It's been a while since I looked into it, but what I remember finding was that they engaged in a lot of terrorism that wasn't necessarily directed at the ruling class.

-Massacred a lot of peasants.

-Including babies

-Sometimes executed people with boiling water or other forms of torture

Abimael Guzman, their leader, IIRC admitted to most of this in interviews and called it revolutionary excess.

[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've seen some dispute the boiling babies thing, but everyone seems to agree they killed a whole lot of peasants.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 16 points 1 month ago

My understanding is that boiling peasants isn't disputed, and neither is killing peasant babies, but that specifically boiling babies is disputed.

For me personally, "Hey, we only scalded adults to death, we shot their babies" is still really bad. That's like some IOF stuff.

[–] Torenico@hexbear.net 12 points 1 month ago

And it became ridiculously cult-like later in their existence, owing it more to their leader than any kind of revolutionary stance. And still kinda are to this day