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Revolutionary Movements, Theory and Practice: The Peruvian Experience
by Bill Langan
Revolutionary Movements, Theory and Practice: The Peruvian Experience of the 1980s
Why has the Maoist guerilla movement Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) thrived when the rest of Stalinism is in such crisis?
By Bill Langan
"Father of mine, your face like the great sky, hear me: the
heart of the senores is now more terrifying, more filthy, inspires
more hate. They have corrupted our very own brothers, twisted their
hearts and together killing us armed with weapons that the king of
devils himself couldn't invent or produce. And yet there is a great
light in our lives! We are shining! We have descended upon the city
of the senores. It is from there that I speak to you. We have
descended like the endless columns of ants in the great jungle.
Here we are, with you beloved leader, unforgettable, eternal
Amaru."
(Jose Marie Arguedas, leading Peruvian indigenist author, from his
extended poem To Our Creator-Father Tupac Amaru in his work
Katakay)
In 1968 the military took power in Peru and, presenting
themselves as a 'national revolutionary government', managed to
re-channel much of the revolutionary ferment affecting all social
sectors under their 'democratic' predecessors, with extensive land
reform, nationalization and development programmes. In the harsher
international climate of the mid-70s its reformism ran out of
steam, giving way firstly to monetarism and then a return to
democracy under popular pressure at the end of the decade.
During the 1980 elections which marked this transition, the
Communist Party of Peru (Sendero Luminoso) declared the start of
its "popular war" after nearly a decade of "reconstitution". The
conservative Belaunde government (1980-85) was succeeded by the
left-nationalist APRA government (1985-90), which in turn was
defeated by the current president, Alberto Fujimori. He has played
for popularity by portraying himself as a technocrat separate from
and above the "corrupt" political class. Indeed, he closed down the
Congress in May 1992, reopening it with elections in November of
the same year, which were boycotted by the traditional opposition
parties. He is a new breed of populist, who has made greater use
than any previous leader of direct appeal to the populace via
television and radio, particularly in the "war on subversion".
Sendero has overcome some harsh setbacks over the years, but all
depends now on their ability to overcome the capture of leader
Abimael Guzman in September 1992.
Contrary to popular belief, Peru is not a country of peasants,
but one where two-thirds of the population are now "urban".
However, a large part of this "urban" population is concentrated in
and around provincial towns and they maintain close family and
trade links with the rural population. Although the growth of the
informal sector in urban areas has been widely commented on, what
is more striking statistically is the pauperization of this sector
over the decade in terms of income levels compared to that of the
more traditional working class.
Peru is a country rich in characters who have striven to
compose radical theory which can then be put into practice. At the
turn of the century, for example, the Peruvian anarchist movement
was inspired by the ideas and contributions of one Gonzalez Prada,
the first writer to address the so-called indian problem from a
revolutionary position. He was followed in the twenties by the
Marxist analysis of Jose Carlos Mariategui, Peru's foremost
historical figure on the left, who also founded the original PCP
(Communist Party of Peru), and whose writings and influence
deserve an article of their own. Later we have the Trotskyist Hugo
Blanco, a key figure in the 1960s peasant uprisings and guerrilla
insurgency, and we also find that the "Liberation Theology" of
radical Catholicism originated as a concept with the Peruvian
Gustavo Guttierez. The leader of the PCP-SL Abimael Guzman styles
himself as the successor to Mao, and I think that within that
authoritarian Marxist tradition of Lenin-Stalin-Mao, he probably
has every right to, given his record of applying theory to
practice. His so-called Gonzalo Thinking is basically an adaption
of Maoism to the Peruvian situation, dominated by the idea of Power
and how to conquer it, the Struggle of Two Lines, the militarized
political party, and his historical analysis (all described ad
nauseum in a widely available interview from 1987).
