The two line struggle developed in 1995 after the infamous SIN chief Vladimiro Montesinos faked an "interview" on video tape which ostensibly "proved" that Chairman Gonzolo, President of the PCP(SL), who had been imprisoned in solitary confinement for over three years already, had called for an end to the peoples war.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Marxist-Leninist Theory and Practice
11 Jan. 2001
On February 27, 1957 Mao Tse-tung delivered his speech "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" at the Supreme State Conference in Peking this speech was the precedent for the "Hundred Flowers Movement" which was launched by the CCP April 30, 1957 under the slogan "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend". This movement was an elaboration of Marxist theory that every unity contains within it a pair of contradictions. The hundred flowers movement was a "reflecton campaign" which intended to resolve the contradiction between the people and the Party. According to Marxist-Leninist theory everthing in the world contains it's own set of contradictions. This precept is found first in nature itself and later in society and was expressed by Karl Marx as "historical materialism"--which says that all of history has been an unfolding of "class struggle". History began as primitive communism which was transformed by the invention of capital into, at first, the slave state with the slaves and their owners in struggle. Then, later, into feudal society with the monarchs in opposition to the serfs and peasants followed by the bourgeoisie in opposition to the proletariat--which is what we have in the United States today.
Mao Tse-tung recognized that every social structure contained elements in opposition to each other including the communist party itself. Inside the communist party their is discussion on every political issue. As the discussion turns around inside a committee numerous contradictory ideas are presented. These ideas are systematically eliminated one by one until two main themes present themselves and it becomes clear that the party is divided with one part taking up one view and another part taking the other. This is what we mean when we say there is "two line struggle" in the party. We assert, in fact, that there is always at least two points of view existing at any particular time inside the party. The party begins a discussion meeting in ideological unity, but as the discussion begins there is always two line struggle. At the end of the meeting there is a majority and a minority and we hold to the democratic principle that the minority submits to the majority and that the minority line is preserved in case the majority is wrong. We, therefore, begin and end in unity. Therefore, we say, "unity, struggle, unity". We call this discussion "struggle" and we say "struggle is the life of the party".
The intention of Mao Tse-tung's "Hundred Flowers" initiative was to take the idea of the "unity of contradictions" one step further. He recognized that not only does everything in nature contain opposites in struggle and that the party itself contained these contradictions, but also that there was a contradiction between the party and the masses. Therefore, Mao called for criticism of the party from the masses under the principle of "unity, struggle, unity". China was unified as a nation but contained contradictions between the party and the masses. The "Hundred Flowers Movement" was therefore a "reflection campaign"--where the Party and the masses learned from each other. From April 30 to June 8 the People's Daily published hundreds of tirades launched against the regime and on June 8 began to respond to these criticisms.
This issue has a particular importance of Marxist-Leninists at this time for two reasons. First, the Peru Peoples Movement (MPP), an organism generated by the Communist Party of Peru PCP(SL) [Shinning Path], called for criticism of the CoRIM under the slogan "continue crushing the reviosnist capitulationist right opportunist line of the CoRIM (ROL)". This movement began in January 1999. For the benefit of those of you who may not be familiar with the CoRIM I shall briefly digress in to the history of the RIM. The RIM is the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement which is an affilation of a number of communist parites which have united under the ideology of "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism". This organization of political parties contains the PCP(SL), CPN(Maoist) and the RCP-USA as well as many others. Since there is always two line struggle inside political organizations one has errupted inside the RIM.
The issue that is being struggled over in the RIM centers aroung the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (CoRIM) and in particular Bob Avakian, chairman of the RCP-USA, who heads it. The first problem is that the CoRIM was never really elected to represent all of the political parties in the RIM they were only supposed to edit "The World to Win" magazine. And the CoRIM has essentially become a shadow organization of the RIM. Bob Avakian and RCP-USA members easily took over the organization, since with U.S. passports and american dollars they were in a position to manage the CoRIM where parties from developing nations were not since they were either too poor, or resricted from travel by their government, or actively engaged in people's war as the Shinning Path and the Communist Party of Nepal CPN(Maoist) are.
The two line struggle developed in 1995 after the infamous SIN chief Vladimiro Montesinos faked an "interview" on video tape which ostensibly "proved" that Chairman Gonzolo, President of the PCP(SL), who had been imprisoned in solitary confinement for over three years already, had called for an end to the peoples war. This elaborate hoax was perpetrated by presenting two former PCP(SL) members Margie Clavo Peralta and Jorge Olivares in an "interview" claiming that they had changed their position on the peoples war because they had seen Chairman Gonzolo and "he had convinced them." This elaborate hoax was supplimented by letters and other props. The video tape was later exposed as a hoax in 1998 by Peruvian Journalist Cesar Hildebrant on Peruvian Television (Red Sun http://redsun.org/red_sun/red_sun_17.pdf). The expose by Hildebrant clearly showed Vladimiro Montesinos in the background directing the "interview".
Since Chairman Gonzolo, the greatest living Marxist, was arrested in 1992 member parties of the RIM had been working hard to get a chance to see him, because when he was first captured he was displayed in a cage in fron of the press and gave his famous "Speech from the Cage". Where he said,
"We are here in these circumstances. Some think this is a great defeat. They are dreaming! We tell them to keep on dreaming. It is simply a bend, nothing more, a bend in the road. The road is long and we shall arrive. We shall triumph! You shall see it."
