Comrades and Friends,



Twenty-five years ago, on December 26, 1968, the Communist Party

of the Philippines was reestablished under the theoretical

guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Since then, the

Party has won great ideological, political and organizational

victories through the integration of the revolutionary theory of

the proletariat with the concrete practice of the Philippine

revolution. In the entire history of the Filipino people, the

Party has stood as the most formidable revolutionary force,

deeply rooted among the masses of the working people and the most

developed on a nationwide scale.



As one of those who founded the Party, I am exceedingly happy

that it has proven itself as the advance detachment of the

working class and as the leading force of the entire Filipino

people in their revolutionary struggle for national liberation

and democracy against foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic

feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.



The great victories of the Party would not be possible without

the hard work, struggle and sacrifices of the Party cadres and

members and all the people who have joined and supported them in

the course of the revolutionary struggle. We owe the most to the

revolutionary martyrs. Amidst this celebration, we pause for a

moment to pay our highest and deepest respect to them.



We celebrate today not only the accumulation of the victories of

the Party in general but also in particular the resounding

victory of the current rectification movement within the Party.

We offer all these victories to the memory of Comrade Mao Zedong,

the great communist thinker, leader and fighter whose 100th birth

anniversary coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Party.



I propose to discuss with you today the critical and creative

tasks of the rectification movement. This is in accordance with

the theme of this meeting of celebration and, of course, with the

common recognition that the rectification movement is of crucial

importance to the Party and the entire revolutionary movement in

the motherland.



HISTORICAL AND CURRENT CONTEXT OF THE RECTIFICATION MOVEMENT



First, let me present the historical and current context in which

this rectification movement has arisen and has developed. It

would be one-sided for us only to celebrate the great victories

against the blatant enemy and not to consider the errors and

shortcomings which have lessened the victories and which have

even caused a big setback, especially in the period from 1984 to

1989.



The point is to rectify those errors and shortcomings in order to

unite the Party and the people along the correct revolutionary

line and raise higher their fighting will and capabilities

against the enemy, the US-Ramos clique. This clique currently

represents the ruling system of the comprador big bourgeoisie and

the landlord class, the exploiting classes servile to the foreign

monopoly capitalists.



The rectification movement is an important method for

strengthening a revolutionary party, for combating and overcoming

errors and shortcomings that weaken it, especially those of a

major character that have accumulated for sometime. If not for

the first great rectification movement which preceded and

coincided with the reestablishment of the Party, the Party would

not have laid a solid foundation for its development and would

not have successfully developed in consequence. We can observe

that the current second great rectification movement is yielding

excellent results.



As you know, the Party grew in strength and advanced cumulatively

from year to year since its reestablishment in 1968 up to 1984,

registering the most rapid growth from 1981 to 1984. Then in

1985, there was a drastic decline in the rate of growth. And this

proceeded to negative growth rates in several respects,

especially with respect to mass base, until 1989 when the

proletarian revolutionaries started to effectively arrest the

rapid rate of decline and make partial corrections and

adjustments in accordance with the principles and methods

clarified as early as 1988 in a review of Party history. In 1990

the erroneous line of "strategic counteroffensive" and

"regularization" was criticized and withdrawn.



Nothwithstanding the undeniably gross setback from 1984 onward,

the Party and the revolutionary movement are still so many times

far bigger than their small and modest proportions in 1968. The

Party started with a few scores of members who had studied

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and had a mass following of

some thousands organized since the onset of the 1960s mainly

through the legal democratic movement. Now, the Party has a

membership of several tens of thousands and leads the New

People's Army with thousands of Red fighters, a mass base of

millions under organs of political power and in mass

organizations of workers, peasants, fishermen, youth, women,

professionals and other people.



What is excellent about the current situation of the Party is

that a comprehensive and thoroughgoing rectification movement has

been carried out since last year and is being vigorously carried

out by all of the seventeen regional Party organizations. The

Party rank and file are enthusiastically participating in the

rectification movement, which in the first place an increasing

number of them have demanded since the early 1980s, in opposition

to the opportunists. At every level, the organs and organizations

of the Party are summing up revolutionary experience, conducting

criticism and self-criticism and carrying out the revolutionary

tasks in accordance with the rectification documents and other

decisions issued by the 10th plenum of the Central Committee.



