The positions of the MPP and the CPMLM [F]

One of the main question in the International Communist movement nowadays, and in fact since the 1960’s, is the one of the reconstitution of genuine Communist Parties.

On this occasion, we never documented or formulated in a clear way a difference of approach between the CPMLM [France] and the MPP, the Communist Party of Peru’s generated organism for the work abroad.

Let’s present it here in four points, easy to see.

1.What happened in the oppressed countries and in the imperialist countries

In the 1950’s, or even earlier, the Communist Parties formed following the wave of the 1917 revolution and then members of the Communist International began to degenerate; with revisionism’s success in 1953 in the Soviet Union, the process was nearly completed.

The word “nearly” plays here an amazing role. Indeed, the anti-revisionists formed in the 1960’s “fractions” in the revisionist Communist Party, considering that the process of degeneration was only nearly completed.

Soon expelled, they formed new parties, mostly called “Marxist-Leninist Communist Party”.

In Asia, Africa and South America, this happened solely in this way.

But in the imperialist countries, some others parties, considered as “leftists” by the others, didn’t follow this approach. They considered that they had to form a Communist Party of the time of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

They considered that a rupture was needed with the precedent revisionism, that a “reconstitution” was not enough, a cultural and ideological leap was needed. 

In the imperialist countries, the result was that there were two kind of parties:

– “ML” parties that followed a legal or a semi-legal way, refusing armed struggle and that very soon became hoxhaists;

– organizations claiming Maoism and developing an approach deeply influenced by spontaneism, practicing armed struggle, before collapsing very quickly, at least ideologically: the French Proletarian Left, the Italian Red Brigades, the (West-)German Red Army Fraction, the US Weather Underground, the Japanese Red Army, etc.

2.Two approaches

The people claiming Maoism in Italy, in Germany (West, but also East), or even in France after some experiences, considered that the communist organization had to be rebuild.

They didn’t form a “fraction” inside the Communist Party, which continued to exist in all the imperialist countries, and continue to exist even today in some countries like France or Greece.

They tried to “revolutionize” the model in the imperialist countries, and didn’t succeed : they collapsed very soon ideologically, or even at the organizational level; only some splitter groups managed to continue their clandestine activities, like for example the Red Army Fraction, but with Maoism having been abandoned. 

So, what appears is the following: either there would be the need to reform a “red” fraction to organize a rupture with the “old” revisionist “Communist” Party, or to recreate an ideological rupture.

3.The French example

In France, at the beginning of the 1990’s and until recently, there were three conceptions that existed in the question of the reconstitution:

– the semi-revisionists tried to recreate a “red” fraction and being expelled they all proceed to a reconstitution of a Party, but it didn’t work, because culturally and ideologically, no rupture was done;

– the spontaneists only proceeded to the valorization of the rupture of the past, mostly on the armed level, but not able to forge a real high ideological level;

– the CPMLM affirmed that the thought is the main aspect, after having considered that it was the key to understand the failures of the reconstitution.

4.Struggle through fraction or through ideology? The positions of the MPP and the CPMLM [F]

During the 2000’s and until today, the positions of the CPMLM [F] and the MPP were always very near.

Nevertheless, the CPMLM [F] didn’t accept that the MPP didn’t criticize openly prachandism, or participated at international conferences with what  would become the center of international centrism: the Maoist Communist Party of Italy.

The line of the MPP was always: let’s be the red fraction, there should be no active rupture, the responsibility must come to the prachandists.

The result was that the prachandists could take easily the control of the Co-RIM, with then the post-prachandists taking the lead, killing softly Maoism.

Why that? Because what counts is not a “tradition” or an “historical current”, but ideology. 

What counts is not a formal reconstitution of a Communist Party who only then works on the question of “thought”, but the dialectic construction of the Party / generation of the Thought.

This is how revolutionary organizations should be evaluated. Do they move in direction of the generation of the thought, or not?

=> documents in English

Chairman Gonzalo, imprisoned since 1992, in a Peruvian military jail, is deeply ill and his life is threatened. It is a moment of an extreme importance; the life of the great Maoist of these last thirty years is in danger.

Therefore, it is necessary to recall: to fight for Chairman Gonzalo means to fight for Communism! It is necessary to study Gonzalo and to apply his masterful understanding of the People’s War, of the Thought, of dialectical materialism!

Here, it is necessary also to stress the importance of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist), which just made a call to defend the life of Chairman Gonzalo, to mobilize in this sense.

This call is correct, and is the expression of the very important work of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist) to underline the importance of Gonzalo in our communist identity.

As these comrades of Afghanistan say about Gonzalo: “He is People’s War until communism.” Gonzalo incarnates the ideological leap to Maoism.

The question of Gonzalo is precisely what separates us of new revisionism pretending to be “maoist”!

As these comrades of Afghanistan say:

“Today, it is Chairman Gonzalo and his all-powerful thought that gives the correct formulation of the scientific ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.

The international line, Democratic line, mass line and military line of Communist Party of Peru which has been authored by Chairman Gonzalo, have international importance and great significance for world proletarian revolution. Chairman Gonzalo’s contributions are combat weapons that enables us the smash the rotten “new synthesis of Bob Avakian” and “Kiran-Prachanda twins revisionism of renegades of Nepal”.

So, in defense of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we have to defend the legacy of its major contributions, and those major contributions are those who represent the all-powerful formulation of MLM by Chairman Gonzalo.

The above mentioned LINES are the extract of MLM in our epoch. So, to fight for Chairman Gonzalo’s life means to fight for Communism. We ask for unconditional release of Chairman Gonzalo, and we fight for it.”

The CPMLM of France always defended Gonzalo and is proud of having made a common document with the comrades of Afghanistan and Bangladesh on the concept of thought elaborated by Gonzalo, following the teachings of Mao Zedong.

The CPMLM of France always celebrated Gonzalo, not like the fake Maoists in our country who always rejected him or pretended defending him, only to betray him in a more perverted way.

Gonzalo, our best comrade, kept in total isolation and victim of ideological hoaxes pretending that he became a renegade, must be defended.

And all the reactionaries of the world must be warned: Gonzalo’s lessons are eternally a part of our all powerful ideology ; any attack against him will transform itself in a contribution of the new revolutionary storm coming, the new red wave of the world proletarian revolution.

Gonzalo means People’s War until Communism! Gonzalo means the understanding of the thought necessary in each country to make People’s War! To defend Gonzalo is to defend dialectical materialism! 

CPMLM of France

August, 2013

=> documents in English

Nothing is indivisible ! The universe is eternal !

The law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law

of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought!

1.

On the contrary to what religions explain, there is not the matter on one side, the soul on the other side. Only matter exists, and it has always existed, and it will always exist. The universe is infinite and eternal; there is neither a beginning, nor an end.

This is the basic conception of materialism, which negates that something “outside” the matter would exist, like a god, the “spirit”, the soul, etc.

In ancient Greece, philosophers like Epicurus and Democritus (or later the Roman Lucretius) supported this materialist thesis. Nevertheless, in their conception the universe was a passive one.

It was so the scientific current opened by the Greek Aristotle and continued by the Islamic philosophers Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes which developed the conception of an universe which is eternal and in movement.

2.

Later, humanism continued this affirmation, from the the Parisian Latin averroism of the 13th century to Spinoza, which surpassed the conception of God and recognized nature as the sole reality.

Materialism in Europe, carried in different manners through averroism, humanism, the different variants of protestantism, English materialism, the French Lumières, etc., permitted the nascent bourgeoisie to have its own ideology and to transform reality.

The bourgeoisie profited from the Romanesque and Gothic ages, where a centralized state began to form itself, which peak is the absolute monarchy, notably of Louis XIV of France. The nations began to be formed in this process of development of an unified market; in France the national culture was so formed at the 17th century, whose great figures were Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Molière.

The era of the bourgeois revolution was the climax of this process of the growing bourgeoisie; the French revolution was a phenomenon of the greatest historical value. Great philosophers affirmed materialism, like de la Mettrie and Diderot.

3.

The bourgeois affirmation of materialism could not be protracted, because the bourgeoisie was prisoner of the development of Capital itself. Nevertheless, this transformation of reality through the new mode of production produced the working class.

Transforming reality i.e. matter, the working class is historically condemned to materialism; moreover, it understands the contradiction between itself and the reality which is transformed, and between itself and the bourgeoisie which exploits his work.

Therefore, the working class is the most revolutionary class of history, because it carries the understanding of the law of the contradiction, coming from the fact that it transforms reality through work (therefore the symbols of hammer and sickle).

So, with the working class, materialism reaches the level of understanding of how humans are indeed subjected to the process of reproduction of the means of life; their conceptions are only the reflect of this process.

As Karl Marx pointed out in a famous sentence: “In the social production of their life, humans enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production.

The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society — the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general.

It is not the consciousness of humans that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters.

Then begins an epoch of social revolution.”

