E. The Party in the Period of Military Adventurism
It was in 1948 that the question of armed struggle was firmly raised by revolutionary Party cadres and the revolutionary masses in the face of fascist abuses perpetrated by the puppet government of Roxas against the Communist Party, Hukbalahap, democratic mass organizations and their leaders and the broad masses of the people. The question of armed struggle was, however, interpreted by the Jose Lava leadership mainly on the basis of external conditions. There was the one-sided expectation by the Party leadership that the near-violent split in the ruling classes due to the election frauds of 1949, the revolutionary victory of the Chinese people, the Korean War and the economic recession in the United States would absolutely open the way for the victory of the people's army in the Philippines, notwithstanding the internal weakness of the Party and the people's army due to previous Right opportunist errors. External conditions were interpreted as the very reasons for a quick military victory.
The Party leadership represented by Jose Lava failed to provide the most essential reasons for engaging in armed struggle, like a programme of armed struggle against US imperialism and its local running dogs and for agrarian revolution among others, and equally it failed to recognize that armed struggle under the conditions existing in the Philippines would have to be protracted. Against the superficial reasons provided by the Lava leadership to justify the policy of striving for a quick military victory, the Right opportunists took the line of converting the Communist Party of the Philippines into a big open mass party for purposes of the parliamentary form of struggle and took the narrow view that the trade unionists should automatically prevail in the Party leadership.
Both opposing sides failed to consider extensively whether the Party's headquarters and center of political gravity should be the city or the countryside. Both Right opportunists and "Left" opportunists agreed that the Communist Party of the Philippines remain an urban Party.
Despite its advocacy of armed struggle, the Jose Lava leadership decided to command the People's Liberation Army (Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan) from the city. Although it assumed the policy of armed struggle, the Jose Lava leadership did not lay down the correct theoretical and political basis for its organizational and military efforts. For this reason, it inconsistently allowed Luis Taruc as commander-in-chief of the people's army to negotiate for amnesty with the Quirino government.
The Politburo conference of January 1950 assumed a purely military viewpoint and drew up the "PB Resolutions" which maintained a line of rapid military victory. The Jose Lava leadership adopted a two-year timetable for seizing political power in the cities, without an all-sided and dialectical appreciation of the strength of the Party and the people's army on the one hand and the strength of the enemy on the other.
An adventurist military policy was initiated by a city-based Party leadership which was called the Secretariat or the Politburo-In. Instead of advancing in a series of waves within a protracted period of time, the people's army in the countryside was ordered to make simultaneous over-extended attacks on the enemy at widely separated points in Central Luzon and Southern Luzon as part of the plan to prepare for the seizure of Manila. The military objectives were big military camps, cities and provincial capitals. This was done in a spirit of haste on March 29 and then on August 26, 1950 in accordance with the "PB Resolutions" of January 1950, without any thought of the forthcoming counter-attack by the enemy with massive campaigns of "encirclement and suppression" and also without any serious thought of the necessity of being able to concentrate the forces of the people's army in order to deal with the subsequent enemy counter-attack.
Over-extended and inadequately armed units were also adventuristically disposed on the "gates" of Manila to bolster the illusion that the seat of reactionary rule was "soon" to fall. On the other hand, the headquarters of the Politburo-Out was snuggled in the unpopulated vastness of the Laguna portion of the Sierra Madre, isolated from the main force of the people's army. As the Secretariat or the Politburo-In (the main Party leadership) was separated physically from the Politburo-Out, so was the latter physically far separated from the people's armed forces that it was supposed to command upon orders of the Politburo-In. Military operations and the supply and communication lines were excessively stretched out over unreliable areas.
In October 1950, the Politburo-In was totally smashed in the city, with other Party members, sympathizers and couriers apprehended. A big harvest of Party documents, which included lists of members and tactical plans, was made by the enemy and this helped the enemy destroy the Party organization in the city and smash the people's armed forces in the countryside.
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