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Family Ties: The Political Genealogy of Shining Paths Comrade Norah

JAYMIE PATRICIA HEILMAN
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Family was central to the political life of Augusta La Torre (or Comrade Norah), the second-in-command of the Peruvian Communist PartyShining Path (PCP-SL). La Torre was the daughter of a Communist Party militant and the granddaughter of a prominent provincial political gure. She was also the wife of Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman. La Torres familial history demonstrates the importance of parental and grandparental contributions to Senderistas political formation, and suggests that parents and children were sometimes united in their support for the Shining Path. La Torres family ties, however, have also led numerous observers to question her revolutionary credentials. Keywords: Augusta La Torre, Comrade Norah, family, marriage, Shining Path.

Shrouded by her partys ag, Augusta La Torre lay dead while her comrades drank, sang and danced in mourning. The only relative attending La Torres wake was her husband; her parents, siblings, aunts and uncles were all absent (Caretas, 1992: 26). That absence was in many ways deceptive, for family was central to La Torres political life. Known by the nom de guerre of Comrade Norah within the ranks of the Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path (PCP-SL), Augusta La Torre served as second-in-command of that organisation from 1980 until her 1988 death. As a leading PCP-SL militant, La Torre helped wage a war notorious for its extreme uses of violence. From the May 1980 start of the Shining Paths Peoples War until the 1992 capture of party founder Abimael Guzman, Maoist PCP-SL rebels (or Senderistas), state forces and civilians fought bloody battles that left some 69,000 Peruvians dead. Scholars have looked in many different directions to explain why so many young men and women joined the Shining Path and its armed struggle (Degregori, 1989; Palmer, 1992; Kirk, 1997; Gorriti, 1999). This article furthers the debate, using the case of Augusta La Torre to highlight the signicance of familial inuence upon Senderistas political trajectories. Several authors have noted the importance of family to the Shining Path. Journalist Gustavo Gorriti has demonstrated the prominence of intermarriage between early Shining Path members, many of whom were actually siblings. Such kin ties indeed led these founding militants to label themselves the sacred family (Gorriti, 1990: 20). Historian Ponciano del Pino has likewise considered issues of family. Del Pino (1998)
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makes the compelling argument that familial needs undermined the PCP-SL, serving as a major impetus for resistance to the party. Recently, historian Lewis Taylor noted that Senderistas prioritised recruitment along familial lines. In Taylors words, brothers or sisters would enrol their siblings and cousins, children their fathers and mothers and vice versa (Taylor, 2006: 180). This article takes the consideration of family in a new direction, demonstrating the importance of parental and grandparental contributions to Senderistas political formation and life. Augusta La Torre was the daughter of a Communist Party militant, the granddaughter of a leading provincial political gure, and the great niece of an early Peruvian Communist Party member. She was also the wife of the Shining Paths founder, Abimael Guzman. Following the political trajectories of each successive generation in the La Torre familya process I label political genealogywe can root Shining Path militants, and not just their party, in their deep historical context. While scholars such as Colin Harding (1988), Orin Starn (1995), and journalist Gustavo Gorriti (1999) have worked to understand the PCP-SLs leaders through their political writings, offering insightful interpretations of Senderista ideology, attempts to analyse leading Senderistas on a personal level have been less successful. Author Santiago Roncagliolio (2007), for example, stumbled in his recent effort to write a biography of Abimael Guzman. Roncagliolio discovered that Guzmans reluctance to discuss his personal history, combined with the unwillingness of Guzmans relatives and comrades to speak at length of Guzmans life, rendered a biography nearly impossible. While I, too, encountered hesitations and silences from interviewees disinclined to discuss Augusta La Torre, the Ayacucho archives were rich with information about her family. Assertions about the importance of family in the genesis and continuing support of a revolutionary are almost certain to be controversial. Without question, tracing political genealogies across family lines is a problematic task. Many are the right-wing children of decidedly leftist parents, many are the spouses who hold opposing political views and many are the siblings who make dramatically different political choices. Just as crucially, a given persons political choices are heavily inuenced by peers, teachers and the times in which he or she lives. Yet we still must take seriously the political inuence of family. Few would argue that a persons morals, values, and religious beliefs are shaped by his or her family. Why not political convictions, too? To speak of familial inuence on political trajectories is not to engage in determinism; it is instead to recognise the importance of family as one factor among many in a given militants political evolution. Claims of familial political inuence will also not sit well with those who believe that a revolutionary comes to his or her cause solely because of her passion for social justice and the inherent rightness of the peoples struggle. Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman himself voiced such sentiments. When asked by an interviewer from the proShining Path newspaper El Diario if any of his relatives or friends guided him toward politics, Guzman demurred. He replied, I would say that what has most inuenced me to take up politics has been the struggle of the people (Guzman, 1988). The continuing importance of family in a militants life also runs against many dearly held beliefs about a revolutionarys necessary independence from the constraints of friendship and familial love (Pomper, 1979: 90). Guzman asserted as much when he claimed that he had no friends, only comrades (Guzman, 1988). Yet however controversial a consideration of political genealogy may be, the centrality of family in Augusta La Torres political formation, life and legacy makes such an investigation worthwhile. A focus on parental and grandparental inuence upon Shining Path militants also raises a counterpoint to arguments about the importance of generational conict to

