Central Committee,
Communist Party of the Philippines

March 3, 1972

Tanging Palathala

The Filipino proletariat as the leading class in the Philippine revolution has sent its most advanced detachment, the Communist Party of the Philippines, into the midst of its most reliable, most oppressed and most numerous ally-the peasantry. An alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry has been forged. This alliance of the toiling masses who compose the vast majority of the Filipino people is the basis for the national united front for people's democracy against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. It is an alliance built by indefatigable mass work in the countryside and tempered by armed struggle under the leadership of the Party. It comes into force in the unity of the proletarian cadres and the peasant fighters in the New People's Army and also in the unity of the proletarian cadres and the peasant masses in the localities.

To develop the peasantry as a powerful force and ally in the revolutionary struggle, we are carrying out a revolutionary class line in the countryside and we are in this regard building an anti-feudal united front. We rely mainly on the poor peasants, win over the middle peasants and neutralize the rich peasants in order to isolate and destroy the feudal tyrants and the reactionary armed forces. We also work hard to unite with the agricultural workers in the haciendas. In the forest and mountainous regions, we pay special attention to developing the revolutionary movement among the logging and mining workers and the national minorities. Along the long coastlines of our archipelagic country, we also exert vigorous efforts to arouse and mobilize the poor and middle fishermen.

It is often the case that when we set up the barrio organizing committee there is not a single Communist in the locality and therefore it is only the relationship between the Party in the New People's Army and the peasant masses that bears out the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry. In due time, however, the various organizations for workers, peasants, fishermen, youth, women and cultural enthusiasts emerge to give comprehensive support to the barrio organizing committee. Subsequently, Party members are recruited from the mass activists of both the barrio organizing committee and the mass organizations. When a local Party branch arises in the barrio, the barrio organizing committee easily matures into the barrio revolutionary committee and the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry becomes firm.

The barrio organizing committee is merely a preparatory committee for the barrio revolutionary committee. The barrio revolutionary committee serves a full organ of political power and has the character of a local united front government. Party representatives take only one third of the committee membership. The next one-third goes to the representatives of the poor peasants and the lower middle peasants;and still the other one-third goes to the representatives of other progressive classes and strata. Communists do not monopolize discussions, decisions and activities in the overall barrio revolutionary committee as well as in the five governmental committees on organization, education, economy,defense and health. They also encourage the mass organizations to take initiative. In other words, Communists have faith and trust in the masses and work hard on order to unite with them.

Of course, all barrio revolutionary committees and barrio organizing committees in a municipality are led by the Party section committee or by some higher Party organ functioning in a particular area. But, when circumtances permit, higher levels of the people's government are established. As a matter of fact, we are now on the thereshold of establishing people's councils at the municipal level through municipal conferences of delegates from the barrio level. From the municipal level, it will again be possible to proceed to the establishment of the provincial people's councils through provincial congresses. But before this, the provincial Party committee will directly supervise the minicipal people's government at every level will embody our united front policy of "three-thirds". Our barrio revolutionary committees are the foundation of our national united policy and are the embryo of the national coalition government or the people's democratic republic of the future.

In the countryside, the proletarian revolutionaries have maintained close alliance with the petty bourgeoisie. The middle peasants are encouraged to join the simple production, marketing and credit cooperatives set up and controlled by the poor peasants under Party leadership. Intimate relations have been developed with both barrio and town school teachers, high school students, college students, profissionals artisans and merchants. Many activists of these petty bourgeois groups, especially the teachers, students and professionals are very articulate in promoting the general line of the Party and are very much interested in purchasing and reading our Party literature. Party members have been recruited from the most advanced mass activists of petty-bourgeois background.

