Amado Guerrero
July 30, 1970

III. Class Basis of Strategy and Tactics

Class analysis of Philippine society determines the strategy and tactics of the Philippine Revolution. Without a comprehensive view of the various classes from a proletarian revolutionary viewpoint, we cannot at all determine our real friends and our real enemies. It is of decisive importance in the revolution to distinguish real friends from real enemies. Otherwise, we are bound to commit serious mistakes and lead the revolution astray. Based on our class analysis of Philippine society, the motive forces or friends of the Philippine Revolution are the proletariat, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and, at certain times and to a limited extent, the national bourgeoisie. They compose the overwhelming majority of the Filipino people who are oppressed and exploited by U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. On the other hand, the targets or enemies of the Philippine Revolution are U.S. imperialism and its local lackeys which are the comprador big bourgeoisie, the landlord class and the bureaucrat capitalists. They compose an extremely small minority of the population. They need to be overthrown in order to achieve national freedom and democracy.

By correctly pursuing a revolutionary class line, we can arouse and mobilize the most gigantic force to encircle or bear upon, isolate and destroy the enemies of the Philippine Revolution. We call upon the entire Filipino nation to wage a national war of liberation against U.S. imperialism. We call upon the great masses of the people to wage a democratic revolution, which is mainly a peasant war, to destroy the feudal social base of imperialist rule.

1. Class Leadership and the Party

There can be no successful revolution without the correct leadership of a definite class The leading class in the Philippine Revolution today is the proletariat. It is the most advanced productive and political force in the Philippines and in the whole world. It is the standard-bearer of the universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, without which no genuine revolutionary movement can arise in the Philippines in the present era.

Since World War I and the October Revolution, when the course of world history departed from the path of capitalism to the path of socialism, only the Filipino proletariat has become capable of fully comprehending and embracing the patriotic and progressive aspirations of the entire Filipino people. After World War II, the national liberation of the Chinese people and other peoples and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the historic role of the Filipino proletariat as the leading class of the Philippine Revolution has become ever more clear.

In these last three decades, it is the class in Philippine society that has dared to lead the people onto the road of revolutionary armed struggle against their foreign and local oppressors and exploiters. It is the class that has gained the profoundest experience and lessons in the concrete practice of the Philippine Revolution.

By it's class nature, the proletariat is capable of giving revolutionary leadership not only in the short run but also in the long run until the stage of communism is reached. It now leads the present stage of people's democratic revolution and it will also lead the subsequent stage of socialist revolution.

The Communist Party of the Philippines is the most advanced embodiment and the principal instrument of the revolutionary leadership of the Filipino proletariat in fulfilling its historic mission. It is composed of the most advanced elements of the proletariat and, therefore, it is the concentrated expression of the ideological, political and organizational strength of the proletariat as a leading class.

Without this revolutionary party, there can be no revolutionary movement. It is responsible for applying correctly the universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on the concrete conditions of Philippine society. Its practical leadership and policies, determine the course of the revolutionary movement. Acting as the general staff of the Philippine Revolution, the Party sees to it that correct strategy and tactics bring the revolutionary cause forward.

Although the proletariat is relatively small in a semicolonial and semifeudal society like that of the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines as its most advanced detachment goes deep among the broad masses of the people and builds itself up as the invincible force at the core of the entire revolutionary mass movement. The Party links firmly the proletariat with the peasantry and also with other revolutionary classes and groups in the Philippines. By providing proletarian leadership to the peasantry, the Party can wield a strong people's army as its principal weapon and can develop the basis for wielding another powerful weapon, the national united front of all revolutionary classes and strata.

Keenly concerned about the danger of modern revisionism and the persistent counterrevolutionary revisionist line of the Lavas and Tarucs, the Party is indefatigably waging a rectification movement to cleanse itself of past errors as well as current ones.

2. The Main Force and the Armed Struggle

The main force of the Philippine Revolution is the peasantry. It is the largest mass force in a semicolonial and semifeudal country. Without its powerful support, the people's democratic revolution can never succeed. Its problem cannot but be the main problem of the people's democratic revolution. It is only by acting upon this problem that the proletariat and its Party can arouse and mobilize the peasant masses.

There is no solution to the peasant problem but to wage armed struggle, conduct agrarian revolution and build revolutionary base areas. In the course of carrying out the revolutionary struggle for land as a way of fulfilling the main democratic content of the Philippine Revolution, the central task of the entire national revolutionary movement which is to seize political power and consolidate it is also carried out. The main armed contingents of the Philippine Revolution can be raised only by waging a peasant war. Thus, it is inevitable that the vast majority of the Red fighters of the New People's Army can only come from the peasantry.

It would be erroneous for a Communist Party in a semicolonial and semifeudal country to put the principal stress of its mass work in the cities instead of in the countryside. To do so is to mislead itself into either committing the "Left" opportunist error of trying to seize power mainly on the basis of the mass strength of the proletariat in cities without adequate support from the peasantry or the Right opportunist error of relying indefinitely on parliamentary struggle and unprincipled compromises with the imperialists and the ruling classes as the local revisionist renegades are now trying to do.