The Social Movement Theorists
What I would like to do is to hold up the experience of
Sendero (as a revolutionary movement acting in modern conditions)
to some of the theories about social movements that began to become
popular just as in fact they began their "popular war". I have only
looked at the Peruvian upholders of these theories, but I think
youll agree that they form part of an international trend. So I'll
start by commenting on the main points of these new theories and
then the aspects of Sendero which are relevant to this comparison.
The new studies of social and political movements which
emerged at the beginning of the eighties sought to overcome what
was seen as the dogmas of the old theories which had concentrated
on the complimentary roles of class, state and power: the key
phrases were instead now grassroots social movements, citizenship
and democracy. There was a strong urban bias, in keeping with the
urbanization trend and which corresponded to the idea of trying to
use social reality as a base for theory, rather than the old habit
of making the reality fit the theory. We see this in the new trend
towards social history rather than the history of impersonal
structures as a means of recording the past.
This theoretical trend coincided with an important political
development: the relatively peaceful end of military rule in Peru
at the end of the 1970s. As in Spain at approximately the same
time, and other countries that experienced such a transition, a
democratic euphoria accompanied the end of dictatorship. This
euphoria was shared by virtually all the left apart from Sendero.
The traditional peasant and workers movements lost their importance
as academic interest refocussed itself on movements whose demands
corresponded not just to the productive sphere. As for how to
effect political change Gramsci appeared to offer the answer for
these "new times" with his idea that these new social movements
could form part of national popular blocs: social alliances
replacing the old class-based formations.
The new theorists identified a seies of new characteristics of
social struggle in the "new democratic environment". (1) These
were:
1) Change in Social Structure: that new sectors such as the
"informal sector" would assume greater importance than traditional
categories of urban and rural workers.
2) New Organizations: that in keeping with the above structural
change, new small scale "micro-level" organizations would assume
more importance than the old mass organizations (unions and peasant
federations).
3) New Struggles: the idea that the 1980s movements would be
concerned with demands other than the old "class-based" demands.
4) New Methods of Struggle: that the age of direct action had
ended. While this meant a lot of positive eye-opening, these new
ideas often led to the throwing out of class as a means of looking
at society, and revolution as a feasible solution. Because of that
I'll argue that on the one hand, the experience of the eighties,
with the joint rise and fall of the new social movements and the
democratic left in Peru, suggests that something was wrong with the
conclusions drawn from the ideas that went accompanying both. And,
on the other hand, that the new theorists were incapable of
understanding the rise of a revolutionary movement such as Sendero.
Social Base
One of the first questions raised about Sendero is what is
their social base, and what is their appeal? What I want to
emphasize is the impossibility of pigeonholing (as so many have
tried to) the answers to both questions.
Firstly, the social origin of the party members who were
joining from the late sixties onwards and were thus "in" on the
start of the war in 1980 can be generalized as students and
teachers who would often have a peasant background but had moved to
provincial towns for educational reasons (as the beneficiaries of
a national trend towards popular education in the state sector).
Now, given that virtually every urban dweller in Peru has close
relations in the country, you*re talking about quite a wide and
typical section of people making up the original militancy, not a
purely "peasant army" but neither exactly a "urban middle class
elite", a label favoured by Sendero's detractors on the left who
contrast it to the "true" armies of the oppressed such as the
Sandinistas and Castro's followers. To criticise Sendero it is not
necessary to falsify their nature and mythologize the latter
guerrilla-cum-regimes.
The party has continued ever since to recruit heavily amongst
young people with close links to both urban and rural life. A son
of a landowner once simply said to me, "peasant plus university =
terrorist".
Secondly, the peasantry is seen as "principal force" in the
overall war strategy and the rural areas have always been a main
focus of Sendero activity as they have recruited among young
peasants for both static support and to make up mobile columns.
Peasantry is maybe now something of a misnomer as the rural
population (who now make up little over a third of the total) are
largely incorporated in the market economy, and so Sendero
correctly identify them as 'rural proletariat'.
Thirdly and finally, in the urban sector Sendero is active in
traditional industrial sectors, but does not favour them above
other areas of struggle. Rather it has kept abreast of the fact
that many of the working class are employed in small-scale labour
operations in the so-called informal sector. Everyone from the very
poor (working class) and the relatively prosperous (lower middle
class) sectors are the object of Sendero's work (2) (an example of
Sendero's involvement in this sector is that in the town where I
lived a teacher was shot dead on the local university campus,
because in his position as a town council member he was involved in
a major dispute with the town's street traders).
To understand the nature of this work I think we have to
locate its activities in the perspective of an overall strategy
that deals with all areas of urban life such as neighborhood
organizations, housing, education, producers/traders asssociations,
morality, justice, movement on the streets, cultural life... There
are many examples of their work in each one of these areas, which
is carried out by a complex web of front organizations, as well as
lower level intervention in already existing organizations.
In both town and country the Party tries to eventually convert
itself into the guardian of every aspect of social activity. The
idea (and the practice) is to create a shadow state which begins by
operating clandestinely, and when the time is right, emerges more
openly. And as with all states, the bottom line of social control
is the threat of violence.
Social Appeal
We can't take the movement's slogans at face value. The
rhetoric varies according to the audience addressed. For a movement
to effect social change it has been suggested that it must work at
three levels: the daily or micro-level, the sectoral level and the
national level (3), and synthesize the three. Sendero has to some
extent done this: At the daily or neighborhood level the slogans
are reformist: Electricity and Water for the Barrios!, Down with
the Rent Rise! Particular groups are organized around their
specific demands (eg. squatters or small businessmen in the towns
or coca-growers in the country). This can be done through
infiltrating already existing local associations or unions.
On the sectoral level, the front organizations operating in
different local struggles draw likely recruits into the wider
scheme of things. The front organization is seen as an operation
which represents the party in different localities on a sectoral
level, such as the Young Peoples Popular Movement in
schools/colleges, Classist Neighbourhood Movement in residents
associations, etc. In this way the recruit enters into contact with
the party, and starts to learn the revolutionary rhetoric via
intensive, parrot-fashion ideological training.
But when Abimael Guzman's own philosophy teacher and great
personal influence was asked in an interview, what do you think of
all these simple Maoist slogans that your ex-pupil's followers
churn out, he just laughed and dismissed it as verbal fodder. So on
a national level there is serious ideological work being done which
represents the combining of theory and practice on a very high
level. This is why I talk about the war in Peru as being one in
which ideology is given a uniquely privileged role, which of course
relates to the strong tradition of revolutionary theory in the
country, mentioned earlier.
Although I have emphasized the complex nature of the Party's
structures, it's obviously wrong to go overboard and see it as some
kind of completely well-oiled machine, above and beyond the actual
human beings who run it! This is the image the party itself often
convincingly portrays, but obviously there are overlaps between
different sub-groups in the Party and breakdowns of structure.
The key point then is that Sendero works across all type of
social sector and class. Furthermore, despite the apparent rigidity
of its doctrine it is very responsive to social trends that affect
these divisions, such as migrations or the informal sector. This
grasp of modern and changing conditions has been the key to its
success. Instead of asking why has Sendero achieved what it has,
maybe we should ask, why has it not got further?
Consequences For SM Theorists
So what are the consequences of the "Sendero experience" for
the various social movements theories? Well it clearly challenges
the conclusion that a class-based revolutionary movement cannot get
to grips with the new conditions. To go back to the formulation of
the SM theorists: In terms of the new composition of the working
class, the party has shown itself broad-based enough in its
strategy to accomodate all different sectors of the working class
and some sectors of the middle class. This new composition has, it
should be added, been highly exaggerated, because there has always
been a large and at various times politicized informal sector. In
terms of new "micro-level" organizations it has either tried to
dominate these or else destroy and replace them, with the use of
front organizations.
In terms of new struggles SL has simply tried to head any type
of popular demand going, including those of "citizens rights" as
opposed to "workers rights". Finally, as far as new forms of
struggle go, the party has been the first to try (not always with
success) to develop these in order to replace the old forms of
struggle which the state learnt to handle. A main example is the
Armed Strike which at its most effective has managed to paralyze
Lima.
