I am reposting this interview of Joma Sison. This article
was also posted at Democracy
and Class Struggle. There are also some futher comments from Harsh Thakor and
quotes from Sison.
***
***
Joma Sison (AKA: José María
Sison) is the founder of the Communist
Party of the Philippines. Sison reorganized the
party as a Maoist group, in 1968, He is also a writer, activist
and theoretician. Since 2002, Sison has been classified as a
"person supporting terrorism" by the United States Philippines has
been classified by the US USA
Harsh Thakor is a freelance
writer. He writes for this blog, Otto's War Room (毛派) and Democracy
and Class Struggle, among other periodicals. This article also appeared in Democracy
and Class Struggle.
By 1990-91 the “Left” and Right opportunists were
forced to retreat Earlier they made a concerted effort in disrupting the mass
line . They tried to exploit the crisis faced by the central leadership by
trying to usurp power and promote the counterrevolutionary rightist line.
Later in 1990, the Political Bureau nullified the erroneous
concept of "strategic counter-offensive" and stopped its
implementation. The Military Commission of the Central Committee and
the NPA Political Department held the National Central Conference on Political
work in March-April 1990 supporting the proletarian revolutionary line.
A major campaign for educating cadres on
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong was launched with many classic works reprinted for
educating cadres.
HT What has been the role of the New People's Army?
JMS The CPP founded the New People’s Army on March 29, 1969.
It started with only 9 automatic rifles and 26 other inferior firearms for the
initial 60 Red fighters in the second district of Tarlac province.
The NPA is the main weapon of the people for defeating the
enemy and winning the revolution. Without it, the people have nothing. It
carries out three integral tasks: revolutionary armed struggle, agrarian
revolution and mass base building. It carries out a war of fluid movement and
avails of the tactics of concentration, dispersal and shifting as circumstances
require. It follows the strategy of protracted people´s war, with three
probable strategic stages: defensive, stalemate and counteroffensive.
The NPA applies the principle of centralized ideological and
political leadership and decentralized operations, which is very appropriate to
the archipelagic character of the Philippines even as the Party
central leadership issues operational guidelines for the national, regional and
lower levels to implement. Currently, the NPA is victoriously carrying out
extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and
deepening mass base in order to advance from the strategic defensive to the
strategic stalemate.
Now, the Red fighters run into thousands and their units
operate nationwide in 110 guerrilla fronts in 73 out of 81 provinces. The full
time Red fighters are augmented by tens of thousands of members of the people’s
militia and hundreds of thousands of members of the self-defense units of the
mass organizations. These are active auxiliaries as well as reserve force for
the NPA.
The NPA has surpassed the number, strength and scale of all
previous revolutionary armies in Philippine history. Most importantly, it has
grown in strength and advanced since 1969 by carrying out the strategic line of
protracted people’s war, using the countryside to accumulate strength and
create the conditions for the strategic offensive to seize the cities.
At the moment, the NPA is striving to advance from the
middle phase to the advanced phase of the strategic defensive in order to enter
the stage of the strategic stalemate. It has a sound basis for the rapid
advance of the revolution because of the tempering and accumulated experience
of the revolutionary forces and the desire of the people for revolutionary
change because of the worsening crisis of the ruling system and the escalating
oppression and exploitation.
It strives to arouse, organize and mobilize the masses
of the people in literacy and health campaigns, implementing land reform, and
other campaigns, aside from military warfare. It regularly carries
out training in self-defense and combat for guerrilla warfare and builds organs
of political power. The Party gives free play to the autonomy of the
mass organizations by working as Party groups within but not imposing the party
line in a commandist or bureaucratic way. It stresses learning from
the masses and not imposing Marxism on them. Today the New People's Army has
thousands of Red fighters. One hundred ten companies exist. The movement today
is in the stage of the strategic defensive.
The NPA has mastered the art of capturing weapons from the
enemy camp and also the art of winning over members of the reactionary army
through the military academy since the 1960’s. It also treats
captured enemy soldiers leniently.
In early years, meticulous mass work was done by the
Kabataang Makabayan, youth wing, particularly in cities.
In the White Areas, the revolutionaries do not expose
themselves to the enemy. In Red areas, already under the people's government,
they lead the masses and conduct their activities openly, with
security provisions against unreliable elements and possible enemy agents. If
the Party does not trust the masses and is afraid of facing them, it cannot
lead them in the revolutionary process and will wither away or disintegrate as
a mere conspiratorial cabal.
The Party does not blindly eliminate all
landlords. The tyrants among them are differentiated from the
englightened ones who are won over on a minimum platform. Instead of
just eliminating the tyrannical landlords, they could be tactically asked to
acquire weapons for the revolution on the pretext of fighting the NPA.
HT: What is the policy of building united front
and the basis of formation of the National Democratic Front?
In developing the alliance of the working class with the
peasantry in the antifeudal untied front, the CPP has correctly taken the line
of relying mainly on the poor peasants, winning over the middle peasants, and
neutralizing the rich peasants in order to isolate and destroy the power of the
landlord class. The CPP and NPA have taken the key role in carrying out
agrarian revolution as the main content of the democratic revolution.
As it now stands, the people´s democratic government has
millions of people under its governance and influence. It is mindful of the
class line in the national united front and in the anti-feudal united front in
being able to govern the revolutionary mass organizations and the broad masses
of the people. The policy of the united front guides the people’s war as well
as the various forms of legal struggle in the urban areas in order to promote
the armed revolution and attract the support of the people in their millions.
The CPP has built the united front as a weapon of the people
for armed as well as for legal struggle. The united front is embodied in the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines as the largest and
most consolidated united front organization. The NDFP consists of 18 allied
organizations bound together by patriotic and progressive principles and policies.
And it has the flexibility to become the base for an even broader united front
that takes advantage of the contradictions among the reactionaries in order to
isolate and defeat the current enemy, which is the most reactionary clique in
the country.
HT: What are the political achievements of the
CPP?
JMS: Depending on the circumstances, they have carried out
the minimum and maximum land reform programs. The minimum program involves rent
reduction, elimination of usury, setting of fair farm-gate prices and promotion
of agricultural production and sideline occupation through independent
households and rudimentary cooperation. The maximum program involves the
confiscation of land from the landlords and land grabbers and free land
distribution and agricultural cooperation in stages.
Because of the people´s army and advance of the people´s
war, the CPP has been able to build the local organs of political power
nationwide, from the barangay level upwards. At the barangay level, the
barangay organizing committees are appointed and then eventually the barangay
revolutionary committees are elected. The local organs of political power
constitute the people´s democratic government of workers and peasants in
opposition to the reactionary government of big compradors, landlords and
bureaucrat capitalists.
They are composed of the representatives of the Party
cadres, the masses and technically capable persons. They oversee and supervise
mass organizing, public education, production, finance, self-defense, health
and sanitation, cultural affairs, environmental protection, disaster relief and
rehabilitation and the settlement of disputes. They are in charge of the
people´s militia and the people´s court at the pertinent level.
Two conflicting governments exist in the Philippines .
The reactionaries are talking nonsense whenever they say that the
revolutionaries have not accomplished anything in 50 years by not being able to
seize the presidential palace in Manila .
They are even more absurd when they attempt to deny the existence and
belligerent status of the people´s democratic government and dismiss it as a
mere nonstate actor.
In fact, this government, duly constituted by the workers
and peasants, is growing and advancing wave upon wave until it shall be able to
overthrow every level of the reactionary government. At certain levels and in
many areas in the Philippines ,
the reactionary government cannot function without its enlightened local
officials obtaining the permission or cooperation of the revolutionary government.
As it now stands, the people´s democratic government has
millions of people under its governance and influence. It is mindful of the
class line in the national united front and in the anti-feudal united front in
being able to govern the revolutionary mass organizations and the broad masses
of the people. The policy of the united front guides the people’s war as well
as the various forms of legal struggle in the urban areas in order to promote
the armed revolution and attract the support of the people in their millions.
HT: How did the CPP carry out ideological
education?
JMS: The CPP has educated tens of thousands of Party cadres
and members in the theory and practice of MLM by providing them with three
levels of Party study courses: basic, intermediate and advanced. These cadres
are the ever growing hard core of the revolutionary mass movement, institutions
of various kinds and specialized fields of work. Party education is meant to
enlighten and inspire the Party cadres and members among the toiling masses of
workers and peasants as well as among the middle social strata of the
bourgeoisie.
The basic Party course provides Party cadres and members
with a knowledge of Philippine history, the basic problems of the Filipino
people and the people´s democratic revolution. The intermediate
Party course is on building the Party, the people´s army and the united front,
including a comparative study of successful revolutions led by the
proletariat. The advanced Party course is devoted to gaining a
comprehensive knowledge of materialist philosophy, political economy,
scientific socialism, the strategy and tactics of proletarian revolution and
the international communist movement.
