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
History of the Communist Party USA leftists from the hall. The remaining leftist delegates walked out and meeting with the expelled delegates formed the Communist Labor Party on August 30, 1919. The Comintern was not happy with two communist parties and in January 1920 dispatched an order that the two parties, which consisted of about 12,000 members, merge under the name United Communist Party and to follow the party line established in Moscow. Part of the Communist Party of America under the leadership of Ruthenberg and Jay Lovestone did this, but a faction under the leadership of Nicholas I. Hourwich and Alexander Bittelman continued to operate