Great Communists and Their Achievements: Sison Reader Series, #24

By Jose Maria Sison and Julie De Lima

The book, Great Communists and their Achievements, contains Jose Maria Sison's writings  celebrating the lives and achievements of great revolutionaries—Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and others; and how their teachings have inspired later generations to advance the revolutionary cause of the world's proletariat and people. 

It discusses the  the fundamental principles that guide the working class in revolutionary struggle until now.  These principles will remain vaoid and urgent to ensure the onward march of mankind towards communism in the historical epoch of socialism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intl Network of Philippine Studies
• Release date: Apr 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224480722

Book preview

Foreword

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The book, Great Communists and their Achievements, contains Jose Maria Sison’s writings celebrating the lives and achievements of great revolutionaries—Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap and Kim Il Sung.

The first item is the message of condolence to the Vietnam Workers Party dated September 4, 1969.  This is followed by celebrations of anniversaries and by tributes to such great communists as Marx and Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and how their teachings have inspired later generations to advance the revolutionary cause of the world’s proletariat and people.

The book, Great Communists and their Achievements, contains Jose Maria Sison’s writings celebrating the lives and achievements of great revolutionaries—Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chiminh, Vo Nguyen Giap and Kim Il Sung.

The first item is the message of condolence to the Vietnam Workers Party dated September 4, 1969. This is followed by celebrations of anniversaries and by tributes to such great communists as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao; and how their teachings have inspired later generations to advance the revolutionary cause of the world’s proletariat and people.

Marx developed the theory of proletarian revolution on the high road of the development of civilization. He drew from the most advanced sources of knowledge of his time in order to formulate the three component parts of Marxism: materialist philosophy, political economy and social science. He put these forward as integral weapons of the proletariat for understanding its plight and for liberating itself and the rest of mankind.

Together with Engels, Marx set forth the fundamental principles that guide the working class in revolutionary struggle until now. In writing the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels applied their materialist-scientific outlook and method of analysis on the social history of the world and on the concrete conditions of free competition capitalism in 1848 in England. Consistently, they saw the existing forces of production (means of production and people in production) as the basis of the relations of production and the whole mode of production as the base of the social superstructure (politics, law, culture, philosophy and the like).

Applying materialist dialectics, they traced the changes in social systems through changes in the mode of production and superstructure from the tens of thousands of years of classless primitive communal life to class-dominated society, advancing from slavery to feudalism and further on to capitalism. They observed that since the advent of exploiting and exploited classes history has been that of class struggle.

One thing especially proved by the Commune, viz., that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes’...

The general principles laid down in this great document of the proletariat remain valid and urgent until the ultimate goal of communism is reached. The spectre of communism which haunted the bourgeoisie and all reactionaries of Europe at the time of Marx and Engels continue to haunt the monopoly bourgeoisie, the revisionists and all reactionaries throughout the world.

Lenin guided the development of the theory and practice of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship in the era of imperialism. He discovered of the law of uneven development of capitalism, which supported the correct thesis that the victory of the socialist revolution is possible in one country and also clarified the continuity and distinction of the bourgeois democratic revolution and the socialist revolution, thus giving revolutionaries a clear understanding of the revolutionary role of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The great contributions of Mao Zedong to the three components of Marxism, i.e., materialist philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism, bring us up to a new and higher level of understanding social revolution from the new democratic stage to the socialist stage and further on to the stage of communism.

Mao is recognized as the master strategist and tactician with his theory and strategic line of people’s war, involving the encirclement of the cities from the countryside over a protracted period of time in order to accumulate strength through tactical offensives until sufficient strength is built to seize the cities on a nationwide scale.

Mao recognized the growing problem of modern revisionism and was able to put forward the theory and practice of cultural revolution to combat revisionism, restore capitalism and consolidate socialism.

His greatest and most unique achievement lies in putting forward the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship and in personally initiating and leading the first great proletarian cultural revolution to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, prevent the restoration of capitalism in socialist society and ensure the onward march of mankind towards communism in the historical epoch of socialism.

Julieta de Lima

Editor

The Netherlands

January 4, 2024

Message of Condolence to the Vietnamese People and the Vietnam Workers’ Party on the Passing Away of Comrade Ho Chi Minh

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Central Committee

Vietnam Workers Party

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Most esteemed comrades:

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, on behalf of the Filipino people and all Party members, wishes to express the profoundest condolences and sincerest grief to the Vietnamese people and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on the passing away of Comrade Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of the Vietnamese revolution and revolutionary founder of the Vietnam Workers Party and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. 

