VI. PROSPECTS OF THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT

So long as the ruling system in the Philippines remains semicolonial and semifeudal, there is the urgent need for the new-democratic revolution and there is the fertile ground for the growth in strength and advance of the armed revolutionary movement of the people. The chronic crisis of the system makes the protracted people's war possible and necessary. And this crisis is ever worsening.

The fundamental causes that gave rise to the Marcos fascist dictatorship persist. The shift from the rule of Marcos to that of Aquino and then to that of Ramos has entailed the aggravation and deepening of the crisis from one level to another. Foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism still ride roughshod over the people and are intensifying the oppression and exploitation of the people.

The U.S. imperialists instigated Marcos to unleash the open rule of terror in 1972 in order to eliminate the newly-resumed armed revolutionary and to have a free hand in imposing neocolonial economic policies on the people. The result was nationwide expansion of the armed revolutionary movement and the aggravation of the Philippine agrarian backwardness and an insatiable addiction to foreign loans for anti-industrial purposes.

To preempt the rising hatred of the people and the surge of the armed revolutionary movement, the U.S. imperialists had to foment a big split in the reactionary armed forces in order to cause the downfall of its puppet. Under the Aquino regime, further splits within the reactionary armed forces occurred and the economy further slid down after a brief seeming recovery. Under the Ramos regime, the new chieftain of the reactionaries bases himself on only 23.5 percent of the vote and desperately flaps about to serve the greed of his imperialist masters and his own clique and to appease his political rivals within the exploitative system. The regime knows no way by which to maintain its rule but to beg for foreign investments and loans and escalate total war which combines utmost brutality and psychological warfare.

The chronic socioeconomic and political crisis is guaranteed to worsen by the internal laws of motion of the ruling system. These mean the relentless oppression and exploitation of the people by the exploiting classes of the comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class, the ceaseless contradictions among the reactionary factions and the irrepressible resistance of the people. The ultimate doom of the ruling system is ensured by the perseverance of the people in their armed revolutionary movement.

The current regime is at a loss as to how to draw from domestic and foreign sources the wherewithal for its maintenance. The people have been sucked dry of their sweat and blood for the benefit of the imperialists and the local reactionary classes. At the same time, it has become absurd for the imperialists to be further extending loans that can never be repaid. New loans are still being incurred to cover the chronic deficits and increasingly to pay the debt service.

After crowing about the triumph of neocolonialism and the triumph of capitalism over revisionist bureaucrat capitalism, the three centers of the world capitalist system (the United States, Japan and Western Europe) no less are conspicuously afflicted by the crisis of overproduction. The unprecedented development of high technology and abuse of finance capital in corporate speculation and neocolonialism in the period after World War II has deepened and aggravated the general crisis of capitalism, including the economic and financial devastation of the third world and former Soviet bloc countries. The field for maximizing profits has shrunk due to the ruin of the countries floundering in foreign debt. The Philippines is a prime example of the floundering loan-client.

The laws of capitalism continue to drive the winning monopolies in the industrial capitalist countries to adopt higher technology that raises their own profit and productivity rates but kills jobs of both blue and white collar workers and drives down the profit and productivity rates of their entire national economies. The abuse of finance capital since the sixties has brought about supermonopolies and has ravaged the neocolonies. Now, monopoly capitalism is at a loss as to how to dispose of surplus goods and services it produces amidst the wasteland of neocolonialism, bankrupt bureaucrat capitalism and the ongoing mass unemployment even in the centers of the world capitalist system.

All major industrial capitalist countries are now engaged in the reconsolidation of their national and regional positions and in the redivision of the global market, sources of raw materials and fields of investment. The trend among the supermonopolies is to restrain themselves from extending productive investments as well as loan capital for nonproductive purposes to countries like the Philippines. Under these circumstances, the promise of the Ramos regime to turn the Philippines into a "newly-industrializing country" is a mere pipe-dream. Even the "tigers" of East Asia, including the coastal provinces of China, are now feeling the adverse effects of the contraction of the American consumer market and the impending shift to Mexico of the low value-added manufacturing-for-reexport under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The gravity of the crisis of the world capitalist system can be seen not only in the conditions of economic depression in industrial capitalist countries and the priorly long-running economic and financial ravages of neocolonialism in the third world and the former Soviet-bloc countries but also in the rising and widescale rampages of nationalism, fascism, racism, ethnocentrism, religious fundamentalism and other blatant factors of political crisis in the wake of the global economic crisis.

The worsening crisis of the world capitalist system and that of the domestic ruling system converge, interact and help each other to generate an ever worse crisis in the Philippines and guarantee the favorable conditions for protracted people's war. The global crisis of capitalism now tends to draw simultaneously the attention of the imperialist forces to so many "trouble spots" (the former Yugoslavia, Central Asia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Kampuchea, and so on) of their own making even as they wish to focus on and mop up the remaining anti-imperialist states like the People's Democratic of Korea and Cuba and the armed revolutionary movements led by Marxist-Leninist parties.

For 25 years already, the United States, Japan and Western Europe have directly and indirectly poured resources into the armed counterrevolution in the Philippines. But this has proven futile. The armed revolution continues to exist and grow. The desire of the imperialist powers to extinguish the Philippine armed revolution is ever growing but their capability to do so is not limitless.

