blood quota
{{Short description|Concept of Gonzalo Thought}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}
{{Use American English|date=June 2024}}
File:Abismal Guzmán Revolución Mundial.png
The "blood quota" (Spanish: cuota de sangre) is a concept associated with Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, a Maoist insurgent group active in Peru. It refers to the ideological expectation that a revolutionary must be willing to sacrifice their life for the global proletarian revolution.{{Cite web |date=2021-09-13 |title=El ocaso de Sendero y la muerte de Guzmán |url=https://noticiasser.pe/el-ocaso-de-sendero-y-la-muerte-de-guzman |access-date=2024-02-25 |website=noticiasser.pe |language=es}}{{Cite book |last=Roncagliolo |first=Santiago |title=La cuarta espada: la historia de Abimael Guzmán y Sendero Luminoso |date=2007 |publisher=Debate |isbn=978-84-8306-738-3 |location=Barcelone}} This principle, central to "Gonzalo Thought," framed violence and death as essential components of the revolutionary struggle.
Under this doctrine, Shining Path militants were encouraged to embrace extreme measures, including acts of terrorism, to mobilize support and suppress opposition. Hatred and violence were deliberately incited to gain adherence to their cause, with cruelty and fear leveraged as tools for control and obedience. Death in service to the revolution was glorified as a heroic act.{{Cite book |last=Portocarrero Maisch |first=Gonzalo |title=Razones de sangre |publisher=Fondo Editorial de la PUC |year=2014 |isbn=978-612-4146-92-3 |edition=2nd |pages=27–35}}
The implementation of the blood quota contributed to widespread atrocities during the Shining Path's insurgency, which spanned from the 1980s to the early 1990s.{{cite journal |last=Burt |first=Jo-Marie |date=October 2006 |title='Quien habla es terrorista': The political use of fear in Fujimori's Peru |journal=Latin American Research Review |volume=41 |issue=3 |page=38 |doi=10.1353/lar.2006.0036 |doi-access=free}} These acts included targeted assassinations, bombings, massacres, and other forms of violence that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and significant societal disruption across Peru. The group's campaign of terror persisted until Guzmán's capture in 1992, which marked the beginning of the movement's decline.{{Cite web |last=Sierra |first=Jerónimo Ríos |date=2021-09-16 |title=Abimael Guzmán, Sendero Luminoso y la cuota de sangre |url=https://latinoamerica21.com/es/abimael-guzman-sendero-luminoso-y-la-cuota-de-sangre/ |access-date=2024-02-29 |website=Latinoamérica 21 |language=es-ES}}
Background
The Shining Path believed in the necessity of a violent revolution to overthrow the Peruvian government and establish a communist state. The concept of the "Blood Quota" was an integral part of Gonzalo thought and reflected the belief that a certain number of people needed to be killed or sacrificed in order to achieve their revolutionary goals. Increasing conflicts and radicalizing oppositions cannot have any other effect than to accelerate history, bringing closer the day of final triumph.
This notion itself is rooted in Maoist ideology, which advocated for the use of violence and protracted people's war as a means of achieving a communist revolution.{{cite book |last1=Priestland |first1=Davis |title=The Red Flag: A History of Communism |date=2009 |publisher=Grove Press |location=New York |page=253}}
The People's War
Guzmán announced that “the triumph of the revolution will cost a million deaths.”{{Cite web |title=Actors of the armed conflict |url=https://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/pdf/TOMO%20II/CAPITULO%201%20-%20Los%20actores%20armados%20del%20conflicto/1.1.%20PCP-SL/CONCLUSIONES.pdf |website=Truth and reconciliation commission |page=128}} "Paying the quota" meant that the senderista would "cross rivers of blood" for the triumph of the "people's war". The aim was to incite the Peruvian State to carry out acts of violence against the civilian population so that, in this way, the Shining Path could obtain popular support and the capacity for mass mobilization: the violence of the reaction had revolutionary effects by growing hatred and a desire for revenge among those affected, which in turn would lead to an acceleration of the ruin of the old order.
In December 1982 President Fernando Belaúnde declared a state of emergency and ordered that the Peruvian Armed Forces fight the Shining Path, granting them extraordinary powers.{{Cite journal |last=Werlich |first=David P. |date=January 1987 |title=Debt, Democracy and Terrorism in Peru |journal=Current History |volume=86 |issue=516 |pages=29–32, 36–37 |doi=10.1525/curh.1987.86.516.29 |s2cid=249689936}} Military leadership adopted practices used by Argentina during the Dirty War, committing state terrorism, with entire villages being massacred by the armed forces while civilians endured forced disappearance.{{Cite journal |last=Mauceri |first=Philip |date=Winter 1995 |title=State reform, coalitions, and the neoliberal 'autogolpe' in Peru |journal=Latin American Research Review |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=7–37 |doi=10.1017/S0023879100017155 |s2cid=252749746 |doi-access=free}} When the military started organizing peasant militias ("rondas") to fight Senderistas, the Shining Path heavily retaliated: during the Lucanamarca massacre, nearly 70 indigenous people were murdered. The youngest victim was six months old, the oldest about seventy.Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación. 28 August 2003. [http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/pdf/TOMO%20VII/Casos%20Ilustrativos-UIE/2.6.%20LUCANAMARCA.pdf "La Masacre de Lucanamarca (1983)"]. Accessed 10 February 2008. {{in lang|es}} Most were killed by machete and axe hacks; some were shot in the head at close range. Discussing the massacre, Guzman asserted that "the main point was to make them understand that we were a hard nut to crack, and that we were ready for anything, anything (..)".{{Cite web |title=2.6. La masacre de Lucanamarca (1983) |url=https://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/pdf/TOMO%20VII/Casos%20Ilustrativos-UIE/2.6.%20LUCANAMARCA.pdf |website=Truth and reconciliation commission}}
Media depiction
The violence perpetuated by the Shining Path and the government inspired Alonso Cueto to write about the insecurity of the period,{{cite journal |last=Camacho Delgado |first=José Manuel |title=Alonso Cueto y la novela de las víctimas |journal={{ill|Caravelle (journal)|lt=Caravelle (1988-)|fr|Caravelle (revue)}} |date=2006 |volume=86 |issue=86 |pages=249 |doi=10.3406/CARAV.2006.2930 |issn=1147-6753 |jstor=40854252 |s2cid=144636543}} with his most well-known novel The Blue Hour (2005) being adapted into an eponymous movie in 2014.