Shining Path 1992, the Shining Path has declined in activity. The common name of this group, Shining Path, distinguishes it from several other Peruvian communist parties with similar names (see Communism in Peru). The name is derived from a maxim of José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of the original Peruvian Communist Party in the 1920s: ""El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución"" ("Marxism–Leninism will open the shining path to revolution"). This maxim was featured on the masthead of the newspaper of a Shining Path front group. Peruvian communist groups are often distinguished by the names of their publications. The followers
Shining Path The Shining Path's credibility was helped by the government's initially tepid response to the insurgency. For over a year, the government refused to declare a state of emergency in the region where the Shining Path was operating. The Interior Minister, José María de la Jara, believed the group could be easily defeated through police actions. Additionally, the president, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, who returned to power in 1980, was reluctant to cede authority to the armed forces, as his first government had ended in a military coup. The result was that the peasants in the areas where the Shining Path was