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Defending the PCP (maoismforthemasses.wordpress.com)

I think it makes some points. Does anyone more knowledgeable on this subject have a different take?

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[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maoism is when committing crimes against humanity and terrorism on innocent villages in Peru’s countryside, obviously.

“You won’t let us ransack and pillage your village, steal all your food, and then occupy your houses?”

“Guess we have to shoot all your children, rape your women, and then pillage your village anyways”.

The PCP were a disgusting abomination. On the same level as the Khmer Rouge. Utter garbage and evil. They are a terrorist organization that use Marxist symbols for aesthetics and nothing else. Utter scum.

I highly recommend reading up on the Shining Path. Their founder and leader was a deranged megalomaniac, who was a fascistic nationalist and cared more for his personal cult of personality then Marxism. He has admitted to never even READING MARXIST THOUGHT. The entire history of the organization is insane and I highly recommend the BadEmpenada episode on them.

[-] caballeroAguila@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 year ago

You said it better than I ever could. A popular people's movement needs to be actually popular with the people. The Shining Path was absolutely atrocious. Completely unjustified violence and retaliations in order to just get in power.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago

I feel like the article made some arguments that could hypothetically work if there were proper context, goals, and strategy in mind. Like, sure, in some contexts excesses are expected and accepted, but did you actually do something positive in that work. Sure, the state probably used a lot of violence too, but was the PCP aimed at them in response or mostly targeting civilians? People can do good with hatred as a motivation but can you really say violence is acceptable purely as a manifestation of hatred for the oppressors? (If the tone is not clear these questions are directed as Gonzalists, not you Comrade Salad).

What episode of the deprogram is it? I think I’ve listened to all of them, but I don’t remember one on Gonzalo. Any specific reading recommendations? I don’t want to pick up some random bourgeois book because then I’d be fulfilling the MLM stereotype of MLs being “left anti-communists” not believing lies about Stalin, but believing those about PolPot and the PCP.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My mistake, the video I was referring to was from BadEmpenada. I am very wary of him as a person and his material, but this video is excellently researched and gives a good socialist lens on the horrific nature of the Shining Path and their leader. His description also gives a very long and thorough reading list centered on leftist and South American sources that you might want to look into.

https://youtu.be/OHqJDs3OuhQ

Also The PCP's violence was aimed at the people. That's what makes them reprehensible. They commit heinous acts of terrorism against the poor in Peru, are associated with Nacrotrafficking and cartels to make money, they utilize child soldiers as young as 10 to fill their militant ranks, and so on. They are not using "a means to an end", they are just using a mean that is so vile and reprehensible that every leader and associated member deserves death or imprisonment at the very least.

They accomplished nothing leftist related, and instead murdered trade unionists, feminist activists, Marxist professors, and foreign emissaries. They probably pushed back the leftist movement in Peru by decades if not centuries with their actions.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

I’ve seen the BE video, but I’m wondering if there’s a less questionable source I could listen to. I’ll have to check out his reading list I guess.

[-] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Honestly, I remember thoroughly crosschecking his video with all the sources available to me, including South American resources, and I really couldn’t find anything wrong with what he said. It was a very well done and researched video.

I would recommend a lot of the books in his sources though. A lot of them are directly Peruvian, but they have good translations available.

Funnily enough, he actually excluded a decent chunk of the acts committed by the organization because it simply would have taken to long to cover them.

[-] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago

He links sources for the claims he makes so you don't have to second guess about those.

[-] ComradePaulK@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 year ago

The PCP of Gonzalo did not and does not engage in narcotrafficking. The "Militarized" PCP, which hates Gonzalo and is considered the "third right-opportunist line" in the MPP's literature, is the group that profits from the drug trade. Again, your accusations are nothing new for communist or even normal progressive groups, as every revolutionary anti-imperialist group has been accused of heinous crimes rather baselessly.

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago

I have seen a disturbingly large amount of Khmer Rouge support from self-proclaimed "Maoists." it almost seems like some of them love the idea of purging all of the "ideologically impure" from their nation.

[-] MCU_H8ER@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago

The PCP were a disgusting abomination. On the same level as the Khmer Rouge.

Back when I used reddit, there was this weirdo in r/communism who only posted pro-Khmer Rouge stuff. There's some odd people out there.

[-] Buchenstr@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago

for me they completely rejected praxis and established a complete militarization of the party. Unlike the CPC or the maoists in india and the philippines, which establish civilian facilities such as schools, toilets, housing and food, the PCP snubbed this, since the doctrine of the concentric concentration of the three instruments demand the party to act like a militia group. Just violence, pure violence, and the reason for this is they believe that outside revisionist elements will infiltrate the party and corrupt it, despite revisionism actually coming from inside the party politics, such as what we saw during the twilight years of the soviet union, or some chinese "communists" which wanted shock therapy in the country.

The shining path even abandoned Marxist-Leninist-Maoism and just stuck to their deranged ideology of "gonzaloism". And the PCPs continued path of MLM puts them at odds with other MLs groups. Their broad definition of revisionism lands the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Communist Party of the Philippines as revisionist, as these groups do not apply elements like the militarization of the party.

[-] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 year ago
[-] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

The PCP is the most advanced political party of our time

Imagine saying that after Gonzalo's death 😬

Personally I've never heard claims that the PCP-SL was homophobic so I won't comment on this and move straight to the bulk of the essay which is explaining the massacre at Lucanamarca which I suspect is what the author was really driving at.

Lucanamarca was just one dot in the PCP's many doings. It's also the only one that supporters of the SL have to contend with because it's one Gonzalo admitted to.

I think the position towards the PCP starts at figuring out who they were. When you see that Guzman was a college prof and that right around the time he started the SL, the CIA was distributing Quotations from Chairman Mao in South American unis to exacerbate the Sino-Soviet split... is when you start to put 2 and 2 together.

As for whether the claims made against the PCP-SL are bourgeois propaganda, I'm not convinced on the sole basis that we are able to trudge through the slandering done on Stalin and Castro for example, despite much more bourgeois historiography trying to slander Stalin. But claims against the SL come up again and again with only a fringe group trying to defend their legacy.

Frankly it's a dead party that has left no impact outside of Peru (and in online communist discourse in this area specifically), I don't care to look much more into what they might have done or not. I don't follow their line because I hold Marxism-Leninism as the most advanced ideology of the proletariat, not because they committed crimes.

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Dead party? What part of Protracted people's war don't you understand? They've got an infinity +1 shield that means their movement can never be defeated! Who cares if they're down to like, 300 official members and are only still out there because the government can't be bothered to actually send in troops to finish them off, they're still the most active and advanced movement in the world today! And no, I won't define either "active" or "advanced" and you're a horrible revisionist for even suggesting I do so!

(Sorry if this is too unserious or inflammatory for this community, let me know and I'll remove it.)

[-] GarbageShootAlt@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Nothing you said is more unserious than

The PCP is the most advanced political party of our time

So you're probably good

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I could've added a bit about how it is ok to boil right-deviationist babies, but that felt like it was too much of a low hanging fruit.

this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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