Program for a People's Democratic Revolution (1968)
I. THE BASIC CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES TODAY
The basic condition of the Philippines today is that of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country dominated by the U.S. imperialists, the comprador bourgeoisie, the landlords and the bureaucrat capitalists. These vested interests mercilessly exploit the broad masses of the people.
US imperialism and domestic feudalism are the main problems afflicting the whole nation and from which the masses of the people aspire to be liberated.
The Philippine revolution against Spanish colonialism failed to achieve the goals of national liberation and the elimination of feudalism. The flabby leadership of the ilustrados (liberal bourgeoisie) failed to win the revolution by playing into the hands of U.S. imperialism which brutally massacred the Filipino people and deprived them of their national independence and democratic rights in the course of the Filipino-American war and thereafter.
Since the beginning of this century, U.S. imperialism has made use of feudalism as its social base in the Philippines. With the defeat of the old type of national democratic revolution, which was imbued mainly with the ideas of liberalism, U.S. imperialism has succeeded in employing domestic puppet forces to frustrate the revolutionary aspirations of the Filipino people and deprive them of their national freedom, class freedom and individual rights.
U.S. imperialism has bred and made use of the comprador bourgeoisie as its principal agency in perpetuating a semi-colonial and semi-feudal type of economy, culture and political system. The landlord class has persisted as the most important ally of U.S. imperialism and the comprador bourgeoisie in the perpetuation of feudal and semi-feudal relations in the vast countryside. The bureaucrat capitalists have also emerged under the imperialist tutelage for "self-government and democracy" to perpetuate the dominance of U.S. imperialism, the local comprador bourgeoisie and the landlord class in the present reactionary puppet state.
The combined oppression of US imperialism and feudalism involves the inequitable colonial exchange of cheap local raw materials (sugar, coconut, abaca, logs and mineral ore) and finished products imported chiefly from the United States and the investment of US surplus capital in the Philippines chiefly to foster the semicolonial and semifeudal type of economy that exploits the toiling masses of workers and peasants.
During the direct and indirect rule of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines, the Filipino toiling masses have been exploited to serve the excessive hunger for profits of the U.S. monopoly capitalists and the local reactionaries. The acute exploitation of the masses of workers and peasants, a general state of backwardness in society and the corruption and brutality of the bourgeois reactionary state characterize the Philippines today.
The Filipino working class has significantly grown in number and experience since the later period of Spanish colonial rule. But its further growth has been stunted because of the limitations on local industrialization and emphasis on raw-material production and, lately, on mere re-assembly plants, new plantations, mines and businesses in the grip of foreign monopoly capitalism. The Filipino working class has suffered extremely low wages and the whole nation has suffered lack of opportunity and the remittance of super-profits from the Philippines by foreign monopolies and heavy indebtedness to imperialist banks.
Despite the emphasis on raw-material production, there is the stagnation of Philippine agriculture and the exploitation of poor peasants and farm workers in areas where feudalism persists; and in areas where modern plantations are in operation both regular and seasonal agricultural workers also suffer low wages and sub-human levels of working and living conditions.
The rural poor, composed mainly of poor peasants, farm workers and poor fishermen; and the urban poor, composed mainly of workers, peddlers, poor handicraftsmen and the unemployed living in city slums, comprise together more than 90 per cent of the population. Though they are the overwhelming majority in the Philippines, they are now the most deprived and oppressed politically, economically, socially and culturally. They are the vast source of revolutionary power against foreign and feudal exploitation.
The urban petty bourgeoisie also suffers from the state of foreign and feudal exploitation. Though it lives in relatively better comfort than the urban and rural poor, its very limited and usually fixed income is subject to the pressure of foreign and feudal exploitation. It can easily be won over to the side of the revolution because it is not free from the abuses of the state on its livelihood and democratic rights.
The national bourgeoisie is the most wealthy of the forces that may be won over to the side of the revolution. It is restricted by foreign and feudal domination in its goal of nationalist industrialization. Though it wishes to lead the patriotic and progressive classes through its entrepreneurship and its political actions, its kind of class leadership has already been surpassed historically by the revolutionary class leadership of the working class. The vacillating dual character of the national bourgeoisie should be recognized by the working class while working for a national united front of all patriotic and progressive classes, groups and individuals under the leadership of the working class.
At this stage of Philippine history and world history, it no longer suffices to have the old type of national democratic revolution. The era of imperialism has long invalidated the leadership of the bourgeoisie. An exceedingly high stage of the world proletarian revolution has been achieved with the ascendance of Mao Tsetung Thought, the acme of Marxism-Leninism in this era. The Communist Party of the Philippines itself can never hope to lead the Filipino people if it does not rid itself of modern revisionism or the black bourgeois line, particularly of the Lavas and the Tarucs, that has marked its history.
The national bourgeoisie and the urban petty bourgeoisie, the latter especially, are allies of the working class within the national united front but they have long become inadequate at leading the Philippine revolution in the era of imperialism as demonstrated as early as the start of the armed conquest of the Philippines by U.S. imperialism when the liberal bourgeois leadership capitulated.
