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

Pomeroy's Portrait: Revisionist Renegade

A Work of Two Renegades

IV. The Capitulationist Line Of The Lavas And Tarucs

Basahin sa Pilipino

Amado Guerrero

April 22, 1972

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

Upon the return of U.S. imperialism and the puppet Commonwealth government in 1945, the old merger party unilaterally disarmed the HUKBALAHAP, converted it into a veterans' organization, and whipped up the slogan of "peace and democracy". In response, the U.S. imperialist and their puppets conducted mass arrests and massacres against the old merger party and the HUKBALAHAP. Despite all these, Taruc and his kind persisted on the line of capitulation and insisted on jostling for official positions in the reactionary government.

The U.S. imperialist also resorted to buying-off tactics. At one point, Taruc appears to be critical of the "Banal Regiment" (a unit of the HUKBALAHAP) for going the way of mercenaries, receiving "backpay" from the U.S. imperialist and becoming integrated into the puppet ranks. But at another, point, he whitewashes the treachery by claiming that the mercenaries did not know any better. He goes as far as to state: "Banal's motivation, I believe, were not opportunist, nor did opportunism influence many of the men who followed him."

Furthermore, Taruc admits that he himself worked for "backpay" for the HUKBALAHAP and submitted Huk rosters to the enemy for the purpose. These rosters were subsequently used as blacklists by the enemy for persecuting and murdering Party cadres and HUKBALAHAP fighters. To prettify his own deed of betrayal, Taruc rails: "Now, however, with many Huk families destitute and with a need for funds to rebuild people's organizations as part of our peaceful legal struggle, we decided to apply for backpay." The name of the people is invoked to attacked the people.

Born of the People admits the undeniable truth that the HUKBALAHAP fighters and the masses, though abandoned to their own devices by the old merger party, spontaneously defended themselves from imperialist and puppet depredations. But Taruc and Pomeroy always bring to the fore the erroneous idea that the people were "Tired of War" and that it was apt for the leaders of the old merger party to run for elective positions under the Democratic Alliance.

Taruc and his kind based themselves on the propositions that "the Huk is not anti-commonwealth government" and that they "recognize President Osmena as the legal president of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Constitution as the legal constitution of the Philippines". Subsequently, issues were so formulated in the old merger party and in the Democratic Alliance that their rank and file were made to choose only between the Nacionalista Party Osmena and the newly-founded Liberal Party of Roxas in the 1946 elections.

A vote for Osmena was interpreted as a vote for "independence" on July 4, 1946 and a vote for Roxas as a vote for the "postponement" of independence as proposed by MacArthur and McNutt. Thus, the old merger party threw in its support for Osmena. Along this line, it was converted into a minor electoral organization helping the Nacionalista Party directly in a common effort with the Liberal Party and U.S. imperialism to put up the farce that is the present puppet republic. The revolutionary role of a proletarian party in the struggle for national liberation was cast away. Taruc and Pomeroy still assert in the book: "A victory for Osmena might have placed the nation on the road to real independence and real democracy." What great faith they have in a reactionary politician! they also ask rhetorically: "Could the betrayal have been avoided?" and they proceed to answer themselves:

Yes it could have been if Osmena had taken up the challenges and had carried the fight to the people. Instead, he allowed the rights and the strength of the people to be curtailed at every turn.

So much hope indeed pinned on Osmena by the sham revolutionaries. They relied on him as their messiah.

Yet as soon as Roxas won, the Tarucs and Lavas hurried to support him in his anti-communist "pacification plan" which had been designed to destroy the old merger party and the HUKBALAHAP. They did so with the vain hope of cajoling him into granting some concessions. They did so with the main selfish purpose ot trying to reverse the ouster of six Democratic Alliance congressmen (including Luis Taruc and Jesus Lava) from their seats.

Leading officials of the old merger party and the HUKBALAHAP went around shamelessly campaigning for the people to lay down and register their arms, enter their names in the enemy's rolls and accept the cantonment of troops in their barrios. This Lava-Taruc act of betrayal resulted in the assassination of revolutionary cadres and countless abuses on the people, including massacres. This capitulations to the evil scheme of Roxas was no different from the submission of Huk rosters to the U.S. authorities in exchange for "backpay".

