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Why Peasants Rebel: The Case of Peru's Sendero Luminoso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

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In this article I shall examine the origins of a major rural revolutionary movement, Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). An extremist Maoist organization, Sendero has gained considerable peasant support in Peru's southern highlands, especially in the Ayacucho area. Although peasant unrest has been endemic in Peru, the scope and intensity of the current movement are unprecedented. Never before has a Peruvian guerrilla group ranged over such a wide part of the country, and never before has such a group threatened the order of daily life in the capital.

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Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1984

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References

1 The most influential recent works on peasant revolution are probably Scott, James C., The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Popkin, Samuel L., The Rational Peasant: The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Migdal, Joel S., Peasants, Politics and Revolution: Pressure Toward Political and Social Change in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paige, Jeffery M., Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World (New York: Free Press, 1975)Google Scholar. Two earlier classics on the topic, not by political scientists, are Wolf, Eric R., Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)Google Scholar and Moore, Barrington Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).Google Scholar

2 See Goldstone, , “Theories of Revolution: The Third Generation,” World Politics 32 (April 1980), 425–53, at 450–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Excellent recent overviews of these controversies are Goldstone (fn. 2) and Skocpol, Theda, “What Makes Peasants Revolutionary?” Comparative Politics 14 (April 1982), 351–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968)Google Scholar places special analytical importance on this alliance as a requisite for successful E revolutionary movements.

5 See McClintock, Cynthia, Peasant Cooperatives and Political Change in Peru (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 6063.Google Scholar

6 Dix, , “The Varieties of Revolution,” Comparative Politics 15 (April 1983), 281–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blasier, , “Social Revolution: Origins in Mexico, Bolivia, and Cuba,” in Bonachea, Rolando E. and Valdes, Nelson P., eds., Cuba in Revolution (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), 1851.Google Scholar

7 In early 1984, a survey by the respected public opinion firm Datum reported that, in Lima and Callao, “the type of government considered most adequate for a country like ours” was “a democratic government (in power through votes)” for 72% of the respondents; a 'socialist government (in power through revolution)” for 13%; and “a military government (in power through a coup)” for 9%, with a “don't know/no answer” response from 6%. See Caretas, No. 787, February 20, 1984, p. 24.Google Scholar In an informal survey (1983) in “Maria” and “Estrella” (two coastal agrarian cooperatives that have been a longstanding focus of my research), every one of the 40 respondents said that Sendero was harming the country rather than helping it. Asked why, over 90% replied that Sendero “only wanted to kill innocent people,” to “destroy things,” or to “destroy Peru.” Some added that “they make the economic crisis worse” or that “they are enemies of the people.”

8 This section on Sendero Luminoso owes a great deal to the work of David Scott Palmer. See especially his “From Mao to Mariátegui in Rural Peru: The Origins and Evolution of Sendero Luminoso, 1963–1983,” discussion points prepared for delivery at the New England Council of the Latin American Studies Association meeting, University of New Hampshire, Durham (October 8, 1983). Other useful works include Vargas Llosa, Mario, “Inquest in the Andes,” New York Times Magazine, July 31, 1983, 18 and ff.Google Scholar; Harding, Colin, “Notes on Sendero Luminoso,” Communist Affairs (No. 3, 1984), 4561Google Scholar; and McClintock, Cynthia, “Sendero Luminoso: Peru's Maoist Guerrillas,” Problems of Communism 32 (September-October 1983), 1934.Google Scholar

9 The more substantial of the two is “Desarrollemos la Guerra de Guerrillas” [“Let us develop the guerrilla war!”]. It is reprinted in Harding (fn. 8), 50–55.

10 Caretas, No. 780 (December 26, 1983), 15.Google Scholar

11 My estimate from various reports of damages.

12 Membership figures are based on Latin American Regional Reports, Andean Group (RA-82–04) (May 14, 1982), 5–7; also see, for instance, Freed, Kenneth, “Pocket of Terrorism Stirs Fear Among Peruvian Peasants,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1983Google Scholar; Mallin, Jay, “Shining Path Guerrillas,” Soldier of Fortune (March 1983), 52.Google Scholar

13 Caretas (fn. 10).

14 For documentation of the gradual extension of the Military Emergency Zone, see The Andean Report 9 (February 1983), 1314Google Scholar; Latin America Weekly Report (WR-83–49), December 16, 1983, p. 9; DESCO, Resumen Semanal 7, February 24-March 1, 1984, p. 3Google Scholar; March 16–23, 1984, p. 4. On the number of Senderista cells, see Mallin (fn. 12), 52. On the areas of 1983 and 1984 Senderista activity, see The Andean Report 10 (March 1984), 47Google Scholar, and Latin America Weekly Report (WR-84–02), January 13, 1984, p. 10.

