2. PROTRACTED WAR IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Eighty-five per cent of the national population is in the countryside. Of this rural population, the poor peasants together with the farm workers comprise about seventy-five per cent; the middle peasants, about fifteen per cent; the rich peasants, about five per cent. The landlords may be only one or two per cent. About three or four per cent is taken up by non-agricultural wage-earners, artisans, small peddlers, merchants, students, teachers and other professionals There are drastic deviations from these percentages only in particular places where there are mines, logging, modern plantations and some industries. Fishermen along the seacoasts are mainly peasants.

On the basis of these facts, the peasant population and the countryside have a special significance to us in waging people's war. The main social problem, the single problem affecting the greatest number of people, lies in the countryside. It is the land problem. Feudalism and semifeudalism oppress and exploit the poor peasants, the farm workers and the lower-middle peasants. Without focusing attention on this problem and providing it with a solution, we cannot draw into the ranks of the revolution the most formidable force that can overwhelm the enemy.

Agrarian revolution is the solution. The peasant masses are aroused and mobilized to overthrow landlord authority and carry out land reform step by step. Depending on the concrete circumstances, particularly the strength achieved by the revolutionary forces, rent reduction and elimination of usury or outright confiscation of landlord property may be effected. In frontier areas, the poor indigenous people and the poor settlers are to be assured of ownership of their fair-sized lands. The Party maintains that the main content of the national-democratic revolution is the satisfaction of the peasant cry for land.

Only by carrying out agrarian revolution can the revolutionary leadership activate the peasant masses as the main force of the revolution and realize the basic alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry. From the ranks of the downtrodden peasantry can then be drawn the greatest number of armed contingents. As it now stands, the New People's Army is composed mainly of peasant recruits. The growth of our people's army depends on the support of the peasant masses.

In general terms, we state that the most reliable ally of the proletariat is the peasantry. In more specific terms, let us relate the revolutionary proletariat with the various strata of the peasantry. Our policy as proletarian revolutionaries is to rely mainly on the poor peasants together with the farm workers, win over the middle peasants and neutralize the rich peasants. In the course of the national-democratic revolution, we make it a point not to hurt unduly the interests of the rich peasants even as we are alert to their reactionary tendencies.

In opposing and overthrowing the landlords, we hold as chief targets landlords who have vast holdings, who have acquired these by sheer grabbing, who hold political power and who are despotic. We give special consideration, as the masses and circumstances may permit, to the enlightened gentry who endorse and follow our policies and who support our revolutionary war.

Our country is grossly undeveloped due to imperialist domination and retains a relatively wide countryside where feudalism and semifeudalism reign. This backward countryside of our small country is not as large as that of China but it is certainly large in comparison to our own cities. This is the basic setting for our people's war. The bulk of our national population is here.

The weakest link of enemy rule lies in the countryside. The worst of oppression and exploitation is carried out among the peasant masses by the reactionaries. And yet the countryside is so vast that enemy armed forces cannot but be spread thinly or cannot but abandon vast areas when concentrated at certain points. The countryside is therefore the fertile ground for the emergence and growth of Red political power -- the people's army, organs of democratic political power, mass organizations and the Party. There can be no wider and better area for maneuver for our people's army and for our type of warfare.

Our experience in more than five years shows that we have created a total of twenty guerrilla fronts in seven regions outside of Manila-Rizal. These fronts continue to thrive in the countryside even in the face of the unprecedentedly harsh fascist counter-measures. When the enemy advances in strong force against our small and weak forces, he is made to exhaust himself by punching the air and he merely allows his prey to hit weaker enemy units elsewhere or expand on new ground. The massive and prolonged enemy campaign of "encirclement and suppression" has failed to destroy our small and weak forces in Cagayan Valley.

In our country, it is possible to wage a protracted people's war because we have a relatively wide backward countryside where the bulk of the population is. There are many parts which are relatively far from the enemy's center and main lines of communications and where the people live basically on their diversified agricultural produce. This situation is completely different from that obtaining in a capitalist country.

In capitalist countries, a civil war is preceded by a long period of parliamentary struggle. To fight there a civil war without the disintegration of at least a great part of the standing army of the bourgeoisie and without the proletariat ready for a general uprising capable of winning decisively within a short period of time is to court disaster for the revolutionary forces. The civil war is mainly conditioned by the fact that the majority of the people are in the cities and is initiated and decided in the major cities where the highly unified economy and the highly developed system of communications are centered. Nationwide victory or defeat in a civil war is faster settled in capitalist countries than in semicolonial and semifeudal countries.

In the Philippines, it is as necessary as it is possible to wage a protracted people's war. It is only through a long period of time that we can develop our forces step by step by defeating the enemy forces piece by piece. We are in no position to put our small and weak forces into strategically decisive engagements with militarily superior enemy forces. In the first place, we have just started from scratch. Neither could we have postponed the start of our people's war. The more time we have for developing our armed strength from practically nothing the better for us in the future. It is our firm policy to fight only those battles that we are capable of winning. Otherwise, we circle round in the face of an enemy force that we cannot defeat and look for the opportunity to strike at an enemy force that we can defeat.

In carrying out a protracted people's war, we apply the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. We steadfastly develop guerrilla bases and zones at various strategic points in the country. In a subsequent stage, these areas shall be linked by regular mobile forces which shall be in a position to defend larger and more stable revolutionary bases in the countryside. From such stable revolutionary bases, we shall be able ultimately to seize the cities and advance to nationwide victory.

While it is our principal task to wage a protracted war in the countryside, it is our secondary task to develop the revolutionary underground and the broad anti-imperialist and democratic mass movement in the cities. We should combine the revolutionary struggles in the cities and countryside in the towns and barrios in Red areas, White areas and pink areas.

We should excel in combining legal, illegal and semilegal activities through a widespread and stable underground. A revolutionary underground developing beneath democratic and legal or semilegal activities should promote the well-rounded growth of the revolutionary forces, serve to link otherwise isolated parts of the Party and the people's army at every level and prepare the ground for popular uprisings in the future and for the advance of the people's army.