Debate-1 Full Issue

DEBATE
Philippine Left Review

Issue No. 1 US$6.00 September 1991
TOWARD A REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY OF THE 90s

Omar Tupaz
GENDER ISSUES IN REVOLUTIONARY PRAXIS
Sunny Lansang
REFLECTIONS ON THE SOCIALIST VISION, THE CRISIS
OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THE SOCIALIST TRANSITION
DILEMMA IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Rene E. Ofreneo
Documents:
ON THE CONCEPT OF THE “POL-MIL" STRUGGLE
Central Committee - Executive Committee, CPP
FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE CURRENT STAGE
Editorial Board, Rebel usyon
Comment:
NEGOTIATIONS - NOT A TACTICAL PLOY
Dulce Obrero
Debate
Issue No. 1
September 1991
Contents
Promoting Theory Is Such Hard Practice

Editorial Board Statement..................................................................... 3
Toward a Revolutionary Strategy of the 90s

Omar Tupaz............................................................................................. 6
Gender Issues in Revolutionary Praxis

Sunny Lansang...................................................................................... 41
Reflections on the Socialist Vision, the Crisis of the Soviet Union

and the Socialist Transition Dilemma in Developing Countries
Rene E. Ofreneo................................................................................... 53
Documents:
On the Concept of the “Pol-Mil” Struggle

Central Committee - Executive Committee, CPP.......................... 71
Fulfill the Requirements of the Current Stage

Editorial Board, Rebolusyon........................................................... 74
Comment:
Negotiations - Not a Tactical Ploy

Dulce Obrero.......................................................................................... 82
Debate
PROVISIONAL EDITORIAL BOARD
Rene Ciria-Cruz
Rene E. Ofreneo
Nathan F. Quimpo
Joel Rocamora
Eduardo C. Tadem
Edicio G. de la Torre
DEBATE, Philippine Left Review, (ISSN 0926-8596) is

published quarterly by Kalinaw Foundation, P. O. Box 2779,
1000 CT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Editorial Board Statement
Promoting Theory
is Such Hard Practice
We had hoped lo launch Debate’s first regular issue last month with
a full, regular editorial board and with a wide range of articles. Day-to-day
life and politics, unfortunately, has this nasty habit of getting in the way
of good intentions. We worked at devising procedures for dealing with
articles submitted for publication, for ironing out disagreements within
the editorial board on the politics and style of potential articles. As it turned
out, so few articles were available that we all felt happy enough to have
them without getting into the whys and wherefores. We now have a larger
editorial board, but it remains “provisional” to indicate that we have not yet
been successful in getting a broad enough range of members to feel
fully representative of various political tendencies in the Left. We have
decided to bring out this first regular issue despite these limitations on the
assumption that practice promotes theory. By bringing out this issue, we
hope to encourage, goad and provoke others to write.
Reaction to the pilot issue ranged from enthusiasm to opposition to
skepticism, never blase neutrality. The majority of those who read the issue
enthusiastically affirmed the need for this sort of journal. A few felt that
while debate on the Left is necessary, it should not be made public so as
to deny the benefits of insight to the “enemy.” Other reactions illustrate
the continuing fractiousness of the Philippine Left and the need for Debate
as a venue for theoretical work across tendencies. Some social democrats
believe that Debate is a national democratic project. Some national
democrats believe that Debate is a popular democratic project. Women
colleagues who were asked to join the editorial board expressed reserva
tions because they are not convinced that the provisional editorial board is
serious about feminist issues. Others arc not confident of Debate's com
mitment to “ideological pluralism.”
4 Debate
We welcome the political skepticism, seriously. If everyone had been

uniformly enthusiastic, it would have meant that we were not making a
connection with a political world where skepticism is the characteristic
response to coalition initiatives. We believe that the specific reasons for
the skepticism have a simple antidote, action. To counter thoughts of
Debate being dominated by one political tendency, socialists, national
democrats, social democrats and others simply have to submit articles
reflecting their positions on various issues. To assure adequate coverage of
womens’ issues, feminists should join the editorial board and actively
solicit articles on their issues. This argument is unashamedly self-serving.
We need articles. Our problem thus far has not been having to reject articles
for one reason or another, we haven’t had any to reject.
We would like to clarify that Debate is not committed to any particular
ideology, not even “ideological pluralism.” As individuals, we are com
mitted to specific ideologies, in particular to the various permutations of
socialism. But Debate itself cannot be committed to any particular
ideology. Even “ideological pluralism” would exclude those who believe
that there is only one true ideology and we believe that it is necessary
to reflect this opinion in our pages precisely to subject it to scrutiny. The
Debate concept assumes that there are common theoretical tasks among
all Left formations, the most important being that of defining an
alternative society. Since the definition of alternatives is connected to
strategy and tactics, this means that we should be open to critiques of each
other’s strategic frameworksand specific tactics. This debate should be
carried out, however, on the assumption that the existence and the
development of all existing Left formations is in the interest of all.
We welcome Ed Tadem, Rene Ofreneo and Rene Ciria-Cruz to the
editorial board. Through their participation, we hope to reflect opinions
of two other tendencies apart from those of mainstream and critical
national democrats, that of BISIG and the independent socialists and those
coming out of the old Communist Party whether they remain within it
organizationally or noL Several other friends have attended editorial board
meetings and helped discuss articles and editorial procedure but prefer to
remain officially out of the editorial board until they are convinced that
Debate is a serious coalition effort. We do not begrudge them their
skepticism, but we hope that they will be convinced enough soon to join
us. On the Philippine end, our major problem is that we have not yet found
a Managing Editor who can take care of printing and distributing issues
Editorial Board Statement 5
in the Philippines. We hope to find one soon so that Debate becomes more
easily available to our primary audience, progressives in the Philippines.
We Will let the articles in this issue speak for themselves. We believe
that the signed articles and the documents provide more than enough
provocative analysis and opinions to spark debate. We tried to secure
permission to publish a BISIG document, but sadly, failed. Rene
Ofreneo’sanalysisofthecrisisof socialism is the first productofoureffort
to broaden the range of political opinion reflected inDebate. Wehopcthat
morearticles and documents from a wider rangcof political tendencies will
come in. We would like to invite our friends among social democrats to
submit articles so we can reflect their views. We would also like to
encourage articles from people who do not feel that they belong to any of
the existing political tendencies. Debate cannot simply be a mouthpiece for
existing tendencies. There are many subjects, among them the role of
development NGOs, that need analysis independent of the perspectives
of distinct tendencies.
We would like to thank Ed Tadem and other friends for performing
editorial board chores in the Philippines on top of their other political
work; X min Y Foundation and other friends in the Netherlands for their
generous contributions for the first issue, and friends in Germany for a
larger grant which will enable us to print more issues and many others who
gave sustainer contributions; M&D Desktop Publishing for doing our
computer work; Fons Nelen, for the use of his residence as temporary
mailing address; and friends in the Primavera printing collective in
Amsterdam for making us look professional. Our publisher is the newly
established Kalinaw Foundation. Kalinaw means peace and a parting of
storm clouds to make way for light and fresh new winds.
Toward a Revolutionary
Strategy of the 90s
OmarTupaz
When theCommunist Party of the Philippines was reestablished in 1968,

it adopted Mao Zedong’s strategy of “protracted people’s war”, including
the concept of “encircling the cities from the countryside”. Since then, the
Party has unswervingly adhered to this strategy. Over the years, adjust
ments and modifications have been made, notably the concept of “three
strategic combinations” in 1981, but the fundamental strategic framework
has remained the same.
After the election boycott fiasco of February 1986 which resulted in the
marginalization of the revolutionary forces in the EDSA uprising, various
quarters outside and within the Party called for changes in certain formu
lations in strategy, particularly those pertaining to uprisings and insurrec
tion, electoral struggle, peace negotiations and urban struggle (including
urban partisan warfare). A few even challenged the very concepts of
protractedness and “encircling the cities from the countryside”.
Now, again, in the light of the economic drift and the severe crisis of
governance in the Philippines and of major changes in the international
scene such as the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and the end
of the Cold War, the issues raised in 1986-87 on strategy have re-surfaced,
reinforced by new ones. The questions on strategy have grown louder and
are now hitting at the very core.
With all the major domestic and global changes in the last five or six
years, can Mao-style “protracted people’s war” continue to be viable as
Omar Tupaz (pseudonym) has written before on topics related to

revolutionary strategy, ranging from urban guerilla warfare to peace
negotiations.
Toward a Revolutionary Strategy of the 90s 7
revolutionary strategy in the Philippines? Can the long-held concept of

“encircling the cities from the countryside” continue to be tenable as a
strategic line for the Philippine revolutionary movement in the 1990s?
Strategy as Originally Formulated

In its very first document, Rectify Errors andR ebuild the Party, the Parly
declared its adherence to Mao’s theory of people’s war which it deemed was
“universal and applies to Philippine conditions”? Hence, the strategy of
the Philippine national democratic revolution, as explained in the major
documents of the Party during the 60s and 70s, hews closely to the Maoist
model. It runs as follows:
The essential task of the national democratic revolution is to liberate the
Filipino people from foreign and feudal domination and establish an
independent and democratic Philippines. Such a task can be accomplished
only by waging armed struggle as the main form of revolutionary struggle
and developing the broadest possible united front among the motive forces
to isolate and destroy the target or enemy.2
The motive forces of the revolution are the workers (the leading force),
the peasantry (the main force), the petty bourgeoisie and the national
bourgeoisie. The basic alliance of the the workers and peasants constitutes
the solid foundation of the national united front. The targets of the
revolution are US imperialism, the comprador big bourgeoisie and the
landlord class.
The three main weapons of the Philippine revolution are the Communist
Party, the armed struggle (or the New People’s Army) and the national
united front. In another manner of speaking, the Party, representing the
proletariat, wields the two powerful weapons of armed struggle and united
front.J
The strategic line of the people’s war is to encircle the cities from the
countryside. The people's democratic forces should build and develop the
people’s army and stable base areas in the countryside. From such revo
lutionary bases, they will be able ultimately to advance to the cities wave
upon wave and seize political power. *
People’s war is a protracted process because it will take the revolutionary
forces a long period of time to accumulate armed strength - to build the
people’s army as well as revolutionary bases in the countryside. It will take
a long time “to change the balance of forces between us and the enemy.”5
In this long process, the people’s war will pass through certain stages and
8 Debate
substages. The probable stages of the people’s war are the strategic
defensive, the strategic stalemate and the strategic offensive.6 The forms of
warfare include guerilla warfare, regular mobile warfare, and, during the
strategic offensive, positional warfare.
Little is mentioned in early Party documents about uprising and insurrec
tion. In Specific Characteristics, it is very generally stated that the revolu
tionary forces should “prepare the ground for popular uprisings in the
future.”7 In Our Urgent Tasks, uprising is seen as a far-off phenomenon:
“The people in the cities should realize that the long-term development of
the underground there and the steady growth of political mass actions are
a preparation for the final day of reckoning for theruling system, when their
general uprising will come into coordination with the general offensive of
the people’s army. The Party should promote this revolutionary thinking
and dispel notions that the people’s army should now send its small but
growing forces to the cities for some spectacular actions.”6
There is some discussion on urban partisan warfare. Armed city parti
sans are seen as performing special tasks of disrupting the enemy and
punishing traitors in cities. They “specialize in city operations, in intelli
gence and reconnaissance, in disrupting the enemy rule, in raising the
fighting moraleof workers and the urban petty bourgeoisie and in preparing
in a long-term way for a general city uprising.’’9
In the early years of the Party, such arenas as the electoral struggle
(specifically participation in bourgeois elections) and peace negotiations
were not factored into overall strategy. In Rectify Errors, electoral struggle
and negotiations were discussed in the context of the “right opportunist
errors” of the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) in the latter half
of the 1940s, when it had forsaken armed struggle. In early documents,
elections were seen as being “nothing more than a legal mechanism to
facilitate thereplacement of one ruling exploiter with another.”70 Hence, the
Party boycotted the 1969 national elections and all theelections, plebiscites
and referendums in the 70s and early 80s (up to 1986). Rebolusyon, hindi
eleksyon! (Revolution, not election!) became the regular slogan come
election time.
International work was likewise still discussed in general terms. In Our
Urgent Tasks, Party forces were called upon to relate the Philippine
revolution to the world revolution, to draw support and assistance from as
many foreign friends as possible, and prepare overseas Filipinos to help and
to join the revolutionary movement77
In 1980-81, the results of a Parly study revealed major demographic

changes in Philippine society (a fast growing urban population compared
to the rural population); changes in the class composition (a significantly
higher percentage for workers and urban petty bourgeoisie and a lower
percentage for the peasantry); and the existence of a strong legal tradition
among middle forces.
Taking these developments into account, the Party leadership adopted
the concept of “three strategic combinations”, as a refinement of the
“protracted people’s war” strategy. While reiterating the protracted char
acter of the people’s warandthc“cncirclingthccilies from thccountryside”
concept, it called on the Party forces to be more conscious of combining and
coordinating closely 1) thcmililary strugglcand thepolitical struggle; 2) the
struggles in the countryside and in the cities; and 3) the struggles in the
domestic and international fronts. The military struggle was viewed as
principal or predominant over the political; the struggle in the countryside,
over the struggle in the cities; and the struggle in the domestic front, over
the struggle in the international front. The gap between the two in each
combination, however, was no longer seen as wide as before. Roughly
speaking, if the ratio was perceived as 90-10 or 80-20 before, it would now
be60-40or 70-30. Moreover, in certain situations and periods, the secondary
could become principal and vice-versa?2
The concept of the “three strategic combinations” was a significant
adjustment of the “protracted people’s war” strategy. It paved the way for
the various concepts of the “pol-mil” (politico-military) framework, such
as that adopted by the Mindanao Party machinery in 1984, and a different
version taken by the Manila-Rizal region in 1988-89.
Unfortunately, no official Party document elaborating on the “three
strategic combinations” has been issued up to now. Thus, there is some
confusion among Party members as to whether or not the “three strategic
combinations” concept is still considered valid officially, or if in fact, it was
officially adopted in the first place.
Adjustments after the EDSA Uprising

As far as is known by this writer, no overall reexamination nor adjust
ment of strategy on the level or scale of the “three strategic combinations”
has been made since 1981. Neither the EDSA uprising of 1986 nor major
changes in the international scene such as the collapse of socialist regimes
in Eastern Europe in 1989 have brought about such a review, despite calls
from various quarters.
10 Debate
Regarding the EDS A uprising, the Parly leadership has gone only as far
as concluding that the Party committed a major tactical blunder when it
campaigned for a boycott of the 1986 snap presidential election which
paved the way for the uprising.75 No mention is made whatsoever about
anything wrong in strategy. Nonetheless, the EDSA uprising has forced a
rethinking in the Party of previously held concepts and paved the way for
the emergence of new ideas whose implications and ramifications on
overall strategy are only now starting to be fully recognized.
Aspects of the revolutionary struggle which were once lightly regarded
have now gained some importance. Popular uprising and insurrection,
electoral struggle (i.e., electoral participation, not boycott), peace nego
tiations, urban guerilla warfare and political work among enemy soldiers -
all these are now seen in a new light.
International developments over the last few years - the toppling of
bureaucratic and authoritarian “socialist” regimes of Eastern Europe th rough
gigantic mass actions and popular uprisings; the end of the Cold War; the
shift to political pluralism (including multiparty elec lions) of many socialist,
socialist-oriented and formerly socialist slates; and the increased use of
negotiations in the resolution of major regional and civil armed conflicts in
the Third World - have only served to reinforce some of the new concepts.
Popular uprisings and insurrections. These are no longer viewed as
forms of struggle being employed only or mainly in the very distant future
as, for instance, the stage of the strategic offensive. Uprisings are now
considered an important component of the strategic defensive. The concept
of the strategic defensive itself has been modified - according to the Party
theoretical and analytical journal Rebolusyon (January-March 1990), the
strategic defensive no longer revolves around the creation and development
of regular mobile forces and of base areas.
In the new concept of the stage of the strategic defensive, “our general
task is to strengthen the revolutionary forces and to further weaken the
enemy to change the balance of forces between revolution and counter
revolution. .. [T]his strategic task can becarricd out through a combination
of three importantcomponcnts: theextensive and intensive guerilla warfare
throughout the land, some elements of regular mobile warfare, and wide
spread revolutionary mass movement and people's uprisings."'4 {Under
scoring supplied.)
In a subsequent issue, however, Rebolusyon (April-June 1991) warned
against “the idea of uprisings without regard for the state of revolutionary
organization” and stressed the need for widening and deepening the mass
base. It urged revolutionary forces to persevere in waging the protracted
people’s war, to accomplish the tasks of the current stage before proceed ing
to the next stage, and not to “overreach by word or deed” at anytime/5
Electoral struggle. Elections held under the current ruling order arc no
longer dismissed as just noisy and empty political battles of reactionary
forces. Breaking with its tradition of boycott, the revolutionary movement
(i.e., its legal democratic forces) participated in the 1987 congressional
elections, then again in the 1988 local elections, fielding and campaigning
for progressive candidates on both occasions.
Just before the 1987 elections, the Party, apparently referring to the
electoral struggle, called on the revolutionary forces “to widen the avenues
of fighting for a struggle on all fronts, and to develop expertise in the science
and art of combining these various arenas against reaction.”"*
While electoral participation is now regarded as a valid form of struggle,
it is a secondary form. As Politburo member Julian Banaag explained it:
“The Party viewed the [1987] elections as a major but secondary arena of
struggle. The tasks in thearmed struggleand in the mass movements occupy
a higher place in our order of priorities.”77
Negotiations. Peace negotiations, which were unthinkable under Marcos,
were regarded as a new and valid arena of struggle soon after the EDSA
uprising. TheNational Democratic Front, of which the Party is a component
organization, engaged in negotiations with the Aquino government in
December 1986-January 1987 to try tofindapolitical solution to the armed
conflict in the Philippines
Prior to the talks, the Party newspaper Ang Bayan (August 1986) stated:
“We are seriously entering into these talks and are open to the possibility
of attaining enduring peace through a comprehensive political settlement.”74
Despite the collapse of the peace talks in early 1987, the NDF and the
Party remain open to negotiations. “Short of winning total victory,” says
Rebolusyon (January-March 1991), “peace talks arc desirable and neces
sary under certain conditions such as when they are to facilitate the further
advance or total victory of the revolution, when there is need to strike an
alliance with theadversary in order to confronta biggerand worse foe, when
there is a reasonable chance for major social reforms to be agreed upon and
when the revolutionary movement wishes to demonstrate its just and
reasonable position against the peace pretense of the enemy.” 79
12 Debale
Urban partisan warfare. Prior to 1986, urban partisan warfare was

employed on a significant scale only in a number of urban centers in
Mindanao. In 1987, such a “new and delicate form of struggle” became a
major component of the revolutionary struggle in the national capital
region, Metro Manila, and the military actions of NPA “sparrow” (urban
partisan) units constantly hit the headlines.
The value of armed city partisans was seen in that they broke the
reactionary monopoly on class violence in the urban centers, enhanced the
masses’ room for maneuver in their political and economic struggles,
provided a higher dimension to the coordination and mutual support
between the revolutionary forces in the countryside and urban center, and
hastened the preparation of the urban masses for armed insurrections.2"
Urban partisan units are now regarded as “the backbone of insurrectionary
forces of the future”.21
The Party leadership, however, cautioned that “the armed city partisans
should allow the gigantic mass actions to develop and avoid giving the
enemy a chance to attack the legal democratic forces either by means of
brutality or propaganda.”22
Political work among enemy troops. Ever since the EDSA uprising,
which had been immediately preceded by a mutiny of soldiers of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines led by Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and
AFP Deputy Chief Fidel Ramos, the Party has become more conscious of
the potentials of exacerbating, and taking advantage of, conflicts within the
reactionary military. Such consciousness has grown in the light of the
continuing fractiousness of the AFP as reflected in the spate of military
coup attempts and mutinies staged over the last few years.
On the 20th anniversary of the NPA, Ang Bayan (March 1989) stated:
“The NPA must seek not only to annihilate enemy forces but also to
disintegrate them... The NPA must use every possible means to persuade
enemy personnel, especially those recruited from the working people, to
abandon the counterrevolutionary side.”23
A few months after the December 1989 failed coup attempt, NPA chief
of staff Romulo Kintanar, in a well-publicized message, announced that the
revolutionary movement considered “patriotic officers and men” of the
AFP as potential allies and comrades. He called on them to organize secret
patriotic cells and committees, carry out study sessions and establish
underground links with the revolutionary forces. He also welcomed with
open arms those who wished to join the NPA.22
On the “Universal” Character of Mao’s Strategy

Before proceeding to the review of the substance of “protracted people’s
war” strategy, it is important to first tackle one of the earliest concepts
regarding strategy that the Party has adopted - that of the supposedly
“universal” character of Mao’s strategy.
The doctrine that Mao’s theory of “protracted people’s war” and of
“encircling the cities from the countryside” is a “universal truth” - i.e.,
universal for all semicolonial or colonial, semifeudal countries - is pro
claimed in the earliest Party documents. Furthermore, the theory of using
the countryside to encircle the cities is considered “invincible”. The Party
even adopted Lin Piao’s thesis of extending Mao’s theory of people’s war
on a world scale - that “the world’s countryside, that is, Asia, Africa and
Latin America, encircle the cities of the world [the imperialist countries].”25
The above assertions reflect the ultra-left language and the mood of
triumphalism of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which fortunately are no
longer much in vogue. However, the declarations and the doctrine on the
universality of Mao’s theory on strategy have never been withdrawn
officially.
The achievements of Mao Zedong in leading the Chinese revolution and
developing the theory of “people’s war”, and the inspiration he gave to
revolutionary forces the world over are tremendous. Conferring on him
god-like qualities, however, is a great disservice and insult to this outstand
ingrevolutionary leader and thinker. Dogmatically or mechanically applying
Mao’s concepts in the Phil ippine revolutionary struggle harms the Philippine
revolutionary cause.
There is a long list of successful revolutionary movements in the Third
World which did not resort to the three-stage “protracted people’s war” and
“encircling the cities from the countryside” strategy: Vietnam (1945) and
Nicaragua, popular insurrection together with guerilla warfare; Cuba, mass
struggle culminating in general strike, coupled with guerilla warfare;
Algeriaand the former Portuguese colonics (Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-
Bissau and Cape Verde), protracted guerilla warfare (without having to go
to regular warfare as main form of warfare); Zimbabwe and Namibia,
protracted guerilla warfare culminating in political settlement and elec
tions; Grenada (1979), Afghanistan and Burkina Faso, left-wing military
coup; Haiti (1990), combination of mass struggle and electoral struggle;
Vanuatu, extended parliamentary struggle and elections; and so on.
14 Debate
While it may be true that there have been no recent pronouncements on

the “universality” concept appear in Party publications, there is still a strong
tendency in the Party to look at the experiences of other Third World
liberation movements through the prism of Maoist strategy rather than to
examine them from the point of view of the movements themselves. The
experiences of such liberation movements as those of the Vietnamese,
Cubans, Nicaraguans, Namibians, Eritreans, Salvadorans and Guatema
lans are held up as examples, and proofs of the validity, if not universality,
of Mao’s strategy of “protracted people’s war” and “encircling the cities
from the countryside”, simply because all the said movements engaged in
armed struggle, in army-building and base-building in the countryside for
a considerable period of time prior to victory or to their current level.
None of the liberation movements mentioned (or at least none of the
main tendencies or currents within them) actually adopted Mao’s strategy
even if all of them did study and leant from the Chinese revolutionary
experience. The Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions were insurrectional in
character, as the leaders themselves assert The Salvadorans speak about
their “people’s war” - without the adjective “protracted” - and their
“politico-military strategy”. Even the Vietnamese, who were initially
influenced by Mao’s strategy, developed their own version of “protracted
people’s war”. They rejected the notion of “using the rural areas to encircle
the urban centers and then moving forward to use military force to liberate
the whole country as China had done”. Instead, they believed, it must be
done “in the Vietnamese way”, which involved attacking the enemy “with
both political and military forces so as to move towards a general insurrec
tion and offensive and liberate the South.”26
Given the wide variety of experiences and strategies employed by
different national liberation movements, it is difficult to imagine how
Mao’s theory on people’s war can be considered universal. It may even be
that thecombination of elements in China’s experience- protracted guerilla
and regular warfare, fully encircling the cities from the countryside and
passing through the three stages - was unique.
The doctrine of the “universality” of Mao’s theory of “protracted
people’s war” needs to be discarded once and for all. Dropping it has to be
done on an official basis. Even as the “universality” of Mao’s strategy is no
longer being actively propagated, there are still a good number of Party
cadres and members, particularly in remote countryside areas where access
to fairly recent revolutionary reading materials in the local dialect is very
limited, who take it as official Party position, or worse, as gospel truth.
Primacy of Military Struggle over Political Struggle?

The first majorproblem with Maoist “protracted people’s war” strategy,
when applied to the Philippine context, is that it is much too weighed in
favor of the military smuggle and military forces (the people’s army) and
underestimates the capacities of the political struggle and political forces
(the mass movement). To a lot of Party cadres and members, this may not
be immediately apparent. A closer look at some basic formulations and past
experience will illustrate this.
Armed struggle is the principal form of struggle and legal struggle,
secondary - so has it been repeatedly said. The latter serves the former. It
may be said that armed struggle consists of two main types: military
struggle (such as guerilla warfare, regular mobile warfare and positional
warfare), and armed uprising or insurrection. As for legal struggle, the most
important specific forms are mass actions such as demonstrations, strikes,
pickets and marches.
In reality, prior to 1986, the only type of armed struggle that the
movement was engaged in and that was seriously being encouraged was
military struggle. Uprisings and insurrections were seen as something to be
employed only in the distant future. Party members were constantly told of
the putschist mistakes of Chinese revolutionaries in the 1920s when they
tried to launch urban insurrections without first building base areas in the
countryside. Hence, armed struggle in practice turned out to be military
struggle.
Open, legal struggle has primarily meant legal mass struggle. By sub
ordinating the legal struggle to the armed (military) struggle, what has
happened in practice is that mass struggle in general has also been subor
dinated to armed (military) struggle in a fixed way. Ata time when the mass
movement is in a relative ebb, it may not be too difficult to accept such legal
forms of mass struggle as rallies and strikes as being subordinate to military
struggle. But in a revolutionary situation (as in 1983-86), when mass
mobilizations run to hundreds of thousands or more than a million, when
they adopt more and more militant forms (long marches, civil disobedience,
coordinated workers’ strikes, general strikes or people’s strikes, etc.), when
they threaten to break out of legal parameters and move in the direction of
a mass uprising or insurrection, should mass struggle continue to be viewed
as always playing fiddle to the military struggle?
The primacy of the military forces over the political forces - in fact, the
preponderant role of the people’s army - is more apparent, Paraphrasing
Debate
16
Mao, Party documents have frequently stated that “without a people s

army, the people have nothing”. Specific Characteristics declares: The
Filipino people are helpless without their own army. They cannot take a
single step towards smashing the military-bureaucratic machine of the
enemy without a people’s army. Not only is the people’s army supposed to
be“the main form of organization”; it is also regarded as “the mosteffecti ve
concrete form” of the basic alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry and
as “the mainstay of the people’s democratic slate system.” It is also the
“organization where the Party membership is most concentrated”.27 Most
importantly, the people’s army is regarded as the instrument “for carrying
out the Party’s central task of seizing political power and consolidating it
... for overthrowing the present bourgeois reactionary puppet government
and for winning the people’s democratic revolution.”21
The stages of the people’s war are determined by the development of the
people’s army: “fWJe can tentatively define three strategic stages that our
people’s army will have to undergo. It is now undergoing the first stage, the
strategic defensive. Consequently, it shall undergo the second stage, the
strategic stalemate, when our strength shall be more or less on an equal
footing with the enemy’s. . . Finally, it shall undergo the third stage, the
strategic offensive, when the enemy shall have been profoundly weakened
and completely isolated and shall have been forced to go on the strategic
defensive... ”2’
The decisive role in the revolutionary struggle has been reserved for the
people’s army. The development of the political forces follows the logic of
that of the military forces: The importance of the mass movement in the
countryside lies in building base areas for the people’s army; the role of the
mass movement in the cities is to weaken the enemy right in his stronghold
in preparation for the final advance of the people’s army.
In effect, what the “armed struggle-legal struggle” framework has
meant in reality is that military struggle is principal and political struggle
is secondary, that the military forces (the people’s army) take primacy over
the political forces (the mass movement), and that the latter merely serves
the former.
As early as 1987, a proposal had already been presented to the Party
leadership to shift from the Maoist “armed struggle—legal struggle” frame
work to the Vietnamese “politico-military” framework (“For a Politico
Military Framework”, by Marty Villalobos). Under the latter, the military
and political struggles are viewed and treated not in terms of one being
principal and the other secondary, but as both being fundamental and de
cisive, with one or the other playing the predominant role in different
particular situations or periods. Instead of setting fixed principal-secondary
roles, the Vietnamese framework stressed the combination of military and
political struggles and coordination between the military and the political
forces.30 It goes further than the concept of “three strategic combinations"
since the latter basically sticks to the primacy of military over political
struggle, while allowing for shifts in certain situations.
For a Third World country like the Philippines, where capitalism and
bourgeois democracy have made great inroads, and especially at a time
when international conditions are not as favorable as before for armed
national liberation movements, the Vietnamese framework is much more
suited than the Maoist framework. The “politico-military” framework
allows for greater flexibility. The military struggle and military forces will
not have a fixed principal role nor the political struggle and political forces
a fixed subordinate role. There can be more and better combinations and
shifting of stresses between military and political struggles.
The “politico-military” framework opens the possibility for the political
forces playing the more decisive role in the revolutionary struggle. In the
Vietnamese Revolution of 1945, it was the uprising of the masses that
proved the decisive factor, not the military struggle, as the guerilla units at
that time were still small and weak. Again, in the Nicaraguan revolution of
1979, the insurrectional movement of the masses became the focal point
of the struggle and the Sandinista guerilla army provided support - a
reversal of the Maoist paradigm/'
Should another revolutionary situation such as that of 1983-86 or
another insurrectionary situation such as that of 1986 emerge, the “politico
military” framework can easily effect the necessary shift in stress from
military struggle and military forces to the political struggle and the
political forces; prepare the revolutionary forces for the possibility that the
political struggle develops into its highest form - armed insurrection; and
insure that the revolutionary forces are not left out again in an insurrection
ary explosion as in the EDSA uprising of 1986.
Bias for Military Struggle Persists Even After EDSA Uprising

Adjustments made by the Party after the EDSA uprising - especially
those pertaining to uprising and insurrection, electoral struggle, peace
negotiations and political work among enemy soldiers - point to a defini-
18 Debale
lively increased role for the political struggle in the overall revolutionary
struggle.
Buteven if uprisings have been integra ted asacomponentofthestrategic
defensive, even if the revolutionary forces have entered the new arenas of
bourgeois elections and negotiations, the bias in favor of military struggle
and military forces remains. Virtually none of the old basic formulations
has been revised; they have in fact been reaffirmed and reinforced. The
openings made by the “three strategic combinations” have virtually dis
appeared. The Party’s statement on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of
the NPA (March 29,1989) says the following:
“Without the New People’s Army, there is no light of hope for the Filipino
people...
The New People’s Army is the main instrument of the Communist Party
of the Philippines, the National Democratic Front and the entire Filipino
people for carrying out the central task of smashing the military-bureaucratic
machinery of the reactionary state, seizing political power and bringing
about the total victory of the national democratic revolution. . .
The New People's Army is engaged in a protracted people’s war. This
involves the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside,
accumulating strength in the countryside until the people’s army becomes
capable of seizing political power in the cities...
The people’s army is the principal weapon for destroying the enemy's
apparatuses of coercion.” 12 (Underscoring supplied.)
From the above pronouncements, it is clear that the decisive role in the
revolutionary struggle continues to be reserved exclusively for the military
forces, the people’s army. There is no possibility for the political forces -
not even an insurrectional mass movement- to become the main instrument
or the main weapon in defeating enemy forces and seizing power.
The stages of the people’s war are still anchored on, and defined mainly
by, the role and the development of the military struggle and the people’s
army. Note how the stages are defined in The Philippine Revolution: The
Leader’s View (published 1989):
“Strategic defensive - The stage at which the inferior forces of the
people’s army must strategically take a defensive posture against the
strategically superior forces of its enemy but take full inititative through
specific offensives at the tactical level in guerilla warfare by pitting superior
forces of the people’s army against inferior forces of the enemy.
Strategic stalemate -The stage in people’s war at which the forces of the
people’s army are more or less strategically al par with the forces of the
enemy, with the people’s army using both guerilla and rcgul ar mobile warfare
to pit its superior forces against inferior forces of the enemy at the tactical
level.
Strategic offensive-Thestage at which thepeople's army has strategically
gained the upper hand against the enemy forces and launches regular mobile
warfare as well as some positional warfare in order to destroy the strategic
forces of the enemy and seize political power on a nationwide scale.”33
In the above conceptualization of the stages, there is no mention at all of
the political forces, of the mass movement. The mindset on military
predominance is transparent.
The predomi nance of the mil itary factor continues to be propagated even
when the formulations that the NPA is “the main form of organization” and
that it is “the most effective concrete form of the basic alliance” have long
been invalidated by actual practice. The main organizational centers of the
peasantry, workers, urban poor, women and youth have far outstripped the
people’s army in membership and may have as much political clout and
impact The joining of peasant and worker forces in the main multisectoral
alliances of the mass movement are just as good an example of the
concretization of the basic alliance as the people’s army, if not better.
In the theories of people’s war of the Vietnamese and the Salvadorans
(who, like the Vietnamese, adopted the politico-military framework), the
outcome of the war is determined not by military forces solely nor mainly,
but by both political and military forces. Vietnamese Communist Party
leader Le Duan stated: “In the final analysis, the revolution is decided by the
balance of force in which our forces are composed of political and armed
forces.”3* Salvadoran revolutionary leader Joaquin Villalobos said: “In a
people’s war, the role of the military is not absolute. What is decisive for a
revolutionary movement is knowing whether or not it has attained a level
of military development which, combined with political factors, is enough
to change the correlation of forces. In 1983, despite the fact that the FMLN’s
military strikes pushed the army to the edge of military collapse, the lack of
decisive activity in the sphere of popular struggle prevented these military
victories from leading to more significant changes in the correlation of
forces.” 33
There are many indications of just how much of a fundamental and
decisive role the V ietnamese and the Salvadorans gave to political struggle.
Not only were uprising and insurrection -as a form of struggle not reserved
only for the final scenario - given prominence in many of their plans and
actions. They also extended the struggle from the battlefield and the streets
mV) Debale
to the negotiating table, engaging in protracted negotiations with their

adversaries. The Salvadorans have even entered the electoral arena, perhaps
becoming the one armed revolutionary movement in the Third World that
has made the farthest gains in this field without abandoning the armed
struggle.
In Vietnam and El Salvador, the revolutionary forces viewed the
disintegration of the reactionary armed forces itself as the result not just of
military offensives but also of intense political work among them. The
Vietnamese in fact regarded political work among enemy troops as “a
strategic prong of attack” and implemented the slogan “Workers, peasants
and soldiers, unite! ” to overthrow neocolonialist rule and defeat the US war
of aggression?6 Filipino revolutionaries can certainly emulate their Viet
namese and Salvadoran counterparts, especially given the conditions of a
faction-ridden and coup-happy Philippine military.
Primacy of Rural Struggle over Urban Struggle?

The second major problem with Maoist “protracted people’s war”
strategy, particularly its “encircling thecities from thecountryside”concept,
when applied in the Philippines, is that it overstates the requirements for the
rural component of revolutionary work and underrates the urban struggle,
subordinating it too much to the struggle in the countryside.
In the Maoist “protracted people’s war” framework, developing the war
in the countryside “entails three inseparable components, namely, armed
struggle, agrarian revolution and rural bases”.57 The correctness and ne
cessity of engaging in these three components of rural work are not at all
being denied by this writer. Many Third World revolutionary movements
other than the Chinese, like the Cuban, Vietnamese and Salvadoran
movements did implement all three. The “encircle the cities from the
countryside” concept, however, sets the overly high target of “stable base
areas”. Under this concept, stable base areas where local people’s govern
ments can operate fully are supposed to be developed from guerilla zones
and guerilla bases, to serve as a stable rear of the revolutionary forces.
“From such stable revolutionary bases,” declares Specific Characteristics,
“wc shall be able ultimately to seize the cities and advance to nationwide
victory.”56 Up to now, the idea of “stable base areas” has not been
abandoned, even as the concept of “guerilla bases” has been developed and
further elaborated.59
Building guerilla zones and bases is fine. But the notion of “stable base
areas” seems too much of a requisite for victory for the revolutionary forces
in an archipelagic country like the Philippines ata time when imperialism
can resort to and has in fact employed high-tech warfare in “middle
intensity” and even “low-intensity” conflicts to crush revolutionary
movements and anti-US regimes. At present, and for a long time to come,
there can be no base area that the reactionary armed forces cannot reach by
land, sea or air within hours. If fairly stable liberated areas should emerge
in the future, they would only be the result of the substantial disintegration
or collapse of the enemy’s armed forces, and not really a major causative
factor of this, as in China.
When the Vietnamese established their base areas and the Salvadorans
their “zones of control”, they did not see these as “stable base areas” in the
Maoist sense of fully liberated, virtually impregnable bases. Nor did they
believe in the notion that the cities absolutely have to be encircled from the
countryside first before a final bid for seizure of power can be launched.
And they did notcome up with formulations like: “The counterrevolutionary
army must first be defeated in the countryside”*0 and “Only on the basis of
solid democratic gains in the countryside can the revolution advance.” 41
In the 30s and 40s, the Vietnamese did not yet have to contend with the
B-52 bombers and Huey and Sikorsky helicopters of the 60s and 70s which
made base areas easily accessible to enemy troops. Nonetheless, in winning
their 1945 Revolution, the Vietnamese did not really have to encircle the
cities from the countryside - they only had some base areas in the north and
none in the south. Today, in such a small country as El Salvador, “stable
base areas” are even more impracticable, if not impossible.
From the beginning up to the present, Party documents have stipulated
that in line with the “encircling the cities from the countryside” doctrine,
“the principal stress should be on revolutionary struggle in the countryside
and the secondary stress on revolutionary struggle in the cities”.*2 Rectify
Errors declares, “The principal form of struggle is waged in the country
side; the secondary one, in the city. It is in the countryside that the people’s
armed forces can take the offensive against the enemy, while in the city the
revolutionary forces must take the defensive until such time that the
people’s armed forces in the countryside can seize the city.”*2 The concept
of the primacy of the rural struggle over the urban struggle is but the
reflection of the bias for military struggle over political struggle. Under the
“armed struggle-legal struggle” framework, where armed struggle is
principal, the rural struggle naturally assumes primacy over urban struggle.
22 Debate
since conditions for waging armed (military) struggle are certainly much
more favorable in the countryside than in the cities.
Under the "politico-military” framework, where political and military
struggles are both considered as fundamental and decisive, stipulating a
fixed long-term principal-secondary relationship between rural and urban
work becomes pointless. The Vietnamese did not bother to fix principal
secondary roles for rural and urban areas. Their guideline was simply to
“attack the enemy in all three strategic areas [hill forests, plains and cities]”.
Le Duan said, “Strong bases are built in the hill forests and plains areas at
the same time as footholds are gained in the cities and insurrections are
staged in both urban and rural regions.”** The Nicaraguans employed “a
creative combination of all forms of struggle wherever they can take place:
city, town, neighborhood, mountain, etc.”*5
The Philippines is now much more advanced in urban development than
China in the 40s, and Vietnam and Nicaragua in the 70s (even if a larger
proportion ofNicaragua’s population is urban-based). According to studies
made by the Party in 1980-81, approximately 30 percent of the population
of the Philippines was urban-based - double the 15 percent figure implied
in Specific Characteristics. Ang Bayan (November 1983), citing 1980 na
tional census statistics, reported that 38 percent of thePhi lippine population
lived in urban areas, and that the urban population was growing faster (5.7
percent) than that of the rural (1.1 percent).*5 Even if the national census
urban figures cited may have been exaggerated, the urban population
should still be approximately 40 percent now.
The implications of these urban statistics on the strategy of the Philip
pine revolution cannot be ignored. At the minimum, they call for a higher
premium for urban struggle and for political struggle. What the adjustments
after the EDSA uprising - on uprising and insurrection, electoral struggle
and negotiations, as well as urban partisan warfare - do indicate is that
there is indeed a greater appreciation of the role of urban struggle. The
concept of “encircling the cities from the countryside”, however, is
impeding the further development of the urban struggle.
The relationship between rural and urban struggle should not be treated
in terms of principal and secondary. The roles of rural and urban work are
just different. At this point, it is important to point out a concept that the
Mindanao Commission of the Party, adapting from the Vietnamese expe
rience, introduced in 1984. According to the commission, while the
revolutionary forces launch military and political struggles in both the
countryside and the cities, the stress in the rural areas is on the armed (or
military) struggle and the stress in the cities is on the political struggle.47
The concept, which was already being implemented in Mindanao starting
1984, has not been adopted by the national leadership.
In the event of another revolutionary or insurrectionary situation, the
main focus of attention of the revolutionary movement could shift to the
urban struggle - no matter if, in the countryside, the units of the people’s
army are still mainly platoon-sized or they are already battalion-sized or
bigger. Theexistence of such a situation simply means that the possibilities
for the occurrence of an uprising or insurrection (whether spontaneous or
planned well in advance) in major centers are much greater; a revolutionary
vanguard worthy of the name cannot lag behind the urban masses when
they are already rising up and taking up arms.
The Main Form of Struggle in the Cities is Political, not Legal

