Maoist theory and practice in the Philippines

From Maoist Road and Maoist Revolution;

for MCI's debate - PCF.- Development, current status and prospects of Maoist theory and practice in the Philippines

Introduction: Definition of Maoism

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was reestablished on the theoretical foundation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought on 26 December 1968. Since 1995, it has officially used the term Maoism as synonym for Mao Zedong Thought. The adoption of the term is due to language alignment in relation to Marxism-Leninism rather than due to any change of meaning or line in relation to Mao Zedong Thought. Since 3 September 1993, in his message to the Symposium on Mao Zedong Thought in Manila, the founding chairman of the CPP has referred to adherents of Mao Zedong Thought as Maoists.

The Communist Party of the Philippine stands by its definition of Mao Zedong Thought or Maoism as the third stage in the development of the theory and practice of the revolutionary proletariat towards the ultimate goal of communism. The ongoing stage of Maoism proceeds from the previous stages of Marxism and Leninism, respecting and upholding the theoretical and practical achievements of each stage, extending and developing them further and making new achievements.

Maoism has arisen thus far as the highest stage in the development of the theory and practice of proletarian revolution by confronting the problem of modern revisionism and putting forward the theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship through cultural revolution in order to combat revisionism, prevent the restoration of capitalism and consolidate socialism. Among the many great achievements of Mao, the aforesaid theory and practice constitutes his greatest. This inspires hope for a socialist and communist future against imperialism, revisionism and reaction.

Mao is indubitably correct in identifying the revisionism of degenerates in power in socialist society as the most lethal to socialism, and in offering the solution that succeeded in China for ten years before it was defeated in 1976. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the full restoration of capitalism in revisionist-ruled countries in the period of 1989-91 have vindicated Mao´s position on the crucial importance and necessity of the struggle against revisionism and the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) can be regarded as the prototype for the ample realization of the theory of continuing revolution in socialist society, like the Paris Commune of 1871 was the prototype for the proletarian class dictatorship that won victory in the October Revolution of 1917. Proletarian revolutionaries can be confident that they are forearmed with the theory behind the GPCR and the experience gained from it in order to face the challenge of revisionism in socialist societies.

Maoism encompasses the major contributions of Mao to further develop such basic components of Marxism as philosophy, political economy, and social science as first laid down by Marx and Engels in the period of free competition capitalism and the rise of the modern industrial proletariat in the 19th century. Maoism also encompasses Mao´s major contributions to further develop Lenin´s earlier theoretical and practical achievements in developing the aforesaid components, and to carry forward the great victory of Lenin and Stalin in socialist revolution and construction in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution.

In philosophy, Mao made a penetrating study of the unity of opposites as the most fundamental law in materialist dialectics. He explained the wave-like alternating and interactive advance of theory and practice, and social practice (i.e., production, class struggle and scientific experiment) as the source of knowledge. In political economy, he based himself on the Marxist critique of capitalism and the Leninist critique of modern imperialism, learned from the Soviet experience in socialist revolution and construction, and put forward a political economy of socialism that sought to improve on the pioneering experience of socialist revolution and construction in the Soviet Union.

In social science, Mao followed the teachings of Marxism and Leninism that class analysis is applied on a class society, that class struggle is the key to social progress, and that class struggle in bourgeois society must lead to the class dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie in the attainment of socialism. Mao´s class analysis of the semicolonial and semifeudal society enabled the Chinese Communist Party to win the people's democratic revolution with the correct program and strategy and tactics, and proceed to the socialist revolution.

Subsequently, his class analysis of Chinese society in the period of socialist revolution and construction showed the correct handling of contradictions in such society. He reiterated the Leninist thesis that classes and class struggle would continue to exist in socialist society, that the resistance of the defeated bourgeoisie would increase 10,000-fold, and that it would take a whole historical epoch for the proletariat to completely defeat the bourgeoisie. He was well grounded in recognizing the threat of modern revisionism in China and the need for the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship.

Mao stressed the necessity and importance of working class leadership through the Party and the basic alliance of the working class and peasantry in the new democratic revolution. He posited that the semicolonial and semifeudal society is in chronic crisis, and that the huge peasant population in the countryside serves as the basis for the strategic line of protracted people's war and establishment of the revolutionary organs of political power even while the reactionary state still sits in the urban areas.

He developed further the Leninist theory and practice of Party building and pushed forward the rectification movement as an educational method through the mass movement for rectifying major errors and strengthening the Party by raising the revolutionary consciousness and capabilities of the Party and the masses. The rectification movement in the Party was the seminal basis for the conception of the cultural revolution in socialist society.

Mao pointed out that the bourgeoisie, after being politically and legally deprived of the private ownership of the means of production, retreats to the cultural realm to survive and make new recruits even among the children of the working people being educated under the socialist system. The cultural sphere can thus become the breeding ground for bourgeois subjectivist ideas, revisionism and retrogression, unless an indefinite series of proletarian cultural revolutions are undertaken.

Mindful of the way modern revisionism arose in the cultural sphere and then the political sphere in the superstructure in the Soviet Union, Mao put forward the theory and practice of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. This involves a process of revolutionizing the relations of production and the superstructure through a mass movement led by the proletariat and its party.