Specific Characteristics of our People's War

by Amado Guerrero

From the great treasury of Marxism-Leninism, we draw basic principles and historical lessons to shed light on the people's war that we are waging. But these are of general value; they are a general guide to our action. To rest content with them, without integrating them with out concrete practice, is to turn them into lifeless dogma. To dispense with them is to engage in blind action.

Both dogmatism and empiricism are anathema to Communists. As in all matters, we must integrate theory and practice in the conduct of people's war. The universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought must be applied to the concrete conditions of the Philippine Revolution. We adhere firmly to the great Lenin's teaching that the soul of Marxism is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. Only by understanding the specific characteristics of our own people's war can we understand the laws that govern it and thus can we adopt and implement the correct strategy and tactics for carrying it forward to victory.

The basic principles and historical lessons already founded in the universal theory of the revolutionary proletariat have been paid for in blood by various peoples triumphant in their respective revolutions. But as far as carrying out and winning our own people's war is concerned, there is nothing more important than those principles and lessons that we learn on the basis of Philippine conditions and our own revolutionary experience. In this regard, we put the highest premium on those principles and lessons paid for in blood by our own people.

Integrating Marxist-Leninist theory with Philippine practice is a two-way process. We do not merely take advantage of the victories achieved abroad so that we may succeed in our own revolution. But we also hope to add our own victory to those of others and make some worthwhile contribution to the advancement of Marxism-Leninism and the world proletarian revolution so that in the end mankind will be freed from the scourge of imperialism and enter the era of communism. At this stage of the Philippine Revolution, we wage a people's war, a revolutionary war, because it is the only method possible to end the armed oppression of the people by the reactionary state that is the instrument of the big comprador-landlord class.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the specific characteristics of our people's war, we must consider such specific conditions as that our people's war is in line with the national-democratic revolution of a new type; that we need to wage a protracted war in the countryside; that we are fighting in a mountainous archipelago; that the enemy is big and strong while we are still small and weak; that a fascist dictatorship has arisen amidst a political and economic crisis of the ruling system; that the country is dominated by one imperialist power and thus there is a unified armed reaction, except in Southwestern Mindanao; and that U.S. imperialism is on the decline in Asia and throughout the world and world revolution is advancing amidst the general crisis of the world capitalist system unprecedented since the end of World War II.

In discussing the specific characteristics of our people's war, we are bound to point out certain advantages and disadvantages or strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, we indicate immediately by what general process we can maximize our advantages and strengths and overcome the disadvantages and weaknesses.