Another indication of the underrating of the role of the urban struggle is
the formulation that the main form of struggle in urban areas is legal. The
mainly “nonarmed and legal" character of the urban struggle is explained
in a document of the Party leadership dated May 1, 1977 explaining the
responsibilities of the Manila-Rizal Party organization.4S After the EDS A
uprising, this is reiterated in astatementon lhe20th anniversary of the Party:
“Before the [strategic offensive], the principal form of struggle in the urban
areas is legal and defensive.” 49
The above formulations are too limiting and conservative. During major
upsurges of the mass movement and especially during revolutionary or
insurrectionary situations, the main form of struggle in thecities may cease
to be legal. The mass movement could take a turn towards illegal forms such
as uprising or insurrection. In February 1986, for instance, at a time when
the movement was still supposed to be in the strategic defensive, the main
form of struggle in Metro Manila certainly was not legal anymore. If
uprisings are indeed now considered a component of the strategic defen
sive, then the formulation that the main form of struggle in the cities before
the strategic offensive is legal and defensive becomes awkward, if not
contradictory. To retain such a formulation would only bring about confu
sion.
It would be much better to adopt the formulation - implied in the 1984
Mindanao Commission paper - that the main form of struggle in the cities
is political. The term political here is not limited to just legal and nonarmed
24 Debale
actions of the masses, but includes armed actions of the masses, the highest
form of which is the armed insurrection of the masses. Rather than continue
emphasizing the mainly legal character of the urban mass movement, it is
more important to clarify that it has a clear insurrectional direction. Is it not
correct that the Party prepares the masses for actually engaging in armed
struggle themselves instead of just leaving this function to the people’s
army?
Not being conscious of the insurrectional direction of the mass move
ment could leave the Party grossly unprepared again for insurrectional
explosions such as the EDSA uprising. Restricting the mass movement to
legal confines and not clarifying and pursuing its insurrectional direction
could stunt or even retard its development
The principle that the main form of struggle in the cities is legal has
sometimes been cited as a reason for putting some restraint on the devel
opment of urban partisan warfare: “The offensive actions by the armed city
partisans should be supportive but not openly linked to any mass action in
accordance with the line that legal and defensive struggle is the principal
form of struggle in the urban areas.”50 Hence, the following standard has
been set: “The operations of armed city partisans should run at a rate and in
a style not overshadowing the violent internal strife of the reactionaries and
not prejudicial to the legal democratic mass movement.”55
Urban partisan warfare is indeed in support of the mass movement in the
cities, but it does not necessarily follow the logic that the main form of
struggle in the cities is legal. It defends the gains of the urban mass struggle,
contributes to the political propaganda of the revolutionary movement and
boosts the morale of the urban masses. The main contribution of urban
partisan warfare to the mass movement, however, is that it prepares the
masses to break out of legal confines and participate directly in armed
struggle. In other words, it helps develop the insurrectional consciousness,
as well as the insurrectional movement, of the masses.
While there have indeed been some excesses by armed city partisans
which proved prejudicial to the mass movement such as the bus burning
incidents during the welgang bayan (people’s strike) in October 1990, the
solution lies not so much in limiting the number of armed actions in absolute
terms or pegging the rate of such actions below that of “the violent internal
strife of the reactionaries". Thecorrection lies in requiring greater selectiv
ity and raising the political standard of armed or violent actions. This means
that for every military action, the political basis is well established and the
political impact is well considered. The basic tenet should be: military in
form, but highly political in content.
Urban partisan warfare is not a mere extension of the guerilla warfare in
the countryside. It interacts principally with the political struggle in the
cities, not the military struggle in the countryside. Its effectivity cannot be
measured in terms of the evolution from guerilla warfare to regular mobile
warfare and higher forms of warfare, but more in terms of the development
of the insurrectional movement of the masses.
On the Concept of Stages

A mechanical fixation with stages and higher forms of military struggle
is the third major objection to the “protracted people’s war” strategy
currently being followed by the Party. The concept of the three stages -
strategic defensive, strategic stalemate and strategic offensive - is again a
reflection of the bias for military struggle, military forces and military
attrition. It fails to take into account the role and the development of the
political struggle.
In some documents, the three stages are mentioned as the course of
development of the “protracted people’s war” that the people’s army will
have to undergo; in other documents, there is the qualification “probable”
to describe this course of development. Whichever it is, the documents are
nevertheless replete with references to the three stages.
If the course of the people’s war will be solely or mainly determined by
the development of the military struggle, then the three-stage concept may
work just fine. The development of the military struggle, barring serious
mistakes, follows a steady upward slope or stepladder - from squads, to
platoons, to companies, etc.; and from squad-sized military operations to
platoon-sized operations, and so on. When the people’s army draws even
in strength with the reactionary military, then it is strategic stalemate. When
the people’s army surpasses the enemy troops, it is strategic offensive.
But what about the political struggle, the mass movement?
The development of the political struggle docs not follow a stagist
ascent; it follows a wave-like motion - ebb and flow. Sometimes the
revolutionary flow gives rise to a revolutionary situation or even an
insurrectionary situation. Unlike the development of the military struggle,
that of the political struggle is much harder to predict.
According to Lenin, the indications of a revolutionary situation are: (1)
when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any
26 Debate
change; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have
grown more acute than usual; and (3) when, as a consequence of the above
causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who are
drawn into indepcndenthistorical action. Lenin clarified that the emergence
of the three symptoms of a revolutionary situation are “independent of the
will, not only of individual groups and parties but even of individual
classes”. Russia experienced a revolutionary situation in 1905 which gave
rise to the 1905 revolution. When this revolution was crushed by the czarist
regime, the Russian revolutionary movement went through an ebb before
recovering starting 1910. The revolutionary flow developed into a revolu
tionary situation in 1914-17, which in turn led to the October Revolution of
1917.52
In its partiality for military struggle, the current “protracted people’s
war” strategy being followed glosses over the ebb and flow motion of the
mass movement. Even the inclusion of uprisings as a component of the
strategic defensive falls flat because there is no way of predicting when the
objective symptomsof an uprising will emerge, except perhaps just weeks
or months ahead.
The Philippine revolutionary forces should abandon completely the
stagist concept of people’s war. It is mechanical thinking to try to arrange
the developmentof both the military and political struggles into neat stages,
to force various elements - both measurable as well as fluid elements - to
fit into boxes.
The Vietnamese, who started out defining stages just as the Chinese did,
discarded the stagist concept along the way. The Tet offensive and uprising
of 1968 does not fall in any of the three classical stages. It was not really a
military success, but it was a major political victory. The Vietnamese refer
to the final scenarioof their revolutionary struggle in 1975 as a combination
of a general offensive and a general uprising - not as the strategic offensive.
Instead of being encumbered with stages - whose components have been
defined and redefined a countless number of times - the revolutionary
forces should simply develop the political and military forces along their
respective lines of motion and be keen in assessing the balance and
correlation of political and military forces. At a proper conjuncture, they
can seize the political moment and take power.
Very much related to the fixation with stages is the excessive predilec
tion to move towards higher forms of military struggle - regular mobile
warfare (as the main form of warfare in the strategic stalemate) and
positional warfare (strategic offensive). It is possible that the Philippine

revolutionary movement may have to engage in regular mobile warfare, but
it is almost impossible, given current international conditions and the
continuing inability of the movement to develop a steady source of military
hardware, that the revolutionary war will still reach the level of positional
warfare.
Nonetheless, higher forms of military struggle are not always a prereq
uisite for revolutionary victory. There is a long list of revolutionary
movements which have succeeded without having to go beyond guerilla
warfare-Algeria, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau,
Zimbabwe, Namibia, and so on.
In the end, what counts is still the overall balance or correlation of forces.
Theobjecti ve is to accummulate sufficient strength - thecombined strength
of political and military forces - to defeat and smash the political and
military machinery of the reactionary state.
On the Protracted Character of the People’s War

A mindset on protraction and military attrition is the fourth major
criticism against the Maoist version of “protracted people’s war” as applied
in the Philippine context.
In the debates on strategy over the last several years, the most shallow
defense of the protracted character of the people’s war has been the
argument that since the people’s war in the Philippines has been going on
for the last 22 years, then it is protracted. Indeed, the term protracted is an
apt description for a war that has gone on for over two decades. But
description is different from strategy. In the first place, any guerilla
movement in the Third World can claim to be fighting a "protracted
people’s war” to hide or justify its inability to achieve victory or make
significant progress over an extended period of time.
For a good discussion on the protracted character of the people’s war, the
rationale for stipulating protractedness needs to be reviewed thoroughly.
In Specific Characteristics, the basis for protractedness is explained as
follows: “As matters now stand, we are small and weak while the enemy is
big and strong. There is no doubt that he is extremely superior to us in such
specific terms as number of troops, formations, equipment, technique,
training, foreign assistance and supplies in general. It will take a protracted
period of time for us to change this balance of forces in our favor. Thus,
28 Debate
protractedness is a basic characteristic of our people's war."53 (Under

scoring supplied.)
Protractedness is very much tied up with the concept of “encircling the
cities from thecountryside”, of building “stable base areas”: “Our strategic
line is to encircle the cities from the countryside and through a protracted
period of time develop rural bases from which to ad vance to seize pol itical
power.”5* Guerilla zones are to be elevated to the level of stable base areas
which would serve as the great rears of the revolutionary forces.55 The
reactionary armed forces have to “first be defeated in the countryside” 56,
before the revolutionary forces can advance to the cities.
Protractedness is likewise very much linked with the growth of the
military forces. The revolutionary forces have to “accummulate strength
until the people’s army is strong enough to defeat the enemy forces
entrenched in the cities”.57Thepeople’s army is projected to “advance wave
upon wave over a protracted period of time to destroy the enemy in the
whole country”.54
Protractedness is further closely related to theconcept of stages: “ [I] n the
long process of its growing from small and weak to big and strong, our
people’s army will have to undergo certain stages and substages.. ,”5’
Finally, protractedness also has to do with moving to higher forms of
warfare: “To graduate from guerilla warfare to regular mobile warfare as
the main form of warfare, we have to exert a great deal of effort over a long
period of time.”60
If the case for protractedness rests on fulfilling what are perceived to be
such “requirements” for victory as developing guerilla zones and bases into
stable base areas; fully encircling the cities from the countryside; develop
ing the people’s army into a force that is superior to the reactionary armed
forces in absolute terms; passing through the stages of strategic defensive,
strategic stalemate and strategic offensive; and graduating from guerilla
warfare to regular mobile warfare and positional warfare - then it is weak.
To win victory, the revolutionary forces do not necessarily have to build
stable base areas and encircle the cities from the countryside. The people’s
army does not have to absolutely surpass the reactionary armed forces in
strength, nor does it have to move to regular mobile warfare, as the main
form of warfare, and more so, positional warfare. And the people’s war does
not have to be charted out along neat stages based purely or mainly on the
balance of military forces.
Revolutionary wars for national liberation arc not predestined to be

protracted. They may be relatively short or they may be prolonged depending
on how long it takes, from the start of actual armed hostilities, for the
balance of military and political forces to change in favorof the revolutionary
forces. Sometimes, the armed struggle happens to be initiated or re-initiated
at a time when a revolutionary or insurrectionary situation has emerged or
is about to emerge. Hence, the revolution may be able to take a relatively
fast track to victory, as in Cuba and Nicaragua. Sometimes, however, the
revolutionary situation takes a long time to emerge, or even when it has
emerged, the revolutionary movement is not yet able to muster sufficient
political and military strength to turn the balance of forces in their favor, as
in Vietnam in the 50s to the 70s. Hence, the revolution becomes protracted.
The point is to win the war in as short a time as possible, not to
unnecessarily prolong it by setting all sorts of “requirements” which may
have been valid in a vast country like China in the 1930s, but are grossly
inappropriate for a small, archipelagic country like the Philippines in the
1990s. If the Philippine revolutionary movement would still want to retain
the term protracted in its strategy of people’s war, then it has to abandon
certain inappropriate Maoist concepts and redefine the basis for
“protractedness”, as the Vietnamese have done. Because erroneous, long-
held notions associated with the word protracted are difficult to eradicate,
it would be preferable to simply drop the term as the Salvadorans have done.
On Military Victory and Total Victory

The fifth major objection to the continued application of the Maoist
version of “protracted people’s war” is that it is much too predisposed to a
military victory and does not really seriously consider other possible
denouements of the revolutionary struggle such as insurrectionary victory.
The final scenario of the “protracted people’s war” has been frequently
depicted as that of a military victory in which the people’s army, advancing
“wave upon wave” from the countryside, launches a general offensive and
seizes the cities. “On the eve of the nationwide seizure of power,” slates
Specific Characteristics, “Manila-Rizal shall be caught in a pincer between
regular mobile forces from the north and from the two regions of Southern
Luzon.”<iz While a general uprising is now more often mentioned as
coinciding with the general offensive, it is still the latter which is viewed
as playing the principal role. The people’s army is still seen as playing the
decisive role in defeating enemy forces. Nowhere does it appear in Party
30 Debate
documents that an insurrectionary endgame or a mainly insurrectionary

victory has seriously been entertained.
For a revolutionary movement in the Third World, a military victory is
nottheonly means of seizing powerandsmashingthebureaucratic-military
machinery of a reactionary state. Other means include insurrection, a
combination of insurrection and military offensive, left-wing coup, etc.
Neither is military victory the only possible endgame scenario for an armed
revolutionary struggle. Other endgames include insurrection, negotiated
political settlement, elections, etc. The Philippine revolutionary movement
should be open to various possibilities.
A mainly military victory may not even be the most feasible nor likeliest
final scenario for the Philippine revolutionary struggle. The chances for a
mainly insurrectionary endgame (insurrection combined with a guerilla
offensive) are much greater. In the first place, the experience of the 1986
uprising has had a profound effect on the Filipino masses, the Filipino
psyche. Secondly, the growth of the mass movement and the political forces
is currently running much faster than the development of the military
struggleand the military forces. Thirdly, the problem of a steady source and
entry of military hardware (requisites for higher forms of military struggle)
will probably remain unsolved for some time, as there have been no major
breakthroughs up to now. Even if it were solved, the US and its allies are
capable of matching any military escalation by the revolutionary forces for
an indefinite period. Lastly, international parties are likely to intervene to
prevent an escalation of the war to the scale of the Vietnam War. Between
military victory and political settlement, the latter may even be likelier, also
because of the last item.
If a mainly insurrectionary victory (insurrection combined with a gue
rilla offensive) is deemed the most feasible and likeliest endgame scenario,
then the main preparations should by all means be for it But the revolution
ary forces should be prepared to shift to other possibilities when major
changes in the situation occur. Preparing for an insurrectionary endgame
means not only developing the mass movement into an insurrectional one
but also building up the people’s army (the military forces) into a force that
would be capable of, as the Salvadorans would say, “converting an
insurrectional explosion into victory” for the revolution.62
Contrary to what some comrades think, girding for an insurrectionary
endgamedoes not mean an immediate redeployment of the main units of the
people’s army to the urban areas. What it entails is more a reorientation of
both political and military forces away from Maoist “protracted people’s
war” towards a more balanced or all-sided development of political and

military struggles and of rural and urban struggles. Major shifting of
military forces may have to be done, however, during revolutionary or
insurrectionary situations. At such times, the people’s army not only has to
intensify military offensives. Some units and key military cadres have to be
redeployed to the centers of the insurrectional movement to help provide
politico-military leadership and guidance.
The possibility of an insurrectionary victory continues to be ignored or
shut out completely. The “insurrectionist line”, in fact, is under fire. In an
editorial,Rebolusyon (April-June 1991) criticizes “erroneous” currents of
thought which try to ride on the achievements of protracted people’s war
and at the same time belittle or even undermine these under the guise of
accelerating total victory by glossing over or skipping stages of develop
ment”. To discredit the “ ‘insurrectionist’ idea”, the Party journal presents
the negative experiences with uprisings and insurrections of various move
ments in the Philippines and abroad and even makes critical remarks about
the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran insurrectionary movements.65
Insurrection and negotiated settlement are different endgames, but they
are very much related. The insurrectional movementof the masses combined
with guerilla warfare may force the reactionary state to negotiate seriously
a political solution. Conversely, the breakdown or frustration of negotia
tions due to the state’s intransigence may help pave the way for an
insurrectionary or military victory.
While the Party and the NDF have declared openness to the possibility
of a negotiated political settlement, the role of negotiations in the overall
strategy remains to be clarified. If armed struggle will always be the
principal form of struggle, does this not mean that negotiations - which are
a form of politico-diplomatic struggle - will always be secondary, always
serve the armed struggle, and hence are essentially a tactic to pave the way
for eventual military victory? If, on the other hand, the Party and the NDF
are indeed serious about, and open to, a political settlement, then do they
not in effect open themselves to the possibility that, at some point, their
military struggle becomes subordinated to political negotiations - e.g. that
their military actions serve mainly to push the negotiation process forward
(as in El Salvador) or arc suspended in favor of negotiations (as in South
Africa)?
In many of the more recent documents of the Party, there is frequent
reference to the term total victory. In particular, the Party statements on the
occasion of the 20th anniversaries of the Party and the NPA are entitled
32 Debate
“Onward to Total Victory!” and “Long Live the New People’s Army!
Onward to Total Victory!”, respectively.44 By itself, the term total victory
is already problematical because, in the context of Maoist strategy, it really
means nothing more than total military victory. Beyond this, the fixation
with total victory as immediate objective is also problematical. The revo
lutionary forces should not be predisposed to total victory in the immediate
future. Again they should be open to various possibilities: total victory (in
which revolutionary and progressive forces control government fully),
decisive victory (in which they share power with reactionary forces but are
the dominant force in government) and partial victory (in which they are the
minority partner in government). Of course, the revolutionary forces should
not rest content once they achieve partial victory. They can very well
struggle on towards decisive or total victory.
On International Work
The sixth major criticism against the continued use of Maoist “pro
tracted people’s war” in the Philippines is that it does not sharply define and
position the role of international work in the overall strategy and it does not
really give international work a commensurate role in relation to other
fronts or arenas of struggle.
International work was a component of the Chinese revolution but it did
not play as large a role as it has in the more recent revolutionary struggles
of the Vietnamese, Zimbabweans, Namibians and Eritreans, and now of the
Salvadorans, South Africans, Palestinians, Saharawis and East Timorese
(Mauberes). Hence, it is hardly reflected in the basic Maoist concept of the
“three main weapons” (communist party, armed struggle and united front)
of the revolutionary struggle.
At least since the time of the Franco-Viet Minh War, the Vietnamese
began to give more attention to mobilizing international support In 1967,
in the course of their war against US imperialism, the Vietnamese decided
to intensify their diplomatic struggle. Defining the role of diplomatic
Struggle vis-a-vis military and political struggles, the Party’s Central
Committee declared: “In theanti-US resistance for national salvation of our
people at present the struggles on the military and political fronts in South
Vietnam constitute the essential and decisive factor of victories on the
battlefield and provide a basis for diplomatic victories. We can win at the
negotiating table only what we have won on the battlefield. However, the
diplomatic struggle does not simply reflect the struggle on the battlefield,
in the present international conditions, given the nature of the struggle
between our enemies and ourselves, the diplomatic struggle has an important,
positive and active role to play.”65 (Underscoring supplied.)
The Vietnamese decided to engage in struggle in not just two fronts
(political and military) but three - with diplomatic struggle as the third
front. Diplomatic struggle encompassed both state-to-state relations and
people-to-people relations (“people’s diplomacy”). The elevation of diplo
matic struggle to being the third front is a clear indication of how important
the Vietnamese viewed it. Prior to this, the diplomatic struggle had merely
been considered part of the political struggle.
In their struggle for the dismantling of apartheid rule, the South Africans
regard international isolation of the apartheid regime as one of the “four
pillars” of their revolutionary struggle, the other pillars being the political
underground, the mass struggle and armed struggle.
When the Party adopted the Maoist version of “protracted people’s war”
upon its inception in 1968, it also adopted the “three main weapons”
concept. Since the Party cadres and members then had very little experience
in international work, it is not surprising that the treatment of international
work in the early days was limited and very general. Even as there were
frequent enough analyses of the international situation, the early major
documents devoted only a few paragraphs on international work itself; in
Our Urgent Tasks, it was the last item - Task No. 7. Since then, the place
of international workin strategy has not significantly changed. The inclusion
of international work in the “three strategic combinations” concept could
have meant a significant elevation of its role in overall strategy, if the
concept had really been implemented and developed. After 1986, the Party
issued a number of documents explaining its analysis of the international
situation and its international line; the discussion on international work
focused on party-to-party relations.66
International work is an important and indispensable weapon in a
revolutionary struggle waged in a country like the Philippines that is very
much integrated into the world capitalist system, and against a reactionary
regime that is very much dependent on international support. It is likewise
important when one considers the huge overseas Filipino population (over
four million), scattered in over 120 countries, consisting mostly of those
who have left the homeland for economic reasons - a unique situation for
a modern-day Third World liberation movement.
International work involves not just mobilizing support from foreign
friends and overseas Filipinos for the revolutionary movement but also
34 Debate
eroding and eventually halting international support for the reactionary

regime. It also means mutual cooperation with, and support for, the
revolutionary struggles of other peoples. The international linkages es
tablished and strengthened now will be vital for the reconstruction period
after revolutionary victory, especially in the likely event that imperialism
would engage in economic and political destabilization measures against
the new government.
Certain international developments and trends - the collapse of the
socialist bloc, the end of the Cold War, the decline of the left in many
advanced capitalist countries and some developing countries, the weaken
ing of solidarity for Third World struggles in both East and West -
underscore the need for greater self-reliance of revolutionary movements
in the Third World. Some may take these as a basis for putting international
work at a lower priority. But while financial and material support for
revolution may be harder to come by in the international scene these days,
the international arena remains a major source. More importantly, the role
of the politico-diplomatic aspect of international work has not been dimin
ished and has even been enhanced.
Over the last five years, peace negotiations have been more commonly
employed as a means to resolve major regional and civil armed conflicts in
the Third World. Increasingly, it seems, international forces - govern
ments, governmental and non-governmental organizations, church groups,
peace groups, etc. - are forcing contending parties to negotiate and strive
to put an end to war with all its human, material and environmental costs.
The trend is towards political solution, and away from prolonged warfare.
As more and more revolutionary movements are realizing, peace nego
tiations, aside from having a major impact on the political struggle and
united front work in the home front, have become a major arena of struggle
in the international front, especially the diplomatic front. Through these
negotiations, revolutionary movements, as well as their adversaries, are
subjected to international scrutiny vis-a-vis their commitment to peace
based on freedom, social justice and human rights. International recogni
tion and support are extended or withdrawn accordingly.
International work, especially the diplomatic struggle, needs to be
positioned better in overall strategy. It has to be factored in in such a way
that the revolutionary forces fully realize its role and importance in the
struggle. The concept of the “three main weapons" has to be expanded to
include the international dimension or be replaced by one that does. In
elevating the role of international work, it may be possible to revive and
develop the “three strategic combinations” concept (without its fixation

with principal-secondary roles for military-political and rural-urban
struggles). It may also be possible to adapt the Vietnamese concept of
fighting in three fronts - political, military and international (international
relations/diplomatic work and work among overseas Filipinos).
Needed: A Revolutionary Strategy of the 90s

Defenders of Maoist “protracted people’s war” strategy credit it for
much of the gains and achievements that the Philippine revolutionary
movement has made in the last 22 years. They consider this strategy to be
a framework that is broad and flexible enough to accommodate new
concepts and ideas in a changing national and international environment.
Hence, they see no reason for abandoning such a strategy.
The Maoist-based strategy was certainly a major factor for the movement’s
achievements and gains. The very growth of the Party, the armed struggle
and the united front on a nationwide scale can be ascribed to the strong
Maoist emphasis on the “three main weapons”. The Maoist factor proved
instrumental in such crucial correct decisions as the launching of armed
struggle, together with agrarian revolution and base-building, in the late
60s; the massive shifting of urban cadres and activists to the countryside
shortly after martial law was declared in 1972; the adoption of painstaking
step-by-step organizing methods in mass work in the mid-70s; and more.
Significant strides have been made in the political struggle, the urban
struggle and the struggle in the international front, as they have been
afforded increasing attention.
Since the late 70s, however, the inherent weaknesses of the Maoist-
influenced “protracted people’s war” strategy, the impediments posed on
the revolutionary movement by its fixations on the predominance of
military over political struggle and rural over urban struggle, have become
more apparent. The weaknesses of the strategy were exposed fully in 1983-
86, when a revolutionary situation had clearly emerged after the assassination
of Benigno Aquino. Even when the political struggle and the urban struggle
had become powerful instruments in the anti-dictatorship struggle, their
roles were still officially viewed as being subordinate to the military and
rural struggles. As it turned out, it was not the military nor the rural struggle,
but the political and urban struggle - in the form of a popular uprising of the
urban masses - which delivered the final decisive blow in the overthrow of
the Marcos dictatorship.
36 Debate
Quite a number of the old basic formulations of Maoist strategy no

longer gibe with current reality and actual practice. The limits of Maoist
based strategy have been reached. The clearest indication of this is that
actual revolutionary practice over the last few years has been breaking out
of the Maoist mold. While nothing significantly new has been introduced
in the military struggle in the countryside, new forms and new arenas are
being opened in the political snuggle and the urban struggle: the arenas of
electoral struggle and negotiations, urban partisan warfare, political work
among enemy troops and diplomatic struggle. While the large formations
of the people’s army in the countryside are being scaled down to levels
“sustainable by the existing mass base””7, urban forces are pushing towards
a new upsurgeof the mass movement and girding for a possibleEDS A-type
uprising notwithstanding admonitions against the “‘insurrectionist’ idea”.
The new concepts cannot be reconciled with the old formulations.
Instead of reinforcing military predominance over political struggle and
rural struggle over urban struggle, the new elements are putting the latter at
par with the former, at the very least. They weaken and put into question,
rather than strengthen the fundamental framework of Maoist “protracted
people’s war”.
The Party leadership’s decision to overturn the policy on large forma
tions of the people’s army, and in its stead, promote intensive and extensive
guerilla warfare and emphasize mass work is itself a sign of a greater
awareness of the need for maintaining a good balance of military and
political aspects. But was not the drive towards large military formations
conditioned, in the first place, by the concepts that the people’s army is the
main form of organization and that it must graduate from guerilla warfare
to regular mobile warfare and eventually positional warfare?
Curiously enough, this decision to pursue the horizontal rather than the
vertical development of the people’s army has parallels with the move
undertaken by the Salvadoran revolutionaries in 1984, in line with a more
all-sided politico-military strategy, to break up their large units, shift from
regular to “irregular” warfare and redeploy more cadres to mass work.68
Prior to 1986, the study of the revolutionary experiences of other
countries was largely limited to that of China. Since then, the experiences
of other revolutionary movements have been more vigorously studied and
these have helped in broadening horizons for the Philippine revolutionary
forces. There is a continuing reluctance, however, to challenge old Maoist
based formulations with concepts developed by other liberation move
ments.
Times have changed. While socialism has suffered major reverses in

recent years, capitalism is intensifying its global expansion, an onslaught so
strong that it has broken down national barriers, even of socialist countries,
and penetrated the remotest and most backward areas. The inroads of
capitalism in the Third World are such that many “developing” countries
are now not as feudal or “semifeudal” as China in the 30s and much more
“neocolonizcd". The global picture isa far cry from Mao’s prediction in the
60s that imperialism is heading for imminent total collapse and socialism
is advancing to worldwide victory.
Wars are no longer limited toconventional and guerilla forms. The threat
of nuclear war and the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction
remainseven with theend of lheCold War. Imperialism now resorts to high-
tech warfare when launching wars of aggression against Third World
nations, be they “medium-intensity” or “low-intensity”. Third World
revolutionary movements themselves now use modem weapons (even up
to surface-to-air missiles), electronic equipment and computer technology
in waging wars of national liberation.
Theory on strategy and tactics of revolution in the Third World has
evolved considerably since Mao’s time, enriched through the years by the
revolutionary experiences of various liberation movements. While the
Chinese pioneering experience in “people’s war" should be recognized and
studied, it is not necessarily the model par excellence, superior to all others,
to be revered and followed by all. When the Vietnamese launched their own
people’s war, they drew a lot of lessons from the Chinese experience, but
they made a lot of changes - significant changes - in view of their own
specific conditions. Revolutionary movements since then have done the
same.
Filipino revolutionaries should not stick to a single “superior” strategic
model, but draw lessons from other revolutionary experiences (not just
China) as well as from their own, and institute changes in strategy in
accordance with concrete Philippine conditions. Not a few vital and
relevant things can be learned from the experiences of more recent national
liberation movements fighting against modem imperialism.
In many ways, the Philippine revolutionary movement has outgrown
the Maoist model of “protracted people’s war" and “encircling the cities
from the countryside”. The movement has to make a final break with the
Maoist framework and devise a new strategy of people’s war (or a
combination of people’s war and negotiations) that is more flexible, more
suited to Philippine conditions and more relevant to the times. It will be
38 Debate
difficult, if not impossible, to win a revolution in the 90s by continuing to

adhere to a basic strategic framework of a bygone era.
10 August 1991
References:
1. Congress of Re-establishment, Communist Party of the Philippines, Rectify Errors
and Rebuild the Parly (Pulang Tala Publications), p. 39.
2. Central Committee, CPP, "Our Urgent Tasks”, Rebolusyon (mimeographed, July
1976), p. 8.
3. Amado Guerrero, Philippine Society and Revolution, third ed., (International
Association of Filipino Patriots, USA, 1979), pp. 156-7, 161-2.
4. Guerrero, “Specific Characteristics of Our People’s War", Philippine Society and
Revolution, pp. 185; and Central Committee, CPP, “Basic Rules of the New People's
Army" (mimeographed), p. 2.
5. “Our Urgent Tasks", p. 18.
6. “Specific Characteristics", p. 195.
7. Ibid., p. 185.
8. “Our Urgent Tasks”, p. 26.
9. “Basic Rules..p. 12.
10. “Armed Struggle in the Philippines", a collection of articles from Liberation
(Filipino Support Group, London, 1979), p. 24.
11. “Our Urgent Tasks", p. 32-3.
12. Edgar Jopson, “Noles on Strategy and Tactics of Our People’s War"
(mimeographed, 1982), pp. 4-8.
13. Political Bureau, CPP, “Resolution on the Party’s Tactic Regarding the Snap
Election" (mimeographed, April 21, 1986).
14. Central Committee, CPP, “Clarifications on Our Tasks", Rebolusyon (January-
March 1990), p. 25.
15. Central Committee, CPP, "Fulfill the Requirements of the Current Stage",
Rebolusyon (April-June 1991), pp. 1-8.
16. "Bourgeois Elections and Parliament: Props for Counterrevolution", Ang Bayan,
(Central Committee, CPP, March 1987), pp. 7-8.
17. Ang Bayan Editorial Staff, “Questions Concerning Analysis of the Situation and the
Party’s Tactics", interview of Julian Banaag of the CPP Political Bureau, The Filipino
People Will Triumph (Central Publishing House, Manila, 1988), p. 25.
18. “Ceasefire Must Be in Framework of a Full Political Settlement”, Ang Bayan
(August 1986), p. 2.
19. “Lead the Masses, Launch the Offensives", Rebolusyon (January-March 1991), p.
13.
20. “Questions Concerning Analysis. .p. 23.

21. “NPA Repulses Enemy Offensives, Strikes Heavy Blows against AFP”, Ang Bayan
(March 1989), p. 20.
22. “Lead the Masses...’’, p. 12.
23. “Long Live the New People’s Army! Onward to Total Victory!’’, Ang Bayan,
March 1989. p. 18.
24. Romulo Kintanar, “An Urgent Message to the Patriotic Officers and Men of the
AFP" (Press release, March 9, 1990).
25. “Rectify Errors..p. 39.
26. Le Duan, Letters to the South (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Hanoi, 1986),
pp, 9,15.
27. “Specific Characteristics.. .”, p. 182; and Philippine Society and Revolution, p.
163.
28. “Basic Rules..p. 1.
29. “Specific Characteristics...”, p. 195.
30. Marty Villalobos, “For a Politico-Military Framework" (unpublished, 1987).
31. Humberto Ortega, “Nicaragua - The Strategy of Victory”, in Tomas Borge,
Carlos Fonseca, Daniel Ortega, Humberto Onega and Jaime Wheelock, Sandinistas Speak
(Pathfinder Press, New York, 1982), pp. 58, 71.
32. “Long Live the New People’s Army!", pp. 1-3.
33. Jose Ma. Sison, The Philippine Revolution: The Leader's View (Crane Russak,
New York, 1989), p. 234.
34. Letters to the South, p. 14.
35. Joaquin Villalobos, “The Current State of the War in El Salvador and Outlook for
the Future", Estudios Centroamericanos (May 1986).
36. Le Duan, The Vietnamese Experience (International Publishers, New York,
1971), p. 44.
38. “Specific Characteristics...’’, p. 185.
39. “Stable Guerilla Bases Reflect, Spur Advance of People’s War", Ang Bayan
(November 1985), pp. 2-5.
41. Philippine Society and Revolution, p. 160.
42. Ibid, p. 159.
44. The Vietnamese Experience, pp. 44-5.
45. "Nicaragua - The Strategy of Victory”, p. 71
46. "Urban Areas Are Important in Our People’s War", Ang Bayan (November 1983),
pp. 4-5.
47. Mindanao Commission, “The Basis for Development and the Role of the While
Area in the Overall Strategy of People's War in Mindanao" (mimeographed), p. 6.
40 Debate
48. “Two Major Responsibilities”, Ang Bayan Special Release (May 1, 1977).
49. “Onward to Total Victory!”, Ang Bayan (December 1988), p. 14.
50. “Lead the Masses..p. 12.
51. “Onward..p. 15.
52. VJ. Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International", Collected Works, Vol. 21,
pp. 213-4.
53. “Specific Characteristics", p. 192.
54. “Our Urgent Tasks”, p. 9.
55. “Basic Rules...”, p. 2.
56. “Rectify Errors.. ”, p. 40.
57. The Philippine Revolution, p. 53.
58. Philippine Society and Revolution, p. 163.
59. “Specific Characteristics”, p. 195.
60. Ibid., p. 195.
61. Ibid., p. 191.
62. Joaquin Villalobos, “Popular Insurrection: Desire or Reality?", Latin American
Perspectives (Summer 1989), p. 13.
63. “Fulfill the Requirements...”, pp. 1-8.
64. “Onward to Total Victory!", Ang Bayan (December 1988), and "Long Live the
New People’s Army! Onward to Total Victory!”, Ang Bayan (March 1989).
65. Institute of International Relations, “The Vietnamese People’s Struggle in the
International Context" (Hanoi, 1986), pp. 107-8.
66. Ang Bayan Editorial Staff, “On the International Relations of the Communist Party
of the Philippines", interview of CPP chairman Armando Liwanag”, The Filipino
People Will Triumph, pp. 44-62; and Central Committee, CPP, “The World Situation and
Our Line" (pamphlet, June 10, 1988).
67. “Fulfill the Requirements..”, p. 5.
68. Sara Miles and Bob Osiertag, “Rethinking Peace", Report on the Americas, Vol.
XXIH, No. 3 (September 1989), p. 25.
Gender Issues in Revolutionary Praxis
Sunny Lansang
Introduction
This paper is borne out of the need to make some attempt to link tne
theoretical advances brought aboutby feminism to the day-to-day concerns
of comrades. These concerns are brought out through chismis [informal
talk among friends] sessions, formal sharing sessions, one-on-one conver
sations. They cover the concerns of mental health professionals dealing
with family problems; of comrades in the army attempting to better
understand women’s empowerment or disempowerment; of people in
human rights work attempting to understand ourreccnterrorsinjudgment
that led to the Digos massacre and other violations in the past few years;
ofthosestruggling withourmoralisticwayofhandlingsexual relationsand
sexual choice; of those who after years of full-time work have come to
the decision that they must leave the Party, not because they no longer
believe in Marxism-Leninism but because they no longer agree with the
way we are conducting politics.
Most of all it is borne out of the concern of this writer, a feminist, who
has not yet met another feminist comrade who is satisfied with the way the
Party is confronting the practical and theoretical challenges posed by the
local and international women’s movement.
All these are interrelated. The shortcomings of our organization which
is becoming of increasing concern to larger and larger numbers of com
rades, I believe comes from a lack of ideological work. It is increasingly
evident that the movement must reassess our communist vision for the
future, our application of Marxist theory to our conditions and the day-to-
day ethic of struggle which results from this reassessment.
Sunny Lansang (pseudonym) is an activist who has worked on health

and women's issues for many years.
42 Debate
It is my belief that an integration of fem inist theorizing with our previous

constructs holds tremendous promise in bringing light to possible courses
that can be taken in order that the revolution may keep step with our
changing internal (to the revolutionary movement) and external realities.
Methodological Constraints
Admittedly, the evidence that these are concerns of the people in the
revolutionary movement is anecdotal. This is also due to several method
ological and philosophical considerations.
Methodologically, it will be difficult due to organizational and security
constraints to conduct an empirical study among the ranks of comrades.
The ethicality of using documents to which the writer has access is also
difficult to ascertain. Small-scale limited studies of one collective on the
other hand, do not provide the breadth of insight that is achieved through
the discussions with various comrade friends and comrades who seek
professional advice. These sources provide a broad range of information
from various levels of the Party hierarchy, in various lines of work and
sectors, from different class backgrounds.
Philosophically, one must also take into consideration the nature of
feminist research and pedagogy. Feminist pedagogy and research, coming
as they do from a hidden and oppositional tradition to the mainstream
logical positivist tradition in science, have long placed greater emphasis
on the validity of individual experience as a basis for revolutionary action.
This position also stems from the awareness that the oppression of
women is rooted not just in what has been defined as the public sphere of
production, but in the more intimate and personal sphere that has been
assigned to reproduction. Because women experience oppression in the
most intimate spaces of their lives, in areas not traditionally accepted as
being part of public concern, personal testimony has great importance in
ascertaining the truth of this oppression. The challenge is how to under
stand the validity of subjective discourse from a framework that does not
make the universality of truth the assumption behind tests of validity. This
viewpoint has a direct implication to the nature of evidence and proof.
Production and Reproduction