The Party cadres and members are loyal to the Party Constitution

and Program and to the Party and its Central Committee and

support the rectification movement. They are recruiting several

times a greater number of new Party members from the

revolutionary mass movement than the paltry number of those

temporarily or permanently led astray by the long-running and

recent spate of slander and intrigues spread by the opportunists. 



There is no cost but a great benefit to the Party in the

departure of the opportunists and fictitious communists from the

Party. Allowing the incorrigible and the worst opportunists to

remain in the Party, commit the most destructive errors and

crimes and spread degeneration have inflicted a heavier cost on

the Party and the revolutionary movement than their desperate and

futile attacks in the course of their recent departure from the

Party. The expulsion of such opportunists is beneficial to the

Party and the revolutionary movement.



The unity of the Party is strong and the Central Committee and

its Political Bureau and Executive Committee are firmly leading

the Party. There is neither a split nor a mass purge in the

Party. In nearly two years of the rectification movement, from

the beginning of 1992 to the end of 1993, only two central staff

organ have been reconstituted and another dissolved, and three

out the seventeen regional Party committees have been

reconstituted in order to deal organizationally with splittist

and liquidationist activities.



The "Left" opportunist exponents of urban insurrectionism and

military adventurism and the Right opportunist exponents of

liquidationism, reformism and capitulationism are a measly few.

They were basically defeated in the middle of 1991 through the

process of democratic centralism in the Party. But in late 1991

they started to make loud noises outside the Party by publicly

circulating gossip and slander articles against the Party and the

central leadership. They tried but failed to stop the

rectification movement by threatening to split the Party and by

spreading fear about a mass purge worse than Kampanyang Ahos, for

which some of the chief opportunists were criminally responsible

in 1985-86 in Mindanao.



They have unwittingly helped the rectification movement by

putting themselves out of the Party and publicly attacking it, by

adopting anticommunist slogans and thereby exposing themselves as

blatant counterrevolutionary Rightists, by openly going over to

the side of the U.S.-Ramos clique and openly collaborating with

the intelligence and psywar agencies of this regime as well as

with corrupt trade union leaders, the Lava revisionist renegades,

some foreign-funded NGO bureaucrats, the bourgeois populists, the

pro-imperialist liberals, the Christian democrats and the

Trotskyites.



The counterrevolutionary Rightists are hitching a ride on the

wagon of the imperialist ideological and political offensive.

Their favorite anticommunist line is to hold Comrade Stalin

responsible for the very anti-Stalin character of the modern

revisionism that undermined and ultimately destroyed what Stalin

had built and defended. By using anti-Stalin slogans, the

counterrevolutionary Rightists demagogically misrepresent

themselves as champions of democracy in the bourgeois press. But

among them are the principal criminals in bloody witchhunts like

Kampanyang Ahos which trampled on the basic rights of Party

members, Red fighters and allies and murdered hundreds upon

hundreds of them on the basis of mere suspicion as deep

penetration agents. 



Any revolutionary party of the proletariat somehow and to some

extent reflects at any given time the contradictions of the

society in which it exists. The law of uneven development

operates within the party as a whole and in its parts. There is

the constant problem of remoulding Party members of urban-petty

bourgeois background and current lifestyle. There is always some

ground in a communist party for subjectivism and opportunism to

arise. Thus, there is always a two-line struggle between the

proletarian revolutionaries and the purveyors of the bourgeois

influence within a communist party even at its best.



