B. Political Errors
Right opportunism and "Left" opportunism have been committed in the history of the Communist Party of the Philippines. These political errors have emanated from the subjectivist world outlook. They have restricted the building of a Marxist-Leninist party that is firmly and closely linked with the masses on a national scale, that has a correct style of work and conducts criticism and self-criticism, that implements a programme of agrarian revolution and that makes use of the national united front to broaden its influence and support in its struggle against US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
The urban, parliamentary and open character of the Communist Party of the Philippines during the early months of its existence in 1930 and 1931 was mainly responsible for the political disaster and difficulties that it soon suffered. During this early period, the Party leadership was given to the use of "Left" language in public against the entire bourgeoisie, and illegal work was not effectively carried out together with legal work.
The Party did not arouse and mobilize the peasantry as the main force of the revolution. Even when the principal leaders of the Party and its mass organizations were banished to different provinces, they were not conscious of the significance of planting the seeds of the new democratic revolution in the countryside. The idea of the national united front was not also immediately taken up and adopted. Even the urban petty bourgeoisie was not given serious attention as a class ally and as a source of cadres.
However, during the period that the Party was outlawed, cadres of petty-bourgeois origin crept into the Party and by 1935 their presence therein became marked. Because of their continued petty-bourgeois social status and their failure to remould their outlook, these cadres restrained the putting of emphasis on Party work among the toiling masses, especially in the countryside. In the trade unions, Party cadres working illegally could be counted on one's fingers. As late as 1937, only a few cadres were working among the peasants in a few towns of Central Luzon. It was the Socialist Party of Pedro Abad Santos, however, which had a large but loose mass following in the countryside. A few activists of this reformist party actually read Marxist literature but were lacking the discipline of Communist cadres.
It was through the merger of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Socialist Party in 1938 that the black bourgeois line of revisionism became formalized. The constitution of the merger party contained in its preamble the clause that it "defends the Constitution (of the US-puppet commonwealth government) and the rights proclaimed therein..." and in Section I of Article III, the statement it "opposes with all its power any clique, group, circle, faction or party which conspires or acts to subvert, undermine, weaken or overthrow any or all institutions of Philippine democracy whereby the majority of the Filipino people have obtained power to determine their own destiny in any degree." Getting the good wishes of Quezon in the Popular Front preoccupied most of the Party leaders then.
The necessity of preparing and developing rural bases in the face of the growing threat of fascism was not fully grasped by the Party leaders; and even if it were so surmised, no adequate preparations for armed struggle were made. The international situation that was already clearly pointing to the imminence of World War II was not fully related to the Philippine situation. From 1938 to 1942, the first and second lines of leadership agreed on the principal importance of urban Party work and overconcentrated on defending "civil liberties" while minimizing the importance of Party building and army building among the peasants. It was simply assumed that the merger of the Communist Party and the Socialist Party would enmass the peasantry to the side of the Party. Under the banner of the Popular Front and under the auspices of the commonwealth government, leading Party cadres ran for electoral offices in the reactionary government especially in Greater Manila and in some few provinces and they did not pursue what was principal revolutionary work in the countryside.
At the outbreak of World War II, the Party submitted a memorandum to commonwealth president Manuel L. Quezon for arms support from the bourgeois government; but the latter, sure of his class interests, refused despite the Popular Front. Instead of putting the main stress on the revolutionary work of arousing and mobilizing the peasant masses, the Party leadership chose to put the main stress on the secondary, which consisted of legal and urban work under the banner of the Popular Front. It was misled by the false prospect of arms support from a puppet government under US imperialist control
When the Japanese imperialists invaded Manila, the first line of leadership was apprehended in the city and the rest of the city cadres did not exactly know where to retreat. At this point, we can see the error of Right opportunism as having grown within the Party without having been the object of critical exposure and thoroughgoing rectification.
Focusing Party work on parliamentary struggle, the merger party failed to make the most essential preparations for the anti-fascist armed struggle. The city cadres who fled to the countryside at the time of the Japanese invasion were unable to withdraw in an organized way, thus exposing the failure of the Crisanto Evangelista leadership to build up the Party with deep foundations among the peasant masses on the basis of their struggle for land which is the main content of the people's democratic revolution. There was no rural base prepared for waging a people's war against the Japanese fascists.
Taught nevertheless by the immediate situation, the Party leadership held the Central Luzon Bureau Conference and soon after organized the People's Army Against the Japanese (Hukbalahap) to lead the popular resistance against the Japanese invaders and the puppet government. With the Hukbalahap under its command, the Party began to build political power in the countryside.
But the Right opportunist political line persisted and when the Party and the Army met their first serious setback in the anti-Japanese struggle during the "March raid", the Vicente Lava leadership promoted Right opportunism by adopting the "retreat for defense" policy. It was a policy that contravened the Marxist-Leninist principle that Red political power could be built only by waging armed struggle. This policy was nothing but a variation of the USAFFE "lie low" policy of avoiding armed struggle with the Japanese invaders. This Right opportunist line restricted the rise of people's democratic power not only in the short run but even long after it was declared an erroneous policy.
