Shining Path of this group are generally called "senderistas". All documents, periodicals and other materials produced by the organization are signed by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). Academics often refer to them as PCP-SL. The Shining Path was founded in the late 1960s by Abimael Guzmán, a former university philosophy professor (his followers referred to him by his nom de guerre which was "Presidente Gonzalo"). His teachings created the foundation of its militant Maoist doctrine. It was an offshoot of the Communist Party of Peru — "Bandera Roja" (red flag), which in turn split from the original Peruvian Communist Party, a
Communist Party of the Soviet Union armed conflict. Rather, Stalin argued that the Soviet Union should in the meantime pursue peaceful coexistence and invite foreign investment in order to develop the country's economy and build socialism in one country. Ultimately, Stalin gained the greatest support within the party, and Trotsky, who was increasingly viewed as a collaborator with outside forces in an effort to depose Stalin, was isolated and subsequently expelled from the party and exiled from the country in 1928. Stalin's policies henceforth would later become collectively known as Stalinism. In 1925, the name of the party was changed to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks),