CPP, NDF return to revolutionary roots with rectification campaign


Throughout the 1980s the CPP and the NDF made serious ideological and political mistakes. Leading cadre misread the class character of Philippines society and the balance of forces and therefore made "Left" and Right opportunist errors. For example, some cadre advocated concentrating NPA units and launching large scale military campaigns and urban uprisings ("Left" opportunism), some cadre turned from revolution to reform, and some slipped in to anti-Stalinist demagoguery (Right opportunism).

These mistakes were costly. Reformism began to spread in the mass organizations. Large NPA units were unable to carry out mass political work and were vulnerable to counter-attack by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The NPA suffered heavy losses. Overall, the NDF's ability to struggle and its relationship with the masses were compromised.

In 1992, the CPP and the NDF began a rectification campaign to correct these errors. The following article consists of excerpts from which sum up the content and form of the rectification movement. The speeches were delivered on December 19, 1993 in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Excerpted from: Message on the 25th anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines

by Manuel Romero
National Democratic Front, Chairman

... It is well that ... the Party is conducting a rectification campaign to cast away the deviations from the Party's basic principles which had caused major setbacks in the last more than ten years.

It is also noteworthy that this rectification campaign is taking root throughout the Party and movement even as December 31, 1993-the deadline set by the U.S.-Ramos fascist regime to win "strategic victory" over us-is almost upon us. But this should be one of our least worries for as long as all honest and loyal cadres and members persevere in the rectification campaign and ideological consolidation. ...

Excerpted from: Rectification Movement Strikes Deep Roots, Grows With Clear Direction

by Luis Jalandoni
NDF Vice Chairperson for International Affairs

... The deep-rooted character of the rectification movement is demonstrated by the firm support of the revolutionary masses and the summings-up, study and criticism and self-criticism being undertaken by the different regional Party organizations. ...

The revolutionary masses and the revolutionary leadership indeed breathe new life and vigor into the Philippine revolutionary movement. The rectification movement is winning the participation and commitment of many new forces. Among the most inspiring is the enthusiasm of the youth.

The rectification movement lays the firm foundation for the bright future of the Philippine revolutionary movement. It is striking deep roots. It shows the clear direction of the Philippine revolution towards the victory of national-democratic revolution and further towards socialism.

Excerpted from: The Critical and Creative Tasks of the Rectification Movement in the Communist Party of the Philippines by Jose Maria Sison
Founding Chairman, CPP

1. Uphold the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought!

The rectification movement is first of all a movement of theoretical education in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It stresses the integration of the revolutionary theory of the proletariat with concrete revolutionary practice. It promotes the study and application of the basic Marxist-Leninist principles and raises to the level of Marxist-Leninist theory the rich revolutionary experience of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the revolutionary mass movement.

It seeks to develop the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method of the revolutionary proletariat. Party cadres and members must learn to grasp the law of contradiction and handle it well in class analysis and revolutionary struggle.

The rectification movement criticizes and combats the subjectivism that has given rise to the "Left" and Right opportunist errors that have in turn caused great damage to the party and the revolutionary movement. It repudiates the eclecticism, empiricism and dogmatism that have afflicted the Party for a considerably long period of time. It combats the depreciation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and of the Philippine revolution, the deviations from the anti-revisionist line through the adoption of Brezhnevite and Gorbachovite revisionism, the depreciation of the two-stage Philippine revolution through the uncritical adulation of movements without proletarian leadership and the dishonest practice of quoting the great Lenin out of context to attack the line of the Party. ...

2. Pursue the anti-revisionist line consistently!

... Although modern revisionism has been discredited through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet revisionist party and the accomplished disintegration of revisionist ruling parties and regimes in some countries and the continuing degeneration of those in other countries, the exponents of modern revisionism, neo-revisionism and social democracy are still trying to extend their influence by combining with the ideological and political offensive of the imperialists and their retinue of anticommunist petty bourgeois camp followers in misrepresenting modern revisionism of the last more than three decades as "flawed socialism" or "Stalinism."

The rectification movement criticizes and repudiates all the deviations from the antirevisionist line. The first major deviation started in the early 1980s and involved the subjectivist expectation that the Soviet Union and its allies would provide military and financial assistance in order to accelerate the victory of the Philippine revolution. This opportunism took the appearance of being "Left" but the content was Rightist because it led to the Party's shift to regard the CPSU and similar parties as no longer revisionists, the Soviet Union as no longer social imperialist and the satellites as no longer neocolonies of Soviet social imperialism. The second major deviation infected some key cadres in the late 1980s. They adopted and spread Gorbachovite revisionism in certain parts of the Party. Ultimately, the worst of these opportunists would become like Gorbachov, blatant anticommunist, using anti-Stalin slogans to attack the Party. ...

3. Confront the semifeudal and semicolonial character of Philippine society!

The persistence of the semicolonial and semifeudal character of Philippine society is obvious. This is a society ruled by the comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class in the service of foreign monopoly capitalism. It has an economy that is agrarian and without basic industries....

