Central Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines
July 1992

The Propagation of the Erroneous Line on a Nationwide Scale

Uncriticized, unrepudiated and unrectified, the combined lines of armed urban insurrection and quick military victory have spread on a nationwide scale and have resulted in unprecedented nationwide damage and setbacks to the revolutionary movement.

The 9th CC plenum in 1985 rejected the Red area (military struggle) - White area (political struggle) scheme but did not call it insurrectionist, thoroughly criticize it, nor direct the Mindanao Party organization to make a rectification. In fact the plenum got carried away or impressed by the seemingly resounding but, now proven, very temporary victories in Mindanao despite what had been reported regarding the disturbing size of the casualties and the problem of ammunition even as the enemy had not yet undertaken a full-scale counterattack.

The entirety and parts of such impression of success were held and drummed up by many Mindanao cadres or by cadres whom they influenced, as "advanced experience" or as a "superior" way of conducting the struggle. Moreover, key elements of the erroneous line and its practice, like the magnified partisan warfare in the urban areas and "regularization" of the people's army, were endorsed and integrated into the program for the "strategic counteroffensive" (SCO). The tactical program aiming for the decisive victory against the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship through the SCO also induced further infatuation and toying with the notion of armed urban insurrection.

Since 1986, the proponents of the line of armed urban insurrection have capitalized on the rejection by the Party of the boycott error in 1986 by overstating this error even after rectification while obscuring the incomparably far bigger error and earlier devastation of revolutionary forces in Mindanao and by interpreting the rejection of the boycott error as a vindication of the line of armed urban insurrection. At the beginning of the Aquino regime, various views emerged overestimating the "democratic space", the patriotic and democratic possibilities of Aquino, the depth of the destruction inflicted by the EDSA uprising on reactionary rule and the state machinery and spurred on the attitude of "seriously considering the possibility of and preparations for insurrection".

Various insurrectionist proposals were put forward, like the plan for a "fast track" victory of the revolution and using the race for the Constitutional Commission, the peace talks, etc. in order to hasten a repolarization and a giant confrontation on the basis of national and democratic issues. Considering the intensified violence and factional strife among the reactionaries, "seizing opportunities" has become the favorite posture and catchphrase of those who yearn for urban insurrection. Thus, there was the phenomenon of heightened insurrectionary fever among certain urban-based Party cadres and units after every coup attempt.

By itself, the line of armed urban insurrection is isolated and impotent. However, it can be damaging to the Party and the revolutionary movement because it encourages Party cadres and members who are needed in the countryside to stick to the cities, it promotes overreaching in the urban revolutionary movement and the duplication of the Davao City "political-military" debacle in Manila-Rizal no less. It is most damaging when it combines with the line of military "regularization" because it gives rise to bureaucratization, isolation from the masses, setbacks and eventually self-destruction.

The line of rapidly organizing armed city partisan units, building companies and battalions, creating a top-heavy military staff structure and drawing cadres away from expansion and consolidation work among the people was first pushed by the National Military Conference in late 1984 and, afterwards, by the central leadership's program of fulfilling the requisites for the SCO, and eventually by the military conferences of the national military staff (later made the general command in 1987) of the NPA. These put forward such puerile premises as the following: we have covered all the strategic points in the country, we have a sufficient number of guerrilla fronts, we have a sufficiently wide mass base, etc. Ergo, the time has come to build the NPA vertically, regularize it, build the army organization separately from the Party, concentrate on and specialize in military work and in fighting. Since the military conference in 1984, the view had arisen and spread that the strategic reserves of the enemy were already deployed; he could no longer increase the number of troops; and his growth in strength would have to be achieved more in terms of quality than of quantity.

In the latter half of 1986 and in 1987, the conscious effort in Mindanao to control and overcome the disastrous results of Ahos Campaign, to rectify the errors and rebuild the revolutionary forces was underway. But it was also in 1987 that the NPA general command was able to push most vigorously the line of "regularization" on a nationwide scale.

