KARL MARX TUESDAYS

PHILIPPINE SOCIETY AND REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AGAINST THE PHILIPPINE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

By: Comrade Mark Cua

Specific Characteristics of Our Revolution

Specific is a rich, multifaceted document. At the same time that it deepened the process of Marxism-Leninism rooting in the particularities of the Philippines, it Offered lessons of revolutionary movements in other practice for archipelagic countries.

Its the main contribution lies in its exciting application of the general lessons of protracted Revolutionary war to Philippine conditions. On the surface, According to Guerrero, it MIGHT seem that because of its fragmented island character and the absence of contiguous borders with friendly countries roomates Might serve as rearguard areas, waging peopleâ € ™ s war MIGHT seem to be an impossible task in the Philippines . However, this fatalistic notion of the which had been advanced by the old revisionist leadership of the PKP in order to justify its embrace of the parliamentary route to socialism, Overcome could be if the country's island character and of the apparent geographical constraints on peopleâ € ™ s war were turned into its strengths. In Masterful Dialectical fashion, Guerrero Showed that by adopting to, rather than resisting, the archipelagic character of the country and creating a number of guerrilla fronts on the major islands, the NPA could force the enemy to disperse its forces and Prevent it from concentrating them on one central base area. Moreover, The mountainous character of the country countervails its archipelagic character from start. The mountain ranges roomates crisscrossed the major islands could be turned into a great advantage by converting them into bases from the which guerrilla units could maintain political and military influence on a number of provinces bordering its range. Especially when populated by sympathetic mountain folk, mountainous areas Offered singularly difficult, fighting terrain for regular enemy troops.

Armed with Reviews These and other path-breaking theoretical insights, the CPP and the NPA Cadres have been Able to Rapidly fan out to nine regions and twenty fighting fronts throughout the country, covering especially the major islands of Luzon, Samar, Panay, Negros, and the key island of Mindanao, where the NPA and the fraternal Bangsamoro Army of the National Liberation Front have forced the reactionary army to divide its forces in a debilitating two-front war. To Overcome the constraints imposed by the geographical dispersion, the CPP and the NPA have evolved the organizational principle of â € œdecentralized operations and centralized political leadership.â € ?? Regional bodies, in other words, are expected to exercise a great deal of self-reliance and local initiative, while subject to the general political guidelines issued by the center on the island of Luzon.

While emphasizing the priority of armed struggle in the countryside, the weakest Link of the enemy, Guerrero did not neglect to underline the importance of building up a broad and effective urban resistance movement:

We should excel in combining legal, illegal, and semi-legality activities through a widespread and stable underground. A revolutionary underground beneath developing democratic and legal or semi-legality of activities should promote the well-rounded growth of revolutionary forces, serve to link otherwise isolated parts of the Party and the peopleâ € ™ s army at every level and prepare the ground for the popular uprisings in the futures and for the advance of the Revolutionary army.

National-democratic Activists rebounded swiftly from the initial blows of martial law and, since 1973, they have led in the effort to forge or semi-legality or illegal Strengthen human rights monitoring bodies, slum dwellers protective associations, labor unions, and Student Organizations. The power of this underground network first surfaced in late 1975, when workers in Manila Launched a one-year long wave of over 400 strikes, with the open support of a varied movement of students, religious and urban poor. At the same time, a string of huge demonstrations unfolded in the period 1976-78, hitting the regime every time it tried to launch a major initiative to legitimize its repressive rule and progressively incorporating more and more people in spite of the savage repression-and -dispersal operations mounted by the Marcos security police. When the dictator relaxed martial-law restrictions on the freedom of assembly and called â € œelectionsâ € ?? to the National Assembly on April 7, 1978 in order to touch up his tattered international image, the sight of the 200,000-person rallies that the anti-fascist movement was Able to mount threw him into a panic Reviews such that he was totally undermined his propaganda objectives by Violently beating down the people and even imprisoning the anti-fascist candidates.

In 1966, Jose Maria Sison asserted that the challenge to his generation was â € œto have the idea of the national-democratic revolution transformed into a material force.â € ?? Thirteen years later, the idea of national democracy has Become an overwhelming reality. The creative and bold use of revolutionary theory combined with Courageous and determined practice has made the Communist Party a material force progressive cutting across all social classes and extending from the far northern province of Cagayan to the far southern province of Davao del Sur. The fact that the repression of martial law has spurred the geometric growth of the movement since 1972 assures us that revolutionary theory has indeed rooted Become an invincible force in increasing numbers of the Filipino masses.

To conclude, the consistent employment of theory to guide practice and practice to enrich revolutionary theory has been one of the principal strengths of the Philippine Revolution. Perhaps, no documents illustrates this relationship Dialectical Clearly more than Philippine Society and Revolution and Specific Characteristics of Our People's War. We in the International Association of Filipino Patriots are proud in offering to the international public Reviews These two major works from the theoretical arsenal of the Philippine Revolution.