#shining path

[llovewrite]

[last-tarrasque]

Many first world "Marxist-Leninists" claim that Marxism-Leninism is the Marxism in the 21st century. They sometimes rase up the banner of that Dogmatist Hoxha, sometimes the Arch-Revisionist Deng, sometimes neither. But regardless of which sad face they raise up, they are all united in their rejection of Maoism.

Ask yourself however, where in the world is revolution being fought under the banner of Marx and Lenin? Where do compradors and imperialists and landlords suffer sleepless nights in fear of Leninism? Where does the old state give way to the new state lead by the Leninist party, where do the masses march in the millions with the name of Lenin on their lips?

The so-called Marxist-Leninists cannot answer this question, but the Maoists can, we raise the banner of Marx and Lenin high everywhere we go, flying them alongside Mao and all our other great teachers. From the tip of Argentina to the deserts of north Mexico, compradors still tremble in fear at the name Gonzalo and his Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, despite his death. Landlords are taken by the people's courts every day in India, lead by the party of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The Chinese and Amerikan imperialists have united to defend their interests in the Philippines, what force has animated this alliance? The CPP, the Filipino party of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Every day the masses of Brazil march with the LPP to occupy more plantation land with the CPB (Red Fraction) at their head. The ideology which guides them; Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

While the dogmatists and revisionists mock the defeat of the heroic comrades in Peru and Nepal, or declare that the Maoists in the Philippines, Turkey and India are taking too long, and thus must be wrong, what have they achieved in these past decades? Have they made states tremble, have they shaken the foundations of this Imperialist world, where oh Hoxhaists and Dengists are your victories? You declare that you are correct, but in what practice do you base this knowledge? Where do the masses embrace your twisted version of Marxism?

Not India

Not Peru

Not Turkey

Not the Philippines

Not Brazil

Not anywhere else on earth

Nowhere...

Practice is the test of all theory, and Hoxahism and Dengism have been found wanting.

Perhaps, if you are really interested in remaking yourself in the image of the proletariat and giving your life in service of world proletarian revolution, you should stop blindly drinking up the words of Dogmatism and Revisionism and learn Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Take inspiration from the living practice of Leninism and pick up the red banner and carry it forward, lockstep with the vanguards of the world. There is a new dawn on the horizon, and its banner is Maoism!

[synoddiane]

Shining Path, by Matthew Skala

@xenostalgic recommended this book to me, describing it as "a world where humans and anime live side-by-side." It's sort of a Who Censored Roger Rabbit? situation (not a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" situation), but with more detail on the history of how the cartoon people came to be.

I knew the author from his previous work, the webcomic Bonobo Conspiracy. (In fact, I wrote a Bonobo Conspiracy guest comic, back in 2008.) Shining Path has a lot in common with it. Detailed chemistry info, wacky catgirls, and, crucially, load-bearing references that aren't spelled out for the reader.

Jokes where the reader needs to have the right background knowledge are tricky. Bonobo Conspiracy did them well sometimes (when I got the jokes, as with #586 and #748) but sometimes they just didn't land right (when I didn't get the jokes, as with #792). Shining Path didn't land right for me, or at least the plot didn't — I just wasn't putting things together well enough to get much out of the climax. It's not exactly that I wanted to know more about what happened to the characters (I didn't care about the characters nearly as much as the worldbuilding), more that I didn't see the point of the story, as in what to take away.

The worldbuilding was fun, though. You know that "cowboys were a sort of itinerant warrior class common in meiji-era texas" post? This story does a lot of that, and it does it well. Recommended if you liked the history interludes in Unsong.

[charnel-grounds]

The Legendary Pink Dots - Shining Path

[kaksimov]

Every country should have a small remnant of leftist guerilla fighters that control an otherwise negligible slice of their territory I think

[phobic-human]

Portrait of Augusta La Torre

Augusta Deyanira La Torre Carrasco, also known as Comrade Nora. Was the wife of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán, second in command of the nascent movement.

She is credited with increasing the role of women in the group in regards to political and militant action. She also led the very first attack by the Shining Path against the Peruvian State.

[mad-rieux]

My family is Peruvian, and my family always told me about how dangerous the Shining Path were. How they were this guerilla group that burned down factories, and killed people.

However, I began doing some research completely unrelated to Peru for Bioethics about reproductive rights in the US. It was a reading by Angela Davis talking about how sterilization has often been used as form of genocide against African Americans, Latino's, and Native Americans.

Then I came across something called 'Plan Verde,' which I never heard of until last night. Essentially it starts with a corrupt president Alan Garcia in Peru. He tanks the economy, he's politically corrupt, 'disappears' people, tries to bomb the Shining Path's news paper building, has a paramilitary group trained by North Koreans to fight in Peru for him. He's exiled though after the military and corporate elite in Peru see him losing the country too much money.

During his last years they develop Plan Verde in 89'. Fujimori dissolves the Peruvian congress in a self-coup. With the backing of the NIS (Peruvian intelligence head), Vladimiro Montesinos, and the military. They put into play Plan Verde, which has three goals: Control the economy, control mass media, and exterminate the undesirables.

These "undesirables" are the poor and indigenous people. The ones that the Shining Path tend to represent. With plan Verde, the Peruvian government created the National Population Program, that is like the US version of the Indian Health Services. Their logo is like a cartoon of a happy family. Except they perform forced sterilizations of men and women, they do this to over 300,000 people. It's described as the worst act of genocide in Peruvian history since colonization.

This National Population Program is funded by USAID (US Agency for International Development). Mentesinos is also CIA bankrolled since he is against the Shining Path and any socialist/communist groups. Guess who they based their Plan Verde ideas from? Henry Kissinger, and his idea of lowering birthrates to combat economic drains.

This continued until 2000 when Fujimori was kicked out of office.

I know the Shining Path were violent, but when this is what they were fighting, it's makes you wonder what you would do?

[mosommelier]