LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN FEMINISM!

CRUSH IMPERIALISM AND PATRIARCHY WITH PEOPLE’S WAR!

In the name of our Great Leadership Chairman Gonzalo, our Communist Party of Peru, its Central Committee and its whole system of leadership, we extend our communist salute to all the proletarian and working women of the world on this Women’s Day. We salute the heroic struggle of the communist and revolutionary women comrades, militants, combatants and masses that stand out in the struggle of the international proletariat to take power and the struggle of the oppressed peoples for national liberation, and among them our proletarian heroines and leaders like Louise Michel, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, comrade Chiang Ching, Liu Ju-lan, comrade Norah and others. We extend our special salute to the woman comrades who today advance as examples before the world in giving their lives for the Party and the revolution in the heroic armed struggles and  people’s wars under the banner of Maoism in Peru, India, Philippines, Turkey and other places, and emphasizing the necessity and historic importance of the mobilization of women in the Middle East in armed struggle against imperialism and all its lackeys, for their true liberation together with national liberation and the conquest of power for the proletariat and the people, not for the “Western democracy” or “human rights” of imperialism.

We reaffirm our Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo thought position, that only with the final defeat of imperialism and the whole system of exploitation and oppression, only with the abolition of private property and the social classes, will it be possible to completely crush patriarchy and the oppression of women; and only with the ideological and political mobilization of women, with their full incorporation into production and the class struggle, will it be possible for the proletariat to fully assume its historic role, defeat imperialism and arrive at our final goal, the forever golden Communism.

Proletarian feminism is distinct from and opposed to the feminisms promoted by the bourgeoisie. Although bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminism have their origin in the bourgeois revolutions and as part of these in the past have assumed the struggle for women’s rights, in the imperialist stage of capitalism – its highest and last stage – these feminisms have turned more and more into ideological and political instruments of imperialism, reaction and revisionism to maintain and intensify their exploitation and oppression of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples. Today more than ever we see the necessity of proletarian women – as an indispensable part of the struggle against patriarchy – to reject, crush and unmask before the masses the reactionary role of bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminism and to impose proletarian feminism.

How does bourgeois feminism serve as a counterrevolutionary ideological and political weapon? It serves as a pretext to justify the wars of aggression against the oppressed countries of the Third World; promoting the patriarchal and decadent culture of imperialism (and the superficial and limited advances in the position of women that this system allows) as a part of the so-called “Western democracy” and its war “against terrorism” or “against dictatorship”, i.e. its genocidal war of redivision. It serves as a reactionary ideological weapon to derail the class struggle, to create a false unity “above the classes” and thus subject and organize proletarian and working women in corporative forms under bourgeois leadership and with hypocritical promises of “individual freedom”, “better living conditions” or “education” in order to become consumers within the old order, supporters of the system. Petty bourgeois feminism, although it has its contradictions with the big bourgeoisie as well as with the proletariat, serves as one more instrument of imperialism, serving the interests of the big imperialist bourgeoisie. It is a feminism that does not see the oppression of women as a form of and a part of capitalist exploitation and oppression, but as an individual question of morality; thus, instead of a struggle of the exploited and oppressed against patriarchal ideology and politics in order to unite us and defeat our class enemy, it proposes a “war between the sexes”, in this way contributing to the division of our class. The petty bourgeois feminists, because of their class character, do not want and cannot abolish private property and all exploitation, but instead base themselves on individualism and use their feminism as a method to make their careers and live well within the imperialist system. Consequently, they easily lend themselves to the reactionary plans and tasks put forward by imperialism: to attack Marxism and spread revisionism, liberalism and anarchism among the ranks of the people, and to justify the ongoing imperialist war of redivision. For example, see how they now promote the openly anti-marxist, collaborationist and pro-imperialist ideology and politics of Öcalan and his PKK/PYD in the name of such feminism, but they do not say a word about the proletarian and revolutionary heroines that give their lives as militants and combatants in the people’s wars in Peru, India, Turkey, Philippines and other places. See how some of these revisionist feminists in Europe now demand that the bourgeois states “take measures against Islamism”, a pretext to intensify the repression and reactionary violence against the population in the proletarian neighborhoods and to divide the class even more with racism and chauvinism, all in the name of “democracy” and of the same bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminism.

To sum it up, it is urgent to intensify and advance in our task of arming ourselves with proletarian feminism and organize exploited and oppressed women under proletarian leadership – with Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Parties – in all the countries of the world, initiating and developing people’s wars. Our proletarian feminism must combat the reactionary positions – liberal and revisionist as well as bourgeois, feudal, idealist and religious – and all oppression of women within the ranks of the people with the purpose of uniting us in the struggle to death against imperialism, reaction and revisionism – and not to divide us and tail behind the big bourgeoisie. It is not possible to assume these tasks with conciliation, but only with implacable struggle against bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminism. Study and learn the lessons of the vast experience of our class in combatting patriarchy and breaking with all the old ideas about the “deficient nature of women”, incorporating women into production and the class struggle as a part of the democratic, socialist and cultural revolutions.

BREAK THE CHAINS! UNCHAIN THE FURY OF WOMEN AS A POWERFUL FORCE FOR REVOLUTION!
DOWN WITH PATRIARCHY!
DOWN WITH BOURGEOIS AND PETTY BOURGEOIS FEMINISM!
LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN FEMINISM!
CRUSH IMPERIALISM AND PATRIARCHY WITH PEOPLE’S WAR!
FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN, CONQUERING THE POWER WITH PEOPLE’S WAR!

Peru People’s Movement
March 8, 2016