The Lavas and Tarucs put forward to Roxas five terms for a "democratic peace", each of which implied abandonment of the revolutionary struggle and acceptance of the authority of the enemy:

1. Immediate enforcement of the Bill of Rights, especially the right to assemble, freedom from arbitrary arrest, ending of cruel and unjust punishment, trial by unprejudiced judges.

2. Dismissal of all charges against Huks, MPs and civilian guards alike growing out of events of the previous five months.

3. Replacement of fascist-minded officials in municipal and provincial governments and military commands in provinces affected by agrarian unrest.

4. Restoration of all Democratic Alliance congressmen to their seats.

5. The implementation of Roxas' own land reform program, beginning with a fool-proof crop distribution law and leading towards eventual abolition of tenancy.

These terms were to be the agenda of negotiations between the Roxas puppet regime and the old merger party after Taruc and his kind complied with the "pacification plan". The traitor Taruc went about Central Luzon trying to douse the revolutionary spirit of the people,asking them to "curb their hot tempers" and to "maintain patience and discipline". Always taking pride in counter- revolution, Taruc admits in the book:

I explained in detail the promises of the government to enforce the laws and the Constitution and (even though I myself distrusted the motivations of Roxas) I admonished the people to act on the good faith of the government.

What a sell-out! He admits having tried to mislead the people into trusting the evil that he himself could not trust. And he demanded the reactionary laws and constitution to be enforced against the people.

How do Pomeroy and Taruc try to cover up the patent treason of the Lavas and Tarucs? They prattle:

The demoralization that prevailed among large sections of the people was caused by their natural desire for peace and security after the difficult years of the Japanese occupation. Although they did not trust the demagogy of Roxas, many of them wanted to believe it. Many were even willing to accept the peace of slaves, just as long as it was peace.

What a callous regard for the people! They invoke the "natural desire for peace and security" and they describe the people as "willing to accept the peace of slaves".

But Taruc and Pomeroy always unwittingly slap their own faces. They state somewhere else in the book:

In the bivouacs, in the swamps, forests and mountains, where the reassembled Huk squadrons were staying to avoid encounters [as per instructions of Taruc and his kind], I found the soldiers extremely bitter. Their experience in three years of fighting against the Japanese and the puppets had made them militant and ready to leap to the defense of their families and rights. They told me that they did not feel like always running away, that they were not cowards and that they wanted to fight.

What is the attitude of Taruc towards all these? Once more he makes an admission:

I counselled them to fall back upon their iron discipline, and to allow themselves to be drawn into trouble only when it meant actually to save their lives. They discussed it and agreed. To me the most outstanding feature of that whole period was not the encounters that did occur, but the encounters that did not occur due to the admirable restraint of the Huk soldier.

Here it is extremely evident that Taruc and Pomeroy take pride in capitulationism, promote the erroneous idea of passive defense, picture the people as being docible and prettify docility as discipline.

Nothing came out of the "pacification plan" and "negotiations" of the Roxas puppet regime and the old merger party. From the beginning to the end, Roxas would not be satisfied with anything less than the "total extermination of communists", including the Lavas and Tarucs. Only when their own lives were already in clear danger did the Lavas and Tarucs take the posture of leading the revolutionary masses in armed struggle. They had to fall back on the people whom they had readily slandered as "willing to accept the peace of the slave".

As soon as Quirino became the puppet chieftain in 1948 following the untimely death of Roxas, he sent out feelers to Luis Taruc and his kind that they could enter into a negotiation and an agreement on "surrender and amnesty" with him. Incorrigible capitulationists that they were, the Lavas and Tarucs were too willing to fall into Quirino's political trap despite the people's clamor for revolutionary armed struggle. Taruc took the limelight as a fool for once more agreeing to the "surrender and registration" of HUKBALAHAP fighters.

Taruc and his kind once more recognized the authority and the "superior" political position of the enemy. Once more they agreed to updating the blacklists of the enemy. They were required to order the surrender and registration of the HUKBALAHAP fighters. They had not learned the lessons of principle and practice from the submission of Huk rosters to the U.S. Veterans Administration or from the "pacification plan" of the Roxas puppet regime.

Taruc tries to lessen his counter-reactionary crime by confessing:

We made two serious mistakes in our negotiations with Quirino. We allowed ourselves to be put in the position of accepting an amnesty proclamation from him without challenging its implication that we were the guilty party. Secondly, we kept too much in the background the basic consideration of struggle against U.S. imperialism.

