Crisis in Philippine
Communist Party
December 21, 1992• # 241 International Viewpoint windows and cars were also smashed. The press has spoken of youths, singling out immigrant youth in particular.
True enough, there was some smashing up. The committee says this is regrettable, but it is necessary to keep
BELGIUM/PHILIPPINES
FOR many years, the National Democratic Front (NDF) has everything in proportion. The important been the main militant force on the Filipino left. Inspired by thing is that there was a spirited and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), it has also combative demonstration of 10,000 youths against racism and fascism.
been the left's most coherent component and the only one
Moreover, the youths - and not only to carry on a struggle on all fronts. Today it is undergoing a immigrant youth - that participated in the smash-up have to endure daily pro-
The internal political debate is sharp. Fundamental issues vocations from the far-right in the neighare at stake, involving questions of overall orientation, the bourhoods of Antwerp. These are youths way in which the CPP functions and its unity, and this who have been hit by the crisis and see no way out. For them, and rightfully so, party's place in the country's popular movements.
politicians are cheats without answers.
In the last issue of /V we published the report prepared by
The quality of education has been
Walden Bello on the basis of his survey of CPP and NDF sacrificed in the interests of austerity.
cadres. Here we look at the reasons behind the outbreak of
There are no jobs, aside from insecure and low-paid work. Indeed, what we are seeing is the well-known boomerang effect; there is nothing fundamentally major crisis.
an open crisis.
PAUL PETITJEAN — December 2, 1992 different between Los Angeles' southeast side and the French banlieues. The explosive situation is entirely the work of the authorities. • The Socialist Party mayor of Antwerp has said that the organizers will have to pay for all the damage. What do you plan on doing?
We refuse to pay, period. We organized a youth demonstration against the rise of racism and fascism in a city where the political leaders have failed to fulfill the social needs of the majority of the population. They have laid the groundwork for the far-right. We do not accept any of this.
It is necessary to organize broad solidarity right away. Three well-known figures in Antwerp, including a Green Party deputy of Moroccan origin, have already launched a campaign of solidarity against payment for the damages.
We have to specifically address ourselves to working people. In a context of budget cuts, on both the local and national levels, the charges levelled against the youths might be used as a pretext to make a union response that much more difficult. • What are your plans after this recent success?
On November 24 we decided to announce that our committee, AJOKAR, would continue. We have called for the formation of AJOKAR committees in every school. We want to mobilize on a unitary basis for anti-racist activities on a national and pan-European level. *
T HE crisis gripping the Communist
Party of the Philippines (CPP) is serious. Various cadres estimate that the party has lost about 40% of its organized forces in recent years. In an internal document approved by the CPP central committee, Armando Liwanag states that the movement is "confronted with an unprecedented loss of mass base" and that "the very life of the party" is "now threatened".! The national democratic movement is currently said to be numerically weaker than in 1985 on the eve of the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship.
During 1992, internal political differences gave rise to open crisis. For a long time, differences of analysis and orientation between central committee members and between regional or sectoral leaderships, have been apparent. But they were contained. The balance was upset after Liwanag and the executive committee decided on a "rectification movement" which excluded compromise. But this attempted crack down met with resistance. This is a fight over legitimacy rather than a simple confrontation between a majority leadership and opposition.
There is nothing surprising about this crisis. Over the past decade the CPP has faced radical changes both on a national level - with the fall of Marcos - and international level, the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The large number of the milieus and regions in which it has intervened have provided it with a rich but diverse experience. The CPP has to change and changes of this order are never easy. The difficulties are all the greater for an organization formed in 1968 on the basis of cultural revolution-style Maoism, which has waged a prolonged armed struggle, has suffered severe repression and most of whose cadres are underground, despite the parallel development of significant mass work.
Can a party like this evolve and adapt? The answer is thus far ambivalent. For years the central leaders have put off essential debates at the risk of losing its vital forces. In 1991, at last, it seemed as if the conditions for a reassessment were coming together. Unfortunately, once again, the discussion has been stifled.2 This is a sad waste. The CPP had the internal resources to undertake a collective rethinking of how to bring itself up to date theoretically and politically. Instead, the executive committee and some of the leading cadres, taking advantage of a tradition of bureaucratic centralist functioning, have been able to choke off this process until the outbreak of the current crisis.
