PHILIPPINES mands broad-mindedness and flexibili-
Over and above questions of function-
Political Bureau's self-criticism stands on the ground - and on that ground alone - of concrete analysis of the concrete situation and of the corresponding tactical choices. However, other documents have broadened the debate. An example is that of the National Youth and Student Department, which concludes a vigorous criticism of the boycott by noting: final word, we submit that our questions go far beyond the boycott policy. Behind the boycott tactics lurk the deep-rooted problems concerning the anti-fascist struggle, the parliamentary struggle, the united front, the urban mass movement and, generally ing, the whole strategy and tactics of the Filipino revolution. It goes without saying that the ideological roots of the multifarious problems be subjected to a rigorous examination. Of course, all this requires a more comprehensive and much deeper study. We trust that the Party will successfully come to with these underlying problems." Brips
Along with the question of the tactical rigidity displayed in 1985-86, the debate over the boycott policy also raised the problem of the rigidity of the CPP leadership's strategic conceptions." The National Youth and Student Department noted in particular that the CPP had adopted a "three-year plan for a 'strategic counteroffensive.' Nothing is wrong with a three-year plan based on the classical formula of the strategic stages of people's war. What is wrong, however, is to restrict our strategy and tactics in a straightjacket, thereby immobilizing the movement to decisively cope with politico-historical twists and
"Protracted people's war"
strategy
Thus, in 1986, CPP cadres and bodies introduced elements of strategic refleclion into the party's internal discussions. That was especially true of Marty Villalobos, who in three discussion articles offered a particularly innovating approach. 2 In the first of these articles, he briefly analyzed the changing relation between protracted war and insurrection in various third world revolutions.
He concluded: "It is not just tactics which should change when circumstanc-
2 es change. As can be gleaned from the
experience of other revolutions, particularly Nicaragua, strategy should also change when proven incorrect or when it is no longer attuned to important changes in the overall situation. Unfortunately, we here in the Philippines have been so fixated with the International Viewpoint • June 29, 1987
"protracted people's war' strategy that we were too reluctant to make a fundashift in strategy there were already clear signs of an insurrectionary situation developing....
"In 1980-81, shortly after the Nicaraguan revolution, the [CPP] made certain adjustments in its overall strategy. Recognizing the higher level of urbanization in the Philippines (as compared to China and Vietnam at the time of their revolutions), the more sizeable middle class (especially the urban petty bourgeoisie) and the long bourgeois democratic tradition in Filipino politics, the Party saw an increased role for the urban struggle and the open, legal, democratic struggle in the overall conduct of our people's war.
Three strategic combinations
"It recognized the importance of three strategic combinations: the combination of the struggle in the countryside and the urban struggle; and the combination of the struggle on the domestic front and the struggle on the international front. The military struggle, countryside work and the domestic front would still play the principal role, but the political struggle, urban work and the international front would not be too far behind. However, all these adjustments did constitute a movement away from the 'classic' Chinese model of 'encircling the cities from the countryside,' the Party made radical departure from 'protracted people's war' strategy."
As early as 1983, elements in the CPP suggested incorporating an insurrectionary perspective into the party's policy, at least in certain centers or re-
After the assassination of Benigno Aquino that year and the opening up of a new political crisis, a proposal was made to prepare for possibility of a 'fast track' to victory insurrectionary (without abandoning the "slow track" of "protracted people's war")
In 1984-85, "however, there were no fundamental shifts in strategy." But, in hindsight, Marty Villalobos thought "the Party should have shifted to an insurrectional strategy as early as 1983, or possibly even earlier." 24 Thus, according to him, the most important error was not made in December 1985 (the tactical evaluation of the situation) but several years before (the rigidity of the strategic conceptions).
In a second discussion article, Marty Villalobos analyzed the respective place of the armed struggle and the political struggle, of struggle in the countryside and in the urban areas, as well as the notion of "strategic stages" and the concept of the revolutionary crisis in the people's war strategy in an insurrectionary strategy. He went back to the lessons of February 1986 and took up again the basic idea of his
"After the [Ninoy] Aquino assassination, it was an 'either-or' continue with the 'protracted people's war' strategy or go "insurrectional.' No in-between. You prepare your forces for one or the other...since each strategy follows its own complicated course.... We tried an in-between. We stuck to the 'protracted people's war' strategy; but we were 'open' to a shift to the "insurrectional strategy? We waited...until events [despite all the adjustments of the line giving an increased role to the political struggle and the urban struggle]." 25
Finally, in a third article, Villalobos analyzed in more detail the Salvadoran experience of 1979-80 and its lessons for the Filipino left.26 His theses seem to have have been strongly challenged, including by a section of the activists who in December 1985 criticized the "active boycott" line. This was true notably of José Maria (Joma) Sison who, while not formally a member of the CPP since his arrest in 1977, probably still wields a real moral and political influence in the Filipino Communist movement.
Joma tended, in fact, to see the consequences of the "tactical blunder" committed by the EC-CC as secondary and to affirm the continuity of the fundamental strategic and tactical concep tions of the revolutionary movement.?
