LINE OF CONSTRUCTION OF THE THREE INSTRUMENTS OF THE REVOLUTION
INTRODUCTION
Chairman Gonzalo establishes the line of construction of the three instruments of the revolution by upholding, defending and applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.
He teaches us that Marx said that the working class creates organizations in its image and likeness, that is, its own organizations. In the XIX century, with Marx and Engels, we started off endowed with a scientific conception, our own doctrine, our own objective, our common goal—how to take Power and the means to do it—revolutionary violence. All this was achieved in a very hard two-line struggle. Marx established that the proletariat cannot act as a class unless it constitutes itself as a political party different from and opposed to all the political parties created by the propertied classes. That since its appearance in a prolonged process, the proletariat has created its own forms of struggle and its own forms of organization. As a result, the Party is the highest form of organization, the army is the principal form of organization and the Front is the third instrument, and these three instruments are to seize Power by means of revolutionary violence. He tells us that by the end of the XIX century, Engels came to the conclusion that the class did not have either the proper organic forms or the proper military forms to seize Power and hold it, but he never said we should abandon the revolution, rather we should work for revolution, seeking a solution to these pending problems. This must be understood well since the revisionists twist it to peddle their opportunism.
In the XX century Lenin understood that the revolution was ripe and created the proletarian Party of a new type, molding the form of struggle—the insurrection, and the form of organization—the detachments, which were mobile forms and superior to the barricades of the previous century, which were fixed forms. Lenin expounded the need to create new, clandestine organizations, since the step to revolutionary actions signified the dissolution of the legal organizations by the police and that step was only possible if it was taken by going over the old leaders, going over the old Party, destroying it. The Party should take as example the modern army, with its own discipline and its one will, and be flexible.
With Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the class understands the need to build the three instruments of the revolution: the Party, Army and United Front in an interrelated way. This resolves the construction of the three instruments in a backward, semi-feudal and semi-colonial country, through the People’s War. Concretely, it resolves the issue of building the Party around the gun and that it is the heroic combatant who is leading its own construction, the Army and the Front.
Chairman Gonzalo expounds the militarization of the Communist Parties and the concentric construction of the three instruments. The militarization of the Communist Parties is the political directive with a strategic content, since it is “the set of transformations, changes and readjustments it needs to lead the People’s War as the principal form of struggle that will generate the new State.” Therefore, the militarization of the Communist Parties is key for the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and the cultural revolutions.
He defines the principle of construction: “On the ideological-political base, to simultaneously build the organizational forms in the midst of the class struggle and the two-line struggle, all of these within and as a function of the armed struggle for the conquest of Power.”
In addition, he links the entire process of construction with the fluidity of people’s war, starting from Chairman Mao’s thesis that “the mobility of military operations and the variability of our territory provide all works of construction with . . . a variable character.”
Hence, to understand the line of construction, we must start from the form of struggle and the forms of organization; from the principle of construction and construction linked to the fluidity of people’s war which is the main form of struggle in today’s world.
1. ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PARTY
– Character of the Party. We base ourselves on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, principally Gonzalo Thought, on the ideology of the proletariat, which is the highest expression of humanity, the only true, scientific and invincible ideology. We struggle for the Communist Programme whose essence is to organize and lead the class struggle of the proletariat so it can conquer political Power, realize the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and the cultural revolution on the way to Communism, the unwavering goal toward which we march. We rely on the general political line of the revolution, those are the laws governing the class struggle for the taking of Power, established by Chairman Gonzalo with its five elements: 1) The international line; 2) the democratic revolution; 3) the military line; 4) the line of construction of the three instruments of the revolution; and 5) the mass line. The military line is the center of the general political line. We forge ourselves in proletarian internationalism as we conceive our revolution to be part of the world proletarian revolution. And we maintain ideological, political and organizational independence supported by our own efforts and by the masses.
It is a Party of the new type which generated the Great Leader of the Peruvian revolution, Chairman Gonzalo, the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, who leads the Party. He is the guarantee of the triumph of the revolution who will carry us to Communism.
– The militarization of the Communist Party and concentric construction. Chairman Gonzalo expounded the thesis that the Communist Parties of the world should militarize themselves for three reasons:
First, because we are in the strategic offensive of the world revolution, we live during the sweeping away of imperialism and reaction from the face of the Earth within the next 50 to 100 years, a time marked by violence in which all kinds of wars take place. We see how reaction is militarizing itself more and more, militarizing the old States, their economies, developing wars of aggression, trafficking with the struggles of the peoples and aiming toward a world war, but since revolution is the principal tendency in the world, the task of the Communist Parties is to uphold revolution shaping the principal form of struggle: People’s war to oppose the world counterrevolutionary war with world revolutionary war.
