dispositions of Pulling Down the Western Wall to Repair the Eastern Wall by Jen Ku-ping, The People’s Revolutionary Strategy Will Triumph Over U.S. Imperialism’s Counter-Revolutionary Strategy by Tung Ming, and Study the “Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong” by People’s Liberation Army Daily [Jiefangjun Bao].↩︎

  26. Red Library: This is a compilation of Serve the People, In Memory of Norman Bethune, The Foolish Old Man who Removed the Mountains, On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party, and Combat Liberalism. Work published by Foreign Languages Press: Peking, all articles are by Chairman Mao Zedong.↩︎

  27. Red Library: Communist Party of Peru.↩︎

  28. See Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan, Chapters IV and VII.↩︎