1990-91 saw a stream of encouraging signs of political maturity. In 1990, strategic rethinking was made possible by the abandonment of the notion of the "strategic counter-offensive" 3 The National Democratic Front, founded in 1973, finally 1. Armando Liwanag: "Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors", Kasarinlan, vol. 8, no. 1, third quarter 1992. Unless otherwise stated, references to Liwanag refer to this document. The editors of Kasarinlan note that Armando Liwanag 'is widely believed to be the pseudonym of José Maria Sison, founder and first chairman of the CPP". 2. The CPP's history is punctuated by basic debates and political "openings" (for example, in 1980-82 and 1986-87) followed by ideological and political crackdowns. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1986, these debates have spread beyond the leading 3. According to some of those Walden Bello spoke 1 3 circles, to involve a growing number of militants. to - see IV 240.
International Viewpoint # 241 • December 21, 1992
PHILIPPINES held its first national congress which adopted a programme and more formal organizational rules that could have allowed it to develop its own personality independent of the CPP.4 A new balance sheet was drawn of the paranoiac purges in Mindanao in 1985-86 and in South Tagalog in 1988. The leadership subsequently admitted that this was an indefensible disaster.
In 1991, the editors of Ang Bayan, the organ of the central committee, opened a more or less public discussion on a wide range of national and international problems.6 In the course of that year, the Ang Bayan editorial board was disavowed by the central leadership, which nonetheless undertook to continue the discussion in a more internal journal, Rebolusyon.
### Highly polemical tone
However, the latter, which is produced in the Netherlands, has never published anything other than the theses of the executive committee and Armando Liwanag, which often adopt a highly polemical tone.7
This is the context in which at the end of 1991, Armando Liwanag put out the two documents that were to precipitate the crisis: the already mentioned "Let us Reaffirm Basic Principles", which draws a historical balance sheet of CPP policy and "Against Modern Revisionism" which draws the lessons of the crisis of the Soviet
The nature of these texts explains the level of protest they aroused within the CPP. Highly polemical, they take up all the points in the debate, but with the aim of putting the seal of authority on their closure.
They deal with strategy (reaffirming the line of encircling the cities from the countryside); theory (according to which the Philippines is still a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country); history (Stalin being presented as the great successor of Lenin); tactics (condemning the election boycotts of 1978 and 1986); democratic centralism (especially denouncing "ultra-democratism"); politico-organizational line (affirming the authority of the CPP executive committee over the leadership of the NDF 14 and programme rejecting the theses on the socialist transition recently adopted by the NDF).
In the course of the text, severe criticism is levels at cadres and leading bodies, including the central leadership in 1978 after the arrest of José Maria Sison, the NDF's negotiators in 1986-87, the general command of the National People's Army in the 1980s, national commissions, regional leaderships such as that in ManilaRizal and, especially in Mindanao.
"Deviations" are denounced: proponents of urban insurrection, of the premature formation of big military units, of "Gorbachevism", of petty bourgeois liberalism and of bureaucratism. A vast "rectification movement" is announced as well as sanctions against and the expulsion of "incorrigible" elements. All this before any formal debate had been organized on these questions.
