From Peru People's Movement
Don't Vote!
The Only Road for the People is
People's WarRevolutionary Worker #1056, May 28, 2000
The following article from the Peru People's Movement is originally in Spanish. This translation into English is by the Revolutionary Worker.
The Peru People's Movement extends a jubilant and revolutionary greeting to the sons and daughters of our homeland living abroad--and calls on them to carry through with the boycott of the elections and to not participate in any of the events organized by the representatives of the old Peruvian state abroad.
In our country the people's war is defeating the encirclement and suppression campaigns of the so-called "low-intensity warfare" which, with blood and fire, is attempting to do away with the New Power, the People's Committees, and Base Areas--in other words, the burgeoning New Democratic People's Republic of Peru. The elections are part of this counterrevolutionary strategy. The crushing defeat of the enemy's "Annihilator" campaign clearly reveals their weakness and once again proves what 20 years of people's war have shown; we are superior to the enemy, we are invincible because we are armed with our all-powerful ideology, Gonzalo Thought, which guarantees the course of the revolution and of the Communist Party of Peru, which leads us.
What is left of the much-touted "pacification"? NOTHING!
Let the spokesmen of the reactionaries say what they want to say; let the revisionist rats say what they want to say; let the imperialists say what they want to say. The people have eyes, the people have ears, the people have stomachs, the people have brains and hearts.
Who in Peru with eyes to see can say that the country is "pacified"? Doesn't everybody see the resounding actions of the People's Liberation Army in Junin, Ayacucho, Huanuco, Huancavelica, Huallaga, Ica, Trujillo, and the capital itself, just to name a few of the actions?
Who in Peru with ears to hear can say the people want this old state? Doesn't everybody hear the clamor of the people, from the demonstrations in the cities to the mass mobilizations of peasants in the countryside?
Who in Peru with a stomach can say that the economy of the old state is working? Are not the people hungry, do they not know what it's like to not have enough to survive on, even after working 12 hours of hard labor a day?
Who in Peru with a brain can think that real changes can come about for the people under the current rulers of the country? Doesn't everybody know that the only thing the successive governments have brought is more hunger, more poverty, more repression, and more genocide?
Who in Peru, with a heart, can not feel anything other than indignation, anger, hatred, and rejection towards this system that is hell for the people and paradise for a handful of native and foreign bloodsuckers? Aren't the people's sentiments with their own sons and daughters who give their lives for a truly free country? Doesn't everybody hate the reactionary dogs who are nothing more than servants and defenders of the old, rotten order?
The situation is clear-cut: the people don't want this society. They need a new one, they need the People's Republic of Peru.
THE ELECTIONS
HAVE NOTHING TO DO
WITH "DEMOCRACY"
FOR THE PEOPLE,
THEY ONLY SERVE TO LEGITIMIZE THE OLD STATE!Our country is rich in natural resources, and our people have always struggled for progress and defended the nation. Why is it then that of all the countries of Latin America, Peru has the highest per capita number of deaths due to tuberculosis? Why is it then that Peru has the highest number of cholera and malaria cases? Why must more than 265 mothers out of every 100,000 die every year while giving birth? Why must the people live unemployed and in poverty? Why are there places, like San Martin, where 68% of the people live in abject poverty? Why do thousands and thousands of our compatriots go abroad in search of a better life? The reason is that the state--the old, rotten, Peruvian state--cannot meet the needs of the people. It cannot solve the people's problems because it is in fact a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie and of the landlords. It is a state that serves to keep Peru as a semi-colony of Yankee imperialism, as a semi-feudal society dominated by bureaucratic capitalism. To really understand what this state is about, we have to see how our beloved and respected Chairman Gonzalo, leader of the Party and of the revolution, so masterfully summed it up:
"1) The Peruvian state is a bureaucratic-landlord state, a dictatorship of the feudal landlords and the big bourgeoisie all under the control of U.S. imperialism. The people struggle against this state by building a new democratic state which requires the destruction of the old order.