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the emergence of the Shining Path. Scholars such as Carlos Ivan Degregori (1998) and Miguel La Serna (2008) have demonstrated how tensions between rural youth and older community members factored into the rise of the PCP-SL in the countryside. These arguments about generational conict are insightful, but there is another story to be told about relations between parents and children with regard to the Shining Path: one of generational concurrence. The case of Augusta La Torre demonstrates that, on occasion, parents and children could be united in their support for the PCP-SL and its violent struggle. While Augusta La Torre was herself exceptional, her situation was not unique. In the Huanta, Ayacucho district of Luricocha, for example, peasants testied that the entire Yauri* family walked with Sendero Luminoso while another witness asserted that Eduardo Guti rrez,* his wife, and their two daughters were all involved e with the PCP-SL (Interview 200649, 2002; Interview 200615, 2002).1 The relevance of familial political inuence also stretches back in time and across to other Peruvian political organisations. In my closing reections, I use the lines of family to draw connections between the PCP-SL and the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA). Lastly, this article argues for a cautionary approach to matters of the family, showing that too heavy a focus on familial relations can overshadow the political ideas, efforts and legacy of a given militant. La Torres marriage to Abimael Guzman has led numerous observers to call her revolutionary credentials into question. Because the denials of La Torres political capacity and relevance have been so frequent and so vehement, this article begins with an extended discussion of Augusta La Torres political work.

From Augusta La Torre to Comrade Norah

Augusta La Torres political career began in 1962, when she joined the Peruvian Communist Party (Iparraguirre, 2003: 8). Upon the PCPs 1964 fracture into pro-China and pro-Soviet lines, La Torre chose the Maoist PCP-Bandera Roja (Romero,* 2005). Bandera Roja soon called upon La Torre to further her political education; she and Abimael Guzman travelled to China in March 1965 and spent ve months training in an ofcers school. While in China, La Torre undertook both intellectual and practical training, receiving lessons in Marxist and Maoist philosophy as well as instruction in military tactics and strategies (Guzman, 2002: 15; Iparraguirre, 2003: 8). Augusta La Torre played a signicant role in the factional divides and permanent ruptures that riddled Perus Left after the Sino-Soviet split. While La Torre joined the Maoist PCP-Bandera Roja upon the 1964 split, she and Guzman also immediately founded the splinter Red Fraction that challenged, but did not fully break from, the lawyer Saturnino Paredess leadership of Bandera Roja. At the regional level, La Torre regularly attended the meetings and demonstrations of other leftist parties, taking careful note of those rival parties ideas, opinions and plans, and then reporting her ndings to her own Maoist comrades (Silva, 2005). La Torre also contributed to the denitive split between Bandera Roja and the Red Fraction, a break that culminated in the 1970 formation of the PCP-SL. Elena Iparraguirrethe PCP-SL militant who ranked third inside the partys Central Committee during the 1980s and who married Guzman after La Torres deathrecalled that Augusta La Torre worked in the ferocious

1 Names followed by an asterisk are pseudonyms.

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struggle that those of Bandera Roja, those of Paredes, made against her (Iparraguirre, 2003: 13). Augusta La Torres work was signicant enough to catch the attention of government ofcials. A 1969 government report noted La Torres political activities, and regional authorities did not let her radicalism go unpunished. La Torres highly visible participation in the education protests that rocked Ayacucho and Huanta in June 1969 led to her arrest and brief imprisonment that same month (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005e).2 Jail did not temper La Torres politics. She forcefully promoted the PCP-SL at a 1973 miners congress in La Oroya and she staunchly defended Marxism in a 1975 debate with Peruvian intellectual Carlos Franco (Hume, 1998: 45; Iparraguirre, 2003: 10). In 1976, La Torre became Secretary of the PCP-SLs Northern Regional Committee; that same year, La Torre was named to the PCP-SLs Political Bureau (Iparraguirre, 2003: 11, 14). Much of Augusta La Torres political work in the 1960s and 1970s involved efforts to mobilise women. She and Guzman established the Womens Popular Centre upon their return from China in 1965, and La Torre soon assumed the leadership of this organisation (Iparraguirre, 2003: 8; Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a). The Womens Popular Centre was less an institution than a movement, with members sponsoring talks and raising political awareness through the production and distribution of written propaganda (Movimiento Femenino Popular, 1975: 64; Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005c). Augusta La Torre, Elena Iparraguirre and a third PCP-SL militant also authored the 67-page book El marxismo, Mariategui, y el movimiento femenino (Movimiento Femenino Popular, 1975; Iparraguirre, 2003: 8). La Torres efforts to channel women into the PCP-SL continued via the Womens Popular Movement. Founded in late 1974 as one of the PCP-SLs so-called generated organisms, the Womens Popular Movement formed from the fusion of the Womens Popular Centre and the Womens University Front at the Universidad Nacional San Cristobal de Huamanga (UNSCH). Augusta La Torre was that movements unequivocal founder and leader (Iparraguirre, 2003: 810; Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005c). While the Womens Popular Movement rst emerged in Ayacucho, Augusta La Torre and other members of the movement worked to nationalise the organisation. Government sources noted the presence of the Womens Popular Movement in Arequipa and in Lima shantytowns, while Iparraguirre recalled that we travelled to all parts of our country (Iparraguirre, 2003: 10). Abimael Guzman similarly remembered that the Womens Popular Movement did work throughout the country, we went to all the little towns, we held meetings and women shared their problems there, the same with university students (Guzman, 2002: 71). Through her work with the Womens Popular Movement, Augusta La Torre regularly denounced Perus military government. In a 1975 speech in Arequipa, La Torre railed against the military government, telling the assembled crowd that the regime was utilising women for capitalist, pro-imperialist and feudal interests (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a: 12). Similarly, during the First Convention of Women Workers in Lima, La Torre described the military government as bloodthirsty and inhumane, and she stated that the goal of that Women Workers Convention was