From this moment on, two parallel movements were at work in the CPP. On the one hand the leadership's rectification movement and, on the other hand, a movement of "resistance" supported in particular by the leaderships in Mindanao, in the Visayas (a group of islands in the centre of the archipelago) and Manila-Rizal, the
In March 1992, the executive committee, a very narrow body, adopted Liwanag's document reaffirming the "basic principles" with a few small changes. The Political Bureau seems to have then demanded a central committee plenum to discuss the situation. In mid-1992, a CC took place, but many of its members were absent — the meeting may have been
The rectification movement was launched and every militant was called on examine their conscience to find out if they had been guilty of "insurrectionism". In October 1992, the first expulsion was pronounced against an NDF cadre, Lucas, known for the original strategic ideas he had put forward in the CPP
However, a growing number of militants have countered the rectification campaign with a demand for a collective discussion. In December 1991, Tales Duhaylungsod reviewed the course of the discussion. He drew a basic lesson from the "crisis of socialism": "socialism cannot succeed without integrating democracy into the core of its theory and practice" Underlining the complexity of the questions facing the revolutionary movement, he stated that the democratic "risk" of organizing the holding of a party congress had to be taken.!° At the start of 1992, many (probably the majority) of the members of the party's West European network took up this proposal. Also, a text by Ka (meaning comrade) Barry called for "resistance" to the "authoritarian tendencies" in the party, in particular rejecting Liwanag's amalgam of different positions, such as those of the ManilaRizal and Mindanao leaderships and his explanation of the paranoiac anti-infiltration campaign of 1985-86.11
Call for party unity
Meanwhile, cadres in Mindanao sent a letter to the central committee declaring that they were "deeply disturbed" by the judgements and conclusions contained in Liwanag's document.. They consider the way in which the later summarily condemns individuals without reference to the "party's weaknesses" as incorrect. They call for the unity of the party against the purge which they see as the aim of "rectification". In a series of other documents, one of these cadres refutes at the 4. The NDF comprises a dozen underground organizations, including Christians for National Liberation and various mass fronts. However the CPP is the only political party to be a member. 5. Hundreds of innocent people were executed in these purges. However, a first balance-sheet from the leadership concluded that the campaign of purges had been a "great victory" despite some regrettable excesses. See Ang Bayan: "Revolution in Mindanao: Recovery and Advance", June 1988. 6. See Ang Bayan, May-June 1991, and Paul Petitjean: "New debates on Philippine left", IV no. 211, 8. Armando Liwanag, "Stand for Socialism against Modern Revisionism", Rebolusyon, no. 2, series 1992, April-June. Signed as president of the CC of 9. Lucas has protested vehemently against his summary expulsion in a letter of October 8, 1992. He claims that he has been punished for "confronting the party leadership on fundamental questions long unresolved". Accused of direct responsibility for the first phase of the "anti-infiltration campaign" on Mindanao in 1985, he remarks that he himself has, since 1989, "accepted his share of the responsibility" and stated his readiness to "face an investigation/disciplinary process" before an impartial body. But, he adds, a "Stalinist purge" in 1992 cannot repair the damage done by the paranoid hysteria of 1985-86. 10. Tayles Duhaylungsod, "An Open Letter to Comrades. Reform the Party! Save the Revolution", December 1991. 11. Ka Barry: "Resist Authoritarian Tendencies Within the Party! Let a Thousand Schools of Thought Contend!", Kasarinlan, op cit. Liwanag claims that the anti-infiltration campaign was the result of "impatience" related to a line for a "rapid insurrectional victory".
Ka Barry insists that this does not explain the disaster, and points out that South Tagalog, a region which supported the line of prolonged revolutionary war, was one of the centres of the anti-infiltration" hysteria.
December 21, 1992 length the contempt which Armando Liwanag shows for the whole political experience on Mindanao, in particular defending the welgang bayan, or people's strikes. 12
In recent months, a large number of other texts have been circulating from the Visayas, Manila-Rizal, and various committees and individuals. This is an unprecedented development in the CPP's history, which has seen little in the way of written discussion, and confirms the strength of the feeling that a debate is needed. A significant number of central committee members are, furthermore, demanding that a new plenum be called, judging that the previous one was too narrow to be legitimate.
In these conditions, the rectification movement appears to be bogged down and the authority of the leaders who started it is being challenged.
Is the CPP capable of incorporating a pluralist experience, organizing fundamental discussions and giving its members the right to determine the party's orientation, or will it condemn itself to intellectually sterile monolithism? This is one of the main issues in the present discussion. Joel Rocamora remarked in this respect, at a conference in Amsterdam, that the CPP's development is fed from several sources, reflecting the variety of regional experiences and a diverse reflections on national and international political developments.
