1993 marks 100 years since the birth of the great revolutionary leader and teacher Mao Tsetung. This Centenary comes at a momentous time for the international proletariat — the world is in great turmoil and the potential for a new wave of struggle rocking imperialism has already come into view. But whether this round of struggle has the chance to lead to an altogether different outcome — depends upon one decisive factor: will the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology of the international proletariat command these struggles pounding at the old (and "new") order? Who shall lead?

The oppressed and revolutionary masses are seeking such an ideology — one that can bury the system and not just batter it. They have seen so many of their righteous struggles sidetracked, bought off or unable to break through the obstacles that a total rupture with imperialism requires. There is no lack of resistance, courage, sacrifice and bitter class hatred, but the masses cannot fully use these qualities to win without the leadership of the proletarian ideology and a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party.

The ruling and exploiting classes are desperate to stamp out our ideology. They have been viciously distorting and trying to erase the history and lessons of the international proletariat, especially its unprecedented achievements, over the past 150 years. With murderous arms and through their brutal, daily grinding of people into profit, they declare that they are invincible. Their bourgeois ideology of narrow self-interest is but a pathetic defence of modern slavery; ours awakens and liberates. Of course they must devote huge cultural arsenals to keep the revolutionary outlook from the eager minds and hands of the labouring people they subjugate and on whose backs they build their empire. How else can they persuasively peddle reactionary capitalist dinosaurs like Yeltsin and Deng Xiao-ping, while mocking Lenin and Mao Tsetung and the two epoch-changing mass revolutions they led? How else can they paint the heroic rebels of Palestine and Los Angeles fighting for freedom and justice as ignorant youth who bite the hand that feeds them and burn down their own communities?

Nowhere today is this clash of two opposite world views clearer than in the rabid way that the reactionaries and imperialists are trying to militarily smash and politically and ideologically encircle the People's War raging in Peru. There the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party of Peru (PCP) is leading peasants and workers, supported by large sections of intellectuals and others in the middle classes, to overthrow the corrupt puppet regime of U.S. imperiailism and to give birth to the new proletarian state. Just when the world's rulers had declared communism irreversibly dead, its ideology "useless" and outmoded, a new people's state led by the proletariat once again is preparing to step onto the political stage and is firing the hopes of the oppressed throughout the world. And hence they are forced to risk going all out to attack and demonize Comrade Gonzalo, the chairman of the PCP and the revolutionary leader of millions, as the world's most dangerous man. Dangerous for whom?!

As the People's War continues to advance, this May First, 1993, the outcome of the historical battle being waged in literally all four corners of the earth to defend the life of Chairman Gonzalo is still being fought out. Daily the campaign gains new supporters and this powerful counter-attack is driving the reactionaries and imperialists to jump out even further to outlaw and muzzle worldwide opposition to their crimes in Peru. Class lines between enemies and friends are being drawn more sharply. All this calls out urgently for raising this crucial struggle to defend Comrade Gonzalo's life to a higher level, for the proletariat to lead and to unite its friends and allies even more broadly.

The legacy of Mao Tsetung haunts the world's rulers. Through their anti-communist crusade they want to forbid the oppressed from taking up the only ideology that can liberate them. This May 1st, as we step up our ideological counter-offensive and the struggle for revolution across the world, we will spread this legacy far and wide to train many new contingents of proletarian revolutionaries. As Comrade Gonzalo convincingly called for from behind the enemy's bars, let's celebrate the Mao Tsetung Centenary in an unforgettable way!