[PRWC Party Documents] Stand For Socialism Against Modern Revisionism, January 15, 1992

Stand For Socialism Against Modern Revisionism

IV. Certain Lessons from the Collapse of Modern Revisionism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

The Antirevisionist Line

Basahin sa Pilipino Basahon sa Hiligaynon

Armando Liwanag, Chairman, Central Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines

January 15, 1992

The reconsideration of the revisionist ruling parties as Marxist-Leninist and the revisionist regimes as socialist since 1982 by certain elements within the Party has generated misunderstanding of scientific socialism and a deviation from the antirevisionist line of the Party. This must be rectified in view of the undeniable fact of the collapse of the revisionist ruling parties and regimes and in connection with the correction of the exaggerated, incorrect and futile notion that these parties and regimes could extend assistance for accelerating the victory of the Philippine revolution.

As a result of the collapse of these parties and regimes, the CPP is ever more resolved to adhere to the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism and to pursue the antirevisionist line and persevere in armed revolution. The anticommunists who seek to use the collapse of modern revisionism as an invalidation and complete negation of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism deserve nothing but contempt.

The CPP upholds the fact that Marxist-Leninist theory has correctly guided the proletarian revolutionaries and more than a billion people to victory in new-democratic revolution and in socialist revolution and construction. As far as the Philippines is concerned, the working class is the leading class in the new-democratic and socialist stages of the revolution. The advanced detachment of this class is the CPP. Without this party, the revolutionary mass movement of the people would not have resurged in Philippine history along the anti-imperialist and antifeudal line, with a socialist perspective. The petty bourgeois groups that seek to confuse, discredit, weaken and destroy the CPP can only continue being servitors of the oppressors and exploiters without the Party and the toiling masses of workers and peasants carrying out the revolution most determinedly.

What the CPP considers now as the greatest challenge in theoretical work among all proletarian revolutionaries, including Filipino communists, is learning lessons from the long-term and peaceful restoration of capitalism in socialist countries and understanding the way of continuing the revolution, combating modern revisionism and preventing the restoration of capitalism in socialist society as well as of fighting for socialism wherever it has been replaced by capitalism.

In countries where modern revisionism has had its way and restored capitalism, the challenge in theoretical and practical work among proletarian revolutionaries is to bring back socialism and bring it to a new and higher level. The forces of socialism can probably win again only after undergoing the violence of capitalist oppression and exploitation and defeating this through revolutionary violence. There is yet no historical example of a nonexploiting society replacing an exploiting class society without revolutionary violence although it has been demonstrated repeatedly in history that a higher form of society can degenerate into a lower form through peaceful evolution.

In the course of both the new-democratic and socialist stages of the Philippines, the basic factors of counterrevolution (big bourgeoisie and landlord class) are never obliterated completely (especially in the sphere of ideology and social psychology) by the main factors of revolution (working class and peasantry). And there are intermediate factors (urban petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie) that operate between the two poles of revolution and counterrevolution. The main factors of revolution can come on top of those of counterrevolution and in the process win over the intermediate factors, which in turn exert both positive and negative influences on the main factors of revolution.

In the complexity of waging the new-democratic and socialist stages of the revolution, the proletarian party must uphold its revolutionary integrity through adherence to Marxism-Leninist theory, from philosophy down to strategy and tactics, and must always conduct concrete analysis of concrete conditions in order to lead the broad masses of the people from victory to victory.

Marxism-Leninism is on the high road of human civilization, cherishing the heritage from the past, availing of all current factors that make for progress; and always aiming for a better future. But it is wrong to use such terms of idealism as universal humanism, classless populism, supraclass state, pacifism and such other abstract terms in order to obscure and negate the proletarian class stand and in fact give way to the hegemony of the bourgeoisie and other backward forces in the real world.

It is wrong to declare prematurely the end of exploiting classes and class struggle while in fact they continue to exist both domestically and internationally during the entire historical epoch of socialism. The seeming disappearance of the exploiting classes by socio-economic definition does not mean that the proletarian character of the ruling party and the state has become unnecessary and that the intelligentsia automatically becomes proletarian in socialist society. In fact, the bourgeoisie first reemerges through the bureaucracy and the intellectual sphere as petty bourgeois and then in the social economy as bureaucrat capitalists colluding with the private capitalists.

It is wrong to propagate, under the cover of idealist and metaphysical terms, mechanical materialism, specifically in the form of the theory of productive forces which posits that the development of the "productive forces" can onesidedly and automatically bring about socialist progress. Revolution in the relations of production as well as in the superstructure must take the lead over production. Otherwise the idea gains ground that socialism with a low technological and economic level can advance only through domestic capitalist-oriented economic reforms and submission to the industrial capitalist countries.