The Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish), formally the Communist Party of Peru, is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist political party in Peru that was formed in 1980, with Abimael Guzman being the first leader of the communist movement in Peru since the 1960s. The movement sought to overthrow the bourgeoisie that ruled the country and establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat", claiming that they were the vanguard of world communism and that the existing socialist states were revisionist Marxist states and not true socialism. The Shining Path was widely condemned for brutality during the internal conflict in Peru, and the United States, European Union, and Canada claimed that the Shining Path movement was a terrorist organization for its attacks on peasants, trade union organizers, elected officials, and the general population. The group had a strength of 350 people by 2016, and some branches of the group entered the cocaine trade to fund its activities.
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