The class leadership in the Philippine revolution is now in the hands of the working class. A proletarian revolutionary leadership, guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, is what makes the people's democratic revolution a new type of national democratic revolution. We are now in the world era in which U.S. imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to worldwide victory. By adopting Mao Tsetung Thought as the supreme guide for our revolutionary actions, we cleanse the vanguard Party of its weaknesses (as presented by the document of the rectification, "Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party") and strengthen it to become the invincible force at the core of the revolutionary mass movement.
The Communist Party of the Philippines is now re-established and rebuilt as a Party of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. It is the most advanced detachment of the Filipino working class leading the Philippine revolution forward. It strives to be a well-disciplined Party armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, using the method of criticism and self-criticism and closely linked with the masses of the people. It wields the two weapons of armed struggle and the national united front to deal death blows at U.S. imperialism and feudalism.
There is only one road which the working class under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines must take. It is the road of armed revolution to smash the armed counter-revolution that preserves foreign and feudal oppression in the Philippines. In waging armed revolution, the working class must rely mainly on the mass support of its closest ally, the peasantry. The peasantry is the main force of the people's democratic revolution. Without the peasantry's support, without waging an agrarian revolution that responds to the peasantry's struggle for land, no genuine and formidable people's army can be built and no revolutionary base area can be established. The peasant struggle for land is the main democratic content of the present stage of the Philippine revolution.
From the countryside, the people's democratic forces encircle the cities. It is in the countryside that the enemy forces are first lured in and defeated before the capture of the cities from the hands of the exploiting classes. It is in the countryside that the weakest links of the reactionary state are to be found and the people's democratic forces can surround them tactically before defeating them strategically. It is in the countryside that the people's army can accumulate strength among the peasants by combining armed struggle, agrarian revolution and the building of revolutionary base areas. The Party and the people's army must turn the backward villages into advanced military, political and economic and cultural bastions of the people's democratic revolution.
A true national united front exists only when it is founded on the alliance of the working class and the peasantry and such alliance has been strongly welded by armed struggle, by the creation of a people's army mainly among the peasants by the working class party, the Communist Party of the Philippines. A true united front is one for carrying out armed struggle. The urban petty bourgeoisie can join such a united front. The national bourgeoisie can also lend direct and indirect support to it although it always carries its dual character, its contradicting progressive and reactionary aspects. In a national united front of workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie, the proletarian revolutionary party can best guarantee its leadership, independence and initiative only by having the people's army firmly at its command.
In the countryside, a revolutionary anti-feudal united front must also be created. The working class must rely mainly on the poor peasants and farm workers, then win over and unite with the middle peasants and neutralize the rich peasants. In its close alliance with the masses of poor peasants and farm workers, the working class undertakes armed struggle, agrarian revolution and the building of revolutionary base areas to build the strong foundations of people's democracy.
While the old democratic leadership of the bourgeoisie no longer applies to the Philippine revolution at this historical stage, the working class and the Communist Party of the Philippines cannot accomplish both democracy and socialism at one blow. While on a world scale socialism has already taken firm roots with the People's Republic of China as its main bulwark, the Party must first achieve a new type of national democratic revolution, a people's democratic revolution in the concrete semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions of the Philippines, before reaching the stage of socialist revolution. Socialism cannot be immediately achieved when the Filipino people under the leadership of the working class still have to liberate themselves the foreign and feudal oppression.
However, the people's democratic revolution rejects the old liberal leadership of the bourgeoisie. U.S. imperialism has long made use of the jargon of liberal democracy to deceive the people. In upholding proletarian revolutionary leadership, the Party does not mean that socialism shall be achieved without passing through the stage of national democracy. Neither does it mean that such progressive strata of local bourgeoisie as the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie have no more place in the revolution. They do have a role to play as national-democratic allies of the working class. Indeed, people's democracy is a new type of democracy because of its proletarian, instead of bourgeois, leadership. But this proletarian revolutionary leadership assumes the present democratic task of waging protracted peasant war, an agrarian revolution, and organizing a national united front of workers in alliance with the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and the national bourgeoisie. The proletarian revolutionary leadership and the worker-peasant alliance are the most important links between the stage of the people's democratic revolution and the stage of socialist revolution.
The immediate and general programme of the Filipino people and the Communist Party of the Philippines is a people's democratic revolution and the long-term maximum programme is socialism. It is dishonest, demagogic and utopian to insist that socialism is the immediate goal under conditions that the people are still dominated and exploited by U.S. imperialism and domestic feudalism.
In the political field, the Communist Party of the Philippines advances the revolutionary leadership of the working class, fights to overthrow the reactionary bourgeois regime and all reactionary classes supporting it and, in its stead, establishes a people's democratic state system, a coalition or united front government of the working class, peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. In the economic field, the Party fights for a self-reliant economy, a just and prosperous people's livelihood and a national industry and trade emancipated from foreign monopoly capitalism and feudalism which have restricted and exploited the productive efforts of the people including patriotic businessmen, industrialists and petty producers. In the field of culture and education, the Party fights for the development of a national, scientific and mass culture and education. In the military field, the Party commands and builds up a people's army that serves as the mainstay of the national and social liberation movement and, consequently, of the people's democratic state system.
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