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

Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade

Anti-Marxism and Eclectism

I. Marxism-Leninism And The Question Of Armed Struggle

Basahin sa Pilipino

Amado Guerrero

April 22, 1972

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

To deny the revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism, which is to say armed overthrow of the reactionary state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the counter-revolutionary revisionist Pomeroy declares that it would be a "grotesque distortion" if Marxism-Leninism is "equated" with violence and armed methods.

To develop his thesis that Marxism-Leninism is essentially a peaceful effort to change society, he sets up and quarrels with his own straw figures as those "few people" who would take arms without mass support and without a "revolutionary situation". It would seem that he insists on mass support for armed revolution. Indeed, every revolutionary undertaking in order to win; we oppose adventurism even as we oppose capitulationism. But what Pomeroy actually calls for throughout the world isa protracted legal struggle that avoids armed struggle as much as the reactionaries are "willing" to tolerate that legal struggle. At the core of this revisionist line is the stand that the transition from capitalism to socialism is peaceful and that the aggressive nature of imperialism is changing. He is also repeatedly rubs in the treacherous point that to wage armed struggle in any country is to negate and abandon political work that brings about mass support. We must tell him that in the concrete semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions of the Philippines mass mobilization and mass support in extensive areas in the countryside have been brought about in the course of armed struggle. On an unprecedented scale, political work which encompasses the building of the Party, people's army, local organs of political power and mass organizations is being carried out. It is impossible for the Filipino proletariat to lead the peasantry and win it over as its main force overthrowing the reactionary state without engaging in armed struggle, agrarian revolution and base building.

The central aim of Pomeroy in his general introduction and sections introductions and in the manner by which he has edited and arranged his compilation of excerpts is to obscure the revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism; deny the advance of Marxism-Leninism to the new and higher stage of Mao Tsetung Thought; muddle the basic characteristics of the present era; oppose outrightly the theory of people's war when he can no longer obscure it; refuse to give living definition of revolutionary situation in the period following World War II, especially with regard to countries in the world's countryside; and always in consonance with his revisionist line condemn in overt and covert ways every armed undertaking of the oppressed masses.

In misrepresenting Marxism-Leninism as some kind of bourgeois pacifism, Pomeroy goes to the extent of claiming that Marx and Engels had no definite understanding of the word "force" when they said in 1847 in the Communist Manifesto that the ends of Communists "can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions" Pomeroy states:

Force... in their view -- as in the view of outstanding Marxist who have followed them -- encompassed the great variety of forms that working class struggles take: mass demonstration, general strikes, and even the relatively passive boycott, as well as armed uprisings (and in particular, combinations of all these).

Bogged down in bourgeois idealism, this revisionist renegade is incapable of Marxist analysis and is always gives to "combining two into one" by babbling mysteriously about "great variety of forms" and "combinations of all these".

Like all revisionist renegade, Pomeroy deliberately avoids laying out and considering fully the two basic aspects of the revolutionary struggle, and armed struggle and parliamentary or peaceful struggle. These two aspects of revolutionary struggle must be employed at the same time and can be correctly coordinated only by being able to distinguish the principal form from the secondary form in the Philippine revolution, for instance. It is characteristic of Pomeroy to dissolve the importance of armed struggle (which has its own variety of particular forms) mechanistically mentioning so many forms of parliamentary struggle of by attacking straw figures whom he would arbitrarily picture of waging armed struggle exclusive of the various forms of parliamentary struggle.

We must tell Pomeroy that in the Philippines we are waging armed struggle as the main forms of struggle and we are at the same time employing the parliamentary form of struggle as the secondary. The Communist Party of the Philippines is today's vanguard in the waging of both forms of revolutionary struggle whereas the Lava revisionist renegades for whom Pomeroy speaks abroad are far behind the revolutionary movement in the cities or in the countryside and are always gesticulating and cursing the masses in words echoing those of the U.S. imperialists and the reactionaries.