2 A guide to this microlm collection is available on the internet; see Guide to the Microlm Edition of Documenting thePeruvian Insurrection (n.d.).

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to unite the people against the regime (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a: 12). Having proven herself a dedicated and militant activist, La Torre won a key position inside the PCP-SL: in 1980, PCP-SL militants voted her into the Shining Paths Permanent Central Committee, allotting her the second highest position of leadership in the party (Iparraguirre, 2003: 11, 14). That same year, La Torre assumed leadership of the PCP-SLs Andahuaylas-Cangallo Zonal Committee. This committee was at that time the most important of all the PCP-SLs regional committees, as it was the zone where the PCP-SL initiated its war and where it won signicant popular support (Iparraguirre, 2003: 15; Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b). La Torre also led the PCPSLs rst major guerrilla action. While the Peoples War had its ofcial start with the 17 May 1980 burning of ballot boxes in Chuschi, the rst bloodletting did not occur until the 24 December 1980 attack on the Hacienda San Agustn de Ayzarca in Pujas. It was Augusta La Torre who led this attack. As Elena Iparraguirre explained it, this is extremely important, because under her direction, the rst guerrilla action came to be carried out (Iparraguirre, 2003: 14). Augusta La Torre retreated from the countryside in 1982 to focus on strategising, planning the PCP-SLs actions with Abimael Guzman and Elena Iparraguirre, the two other members of the three-person Central Committee. La Torres work in the PCP-SLs Central Committee continued up until her November 1988 death from still-unknown causes (Roncagliolio, 2007: 131132). Discussion of the nal years of La Torres life cannot go beyond the stuff of rumour. From her 1979 entrance into profound clandestinity alongside Guzman until her 1988 death, La Torre lived in hiding and the details of her political actions and everyday life are known only to those PCP-SL militants who lived alongside her.