This has implications larger than the need to point out that anecdotal
evidence can be justified on the basis of critical theory and the need to
liberate science and transform its rules into those that more greatly em
power the dispossessed.
Gender Issues in Revolutionary Praxis 43
The feminist insight which ties up in a continuum the daily experience

of exploitation in the private life of a woman to the exercise of coercive
power by the state apparatus is a major theoretical construct It is a
construct that in my view must be more completely understood and must
stand as a basis for our praxis.
The call to abolish the classic distinction between the public and the
private sphere and to make the private sphere an area for political analysis
and action finds its foundations in socialist feminist theory. A theory that
according to its proponents, is a more consistent application of Marxist
principles.
Traditionally, only the public sphere has been considered as an arena for
political action. This stems from the liberal democratic theory which makes
distinctions between those aspects of life which must be regulated by the
state (public sphere) and those which are the reserve of the individual
(private sphere).
Marxist analysis has accepted that the family and home are a basis for
an analysis of prevalent social relations in society. In The Origin of the
Family, Private Property and the State, Engels states:
According to the materialistic conception, the determining factor in
history is, in the final instance, the production and reproduction, of immedi
ate life. This, again, is of a twofold character; on the one side, the production
of the means of existence, of food, clothing and shelter and the tools necessary
for that production; on the other side, the production of human beings
themselves, the production of the species. The social organization under
which the people of a particular historical epoch and a particular country live
is determined by both kinds of production: by the stage of development on the
one hand, and of the family on the other. ’
It would seem thatthere is a recognition hereof twocircumstanccs which
determine the development of society: production and reproduction. But
the Marxist analysis of the area of reproduction has long been problematic,
if not underdeveloped. In other works, Marx and Engels give differing
interpretations to the sphere of reproduction to include not only aspects of
the production of human being. Alison Jaggar writes:
...[T]raditional Marxists use “reproduction” to cover a wide variety of
social practices. In its broadest meaning, “reproduction” is that aspect of
production devoted to replacing the means of production, such as the
production of seedcorn or replacements of existing machinery. "Reproduc
tion” is also used in a more restricted sense to refer to those institutions that
maintain and reproduce the social relations of production. As Marxists
construe them, these are capitalist social relations. In this usage, “reproduc-
44 Debait
lion” is taken to include entertainment, education, advertising, in short, the

whole realm of culture and ideology - what Marxists call the superstructure.
Finally, “reproduction” is sometimes used to refer to what I have been calling
“procreation," those activities involved in bearing and rearing children. 2
What has become problematic about the arena of reproduction is that
whatever the meaning given to the word, Marx and Engels seem to have
held this field as secondary to the area of production in determining the
course of human history.
Lenin himself states that while the forces of production were underde
veloped, the social order was more dominated by the lies of sex. But in the
light of the development of productive capacity:
The old society built on groups based on ties of sex bursts asunder in
the collision of the newly developed social classes; in its place a new society
appears constituted in a slate, the lower units of which are no longer groups
based on ties of sex but territorial groups, a society in which the family system
is entirely dominated by the properly system and in which the class antago
nisms and class struggles, which make up the content of all written history,
now freely develop.3
On ideology and culture, Marx writes:
In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that
are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production,
which correspond to a definite stage in development of their material
productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitute
the economic structure of society, thereal foundation, on which rises a legal
and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the
social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the conscious
ness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being
that determines their consciousness. *
The above-mentioned quotation has often been cited as leading to
economic determinist interpretations as to the relation of culture to the
mode of production.
At the current stage of our development, both the reproduction of human
beings and the reproduction of ideology in the early stages of life are located
largely in the family, the private sphere. It is also here that the exploitation
of women, i.e. the creation of gender in relations of exploitation are rooted.
This is not to deny that women are not exploited in the sphere of
production. Women’s work in agriculture has in fact been a long over
looked reality. Women workers everywhere earn less because they are
women. They are subject also to all forms of sexual harassment and are
denied basic needs such as adequately paid maternity leaves and day
care centers. Home-based work such as those which involve subcontract
ing in the garments industry has fallen towomen and has resulted in
superexploitation in the countryside.
Indeed as the economic crisis worsens globally and locally, we arc seeing
the increasing feminization of poverty. This can be seen in the area of
migrant workers where women have become the majority even as the rate
of exploitation of our migrant workers increases.
All revolutionary projects must deal with the fact that:
While women represent half the global population and one-third of the
[paid] labor force, they receive only one-tenth of the world’s income and
own less than one percent of the world property. They arc also responsible
for two-thirds of all working hours.5
Any political analysis which takes the sphere of production alone as its
purview cannot account for thefact thatexploitation, even as it occurs in the
sphere of production is gendered. It definitely cannot take into account that
in the sphere of childbearing and rearing, in housework and in the area of
emotional sustenance, women are exploited and oppressed.
In this latter context, it is obvious that women are indeed exploited by
men in a Marxist sense. Because of the unequal burden of work in the home,
women do forced, unpaid, surplus labor. This labor results in products or
services which are not at all controlled by women themselves.
This basic exploitation of women in the reproductive sphere is attended
by a deeply rooted ideological structure which is reproduced just as surely
asanyolherelementofthe bourgeois (capitalist orcolonialist) culture. The
socialization of women (or, to be morcclearly Marxist, the social construc
tion and reproduction of the categories, woman, man and child) begins in
early life and pervades all aspects of our culture.
The stereotyping that occurs is a matter of wide acceptance although it
has been confirmed by academic study in our universities. Women are
considered weak, emotional, subservient and inclined to the tasks of child-
rearing and housework. They are very often considered inferior to men and
at worst, are considered commodities for men’s pleasure. It must be added
at this point, although this shall be returned to later, that these stereotypes
are not merely found in the prevailing culture but within the movement and
the party itself.
46 Debate
Patriarchy and the Semicolonial and Semifeudal System

It is not, however, the purpose of this paper merely to convince the
unconvinced that womenareexploited. Atthispoint, theNDFprogram has
recognized this exploitation and correctly stated that the emancipation of
women is a project of the entire people.
Whatis more important is theinsightthattheexploitation of women, the
construction of gender, is fundamental to the survival of the semicolonial
andsemifeudalsystem. All classsocietiesarealsogenderedsocieties. The
socialist conception of complete freedom through the absolute democra
tization of the means of production is incompatible with continuing
exploitation in the area of reproduction.
Thus, just as we ensure that our praxis, our revolutionary ethics, our
very lifestyles are a rejection of capitalist hegemony-so must we ensure
that this same praxis is a rejection of patriarchy. To allow the continuation
of patriarchal attitudes and practices to continue among our ranks, is to
oppose imperialism and feudalism with our right hand only to caress it with
our left.
We must realize that the area of childbearing, childrearing, sexuality
-the whole question of biology-arc social constructs like everything else
that is human. As part of the material base of society, these activities
which are part of reproduction, are subject too to historical changes that
are brought about by a constant struggle of one group to establish
dominance of the other. The material conditions of reproduction in any
society, including the technologies that are pertinent to its activities, as
well as the social relations that structure these, are just as surely
characteristic of a given society at a particular historical period as the
mode of production is.
In this sense the men and women in gendered society are in a class
relation. Socialists must therefore work for a classless society not only in
the sense that we wish to see the dissolution of classes but also the
dissolution of gender. In the final analysis, socialism demands the
abolition of men and women as constructed in present-day society as
surely as it demands the abolition of classes and the withering away of the
state.
Indeed, modern-day philosophers such as Michel Foucault have made
explicit thechangingpowerrelations in the historical evolution ofhuman
sexuality and the relations of these to the more institutionalized powers of
class and slate.6
Sexuality
But it is one thing to establish a vision, and another to see to it that our
praxis abides by iL
At this point, we must critically examine certain areas that are proving
problematic to us and how our praxis in these areas might well be guided
by a revolutionary agenda guided by socialist and feminist principles.
Thearea of sexual relationsandscxualilyisone such area. In TheGerman
Ideology, Marx defined “three aspects of social activity”: the production
of material life which at its very fulfillment creates new needs (the second
aspect or circumstance) and a third circumstance, reproduction within the
family. 7
This reproduction is a social relation insofar as the activity demands
conscious and purposive cooperation between human beings. Yet these
relations have been structured in present-day society in a form that is
repressive of free human agency, that is, in fact, alienating in the Marxist
sense.
As Marx stales:
The human essence of nature first exists only for social man; for only here
does nature exist for him as bond with man - as his existence for the other
and the other's existence for him as the life-element of human reality. a
And yet these relations are alienated in capitalist society as Marx saw:
Thus alienated labor turns the species of man, and also nature as his mental
species-property, into an alien being and into a means for his individual
existence. It alienates from man his own body, external nature, mental life,
and his human life. A direct consequence of the alienation of man from the
productof his labor, from his life activity and from his life species is that man
is alienated from other men. When man confronts himself he also confronts
other men. What is true of man’s relationship to his work, and to himself, is
also true of his relationships to other men, to their labor, and to the objects of
their labor. In general, the statement that man is alienated from his life species
means that each man is alienated from the others, and that each of the others
is likewise alienated from human life. 9
Marx’s concept was that alienation occurred only in capitalist society

because of the extraction of surplus from laborin theformofcommodities.
But it can be argued that such alienation has occurred to women and men
in the social relations of reproduction that have been imposed through
history.
48 Debale
Family and sexual relations have varied through history and deserve
their own dialectical and materialist treatment. What is clear, however, is
that present norms that sanction only heterosexual relations within
marriage are as much a part of Spanish and later American colonialization
as they are a part of present-day neocolonialism. These norms were in fact
clearly imposed by the Spanish and later modified by US cultural
dominance and are surely a part of the colonial legacy.
They are part of this legacy through no accident Norms of heterosexu
ality within the bonds of state and religious sanctions have contributed to
the subjugation of women and children in families as well as the subjuga
tion of the Filipino family itself to the demands of colonial expansion. It
hasensureda passive and long-suffering family based on women’s ability
for self-sacrifice; it has ensured the reproduction of this subservient and
gendered ideology. It has assured that women’s (and men’s) reproductive
labor power is tied to a system easily exploitable by feudal, colonial and
neocolonial interests.
On Sexual Relations
It is therefore surprising that until very recently, our own rules on sexual
relations has been a replication of these norms. We have imposed the same
repression on sexuality - sex outside of marriage being banned and
bisexual, lesbian and homosexual relations being seen as ideological
failings.
It is to the credit of the movement that the freedom of sexual orientation
has now been upheld in the NDFprogram. But we must not be content with
this acceptance on paper. Because to liberate sexual relations and
sexuality from patriarchal repression is a major strategy in our efforts
to change the relations of reproduction in society.
Reproductive Rights
Similarly, the idea of reproductive rights, i.e., the right of a woman to
control her own body must be seen as a strategic call that will extend through
the course of the national democratic revolution and the early stages of
socialism. Until such time as social relations of reproduction are
democratized, women will be tasked with the care and rearing of children.
Until such time as the individual is gendered as a social construction, then
pregnancy will occur within women’s bodies. As such, the right to decide
if, how many, when, how and with whom to have children regardless of
age, disability, sexual orientation, civil status, religious and political

affiliation will remain essential to the liberation of women.
Human Rights and Women’s Rights

In general, our human rights propaganda has dealt with the issues of
violence against women only as they occur within the framework of the
violation of other political rights - usually in the case of women detainees.
We must elevatcour propaganda against violence against women in society
in general to a political call to end all such violence, in the same way that
we have called for the end of violence brought about by poverty and
fascism. There is a continuum between the violence that besets women in
their individual and private lives at the hands of men and the more public
aspect of state fascism. The two are related not just in terms of their being
linked in patriarchal and militarist ideology but also in the way this
violence shapes and reshapes productive and reproductive social relations.
Sexual Harassment
In this regard we must also pay attention to the way we handle issues of
sexual harassment among our own ranks. To tolerate such lapses of
discipline results in the deterioration of the morale not only of the comrade
who is the victim but also speaks badly of the ideological level and sense
of moral agency of the male comrade who has done this harassment We
must remember also that sexual harassment, must of necessity, occur in
situations where the male comrade is in a situation of power vis-a-vis the
female comrade. In these cases therefore, the higher position of the male
comrade must not be taken as a mitigating circumstance. Rather, charges
of sexual harassment if proven, must surely be a gauge of the comrade’s
unsuitability for positions of responsibility.
Reconstructing the Patriarchal Family

The whole question of family relations must also be considered.
Often enough, we have been remiss in realizing that we must struggle just
as much to restructure families as we do other social relations.
In failing to recognize this need, the movement falls into the danger of
exploiting women’s reproductive labor. For men comrades to leave family
responsibilities to their wives in order to go full lime is not a gauge of
ideological strength anymore than it is the particular contribution to the
revolution of his wife that she take on the entire task of raising and caring
50 Debate
for her children. When as in some cases, women who complain at this
injustice are castigated for their lack of commitment, it is tantamount to a
betrayal of true revolutionary ethic.
But these cases, though common enough, represent only one extreme of
our failure to liberate women, children, the elderly in our own families. We
must also continue to ask why women comrades (or non-comrade women
married to comrades) continue to do the bulk of household, secretarial,
childrearing and even emotional work in our families. We must also ask
whether issues concerning alimony and infidelity (areas where more often
enough men take advantage of women’s marginalized and oppressed
positions in society) are handled with an eye to revolutionary justice and
discipline. We must ask whether there are enough comrades who have
used the principle of “politics in command”, of self-sacrifice, to bring
injustice upon their families by their neglect and insensitivity.
In our organizing work among women of all classes, but especially the
basic masses, we are beginning to realize how difficult it is for women to
go to meetings, to organize and to struggle because they are truly burdened
with child care and housework. A socialist feminist ethic tells us that
revolutionary work lies just as much in organizing these women to liberate
themselves from these privatized burdens which they are forced to bear in
the isolation of patriarchal families, as it is in organizing them around the
issues of imperialism and feudalism.
Political Integrity and Moral Agency

Against the call “politics in command”, we must juxtapose the feminist
cry “the personal is political”. To rise above personal circumstances and
problems in order to sacrifice for the revolution docs not mean that we
turn our backs to our responsibilities towards specific individuals whether
they be friends or family. Neither docs it demand the infantilization of
comrades within the limitedlifeofoursubculture to the pointthat we lose
all sense of the mainstream, the ordinary unpoliticized lao.
Political integrity demands that our personal relations live up to the same
non-exploitative, empowering and liberational standards that we imposcon
all other aspects of our political work.
If in fact there is one sense in which feminist politics bears on all our
praxis, it is to re-emphasize the sense of moral agency of the individual
as part and parcel of our revolutionary ethic. Marxism has called
attention to the fact that the alienation of capitalist society has reduced
human relations to the adversarial or non-caring. In calling attention to the

head to bring the sphere of the private and personal into the area for social ist
analysis and praxis, we can put current meaning to our call to end
alienation.
A sense of individual moral agency distinguishes our revolutionary
movement as socialist, as fundamentally addressed to the liberation of the
human from exploitation and alienation. Thedcvelopmcntof this individual
responsibility cannot happen if, in the most intimate reaches of a comrade’s
life, we live whether as man or woman, in blissful ignorance or willful
acceptance of the inequalities of gender exploitation.
Our efforts at policing our ranks of all errors against the welfare of the
people must find its bedrock in our total rejection of personal inequalities
of which gender is as much a factor as class. Unless comrades sec the
injustices, the power relations of dominance and subordination, that
permeate all our interpersonal relations as men and women, then the sense
of moral agency cannot be developed fully. In this sense, patriarchal
practices and attitudes are the material basis for so much of our moral
weakness. Weaknesses that find their most disturbing manifestation in
the increasing number of human rights violations that our comrades have
perpetrated among the people or even on other comrades.
Individual and Collective

Perhaps in our communal life, in our fear of being charged individualist,
we have forgotten the role of the individual.
Agnes Heller writes that, “Marx recognizes no needs other than those of
individual people”; and while understanding needs is generally social or
“socially produced", such needs nevertheless “are the need of individual
human beings”: “When the domination of things over human beings
ceases, when relations between human beings no longer appear as
relations between things, then every need governs the need for the devel
opment of the individual, the need for self-realization of the human
personality.”10
Conclusion
We have had many victories in the course of our more than 20 years of
struggle to liberate our people. But our movement has changed and grown
bringing with it many lessons that demand theoretical reformulation. Our
movement has grown to include many, many individuals with various
52 Debate
skills, talents and needs. An ever-widening number of families have

comrades as a father, a mother, a son or a daughter. Entire families can be
committed to the movement, even as we begin to see several generations,
young and old, working side by side. It has also seen a larger number of
women participate in themovementbringing with them their ownconcems.
As the movement goes on, there is a need in fact to turn our attention to the
lives in this movement, to the personal and private, to the need for
nurturance in a community of resistance. There is also a need to accept that
the Marxist theory on women is underdeveloped and is only now being
elucidated by women in their numbers.
Through their own experiences in revolutionary struggle against feudal
ism, imperialism and patriarchy, women have brought to our movement
new ways of analysis that imply the need for a change in our theories, our
ethics and our praxis.
References:
1. Engels, F., “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, in Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Works, In One Volume (New York: International
Publishers, 1977), p. 456.
2. Jaggar, A.M., Feminist Politics and Human Nature, (New Jersey: Rowman and
Allanhcld, 1983), p. 156.
3. Engels, op dL, p. 456.
4. Marx, Karl, “Preface to the Critique of Political Economy”, in Marx and Engels
Selected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1968), p. 29.
5. U.N. Secretary Kurt Waldheim, Report to the U.N. Committee on the Status of
Women.
6. Foucault, M.,The History of Sexuality (New York: Random House, Inc., 1978).
7. Marx, Karl, “The German Ideology", in The Writings of the Young Marx on
Philosophy and Society, ed. Lloyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat (Garden City N. Y.:
Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 419-22.
8. Marx, K., Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, ibid., p. 244.
9. Op dt., p. 433.
10. Heller, A., The Theory ofNeed in Marx (New York: St. Marlin’s Press, 1976), pp.
67-73.
Reflections on the Socialist Vision,
the Crisis of the Soviet Union and
the Socialist Transition Dilemma
in Developing Countries
Rene E. Ofreneo
Introduction
The “socialist reversals” in most of the Eastern European countries

(German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, etc.)
and the deep-seated crisis the So vietUnion is undergoing today have caused
anguish and concern among the exponents of socialist theory who have/had
been identified with or supportive of the so-called socialist camp in the
world. Many are confused, some feel deluded by past Soviet propaganda,
and the unreconstructed believers of the pre-glasnost system areeven angry
with Mikhail Gorbachev and his policies of perestroika, glasnost and
democratization.
However, regardless of how one feels about the changes that have taken
place and are still unfolding in the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern
Europe, the “socialist world” and their supporters organized through the
chain of Communist and Workers’ Parties all over the world shall never be
the same again. Moreover, the traditional ways of viewing what socialism
is and how it can be achieved (as taught in the pre-perestroika days in
Eastern Europe) require a great deal of rethinking. This rethinking must be
done in the light not only of the politico-economic convulsions in Eastern
Europe but also in the context of the changes that have occurred in the
capitalist camp since the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917.
Rene E. Ofreneo does research on and teaches labor and rural develop
ment issues at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
54
Debate
This paper summarizes, in outline form, some of the author’s reflect-
on socialist theory as practised by pre-perestroika Eastern EuroS Z
Communist Parties aligned with Moscow.
1. No Ready-made Formula/Model for Socialist Construction
One of the most vexing problems confronting Marxist revolutionaries is

how to build the new socialist society.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who built a monumental body of
literature on the nature of exploitation in the capitalist system, failed to
outline a clear and comprehensive program of socialist construction and the
ways of achieving it. The most succinct description of the future society that
Marx and Engels envisioned is contained in the following quotations from
Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme: 1
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has
developed on its foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from
capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and
intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose
womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from
society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to
it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labour. ..
XXX
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination
of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis
between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become
not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have
also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the
springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly — only then can the
narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society
inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according
to his needs!
XXX
Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolu
tionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also
a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revo
lutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
From the foregoing, the following conclusions can be made; one, Marx
and Engels foresaw the socialist revolution taking place in the most
advanced capitalist societies, socialism being a more advanced socio-
econom ic system which has to grow out of the womb of the mature capitalist
system; two, before the full communist construction can be reached a
Reflections on the Socialist Vision 55
transition or transformation period is necessary, where the revolutionary

dictatorship of the proletariat will play a decisive role; and three, individual
producers or workers will have to be compensated on the basis of their
actual contribution to production during the initial phase of socialist
construction and on the basis of their actual needs during the mature or
advanced stage of communist society which will see the all-round develop
ment of individuals and their full contribution to society’s creativity based
on their individual talents or abilities.
Marx and Engels did not live long enough to witness the growth of the
capitalist system into an imperialist system and the formulation by Vladimir
Ilyich Lenin of the thesis that a socialist revolution can occur in underde
veloped capitalist states, if they represent the weakest links of the global
imperialist chain of capitalism.2 Thus, the classical thesis of Marx that the
socialist revolution would occur only in the most advanced capitalist
countries was set aside in the light of changes in the capitalist world and the
revolutionary formulations of Lenin. However, Lenin and his Bolshevik
followers retained and tried to further develop the Marxist concepts of a
socialist transition period, oftentimes described as the ‘minimum program’
of Communist Parties, and the need to establish a dictatorship of the
proletariat during this transition period. Also, following Marx’s elucidation
of the lower and higher stages of communist society, the Bolsheviks
adopted the slogan “from each according to his ability, to each according
to his labor” (instead of the phrase “to each according to his needs”, which
is supposed to apply to the higher stage of communist construction).
2. The Soviet Socialist Transformations

and the Party of a New Type
From the very beginning, the socialist transition issue in the Soviet
Union was a highly problematic and complicated one. First, it had, to begin
with, no model or guidelines to follow — except the short-lived Paris
Commune of 1871 and the above-quoted views of Marx. Second, the
revolution took place in a backward and underdeveloped capitalist country,
which meant that the “higher” socialist formation envisioned by Marx and
Engels could not evolve out of the fertile womb of a mature capitalist
society whose highly-developed productive forces are supposed to develop
further under a socialist system. In fact, the problem faced by Lenin and his
successors during the first two decades of Soviet power was how to catch
up with the developed capitalist world, especially in the areas of industrial
development, energy generation and arms production.
56 Debate
And third, the socialist revolution was threatened by hostile armed forces
within and outside the Soviet Union during the first few years of Bolshevik
power. In 1918-20, the Red Army, reinforced by worker volunteers from
the factories, had to wage a gruelling battle with the White Guards of the
Russian counter- revolutionaries and the armed contingents provided by
the 14-nation foreign interventionists led by the British-American and the
German-Hungarian forces. J
Thus, the twin challenges that confronted Lenin and his supporters right
after the storming of the Winter Palace were how to defend the Revolution,
on one hand, and pursue the transition towards a Communist society, on the
other.
It was these extremely difficult circumstances that Lenin’s “Party of a
New Type”, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party renamed Russian
Communist Party and later Communist Party of the Soviet Union, devel
oped a near monopoly ofpower, which was exercised in a highly centralized
manner based on the structure of the Party itself and the distribution of its
leading cadres in various organs of Soviet rule. Decades after, under
Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, criticisms would surface in the
Soviet Union itself to show that the present stagnation of Soviet society is
directly traceable to the monopolization and centralization of power in the
Communist Party, which led to the virtual outlawing of contrary views from
non-Party sources and from minority elements in the Party, bureaucratism
and commandism exercised by the Party apparatchiks in the management
of the economy and other aspects of Soviet society.4
Historical circumstances allowed Lenin and his Bolshevik followers to
stage the world’s first successful socialist revolution. However, the difficult
situation they encountered in the early years did not allow them the luxury
of debating on what should be the shape and content of the socialist society
they were going to build and to proceed in its construction in a relatively
peaceful manner. Thus, during the Civil War years (1918-1920), the
Communist Party disbanded the 1917 Constituent Assembly, and central
ized power in the hands of the Party and the Red Army at the expense of the
Soviets. The slogan “All Power to the Soviets” referring to district councils
gradually became meaningless as they were convened rarely and were later
transformed into auxiliary organs of the Party. At the same time, the Party
rapidly nationalized all major enterprises and imposed the system of
confiscating and rationing of food surpluses and other commodities under
the policy of“War Communism”, apolicy which ruined the peasantry and
led to widespread hunger.
Today, we learn from Soviet sources themselves that among the revolu
tionary contemporaries of Lenin, there were criticisms against such a
centralization of power in the hands of the Communist Party. One of those
who spoke against it was the well-known German Communist, Rosa
Luxemburg, who wrote in 1918 against the Party leadership resorting to
decrees in managing society. The following quotations are from
Luxemburg’s article, which saw print in the Soviet Union only in 1990:
Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the member
of one party - no matter how big its membership - is no freedom. Freedom
is always freedom for dissenters. That is not said out of a fanatical sense of
justice, but because that is the essence on which depends the reviving, healing
and purifying effect of political freedom, and it ends the minute that freedom
becomes a privilege.
The tacit premise of the theory of dictatorship in the Lenin-Trotsky brand
is that the revolutionary party has a ready recipe in its pocket for the socialist
coup which only needs energetic implementation. Unfortunately, or maybe
fortunately, that is not the way things stand. The practical realization of
socialism as an economic, social and legal system is far more than an
aggregate of readymade instructions which only wait to be applied. It is
entirely veiled in the mist of the future.
The Bolsheviks themselves will not deny that they have had to feel their
way al every step, to search and experiment, to try out one method and then
another and that a substantial number of their endeavors have been far from
successful.
No socialist party programme, no socialist textbook are capable of
explaining what those thousands of concrete definite measures big and little
should be like, the measures that have to be implemented at every step in order
to introduce socialist principles into economy, law and all social relations.
... The socialist system should and can be only the product of history bom
out of its own experience, bom out of establishing living history which, just
like organic nature (part of which it actually is in the final count), possesses
the superb quality of always simultaneously presenting real social demands
and the means for their satisfaction, of presenting the problem together with
its solution.
If that is so, then it is clear that the very nature of socialism precludes the
possibility of its realization through decrees. Socialism presupposes a
number of forcible measures used against private ownership and the like. It
is possible to decree destruction and other negative measures, but it is
impossible to decree construction and similar positive measures. Experience
alone is capable of introducing corrections and opening new roads. Only an
unrestricted and vigorous way of life is capable of producing thousands of
new forms, improvizations and acquires creative strength and corrects false
58 Debate
steps. The public life of a state with a limited freedom is poor, meager,
schematic and sterile because by excluding democracy it shuts off its own
sources of spiritual wealth and progress.
XXX
Socialism calls for a genuine spiritual transformation of the masses who
have been degenerating for centuries under bourgeois class domination.
Social and not egoistic instincts are needed; mass initiative instead of
inertness; idealism that helps people overcome all sufferings and so on and
so forth. No one knows that better, does not speak of it more convincingly
and does not repeat it more persistently than Lenin. But he is wholly mistaken
in his choice of means. Decrees, the dictatorial power of factory overseers,
severe punishment and terror are all palliatives. The dominance of terror has
a demoralizing effect Theonlyroad to revival is through the school of public
life, unlimited democracy and public opinion.
What remains if we sweep aside all the above? Instead of the representa
tive institutions that have resulted from universal popular elections, Lenin
and Trotsky have declared the Soviets the only true representatives of the
working masses. But with the suppression of political life in the country, life
in the Soviets will peter out as well. Without universal suffrage, unlimited
freedom of the press and assembly, and struggle of opinions, life dies in any
public institution and turns into its own imitation where the bureaucracy is
the only active element. Public life gradually goes to sleep and only a few
score party leaders conduct and rule with indefatigable energy and boundless
idealism. Under them another score of outstanding minds really manage the
country’s affairs, while the cream of the working class are summoned from
time to time to meetings where they applaud the speeches of the leaders and
vote approval of the resolutions. The setup is actually based on clique
management; it is a dictatorship, it is true, but not a dictatorship of the
proletariat, but a dictatorship of a handful of politicians, that is, dictatorship
in the purely bourgeois sense, in the sense of the domination of the Jacobins
(the Congress of the Soviets formerly convened once every three months is
now convened only once in six months). More than that, such conditions are
bound to make society uncivilized, to breed assassinations, shooting of
hostages and the like. That is an all-powerful objective law whose impact no
party can escape.5
Judging from the revelations that have come out of the Soviet Union
during the last five years of glasnost and perestroika—regardi ng stagnation
due to Party bureaucratism and commandism, the millions who died during
Stalin’s collectivization of Soviet agriculture, the millions who perished
underStalin’s police-military control, thedeclineof social and cultural life,
etc. - Rosa Luxemburg appeared a true prophet indeed. Moreover, she
raised one of the most crucial issues about socialist construction: what is its
true nature and how does one proceed to the realization of socialism whose
entirety and complexity are still “veiled in the mist of lime”?
The truth was that Lenin himself did not have enough time to sort out the
answer(s) to this question as he was busy responding to the immediate needs
of defending the Revolution against its internal and external enemies. He
was one of the key architects of the policy of War Communism. But when
he saw the imminent dangerof the internal collapse of the country as adirect
resultof the widespread famine arising from the ruin of the peasantry under
the confiscatory system of forced delivery of grain surpluses at state-
determined prices, Lenin formulated the New Economic Policy (NEP) and
vigorously persuaded his Bolshevik colleagues in accepting a retreat to
some form of “state capitalism" and “free trade” in agriculture as survival
measures.
In reality, the NEP, which some of the followers of Gorbachev have
resurrected and emulated, was a formula for a mixed economy (national
ized industries side by side with “petty-bourgeois commodity production")
and was seen by Lenin as a necessary transition to the socialist order that
was still aborning “in a country where the overwhelming majority of the
population consists of small agricultural producers". He asked for the
abandonment of the system of forced appropriation of food surpluses in
favor of a tax in kind imposed on petty producers who were allowed to
engage in “free exchange’” which, he acknowledged, means
... turning back towards capitalism. Free exchange and freedom of trade
mean circulation of commodities between petty proprietors. AU of us who
have studied at least the elements of Marxism know that this exchange and
freedom of trade inevitably lead to a division of commodity producers into
owners of capital and owners of labour-power, a division into capitalists and
wage workers, i.e., a revival of capitalist wage-slavery, which docs not fall
from the sky but springs the world over precisely from the agricultural
commodity economy...6
The above quotation is doubly significant in the sense that it shows that
Lenin saw the existence of a free market as some kind of a capitulation or
a retreat to capitalism, a view shared by generations of Marxists. This
explains the deep-seated belief that state ownership of the means of
production and state determination of the prices of commodi lies on the basis
of a central plan are the hallmarks of true socialism. Now that the Soviet
Union and other Eastern European countries are switching over to “market
economy”, this traditional view is coming under a more rigorous scrutiny.
While a few Soviet proponents are obviously advocating a shift to the
market mechanism on obviously capitalist grounds, other Soviet econo
60 Debate
mists are saying that the market system is, in fact, one of the achievements
of human civilization and its integration and development in the future
socialist order should even be encouraged.
It was clear to Lenin that the key to the success of socialism is higher
labor productivity. During the NEP period, he exhibited great flexibility
and pragmatism by not only allowing the rise of petty commodity produc
tion butalso recommending the following: for“qualified and conscientious
people” to go to the United States, Canada, Britain and Germany in order
to master the latest developments in the “organization of labour” and
“management" of enterprises; 7 and for factory management, like in the
capitalist enterprises, to have relative freedom “to fix and pay out wages”
and "manoeuvre, exercise strict control of the actual successes achieved in
increasing production, in making the factory pay its way and increasing
profits, and carefully select the most talented and capable administrative
personnel, etc.” 4 The last three years saw Lenin grappling with the
details of the dynamics of transition to a higher socialist order, which
included a limited reversion to capitalism as in the liberalization of petty
commodity production, learning from the best work methods from the
capitalist system, adoption of the cost accounting system in order to ensure
enterprise profitability, and the development of cooperatives.
As it turned out, the NEP saved the day for the young Soviet Republic
as it helped stabilize the economy. Unfortunately, Lenin was already too
ill during this period and could not influence the direction of the post-NEP
period. When Josef Broz Stalin succeeded in consolidating power in the
late 1920’s, he scuttled the NEP and implemented, fiercely and with the full
force of State terror, a refined program of War Communism, which saw the
rapid industrialization and collectivization of the Soviet economy for which
millions of peasants died.
Stalin, the General Secretary, exploiting a resolution banning factions
which had ironically been recommended by Lenin in the Tenth Party
Congress, demolished all opposition to his leadership in the Party, which he
transformed into a military-bureaucratic organization or to use his words,
into an “Order of Sword Bearers". ’
3. The Stalinist Socialist Model and the Crisis

of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe Today
Today, the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern Europe are gripped by
an all-sided crisis, which is universally blamed on the Stalinist or bureau
cratic-commandist system developed by Stalin after the death of Lenin

and transplanted into the Eastern European countries whose Communist
Parties rose to power with the aid of the Soviet Red Army.
Ten years ago, at the height of the Brezhnevitc era, Soviet propagandists
were proudly proclaiming that they had already achieved the status of a
“developed socialist society” —’’the peak of mankind’s social progress”.10
Today, with the signs of stagnation and crisis all around them, no Soviet
politician or economist would dare repeat such a hollow claim. In fact, one
of the debates going on in the Soviet Union is whether the system developed
by Stalin and continued by Leonid Brezhnev was socialist or not.
Yuri Afanasyev, a reformist historian and former editor of the Party’s
theoretical organ, claims the Soviet Union is not socialist, while another
historian, Vladimir Sogrin of the Institute of World History, describes the
Stalin-Brezhnev model of socialism as “barracks socialism”, whose main
features are: “gross equalization in distribution owing to the low level of
productive forces development; suppression by the state of personal rights,
regulation of people’s conduct and thoughts; rigid subordination to the state
of all social spheres — the economy, politics, culture and ideology.” "
Another author, Leonid Vasi lyev of the Institute of Oriental Stud ies, labels
the system as “Oriental socialism”, which is seen as a marriage of Marxist
violence and Oriental despotism.32 A People’s Deputy of the USSR, Gennady
Lisichkin, insists that whatStalin built was what Engels cal led as “Pmssian-
type socialism”.13 A regular contributor to Moscow News, Len Karpinsky,
describes “real socialism” (another term for “developed socialism”) as “a
verbal camouflage for a privately-owned corporation represented by the
Party-state apparat — the real owner and controller of the people’s
property.""
What are the general characteristics of the Stalinist system? Many
Soviet authors today do not hesitate to write the negative features of the
system over and over in the various Moscow publications. But here, it will
be enough to quote from the well-known Hungarian economist, Tamas
Szentes, who summed up the content of the system as follows:
a) the policy of isolation from and confronted with the outside world,
inducing the militarisation of society, the economy as well as the political
system, its institutions and mechanism and also the ruling party itself;
b) etatism, an increasingly alienated and concentrated State power op
pressing the ‘civil society', and individual initiatives, self-activities, entre
preneurship and creativity, and the concomitant policy of voluntarism ap
plying forced methods of ‘primitive accumulation', accelerated industrial-
Debate
inrkn ciJ ‘collectivization’ both for the declared aim of socialist develop
ment and attempting to catch up with the most developed countries;
c) a monolithic, hierarchically structured state-party system with an
antidemocratic, monopolistic exercise of power, decision-making, control
and selection, the fusion at all levels of the State and the ruling party
abolishing or reducing all other parties to a mere formality and condemning
ail social organizations and trade unions to the role of 'transmission belt’;
dl an ideological and cultural monopoly with a similarly monolithic and
hierarchic pattern of cultural life and ideological activities for the purpose of
legitimizing the political power and its practice, and with the canonization of
regularly readjusted pseudo-Marxist dogmas.15
Of course, the system is not devoid of its accomplishments. Again,
according to Szentes, the system led to ‘the elimination of backwardness,
of mass misery, unemployment and illiteracy, the extension of social
services, an increased rate of economic growth, etc.”, while on the interna
tional plane, the system made possible “the rise of a certain countervailing
power breaking the nuclear monopoly, and also affecting the process of
decolonization, an impulse arising from rivalry or ‘communist threats’ in
Western States towards the extension of domestic welfare measures and
toward international development assistance, etc.”16 As to the last point,
what Szentes meant was that without the competition posed by the Soviet
Union and other Eastern European countries and their programs on social
welfarism, the tasks of introducing reforms and social rights in the Western
capitalist countries as well as the decolonization of many developing
countries would have been more difficult
In fact, the Western capitalist states, faced with the challenge of an
alternative politico-economic system promising redemption to the masses,
have had to make continuing reforms and adjustments in their own system
to regulate the “anarchies” and crisis explosions in the market as well as to
give in to some of the popular demands from the masses under a liberal
capitalist democratic order. The features of a so-called democratic welfare
state — broad participation of the people in the political processes at both
the local and national levels, social protection for the weak (unemployed
and the aged), universal health care and education, etc.— are a far cry from
the capitalist system that Marx and Lenin saw and analyzed. Moreover, the
system has shown a great deal of dynamism as indicated in its ability to
create huge mass consumption markets, integrate on a highly competitive
basis the most recent advances in science and technology, develop a corps
of professional managers, design new ways of improving labor produc
tivity, etc.
On the other hand, the Stalinist commandist-burcaucratic system was

quite successful, in the early decades, in establishing the basic industrial
structure of a modem society (steel, power, chemical and other like
industries), wiping out the survivals of feudalism and monarchical systems,
and creating a network of welfare services (health, education, day-care,
etc.) for its populace. But as most of the Soviet economists now openly
admit, such a system, with its tendency to rely on the “extensive” (and
ecologically damaging) mode of utilizing a country’s resources, had long
exhausted its potentials — thus, the revelation that the long years of the
Brezhnev era were in fact years of stagnation.
The Soviet Union, due the Stalinist system, suffers from anarchy of
production andalienation of labor, two phenomena of capitalism that Marx
predicted would be wiped out by socialism. This anarchy of production is
easily seen in the oversupply of products consumers refuse to buy and the
long queues for products that are in short supply. While the Soviet Union
boasts of being the world’s largest producer of tractors, many of those
tractors often break down or do not work efficiency because there is a poor
system of servicing them. As to the alienation of labor, this can be gleaned
from the low level of Soviet productivity and product quality compared to
Western counterparts — which means workers are not identifying with the
products and production processes they arc involved in. Abel Agan-
begyan, one of the leading economists of perestroika, sums up the Soviet
system of economic management as follows:
The existing system of economic management, based on the command
system, represses democracy, initiative and the creativity of workers and docs
not encourage the potential for work or social activity. It does not make
workers interested in the final product of their labour. The unjustifiable
levelling of wages, the shortages, the gap between supply and demand for
individuals and society, the residual principle in the allocation of resources
for the development of the social sector — these are all products of the old
economic system.17
Thus, the perestroika revolution of Gorbachev is really meant to over
haul the Stalinist commandist-bureaucratic system. The problem, how
ever, is that with glasnost, there is a bewildering array of proposals on what
should be the direction of perestroika and the manner by which the changes
will be carried out. The result is sometimes greater paralysis and confusion,
and a crisis aggravated a hundred-fold by the centrifugal tendencies
unleashed by the glasnost-perestroika-democratization changes. These
include the independence movements in the non-Russian republics and the
64 Debate
wholesale resignations from the Communist Party of demoralized and

disenchanted segments of its members.
In 1989, there seemed to be still some consensus in the Soviet Union on
the following directions of the reforms:
In the economic sphere it is development of a socialist market which is

regulated on a planned basis, is characterized by a diversity of competing
forms of property (state, municipal, mixed, cooperative and individual),
resolutely does away with monopolism and establishes the priority of
consumers’ interests in place of producers’ diktat.
In the social sphere it is the overcoming of the alienation of labour,
promotion of different and effective forms of self-administration in produc
tion and outside it, the reaffirmation of every individual’s personal right to his
intellect and labour, elimination of levelling, remuneration in full-measure in
keeping with the quantity and quality of work, recognition of the diversity of
social interests, the greatest possible account of them and meeting them in
accordance with society’s possibilities, the strengthening of the sovereignty
of social requirements and abolition of the “residual” principle in planning
social development.
In the political sphere it is elimination of the gap between proclaimed
social rights and their actual realization, the resolute joining of socialism and
democracy, transfer of slate power, in all its entirety, to the Soviets, affirmation
of the principle of the supremacy of laws and an increasing institutionalization
of a law-governed stale, promotion of a civil society that gives life to various
public unions, associations and cells and paves lhe way, in conditions of
socialism, to a combination of slate government and self-government.
In lhe spiritual and ideological spheres it is guarantee of freedom of
creative self-expression, competition in the realm of intellectual, scientific
endeavour, development not only of parallel, but also of alternative varieties
of culture and public thought, which means realization in practice of what we
now call pluralism of opinion.
The new model of socialism cannot develop in conditions of intellectual
autarchy. . . socialism becomes richer by assimilating all universal human
achievements and values.18
In the light of the experience of the Soviet Union during the last seven
decades and the changes in the world during this period, it is fair to say that
the directions of possible changes outlined above are the most realistic and
humane targets. However, with the present crisis the Soviet Union is
undergoing today and lhe debates within its Communist Party, which is
bound to lose its monopoly of power once the overhauling of the Stalinist
system is completed, it is difficult to say whether in lhe immediate
future, a reformed model of socialism that delivers its promise can

actually emerge.
In the meantime, most of the countries of Eastern Europe have already
abandoned the Stalinist model in favor of the market and liberal democratic
system patterned after the West. In these countries, the Communist Parties
have either lost power or have transformed themselves into what looks like
clones of the Social-Democratic Parties of the West These developments,
which decades ago would have been branded as heresy by the international
Communist movement, might indeed be interpreted as some kind of a
return to capitalism. But considering that what is being left behind is a
system that is not clearly socialist, such developments are not necessarily
backward changes. However, given thecrises ofthecapitalist system of the
West and the numerous social problems in the system, the changes in
Eastern Europe are not necessarily forward-looking either.
4. Socialism: Is it on the Agenda in the Philippines?
The developments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe clearly

require a rethinking of the socialist agenda, usually expressed as the
maximum program espoused by Communist and Socialist parties of devel
oping countries, the Philippines included. There are many lessons that can
be learned, and revolutionary perspectives have to be adjusted in the light
of these lessons. The following is a short list of some issues that must be
faced by both revolutionaries and reformists working for a meaningful
transformation of the socio-economic system in the Philippines:
a. The role of a vanguard party — In any movement for change, more
so a movement for an overhauling of a backward and class-divided society,
the role of a spearhead, a vanguard of the most advanced or reform-minded
elements, is a necessity. The question is whether “the Party of a New Type”
developed by Lenin and transformed into a fraternity of “sword bearers “
by Stalin, with its emphasis on monolithic unity and a great dose of
messianism in the name of the working class, is the ideal model of a
vanguard. There is no doubt that the Communist Parties in many parts of
the world, past and present, have attracted the most dedicated and self-
sacrificing leaders and activists of the masses. A number of Communist
Parties have great reason to beproud of their history andstanding in society.
However, as exemplified by what Stalin did to the Party of Lenin,
power-grabbers, terrorists and simple careerists can ride on the so-called
monolithic unity and democratic centralist principles of the Communist
Parlies to impose their narrow views of running an organization and a
66 Debate
society. Sometimes, such developments can lead to mass disasters like the
genocidal regime of Pol Pot in Kampuchea; in many cases, they can lead
to the marginalized existence of ineffectual parties because their aging
leaders, with their epoxy-type hold on positions of leadership, have failed
to make adjustments in their analyses of society and continue to mouth old
and irrelevant slogans.
Some of the weaknesses of Communist Parties patterned after the
Stalinist mold are traceable to their weak practice of democratic principles
due to strong emphasison monolithic unity and one common interpretation
of theory and social reality, one-sided practice of the outdated concept of
democratic centralism, and tendency to excommunicate all contrary
views.
Thus, what should be the shape of a vanguard party? How could a
vanguard party internalize democracy as a way of life while fighting fora
revolutionary and democratic reconstitution of society itself?
In the context of present-day Philippines — where the main contradic
tion remains that between the neocolonial system and the Filipino people
and where the strategic task still is the winning of independence and the
realization of the broadest democracy possible — what kind of a vanguard
for change is the most ideal? A Communist Party? A Socialist Party? A
Socialist Democratic/Democratic Socialist Party? A Labor Party? A Party
of the Working Masses? Probably, the labels are not that important. What
is essential is how a party is able to practice inner democracy with the same
intensity as it preaches democracy to the outside world and how it is able
to keep up with the changing demands of a rapidly changing world.
Also, it is important to take note of and encourage one of the most
positive developments in the relationship among the left forces in the
country in recent years — the tendency to come together and work on a
common agenda. This trend towards coalition politics by left parties and
groupings is aided by the increasing appreciation by all concerned groups
that first, not a single party or group is in a position to bring about real
change in society, and second, there are many commonalities in their
agenda and perspectives despite certain differences in politico-ideological
beliefs and organizational styles of work.
Indeed, the popular forces working for social transformation at this stage
need to forge a principled unity of a wide range of sectors comprising the
Filipino people - workers in industry and agriculture, peasants, youth,
women, urban poor, professionals, intellectuals, petty bourgeoisie, na
tional bourgeoisie, religious, ethnic communities, patriots among the

military, etc. in a genuinely democratic and pluralistic process which may
not admit hegemony by any one class or by any vanguard representing the
interests of this class.
b. Longer transition — The transition towards a communist society is
obviously a long and protracted process and the concrete features of such
a society are still “veiled in the mist of time”. It is also obvious that the so-
called “socialist transition” consists of a whole series of transition stages,
some of which are actually capitalist in nature like the NEP of Lenin or the
recent economic reforms in Vietnam.
The “non-capitalist path of development” articulated by some Soviet
scholars for developing agrarian societies as the transition model has now
been abandoned as a non-workable program of transition as it is not based
on the prevailing relations of class forces in many parts of the developing
world. This non-capitalist path presumes that most developing countries
are governed largely by pre-capitalist relations, and the transition to
socialism can avoid the full developmentof capitalism through large doses
of socialist assistance. Both presumptions are highly questionable.
c. Building the institutions offuture society — Change does not come
only after the assumption of political power and formation of a new pol itical
order by the popular forces. The seeds of broader social changes must be
sown and nurtured in theranks of the popular forces themselves long before
the expected revolutionary change in society is realized. Thus, in the area
of political democracy, the popular forces themselves, through their own
internal politics and their present relationship with other forces in society,
must be able to show that they are indeed democrats and believers in
pluralism. Likewise, in the areaof economic democracy, the popular forces
must be able to demonstrate their own ability to associate and undertake
economic projects in a collective, creative and scientific manner.
It is a hundred times easier to bring down a rotten system than to build
and consolidate a new one on the basis of popular initiatives. The popular
institutions of the future society must be put in place this early. Some of
these institutions include the present-day people’s organizations, non
governmental institutions and cause-oriented associations. Their own
practice of democracy and associated work will indicate society's pre
paredness for a higher stage of social development.
d. Relationship between the State and civil society — As the Soviets
have found out late in the day, the State is not synonymous with the people
Debate
68
or with society even if the State officially proclaims that it is the State of the
entire people.
There is an urgent need to study more fully the relationship between the
State and civil society, before, during and after a revol utionary transforma
tion of society. In a pre-revolutionary society, both the State and the civil
society are arenas of straggle, which require different organizational
approaches. There is also a great deal of intermeshing between the two
which needs new theoretical elucidation.
An appreciation of the State-civil society dichotomy is most useful in a
liberal democratic order because there are many possibilities for political
and economic changes which can be advanced in a relatively peaceful and
democratic manner. Like the market system, liberal democracy should not
be seen pejoratively as a mere capitalist invention but as a historical product
of mankind’s continuing quest for a better society. A higher and more
progressive society can be built not by outlawing the market and the
liberal democratic order but by improving and expanding both in the
service of the greater majority of the people.
e. The crisis of 'socialism' is not a vindication of capitalism — Despi te
everything negative said about the experience of the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe, it does not follow that capitalism has been vindicated. The
critique of Marx that the capitalist system is a harsh, inhuman system based
on the exploitation of man by man remains valid today. The crisis of
Philippine society, which has brought about the suffering of millions of
Filipinos, is primarily a crisis brought about by this system. The debt crisis,
the unequal terms of trade, the degradation of the environment, the rapid
depletion of non-renewable resources, the prostitution of Filipino women
and children, the sweatshop conditions Filipino workers are made to
endure, the mal-developmentof Philippine agriculture, etc.— all these are
direct consequences of a neocolonial capitalist system. The prosperity
Projected by capitalist spokesmen is a prosperity enjoyed only by a few, and
realized at the expense of the many.
shouldnn^1"^!!01 On lhe agenda ~ In 1,16 PhiIiPProes, this question
should not divide the socialist and socialist-oriented activists It is fairly
dKtVunevenanessandrclat0<êhfPLOÛC^0nma^^>CPrCÔm'nan^yCap’ta'*s
countX”mentinn .h CkwardnessofcaP^Hst development in the
trofro^tions in some areas0preventsitfromr^6"03^'13'*81 fOnnS °f PrOdUC’
whose productive
national and^ forces a™ 1 j ™ pursulng immediately
10 a system
The
Petty bourgeoisie have not exhausted their possible contribu
tions to the country’s industrialization and further economic development.

The working class, on the other hand, is highly segmented, and the political
expression of its potential power is highly fragmented.
What is probably needed is a scaling down by the socialists and their
followers of their minimum and maximum programs of government to the
level that is most realistic given the overall state of politico-economic
development of the country and its position in the international community
of nations. The struggle for a more democratic, egalitarian and truly
independent Philippines will then have a sounder basis. But then this is
something that should be debated, fully and democratically, by all the
participants in various movements for social change in the Philippines.
Notes:
1. Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
Selected Works, Vol. HI, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970, pp. 17, 19 and 26.
2. Y. Polyakov el al., A Short History of Soviet Society, Moscow: Progress Publishers,
1977, pp. 21-22.
3. Polyakov, chapter 3, pp. 69-110.
4. During the last three years, 1988-90, each issue of the Moscow News and Hew Times
carried articles dealing with these problems.
5. Rosa Luxemburg, “Dictatorship and Democracy", New Times, Moscow, No. 8,1990,
pp. 42-43.
6. Vladimir I. Lenin, “Report on the Substitution of a Tax in Kind for the Surplus-Grain
Appropriation System", in Vladimir I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. HI, Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1971, p. 571. The report was made by Lenin during the Tenth Congress of the
Russian Communist Party, March 1921.
7. Vladimir I. Lenin, “Better Fewer, But Belter", in Selected Works, IH, pp. 780-781.
8. Vladimir I. Lenin, “The Role and Functions of the Trade Unions”, Selected Works, HI,
p. 660.
9. Leonid Radzikhovsky, “Testament: 120th Anniversary of Lenin’s Birth", MoscowNews,
No. 16. April 22, 1990, p. 6.
10. An example of such propaganda is the popular pamphlet of F.Gclbuch and P. Lopata,
Developed Socialist Society: Basic Features and Place in History, Moscow: Progress Pub
lishers, 1980.
11. VladimirSogrin, "Socialism and Capitalism: Current Discussion", in Social Sciences,
quarterly review of the USSR Academy of Sciences, No.4, 1990, pp. 42-43.
12. Leonid Vasilyev, “The Second Revolution", New Tunes, November 6-12,1990, pp.
30-35.
13. Gennady Lisichkin, "What kind of socialism have we built?”, CultureandLife, magazine
of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign
Countries, Moscow, July 1990, p. 21.
70 Debate
14. Len Karpinsky, “‘Socialism* Awry”, Moscow News, June 3-10, 1990, p. 7.
15. Tamas Szentes, “Radical Transformation, Democratization and Reopening in the
East: Motives, Implications and Dilemmas”, paper presented at the Washington D.C.
Meeting of the IEWSS East-West Task Force on Seeking Security in the 1990’s, June 7-9,
1989, pp. 3-4.
16. Szentes, pp. 4-5.
17. Abel Aganbegyan, The Challenge: Economics of Perestroika, translated by Pauline
M. Tiffen, London: Hutchinson Education, 1988, p. 20.
18. Sogrin, pp. 44-45.
72 Debale
deprived of space for maneuver in the legal arena. Directly combining

illegal military struggle and open political struggle in the cities over a long
period of time is not feasible.
It is a basic guideline for partisan warfare to strictly consider and observe
the primarily legal and defensive character of the revolutionary struggle in
the cities. As one form of urban struggle, it is only secondary to the legal
struggle.
The overall intensity and level of partisan operations in the cities should
be strictly based on, and scaled in accordance with, the needs of the overall
situation and political battle, the level and intensity of mass struggles, and
the intensity of the conflict among the reactionaries. Intensified partisan
warfare that does not suit the overall mood of the masses and the needs of
the political situation, that is vulnerable to the enemy’s intrigues, and that
cannot muster the sympathy and support of the masses should be avoided.
More than this, partisan warfare should not be allowed to become the
principal form of struggle and militarize the conflict in the urban centers.
It should be ensured that operations aimed at sabotaging the war
machinery of the enemy, punishing the most hated enemies of the people,
and other blows to weaken the whole camp of reaction serve the open mass
movement, or are not injurious to it.
3. In reviewing the conduct of the struggle in theNational Capital Region
(NCR), the following should be noted:
a. The politico-military concept employed in Mindanao was inspired
by the Vietnamese experience, and not the Latin American. Even before
the launching of people’s strikes in Mindanao, the pol-mil concept had
already been formulated and was being implemented. The main content of
this concept was the use of armed units and of the methods of armed
propaganda units in the countryside in building and expanding the under
ground movement, the mass organizations and the mass base of armed
struggle in urban communities.
As a result of pol-mil work, the mass base of armed partisans in the cities
of Mindanao rapidly expanded, and partisan warfare quickly spread and
intensified there. The peak was reached when people’s strikes were held
simultaneous with raids on AFP detachments in the cities and putting up
of NPA checkpoints in the city’s thoroughfares. When it reached this stage,
however, the struggle in the cities became very militarized. Several
battalions of Marines were concentrated in Davao City, military detach
ments and checkpoints mushroomed and communities known to be the
On the Concept of the "Pol-Mil" Struggle 73
bases of the partisans were raided several times daily. Not only d the units
of armed partisans find it hard to maintain their base of operai.^.j; open
mass organizations also found it hard to maneuver.
There are positive and negative lessons that can be drawn from the
experience in the pol-mil struggle of the cities of Mindanao.
b. The establishment and advance of armed partisan units in the N(.
was an important development in the overall conduct of the struggle in the
region. However, the limitations, errors and shortcomings of partisan
operations in the region should be made clear. It is important to ascertain
the main errors and shortcomings that are linked to the basic orientation and
policy on partisan operations. On the basis of these, the correct orientation
and handling of partisan operations can be more fully understood.
c. The 1986 EDSA uprising was a major development in the conduct
of the struggle in the NCR, but it was not mentioned [in the article],
d. In the paper and in other articles of Taliba ng Bayan, the emphasis
given to the insurrectionary direction, when the overall dircction/handling
of the struggle in the NCR is being discussed, is very noticeable. In
discussions such as these, Taliba ng Bayan should give equal or more
emphasis to the pivotal role of the NCR in advancing the political struggle
nationwide.
4. Making our forces in the NCR understand both political work and
military work is important if the correct dynamics of the two forms of
struggle is clearly established. At the current stage [of the struggle], the
high premium given to military struggle should primarily be shown through
the readiness for, and the enthusiastic support and participation in, the
armed struggle in the countryside.
19 March 1991
Fulfill the Requirements
of the Current Stage
Editorial Board, Rebolusyon
This document appeared as an editorial article in the April-June 1991

issue of Rebolusyon, the theoretical and analyticaljournal of the Commu
nist Party of the Philippines. We are reprinting it here to give our readers
a view of the position taken by the editorial board of Rebolusyon on the
hotly debated question of uprising and insurrection.
- Editors
The document, “Tasks of the Revolutionary Peasant Movement for

Advancing in the 1990s”, tries to present the essential facts in the history
and status of the revolutionary peasant movement, relates this movement to
other factors of the revolution and candidly refers to major problems before
setting forth the tasks.
The peasant movement is of crucial importance in waging the new
democratic revolution and in winning the armed revolution. In this docu
ment, we can see that there is a great deal to be done in rectifying errors and
shortcomings and in further building on what has been accomplished in
order to complete the current stage of the strategic defensive of the people’s
war.
The revolutionary organs of democratic power govern only 25 percent
of the Philippine population and territory, mostly on roughterrain favorable
for guerilla warfare. At the same time, we can observe that, even here, there
is gross unevenness in the development of the revolutionary forces in terms
of building the Party, the people’s army and the mass organizations as well
as in terms of carrying out the appropriate campaigns for the benefit of the
people in various fields of social activity.
Fulfill the Requirements of the Current Stage 75
It is clear that we cannot rush any or all aspects of the revolutionary

struggle to a higher stage of strategic development. We must fully take into
account theneed to fulfill the requirements of thecurrent strategic stage and
extend revolutionary work to the areas where 75 percent of the population
exist. The problems of the current stage have to be solved before there can
be an advance to the next stage. These problems cannot be erased by simply
aiming for or rushing to a radically higher stage, which will certainly pose
bigger problems that the Party and the revolutionary movement are ill-
prepared to solve.
In view of certain well-motivated but impetuous, one-sided and narrow
currents of thought, which are erroneous, it is absolutely necessary for the
Communist Party of the Philippines - as the comprehensive leader of the
Philippine revolution - to assert and exercise its responsibility and obliga
tion of defining and stressing the basic principles and the general line;
marshalling and deploying its cadres and resources in such a manner as to
attend to the various requirements of the revolution; filling up the gaps and
expanding to the wide fields ahead; and bringing the backward to an
advanced level in accordance with the current necessary stage and circum
stances of the struggle.
Widening and Broadening the Mass Base
The mass base must be developed on a wider scale and in a more

deepgoing way in order to be able to sustain higher guerilla formations or
higher command levels. Larger guerilla units of the New People’s Army
entail the prior building of a mass base capable of sustaining them. Without
popular support created by the Party’s mass work, which includes mass
education, mass organizing and campaigns for land reform, production,
militia training, health work, cultural work and so on, the people’s army
cannot preserve and further strengthen itself in the dialectics of war. No
sphere of work must be neglected in favor of another because the result can
only be harmful to both spheres of work.
Having a wide and deepgoing mass base is what differentiates the
people’s army from the superficial copycatting “special operations teams”
of the enemy. To neglect mass work is to go into self-constriction even
before the enemy can define his general perimeter and proceed to close in
with his so-called tactics of gradual constriction (blockhouse warfare).
Mass work in existing guerilla fronts and farther afield should create the
wide area of maneuver (dispersal, concentration and shifting) for the
76 Debate
people’s army and put the enemy in a no-win dilemma between concentra
tion and dispersal of his forces.
There is a close connection between grave errors like those in the anti
informercampaign and the neglect of expansion and consolidation in mass
work on the one hand and the haphazard or insufficient ideological, pol itical
and organizational building of the Party, the misallocation of limited cadres
and resources and the imbalances in revolutionary work on the other hand.
The minimum program of the agrarian revolution (with selective cases
of confiscation and preemptive or punitive measures against despotic
landlords and landgrabbers in frontier areas) must still be pursued as the
general line in the antifeudal struggle. This involves rent reduction, con
trolling interestrates, fair farm wages, fairpricing of productsand increasing
productivity in agriculture and sideline occupations. There is still a great
deal to be done in order to organize the peasant masses and mobilize them
in campaigns and negotiations for realizing the minimum program.
To go for the maximum program (confiscation and free redistribution of
land) as the general line when it is still necessary to pursue the minimum
program, is to leave certain current problems unsolved and plunge into
bigger problems that the Party and the revolutionary movement cannot as
yet solve. Prematurely going for the maximum program will drive theentire
landlord class to unite and marshall all its forces against the revolutionary
movement and defeat our united front policy of taking advantage of the split
between the enlightened gentry and the despotic landlords. The maximum
land reform program will also entail heavy adm inistrati ve work in distributing
land, creating a credit system and other requirements, which we can ill-
attend to amidst escalating enemy military onslaughts. All these have the
potential of tying down and exhausting the limited organization of the
revolutionary forces in limited areas of the country.
While the Party is trying to overcome enemy attacks, rectify errors and
shortcomings and further strengthen itself and other revolutionary forces,
while itis trying to attain a correct balance between mass work and military
work among other areas of work, there are suggestions for peasant uprisings
to seize land and other landlord properties as well as public nursery and
stock farms, raid granaries and warehouses of landlords and merchants and
occupy or destroy municipal and other government buildings. At no time is
the unnecessary and putschist burning of public buildings permissible. We
consider these buildings as the property of the people and as the future
facihues of the revolutionary government.
The big problem in urging the peasant masses to run spontaneously far
ahead of the current general stage of development and current level of
strength of the Party, the organized peasantry and other revolutionary
forces is that false hopes are raised and frustration soon follows. And if the
peasant masses do run far ahead spontaneously for a short while, the class
enemy is in a position to easily suppress the anarchy and to counterattack
and destroy the visible but still small peasant associations as well as the
revolutionary cadres and the spontaneous activists who become identified
in the course of the uprisings.
The theory of the spontaneous masses or the idea of uprisings without
regard for the state of revolutionary organization crumbles in the face of a
clear recognition of the current level of strength of the Party, the New
People’s Army, the mass organizations and organs of political power; and
the need to further strengthen them within the defined general stage of
development. The demand for painstaking mass work should not be
obscured and laid aside by a demand for a leap to a higher stage of
development through the spontaneity of the masses.
It is fine for the peasant masses to advance boldly but they should do so
in a degree and manner that allows them to make and keep definite
substantial gains; and overcome the long-running obstacles and theexpcctcd
retaliation of their class enemies. Through the rhythm of expansion and
consolidation within the necessary stage of development, the Party should
be able to exercise leadership and strengthen itself, the people’s army, the
peasant associations and other revolutionary forces.
The theory and practice of protracted people’s war has made the
Philippine revolutionary movement a unique success in the world. This
movement has grown in strength and advanced, without the conditions of
a global imperialist war and without large amounts of material assistance
from abroad. The peasant movement in particular plays the key role in
the self-reliant revolutionary struggle of the Filipino people, led by the
working class.
Erroneous Currents of Thought
And yet there are erroneous currents of thought which try to ride on the
achievements of protracted people’s war and at the same time belittle or
even undermine these under the guise of accelerating total victory by
glossing over or skipping stages of development. It is worthwhile to review
the failure of the Tayug, Colorum, Sakdalista and similar uprisings as well
78 Debate
as that of the adventurist Jose Lava leadership which banked on the