4.

This is not all: the working class understands also the way the matter comes to transform itself. It permits to come back to a total materialism like with Epicurus, but this time with matter in movement, surpassing the idealism opened with Aristotle.

The working class, in transforming reality, acquires the understanding of reality and understands that the contradiction is the motor of movement in history, but also of all phenomena, of matter itself.

According materialism, there is neither a “cause” nor a “consequence”, there is only transformation, the movement from matter itself: the law of contradiction is universal.

Materialism is only genuine materialism when based on dialectics, which is explained by Lenin in this way: “Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical, – under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another, – why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another.”

Dialectics is universal; as Mao Zedong pointed out: “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought.”

5.

The fundamental teachings of dialectical materialism are the following:

*the law of the unity of opposites is universal, and therefore:

**nothing is indivisible

**the universe is eternal

*society and thoughts obey to the universal law of contradiction, and therefore:

**the thought is the reflect of the movement of matter

**materialism means following rationally the direction of matter

The fundamental lines of dialectical materialism are the following:

*The masses make history, the Communist Party leads them

*The general crisis of capitalism is unavoidable

*Fight fascism and the romanticist attempt of the ancient to roll back the wheel of history

*Defend the biosphere as the place of living matter

*Struggle for the generation and the application of a guiding thought in each country

*Socialist realism is the guideline for arts, Cultural Revolutions are needed in socialism

*Surpass the contradiction between intellectual and manual labor, surpass the contradiction between cities and countryside, build people’s communes!

*People’s War until communism !

=> documents in English

1st of may 2013: Maoism is the spring of our epoch !

On this first of may 2013, from Afghanistan, Belgium and France, full of revolutionary optimism, we hail all the proletarians and oppressed masses of the world, calling them to unite under the red banner of Maoism!

We call them to understand the two sides of world’s reality. The night is dark, darkness seems to envelop each aspect of reality, but in fact the dawn begins to make shine the red sun.

Yes, this is the call of the time: a new storm is coming, the new wave of the World Proletarian Revolution is emerging! Maoism is the spring of our epoch !

This is why, from Afghanistan, Belgium and France, we say:

Uphold, defend and apply Maoism !

Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought
in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

Inevitably, people’s war will develop in each country, carried by the fire in the heart of the masses, led by the Communist Party based on Marxism Leninism Maoism, forged by the guiding thought!

Inevitably, the masses of the world will unite under the red star, forming the World Socialist Republic, going to the golden Communism!

Our conception is that the world proletarian revolution is in its strategic offensive, the revolution is the main tendency, the revolutionary alternative appears each day more as unavoidable in the eyes of the world masses.

So, they ask for the historical weapon!

Therefore, as a contribution, there is a document, a project from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and France, about the principle of guiding thought, key element of dialectical materialism in each given country.

What is a guiding thought? “Revolutions give rise to a thought that guides them, which is the result of the application of the universal truth of the ideology of the international proletariat to the concrete conditions of each revolution; a guiding thought indispensable to reach victory and to conquer political power and, moreover, to continue the revolution and to maintain the course always towards the only, great goal: Communism.” (Communist Party of Peru, On Gonzalo thought)

Without a guiding thought, there can’t be no correct resolution of the contradictions in a country; without a guiding thought, there is only reformism, revisionism, a cosmopolitanism which inhibits the release of potential radicalism of the masses toward a successful People’s War.

In each country, communists must understand the development of society, the historical movement giving birth to the New Democratic Revolution, in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries, and the Socialist Revolution, in the capitalist-imperialist countries.

In each country, communists must forge the Communist Party, based on Marxism Leninism Maoism, following the thought born of the historical necessity of the time.

In each country, People’s War is the way to liberation!

It is conform to the requirements of our time. Indeed, capitalism, in its fierce form, in its last stage, is a decayed, parasitic and moribund system.

It can’t bring nothing more than more exploitation, more oppression, more injustice, more destruction of the nature of our planet, nothing more than fascism and imperialist wars.

Capitalism is the enemy of progress, of culture, of democracy, and at its imperialist stage, it is a mortal enemy for all progressive values.

The struggle against fascism is in the front of the eyes of each revolutionary.

But there is more to understand. With capitalism come also reactionary ideologies, which pretend to be “revolutionary”, but are in fact counter-revolutionary in nature, like national-socialism, peronism, chavism, castrism, etc.

They pretend to combine “nationalism” and “socialism”, and in fact that they are the servants of the most reactionary fraction of the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, and of a bureaucratic capitalist fraction in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries.

This is not all. Imperialism tries also to make penetrate the poison in the ranks of the genuine revolutionaries. This poison takes the form of the conceptions of “peace agreements”, flexibility in strategy, “post-Maoism”, etc.

We uphold Maoist orthodoxy and reject the “modernist” trends, which are nothing more than a bourgeois sabotage. We say: all the bourgeois ideologies, the rightist tendencies, must be rejected.

Without that, there can only failure, as prove it some organizations, which followed “centrist” line around the “Maoist Communist Party of Italy”, refusing the big separation with capitulation in Nepal, and so coming to the point of diffusing a liberal, bourgeois conception of what should be Maoism.

We also say: it is correct to raise an anti-centrist criticism, but dialectically it has to move forward in the elaborated affirmation of Maoism, and assume the principle of the Guiding Thought, which is the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, to the reality of each country.

A real two line struggle against centrism, a new variant of “Maoist” revisionism, necessitates a real rupture with relativism, to assume Maoism as the third stage of Marxism.

It is incorrect to criticize centrism from a point of view limited to the conceptions acquired at the second stage of Marxism, i.e. Leninism.

Therefore, we say:

Combat the liquidation of the learnings of Chairman Gonzalo and the propaganda of the right opportunist line (ROL) in Peru!

Combat armed revisionism, like carried by the left opportunist line (LOL) in Peru!

Combat “post-maoism” of Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA !

Combat centrism of the Maoist Communist Party of Italy!

Combat pseudo anti-centrism, when it doesn’t come to accept Maoism as the third stage of Marxism!

Uphold, defend and apply Maoism !

Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

And in this process will emerge unity, step by step, through the movement to the universal cause of the proletariat: Communism. The generation of the thoughts in each country is the presupposition for mutual recognition under the universal banner of Maoism.

People’s War until Communism!

Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center (Belgium)

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party (France)

=> documents in English

Did Akram Yari, the great historical Maoist of Afghanistan, founded the dialectical materialist approach of psychology? This is a very important question. There are many elements that can let us consider that it is the case. Let’s go back to a sentence written by Akram Yari:

“Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

There is the need to comment further this sentence, as its ideological luxuriousness is extreme.

Poles of opposites

As we can see, indeed, there are two poles of opposites:

Individual’s perpetuity <=====> sacrifice for the [working] class

cause of station and is a passive agent <=====> dynamic and active agent

If we look further, we can see another pairs of opposites, in the opposites:

individual <=====> [working] class

perpetuity <=====> sacrifice

and:

cause of station <=====> dynamic

passive agent <=====> active agent

We begin to have an overlook about the luxuriousness of Akram Yari’s thought. Let’s go further and see which words he used.

The etymology of the words chosen

In particular, we need to see which vocabulary he use for active / passive and cause of station / dynamic.

Akram Yari says:

« بقای فردی عامل سکون وپسیف است وازخودگذری درمقابل منافع طبقه عامل متحرک واکتیف »

For “station”, he uses “سکون”, pronounced “Sukoun”, it comes from the Arabic language, where it means “calm”; it is also used by the great master of the falsafa, Avicenna, for example in the “Danesh Namé”, the “book of science”.

For “dynamic”, he uses “متحرک”, pronounced “Mutaharek”, which comes from the Arabic « حَرَكَة”. Here it is to note that word is to take in the sense of “mobile”, i.e. dynamic in the sense that it can come to be in motion. The opposition station/dynamic is to understand as calm/mobile.

This is directly in relation with the opposition passive / active, for which Akram Yari uses the words borrowed from the English language (aktif/pasif).

And now, let’s take a last look, at the word “agent”. Akram Yari uses the word “عامل”, prononced “Aamel”. It comes from the Arabic language, and the on-line dictionary wiktionary gives us this useful explanation:

“Noun

عَامِل‎ • (ʕāmil) , plural عَوَامِل (ʕawāmil)‎

1. factor, constituent, element, causative agent
2. motive power
3. (grammar) word that governs another word”

The Falsafa: Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna

Now, let’s take a look at the teachings of Falsafa. Do we find the same poles of opposites?

Let’s take the opposition passive agent <=====> active agent.

To sum up, according the tradition of Aristotle, the second master (Al-Fârâbî) and Avicenna, there is a God which is a “motor”. Because it is “good”, it produces goodness which is already separated from God, giving birth to an “angel” which is an “intellect” (aql).

At the end of this process, there is the Earth, formed of a fusion of the low level of the “intellect” and matter. Matter is merely “passive” and formed by the intellect, which is “active”.