Family Lines: The Political Genealogy of the La Torres

Augusta La Torre was certainly not the rst of her family to draw the ire of Peruvian authorities. That dubious honour instead belonged to her paternal grandfather, Carlos La Torre Cortez. Born in 1887, La Torre Cortez jumped to local political prominence in January 1923, when he was arrested following a heated argument with Huantas subprefect. Testifying about his stint in jail, La Torre Cortez charged that the subprefect and his prison guards had grossly abused their power, holding him incommunicado, denying him food, stripping him of his clothing and forcing him to bathe. Compounding the mistreatment and humiliation, guards raised human excrement to La Torre Cortezs mouth, pressing him to ingest the waste (Ayacucho Regional Archive (ARA), 1923b: 10). Upon winning his freedom, La Torre Cortez headed up a crowd of dozens of men who angrily confronted the subprefect, pushing authorities to charge La Torre Cortez with contempt and other crimes (ARA, 1923b: 27). That incident was only the start of Carlos La Torre Cortezs political notoriety. Together with over 40 other hacendados and middle-class professionals from across Huanta, La Torre Cortez formed the the Rights of Man Defence League in 1923. This group lobbied intensively against the policies of President Augusto B. Legua, voicing particular opposition towards the governments proposed taxes on coca and alcohol, and denouncing the Conscripcion Vial, a programme of forced highway construction labour. La Torre Cortez was at the forefront of these efforts (ARA, 1923a). In January 1924, Huantas subprefect complained that Mr. La Torre is one of the venal men who
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wish to see the Indians rise up and demand the repeal of this [Conscripcion Vial] Law, the Coca Tax, and the State Alcohol Monopoly (ARA, 1924). La Torre Cortez and his allies also made heated calls for the Legua governments downfall, promoting the candidacy of Leguas rival in the 1924 presidential elections and even inciting Huantas population to violence against the Legua government (ARA, 1924). Carlos La Torre Cortez and his supporters were protesting policies that ran counter to their economic interests; the taxes, like highway conscription, threatened their prots as well as the availability of peasant labour to generate those prots. But La Torre Cortezs interests were not limited to economics. He was also drawn to politics for the sake of politics, seeking election to Perus Chamber of Deputies in the 1924 congressional elections. Between October 1923 and January 1924, members of the Rights of Man Defence League made repeated visits to the district of Luricocha, publicising La Torres candidacy. The districts mayor recounted that, they went all over the town, pressing people to join their protest against the coca tax and promoting La Torres candidacy by casting him as the peoples anti-tax Savior (ARA, 1924). La Torre Cortezs political activities continued in subsequent years. He briey supported APRA in the early 1930s, and by the 1940s, La Torre Cortez was rmly established inside the ranks of Huantas ofcialdom. He served as president of the Provincial Electoral Jury in 1939, and he was named Huantas mayor in 1941 (ARA, 1939: 1; ARA, 19411942, 6 January 1941, 12 January 1942). In 1945, La Torre Cortez added his name to the long list of Huanta candidates seeking election to Perus Chamber of Deputies. As in 1924, he lost his electoral bid (Sierra, 1945: 4). Politics evidently ran in the La Torre family. La Torre Cortezs son, Carlos La Torre Cardenas, proved just as politically engaged as his father. Like his father, Carlos La Torre Cardenas took an active role in regional politics, participating in Huantas Public Aid Society during the 1940s and serving on Huantas provincial council in the early 1950s (ARA, 1942, 17 January; Sierra, 1951: 8). But unlike his father, Carlos La Torre Cardenas joined the Ayacucho branch of the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP). As a PCP member, La Torre Cardenas enjoyed a moment of particular paternal pride in 1960, when his son Alejandro won a scholarship to the Patrice Lumumba Peoples Friendship University in Moscow, a school that trained third-world students in technical elds and Marxist philosophy (Silva, 2005). Crucially, my interview questions about why Carlos La Torre Cardenas joined the PCP routinely received the same answer: his family. Edgar Romero, a pro-Soviet Huanta Communist in his late 1960s, cited La Torre Cardenass mother and maternal uncle as the main factor behind La Torre Cardenass attraction to the PCP, explaining that these relatives were all Communist Party members (Romero, 2005). Franco Silva similarly referenced family when explaining Carlos La Torre Cardenass political development. According to Silva, La Torre Cardenas joined the Communist Party primarily because of the example set by his maternal uncle, a Huanta landlord who belonged to the PCP and had extensive experience in Argentinas Communist Party (Silva, 2005). Now, the phrase Communist hacendado does not roll easily off the tongue; it sounds awkward at best, oxymoronic at worst. According to the logic of the Peruvian Leftand of Marxists worldwidelandlords perpetrated and proted from the very socio-economic injustices against which the Communist Party railed. Certainly, Carlos La Torre Cardenas made no signicant efforts to bring social justice or equality to his hacienda, the Iribamba estate. Silvio Medina* worked on that hacienda as a child, and he remembered the familys insistence on aristocratic formality. Medina recalled that, I attended to visitors when they came to eat lunch . . . I had my coat, very white, with a

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tie, and my hair was neatly combed (Medina, 2003). It seems the only effort La Torre Cardenas made to defend Iribambas workers came in 1955, when he pursued criminal charges against an Iribamba peon for rape of an hacienda employee (ARA, 1955 SCJ Huanta, le 1705, book 119: 1). Yet Carlos La Torre Cardenas was a committed Communist Party member all the same. Franco Silva worked through the seeming contradiction between La Torre Cardenass political sympathies and his economic position by pointing to the La Torre familys economic troubles in the late 1950s (Silva, 2005). The Iribamba hacienda fell into debt, and Carlos La Torre Cardenas and his wife were forced to sell off their urban Ayacucho properties (ARA, 1957: 634635; ARA, 1957b: 935). Worse still, La Torre Cardenas had to take a job as a public employee in the city of Ayacucho, a far-from-prestigious post for the son of a prominent hacendado (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b). As Franco Silva phrased it, assuming that post was a humiliation, an embarrassment and heightened La Torre Cardenass sympathies for the PCP (2005). Like her father and grandfather before her, Augusta La Torre Carrasco was drawn to politics. Born in 1945, Augusta La Torre Carrasco joined the Communist Party at the age of seventeen (Iparraguirre, 2003: 8). Here again, family inuence was paramount. Franco Silva attributed Augusta La Torres politics to her father, explaining that because Carlos La Torre Cardenas belonged to the PCP, his daughter Augusta already had a certain orientation, a certain disposition, before meeting Guzman (Silva, 2005). The most obvious role Augusta La Torres parents played in her political life was that of ideological and personal matchmakers: Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Delia Carrasco introduced their daughter to Abimael Guzman. The relationship between Guzman and the La Torre family began in 1962, after Guzman accepted a teaching position at the UNSCH (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a; Silva, 2005). Guzman sought out Carlos La Torre Cardenas because of their shared membership in the PCP. Within two years of their rst meeting, Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Guzman were cooperating in their political work. In February 1964, the pair organised a demonstration among UNSCH students. That same month, they travelled to a nearby haciendaa trip authorities insisted was intended to subvert the peons of this hacienda (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b: 1). The ties between Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Guzman, however, were more than just political. They were also personal. La Torre Cardenas and his wife Delia Carrasco held Guzman in high esteem from the outset of their friendship. Delia Carrasco later reected that Guzman was another son and, of course, the whole family loved him very much. Weve always respected him (Everest, 1993: 9). Carlos La Torre Cardenas and Delia Carrasco regularly invited Guzman into their home. It was there that Guzman met the couples young daughter, Augusta, and the pair soon became romantically involved, marrying in 1964. Without question, the marriage enjoyed the blessings of the brides family. At the ceremony, it was Augustas relatives, rather than the couples friends, colleagues, or comrades, who lled most of the seats. Some even speculate that the marriage happened because Augustas parents pressured her to marry the man they so esteemed (Silva, 2005). It is difcultprobably even impossibleto gauge the impact of political genealogy upon Augusta La Torres life. We cannot say for certain whether La Torre would have taken a different political path had her grandfather, father and great uncle been resolutely apolitical. Nor can we prove that familial inuence had more impact upon La Torre than did any other factor. But even if we cannot make decisive statements
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about familial impact upon La Torres political trajectory, placing La Torre inside her familys long political lineage helps us ground her participation in what can otherwise seem an enigmatic political party. La Torre grew up in a family where political activity, party membership and protest against the Peruvian state were routine, making it unsurprising that she too entered into radical politics. The fact that Augusta La Torres siblings likewise joined the PCP-SL only bolsters this assertion. Augustas sister Gisela entered the PCP-SL and married Javier Esparza, one of the PCP-SLs earliest militants (La Republica, 2003a). Augustas brothers Pablo and Juan were also accused of collaboration with the PCP-SL (La Republica, 2003b). While such broad familial participation speaks to the fact that the Shining Path emphasised familial recruitment, as Lewis Taylor argues, this participation also reects the importance of parental and grandparental inuence on youths political trajectory.