The new theories were largely correct in their observations,
most of all in their attempt to look at all areas of social life in
place of a vulgar economic focus. This is important because it is
the all-encompassing nature of SL's strategy, applying itself to
all aspects of social life, which I believe is the key to their
success. Groups such as the Stalinist PCP-Unidad which concentrated
all their efforts on building trade union power bases, have found
themselves at the end of the 1980s in the position of Emperors with
No Clothes On. The irony, then, is that Sendero took the key
observations of the "new times" analysts in their stride, and
incorporated those observations within their own strategy.
The new social movement theorists and their many fellow
travellers, both academic and political, got many of their
observations right. But their conclusion: that the advent of
democracy made class-based revolutionary movements redundant, and
their anticipation: that small scale cross-class popular bloc
movements would provide the basis for popular politics in the "new
times", have both been shown (in the Peruvian case) to be wrong.
How then has Sendero adapted itself to the new conditions
which the theorists identified? What I think we learn is that a
revolutionary movement in these modern conditions must have a
continually extending social base and geographical base to overcome
repression (this is something Sendero learnt through practice: when
the military launched a major flushing out campaign in their
original base province of Ayacucho in 83/84, the party was partly
forced to relocate its activities to new areas.) By looking at
society such as the Peruvian one in its totality, we can see that
there are many different "points of power" that a revolutionary
strategy needs to deal with, by capturing or neutralizing each one.
In this way we can look at Sendero's strategy and the state's
counter-strategy with regard to the peasant self-defence groups,
the MRTA (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - Peru's other main
guerrilla force), the unions, universities etc, etc.
The failure of the new social movements to provide the embryo
for national change can, apart from anything else, be linked to the
shortcomings of "democracy" in Latin America generally. The
popularity of the theory went hand in hand with the democratic
euphoria which accompanied it in Peru and elsewhere upon the end of
military rule in the late 1970s, therefore the fate of the theory
is linked to the fate of these "democracies". Neither have really
fulfilled their promises in practice. The shortcomings of the
social democratic model make necessary a revolutionary critique of
Peru's political realities which is relevant to both theory and
practice. Such a critique needs to take seriously the evidence of
Sendero's experience, whatever our many misgivings about their
politics, rather than seeing it as a freak aberration or guerrilla
leftover from the sixties.
"Analyzing The Analysts"
I would like now to go over why so far such a critique is
barely available. Having looked at the theoretically based
defenders of Peru's social democracy, we now need to "analyze the
analysts" of Sendero itself: the self-styled experts on Peru's high
level of social conflict. This means identifying the political
associations and ideological assumptions which underline their work
(and hence a large part of our information).
Virtually all analysts whose books or articles you might find
come somewhere along the scale between those on the reforming left
and those who are basically military advisors in an academic guise,
the so-called "counter-insurgency experts". I describe them as
being on a scale rather than as two distinct groups, because there
is a grey area, and the difference between the two is becoming even
more blurred in line with the global post-Cold War trend towards a
naked convergence of interests between the "left" and the "right"
under capitalism. Both "ends on the scale" express their main aim
to be protecting Peruvian "democracy". Which translates as: how do
we defeat Sendero and protect the State?
This grey area regularly manifests itself. At a recent meeting
in London for instance John Crabtree, a sympathetic author-critic
on the Peruvian left (4) shared a table with Rosemary Thorp, an
Oxford economist who tutored Fujimori's until-recently Economy
Minister and called for greater liberalization in the 1980s. The
blurred lines are also there when the leftist analysts complain
that the right wing Fujimori government does not listen to their
proposals, or indeed when the government does listen, without
admitting it of course, and embark on symbolic social help programs
such as the army going into shantytowns to distribute free food and
haircuts.