We rely mainly on the voluntary contributions of the poor peasant masses and also on production plots of the people's army and the local mass organizations. But aside from these, we are also getting some supplies from the rich peasants, national-bourgeois elements, merchants and logging, plantation and mining enterprises. Their support for us and our support for their legitimate interests are expressions of the national united front. As our political and armed struggle continue to rise and win more victories, we are increasingly in a better position to apply a fair policy of taxation to support the people's government and the people's army. Our united front with and policy of fairness towards the middle bourgeoisie in the countryside is a good preparation for future relations with the middle bourgeoisie in the cities.

We have closely studied and used the contradictions between the reactionary parties and cliques at the provincial, district and municipal levels. There are also contradictions between the lower reactionary leaders and higher reactionary leaders. We have also made practical use of these contradictions to favor the revolutionary mass movement. It is characteristic of the reactionary parties and cliques to control and base their strength on the "barrio councils". By having alliance with some of the reactionaries against the diehard reactionaries, we have been able to neutralize or win over so many "barrio councils" which are ordinarily dominated by rich peasants or upper middle peasants and consequently we have been able to conduct independent mass work among the peasant masses with less danger of being reported to the reactionary armed forces or to an antagonistic local police force.

The more violent and bitter the contradictions among the reactionaries, the graver are the abuses committed against the people and the bankruptcy of the reactionary government becomes more exposed. Contradictions among the reactionaries are sharpening every day, every month and every year. These merely widen our area for maneuver, encourage the broad masses of the people to move to us and split the local police force and the reactionary armed forces into warring factions. The consistent rise of "private armies" serves to aggravate the internal split among reactionaries. The call for "peace and order" hypocritically made by the U.S.-Marcos clique is nothing but a call for its monopoly of arm and the fascist suppression of all democratic forces. The reactionary elections held every two years have irreversibly led to the concentration of arms in the hands of the reactionary cliques. Since the second Plaza Miranda massacre, the rise of "private armies"has been accelerated and the U.S.-Marcos clique has further tightened its grip on the reactionary armed forces.

The danger of Right opportunism has been minimized in the firm efforts of the Party to build a united front that is for armed struggle. But as stated before, our inadequacies in arousing and mobilizing the peasant masses as the main ally and main support for the revolutionary struggle have created "Left" opportunist tendencies which involve mainly the failure to base our military actions on our actual political strength. In two years of the past three years, we relied mainly on the thin existence of the barrio organizing committees; there was a tendency among us to think that it was enough for armed squads to create and link up these preparatory committees over large unconsolidated areas. In the relationship between the armed squads and the barrio organizing committees, it was often the case that the squad leader simply gave orders to the chairman or the local head for defense on matters that could have been settled through consultations with the local people's committees and through mass meetings and mass mobilization.

There were great shortcomings in mobilizing the people for the agrarian revolution; the implementation of even our minimum land reform program of reducing land rent and eliminating usury was grossly uneven in areas where we had already an armed force. In our relationship with allies other than the peasantry, there was a discernible tendency to rely solely on the coercive value of our small armed atrength. A great deal more of propaganda and organizational work among the petty bourgeiosie and the middle bourgeiosie in the countryside could have been done. However, there was no design or line at all to lessen mass mobilization or shunt away possible allies. The Party was simply short of cadres; and those few who were available were lacking in experience. Even now that the number of Party cadres and members has significantly increased, tendencies of the recent past persist.

Even as the danger of "Left" opportunism exist, the danger of Right opportunism does not lurk far behind if we do not go deep enough among the peasant masses or if we do not fully mobilize them for the agrarian revolution. It is a fact that it is relatively easier for us to approach for the first time a barrio that is under the influence of some local reactionaries who ally themselves with us against the reactionary diehards. But to convert the "barrio councils" automatically into the barrio organizing committee or to dillydally in transforming the barrio organizing committees into barriorevolutionary committees is to allow the old influences of the reactionaries to persist. By being overreliant on temporary allies, we can easily make mistakes in our efforts to create our own independent strength and maintain full initiative. So, whenever our temporary allies betray us, our barrio organizing committees would collapse so easily. That means to say that we do not succeed in leading the peasant masses on a revolutionary course.