Therefore, what is called the “thought” does not belong to matter. It belongs to the intellect.

Let’s see now the opposition cause of station <=====> dynamic.

According the tradition of Aristotle – Al Farabi – Avicenna, matter is “calm”, in the sense of “receptive”, whereas the intellect is “mobile”, moving to the receptive matter, forming it (= gives forms to it).

According Aristotle, the wise who understands that becomes happy; according Al-Fârâbî, somebody understanding that become the philosoph-king. And according Avicenna, the individual can receive the “light beams” of the “intellect” bringing universal forms of knowledge.

The Falsafa: Averroes

In the amazing conceptions of Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, people are like computers searching the informations in a big datacenter, which would be “God”, the cables being the intellect putting informations on the screens (here: the “souls”).

But as we know, the “great commentator”, Averroes, modified this system. In the system of Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, everything comes from the top, from the intellect. The individuals are merely passive.

However, Averroes saw the contradiction: how can the eternal and unique intellect be in relation with the non-eternal and non unique individuals?

This was a major materialist step, which was quickly and harshly crushed by the representatives of Islam, whereas in Europe it became the weapon for the materialists in the struggle against the Church, giving the central impulse for the Renaissance.

How did Averroes change the Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna system?

According Averroes, the “intellect” was not only coming from outside the matter, there was also a part of the intellect directly connected to matter.

Humans were matter, but with an “intellect”, which was opened to the intellect coming from outside (from the top, from God).

The union matter – intellect of a human formed a union الاتحاد – al-ittihad, seeking for a jonction إتصا –ittisal, with the great intellect.

It was a major step, because it was a recognition of the existence of the brain.

A materialist understanding

The system of Aristotle – Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna – Averroes is a static one. But for us, the world is in movement, matter is eternal and follows a dialectical movement. So, the static aspect is opposed to the dynamic aspect, as Mao Zedong said, “the tree may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside”.

So, now, let’s go back to Akram Yari’s affirmation:

“Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

And let’s understand it properly.

What is perpetuity? It is the calm. What is the sacrifice? It is the wind. The individuals live in a given society, but this society evolves. The individual sees and feels this evolution, but without a proper approach, falls in nostalgia.

Here, Akram Yari stressed some very important points, reaching a very high level of understanding of psychology; if we take his quote, on one side, we have the non-mobile side:

“Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent”

On the other side, we have the mobile side:

“sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent”.

If we were with Avicenna, we would say: the intellect (aql) is active and “writes” the passive agent. But as we don’t use the concept of God, but of matter in eternal dialectical movement, then the world is in a process of auto-transformation.

(It is certainly why Akram Yari didn’t use the Arabic words for active / passive that used Avicenna : it would been as if the materialist system was equivalent to Avicenna’s, and this was not the case. Akram Yari probably didn’t knowt Averroes, Titan of the falsafa but largely unknown in the Muslim world.)

Therefore, this transformation is the real active agent. And with Averroes, we know that the individuals are not only like a receptor, they can emit also: humans are turned in the direction of the intellect from the top, but also in the direction of the matter they’re connected to.

So, Akram Yari explains what Averroes, Kant, Lenin observed: people do no think at a greater level than themselves, except some few people understanding the whole system which put everything in motion.

The “thought” of the humans is a reflection, it is late, because not turned in the direction of the general motion. To understand it properly, let’s come back to the opposites presented by Akram Yari.

Individual and sacrifice, a dialectical movement and so, intern

We said that the opposites were:

individual <=====> [working] class

perpetuity <=====> sacrifice

But in fact, this is not correct, it should be:

individual <=====> sacrifice

perpetuity <=====> [working] class

Why that? Because it is the class which is against perpetuity, the class carries communism, which is abolishing the old society.

The contradiction is intern: the class belongs to the society.

And the other contradiction is between the individual, turned in the direction of itself, whereas the sacrifice shows that he turned itself to the general movement of matter.

The contradiction is intern: the sacrifice is the one of the individual itself.

The basis for an understanding of the psychology of the individual

So, the contradiction is intern. But what are the forms of this contradiction?

Let’s, for this, understand what Akram Yari said just before the sentence we quoted:

“the basic principle of an individual’s life is in a superficial manner, nothing more than keeping owns material existence till death, but the situation of life, meaningfully, its social manner, conducts the survival and perpetuity of an individual towards transforming to a contradiction: from one side, material survival is the basis for being alive, but from other aspect, giving sacrifices in favor of the class, is the necessary initiative for individual growth and development of human society.”

When Akram Yari speaks of the “social manner”, the fact of “keeping owns material existence till death”, it is like when Averroes speaks of the “intellect” present in matter and not turned to the great intellect (Averroes calls is the “material intellect”).

And as the contradiction is in society itself, in the reproduction of the means of life (= the mode of production), then the contradiction is in the human directly also. Individual and sacrifice forms a contradiction, but a contradiction not between the human and an intellect as in the religious conception of Aristotle – Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna – Averroes.

It is indeed a contradiction in the human itself. This is why Karl Marx explained us, in its Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843):

“The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.

Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself.”

Akram Yari gave the basis for psychology

In explaining that the individual is in a situation which is passive and non-mobile, Akram Yari upholds the dialectical materialist point of view that the individual thought is the reflect of the movement of matter.

Nevertheless, as the thought is gray matter, is in the brain, and as the brain is matter, the brain is a part of the movement of matter.

Therefore, the individual is in a contradiction. This contradiction is the basis for the dialectical materialist approach of psychology.

The mind of the individuals is at the same time the tool to understand the direct reality of the individual, but also the global reality of the world. This comes from the natural reality of the brain.

This opens a whole field of understanding the individuals. It helps to understand the tension between the global aspect of the class and the reality of the individuals, which are in the class, but also turned, in a relative way, in a direct reality part of the reproduction of the means of living.

=> documents in English

When we look at history, when we see that life is matter in movement, then it is inevitable that we can see a contradiction between the search by each life of its own preservation and the necessity to put its own life in danger in the struggle for progress.

On one side, the general trend of revolution pushes the individual to action. On the other side, the individual is already living, he has a family, he has friends, a love relationship can have begun, kids are maybe already there, etc.

There is so a great tension between the life of an individual which is propelled in one direction, with a culture of its own, individual making project for the future, and the necessity of the revolution.

Of course, genuine revolutionaries are aware of this and all their life is managed so to conform to the necessity of the revolution: this the principle of the professional revolutionaries, like Lenin formulated it.

So, we have to raise the question of the adequacy of one individual’s life and its duty. This is a contradiction. We can see it easily in the process of construction and development of the Communist Party; we can see how people fail, because they are not able to transform themselves. This is also what Gonzalo meant with the question of necessity and historical chance for what makes an individual act like this or like that.

There is a tension between the tendency of the individuals to see in communism the only path for progress in general, and their tendency for self-protection, which must go, if not transformed, in direction of the illusory protection by the past, the reaction, when in fact transformation can’t be avoided.

Therefore, the Communist Party must always elevate its level, so that individuals can directly see that their own development is linked with the progress of communism. No life can be improved in a sense that goes against communism.

And life following the general tendency to communism can only progress, gaining elements for its advance in the cultural fields, finding the positive elements in society, its own life, being able to stay authentic, etc.

So, to sum up, a part of matter can’t anyway go in a direction opposed to the general movement of matter; it is the principle of the universe in onion. All the layers of the universe are in transformation.

Here how the great Maoist of Afghanistan, Akram Yari, explains to us this contradiction:

“…the basic principle of an individual’s life is in a superficial manner, nothing more than keeping owns material existence till death, but the situation of life, meaningfully, its social manner, conducts the survival and perpetuity of an individual towards transforming to a contradiction: from one side, material survival is the basis for being alive, but from other aspect, giving sacrifices in favor of the class, is the necessary initiative for individual growth and development of human society.

Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

The grandiose understanding by Akram Yari shows us here that there a passive aspect, and a dynamic aspect, which means that the main aspect is the general aspect, not the individual aspect. It means that the trend which wins is the dynamic aspect.

This is dialectical: as the individual is a component of matter in general, if the system moves, it moves also. And if the individual understands that, he can accompany the general movement of matter. Indeed, he carries then the thought.

And that is why Akram Yari explains that:

“It crucial for a better existence and for a better life, to give sacrifice, because, it is only in this from work, in the frame work of sacrificing for the sake of class, being fully pledged in favor of the class, and neglecting one’s own interest, and being in favor of the class that leads to a better life. It is then possible for an individual to wage a struggle for guaranteeing his/her real eternity.”

This looks like poetry for people not used to the laws of dialectical materialism. But if we look at Engels, didn’t he win his “eternity” by helping Karl Marx and the foundation of Marxism, instead of only “living” as a bourgeois as he could have done?

