Bulatlatan
Written by: Banda Kathmandu
Published: Bulatlatan, March 3, 2010;
Source: Bulatlatan snapshot at the Internet Archive;
Markup: Simoun Magsalin.
Emailed by: bandakathmandu@yahoo.com
Much has been said about charges of “right opportunist tendencies” by some self-righteous party members who are more “Maoists” than Mao himself. They prate and rant about “reformism” and “class collaborationism” allegedly committed by comrades who took advantage of the splits in the ruling class and engaged the rabid reactionaries in their own arena of elitist elections. These ‘Maoist Fundamentalists’ malign comrades for forging tactical alliances and cooperation with some sections of the reactionary classes to isolate the die-hard and most corrupt faction of the ruling class. These charges had been leveled on our comrades mostly in the united front work and in the urban sectoral movements.
The Ang Bayan editorial, “Revolutionary Tasks During elections” had clearly stated the primacy of armed struggle as a form of struggle. However, there are other urgently relevant tasks and responsibilities of revolutionaries that come to the fore in the process of elitist elections such as the May 2010 elections.
The current political situation compels us to participate in elitist elections to expose its futility, split the reactionaries, isolate the die-hard faction and bring the masses to a revolutionary position:
There is intensifying conflict among the ruling classes in the country. Different factions of the ruling class are now at loggerheads against each other. The Macapagal-Arroyo faction have engaged not only in electoral fraud, but also in the worst case of plunder of the government’s coffers and the country’s wealth. They enriched themselves from bribes coming from the big gambling and drug syndicates, from big financing corporations, from transnational mining companies and other multinational companies seeking contracts with government. They have changed the rules in the reactionary classes’ intramurals by using the weight of the loyal AFP officers, the Supreme Court Justices beholden to the palace and their secret private army imbedded in the CIDG and NBI, in suppressing their political rivals.
At the back of the 2010 elections is the mad scramble for resources, wealth and political power among the ruling class factions. Each faction wants to take a bigger slice over the other especially in terms of political authority and control over the armed forces to protect their factional interests and to “attack” their most threatening rival factions. Macapagal-Arroyo on the other hand need an assurance to go scot-free from plunder charges after her term and if possible preserve and enjoy the wealth that they illegally acquired when she was in the highest governmental post. Other factions want the regime out for its refusal to share the economic-political power fairly and squarely among the reactionaries and for changing the rules of their “power-sharing.”
The long history of corrupt elitist rule in the country have finally broken the Filipinos’ patience. Everywhere in the country, the people are rejecting the Macapagal-Arroyo rule after all those scandals and crimes committed by no less than the first couple. The people want change. The people want to end the rule of the TRAPOS. But they have not yet collectively decided to take up arms against the state. They still pin their hopes in the electoral process as a non-violent means to cast away the TRAPOS from government, especially now that a computerized system has brought ‘new optimism’ for a clean and honest election. They still have to realize from their own experience that elitist rule can only be eradicated through the complementation of armed struggle and open political struggles.
Under this situation, we have to guide the people as they engage in electoral struggle and evaluate this political exercise with them to prove its inutility as a means for social change. We can only achieve this very significant heightening of people’s political consciousness if we ourselves participate in the electoral process, use the campaign meetings to gather the masses in tens of thousands and transform them as fora for political conscientization on the one hand, at the same time, as gatherings to scrutinize the reactionariness of the traditional politicians on the other hand. We can expose the demagogues before the throngs of people and agitate them to take bolder steps in ending elitist rule. This we can only achieve if we participate in the reactionary elections.
The current electoral scene provides us with a golden chance to split the domestic reactionaries severely and isolate the die-hard puppets of global imperialism and implementors of the US-NATO ‘war of terror.’ We can build a strong alliance of progressives, forge tactical cooperation with the lesser reactionaries, to isolate the die-hards and dyed- in-the-wool imperialist lackeys. A divided ruling class in the end stands as a weak enemy to the people’s revolutionary political and military offensives and will result to their eventual collapse.
We have to rid our ranks of dogmatism and dogmatists. It is not true that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism does not allow tactical alliances with non-Marxists and even with reactionaries or sections of the reactionaries. In the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks forged tactical alliance with the Bourgeois Liberals and the Socialist Radicals against the absolutist rule of the Tsar. In the Second World War, USSR initiated an alliance with the Allied imperialist powers (USA, Britain, France) to fight international fascism of the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Italy, Japan). In China, the CPC extended its arm in alliance with its arch-enemy the Kuomintang Generals and Giang Kai Shek to fight Japanese imperialist aggression.