It is with due respect to the uneven development of Philippine society that the principal stress should be put on revolutionary struggle in the countryside and the secondary stress on revolutionary struggle in the cities. At all times, the revolutionary struggle in the city and countryside should be well-coordinated. But we should never miss the central fact that it is in the countryside where the weakest links of the political power of the enemy are to be found and where the people's armed forces have the widest area for maneuver in eating up the counterrevolutionary armed forces piece by piece and destroying them step by step.

Chairman Mao's strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside should be assiduously implemented. It is in the countryside where the enemy can be compelled to spread his forces thinly and lured into areas where the initiative is completely in our hands. Though in the beginning the enemy encircles us strategically ten to one, we can in turn encircle him tactically ten to one. In the long run, the tide of the war will be surely turned against him as his actual forces dwindle and it becomes politically difficult to replenish them. At all times, he will be compelled to deploy an exceedingly large military force even only in the static defense of his cities, major camps and main lines of communication and transport. In the long run his parasitic and passive military forces will also become hopelessly involved in the factional struggles of the reactionary classes.

In the countryside, we can develop several fighting fronts, ranging in quality from guerrilla zones to base areas. In doing so, we should always trust and rely on the masses because revolution is a mass undertaking. We should always rely mainly on the poor peasants, the lower-middle peasants and all sections of the proletariat and semiproletariat found in the countryside. Furthermore, we should win over the middle peasants and neutralize the rich peasants to isolate and destroy the main pillars of feudalism and all other local tyrants.

In creating our base areas, we depend on a sound mass base, a sound Party organization, a fairly strong Red army, a terrain favorable to military operations and economic resources sufficient for sustenance.

We can turn the most backward areas in the countryside into the most advanced political, military, economic and cultural bastions of the revolution. We can create the armed independent regime in the countryside even before defeating the enemy in the cities. Only on the basis of solid democratic gains in the countryside can the revolution advance. Because of the uneven development of Philippine society, the people's democratic revolution can develop only in an uneven way.

Thus, it would take a protracted people's war to bring about a thoroughgoing revolution all over the country.

3. The Basic Alliance and the National United Front

It is the basic alliance of the working class and the peasantry that serves as the stable foundation of the national united front. Only by building up such an alliance can such middle forces as the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie be attracted into a national united front to isolate enemy diehards. The national united front serves the Party's political line that the Philippine Revolution is basically a revolution of the toiling masses against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Through the national united front, the Party extends widely its political influence and gains the widest support of the masses and other progressive classes and strata. At the base of this broad undertaking are the efforts of the proletariat to build up its independent strength through armed struggle supported mainly by the peasantry. The real united front for the people's democratic revolution is one for waging armed struggle.

There is the old poisonous idea still being circulated by the counterrevolutionary revisionists that the united front is mainly for parliamentary struggle. They wish to propagate the old error that befell the Popular Front, the Democratic Alliance and the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism. The Popular Front was limited to being a city-based campaign for the boycott of Japanese goods and a medium for the reactionary elections before the war and in the long run became a mere instrument of U.S. imperialism and the puppet commonwealth government. The Democratic Alliance was organized mainly to support the parliamentary struggle of a Party leadership that disarmed the Hukbalahap after the war and converted it into a veterans' league and a legal peasant organization. The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism is today an instrument of the Lava revisionist renegades and other opportunists who wish to get positions in the reactionary government on account of their "nationalist" reputation.

The counterrevolutionary revisionists are speaking demagogically of the need for "absolute" unity within a definite formal organization of the national united front. This is a wrong idea because within the real united front there is always both unity and struggle on the basis of varying class interests and the united front does not always have to have a definite formal organization. The proletariat and the Party have always to maintain their leadership, independence and initiative within the united front even as they recognize the independence and initiative of their allies and give concessions to them on condition that there is agreement on a general programme which corresponds with the general line and programme of the people's democratic revolution and that such concessions do not undermine the basic interests of the toiling masses.

It is with special reference to the national bourgeoisie that the Party is sharply aware of the need for unity and struggle in the united front. This class has a dual character, one aspect being revolutionary and the other aspect reactionary. It is "Left" opportunism to dismiss this class as completely counterrevolutionary and it is Right opportunism to embrace it as completely revolutionary. The correct policy is to unite with it only to the extent that it supports the revolution at a given time and at the same time to criticize it appropriately for its vacillations or tendency to betray the revolution. This policy will always keep us vigilant.

In the course of discussing the role of the various motive forces of the Philippine Revolution, it has been made clear that the three magic weapons of the Philippine Revolution are the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the national united front. In another manner of speaking, the Communist Party of the Philippines, representing the proletariat, wields the two powerful weapons of armed struggle and united front.