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)
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