Basically, this is the question touching every individual: should it try “self-protection”, which can only be an illusion as the past is always weaker, or should it dare the new, which is weak but always stronger, and conform to the general movement of matter in transformation?

We all know people that faced a choice, and that followed the opportunist line, instead of the revolutionary one, for a reason of comfort, exactly like somebody can pretend to negate its own love, because it is not in adequacy with its own bourgeois career project.

But let’s conclude with this masterful lesson of Akram Yari on dialectics, here about the nature of revolutionary politics:

“What form takes the principal work in struggling for the emancipation of the humans in a class society? That form of work, which is really effective in liberation and emancipation of humans. This form of working is a revolutionary politics.

It means that the revolutionary politics of interests of the class at whole, while in progress, and within progression, can break the chains of bondage of the humans {from oppression} and it leads the human beings towards emancipation and liberation. This is the reason why politics is prior to all issues.

This means political aid is the most non-private thing and most unbiased one that an individual can offer to other ones. But all knows that in a class society, there is nothing unbiased, so the politics also cannot be unbiased, and cannot be found unbiased in a class society.

But what is the political bias? Political bias, it is itself a contradiction: from one aspect, it contains all private biases and {represents} each of them, and from another aspect, political bias does not reflect private and personal bias.

Political bias is an image, is an abstraction and contains too much parts of personal or private biases, and contemporarily, does not represent private bias of any individual, and does not fulfill any private bias.

As is the revolutionary proletarian politics the negation of private bias each individual of the class, at the same time, it is the abstracted form and the integration of the whole biases of the individuals [/members] of a class.”

How useful are the lessons of Akram Yari, carried by the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)!

=> documents in English

The comrades of Bangladesh have translated in English some documents of Siraj Sikder, which is a great contribution to the history of the International Communist Movement, but also to the active field of ideology which is ours.

In particular, the importance of the document called “On some slogans”, from January 1971, is to stress, because in it Siraj Sikder expresses the very fundamental approach of dialectical materialism.

Let’s see here in what it consists.

1.The affirmation of the law of contradiction

Siraj Sikder understood that each nation was build through the development of economy in a concrete situation, and that this was to consider to understand how the social changes take place.

Correctly, he points out:

“Dialectical materialism teaches us “The fundamental cause of development of a thing is not external but internal. It lies in the contradictoriness within the thing”. It further teaches us, “Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society”.

That means, the basic reason why independent democratic East Bengal is the end result of social development of East Bengal lies inside the society of East Bengal. This is dialectical materialism.”

2.Slogans as expression of the thought

Nevertheless, Siraj Sikder wouldn’t be a great leader if he understood only the basic law of contradiction. He understood also the principle of direction.

Here, Siraj Sikder precises us the question of the slogans as the reflection of the necessity of East Bengal’s development.

“Proletariat as class is minority at present East Bengal society and even it will remain so till certain stage in socialist society too.

In that situation, how proletariat will lead whole masses of the country? “First, by putting forward basic political slogans that accord with the course of historic development and by putting forward slogans of action for each stage of development and each major turn of events in order to translate these political slogans into reality.” [Mao, Selected Works, Vol-I, P-274]

So, in order to lead the whole masses of East Bengal society, East Bengal proletariat has to make political strategy and tactics corresponding to the historic development of East Bengal on the one hand, and strategic and tactical slogans as reflection of respective strategy and tactics on the other, and they have to implement those as well.

In this context, they must study and analyze whether or not the slogans raised by different forms of revisionists of East Bengal properly reflect East Bengal society and its development.”

Even if a minority, the working-class, as it is at the avant-garde, indicates the correct way.

3.Matter is dynamic and this dynamism has its own law

So, slogans are expression – through the thought which formulates them – of the necessities of the movement of the social reality, i.e. of matter.

Here is what Siraj Sikder says:

“Dialectical materialism teaches us – matter exists independent of our consciousness.

Matter is primary while consciousness is the reflection of matter in our brain through five perceptual organs. Consciousness is created from matter and is secondary.

It further teaches us, matter is dynamic and this dynamism has its own law.

If there are many contradictions in process of development of a matter, in that case each contradiction has separate existence, they have mutual relations too and matter develops periodically through solution of principal contradiction.

This is the reflection of the law of development of mater that has been included in the law of dialectical materialism and principal contradiction.”

4.The materialization of the program

All this perfect understanding of Siraj Sikder makes him say an affirmation which is non-sense for revisionism and reformism:

“The People’s Republic will materialize the great program of East Bengal Workers Movement”.

Indeed, according dialectical materialism, this sentence means that the realization of the people’s republic is the product of the thought, thought who carried out the synthesis of the necessities of the matter, producing by this the great program.

In the logic of revisionism and reformism, which is idealist, “demands” produce a movement which makes a program. These “ideas” should be “accepted” and bring a “revolution”.

In fact, a revolution doesn’t happen like this. Revolution is the product of matter in movement, and there is a dialectic movement with the thought. The thought reflects this movement of matter, and dialectically, it throws forces in this movement, to accomplish the qualitative leap.

This is why Siraj Sikder raises the importance of the slogans, expression of the necessities of the movement of matter… And why the revolution will materialize the road map synthesized by the avant-garde.

=> documents in English

In the article « Gonzalo and the question of guiding thought, thought in development, People’s War« , we saw that Gonzalo spoke of necessity and historical chance when dealing about the question of why an individual, and not another, carries the thought.

Here is what he said, precisely:

« The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. 

None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility. »

It is of importance to note that here, Gonzalo alludes to what Engels said. It is important to understand that, because Engels spoke about thought in general, and in particular of the “great men” and their political role in history.

Indeed, if we follow Gonzalo, “thought” is not passive, it is always directly political, revolutionary.

Here is what Engels said, in a letter to Borgius, written in London on January 25, 1894 :

“Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined, given society.

Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and appears under the forms of accident.

The necessity which here asserts itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity.

This is where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found.

That Napoleon, just that particular Corsican, should have been the military dictator whom the French Republic, exhausted by its own war, had rendered necessary, was an accident; but that, if a Napoleon had been lacking, another would have filled the place, is proved by the fact that the man has always been found as soon as he became necessary: Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc.

While Marx discovered the materialist conception of history, Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians up to 1850 are the proof that it was being striven for, and the discovery of the same conception by Morgan proves that the time was ripe for it and that indeed it had to be discovered.

So with all the other accidents, and apparent accidents, of history. The further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run in a zig-zag.

So also you will find that the axis of this curve will approach more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt with.”

It is important to note this allusion of Gonzalo. Nevertheless, politically and also because it is useful, we have to quote Karl Marx. A revisionist thesis which comes often is that Engels added some personal conceptions to Marxism.

This assertion is wrong, and let’s quote here Karl Marx himself, explaining the same concept of thought.

In a letter from September 1843, written in Kreuzenach, for Arnold Ruge, our great teacher explains:

“The reform of consciousness consists entirely in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in arousing it from its dream of itself, in explaining its own actions to it.

Like Feuerbach’s critique of religion, our whole aim can only be to translate religious and political problems into their self-conscious human form.

Our program must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form.

It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality.”

What is the consciousness of the world? Of course, it is the thought.

=> documents in English

To say that a thought is necessary, in each country as synthesis of social reality, to make the revolution, is certainly absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it is useful to make some precisions about the formation of the thought.

As the Afghani comrades pointed out, a thought like Gonzalo thought is a really high developped thought; it is a thought which managed to develop itself until the universal aspect of People’s War.

But some thoughts may exist without being that developped. A thought may also be carried through different steps. This has to do with the fact that the thought is the reflect of the social development of reality.

If we take a look at Gonzalo’s interview given in 1988, we can find two explanations helping us in this question of the levels of the thought.

Gonzalo says:

“It is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Peruvian revolution that has produced Gonzalo Thought. 

Gonzalo Thought has been forged in the class struggle of our people, mainly the proletariat, in the incessant struggles of the peasantry, and in the larger framework of the world revolution, in the midst of these earthshaking battles, applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of our country. 

Previously we called it the Guiding Thought. 

And if today the Party, through its Congress, has sanctioned the term Gonzalo Thought, it’s because a leap has been made in the Guiding Thought through the development of the people’s war. 

In sum, Gonzalo Thought is none other than the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality. This means that it is principal specifically for our Party, for the people’s war and for the revolution in our country, and I want to emphasize that. 

But for us, looking at our ideology in universal terms, I emphasize once again, it is Maoism that is principal.”

We find also this, in the interview:

“In Engels’ view, it is necessity that generates leaders, and a top leader, but just who that is is determined by chance, by a set of specific conditions that come together at a particular place and time. In this way, in our case too, a Great Leadership [Jefatura] has been generated. This was first acknowledged in the Party at the Expanded National Conference of 1979. 

But this question involves another basic question that can’t be overlooked and needs to be emphasized: there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be. 

The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. 

None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility.”