The CPP has contributed greatly to the world treasury of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism by issuing ideological and political documents and
bylined works by CPP leading organs and cadres on the position of
the Party on theoretical and practical issues, on building and
developing the Party, the people´ army and the united
front, criticizing and rectifying errors and shortcomings
and analyzing and opposing imperialism and reaction in the
Philippines and abroad.
HT: JMS, Why are you negotiating with Duterte whom you claim
is a dictator?
JMS: Yes, he is autocratic but he did earlier cooperate with
the movement in Mindanao and
supported progressive reforms. He made positive proposals in 2014. We thought
that even if he had defects as a bureaucrat capitalist, we could
utilize the contradictions among the reactionaries to split and
defeat the ruling system. Duterte was the less reactionary and
wished to cooperate five years ago. The policy of the united front was being
applied to advance the revolution.
The Chinese Communist Poarty engaged in peace negotiations
with the Guomindang and even had two great alliances with it first, against the
northern warlords and next against the Japanese invaders. Mao
himself engaged in peace negotiations in Chungking in
an attempt to prevent civil war with the Guomindang.
It is foolish and self-defeating for the Duterte regime to
wage an all out war and commit barbarous acts of state terrorism against the
people and all democratic forces, whether these are engaged in armed struggle
or not. The people’s war in the countryside is advancing while the broad united
front and democratic mass movement in the urban areas are rising up to oust the
Duterte regime.
The Duterte regime needs the peace negotiations more than
the NDFP does, even if the regime does it only as a futile tactic to confound
the opposition and confuse the public. But the NDFP is highly principled and
competent to stand firmly for the national and democratic rights and interests
of the people in the exploration of peace negotiations, actual peace
negotiations and otherwise.
it is the consistent policy of the NDFP to be open to peace
negotiations with the Duterte regime despite its determination to
seek the ouster of this regime.It is for the benefit of the people that the
peace negotiations resume and stop the Duterte regime from proclaiming martial
law nationwide, from calling off or rigging the May 2019 elections and from
pursuing the scheme to impose a fascist dictatorship on the Filipino people via
charter change for a bogus kind of federalism.
The NDFP presumes that, when peace negotiations resume, the
way is open to the forging of agreements on social, economic and political
reforms that are desired and needed by the people.
HT: What are your views on the criticism of sections of
parties that claim that CPP has veered towards rightist path in International
line?
JMS: Let me make one thing
clear. Infantile “communists” cannot distinguish issues and
relations in ideology from those in politics. A communist party can
have fraternal relations with other communist parties on a MLM ideological
basis and friendly anti-imperialist relations with all sorts of
parties. In mass work, which is ;political, a Maoist deals with all
sorts of people who have different thoughs and beliefs. There is no such
thing as discovering and dealing only with ready-made Maoists among
the masses. Also, a Maoist party does not prohibit the united front
organizaion or the people from having protodiplomatic and diplomatic relations
with non-Maoist governments.
Cooperating politically with a revisionist communist party
does not mean supporting it's ideological line or totally
supporting its political line or practice. In the 1980's
ther “Left” in the CPP advocated establishing CPP relations with the
CPSU. Instead the CPP allowed the NDF to act like the PLO
and seek protodiplomatic relations with certain revisionist countries like USSR or Eastern
Europe on the basis of opposing US imperialism. The CPP never
agreed with Dengist revisionism and capitalist restoration. It also
never agreed with Soviet revisionism and social imperialism. The CPP
analyzed and recognized the revisionist character of the Dengist CCP. In
continuing relations with the revisionist CCP up to 1989, the basis was political
rather than ideological. By the early 1990's, the
CPP took an even more clear cut and elaborate stand against Soviet
and Chinese revisionism.
The CPP has opposed the Revolutionary Internationalist
Movement (RIM) seeking to impose the principle of democratic centralism on
communist parties in violation of the principle of equality and independence
among them. At the same time, RIM exaggerated the status and role of
the RCPUSA. Since the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943,
communist and workers’ parties have become equal to each other and independent
from each other. There has been no Comintern Executive Committee to
treat them as national sections of a world party.
The CPP has supported progressive and anti-imperialist
non-Maoists like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Fidel
Castro of Cuba and Kim Il Sung in the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea. Politically they are more worthy than infantile “communists”
who cannot distinguish ideological from political issues and ideological
relations from political relations.