From 1968 to 1977, those individuals wittingly or unwittingly

carrying and pushing the bourgeois influence were generally

spontaneous and disparate. Major errors and shortcomings were

promptly criticized. But from 1978 there arose certain

individuals in central leading and staff organs systematically

propagating ideological eclecticism and opposing the

Marxist-Leninist analysis of Philippine society. Spurred by

petty-bourgeois impetuosity and by the rapid growth of the

revolutionary movement resulting from the implementation of the

line set by Our Urgent Tasks they sought a rationale for a leap

in the armed struggle from the early substage to the advance

substage of the strategic defensive without fulfilling the

comprehensive requirements of the people's war. Others,

unremoulded bourgeois populists and Christian democrats who had

slipped into the Party, sought a rationale for liquidating the

Party or subordinating it to bourgeois politicians opposed to the

U.S.-Marcos regime and fallin g back on bourgeois reformism.



From 1980 onwards, certain high Party officials started to spread

systematically a line running counter to, undermining and

interfering with the correct line and process of developing the

revolutionary movement. Opportunism principally took a "Left"

form with the line of the "strategic counteroffensive" and

"regularization" in 1980 and farther on, the line of combining

military adventurism and urban insurrectionism in 1982.

Secondarily, opportunism took a a blatant Rightist form with the

line of liquidating the Party and replacing it with the "New

Katipunan", a formal united front organization as the center of

the revolution in 1980. 



Even as the wrong lines overlapped with it, the correct line

continued to guide the majority of Party cadres and members and

to result in the rapid growth of revolutionary forces from 1981

to 1984, especially because of the rapid worsening of the crisis

of the ruling system. Such basic and major documents of the Party

as the Guide for Party Cadres and Members (1968), Philippine

Society and Revolution (1970), Specific Characteristics of Our

People's War (1974) and Our Urgent Tasks (1976) had drawn the

correct ideological, political and organizational line and would

prevent the wrong lines from taking over the Party completely.



The most devastating effects of the wrong line of combining

military adventurism and urban insurrectionism in Mindanao became

indubitably clear in the gross setbacks of the prematurely and

rapidly formed companies of the people's army in 1984 and the

anti-informer hysteria and Kampanyang Ahos in 1985-86. The wrong

line and its results (including the bloody witchhunt called

Kampanyang Ahos) were not properly examined, criticized and

repudiated. Instead, the wrong line was pushed even more

vigorously on a nationwide scale. From 1985 onward militarism

grew strong as the NPA "General Command" started to break out of

the absolute leadership of the Party and ran ahead in pushing the

"strategic counteroffensive" and "regularization" through a

series of military conferences.



The great victories and rapid growth of the revolutionary

movement from 1981 to 1984 were never due to the wrong lines but

were due to the solid foundation laid by the first great

rectification movement, the correct line set by the Party at its

reestablishment in 1968 and carried out continuously by the

proletarian revolutionaries and by the rapid aggravation of the

chronic crisis of the ruling system. Thus, notwithstanding the

spread of the wrong lines from 1980 to 1989, the proletarian

revolutionaries had a strong basis to stand on in asserting

themselves with the support of the people against the wrong

lines, arrest the decline of revolutionary strength and carry out

the second great rectification movement.



If you wish to know more about the rectification movement, I

suggest that you read the issues of Rebolusyon, which contain

"Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors", "General

Review of Important Events and Decisions, 1980-1991", "Stand for

Socialism Against Modern Revisionism"; the Party anniversary

statements from 1988 to 1993; and the rectification documents

formulated by Party leading organs at various levels before and

after the Central Committee's 10th Plenum.



THE CRITICAL AND CREATIVE TASKS OF THE RECTIFICATION MOVEMENT



Let me now provide you with an understanding of the critical and

creative tasks of the rectification movement. In doing so, I am

guided by the ten points guiding the rectification movement.



1. Uphold the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong

   Thought!



The rectification movement is first of all a movement of

theoretical education in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It

stresses the integration of the revolutionary theory of the

proletariat with concrete revolutionary practice. It promotes the

study and application of the basic Marxist-Leninist principles

and raises to the level of Marxist-Leninist theory the rich

revolutionary experience of the Communist Party of the

Philippines and the revolutionary mass movement. It seeks to

develop the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method of the

revolutionary proletariat. Party cadres and members must learn to

grasp the law of contradiction and handle it well in class

analysis and revolutionary struggle.



