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PCIJ:
Flashback: The Great Left Divide
Published
August 31, 2007 9:28pm
By ALECKS P.
PABICO
The recent arrest under strange circumstances of
Jose Maria “Joma" Sison by Dutch authorities on charges that he allegedly
ordered the killing of two former comrades is only the latest twist in the
continuing saga of the fractured Left in the Philippines.
The Communist Party of the Philippines, of which
Sison was founding chair (and whom the Philippine government suspects to have
reassumed his position while in exile in The Netherlands), owned up to the
murders of Romulo Kintanar, the former chief of the CPP’s military arm, the New
People’s Army, and Arturo Tabara, who once headed the Visayas Commission
(VisCom). NPA hit squads gunned down Kintanar in January 2003 and Tabara in
September 2004.
The two, along with another assassinated Left
leader Felimon “Popoy" Lagman; Ricardo Reyes, former editor of the
communist publication, Ang Bayan; and Benjamin de Vera, were central figures in
the split in the CPP in 1992, all of whom the exiled Sison branded as
“counterrevolutionaries." Basically, the accusations stemmed from major
ideological differences and deviations from what the local communists uphold as
theory and practice, that of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. In a
nutshell, that means:
* maintaining the view that Philippine society is
“semifeudal" and “semicolonial" as it has not become industrialized
and urbanized;
* pursuing the general line of new democratic
revolution by relying on the alliance of workers and peasants and winning over
the urban petty bourgeoisie or the middle classes;
* recognizing the CPP as the vanguard force of the
proletariat or the working class;
* waging the protracted people’s war (PPW) strategy
of “encircling the cities from the countryside," among others.
The split, though internal in nature, came on the
heels of the dramatic dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the
subsequent collapse of most communist party governments of Eastern Europe. The
rectification movement ushered by the “Reaffirm our Basic Principles and
Rectify Errors" document issued by Armando Liwanag (believed to be Sison’s
nom de guerre) drew a sharp dividing line between those who agreed with these
views (the “revolutionaries") and those who didn’t
("counterrevolutionaries") — or in more popular Left parlance, the
“reaffirmists" (RAs) and “rejectionists" (RJs), respectively.
Our i magazine report in 1999 tried to document and
make sense of the unprecedented period of metastasis that the Left,
particularly of the national democratic (ND) tradition, endured after seven
years of the rectification movement. At that time, we counted at least eight
disparate splinter groups that had continued to wage “revolution" in
similarly disparate forms.
Then, the report noted as well how, despite the
major and intense upheavals in the ranks of the Left, the ideological fights
had not reached the level of physical violence that characterized the splits in
the old communist party, the Jesus Lava-led Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas
(PKP). Much like the 1992 split, Amado Guerrero (Sison’s nom de guerre then)
broke away from the PKP over ideological differences and re-established the CPP
under the sway of Maoist praxis.
But apparently we spoke too soon. Two years later,
Lagman was dead, felled by assassins’ bullets (though the NPAs denied any
responsibility) at the Bahay ng Alumni inside the University of the Philippines
campus. Kintanar would meet Lagman’s fate two years later, and then Tabara,
almost two years after Kintanar’s murder.
Once monolithic, the Communist Party has splintered
into warring factions.
THE GREAT LEFT DIVIDE
by Alecks P. Pabico
A SPECTER is haunting the revolutionary movement in
the Philippines — the specter of seemingly interminable splits.
In the seven years since Armando Liwanag issued his
"Reaffirm our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors" document, the Left
— or more appropriately, the Left of the national democratic (ND) tradition —
has gone through an unprecedented period of metastasis. The once monolithic
movement that at its peak in the mid-1980s commanded 35,000 Party members, 60
guerrilla fronts, two battalions and 37 company formations, and foisted
ideological and organizational hegemony in the progressive politics during the Marcos
dictatorship is now history. Out of it have emerged fragments of disparate
groups — eight at least — that continue to wage "revolution" in
similarly disparate forms.
Not since the "re-establishment" of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) under the banner of Mao Zedong Thought
by Amado Guerrero (nom de guerre of Jose Ma.'Joma' Sison) has there been a
serious split in the revolutionary movement. In 1968, Guerrero broke away from
the Jesus Lava-led Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, or PKP, over ideological
differences, criticizing its abandonment of armed struggle and its shift to
nonviolent legal and parliamentary means in pursuing the socialist revolution.
In turn, the Lava leadership expelled him from the party on charges of
"left adventurism."
Three decades later, Guerrero (now believed to be
Liwanag) would find his dominion stirred by a similar storm, this time whipped
up by his "Reaffirm" document. Reminiscent of the Lava act, he had
also charged the "splittists" with Left opportunist sins such as
"urban insurrectionism," "military adventurism," and
"gangsterism."
While internal in nature, the crisis in the ND
movement has not been insulated from the shock waves generated by the dramatic
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of most
communist party governments of Eastern Europe. Though he dismissed the USSR and
Eastern Europe's ruling parties as revisionist regimes, Liwanag himself
admitted in "Reaffirm" the serious setbacks suffered by the local revolutionary
movement with the onslaught of Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost ideas
espousing "liberalism, populism and social democracy."
Ideological responses to the crisis of existing
socialism and its repercussions on its constituencies worldwide have been varied.
Liwanag's own antidote is the so-called "Second Great Rectification
Movement," which the mainstream ND bloc he leads continues to undergo to
firm up adherence to the principles laid down in 1968. Basically, that means
upholding the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. That
is to say:
* maintaining the view that Philippine society is
"semifeudal" and "semicolonial" as it has not become
industrialized and urbanized;
* pursuing the general line of new democratic
revolution by relying on the alliance of workers and peasants and winning over
the urban petty bourgeoisie or the middle classes;
* recognizing the CPP as the vanguard force of the
proletariat or the working class;
* waging the protracted people's war (PPW) strategy
of "encircling the cities from the countryside," among others.
In so doing, Liwanag has drawn a sharp dividing
line between those who agree with these views (the "revolutionaries")
and those who don't ("counterrevolutionaries"). In more popular Left
parlance, those who abide by the Liwanag document are the
"reaffirmists" (RAs), while those who aren't into its
"sweeping" conclusions are "rejectionists" (RJs).
Declaring themselves the "democratic
opposition," the RJs — among them regional party committees of Metro Manila-Rizal,
Central Mindanao, Western Mindanao, the Visayas Commission (VisCom), National
United Front Commission (NUFC), Home Bureau of the International Liaison
Department and the National Peasant Secretariat (NPS) — initially rejected only
the "bogus" 10th Plenum that approved "Reaffirm" since it
did not have the required quorum. But they soon realized that the Party
leadership had not the slightest intention to be conciliatory.
The petition calling either for the reconvening of
the 10th Plenum or holding a new one to discuss "Reaffirm" signed by
15 CPP Central Committee members was rejected, as were calls to hold the
long-overdue Party Congress. Insisting the plenum was legitimate, the
leadership instead began expelling members and dissolving units identified with
the RJ bloc, ushering in the Left's own days of disquiet and nights of rage.
MORE OFTEN than not, personal antagonisms have
helped shape the contours of the splits and dictated the ever-shifting
alliances as much as the interplay of ideological, political and organizational
differences. At times, personal differences were garbed in ideological
clothing. At other time, the rifts were reduced to sheer clashes of personalities.
Former Ang Bayan editor Ricardo Reyes laments the
way the "Reaffirm" document glossed over the ideological and
political debate with character attacks and past mistakes. Himself tagged by
Liwanag as "counterrevolutionary," Reyes thinks internal matters such
as "mistakes, errors in the past for which we should be held responsible
one way or another" should have been addressed in a different forum.
''In the first place, the Party's leadership is
collective," he says. "It's very rare that an error, especially a big
one, was committed by one person. Second, these errors have long been
committed. There have already been judgments on those either in the form of
censure discipline or punishment."
No sooner had different opposition groups joined
ranks, though, the RJ camp itself fell into personality-driven feuds. An
initial falling out on how to handle the "Reaffirm" debate served to
polarize the RJ groups as a majority did not take to the brand of polemics of
Felimon 'Popoy' Lagman, ex-secretary of the CPP's Komiteng Rehiyon ng Metro
Manila-Rizal (KRMR) and now working aboveground as Bukluran ng Manggagawang
Pilipino (BMP) chair.
Argues Reyes: "Perhaps he (Lagman) has his own
justifications but I don't think we should reply in kind to the RAs. His
attacks are just like Joma's. He'd hit Joma, saying, here are your mistakes.
And he'd employ character attacks, too."
Lagman himself finds it laughable that the reason
behind the splits were not about principles. "It's always Popoy is just
like Joma. Any discussion is always about the 'five little pigs and the big bad
wolf,'" Lagman says, he being the wolf, of course. He says it politically
immature of Left leaders to dwell more on his character or style.
The truth is, Lagman is not exactly the opposite of
his nemesis Sison, burdened as he is by accusations of being
"ruthless," "dictatorial" and "utilitarian." In
1993, his "arrogance" abetted the crumbling of the loose foundation
on which RJ groups stood. Before an ideological summit to discuss theoretical
and political positions could be held, and a national coordinating body to
discuss the building up of a party formed, a split had ensued between the
groups that collectively called themselves the "Third Force" on one
side and Lagman's KRMR on the other. Using the KRMR Counter-Thesis, Lagman was
adamant about meeting Liwanag's theoretical and tactical positions head-on,
even if the group had not been through with the collective review of
Marxism-Leninism.
There is also the precarious KRMR-VisCom formation,
which materalized in January 1994 when VisCom chief Arturo Tabara made a
surprise shift to KRMR's side, splitting the VisCom in the process. Three years
later, it was KRMR's (now Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo ng Metro Manila-Rizal) turn
to fragment. Lagman was expelled for acts violating the basic principles of
collective leadership and democratic centralism. His character was also said to
be unbecoming of a "proletarian revolutionary." The rift, Lagman
says, arose from his perceived "liquidationist" attitude — for his refusal
to help in the Party congress preparations.
In the wake of Lagman's expulsion, KRMR split into
two bitter factions. Lagman claims to have the support of majority of the party
branches. The rest of KRMR, now under the name of Metro Manila Rizal Regional
Party Committee (MRRPC) and occasionally referred to as 'Bloke,' consisted of
the bulk of the region's underground cadres, including the Alex Boncayao
Brigade (ABB). The 'Bloke' later decided to disengage from the pre-party
formation of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa (RPM), which was
established in May 1998, citing that its party building efforts ended in
"an organizational project without resolving ideological unity or coming
up with any party program." Only the former ABB chief and a few followers
remained with the RPM.
The Lagman faction suffered yet another split when
one of Lagman's closest lieutenants, Sonny Melencio and forces from the
"Progresibo" (Progressive) tendency within the pre-split KRMR, bolted
out to form the Liga Sosyalista in 1998. An open socialist organization, the
Liga deplored the continuing drift of the Lagman group's politics to the right.
Eventually, it merged with the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Proletaryo (RPP),
the revitalized left-wing faction of the 1930 PKP, to give rise to the
pre-party formation of Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa (SPP).
Melencio's "Left Unity" project, which
anticipates the formation of a legal socialist party in the tradition of
Australia's Democratic Socialist Party, has drawn varied reactions from other
Left groups. Joel Rocamora of Akbayan finds the recruits to the "Left
Unity" a very strange ideological mix — PKP, a small group from the
Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PDSP), social democrats, the
left-wing group of the discredited Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA).
Others are open to such a unity project as part of tactical considerations,
which thus implies a propitious element to it. Only that now is just not the
right time.
PERSONAL RIFTS aside, differences that later gave
substance to demarcations on theoretical and tactical questions among RJ groups
were apparent from the very beginning. Such differences, recalls Reyes,
revolved around how the RJs looked at the past and how they saw the future.
One side took to the KRMR Counter-Thesis, developed
by Lagman, that views the crisis in the revolutionary movement as a crisis of
the "Maoist tendency in the Philippines." In general, this says the
CPP's theoretical line was erroneous from the very start, when the CPP was
founded in 1968. It claims that "the CPP is Stalinist-Maoist in
orientation, an aberration of real Marxism-Leninism. The Party's understanding
of class realities in the Philippines is similarly erroneous in that it
overplayed the role of the peasantry and underplayed the role of the working
class. Instead of a protracted people's war (PPW), it should have been a
working class-based and -led insurrection strategy."
