9/11’s (or 11/9’s) Significance

We know about the terrorist attacks that al Qaeda waged on America on this day in 2001. American media considers it to be very important, even though it often ignores much larger tragedies committed by America’s allies. (Coincidentally, as I write this, it is almost 8:14 AM; that was the time the attacks started.)

However, people often forget about September 11th, 1973. On this day, Augusto Pinochet, the Commander-in-Chief of Chile’s army, led the coup against Salvador Allende, a moderate social-democratic leader who claimed to be Marxist.

The event in 1973 is essential for us to understand because it is further evidence that reform cannot lead to socialism. It shows that revolution is the only way we can bring about socialism. Allende failed to arm the proletariat, so the most reactionary forces among the bourgeoisie could easily usurp power from him and impose fascism.

However, I’d like to talk more about September 11, 2021. On that day, after being in prison for nearly 30 years, he passed away. The Peruvian state with its imperialist supporters was responsible for assassinating the leader of the Peruvian people’s war. Gonzalo led the Peruvian people in their war against feudalism, bureaucrat-comprador capitalism, and imperialism; by the 1990s, they had liberated the majority of the country. At this time, the Communist Party of Peru, its people’s army, and the united front of Peruvian people’s organizations formed a new-democratic state within Peru, and they had achieved strategic equilibrium.

For the Peruvian bourgeoisie the year 1992 was a dark one. Apart from economic crisis, attacks on the old state by the revolution had increased to the point that many observers abroad had begun to suggest the possibility of a victory for the PCP. The Rand Corporation that year published a report that stated the possibility that the revolutionaries could surround and lay siege to the capital [2]. In July of that year, an armed strike paralyzed the city. The PCP declared that it would negotiate nothing except the government’s surrender and in August launched the VI Gran Plan Militar which declared the “consolidation of the strategic equilibrium”. Most Senderologists at this time were projecting a new offensive that was to coincide with the October elections to congress. Some were projecting military defeat of the bourgeois government by a revolutionary movement which had inflicted more casualties, controlled a greater percentage of territory and was approved in opinion polls by a greater percentage of citizens than the FMLN in El Salvador. [3] [Source]

On September 12, 1992, Chairman Gonzalo and 2/3 of the PCP’s politburo were captured. Later that year, 19 of the 22 Central Committee members were arrested. There was none of the “due process” bullcrap that liberals love to preach about for the leaders. Gonzalo was improperly sentenced to life imprisonment, and he was never given a proper trial.

Guzmán’s re-trial began on 5 November 2004. The international press was held in a sound-proof chamber and all media was banned from observing the trial after the Shining Path cadre turned their backs on the judges and delivered a revolutionary salute to the media gallery. The only words Guzmán spoke in the presence of the international press were “Long live the Communist Party of Peru! Glory to Marxism–Leninism–Maoism! Glory to the Peruvian people! Long live the heroes of the people’s war!” After he made this statement, the courtroom microphones were silenced and the press was unable to hear any of the proceedings that followed. When the trial resumed on 12 November, no reporters were allowed to observe the proceedings. Eventually two of the judges recused themselves and the trial ended in chaos. Guzmán’s third trial began in September 2005 and was opened and closed amid a media blackout. No reporters were allowed to attend. [Source]

Despite this, and despite the setbacks that the Peruvian people faced in their war, the revolution is not dead yet. Peruvian communists and the people are back in the strategic defense stage of the war, but they are working on re-organizing the PCP, getting a new leadership of the party, expanding the army, and recreating the new-democratic Peruvian state bodies that they had in the 1990s. In the meantime, revolutionaries of the world praise Gonzalo and remember his leadership of the revolution.

Eternal Glory to Chairman Gonzalo!

It is a year since imperialism, mainly Yankee, in collusion with the revisionist and capitulationist ROL and Peruvian reaction assassinated our beloved Chairman Gonzalo, the greatest Marxist-Leninist-Maoist of our time, eagle of the Party, great among the great, master of masters, great strategist and philosopher, recognised leader of the world proletarian revolution, titan of thought and action.

In his last great battle, turning the underground concentration camp of Callao into the highest luminous trench of combat of the People’s War, conquering laurels from death, Chairman Gonzalo defeated the sinister plan for his annihilation executed under the fatherland-selling regime of the “black mutt”, the counter-revolutionary rondero Castillo. It backfired on them. Well, the opposite has happened! Chairman Gonzalo is winning victory after victory by those who follow his all-powerful Gonzalo thought, while imperialism, revisionism and reaction are sinking deeper and deeper into their agony.

We do not mourn for our heroes who sacrificed their lives, nor do we celebrate their martyrdom. Yet we feel deeply for their absence. We heal our wounded, bury our dead and then march forward as their continuators, preparing those who will follow us as Chairman Mao demanded, marching without hesitation, procrastination, doubt or despair. As shown by the International Communist Movement, which marches firm and steadily towards the Unified Maoist International Conference, towards the New International Organisation of the Proletariat as the precursor of the coming Communist International, along the path that Chairman Gonzalo has illuminated towards the ever-golden and shining goal of humanity: Communism.

In this sense we raise the battle cry:

Unite under Maoism!

People’s War until Communism!

Eternal glory to Chairman Gonzalo! [Source]