Second, because capitalist restoration must be prevented. When the bourgeoisie loses Power, it introduces itself inside the Party, uses the army and seeks to usurp Power and destroy the dictatorship of the proletariat to restore capitalism. Therefore, the Communist Parties must militarize themselves and exercise the all-round dictatorship of the three instruments, forging themselves in people’s war and empower the armed organization of the masses, the people’s militia, so as to engulf the army. For this reason, Chairman Gonzalo tells us to “forge all militants as Communists, first and foremost, as fighters and as administrators”; for that reason every militant is forged in the People’s War and remains alert against any attempt at capitalist restoration.
Third, because we march toward a militarized society. By militarizing the Party, we complete a step toward the militarization of society which is the strategic perspective to guarantee the dictatorship of the proletariat. The militarized society is the sea of armed masses which Marx and Engels spoke of, that guards the conquest of power and defends it once conquered. We take the experience of the Chinese Revolution, of the anti-Japanese base at Yenan, which was a militarized society where everything grew out of the barrels of guns: Party, Army, State, new politics, new economics, new culture. And in that way we develop war communism.
In the First National Conference (November 1979), Chairman Gonzalo expounded the thesis of the necessity of militarizing the Communist Party of Peru; afterward, in the first months of 1980 when the Party was preparing to launch the People’s War, he proposed to develop the militarization of the Party through actions, basing himself on what the great Lenin said about reducing the nonmilitary work in order to center it on the military; that the times of peace were ending and we were entering into the times of war, so that all forces should be militarized. Thus taking the Party as the axis of everything, build the Army around it and with these instruments, with the masses in the People’s War, build the new State around both. That the militarization of the Party can only be carried forward through concrete actions of the class struggle, concrete military-type actions; this does not mean we will only carry out various types of military actions exclusively (guerrilla actions, sabotages, selective annihilation, armed propaganda and agitation) but that we must carry out mainly these forms so as to provide incentive and development to the class struggle, teaching with deeds, with these types of actions as the principal form of struggle in the People’s War.
The militarization of the Party has its antecedents in Lenin and Chairman Mao, but it is a new problem developed by Chairman Gonzalo taking into account the new circumstance of the class struggle and we must see that new problems will arise which will be resolved through experience. These will necessarily imply a process of struggle between the old and the new that will develop it further, with war being the highest form of resolving contradictions, of empowering the faculties people have to find solutions. It is the militarization of the Party which has enabled us to initiate and develop the People’s War. We consider that this experience has universal validity, and for that reason it is a requirement and necessary for the Communist Parties of the world to militarize themselves.
The concentric construction of the three instruments is the organic fulfillment of the militarization of the Party and in synthesis it is summarized in what Chairman Gonzalo teaches: “The Party is the axis of everything, it leads the three instruments in an all-round way, its own construction, it absolutely leads the army and the new State as a joint dictatorship aiming toward the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
– The six aspects of the construction of the Party. Ideological construction. The militants are forged on the basis of Party unity with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, mainly Gonzalo Thought. We say Marxism-Leninism-Maoism because it is the universal ideology of the proletariat which is the last class in history, an ideology that must be applied to the concrete conditions of each revolution and generate its guiding thought. In our case, the Peruvian revolution has generated Gonzalo Thought because Chairman Gonzalo is the highest expression of the fusion of the universal ideology with the concrete practice of the Peruvian revolution.
Political construction. The Militants are forged in the Programme and Statutes; the general political line and the military line as its center, specific lines; general policy, specific policies and the Party’s military plans. Politics must always be in command and that is our strong point.
Organic construction. The organic follows the political and taking into account that line alone is not enough; the organic apparatuses must be built while seeing the organic structure, the organic system and the Party work. In its organic structure, the Party is based on democratic centralism, principally centralism. Two armed Party networks are established, the territorial network which encompasses one jurisdiction and the mobile network whose structure is deployed. The organic system is the distribution of forces in function of the principal and secondary points wherever the revolution is acting. Party work is the relationship between secret work, which is principal, and open work; the importance of the five necessities: Democratic centralism, clandestinity, discipline, vigilance and secrecy, particularly democratic centralism.
