Search

From the moment it launched its armed insurgency in 1980 until the death of its former leader in September 2021, Peru’s Shining Path mesmerized observers. The Maoist group had a well-established reputation as a personality cult whose members were fanatically devoted to Abimael Guzmán, the messianic leader they revered as “Presidente Gonzalo.” According to this narrative, referred to here as the “Gonzalo mystique,” Shining Path zealots were prepared to submit to Guzmán’s authority and will—no matter how violent or suicidal—because they viewed him as a messiah-prophet who would usher in a new era of communist utopia. Drawing on newly available sources, including the minutes of Shining Path’s 1988–1989 congress, this article complicates the Gonzalo mystique narrative, tracing the unrelenting efforts by middle- and high-ranking militants to challenge, undermine, disobey, and even unseat Guzmán throughout the insurgency. Far from seeing their leader as the undisputed cosmocrat of the popular imagination, these militants recognized Guzmán for who he was: a deeply flawed man with errant ideas, including a dubious interpretation of Maoism, problematic military strategy, and a revolutionary path that was anything but shining.

Despite hoisting the flags of Marxism-Leninism and of revolutionary change, the activity of the organization Shining Path fell, in numerous occasions, at the opposite of those ideologies, working with an orthodox interpretation of the classic texts of marxism that consolidated a political praxis based on re-archaization, hierarchy and violence. This process began to take place in the lecture halls of the San Cristobal de Huamanga National University during the midsixties, when a group of students and teachers assembled in what could be analyzed as a cult of personality centered in one of the teachers, Abimael Guzmán. An ideological hardening characterized the Shining Path as it went on to become the main actor of the internal armed conflict in Peru during the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the moment it launched its armed insurgency in 1980 until the death of its former leader in September 2021, Peru’s Shining Path mesmerized observers. The Maoist group had a well-established reputation as a personality cult whose members were fanatically devoted to Abimael Guzmán, the messianic leader they revered as “Presidente Gonzalo.” According to this narrative, referred to here as the “Gonzalo mystique,” Shining Path zealots were prepared to submit to Guzmán’s authority and will—no matter how violent or suicidal—because they viewed him as a messiah-prophet who would usher in a new era of communist utopia. Drawing on newly available sources, including the minutes of Shining Path’s 1988–1989 congress, this article complicates the Gonzalo mystique narrative, tracing the unrelenting efforts by middle- and high-ranking militants to challenge, undermine, disobey, and even unseat Guzmán throughout the insurgency. Far from seeing their leader as the undisputed cosmocrat of the popular imagination, these militants recognized Guzmán for who he was: a deeply flawed man with errant ideas, including a dubious interpretation of Maoism, problematic military strategy, and a revolutionary path that was anything but shining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia y Sociedad (01218417) is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Economicas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Journal on Criminology is the property of Policy Studies Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

este artículo examina la experiencia de dos generaciones de estudiantes (1980 y 1990) de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima, Perú) durante el conflicto armado interno en Perú para cuestionar la memoria de salvación promovida por el Gobierno de Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). La metodología utilizada fue la del análisis de entrevistas semiestructuradas a profundidad, a partir de la teoría de la microhistoria propuesta por Ginzburg, en donde se entretejen tres niveles de análisis: a nivel macro el enfrentamiento entre Sendero Luminoso y el Estado, a nivel meso el contexto universitario y a nivel micro los relatos de los estudiantes. Se identificaron dos posturas contrarias en ambos grupos, algunos de los estudiantes de la década de 1980 consideran que Sendero Luminoso surgió como parte del contexto universitario politizado en pequeños círculos de estudio; mientras que, otros consideran que tuvo presencia avasalladora. En la década de 1990, algunos aprueban la intervención militar y administrativa por la estabilidad que trajo consigo; mientras que otros, la cuestionan por ir en contra de la autonomía universitaria y por representar una violencia simbólica constante. Estos hallazgos sugieren que la percepción de los universitarios varía según sus experiencias personales, motivaciones e intereses en el momento. Por lo que es importante considerar estas diferentes perspectivas para una comprensión completa de los eventos históricos.