The rectification movement criticizes and combats the

subjectivism that has given rise to the "Left" and Right

opportunist errors that have in turn caused great damage to the

party and the revolutionary movement. It repudiates the

eclecticism, empiricism and dogmatism that have afflicted the

Party for a considerably long period of time. It combats the

depreciation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and of the

Philippine revolution, the deviations from the antirevisionist

line through the adoption of Brezhnevite and Gorbachovite

revisionism, the depreciation of the two-stage Philippine

revolution through the uncritical adulation of movements without

proletarian revolutionary leadership and the dishonest practice

of quoting the great Lenin out of context to attack the line of

the Party.



The rectification movement points out that theoretical education

within the Party is necessary and that political education on the

national democratic revolution is not enough. It seeks to revive,

improve and propagate three levels of Party education: basic,

intermediate and advanced. The study materials include both the

works of the great communist thinkers and leaders and the most

important documents of the Party that pursue the correct

revolutionary line. The materials are reproduced and circulated

for reading and study in advance of the formal study courses. All

Party organs and units are urged to undertake social

investigation, summings-up, criticism and self-criticism and the

definition of tasks along the Marxist-Leninist line.



2. Pursue the antirevisionist line consistently!



It is of crucial importance to pursue the antirevisionist line

consistently. Although modern revisionism has been discredited

through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet

revisionist party and the accomplished disintegration of

revisionist ruling parties and regimes in some countries and the

continuing degeneration of those in other countries, the

exponents of modern revisionism, neo-revisionism and social

democracy are still trying to extend their influence by combining

with the ideological and political offensive of the imperialists

and their retinue of anticommunist petty bourgeois camp followers

in misrepresenting modern revisionism of the last more than three

decades as "flawed socialism" or "Stalinism".



The rectification movement criticizes and repudiates all the

deviations from the antirevisionist line. The first major

deviation started in the early 1980s and involved the

subjectivist expectation that the Soviet Union and its allies

would provide military and financial assistance in order to

accelerate the victory of the Philippine revolution. This

opportunism took the appearance of being Left but the content was

Rightist because it led to the Party's shift to regard the CPSU

and similar parties as no longer revisionists, the Soviet Union

as no longer social imperialist and the satellites as no longer

neocolonies of Soviet social imperialism. The second major

deviation infected some key cadres infected some key cadres in

the late 1980s. They adopted and spread Gorbachovite revisionism

in certain parts of the Party. Ultimately, the worst of these

opportunists would become like Gorbachov, blatant anticommunist,

using anti-Stalin slogans to attack the Party.



In the education movement in Marxism-Leninism, the studies

include the critique of modern revisionism and Mao Zedong's

theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian

leadership in order to consolidate socialism, combat modern

revisionism and prevent the restoration of capitalism. The Party

is promoting its comprehensive stand for socialism against modern

revisionism and is clarifying the bright future of socialism and

communism against monopoly capitalism.



3. Confront the semifeudal and semicolonial character of

   Philippine society!



The persistence of the semicolonial and semifeudal character of

Philippine society is obvious. This is a society ruled by the

comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class in the service

of foreign monopoly capitalism. It has an economy that is

agrarian and without basic industries. Its import-dependent low

value-added manufacturing either for domestic consumption or

reexport is ailing and breaking down.



The rectification movement repudiates and rectifies the line

pushed by the "Left" and Right opportunists since the late 1970s,

crediting the U.S.-Marcos regime, the IMF-World Bank and the

foreign multinational firms with having industrialized and

urbanized the Philippines to the extent, as the opportunists

claimed, that the theory and strategic line of protracted

people's war had become outdated and needed refinements,

adjustments and innovations. The misrepresentation of Philippine

society laid the basis for the "Left" opportunist line of the

"strategic counteroffensive" and "regularization" combining urban

insurrectionism and military adventurism; as well as the Right

opportunist line of urban-based reformism. Now, both types of

opportunists have exposed themselves as counterrevolutionary

Rightists, endorsing the scheme of the U.S.-Ramos ruling clique

to suppress the revolutionary movement and to make the

Philippines a "newly industrializing country" before the year

2000. It is now c lear that after all the U.S.-Marcos ruling

clique never industrialized the Philippines. The opportunists are

now betting on the U.S.-Ramos clique to achieve

industrialization.