A true revolutionary would not even raise the questions of guilt under the rules of the enemy. It is because the revolutionary cause is just and must always be pursued towards its triumph. Everything is prejudiced when the enemy is made out to appear as indulgent and kind by the same persons who pose as the leaders of the revolutions.

Taruc rails:

Peace depended entirely upon Quirino's implementation of his promises, which failed to develop. During the perios of truce the PCs and civilian guards continued to raid and terrorize, and ambushed our soldiers on several occassions. Huks and PKMs were told directly by civilian guards and the PCs: "Now we know who you are. We will take care of you later."

Once more nothing came out of a false peace. The Quirino puppet regime should be condemned for its sanguinary perfidy. But the Lavas and Tarucs should as well be condemned for their incorrigible capitulationism, for repeatedly leading people into the slaughterhouse.

In their desire to accommodate their selfish interests and seek rotten compromises with the U.S. imperialists and reactionaries, the Lavas and Tarucs could easily forget how the Filipino people had been able to gain standing and become a considerable force through the HUKBALAHAP. The scoundrels made it a habit to oppose the truth of Chairman Mao's teaching that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

It is important to pay close attention to the orientation of Taruc in entering bourgeois electioneering as a candidate for the puppet congress in 1946. He states:

I was going to school again. This time it was the school of politics. In our country it has been a special business. People train for it from the time that they are young men. In the universities they make their contacts and become skilled in the game of classroom politics. That is what happens in a colonial country, where politics is usually a doorway to quick wealth through graft and corruption, a system fostered by the dominating foreigners because it enables them to by political vigor of the nation. The word "politician" was so de-based that it meant "cheater" and "demagogue" to the masses.

What a self-revealing statement from a "student"! He wanted to learn "politics" from the reactionaries. Indeed, he was bent on picking up the tricks of the trade of the reactionary politicians until he, together with other Democratic Alliance politicians, was summarily ousted from the puppet congress. Taruc and Pomeroy together in the book speak of politics without differentiating between revolutionary politics. Completely blind to the political struggle of the revolutionary masses, the two scoundrels define "politics" as "a special sort of occupation under imperialism made attractive by the opportunities for politicians to enrich themselves through corruption". These pretenders to Marxism in yesteryears have a narrow understanding of politics and they reduce it to counter-revolutionary politics.

Capitulationism is glorified in Born of the People. It is prettified as some kind of "good faith" and "sincerity" on the part of the revolutionary mass movement towards U.S. imperialism and its reactionary stooges. It is nothing but a manifestation of the historical idealism of fake communists. It contravenes the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is the sure mark of the Right opportunism that the Lavas and Tarucs have bequeathed to the modern revisionists in the Philippines.

Born of the People is a book of national betrayal from beginning to end. It tries to prettify such national betrayers as the Lavas and Tarucs. But it futilely does so. It only succeeds in unwittingly presenting the true face of national betrayers. Never truly relying on revolutionary work and on the strength of the revolutionary masses, the Lavas and Tarucs always pin their fondest hopes on U.S. imperialism and its reactionary stooges. When confronted wiht Japanese fascism,they pin their fondest hopes on U.S. imperialism and the Commonwealth government. When confronted with the onslaughts of the USAFFE, they pine for the return of Gen. MacArthur or even for the ghost of Thorpe. When confronted with the dirty maneuvers of Truman, MacArthur and McNutt, they wish Roosevelt were alive and Harold Ickes were kept in office. When confronted with the puppet Manuel Roxas, they think they can rely most on Osmena. When Roxas gets to be president, they toady up to him until he comes close to strangling them. When Quirino gets to be president, they readily accept terms of surrender and amnesty.

Born of the People is a record of the grave political mistakes of the Tarucs and Lavas that sabotaged and subverted the revolutionary mass movement from within. It was published in 1953 even as in the previous year Taruc had already openly degenerated into a shameless anti-communist. But worst, the revisionist Pomeroy today still wants to salvage it as a truthful historical account of the revolutionary mass movement. It can only promote Right opportunism and modern revisionism. Once and for all, it must be cast away into the garbage heap of the history.

NOTES

* The AMT was the Aguman ding Maldang Tagapagobra (League fo Poor Laborers) while the KPMP was the Kapisanang Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (National Peasant Union of the Philippines).