The national united front cannot be conceived without an understanding of the relationship between the cities and the countryside. The anti-feudal united front and the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside inspire revolutionary mass activity in the cities and impress upon the allies that are centered in the cities to rely on the revolutionary party of the proletariat. Of course, we are in turn inspired by the revolutionary forces in the cities and we receive actual support from them. Revolutionary mass activity in the Manila-Rizal region had set off a chain reaction of revolutionary mass activity in other urban areas and has also influenced the vast number of people in the countryside throughout the archipelago. Since this carries the great red banner of the people's democratic revolution, we have gained influence on a national scale far in advance of the actual armed strength that we have. Both the revolutionary workers' movement and the democratic cultural revolution of a new type have produced and tempered so many mass activists to become Party cadres and members, capable of serving as seeds of the revolution all over the country in both cities and countryside.

The revolutionary workers' movement is developing fast under the leadership of the Party. This is the logical result of small but steadfast efforts that we have exerted in the trade union movement before and after the re-establishment of the Party. In workers' strikes where we have Party cadres as trade union members or where we have some other links with the strike-bound union, we have always worked to raise the level of the economic struggle to that of political struggle. In our desire to reach the masses of workers, we have not shirked doing political work within the reactionary trade unions. Since January 1971, in the course of the mass struggle against the U.S. oil monopolies, we have succeeded in bringing out workers from the factories to marches and demonstrations in several thousands -- a number far exceeding workers' participation in any anti-imperialist mass action during the last two decades. Since May Day of 1971, when once more several thousands of workers came out for mass actions under the red banner of the people's democratic revolution, we have become convinced that a new level of revolutionary consciousness and activity has arisen among the workers. Undauted by the May Day massacre, workers have continued to march forward in increasing number. What is more important is that they are doing so in opposition to the yellow labor bosses who have always tried to rein them in.

The resurgence of the revolutionary workers' movement has been spearheaded by the proletarian revolutionaries. But there is no doubt that mass activists of various youth and student organizations have also given valuable assistance to them. The joint efforts of workers and student activists go on today at the picket lines, in mass demonstrations and in study sessions. These signify the wonderful worker-student alliance, the biggest possible alliance of progressive forces concentrated in the city. Such an alliance is exceedingly important and should be developed further. We have yet as so few Party cadres who can work in the workers' movement and they certainly need the support of mass activists of various democratic mass organizations. These mass activists have contributed a lot by doing propaganda work on the programme for a people's democratic revolution in workers' communities as well as in factories where there are no trade unions yet or where reactionary unions reign. At the same time, we are aware of the danger that some wrong ideas and bad influences of the petty bourgeiosie have been brought into the workers' movement to some extent, especially in cases where the workers are not promptly disabused of the notion that only those with higher educational attainment in the reactionary schools can lead. On the opposite side, however, there is the erroneous trend to dismiss nonworker activists as incapable of giving assistance to the revolutionary workers' movement. It is the duty of proletarian revolutionaries to develop firm links between worker and student activists in line with the people's democratic revolution.

We have had to face enormous difficulties in developing the revolutionary workers' movement. The more than two decades that the Lava revisionist renegades have sabotaged its resurgence and also the more than two decades that such labor aristocrats as Lacsina, Cid and Oca have prevailed in the trade union movement have served as stumbling blocks. Yet our Party cadres who could work in the trade union movement have been few in number and many of those few have had to be shifted to the countryside time and again. Thus, for sometime before 1971, we were restricted to leading only a few unions directly and had to work mostly within some reactionary labor federations and unions.

The democratic cultural revolution of a new type in the cities has apparently gone far ahead of the revolutionary trade union movement because of the past more than two decades. However, this cultural revolution has assumed unprecedented magnitude, scale and depth only since the first quarter storm of 1970. Of course, this historical phenomenon was prepared for directly by a full decade of anti-imperialist mass actions launched mainly by the youth (coming from the urban petty bourgeiosie) and partly by the working class. Upon the advent of the widespread campus strikes of 1969 against the reactionary policies of school authorities, it was already evident that a powerful revolutionary storm would be unleashed by the youth against the entire ruling system. Our re-established Party has been responsible for bringing this democratic cultural revolution of a new type to heights never before witnessed in Philippine history. This propaganda movement carries the programme for a people's democratic revolution, and broadcasts on a nationwide scale the Party's line and slogans on particular issues against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Aside from proving the leadership of the Party and bringing out the enthusiastic broad mass support for the general lines of the Party, the democratic revolution of a new type has unfolded in a big way the great alliance between the revolutionary proletariat and the urban petty bourgeoisie, especially the students, teachers and other professionals, and has also pointed to the urban petty bourgeoisie as a basic force of the revolution with thde special task of bringing all other middle forces towards the side of the revolutionary proletariat. The various mass actions for national freedom and democracy repeatedly launched in the Manila-Rizal region and other urban centers in the archipelago have tempered tens of thounsands of mass activists and hundreds of thousands of organized and unorganized masses and have won the sympathy of millions of people throughout the country for the revolutionary cause. Repeated acts of massacre and other criminal abuses perpetrated by the U.S.-Marcos clique have not only failed to stop big mass actions but have served to make them even bigger. The revolutionary martyrs from the ranks of workers and students have always inspired fiercer revolutionary courage among the broad masses of the people.

From the crucible of the democratic cultural revolution of a new type, a significant number of mass activists have come forward to assist the revolutionary workers' movement and also to join the revolutionary armed struggle at several points in the countryside. It goes without saying that many of the mass activists have come forward to join the Party. The propaganda movement for a people's democratic revolution is guided by the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. This revolutionary theory of the proletariat is now at the core of the revolutionary thinking among mass activists in the cities today. But there is also quite a lot of chaffy and eclectic thinking among them. Quite often there are some mass activists from among the petty bourgeoisie who are still misled by social-democratic and other reactionary ideas. The policy of the Party is to win over all elements that have revolutionary tendencies through persuasion; this involves at the same time being on guard against all kinds of erroneous ideas being smuggled into the ranks of the revolutionaries.

Hard pressed by U.S. imperialism and Japanese monopoly capitalism, which are now in the paroxysms of crisis and are desperately trying to suck more blood from colonies and semi-colonies, the national bourgeoisie is slowly coming to recognize the necessity and importance of allying itself with the revolutionary mass movement. The clamor being made by the left and middle wings of the national boureiosie for the nationalization of the economy and the broadening of diplomatic and trade relations is becoming more and more insistent. Nevertheless, thde right wing of the national boureiosie entertains hopes of getting into "joint ventures" with the foreign monopoly capitalists and is being drawn by thde big comprador bourgeoisie to support the sinister campaign for "incentives" and "national treatment" (another fancy legal phrase to replace "parity rights") to benefit these monopoly capitalists. Blinded by their loyalty to the big bourgeiosie, especially the Soviet monopoly bureucrat bourgeiosie, the Lava revisionist renegades unite with the Trotskyites in attacking the entire national bourgeiosie. Cloaking themselves as "Left" in this respect, they actually support the big bourgeiosie.

So far, only elements of the national bourgeoisie who are in areas where we are strong have directly given concrete support to the revolutionary armed struggle. The national bourgeois groups and personalities in the cities have deemed fit in the meantime to give concrete support only to the democratic mass organizations in the cities, especially in the Manila-Rizal region. In due time, the national boureoisie will extend support in greater amount to the revolutionary mass movement as they will recognize more the need for a national united front. The national boureoisie is weak and many of the present organizations it belongs to are dominated by thde big bourgeoisie. The executive, legislative and judicial branches of the reactionary government and the current reactionary constitutional convention are basically opposed to national-democratic demands. The national bourgeoisie has some representatives in both the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party but these parties are dominated by thde powerful representatives of the big bourgeoisie and the landlord class. Since the national bourgeoisie does not yet have any close alliance with us, there is yet no immediate danger of being outwitted or smothered by them. What is even needed today is to gain more support from them for the armed revolution. The danger of political error at the moment lies in allowing some of our Party members to think that the national bourgeoisie is completely reactionary.

We employ national united front tactics on reactionaries not only at the local level but also at the national level. The Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party and various groups within each divide the ranks of the reactionaries in many ways. Should the ruling clique of the ruling party or any combination of cliques decide to launch an anti-communist onslaught, we can have some temporary alliance with the other reactionaries in order to parry off the blows of the enemy diehards and destroy our enemies one by one. It is well proven in history that whenever the reactionary diehards resort in desperation to fascism they try not only to destroy the illegal opposition but also all kinds of legal opposition. In this light, we can appreciate the correctness of our position in having some temporary alliance with all kinds of opposition that the U.S.-Marcos clique attacked after the second Plaza Miranda massacre of 1971. A temporary alliance with some reactionaries against other reactionaries is a necessary part of general efforts to immediately bring the majority of the people to a common front against the common enemy, as sharply shown in World War II in the national united front against the Japanese fascists.

It is at times when the national united front is broadened to the extent that some reactionaries are included that the danger of Right opportunism is most acute. For example, within the Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties during the period of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the reactionaries tried to monopolize the speakers' platforms and restict all mass organizations to promoting only one official manifesto which misrepresented the revolutionary masses as beggars of concessions from the common enemy, the U.S.-Marcos clique. While the Right opportunist tendency of capitulating to the reactionaries surfaced, certain Party members went to the other "Left" extreme of immediately leading mass activists to denounce the leadership of a certain mass organization without any prior discussion and settlement of problems within the Party.

The armed struggle of the national minorities in Mindanao for self- determination and land is of national significance and of great importance to the Party. The emergence of this armed struggle has to some extent divided the attention of the enemy and lessened its capability of concentrating overwhelming armed forces in Luzon. Objectively, the armed struggle in Mindanao and our revolutionary armed struggle in Luzon help each other. In this sense, we have a united front with the national minorities in Mindanao. Though there is yet no formal agreement with them, their leaders do understand that revolutionary armed struggle elsewhere in the country helps their struggle for self-determination and democracy. A significant number of youth organizations from the national minorities in Mindanao have taken the line of people's democratic revolution and have allied themselves to revolutionary mass organizations, as well shown in their repeated joint mass actions in Manila-Rizal, Eastern Visayas and Mindanao. Some of the youth from the national minorities have also taken the initiative of requesting us to give them political-military training and they have received such training in our guerilla base areas and guerilla zones in Luzon. In the process, a few Maguindanaos, Maranaos and Tausugs have become members of the Party.

To bring the armed struggle to a higher level in Mindanao, we have dispatched Party cadres there with the explicit instructions of having a united front with the present rebel leaders, especially on the question of self-determination and democracy, and of building our own independent strength by stressing the land question among the peasant masses of the national minorities and by uniting them with the poor settlers against the landlord and the landgrabbers, irrespective of religious beliefs. We have also sent Party cadres to areas in Mindanao that are populated predominantly by poor settlers from Luzon and the Visayas. The U.S.-Marcos clique is deliberately fanning the flames of religious strife so as to obscure the real problems of Mindanao and impose its fascist rule. It has deployed there large armed forces under Christian chauvinist officers and has armed the "Ilagas" (lumpen proletarian elements of Christian chauvinist mentality) to split the national minorities from the poor settlers, drive them away from their lands and to massacre them repeatedly. The real targets of the revolutionary movement are U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Because it is facing an avalanche of mass resistance all over the country, the U.S.-Marcos clique is frantically demanding bigger military appropriations for increasing troops and equipment of the reactionary armed forces under the pretext of a "self-reliant defense posture". At the same time, U.S. imperialism is obsessed with providing war material for the reactionary government in line with the "Nixon doctrine". It has become too clear to the broad masses of the people that U.S. imperialism and its local reactionary stooges protect their oppressive and exploitative system by armed force and that these can be overthrown only by revolutionary armed force. The brazen parasitism and brutality of the reactionary armed forces is daily exacerbating the people's suffering from inflation, higher taxes, shrinking income, severe unemployment, bureaucratic corruption and so many evils of the ruling system. Under these conditions, the national united front is gaining strength rapidly.

We are vigorously trying to build the national united front of workers, peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. In all our efforts at building this, we are implementing the policy of developing the progressive forces and winning over the middle forces in order to isolate the enemy diehards. Our most important efforts are now being exerted in the countryside as earlier explained. The local organs of political power that we are setting up are the foundations of the future People's Democratic Republic of the Philippines. Even as we are setting these up, we have created a special organ, the Preparatory Commission of the National Democratic Front, to help the Central Committee in winning over allies in the cities and to prepare the way for the National Democratic Front as an intermediate step towards the people's democratic republic. However, we are not in a hurry to set up any formal national united front organization. The national united front is basically a policy of the Party regarding classes in Philippine society. The results of the work of the Preparatory Commission for a National Democratic Front are not surprisingly very limited at this stage because the revolutionary armed struggle has still to develop further.

In waging revolution in our country, we as Communists never fail to relate our efforts to the world revolution. We are both patriots and internationalists. The Philippine revolution is part of the world proletarian revolution. The broad masses of the Filipino people are in the world anti- imperialist struggle, and together with other peoples of the world they face common enemies. U.S. imperialism is the biggest foreign exploiter and oppressor of our people and is also the most vicious protector of the big bourgeoisie and the landlord class. Japanese militarism is resurgent and its zaibatsus have once more invaded our country under the sponsorship of U.S. imperialism. Soviet social-imperialism has the Lava revisionist renegades as its advance agents and these specialize in counterrevolutionary anti-Party and anti-people activities while doning the mask of anti-imperialism. We welcome anything in the world that serves to divide, weaken and destroy all these imperialist forces. All defeats suffered by them in the hands of the revolutionary peoples abroad are also our victories. In the spirit of proletarian internationalism, we are performing our own share of liberating mankind from the scourge of imperialism by fighting U.S. imperialism and all its running dogs in the Philippines.

The main trend in the world today is revolution. And, as we scan the world, we can also see that countries want independence; nations want liberation; and people want revolution. There is no doubt that the international united front is growing even stronger. Close to us, the Chinese people continue to advance in their socialist revolution and are even determined to liberate Taiwan. Close to us, the Vietnamese, Cambodia and Laotian peoples are fighting fiercely for national liberation and national salvation in the main battlefield against U.S. imperialism. We ourselves are actively in the midst of the revolutionary armed struggles of the peoples of Southeast Asia. In Northeast Asia, the Korean people are determined to reunify their fatherland and the Japanese people are vigorously resisting the resurgence of Japanese militarism and the scheme of making Japan the buglemen of U.S. imperialism in Asia. In the Middle East, the Palestinian and Arab peoples persist in their revolutionary struggle against Israeli Zionism and against the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. In the Asian subcontinent, the Indian and Pakistani peoples also persist in their struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. All over Asia, Africa and Latin America, the people's anti-imperialist movement continues to cut down the areas for unhindered exploitation by the imperialist powers.

As the world anti-imperialist struggle reaps great victories, all capitalist countries are wracked by deep-going crisis and by the powerful revolutionary movements of their own people. They find themselves more and more at odds with each other as each one tries to relieve itself of its own crisis at the expense of the others. Their contradictions become more severe and disruptive of the old counterrevolutionary alliances as they continually maneuver against each other to redivide the world or that increasingly small part of the world which they can still redivide. Under such circumtances, the international united front against imperialism, modern revisionism and all reaction can be easily broadened, strengthen and moved up to fight the imperialist monsters one by one while they are in disarray.

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