It is absolutely necessary to describe correctly the character of

Philippine society because it lays the ground for what is the

correct general line for the revolutionary movement. The chronic

crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal society like that of

the Philippines calls for the strategic line of protracted

people's war. The rectification movement is promoting the study

of the continuous social analysis done by the Party from the

years 1968-1970, through 1982, to the present in direct

opposition to the false claims of the purveyors of official

development theory, dependent capitalism, revisionism and so on. 



4. Carry out the general line of new democratic revolution!



The general line of new-democratic revolution aims to complete

the Filipino people's struggle for national liberation and

democracy. It is new because it is under the leadership of the

proletariat and no longer the bourgeoisie. It is the first stage

of the Philippine revolution, leading to the next stage of

socialist revolution. The revolutionary forces required to

achieve the first stage are the same forces that can begin the

socialist revolution under the leadership of the working class.



The rectification movement criticizes and repudiates the

opportunist line of subordinating the proletariat to the

bourgeoisie. The opportunists had been trying to weaken the class

leadership of the proletariat by using petty-bourgeois arguments

to preserve and enlarge the interests of the big bourgeoisie and

landlord class. They elaborated and diluted the

national-democratic program and pushed the idea of setting up a

so-called national-democratic state and a national-democratic

economy after the seizure of political power by the revolutionary

forces.



The revolutionary class line of the Party is to uphold the class

leadership of the proletariat, rely mainly on the worker-peasant

alliance, win over the urban petty bourgeoisie to become a basic

revolutionary force and further win over the middle bourgeoisie

to become a positive force of the revolution and take advantage

of the contradictions among the big bourgeois and landlord

reactionaries in order to isolate and destroy the power of the

most reactionary faction at every given time. Upon the seizure of

political power, the new democratic revolution is basically

completed and the socialist revolution can begin.



5. Build the Party as the vanguard force of the proletariat and

   the people!



In this era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution, the

working class is indubitably the most productive and most

progressive force in the Philippines and in the world. This is

the class defined by the objective conditions and by its long

history of revolutionary struggle to lead the new-democratic and

socialist stages of the Philippine revolution. The advance

detachment of the proletariat is the Communist Party of the

Philippines. It is the leading force of both the proletariat and

the entire Filipino people in the new-democratic revolution,

within the context of a world proletarian-socialist revolution

rather than a world bourgeois capitalist revolution.



The rectification movement completely rejects the notion that the

revolutionary struggle for national liberation and democracy

against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism can be

won without the class leadership of the proletariat. Such a

notion runs counter to the petty bourgeoisie's history of

cooptation, the middle bourgeoisie's dual character, flabbiness

and lack of basic industries, and the close collusion of the

comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class with the

imperialists in the oppression and exploitation of the Filipino

people. It also runs counter to the recent history and current

circumstances which show that the national democratic movement

has become a strong force because of the proven, tested and

continuing class leadership of the working class through its

vanguard party, the Communist Party of the Philippines. The

rectification movement condemns those opportunists who have

become exponents of bourgeois pluralism and Gorbachovite

anticommunism, rabid opponents of the vanguard role of the

working class and special psywar agents of the bourgeoisie and

the current ruling system.



The rectification movement asserts the principle of vanguard role

of the proletariat through the Communist Party of the

Philippines. That key cadres of the Party could in the past

degenerate to the point of attacking the vanguard role of the

working class serves to underscore a serious lack of ideological

and political education within the Party. The rectification

movement therefore seeks to further strengthen the Party

comprehensively in ideology, politics and organization so that it

can continue to be the advance detachment of the leading class in

the Philippine revolution. 



6. Wage the protracted people's war and carry out extensive and

   intensive guerrilla warfare based on an ever widening and

   deepening mass base!



