Great Leadership – or what the Communist
Party of Peru U.S.
Great Leadership is an integral part of Marxism, because it is a
component of proletarian revolution, and its Communist Parties. It is the
natural outcome of Democratic Centralism, as it will be explained further on.
Great Leadership is not what the revisionists and bourgeois scholars would have
you believe, the tyranny of a demigod over a helpless and ignorant majority.
In the following I hope to lay out more on what Great Leadership
is and what it isn’t and how it develops and why it must be embraced and
defended as part of Maoism, and of course Marxism.
Jefatura is Great Leadership – it
is not “a cult of personality”
In 1956, just
three years after the death of the Great Leader and Defeater of Nazism, Stalin[1]., at the 20th Congress
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Khrushchev devoted a long, babbling
and rabid attack on Marxism under the guise of exposing the supposed “cult of
the person of Stalin[1].” The international bourgeoisie was beside
itself with glee and satisfaction at the end of his speech. So much so that it
has become a permanent part of World History as the accepted anti-communist
narrative of the errors of socialism.
In the speech, Khrushchev sneakily made a false dichotomy
between the masses making history versus Great Leadership making history – and
attempted to cite Lenin as proof. But Maoists understand this better. The
masses make history. But the Vanguard Party guides the masses to build
Communism. And who is at the helm of the Vanguard other than Great Leadership?
It is disgraceful but not unsurprising that arch-revisionists would attempt in
resurrecting Lenin and propping him up as something that he never was or prying
his dead mouth open and forcing him to mouth things he never said.
Communist leadership never dispenses, and must never dispense,
with two things: 1.) that revolution is
only made through the people, principally the proletariat, and 2.) Communist leadership means mastering Marxism
and leading the masses through revolution and in building socialism and
Communism.
Khrushchev and all revisionists and the more honest capitalists
(who don’t pretend to call themselves Marxists) ignore the second point. They
are not bothered by Communist leadership because they are not Communist! But
also because Communist leadership is in direct opposition to their
red-bourgeois ideology. It is a constant threat to their comfortable, parasitic
existence within or outside of the Party.
Today’s revisionists are like mini-Khrushchevs. They pretend to
be Communists. They quote all the correct quotes by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and
even Mao, Stalin and Gonzalo. But they quickly interject a stupid apology for
the supposed shortcomings of the latter three. They say things like, “They were
mostly correct but if only there weren’t cult of personalities around them,
they would have achieved more” or “their downfall was their cult of personality
and the inability to be held accountable to the Party and the masses” or the
best one that “they were above the Party” as if they were a fucking cloud.
But Great Leadership is only Great Leadership because they
understand the two criteria for themselves. Without the Party or the masses
they would cease to exist. They are not only held accountable to the highest
degree by both the Party and the masses, they are banished to a position of
complete servitude to the revolution and condemnation to building Communism
above all else. Great Leadership, in this way, transcends the individual and
becomes an embodiment of the application of proletarian ideology to a specific
time and place, i.e. country.
The Peruvians perhaps have done the best job in defending Great
Leadership. But communists, at least in the U.S.
Great Leadership, like any universal principal, exists
everywhere at all times, in all contexts, without anyone’s acknowledgement or
defense. Therefore, it is evident throughout history.
You don’t have to like it; it cares not what you think; it just
is.
Great Leadership as an extension of
Democratic Centralism
All revolutions guided by the Party, which is hierarchal due to
Democratic Centralism, are guided by revolutionary authority. It has to be this
way in order to wield revolutionary violence. You can’t wage warfare by not
prioritizing centralism.
In “The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National
War,” [2] Mao defines Democratic Centralism as
containing four integral articles:
(1) the individual is subordinate to the
organization;
(2) the minority is subordinate to the
majority;
(3) the lower level is subordinate to
the higher level; and
(4) the entire membership is subordinate
to the Central Committee.
But the pyramidal hierarchy of structure of Democratic
Centralism does not stop at the Central Committee but has individuals in
positions of heavy responsibility and authority as chair people, official
leadership. This is not in contradiction to Mao’s four parts of the discipline
of Democratic Centralism; it is part of the structure of the Central Committee.
They exist within the Party and its structure, and not above it as the
anti-communist revisionists allege. Those who argue differently either are
ignorant or have an underhanded agenda of undermining Marxist, specifically
Maoism, for their own gains – which whether they are aware of it or not, comes
through the vehicle of postmodernism’s concept of liquidating leadership and
diffusing political power.
