Proletarians of all countries, uníte! INTERVIEW WITH CHAIRMAN GONZALO ¹ Central Committee

Comunist Party of Peru

1988 Red Banner

Publishing House translated and reproduced by the

PERU PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT [Prepared for the Internet by the Magazine Red Sun] INTERVIEW WITH CHAIRMAN GONZALO Contents Objectives

I. Ideological Questions

II. On the Party

III. People's War

IV. On the National Political Situation

V. International Politics

Other Points Objectives EL DIARIO: Chairman Gonzalo, what prompted you, after a lengthy silence, to do this interview? And why did you choose El Diario? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Let us start by saying that the Communist Party of Peru, which has been leading the people's war for more than eight years now, has expressed itself publicly in a number of different documents. We have always considered the pronouncements of the Party itself to be much more important, because that way it is crystal clear that it is the PCP that has dared to initiate the people's war, lead it, and carry it forward. The reason we are taking this occasion to speak in a personal interview like this one, which is the first time we have had the pleasure to do so, and specifically with you, has to do with the Party Congress. Our Party has accomplished a long-awaited historic task with the convening of its Congress. For decades we struggled hard to bring this about, but it's only the people's war that has given us the conditions to actually accomplish it. That's why we say that the First Congress is the offspring of two great parents: the Party and the people's war. As the official documents state, this Congress marks a milestone, a victory, in which our Party has been able to sum up the long road traveled, and has established the three basic elements of Party unity: its ideology, which is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought; the programme; and the general political line. Furthermore, this Congress has established a solid basis for advancing towards the prospective seizure of Power. The Congress, then, is a great victory, and it is one of the main reasons for giving this interview. Other reasons have to do with the profound crisis that our country is going through, and the ever-growing and more powerful development of the class struggle of the masses, and with the international situation and how revolution is the main trend in the world. As to why we are doing this interview with El Diario, there is a very simple reason. El Diario is a trench of combat and today it is the only tribune that really serves the people. We believe that though it would have been possible to be interviewed by others, including foreigners, it is better, and more in accord with our principles, to be interviewed by a paper like El Diario, which is really struggling every day under difficult conditions to serve the people and the revolution. That is the reason. EL DIARIO: Chairman Gonzalo. have you weighed the possible implications of conducting this interview? Let me ask you--don't you run some risk talking publicly at this time? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Being communists, we fear nothing. Moreover, our Party has steeled us to challenge death itself, and to carry our life on our fingertips so that we may give it whenever the revolution demands it. We believe that this interview has overriding importance: it serves our Party, serves the revolution, serves our people and our class, and also--why not say it--serves the international proletariat, the peoples of the world, the world revolution. Whatever risk then, is nothing--especially, I repeat, steeled as we are by the Party. I. Ideological Questions EL DIARIO: Chairman, let's talk about one of the ideological foundations of the PCP, Maoism. Why do you consider Maoism the third stage of Marxism? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: This point is crucial, and of enormous consequence. For us, Marxism is a process of development, and this great process has given us a new, third, and higher stage. Why do we say that we are in a new, third, and higher stage, Maoism? We say this because in examining the three component parts of Marxism, it is clearly evident that Chairman Mao Tsetung has developed each one of these three parts. Let's enumerate them: in Marxist philosophy no one can deny his great contribution to the development of dialectics, focusing on the law of contradiction, establishing that it is the only fundamental law. On political economy, it will suffice to highlight twothings. The first, of immediate and concrete importance for us, is bureaucrat capitalism, and second, the development of the political economy of socialism, since in synthesis we can say that it is Mao who really established and developed the political economy of socialism. With regard to scientific socialism, it is enough to point to people's war, since it is with Chairman Mao Tsetung that the international proletariat has attained a fully developed military theory, giving us then the military theory of our class, the proletariat, applicable everywhere. We believe that these three questions demonstrate a development of universal character. Looked at in this way what we have is a new stage--and we call it the third one, because Marxism has two preceding stages, that of Marx and that of Lenin, which is why we speak of Marxism-Leninism. A higher stage, because with Maoism the ideology of the worldwide proletariat attains its highest development up to now, its loftiest peak, but with the understanding that Marxism is--if you'll excuse the reiteration--a dialectical unity that develops through great leaps, and that these great leaps are what give rise to stages. So for us, what exists in the world today is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and principally Maoism. We think that to be Marxists today, to be Communists, necessarily demands that we be Marxist-Leninist-Maoists and principally Maoists. Otherwise, we couldn't be genuine communists. I would like to emphasize a situation that is rarely taken into account and definitely deserves to be studied closely today. I am referring to Mao Tsetung's development of Lenin's great thesis on imperialism. This is of great importance today, and in the historical stage that is presently unfolding. Again simply listing his contributions, we could point out the following: he discovered a law of imperialism when he said that imperialism makes trouble and fails, makes trouble again and fails again, until its final doom. He also specified a period in the process of development of imperialism, which he called "the next 50 to 100 years," years, as he said, unparalleled on earth, during which, as we understand it, we will sweep imperialism and reaction from the face of the earth. He also pointed to something that today more than ever can't be ignored. He said that "a period of struggle between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism has begun." In addition, we all know of his great strategic thesis that "imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers." This is a thesis of enormous importance and we must keep in mind that Chairman Mao applied this thesis to U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, both of which we have no reason to be afraid of. But also, we must keep in mind how he saw the development of war, following exactly what Lenin had stated about the era of wars that had opened up in the world. The Chairman has taught us that a country, a nation, a people, no matter how small, can defeat the most powerful exploiter and dominator on Earth if they dare to take up arms. Moreover, he has taught us how to understand the process of war and how never to fall for nuclear blackmail. I believe that these are some questions that we must keep in mind in order to understand how Chairman Mao Tsetung developed Lenin's great thesis on imperialism. And why do I insist on this? Because we understand that just as Lenin's contributions are based on the great work of Marx, Chairman Mao Tsetung's developments are based on the great work of Marx and Lenin on Marxism-Leninism. We would never be able to understand Maoism, without understanding Marxism-Leninism. We believe that these things are of great importance today, and for us it has been decisive to understand Maoism in theory and practice as a third, new, and higher stage. EL DIARIO: Chairman Gonzalo, do you believe that if José Carlos Mariátegui were alive he would uphold the theories and contributions of Chairman Mao? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: In synthesis, Mariátegui was a Marxist-Leninist. Beyond that, in Mariátegui, the founder of the Party, we find theses similar to those that Chairman Mao has made universal. Thus, as I see it, today Mariátegui would be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. This is not speculation, it is simply the product of understanding the life and work of José Carlos Mariátegui. EL DIARIO: Moving on to another question, what is the ideology of the proletariat and what role does it play in the social processes of the world today? What do the classics, Marx, Lenin andMao, mean to the PCP? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Today, tomorrow, and in these stormy decades in which we live, we can see the enormous and overriding importance that proletarian ideology has. First, although I'm emphasizing something that is well known, it is the theory and practice of the final class in history. The ideology of the proletariat is the product of the struggle of the international proletariat. It also comprehends the study and understanding of the whole historical process of class struggle that went on before the proletariat, of the struggle of the peasantry in particular, the great heroic struggles they have waged--it represents the highest level of study and understanding that science has produced. In sum, the ideology of the proletariat, the great creation of Marx, is the highest world outlook that has ever been or ever will be seen on Earth. It is the world outlook, the scientific ideology that for the first time provided mankind, our class principally, and the people, with a theoretical and practical instrument for transforming the world. And we have seen how everything that he predicted has come about. Marxism has been developing, it has become Marxism-Leninism, and today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. And we see how this ideology is the only one capable of transforming the world, making revolution, and leading us to the inevitable goal of communism. It is of enormous importance. I would like to emphasize something: it is ideology, but it is scientific. Nevertheless, we must understand very well that we cannot make any concessions to the stand of the bourgeoisie which wants to reduce the ideology of the proletariat to a simple method. To do so is to debase it and deny it. Please excuse my insistence, but as Chairman Mao said, "it isn't enough to say it once, but a hundred times, it isn't enough to say it to a few, but to many." Basing myself on this I say that the ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and today principally Maoism, is the only all-powerful ideology because it is true, and historical facts are showing that. It is the product aside from what has already been said, of the extraordinary work of extraordinary historical figures like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Chairman Mao Tsetung, to point out the most outstanding. But among them we give special emphasis to three: Marx, Lenin, and Chairman Mao Tsetung as the three banners that are embodied, once again, in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and principally Maoism. And what, precisely, is our task today? It is to raise up the banner of our ideology, defend, and apply it, and to struggle energetically so that it will lead and guide the world revolution. Without proletarian ideology, there is no revolution. Without proletarian ideology, there is no hope for our class and the people. Without proletarian ideology, there is no communism. EL DIARIO: Speaking of ideology, why Gonzalo Thought? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Marxism has always taught us that the problem lies in the application of universal truth. Chairman Mao Tsetung was extremely insistent on this point, that if Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is not applied to concrete reality, it is not possible to lead a revolution, not possible to transform the old order, destroy it, or create a new one. It is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Peruvian revolution that has produced Gonzalo Thought. Gonzalo Thought has been forged in the class struggle of our people, mainly the proletariat, in the incessant struggles of the peasantry, and in the larger framework of the world revolution, in the midst of these earthshaking battles, applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of our country. Previously we called it the Guiding Thought. And if today the Party, through its Congress, has sanctioned the term Gonzalo Thought, it's because a leap has been made in the Guiding Thought through the development of the people's war. In sum, Gonzalo Thought is none other than the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality. This means that it is principal specifically for our Party, for the people's war and for the revolution in our country, and I want to emphasize that. But for us, looking at our ideology in universal terms, I emphasize once again, it is Maoism that is principal. EL DIARIO: What role is revisionism playing, and how does the PCP struggle against it? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: First, we should remember that every advance of Marxism has beenmade amidst fierce struggle. And in this process of development of Marxism, old-style revisionism emerged and met its downfall in World War I. But since then, we communists have confronted a new revisionism, modern revisionism, that began to develop with Khrushchev and his lackeys, and which is now unleashing a new offensive against Marxism. Its principal centers are the Soviet Union and China. Revisionism arose as a complete negation of Marxism. Modern revisionism, likewise, is always aiming to substitute bourgeois philosophy for Marxist philosophy, going against political economy, particularly denying the growing impoverishment and the inevitability of the downfall of imperialism. Revisionism strives to falsify and twist scientific socialism in order to oppose the class struggle and revolution, peddling parliamentary cretinism and pacifism. All these positions have been expounded by the revisionists, who have aimed for and continue to aim for the restoration of capitalism, the undermining and blocking of the world revolution, and to denigrate the conquering spirit of our class. But here I feel it is necessary to spell out some points to make this concrete: revisionism behaves like any imperialism. For example, the Soviet Union, Soviet social-imperialism, preaches and practices parliamentary cretinism. It mounts and conducts armed actions for the purpose of gaining world hegemony. It carries out aggression, pits one people against another, sets masses against masses, and divides our class and the people. In a thousand and one ways Soviet revisionism fights against everything that is truly Marxist and everything that serves the revolution. We are an example of how they do this. The social-imperialists of the USSR have developed a perverse worldwide plan to become a hegemonic superpower using all the means at their disposal. This includes setting up phony parties, communist in name only, "bourgeois workers parties" to use Engels' words. And this is how Chinese revisionism and all revisionists act, differing only with regard to their particular circumstances, according to who pulls their strings. Therefore, for us, the task is to fight revisionism and fight it relentlessly. We must keep in mind the lesson that we can't fight imperialism without combating revisionism. And our Congress has declared that we must wage a relentless and uncompromising struggle against imperialism, revisionism and reaction worldwide. How should we carry out this struggle? In all spheres: the ideological, the economic, and the political--we must fight them in each one of these classic spheres. For if we should fail to carry out the struggle against revisionism, we wouldn't be communists. A communist has the obligation to combat revisionism, untiringly, and implacably. And we have fought against revisionism. We've fought against it since it first came on the scene. We were fortunate in this country to have been able to contribute by expelling them from the Party in 1964, a fact they always try to hide. I want to make it very clear that the vast majority of the Communist Party united behind the banner of struggle against revisionism which Mao Tsetung had unfurled, and they took aim at and struck blows against revisionism in the ranks of the Communist Party of that time until they expelled Del Prado and his gang. From that time up to the present we've continued fighting revisionism, not only here, but beyond our borders as well. We oppose it internationally, we oppose the Soviet social-imperialism of Gorbachev, the Chinese revisionism of the perverse Deng Xiaoping the Albanian revisionism of Ramiz Alia, follower of the revisionist Hoxha, just as we oppose all revisionists, whether they follow the line of the social-imperialists, the Chinese or Albanian revisionists, or anyone else. EL DIARIO: Chairman, who is the main exponent of revisionism in Peru itself? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The so-called Peruvian Communist Party, the one that publishes, or published, Unity, the fifth column of Soviet revisionism, headed by the crusty revisionist Jorge Del Prado, who some consider to be a "time-honored revolutionary." Secondly there is Patria Roja, an agent of Chinese revisionism whose party hacks worship Deng. EL DIARIO: Do you think that the influence of revisionism among the Peruvian masses creates an adverse situation for the revolution? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: If we keep in mind what Lenin taught us and what Chairman Mao in turn emphasized and continued to develop, we see that revisionism is an agent of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the proletariat, and so it provokes splits. It divides the communist movement and Communist Parties, it divides the trade union movement, and it breaks up and divides the people's movement. Revisionism obviously is a cancer, a cancer that has to be ruthlessly eliminated. Otherwise we won't be able to advance the revolution. Remembering what Lenin said, in a concise way, we must forge ahead on two questions, the question of revolutionary violence, and the relentless struggle against opportunism, against revisionism. I believe that in our country, in considering the situation of the masses, we must see not only this question, but what Engels called the "colossal pile of rubbish." He taught us that when a movement lasts for decades, like the movement of the proletariat, and even more so the movement of the people, in our country, a great deal of rubbish piles up that needs to be swept away bit by bit. Our view is that this is something that has to be considered as well. How much can it influence the masses? Among the masses, what revisionism does is serve the cause of capitulation to internal reaction, concretely to the big bourgeoisie and the landlords, to the landlord-bureaucrat capitalist dictatorship which is the Peruvian State of today. Internationally, it capitulates to imperialism and serves social-imperialist hegemony or the desires for the same among certain powers evolving in that direction, like China. We believe that as the revolution and the people's war develop, as the class struggle sharpens, the people and the proletariat heighten their understanding more and more. And at the same time, as they are forced to witness the betrayal of the revisionists and opportunists of all kinds on a daily basis, and as they see even more of this in the future, the proletariat and the people will have to carry out their mission of sweeping the revisionists out of all the corners as best they can. Unfortunately, as Engels has taught us, they can't be eliminated all at once, as they are part of the "colossal pile of rubbish." EL DIARIO: Do you believe that revisionism is being decisively defeated in this country? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: To reiterate what the founders of Marxism have taught, to the extent that revisionism acts in concert with the reactionary State, the masses will come to understand its despicable role. As they see its actions, to the extent the people as a whole and the class see how they act, it's inevitable that they will more and more come to understand the pernicious role of the revisionists, as traffickers, sellouts of the workers, opportunists and traitors. The revisionists are heading for their demise and have been for some time now, not only because of the people's war, but rather this process began when revisionism was expelled from the ranks of the Party, because at that point another batch of serious communists began to come forward, and later became those who today, under the guidance of the Communist Party of Peru, are leading the people's war. And we think that the masses, with the class instincts of which Mariátegui spoke, will increasingly come to understand this, as they have already begun to do. Revisionism has already lost out, it's only a matter of time. The problem is already defined, the rubbish has begun to be swept away, burned away; as I said, it's only a matter of time. The process of their demise began years ago. And if we go back further, to the beginnings, the ball game was lost when they became revisionists, when they abandoned their principles--at that point. What remained to be seen was how the class struggle would develop, and how a Party like ours would be capable of carrying out its role, and how the masses would sustain it, support it and carry it forward, how they would come to see that it is their Party, that it defends their interests. And it is the masses themselves who will settle accounts, giving a just punishment to those who for decades have sold out and who continue to sell out the proletariat's basic interests, and they will also condemn and sanction those traitors who try to do so or begin to do so. EL DIARIO: What is your opinion of the New Evangelism put forward by the Pope? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Marx taught us that "religion is the opiate of the people." This is aMarxist thesis which is completely valid today, and in the future. Marx also held that religion is a social phenomenon that is the product of exploitation and it will be eliminated as exploitation is swept away and a new society emerges. These are principles that we can't ignore, and that we must always keep in mind. Related to the previous point, it must be remembered that the people are religious, something which never has and never will prevent them from struggling for their basic class interests, and in this way serving the revolution, and in particular the people's war. I want to make it absolutely clear that we respect this religiousness as a question of freedom of religious beliefs, as recognized by the programme which was approved by our Congress. So the question you asked really has to do, in our view, with the ecclesiastic hierarchy, with the Papacy, that old theocracy that had succeeded in developing as a powerful instrument in Roman times. Later, adapting itself to the conditions of feudalism, it gained a vast power, even greater than before. But it always tried to rein in the struggle of the people, and defended the interests of the oppressors and exploiters, acting as an ideological shield for the reactionaries, changing and adapting itself as new situations emerged. We can see this clearly if we think about the relation between the Church and the bourgeois revolution, the old bourgeois revolution, I'm referring to the French Revolution, for example. The Church fiercely defended feudalism, and later, through a lot of struggle and after the defeat of feudalism--let me repeat, through great struggle it adapted itself to the bourgeois order and became once again an instrument at the service of the new exploiters and oppressors. In the present situation, what we see is a historical process which is unstoppable. The era of the world proletarian revolution, the new era begun in 1917, presents the problem for the proletariat of how to lead revolutions to change the old decadent order and create a genuinely new society, communism. In the face of this, how has the Church responded? As in previous times, it seeks to survive, and this is the basis of the Vatican II Council, where the Church sought to develop conditions that would permit it, first, to defend the old order