I mean the entire movement wasnt. At their peak and before they lost popular support cause of these blind violent acts they were pretty similar to other maoist people’s war movements world wide before or after them that didnt just start massacring rural villages cause of suspected fascist sympathisers or whatever and they were gaining rural support at an alarming rate.

I wouldnt be surprised if there was a CIA hand (mostly since it was an open people’s war in latin america) but im hesitant to go “everything that sucked in communist revolutions was an op” . Horrible ideological and practical training of these groups inside the shinning path .Overly violent and seeing enemies everywhere. Reactionary leadership that encourgaed such behaviors and double down on "my party did the right thing "instead of denouncing the the groups inside the party that did that or even believed that it was the right thing to do.

I took a gonzaloite class, they really do tend to try to destroy anything they think will corrupt their control over the mass line