What Great Leadership is not is
a mindless following of an omnipresent demigod who controls his followers – as
the revisionists and bourgeoisie would have us believe. These enemies of
revolution need us and the masses to believe this desperate lie in order to
discredit and hopefully kill the revolution. Or in our case in the U.S.
A leader is someone who occupies a
certain position, whereas a top leader and Great Leadership [Jefatura], as we
understand it, represent the acknowledgment of Party and revolutionary
authority acquired and proven in the course of arduous struggle–those who in
theory and practice have shown they are capable of leading and guiding us
toward victory and the attainment of the ideals of our class.
Hierarchy is a necessary component of the militarized Maoist
Communist Party because it instills the discipline of subordinating oneself to
the higher militarized command of revolutionary leadership and revolution
itself. Authority is another indispensable component because of its constant
conditioning and training of communists as people’s soldiers and proletarian
administrators, all in preparation to seize power and establish proletarian
democracy and exert authority over the bourgeoisie through the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat. This is the Centralism in Democratic Centralism, which is
generally principal in the Party as its mission is the political-military conquest of power
through PPW. The militarization of the Party, which is also the militarization
of the masses, cannot exist without the concept of Great Leadership.
Enemies of Marxism, and principally Maoism, would dispense with
Great Leadership in the hopes of making Communism more appealing to leftist
activists and the petite-bourgeoisie of the masses. They begin entirely from
the wrong premise that there is a desire or need to resuscitate the image of
Communism as something less frightening and simply mistakenly understood. That
what it really means is only democracy and egalitarianism/humanism. They start
from the philosophical place of self-appointed savior of revolutionary Marxism
and the great apologists of proletarian revolutions of history. For them, the
more they denounce the “cult of personality” the closer they get to
mass-acceptance and therefore revolution. It is not coincidental that these
same revisionists attack Stalin or the supposed “downfall” of Chairman Mao and
Gonzalo – that if only they hadn’t been placed above the Party that their
revolutions would have succeeded.
Great Leadership is the manifestation of the guiding thought of
the specific ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as it
develops exclusively in revolution. There exists no revolution, nor has there
ever, without a central figure at its head. From the native resistance
movements in the times of early colonization of the Americas – Geronimo,
Tetabiate, Cajeme, Cuauhtémoc, Popé, Túpac Amaru, Hatuey, etc. – to the
contemporary Marxist revolutions of the 20th and
21st centuries, Lenin, Stalin, Mao,
Mazumdar, Gonzalo, Kaypakkaya. Even the leaders of revolutions or revolutionary
movements who betrayed the masses, like Prachanda in Nepal, or Avakian in the
US, exist as proof of the universality of Great Leadership but in the latter
two cases as the inevitable rise of leadership which fails without the mastery
of proletarian ideology.
Great Leadership is the informal and formal assignment and
undertaking of revolution. It is not an undemocratic coup in the Party or an
egocentric ploy to exercise hyper-individualism.
Formally, Chairman Gonzalo was elected chairman democratically
by the democratic bodies of the Party. Gonzalo Thought was adopted organically
as he rose to Great Leadership through organized two-line struggle within the
Party – beginning with defense against attacks on Mariategui early on in the
Party, then by standing against Paredes and his “Patria Roja” fraction, against
the fake and anti-Party “Bolsheviks” within the Party and finally in support of
the Initiation of Armed Struggle in 1979-1980.
Why is Great Leadership attacked?
The
bourgeoisie attacks Great Leadership also for its suppose antagonistic
contradictory nature between the individual leadership and the mass-based
project of revolution and building communism. This is nothing more than
anti-Communism masked as concerned critique. It is childish to try to argue,
like some anarchists and liberals do, that having a single-head at the top of
the revolutionary movement negates the principles of Communism. But Communism
is not humanism or some ideology based on peace and love. It is a machine of
hatred against the bourgeoisie. It is a highly-centralized and authoritative
militarized body from generals to privates, the lower-body members subordinate
to leadership, and both subordinate to the ideology of the proletariat and its
specific application in PPW through a central figure as a guiding thought.
In Peru
There is only history. The martyrs of the Peruvian PPW saw
themselves as agents of Communism with no need for individuality; they were
part of one body, one mind, one heart – extremities coming together for the
sole purpose of the functionality of the whole body. The bourgeoisie and their
self-appointed red lapdogs are disgusted and frightened at the sight of this
amazing heroism. They are disgusted because it is an attack at their supposed
need for individualism. They are frightened because they see it as unstoppable
and infectious. The future belongs to communism and the masses, not capitalism
and the supremacy of the petite-bourgeois individual. Great Leadership is not
in contradiction to the collectivity and mass character of Communism, exactly
as how the proletarian state is not in contradiction to the statelessness of
Communism; they are both necessary steps in the road to Communism.