The theory and strategic line of protracted people's war means

that the people's army must encircle the cities from the

countryside and accumulate strength in the countryside until it

can seize political power in the cities. The protracted people's

war is the revolutionary process of seizing power along the

new-democratic line. It is a revolutionary mass undertaking. In

the course of people's war, the Party builds the worker-peasant

alliance. It carries out land reform and builds the mass base in

the form of mass organizations and the organs of political power.

The people's army cannot preserve and accumulate strength without

the strong foundation in the people's participation and support,

realized through painstaking mass work and solid mass organizing.

The people's army itself is an armed mass organization under the

absolute leadership of the Party.



The rectification movement vigorously opposes and condemns the

"Left" opportunist line of combining military adventurism and

urban insurrectionism. This has caused the worst damage to the

Party and the revolutionary movement in their entire history.

This put the prematurely enlarged military formations in an

isolated and passive position and caused the drastic reduction of

the mass base and the big diminution of armed tactical

offensives. This made the Party and the revolutionary movement

vulnerable to the enemy's strategic offensive and tactics of

gradual constriction. This led to the urban-basing of the

"general command" of the people's army and the notion of

depending on foreign military assistance, misrepresenting it as

the crucial factor that without it there is either retrogression

or stagnation of the revolutionary movement. This also led to

barbarities like bloody witchhunts and gangsterism. The

incorrigible "Left" opportunists have been frustrated and have

swung not only to a Right opportunist position but worst of all

to a position of becoming counterrevolutionary agents of the

US-Ramos regime.



As a result of the rectification movement, there is now a

redeployment of the forces of the people's army. There is an

appropriate size of the center of gravity involving no more than

thirty percent of the total number of Red fighters in every

guerrilla front. The overwhelming majority of the Red fighters

are now deployed on a wider scale in order to operate in a

greater number of municipalities and do painstaking mass work,

expanding and consolidating the mass base. Extensive areas

temporarily lost are now being recovered and new areas are being

opened in the expansion of revolutionary work. The current line

is to conduct intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare on the

basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. The Party is

putting into effect the minimum land reform program and mass base

building on a far wider scale. It is coordinating the rural-based

armed struggle as the principal form of struggle and the

urban-based legal democratic mass movement as the secondary but

imp ortant and indispensable form of struggle. The urban Party

organizations are now determined to send more Party cadres and

members to the countryside.



7. Pursue the revolutionary class line in the united

   front!



The revolutionary class line in the united front is no different

from the class line of the entire new democratic revolution as

previously defined. It is possible to pursue the united front

with or without any organizational form. Fortunately, the Party

has plenty of experience in building formal united front

organizations legally and illegally. There are the alliances

based on class and sectoral interests or on certain important

issues in the legal democratic movement. There has also been the

underground National Democratic Front since 1973. The most

important of all the alliances is the basic one between the

working class and the peasantry. To build this alliance the

Party has pursued the antifeudal class line in which the

proletariat relies mainly on the poor, lower-middle peasants and

farm workers, win over the rest of the middle peasants,

neutralize the rich peasants, take advantage of the

contradictions between enlightened and evil gentry in order to

isolate and destroy the power of the despotic gentry. Since

1969, this class line has been followed in building organs of

political power in the countryside.



The rectification movement vigorously condemns and opposes the

attempt of the former "Left" and Right opportunists within the

Party who are now openly counterrevolutionary Rightists to

liquidate the class leadership of the proletariat and destroy

the basic worker-peasant alliance which is the foundation of the

revolutionary united front. The rectification movement

criticizes and repudiates the series of Right opportunist

attempts to liquidate the leading role of the working class in

the united front, starting with the 1980 concept of the

"vanguard front" to replace the vanguard party, proceeding to

the 1985 and 1987 decisions to convert the NDF into a

"federation" or "confederation" in which the Party is made to

relinquish it role as center of the revolution and further

proceeding to the 1990 attempt to convert the NDF into a

confused federation of member-organizations and of individuals,

in which the Party gives up its leading role in the revolution

and its independence and initiative and is subordinated through

a voting system to a ready-made majority of petty-bourgeois

groups and individuals that imposes on it a program of bourgeois

nationalism, pluralism and mixed economy.