Copyright of Ibero-Americana - Nordic Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies is the property of Ubiquity Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Perú es un caso claro de conflicto interno violento. Este conflicto, dominado por las acciones del grupo guerrillero Sendero Luminoso tuvo sus años más duros durante las décadas de los años 80 y 90. Sin embrago, es peculiar la poca producción académica que existe analizando los aspectos de paz y conflicto del país. Este trabajo busca repasar los trabajos realizados en el país sobre la violencia y analizar la existencia de contribuciones académicas que traten el conflicto peruano desde la perspectiva de los estudios de paz y conflicto. Para ello se presentan los conceptos de construcción de paz y reconciliación según los autores seminales de los estudios de paz y se contrastan esos conceptos con las contribuciones académicas más destacadas. Este artículo concluye que existe un cuerpo limitado de trabajo al respecto, generado en dos épocas diferenciadas.Durante los años de la violencia serán trabajos que cuestionan las acciones de Sendero Luminoso y después de la creación de la Comisión de la Verdad aparecerán trabajos más alineados con los estudios de paz, sobre todo con los conceptos de memoria y reconciliación.

La figura de José Carlos Mariátegui es una referencia intelectual en el pensamiento revolucionario latinoamericano. Su producción intelectual está acompañada de un compromiso político con las ideas transformadoras aplicadas al conjunto de América Latina y, de manera especial, a Perú. Sus aportaciones teóricas y sus propuestas prácticas para organizar a la clase obrera del país andino son motivo de disputa ideológica en el seno del comunismo peruano durante las décadas centrales del siglo XX. En ese ambiente surge Sendero Luminoso, una organización dispuesta a impulsar el proceso revolucionario por la vía armada. Este texto busca los anclajes de su ideario a partir de los planteamientos iniciales sugeridos por el autor de Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana.

El siguiente trabajo reflexiona y relaciona algunas de las semblanzas más destacadas de la izquierda peruana con respecto de la idea de revolución. Haya de la Torre y José Carlos Mariátegui representan uno de los debates intelectuales más importantes del primer tercio del pasado siglo XX. Al respecto, ideas como nacionalismo o marxismo, y cuestiones como el sujeto revolucionario o la táctica y estrategia a seguir, concentran dos formas diferentes de entender y superar la situación social y política del Perú de 1930. Nada que ver, Alan García instrumentaliza la sombra alargada de Haya de la Torre y del APRA, para buscar obtener un caudal político y un rédito electoral que le permiten ser presidente hasta en dos ocasiones. De otra parte, Sendero Luminoso evoca la senda de Mariátegui para enarbolar la bandera de la revolución violenta si bien, en realidad, sus fundamentos ideológicos son más maoístas y leninistas, con una impronta propia del sentido de la violencia, y muy alejados del constructo teórico de quien fundara el Partido Comunista del Perú.

This article analyses the way in which the metaphorical use of the concept of light in the initial texts issued by Peru's Communist Party - Shining Path (Partido Comunista del Perú - Sendero Luminoso [PCP-SL]) engendered meanings that united the organization in its initial stage. The analysis is based on a mixed interpretative framework, which brings together contributions from linguistics and communicational pragmatics. These frameworks consist of Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory, Fauconnier and Turner's conceptual integration theory, and Sperber and Wilson's cognitive pragmatics. Next, we identify the conceptual metaphors linked to light on this interpretative basis. Finally, we describe the composition of a space of integration in which the meanings and frameworks involved are projected and given meaning. The analysis concludes that the metaphors of light influence the understanding of the figure of José Carlos Mariátegui, considered the ideological figurehead of the PCP-SL in the 1970s. This figure is invested with scientific and religious attributes and is the forerunner of the so-called Presidente Gonzalo (the name given to Abimael Guzmán Reynoso, the leader of the group) during the 1980s. The originality of the work lies in the fact that it deals with the foundational stage of the PCP-SL, which has proved useful as a means to understand the nature of the organization. At the same time, the theoretical perspective adopted is novel with respect to the predominant sociological and political approaches to the study of the Shining Path phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este artículo se centra en las elecciones de 1990, en el contexto de una aguda crisis económica y política que permitió la victoria, sobre Mario Vargas Llosa, de un desconocido: Alberto Fujimori. Finalizado el periodo electoral, la situación de excepción —configurada gradualmente durante la década de 1980 por el accionar de Sendero Luminoso, la constitución de comandos político-militares y la gran crisis política y económica— ingresó en una nueva coyuntura. Fujimori cambió su discurso político e inició la organización de una amplia coalición conservadora en torno a un proyecto neoliberal.