All in the Family

Testifying before Perus Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Elena Iparraguirre asserted that upon joining the PCP-SL, she had to abandon familial connections outside the party. In her words, I couldnt go to school, work, nor attend to my family, none of that, so I quit school and broke ties with my family. It is a process that one has to follow (Iparraguirre, 2003: 16). Iparraguirre was not the only Senderista to take such action. Leading PCP-SL militants Osman Morote and Teresa Durand left their children in the custody of the childrens grandparents, just as Eduardo Mata and Yeny Mara Rodriguez abandoned their newborn daughter so as to dedicate themselves to the revolution (del Pino, 1998: 181). Guzman and Augusta La Torre themselves had no children, and that childlessness was a conscious choice (cf. Roncagliolio, 2007: 58). Edgar Romero remembered Guzman telling him that La Torre did not want to have kids, because they had decided to be total revolutionaries and their kids would suffer (Romero, 2005). Yet while Shining Paths top-ranking members spoke of the need to abandon familial connections with relatives who remained outside the partys ranks, those members sometimes remained heavily dependent on such extra-party familial support. From the rst days of their marriage, Augusta La Torre and Abimael Guzman relied upon her parents aid to make their political actions possible. Much of this support was nancial. Immediately after they wed, La Torre and Guzman moved in with her parents in Ayacucho, and they made repeated use of her parents second home in Lima. Augusta La Torre and Abimael needed this parental support because they struggled with that most common of familial problems: money. Augusta La Torres uncle Luis La Torre recalled that the couple lived in an extremely austere way, and that they had problems balancing their monthly budget (Gorriti, 1983: 13). The pairs money troubles became so desperate that Augusta La Torre had to seek money from her greatest enemy: the state. She and her father took out a loan of around 10,000 soles in January 1970 from the Agricultural Development Bank. When Augusta La Torre was unable to repay that loan on time, the bank initiated a lawsuit against her (ARA, 1972: 1). The couples nancial situation grew even more precarious after April 1975, when Guzmans political activities and ill health cost him his job at the UNSCH (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005b). Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrasco were far from unaware of the young couples political ideas and efforts. Years later, Delia Carrasco recalled Guzman with fondness, remembering that talking to him was like being awakened to a new reality. It was