The "Left" opportunists in the CPP were the ones
who hoped for military assistance from the Soviet
Union or pro-Soviet parties from 1982 to 1988. They were
accommodated by the CC of the CPP by letting the NDF to explore the possibility
of such assistance. By 1988 the Maoists in the CPP started to oppose the
"Left" opportunists for major errors of line and crimes in
violation of due process. By 1992, the Second Great Rectification Movement was
launched, targeting mainly the "Left" opportunists. Stand
for Socialism Against Modern Revisionism was issued.
HT: Do you think Mao's military line of protracted people's
war is universal?
JMS: Mao made clear that because of the chronic crisis of
the semicolonial and semifeudal country, protracted people's war is possible,
starting from small and weak, the people's army can develop into one that is
big and strong. It acccumulates armed and political strength in the
countryside until conditions are ripe for the seizure of the cities. Like Marx,
he warned against playing with insurrection in the well-developed and highly
centralized capitalist countries. So far in history,r guerrilla partisan
warfare can arise successfully under conditions of inter-imperialist war in
capitalist countries like France and Italy in
WW II.
Are there conditions of inter-imperialist war to divide the
attention of the monopoly capitalist ruling class and military? Whether the war
is carried out in the hinterlands or in the cities, can there be a people's
army immediately to give battle to the highly organized security forces of the
imperialist state? A number of those who advocate people's war in industrial
capitalist countries presume that the ruling system is extremely
rotten and that the people are already ready to rise up and it is only a matter
of igniting the situation to rally the people to march on the centers of power.
That is more like literary imagination than military science and tactics under
the command of the Party based on materialist dialectics.
Mao was absolutely clear that protracted people's war,
especially building a people's army from small and weak to big and strong over
time, is possible only in semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries because of
their chronic crisis and their wide physical and social terrain (countryside
and peasantry) for guerrilla warfare to develop into a regular mobile warfare.
While there is yet no inter-imperialist war, genuine
Communists can do what the Bolsheviks did like penetrating the reactionary army
with cadres. The main thing is to do however is to form self-defense
units among the workers and youth as the hard core of the proletarian
masses. They can exist as self-defense groups during strikes or as
athletic groups. For more than 75 years, the imperialist powers have avoided a
direct war among themselves because they fear the probability of mutual
destruction in a nuclear war. But it is also probable that the
crisis and disintegration of the imperialist countries can be so grave and
rapid that the masses can take power in cities through uprisings and not
through a protracted people’s war. The nuclear weapons of Soviet
social imperialism became useless when the masses rose up to overthrow
it.
HT: How do you view the Maoist Movement since
capitalism was restored in China ?
JMS: In China itself, the Maoist
movement was defeated after the death of Mao and the coup engineered by Deng
Xiaoping and his collaborators was successful. The GPCR was
denounced, the communes were dismantled and capitalist reforms and opening up
to the capitalist world were promoted. Analysis is needed to
understand , draw lessons and overcome the defeat of Maoism in China from
1976 onward. The Chinese communists are trying hard to bring back
the socialist revolution under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
The CPP admires the Maoist parties that have waged people’s
war in such countries as India , Nepal , Peru , Turkey and
the like. In the 1980’s the people’s war in Peru was
very promising. However, Comrade Gonzalo in Peru made
a mistake in assessing that people’s war was already in the stage of
strategic equilibrium and in expecting urban insurrection as a shortcut to
victory. He also underestimated the aspectof the united front. After
his arrest, he put forward the line of stopping the people’s war to give way to
peace negotiations that are supposed to lead to the resumption of
people’s war.
I admire the Communist Party of India
(Maoist). It adheres to the theory of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism as
guide to revolutionary action. It practices the mass line and pursues
protracted people's war with resilience and understanding. After
being subjected to concentrated attack in North
Telengana , it has reinvigorated itself in Dandkaranya to uphold
the torch of Maoism. It has skillfully countered the attacks of the
reactionary Indian paramilitary forces. Without mass support it could never
have succeeded. It is starting to overcome weaknesses and
shortcomings in urban areas and in building urban-based mass
organizations. Being the proletarian revolutionary party in such a
big population, the CPI (Maoist) can play a major role in the world
proletarian revolution, like the Bolsheviks in the former Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China
under the leadership of Mao. The CPP stands to benefit greatly from from the
advances achieved by the CPI (Maoist).
HT: What is your view of the state of the world today?