"2) The Peruvian state, like all states, is based on violence, defends itself with violence, and develops through violence. To counter this, the people need to wage revolutionary violence, following the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside.
"3) Elections are a means by which the landlords and the big bourgeoisie exercise their rule. The people cannot use them to transform society or to overthrow the ruling class. From this follows the correct orientation of using them only for the purpose of agitation and propaganda."
Currently this old state is undergoing a general crisis and falling apart. It is under the control of the fascist, murderous, and sell-out regime of Fujimori and Montesinos. This state is responsible for the new economic crisis that is just beginning. It is a fascist regime that has only brought more poverty and suffering to the people. A police state exists in the cities, while in the countryside the regime imposes a militarized corporativization--a fascism adapted to countering the people's war. It is a regime that attempts to legitimize its repression and genocide by claiming to wage a "war on terrorism." However, the decade-long rule of this regime has shown that in spite of everything it has done, it has not been able to defeat the people's war. On the contrary, the people's war is advancing through fierce struggle, it is expanding and defending the New Power where new politics, new economics, and new culture are the order of the day. The fascist regime is discredited both at home and abroad; so much so that to come out the "winner" in the elections, it is going to have to resort to the biggest fraud in the history of our republic. And this in a country where the elections have always been a fraud! However, let's not forget that the real problem is not fraud but the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The so-called "opposition" represents nothing more than other interests of the same ruling classes. It does not represent the interests of the people. They are trying to co-opt the people's struggles--as they did during the huge protests in the capital and in the countryside--in order to divert the struggle from the fight for real changes, and in support of interests alien to the interests of the people. Only the people's war can bring about real change. The name of the butcher of the people that will reside in the Presidential Palace--be it Andrade, Toledo, Castañeda, or whatever--means nothing, because the essence of the bourgeois dictatorship will remain unchanged, and the classes now in power will remain in power after the elections. Furthermore, if the Yankees and the armed forces decide that a different puppet suits them best instead of the current lizard, then that regime, governed by the logic of the reactionaries, will be even more pro-imperialist and bloodthirsty and even a bigger sell-out. It also doesn't mean a thing if this person says he is a "revolutionary." In that case, he would only be another one of those fat pigs that sell out the interests of the proletariat and the people and are faithful lackeys of the imperialists and the reactionaries. The people know them well; they know that it would only be a rotten revisionist or opportunist--nothing more, nothing less.
The only road that can really free the people, solve their problems, and take care of their needs is the road of people's war. Only with people's war, under the leadership of the proletariat and led by its Party, can the people sweep away this evil system that feeds itself on the blood of the masses. There is no other way, that's just how simple it is. The Party's Concrete Programme is what allows us to unite the people:
Against hunger, unemployment and the crisis -- For land, wages and national production Against repression and genocide -- For people's rights and people's war Against the old state and imperialism -- For the People's Republic of Peru Today, the winds are once again blowing in favor of the people's war, which is coming out of the bend in the road precipitated by the arrest of Chairman Gonzalo. We are overcoming the inflection, in the final stages of the general reorganization of the Party. We can see all around us how the people's war is advancing--from the blackouts in the capital, to the advances in guerrilla warfare in the countryside, to the advances in the shining trenches of combat such as the heroic resistance at Yanamayo. In this way the Party is Building the Nationwide Seizure of Power, as it should at this stage of the Strategic Equilibrium of the people's war.
From abroad we pledge our commitment to do more for and serve even better the irresistible advance of the people's war, the Party, and the Revolution. We also uphold the all-around leadership of the Party over its organizations and the whole of the revolutionary process.
LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN GONZALO!
LONG LIVE THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU!
DON'T VOTE, DON'T BE TAKEN IN BY THE ELECTORAL FANFARE!
ELECTIONS NO!
PEOPLE'S WAR, YES!
LONG LIVE PEOPLE'S WAR, THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE PEOPLE!
GREETINGS TO THE FUTURE BIRTH OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF PERU!
April 2000
Peru People's Movement
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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