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

Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade

Anti-Marxism and Eclectism

II. The Universal Significance Of Chairman Mao's Theory Of People's War

Basahin sa Pilipino

Amado Guerrero

April 22, 1972

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

Chairman Mao's theory of people's war is summed up from twenty-two continues years of people's war in a vast country like China. It was a war passing through the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the War of Resistance Against Japan and the people's War of Liberation against the U.S.-Chiang clique. The protraction in time and the vastness of scale of this people's war, contending with the most powerful imperialist and puppet armies and encompassing the widest yet the most particular circumstances, are unprecendented in the entire history of mankind of the international communist movement. The laws summed up from this war cannot be belittled. the whole range of strategy and tactics of the people's war formulated by Chairmam Mao fulfills Engels' profound prediction that: "The emancipation of the proletariat, in its turn, will have its specific expression in military affairs and create its specific, new military method."

Only a counter-revolutionary idealist will fails to see the universal significance of the victory of people's war in China and the fact that it has profoundly acted upon world reality. The vastness of China cannot be considered a particularity that separates or isolate the Chinese revolution from other revolutionary struggles in terms of theory and practice. There are those who superficially think that Chairman Mao's theory of people's war applied only on a vast country like China and who also talk as if this country were not composed of many parts, from which the most complex problems arose and were solved by Chairman Mao's theory of people's war and the rich practical experience in which it is based. Genuine Marxist-Leninist the world over have accpeted it as an important component of today's Marxism-Leninism and are accordingly being guided by it in making revolution.

After World War II, oppressed nations and peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America have continued to take the road of armed revolution on a long term basis. Most of those waging armed struggle in the world's countryside are applying Chairman Mao's strategic line of encircling te cities from te countryside. Taken together, the peoples fighting for national liberation and democracy in colonies and semi-colonies help the the proletariat in the cities of the world anti-imperialist struggle, the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian peoples have helped bring about a situation in the United States and other capitalist countries in which increasingly large masses of the people rise up to fight the evil of U.S. imperialism. The crisis of imperialism, particularly of its main pillar the United States, has been caused in a big and fundamental way by the victories of people's war.

That the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America can waged armed struggle without having to wait for the "revolutionary situation" suited for a city insurrection in capitalist countries is a confirmation of Lenin's theory of imperialism's uneven development which has been amplified correctly in theory and in practice by Chairman Mao. The weakest links of imperialist power are found in the countryside of the world just as they are aslo to be found in the countryside of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. This countryside provides the peoples with a vastly greater area for maneuver and cannot be occupied by the enemy as thoroughly as he would the cities, especially in the stage of his strategic offensive. Until the situation is ripe for their seizure, the cities are the well-secured centers of the political and economic power of the enemy.

Chairman Mao teaches us:

Since China's key cities have long been occupied by the powerful imperialist and their reactionary Chinese allies, it is imperative for the revolutionary ranks to turn the backward villages into advanced, consolidated base areas, into great military, political, economic and cultural bastions of the revolution from which to fight their vicious enemies who are using the cities for attacks on the rural districts, and in this way gradually to achieve the complete victory of the revolution through protracted fighting; it is imperative for them to do so if they do not wish to compromise with imperialism and its lackeys but are the determined to fight on, and if they intend to build up and temper their forces, and avoid decisive battles with a powerful enemy while their own strength is inadequate.

The revisionist pipsqueak Pomeroy has the temerity to claim that Chairman Mao's theory of people's war lacks universal significance and that the Chinese revolution does not even qualify as an "Asian model". He says outright:

In fact, successfully conducted guerrilla war has rarely pursued such a pattern [of setting up liberated areas and surrounding the cities from the countryside], contrary to the belief widely held, and to the claim of Chinese leaders themselves that it constitutes a model.

He also attacks Chairman Mao's theory of people's war as being "in conflict with the fundamental concept of internationalism in Marxist-Leninist theory because, according to him, it dismisses the "alliance of the socialist countries and of the working class" and revolutionary forces in the capitalist countries with the national liberation movements in the colonial and neo-colonial countries. Becoming more vicious in his vituperation, he babbles that the un-Marxist generalizations" of Chairman Mao's theory and strategic line become more "emphasized" when expanded into an international principle. He boasts mendaciously that Chairman Mao's theory of people's war has been "dissipated" in Vietnam by the three-way unity of liberation movements, the socialist countries, and the revolutionary and progressive movements in the capitalist countries".

In contending that the Chinese revolution has no universal significance, Pomeroy dogmatizes that the October revolution is the only universal model of armed revolution. He goes so far as to oppose in an absolute way the October Revolution to the Chinese Revolution, Lenin to Mao Tsetung and Leninism to Mao Tsetung Thought instead of recognizing the continuity and distinction between stages of development. The great Lenin should be turning in his grave; his name is being used against Marxism-Leninism by a revisionist scoundrel.

The anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist Pomeroy wants to kill the vitality of the Marxism-Leninism, its continuous theoritical and practical development. In reducing the meaning of the "revolutionary situation" to condition like those attending the October Revolution, conditions that permitted the immidiate seizure of cities in an imperialist country after a period of protracted legal struggle, he completely negates the fact that the world proletarian revolution has been fought on varying conditions, undergone distinct stages of development and has wrought changes in the world such that a revolutionary situations exists in the whole continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America after World War II and that the world revolutionary situation has never been better. Favorable conditions for the revolution have so arisen in the world's countryside that small and weak countries here and wage and persist in protracted people's war so long as they adhere to Chairman Mao's theory and strategic line.

There is one basic difference to recognize in considering the revolutionary situation in the cities of the world and in the world's countryside. In the cities of the world, when the revolutionary forces decide to launch armed struggle, failure to seize the cities within the shortest possible time can be disastrous for the revolutionary forces. Here protraction in the legal struggle as the principal form of struggle is necessary and alright so long as ideological and political work is conducted to prepare the proletariat for the armed seizure of power. However, in the world's countryside where the people undergo multiple oppression by imperialism and local reaction, revolutionary forces have the advantage of being able to engage in protracted people's war in the wide expanses of the countryside. This is in keeping with Lenin's theory of imperialism's uneven development and the Marxist-Leninist method of attacking the enemy at his weakest points. The proletarian revolution in the cities of the world hinges on the national democratic revolution in the world's countryside in the clear sense that the armed struggle in the world's countryside will certainly help to hasten the ripening of the revolutionary situation in the cities of the world.

Pomeroy is so insanely against the universal significance of the Chinese revolution that he denies its significance even to the Asian peoples. He argues that the Chinese revolution is not even an "Asian model" (a fancy term of the bourgeois academicians) by discussing the "particular conditions" and the "variegated forms" of armed struggles in Asia only to break these off from each other and from the Chinese revolution absolutely. By employing the empiricist method of analysis, this counter-revolutionary idealist tries to deprive the various armed struggles outside China of their own universal significance. By trying to isolate the Chinese revolution, Pomeroy also tries to isolate the revolutionary movement in every country and raises the black banner of chauvinism rather than advocate the integration of Marxist-Leninist theory and the concrete conditions of the country. Any criticism of the dogmatism is sham when it is used as a camouflage for pushing empiricism forward. The empiricism of Pomeroy easily leads to attempt to deprive even the October Revolution of its universal significance though at a certain times he poses to be dogmatic in insisting that city insurrections be the principal form of armed struggle in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Consistent with his counter-revolutionary revisionist standpoint, Pomeroy distorts Vietnamese history. He dishes up the tale that the Vietnamese national liberation forces led Comrade Ho Chi Minh suddenly dropped from the skies and descended upon Hanoi to establish the Democtatic Republic of Vietnam by city uprising. The truth is that these revolutionary forces had to gather strength among the people in the countryside before they could launch any insurrection in cities held by the Japanese fascists. Such strength developed mainly among the peasant masses still had to undergo the test of armed aggression by the French colonialists and their allies after the seizure of the Hanoi. Even now the Vietnamese people and the entire Indochinese people rely mainly on their strength in the countryside to resist U.S. imperialism, the biggest and fiercest imperialist aggressor.

The influence of Chairman Mao is very evident in the following words of Vo Nguyen Giap:

While the working class is the class leading the revolution, the peasantry is the main force of the revolution, full of anti- imperialist and anti-feudal spirit. Moreover, in waging the Resistance War, we relied on the countryside to build our bases from which to launch guerrilla warfare in order to encircle the enemy in the towns and eventually arrive at liberating the towns.

In trying to dismiss Chairman Mao's theory and strategic line as being only "one of those things" and having no worthwhile significance in the whole of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Pomeroy takes pride in a lot of wrong things, makes the most outright anti-communist statements and in the style of an intriguer considers as superior to a victorious and well-consolidated revolution those armed struggles still in progress and in fact guided by Chairman Mao's strategic line of encircling the cities form the countryside. Pomeroy expresses satisfaction that the Jose-Jesus Lava leadership did not use in 1950 the teachings of Chairman Mao on the people's war even as he admits (what else can he do but admit) that this "Left" opportunist leadership failed. But, fool that he is, he expresses belief that there should have been more violations of Chairman Mao's theory of people's war for that particular armed struggle to have been won. He even contends that the Jose-Jesus Lava leadership would have been successful had the Communist Party not taken a prominent role in the armed struggle. He considers as exemplary the fact that Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party were not in command of the armed struggles in Algeria and Cuba.

