32 1*3 •if From the Committee of the The following Open Letter and women under arms and which seriously with the problems of line was forwarded to A World to Win has set ablaze a people's war which threaten the revolutionary by the Information Bureau of the throughout the Philippines, was left character of your party and the peo• RIM. It is published in full; the paralyzed by the march of events, ple's war it is leading. subheads have been added by or worse, trailing in their wake. In• This is a matter of serious impor• AWTW. deed, the inability of the CPP to tance not only for the destiny of the oo To the Central Committee find its bearings amidst the political Philippine revolution, but for the Communist Party of the Philippines crisis and ultimate fall of the Mar• proletarian revolutionary move• co cos regime in order to carry forward ment around the world. At its foun• ». Comrades, the revolutionary war has now given ding the CPP declared that the > It is with the most dramatically rise to political crisis in the CPP Philippine revolution was a compo• ^ conflicting emotions that the Com- itself, and even to mounting tenden• nent part of the world proletarian S mittee of the Revolutionary Inter- cies towards outright capitulation. revolution. And indeed it is. The Q nationalist Movement has viewed This situation has arisen after CPP itself was born in the flames *"* the unfolding of events over the past several years in which Marxist- of the international battle against Q year in the Philippines. On the one Leninists around the world have revisionism led by Mao Tsetung, 5 hand that infamous tyrant and im- viewed with concern your party's especially the Great Proletarian O perialist puppet, Ferdinand Marcos, silence on the urgent questions con• Cultural Revolution. At that time j£ has been forced to flee from his fronting the international com• young revolutionaries in the Philip• throne, hounded by the wrath of munist movement. After hailing pines revolted against the stifling millions of his aroused subjects, in• Mao and the Cultural Revolution at reformism of the revisionist party, to the hands of his awaiting master. the time of his death, you then the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas This was truly a sight which gave turned around and supported Hua (PKP), and, on 26 Dec 1968, the joy not only to the Filipino revolu• Guo-feng's reactionary coup d'etat 75th anniversary of the birth of tionaries and oppressed, but to pro• a short time later; since then you Mao Tsetung, declared the letarians and oppressed the world have ignored the virulent assault on establishment of a new communist over. Mao Tsetung Thought and the party, , guided by Mao Tsetung Yet at the very moment when the Cultural Revolution which has Thought, which it hailed as "the Filipino ruling regime was wracked spewed forth from revisionists and acme of Marxism-Leninism." Im• by crisis and instability, as millions reactionaries around the world, in• mediately thereafter the CPP stormed into the streets and the im• cluding China, and it now appears unleashed people's war to carry out perialists manoeuvred to shore up that you have made your peace with the New Democratic Revolution in their deteriorating position, at that Soviet social-imperialism. In view the Philippines as the first step on critical juncture, which contained of this and especially the perils the path to socialism and com• opportunities as well as dangers for which immediately confront the munism, which the party said would the revolutionary struggle, your CPP, the international communist be realised only after "many party, a party which arose out of the movement would be shkking its du• cultural revolutions." same history of revolutionary strug• ty if it were to remain silent. Thus Since that time, the CPP, though gle as have many in the RIM itself, we call on you, the leadership and faced with martial law and a bloody a party which has thousands of men membership of the CPP, to grapple counter-insurgency war, has 33 Revolutionary Internationalist Movement nonetheless grown from a relative means to rectify them is a pressing will "take up the sword" herself. handful, armed with a few revolvers task for the Filipino revolutionaries She has publicly divided the guer• and a handful of ancient rifles, in• today. rillas into three distinct groups: to a party of many thousands, "those who found themselves join• leading the New People's Army Aquino — Vacillating Ally or ing the rebels to escape the abuses (NPA) and the National Democrat• Sworn Enemy? of the Marcos regime — they are ic Front (NDF). Today even the Among the most serious indications ready to come down and join the U.S. imperialists must admit that of the turn in the CPP's line is its rest of the people; those who won't the CPP has become a threat to treatment of the Aquino govern• come down until they see our pro• their continued domination of the ment. Innumerable spokesmen for posals; and the hardcore —• they will Philippines. These developments the imperialists and for the new never give up. We may not be able are a profound affirmation of the government itself have made abun• to win them over but we can isolate basic principles of Marxism- dantly clear that one of the key them. Our economic and social Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on reasons Marcos had to go was that policies will do just that." which your party was founded. his regime could not defeat the Is this anything less than a At the same time, the current liberation movement. As the declaration of war? Isn't the crucial situation of crisis in the party and Economist put it in a 15 Feb 1986 point of Aquino's effort to the danger of capitulation threaten• cover editorial entitled, "Now, paralyze, split and isolate the ing it are reflections of tendencies Go!": ''The longer President Mar• revolutionary combattants so that which arose and grew in the CPP cos clings to power, the likelier he the military can then finish them over the years to depart from these is to bring on the deluge. ... It off? principles. At stake here is not could lead to the storming of Yet the CPP has followed a adherence to some abstract dogma, Malacanang presidential palace, the policy of tailing the Aquino govern• as some would have it, for it is a closing of America's two biggest ment. In your initial response to the profound truth that, as the Declara• bases in Asia and a communist Aquino government's call for a tion of the Revolutionary Interna• takeover of this archipelagic aircraft ceasefire 18 March 1986, the CPP tionalist Movement observes, carrier." A leading member of Military Commission and the NPA "Without upholding and building Aquino's entourage spoke even leadership "sincerely acknowledged on Marxism-Leninism-Mao more bluntly: "What is going to the popular support gained by Tsetung Thought, it is not possible beat the Left is not the Marcos President Corazon Aquino," hail• to defeat imperialism, revisionism government. It's a new regime bas• ed her "positive efforts" and add• and reaction in general." The real ed on the moderate opposition." ed their "hope that these stakes involved are the victory or Aquino herself has repeatedly progressive moves will gather defeat of the Philippine revolution argued that the guerrillas should lay momentum towards the solution of itself, and the profound impact — down their arms now that Marcos the more fundamental problems positive or negative —• develop• has gone, and she has recently back• confronting our people." Further• ments there have on the proletarian ed this up with the threat that if they more, the March 1986 issue of Ang revolution throughout the world. don't, the military will pursue the Bayan, the political organ of the Summing up the roots of these er• counter-insurgency war until vic• CPP Central Committee, states rors and finding the ways and tory, with her support, and that she that, "Mrs Aquino needs popular assessment on which the boycott policy was based erred in that it "overestimated U.S. capacity to im• pose its subjective will on local politics" and "underestimated the bourgeois reformists' capabilities and determination to engage the Marcos regime in a decisive contest for state power." It goes on to note that the CPP "missed oppor• tunities" because of such erroneous assessments of the situation. Accor• ding to the "self-criticism," the CPP failed to seize the chance to hook up more closely with the Aquino forces, ride along on the anti-Marcos tide, and, implicitly, to wield significant influence within the new government (one "senior Party member" complains openly that "the left was not part of the machinery" of the anti-Marcos elec• toral campaign activity). Thus the CPP compounds its errors by seriously underplaying the reac• tionary essence of the Aquino forces, exaggerating their in• support for the measures which, newly awakened masses back to dependence from U.S. imperialism, with liberal and progressive forces sleep. For it is as true of the Philip• and concluding that it was too "sec• 8 in and out of government, she in• pines today as it was of Russia in tarian" towards them. Far from 00 tends to pursue." Elsewhere it says, 1905 that, as Lenin put it, "historic acknowledging the necessity to have "President Aquino and her pro• situations arise when reforms and persevered in the people's war and gressive allies are enjoying popular particularly promises of reforms delivered blows at the weakened rul• support in their moves to disman• pursue only one aim: to allay the ing regime, on the contrary, based tle the