Not long ago, a thread was posted at the Kasama Project called “Com Gonzalo-the greatest Marxist of our
time?”
Since the unrest in Turkey recently, A few people have mention the
revolutionary İBRAHİM KAYPAKKAYA. In
Turkey Kaypakkaya is a well known martyr who is much respected among Marxists
and Maoists in that country. Someone on the Kasama Project posted a link to a biography of him.
According to that biography;
“His
life was very short but he was able to create a tradition for real communists held
in the torture chamber "You give your life but not a secret" and even
until today this tradition continues.That means that he never really died: his spirit still lives on because the struggle continues. This struggle is a part of proletarian internationalism.”
That brings up the question of whom if any of these people
are the greatest Marxist of our time. Both men have led impressive lives and both
have contributed to revolution in their parts of the world. However, when does
a revolutionary reach the status of being universally beyond the average?
I know that Marxists of any kind don’t like their
beliefs to be compared to religion. But sometimes the similarities are there. A
few years ago I heard this joke about a Catholic Priest who asked a grade
school student if he would like be a saint.
“No,” the student answered. “I would have to be
dead.”
As with being a saint, to be a truly universally
admired and studied Marxist revolutionary, it is much easier to be dead. The
reason for this is obvious. A living person can change their mind and turn on
those who have bestowed their honorable place in history. Imagine having to
take down a lot of stain glass windows and statues from churches all over
Europe, if St. Francis of Assisi was anointed a saint, then a week later denounced the
church as a farce and declared god as nothing more than a myth.
Similarly, to bestow the title of “greatest Marxist
of our time” on a living person could be very embarrassing if the person turned
on the entire left and denounced Marxism as a hoax. The same problems would arise.
The last century saw the rise and fall of some major
revolutionary leaders and theoreticians.
There are the famous Marxist theoreticians who
are read and respected by Marxists the world over, including Jean-Paul Sartre,
Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, and José Carlos Mariátegui. There are examples
of Marxists who are given hero status, such as Kim Il Sung, but he is studied
and deified more in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea than in any other
part of the world.
Comrade Gonzalo (Abimael Guzmán) is a logical choice for Latin America since he led the most successful
guerrilla movements and rebellion in that part of the world since 1980. Harsh Thakor, who wrote the article, did a
lot of work to explain what Gonzalo did
to organize people and the theories he developed as he put together the
Communist Party of Peru’s political and paramilitary movement. From 1980 to
1992, the year of Gonzalo’s capture, the PCP was running a very successful
civil war. But since that time, the Peruvian government has made public claims
that the entire leadership of the PCP has endorsed peace talks to end the “people’s
war.” there has been a dispute between supporters of the movement, mostly from
the Peru People’s Movement, (there web site is presently off
line) that claim the peace accords are a hoax and that the PCP is still
dedicated to continuing the “people’s war.” Statements made by Gonzalo and his
comrades indicate that they are still dedicated to Maoism.
There are the famous Marxist theoreticians who
are read and respected by Marxists the world over, including Jean-Paul Sartre,
Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, and José Carlos Mariátegui. There are examples
of Marxists who are given hero status, such as Kim Il Sung, but he is studied
and deified more in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea than in any other
part of the world.
Then there are the really big names, the people who’s pictures and names appear
on banners, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V.I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, Joseph
Stalin and Leon Trotsky. The last two names prove that no matter how much of a
following an important Marxist icon has, there are always competing ideologies
and that means that these people are some person’s heroes and others are
someone else’s monsters. No matter how popular a Marxist theoretician gets,
there are always enemies trying to destroy their reputation, whether they are
other factions of the left or they are attacked by members of the right who
want to discredit any form of socialist theory. Since the 1980s, there have been very few new
Marxists theoreticians who have risen past that point of being icons. We can’t
really count Hugo Chávez since he never confirmed that he was a
Marxist and he didn’t write a lot of books of theory.
Comrade Gonzalo (Abimael Guzmán) is a logical choice for Latin America since he led the most successful
guerrilla movements and rebellion in that part of the world since 1980. Harsh Thakor, who wrote the article, did a
lot of work to explain what Gonzalo did
to organize people and the theories he developed as he put together the
Communist Party of Peru’s political and paramilitary movement. From 1980 to
1992, the year of Gonzalo’s capture, the PCP was running a very successful
civil war. But since that time, the Peruvian government has made public claims
that the entire leadership of the PCP has endorsed peace talks to end the “people’s
war.” there has been a dispute between supporters of the movement, mostly from
the Peru People’s Movement, (there web site is presently off
line) that claim the peace accords are a hoax and that the PCP is still
dedicated to continuing the “people’s war.” Statements made by Gonzalo and his
comrades indicate that they are still dedicated to Maoism.
So Gonzalo
has not turned on his movement. However, he may actually see peace accords as a
tactical maneuver that would allow him to rebuild his movement, which has
clearly suffered setbacks since his capture 20 years ago.
So my personal conclusion is that Gonzalo
has an impressive career and he has proven himself to be a serious political theoretician.
However, since he and his leadership are in prison, we can’t seriously know
what they really plan to do. The government can easily censor or manipulate what
these people are saying publically. So we don’t know what is really going on
with them inside the prisons of Peru.
It’s like earning saint-hood. His life
story is not finished and until it is, we will have a hard time deciding if he
really deserves to be considered the “greatest Marxist of our time.” I do admire Gonzalo for his
accomplishments and I agree with those who argue that guerrilla movements in
other parts of the world don’t really need the endorsement of moderate leftists
or liberals to tell them what rules of engagement they should use (how much
violence).
As for him being the greatest—let’s wait until his
story is complete. It is unfortunate that saints and Icons work out better when
they are dead.
-សតិវ អតុ
İbrahim Kaypakkaya
Gonzalo
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To update this piece, the Peru People's Movement has a web site; http://www.redsun.org/mpp.htm
The other factions are also represented with their own web sites.
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