[PRWC Party Documents] GENERAL REVIEW OF IMPORTANT EVENTS AND DECISIONS<br>(1980 TO 1991), November 1992

GENERAL REVIEW OF IMPORTANT EVENTS AND DECISIONS
(1980 TO 1991)

I. General Review of the Past

Basahin sa Pilipino

Central Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines
Finalized by
Executive Committee

November 1992

The crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system deepened during the past decade. The socioeconomic crisis and the factional strife of the reactionaries reached a new level of intensity and gravity. The masses in the countryside and cities became very receptive to revolutionary propaganda and organizing, participated in large numbers in economic and political struggles, and enthusiastically supported the armed revolution.

In the first three years of the decade the revolutionary movement rapidly expanded and became stronger. The momentum in 1980-1983 was achieved within the general framework of expanding the guerrilla fronts throughout the entire archipelago; intensifying the war through more widespread and more frequent tactical offensives; rigorous balancing of the armed struggle, mass base building, agrarian revolution, and Party building; relying mainly on the squads and the platoons, which took charge of both military work and mass work and which were ordinarily dispersed but were concentrated when the need arose; the movement in the city wholeheartedly supporting the expansion efforts in the countryside; and comprehensively developing the movement in the various areas of the struggle.

By 1983, we had gone beyond the early substage of national expansion in the guerrilla warfare which had started from almost nothing. The guerrilla fronts and the open and underground movements in the cities, which had surged forward in various parts of the archipelago, had been established in almost all the regions. We had moved towards the more advanced substage of the strategic defensive. In addition, after the Aquino assassination, the U.S.-Marcos fascist dictatorship had become extremely isolated and the masses had been aroused to an extraordinary degree of participation in political struggles.

But under such a situation, we got excessively carried away by the initial successes and opportunities opened up by the extraordinarily favorable objective conditions. The people's war had just moved beyond the early substage of the strategic defensive but we immediately preoccupied ourselves with issues concerning the leap to the higher strategic stage and to the strategic victory. Our obsession with these issues grew to the extent that we neglected the fact that the forces of reaction, despite their serious crisis were still on the strategic offensive,.

In fact, the real concern should have been on efforts at accumulating more strength through more widespread and more intensive guerrilla warfare; and further expansion of the guerrilla fronts and simultaneously creating within these fronts wider bastions of the revolution from the existing small guerrilla bases and consolidated areas; the painstaking work of transforming our broad influence and linkages with the masses into solid, intensive and all-round organized strength; and the continuous strengthening of leadership over the broad masses -- while steadily weakening the forces of reaction and resolutely taking advantage of splits among the reactionaries.

Instead, what evolved were concepts of advancing characterized by undue haste, deviations from the line and strategy of the people's democratic revolution and setting targets well beyond our actual capacity and level of development. There was a loosening of our grasp of the concept of all-round advance and painstaking mass work. Our understanding and measure of achievement were extremely narrowed (one- sided) and drawn towards heightening the struggles; influencing the entire population; and speculating on the factional strife of the reactionaries.

The central leadership of the Party conceived of the program of the strategic counteroffensive (SCO) strongly influenced by a desire to quickly achieve a leap to the higher strategic stage and gave impetus to the hasty and premature "regularization" and to ideas of toying with insurrection, even if there was continued adherence to the strategic stages of development and to the essential balancing of the armed struggle, agrarian revolution and mass base building.

In Mindanao, from the desire for an insurrection to achieve a big leap or victory, the insurrectionist "Red area-White area" (RA-WA) schema was developed and this promoted the line of all-out intensification of the struggle through a combination of army "regularization" in the countryside and "politico-military struggles" in the cities for the purpose of rapidly bringing about an explosion into an insurrection.

After the 9th CC Plenum, the SCO program emerged in the form of an intertwining of the correct and the wrong lines. Under this program, premature "regularization", all-out armed partisan warfare, the obsession with "general paralyzing actions", a reckless concept of peasant uprisings and a shifty insurrectionist concept of "seizing opportunities" gained ground. In the main, the movement continued to expand and the struggles intensified up to 1987. In fact -- while the enemy was caught still unprepared and preoccupied with adjusting to the new situation -- harder and more resounding blows could be inflicted on the enemy forces.

