[PRWC Party Documents] Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade, April 22, 1972

Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade

Anti-Marxism and Eclectism

IV. Once More On The Question Of Armed Struggle In The Philippines

Basahin sa Pilipino

Amado Guerrero

April 22, 1972

Revolutionary School of Mao Tse Tung Thought, Communist Party of the Philippines

Pomeroy admits that during the World War II the old merger party of the Communist Party and the Socialist Party acquired arms and experience in guerrilla warfare and that at the close of the war the leadership abandoned armed struggle in order to engage in peaceful forms of organization and struggle. The armed struggle continued in a spontaneous way; it developed during the 1946-48 period without the planning and initiative of the leadership of the old merger party. The people used the arms which they had retained in the spirit of self-defense because even before the end of the war of resistance against Japanese fascism U.S. army personnel and their cohorts had already subjected them to persecution and armed attacks.

The Lavas and Tarucs formally adopted the policy of armed struggle in May 1948 only after finding themselves rebuffed in their bid to gain official seats in the bourgeois reactionary government. Even when this policy was already supposed to be implemented, the Lavas and Tarucs continuously manuevered for accomodation in the reactionary government and were willing to end the armed struggle in return. We can easily cite events which prove this point. These were the amnesty agreement with the Quirino puppet regime in June 1948; the presentation of an obsequios memorandum by the old merger party to an anti-communist committee in the reactionary congress in December 1948; and the support given to the presidential bid of Laurel in 1949 in the vain hope that the Nacionalista Party would give concessions to the Lavas and Tarucs. All of these were consistent with the policy of the Lavas and Tarucs that had been adopted as early as September 1944 and implemented thereafter to welcome the return of U.S. imperialism and the Osmena puppet regime and have the old merger party engage in parliamentary struggle under the Democratic Alliance.

Pomeroy proudly states that the leadership of the old merger party followed "its own path", departing from the road of the Chinese revolution. He admits though that Chinese comrades "introduced Chinese Red Army ideas into the Huk organization" according to him, the Lavas and Tarucs followed their own path, governed by the Filipino peasant social structure, by the Philippine terrain and geographical conditions, and by Philippine historical, economic and political conditions". Sounding righteous about this path, Pomeroy boasts that the Lavas and Tarucs never found use even in 1950 for "the Chinese pattern" of setting up base areas and encircling the cities from the countryside. He puts in the gratuitious opinion that "in fact, successfully conducted guerrilla war was rarely pursued such pattern, contrary to the belief widely held, and the claim of the Chinese leaders themselves that it constitute a model". He considers as correct and positive the guerrillaism, the roving rebel tactics, and in 1950 the impetuous desire of the Lavas and Tarucs to seize power in the cities within two years.

On a fool takes pride in failure. Only an anti-Marxist counter- revolutionary can regard the violation of the correct Marxist-Leninist teachings, particularly Chairman Mao's theory of people's war and strategic line, as the very proof for the "incorrectness" and "untruth" of what is correct and truthful. Have the Lavas and Tarucs won victory or persisted in revolutionary struggle by deliberately refusing to establish base areas and to take the line of encircling the cities from the countryside? No! Whereas Pomeroy admits that the Lavas and Tarucs violated the theory of people's war and failed to win victory or even persist in armed struggle, Pomeroy insists like the anti-Marxist counter-revolutionary fool that he is that there should have been more violations of the theory. What he obviously hankers for is more failure.

The defeat of the 1950 "all-out armed struggle" policy of the Jose Lava leadership is explained by Pomeroy in terms that completely disregard Chairman Mao's theory of people's war and that violate fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. He gives four reasons for the defeat: 1) The Party was incorrect in concluding that the imperialist and their allies were in an irrecoverable situation and that they could "no longer rule in the old way". 2) The Party put almost all emphasis and cadres into the armed struggle, to the neglect of allies unprepared for armed struggle; proclaimed the principle of "the hegemony of the party over the revolution"; failed to project and build a united front against U.S. imperialism; and failed to side with the Liberal Party against Magsaysay. 3) The Party become careless in its security measures. 4) The Philippine national liberation struggle was physically isolated from international allies.

