Editing Shining Path (section)

== Name ==
{{Further|Communism in Peru}}
The group's official name is the ''Communist Party of Peru'' (PCP), a name seen in all of its self-produced documents, periodicals, and other materials. The acronym ''PCP-SL'' is unofficially used by organizations, such as the [[Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru)|Truth and Reconciliation Commission]],<ref>{{Cite book |title=El Partido Comunista del Perú (Sendero Luminoso) |publisher=[[Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru)|Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación]] |pages=13 |language=es |url=https://www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/pdf/TOMO%20II/CAPITULO%201%20-%20Los%20actores%20armados%20del%20conflicto/1.1.%20PCP-SL/CAP%20I%20SL%20ORIGEN.pdf |chapter=1. Los actores armados}}</ref> to distinguish the group from other groups who claim the original name and acronym.

The group's common name, ''Shining Path'', distinguishes it from several other Peruvian communist parties with similar names. The name is derived from a maxim of [[José Carlos Mariátegui]], the founder of the original [[Peruvian Communist Party]] (from which the rest of communist parties split; now commonly known as the "PCP-Unidad") in the 1920s: "{{lang|es|El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución}}" ("[[Marxism–Leninism]] will open the shining path to revolution").<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Shining Path |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=11 January 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shining-Path |access-date=4 February 2023}}</ref> This maxim was featured on the masthead of the newspaper of a Shining Path [[front group]]. The followers of this group are generally called ''senderistas''.