We Filipino Communists recognize, as genuine Marxists have always done, that among oppressed peoples armed struggle is in the final analysis the most important form of revolutionary struggle and certainly more important than parlimentary struggle. We need to remind Pomeroy that Marx and Engels saw even more clearly in the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 the necessity of smashing and breaking the bourgeois state machinery and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

What sets scientific socialism apart from utopian socialism and sham socialism of every kind is Marx's theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx and Engels devoted their lives to the clarification of this theory and to painstaking efforts towards the realization of this theory. In 1852, Marx said:

Long before me historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economist the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existences of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, 2) that class struggle leads to the dictatorship of thr proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

After Marx and Engels, the great Lenin brought Marxism to a new and higher stage by developing further the theory and practice of the proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship in the era of imperialism. He triumphantly led the armed seizure of political power by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution in 1917 and established the first socialist state. Because of his clear grasp of the revolutionary essence of Marxism, Lenin was able to take a full advantage of the favorable conditions for armed revolution created by the first inter-imperialist war. Leninism emerged clearly in the bitter defense of Marxism against the revisionism of Pomeroy's forefathers in the Second International who turned more rotten as imperialism become more aggressive.

The October Revolution marked the triumph and correctness of Leninism as a definite stage in the development of Marxism. It changed the world revolution completely by giving it a proletarian character and it made clear and feasible the socialist future of the armed revolutions of all oppressed peoples led by the proletariat a great breach was made on the imperialist front in the West. The proletarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union immediately stood the acid test of the Civil War of War Against Intervention and subsequently the anti-fascist Great Patriotic War led by Comrade Stalin. In these great wars, the Soviet people under the great leadership of the Party of Lenin defended the socialist fatherland by waging armed resistance against imperialist aggression.

Taking the road opened by the Paris Commune and further extended by the October Revolution, the Chinese proletariat and people led by Comrade Mao Tsetung launched a protracted people's war, defeated their enemies and made a great breach on the emperialist front in the East. Comrade Mao's correct theory and victorious practice of people's war constituted another great contribution to the treasury of Marxism-Leninism. By this contribution, the Marxist-Leninist theory of proletarian dictatorship has been tremendously enriched and raised to a new and higher level. To all oppressed nations, big and small, in the world's countryside, Comrade Mao Tsetung showed how people's war can be conducted against big imperialist powers.

The Chinese revolution changed further the character of the world revolution by making fuller its proletarian character. As Lenin linked the socialist revolution in the West to the national democratic revolution in the East to the socialist revolution in the West. In the conduct of seizing political power in their respective countries, the methods employed by Lenin and Mao Tsetung complemented each other. In smashing the enemy, one moved from the cities to the countryside and the other moved from the countryside to the cities.

As a result of the World War II, the world situation changed drastically. As a result of the disaster suffered by world capitalism and the emergence of a series of socialist countries to take their destinies into their own hands by taking up arms, especially in the world's countryside of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The imperialist countries headed by U.S. imperialism have had to face an ever-increasing number of oppressed peoples daring to fight them. The oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have steadily advanced in their revolutionary struggles as their leadership have increasingly adhered to Chairman Mao's theory of people's war and strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside.

Even as more and more oppressed peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America are grasping Chairman Mao's Theory of people's war so that the world countryside now sorrounds the cities of the world, the evil winds of modern revisionism blows the tries to sway the oppressed peoples of the world from armed revolution. In the guise of attacking one person, that of the great Marxist-Leninist Stalin, Khrushchov betrayed and attacked the Party of Lenin, put the Soviet Union on the capitalist road, disrupted the international communist movement, changed the red color of some other countries and bargained away principles to U.S. imperialism. After Khrushchov, the Brezhnev gang has gone on to promote modern revisionism and to perpetrate the most barbarous acts of social-fascism and social-imperialism.

Confronted with the problem of preventing the restoration of capitalism in a socialist society, Comrade Mao Tsetung forward the theory of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and personally initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cutural Revolution, it become clear to Marxist-Leninist the world over that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is the clear demarcation line between genuine Marxist-Leninists and sham Marxist-Leninists. Mao Tsetung Thought has been lofted as the Marxism-Leninism of the present era when imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism marching toward world victory.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is bitter mass struggle waged by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in a socialist society. It has resulted in the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the overthrow of the incorrigible capitalist-roaders headed by China's Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi. China has become the strongest bulwark of socialism, ensuring the total collapse of imperialism and the worldwide victory of socialism. It provides powerful support to all the armed revolutions being waged by the oppressed nations and peoples. It serves the main trend of the world today which is revolution. The consolidation of socialism in China is of immense benefit not only to the Chinese people but also to the people of the whole world. The hundreds of millions of Chinese people are now more than ever prepared for any eventuality even as they can give ever more powerful support to the armed revolution of oppressed peoples.

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought firmly stands for revolutionary violence. In the more than one hundred years from Marx to Mao Tsetung, revolutionary violence has remained the essence of Marxism in both theory and practice. Chairman Mao teaches us:

The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolutions holds good universally, for China and for all countries.