JMS: US imperialism i is on the
strategic decline. Acute contradictions are intensifying among the
imperialist powers. The contention of the imperialist China with the US is of great political significance by
way of challenging US global
hegemony. Revolutionary forces can take advantage of the
Inter-imperialist contradictions. Today fascism is rising worldwide,
taking different shapes. Maoists can cooperate with non-Marxist but
progressive Left sections of the people to combat fascism in Europe and elsewhere. A major feature in
third world countries is the reign of neocolonialism and
neoliberalism. They breed fascism. Neoliberalism and the so-called
war on terror combine to promote the rise of authoritarian regimes and state
terrorism. Duterte is already on the path of imposing a fascist
dictatorship on the Filipino people. He has labeled the CPP and other
revolutionary forces as terrorist. He is using all kinds of
barbarities against the CPP and other revolutionary forces. He is
also targeting all non-communist forces that are critical of his tyrannical
regime. He has targeted for repression even the Catholic Church to
discourage it from criticizing the criminal acts of his regime.
HT: How do you see future of revolution in CPP?
JMS: The CPP is very determined to defeat the tyranny of
Duterte and the entire ruling system of big compradors, landlords and
bureaucrats servile to US imperialism.
Today the CPP has 75,000 members and leads a mass movement of people in the
millions. It is in all spheres of society. It is marching
from victory to victory because of its adherence to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as
guide to action and because of its application of the mass line in pursuing the
people’s democratic revolution. It upholds and defends the theory of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and understands Mao’s theory and practice of continuing
revolution under proletarian dictatorship through cultural
revolution. This ushers in the third stage in the development of
Marxism.
The CPP has excelled in leading the armed revolution that is
among the longest running, strongest, and continuously growing armed
revolutions for national liberation, democracy and socialism in the world. This
armed revolution has proven correct Mao´s theory and practice of protracted
people´s war. The CPP has developed this theory and practice in accordance with
the specific characteristics of the Philippines in terms of social
and physical terrain, with the peasant population as the most numerous class in
the mountainous archipelago.
What makes the Philippine revolution most outstanding
currently is that it has overcome a long running fascist dictatorship like that
of Marcos and a long series of strategic operational campaign plans of
US-lining pseudo-democratic regimes to destroy it. The revolutionary forces and
people have become strong precisely by fighting all the series of strategic
operational plans that have been undertaken by the US and its
Filipino puppet regimes. They have also combated and prevented all attempts of
modern revisionism, reformism and opportunism to undermine and weaken the armed
revolution.
Here are some full names of those mentioned in this article;
Rodrigo Duterte , Mikhail Gorbachev, Corazon Aquino.
Added quotes and comments:
Quoting Joma Sison:
"Of course, militarization of the party is the anti-MLM
line of the Gonzaloites who worship Gonzalo, make him the definer of Mao's
theory and practice in China and who ignore how he actually made his own
ten-year long people's war ultimately decline with his flip flop from "Left'
opportunism to Right opportunism in his own country."
How do you assess Gonzalo thought and his followers today
Comrade?
Quoting Joma Sison- "Regarding the religious-like
dogmatic and sectarian worship of Gonzalo and Gonzalo Thought, those practicing
it insult the great communists (MELSM) by elevating Gonzalo to their level or
close to their level as well as the people's wars that still growing and are
far more successful than that in Peru by claiming that Gonzalo is the greatest
of Maoists after Mao. Instead of simplistically denying the capitulation and
betrayal of the Peruvian revolution by Gonzalo, his worshippers should answer
with facts and arguments those facts and arguments raised by critics who hold
responsible Gonzalo as "Left" opportunist for neglecting the united
front as a weapon, inventing the "strategic equilibrium" and putting
forward the notion of urban uprising as short cut to total victory and as Right
opportunist and outright betrayer of the revolution by proposing while in
prison peace negotiations and peace agreement with the enemy, calling for the
end of the people's war and conflicting with those who continued the people's
war. Causes must be established for the decline and defeat of the Peruvian
revolution. In the Philippines ,
CPP leaders lose their position as soon they are captured by the enemy to avoid
the negative lesson of Aquinaldo of the First Philippine Republic surrendering
the revolution to the US
soon after his capture. Ard
Kinera and his kind in Tjen Foldet are mere charlatans and fake Maoists.
They have been blabbering about protracted people's war for more than 20 years
(since their expulsion from AKP) and for as long as social democrats and other
reformists hope for the gradual evolution of capitalism to socialism. And they pose
as superior in theory and practice to the thinkers and leaders of people's war
far more successful than the already failed people's war of Gonzalo. But even
after so long, these charlatans have not tried what they preach by starting
protracted people's war in Norway
or elsewhere in Western Europe or North America or even only join the people's
war in the Philippines ,
India Turkey, Kurdistan or Colombia ."
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