The rectification movement is applying the Party's clarification

of the distinct roles and correct relationship of the Party, the

New People's Army and the National Democratic Front along the

correct revolutionary class line. It is stressing the principle

of upholding the working class leadership in the united front. On

behalf of the proletariat and the entire people, the Party wields

the revolutionary armed struggle and the united front as the

weapons of the revolutionary movement. It maintains its

independence and initiative in any kind of united front

arrangement and is for the rule of consensus among allied

organizations rather than a system of voting in which the

nonproletarian groups have a ready-made majority. 



8. Follow the principle of democratic centralism!



Democratic centralism is the basic organizational principle of

the Party. It is centralism based on democracy and democracy

based on centralized leadership. I need not restate here all the

provisions of the Party Constitution regarding democratic

centralism. Let me point out however that democratic centralism

is not just about the democratic and collective process of

decisionmaking. Were it simply so, there would be no difference

between the Party and a business or even a religious corporation.

The essence of centralism in the Party is the commitment to the

basic Marxist-Leninist principles and policies that are clearly

stated in the Party Constitution and Program. Democracy is the

method by which the essence of centralism is integrated with the

concrete practice of the revolution, and by which the dialectical

relationship or interaction is realized between the central

leadership and the general membership of the Party through the

elected representative organs of leadership.



The rectification movement opposes and repudiates such notions as

the following: that education in the basic principles of the

Party constitutes "fundamentalism" (whatever that means), that

there must be "democratic pluralism" instead of democratic

centralism and that anticommunists can become Party members, that

the evaluation of Party members is "inquisition", that anti-Party

factions, their "caucuses" and "autonomous groups" are

permissible, and that public attacks against the Party by those

who claim to be Party members are beyond the ambit of Party

discipline and are legitimate and democratic. Since early 1992

and even earlier on a smaller scale, ultrademocracy has been

whipped up by both former "Left" and Right opportunist elements.

The Party combats both bureaucratism and ultrademocracy. Each one

is a one-sided malignance; one simply dictates from above and the

other is anarchy or the tyranny of the mob. Those who are now

counterrevolutionary Rightists had been the worst practit ioners

of these in the entire history of the Party.



In the rectification movement, the Party explains thoroughly the

meaning of democratic centralism. It demonstrates how the

rectification documents have been arrived at, how they have been

decided, how they are being implemented and how they are being

further enriched. All lower Party organs and organizations are

encouraged to make further summings-up and criticism and

self-criticism. All Party cadres and members are encouraged to

participate in decisionmaking and to engage in criticism and

self-criticism. There are the bounds of discipline and within

these bounds there is inner-Party democracy to make sure that

discipline is well-informed and enlightened. The Party must

always be concerned about the unity, solidity and security of the

Party as a necessity in the revolutionary struggle. Within the

Party there is a dialectical relationship between discipline and

freedom.



9. Look forward to the socialist revolution!



There is no point in making the national-democratic revolution

now if there is no socialist perspective. In the first place, the

national-democratic revolution cannot be won if the factors that

make for socialist revolution do not prevail in the course of the

national-democratic revolution. The factors for bringing the

people to the stage of socialist revolution are the class

leadership of the proletariat through the Party, the people's

army as the main component of state power under the absolute

leadership of the Party, the proletarian class dictatorship at

the core of the people's democratic form of government and the

basic revolutionary alliance of the working class and the

peasantry as the foundation of the united front. In brief, there

is power in the hands of the working class and its revolutionary

party to start the socialist transformation. Upon the seizure of

political power nationwide, the national-democratic revolution

shall have been basically completed and the socialist re volution

can begin. The socialist sector of state enterprises and

cooperatives shall be instituted even as there are transitory

concessions to the owner-cultivators of land and the petty and

middle bourgeoisie.



In view of the collapse of the revisionist ruling parties and

regimes in some countries and the continuing degeneration of

these in other countries, the rectification movement criticizes

and condemns modern revisionism and upholds socialism. It combats

the ideological and political offensive of the imperialists and

the reactionaries who misrepresent socialism to mislead the

people. It is absolutely necessary for the Party to study the

processes and victories of the two-stage revolutions in the

history of the international communist movement and the

undermining and reversal of these by modern revisionism in the

light of Mao's theory of continuing revolution under proletarian

dictatorship. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought gives us the

scientific basis and optimism for winning the struggle against

monopoly capitalism and reaction and for attaining socialism and

ultimately communism. 