This paper discusses ways in which literary representations of senderistas strive to humanise the figure of the necropolitically-defined state 'enemy' and do so within the broad moment of neoliberal consensus-building around the friend-enemy division in Peru. Drawing on Achille Mbembe's reformulation of biopolitics, the paper offers close readings of Vargas Llosa's Lituma en los Andes (1994) and Roncagliolo's Abril rojo (2006). Where Vargas Llosa's rehumanising of the individual senderista leaves the absolutely enmity of Sendero Luminoso as 'terror' intact, Roncagliolo recasts the senderista as an irreducibly complex subject defined as much as victim as perpetrator of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal on Criminology is the property of Policy Studies Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World is the property of Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the strategies employed – or not employed – in the Peruvian counterinsurgency campaign against the Sendero Luminoso insurgent group. Using Carl von Clausewitz's and Colin Gray's strategic theories as a lens through which to analyze the conflict, the aim here is to show what role strategy played in the eventual defeat of this insurgency and what obstacles the Peruvian state and its armed forces faced in enacting good strategy. Specifically, the utilization of the 'strategy bridge' concept is investigated. For a large part of this conflict, the strategy bridge linking the civil authorities with the military and its activities was missing. Once there emerged a clear understanding of the importance of ends, ways and means working in harmony could an effective counterinsurgency campaign flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Americanía. Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos is the property of Revista Americania - Universidad Pablo de Olavide and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar (RUHM) is the property of Centro de Estudios de la Guerra and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

La recopilación de testimonios que se llevó a cabo en el ámbito de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (2001-2003) suscitó dinámicas socioculturales inéditas en cuanto a la producción de historias locales sobre el conflicto interno. En este artículo nos centraremos primero en la actuación carnavalesca realizada en el distrito de Ocros, donde se escenificaron las masacres perpetradas por el PCP-Sendero Luminoso, así como en la consiguiente organización en rondas campesinas de los sobrevivientes. Más allá de la conmemoración de este episodio, ¿cómo entender la realización de esta performance y los objetivos que conlleva? ¿Qué muestran o qué silencian los actores con esta ‘escritura’ del pasado de violencia, necesariamente fragmentaria? Enfocándonos en las creaciones coreográficas y narrativas de la violencia, procuraremos entender los usos estratégicos a los que dan lugar. Finalmente, veremos de qué manera las distintas memorias se enfrentan y articulan entre sí para mostrar los mecanismos de legitimación y las lógicas diferentesde esas proyecciones públicas de la historia reciente.

