Communist Party of Peru
 | This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Leftypedia's quality standards. |
| The neutrality of this article is disputed. It may have a tendency-based slant, or may not incorporate all points of view on a subject. You can help by adding more perspectives. |
Communist Party of Peru Partido Comunista del Perú | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chairperson | Abimael Guzmán (untill 1993) |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Split from | PCP – RF |
| Ideology |
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Gonzalo Thought Anti-revisionism Left-wing populism |
| International affiliation |
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (formerly) International Communist League |
| Website | |
| http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/ (archived) | |
The Communist Party of Peru (Partido Comunista del Perú), better known as Shining Path (Spanish: Sendero Luminoso), is a Peruvian communist party ideologically based in Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and its elaboration by Chairman Abimael Guzmán (better known as Chairman Gonzalo), known collectively as Gonzalo Thought. Despite its basis however,[clarification needed] the organization failed to enact many of its supposed principles, such as mass line, and almost completely depended on the personality of Gonzalo himself, whose eventual absence led to the ultimate breakdown of the party.
Founded in a 1970 split of the country's original communist party, the Shining Path spent the following decade recruiting armed supporters among the indigenous peoples in the Peruvian countryside and the poorer urban districts.[1] Believing that the existing socialist states were revisionist and that the Shining Path was the vanguard of the world communist movement, in 1980 the party launched a people's war whose aim was to overthrow the government through guerilla warfare that would spark world revolution. Initially the Shining Path had significant support among the indigenous populations, but this eroded as a result of the Shining Path's actions, such as cutting off people's fingers for voting in Peruvian elections, looting the villages they were supposed to protect, and carrying out several massacres.[2][3][4] The Shining Path has murdered other leftists and considers the Soviet Union an enemy of its cause,[5] attacking the Soviet embassy in Peru multiple times.[6]
Abimael Guzmán openly encouraged the intense cult of personality around him[7] and denounced almost every other left-wing group in the country. Guzmán also attacked the Peruvian junta that took power in 1968, which abolished serfdom in Peru[8] and nationalized key sectors.[8][9]
After Guzmán was captured by the government of anti-communist president Alberto Fujimori in 1992, the Shining Path deteriorated rapidly and splintered, losing any potential it had to overthrow the state. Indeed, in the year prior to his arrest, most analysts of the group believed that a victory was possible, some predicting one in less than five years.[needs copy edit][10] Presently there is only one faction still active, the Militarized Communist Party of Peru, which in 2018 distanced itself from the legacy of the Shining Path in order to maintain the support of peasants previously persecuted by that group.[11][12][13]
References
- ↑ "Shining Path". Encyclopedia Britannica. 20 July 1998. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
- ↑ "Shining Path". InSight Crime. 27 March 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
- ↑ Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. Book VII "Ataque del PCP-SL a la Localidad de Marcas (1985)".
- ↑ Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. "Press Release 170.".
- ↑ "Terrorista muerto en un ataque a la Embajada soviética en Lima". El País. 1986-07-08.
- ↑ "One Peru Gunman Slain In Soviet Embassy Raid". New York Times. 1986-07-09.
- ↑ Line of Construction of the Three Instruments of the Revolution (Especially in the section Leadership). General Political Line of the Communist Party of Peru.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Gutiérrez Sanín, Francisco; Schönwälder, Gerd (2010). Economic Liberalization and Political Violence: Utopia Or Dystopia?. International Development Research Centre. pp. 256–284. ISBN 978-0745330631.
- ↑ "Commanding Heights: Peru". PBS NewsHour.
- ↑ The Shining Path of Peru, Cynthia McClintock. pp. 243.
- ↑ Robbins, Seth (4 September 2020). "Peru in Familiar Stalemate With Shining Path Rebels". InSight Crime.
- ↑ Stone, Hannah (27 March 2017). "US Indicts Shining Path Rebels as Drug War Focus Shifts to Peru". InSight Crime.
- ↑ Gorder, Gabrielle (23 September 2019). "Peru's Shining Path Plots Unlikely Return to Power". InSight Crime.
 | This article about a political party is a stub. You can help Leftypedia by expanding it. |