B. Armed Struggle

It is a fundamental task of the Communist Party of the Philippines to give proletarian revolutionary leadership to the peasantry. The people's democratic revolution which our Party is waging is essentially a peasant war. The struggle for land among the vast majority of our people is the main content of the people's democratic revolution that we are trying to achieve in our semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The liberation of the peasantry from feudal exploitation and its mobilization as the main force of the people's democratic revolution are of decisive significance to the revolutionary triumph of the proletariat as the leading class.

Since industry is not well developed in our semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, the number of industrial workers is small. The proletariat through its party must therefore develop its alliance with the peasantry and lead the peasantry as the main force of the people's democratic revolution. Because of its exploited condition, the peasantry is the most reliable ally of the proletariat. Its massive strength provides the overwhelming popular support for the proletarian revolutionary party. By giving this support, the peasantry ensures the victory of the proletarian class leadership. As a proletarian revolutionary party, the Communist Party of the Philippines must rely mainly on the peasantry to conduct armed struggle and seize power. The people's democratic revolution is basically a peasant war under the leadership of the proletariat and its party guided by Mao Tsetung Thought.

In going to the countryside, the Party must make the correct class analysis and take the correct class line. In our semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, the peasant problem constitutes the main problem both politically and economically. It is therefore necessary for the Communist Party of the Philippines to conduct thoroughgoing class analysis to be able to understand the problem in the countryside so that in giving leadership to the class struggle in the countryside it will be able to distinguish between its real friends and its real class enemies; so that it can mobilize the correct class forces to train their guns against their class enemies.

The basis for class analysis is the relationship between the exploited and the exploiter and the ownership of the means of production. By knowing the relations of exploitation we determine the economic position of each class or stratum and their corresponding political attitudes. Through their ownership of the means of production, the exploiting classes maintain a system of exploitation. In the countryside, they maintain a feudal and semi-feudal system of exploitation. In waging the people's democratic revolution, the Party aims at overthrowing this system of exploitation by launching a peasant war against the feudal and semi-feudal exploiters. In the countryside, the main exploiter is the landlord class. This class relies mainly on feudal exploitation. The landlord owns lands tilled by poor peasants who pay rent to him and who are further exploited in several other ways, such as usury, menial service and tributes.

The rich peasant stratum also engages in exploitation; a considerable part of its living depends on exploitation but the rich peasant is distinguished from the landlord in that although he owns lands more than sufficient for his household, he still tills the soil. The rich peasant participates in exploitation by hiring farm workers, renting out surplus land, surplus work animals and implements, by practising usury and other forms of exploitation. The middle peasant owns a piece of land sufficient for his family; but his status ranges from being on the edge of bankruptcy to having a piece of land a little more than sufficient for his household needs and having other sources of income. The poor peasants and farm workers are those who have to work mainly for the landlords and be exploited by them. They are the most oppressed stratum of the peasantry and they are, therefore, the most interested in the people's democratic revolution and the most reliable allies of the proletariat. They compose the majority of the rural population in the Philippines.

The correct line in the countryside can be implemented by arousing and mobilizing the poor peasants and farm workers mainly and by winning over and uniting with the middle peasants, especially the lower middle and middle middle peasants, into an anti-feudal revolutionary united front. The rich peasants, including those who have traditionally taken leading positions in the barrios, can be neutralized with the growing might of the poor peasants and farm workers. The Party must do painstaking work to arouse and mobilize the poor peasants and farm workers and raise their prestige so that they can assume responsibility for the revolution. The Party must see to it that a revolutionary anti-feudal barrio committee, controlled by the poor peasants and farm workers must ultimately replace or take over the "barrio councils" controlled by the landlords, corrupt government official and rich peasants.

