Before The Shining Path Summary

The Peruvian civil war 1980 to 1992 saw 69,000 dead, and the PCP-SL was responsible for 54% of them. Trying to explain the rise of the PCP-SL historians have emphasized late economic crises; failed state reforms, and even radical Maoist leaders. However, much of those previous attempts have come under criticism, leading some to call for a move “beyond enigma” and to contextualize the PCP-SL and the civil war (Heilman, 1). Accordingly, some such as Carlos Ivan Degregori have situated the PCP-SL inside a long history of local elites who mixed concern for the indigenous with authoritarianism. Others, such as Lewis Taylor have found connections with the rise of the APRA in Cajamarca and the later rise of the PCP-SL in the same department.
Politics in Rural Ayacucho builds on previous works by tracing 85 years of “Historical process” that led up to the rise of the PCP-SL (Heilman, 2). Heilman is a professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in the history Peru and Latin America. She uses a combination of archival research and oral history interviews to contextualize the PCP-SL. In the book she zeros in on the department of Ayacucho, and ultimately interprets the PCP-SL as “the last of a series political movements that developed in Peru’s country side (Heilman, 2).”
Heilman’s argument not only contextualizes the PCP-SL, but her argument also shows how literacy and equality was the key to enfranchisement. In her chronological argument you find that the men and woman living in Ayacucho had long denounced the abuses of elites and state neglect. Each movement promised to change the system, and in turn each change resulted in continued exploitation, with little change for poorer campesinos. In is in that context that explains the initial attraction of the