Here, Gonzalo explains two things interesting us for the question of the level:

* first, there was a guiding thought, that knew a leap (with People’s War);

* then, there is this very important sentence:  “there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be.”

So, we can make a hierarchy of the development of the thought:

1.Applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of a country gives birth to the guiding thought.

2.This guiding thought knows different stages.

3.At its highest stage, it knows a final leap with people’s war, elevating itself to the question of the universal.

Here, we must stress the importance of the fact that Gonzalo explains that to build a direction – and without a direction, there is nothing practically, all efforts are vain – there is the absolute need for a “body of thought”.

And he tells us also that this body of thought must not be really or fully developed to already exist. It can exist at a low level of development.

There are two aspects. First, this is all a reminder of the correct lessons of Kautsky and Lenin on the absolute need for a theory, a direction, based on the correct ideology. This is the correct point of view opposed to all liquidationist trends (“communism of council”, revolutionary syndicalism, spontaneism even disguised as “Maoism”, etc.).

The second aspect is that it gives an indication to the first tasks that communists must do. In a given country, to make the revolution the communists need people’s war, and to have people’s war they need the developed thought.

To have this developed thought, they need a guiding thought, and to have this guiding thought, they need to forge it.

Without this, they have nothing. That’s the central point: the forging of the thought, of the correct ideology in a given country, is the main battle – without this, there can be no development of communism.

=> documents in English

What is the revolutionary path? Is it to manage the transformation of reality, to require it to be transformed in a revolutionary way? Or is it to follow the revolutionary nature of reality itself, to correspond to it?

The question raised here is the one of the nature of dialectical materialism. Either reality exists “outside us” and, in a way, we can choose to transform it, or the contradiction is inside reality and we are a part of reality, transforming ourselves in an adequate manner.

This is a very important question, the basic question of the nature of materialism, of reality. And it plays a very important role also – or even a central role – nowadays in the debates in the International Communist Movement about Maoism.

To understand that we need to see the main ideological proposals that exist. We can see that these two conceptions are expressed and are the source of the main differences.

The main Maoist conceptions nowadays

There are nowadays four main Maoist conceptions. Here is a short presentation.

a) The avakianist conception

This conception is that revolution is not something coming “mechanically” from reality, but the best choice of humanity. Communism is the best “option” for a rational thought. There is no scientific affirmation, only a will, a choice, an option. Communism won’t be established unless humanity “chooses” it.

Carried by Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA), it was accepted by all the organizations involved in different ways in the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement – RIM (Sarbedaran of Iran, Revolutionary Communists and TKP(ML) Maoist Merkezi in Germany i.e. Berlin, etc.).

b) The Co-RIM second generation conception

As the avakianists abandoned the RIM, this structure came under command of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Maoist Communist Party of Italy and the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey North Kurdistan.

The conception put forward by these organizations is that Maoism is the science of revolution. Nevertheless, Maoism gives mainly the main indications; practical flexibility is needed because of the numerous situations. Therefore, good choices must be made, with a flexible mind and there is no place for dogmatic views.

c) The intermediary conception

Some organizations rejected clearly the avakianist conception as idealist and the Co-RIM second generation as opportunist.

Therefore, they produced anti-Centrist calls, against the Nepali betrayal at the beginning, which brought them in ideological conflict with the organizations defending the “flexible approach”.

The understanding of Maoism of these organizations is quite different, but the common basis is that Maoism is the science of revolution with principles that are not “flexible”.

d) The conception of Gonzalo – two interpretations

According to Gonzalo, communism is unavoidable and therefore thoughts are produced, synthesizing a national reality with dialectical materialism and being a guiding light for the revolutionaries. In this sense, a thought is all-powerful.

But there can be and there are two interpretations of this all-powerful feature.

a) either this thought is all powerful because it shows the way and gives the correct methods; then following the thought means victory;

b) or this thought is all powerful because it corresponds to the movement of reality; being conform to the movement of matter, and expression of it, the thought is all power full, because conform.

The position of the MPP and its consequence

It is very clear that the Peru People’s Movement, generated organism of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) for the work abroad, upholds the first conception mentioned about the Gonzalo conception (the thought shows the way and gives the correct methods).

For the MPP, Maoism must be “put in command”, it is spoken of “imposing Maoism” ; some organizations near from the MPP call to “accelerate” the constitution or reconstitution of the Party in their own country, and there is also the call for two-line struggle.

The CPMLM of France does not accept this conception. Two-line struggle is not a “choice” but a practice which is made when in the reality itself the conditions exist for it. It is not possible neither to “accelerate” or “brake” the revolution; reality is one and no “choice” is possible.

The consequence of this difference can be seen in the attitude about Nepali revisionism. When Gonzalo was captured by the reactionary Peruvian army, the PCP considered itself as the red fraction within the RIM.

The MPP maintained this in the years following. The MPP spoke for long of “comrade Avakian”, trying not to criticize him openly directly, and the same happened with “comrade Prachanda”. When in 2007, for the CPMLM of France, Prachanda was already considered openly serving modern revisionism and the line of an imperialist peace agreement, the MPP criticizes him but was still speaking of “comrade Prachanda”.

The reason for the position of the MPP, that can be summed up with “no open criticism until the other decides a split”, is a direct product of the subjectivist conception of “managing matter”.

The MPP tried to “manage” the reality of the RIM, whereas the inner contradiction of the RIM was absolutely not considered, thus permitting the avakianists to organize and then the centrists to organize.

It is so to note that the MPP signed numerous documents with the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, participating in numerous “conferences”, for example in Paris, organized by the Maoist Communist of Italy.

The position of the CE-PCR and its consequence

In the last weeks, the PCE-CR – Reconstruction Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador called for two line struggle and criticized sharply some organizations of what we called here the intermediary conception.

The paradox is that the PCE-CR criticized them for not recognizing Gonzalo’s teachings, whereas on the other side the PCE-CR does not criticize the centrists, who clearly reject Gonzalo’s teachings!

The reason for that is that the PCE-CR seems to move in the same subjectivist conception of “managing reality”. Its call for “two line struggle” exists as nothing would have happened in the RIM those last 15 years.

It is as the RIM would exist, with problems – the PCE-CR and the MPP certainly not agree with Centrism – but that the anti-centrists would be “outsiders”, with an ideological level “under” the value of the RIM.

Therefore, with such a vision, the PCE-CR can come and make a subjectivist call of two line struggle with its own criteria – even if the criteria are of the greatest value, they do not correspond to the question of the moment, they are not articulated politically.

The positive example of the first of may 2009

When there was the betrayal of the Nepali revolution, in 2005-2006, few organizations explained it openly and express that it was a terrible revisionist danger. Among them, there was the Communist Worker Union (Marxist Leninist Maoist) of Colombia.

On the first of May 2009, the joint document called “The Imperialist Capitalism is in Crisis – Long Live Socialism and Communism!”, signed by the Union Obrera Comunista (MLM) – [Colombia], the Marxist Leninist Maoist Communist Party – [France] and the Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun expressed in a correct manner:

“The world is mature for the revolution! (…) And not only to resist, also to remove with the revolution all the relations of oppression and exploitation, as the intensification of social contradictions puts on the agenda the question of political power and revolutionary violence of the masses, and its resolution by the People’s War which – today – is advancing in a victorious way in countries like India, is re-appearing in Peru, and is getting ready in others, in agreement with the level of organization of the proletariat’s party (…).

And with this reality showing a luminous prospect, the proletarians in the world must know a bitter truth : in Nepal, where the victorious advance of People’s War and the working and peasant masses were about to conquer power in all the country, the direction of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), signed a peace agreement with the bourgeoisie and the landlords with the support of the imperialists, dismantling people’s power in the bases of support and confining the People’s Liberation Army under the supervision of the UN.

A renunciation of the revolutionary path which constitutes in the facts a treason of the revolution of New Democracy in Nepal and the World Proletarian Revolution, producing in the International Communist Movement a great confusion to the point that the RIM – Revolutionary Internationalist Movement remained tied up and quiet confronted to treason and to phenomenons which, as the crisis, are of decisive importance in the world situation and the international struggle of the proletariat (…).

Long live the red First of May, International Day of the Working Class!

The Imperialist Capitalism is in crisis – Long live Socialism and Communism!

Down with the Revisionist Treason in Nepal!

Go forward in the Construction of Communist Parties and in the direction of New International Conference of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists!

May 1st 2009”

We find here four points: supporting the People’s War in India, greeting the People’s War in Peru, rejecting the imperialist peace agreement in Nepal, calling for a New MLM International Conference.

Was this correct? Indeed – it was not “managing” reality, but corresponding to it. It was not subjectivism or will in command, it was a synthetic understanding of reality, and an expression of reality.

Managing or corresponding to the transformation of reality? A major question of Maoism

Communism is unavoidable, because matter is eternal and obeys to the dialectical law of transformation. Communists are humans corresponding ideologically to the new, being a part of the tendency triumphing over the past.