The other was Reyes's formulation. Reyes did not
find fault in the national-democratic framework of th revolution, its class
analysis, the armed struggle and the working class-peasant alliance. But he
took exception to the protracted people's war strategy. In a recent interview
with PCIJ, he argued, "My only point is, sometime in the 1980s after the
period of experience, and after study, the PPW was no longer appropriate. We
might as well shift to a political-military combination strategy. It's combination
of an insurrectional approach in the urban areas and armed struggle for the
countryside."
The KRMR counter-thesis held sway over those who do
not see the presence of a "revolutionary situation" to merit the
primacy of armed struggle at all times as waged by the CPP-NPA-NDF. This, and
some other basic positions served as basis for the establishment of
Marxist-Leninist parties both clandestine — RPM, Partido ng Manggagawang
Pilipino (PMP) — and legal — SPP. Even the 'Bloke,' the mainstream KRMR that
ousted Lagman, is said to have consolidated its ranks under the
politico-military framework, which combines armed and mass struggles.
Set up just this year, the PMP embraces
Marxist-Leninist orthodox teachings on the socialist revolution, the working
class party and movement. While it acknowledges that the revolution is still in
the national democratic stage, the party adheres to a Marxist concept of a
continuing revolution that is not dependent on the ND revolution's victory.
To the PMP, a revolutionary movement in a Third
World country sans an armed force is unimaginable. But while it doesn't
discount the inevitability of the revolution leading to war, it believes this
must happen in the context of the developments of the class struggle. Thus, it
views the protracted people's war strategy as a vulgarization of the concept of
armed revolution. Says a PMP leader: "They're like the alchemists
concocting artificial conditions to create a revolution. The artificial
condition is the armed struggle. It's like a script, because since 1968 Joma
had mapped out how the revolution was going to advance — strategic defensive,
strategic stalemate, strategic offensive. Just like a three-act play."
The RPM, for its part, espouses a similar return to
orthodox Marxism-Leninism. It views Philippine society as basically capitalist
though in a backward or "maldeveloped" stage. The main vehicle of the
revolution is the open mass movement and is working class-led. Unlike the PMP,
though, RPM retains an army in the countryside, the merged Revolutionary
Proletarian Army-ABB Negros (RPA-ABB), mainly for defense, considering that
democratic institutions are still very weak.
Reyes eventually abandoned the Party concept and
broached the formula for a united front type of organization within the Third
Force bloc. "If you look at the RJ, the whole array of forces and
individuals who criticized the RA position, they were already developing
different frameworks. Setting up a single organization, a more solid one, could
wait. If it's going to be a Party, then let it be a Party."
Such a contentious issue spelled the further
break-up of the fragile union as majority still favored establishing a
clandestine party, whose expression today is the Partido Proletaryo Demokratiko
(PPD). Formed in July 1995 during a Third Force bloc assembly initiated by the
NUFC, the PPD upholds Marxism-Leninism, criticizes the CPP's "closed
door-ism" to Mao and its curtailment of studies on other Marxist trends
and schools of thought. Particular emphasis is given to Marxist humanism in its
conduct of revolutionary work that holds human beings as the center of
development, whose ultimate end is the liberation of human beings from
exploitation by their own kind.
Finding no travelling companions in his united
front path, Reyes went his own way and helped form the open mass movement
Padayon (Visayan for "continue"). "It is," says Reyes,
"a commitment to continue what is good, what is worthwhile, that there is
something to be proud about the national democratic struggles." It endeavors
to wage democratic struggles like land reform and expanding these to empower
the people.
UST WHEN it all seemed that disunity and
dissolution plagued only the RJ forces, the mainstream RA endured another
shakeup in its ranks in August 1997. Majority of the Central Luzon regional
party organizations bolted out of the CPP following the expulsion of three
Party leaders tagged with having sown "revisionism" and
"factionalism" in the region by openly defending the militarist and
insurrectionist line of the strategic counteroffensive (SCO). The SCO, an '80s
tactical program aimed at a decisive victory against the U.S.-Marcos
dictatorship, had been criticized as wrong in "Reaffirm."