The NPA general command vigorously pushed the building of larger formations and the formation of military staffs. They continued to carry the view that "the enemy's strategic reserves were already deployed" and conditions obtained for "local strategic counteroffensives". The general command ordered a "nationally coordinated offensive", which was heavily subsidized from above, overstrained the units and the logistics, wasted the ammunition stocks, created contradictions and frictions between the army command and the territorial Party organs, launched politically counterproductive military actions and exposed to the enemy the GC staff personnel and radio equipment based in Metro Manila in exchange for a sizeable number of casualty inflicted on the enemy and a number of arms confiscated from the enemy.

In the regions of Luzon and the Visayas, the building of companies and the intensification of company-size operations were accelerated, the concept of igniting peasant uprisings _ presented as if of the same category as ordinary forms of mass struggles _ was pushed, and there were those who prepared the "flash points" for uprisings should the "opportunity" arise. One guerrilla front in Luzon was almost totally demolished after undertaking a series of "insurrectionary mass actions", a campaign to confiscate landlord property and a declaration of the implementation of the maximum program of land reform and such other actions supposedly similar to the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan based on the mistaken notion that conditions were ripe for "local strategic stalemate". At the same time, armed city partisan warfare was escalated in Metro Manila and other cities at a rate that tended to prejudice the legal and defensive character of the struggle in these urban areas.

The central leadership of the Party shares the responsibility for the imbalances and the program of "regularization" that primarily caused them. Apart from responsibility for the entire program of the SCO, the central leadership affirmed and approved many of the initiatives and views from lower units pushing for "regularization". However, from year to year, it stressed the need to rely on an expanding and deepening mass base. And since the Party anniversary statement in 1988, there has been the call for waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare founded on a wide and deepgoing mass base without prejudice to building sustainable guerrilla companies that are dispersed for mass work when not fighting or not on training exercise.

Furthermore, in the face of the extremely strong pressures and unrealistic targets for "regularization", many regional Party committees raised questions, expressed doubts and asked for reconsideration of the program. Thus repeatedly, downward adjustments were made in the number of companies to be formed or else existing companies were redeployed in accordance with the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare. And in early 1989, a new emphasis and new priorities on mass work and local guerrilla forces and a clear shift away from the program of increasing the number of companies was decided upon. And in 1990 the program for the SCO was dropped. However, the NPA general command, despite lip service to the absolute leadership of the Party, continued to argue for and push its own line of "regularization" in contravention of the Party leadership's criticism of it.

The consequences have been destructive to the revolutionary movement. From 1987 to 1990, membership of the mass base fell by almost 60 per cent from the base year of 1986; the number of barrios covered by guerrilla fronts, by 16 percent; and the Party membership, by 15 per cent. While the number of rifles of the people's army continued to grow every year, the rate of increase fell to the level of 1976-78. Furthermore, the number of officers and fighters of the people's army fell by 28 percent or below the level of 1985. Large numbers of cadres at the provincial, front and district levels have been lost and many of them have not yet been replaced.

For twenty years since its reestablishment, it had been a matter of pride for the reestablished Party to declare annually that there was an all-round increase of strength of the revolutionary movement. The enemy could concentrate against certain areas or regions and inflict damage but the movement would increase in strength elsewhere and on a nationwide scale.

In 1971, the revolutionary forces were in the main suppressed in the second district of Tarlac, with the enemy using from 1969 to 1971 a full division (Task Force Lawin), paramilitary forces (BSDUs) and "civic action" to try to run down an NPA force of merely 200 fighters. But revolutionary work in Isabela, started in early 1969, had already created a mass base several times larger than the one in Tarlac.

Then came the time that the forces in Isabela were contained in the forest region by the enemy from 1972 to 1976 due to the stubborn and wrong maintenance of three companies and one platoon within the enemy encirclement. But the guerrilla forces and the mass base in the other regions of the country were significantly growing from 1974 onward. Eventually, not only was the territory temporarily lost in Tarlac recovered but several more provinces were gained in Central Luzon from 1972 onward.

Only in 1988 would the Party start to note a nationwide reduction of the rural mass base. We comforted ourselves saying that was not much in view of the escalation of enemy onslaughts and that in fact we grew in strength because we became even more tempered in the struggle. Although some internal weaknesses and shortcomings were pointed out, we failed to take into full account the errors within our own ranks and instead tended to adduce the reduction entirely to the assaults of the enemy.

Many among us express mystification over the enemy's "war of quick decision" and "gradual constriction" and are dumbfounded because of the telling effect these seem to have had on our mass base and armed struggle. But these are in fact old terms and old enemy strategy and tactics as anyone who has studied Mao's teachings on people's war should know. Indeed, the "war of quick decision" and "gradual constriction" we have been confronting since 1987 have certain peculiarities like the simultaneous deployment of enemy divisions and brigades in the main guerrilla fronts all over the country, the heightened determination of the enemy to pursue the level of concentration of enemy troops and offensives on areas targeted for relatively long periods, the widespread and systematic building of vigilantes and CAFGUs, and the advantage of Aquino's popularity during the early years. But we have overcome the same enemy strategy and tactics in so many places in the past.

And even now, we have learned to cope with, adjusted to and gradually overcome it generally and in many places. It suits the enemy forces to go on a war of quick decision or strategic offensive in view of their military superiority _ in the number of troops, weapons, logistics and training. But at the tactical level, where they wish to win battles, they fail because they lack popular support. So, they resort to what they call "gradual constriction" or "blockhouse" warfare (lines of camps and fortifications to encircle and control an area) combined with "special operations teams", organizing paramilitary forces and undertaking a sham kind of mass work.

On the side of the NPA, the correct response is the strategic defensive to the strategic offensive of the enemy forces. Concretely, we render them deaf and blind on a wide scale by gaining the people's participation and support. At the tactical level, we launch guerrilla warfare by assembling a superior force to carry out tactical offensives on enemy units that we are capable of wiping out by surprise. The enemy forces can also concentrate on any point and take away particular areas from us but they would be giving up far more space elsewhere. We can and must always cover territory much wider than the ring of large enemy forces and offensives while we combine annihilative and tactical guerrilla actions and mass mobilizations to resist and punish him in the areas of his concentration.

What the proponents of quick military victory have done was to build prematurely large and unsustainable units that siphon off cadres from mass work and leave large portions of the guerrilla fronts without effective people's army units and cadres for extended periods of time. As a result, in less than two years of "general offensive" the enemy was able to lop off sizeable chunks of our guerrilla fronts and extensively build paramilitary units, which in many areas met with minimal or almost no resistance from the unconsolidated mass base and weak local guerrilla and mass work units. We were vulnerable to attacks launched by the enemy in 1988 and 1989 because, aside from our delay in studying and providing the necessary guidance at the national level, for a number of years already we had weakened our local forces and neglected mass work and consolidation in many areas, while on the other hand, the enemy increasingly combed our areas and pressed on the barrios and localities. If we do not rectify this error, the enemy can force us to fight in a purely military situation in more and more areas and the revolutionary forces will suffer graver damage.

Since 1990, in answer to the call of the central leadership, regional Party committees and army commands have put the stress on mass work, put a stop to the reduction of the mass base and restrengthened the forces in the localities. Many of the companies have been redeployed for mass work, expansion, recovery and consolidation of the mass base and positive results are immediately being felt in the gradual reversal of the down-trend in earlier years. However, we have just started and a great deal has yet to be done to overcome the adverse effects of the wrong line and achieve a recovery towards a steady, continuous and comprehensive advance. First of all, we must thoroughly criticize, repudiate and rectify the erroneous line and persevere in extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare while expanding and consolidating the mass base through the proper deployment of our cadres and guerrilla forces.