It is not necessarily the counter-insurgency people who are
less accurate, as they are not weighed down like the leftists are
by an alternative programme for administrating capitalism which
they have to put in every piece of writing. They are much better
about simply seeking out and presenting information on Sendero so
that the government, military or business know just what the score
is: one of the most realistic assessments of the continuing
conflict in Peru after Guzman's arrest came from Gordon McCormick,
an advisor to the American Rand Corporation, in an interview with
the liberal Peruvian news weekly Caretas (Nov. 92).
The leftist analysts are compromised by association just as
much as their rightwing counterparts are. They share a common
ground with the solidarity campaigns, the charities and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the leftwing politicos.
I'm not trying to make them out to be some organized mafiosi,
simply pointing out the connections. For instance, I found
Peruvians well aware that many NGOs were jobs-for-the-boys outfits
for the left wing parties. Anyway, the analysts and those outfits
share the basic beliefs in the rule of parliament, constitution and
all the other trappings of the modern democratic state, and as
organizations (not necessarily individuals) oppose revolution,
violent overthrow etc.
These analysts are informed by certain key themes which, while
all containing certain essential truths, are harnessed in favour of
an anti-revolutionary perspective, which puts the onus on an
elected government to make te necessary changes.
One such theme is of course Human Rights. It is not my
intention here to go into the flaws of human rights as a concept,
suffice to say that both the military and the PCP (SL) have been
guilty of gross abuses of ordinary people. But this is in their
nature as authoritarian institutions belonging to a state and a
shadow state respectively. On practical grounds this theme is
directly relevant to leftist analysts, as the reformist left are
often victim of both state and Sendero attacks.
Another is the idea of the people caught between two fires -
that the war is being fought between two merciless outside
factions, with the "ordinary people" caught haplessly in the
middle. It is certainly true that anyone trying to work outside the
Fujimori state and Sendero's shadow state is a potential victim of
both. However this refrain is also used to make the populace appear
a passive community, and particularly lends itself to such a
stereotyping of the peasantry, who would presumably be happier
half-starving and growing crops for Western export than hoisting
the flag of revolt. The reasons for revolt remain valid and real,
and the government is worried about the prospect of the (originally
rural but now going urban) citizens self-defence militias which it
originally armed turning their sights on their masters.
Finally there is the idea that greater social spending and
democratization are necessary to defeat Sendero: which brings us
back to the basic dilemma of the reformist left: that such a
programme would still have to go hand in hand with a military
operation. In other words: continued war.
So we see that the analysts of Sendero are not in a hot air
balloon overlooking events, but play a direct role as advisors
through association, on the one hand, with the reformist left and
associated institutions, on the other hand, with both the Peruvian
and foreign state, military and business institutions, and ever
more obviously with both.
In developing a revolutionary critique of the situation, I
think we also need to decide on what forces to associate with, both
in terms of their theory and their political practice. For anyone
who finds themselves there, this a very real question.
Firstly there is of course Sendero itself. In terms of
numbers, capability and territory it is obviously still the key
revolutionary force. But of course unless you're in the inner
circle, ther's no room for non-party line thinking except say in an
internal crisis which reaches up to the highest level (which must
be what happened after the arrest of Guzman). Probably every
Peruvian who flirts with radical politics has to decide personally
how to relate to the Party. In normal times ideological debate is
seen as super-dangerous to the party's discipline and
cohesiveness, the party is only there to instruct. As one person
(involved in a supportive role to the Party) said to me with some
awe, "the comrades have an answer to everything". In the Cusco
region a new guerrilla column started up around 1987 which wanted
to support the armed struggle while remaining outside the Party. By
all accounts they were virtually eliminated by Sendero, after
wielding some influence in the region.
The other main guerrilla group is the MRTA who have a classic
Latin American guerrilla ideology, trying to be what they would
call the armed wing of the popular movement along FMLN/Sandinista
lines. What others would call the armed wing of the bourgeois left.