Comrade Ho Chi Minh is a true son of the proletariat, a staunch and outstanding fighter in the international communist movement.  He has gloriously and indefatigably dedicated his whole life to the cause of the world proletarian revolution and to the national liberation movement not only of his own people but also of all oppressed peoples and nations. 

By integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of the Vietnamese revolution, he has correctly led the Vietnamese people from victory to victory from the stage of the national democratic revolution to the stage of socialist revolution; and has contributed tremendously to the world advance of the proletariat and all oppressed peoples and nations.

The Communist Party of the Philippines and the Filipino people have greatly benefited and have learned significant lessons from the protracted revolutionary struggles led by Comrade Ho Chi Minh.  His passing away is, therefore, a great loss to all of us.  But we are comforted by the fact that his greatness, his revolutionary spirit, will always fill our hearts and inspire us to fight even more fiercely against US imperialism and all other oppressors of the people. 

We are certain that the Vietnamese people under the firm leadership of the Vietnam Workers Party will persevere in waging resolute people’s war against the US imperialist aggressors in order to realize Comrade Ho Chi Minh’s lofty aspirations for a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic, prosperous and powerful Vietnam.

We are also certain that the Vietnamese people will always pay homage to the cherished memory of Comrade Ho Chi Minh by making all necessary sacrifices and exerting all efforts to liberate the south, defend the north and unify their fatherland.  In this manner, the Vietnamese people also perform the internationalist duty of helping liberate the whole of mankind from national and class oppression.  As a true communist, Comrade Ho Chi Minh has devoted his whole life this this great and noble task. 

On our part, we shall continue to give our most militant support to the struggle of the Vietnamese people for national salvation and against the war of aggression launched by US imperialism.  We shall spare no effort in lending whatever modest support we can to the Vietnamese struggle to liberate the south and build socialism in the north.  In this respect, we are striving hard to wage a people’s war against US imperialism, the common enemy of the Vietnamese people and the Filipino people.  In the process, we are always deeply inspired by the great proletarian internationalist spirit of Comrade Ho Chi Minh. 

Long live the great revolutionary spirit of our dearly beloved Comrade Ho Chi Minh!

Long live the most militant fraternal bonds of the Vietnamese people and the Filipino people!

Long live the Vietnam Workers Party and the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Amado Guerrero

Chairman, Central CommitteeCommunist Party of the Philippines

Central Luzon, Philippines

September 4, 1969

Long Live Leninism!

First published in Ang Bayan, Vol. II, No. 3

June 1, 1970

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We celebrate the 100th anniversary of V. I. Lenin, the great immortal leader of the October Revolution and founder of the first socialist state. On this jubilant occasion, we call on the Filipino people and the proletariat to unite and wage resolute revolutionary struggle against US imperialism, Soviet modern revisionism and all their local lackeys.

We owe to Lenin the development of the theory and practice of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship in the era of imperialism. We owe to him the discovery of the law of uneven development of capitalism. This law supported the correct thesis that the victory of the socialist revolution is possible in one country and also clarified the continuity and distinction of the bourgeois democratic revolution and the socialist revolution. We owe to him a clear understanding of the revolutionary role of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Leninism is Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. The great proletarian thinker and fighter, Lenin inherited, defended and developed Marxism with genius, creatively and comprehensively.

The revisionist scoundrels of the Second International flaunted their philistinism, sought to misrepresent Marxism and sabotage the proletarian revolution. But Lenin stood courageously to develop the theory and practice of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship and led the victorious advance of the Bolsheviks and revolutionary classes. He ceaselessly fought opportunism inside the Soviet Union as well as abroad. Without mincing his words, he made it clear that to fight imperialism we must resolutely fight revisionism at the same time.

It took some decades of peaceful evolution for the revisionist renegades in the Soviet Union to undermine the proletarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union. Before they openly declared that the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary, these betrayers of Leninism spread the lie that there are no more antagonistic classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union. Then in the infamous 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956, Khrushchov viciously attacked Marxism-Leninism by completely negating the socialist achievements of Lenin’s successor, Comrade Stalin. Instantly, he began to peddle raucously throughout the world such worn-out bourgeois wares as parliamentary road and peaceful transition in scandalous violation of Lenin’s theory of state and revolution.

The Party and state founded by Lenin have been usurped by the revisionist scoundrels. The proletarian dictatorship has been replaced with bourgeois dictatorship. Communists have been thrown into prison camps and mental asylums by the revisionist renegades in the malicious campaign to get rid of them. Delegates of the 19th Congress of the CPSU have been put away in every succeeding congress. Counterrevolutionary violence is unhesitantly employed against the proletariat and the people of various nationalities.

The Soviet revisionist renegade rulers have made all kinds of counterrevolutionary agreements with US imperialism, against the people, revolution, communism and the People’s Republic of China. All over the world, US imperialism and Soviet modern revisionism have colluded inside and outside the United Nations to oppose and sabotage the people’s revolutionary struggles. The nuclear test ban treaty and other such sham steps to prevent nuclear war have served only to endorse nuclear monopoly by the imperialists and adorn their strategic nuclear stockpiles.

The Soviet economy has been transformed into a capitalist economy. Centralized planning has been discarded in favor of a supply-and-demand market economy. In industrial enterprises, bourgeois managers have gained the power to make profits for themselves and to lay off workers arbitrarily. In agriculture, private plots have been expanded at the expense of collective farms and collective farms have been placed under a bourgeois group management which owns the machine and tractor stations on a private basis. Free markets have been established all over the Soviet Union to make way for agricultural profiteers. The Soviet people are now suffering from such evils of capitalism as unemployment, rising prices, devaluation, hoarding, shortages, black marketing, low-quality products and the like.

US investments have been made in the Soviet Union to manufacture automobiles for private use. Japanese monopolies have been allowed to plunder the timber, marine and mineral resources of the Soviet people. Cultural agreements have been signed by the US imperialists and the Soviet revisionist renegades to fan up decadent imperialist culture among the Soviet youth and people. Cooperation in outer space exploration is being intensified to cover up the increasing exchange of scientific and technical information, military secrets and strategic war materials.

Under the revisionist renegade leadership of the Brezhnev gang, the Soviet Union has become notorious for its social fascism and social imperialism. The Brezhnev gang loudly preaches peace but it employs fascist violence on the Soviet people and other peoples within its sphere of influence. Its imperialist aggression against the Czechoslovak people has completely exposed its evil and rotten nature. It has concocted such catchphrases as limited sovereignty and international proletarian dictatorship to justify its domination of revisionist countries through the COMECON and the Warsaw Pact.

As the new tsars, the Soviet social-imperialists more than violate Lenin’s proclamation ceding to the Chinese people the territories grabbed by the old tsars. Not satisfied with standing on the unequal treaties imposed by the old tsars, they make new intrusions into Chinese territory, kidnap and attack Chinese nationals, encourage US imperialism to continue occupying Taiwan and inflate the chauvinism of the Indian reactionaries so they would insist on the imperialist McMahon line. Worst of all, US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are frenziedly making full-scale war preparations against the People’s Republic of China. They keep on harping together that they can destroy China in a blitzkrieg. However, no matter how the imperialists make trouble, the world’s people have grasped the truth that either the revolution will prevent war or war will lead to revolution.

Soviet social-imperialism has become completely discredited before all revolutionary people. Its treacherous support for fascist reactionaries like those of India, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand and other countries are well-known. It openly colludes with US imperialism in trying to sabotage the Vietnamese and all-Indochinese struggle for national liberation and salvation and the Palestinian and all-Arab struggle against US aggression and Israeli Zionism. The crimes of Soviet social-imperialism against the people of the world have piled up so enormously.

As the Lenin of the present era, Comrade Mao Zedong has carefully studied the experience of socialist states and Communist Parties that have turned revisionist and has formulated the correct handling of contradictions within the socialist countries. He has developed the theory and practice of continuing revolution under conditions of proletarian dictatorship. He has created the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as the powerful weapon to combat revisionism and prevent the restoration of capitalism in socialist society. He has in effect shown how the proletariat in revisionist countries can regain the power temporarily seized by the revisionist traitors.

Mao Zedong Thought has emerged as the Leninism of the present era. Comrade Mao Zedong has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism with genius, creatively and comprehensively and brought it to a higher and completely new stage. Having turned a bad thing into a good thing, we can state with certitude that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought illuminates for an entire historical epoch the transition of socialism to communism.

The People’s Republic of China, with its several hundreds of millions of people and with its formidable proletarian vanguard, has become the iron bastion and center of the international revolutionary struggle against imperialism, revisionism, and reaction after one mighty storm of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

To all true Communists, Soviet social-imperialism is nothing but a passing phase of imperialism on its downward course, having experienced the great revolutionary leadership of Lenin and having seen the continued ascendance of proletarian dictatorship in China under the leadership of Chairman Mao, the true Communists and the oppressed people of the Soviet Union will in due time rise up to overthrow their revisionist oppressors. It is not impossible for the betrayers of Leninism to suppress the Soviet proletariat without incurring revolutionary resistance. The spiralling process of historical development will ultimately lead to the overthrow of their bourgeois dictatorship and the re-establishment of proletarian dictatorship.