Leadership. We are fully conscious that no class in history has ever achieved the installation of its rule unless it has promoted its political leaders, its vanguard representatives, capable of organizing the movement and leading it. The Peruvian proletariat in the midst of the class struggle has generated the leadership of the revolution and its highest expression: The Great Leadership of Chairman Gonzalo who handles revolutionary theory and has a knowledge of history and a profound understanding of the practical movement; who through hard two-line struggle has defeated revisionism, the right and left liquidationism, the right opportunist line and rightism. He has reconstituted the Party, leads it in the People’s War and has become the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, a great political and military strategist, a philosopher, a teacher of Communists, and the center of Party unity. Reaction has two principles to destroy the revolution: Annihilate its leadership and isolate the guerrilla from the masses; but in synthesis its problem is to annihilate the leadership, because that is what enables us to maintain our course and realize it. Our Party has defined that leadership is key and it is the duty of all militants to constantly work to defend and preserve the leadership of the Party and very especially the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo, our Great Leadership, against any attack inside or outside the Party and to subject ourselves to his personal leadership and command by raising the slogans of “Learn From Chairman Gonzalo” and “Embody Gonzalo Thought.”
We base ourselves on the collective leadership and individual leadership and we are mindful of the role of leaders and how through the People’s War, through the renewal of leadership, the leadership of the revolution is coalescing and being tempered. We maintain the principle that the leadership never dies.
We who follow Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Though, subject ourselves to Chairman Gonzalo and embody Gonzalo Thought.
Two-line struggle. The Party is a contradiction where the class struggle expresses itself as the two-line struggle between the right and the left. It is the two-line struggle that propels the development of the Party, its just and correct handling requires that the left must impose itself. We fight conciliation because it nourishes the right; and the principle of criticism and self-criticism should be practiced by all the militants, cadres, leaders, combatants, masses too; assuming the philosophy of the struggle and going against the current, keeping in mind that the Central Committee is the vortex of the storm, since there the class struggle expresses itself the sharpest. The just and correct handling that Chairman Gonzalo makes of the two-line struggle has served to maintain the unity of the Party and the development of the People’s War. In general revisionism is held to be the principal danger, although within the Party it continues to unfold against rightist criteria, opinions, attitudes and positions as a struggle amongst the people. It is necessary to organize the two-line struggle to impose the Party line, through a plan to develop it in an organized manner.
Mass work. We apply the principle: “The masses make history.” The Party leads the struggle of the masses in function of Power, which is the principal revindication; we develop the mass work in and for the People’s War basing ourselves on the basic masses, workers and principally poor peasants, in the petty bourgeoisie and we neutralize or win over the middle bourgeoisie, according to the conditions. We subject ourselves to the law of the incorporation of the masses and the only Marxist tactic of “going to the deepest and most profound masses,” educating them in revolutionary violence and in the implacable struggle against revisionism. The mass work of the Party is done through the People’s Army and the masses are mobilized, politicized, organized and armed as the new Power in the countryside and in the People’s Defense Revolutionary Movement (MRDP) in the cities.
In synthesis, it is through the hard struggle and the leadership of Chairman Gonzalo that we have a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought Party of the new type which leads the People’s War and has opened up the perspective of the conquest of Power countrywide serving the world revolution.
2. ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PEOPLE’S GUERRILLA ARMY
– Character of the army. The People’s Guerrilla Army is an army of a new type which fulfills the political tasks of the revolution established by the Party. It applies the Maoist principle: “The Party rules the gun and we will never allow the gun rule to rule the Party.” It fulfills three tasks: Fighting, which is the principal task, as it corresponds to the principal form of organization. Mobilizing, which is very important and by which the mass work of the Party is fulfilled, politicizing the masses, mobilizing, organizing and arming the masses. Producing, applying the principle of self-reliance, trying not to be a burden on the masses. Fundamentally it is a peasant army, absolutely led by the Party. Chairman Gonzalo teaches us: “The iron legions of the People’s Guerrilla Army sustain themselves on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, guiding Thought, which is the basis of its invincibility; they are forged in the hard life, the sacrifice and the challenging to death, which elevate them to revolutionary heroism.”
– The people’s guerrilla army. Marx set forth that the proletariat needed its own army and the thesis of the general arming of the people. Lenin created the Red Army and established the thesis of the people’s militia with the functions of the police, army and administration. Chairman Mao developed the construction of the revolutionary armed forces with the immense participation of the masses. The People’s War materializes its mass character in three great coordinations.