In the last twenty years of the Twentieth century, peruvians lived the most violent period of their recent history. Twenty years of fights between the peruvian State and the revolutionary left groups PCP-Shining Path and MRTA left more than seventy thousand people dead or disappeared, and the whole society was affected directly or indirectly. After the internal armed conflict different memories emerged. On the one hand, the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation was formed from the peruvian State. The Commission compiled testimonies and constructed an explanation of the causes and implications of what happened. On the other hand, the Armed Forces, linked to human rights violations, elaborated their own story, distancing themselves from the Commission´s story in several aspects. The ex PCP-SL and MRTA´s militants are excluded from any official initiative on memory and they are imprisoned and exempt from any political participation. The objective of this work is to analyze which are the uses and abuses of the collective memory, following Paul Ricoeur, that allow us to understand the scope and limits of truth and reconciliation´s politics in the posconflict peruvian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though it is well understood that all internal upheaval within a polity is a consequence of agency interacting with structure, the importance of the former has perhaps become too pushed to the rear. In reality, as demonstrated by the case of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru, even cases which seem most determined by structural factors, in practice remain problematic, absent necessary revolutionary leadership. This leadership in turn, can make mistakes just as it guides successes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I identify and evaluate numerous reasons why torture became common practice during the state counterterrorism campaign in Peru between 1980 and 2000, despite international and domestic legal obligations to protect human rights. I describe common structural conditions, organizational factors, and individual-level explanations often associated with torture practices. I then identify seven logics and motivations behind torture use in counterterrorism campaigns. I describe and analyze actual torture use in Peru using quantitative incident-level data, and I provide descriptive statistics concerning variation in the frequency and methods of torture. Finally, I examine specific incidents of torture to illustrate and assess the different logics and motivations for torture. I draw heavily from testimonies collected by Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I also rely on personal interviews carried out during fieldwork in the Junín and Ayacucho regions of Peru. I find that aggregate torture incidents generally coincide with political developments and shifts in violence levels and that the various state security forces used torture differently. A review of testimonies regarding specific incidents of torture suggests that multiple logics motivate state security forces, even for a single incident of torture, complicating academic efforts to formulate a parsimonious causal explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent US advances in counterinsurgency doctrine have been adopted by developing country armed forces. Nevertheless, no systematic study has examined the barriers they face to implementing highly involved counterinsurgency strategy. Tracing the evolution of Peruvian doctrine demonstrates that Peru was able to quickly improve the unity of effort, intelligence capacity, and military basing to meet the demands of a population-centric hearts-and-minds approach to counterinsurgency. Nevertheless, the limited tactical initiative and flexibility of Peruvian forces remains a challenge. The Peruvian experience is instructive for other militaries undergoing similar transitions. However, given the diversity of insurgent conflicts, this doctrine is not universally appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A la entrada del cementerio de la ciudad de Huamanga, hay una lápida que llama particularmente la atención. A diferencia de las demás, lleva un poema inscrito, casi nunca le faltan flores, y no es extraño observar que alquien se detenga a contemplarla. Se trata de la tumba de Edith Lagos, quien fue enterrada en dicho lugar, poco después de que trasladaran su cadáver desde Andahuaylas y atravesara gran parte de la ciudad, en la más multitudinaria y aparente manifestación de simpatía hacia la subversión senderista que sufrió el país. Esta famosa joven senderista fue asesinada en 1982, pocos meses antes de que el departamento de Ayaucho quede bajo control militar por casi dos décadas.

The gathering of testimonials by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the aftermath of the armed conflict opposing the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla and the Peruvian state has led to original socio-cultural dynamics around the local histories of the war. This article will focus on a carnival performance carried out in the Andean district of Ocros (Prov. of Huamanga), staging the massacres committed by the Sendero Luminoso and the struggle of the peasant militias. Beyond the commemoration of this episode, what are the issues and the objectives that underlie the performance? What view is given and what is left in silence, unsaid, by the actors in this type of unavoidably fragmentary 'writing' of the history of violence? Analyzing both the choreographic and the narrative production concerning the war, we will address the strategic uses they give rise to. Finally, we will focus on the way in which different memories compete and articulate to one another, so as to determine the mechanisms of legitimation and the competitive logics at play in these public projections of recent history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions is the property of Editions EHESS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A review of the history of one of the most influential Marxist parties in Peru, the Partido Comunista del Perú —Patria Roja, helps to place the militancy of Sendero Luminoso in context. Patria Roja was a powerful political party throughout the military dictatorship of the 1960s and 1970s and a much more representative example of Peruvian Maoism than the popularly known Sendero. It played a significant role in the student movement and the trade unions and helped to pressure the military government onto the road toward re-democratization. While reaffirming the need for violent revolution, it pushed the date of the revolution into the distant future and adopted as its immediate goal aiding Peru's transformation from a dependent colonial nation into a free and democratic one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia, Antropologia y Fuentes Orales is the property of Asociacion de Revistas Culturales de Espana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El potencial de la violencia política en Perú sólo puede ser explicado si se incluyen en el análisis tanto dimensión social-psicológica como la cultura del autoritarismo que todavía es predominante en el país.Las causas de esta violencia política son múltiples: la destrucción del tejido social tradicional, la presión demográfica, las grandes migrasiones internacionales entre otros.Los movimientos guerrilleros se aprovecharon de estos factores, pero no supieron brindar a la población una alternativa realista y creíble.Su terrorismo irracional contribuyó al establecimiento de un gobierno autoritario en abril de 1992.