15 Calculation on the basis of 1961 figures for the “farm labor force” in Charles Webb, Richard, Government Policy and the Distribution of Income in Peru, 1963–1973 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 119–29.Google Scholar

16 Vargas Llosa (fn. 8), 33, 36, 37.

17 Ibid., 33; Presidencia de la República, Peru 1982 (Lima: Presidencia de la República, 1982), 523.Google Scholar

18 This is a virtual axiom in the anthropological literature on highlands Peru. See, for example, Murra, John, Formaciones Económicas y Políticas del Mundo Andino [Economic and political structures of the Andean world] (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1975).Google Scholar

19 Scott Palmer, David, “Revolution from Above”: Military Government and Popular Participation in Peru, 1968–1982, Cornell University Latin American Studies Program Dissertation Series, No. 47 (January 1973), see esp. 196203 and 216–28.Google Scholar

20 González, , “Por los Caminos de Sendero” [Following the paths of Sendero] QueHacer, No. 19 (October 1982), 47.Google Scholar

21 One of the interviewees, a supporter of the Acción Popular party in 1980, had worked for several years in Sendero-controlled territory.

22 The Andean Report (fn. 14), Vol. 10.

23 González, Raul, “Las Batallas de Ayacucho” [The battles of Ayacucho] QueHacer, No. 21 (February 1983), 19Google Scholar; Harding (fn. 8), 49; The Andean Report (fn. 14); and, on the subject of Edith Lagos's funeral, Cavanagh, Jonathan, “Peru's Army Arrives in Guerrilla Area,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 1983.Google Scholar

24 A good overview is in Latin America Weekly Report (WR-84–02), January 13, 1984, pp. 10–11.

35 Tuesta Soldevilla, Fernando, Elecciones Municipals: Cifras y Escenario Politico [Municipal elections: statistics and political context] (Lima: DESCO, 1983), 171–76.Google Scholar See also Presidencia de la República, Peru 1981 (Lima: Presidencia de la República, 1981), 100118.Google Scholar

26 DESCO, Resumen Semanal 6, November 4–11, 1983, p. 5.Google Scholar

27 Calculated from González (fn. 20), 62; and from QueHacer, No. 27 (February 1984), 34.Google Scholar

28 Scott (fn. 1), esp. 13–26.

29 Popkin (fn. 1), 245.

30 Skocpol (fn. 1), 115.

31 See Felix, David, “Income Distribution and the Quality of Life in Latin America: Patterns, Trends, and Policy Implications,” Latin American Research Review 18 (No. 2, 1983), 333.Google Scholar

32 World Bank, World Tables, Vol. I (3d ed.) (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 552Google Scholar. Data compare food consumption per capita in 1967 and 1980.

33 Geographical disparities in income are clearly described in Webb (fn. 15), 119–29. Among the five southern highlands departments, 1961 per capita resident farm incomes were uniformly low: between 3,000 soles and 4,000 soles annually in Puno, Huancavelica, Ayacucho, and Cuzco, rising to 5,800 soles only in Apurimac. The corresponding figure for Cajamarca is 6,400 soles, for Pasco 10,500 soles, and for Junin 7,500 soles. More recent data are not available.

34 Webb (fn. 15), 138; Amat y León, Carlos, La Desigualdad Interior en el Peru [The inequality within Peru] (Lima: Universidad del Pacífico, 1981)Google Scholar, Appendix.

35 Estimate based on trends reported in Table 5, and dollar figures given by Maria Caballero, José, Economía Agraria de la Sierra Peruana [The agricultural economy of highlands Peru] (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1981), 107–8.Google Scholar

36 See World Bank, Peru: Major Development Policy Issues and Recommendations (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1981), 35.Google Scholar

37 Fernández Baca, Jorge, “La Producción de Alimentos en el Peru” [Food production in Peru] QueHacer, No. 17 (June 1982), 8990.Google Scholar

38 González (fn. 20), 43. Exact sources and names of zones are not given.

39 World Bank (fn. 36), 35.

40 See Andean Focus (a publication of the Ecumenical Committee on the Andes), No. 2 (November-December 1983), and Latin America Weekly Report (WR-83–23), August 26, 1983, p. 9.

41 Latin America Weekly Report (WR-84–02), January 13, 1984, 11; Latin America Weekly Report (fn. 40); and Latin American Regional Reports, Andean Group (RA-84–02), March 2, 1984,6.

42 Andean Focus (fn. 40), 1. See also González, Raul, “Desastres!” [Disasters!] QueHacer, No. 22 (May 1983), 1847.Google Scholar

43 This was an informal, nonrandom application, primarily to men, of a brief questionnaire. For further information on the nature of these surveys and a description of Varya, see McClintock (fn. 5), 102–5.

44 Wolf (fn. 1), 281; Goldstone (fn. 2), 453.

45 Martínez, Daniel and Tealdo, Armando, El Agro Peruano 1970–1980: Analísis y Perspectivas [Peruvian agriculture 1970–1980: Analysis and perspectives] (Lima: CEDEP, 1982), 39Google Scholar. Comprehensive figures on hectares per capita by department are not available. The partial data in Caballero (fn. 35, pp. 67 and 117) suggest that the number of hectares per capita does not vary a great deal across Peru's highlands departments.

46 For more details, see Caballero (fn. 35), 59–91.

47 Mariá Caballero, José, Agricultum, Reforma Agraria, y Pobreza Campesina [Agriculture, agrarian reform, and peasant poverty] (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980), 29Google Scholar; Organization of American States, Short-Term Economic Reports: Vol. VII, 1981, Peru (Washington, DC: OAS), 54. Unfortunately, data are not available by region.

48 On land scarcity, see Martínez and Tealdo (fn. 45), 39. In 1961, Peru's Gini index of land distribution was the most unequal of any reported in Taylor, Charles L. and Hudson, Michael C., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 267.Google Scholar

49 Martínez and Tealdo (fn. 45), 15–16.

50 Data on the number of beneficiaries by production mode and by region are from Matos Mar, José and Manuel Mejía, José, Reforma Agraria: Logros y Contradicciones 1969–1979 [Agrarian reform: Achievements and contradictions 1969–1979] (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980), 67.Google Scholar Data on land values are provided in Mariá Caballero, José and Alvarez, Elena, Aspectos Cuantitativos de la Reforma Agraria (1969–1979) [Quantitative aspects of the agrarian reform (1969–1979)](Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1980), 63.Google Scholar

51 See McClintock (fn. 5).

52 Cynthia McClintock, “Domestic Reform Policies and Agricultural Development,” in F. La Mond Tullis and W. Ladd Hollist, eds., International Political Economy of Agriculture, (forthcoming, University of Nebraska Press).

53 On the number of beneficiaries in the zone, see Ministry of Agriculture, Estadistíca de la Refortna Agraria (a 31 de Marzo de 1977) [Statistics on the agrarian reform (up to March g 31,1977)] (Lima: Dirección General de Reforma Agraria y Asentamiento Rural, 1977)Google Scholar, Table 3.

54 Agrarian Bank and Ministry of Agriculture officials in Lima and Trujillo were very i open on these scores in my interviews with them in January-February 1983. See also the p text of the new government laws, especially the Ley de Promoción y Desarrollo Agrario.

55 Data on subdivision have not yet been compiled. This estimate is based on discussions jE in both the countryside and Ministry of Agriculture offices, February and July 1983, and on figures in El Comercio (December 16, 1983).

56 Caballero (fn. 35), 228.

57 Ibid., 229.

58 World Bank (fn. 36), 53.

59 Between July 1980 and December 1982, the purchasing power of the minimum wage fell 27% relative to the cost of a basic foodbasket for a family of five. See QueHacer, No. 21 (February, 1983), 11.Google Scholar

60 For further discussion and documentation of the trends in these policies, see McClintock, Cynthia, “Government Policy, Rural Poverty, and Peasant Protest in Peru: The Origins g of the Sendero Luminoso Rebellion,” paper prepared for delivery at the 1983 Annual Meeting i of the American Political Science Association (Chicago, September 1983)Google Scholar, Tables 5–6. The B figure for the percentage of highlands farmers affected by these policies is from Martinez g and Tealdo (fn. 45), 104.

61 Ayacucho is the home of 5.3% of the rural population, according to Larson, Magli S. and Bergman, Arlene G., Social Stratification in Peru (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1969), 303Google Scholar. Yet, Ayacucho received less than 2% of the Agrarian Bank's annual credit between 1975 and 1982, according to the Bank's own data—and only 1.1% in 1981–1982.

62 USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), Attaché Report (Lima: Report No. PE-3010, 1983), 34.Google Scholar

63 Documents from and discussions with employees of the World Bank, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture.

64 McClintock (fn. 60), 6–7.

65 The available figures are from different sources and may not be comparable. For 1970–1976, the figure is 72%; see Portocarrero, Felipe M., “The Peruvian Public Investment Programme, 1968–1978,” Journal of Latin American Studies 14 (No. 2, 1982), 433–54Google Scholar. For 1978–1979, the figure is 51%; see Eguren, Fernando, “Política Agraria vs. Producción de Alimentos” [Agrarian politics vs. the production of food] QueHacer, No. 3 (March 1980), 41Google Scholar. For 1981, my calculation is 51%, from the data provided by the National Planning Institute, “Informe Socioeconómico: Vol. II, Evaluación del Programa de Inversiones” [Socioeconomic Report: Vol. II, evaluation of the investment program] (Lima: National Planning Institute, 1982), 11Google Scholar. In 1981, a fourth large irrigation project (Jequetepeque-Zaña), received close to another 10% of total agricultural investment.