When the heroes of the Peruvian PPW pledged their loyalty to
Chairman Gonzalo and the Party they did so not because of a strange bourgeois,
pseudo-religious devotion to a God figure. They pledged their loyalty only to
Maoism and revolution above all else, including and ultimately their own lives.
What about this is bourgeois? It is heroically Communist, and part and parcel
in the militarization of the Party and the masses. The People’s Army’s soldiers
subordinate themselves to leadership not because they are leadership but because
their specific leadership represents the proletariat’s ideology and their
highest fighting organization. For some, it is not impossible to think of
laying down their life for the Party and the revolution. And for that, they are
correct but only partially. Give your life to the Party and the revolution, but
also give your life while alive in subordination and revolutionary servitude to
the guiding thought of the invincibility of Maoism and the revolution’s Great
Leadership.
On June 19, 1986, more than 300[4] heroic guerrillas laid down their
lives while in the Callao, Lurigancho and El Fronton prisons when the Peruvian
state descended on them in frightened frenzy. Without a doubt in
their minds, these People’s Guerrilla Army soldiers, these guerrillas of
Chairman Gonzalo, the Vanguard of the international proletariat, knew in their
heart of hearts that they were not dying; They were being made immortal in
serving the Peruvian masses, the international proletariat and worldwide
revolution.
Can you imagine the scared faces of the state reactionaries as
they threw cadre from helicopters when they without hesitation or fear yelled,
“¡Viva El Presidente Gonzalo!”?
Chairman Gonzalo did not invent Great Leadership, but he did
develop it and squarely placed it on the red banner of Maoism. He did not take
a single step back and apologize or downplay his rise to leadership at the helm
of the Peruvian PPW. Leaders rise to Great Leadership through the class struggle,
including two-line struggle, and steeled in revolutionary practice and
experience. There is no such thing as an inexperienced leader. All leaders are
experienced. But Great Leaders unify the militarized Party around themselves
and embody the revolution through correct navigation of two-line struggle.
As mentioned
earlier, all revolutions and revolutionary movements have produced leaders. To
deny this is to deny history.
Comrade Stalin
understood this and defended the leadership of Lenin and his indispensable role
as the main organizer and leader of the Russian Communist Party and the Soviet Union [5]:
In our time of proletarian revolution,
when every Party slogan and every utterance of a leader is tested in action,
the proletariat makes special demands of its leaders. History knows of
proletarian leaders who were leaders in times of storm, practical leaders,
self-sacrificing and courageous, but who were weak in theory. The names of such
leaders are not soon forgotten by the masses. Such, for example, were Lassalle
in Germany and Blanqui in France
There is another type of
leader—peacetime leaders, who are strong in theory, but weak in matters of
organization and practical work. Such leaders are popular only among an upper
layer of the proletariat, and then only up to a certain time. When the epoch of
revolution sets in, when practical revolutionary slogans are demanded of the
leaders, the theoreticians quit the stage and give way to new men. Such, for
example, were Plekhanov in Russia
and Kautsky in Germany
To retain the post of leader of
the proletarian revolution and of the proletarian party, one must combine
strength in theory with experience in the practical organization of the
proletarian movement. P. Axelrod, when he was a Marxist, wrote of Lenin that he
“happily combines the experience of a good practical worker with a theoretical
education and a broad political outlook” (see P. Axel-rod’s preface to Lenin’s
pamphlet: The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats10). What Mr. Axelrod, the
ideologist of “civilized” capitalism, would say now about Lenin is not
difficult to guess. But we who know Lenin well and can judge matters
objectively have no doubt that Lenin has fully retained this old quality. It is
here, incidentally, that one must seek the reason why it is Lenin, and no one
else, who is today the leader of the strongest and most steeled proletarian
party in the world.
It is fitting that I end this with the boogeyman of Marxism –
which still haunts the fascists who are creeping back into popularity, the
revisionists and the bourgeoisie who never went away, all in 2018, a century
after the heroic conquest of power by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. To be an
organizer, a propagandist, a leader, a theoretician, and above all else a
soldier – and in combination, a Communist – is not to usurp the power from the
masses and ride above them disconnected from their goals, ideas and
accountability. It is for the undying loyalty to the masses, the Party and its
leadership.
As communists, we should all strive to give our lives to the
Party and revolution.
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