Background
Abimael Guzmán Reynoso was born im Mollendo on 3 December 1934.
Abimael Guzmán Reynoso was born im Mollendo on 3 December 1934.
He studied in a Callao grade school and in a highly disciplined Catholic high school in Arequipa. He obtained his doctorate at the National University of San Agustín and joined the philosophy faculty of the National University of San Cristobal de Humanga in Ayacucho in 1962
In the National University of San Cristobal de Humanga in Ayacucho he held important administrative positions, taught philosophy courses, and indoctrinated his students with his own Marxist political ideas.
A Communist, he was already an important Maoist leader when the Partido Communista Peruano-Bandera Roja was formed in 1964. He acted openly in this party until 1974, when he went underground with the name of Comrade Gonzalo. In 1980 his party, the Partido Comunista-Sendero Luminoso, began its guerrilla campaign in the Ayacucho area. After 1984, his partisans, through announcements on San Marcos University walls and Shining Path clandestine literature, referred to Guzmán as “President Gonzalo."