The spontaneous resistance of the masses exposed the bankruptcy of the "retreat for defense" policy and the Bagumbali Conference declared this policy erroneous. Although the conference resulted in the demotion of some Right opportunists and in the regrouping of Hukbalahap "squadrons" for intensified resistance, the Right opportunist error was not thoroughly rectified and the Right opportunists still retained a big say in the Central Committee. Furthermore, the "Socialists" who had automatically become "Communists" by virtue of the 1938 merger were not provided by the Party leadership with the correct Marxist-Leninist education and were always susceptible to Right opportunism. The capitulationist and renegade Luis Taruc would remain to be the general representative of a great many of them who failed to advance to the level of Marxist-Leninists.
The abandonment of the "retreat for defense" policy resulted in some limited successes for the Party and the army. In a few months' time, the area and the population covered by both increased to the extent that the greater part of Central Luzon came under the effective leadership of the Party and that the people's army could send out sizeable units to establish or reinforce armed bases in the Southern Tagalog area.
However, at the end of the anti-Japanese struggle when the US imperialists landed to reconquer the Philippines, the Right opportunist line would again strikingly emerge as the main line. There arose the illusion that the people were tired of war and that the Party could strive for the realization of its principles under conditions of "democratic peace" granted by US imperialism and the landlords. Against this illusion were the brutalities committed by the military police, the civilian guards and all kinds of American agents against the people and the unjust arrest and incarceration of the principal leaders and fighters of the Hukbalahap. Thus, a strategic dual line was adopted with the so-called "propaganda" line differing from the so-called "true" line. The "propaganda" line was that the Party was publicly desirous of "democratic peace", of participating in bourgeois politics through the Democratic Alliance; and the "true" line was that it was actually keeping its armed power in the form of concealed arms caches. The Party leadership ordered the disbanding of the majority of Hukbalahap "squadrons" and token arms surrender were made. It shifted back the center of its political activity to the city under the banner of bourgeois parliamentarism.
With the adoption of this strategic dual line, deception was idealistically intended as an essential component of the strategic line. But while the enemy was not fooled by the token surrender of weapons by the Hukbalahap, confusion was introduced into the ranks of the cadres and masses. The Party leadership failed to establish the correct mass line as it adopted a strategic dual line and lost its grip on the gun.
The 1946 constitution of the Party continued to carry the black bourgeois line of revisionism by stating in its Article VIII, Section 2, "Affiliation with or participation in the activities of any group, class, faction or party which aims or acts to destroy, weaken or overthrow the democratic Constitution of the Philippines shall be punished with immediate ouster from the Party".
Until May 1948, when the Jose Lava leadership assumed central responsibility, the Party experienced the blatant reign of Right opportunism or revisionism. During the early post-war period, the Right opportunist influence of Vicente Lava, Pedro Castro and Jorge Frianeza prevailed. The Pedro Castro leadership was denounced and replaced for Right opportunism and tailism and for advocating the development of a mass and open Party that was supposed to engage solely in bourgeois elections. But the errors of this leadership were never consistently rectified ideologically and politically all throughout the Party although drastic organizational measures were taken against those who took sides with Pedro Castro without so much as an explanation to the masses of Party members. Jorge Frianeza replaced him and was soon removed from the secretaryship and expelled for Rightism but again no thoroughgoing rectification movement was conducted to weed out the persistent roots of the errors.
Without clarifying the ideological, political and organizational grounds for a protracted people's war, the Jose Lava leadership merely took advantage of the Party's and the people's clamor that armed struggle was necessary on account of the fascist attacks against them and a number of duly-elected representatives in Congress who opposed the Bell Trade Act and the Parity Amendment. This leadership automatically expected revolutionary triumph on the basis of external conditions.
Because of the absence of a thoroughgoing rectification movement against the previous Rightist leadership being conducted aside from organizational and administrative measures, Right opportunism could still persist as a strong undercurrent or secondary aspect of opportunism even under the "Left" opportunist leadership of Jose Lava. Soon after its assumption of office and adoption of the line of armed struggle, it actually permitted Luis Taruc to negotiate the terms of surrender and amnesty for the people's armed forces with the Quirino government. This was another instance of an opportunist line that undermined the revolutionary will of the masses more than it deceived the enemy. No genuine Marxist-Leninist party leadership would ever consider surrendering to or seeking amnesty from the enemy. To do so would be to betray the fighting masses, promote capitulationism and serve the enemy.
The Jose Lava leadership committed mainly the error of "Left" opportunism by dogmatically assuming that the class enemies of the proletariat were weakening and splitting up all the way on a straight line and that the Party could seize power within a very short period. There was a failure to recognize that in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, a protracted people's war would have to be waged with due regard to the strength of the enemy.