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a great satisfaction to hear himhow he laid out different themes (Everest, 1993: 8). Carlos La Torre, in turn, recalled that because the couple lived with him and his wife, We saw the enthusiasm that they put toward the revolution (Everest, 1993: 9). Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrasco even provided their daughter and son-in-law a locale for revolutionary preparations: their Iribamba hacienda in Huanta, co-owned with Carlos La Torres brother Luis. Abimael and Augusta travelled openly and often to Iribamba during the late 1960s and into 1970, regularly taking fellow militants along with them (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a; Silva, 2005). The Iribamba arrangement did not last long, however. Because Augusta La Torre and Guzman, along with other members of the nascent PCP-SL, were so vocal in their opposition to the 19681980 military government, their frequent trips to Iribamba raised the suspicions of government ofcials. In June 1970, police raided the Iribamba hacienda and detained Osman Morote and two other PCP-SL militants, arresting them on the grounds of undermining the militarys governments agrarian reform. The authorities deemed Iribamba a training centre for sabotage against the Agrarian Reform, and they arrested Guzman for being the intellectual author of that sabotage (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005a: 1). That arrest led to a four-month stay in jail for Guzman, while Augusta was spared punishment. Although the Iribamba arrests were dramatic and the prison stays signicant, those arrests brought only a temporary pause to Augusta and Abimaels political activities on the hacienda. In April 1978, the couple formed a military school on the estate to train PCP-SL militants in guerrilla warfare (Documenting the Peruvian Insurrection, 2005d). Familial support for the PCP-SL must not, of course, be overstated. Even some members of Augusta La Torres family bitterly opposed Sendero and staunchly refused to assist Augusta and Abimael. The most dramatic example of that opposition came from Augustas aunt and uncle, Adriana Cardenas and Eduardo Spatz. In 1978, Augusta La Torre visited her aunt and uncles hacienda in Huanta, asking to purchase Spatzs large gun collection. When Spatz refused the request, a heated argument ensued. Augusta ended that argument with the pledge that, You will be one of the rst well burn. Making good on La Torres promise, PCP-SL militants attacked the hacienda in November 1982 (Caretas, 1982: 14). Within the limits of Augusta La Torres nuclear family, however, support for the PCP-SL remained strong throughout the 1980s. From late 1982 onward, that support came from abroad, as Carlos La Torre, Delia Carrasco, and three of Augustas siblings ed to Sweden to escape arrest for their involvement with the PCP-SL. The familys international work for Sendero began when Augustas brother-in-law Javier Esparza contacted Abimael Guzman with a proposal to extend the PCP-SLs propaganda war into Europe (Caretas, 1986: 46). And so, in the closing days of 1982, Esparza organised the Ayacucho Studies Circle to advance the PCP-SLs cause. Comprised primarily of Augustas relatives, the group published a newspaper and distributed yers, and it staged a public demonstration on Labour Day 1983. Such activities continued in subsequent years; several Ayacucho Studies Circle members were detained by Swedish authorities in 1986 after distributing Senderista propaganda and painting pro-Sendero grafti on the walls of the Peruvian embassy in Stockholm (Caretas, 1991: 38, 94). What is perhaps most surprising about the La Torre Carrasco familys support for the PCP-SL is that it continued long after Augustas 1988 death. Upon Abimael Guzmans dramatic 1992 arrest, Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrasco rushed to his defence, hiring him a lawyer. As Delia Carrasco told the leftist newspaper Revolutionary Worker, we love him and we feel very strongly for him . . . I feel proud of Abimael Guzman
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and happy to know him, but at the same time I feel saddened by the arrest (Everest, 1993: 9). The elderly couple were especially active in the campaign to spare Guzman the death penalty. The pair attended the February 1993 Founding Conference of the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzman. At that conference, Carlos La Torre stated, We will defend his life, as long as our lives remain (International Emergency Committee, 1993: 31). Certainly, much of Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrascos support was driven by emotional and personal connections. They loved Guzman as a son-in-law, and by defending him, they were implicitly defending their own reputations and that of their deceased daughter. But it is also the case that Carlos La Torre and Delia Carrasco were motivated by politics, continuing to believedespite all the devastation wrought by the warthat the PCP-SLs struggle was justied. Carlos La Torre in fact told a Revolutionary Worker reporter that he, would like to assure the readers of the paper that the Peoples War in Peru will surge forward (Everest, 1993: 9). Augusta La Torres family remained committed to her party long after her life had ended.

Wedded to the Cause

Just as family contributed to Augusta La Torres formation as a political militant and sustained her political career, family has also had a detrimental impact upon her historical legacy. Within the ranks of the PCP-SL, La Torres reputation is solid; she is celebrated as the partys Greatest Heroine. Guzman eulogised La Torre as a, Daughter of the people and the international proletariat. Bright red ag, deant in the face of the storm. The greatest heroine of the Party and the revolution! (Everest, 1993: 8). Elena Iparraguirre, in turn, stressed that La Torre was a very kind woman, she had an absolute generosity, that is why she is the Partys greatest heroine. Completely generous, she gave everything from her person, absolute (Iparraguirre, 2003: 22). One imprisoned Shining Path militant similarly described La Torre as the greatest heroine of the party and the Revolution. This same man spoke of La Torres indelible and shining example of giving her life to the Party, the Revolution, and communism (Interview SCO 309 07, 2002: 53). The PCP-SLs ofcial line on Augusta La Torrea line enforced through the partys policy of democratic centralismdiffers dramatically from numerous popular castings of the woman. Observers have often mobilised Augusta La Torres marriage to Abimael Guzman to deny her capacity and relevance as a PCP-SL militant. Sometimes, that denial is sympathetic, seeking to excuse La Torre from the atrocities her party committed. One Huanta campesino, for example, insisted that the only reason Senora Augusta joined Shining Path was because of her love for her husband, not because she supported the partys ideals or its plans (Vargas,* 2005). Many of the individuals with whom writer Robin Kirk spoke offered a similar explanation for La Torres politics, claiming that La Torres devotion to her husband translated into devotion to his party. As Kirk herself phrased it: If Guzman had been a doctor, she would have run his ofce. An architect, and she would have schooled herself in design (Kirk, 1997: 90). In other cases, the denial of La Torres political radicalism is anything but friendly. Leading Senderista Oscar Ramrez Durand (Comrade Feliciano) repeatedly asserted that La Torres position in the PCP-SL owed to her sexual relationship with Guzman and Guzmans own megalomania. Ramrez insisted that La Torreand Elena Iparraguirreheld their prestigious positions in Shining Paths Central Committee