But these sources have always been gathered in by the great "theoretical dam" inherited from the 1960s which let pass only only one current of thought. Today, the dam is giving way under the pressure of events. Long-standing debates are reaching their culmination. This is the time, according to Rocamora, for the party to allow the expression of several currents of thought. 13
The CPP, like any other revolutionary organization, is confronted with highly complicated strategic and programmatic problems to which no one can pretend to have all the answers. It is perfectly natural that divergences appear. However, Armando Liwanag and the executive committee, do not allow any validity to different analyses, to a confrontation between lines or a discussion of fundamentals. This is one of the most striking aspects of their documents. Keeping the worst aspects of the Maoist tradition, all political debate is assimilated to ideological class struggle. The core of the central leadership upholds, of course, the "proletarian" outlook and the oppositions defend petty bourgeois or even quasi-imperialist views. There is thus no space for a wide-ranging debate among revolutionaries. Self-criticism totally absent
As a corollary, the dimension of self-criticism is totally absent. Liwanag correctly the general functioning of the party, he remains silent over what allowed such a disaster to take place. Safeguards have always existed in the CPP, which has not seen the political assassinations of "dissident" cadres which have wreaked such havoc in other movements.
But it is clear today that the rules adopted in the first years of the struggle were not enough. It was only in 1988-90 that more precise directives were issued, in particular forbidding torture in any circumstances. Torture played an important role in the mad dynamic of the anti-infiltrator purges. It had previously been tolerated under exceptional circumstances" in at least some regions, including Central Luzon, for "interrogations for tactical ends" of agents of the military. Liwanag's verdict on Stalin, furthermore, undermines the credibility of his denunciations of human rights' violations inside the revolutionary movement. Like Mao Zedong, he recognizes that "grave excesses" were committed in the Soviet Union in 1936-37 and that a bureaucracy developed there in the following decades. But in essence he
PHILIPPINES defends the Stalinist system, claiming that it was Brezhnev who introduced a "perverse" interpretation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He has even imposed this position on the National Democratic Front which has published big extracts of his "Against Modern Revisionism" with a photo of Stalin accompanying that of Lenin in the official organ of its international bureau. 14
The CPP has not held a congress since its foundation 23 years ago. The explanation is not technical. The very real difficulties presented by clandestinity could have been overcome and, even if this were impossible, there could have still been wide-ranging political debates. The party's central leadership has not considered this question very important and the same is true of Armando Liwanag in his document of December 1991.
Liwanag recognizes the fact that to go 23 years without a congress is "extraordinary". But he sees this as a secondary problem. He goes so far as to suggest that the absence of a congress has, despite appearances, been a good thing (using the term a "blessing in disguise"). For, if such a congress had been held in the 1980s his line might have been outvoted. A revealing line of argument!
Nonetheless, the CPP's constitution stipulates the requirement for the holding of regular congresses and the election of leading bodies. The leadership has thus violated the organization rules. This is not a formal problem. A congress, on the condition that it is democratically prepared, is the only possible occasion for the members to determine the direction of their own organization and the composition of its leading bodies. Accompanied by free debate, complete information for the militants and discipline in action, a congress is the keystone of democratic centralism.
Free debate not a "luxury"
Free debate is not some "luxury" nor a petty bourgeois sign of "ultra-democratism" (or even a concession to the "bourgeois pluralism" so roundly denounced by the executive committee). It is a vital need. It is also a test: how can revolutionaries convince people that they are a democratic force in society if they stifle democracy in their own ranks? * 12. Concerned comrades in Mindanao: "Letter of Concern"; (Unsigned): "Additional clarifications of the Mindanao experience". 13. Joel Rocamora, Forum "Southern Comfort", X minus Y, November 18, 1992, Amsterdam. See also his interview "The Philippines, East Europe, Socialism and Democracy", IV 186, June 4, 1990. Currently living in the Philippines, Rocamora has editorial responsibilities in Debate and Conjunctures. 14. Liwanag's analysis and Stalin's picture were published in Liberation International, volume 4, no. 15 3 and 4. May-August 1992.
Workers resist draconian reforms the federal government and the federal opposition with its so-called "Fightback policy". *
International Viewpoint # 241 • December 21, 1992 wing leaders of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) appear aware that to give in would mean a return to the days of the Masters and Servants Act of the early nineteenth century.
New radicalization
AFTER years of comparative social peace, there has been a dramatic explosion of class struggle in Australia. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been propelled into struggle against a package of reforms that threaten to roll back rights and conditions to the standards of the early nineteenth century
Many of the strikers and demonstrators have never been engaged in industrial action before. Kennett appears to have achieved a new radicalization of layers of working people. Two events illustrate this: the angry reception given to Labor MPs who appeared at rallies, and the resounding applause given to militant union lea-
JOHN TULLY - December 7, 1992