Modern revisionism is already in the throes of disintegration as it suffers defeat after defeat. It has to contend with the oppressed peoples and nations all over the world, the revolutionary proletariat within the Soviet Union and other revisionist countries, the imperialist countries and the socialist countries such as the People’s Republic of China and Albania. While colluding with Soviet social-imperialism against the people, revolution, communism and China, US imperialism is at the same time always trying to outmaneuver it and take full advantage of its weaknesses.

US imperialism is allowing Soviet social-imperialism to extend its influence in the Philippines only to the extent that it shares responsibility in maintaining a puppet government that is basically under the imperialist control of the United States. The special errand that Soviet social-imperialism can do for US imperialism in the Philippines is to conjure the illusion that the Marcos puppet reactionary regime is broadening its foreign policy and also to give support to the Lava revisionist renegades in performing once more their malicious role of deceiving the revolutionary masses.

Before the Soviet social-imperialists and the Lava revisionist renegades can effectively perform their filthy work for US imperialism, the Communist Party of the Philippines has boldly advanced under the great banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and has exercised correct leadership over the surging revolutionary movement in both city and countryside.

The comprador, landlord and revisionist diehard stooges of US imperialism have never been more isolated than now by the steady, relentless and powerful blows of the Party, the New People’s Army and the broad masses of the people.

Long live Leninism!

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought!

The Paris Commune Inspires Our Party

Ang Bayan, Volume III, No 2

March 18, 1971

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A full century has passed since the Paris Commune of 1871. But its principles and lessons still inspire the world revolutionary movement of the proletariat. The road of armed revolution it opened is still the road trodden by the proletarian revolutionaries of every country. Every revolutionary party of the proletariat is bound to follow the torch first carried by the Communards of Paris. Faithful to the revolutionary spirit of the Paris Commune, the Communist Party of the Philippines is firmly taking the road of armed revolution.

Marx stated in The Civil War of France, the undying record and interpretation of the Paris Commune: Working men’s Paris with its Commune will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its exterminators’ history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priests will not avail to redeem them.

Before it was crushed by the military force of the bourgeoisie, the Paris Commune demonstrated to mankind that the working class was capable not only of destroying the bourgeois state machinery but also of replacing it with a new state, that of the working class, a dictatorship over the exploiting classes and a democracy for the erstwhile exploited classes. For seventy-two days, from March 18 to May 28, 1871, the proletariat of Paris revealed to the world the seed of a new society struggling to break out of the integument of the old society.

For the first time, Marxism as the revolutionary theory of the proletariat found incontrovertible proof in the reality of the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune became the first great milestone in the theory and practice of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In his introduction to The Civil War in France, Engels said: Of late, the social-democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the word: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

I. Smash the bourgeois state machine

Based on the revolutionary experience of the Paris Commune, Marx and Engels found it necessary to correct the Communist Manifesto by pointing out in their 1872 preface to this great document: One thing especially proved by the Commune, viz., that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes’... They saw fit to restate the words that are in single quotation marks from The Civil War in France.

The Paris Commune was built on the workers’ resistance to the attempt of the bourgeoisie to disarm them. Instead of being disarmed, the workers put the bourgeoisie and other counterrevolutionaries to flight from Paris to Versailles. Holding forth to the dictatorship of the proletariat they issued as their first decree: the suppression of the standing army of the bourgeoisie and its replacement of the armed people. In defense of the Paris Commune, the workers repeatedly had to repulse counterrevolution with the force of arms. From the beginning to the end, the workers refused to lay down the arms that they had come to hold as a result of the contradiction and war between Louis Napoleon and Bismarck in the Franco-Prussian War.

The fatal flaw of the Paris Commune was in its failure to carry out an offensive against Versailles while the latter was still in a state of weakness and disintegration. To gain time on the Communards, Thiers employed the counterrevolutionary dual tactic of dispatching armed detachments against Paris and pretending to sue for peace negotiations upon the failure of every counterrevolutionary expedition. Entering into an international bourgeois conspiracy against the proletariat, Thiers and Bismarck were able to launch attacks that overpowered the Paris Commune at the cost of several thousands of worker-martyrs.