With regard to Africa, Pomeroy states

... Historically-evolved conditions in most African countries do not permit the rise of the working class party, with an absence of a proletariat and worker-peasant allianceor radicalized petty bourgeois groups from the leadership that does not come out of such conditions.

Pomeroy wishes to create an image of an Africa completely isolated from modren civilization, notwithstanding the long period that this contenent has been subjected to imperialist domination. Another thing that he does to negate the Chinese revolution and Chairman Mao is to imply that the African peoples have nothing to learn from them. As a matter of fact, he would even at the present stage rather rate higher Amilcar Cabral of the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde and Eduardo Mondlane of FRELIMO than the leaders of revolutions already triumphant under clear Marxist-Leninist leadership and already on the path of socialist revolution.

Pomeroy tries to impugn the correct ideas of Chairman Mao that guided the Chinese revolution from the victory to victory as being "un-Marxist". Only a counter-revolutionary idealist would deny the victories of the national democratic revolution and socialist revolution in China under the leadership of Chairman Mao. Let us examine a bit of thinking that this revisionist fool makes on Chinese history. Wishing to reverse what is already a verdict of Chinese history, Pomeroy states in reference to the urban uprisings of 1927 in China:

... These were failures not because the principles of a revolution with urban insurrection playing a key role were not applicable to China, but because of the uneven development of the Chinese Revolution and of its worker-peasant alliance and because of departures from insurrectionary principles (the Canton Commune, for example, had a closer affinity to the Paris Commune than to the October insurrections in Petrograd and Moscow).

This revisionist fool absolutely disregards the semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions of China then though he pretends to recognize the law of uneven development at work on the side of the revolutionary forces. He insists that the city insurrections were alright in China then had the October Revolution, not to the Paris Commune, been dogmatically imitated. However, he does not bother to explain what were those differences between the Paris Commune and the October insurrections, which differences are presumed by him to be more important than those between the capitalist countries and semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries. The error of the urban uprisings in China in 1927 was in fighting to the end in the cities and in relying on foreign support. They were correct only insofar as they signalled armed resistance to the Kuomintang reactionaries. The road to the countryside and to the Chingkang mountains, was correctly shown by Chairman Mao.

To belittle the self-reliant revolutionary efforts of the Chinese people in defeating the Japanese imperialism and then the Kuomintang reactionaries, he considers as "a significant factor" in the final victorious offensive launched by the Chinese Red Army the military equipment supposedly turned over by the Soviet Red Army from the Japanese imperialists in Manchuria. Yet he completely discounts the fact that, though there was coordination between the Chinese Red Army in Manchuria, the main support for military victories was the painstaking mass work and long-term armed struggle waged by the Chinese people in the area. It needs also to be pointed out that armaments captured from the Japanese imperialist were largely turned over to the Kuomintang. Under the correct leadership of Chairman Mao, the Chinese people on their own self-reliant efforts, independence and initiative were able to liberate both the north and the south of their country.

Because he expects that every people fighting for national liberation should be dependent mainly on foreign material assistance, Pomeroy makes the contention that Chairman Mao's theory of people's war is lacking in internationalism. The propagation of a correct theory and the taking of anti-imperialist policies and actions by a socialist country like China constitutes an important support for the oppressed peoples of the world. Also, China has performed well its duty of extending material support to various revolutionary movements and anti-imperialist countries. But China has always stood firm on the principle that the people can liberate themselves by reyling mainly on themselves. With regard to the Vietnamese revolutionary struggle against the U.S. war of aggression, China is a reliable rear base and is consistently providing tremendous amounts of necessary support for the Vietnamese people. On the other hand, the Soviet revisionist renegades give mere token support to Vietnam only to use it as basis for making bargains with U.S. imperialism over the heads of the Vietnamese people, for sabotaging the Vietnamese revolution and for the sowing intrigues in revolutionary ranks. China has no use for what Pomeroy calls an "alliance of socialist countries", an expression for mixing up genuine socialist countries and sham socialist countries, to support the Vietnamese struggle. The bilateral relations between China and Vietnam is good enough for each one to perform its interanationalist duty.

Now that the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam has expanded into one covering the whole of Indochina, we find the pretensions of Soviet social-imperialism totally dissipated, not Chairman Mao's theory of people's war and strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. Soviet socialist imperialism brazenly supports the U.S.-Lon Nol reactionary clique in Cambodia, condones U.S. aggressions against the Laotian people and continues to give mere token and sham support for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. As previously pointed out, Soviet social-imperialism wishes to make use of the Indochinese war of resistance against U.S. aggression and for national salvation basically for striking bargains with U.S. imperialism. But the Indochinese people are ever more firmly united to fight for their own liberation against the U.S. imperialist aggressors and their reactionary stooges.