Question

“[El Diario]: Chairman, how does the Peruvian Communist Party sustain the huge party apparatus, including the People’s Guerrilla Army?
[Chairman Gonzalo]: I think this question deserves a detailed explanation. Concerning the party, Chairman Mao teaches us—as did Marx, Lenin, and all the great Marxists—that the party is not a mass party, though it has a mass character. It has a mass character in the sense that while being a select organization—a selection of the best, of the proven, of those, as Stalin said, who have what it takes—being numerically small in proportion to the broad masses, the party defends the interests of the proletariat in taking responsibility for its emancipation, which can only come with communism. But since other classes that make up the people also participate in the revolution, the party defends their interests as well.

[El Diario]: Chairman, let’s talk about the people’s war now. What does violence mean to you?

[Chairman Gonzalo]: We see the problem of war this way: war has two aspects, destructive and constructive. Not to see it this way undermines the revolution—weakens it. From the moment the people take up arms to overthrow the old order, the reaction [state] seeks to crush, destroy, and annihilate the struggle, and it uses all the means at its disposal, including genocide. We have seen this in our country. We are seeing it now and will continue to see it until the outmoded Peruvian state is demolished.”

Interview with “Chairman Gonzalo” [Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso], leader of the Shining Path, a Peruvian revolutionary movement, 1988. The interview was conducted by the Peruvian newspaper El Diario, which was the unofficial newspaper of the Shining Path movement.

The views expressed by Chairman Gonzalo in the passage are best explained in the context of which of the following historical circumstances of the late twentieth century?

A. The expansion of the military-industrial complex in Latin American states

B. The rise of movements that challenged colonial rule in Latin America

C. The rise of separatist movements that demanded regional autonomy

D. The intensification of political conflicts between state and nonstate entities

Answer 1

Answer: D. The intensification of political conflicts between state and nonstate entities

Explanation:

The Shining Path movement was a Communist movement in Peru that was led by Abimael Guzmán in a bid to overthrow the government of Peru and establish a Communist government in line with Maoist China and Stalinist Russia.

This was therefore one of the many political conflicts in the late twentieth century that was between the state government and nonstate entities like terrorist organizations and liberation movements.