The Party could depend only on the people in areas covered by the Hukbalahap and the Barrio United Defense Corps during the anti-Japanese struggle. Because of previous failure to distribute cadres to important parts of the country other than Central Luzon, Manila, Rizal and Southern Tagalog and because of the Right opportunism of previous years, the Party and the people's army were not able to build up on a national scale and, therefore, were not able to unite with the people on a national scale. It would require a protracted period of time for the Party to convert into a revolutionary advantage the initial disadvantage of fighting for people's democratic power in an archipelago like the Philippines.
The "Left" opportunist leadership of Jose Lava failed to understand comprehensively the requirements of a people's democratic revolution. It failed to see the necessity of solid party building, the development of armed rural bases on the basis of an agrarian revolution and the national united front. If it recognized the necessary combination and correct use of these weapons, then it could have easily taken the view that people's war is protracted and painstaking.
During this period, the notion became prevalent that the establishment of rural bases was a strange and utopian idea "because the Philippines is a small country and an archipelago having no rear adjacent to and contiguous with a big friendly country". Jose Lava as general secretary dismissed arrogantly the concept of rural bases as a grandiose idea. Little was it realized that the rural base was itself the center of gravity or great rear of guerrilla zones. The camp of the Politburo-Out in the Laguna portion of the Sierra Madre depended merely on a hidden physical base instead of a rural base where the people's support is strong by virtue of armed struggle and agrarian revolution.
A protracted revolutionary armed struggle should have been waged in combination with an agrarian revolution and the development of rural bases. The people's army should have advanced in a series of waves from stable base areas but a petty-bourgeois leadership was too much in a hurry, too impetuous to capture within so short a period the bourgeois state power centered in Manila. This petty-bourgeois leadership never realized that the Party could fight the bourgeois state by establishing the people's democratic power in the countryside. At the height of the adventurist folly, Party leaders would bid each other good-bye in public with: "See you in Malacanang!" This infantile talk reflected the adventurist desire of the Jose Lava leadership to move the people's army to the city gates within a short period of time without first developing the armed power of the masses and then advancing in a series of waves from well-consolidated rural bases.
The Central Committee plenary session which was held by the Politburo-Out under the Jesus Lava leadership in February-March of 1951 after the capture of' the Politburo-In failed to clarify fully the building and wielding of the three weapons of the Philippine revolution; namely, party building, armed struggle and the national united front. It obscured the basic errors of the Jose Lava leadership by superficial rationalization such as "carelessness" of the captured Party leaders and the tactical errors of lower cadres and commanders and the rank and file. A rectification movement would have unfolded the ideological and political basis of the failure of the Jose Lava leadership and thus removed the danger of opportunism continuing in its Right or "Left" form.
Jesus Lava's assumption of the Party leadership did not mean an immediate reversal of Jose Lava's "Left" opportunist political line. It was when the Jesus Lava leadership lost effective central command over all units of the people's army and was further burdened by the series of military difficulties exerted by the enemy and by the capitulationism and splittism of Luis Taruc and his Titoite cohorts that it swung to the Right opportunist line. Its Right opportunism became most evident in the formal adoption of parliamentary struggle as the main form of struggle in 1955 and in the disbandment of armed units under its command. This Right opportunism would continuously be further borne out by the subsequent one-man flights of principal leaders of the Party from the countryside to the city. This one-man flightism resulted in the worst policy of the Jesus Lava leadership, the "single file" policy, which meant the liquidation of the collective life of the Party and the dissolution of practically all Party units and armed units, thus defeating even the Right opportunist objective of engaging mainly in parliamentary struggle.
The militant resurgence of the Communist Party of the Philippines has been on account of the emergence of new Party cadres and reactivated Party cadres who are now guided by today's highest development of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought.
At the present moment, however, the black bourgeois line of the Lavas remains a pernicious influence within the Party. Afflicting the Party for an exceedingly long period, without having been profoundly criticized before this present stage of the development of our Party, this black bourgeois line cannot be defeated within a few weeks, months or years. It cannot be removed from the Party even if its direct representatives are overthrown from their positions of Party authority unless we combat the ideological and political roots of their errors. Considering the present circumstances, the dangers of Right or "Left" opportunism will always confront us. But those who hold on to the living study and application of Mao Tsetung Thought and to the correct mass line of the Party wi1l always maintain and heighten their revolutionary strength and courage in order to prevai1.
It should be kept in mind, though, that the black bourgeois line of the Lavas is mainly Right opportunism and secondarily "Left" opportunism. Today, some Party members overestimate the value of legal urban-based "nationalist" mass organizations like the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism and such government measures as the Magna Carta of Labor, the Agricultural Land Reform Code and others. On the other hand, there is a minor undercurrent of infantile "Left" opportunism of excessively underestimating the value of legal mass organizations and of resorting to "Left" phrasemongering without actually engaging in thoroughgoing mass work and struggle against the exploiters of the people.
Modern revisionism has gained a small foothold in Philippine society through the Lava revisionist renegades and other Right opportunists. It is necessary to combat modern revisionism with the revolutionary theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Otherwise, the Communist Party of the Philippines will continue to suffer stagnation and reverses in the struggle for people's democratic power.
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