Among many cadres, especially those in the regions and organs familiar with the day- to-day work among the masses and the activities of the army units, there is a strong recognition of the fact that the premature formation of unsustainable companies and battalions does not result in quick military victory but in preoccupation with logistical needs, isolation from the masses and passivity, defeats and other forms of disaster. The premature formation of unsustainable companies and battalions has also spawned other military adventurist tendencies and acts such as the inclination to hit enemy hard points; ill-planned tactical offensives that last long, consume too much ammunition and result in many casualties; and military actions that do not take into full account the probable and possible negative effects on mass base building, the welfare of the masses and other political implications.

As a case in point, the enemy poured nine battalions into Samar in the early 1980s. The NPA had no battalion to speak of but the NPA and the revolutionary forces grew in the course of guerrilla warfare. Now, with the enemy having only three or four battalions on the island and with the NPA having its own battalion unit, there have been certain unprecedented losses in all of the Party, the people's army and the mass base. The "battalion" is bogged down by sheer logistical problems and its troops and staff have been reduced in 1990 by 50 percent from its peak strength of 500 fighters. The battalion staff constitute a large percentage of the total number of Red fighters. The mass base in the entire island has been weakened and sharply reduced.

Various departments and layers of staff take away cadres and resources from mass work. Although some, such as those for training, ordnance, medical at various levels, are necessary and contribute a great deal to the development of the army and military technique, some unnecessary staff layers and units have been formed prematurely or are assigned to tasks that are already being attended to or can be more conveniently attended to by other units of the Party or the mass organizations. Prior to this, in most of the regions, there had been a dwindling and drop in the quality of cadres and armed units deployed in the localities. First came the redeployment of cadres and personnel for expansion and for assisting relatively backward guerrilla fronts and regions. Then came the promotion of cadres for building and strengthening the Party committees at the district level and upward. And then came the building of the full-time guerrilla units devoted to military work, thus reducing their participation in mass work and local work. And at the same time there is gross neglect of theoretical education and training of cadres.

The overall result is reduction of the mass base. Consequently, the tendency emerged to look upward and outward for logistical support when the food supplies and the contributions from the masses and the tax collections from the local businessmen and landlords could no longer suffice to meet the needs of the companies and battalions. There also developed a strong tendency to use the weapons in getting finances through gangster activities, which are politically counterproductive and give rise to serious ideological and political disorientation among the officers and fighters.

As they should, some companies and battalions do mass work and production work when possible. However, the Red fighters complain why they should be in large concentrated formations even when they are not fighting the enemy. Their constant bigness is precisely the obstacle to taking more offensives as they are bogged down by logistical problems. If they were to fight more often without the mass base and the source of material support, they would fare worse in warfare. There are also those in company formations who use their very size as an argument for not dispersing and engaging in mass work and production or helping the people. They say that they have to act like a standing army ever alert and specialized in fighting because the enemy might catch them unawares in a dispersed mode.

Because of the problems in recruitment resulting from the dwindling mass base, many companies have resorted to recruiting lumpen and other elements who have not gone through revolutionary education and tempering in mass organizations. In many areas there has even been a deliberate lowering of criteria for recruitment into the companies to compensate for the high rate of turnover among fighters. This, plus the neglect of internal political education and isolation from mass work and production have led to the deterioration of the overall political quality and discipline of the people's army. Among the ranks of the officers and men, the skill and knowledge in conducting mass work, the desirable attitudes developed and necessitated by integrating with the masses have weakened. Problems of coarseness, lack of discipline, lumpen tendencies, arrogance and commandism have developed and spread. Oftentimes, the people speak of the first generation NPAs in squads and platoons as real NPAs and those in companies as fake because they do not engage in mass work, production and helping the people. "Regularization" has meant alienation from the masses.

At one time, we boasted of dozens of companies and some battalions. But the ratio of the number of company-size offensives to the number of these units is very low. We must squarely face the question why bigger but fewer military units have resulted in fewer tactical offensives, increased number of failed tactical offensives, and a drop in our armed strength, particularly in the number of fighters.