The Communist Party of the Philippines looks forward to the resurgence of the anti-imperialist and socialist movements as a result of the unprecedented crisis of the world capitalist system. It is the internationalist duty of the CPP to uphold the torch of armed revolution and wage protracted people's war self-reliantly in order to help bring about such resurgence on an unprecedented scale. There can be no better way than this for the Communist Party of the Philippines to carry out the principle of proletarian internationalism.

The Communist Party of the Philippines engages mainly in bilateral relations with parties, organizations and movements abroad on the basis of ideological-political understanding of Marxism-Leninism as well as on the basis of anti-imperialist political solidarity. The Party also participates in multilateral seminars and conferences that may forge agreements, resolutions or declarations as a result of consensus and unanimity.

In foreign relations, the Party upholds the principles of mutual respect for independence, equality, noninterference, cooperation and mutual benefit. The Party is interested in the international propagation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought through ideological-political exchanges. It is also interested in broad anti-imperialist solidarity, irrespective of the ideological stand of those involved.

The perspective of the new-democratic revolution in the Philippines is socialist. In the first place, the new democratic revolution can be won only because the leading force is the working class, the main force is the peasantry and the additional basic revolutionary force is the urban petty bourgeoisie. The revolutionary forces are waging the new-democratic revolution, working hard, struggling fiercely and making sacrifices essentially because they want the current revolution to lead to socialism rather than to capitalism.

The theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought guides the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Filipino people in the struggle to achieve the new-democratic and socialist stages of the Philippine revolution. Moreover, this theory provides the basic principles and the foresight of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship in order to consolidate socialism, combat modern revisionism and prevent the restoration of capitalism in socialist society until imperialism is defeated on a global scale and communism becomes possible.

The disintegration of the revisionist ruling parties and revisionist-ruled social systems and the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system vindicate the full scope of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, including Mao's successful practice of the new-democratic and the socialist revolution; his critique of imperialism, modern revisionism and neocolonialism; and his theory and pioneering practice in applying the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. With a comprehensive and profound understanding of Mao Zedong Thought, the proletarian revolutionaries of the world cannot be assailed by doubts about the future of socialism and communism and cannot be misled by any kind of revisionism.

The time has come for the proletarian revolutionaries who uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought to seize the revolutionary initiative. They can grow in strength and advance on the fertile ground provided by the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system and by the proven bankruptcy of modern revisionism.

While the protracted people's war continues, the Party, the people's army and the organs of political power and the revolutionary mass organizations can continue to exist and grow in strength until they can seize the cities on a nationwide scale. On the way to total victory in the new-democratic revolution, the revolutionary forces and the people achieve definite and tangible victories and enjoy definite gains. The moment the revolutionary forces capitulate, they are reduced to small and inconsequential entities at the mercy of the imperialists and the exploiting classes; the organs of political power already established would disappear. The people under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines cannot be any inferior to their ancestors who fought the colonialists for more than 300 years to reach the old democratic revolution.

It is a great victory that the revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines has already attained in a far shorter time a level of strength and a scale far greater than that reached by any previous revolutionary movement in the entire history of the Philippines. The accumulated strength and experience of the current revolutionary movement must proceed to a new and higher level.

The accumulated achievements and experience of the Party in the new-democratic revolution are abundant and rich. These are bound to become far more abundant and richer upon the basic completion of the new-democratic revolution and the start of the socialist revolution. The protraction of the people's war provides an ample opportunity for the wider and deeper development of the revolutionary forces and for more favorable conditions in the world.

The Filipino people have won brilliant victories in revolution because they are led by the Communist Party of the Philippines under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Modern revisionism has become discredited and most revisionist regimes, including the Soviet Union, have collapsed. Soviet-sponsored regimes that arose by coup d'etat in the 1970s have disappeared. So have been those regimes established by petty-bourgeois-led insurrection. Anticolonial movements dependent on Soviet social-imperialism have gone into neocolonial compromises, reminiscent of 1935 and 1946 in the Philippines. In contrast, the Philippine revolution continues to stand as a pillar of resolute armed revolution against imperialism and the local reactionaries.

But Filipino communists should not become conceited and complacent about their current position in the world proletarian revolution. They have no choice but to work harder, fight more fiercely and be prepared for further sacrifices because the imperialists and the reactionaries are now exerting more efforts to defeat and destroy the Philippine revolution by every foul means. At the same time, there is hope that the widespread social turmoil will lead to the resurgence of the anti-imperialist and socialist movement on a global scale.

In leading the Philippine revolution, the Communist Party of the Philippines consciously integrates the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. When it follows the proletarian revolutionary line, the Party marches from victory to victory. But wherever and whenever this line is violated, the revolutionary movement suffers setbacks. Consequent to the rectification movement that is now being carried out, the Party is enhancing its ideological, political and organizational strength, over coming deviations, errors and shortcomings and is raising to a new and higher level the fighting will and capabilities of all the revolutionary forces and the broad masses of the people against imperialism and the reactionaries.

Introduction
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