Basing himself on these Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theses and taking into account the specific situation of the People’s War, Chairman Gonzalo proposed the formation of the People’s Guerrilla Army. Since the Preparation of the People’s War, Chairman Gonzalo conceived of the necessity of building the principal form of organization to carry forward the People’s War, defeat the enemy and build the new State. On December 3, 1979, the formation of the “First Company of the First Division of the Red Army” was agreed upon. In 1980, with the Initiation, the squads and detachments were formed and we proposed to cross over from unorganized masses to militarily organized masses.
In 1983, we needed to take a leap forward in the construction of the revolutionary armed forces, and we faced a large growth of the people’s militias, which demonstrated how the masses wanted to fight; furthermore, that year the reactionary armed forces had entered the fight against us. Thus, in the Expanded Central Committee (CCA) in March of that year, Chairman Gonzalo proposed the formation of the People’s Guerrilla Army. Why an Army? Because it was a political necessity to confront the enemy and develop the People’s War. All the Party agreed to this amidst the two-line struggle against the rightism opposed to incorporating the militias into the Army. Why guerrilla? Because it applies guerrilla warfare in the milestone of “Develop guerrilla warfare”; it is not a regular army, rather a guerrilla army but its characteristics enable it, if needed, to develop itself as some sort of regular army. Why people’s? Because it is made up of the masses of people, by the peasants, principally the poor ones; it serves the people, since it represents the interests of the people. A very important situation is how Chairman Gonzalo conceived of the People’s Guerrilla Army by incorporating the people’s militias, made up of three forces: Principal ones, local ones and base ones, which act mainly in the countryside and in the city as complementary; that is a great step toward the sea of armed masses.
– The construction of the People’s Guerrilla Army. The formation of the army is based on men and not on weapons; our army is made up of peasants, principally the poor, proletarians and petty bourgeoisie; it wrests weapons away from the enemy and also uses all sorts of elementary weapons. Our slogan is, “Conquer Weapons!” from the enemy by paying whatever cost is necessary. The formation of the People’s Army must be distinguished from its construction.
The ideological-political construction is primary, based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought. It is based on the political and military lines of the Party, all its political and mass work being under the Party’s leadership. The Party is organized at all levels of the army; the double command is applied: Political and military, and the two-line struggle develops between the proletarian military line and the bourgeois military line. In addition the revolutionary armed requires the formation of three Departments: Political, Military and Logistical.
Military construction is important. Armed with the theory and practice of people’s war, the military line and the Party’s military plans, it is organized into squads, companies and battalions in the countryside and in special detachments and people’s militias in the cities. This construction is also based on the two-line struggle. The three forces: principal, local and base which play a specific role as the support for the new State. “Develop the companies, strengthen the platoons aiming at battalions!” is still a valid slogan.
Instruction is necessary and indispensable. It aims at increasing bellicosity; rehearsal cannot be sidestepped and leadership qualities [don de mando] are the key to action. Training specializes; it elevates the forms of struggle. The organization of courage has a class character and strengthens bellicosity because it we fight with absolute unselfishness and full conviction of the justness of our cause.
In synthesis, Chairman Gonzalo has created the People’s Guerrilla Army as an army of the new type, he has established the line of its construction based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought so it can fulfill the specific tasks of the revolution. It is an example before the world and serves the world revolution.
3. ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW STATE.
– Character of the new State. Power is the central task of the revolution and the Front is the third instrument. By applying the masterful thesis of Chairman Mao in “On New Democracy,” Chairman Gonzalo teaches us our conception of a joint dictatorship which forms the People’s Republic of New Democracy. Starting from the link between State/Front, the Revolutionary Front for the Defense of the People is materialized beginning with the People’s Committees in the countryside, and in the cities it is simply the Revolutionary Movement for the Defense of the People (MRDP). We build the new State in the countryside until Power is finally extended throughout the country.
As a state system, it is a joint dictatorship of workers, peasants, principally poor ones, and the petty bourgeoisie, and it respects the interests of the middle bourgeoisie, all under the leadership of the proletariat represented by the Party which applies its hegemony through this worker-peasant alliance. As a system of government it functions through the People’s Assemblies.
– The new State and the fluidity of war. The construction of the new State follows the fluidity of the People’s War, it can expand or contract, disappear in one place and appear in another. It is fluid. Chairman Mao teaches us: “Our democratic Republic of workers and peasants is a State, but currently it is not so in the full sense of the word . . . our Power is still very far from having the complete form of a State . . . our territory is still very small and the enemy constantly dreams of annihilating us.”