66 “Proyecto Majes,” a collection of data from the Central Reserve Bank of Peru.

67 For an incisive analysis of this question, see The Andean Report 6 (December 1980), 221–23.Google Scholar See also Painter, Michael, “Agricultural Policy, Food Production, and Multinational Corporations in Peru,” Latin American Research Review 18 (No. 2, 1983), 208.Google Scholar

68 Presidencia de la República (fn. 17), 216–28.

69 Data for 1971 from U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1971–1980 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1983), 63.Google Scholar Data for 1982 are from Hoy (an Ecuadorean newspaper), June 22, 1983), p. 12a, which cites the International Institute of Peace Studies as its source.

70 Latin America Weekly Report (WR-83–40), October 14, 1983, pp. 1–2.

71 Paige (fn. 1), esp. 42–45; Scott (fn. 1), and Scott, James C., “Hegemony and the Peasantry,” Politics and Society 7 (No. 3, 1977), 267–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolf (fn. 1); Skocpol (fn. 1), 353–60.

72 Palmer (fn. 19), 198.

73 Migdal (fn. 1), 229–37.

74 The contrast between the capital-intensive export agriculture of Peru's coast and the subsistence agriculture of the highlands is elaborated in Paige (fn. 1), 124–210.

75 Caballero (fn. 35), 117, provides exact figures.

76 Webb (fn. 15), 18–43. See Tables 1 and 2 for the voting tallies in these departments.

77 Painter, Michael, “The Political Economy of Food Production in Peru,” Studies in Comparative International Development 18 (Winter 1983), 3452CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is somewhat more critical of the role of foreign agricultural interests in Peru.

78 Ibid., 39–42.

79 South America: Map of Continent (Kummerly Frey).

80 A list of Peru's recognized universities is provided in Presidencia de la República (fn. 17), 532.

81 Popkin (fn. 1), 252–66; Migdal (fn. 1), 226–56.

82 Skocpol (fn. 1), 115–17.

83 Migdal (fn. 1), 193–225.

84 For overviews of the 1960s Peruvian guerrilla movements, see Gott, Richard, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971), 307393Google Scholar; Chaplin, David, “Peru's Postponed Revolution,” World Politics 20 (April 1968), 393420CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Handelman, Howard, Struggle in the Andes (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and Craig, Wesley W. Jr., “Peru: The Peasant Movement of La Convención,” in Landsberger, Henry A., ed., Latin American Peasant Movements (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969), 274–96.Google Scholar

85 There are no official statistics. My figures are estimates based on interviews with various individuals who were familiar with the region at the time, including General Edgardo Marcado Jarrín, a leader in the military government.

86 See especially Coder, Julio, “Traditional Haciendas and Communities in a Context of Political Mobilization in Peru,” in Stavenhagen, Rodolfo, ed., Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday-Anchor, 1970), 533–58.Google Scholar

87 On the political problems of the Velasco regime, see, among other volumes, McClintock, Cynthia and Lowenthal, Abraham F., The Peruvian Experiment Reconsidered (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 209346.Google Scholar

88 Palmer (fn. 19), 180–228.

89 On the CNA, see McClintock (fn. 5), 259–84. On the CCP, see Handelman, Howard, “Peasants, Landlords and Bureaucrats: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in Peru,” American Universities Field Staff Reports, No. 1 (1981).Google Scholar CNA membership figures are from CNA, “CNA: Información Básica” [CNA: Basic information] mimeo. (Lima: SINAMOS, 1975), 4.Google Scholar

90 Larson and Bergman (fn. 61), 382–83.

91 Woy-Hazleton, Sandra L., “The Return of Partisan Politics in Peru,” in Gorman, Stephen M., ed., Post-Revolutionary Peru: The Politics of Transformation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982), 5056.Google Scholar

92 See the works cited in fn. 8.

93 Palmer (fn. 19), 3.

94 DESCO, Resumen Semanal 6, August 19–25, 1983, p. 3.

95 See The Andean Report 10 (March and May 1984), 4653Google Scholar and 85–87, respectively. For victim tolls, see especially Latin American Regional Reports, Andean Group (fn. 41), 6.

96 See The Andean Report (fn. 95); also, on aerial bombing, see DESCO, Resumen Semanal 6, December 23–29, 1983, p. 3Google Scholar; on material inducements to Iquichano villages, see Bennett, Philip, “Ayachucho's Quiet War,” The Lima Times, February 4, 1983.Google Scholar

97 This point is elaborated for Peru and other Latin American countries in de Janvry, Alain, The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.