What do you think?
Rate this book
Interview with Chairman Gonzalo
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 17, 2021
Written and presented as a manifesto of a clandestine development of communist ideology know as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism. The interview published in El Diario (a newspaper in Peru in the late 1980s) has a format similar to Engels “Principles of Communism” and reads as a break down of the contributions of the guiding thought of Chairman Gonzalo, welding Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, in the concrete reality of Peru. These contributions include applying Protracted People’s War, the establishment of Base Areas in the countryside, combatting revisionism worldwide, and resolving contradictions to lead to first a Democratic Revolution and then a Socialist Revolution among other things. These are things that Gonzalo has picked up from Mao Zedong from his stay in China at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, alongside his, Gonzalo’s, own experiences with mass protests in Peru, namely Arequipa in 1950 and Callao in 1948.
Although I personally don’t know much about the history of Peru over the course of the 20th century, I feel like it’s one of the least talked about countries in Latin America, I know the impact of Chairman Gonzalo is great, whether for good or bad. In this text alone, Gonzalo spends a good deal of time bagging on communist leaders that he sees as revisionist, such as Deng Xiaoping, Ho Chi Minh, Le Duan, Enver Hoxha, Ramiz Alia, and the Soviet premiers like Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. He talks about how he wants the internationalist communist movement to reform revisionist attitudes as they move into what Gonzalo calls Social-Imperialism or back into capitalist countries. Gonzalo then explains that his goal is to help lead the international proletariat into the world revolution with “genuine” communists.
It’s a pretty heady manifesto that needs a lot of world geopolitical context and a lot of familiarity with the progression of Marxist political thought throughout the 20th century to really grasp what Gonzalo is advocating for.
Although I personally don’t know much about the history of Peru over the course of the 20th century, I feel like it’s one of the least talked about countries in Latin America, I know the impact of Chairman Gonzalo is great, whether for good or bad. In this text alone, Gonzalo spends a good deal of time bagging on communist leaders that he sees as revisionist, such as Deng Xiaoping, Ho Chi Minh, Le Duan, Enver Hoxha, Ramiz Alia, and the Soviet premiers like Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. He talks about how he wants the internationalist communist movement to reform revisionist attitudes as they move into what Gonzalo calls Social-Imperialism or back into capitalist countries. Gonzalo then explains that his goal is to help lead the international proletariat into the world revolution with “genuine” communists.
It’s a pretty heady manifesto that needs a lot of world geopolitical context and a lot of familiarity with the progression of Marxist political thought throughout the 20th century to really grasp what Gonzalo is advocating for.
May 30, 2022
Yes this book does a brilliant job showcasing the genius of Abimael Guzman, but it’s worth reading for the anecdote about his schooling in socialist China alone. An incredible story inside an essential read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews