The Maoist Communist Union extends revolutionary solidarity and expresses its grief upon hearing of the death of Prof. Jose Maria Sison, the great Filipino revolutionary leader and founding chairperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines. We salute the brave struggle of the Filipino people, who, even as they grieve for Ka Joma, are carrying on the struggle for new democracy, national independence from imperialism, and socialism.

The heroic struggle of the Filipino people is an inspiration to the people of the whole world. During over 50 years of sustained struggle, the Filipino reactionaries and their imperialist overlords have not been able to dislodge the revolutionary movement. Despite billions of dollars in U.S. military aid, training, and intelligence sharing, the Filipino people not only have not been defeated, but have actually widened and deepened the revolutionary struggle.

This is because the fundamental social problems facing the Filipino people continue to be unresolved, and because the CPP has guided the struggles in a way that has shown ever growing numbers of the Filipino people that the only real way to resolve these problems is through a new democratic revolution with a socialist perspective. The country is plagued by imperialists who prop up semi-feudal, semi- colonial, semi-capitalist relations of production in order to better plunder the country, exploiting the people’s labor and looting various national resources. The U.S. backs up the Filipino government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which neglect national defense even as they train their guns on the revolutionary national-democratic movement. Chinese warships arrogantly encroach on Filipino territory, raising the possibility that the country could wind up as a battleground between imperialist powers, torn apart by proxy war like Ukraine and so many other countries.

The problems facing the Filipino people can only be resolved by making revolution, firmly kicking the imperialists out of the country in order to establish national independence and a people’s democratic government and thereby build the basis for socialism in the Philippines. Comrade Sison played an outstanding role in clarifying the viability and necessity of this path, breaking with revisionist and reformist parties and organizations to found the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968.

Since it’s founding the CPP has continued the revolutionary struggle during a dark period in the International Communist Movement which saw the reversal in China, defeat of the movement in Perú, betrayal of the revolution in Nepal, and the disintegration or destruction of many Maoist organizations around the world. That the Party remained revolutionary during this period, even with setbacks and new challenges, is an important testament to the Party’s ideological clarity and steadfastness. Their revolutionary spirit in these dark times has inspired others and helped to clarify the basis for MLM to many revolutionaries. Ka Joma’s contributions to the persistence of the Party are of great significance to the world proletarian revolution.

Since the founding of the Party Comrade Sison played a vital role as an important Maoist intellectual and theorist for both the revolutionary movement in the Philippines and the wider International Communist Movement. From his lifetime of contributions there is much to learn from and study deeply, a task which we in MCU have only begun to take up.

Over the years Comrade Sison made a number of important contributions to MLM and played an important role supporting revolutionary movements around the world. In recent years his interventions in the international debate between Maoism and Gonzaloism have been particularly important, including cogent arguments against the dogmatism of those who proclaim “the universality of protracted people’s war.” His contributions to this debate are an admirable form of internationalism, which Lenin summed up as “working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception.” Genuine revolutionaries view the problems of revolutionaries in other countries as their own, and speaking out, at times polemically, to point out those problems is a basic responsibility.

To remain a revolutionary over the course of a lifetime is not an easy thing, and our remarks here touch on just a few of the numerous contributions Ka Joma has made to the cause of the international proletarian struggle. We call on others to follow in his footsteps, learn from his work, and support the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.

We salute Comrade Jose Maria Sison for remaining on the revolutionary path during a lifetime of work and struggle. May the Filipino people continue to draw inspiration from his body of work, and keep up the struggle!