[PRWC Party Documents] FIVE KINDS OF INSURRECTIONISM, February 24, 1992

FIVE KINDS OF INSURRECTIONISM

Third Kind of Insurrectionism

February 24, 1992

3. A third kind of insurrectionism systematically creates ideological, political and organizational confusion and in combination with the recycled version of the Jose Lava line of quick military victory has already caused severe damage to the Party and the revolutionary mass movement, first in Mindanao and then on a nationwide scale.

This is the worst kind. It rates the exceptional case of the Sandinista armed "urban" insurrection (the final offensive in isolation) as being superior to the Chinese and Indochinese experience of people's war as well as to our own practice of people's war which has yielded a substantial amount of success in building Red political power. [The Marty Villalobos variety puts a premium on the "fast track" seizure of power thru armed urban insurrection while protracted people's war is denigrated as being outdated and inapplicable in a Philippines that is as "urbanized" as Nicaragua.]

Documents of the Mindanao commission stress that the combination of political (urban or "white area") forces and military (countryside-people's army) forces will create the insurrectionary or revolutionary situation.

a. This kind of insurrectionism attacks the ideological and political line of the Party in the following ways:

1) The general description of Philippine society as semicolonial and semifeudal (from which the general line of national democratic revolution and the people's war is drawn) is considered inadequate because the Philippine society is more "urban" (40 percent) than has been presupposed. The Party is therefore held liable for having reduced the importance of urban work and neglected urban work. The theory of people's war and strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside need to be "refined" and "readjusted" in view of the "true" demographic configuration (higher degree of urbanization). The Sandinista paradigm of armed urban insurrection is considered applicable to the Philippines because the degree of "urbanization" of Nicaragua approximates that of the Philippines.

2) Because this kind of insurrectionism has been in combination with the line of hastening military victory (through premature and nonsustainable larger NPA formations), the proponents who are the drafters of the "new strategy" papers pay lip service to people's war and then proceed to attack people's war on the same page under the guise of "refining" and "readjusting" it.

3) The first "refinement" and "readjustment" is the redefinition and confusion of the terms political and military. Political is counterposed to military on the same plane. Political struggles (pakikibakang pampulitika) are those that are waged principally by popular forces and the armed strength of the masses or by the political forces principally in the urban areas. Armed struggle or military struggle is defined as being principally launched in the countryside and principally relying on the armed forces or the army (hukbo) and is focused on the objective of defeating the military force of the regime.

"Political forces" are defined as the popular forces and armed strength of the masses in the urban areas, while the military forces mean the New People's Army in the countryside. It is within this frame that the NPA is "regularized" as military force to fight in the countryside where the character of the struggle is military. Political and military struggles (or the political forces and the armed forces) should be combined in a political-military struggle to create a revolutionary situation for an armed insurrection -- the highest form of political struggle that the movement must achieve.

4) The next "refinement" or "readjustment" is the superimposition of the wishful thinking for an armed insurrection on the going necessity and reality of people's war. In the new alchemy the people's army is reduced by wishful thinking to a status secondary to the so-called "political forces" in the urban areas with their own armed component, the armed city partisans. Considered the highest point of the political-military struggle is the urban armed insurrection. The conditions for armed uprising are to be achieved through three "strategic coordinations and combinations": coordination and combination of armed struggle and political struggle; coordination and combination of struggle in the countryside and struggle in the cities; coordination and combination of the struggle in the country and the struggle outside the country.

[Note that in the recombination, the military aspect of the struggle assumes greater importance and overwhelms the political as in practice -- in the policy of "regularization", regional committees became at the same time army operational commands and became absorbed in military work to the neglect of comprehensive territorial work, as cadres were absorbed by staff needs of the regularized "armed force" and as that armed force itself was taken away from mass work and became alienated from the masses. In the urban areas where "political struggles are supposed to be principal, armed city partisan actions also militarized the situation to the point that the "political forces" also became alienated from the movement and was eventually turned against the revolutionary movement (as in "Nicaragdao" in Davao City) by enemy tactic of organizing paramilitary groups, such as Alsa Masa. Hence, the resulting combination is not "pol-mil" but "mil-mil".]

The theoretical or even common sense understanding of the stages of development, such as the beginning of the New People's Army from scratch in 1969 until it is in a position to smash and replace the bureaucratic- military machinery, is denigrated.

The probable course of development, entailing initial, middle and final stages is missed by this kind of insurrectionism because it flies away from reality and simply wishes for a leap to total victory. It fails to recognize the popular and political character of the organs of political power, mass organizations and the people's army in the countryside. Despite the obvious subordination of all these to a mere wish for armed urban insurrection, those who are for quick military victory uncritically agree with the urban insurrectionist because they are in the same urban-based commission, "positioned" to win total victory without having to go through the stages of people's war.

b. The consequences have been the following:

1) In 1984 the Mindanao commission could no longer stay in any city in Mindanao and had to transfer to another city in another island outside of its jurisdiction. The "insurrectionists" thru stepped-up armed city partisan actions always heated up the city where they were and exposed themselves because of bravado. They were never able to mass more than 10,000 people at any one point at any time. Their welgang bayans were often mainly transport paralysis effected by armed groups conducting "checkpoints". The premature and nonsustainable larger formations, which had absorbed cadres and resources and had reduced the mass base, were already in a passive and isolated position in the face of the enemy forces.

The siege mentality and sense of panic which started in 1984 became full-scale panic taking the form of the anti-informer hysteria in 1985 in both urban and rural areas. The principal leaders of the Mindanao commission were absent but their line had taken effect and continued to run in Mindanao. Never before had the Party and revolutionary mass movement suffered the following disaster: close to a thousand victims of misjudgment, the drop of party membership from 9000 to 3000 and the shrinkage of a narrow and shallow kind of mass base by 70 percent.

2) The leaders principally responsible for the wrong line of urban insurrectionism and quick military victory and the disastrous results of the line were never taken to account. Instead, they were promoted to high positions and were able to push on a nationwide scale their wrong line.

They rode on their reputation due to the 1981 to 1984 offensives in Mindanao, played up the boycott error of 1986 and succeeded to obscure the fact that earlier in 1985 their wrong line had already caused an incomparably far greater disaster to the Party and the revolutionary movement.

Exactly at the time that they were demanding a departure from the line of people's war in 1985, their wrong line was proving to be disastrous. But from 1986 onwards, they had their way. The results of armed urban insurrectionism cum premature nonsustainable NPA formations are the following:

a. "Regularization" has meant urbanization and bureaucratization of the NPA general staff, top heavy expenses and "hanapbuhay" (gangsterism);

b. The fixation and eventual wiping out of the NPA general command and general staff in Metro Manila (the story of Davao City all over again);

c. The stagnation of the New People's Army which is preoccupied with the logistical needs of the premature and nonsustainable larger formations, concentrated in a small radius even when not on an offensive; and

d. The drastic reduction of the mass base through the self-constriction of cadres and resources into staff of urban-based organs and prematurely enlarged military formations.