The implementation of the class line in the countryside would depend on painstaking remoulding of the attitudes of Party cadres towards the poor peasants, lower middle peasants and farm workers. The Party must educate its cadres through revolutionary practice to make them understand that once the poor peasants, lower middle peasants and farm workers have been aroused and mobilized they are the staunchest supporters of the revolution. We cannot rely mainly on the middle peasants. The social base of the revolution in the countryside are the poor peasants, lower middle peasants and farm workers. The middle peasants may accept the leadership of the Party when it suits their interest but when it will suit their interest to accept the class leadership of the bourgeoisie, they will do so. In times when reaction becomes ruthless, the middle peasants may vacillate and may even betray the movement. It is important to keep this in mind in our mass work in the countryside among the peasantry. It is not only in the national democratic revolution that we must rely mainly on the poor peasants, lower middle peasants and farm workers; after the seizure of state power by the proletariat and during the period of transition to communism, these strata will continue to be the social base for the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Communist Party of the Philippines must rely on peasant revolutionary bases to defeat the reactionary state power in the countryside before capturing the cities. Comrade Mao Tsetung has extensively shown with genius in theory and in practice how the countryside can encircle the cities in the course of armed struggle in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The universal truth of the theory of using the countryside to encircle the city has been proven invincible. There are, however, the local revisionists who reject the universal truth of this revolutionary theory and who overstress the fact that the Philippines is an archipelago, unlike China with a vast contiguous land area and population, with the view of obscuring and denying the basic class analysis and dialectics involved in the theory of using the countryside to encircle the city.

The theory of people's war is universal and applies to Philippine conditions. Because of the uneven development of politics and economy in the era of imperialism, the weak links of bourgeois state power are to be found in the countryside. The counter-revolutionary army is spread thinly over the country in maintaining control over main communication and transportation lines. This disposition of counter-revolutionary forces would leave the widest areas of the countryside for the development of the peasant war under the leadership of the proletariat. In the countryside, the Party must go deep among the peasant masses in order to develop the main force of the people's democratic revolution. The people's democratic forces should develop and accumulate their armed strength in the backward areas in the countryside and turn them into the most advanced political, economic, military and cultural bastions from which a protracted struggle can be waged by the people's army in order to win over-all victory over the counter-revolutionary army. The countryside certainly provides so many times vaster an area for maneuver than the cities. In the Philippines, the area for maneuver in the city is extremely limited for armed struggle. The cities are actually the bastions of bourgeois state power before the people's democratic forces develop the capability of capturing them. The counter-revolutionary army must first be defeated in the countryside. What also makes bourgeois state power weak in the countryside is that contradictions within the counter-revolutionary front keep on arising. By its own laws of motion, whichever group in the counter-revolutionary front is ascendant would keep a big armed force in the city to maintain its city-based political power.

In line with Mao Tsetung Thought, the Communist Party of the Philippines must consciously shift its center of gravity to the countryside. All previous Party leaderships in the Philippines have suffered failures that were singularly characterized by political activity that had its center of gravity in the city of Manila. The shift from the city to the countryside means that the headquarters of the people's democratic revolution should be shifted from the city to the countryside where the main forces of the revolution are to be found. This shift does not mean the neglect of the urban struggle but it is a matter of determining which is the principal and which is secondary. The principal form of struggle is waged in the countryside; the secondary one, in the city. It is in the countryside that the people's armed forces can take the offensive against the enemy, while in the city the revolutionary forces must take the defensive until such time that the people's armed forces in the countryside can seize the city.

Developing the people's war in the country entails three inseparable components, namely, armed struggle, agrarian revolution and rural bases. By engaging in armed struggle and winning more battles, conditions are created for enlarging base areas. The base areas are utilized by the people's armed forces to entrap the enemy forces, whether they are in the form of "special forces", big operations or what else the enemy can launch. By having more base areas, there are more areas where to wage the agrarian revolution. By waging the agrarian revolution, the base areas become more consolidated because the feudal forces and their political power are wiped out. The political power of the revolutionary forces is developed as the peasants become enthusiastic and join the advancing Red army. Armed struggle, agrarian revolution and rural bases promote each other. The people's democratic power is developed in the countryside through warfare. As rural bases become consolidated politically and economically, a state within a state is created. An armed independent regime, a base government of the people is created in the countryside.

