The Khmer Rouge bashed babies’ skulls into trees, shot just about everyone who could read, deliberately killed people in the Killing Fields and concentration camps.
The Shining Path boiled babies alive, hung dogs on lampposts, (I think) did school shootings.
Most other communist movements, like the Bolsheviks, the CPC, the Viet Cong were a lot more tame and connected with the people.
I haven’t even seen that many ultras advocating for this level of violence by these dogmatic bastards.
What the f*ck caused all this ultra violence to happen?
So in regards to the shining path, it’s very important to understand it within it’s context. Obviously within that context they are worse than say the Bolsheviks, but you still cannot forget that they were fighting a true dictatorship that was sterilizing the indigenous to in the tens of thousands. Sadly, groups like the Shining Path are more a product of imperialism and US puppet govts than anything else. I see that left out a bit too much, and it’s important to acknowledge because then comrades in similar situations can learn from all the mistakes they made. Really the experience of the Shining Path is a textbook example of what to avoid when fighting a colonial dictatorship. The struggle in the DPRK, Vietnam, etc united the peasant and working classes while the Shining Path alienated them and even massacred them.