The organization had an elaborate, tiered membership structure, wherein members served first as sympathizers, then activists, then militants, then commanders, and finally members of the central committee.17 But the leadership also remained highly personalized: new militants were required to write a letter of subjugation, in which they pledged their lives, not only to the cause, but to Guzmán personally.18 Guzmán’s role as the cultish, even deified intellectual leader was never in doubt; nonetheless Sendero Luminoso’s organizational agility and depth seemed impenetrable and impersonal.
Org structure