From this conception come the theory of reflection, the conception of the thought, socialist realism in the art (i.e. typical representation corresponding to the new reality being born, assuming the heritage of the past).

Mao Zedong, in explaining that nothing is indivisible, permitted to understand this in the most perfect way.

Mao Zedong permitted us to go over the mistakes of our great comrade Stalin, that moved towards the idealist approach of changing matter from “outside”, forgetting the inner contradiction (mistakes producing the “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature” in the 1948, opening the way to idealism and revisionism).

The Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution (GPCR) was launched not only against the counter revolutionaries, it was also there to generalize the conception that nothing is indivisible.

All over the world, thoughts were produced, following the call of the GPCR: Gonzalo in Peru, Akram Yari in Afghanistan, Siraj Sikder in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in Turkey…

And these thoughts were not an idealist “Mao Zedong thought” pretending to change reality with the revolutionary “will”, there were the best product of Mao Zedong’s understanding of Marxism-Leninism, brought to a new stage.

It was not a question of “managing” reality, but to be conform to it! That is why subjectivism must be rejected; even the best revolutionary “will” converges with opportunism because it is not able to follow reality and its incessant transformation.

Adequacy must be our great concern, we must always correspond to the transformation of reality.

=> documents in English

January 2013

Today, the International Communist Movement faces many challenges, like the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, the tendency to imperialist war and the sharpness of imperialist powers concurrence, climate change.

And because of the uneven development existing in the International Communist Movement, there are many differences about how to understand reality; there are indeed no sufficient unity, no sufficient exchanges among the International Communist Movement.

According to us, this situation must change, in fact it is already changing, the requirements rise, the world masses want answer, they want a way to shine in front of them. They are hungry for a way to break their chains, to build a new society, far from exploitation, oppression and decadence.

We must answer this: the level of ideological, theoretical and cultural exchanges among communists must be developed. This means building an international platform, a democratic platform for the communists, which would be a step for the ideological unity in the future.

Nevertheless, such a platform can exist if it really corresponds to the requirements of the masses, which is the World Proletarian Revolution, to build the world socialist Republic, bringing us to Communism.

That is why, according to us, to understand what is happening and to transform reality, we need science, dialectical materialism, which means at our epoch: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, applied to each national reality, because each nation is the framework of social transformation.

At our epoch, Maoism, as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, synthesis of the ideology of working class, can only exist as a guiding thought in each country, forging the avant-garde in correspondence with the inner contradiction of the country, unleashing People’s War. In this process, all the People’s War unite and combine themselves, forging the path to the World Proletarian Revolution.

Because of the uneven development, thoughts have been developed in some countries, like Gonzalo in Peru, Akram Yari in Afghanistan, Siraj Sikder in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in Turkey.

These thoughts must be studied, compared also with others thoughts that may be appeared, like Charu Mazumdar and Kanai Chatterjee in India, Ulrike Meinhof in Germany, Alfred Klahr in Austria. In each country, communists must study and understand if and how a thought may have been developed.

We know that there are Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organisations that did not understand this question of the thought, or that may even reject it. It was and is historical understandable, it comes from the law of uneven development.

We are so fully aware of it but we think the question is unavoidable, and that history will make these organisations either jump to the thought, or fail. In our eyes, genuine communists can only recognize the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, who synthesized the lessons of the Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution, summing it up in the slogan: “People’s War until Communism!”

For this reason, we are for an open, democratic discussion among Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organisations wanting the International Communist Movement to move forward.

We are for unity, we are not afraid neither of discussions nor of a common struggle against counter-revolution, capitulation and revisionist ideologies like Prachandism and Avakianism.

Comrades, let’s dare unity. Let’s build an international platform, to show our spirit of unity, to be able to exchange about our experiences and our lessons, to show to the world masses that, despite the uneven development, despite our differences, we are guided by the same red star, we are full aware of our duty.

Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan
(Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

CPMLM Bangladesh

CPMLM France

=> documents in English

Joint Declaration, December 2012

THE INTERNATIONAL UNITY OF THE COMMUNISTS REQUIRES THE DEFEAT OF AVAKIANIST REVISIONISM, CENTRISM AND ALL FORMS OF REVISIONISM!

A year ago, nine parties and organizations communist of several countries proclaimed in a joint statement: The International Unity of Communists requires the Defeat of revisionism and centrism! [1]

Once again they denounced the revisionist betrayal of the revolution in Nepal, they recognized the collapse the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement as leading center, rejecting the revisionist theory of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA that they led that movement to bankruptcy.

They called the Marxist Leninist Maoists to fight for the international unity of the communists demolishing the false revisionist theories and eclectic positions of centrism, tracing a deep demarcation between Marxism and opportunism across the general line of the international communist movement as a firm basis for unity to build the new International.

Following that correct line today in this new birth anniversary of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, teacher in an irreconcilable struggle against opportunism, we denounce the so called Avakian’s new synthesis, adopted in 2008 by the Revolutionary Communist Party, United States (RCP,USA) as a form of revisionism, the main danger in our time for the unity of the International Communist Movement.

It is a revisionist line even more dangerous than the revisionism prachandist, so far as it presents itself as “A more radical vision of communism.”

According to the RCP,USA: “In philosophy and method, the new synthesis, in an important sense, is founded the Marxism of manner more global on its scientific roots”. In the own words of Avakian, referring to the whole experience of the International Communist Movement: « I also thoroughly analyzed the errors, as well as the weak points as far as conception and method that led to those mistakes. On that basis, I have forged a cohesive theoretical framework, integral and global, that is, a synthesis. Although this development certainly arises from what have come before and after of it, also implies, as crucial element, genuine break with the conception and prior experience, whereby we call it a new synthesis.”

It is a dangerous revisionist theory that abandons the Marxist dialectical materialist method, disowns the historical experience of the proletariat in the struggle for socialism and communism and repudiates the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, touchstone to differentiate between Marxism and opportunism.

It is a dangerous revisionist theory because it appears as an overcoming of the alleged errors of Marxism and as his successor, being in reality a break with Marxism Leninism Maoism, a post theory Marxist Leninist Maoist – new form of revisionism with the old and rotten opportunist content.

The « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA has abandoned the scientific method of thinking of revolutionary Marxism to embrace the subjective idealism, ignoring the determinism in the motion of matter, where capitalism in its dying phase imperialist is determined historically to be replaced by socialism throughout the world. Rejects the decisive nature of the internal contradictions of society and the revolutionary processes in different countries, which leads to ignoring the real forces of the revolution and to the impotence to draw a strategy and tactics revolutionary. 

The subjective idealist method of “new synthesis” carried to its followers to despise the objective existence of the proletariat, today only consistently revolutionary class, reducing it to a mere ideal, that in the best of cases would be represented by the petty bourgeois intelligentsia, the social basis of interest to the “new synthesis” for which the proletariat has been “reified” by Marxism since Marx himself, and especially by the Communist International. Consequently, the necessity of the proletarian party is a mere formality, being diluted in “a movement for revolution” indoctrinated in the commandments of the “new synthesis”.

The « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA is a dangerous revisionist theory that under the pretext of not “Cling religiously to all previous experience and the theory and the method associated with it” waives to the rich experience of struggle of the world proletariat, discarding the glorious past of the Communist International and the construction of socialism in Russia and China. Thus renounces to Marxist Leninist Maoist theory, since “The theory is the experience of the workers movement in all countries, taken in its general appearance.” [2]

Hence, the RCP,USA divide the history of the International Communist Movement in a first stage that starts with the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels and ends with the defeat of the proletariat in China in 1976; and a second stage corresponding to the “new synthesis” and “new manifesto” of the RCP, USA, presented as superior to the old Marxist and the old Manifesto considered lapsed. [3]

Not by chance the prachandist revisionism and revisionism avakianist coincide in declaring insufficient to Marxism Leninism Maoism to resolve the problems of the revolution in the 21st Century, and hence they declare groundless the Leninist theory on imperialism, capitalism in decomposition beyond which only follows the world proletarian revolution and socialism. Against Marxism of the era of imperialism, the “new synthesis” of the RCP,USA revives and dusts old revisionist theories related with the ultra-imperialism Kautskyist; takes the bourgeois wordiness of “globalization”; rises submissive against the Yankee imperialism before whose supposed invincibility, the proletariat and peoples of the world can only resist.

Against the inevitable development of the class struggle towards the dictatorship of the proletariat and against the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China that taught in theory and in practice the need of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat affirming it as the cornerstone of Marxism, the « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA opposes the bourgeois theory of “right to dissent” taken from reactionary John Stuart Mill and presented in a refined version of the prachandist “multiparty democracy” to give the bourgeoisie under socialism complete freedom, media propaganda and free political organization.