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solely because Guzman fantasised about being alone, surrounded by women in the Political Bureau (Caycho, 2005: 47). Ramrez similarly asserted that Guzman wanted to establish a clan . . . a efdom and he derided La Torre and Iparraguirre as Guzmans mujercitas (little women), his girlfriend number one and his girlfriend number two, and his two Geishas (Ramrez Durand, 2002a: 24, 28, 34). Ramrez Durand stressed La Torres role as both wife and political inferior to cast her only as an obedient follower, working as Guzmans proverbial yes-woman. La Torre, by Ramrez Durands telling, held power only because she saw Guzman as a genius, he was never wrong and because his inuence over her and Iparraguirre allowed Guzman to concentrate power in his own hands (Ramrez Durand, 2002b: 28). Ramrez Durand also blamed La Torre for initiating the notorious cult of personality surrounding Guzman. Testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ramrez Durand asserted that, Norah started this in 1982, 1983 . . . It was Norah who initiated these things, I bow my head before the Party and before President Gonzalo (Ramrez Durand, 2002b: 49). Ramrez Durands claims are easy to dismiss, for his anger toward Guzman, La Torre, and Iparraguirre represents a case of political jealousy at its most extreme. Not only did La Torre and Iparraguirre rank directly above Ramrez, keeping him out of Shining Paths Central Committee until La Torres 1988 death, but the PCP-SLs adherence to the principle of democratic centralism meant that Ramrez had to accept the policies that Guzman, La Torre, and Iparraguirre imposed. Remaining free at the moment of Guzman and Iparraguirres 1992 capture, Ramrez adamantly opposed the pairs post-arrest decision to pursue a peace treaty with the Peruvian government. Ramrez thus broke from the PCP-SL, leading a splinter group and continuing to ght the Peoples War until his arrest in 1999 (Caycho, 2005: 45). But even though Ramrezs motives render his assertions suspect, he is hardly the only individual to use the familial ties of marriage to dismiss the political relevance of Augusta La Torre, or of Senderista women in general. A retired female university professor likewise cast the female Senderista spouses of male Sendero militants as uncomplicated political followers. The wives were like that, the ex-professor explained, loyal to their husbands and therefore the Party (Kirk, 1997: 78). In his otherwise tremendously sensitive article on familial relations and the Shining Path, historian Ponciano del Pino similarly wrote of Senderista patriarchs delivering entire families to the party (del Pino 1998: 181182). To explain womens prominence in the PCP-SL primarily through reference to their husbands is to deny womens choices, experiences, and agency, even inside a political party known for its sexism and patriarchal attitudes (Vega-Centeno 1994; Coral Cordero, 1998; Henrquez Ayn, 2006). Elena Iparraguirre herself stressed that she joined the PCP-SL out of frustration at the sexism inside other leftist parties. Speaking to the Truth Commission, she explained her move from the PCP-Patria Roja (Red Fatherland) into Guzmans splinter Red Faction of the PCP-Bandera Roja and his sub-group, the fourteenth of July National Committee. As she phrased it, What did Patria want? For women to go out and get chickens . . . unacceptable. But in the fourteenth of July National Committee we were equal in everything, we did the same things (Iparraguirre, 2003: 7). For the case of Augusta La Torre, there is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that she was much, much more than simply her husbands mujercita. Certainly, the political efforts outlined at the start of this article reect the work of a dedicated political actor. Several observers have also commented on La Torres political radicalism. As Edgar Romero told me, She was more radical than [Guzman] was, and for that
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reason it is speculated that within Senderos lines, as she was more radical, maybe they killed her internally(Romero, 2005). Others speak of the inuence La Torre had upon Guzman. A Huamanga schoolteacher described La Torre as a woman of passionate convictions and denitive decisions, asserting that Guzman had initially considered abandoning politics in favour of a strictly academic life but that Augusta would not permit it (Gorriti, 1983: 13). Gilberto Hume remembered seeing Augusta La Torre at a 1973 miners congress, thinking her indefatigable because she attended every session she could and because she repeatedly stressed her partys line. As Hume recalled, we started to call her The Evangelist (Hume, 1998: 45). Yet even these comments subtly downplay Augusta La Torres political signicance, evaluating her only in relation to her husband and failing to treat her as a militant in her own right. Familyin the form of her husbandhas effectively overshadowed Augusta La Torres political legacy.

