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Abimael Guzmán Quotes

Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso , also known by his nom de guerre Chairman Gonzalo , was a Peruvian Maoist guerrilla leader, considered a terrorist by various governments during his lifetime. He founded the organization Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path in 1969 and led a rebellion against the Peruvian government until his capture by authorities in 12 September 1992. He was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism and treason.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Guzmán was a professor of philosophy active in far-left politics strongly influenced by Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. He developed an ideology of armed struggle stressing the empowerment of the Indigenous people. He went underground in the mid-1970s to become the leader of the Shining Path, which began "The People's War" or the "Armed Struggle" on 17 May 1980. Wikipedia  

✵ 3. December 1934 – 11. September 2021
Abimael Guzmán photo
Abimael Guzmán: 16 quotes2 likes

Famous Abimael Guzmán Quotes

“Fear? I believe that fear and lack of fear form a contradiction. The point is to take up our ideology, and unleash the courage within us. It is our ideology that makes us brave, that gives us courage. In my opinion, no one is born brave. It is society, the class struggle, that makes people and communists courageous--the class struggle, the proletariat, the Party, and our ideology.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“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.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“We will become the protagonists of history, conscious, organized and armed. Thus, the great rupture will be open and we will become the makers of a definitive dawn”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

“All our struggles have been validated. Comrades, finally it has been realized: Initiate the armed struggle today. Everything that we have accomplished, including errors that have served as experience, are validated here. This is the essence of this School.”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

“We are the initiators and we should keep this fact deeply in our spirits.”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

“Comrades. Our labour has ended, the armed struggle has begun... The invincible flames of the reovlution will glow, turning to lead and steel... There will be a great rupture and wel will be the makers of the new dawn ... We shall convert the black fire into red and the red into pure light.”

Abimael Guzmán

Quoted, Priestland, David. The Red Flag

Abimael Guzmán Quotes about people

“They will send their sinister army armed to the teeth to fight us, assaulting the working class, the peasants and popular masses, spreading their sinister claws. They will try to encircle, isolate, crush and wipe us out. But we are the future, the strength, and history. Comrades, revolution and counterrevolution are also contending forces in our country. They are two parts of a unity of opposites in constant struggle. The reactionaries are armed and concentrated, defending the metropolis and capitals. We are rooted in the countryside, in small villages, with the masses, especially with the poor peasants, with the force of the people, among their disorganized force in order to organize it into a powerful army. But this will not be easy.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with 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.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“Comrades, in this country we are embarking upon a third epoch. The third epoch is a battle between armed revolution and armed counter-revolution, which are prepared for violence. Counter-revolution with its old and bloody violence, peace at the hands of bayonets, their damned wars that annihilate people in the prisons, schools, factories, in the countryside, and even assassinating children with hunger and misery in their maternal wombs.”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

“The innumerable iron legions arise, and more and more will arise, inexhaustibly multiply, encircle and annihilate reaction. Reaction, which unleashes its bloody claws tearing the flesh off the people, continues to sow discord, embroil, and seeks to sate itself with the blood of the people. But the people’s blood ascends like furious wings and the stricken flesh converts itself into a powerful vengeful lash.”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

“The People’s War begins to sweep away the old order in order to inevitably destroy it. From the old, the new shall be born. And finally, like the pure and glorious phoenix bird, Communism will arise for all time.”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

“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.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

Abimael Guzmán Quotes

“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.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with 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.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“Being communists, we fear nothing.”

Abimael Guzmán

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“In one hundred years of struggle, setbacks, and victories, the proletariat has learned how to fight and seize power with arms. The workers took it once in an embryonic form but were crushed with blood and fire. Nevertheless, we remember the Paris Commune, where those who were reviled are today heroes. And their example lives on, while their tormentors are forgotten.”

Abimael Guzmán

"We Are the Initiators" (1980)

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