[PRWC Party Documents] Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade, April 22, 1972

Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade

Counter-guerrilla views

I. On Armed Struggle and "Peaceful Transition"

Basahin sa Pilipino

Amado Guerrero

April 22, 1972

Revolutionary School of Mao Tse Tung Thought, Communist Party of the Philippines

At the very outset, Pomeroy asserts that "to most people" war in the modern world is a matter of nuclear conflict, involving long-range guided missiles, hydrogen bombs, and all the push-button paraphernalia of modern weaponry. To the revisionists, we say that man is superior to the weapons that he has created and that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is our spiritual atom bomb which, as it is grasped by hundreds of milions of people of the world over, is truly a material force capable of destroying U.S. imperialism, modern revisionism and all reaction. According to Chairman Mao: "Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people not things that are decisive."

Pomeroy's assertion about nuclear conflict and nuclear weapons is a mere preparation for claiming that Soviet modern revisionism as in a classic military confrontation is pinning down the main forces of imperialism at the center and making it possible for flank attacks to be launched by the people in colonial areas. It is absurd for one to claim that Soviet modern revisionism has ever performed such a function.

The truth is that since the revisionist traitor Khrushchov put the Soviet Union on the capitalist road, U.S. imperialism has been able to move its main forces of aggression to Asia, especially Vietnam and the whole of Indochina. Under the Brezhnev revisionist gang, the Soviet social-imperialists themselves have invaded Czechoslovakia, deployed troops against "fraternal" countries in Eastern Europe and the People's Republic of Mongolia, and launched bloody acts of aggressions against the People's Republic of China.

Pomeroy takes the stance of advising and preaching to U.S. imperialism. He insists that essentially the situation of U.S. imperialism in the world today is not a military problem, however much U.S. imperialism seeks to picture it and to treat it as such. So he advices U.S. imperialism not to do so, as not to stimulate an even more determined revolutionary efforts by the people.

Pomeroy implies that since the pressures felt by U.S. imperialism from all sides come from economic and political contradictions in the organization of its system, only "economic and political solutions" (exclusive of military force) should be employed by U.S. imperialism. He avers that only in the advanced stage of the people's revolution does the problem of U.S. imperialism become a military problem. All this revisionist chatter about separating the military problem from the economic and political problem of U.S. imperialism is calculated to obscure the aggressive nature of U.S. imperialism.

After starting with a number of false premises, Pomeroy exclaims in the falsetto of the revisionist trickster that "at no time in history in any revolutionary period, have armed methods been the only or the preferred means to bring about changes and liberation". As he elaborates on the subject of armed struggle, he quarrels with imaginary opponents who would use armed methods exclusive of other methods. But his treacherous points is to obscure the fundamental Marxist-Leninist truth that the counter-revolutionary state can be overthrown only by armed force.

He refers to the forces of revolution in oppressed countries as "invariably preferring peaceful means for correcting economic and political inequalities". He insists that revolutionaries take up arms when peaceful means are "exhausted", but what he is more eager to convey is that counter-revolutionaries "take up arms with reluctance, usually after being provoked into it".

This revisionist imbecile is not seeking to confuse anyone, certainly not U.S. imperialism and its stooges, but the revolutionary masses. But he fails. True revolutionaries will not simply prefer peace; they prepare for and, whenever conditions permit, wage armed struggle. They do no confuse the desire for peace with the real neccessity and princple of armed revolution. And they are not merely provoked to fight, they take full initiative in fighting. It is sheer stupidity to picture revolutionaries as passive or desperate before the counter-revolutionary state and before the aggressive nature of U.S. imperialism.

All of Pomeroy's confusion results from his main thesis:

The present historical period, to a great extent than any in the past, is making it possible for oppressed people to emerge into freedom in a variety of ways, of which armed struggle is but one.

This is nothing but a cheap denial and whitewashing of the counter-revolutionary bloody crimes of U.S. imperialism against the oppressed peoples. Khrushchovite revisionism which in previous years whined about "a world without weapons, without armed forces and without wars" has provided the state capitalist basis for the full emergence of social-imperialism under the Brezhnev revisionist gang. Since the sixties, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism have competed in unleashing counter-revolutionary violence. The proletarian revolutionaries of the world remain firm in recognizing and fighting the violent nature of imperialism and its stooges.

Pomeroy elaborates on his revisionist thesis:

In this respect, the present historical period which is one of general transition to socialism and of the breaking up of the colonial system of imperialism, is capable, as time goes on, of proving somewhat different from the preceding great historical change from feudalism to capitalism. The latter was marked by waves of armed revolution, civil wars, and national wars, conducted by the rising capitalist class to attain power. In the present period, the forces for socialism aim for a classless society without war, and seek to prevent the ruling capitalists from turning to the reactionary weapon of violence to maintain themselves and their systems.

The formulation that the general transition from capitalism is peaceful was first formally raised in 1956 by Khrushchov in the anti-Stalin 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in violation of the Marxism-Leninism. Pomeroy merely echoes his now-gone revolutionist master. This fake communist, an agent of counter-revolution, tries to turn Marxism-Leninism upside down and considers armed struggle as having been outmoded. Making no distinction between revolutionary violence and counter-revolutionary violence, he condemns violence in the abstract as "a reactionary weapon".

Pomeroy stated further:

This feature of the great transition from one social system to another that is going on at present in the world contributes to the many forms of revolutionary struggle that are possible to exist side by side today: political, economic, ideological, parliamentary, non-violent resistance, mass demonstration, general strike as well as wars for national liberation. While each form of struggle is shaped by the historical conditions and by the class relationship and alliances within a country, it is also molded by the relationships of the major capitalist and socialist countries internationally.