The theoretical education promoted by the rectification movement

necessarily extends to the understanding that national-democratic

and socialist revolutions will surely resurge and that Mao's

theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian

dictatorship is a great resource for consolidating socialism,

combating revisionism and preventing the restoration of

capitalism the next time that socialist societies arise once more

on a wider scale on the face of the earth.



10. Carry out the Philippine revolution in the spirit of

    proletarian internationalism!



The new-democratic revolution in the Philippines is now at the

forefront of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and

people of the world against imperialism, modern revisionism and

reaction. It is one of the few revolutionary movements now that

are led by a Marxist-Leninist party, have some significant

strength and, most important of all, are engaged in the

revolutionary armed process of overthrowing the imperialists and

the local reactionaries. The Philippine revolution has a signal

role in upholding the torch of armed revolution while a more

widespread armed revolution in the world is still to come. The

Party is aware of its internationalist duty in leading the armed

revolution. This is something to be proud of. But this is also

something that calls for hard work and the spirit of

self-sacrifice and modesty in the face of tremendous odds and the

growing attempts of the imperialists and reactionaries to focus

on the Philippine revolution in order to destroy it.



The rectification movement condemns and repudiates the

counterrevolutionary line that the Filipino people are getting

tired of their own resistance to the ceaseless violence of

imperialist and class oppression and exploitation and that the

CPP and the NDF must follow what is globally trendy and

fashionable, which is capitulation to the enemy. Frustrated in

pushing their line of combining military adventurism and urban

insurrectionism and getting foreign military assistance and

financial assistance, the principal "Left" opportunists of the

past have become counterrevolutionary Rightists and are the most

active in spreading the noxious line of capitulationism and

reformism. They are now aligned with the long-time principal

Right opportunists who have long exposed themselves as

anticommunists all along and who have had the least knowledge

about the creation of Red political power in the countryside.

These counterrevolutionary Rightists are getting funds from the

U.S.-Ramos ruling clique a nd from foreign funding agencies to

spread their line of anticommunism, anti-Stalinism, reformism and

capitulationism.



To perform its internationalist duty most effectively, the Party

continues to strengthen itself, wage protracted people's war and

build the mass organizations and organs of political power

self-reliantly. There is no way that the enemy can destroy the

revolutionary movement because of the worsening crisis of the

domestic ruling system and the world capitalist system. At the

same time, the Party is actively cooperating with other

Marxist-Leninist parties and pre-party formations in the world to

propagate the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong

Thought and with all other entities that are opposed to

imperialism and all reaction to bring about the resurgence of the

anti-imperialist and socialist movement on a global scale.



CONCLUDING REMARKS



The rectification movement is consolidating the ranks of the

Party and is infusing the core and the entirety of the

revolutionary mass movement with an ever stronger revolutionary

resolve and vigor. All honest cadres and members of the Communist

Party of the Philippines are eager to raise the level of their

revolutionary consciousness and militance through the

rectification movement and the revolutionary struggle, while only

a few incorrigible elements have brought themselves out of the

Party in order to attack it from the outside along a blatantly

anticommunist line.



We can be confident that the Party and the entire revolutionary

movement will become ever stronger as a result of the second

great rectification movement. We wish all the cadres and members

of the Party and all the revolutionary masses under their

leadership to win ever greater victories. The crisis of both the

domestic ruling system and the world capitalist system are daily

worsening. The objective conditions are favorable for

strengthening the subjective forces of the Philippine revolution

and for delivering effective blows on the counterrevolutionaries.

The Communist Party of the Philippines will win ever greater

victories.



Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!



Long live the proletariat and people of the Philippines!



Long live proletarian internationalism! #



(This speech was delivered in a forum at Cunera Hall, Utrecht,

The Netherlands on December 19, 1993)