The United Front strategy and tactics is a part of Maoist revolutionary strategy. In his United Front Policy of “Unite the Many Defeat the Few”, Mao wrote, “develop the basic forces, win over the middle forces, split the reactionary ranks and isolate the die-hards, to build the strongest and widest united front against the narrowest and weakest enemy.” Mao further clarified that the United Front policy is meant to accumulate revolutionary strength and bide our time in the protracted war.
At present the basic forces are the masses of workers and peasants with the organized revolutionary forces in the legal and illegal political arena, led by the Party, the NDF and the people’s army. These include the progressive electoral formations of national democrats and its political alliance.
The middle forces are the petty and middle bourgeoisie, including the broad sectors in the anti-trapo forces of the previous and current political struggles against the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. To win them over, is to reach out to them in the process of the electoral struggle to deepen their social consciousness and direct their hatred on the whole reactionary political rule.
To split the reactionary ranks and isolate the die-hards would mean to establish tactical and temporary terms of cooperation with the lesser reactionaries (e.g. not despotic, not in power, unarmed, willing to cooperate with revolutionaries). The present relationship with the Nacionalista Party and the Manny Villar-Marcos group is an expression of this tactical alliance. The Villars and even the Marcoses could not be considered as die-hard reactionaries today and may be persuaded over to the side of the people against the Macapagal-Arroyo regime.
Our comrades’ conduct in the present electoral struggle has been politically relevant, accurately designed to achieve our current task of isolating the US-Arroyo regime and of building up the people’s revolutionary strength in both arenas of political and armed struggles. The policies and tactics drawn remain consistent with revolutionary standards and Maoism is being creatively applied in the current stage and requirements of our people’s war.
Only the dogmatists among our ranks shun from this creative engagement with the reactionaries in their own arena of ‘elitist’ elections. To them mere participation in bourgeois electoral exercises constitute “reformism” and “right opportunism.” For them there is no leeway for a temporary cooperation with lesser reactionaries, which they consider as “class collaborationism.” For them armed struggle and political demonstrations are the only forms of struggle consistent with revolutionary standards. They appreciate the ‘elitist’ electoral period merely as a time for collecting “permits to campaign” and revolutionary taxes from politicians and fail to see the more significant political tasks of revolutionaries in this reactionary process. For them it only means “cash for revolutionary logistics” and nothing more.
The dogmatists memorize dictums from the Maoist books yet fail to see how these theories could be manifested into revolutionary tactics in areas outside the guerilla fronts and the hinterlands. They have chosen to paint themselves in a corner in their mountain fastnesses contented with the slow growth of revolutionary forces together with the “slow grind” of day-to-day work in the countrysides. They mechanically follow the classic Maoist strategy of “surrounding the cities from the countrysides” without seeing the historically dynamic contribution of the urban revolutionary mass movements to the growth of the national democratic revolutionary forces since the Party’s reestablishment. They have divorced themselves from the reality that majority of the people are now in the town centers and urban areas, and that the seats of government are in the National and provincial capitals.
These dogmatists worship the model of the Peruvian Maoists, Sendero Luminoso, who shunned away from ‘elitist’ electoral processes and focused their work in the massive recruitment into the party and people’s army of activists from peasant and indigenous communities. Rather than engage in urban political struggles, the Senderistas, conducted assassinations, bombings, ambuscades and raids by guerilla forces in the cities. They believe that the guerilla operations in the urban areas, project the growing strength of the Maoist people’s war among the urban sectors and inspire the local oppressed classes to support the proletarian-led revolution. They do not see the importance of electoral struggles and instead boycotted national elections, burned ballot boxes and sabotaged power transmissions. This is the conduct preferred by the ‘Filipino Senderistas’ in the May 2010 elections.
Such conduct of political and revolutionary work will only isolate us from the masses similar to the demoralizing results of the Snap Elections of ‘86. While the masses will be participating in millions in an electoral struggle against the corrupt bureaucrats, the dogmatists would want us to wield forms of struggle that are accepted by the advanced section but still alien to the majority of the masses. It will drive a wedge between the revolutionary party and the masses. It will eventually prevent us from leading the masses to bring down the reactionary political system.
The present dogmatists in our Party should be criticized and compelled to rectify. They should stop this public debate on the Party tactics and keep the discussion of issues official within the Party collectives and organizational processes. They must realize that this public debate is against Party discipline and principles and is detrimental to the whole organization. If they really are revolutionaries they should uphold the integrity of the Party organization and limit the struggle of ideas within party ranks.