Talk:Communist Party of Peru

Article should be renamed to "Communist Party of Peru"

The PCP doesn't call itself the "Shining Path". This was a name given to them by the anti-communist Peruvian government and used as a pejorative against the PCP. Unless we are looking to have an article of no better quality than Wikipedia, and start calling the Communist Party of China "CCP," we should be referring to the party by the name it actually uses. --SpaceHaitian (talk) 03:13, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi SpaceHaitian, I am in favor of discussing a potential move. From a cursory search online it seems that the party indeed does not use the term officially, but I cannot find any sources which claim either that it was a pejorative term or that it was developed by the government of Peru. Can you provide a source that we could use in the article? My Spanish is poor but sources in that language would work just as well (if not better?). In any case I will most likely support a move. Thanks - Harrystein (talk) 17:12, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Multiple formations in Peru entitle themselves the "Communist Party of Peru" (or a similar form to that). For that reason, "Communist Party of Peru" currently redirects to a disambiguation page linking to the various organizations of this name which exist. The assertion that the only correct name for the Shining Path is the Communist Party of Peru is, from my investigation, largely a Maoist belief which is generated by their view that the other Communist Party of Peru was an illegitimate vanguard of the working class which had fallen to revisionism. Various people, largely Maoists, claim that "Shining Path" is an anti-communist term invented to make the organization in question seem cultic and fanatical, although as Harrystein had mentioned, that cannot be substantiated. I may be supportive of a rename to Communist Party of Peru (Shining Path) as that would disambiguate to an adequate extent. SociusVenger (talk) 20:53, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

While it's true that multiple parties in Peru call themselves some form of "Communist Party of Peru", namely the PCP (Unity) and PCP-PR, the Party referred to as the "Shining Path" is the most presently relevant both inside and outside of Peru. When people are looking up the PCP, that's going to be the party they're most often looking for. Like in the struggle in the Philippines, where the old Communist Party of the Philippines changed its name to PKP-1930 as their reformism became sidelined in the revolutionary struggle, the other Communist Parties in Peru remain marginal and insignificant, even while the PCP itself is in disarray. We aren't talking about a marginal Maoist split from a larger party, we're talking about a nationwide movement that very nearly took state power and had reactionaries panicking. From a RAND corporation report in 1990: "The worst case scenario is that Sendero could win. Although that seemed inconceivable even as late as 1987, it has become a plausible outcome.... The movement is firmly entrenched in the highlands and is already a permanent presence in and around Lima. Its growth has not been rapid, but it has been steady. Sendero now enjoys a substantial base of support in the countryside and has begun actively recruiting from among the urban work force and the country's rapidly growing mass of urban unemployed. It has also proven to be a resilient, adaptable, and ruthless organization. These traits, together, have made Sendero a formidable adversary." I can also speak from experience traveling the countryside around Cuzco in 2018 that even in areas where the PCP is not thought to be supported, it's not unusual to see signs of popular support in the form of graffiti. The people's war is in retreat, but it still haunts Peru and continuing arrests of activists as suspected "Senderos" is not uncommon.

As for the name "Shining Path" itself, the simple fact of the matter is that it's not the name of the party. Maoists do not make the claim of the term being an anti-communist dogwhistle baselessly, and have consistently held this analysis for nearly 40 years. From "A World To Win" #3 published in 1985: "From the start of the armed struggle in Peru in 1980 until only recently, the Peruvian authorities used as one weapon in their arsenal of lies (along with their other arsenal) the charge that the PCP was "completely isolated" from the worldwide revolutionary movement and that its outlook was "nationalistic." This went along with their habit of only referring to the PCP as "Sendero Luminoso," "Shining Path," as if it were some kind of sect and not a communist party at all." But even if that weren't the case, it's still not the name of the party and a left wing project documenting its history/thought has no place exclusively referring to it by a name only used by its enemies. I really wanna emphasize the example I gave earlier of referring to the Communist Party of China as the "CCP". All present would agree that, with some exceptions of communist writers which use "CCP" and "CPC" interchangeably, the present usage of "CCP" over "CPC" by liberals and fascists is an anti-communist dogwhistle. However I strongly doubt any of us would be able to produce a source where it's directly stated by those liberals and fascists, with no need for inference, that their intent in popularizing that name is to frame China as the new Soviet enemy, and to prepare the western masses for a reignited Cold War. Instead, sources supporting that claim would be by and large communists analyzing the political situation and coming to that reasonable conclusion, recognizing how this framing is being used in practice and to what end. In both these cases we are disadvantaged by the fact that this is all modern history. For many realities of these political and military conflicts there wont be good sources to utilize for many years to come, because much of what happened (especially on the side of western and neocolonial governments) is still very much classified, and on the side of the communists the people involved can't speak out for fear of imprisonment or murder. So ultimately, like with the Communist Party of China, it boils down to whether or not we should refer to the party by the name it uses and respectfully asks others to use, or how reactionaries, class enemies, and the uninformed public refer to it. I would say that, if the goal is political and historical education, we should use the proper name of the party rather than implicitly ceding ground to a reactionary narrative. --SpaceHaitian (talk) 18:58, 22 September 2023 (UTC)