The MRTA would appear to be a more broad-based movement but has in
fact been fraught by internal power struggles resulting in public
splits, desertions, and murders of rival leaders. It is difficult
to know how much of a future they have, as their only opportunity
for growth appears to be if the official left or factions of it, is
pushed further out of the political spectrum - which is actually a
possibility now that it has virtually no parliamentary
representation. Certainly the Robin Hood nature of many of the
MRTA's actions are designed to make people morally sympathetic, and
a lot of hopes for a humane but revolutionary "third alternative"
have been pinned on them over the years.
As for the official left itself, it is really now on a life
support machine more than ever since its re-entrance into national
politics in the late seventies. As in so many other countries in
the world now, it's popularly identified as part of the whole
corrupt party political circus. Its Congress representation was
almost decimated in the December 1992 elections, it now retains
power only on a limited local level. Its credibility was also
indirectly damaged by the complete failure of the supposedly left
of centre APRA government of the mid eighties, which really showed
the limits of trying to apply populist left policies in a
capitalist environment.
In the 1980s there was certainly a revolutionary flavour at
the grassroots of the Peruvian left, tied in with the hopes that
the new social movements would provide a new "revolutionary
subject". But now it remains a set of leaders without followers,
whose incorporation into the system was never made clearer than in
January of this year, when the "Democratic Left" grouping in
Congress (a new proto-party arisen from the ashes of the once
strong United Left) proposed a special Congress medal for military
officers who excelled in the "battle against subversion"!
Finally we come to the fringe groups who might or might not
become relevant in the future. If they do become relevant it will
probably be in terms of the legacy of their ideas rather than their
small existing organizations. In Peru the Trotskyists and
anarchists are the only groups I know of with a revolutionary
vision that challenges the Sendero/MRTA orthodoxies, (although the
former are limited by their own authoritarian tendencies), and both
groups have long and interesting histories of their own in the
country. There is I believe potential for a popular renewal of the
anarchist or libertarian socialist/communist vision.
The reason I believe there is such an audience owes itself to
the tradition of grassroots rebellion in Peru itself. Although this
tradition has been harnessed by Sendero and MRTA in the 1980s, it
has in fact manifested itself under a variety of different flags
over the decades and centuries, and indeed often under no flag at
all. There is a history of communal acts against authority, from
land seizures to supermarket looting.
On the other side of the coin there exists a strong tradition
of communalismo and mutual self-help on the part of both rural and
urban dwellers, which, although at various times taken up by
political groups, has a life of its own beyond the timespan of such
groups. Taking away the political conclusions of the analysts, many
of what they identified as new social movements in the 1980s
represented the urban continuation of this rural tradition of
combatting poverty and bettering communal life through mutual aid.
A proper examination of this twin tradition of
anti-authoritarian struggle and mutual cooperation is outside the
realms of this article, but provides an always strong potential
alternative to both the social democracy of "left" and "right" and
the stalinist authoritarianism of the PCP (SL).
(A campaign is being built up around the imprisonment of two
anarchists in Peru, falsely accused of working for Sendero
Luminoso. Donations are badly needed for legal fees and food (which
is not supplied for prisoners). Contact: The Peruvian Solidarity
Project of the Love & Rage Network, P.O. Box 3, Prince Street
Station, New York, New York 10012, USA.)
Notes:
1) The following four points are taken from "Movimientos sociales:
Elementos para una relectura" (Social Movements: starting points
for a reassessment) (Desco, Lima 1990)
2) Although individuals higher up the social scale than this may be
attracted, and the press will always make great play of this, I
have not yet seen evidence of an attempt to attract the more
comfortable middle classes and upwards as a sector or class,
although the support of sections of the "national bourgeoisie" is
envisaged in the anti-imperialist/popular front stage of Sendero's
plans.
3) Three levels identified in the excellent book by Diego Palma,
"Lo popular, la informalidad y cambio social" (The popular classes,
the informal sector and social change) (Desco Lima 1990).
4) Author this year of "Peru under APRA: The Lost Opportunity"
(Oxford Univeristy Press), whose title says it all about his slant
on the left nationalist government of Alan Garcia which ruled
1985-90.
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