Cadres of the pre-party formation of the
Marxist-Leninist Party of the Philippines (MLPP) claim to also repudiate the
SCO. But they say they only raised the validity of regular, mobile warfare —
now no longer part of the strategic defensive stage — in its present conduct of
the protracted war. What proved most unacceptable, the cadres say, was that
political and organizational questions relating to the PPW strategy merited
them charges of an ideological nature — that of carrying a two-line struggle —
when they were not enemies in the first place.
It is also an open secret that two centers exist in
the mainstream RA bloc — one foreign, in Utrecht (Sison), and another local,
(the Tiamsons). Both are said to be at loggerheads.
In the aftermath of the CL split, an open mass
movement, the Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD), emerged. Although it
abides by the "Reaffirm" document, the KPD departs from the
mainstream RAs on certain organizational and tactical questions. Much of the
reason for the disaffiliation revolves around the attitude toward open mass
struggles. The KPD, for instance, recognizes these to be crucial and should go
hand-in-hand with the armed struggle.
If the mainstream RAs are
"deteriorating," Primo Amparo of the KPD labor arm Manggagawa para sa
Kalayaan (Makabayan) says, they have only themselves to blame, because they
treated sectoral struggles as a matter of propaganda, waged only
"pana-panahon" (occasionally), "pili" (selectively) and are
"lokalisado" (localized), and their legal organizations as mere
mouthpieces. But RA sources dispute this, saying the ND movement remains
responsible for the strong legal mass movement in the country. Internal
documents also continue to stress the role of legal mass organizations.
"THE OLD is not yet dead, the new is not yet
born," says Ronald Llamas of the socialist Bukluran para sa Ikauunlad ng
Sosyalistang Isip at Gawa (BISIG), describing the current state of the
Philippine Left. "That's this moment. There are intimations of the new,
there is consolidation among the old. In between, there is a transition. Here,
a lot will be formed. But many of those formed will be morbid."
Whether what has so far emerged of the fractured ND
movement are morbid expressions, or mutations, only history will determine. But
for all the viciousness that has attended the splintering of the Left, there is
an incredible optimism among Left groups themselves.
Francisco Nemenzo, also of BISIG, believes the
fragmentation is borne out of an expressed desire to come to grips with present
realities in the Philippines. "Let's study first, search for a new
paradigm, try out different methods," he advises, trustful that there is
always the potential for the right situation that they can get their acts
together.
One distinct aspect many in the Left would like to
emphasize in the major upheavals in their ranks is that intense as they are,
the ideological fights have not reached the level of physical violence that
characterized the splits in the PKP. At this, it helps that no group presently
has an ascendant of dominant status over the others.
Despite the vanguardist and totalistic claims of
some parties, Reyes says the makeup of the Left has become pluralistic. By his
reckoning, the broad Left formation should also include socialist groups of the
non-ND mold like BISIG, Akbayan, and Pandayan. And the sooner all other forces
in the Left accept this, he says, the better.
Even Lagman has had a change of heart, finding it
irrelevant to claim correctness of one's social praxis. His present concern is
where hopes are high for the revolutionary movement's revival. And he sees it
in the working class. His positive attitude toward the other Left groups has
likewise defined for all a division of labor in organizing their respective
sectors —- for them, the urban workers and rural farm workers; the RAs, the
peasantry in the countryside; and the others, the petty-bourgeoisie.
At this stage, only the mainstream RAs claim
ideological certainty. By affirming that waging revolution is not the monopoly
of any one group, its estranged theoretical sibling, the KPD, has become more
open to tactical alliances with the other political blocs. But the RAs act as
if the 1986 People Power Revolution never happened, and maintain such rigid
framework for political work that has only isolated them from the rest.
The reason for this attitude towards other groups
in the Left is best understood in the way one RA leader put it. "The
'Contras' (the RJs)," he says, "are no more than mere obstructions in
the revolutionary course of the masses. Having lost faith in the revolutionary
principles, with their wrong analyses, they only confuse the masses instead of
arming them to wage revolution." - Alecks P. Pabico, Philippine Center for
Investigative Journalism, April-June 1999