In Marty Villalobos' view, if the CPP had shifted the axis of its strategy in 1983, the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship could have led to a situation analogous to that in Russia in February-October 1917 or to the one that existed in Nicaragua from 1977 to 1979. It is obviously difficult to form an opinion on this. But the need to incorporate much more systematically con19. Emesto Roque, "Politics is innovation," Liberation, April-May 1987, p. 25. 20. "Against the snap election boycott," Praktika, No. 21. The CPP had in fact carried out relatively successful boycott campaigns on the occasion of other elections held by the dictatorship. 22. Praklika, op. cit., p.35. The three strategic stages of people's war are the strategic defensive, strategic stalemate and strategic offensive. 23. Marty Villalobos is the pen name of a party cadre (who also reflects the point of view of a unit) who identified with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and the leader Joaquin Villalobos in El Salvador (could he have been influenced also by the "father" of analysis of the snap polls and the February uprising)," typed document, pp.5-6. 25. Marty Villalobos, "On the insurrectional strategy (A sequel to 'Where the Party faltered')," typed document, March 30, 1986, pp.7-8. 26. Marty Villalobos, "Parallelism: the Philippines now and El Salvador in 1979-1980," Praktika, No. 2. 27. See in particular the interview with José Maria Si-
temporary revolutionary experience from other countries is being expressed in many ways within the Filipino left.
The debate on the lessons of El Salvador is mobilizing other circles than those of the CPP, as attested to by the publication of an article on this subject by P.N. Abinales in the Diliman Review.28 In this article, Abinales, an independent socialist left activist, discusses in particular Marty Villalobos' conclusions on insurrection, which he considers too one-sided.
The question is not a simple one. How, in a country where armed struggle has become a real factor in the situation, can you maintain the continuity of the revolutionary struggle and at the same time take full account of changes in the period and in the conjuncture? Discussion on socialism and democracy in Cuba
In August 1986, the launching of the English version of a long discussion between Fidel Castro and Father Frei Betto, Fidel and Religion (published by Pathfinder Press, Pacific and Asia), prompted two important public meetings attended by the Cuban ambassador, Ana Maria Gonzalez.2
The first, organized notably by the socialist organization Bisig at the University of the Philippines, gave rise to a long debate on socialism and democracy in Cuba. The second, organized by clerics, and in which Father Ed de la Torre participated, showed the interest the Filipinos have in revolutionary experiences such as the Cuban — and perhaps still more, the Nicaraguan — which have been carried out in countries with a Christian culture, in that respect closer to the Philippines than the China of 1949.
At the end of 1986, the CPP entered into a particularly delicate political period, with the opening of cease-fire talks between the government and the National Democratic Front, and then in 1987 with the referendum on the constitution, the aborting of the peace negotiations and the legislative campaign. The party press, such as Ang Bayan, reverted to a more doctrinal stance. The debate seems, at least temporarily, to have dried up. It is possible, for example, that Praktika will cease publication.
It is understandable that in an unstasituation and continuing underground conditions it is not easy to organize a deepgoing discussion. But in 1986, the CPP had already gone through a period of political crisis. Nonetheless, in that year it experienced a broadening of internal democracy.
The discussion documents I have seen — whether they come from national bodies, such as the self-criticism presented by the Political Bureau, or sectoral bodies, local units or individuals — display a real quality, a real maturity. The rapidity with documents were written and the clarity of the arguments showed that much more was involved here than a passing
In view of the scope of the questions raised, it seems doubtful that this debate had the time to ripen sufficiently. The sharpness of the disagreements expressed about the policy to follow with regard to the peace negotiations and the election campaign attest to that. 30
It is to be hoped that the discussion opened in 1986 will continue in the future, for the benefit of the Filipino acA step forward for the independent unions THE OBJECTIVE of establishing single unions in each industry was set at Cosatu's founding congress. In the metal industry, it combined with two other perspectives: to unite the autoworkers' union with the metalworkers' union; and to win to it smaller unions coming out of the crisis of classcollaborationist tradeunionism.
The formation of this new united union is, therefore, an important event in the building of the independent South African labor movement. The following article is from the May 29 issue of the Weekly Mail, a left democratic paper with a wide circulation published in Johannesburg. JEAN SUTHERLAND
PHILIPPINES / SOUTH AFRICA tivists first of all, but also for that of activists in other countries who are also discussing difficult tactical and strategic questions and who have a lot to leam from the revolutionary experience in the Philippines. * 28. P.N. Abinales, "Lessons from El Salvador," Diliman Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, 1986. 29. A Filipino edition of this book is to be published. 30. These questions will be taken up in a forthcoming article. It should be noted, for example, that in an interview Joma Sison has very violently criticized the negotiation policy pursued by the NDF leadership at the end of 1986. See Solidaridad II, Vol. 10, No. 3-4, p.3. Moreover, the magazine Kasarinlan published in its is. sue No. 4, Vol. 2, second quarter of 1987, an article by Pépé Manalo entitled "Political strategy and the political negotiations." Manalo — this is the pen name of an underground activist — presents an opinion that is also critical but very different from that of Joma Sison.
ITHIN hours of its launch weekend, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) snarled, displaying a finely honed set of political teeth.