For the « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA, under socialism the proletarian dictatorship is just a “buzzword” as Kautsky called it, where there is only « people » and not classes in struggle antagonistic, and the continuation of the revolution is reduced to fantasies and intellectual exercises of petit bourgeois while the workers and peasants remain wage slaves appendages of machines and earth. [4]

The “new synthesis” ostentatiously presented by the RCP,USA as “the communism of the new phase,” is actually an abjuration of revolutionary Marxism a betrayal of the Declaration itself of MRI in 1993 Live Marxism Leninism Maoism!; is revisionism post Marxist Leninist Maoist unsuitable to lead the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, and main danger of the international unity of the true Marxist Leninist Maoists forced to wage a ruthless struggle to destroy their arguments, demonstrating its reactionary character, discover its ties to old ideas bourgeois, and its identity with the stale theories opportunistic.

We reaffirm the validity of Marxism Leninism Maoism as the science of the world proletarian revolution. We defend the legacy of our teachers Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao; the historical experience of the international workers movement, learning from their victories and defeats in the great battles to build the organization International of the Communist, to lead the masses to the triumph of the Revolution of New Democracy and Socialism, and to build the new State of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. We reaffirm our unwavering determination to fight for the unity in a new Communist International based in Marxism Leninism Maoism absolutely necessary to lead the world proletarian revolution to victory over the imperialist system.

AGAINST THE REVISIONIST “NEW SYNTHESIS” OF THE RCP: LONG LIVES MARXISM LENINISM MAOISM!

TOWARDS A NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST BASED ON MARXISM LENINISM MAOISM: FORWARD¡

December 26, 2012

Arab Maoists

Centre Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – Belgique

Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español

Grupo Reconstrucción – PERUCRPM – Estado Español

Organización Comunista Bandera Roja – Estado Español

Partido Comunista de Ecuador – Sol Rojo

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá

Partido Comunista de Perú – Comité Base Mantaro Rojo

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

———-

[1]Joint Declaration signed by Arab Maoists, Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español, Parti Communiste Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – France, Partido Comunista del Ecuador Sol Rojo, Partido Comunista del Perú – Base Mantaro Rojo, Partido Comunista Popular Maoísta – Argentina, Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá, Proletarian Party of East Bengal (PBSP) (Maoist Unity Group)/Bangladesh, Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia.

[2] J. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism.

[3] See “Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage”.

[4] See Critical thinking and the search for truth: Today and in Socialist Society – Raymond Lotta.

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On November 24th, 2012, there was an international conference in Hamburg, Germany, to hail and support the Indian revolution.

Comrades of various Maoist organizations have expressed in a statement that it was not possible to support this conference, because many of those who promote it are “centrists”, i.e. people who have in the past supported Prachanda, without making afterwards their self-criticism .

The comrades ask: how is it possible to support the People’s War in India, when the People’s War in Nepal has not been supported in a proper way? We obviously share this right position of our comrades.

But, in the end, we think that the substance was not seen – first, India, in itself. India is a country of many peoples, various nations live together with many cultural productions for millennia.

From the progressive ideas of Jainism or the Bishnoi concerning nature and animals to the civlizated courtesy of Islam, from the rich cultural events of Hinduism to the historical contributions in philosophy, astronomy, mathematics … India is a country-continent, which has brought, brings and will bring a lot to humanity.

It is not possible to understand the developments in India, without having a complete overview, without understanding exactly culture, nation, ideology, relgion, mode of production. And in fact it’s true for every country, when dialectical materialism is used.

The problem here of course is that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has a pragmatic line, in the tradition of the 1990s, in addition to the TKP / ML in Turkey and the CP of the Philippines; the People’s War is seen as a method and the necessity of thought is clearly rejected.

Therefore the CPI (M) negates – but also the TKP / ML and the CP of the Philippines – the very important question of international ideological struggle. Because of this also, since the 1970s, there was a trend towards a tilt to militarism.

It does not, of course, change the importance of People’s War in India, the heroism of the masses. But if one looks at the history of Maoism in India, one can only be astonished by the weakness of the international contributions in the field of ideology, politics, culture and art. There is a discrepancy, which comes from the line of “retreat” of the CPI (M).

There is another issue of great importance to dialectical materialism: the relationship between semi-feudal and semi-colonialism. The formation of bureaucratic capitalism rests on feudalism, on the absence of the possibility for the national bourgeoisie to develop itself.

The position of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is also not clear; one does not understand what is the main contradiction, semi-feudalism or semi-colonialism. In the background there is the ideological opposition, in the 1970s, between the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) of Charu Mazumdar and the “Maoist Communist Centre” of Kanai Chatterjee.

Even if these two revolutionary traditions have united with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the complexity of this issue was never explained. This is a shortcoming, and it brings to the absence of clarity.

From then on, there are people – not our comrades, of course – which use the People’s War in India in a opportunistic way. These people sometimes speak of millions of people in the People’s War, or of the third of the country under the control of the people’s power, they exaggerate everything, they have a militarist-opportunistic standpoint, many of these people had the day before “support” the People’s War in Peru, yesterday the People’s War in Nepal and today the People’s War in India.

For example, it is unfortunate that the poster of the India Conference uses the Hammer and Sickle symbol in the version of the PCP. It is completely incorrect.

And these people avoid to understand the merits, the contributions that the Communist Party of Peru has done, by presenting the “People’s War » as a pragmatic method, instead of explaining it as a dialectical product of the construction of the revolutionary thought in a particular country.

“People’s War is not a “method” or a style of work, it is the material production of the thought, i.e. the revolutionary confrontation with the old state and the reactionary ruling classes, according a strategy based on the thought, on the revolutionary synthesis made in the practical study of a country.

When the genuine revolutionary thought is produced, it seeks confrontation with the old society, at all levels. People’s War doesn’t mean only armed struggle, but also the cultural-ideological negation of the values of the old society.” (CPMLM France: CPMLM: Gonzalo’s teaching: from thought to People’s War)

Solidarity with the People’s War in India is so necessary, but often mistakenly India is seen as an abstract revolution, there where People’s War must be understood as a universal – therefore also the influence of non-MLM forces in the “support”.

And also often “people’s war” is seen, rather than understanding India’s reality – which brings to cosmopolitism, to the pragmatic understanding of People’s War, to abstract “Maoism”. The support of the People’s War in India is counter-productive, if it doesn’t lead to the construction of the thought in its own country, because there is then avoiding the real work, the dialectical relationships in the international reality not correctly understood.

It is only in the productive debate about the experience of the CPI (M) and the Communist Party of Peru’s that can be understood the importance of People’s War in India, under the banner: People’s War until Communism!

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Imperialism, the highest and last phase of capitalism, phase of agony and decomposition of the world capitalist system, has been and remains a parasite of society, an obstacle to its progress, a man-eater and a destroyer of nature. To long for a new model of capitalism without imperialism is a petty bourgeois reverie.

To think in defeating imperialism without a world proletarian revolution or to pretend to succeed without defeating opportunism, is anti-imperialism by word of mouth, imperialist apologia indeed.Beyond imperialism just follows the World Proletarian Revolution and the Socialist Society under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will lead to Communist Society without exploitation of man by man, without class distinctions, without wars and without state.

Against the World Proletarian Revolution –the main historical trend in the age of moribund capitalism- rises the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries in association with the reactionary classes of all oppressed countries, pretending to avoid the burial of the world imperialist system of oppression and exploitation, in spite of being as it is an outdated and incompatible system with the existence of society, a system whose guise of equality, democracy and freedom has been torn by the current economic crisis, revealing the colossal accumulation and concentration of capital and wealth in the hands of the private ownership of monopolistic parasitic groups, in contrast to the accumulated misery in society whose labour produces the wealth. Faced with such dramatic reality, it is not enough to resist: Revolution is needed!

India is a gigantic material example of that situation. It is a hive of exploitation, where the wage slavery is reinforced with old forms of labour exploitation, in a single process in which a billion people produce for a minority of ruling classes, along with their imperialist masters and partners, to take ownership of all the wealth and concentrate it in their hands. India is a huge subcontinental prison, where under the banner of democracy is waged a bloody dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, landlords and imperialism on the working classes, with reactionary military campaigns such as the “Operation Green Hunt” against the righteous rebellion of the working masses of the country’s poorest.

Consequently, the acute social contradictions have turned India into a bastion and advanced stronghold of the world proletarian revolution, where the Communist Party of India (Maoist) leads the People’s War of the oppressed and exploited masses, risen up in arms, against the entire political and economic power of the oppressors and exploiters, both native and foreign ones, willing to overthrow and destroy the reactionary State and build the power of a new state of workers and peasants, whose embryos already emerged in various areas where the military power of the exploiters has been defeated. Instead, were established organs of People’s Government backed in the Popular Militia that is, at the same time, the embryo of the general armed forces of the people in the future state of New Democracy, as a form of Proletarian Dictatorship.

“Operation Green Hunt” is an element of the reactionary and unjust war against the people of India, repudiated not only by workers, peasants, tribes and peoples, but also by democratic and progressive sectors inside and outside India.

The People’s War is, on the contrary, a just revolutionary war and the path of revolution in India against the reactionary state that protects the class privileges of all the exploiters. A war that deserves and requires the support of all the workers and peoples of the world as, little by little, is being proven in the global celebration of May Day.

The People’s War in India requires the support and solidarity of revolutionaries and especially the Marxist Leninist Maoist communists of the world, according to the principle of proletarian internationalism, which is radically different to the support of democrats and progressives, that does not go beyond demanding respect for those human rights touted by the bourgeoisie; that does not go beyond vindicating the bourgeois flags of equality, liberty, fraternity and “democracy”, what means democracy for the rich and dictatorship for the poor; that does not go beyond expressing solidarity within the limits of the democratic bourgeois state.

Proletarian internationalism is diametrically opposed to the opportunistic falsification of internationalism that rises up against American imperialism but folds up and supports its imperialist competitors in Europe and Asia; that, by word of mouth, claims to defend the world proletarian revolution but, in fact, fears imperialism, betrays the People’s War and substitutes it for the stable of bourgeois parliament; that gives up the armed struggle aimed at destroying the reactionary state to prostrate itself before the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; that renounces the revolution under the leadership of the proletariat to become outdated apologist of the bourgeois revolution of the old type. That was the revisionist disgusting traitor role played by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) since 2006.

The essence of proletarian internationalism is the commitment, support and fight for the victory of the world proletarian revolution on imperialism in the necessary historical direction of the global triumph of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Being a fundamental principle of the Leninist theory of imperialism that without defeating opportunism the struggle against imperialism is an empty phrase, any conciliation with opportunism distorts and undermines the true proletarian internationalism.

Soon is to be celebrated in Hamburg an International Conference in Support of the People’s War in India, promoted and headed by the Italian Communist Party (Maoist) which was criticized by its reconciliation stand towards Nepali revisionism. However, far from recognizing and correcting this stand, it refused its self-criticism, persisting in conciliating with the boss of the « new » CPN (m), Kiran’s revisionist fraction, supporter of the tactic theory of the peace agreement, defender of the commitments made in the pact of treason against the People’s War, credulous in the bourgeois democracy and submissive to Chinese imperialism.

To raise the flag of support to the People’s War in India in mutual agreement and conciliation with the positions that have betrayed the People’s War in Nepal and to present it in the name of communism and internationalism is an absurdity and a falsification of the proletarian internationalism: this stand, after the immediate advantage of international solidarity in the framework of bourgeois democracy, sacrifices the revolutionary content of internationalism, because far from uniting, prevents the unity of the Communists before a common and just cause as it is the People’s War in India.

In April 2011, in spite of the discussions and criticism on centrism complacent with the Nepali revisionism, some of us, theoretically and practically, gave support to the Week of Solidarity towards the People’s War in India, promoted by the Communist Party of Italy (m) as well, the one that in those days, on the occasion of May Day promoted a Declaration where conciliation with revisionism was evident, keeping in silence the betrayal in Nepal so as to sign it jointly with the prachandist party.

In that Declaration besides other parties of well-known centrist tendency, was also involved the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Since then, that disguised centrism sheltered itself behind the « antiprachandist » cover of Kiran’s & Cia., being denounced, debated and unmasked by various Marxist Leninist Maoists organizations and especially fought in the centrist positions of the Maoists from Galicia.

Still, the obstinate tendency to conciliate with the Nepali revisionism continued and now, as promoter of the International Conference in Hamburg, it changes itself into an « internationalist » Conference that distorts the true proletarian internationalism because, as the betrayal of the People’s War in Nepal continues to be concealed and the traitors treated as comrades, their support to the People’s War in India will not go beyond the framework of bourgeois democrat solidarity, acceptable to imperialism and sufficient for opportunism, but not for revolutionary communism. This is a divergence of principle with respect to proletarian internationalism that prevents us from adhering to the International Conference in Hamburg.

A divergence of principle that prevents us from forgetting the words of Marx « Past experience teaches us how forgetting brotherly ties that should exist between the workers of different countries and that should encourage them to hold each other in all their struggles for emancipation, is punished with the common defeat of their isolated efforts », and obliges us to reaffirm our internationalist support to the just People’s War in India, to reject the political folly that condemns it as « armed revisionism », to defend that its perspective –as a part of the powerful World Proletarian Revolution and not of an  impotent bourgeois revolution- consists in that the proletarian Marxist Leninist Maoist line prevails in the point saying that politics directs the fusil, in the Communist Party of India (Maoist), to whom we renew our admiration, our support and respect without renouncing Marxist criticism among comrades.

A divergence of principle with regard to proletarian internationalism that urges us to hold strong the commitment of the Joint Declaration of December 26 The international unity of communists requires the defeat of revisionism and centrism! renewing the call to the comrades who signed it to fight for a general line of delimitation with all kinds of opportunism, whose defeat, in spite of sacrificing some immediate benefits, will be the true guarantee of the future victory of the World Proletarian Revolution on imperialism, and of the global triumph of the Proletarian Dictatorship, the only course of genuine Proletarian Internationalism.

Arab Maoists

Centre Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – Belgique

Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español

Grupo Reconstrucción – PERUCRPM – Estado Español

Organización Comunista Bandera Roja – Estado Español

Partido Comunista del Ecuador Sol Rojo

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

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The real name of Gonzalo is Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso. It is indeed a secondary question, but of interest : why did he choose the name of Gonzalo ?

We can maybe think that he gave us a hint. In the famous interview he gave in 1988, he explained the following thing :

« Many times I don’t have time to read what I’d like to. What do I like to read ? I read a lot of biographies. I think that literature is a great form of artistic expression.

For instance, I like to read Shakespeare, yes, and to study him. When you study Shakespeare you find political issues. There are very clear lessons in Julius Caesar for example, and in MacBeth.

I like literature, but politics always wins out with me, and leads me to look for the political significance, what is behind it. After all, behind every great artist there is a political leader, there is a man of his time who is waging class struggle. »

Here, Gonzalo shows his masterful understanding of “thought” as mere reflect of reality. His position, here, is the one of socialist realism; he knew that art is merely a form of expression of the global movement of reality, of class struggle.

And here we see that he spoke of Shakespeare. Let’s take a look at Shakespeare’s work. Do we find a “Gonzalo” ? Yes, we do, and we got a famous one, in the play “The tempest”.

But of course, we have to take a look further, to understand if he took possibly his name from this play. And what do we have? A Gonzalo making a famous political speech – which is conform with the spirit of what Gonzalo spoke of.

In the play, Gonzalo is an adviser to King Alonso of Naples, full of honesty. At a moment, he makes a speech in the spirit of Thomas More and Montaigne.

In fact, the Gonzalo of Shakespeare’s play even directly paraphrases Montaigne’s view of the inhabitants of America, in the in France hugely famous passage “On Cannibals“.

Let’s quote Shakespeare’s play :

GONZALO.My lord Sebastian,The truth you speak doth lack some gentlenessAnd time to speak it in; you rub the sore,When you should bring the plaster.

SEBASTIAN.Very well.

ANTONIO.And most chirurgeonly.

GONZALO.It is foul weather in us all, good sir,When you are cloudy.

SEBASTIAN.Foul weather?

ANTONIO.Very foul.

GONZALO.Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,—

ANTONIO.He’d sow ‘t with nettle-seed.

SEBASTIAN.Or docks, or mallows.

GONZALO.And were the king on’t, what would I do?

SEBASTIAN.‘Scape being drunk for want of wine.

GONZALO.I’ the commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things; for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,And use of service, none; contract, succession,Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;No occupation; all men idle, all:And women too, but innocent and pure;No sovereignty,—

SEBASTIAN.Yet he would be king on’t.

ANTONIO.The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

GONZALO.All things in common nature should produceWithout sweat or endeavour; treason, felony,Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,To feed my innocent people.

SEBASTIAN.No marrying ‘mong his subjects?

ANTONIO.None, man: all idle; whores and knaves.

GONZALO.I would with such perfection govern, sir,To excel the golden age.

SEBASTIAN.Save his Majesty!

ANTONIO.Long live Gonzalo!

If Abimaël Guzman has chosen Gonzalo because of he play, then he had a great sense of humor, a sense of distance which is great. Gonzalo is a name like a symbol, a symbol of an “utopia” – and in the play the utopia concerns South America, as the words are taken from Montaigne’s words on the inhabitants of the colonized areas.

As Peru is in South America, we may think that Gonzalo’s name is a hint to Shakespeare’s Tempest.

And even if it is not the case, it sounds at least like a revolutionary echo of the revolutionary figure of Abimaël Guzman, Gonzalo, historical leader of the People’s War led by the Communist Party of Peru.

Culture calls culture.

Revolution calls revolution.

And so we do, like in Shakespeare’s Tempest, say « Long live Gonzalo » !

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