Pomeroy should not try to fool anyone by downgrading armed struggle as being "only one among a variety of ways". The fact is that armed struggle is one of the two forms or aspect of struggle, the other one of which is parliamentary or peaceful struggle. It does not help him to obfuscate the two aspects of the struggle by enumerating several particular forms of peaceful struggle. As mind you, when you employ armed struggle as the principal form of struggle in the countryside of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country we use peaceful or legal struggle as our secondary form of struggle to advance the armed struggle. As a matter of fact, the peaceful form of struggle is the principal form of struggle in the cities of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country like the Philippines before the the final seizure of the cities. It would be futile and putschist to bank on city uprisings without coordination with a people's army that has triumphantly matured in the countryside and is already capable of winning victory in the cities.

Armed struggle is being waged without let-up in the world's countryside of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The victories being achieved here, such as those of the Indochinese people, gravely weakening U.S. imperialism and are tremendously helping the proletariat and people in the cities of the world to advance their revolutionary cause. In turn, the revolutionary mass movement in imperialist countries is helping the armed struggle in the world's countryside. We should grasp the dialectical relationship and forward movement of the revolutionary forces in both cities and countryside of the world.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Socialist China has served the revolutionary armed struggle raging throughout the world. The revolutionization of the hundreds of millions of Chinese people has resulted in far greater support than before for the revolutionary armed struggle of the oppressed peoples. Following proletarian internationalism as the general line of its foreign policy, the People's Republic of China is splendidly performing its task of supporting the revolutionary forces of the world morally and materially. It is the powerful rear of the great war of resistance of the Indochinese people against U.S. imperialist aggression. The struggle of the Indochinese people is today's focus of armed revolution in the world.

In their struggle for liberation, the oppressed peoples are oppossed not only by U.S. imperialism but also by Soviet social-imperialism. In Indochina today, for instance Soviet social-imperialism supports the Lon Nol puppet government of U.S. imperialism in Cambodia and continues to sabotage the struggle of the Vietnamese and Laotian peoples covertly and overtly. When Pomeroy speaks of a particular form of struggle being "molded by the relationships of the major capitalist and socialist countries", he means the bargaining and collusion perpetrated by U.S. imperialism and Soviet modern revisionism over the heads of the people fighting for national liberation and people's democracy.

Pomeroy cannot mislead the people into believing Soviet modern revisionism and its stooges as in any way representing the main world forces for liberation. Instead of thwarting imperialist plans for a major war of aggression, Soviet modern revisionism itself has taken the road of social-imperialism and has had frictions with U.S. imperialism only insofar as they always try to grab each other's spheres of influence. But they are not united in opposing the revolutionary movement of the people and in preaching capitulation and the peace of subjugation according to their respective designs.

Since the counter-revolutionary book of Pomeroy was published in 1964, so much has happened to render it more clearly as pack of lies. The fundamental differencies between Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and modern revisionism have clearly emerged. In the present period of the Brezhnev gang, Khrushchov's pretense for peace has utterly become the violence of the Soviet bureaucrat monopoly bourgeoisie against the people, revolution, communism and China. All the way from Khrushchov to the present period, modern revisionism has meant shameless collusions with U.S. imperialism in acts of brigandage and subversion of the people's will.

Pomeroy claims that thanks to Soviet modern revisionism, leaders in a score of countries in Asia and Africa like India, Ghana and Nigeria have been able to maneuver for "freedom" without armed struggle. He claims further that armed control or armed intervention by imperialism have been removed from these countries. He even suggests that from their given status in 1964, these countries could develop towards "socialism". What revisionist trash this Pomeroy is capable of concocting!

India is not genuinely free and is under the oppression and exploitation of U.S. imperialism, Soviet social imperialism and the Indian comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and landlord class. The U.S.-inspired coup d'tat against the Kwame Nkrumah government is an unmistakable proof for the opposite of what Pomeroy is prating about. Nigeria has been the hapless victim of the savage intervention of British-U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. Pomeroy has merely exposed himself as an agent of counter-revolution by foolishly giving examples to support his revisionist thesis.

Pomeroy claims that "popular armed struggle has had its origin in the outlawing of trade unions and peasant unions that have sought to gain for workers and peasants a greater share of the superprofits that imperialist extract from their labor". He implies that if the ruling classes allow the legal existence of trade unions and peasant unions there can be no more basis for armed revolution. He also misrepresents the workers and peasants as wishing merely to have "a greater share of the imperialist super-profits". All this superficiality is calculated to attack the fundamental principles of Marxism that have inspired the working people to wage revolutionary armed struggle.

In his book's very first chapter entitled "Why Guerrilla Warfare", Pomeroy keeps on trying to dissuade the people from waging armed struggle. In his final paragraph to this chapter, he admits the fact that guerrilla warfare has had a greatly expanded application in the period and seems to endorse guerrilla warfare, especially when he refers to it as the most effective means for an initially unarmed people. But again he manages to put in something dissuassive for small countries which runs to the effect that guerrilla warfare is a form of struggle "that is fitted to large underdeveloped areas; where advanced mechanized equipment can be least advantageously used". This is nothing but a repetition of an old notion he has long shared with Luis Taruc.

In his May 20th Statement (1970) Chairman Mao teaches us:

Innumerable facts prove that a just cause enjoys abundant support while an unjust cause finds little support. A weak nation can defeat a strong, a small nation can defeat a big. The people of a small nation can certainly defeat aggression by a big country, if only they dare to rise in struggle, dare to take up arms and grasp in their own hands the destiny of their country. This is a law of history.