as it has always done, and then, adjust and adapt itself in order to serve new exploiters, to continue to survive. This is what it seeks, this is the essence of Vatican II. The question of the "new evangelism" refers explicitly to how ecclesiastical authority, the Pope in particular, sees the role of Latin America, where, as they themselves say and the current Pope said in I984, half the world's Catholics live. They are, consequently, trying to use the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America to push forward a so-called movement of "new evangelism." In sum, this is what they hope for: since evangelism officially began in 1494 following the discovery of America, with this new centennial they want to develop a "new evangelism" in defense of their bastion, this half of the "parish," half of the bastion that sustains them in power. This is their goal. In this way, the hierarchy and the Papacy aim to defend their position in America and serve U.S. imperialism, the dominant imperialist power in Latin America. But we have to understand this plan in the context of a campaign and a worldwide plan, linked to its relations with the Soviet Union on the occasion of the millennium of its Christianization, the ties with Chinese revisionism, the actions of the Church in Poland, the Ukraine, etc. It is a worldwide plan and the "new evangelism operates within it. As always they are attempting to defend the existing social order, to be its ideological shield, because the ideology of reaction, of imperialism, has become decrepit. In the future they will again seek to adapt in order to survive. But the prospects will be different, not like things were before. Marx's law will assert itself: religion will wither away as exploitation and oppression are destroyed and eliminated. And since the Papacy serves the exploiting classes and what will follow is not an exploiting class, the Papacy will not be able to survive, and religion itself will wither away. In the meantime the freedom of religious belief has to be recognized until mankind advancing through new objective conditions, comes to possess a clear, scientific and world-transforming consciousness. We must therefore, analyze the "new evangelism" in the context of this plan of the Church to survive under new conditions, a transformation that they know must come. EL DIARIO: Chairman, according to what you've said, could we conclude, or would you say that the frequent visits of the Pope to our country have some relation to the people's war and the support the Pope is giving to the García Pérez regime? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: I believe that is right, that s the way it is In general, his visits to Latin America have to do with the importance of Latin America. And his visits to Peru have to do with how he called on us to lay down our arms while blessing the weapons of genocide as he did various times during his two visits to Peru. EL DIARIO: Now, Chairman, what will be the attitude of the PCP towards the religious theocracy when this Party assumes State Power? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Marxism has taught us to separate Church and State, this is the first thing we will do. Secondly, I want to repeat, we respect the freedom of religious belief of the people--applying fully the principle of freedom to believe, as well as not to believe. to be an atheist. That is how we will handle it. II. On the Party EL DIARIO: And moving to another subject of great importance in this interview, the Party. What are the most important lessons to be drawn from the PCP's development? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: On the development of the Party and its lessons, we can understand its history by dividing it into three parts which correspond to the three periods of contemporary Peruvian society. The first period, the first part, is the Founding of the Party, in which we were fortunate to have José Carlos Mariátegui, a thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist. But, inevitably, Mariátegui was opposed, negated, his line was abandoned and the constitutional congress that he left as a pending task was never held. The so-called Constitutional Congress that was held approved, as we know, the so-called line of "national unity," which was totally opposed to Mariátegui's theories. In this way the Party fell headlong into opportunism, suffering from the influence of Browderism, which Del Prado was linked up with, and later, modern revisionism. This whole process takes us to the second period, that of the Reconstitution of the Party. This is, in sum, a struggle against revisionism. It is a period that we can clearly see beginning to unfold with a certain intensity in the beginning of the '60s. This process leads the members of the Party to unite against the revisionist leadership and, as I have said before, to expel them in the IVth Conference of January 1964. The process of reconstitution continues to unfold in the Party until 1978-1979, when it ends and a third period begins, the period of Leading the People's War, which is the one we are living in now. What lessons can we draw from this? The first lesson is the importance of the basis of Party unity, and its relation to the two-line struggle. Without this basis and its three elements ([1] Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, [2] The Programme and [3] The General Political Line), there would be no basis for building the Party ideologically and politically. But without two-line struggle there would be no basis for Party unity. Without a firm and thorough two-line struggle in the Party, there is no way to firmly grasp the ideology, nor establish the programme, nor the general political line, much less defend, apply and develop them. For us the two-line struggle is fundamental, and that has to do with our view of the Party as a contradiction, in accordance with the universal law of contradiction. A second lesson is the importance of people's war. A Communist Party's central task is the seizure of Power for the proletariat and the people. Once constituted, and basing itself on the concrete conditions, the Party must strive to carry out the seizure of Power, which it can only do through people's war. The third important lesson is the need to forge leadership. Leadership is key, and it does not develop spontaneously but must be forged over a long period of intense and arduous struggle, particularly in order to provide leadership for a people's war. A fourth lesson we can sum up is the need to prepare the ground for the seizure of Power. Just as the people's war is necessary to seizePower, it is necessary to prepare the ground for the seizure of Power. What do we mean by this? We must create organizational forms superior to those of the reactionaries. We believe that these are important lessons. A final one is proletarian internationalism, always developing the struggle as part of the international proletariat, always viewing the revolution as part of the world revolution, developing the people's war, as our Party's slogan says, in the service of the world revolution. Why? Because in the final analysis a Communist Party has an irreplaceable final goal: communism. And, as has been established, onto that stage all must enter, or no one will. We believe that these are the most crucial lessons that we should sum up. EL DIARIO: Chairman, what is the significance of José Carlos Mariátegui for the PCP? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: For the PCP, Mariátegui is its founder. He built the Party on a clear Marxist-Leninist basis. Consequently, he provided it with a clear ideological stand. For him, Marxism-Leninism was the Marxism of his era, of his time. He provided the Party with a general political line. Mariátegui, the greatest Marxist that America has produced until now, left us his greatest work, the formation of the Communist Party of Peru. We understand very well what his loss meant for the Party, but we should be clear on the fact that he gave his very life to fulfill this great work. What we mean is that founding the Party took up his whole life. So he didn't have time to consolidate and develop the Party. Just think about it, he died less than two years after its founding. A Party needs time to consolidate, to develop, in order to carry out its historic task. We would like to point something out. As early as 1966 we stated that Mariátegui's road must never be abandoned, and that the task was to reclaim that road and develop it further. I want to emphasize, develop it further. Why? Because on a world level Marxism had already entered a new stage that is today Maoism. In our own country, bureaucrat capitalism, in particular, had developed right alongside of the inexhaustible struggle of the proletariat and the Peruvian people, who have never ceased to struggle. For that reason, we set out to reclaim Mariátegui's road and develop it further. We have made the contribution of rediscovering Mariátegui and his validity with regard to the general laws which are the same and only need to be applied in the new national and international context, as I've explained. This has been our contribution. A lot could be said, but it is more worthwhile I believe to emphasize a few things. In 1975, "Retomar a Mariátegui y reconstituir su Partido" ["Reclaim Mariátegui and Rebuild his Party"--TRANS.] was published. In this brief document we showed, in opposition to many who today call themselves Mariáteguists, that Mariátegui was "guilty as charged," an avowed Marxist-Leninist as he himself correctly said. We have stated the five elements that constitute his general political line. We showed that theories similar to those of Chairman Mao are found in Mariátegui. Here it's enough to point to questions regarding the united front or the important question of violence. Mariátegui said, "Power is seized through violence and is defended with dictatorship," "today revolution is the bloody process through which things are born," and throughout the years of his glorious life he persistently upheld the role of revolutionary violence and class dictatorship. He also said that no matter how big a majority you might have in parliament, it could only serve to dissolve a cabinet, but never to do away with the bourgeois class. What is absolutely clear, and must be emphasized because it is key to his thought, is that Mariátegui was antirevisionist. We have, in sum, struggled to reclaim and develop the road of Mariátegui. But allow me to say something more. It would be good to ask some of those who now call themselves Mariáteguists what they used to think of Mariátegui--they rejected him, clearly and concretely. I am referring to those of today's PUM, yes, to those who come from the so-called "New Left," who proclaimed Mariátegui outdated, a thing of the past, essentially that's all there was to their argument. But even more importantly, these and others, are they really Mariáteguists? Let's take Barrantes Lingán. How can he be a Mariáteguist if he is the complete negation of the clear Marxist-Leninist theories that Mariátegui, in his time, firmly and decisively upheld? Mariátegui was never a parliamentarian, he proposed using elections for the purpose of propaganda and agitation. It was revisionists like Acosta who, in 1945, held that this view was outdated and that the task was to win seats in parliament. And this is what the phony Mariáteguists, out and out unrepentant parliamentary cretinists, do today. In sum, this is how we view Mariátegui: he is the founder of the Party, his role is etched in history so that no one will ever be able to deny it and his work will not perish. But it was necessary to continue on his road, to develop it further. The only logical way to carry through on the teachings of a Marxist-Leninist founder like Mariátegui, whose thinking, I repeat, contained theories similar to Chairman Mao's, is to be Marxist-Leninist-Maoists as we, the members of the Communist Party of Peru, are. We think the founder is himself a great example and we are extremely proud that he was the one who founded our Party. EL DIARIO: Chairman, what was José Carlos Mariátegui's influence on the development of the class consciousness of the Peruvian workers? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Mariátegui accomplished a great deal in the midst of intense struggle, and excuse me if in answering your question I get into some other things as well. He was already a Marxist before going to Europe. This is the first thing we would like to insist on, because it is always said that he became a Marxist there. The fact that he developed there is another thing. Obviously, the European experience was extremely important to him. Mariátegui waged a very important struggle in the ideological sphere, a struggle on behalf of what he called socialism. This is the term he used, as he explained, because here term had not been debased as it had been in Europe. But what he upheld and propagated was Marxism-Leninism. He waged a political struggle of great importance in order to form the Party. And this has to do with the debate between Mariátegui and Haya de la Torre, which today is being bandied about and cynically and shamelessly distorted. The essence of this question is very dear: Mariátegui proposed the formation of a Communist Party, a Party of the proletariat, while Haya de la Torre proposed the formation of a front similar to the Kuomintang, claiming that the proletariat in Peru was too tiny and immature to be able to give rise to a Communist Party. This was nothing but sophistry, and it is important to keep that in mind. But furthermore, the APRA party, when it was founded in Peru, was similar to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, that is, the executioner of the Chinese Revolution who carried out the counterrevolutionary coup in 1927. This is something we should always bear in mind. Why do I emphasize this problem? Because now they are talking about an Haya-Mariáteguism, even an Haya-Leninism. Ridiculous! Mariátegui indeed was a Marxist-Leninist, Haya was never a Marxist or a Leninist. Never! He always opposed Lenin's theories. It's necessary to emphasize this because we can't let them get away with shameless distortions like these which, in the final analysis, are nothing but a mess, a hodge-podge thrown together in order to promote an alliance between the present day APRA and the United Left [Izquierda Unida (IU)-TRANS.]. This is really the bottom line. The rest, cheap hoaxes. Well, but to answer your question. Mariátegui did all this linked to the masses, to the proletariat, to the peasantry. He was theoretically and practically involved in the formation of the CGTP [Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú--TRANS.], which is the product mainly of his work. But the CGTP that he founded in the latter part of the twenties is not the present-day CGTP, which is the complete negation of what Mariátegui had established. He also developed work with the peasantry. The peasant question was a central one for him. He saw it as the agrarian question, and essentially the Indian question as he explained so well. Likewise he worked with the intellectuals, as well as with women and the youth. Mariátegui developed his work in connection with the masses, showing them the way, establishing concrete forms of organization and acting decisively to further develop the organization of the proletariat and the people of Peru. EL DIARIO: Continuing on the same theme, why does the PCP give so much importance to the fraction that reconstituted the Party? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: This is an important subject that is not well known outside the ranks of the Party. Let's begin with this: Lenin set forward the concept of the fraction, conceiving of it as a group of like-minded persons solidly united in action around principles in their purest form, and that a fraction must openly state its political positions in order to carry out the struggle and develop the Party. It is this Leninist conception that we adopted to build the fraction in our Party. The fraction began to form in the early '60s and its formation was related to the worldwide struggle between Marxism and revisionism which was obviously reflected in our country. The fraction began to pose the problem of how to develop the revolution in Peru, and found these issues dealt with in Chairman Mao Tsetung's works which had by then begun to arrive in our country. What issues did we focus on? We put forward that the revolution in Peru needed a Party with a solid ideological and political foundation, that the peasantry was the main force in our society while the proletariat was the leading class, and that the road we must follow was from the countryside to the city. This is how we unfolded things. The fraction contributed to the struggle against Del Prado's revisionism and we were part of all those who united to sweep the Del Prado clique from the ranks of the Party and expel them. The fraction continued to evolve within a framework in which there were several fractions in the Parry, a fraction headed by Paredes and two others that didn't act openly, but went against the Leninist criteria for a fraction, and acted instead as a party within a party. I'm referring to Patria Roja, with its so-called "Ching-kang group," and the self-proclaimed "Bolshevik group." And then there was our fraction centered in the Ayacucho region. The fraction concentrated its efforts--the line having already been set in the Vth Conference of 1965--on raising for consideration the question of the three instruments of the revolution. This gave rise to a poorly led internal struggle. Because it lacked sufficient cohesion, the Party exploded. Thus, first Patria Roja left the Party, expelled for following a right opportunist line, negating Chairman Mao, negating Mariátegui, negating the existence of a revolutionary situation in Peru. Three fractions remained. Later at the VIth Conference held in 1969, we agreed on the basis of Party unity and on the reconstitution of the Party, two issues that the fraction had raised; just as in 1967 it had raised fundamental questions in an expanded meeting of the political commission of that time. Paredes and his group weren't in agreement with the reconstitution of the Party, nor with the basis of Party unity, and mounted a plan to destroy the Party since they could not control it. This was their sinister plan. A sharp struggle was waged against this right liquidationism, leaving two fractions, ours and the self-proclaimed "Bolshevik group" which was developing as left liquidationist. They held for example that there was stability in society and therefore a revolutionary situation did not exist. They said that fascism would wipe us out, that mass work wasn't possible, that we should concentrate on training cadre through study groups, etc. As a result of this struggle the fraction had to assume the task of reconstituting the Party by itself. Lenin said that there comes a time when it's necessary for a genuinely revolutionary fraction to rebuild the Party. This is the task that the fraction assumed. Here one might ask, why did the fraction shoulder the task of reconstituting the Party? Why didn't it found another Party as was the fashion, and still is today? The first reason is because the Party was founded in 1928 on a clear Marxist-Leninist basis, and so it had a great deal of experience, experience drawn from both positive and negative lessons. What's more, Lenin said that when one is in a Party that is deviating, moving off course, or falling headlong into opportunism, one has the duty to strive to put it back on the right course. Not to do so is a political crime. So the importance of the fraction is that it carried out this role, contributing to the reconstitution of the Party, beginning with laying the ideological and political foundation. We based ourselves on Maoism, which at that time was called Mao Tsetung Thought, and on the establishment of a general political line. The fraction has the great distinction of having reconstituted the Party, and once that was done, the instrument then existed: the "heroic combatant;" the Communist Party of a new type, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist; the organized political vanguard--and not a"political-military organization" as it is often incorrectly put, but the Party required to launch the struggle to seize Power with arms in hand through people's War. EL DIARIO: How has the Party changed through the people's war? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: First, and most important, the work leading up to the people's war helped us to come to understand Maoism as a new, third, and higher stage of Marxism. It has helped us develop the militarization of the Party and its concentric construction. Through the people's war, a People's Guerrilla Army has been forged. It was formed not long ago, in 1983. The People's Guerrilla Army is important. It is the principal form of organization corresponding to the people's war which is the principal form of struggle. The People's Guerrilla Army which we have founded and which is developing vigorously, is being built based on Chairman Mao Tsetung's theories, and on a very important thesis of Lenin's concerning the people's militia. Lenin, concerned that the army could be usurped and used to bring about a restoration, held that a people's militia should assume the functions of the army, police and administration. This is an important thesis and the fact that Lenin was not able to put it into practice due to historical circumstances does not make it any less important and valid. It is so important that Chairman Mao himself paid a lot of attention to the task of developing a people's militia. So our army has these features and it was formed by taking those experiences into account. But, at the same time, it has its own specific features. We have a structure composed of three forces: a main force, a local force and a base force. We have no independent militia, because it exists in the ranks of the Army itself, which was formed according to this criteria. It was the above-mentioned principles which guided us, but we also think it's correct to say that the People's Guerrilla Army could not have been built in any other way given our concrete conditions. This army, all the same, has been able to act in every situation and can be readjusted and reorganized as necessary in the future. Another thing that has come out of the people's war, its main achievement, is the New Power. We see the question of the New Power as being linked to the question of the united front, basing ourselves on what Chairman Mao said in his work "On New Democracy." We've also kept in mind the long and putrid experience with frontism in Peru where they've bastardized and continue to bastardize the united front, yesterday with the so-called "National Liberation Front" and today mainly with the self-proclaimed United Left and other monstrosities in formation like the much cackled-about "Socialist Convergence." In other words. we always take into account the principles and concrete conditions of our reality. That is why we don't understand why they call us dogmatists. In the final analysis, paper will put up with whatever is written on it. This has led us to form the Revolutionary Front for the Defense of the People [Frente Revolucionario de Defensa del Pueblo (FRDP)--TRANS.]. Here is another point. We were the ones who formed the first front for the defense of the people in Ayacucho. Patria Roja appropriated this heroic example, but deformed it in creating their "FEDIP." Even the name is wrong. If this is a front for defense of the people, why doesn't it defend the interests of the people? We build the Revolutionary Front for the Defense of the People only in the countryside, and in the form of the People's Committees it becomes the basis of Power. And those People's Committees in an area form a Base Area, and all the Base Areas together we call the New Democratic People's Republic in formation. In the cities we have established the Revolutionary Movement for the Defense of the People which also serves to wage the people's war in the city, gather forces, undermine the reactionary order and develop the city, gather forces, undermine the reactionary order and develop the unity of class forces in preparation for the future insurrection. Other changes have to do with the forging of cadre. Obviously war forges in a different way. It steels people, permits us to imbue ourselves more deeply with our ideology, and forge iron-like cadre who dare to challenge death, to snatch the laurels of victory from the clutches of death. Another change in the Party that we could point to, but on a different plane, has to do with the world revolution. The people's war has enabled the Party to demonstrate clearly how, by grasping Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we can develop a people's war without being subordinate to any power, beit a superpower or any other power--how it's possible to rely on our own strength to carry forward people's war. All this has given the Party prestige on an international level that it never had before, and this is not vanity, far from it, it's just a simple fact, and it has also allowed us to serve the development of the world revolution as never before. In this way the Party, through the people's war, is fulfilling its role as the Communist Party of Peru. EL DIARIO: How do the workers and peasants participate in the People's Guerrilla Army? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The peasantry, especially the poor peasants, are the main participants, as fighters and commanders at different levels in the People's Guerrilla Army. The workers participate in the same ways, although the percentage of workers at this time is insufficient. EL DIARIO: Chairman, where has the New Power developed most. in the countryside or in the city? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: We are developing the New Power only in the countryside. In the cities it will be developed in the final stage of the revolution. It is a question of the process of people's war. I think that when we analyze people's war we'll be able to deal with this point a little more. EL DIARIO: Chairman, moving on a bit, the documents of the Communist Party establish you as the Leader of the Party and the revolution. What does this imply, and how is it different from the revisionist theory of the cult of the personality? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Here we must remember how Lenin saw the relationship between the masses, classes, the Party and leaders. We believe that the revolution, the Party, our class, generate leaders, a group of leaders. It has been like this in every revolution. If we think, for instance, about the October Revolution, we have Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov and a few others, a small group. Similarly, in the Chinese revolution there's also a small group of leaders: Chairman Mao Tsetung, and his comrades Kang Sheng, Chiang Ching, Chang Chun-chiao, among others. All revolutions are that way, including our own. We could not be an exception. Here it's not true that there is an exception to every rule because what we're talking about here is the operation of certain laws. All such processes have leaders, but they also have a leader who stands out above the rest or who leads the rest, in accordance with the conditions. Not all leaders can be viewed in exactly the same way. Marx is Marx, Lenin is Lenin, Chairman Mao is Chairman Mao. Each is unique, and no one is going to be just like them. In our Party, revolution, and people's war, the proletariat, by a combination of necessity and historical chance, has brought forth a group of leaders. In Engels' view, it is necessity that generates leaders, and a top leader, but just who that is is determined by chance, by a set of specific conditions that come together at a particular place and time. In this way, in our case too, a Great Leadership [Jefatura] has been generated. This was first acknowledged in the Party at the Expanded National Conference of 1979. But this question involves another basic question that can't be overlooked and needs to be emphasized: there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be. The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility. We have been acting in accordance with Lenin's view, which is correct. The cult of personality is a revisionist formulation. Lenin had warned us of the problem of negating leadership just as he emphasized the need for our class, the Party and the revolution to promote our own leaders, and more than that, top leaders, and a Great Leadership [Jefatura]. There's a difference here that is worth emphasizing. 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. Khrushchev raised the issue of the cult of personality to oppose comrade Stalin. But as we allknow, this was a pretext for attacking the dictatorship of the proletariat. Today, Gorbachev again raises the issue of the cult of personality, as did the Chinese revisionists Liu Shao-chi and Deng Xiaoping. It is therefore a revisionist thesis that in essence takes aim against the proletarian dictatorship and the Great Leadership [Jefatura] and Great Leaders of the revolutionary process in order to cut off its head. In our case it aims specifically at robbing the people's war of its leadership. We do not yet have a dictatorship of the proletariat, but we do have a New Power that is developing in accordance with the norms of new democracy, the joint dictatorship of the workers, peasants and progressives. In our case they seek to rob this process of leadership, and the reactionaries and those who serve them know very well why they do this, because it is not easy to generate Great Leaders and Great Leadership. And a people's war, like the one in this country, needs Great Leaders and a Great Leadership, someone who represents the revolution and heads it, and a group capable of leading it uncompromisingly. In sum, the cult of the personality is a sinister revisionist formulation which has nothing to do with our concept of revolutionary leaders, which conforms with Leninism. EL DLARIO: What significance does the convening of the First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru have for you and your party? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: Coming back to this we would like to mention some points. We would like to reiterate that it is a landmark victory. It is the fulfillment of an obligation set forth by the founder himself. We have held the First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru. What does this imply? We reaffirm that none of the four congresses that took place up until 1962--during a period in which we were developing within the existing Party--none of these was a Marxist congress. None of them adhered strictly to the outlook of the proletariat. This Congress of ours, to underline what I have just said, was a Marxist Congress, but taking place at this moment in history it was a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Congress. And because Maoism is the third, new and highest stage, it is, in the final analysis, the principal of the three. But there is also Gonzalo Thought, because the Congress was based on this thought which has crystallized in the process of applying the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete conditions. For all these reasons it was a "Marxist Congress, a Congress of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought." This Congress has allowed us to make a summation of our whole process of development and to draw positive and negative lessons. This Congress has allowed us to affirm the basis of Party unity made up of its three elements: (1) the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, (2) the Programme, and (3) the General Political Line and at its center, the military line. Another achievement of the Congress is that it has laid a solid foundation for the prospective seizure of Power, I reiterate, prospective. Being in the midst of people's war is what has enabled us to carry out the Congress. And we say this because as far back as 1967 we proposed holding a fifth congress, and in 1976 we proposed a congress of reconstitution. For a number of years we made attempts, but we were not able to pull it together. Why? This speaks to what has happened in many parties that are preparing to take up arms, to enter into armed struggle. They become entangled in big and explosive internal struggles that lead to divisions and end up short-circuiting the development of the struggle to seize Power by force of arms. This led us to postpone the congress in I978 and to wait until we were in the midst of people's war to hold it. We simply reasoned that once we were at war, who would be able to oppose the people's war? A congress and Party with guns in hand, waging a powerful people's war, how would anyone be able to oppose developing the people's war? At that point they wouldn't be able to do us any real harm. The Congress has pushed forward our development in other aspects. It has made us see and understand the process of people's war more deeply, and in particular, the need to prepare for the seizure of Power. The Congress has also brought about a leap in the struggle, and this is good. It is necessary to say it clearly, although some may want to misinterpret it, but, in short, we are not bothered anymore by misinterpretations or by alien and non-revolutionary elements. The Congress clarified thatwith respect to the two-line struggle in the Party, revisionism is the main danger. This deserves a little explanation. At this time there is no right opportunist line in the Party, only isolated rightist attitudes, ideas, approaches and even some isolated rightist positions. But precisely by delving into this question the Congress concluded that targeting revisionism as the main danger is the best way the Party can ward off and prevent the emergence of a right opportunist line, which would be a revisionist line. Chairman Mao emphasized that we must always be concerned about revisionism because it is the main danger facing the world revolution. So we also take into consideration the situation outside our ranks, since any rightist tendency in the Party, expressed in attitudes, ideas, approaches, and positions of a rightist nature, has to do with ideological processes, with the repercussions of the class struggle, and the campaigns of the reactionary State, with the actions of revisionism itself in our country, with the counterrevolutionary activities of imperialism, especially the contention between the two superpowers, and the sinister role of revisionism on a world scale. So the Party prepares us and we raise our guard. And thus by waging a firm and farsighted two-line struggle among the people--because I repeat, there is no right opportunist line--we can avoid the emergence of a revisionist line. What we've said may be misinterpreted, but it's necessary to say things plainly and teach the people. The Congress has armed us and demands that we: look out for revisionism! and combat it relentlessly! wherever it should present itself, beginning with preventing and combating whatever form it might take within the Party itself. And in this way we will also be better armed to fight revisionism outside our ranks and on a world scale. This is one of the most important points of the Congress. The Congress has given us great unanimity. Yes, unanimity. We adhere closely to what Lenin demanded, that a Party, in order to face complex and difficult situations like those we face daily--and will face even more in the decisive moments that are unfolding and will unfold--has to have unanimity. We must carry out struggle in order to have a clear and defined line, a common understanding, in order to have iron-like unity and to strike powerful blows. So the Congress has also given us unanimity, but attained, I insist, through two-line struggle. This is how we do things. Why is this so? I repeat again, the Party is a contradiction and every contradiction consists of two aspects in struggle. This is the way it is and no one can escape this. So today our Party is more united than ever, and more united because of the lofty tasks that must be undertaken with firmness and determination. On another level, the Congress obviously selected a Central Committee, and since it is the First Congress, we have the First Central Committee. The Congress has given us all these things and, finally, as we well know, since this is the highest level of a Party, what has been sanctioned there has been ratified at the highest organizational level. Today, all this makes us stronger, more united, more determined, more resolute. But there is something that is worth emphasizing again. The Congress is the offspring of the Party and of the war. Without the people's war this historic task, which had been pending for nearly 60 years since the Party's founding in 1928, would not have been accomplished. But what is important is that the Congress strengthens the development of the people's war. It returns to the people's war a hundredfold what the people's war contributed to the realization of the Congress. The people's war is stronger now and will gain even greater force, much more than before. For all these reasons, the Congress is for us, the members of the Communist Party of Peru, an immortal milestone of victory, and we are certain that it will be imprinted in the history of our Party forever. We expect the Congress to lead to great things in the service of the proletariat of Peru, the Peruvian people, the international proletariat, the oppressed nations, and the people of the world. EL DIARIO: Some people say that the convening of the First Congress of the PCP dealt a big blow to the reactionary forces because it took place under conditions of an intense people's war. What do you have to say? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: It seems to us that this is an accurate assessment and it shows thatthere is a class and a people in this country who understand what we are doing, what the Party is doing. For us this is an important expression of recognition which compels us to strive harder in order to be worthy of such confidence, such hope. EL DIARIO: Was it necessary to carry out a struggle to purify the Party before the Congress was held? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: No. In our case the all-out struggle took place at the IXth Plenum in I979 in order to initiate the people's war. There we waged a fierce struggle against a right opportunist line that opposed the initiation of the people's war. It was there that expulsions and purification of the Party took place. But as is well established, such purging strengthens a Party, and so it was in our case. The proof is that we initiated the people's war and have been carrying it out for eight years. At the Congress, there wasn't this kind of struggle to purify the Party. EL DIARIO: Many people wonder where the strength and determination of the PCP cadre come from. Does it have to do with solid ideological training? What is this process like? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The strength of the Party members is based on ideological and political training. It is fortified through embracing the ideology of the proletariat, and its specific application, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought; the programme; and the general political line and its central element, the military line. The strength of the cadre develops on this basis. One thing that we concerned ourselves with a great deal in initiating people's war was the cadre. The preparation for people's war raised the question for us of how to steel the cadre, and we imposed high demands on ourselves to break with the old society, absolute and complete dedication to the revolution, and to give our lives. This is well expressed when one recalls the 1980 Plenary of the Central Committee and the military school. At the end of those events all the cadre made a commitment, we all took responsibility for being the initiators of the people's war. It was a solemn promise that later everyone in the Party made. How does this process take place? It starts with how each of the future cadre is forged in the class struggle before joining the Party. Each one participates in the class struggle, advances, and begins to work more closely with us until the time comes when that person on their own makes the big decision of asking to join the Party. The Party analyzes the person's situation, their strengths and weaknesses--because we all have them--and if worthy, accepts them into the Party. Once in the Party, systematic ideological training begins. It is in the Party that we transform ourselves into communists. It is the Party that makes us into communists. A characteristic of the situation in recent years is that the cadre have been steeled in war. Moreover, those who join become part of a Party that is leading a war, and therefore they do so first and foremost to develop as communists, as fighters in the People's Guerrilla Army, or administrators, in some cases, in levels of the New State that we are organizing. So the people's war is another element of great importance that contributes to forging the cadre. In sum, while we take ideology and politics as our starting point, it is the war itself that forges the cadre. On that fiery forge we are molded in accordance with the Party. And in this way we all advance and make a contribution. Nevertheless, there is always a contradiction between the revolutionary line that is principal in our thinking and the opposing line. Both lines exist, since no one is a hundred percent communist. In our minds a struggle between two lines is waged, and this struggle is also key in forging the cadre, aiming always at keeping the revolutionary line principal. This is what we strive for. This is how our cadre are being forged, and the facts show the degree of revolutionary heroism that they are capable of, just like other sons and daughters of the people. EL DIARIO: Do you think that one of the highest expressions of the heroism of the PCP cadre took place in the prisons on June 19, 1986? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: This was a high expression of it, yes. But we believe that the highest expression of revolutionary heroism, a raging torrent of heroism, occurred when we confronted the genocide of 1983 and 1984, as we battled the armed forces that had just entered the fray. This has beenthe most massive genocide so far. And it brought forward, as a principal and vital aspect, great examples of the people's fighting spirit. Beyond this, it was a mass expression of heroism, of devotion, of sacrificing their lives--and not only on the part of the communists, but also the peasants, workers, intellectuals, the sons and daughters of the people. This was the greatest demonstration of mass revolutionary heroism to date, and the experience that has steeled us the most. Then why do we honor June 19 as the "Day of Heroism"? The 19th is a day that shows our people and the world what steadfast communists and consistent revolutionaries are capable of, because it was not only communists who died. The majority were revolutionaries. It has emerged as a symbol because there is a specific date, while the general genocide lasted for two years and involved many scattered events. The 19th was a single event, an example whose enormous impact shook Peru and the world. For this reason we honor June 19 as the "Day of Heroism." EL DIARIO: Chairman, how does the PCP sustain the huge Party apparatus, including the People's Guerrilla Army? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: I think this deserves a detailed explanation. Concerning the Party, Chairman Mao teaches us, as did Marx, Lenin and all the great Marxists, that the Party is not a mass party, though the Party has a mass character. It has a mass character in the sense that while being a select organization--a selection of the best, of the proven, of those, as Stalin said, who have what it takes--being numerically small in proportion to the broad masses, the Party defends the interests of the proletariat, and takes responsibility for the class interests of the proletariat in taking responsibility for its emancipation, which can only come with communism. But since other classes that make up the people also participate in the revolution, the Party defends their interests as well, in accordance with the fact that the proletariat can only emancipate itself by emancipating all the oppressed. There is no other way it can emancipate itself. Because of this, the Party has a mass character, but it isn't a mass party. The mass party, of which so much is said today, is nothing but an expression, once again, of rotten revisionist positions. Such parties are parties of followers, of officials, organizational machines. Our Party is a Party of fighters, of leaders, an instrument of war like the one Lenin himself would demand. I believe we can understand this more deeply if we remember how many Bolsheviks there were when the October Revolution triumphed: 80 thousand in a country of 150 million inhabitants. The Party is a system of organizations and obviously has its necessities. The formation of an army that is numerically much larger, more vast, also has its necessities. Marxism, and especially Chairman Mao, has taught us how to resolve this problem, too. The CPC, based on Chairman Mao Tsetung's teachings, concluded that giving economic aid to parties was corrosive, and that it was a revisionist policy, because a Party must be self-reliant. This is what we have followed: self-reliance. Self-reliance has to do with economic necessities, but mainly, as we understand it, it has to do with ideological and political orientation. With that as our starting point we can see how to deal with the economic necessities which are always present--it would be an error to say they don't exist. Basing ourselves on these criteria we have resolved the problem and we will continue to resolve it by relying on the masses. It is the masses of our people, the proletariat, our class--because this is our class--to which we owe our existence and which we serve; our peasantry, mainly the poor peasants; the intellectuals; the petty bourgeoisie; the advanced; the revolutionaries, those who want a radical transformation, in a word, revolution--that's who sustains the Party. It is mainly the peasantry and the proletariat who sustain it. And taking it further, the poor peasants especially are the ones who go without to give us food from their tables, who share their blanket with us, and make a little place for us in their hut. They are the ones who sustain us, support us and even give us their own blood, as does the proletariat, as do the intellectuals. This is how we are developing. This is what we base ourselves on. This problem brings us to the following questions. Since we start from this basis it allows us to be independent, to be under no one's command. Because in the international communist movement itbecame the habit to obey commands. Khrushchev was a champion at issuing commands, as is Gorbachev today, or that sinister character Deng. Independence, because each Communist Party must decide for itself since it is responsible for its own revolution, not in order to separate it from the world revolution, but precisely in order to serve it. This allows us to make our own decisions, to decide for ourselves. Chairman Mao said it like this: we were given a lot of advice, some good, some bad. We accepted the good and rejected the bad. But if we had accepted some erroneous principle, the responsibility would not have belonged to those who gave the advice, but to us. Why? Because we make our own decisions. That comes with independence, and it leads to self-sufficiency, to self-reliance. Does this mean that we don't recognize proletarian internationalism? No, on the contrary, we are fervent and consistent practitioners of proletarian internationalism. And we are confident that we have the support of the international proletariat, the oppressed nations, the peoples of the world, the parties or organizations that remain loyal to Marxism whatever their degree of development, and we recognize that the first thing that they give us, their primary support, is their own struggle. The propaganda or celebrations that they carry out are a form of support that is creating favorable public opinion and this is an expression of proletarian internationalism. Proletarian internationalism also underlies the advice they give us and the opinions they express. But, I insist, we are the ones who must decide whether we accept these or not. If they are correct, we welcome them, obviously, because between Parties we have the obligation to help each other, especially in such difficult and complex times. Then, to reiterate, all the struggles waged by the proletariat, the oppressed nations, the peoples of the world, the parties and organizations steadfast and loyal to Marxism--all that struggle is the primary concrete form of proletarian internationalist help. Nevertheless, the greatest assistance we have is undying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the ideology of the international proletariat, which has been generated by the working class through long decades and thousands of struggles all over the world. This is the greatest assistance we receive because it is the light, without which our eyes would see nothing. But with this light our eyes can see and our hands can act. This is how we see this problem, and this is how we advance. EL DIARIO: Chairman, perhaps the answer to this question is obvious, but we would like to know your opinion of the revisionist parties that are financed by international foundations, and the big imperialist powers, and by social-imperialism. CHAIRMAN GONZALO: They have betrayed the world revolution, betray revolution in every country, and betray our class and the people, because to serve superpowers or imperialist powers, to serve revisionism, especially social-imperialism, to dance to their tune, to be pawns in their game of world domination is to betray the revolution. III. People's War EL DIARIO: Chairman, let's talk about the people's war now. What does violence mean to you, Chairman Gonzalo? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: With regard to violence we start from the principle established by Chairman Mao Tsetung: violence, that is the need for revolutionary violence, is a universal law with no exception. Revolutionary violence is what allows us to resolve fundamental contradictions by means of an army, through people's war. Why do we start from Chairman Mao's thesis? Because we believe Mao reaffirmed Marxism on this question, establishing that there are no exceptions whatsoever to this law. What Marx held, that violence is the midwife of history, continues to be a totally valid and monumental contribution. Lenin expounded upon violence and spoke about Engels' panegyric praise of revolutionary violence, but it was the Chairman who told us that it was a universal law, without anyexception. That's why we take his thesis as our starting point. This is an essential question of Marxism, because without revolutionary violence one class cannot replace another, an old order cannot be overthrown to create a new one--today a new order led by the proletariat through Communist Parties. The problem of revolutionary violence is an issue that is more and more being put on the table for discussion, and therefore we communists and revolutionaries must reaffirm our principles. The problem of revolutionary violence is how to actually carry it out with people's war. The way we see this question is that when Chairman Mao Tsetung established the theory of people's war and put it into practice, he provided the proletariat with its military line, with a military theory and practice that is universally valid and therefore applicable everywhere in accordance with the concrete conditions. We see the problem of war this way: war has two aspects, destructive and constructive. Construction is the principal aspect. Not to see it this way undermines the revolution--weakens it. On the other hand, from the moment the people take up arms to overthrow the old order, from that moment, the reaction seeks to crush, destroy and annihilate the struggle, and it uses all the means at its disposal, including genocide. We have seen this in our country; we are seeing it now, and will continue to see it even more until the outmoded Peruvian State is demolished. As for the so-called dirty war, I would like to simply point out that they claim that the reactionary armed forces learned this dirty war from us. This accusation clearly expresses a lack of understanding of revolution, and of what a people's war is. The reaction, through its armed forces and other repressive forces, seeks to carry out their objective of sweeping us away, of eliminating us. Why? Because we want to do the same to them--sweep them away and eliminate them as a class. Mariátegui said that only by destroying, demolishing the old order could a new social order be brought into being. In the final analysis, we judge these problems in light of the basic principle of war established by Chairman Mao: the principle of annihilating the enemy's forces and preserving one's own forces. We know very well that the reaction has used, is using, and will continue to use genocide. On this we are absolutely clear. And consequently this raises the problem of the price we have to pay: in order to annihilate the enemy and to preserve, and even more to develop our own forces, we have to pay a price in war, a price in blood, the need to sacrifice a part for the triumph of the people's war. As for terrorism, they claim we're terrorists. I would like to give the following answer so that everyone can think about it: has it or has it not been Yankee imperialism and particularly Reagan who has branded all revolutionary movements as terrorists, yes or no? This is how they attempt to discredit and isolate us in order to crush us. That is their dream. And it's not only Yankee imperialism and the other imperialist powers that combat so-called terrorism. So does social-imperialism and revisionism, and today Gorbachev himself proposes to unite with the struggle against terrorism. And it isn't by chance that at the VIIIth Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania Ramiz Alia dedicated himself to combatting terrorism as well live the pioneers of the people's revolutionary army! It is no longer a plot against some detested individual, no act of vengeance or desperation, no mere 'intimidation'--no, it was a well thought-out and well prepared commencement of operations by a contingent of the revolutionary army." "Fortunately, the time has passed when revolution was 'made' by individual terrorists, because people were not revolutionary. The bomb has ceased to be the weapon of the solitary 'bomb thrower,' and is becoming an essential weapon of the people." Lenin taught us that the times had changed, that the bomb had become a weapon of combat for our class, for the people, that what we're talking about is no longer a conspiracy, an isolated individual act, but the actions of a Party, with a plan, with a system, with an army. So, where is the imputed terrorism? It's pure slander. Finally, we always have to remember that, especially in present-day war, it is precisely the reactionaries who use terrorism as one of their means of struggle, and it is, as has been proven repeatedly, one of the forms used on a daily basis by the armed forces of the Peruvian State. Considering all this, we can conclude that those whose reasoning is colored by desperation because theearth is trembling beneath their feet wish to charge us with terrorism in order to hide the people's war. But this people's war is so earthshaking that they themselves admit that it is of national dimensions and that it has become the principal problem facing the Peruvian State. What terrorism could do that? None. And moreover, they can no longer deny that a Communist Party is leading the people's war. And at this time some of them are beginning to reconsider; we shouldn't be too hasty in writing anyone off. There are those who could come forward. Others, like Del Prado, never. EL DIARIO: What are some of the particularities of the people's war in Peru, and how does it differ from other struggles in the world, in Latin America, and from the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA)? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: That's a good question. I thank you for asking it, because it gives us a chance to look at the Party's so-called "dogmatism" a bit more. There are even those who say that we incorrectly try to apply Chairman Mao in an era where he is no longer applicable. In short, they babble on so much that we feel perfectly justified asking whether they have any idea what they are talking about. This includes the much-decorated senator who is a specialist in violence. People's war is universally applicable, in accordance with the character of the revolution and adapted to the specific conditions of each country. Otherwise, it cannot be carried out. In our case, the particularities are very dear. It is a struggle that is waged in the countryside and in the city, as was established as far back as I968 in the plan for the people's war. Here we have a difference, a particularity: it is waged in the countryside and the city. This, we believe, has to do with our own specific conditions. Latin America, for instance, has cities which are proportionately larger than those on other continents. It is a reality of Latin America that can't be ignored. Just look at the capital of Peru, for example, which has a high percentage of the country's population. So, for us, the city could not be left aside, and the war had to be developed there as well. But the struggle in the countryside is principal, the struggle in the city a necessary complement. This is one particularity, there's another. In the beginning of the people's war we confronted the police. That was the reality because only in December 1982 did the armed forces enter the war. This is not to say that they had not been used in a support role before then. They had, in addition to their studying the process of our development. It is a particularity because we created a power vacuum in the countryside and we had to establish the New Power without having defeated large armed forces--because they hadn't come into the war. And when they did, when they came in, it was because we had established People's Power. That was the concrete political situation in the country. If we had applied the letter and not the spirit of Mao we would not have established the New Power and we would have been sitting, waiting for the armed forces to come in. We would have gotten bogged down. Another particularity was the structure of the army which I've already talked about. All these are particularities. We have already spoken to the countryside and city, to how to carry out the war, to the army, to how the New Power arose; and the militarization of the Party itself is another particularity. These are specific things that correspond to our reality, to the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, of Chairman Mao's theory on people's war, to the conditions in our country. Does this make us different from other struggles? Yes. Why do we differ from others? Because we carry out people's war this makes us different from other struggles in Latin America. In Cuba, people's war was not carried out, but they also had their own particularities which they have intentionally forgotten. Before, they said Cuba was an exceptional case--Guevara said this--the fact that U.S. imperialism didn't take part. Later they forgot this. Aside from this, there was no Communist Party there to give leadership. These are questions of Cubanism and its five characteristics: an insufficient class differentiation which demanded that saviors save the oppressed; socialist revolution or a caricature of revolution; united front but without the national bourgeoisie; no need for Base Areas; and as noted, no need for a Party. What we are seeing in Latin America today is just the development of these same positions, only more and more at the service ofsocial-imperialism and its contention with Yankee imperialism for world hegemony. We can see this clearly in Central America. The MRTA, the little that we know of it, falls into the same category. Finally, another issue that makes us different--and forgive me if I'm insistent--concerns independence, self-reliance, and making our own decisions. Because others do not have these characteristics they are used as pawns, while we are not. And one far-reaching difference: we take Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as our guide, others do not. In sum, the greatest difference, the fundamental difference, is in the point of departure; ours is the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, applied to the specific conditions of our country, and I insist here again, that this is with clear particularities which show the falsehood of the so-called dogmatism they accuse us of--which they do at the behest of their masters. EL DIARIO: Chairman, would you say then that the MRTA is playing a counterrevolutionary role in this country? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The MRTA has positions that should make one think. For example, the truce they granted to APRA until, as they said, APRA attacked the people. But we all know that the same day that García Pérez assumed the presidency, he repressed the masses in the very capital of the republic. In October 1985 there was genocide at Lurigancho prison. Were the people being attacked or not? And how long did they wait to put an end to their truce? These are things one must ask oneself. EL DIARIO: Since you consider the Base Areas to be so important, could you tell us how they are being built? What do you think about insurrection and how are you preparing the cities? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The Base Area is the essence of people's war. Without it, people's war cannot develop. I have already talked about the specific circumstances that we confronted in the second half of 1982. We were developing the final stage of the campaign to unfold guerrilla warfare, aimed at destroying the semi-feudal relations of exploitation. We took aim against gamonalismo, which is the basis of state power, and will be, until we sweep it away. We continued to strike blows and we dealt the police devastating and humiliating defeats. You don't have to take my word on this. Journalists from Expreso, for example, have said this, and I think it's safe to say that their judgment was not colored by revolutionary sympathies. Thus having generated a power vacuum in the countryside, the problem was posed to us, what is to be done? And we decided to create People's Committees, that is, a joint dictatorship, a New Power. We set out to make them clandestine, because the armed forces would have to enter the battle shortly, this we knew. Those People's Committees have multiplied a hundredfold. Those that are in a given locality form a Base Area, and all these Base Areas taken together constitute the New Democratic People's Republic in formation. This is how the committees and Base Areas came into being and how the New Democratic People's Republic is being formed. When the armed forces did come in we had to wage an arduous struggle. They fought to re-establish the old order, and we fought to counter this re-establishment in order to again set up the New Power. An extremely bloody and absolutely merciless genocide took place. We fought fiercely. In 1984, the reaction, and in particular the armed forces, believed they had defeated us. Here I'm referring to documents that they are very familiar with, because they are theirs, in which it was even said that we were no longer a danger, but that MRTA was the danger. But what was the outcome? The People's Committees and the Base Areas multiplied, and later that led us to continue the development of Base Areas. That is what we are doing today. As for insurrection, I believe this is an extremely important question. The developing revolutionary situation in a country like ours allowed us to initiate the people's war, having already reconstituted the Party and established a clear ideology. The actual development of the Base Areas, the development of the People's Guerrilla Army and of the people's war, are giving impetus to the furtherunfolding of the revolutionary situation. Thus, keeping in mind what Chairman Mao has said, all of this is leading to what he called a high tide of struggle, or what Lenin termed a revolutionary crisis. When we reach that point the insurrection takes place. This is the theory of people's war, and this is what we are taking up, and the basis upon which we are developing. Therefore, because the process of our people's war must bring us to a high tide, we must prepare the insurrection that in synthesis comes down to the seizure of the cities. We are thinking about and preparing for this insurrection because it is a necessity. Without it we can not win country-wide victory. What does the problem of the cities pose for us? We have developed our work in the cities and in the countryside for many years. This work has undergone a shift and a change with the people's war, it is true. Our situation now leads us to consider how we are going to prepare the city, or the cities, to generalize it. This has to do with developing our mass work, but within and for the people's war. We have done this, and we continue to do it. The point is that we have begun to develop it more. We think that our activity in the cities is indispensable and it must be pushed forward more and more, because that is where the proletariat is concentrated and we cannot leave it in the hands of revisionism or opportunism. The barriadas are in the cities, the shantytowns with their vast masses. Since I976 we've had guidelines for work in the cities. Take barrios and barriadas as the foundation and the proletariat as the leading force. This is our policy and we will continue to apply it, now, under conditions of people's war. What masses do we direct our work at? This you can see. From what's already been said, it's clear that the vast masses of the barrios and barriadas are a belt of steel that is going to encircle the enemy and hold back the reactionary forces. We have to win over the working class more and more until they and the people acknowledge our leadership. We fully understand that it will take time and repeated experience in order for our class to see, understand, and reaffirm that this is their vanguard--for the people to see that they have a center that leads them. They have that right, given how much the masses have been swindled! The proletariat, the masses of the barriadas, the petty bourgeoisie, the intellectuals--how many hopes frustrated! We must understand that they have the right to demand it, clearly they have it, and we have the responsibility to work to make them see, to show them, that we really are their vanguard and that they should acknowledge us as such. We differentiate between being a vanguard and being an acknowledged vanguard. Our class has that right and no one can deny it to them. The people have that right and no one can deny it to them. That's what we think. We don't think that the proletariat and the people are going to acknowledge us overnight as their vanguard and only center, which is what we have to be in order to carry out the revolution as it must be carried out. So we have to persevere and develop different forms as an integral part of our mass work, different forms so that the masses learn from the people's war itself, so that they learn the value of weapons, the importance of the gun. Chairman Mao says that the peasantry must learn the importance of the gun, this is a fact. So we do our work in this way. We create new forms and in this way we unfold our mass work within and for the people's war. This is related to something else, to the Revolutionary Movement for the Defense of the People (MRDP), whose very key is the Center of Resistance. We say this very frankly. These are other organizational forms, other forms of struggle which correspond to a people's war. They cannot be the usual ones, they cannot be, they have a different character; this is the concrete reality. Consequently, we develop the Party, the People's Guerrilla Army, and the Revolutionary Movement for the Defense of the People, as well as organizations created for the various areas of work. We need to spur on the masses' fighting spirit so that the potential of the masses and our class can be realized. Let's look at something. Today we have huge price increases. Why is there no popular protest? Who is holding the masses back? Lenin said protest makes the reaction tremble; when ourclass marches in the streets the reaction trembles. This is what we want to apply, what Marxism-Leninism-Maoism teaches us. Our class is born and develops in struggle, and so do the people. What we need to do is synthesize the masses', the people's own experience, to help them establish their own organizational forms, forms of struggle, taking into their own hands ever more developed and expanding forms of struggle in the cities. This is the way they will be trained. What do we think? It is clear that the center of things is in the countryside, but for the insurrection the center changes, the center goes over to the city, and that even means that, just as in the beginning we moved fighters and communists from the cities to the countryside, later we must move them from the countryside to the city. This is the way it will be and this is how we shift our weight in preparation for the insurrection. We have to be looking for the conditions that permit the actions of the People's Guerrilla Army to converge with insurrectionary actions in the cities, in one city or in several. This is what we need. The insurrection aims at capturing the cities in order for the people's war to win country-wide victory. But we have to try to preserve the means of production, which the reaction will want to destroy, and protect revolutionary prisoners of war or known revolutionaries, who they will want to annihilate, as well as to hunt down our enemies, to put them where they can't do any harm. This is what we've been taught about insurrection. And this is what an insurrection is. Lenin taught us how to build towards an insurrection and Chairman Mao taught us the role of insurrection in people's war. This is how we see insurrection and how we are preparing for it. This is the road we must follow and are following. We must be very clear on one thing. Insurrection is not a simple, spontaneous explosion. No, that would be dangerous. Nevertheless, this could happen, and that's why we must and do concern ourselves with insurrection, starting right now. We think there are those who might want to use the people's war for their own benefit. Some time ago, in a session of Central Committee, we analyzed the possibilities. And one of them is that the revisionists or others may provoke "insurrections," either to abort the process of development or to gain positions and serve their social-imperialist master--or whatever power directs them, since many centers could want to use us this way. EL DIARIO: Chairman, what would the Party do in those circumstances? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: In those circumstances, we would do what Lenin did: tell the masses that this is not the moment, but if the masses launch an insurrection, fight alongside them, so that together we can make an orderly retreat and so that they suffer as little as possible. And if we die with them, our blood will be merged with theirs to a greater extent. This is what Lenin taught us in the famous struggles of July 1917. Because we cannot just tell the masses they are wrong and let events make them understand. No, we can't do that. The masses are the masses, our class is our class, and if they are not heading in the right direction, and the conditions make them desperate and push them into situations, or even if there are those who push them on purpose, we have to be with them so that alongside them we can help them see the unfavorable situation, and fighting alongside them, help them retreat in the best way possible. And then they will see that we are with them through thick and thin. This is the best way for them to understand and be convinced that we are their Party. This is what we would do. EL DIARIO: Chairman, another question. When you speak of the forms of struggle in the city, what role do you ascribe to the unions? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The same one Marx ascribed to them in The Past, Present and Future of the Trade Unions." A hundred years ago, Marx said that the trade unions began as simple associations for the economic defense of the workers. That is their past. Their present is to become more organized and to develop politically. And their future is to serve the seizure of Power. This Marx has already told us. So then, what is the problem? How to combine the two struggles. The economic struggle is, as Marx said himself, a guerrilla war--the struggle that our class, the proletariat, and thepeople develop for wages, hours, working conditions and other rights. When a strike is launched, it is a guerrilla war in which people not only fight around concrete economic or political questions, if it is of general interest, but also prepare for great moments to come. And this is its fundamental historic essence. So the question for us is how to relate the economic struggle to the seizure of Power. This is what we call developing our mass work within and for the people's war. EL DIARIO: Chairman, you spoke of the revolutionary crisis. Do you believe it's on the horizon in the short term? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: The issue is the triumph of the people s war and this has to do, mainly, with how much more and how much better we fight. And the insurrection, as I've already said, is the knock-out punch we must prepare to deliver, and we're seriously preparing to deliver it. We have to anticipate the possibility that others may wish to use it to their advantage. But the main problem is the timing of the insurrection, determining the opportune moment. EL DIARIO: Why did the Communist Party of Peru initiate the people's war in 1980? What is the military and historical explanation for this? What social, economic and political analysis did the PCP carry out in order to launch the war? CHAIRMAN GONZALO: We studied the country, particularly from World War II on, and we saw that in its process of development Peruvian society was entering a complex situation. The government's own analysis showed that critical questions would present the