However, as quickly as the struggle intensified, so did the imbalances in the deployment of the forces and tasks, the erosion of our forces and mass support, and the increasing vulnerability of the revolutionary forces, especially the mass base. Our bitter experience has demonstrated that such a course for advancing could not be sustained, that the successes had been merely temporary and, had eventually, led to loss of initiative and finally to grave setbacks.

From 1988, there has been a drastic decline of the revolutionary forces throughout the country. In the face of massive, widespread and continuous enemy offensives in the countryside and the cities, the deficiency and weaknesses of our forces and our mass base, which had been concealed for a number of years by dramatic military actions, "general paralyzing actions", broad propaganda and the clashes among the reactionaries, became exposed. Nevertheless, we are still far from the danger of being totally defeated by the enemy. Although the losses have been serious, the errors and deviations have not continued to do damage; the premature strategically decisive battle did not occur. Despite the disorientation, the overreaching and the reckless offensives, firm adherence to basic principles has prevailed among the majority of cadres and members.

Even in Mindanao, the insurrectionist line had not been fully consolidated. Only a few leading cadres carried the full insurrectionist line. Its worst effect on others has been the insurrectionist disorientation arising from the desire for quick victory and from the wrong concept of "seizing opportunities". Moreover, the majority of cadres, especially in the regions, continue to adhere firmly to the principle of protracted people's war and to the lessons drawn during the period of building the guerrilla fronts and the guerrilla forces. The insurrectionist line had been rendered ineffective by the impact of the damage caused by the hysteria of the anti-infiltration campaign (the Ahos campaign) and the change in the political situation. Throughout the country, the Party's leading committees and cadres in the regions, who could closely monitor the forces and the work among the masses, stood as the biggest obstacle to the implementation of the line of premature regularization and to insurrectionist illusions even when the tendency to rush and overreach was at its height in 1987 and 1988. They were the first and the strongest to object to the excessive targets and to lead in making adjustments to save the forces and the mass base. When the Politburo reversed the entire plan and the priorities in 1989 and started to undertake the rectification, the Party committees in the majority of the regions quickly responded.

The existence and propagation of big errors and deviations in about one decade is traceable to and reflects the main weaknesses and shortcomings in building the Party ideologically, politically and organizationally. Within the Party, the comprehension and distinction of what is right and wrong on many issues regarding the theory, principles, history and practice of the movement have loosened, blurred and dimmed for more than a decade.

The mixing of right and wrong did not only lead to setbacks in the practical movement; it also wrought damage to the Party's ideological and political integrity and, recently, even to its organizational integrity. The liberalism, muddle and confusion with regard to the basic principles should be thoroughly overcome in order for the Party to strengthen itself and to undertake its tasks of leading the revolution firmly and correctly.

Because of the duration and extent of the confusion and deviations, the task of rectifying and repudiating them will not be easy. The rust that has eaten into the mind and body of the Party has thickened and an intense internal ideological struggle and a thoroughgoing rectification movement are necessary in order to strip it off and revitalize the Party.

At present the overall strength of the Party, the people's army and the mass movement in the countryside and city is more or less at the level of 1983 and 1984. Our armed forces and our mass base are sizable; the movement is extensive and possesses a certain level of consolidation and strength all over the country.

The accurate summing-up of experiences especially during the decade of the 80s and the repudiation of the errors and deviations are a big leap in the Party's knowledge, in its understanding of Marxism-Leninism and correct application of theory on concrete practice. If we put ourselves on the correct course again, the strength we have built and continue to wield until now, is sufficient for us to proceed from the level of development that had been interrupted and derailed by 1983, and we now have the opportunity to do so in an all-sided, solid and sustained manner.

In the following sections we pursue the most significant events and decisions from 1980. The discussion is divided into four sections: 1980-1983; the Aquino Assassination in 1983 - EDSA Uprising in 1986; 1986-1987; and 1988-1991.