Always keep in mind the system of Support Bases, of guerrilla zones, of zones of operations and points of actions, because those constitute the environment in which the new State develops and are key to maintaining the strategic course; within this environment the People’s Guerrilla Army, under the leadership of the Party, moves as its spinal column.
– The construction of the new State. “Strengthen the People’s Committees, develop the Bases and make advances in the People’s Republic of New Democracy!” That is the slogan which continues to guide its construction.
We struggle for Power for the proletariat and for the people and not for personal power. We are against errantry (roving rebel bands) [errantismo] and the sidestepping of the Support Bases.
The new State is built amidst the People’s War and follows a process of specific development, being built in our case in the countryside first, until the cities are surrounded, and it is formed throughout the entire country. This is a process in which the old State is being destroyed and the contradiction old State-new State is being expressed. This causes all the political and military plans of reaction to fail and incorporates the masses into the struggle.
At the Expanded National Conference of November 1979, Chairman Gonzalo established the relationship between Front-New State applying Chairman Mao’s theory. In the First Military School of April 1980, he told us: “. . . In our minds, in our hearts, in our wills goes embedded [invívito] the seed [germen] the people’s power, we carry it within us . . . Comrades, let us not forget the people’s power, the State of the working class; the State of workers and peasants marches with us, we carry it on the muzzles of our rifles, it nests in our minds, it palpitates in our hands and will always be with us burning in our hearts. Let us never forget that, it is the first thing we must keep in our minds. Comrades, it will be born fragile, weak because it will be new, but its destiny is to develop itself through change, through variation, through fragility, like a tender sapling. Let the roots we plant from the initiation be the future of a healthy and vigorous State. All that, comrades, begins to be born out of the most modest and simple actions which we shall start tomorrow.” In 1980, the Committees of Distribution emerge, the seed [germen] of the new State; in 1982, the first People’s Committees emerge, which will multiply toward the end of that year, forcing reaction to order their armed forces to enter the fight against the People’s War, since the reactionary Power saw itself threatened. In 1983, we agreed upon the Great Plan to Conquer Bases, one of whose tasks was the formation of the Organizing Committee of the People’s Republic of New Democracy. Starting from there, we have followed the struggle between the reestablishment of the old Power by the enemy and the counter-reestablishment of the new Power, applying defense, development and construction.
Thus the new Power passing through the blood bath develops the People’s Committees, which are being tempered in hard battles against the enemy, watered by the blood of the masses of peasants, of the fighters and of militants.
At the Expanded Central Committee of March 1983, Chairman Gonzalo further develops the line of construction of the Front/New State. He expounds the levels in which the new State is being organized: People’s Committees, Support Bases and People’s Republic of New Democracy. The functions of the Support Bases and of the Organizing Committee of the People’s Republic of New Democracy are that of leadership, planning and organization; each Base must elaborate its own specific Plan.
He establishes that the People’s Committees are materializations of the new State. They are Committees of the United Front; led by Commissars who assume their State functions by commissioning [por encargo], elected by the Assemblies of Representatives and subject to recall [remoción]. They are, up to now, clandestine; they march forward with Commissions [con Comisiones], led by the Party applying the rule of the “three thirds”: One third of them are Communists, one third are peasants and one third are progressives, and are sustained by the Army. They apply people’s dictatorship, enforcement and security, exercising violence firmly and resolutely so as to defend the new Power against its enemies and to protect the rights of the people.
The set of People’s Committees constitutes a Support Base and the set of Support Bases is the ring that arms the People’s Republic of New Democracy, today in formation. We have gone from Conquering Bases to Developing Bases, which is the current political strategy. We have to plant the new Power more and more for which we have to apply the five established forms, especially today when the conditions point toward the perspective of conquering Power throughout the country.
In synthesis, Chairman Gonzalo has established the line of construction of the new State and two republics, two roads, two axes are counterpoised. We have advanced in establishing new social relations of production and the People’s Republic of New Democracy in formation shines defiantly against the old State and opens up the perspective of conquering total Power. This example encourages the revolutionaries of the world, most especially the international proletariat.
As followers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, we assume the line of construction of the three instruments of the revolution, of the Communist Party of Peru, the highest form of organization and the first political society; of the People’s Guerrilla Army, principal form of organization; and of the Front/New State, central task of the revolution. These are the Instruments which are being built in our homeland in the din of the People’s War, crossing the river of blood in which with Communists, combatants and masses heroically give their lives to materialize the just and correct political line established by Chairman Gonzalo, and that those who survive will carry the flag of continuing it in the service of our goal, Communism.
General Political Line of the Communist party of Peru 