The agrarian revolution that the Party should strive for in waging people's war should entail essentially the confiscation of lands from the landlords and distribution of these lands to the peasants without cost. Feudal land ownership is to be eliminated within the base area. Pursuing the correct class line in the countryside, the Party and the people's armed forces should rely on the poor peasants and farm workers, unite with the middle peasants, neutralize the rich peasants and wipe out landlordism and promote production.

In waging the agrarian revolution, the Party and the people's armed forces should be aware of two basic stages of development. At a stage when an area is unstable, they should make constant preparations for converting it into a base area by exercising armed power in wiping out the local tyrants, enemy detachments and spies, bandits and cattle rustlers and in compelling lower rent and lower interest rates in order to weaken the enemy and mobilize the masses. As the masses are fully mobilized organizationally, politically and ideologically and a well-consolidated base area has emerged from the struggles of the masses themselves, confiscation of lands from the landlords and equal distribution of these lands to the peasants can take place.

The Party and the people's armed forces should trust and rely on the masses in raising their political consciousness. They should let the masses educate themselves. Initially, they should recognize the roots of suffering among the masses; and subsequently, through reason and struggle meetings, grievances against the exploiting classes can be poured out by the peasants to educate themselves. As the Party and the people's armed forces direct the peasant war against the three pillars of feudal power, the big landlords, the despotic landlords and the landlords in authority, the peasants gain experience in class dictatorship over the exploiting classes. Through reason and struggle meetings and through the people's courts and the rendering of sentences commensurate to the crimes of the feudal exploiters and other criminals, the peasant masses become more deeply committed to the people's democratic revolution and they willingly let their best sons and daughters join the Communist Party of the Philippines and the people's army.

Comrade Mao Tsetung has said: "The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally for China and for all other countries. But while the principle remains the same, its application by the party of the proletariat finds expression in various ways according to varying conditions"

The central task of the Communist Party of the Philippines is to seize political power. In waging armed struggle to achieve the people's democratic revolution, the Party must grasp Comrade Mao Tsetung's theory of using the countryside to encircle and capture the cities and likewise his analysis of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. In the Philippines, however, there is the special condition of being an archipelago that requires particular attention. While it is necessary to build the people's military forces in the main island of Luzon to overthrow the bourgeois state power that is centrally seated in the city of Manila, the other islands of Visayas and Mindanao can be converted from an initial disadvantage to a long-run advantage by establishing there armed fronts and rural bases that can disperse and dissipate the counter-revolutionary armed power now concentrated in Luzon, particularly in Central Luzon and Greater Manila. At any rate, taking into consideration all special conditions, Comrade Mao Tsetung's theory of using the countryside to encircle the city and his class analysis hold true universally, for the Philippines and for every significant island of the Philippines. In the stage of strategic defensive, the development of guerrilla warfare on a national scale will surely dissipate and prepare the total destruction of the strength of the enemy.

Comrade Lin Piao has brilliantly systematized and extended on a world scale Comrade Mao Tsetung's theory of people's war by developing the thesis that the world's countryside, that is, Asia, Africa and Latin America, encircle the cities of the world. US imperialism, the main enemy of the peoples of the world and principal guardian of reaction, is over-extended throughout the countryside of the world. It is in this countryside of the world that the oppressed peoples, like the Filipino people, can have plenty of area for maneuver and deal deadly blows on every weakened link of the over-extended imperialist chain. US imperialism is in no position to maintain even an effective strength throughout the world's countryside while it has to impose its class interests against the national liberation movements, the socialist states, the Afro-American people, the American working class, and even against its own capitalist rivals in so many parts of the world all at the same time. While the manpower and resources of US imperialism are limited, what is most essential is that its aggressive class character is hated by all peoples of the world and is met by just and progressive revolutionary people's wars. In Vietnam alone, US imperialism and its allied troops cannot win over the valiant and patriotic Vietnamese people. In many more places, it will continue to be defeated resoundingly by revolutionary armed struggles. Armed with invincible Mao Tsetung Thought, the peoples of the world are waging people's wars and thus, are proving the historical truth that this is the era when imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is marching towards worldwide victory.

I II III IV V
Back to top

Rectify Errors, Rebuild the Party!
December 26, 1968

CONTENTS: