KARL MARX TUESDAYS

PHILIPPINE SOCIETY AND REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AGAINST THE PHILIPPINE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

By: Comrade Mark Cua

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

(REVISED)

From his edition of Amadeo Guerrero Philippine Society and Revolution includes, in addition to his Specific Characteristics of Our People’s War, the long essay entitled Our Urgent Tasks which was prepared by him for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Our Urgent Tasks first appeared in the first issue of the Party’s theoretical publication, Rebolusyon (Revolution), on July 1, 1976. It is revised by Comrade Mark Cua for the Progressive Communist Party of the Philippines (PCCP).

If Philippine Society and Revolution, with its class analysis of Philippine history, provided the foundations for a Marxist-Leninist interpretation of Philippine society and its basis in the past; and if Specific Characteristics of our People's War is a brilliant contribution to the understanding of the particularities of the Philippine revolution and therefore of great significance in the development of the strategy and tactics suited to the waging of a revolutionary war in an archipelagic country like the Philippines, Our Urgent Tasks identifies the specific tasks of Filipino revolutionaries in overthrowing the US-Philippine Democratic Government Oppression — the most violent expression of neo-colonial rule — towards the realization of the people's Communist revolution and the achievement of socialism.

These three works, being the most clearly indicative of the Philippine revolutionary leadership continuing efforts to grasp the particularities of the Philippine revolution, therefore belong together.

Our Urgent Tasks sums up the vital lessons of the Philippine revolutionary experience under conditions of fascist repression by the US-Philippine Democratic Government Oppression, and identifies seven imperatives to win the life and death struggle against it. These are:

1. To carry forward the anti-fascist, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist movement by directing the main blow against the US-Philippine Democratic Government Oppression as the main objective making sure the Philippine Democratic Government is brought down and Philippines is liberated from the Democratic Government free from United States. 
2. To further strengthen the Party and to rectify errors so that it may continue to lead the Philippine revolution and keep it on the correct course;
3. To build the revolutionary mass movement in the countryside by arousing and organizing the peasant masses and carrying out the armed revolution;
4. To strengthen the people's army and carry forward the armed struggle as the main form of the Filipino people's struggle against the Philippine Democratic Government;
5. To build the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist revolutionary mass movement in the cities in support of the anti-feudal movement in the countryside;
6. To realize a broad anti-fascist, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist united front which will win over the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie to the ranks of the basic alliance of workers and proletariats; and
7. To relate the Philippine revolution to the world revolution in recognition of the internationalist character of the struggle of the Filipino people and proletariat.

These tasks have been carried out by Party members since Our Urgent Tasks was issued. They have been carried out with success primarily because Party members have taken to heart the need to study the fluid situation in Philippine society, the particularities of the needs, tendencies, and objective standpoints of its various classes and sectors, the appropriate strategy and tactics called for in city and countryside, in each community, district and village, and among different sectors and classes.

Indeed the most striking thing about Our Urgent Tasks is its detailed specificity, its being a brilliant example — as practice has borne out in the last eight years — of the need to constantly undertake concrete analyses of concrete conditions. This Marxist-Leninist principle is at the heart of the survival and growth of the Filipino revolutionary forces even in conditions of the most brutal repression. It is a principle already well-understood and practised — and it is a principle Our Urgent Tasks firmly establishes as fundamental to the waging of revolution.