Let us analyze the reasons one by one.

1) Pomeroy still shares the same opinion as that held by the Jose-Jesus Lava leadership in 1950 that the "Left" opportunist line of quick military victory in two years' time is suitable in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries like the Philippines. He faults the Lavas only for choosing the wrong moment for adopting and implementing such policy. What would appear to constitute as the correct moment for Pomeroy is when the imperialist crisis reaches such an extent that the imperialist and their allies are in an "irrecoverable situation" and "could no longer rule in the old way", Thus, he faults the Lavas for overestimating the "extent of imperialist crisis". According to Pomeroy, the imperialist and a wide range of maneuver, as it was not necessary for them to use American troops in the Philippines, and the people were susceptible to promises of "reform". In other words, Pomeroy wishes the Lavaite opportunist to have waited indefinitely for the imminent, if not total, collapse of imperialism in its home ground before setting out on armed struggle.

Ideologically, Pomeroy is a Lavaite revisionist through and through. He harps on the same subjectivism that led the Jose-Jesus Lava leadership to rely mainly on external conditions in conducting armed struggle in a"Left" opportunist way. The difference is that whereas in 1950 the external conditions were expected to cause a "quick military victory" in the Philippines, nowadays these are expected by the Pomeroys and the Lavas to justify a protracted peaceful struggle. This revisionist line is being harped on at a time that U.S. imperialism is in a crisis worse than before and the world revolutionary situation had never been more excellent. In recalling 1950, Pomeroy states categorically that it was a "vain hope" that the "impact of guerrilla struggle" would help to drive the imperialists and their allies into crisis.

2) It was, indeed wrong and adventurist that "all-out armed struggle" was waged in a manner that almost all cadres were taken away from legal struggle and that the united front was not well taken care of. Though Pomeroy seems capable of mentioning facts, he always tries to make misrepresentations and wrong prescreptions. At the core of these is his notion that to engage in armed struggle is necessarily to forgo political work, legal struggle and the united front. The error of "Left" opportunism committed by the Jose-Jesus Lava leadership, including Pomeroy, is clearly explained in the light of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in the basic documents of the re-established Communist Party of the Philippines.

Not satisfied with his outright opposition to Chairman Mao's theory of people's war and strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside, Pomeroy brazenly goes against the general line that the Philippine revolution is a new-democratic revolution led by the proletariat and its revolutionary party. He identifies the mere use of the phrase "new-democratic revolution" (which was not actually carried out) and the proclamation of the principle of the "hegemony of the party over the revolution" as the cause of the Lavaite failure to build a united front and to find the forms of struggle by which broader masses of the people could be drawn into action. According to him, these frightened and antagonized the "nationalist bourgeoisie" and forced it to ally itself with the rabid imperialist agent Magsaysay. He suggest that some mysterious kind of peaceful maneuver instead of armed struggle should have been undertaken to fight Magsaysay in 1951 and 1953. Even now he would rather imagine that the reactionaries were not all bent on carrying through to the end their own strategic offensive against the Lava "Left" opportunists.

3) Pomeroy can really bring down a house in laughter by identifying "careless security measures" as one of the four major reasons for the defeat of the entire revolutionary movement. Effects should not be considered the causes. The disintegration of the highest leading organ of the old merger party caused by the enemy raids of October 1950 in Manila cannot be fully explained without reference to serious violations of Marxist-Leninist theory and strategy.

4) The "physical isolation" of the Philippine national liberation struggle cannot be a major reaction for the failure of the Lavas. The geographic condition of the Philippines did not change during the World War II and yet the people managed to wage a war of resistance successfully for several years against the Japanese fascists and their puppet troops.

The anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist line of the Lavas, Tarucs and Pomeroys in ideology, politics, organization and armed struggle caused the defeat of the revolutionary mass movement in the early 1950's. In this regard, it is always important to analyze and sum up our revolutionary experience in the light of Marxism-Leniniem-Mao Tsetung Thought. If the Lavas, Tarucs and Pomeroy ignored Chairman Mao's theory of the people's war and suffered disastrous defeat, it becomes more necessary for us to make a living study and application of this proven theory instead of continuing to oppose it as the Lavaites do in empty arrogance.

Even now Pomeroy continues to be a publicist of the Lava revisionist renegades abroad. Resorting to the most malicious falsehood, he tries to misrepresent abroad the Provisional Political Bureau that prepared the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines on the theoretical foundation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought as "trying to put out calls for a return" by the national liberation movement to "all-out armed struggle" in the style of the Jose-Jesus Lava leadership in 1950.

Pomeroy openly supports the Lava revisionist renegades. As acknowledged by him, the bogus communist party of these renegades put out a statement in the Information Bulletin of the Czechoslovak revisionist party in attacking the May Day 1967 Statement of the Provisional Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines and seeking in a futile manner to refute the line that the outlawed situation of the Party is the result of counter-revolution and that armed struggle is the only method by which the reactionary state can be overthrown.

Pomeroy must be told that the Communist Party of the Philippines is today indefatigably making a living study and application of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in accordance with Philippines conditions, rebuilding itself in the process, waging armed struggle in the countryside and creating revolutionary bases among the peasant masses and rapidly developing a united front based on the worker-peasant alliance, which basic alliance is linked with such progressive strata of the local bourgeoisie as the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

The Communist Party of the Philippine today leading the New People's Army and fighting a tit-for-tat struggle against the enemy. On the other hand, the Lava revisionist renegades have made themselves notorious by becoming cheap enemy informers and fascist gangsters in operating the notorious Briones-Diwa- Pasion bandit gang. Put to shame and deprived of initiative in the countryside by the New People's Army led by the Party, the Lava revisionist renegades have gone to the extent of colluding with the Task Force Lawin and with special terror squads of the Marcos facist puppet clique and other criminal activities in Central Luzon.

Though Pomeroy has always boasted that the Lava revisionist renegades have conducted parliamentary struggle as the main form of struggle since 1956, in conjunction with the worldwide campaign of modern revisionism, they are isolated from and shunned by the revolutionary mass movement raging in Greater Manila and other urban areas, provincial capitals and towns. They have made themselves notorious as the most filthy-mouthed slanderers of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army, the revolutioanary leaders and the broad masses of the people. They are always trying to be the most clever by word imperialism, and deed in giving support to imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, the Marcos fascist puppet clique and the landlord class.

The Lava revisionist renegades have busied themselves using the Movement for the Advancement of Nacionalism, the Malayang Samahang Magsasaka, the Congress of Trade Unions of the Philippines, the Kilusan, the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundations (Phil.), Inc., and the Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataang Pilipino in attacking the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army and trying to mislead the people. These Lavaite outfits are mere paper organizations whose membership is rebundant. These have been useful for the Lava revisionist renegades in begging for concessions from the reactionaries and in maintaning their bureaucratic interests within their own clique and within the reactionary government.

Just as Soviet modern revisionism is a passing phase of imperialism, the revisionism of the Lavaites is likewise a passing phase of foreign and feudal domination in the Philippines. The Lava revisionist renegades have done much service to the Philippine revolution in acting as negative examples for the proletarian revolutionaries of today. Though they now talk more and more brazenly in the style of the Marcoses, Tarucs, Lacsinas, Manglapuses and other reactionaries, the Lavaites have for quite sometime now served to sharpen the revolutionaries' understanding of the most clever form of ideololgy and activity that seeks to sabotage and subvert the revolutionary mass movement. With the Lavaites around, the Party and the people have deepened their understanding that to oppose imperialism it is necessary to oppose opportunism and revisionism.