worsening social crisis and spontaneous energy of the masses but which
overlooked the need for painstaking mass work and building the revolution
ary forces in the face of an enemy seeking to destroy them.
Of more recent memory in the Philippines is the failed armed uprising
led by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in Jolo City and
thereabouts in the 1970s. The armed uprising unnecessarily exposed the
MNLF forces and their followers to massive enemy attack and destruction,
whereas the enemy could have been at the receiving end of gueril la warfare
on a wide scale for a protracted period of time.
Our Party has had its own share of overstepping the conditions and
undertaking lines of action that lack mass support or that cannot be
sustained by the available mass support. We have had experiences of going
for the maximum program of land reform and of failing to cope with the
unified counterattack of the landlord class (including small, medium and
big as well as previously enlightened and despotic landlords) and going for
larger military formations that are not sustainable by the existing mass base,
that absorb a lot of the advanced cadres for staff work and are financed from
above and that as a consequence decrease the scope of mass work and
become isolated and visible targets of the enemy’s strategic offensive or
war of quick decision (involving bo th large-scale and small unit operations).
With particular reference to the peasant movement and land reform, the
lesson is not being recognized from Chinese and Vietnamese experiences
that the longer-term minimum land reform program during the anti
Japanese struggle proved to be more tenable and fruitful than the maximum
land reform program of the peasant uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s before
the Japanese aggressors invaded and occupied China and Vietnam. Sub-
sequendy, the maximum land reform program could be fully carried out on
a nationwide scale only after the seizure of political power.
The debacle of the Indonesian revolutionary movement in the 1960s was
due to a putschist and insurrectionist line. There were preparations for
seizing thecenter of power and the main lines of communications and using
a portion of the reactionary armed forces to seize power. There were no
ideological, political and organizational preparations for a protracted
people’s war. At the crucial moment, the communist party and the revolu
tionary movement could be crushed in a wave of anticommunist massacres.
The Naxalbari movement in India in the late 1960s proved to be a
disaster. A small party with a few armed squads committed the error of
ultra-Leftism when it called on the spontaneous unorganized masses to go

on a rampage of confiscating land, raiding granaries, attacking police
stations and killing landlords. There was a violent mass upsurge spreading
like a wildfire for a while and running beyond the capacity of the aforesaid
party to lead. The uprisings were subsequently suppressed within a short
period of time.
Inside and outside the Party, there are a few elements who have been
hyping and overrating the “insurrectionist” example of the Sandinista-led
Nicaraguan revolution and denigrating the rich experience and achievements
of the Philippine revolution and the more significant and more relevant
foreign examples of the national democratic revolution of a new type,
clearly led by the working class, in such countries as China and Vietnam.
The “insurrectionist” idea is being extended from urban petty-bourgeois
circles to the working class and the peasant movement. First, its proponents
touted the strictly urban insurrection of theFrente Sandinista dela Liberation
National (FSLN) in Nicaragua as the model to follow. Subsequently, they
adjusted themselves by seeming to accept the fact that the Frente Farabundo
Marti de Liberation Nacional (FMLN) cannot duplicate in El Salvador the
FSLN example of quick victory and has resorted to the countryside and to
an extended armed struggle.
The S andinistas themselves consider their seizure of power exceptional.
The long-running Somoza dynasty in a plantation economy and society,
with a small population of 3.5 million, prevented other reactionary families
and factions to take over power and block the Sandinista. The US Carter
administration, lacking in any effective reactionary alternative to the
Somoza leadership, smitten by the Vietnam syndrome and not caring much
about a small portion of the global production of cotton, coffee, beef and
sugar, could not intervene promptly and sufficiently to stop the Sandinista
seizure of political power.
As regards the peasant masses, the Sandinistas did not carry out wide
spread solid organizing and thoroughgoing land reform before and after
coming into power. Mass mobilizations through the FSLN and sweeping
propaganda were not preceded and followed by painstaking and widespread
peasant organizing. Policies increasingly yielded to the interests of the
landed gentry and the bourgeoisie at the expense of the workers and the
peasants. Towards the end of their power, the Sandinistas were weakened
by the imperialist blockade and by the Contras as well as by disaffection of
the masses due to grave economic difficulties and conscription of the youth.
so Debate
In the end, they received their worst political defeat in the hands of the local
gentry who won the alcaldias in the 1990 elections.
The previously dominant strain of leadership (the Terceristas or insur
rectionists) in the FSLN at its best was petty-bourgeois radical in mentality,
anti-imperialist but with social-democratic illusions. Under the slogan of
mixed economy, it was notable to carry out thoroughgoing land reform and
cooperativization and engage in any program of industrialization. Under
the slogan of pluralism, it did not exercise people’s democratic dictatorship
to curtail and restrict the political and economic rights of the exploiting
classes and promote the worker-peasant alliance as the foundation of
society.
We must be critical of those who use the Sandinista revolution as the
overarching paradigm for our revolution for the simple reason that the
Sandinista-led revolution was waged under conditions completely different
from those obtaining in the Philippines. It would be wishful thinking for
Filipino revolutionaries to imagine that the United States could soon be
caught off-guard in the Philippines and that the ruling classes would soon
run out of political blocs to rule the country, notwithstanding the ever
worsening social crisis and tendency of the system to disintegrate.
In El Salvador, the FMLN has launched two “general offensives” (1981
and 1989) to no avail within a span of ten years. It has been able to persist
in struggle by undertaking guerilla warfare and mass work among the rural
people against the US-supported reactionaries. The FMLN has shifted from
the terminology of the “final offensive” in 1981 to “generalized and
extended insurrection" (self-contradictory terms) and further on to peace
negotiations on the premise of “no victors in the war”, especially in view of
the current international environment.
So far in history, the greatest example of armed urban insurrection by the
working class and its party is not that by the Sandinistas but that by the
Bolsheviks in the October Revolution of 1917. But the seizure of political
power by the proletariat and the people was not completed until after an
extended armed struggle in the countryside against the reactionaries in the
civil war and the war against the interventionist powers. Further on, the
worker-peasant alliance had to be the foundation of socialist revolution and
construction.
Closer to home, in Asia, the most successful armed uprising was led by
the Vietnam Workers’ Party in August 1945 when the Japanese aggressors
and their puppets were in a state of rapid collapse. But it would be chopping
up history (like considering the 1979 final offensive in Nicaragua in

isolation), not to recognize that the Vietnamese revolutionaries had built a
resistance movement based mainly in the countryside; and would have to
contend bitterly with the re turning French colonizers mainly in the country
side before the seizure of the cities in North Vietnam.
The semicolonial and semifeudal conditions of the Philippines (includ
ing the majority status of the peasantry on tropical terrain) require the
general line of the national democratic revolution; and allow the working
class and its revolutionary party to settle the central question of this
revolution through protracted people’s war. It has been proven during the
last22 years that it ispossible to buildRed political power in lhecountryside
and develop the revolutionary mass movement in both urban and rural areas
even while the reactionary state is still entrenched in the cities.
Persevere in Waging the Protracted People’s War
To be able to hope for the best, the Philippine revolutionary forces must
persevere in waging a protracted people’s war and further accumulate
strength over time, especially under current conditions when the United
States can still focus on the Philippines and theanti-impcrialist and socialist
forces are in an extraordinary period of retreat and even disintegration in
certain countries.
It is the duty of the Filipino communists to die proletariat and the people
of the world to persevere in armed revolution and steadily advance, while
the world crisis of capitalism (essentially the crisis of overproduction) is
still to be accelerated and worsened as never before by high technology, by
the curse of the debt-ridden and depressed client states in the South as well
as in the East and by the competition of the capitalist powers themselves.
The Philippine revolutionary forces must accomplish the tasks of the
current stage before proceeding to the next stage and must not overreach by
word or by deed at anytime because overreaching can strain and exhaust
hopes and resources. The tenacity of the revolutionary forces in the national
democratic revolution through armed struggle is based on the Filipino
people’s recognition of the need to fight the relentless and intolerable
oppression and exploitation by US and Japanese imperialism and the local
exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords.
Comment
Negotiations - Not a Tactical Ploy

Dulce Obrero
This letter was sent in response to the article "Towards a Strategic View
ofPeace Negotiations", by Omar Tupaz, which appeared in the pilot issue
0/Debate (March 1991).
- Editors
The appearance of Debate as a journal of the Philippine left that will

provide “a venue for progressives in the Philippines and abroad to address
questions on national liberation, socialism and democracy, and on strategy
and tactics,” in the light of the events in Eastern Europe and the Gulf, is a
welcome initiative.
I hope that in future issues Debate will feature articles on the internal
debates going on within the other left groups in the Philippines, and not only
in the NDF, so that it could become, as envisioned, the forum that would
help clarify the theoretical positions of all progressive groups in the country
and, in the process, facilitate coalition work among them.
In this connection, I would like to make some comments on the article,
“Toward a Strategic View of Peace Negotiations” by Comrade Omar
Tupaz.
By its very title alone, the article seems to imply that the NDF does not
have a strategic view of peace negotiations and that its current efforts and
proposals for a new round of peace talks with the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines (GRP) are motivated not by a desire for a just
Dulce Obrero (pesudonym) is a former member of the United Front

Commission of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Negotiations - Not a Tactical Ploy 83
and lasting peace in the Philippines but by tactical considerations. This is

quite an unfair and misleading statement to make of the NDF.
I think that I speak for the entire NDF when I say that the NDF stands
firmly committed to abide by any and all agreements entered into between
itself and the GRP in formal bilateral negotiations that would address the
roots of the armed conflict and bring about basic social, economic and
political reforms in the country. This is a matter of principle for the NDF.
To begin with, one must ask oneself which of the two contending parties
to the armed conflict is blocking the prospects for holding a new round of
peace talks that could lead to a negotiated political setdement of the civil
war. Is it the NDF that has been refusing public interface meetings and has
turned down the offer of good offices by the Swiss government? Is it the
NDF that has been insisting on an agenda of surrender instead of one that
would address the roots of the armed conflict? And who is responsible for
escalating the level of thecivil war in thecountry with its “total war policy”,
despite what Comrade Tupaz calls “a growing worldwide trend - that of
negotiations becoming a more common feature in the resolution of armed
conflicts in the third world”?
Comrade Tupaz knows that, as a matter of policy, the NDF is always
ready to engage in peace talks with the Aquino regime provided these would
lead to the satisfaction of the Filipino people’s basic nationalist and
democratic demands that are at the root of the armed conflict. This has
always been the NDF’s strategic view of peace negotiations. It is explicit
in the NDF’s draft programs and spelled out in detail in many documents
on peace negotiations, especially the latest one entitled, “Peace Proposal of
the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.”
Comrade Tupaz also knows that the NDF has been, to use his own words,
“unstinting and relentless” in its quest to get a new round of peace talks
started with the GRP. Since 1987, the NDF has been calling on the GRP to
talk peace by addressing the roots of the armed conflict (and even took the
initiative in declaring a unilateral ceasefire in areas affected by the July
1990 earthquake). Ithas been holding discreet talks with variousemissaries
of the Aquino regime in Manila, Italy, Singapore and Amsterdam. It has
been holding discussions with representatives of domestic peace advocates,
such as the Multisectoral Peace Advocates (MSPA) and the National Peace
Conference. It has taken various initiatives to get state and interstate
entities, as well as international non-govcmmental organizations, to offer
their good offices and support for the formal bilateral talks between itself
and the GRP.
84 Debale
The NDF has met with representatives of the International Committee of

the Red Cross in Geneva in connection with its desire to submit a formal
instrument of accession to Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions. It has
secured the offer of good offices by the Swiss government and has written
the Office of the UN Secretary General for appropriate intervention in the
peace negotiations. It is now in the process of finalizing its proposal for a
“Draft Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Hu
manitarian Law" for consideration by the GRP in formal bilateral negotia
tions.
To call all of these efforts by the NDF a tactical ploy is not only to impugn
the integrity of the NDF but also to undermine the process of negotiations
itself. In the first place, it is the GRP that has always viewed the peace talks
as a tactical ploy with its desire to gain the “moral high ground” for
launching its “total war policy” in the 1986-87 ceasefire agreement and to
ride out the socio-economic crisis until 1992 when the electoral campaign
fever is expected to divert the people’s attention away from their real
problems.
The NDF, through Chairman Manuel Romero in a letter dated Septem
ber 20,1990, has submitted to President Aquino and the GRP its compre
hensive framework for peace negotiations. It has put forward concrete
proposals for a new round of peace talks: the objectives, the creation of a
favorable atmosphere, the legal and political frame, the substantiveagenda,
the appropriate venue, and the role of third party and other procedural
matters. To date there has been no written response from Mrs. Aquino. On
the contrary, the GRP, through Secretary Edilberto de Jesus, Presidential
Adviser on Rural Affairs, as told to representatives of International Alert,
has refused any formal or informal public meetings with the NDF. Foreign
Affairs Secretary Raul Manglapus has turned down the formal offerof good
offices by the Swiss Foreign Ministry. And General Fidel Ramos, Secretary
of National Defense, has put forward his own agenda of surrender by the
NDF as the peace agenda of the GRP.
Anyone interested in the peace process in the Philippines should under
stand that there are two sides to the 22-year old civil war in the country. It
goes without saying then that to undertake peace negotiations, the two sides
have to meet (for no third party, no matter how neutral, can presume to
negotiate for one side with the other). To arrive at a negotiated political
settlement, they have to forge agreements that address the roots of thearmed
conflict on the basis of equality and mutual respect for each other’s rights
d principles. Thus, peace negotiations can only be held under conditions
Negotiations - Not a Tactical Ploy 85
when both sides deem it necessary to sit down and discuss the roots of the
armed conflict and agree to resolve them.
Comrade Tupaz’s article contains valuable information on the peace
negotiations in other countries. Unfortunately, because of its slant, the
article has sought to kindle a debate where there is none. The attempt to link
the peace negotiations with the strategy of armed insurrection was a dismal
failure. It was quite a long shot, anyway.
But if Comrade Tupaz had only bothered to look at the facts, instead of
having focused solely on his advocacy of the strategy of armed insurrection,
he would have seen that the NDF had studied and drawn lessons from the
experiences of many countries, including those that he cited in his article
(from which he seemed to have drawn his 15-point proposal), as well as that
of our own, in formulating its latest peace proposals to tire Aquino regime.
Admittedly, there are still so much planning to be done and decisions to be
carried out before the NDF’s comprehensive approach to the peace nego
tiations would jell and become successful. But this is not because of the
NDF’s lack of a strategic view of peace negotiations but because of more
mundane reasons such as lack of personnel and inadequate financial
resources.
I respect Comrade Tupaz’s advocacy of the strategy of armed insurrec
tion. I would like him to come out with a paper that will show the validity
of the strategy of armed insurrection vis-a-vis the strategy of protracted
people’s war on the basis of a concrete analysis of the objective conditions
in the country. To simply cite the examples of other countries (and even
EDS A) is notenough. He should prove thcobjccti ve need fora fundamental
shift in revolutionary strategy given the particularities of the Philippine
situation. Then, with his advocacy standing on firmer ground, the move
ment can proceed to debate and decide on the issue.
In the meantime, I welcome Comrade Tupaz’s chosen role as gadfly to
the revolutionary movement. And I do notattach any pejorative sense to the
word. The movement needs to have its commitment to political freedom
constantly tested in the crucible of practice, in the way it responds to
persistent criticisms and the free flow of ideas within, among others. But
I wish that he would exercise more responsibility in performing his role
when he goes public with his views. Certainly, the article under consider
ation is wanting in circumspection.
Debate
I do not know how Debate will treat this letter since it has no provision
for a Letters to the Editor section. But, in fairness to the NDF, I hope the
editors will find a way of getting this published in the next issue of the
journal.
For a just and lasting peace in the Philippines,
DULCE OBRERO

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Gender Issues in Revolutionary Praxis

Reflections on the Socialist Vision, the Crisis of the Soviet Union

On the Concept of the “Pol-Mil” Struggle

Fulfill the Requirements of the Current Stage

Negotiations - Not a Tactical Ploy

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We welcome the political skepticism, seriously. If everyone had been

When theCommunist Party of the Philippines was reestablished in 1968,

Omar Tupaz (pseudonym) has written before on topics related to

revolutionary strategy in the Philippines? Can the long-held concept of

Strategy as Originally Formulated

In 1980-81, the results of a Parly study revealed major demographic

Adjustments after the EDSA Uprising

Urban partisan warfare. Prior to 1986, urban partisan warfare was

On the “Universal” Character of Mao’s Strategy

While it may be true that there have been no recent pronouncements on

Primacy of Military Struggle over Political Struggle?

Mao, Party documents have frequently stated that “without a people s

Bias for Military Struggle Persists Even After EDSA Uprising

to the negotiating table, engaging in protracted negotiations with their

Primacy of Rural Struggle over Urban Struggle?

The Main Form of Struggle in the Cities is Political, not Legal

On the Concept of Stages

positional warfare (strategic offensive). It is possible that the Philippine

On the Protracted Character of the People’s War

protractedness is a basic characteristic of our people's war."53 (Under­

Revolutionary wars for national liberation arc not predestined to be

On Military Victory and Total Victory

documents that an insurrectionary endgame or a mainly insurrectionary

war” towards a more balanced or all-sided development of political and

eroding and eventually halting international support for the reactionary

develop the “three strategic combinations” concept (without its fixation

Needed: A Revolutionary Strategy of the 90s

Quite a number of the old basic formulations of Maoist strategy no

Times have changed. While socialism has suffered major reverses in

difficult, if not impossible, to win a revolution in the 90s by continuing to

20. “Questions Concerning Analysis. .p. 23.

Sunny Lansang (pseudonym) is an activist who has worked on health

It is my belief that an integration of fem inist theorizing with our previous

Production and Reproduction

The feminist insight which ties up in a continuum the daily experience

lion” is taken to include entertainment, education, advertising, in short, the

Patriarchy and the Semicolonial and Semifeudal System

Marx’s concept was that alienation occurred only in capitalist society

age, disability, sexual orientation, civil status, religious and political

Human Rights and Women’s Rights

Reconstructing the Patriarchal Family

Political Integrity and Moral Agency

human relations to the adversarial or non-caring. In calling attention to the

Individual and Collective

skills, talents and needs. An ever-widening number of families have

The “socialist reversals” in most of the Eastern European countries

1. No Ready-made Formula/Model for Socialist Construction

One of the most vexing problems confronting Marxist revolutionaries is

transition or transformation period is necessary, where the revolutionary

2. The Soviet Socialist Transformations

protractedness is a basic characteristic of our people's war."53 (Under