Conclusions
Behind every great man, there stands a woman. Or so the tired old adage tells us. Augusta La Torres case offers a new spin on that dictum: behind (many) a leader, there stands a family. For Augusta La Torre and her relatives, political ideology and actions were family affairs; La Torres relatives actively participated in politics before, during, and after her short life. Moreover, issues of family have shaped her historical legacy. Without understating all that was unique about Augusta La Torres personal and political life, we can nonetheless say that her political genealogy has many echoes in contemporary Peruvian history. Keiko Fujimori provides one obvious example. The daughter of ex-President Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori is presently a Congresswoman and there is widespread speculation that she will run for Perus presidency in 2011 should her fathers recent conviction for human rights abuses block his own candidacy. Ms. Fujimori is also joined in the Congress by her uncle, Santiago Fujimori, brother of the former president (El Comercio, 2008: A6). Yet while the Fujimori family dominates todays headlines, it is the family of APRA founder Vctor Raul Haya de la Torre that provides some of the most interesting parallels with Augusta La Torre (no relation). As was true of Augusta La Torre, Haya was nested inside a highly politicised family. Hayas father was a Congressional Deputy for Trujillo, holding that post from 1906 to 1912 (Klar n, 1973: 90). Like e Augusta La Torre, Haya was joined inside his party by several of his relatives. Hayas brother Agustn was an active participant in APRAs early struggles (Klar n, 1973: 127, e 129, 139) and Hayas cousin Marcela Pinillos Ganoza was an Aprista (Daz, 2007: 129132). In addition, Hayas parents provided him with important familial support for his early political efforts. In 1931, Haya and several other Aprista militants utilised his parental home both to formalise their political plans and to hide out from police (Daz, 2007: 50). These parallels give weight to historian Jos Luis R niques recent call e e for a comparative consideration of Haya de la Torre and Abimael Guzman (R nique, e 2003: 148). If we recognise that Guzman shared Augusta La Torres familial political connections and dependencies through his position as her husband then Guzman and Haya exhibit some signicant familial similarities. The issue of familial ties also offers grounds for a broad comparison between the PCP-SL and APRA as parties. APRA was arguably as dependent upon familial participation as was the Shining Path. Within the early APRA, the brothers of Trujillos Spelucn family proved dedicated and militant Apristas, ascending to leadership posts

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inside the nascent party (Klar n, 1973: 147). In addition, historian Lewis Taylor has e demonstrated the prominence of historic Aprista families in Cajamarca, where Aprista sons followed the political trajectory of their Aprista fathers. Taylor also notes the prominence of sibling participation within Cajamarcas APRA (Taylor, 2006: 151). Similar patterns emerged inside the department of Ayacucho. Within the district of Carhuanca, the brothers Vidal and Augusto Cardenas both belonged to APRA in the 1930s, and Vidals son stood as the districts Aprista candidate in the 2003 municipal elections (Heilman, 2006: 189). These connections between APRA and the PCP-SL exist on more than just an academic level. Crucially, many Shining Path militants were the daughters and sons of Apristas. Augusta La Torre was herself the grand-daughter of an Aprista, even if Carlos La Torre Cortezs afliation with APRA was only eeting. Elena Iparraguirre, in turn, was the daughter of an Aprista militant (Iparraguirre, 2003: 5). The familial ties between Senderistas and Apristas also existed at the level of rank-and-le party members. Inside the district of Carhuanca, many of the individuals who joined the PCP-SL were the children of once-prominent local Apristas (Heilman, 2006). These examples are telling. Not only do these cases show the importance of family political inuence, they also suggest that some Senderistas had looked upon their Aprista parents shortcomings and disappointments as revolutionaries and decided that a new, far more violent, political path was necessary. For Augusta La Torre, and for many other Peruvians, politics bound the ties of family.

Acknowledgements
My warm thanks to G. McCormick, I. Rodrguez Silva, and participants in the Dalhousie Stokes Seminar.

References
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Concejo de la Verdad y Reconciliacion Interviews from the Centro de Informacion para la Memoria Colectivo y Derechos Humanos (Lima)
Interview 200649 (2002) Huanta campesino, March. Interview 200615 (2002) Huanta campesino, March. Interview SCO 309 07 (2002) Anonymous prisoner in Yanamayo prison. Iparraguirre, E. (2003) March. Guzman, A. (2002) May. Ramrez Durand, O. (2002a) April. Ramrez Durand, O. (2002b) September. Ramrez Durand, O. (2002c) October.

Interviews by Author
Carrasco, L. (pseudonym) (2005) Journalist from Huanta, May 2005, Huanta. Medina, S. (pseudonym) (2003) Former worker on Iribamba hacienda, September, Huanta. Silva, F. (pseudonym) (2005) Former Ayacucho activist, May, Ayacucho. Romero, E. (pseudonym) (2005) Former Huanta activist, May, Huanta. Vargas, E. (pseudonym) (2005) Huanta campesino, May, Huanta.

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