The rectification movement repudiates and rectifies the line pushed by the "Left" and Right opportunists since the late 1970s, crediting the U.S-Marcos regime, the IMF-World Bank and the foreign multinational firms with having industrialized and urbanized the Philippines to the extent, as the opportunists claimed, that the theory and strategic line of protracted people's war had become outdated and needed refinements, adjustments and innovations. The misrepresentation of Philippine society laid the basis for the "Left" opportunist line of the "strategic counteroffensive" and "regularization" combining both urban insurrectionism and military adventurism; as well as the Right opportunist line of urban-based reformism.

4. Carry out the general line of new democratic revolution!

The general line of new-democratic revolution aims to complete the Filipino people's struggle for national liberation and democracy. It is new because it is under the leadership of the proletariat and no longer the bourgeoisie. It is the first stage in the Philippine revolution, leading to the next stage of socialist revolution. The revolutionary forces required to achieve the first stage are the same forces that can begin the socialist revolution under the leadership of the working class. ...

5. Build the Party as the vanguard force of the proletariat and the people!

In this era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution, the working class is indubitably the most productive and most progressive force in the Philippines and in the world. ... The advance detachment of the proletariat is the Communist Party of the Philippines. ...

The rectification movement completely rejects the notion that the revolutionary struggle for national liberation and democracy against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism can be won without the class leadership of the proletariat. ...

6. Wage the protracted people's war and carry out extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare based on an ever widening and deepening mass base!

The theory and strategic line of protracted people's war means that the people's army must encircle the cities from the countryside and accumulate strength in the countryside until it can seize political power in the cities. The protracted people's war is the revolutionary process of seizing power along the new-democratic line. It is a revolutionary mass undertaking. In the course of people's war, the Party builds the worker-peasant alliance. It carries out land reform and builds the mass base in the form of mass organizations and the organs of political power.

The people's army cannot preserve and accumulate strength without the strong foundation in the people's participation and support, realized through painstaking mass work and solid mass organization under the absolute leadership of the Party. ...

7. Pursue the revolutionary class line in the united front!

... The rectification movement vigorously condemns and opposes the attempt of the former "Left" and Right opportunists within the Party who are now openly counterrevolutionary Rightists to liquidate the class leadership of the proletariat and destroy the basic worker-peasant alliance which is the foundation of the revolutionary united front. The rectification movement criticizes and repudiates the series of Right opportunist attempts to liquidate the leading role of the working class in the united front, starting with the 1980 concept of the "vanguard front" to replace the vanguard party, proceeding to the 1985 and 1987 decisions to convert the NDF [National Democratic Front] into a "federation" or "confederation" in which the Party is made to relinquish its role as center of the revolution and further proceeding to the 1990 attempt to convert the NDF into a confused federation of member-organizations and of individuals, in which the Party gives up its leading role in the revolution and its independence and initiative and is subordinated through a voting system to a ready-made majority of petty-bourgeois groups and individuals that imposes on it a program of bourgeois nationalism, pluralism and mixed economy. ...

8. Follow the principle of democratic centralism!

Democratic centralism is the basic organizational principle of the Party. It is centralism based on democracy and democracy based on centralized leadership. ... [D]emocratic centralism is not just about the democratic and collective process of decision making. Were it simply so, there would be no difference between the Party and a business or even a religious corporation. The essence of centralism in the Party is the commitment to the basic Marxist-Leninist principles and policies .... Democracy is the method by which the essence of centralism is integrated with the concrete practice of the revolution, and by which the dialectical relationship or interaction is realized between the central leadership and the general membership of the Party through the elected representative organs of leadership. ... Within the Party there is a dialectical relationship between discipline and freedom.

9. Look forward to the socialist revolution!

... [T]he national-democratic revolution cannot be won if the factors that make for socialist revolution do not prevail in the course of the national-democratic revolution. ... In brief, there is power in the hands of the working class and its revolutionary party to start the socialist transformation. ...

The theoretical education promoted by the rectification movement necessarily extends to the understanding that national-democratic and socialist revolutions will surely resurge and that Mao's theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship is a great resource for consolidating socialism, combating revisionism and preventing the restoration of capitalism the next time that socialist societies arise once more on a wider scale on the face of the earth.

10. Carry out the Philippine revolution in the spirit of proletarian internationalism!

The new-democratic revolution in the Philippines ... is one of the few revolutionary movements now that are led by a Marxist-Leninist party, have some significant strength and, most important of all, are engaged in the revolutionary armed process of overthrowing the imperialists and the local reactionaries. ...

At the same time, the Party is actively cooperating with other Marxist-Leninist parties and pre-party formations in the world to propagate the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and with all the other entities that are opposed to imperialism and all reaction to bring about the resurgence of the anti-imperialist and socialist movement on a global scale. ...