PERU: The Tale of Killing "Leftists"

[Louis N Proyect]

Louis: Not everybody who fights gun in hand against capitalist governments 
should get a blank-check. Stalin as leader of the Soviet people was 
leading a progressive struggle against Hitler's invading armies. He was 
defending socialist property relations. He also continued to jail and 
murder political opponents "on the left" and offered the same excuses as 
the Shining Path: they were impeding the struggle. It ill-served the left 
to have given Stalin a blank check back then, it also ill-serves us to 
do the same sort of thing today. 

Furthermore, perhaps the problem with Shining Path is not that they are not 
struggling, but that they are not struggling intelligently. The French 
resistance fought valiantly against Hitler, but was easily persuaded to 
back DeGaulle as soon as the war was over. We need to be more 
discriminating. The heroism of Shining Path combatants is not in 
question, nor is their appeal to the most downtrodden peasants in the 
mountains. What is in question is their ability to take the level to the 
next higher level. Peru has a working-class that has been in significant 
struggles for most of the 20th century. I don't see much evidence that 
the Shining Path has involved them in struggle. Castro won the campesinos 
and the workers in the cities to the revolutionary cause. Shining Path 
remains a rural phenomenon and Peru will not become socialist without the 
working-class.

On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, Paul Cockshott wrote:

>     Carlos:
>     Not, in politics is not enough.  You need to clearly state if you
>     support or not the criminal rump gang of the Senderistas who murder
>     other leftists without proof of being guilty, without a trial,
>     without a possibility of defending themselves. Silence, my dear,
>     even in the name of friendship, in a case like this, is tantamount
>     to be an accomplice.
> 
> Paul
> ----
> Only practice can show whether it is a good thing or not.
> 
> If the Sendera win the war the presumption will have to be that
> it is a good thing to kill rival leftists. If they do not win
> the presumption will go the other way.
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism at lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> 
> 


     --- from list marxism at lists.village.virginia.edu ---