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 that sometimes included "slitting throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning." Peasants were offended by the rebels' injunction against burying the bodies of Shining Path victims. The Shining Path followed Mao's dictum that guerrilla warfare should start in the countryside and gradually choke off the cities. The Shining Path banned continuous drunkenness, but they did allow the consumption of alcohol. In 1991, President Alberto Fujimori issued a law that gave the "rondas" a legal status, and from that time they were officially called "Comités de auto defensa" ("Committees of Self Defence"). They were officially armed, usually with 12-gauge shotguns, and trained by