--Speech by Chairman Gonzalo, September 24, 1992 (Red Sun http://redsun.org/pcp_doc/pcp_1092.htm)
Since that speech Chairman Gonzolo has not seen anyone besides his captors. He has never seen a lawyer. He has never had a visitor in over eight years! At the time Vladimiro Montesinos faked this tape which alleged that Chairman Gonzolo had called for an end to the people's war the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Chaiman Gonzolo (IEC) was working hard to get a chance to see Chairman Gonzolo, so that he could see a lawyer at least. In fact, Chairman Gonzolo's lawyer was arrested by the facist, genocidal, country-selling dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori. At this critical time, Bob Avakian and his clique in the CoRIM shut down the IEC and began to propagate the "revisionist capitulationist right opportunist line", in their international magazine "A World to Win" and other publications, that Chairman Gonzolo "may have called for an end to the people's war" "there may be some truth to this, etc..." This became the "two line struggle" not only within the RIM, but between members of the PCP(SL) who were imprisoned who were told by the traitor Margie Clavo Peralta that she had seen Chairman Gonzolo herself! And that he told her personally that he wished to end the people's war. This was of course immediately exposed as a lie, since if Chairman Gonzolo had called for an end to the peoples war why couldn't he see his lawyer and the press and tell us himself?! After Bob Avakian had shut down the IEC, and had begun perpetuating the hoax causing support groups around the world to shut down as well, some two years later Hildebrant would go on national television in Peru and expose the whole thing as a hoax engineered by Vladimiro Montesinos! In Hildebrant's expose he interviewed Marianella Munoz a journalist who was there at the time the hoax was fabricated.
The Peru People's Movement(MPP) has now taken up the initiative to defend the life of Chairman Gonzolo by sponsoring International Conferences, exposing the hoax "revisionist capitulationist right opportunist line (ROL)and continuing to demand:
"The Communist Party of Peru and the Peruvian People demand of this fascist, genocidal and country-selling dictatorial regime of Fujimori, the personal presentation of our great leader Chairman Gonzalo, alive, before the national and the international televised press and that he make a public statement!"
Therefore we have a two line struggle to this day against Bob Avakian and the CoRIM. That is the first of two reasons that the "hundered flowers" campaign is relevant to Marxists-Leninists today. The really erie thing about this whole episode was that when the PCP(SL) spoke up in defence of Chairman Gonzolo Bob Avakian in the CoRIM and the RCP-USA here in the United States immediately said "there is no two line struggle" at that point Maoists here in the U.S. knew that something very serious was going on because there is always two line struggle, over one issue or another. But none of this information was coming out, none of these events were reported on in the RCP-USA newspaper the "Revolutionary Worker" and never has to this day been reported in the "Revolutionary Worker" and probably never will be. At this point, a new fraction began to develop trying to expose this issue. But, the RCP-USA has blacked it out and tried to gag the new fraction, headed by the MPP, by calling us "police agents" and threatening to "sue" and threatening "remember what happened to Trotsky", etc.
The second reason that the hundred flowers movement initiated by Mao Tse-tung, where a barage of criticism was leveled at the CCP, is that Bob Avakian has called for it himself. In the latest issue of the "Revolutionary Worker", The Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie...Soaring to Great Heights... and Grubbing in the Dirt, By Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA Revolutionary Worker #1086, January 14, 2001, Bob Avakian has claimed that the new initiative they have launched regarding the "New Programme" that they are writing is similar to Mao Tse-tung's "hundred flowers movement". A statement such as this coming from Bob Avakian must be viewed as the most insidious dissembence the RCP-USA has undertaken to date. For we must recall that when the CCP called criticism upon itself the Peoples Daily published hundreds of angry tirades against it. But when we raise this issue about their abandonment and, indeed, obsruction of the campaign to Defend the Life of Chairman Gonzolo they print NOT ONE WORD!
In conclusion, there is more at stake than the "New Programme" that the RCP-USA is writing right now. The RCP-USA is looking for, or trying to fashion, a mandate from the masses. In otherwords, they want to try to cover up all these years of betrayal and oppression that they have perpetrated among the left. They want to cover-up what they have done to the campaign to free Chairman Gonzolo, the anti-gay line, the fact that they have infiltrated and destroyed several grassroot organizations, e.g. No Business as Usual (NBAU), Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and others. They want to make it appear, to the RIM, that everything is "hunky dory" and that everything is fine, "you see...nobody has said anything bad...look in the paper!" What ever you may feel about Maoism, somebody is going to be running the RCP-USA and the CoRIM after this "New Programme" of theirs is finished, should it be Bob Avakian? The stakes in this are indeed very high and I would hope that the New Fraction would take the leading role instead. Therefore:
CONTINUE TO CRUSH THE CAPITULATIONIST REVIONIST RIGHT OPPORTUNIST LINE OF THE CoRIM (ROL)!
FANSHEN THE RCP-USA AND THE CoRIM!
ELEVATE THE NEW FRACTION!
DEFEND THE LIFE OF CHAIRMAN GONZOLO, THE GREATEST LIVING MARXIST, DEMAND HIS PRESENTATION BEFORE THE PRESS!
LONG LIVE THE RIM!
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, GONZOLO THOUGHT!
--Majdur, Marxist-Leninist Newswire
Original: Marxist-Leninist Theory and Practice