In his State and Revolution, Lenin laid great stress on the fundamental lessons of the Paris Commune that the proletariat must smash the bureaucratic-military machinery of the bourgeoisie. He carried forward the theory and practice of proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship. The October Revolution which he led was essentially a recreation of the Paris Commune, the destruction of the bourgeois state machine and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship, at a new and higher stage. The betrayers of Marxism who prevailed within the Second International and preached parliamentarianism became utter failures because they departed from the road opened by the Paris Commune. Because they drew principles and lessons from the Paris Commune, only the Bolsheviks were capable of seizing power and consolidating it under Lenin and Stalin.

Carrying forward the torch of the Paris Commune, Chairman Mao teaches us, Political power power grows out of the barrel of a gun. This is the essence not only of the people’s democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat in China but also of all revolutionary struggles waged by the proletariat in the one hundred years following the Paris Commune. Not a single movement or party of the proletariat has ever seized political power without following the principle of armed revolution. On the other hand, it has been the sad experience of the proletariat in many countries to be betrayed by leaders who maneuver communist parties into being disarmed because of the craven desire to take official seats in the reactionary state.

In the Philippines, negative lessons are amply provided by the opportunist leadership of the Lavas and Tarucs. The Lavas and Tarucs failed much as they wanted to become members of the reactionary congress in a puppet government just after World War II. The armed reactionaries could always violate their own electoral laws, unseat the elected and use guns to suppress the masses.

Even when it was clear that a determined people’s war had to be waged, the Lavas and Tarucs had no singleness of purpose in continuing the armed struggle. When in 1948 the mass clamor for armed struggle had become too clear to be disregarded by the opportunist leaders of the old merger party, Taruc was allowed to bargain for an amnesty with the enemy and Jose Lava had a memorandum submitted to the reactionary congress pledging loyalty to the reactionary constitution and government. While it is true that the principle of armed revolution seemed to have been fully accepted by the Lava-Taruc leadership in 1950, the adventurist line of quick military victory in two years and the purely military viewpoint were promoted and implemented to undermine the revolutionary mass movement.

Under the direction of the Soviet modern revisionists today, the opportunist leaders of the old merger party, the defilers of the Paris Commune, have crept out like toads from their more than two decades of hibernation to sabotage and subvert the revolutionary mass movement by peddling bourgeois parliamentarianism. They are going against the tide of armed revolution and against the revolutionary tradition of the Paris Commune made richer and more powerful by the October Revolution and the Chinese Revolution. The Lava revisionist renegades will certainly find themselves impotent before the proletarian revolutionaries of today who are inspired by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, the most truthful and effective summing-up of the world proletarian revolution since the Paris Commune.

Modern revisionism promoted by the Soviet social-imperialists is the main danger within the world proletarian revolutionary movement. The Soviet revisionist renegades wish to misrepresent the Paris Commune as a peaceful venture of the proletariat. Like their revisionist predecessors in the Second International, the modern revisionist will find themselves thrown into the dustbin of history in the present era. Their line of counterrevolutionary violence against Marxist-Leninists, against the proletariat and against the people is rapidly isolating them and thoroughly putting them clearly on the side of US. imperialism.

II. Build a Marxist-Leninist party

The Paris Commune has taught us that for the proletariat to lead the revolution and overthrow the bourgeoisie there must be a revolutionary party of the proletariat that is strong ideologically, politically and organizationally. The revolutionary practice of the Paris Commune clarified the need for a central body of leadership to guide the vigorous movement of the revolutionary masses. The National Guards, the body of armed workers, that seized Paris from the bourgeoisie looked up to a Central Committee for leadership. As of March 26, the Paris Commune was elected by the workers as a representative body to lead them. Though the International Workingmen’s Association, the leading organizer and spirit of which was Marx, was blamed by the bourgeoisie for leading the revolt of the workers, it did not carry the preponderant influence among the workers; Marxism had not yet been grasped by the majority of the workers. Blanquism and Proudhonism were acknowledged by the leaders of the Paris Commune as their guide.

In practice, however, the Paris Commune disproved the Blanquist school of anarchy and the Proudhonist school of petty-bourgeois socialism and proved the correctness of Marxism. Against the anarchist tenets of Blanqui, the workers of Paris did not only destroy the bourgeois state machine but established the dictatorship of the proletariat; it was not a mere handful pf intellectuals that made revolutionary triumph possible but the great mass of workers in the course of class struggle. The economic decrees of the Paris Commune disregarded Proudhon’s economic teachings and had to face the facts of large-scale industry.

Learning from the experience of the Paris Commune, Lenin indefatigably built the Bolshevik Party as the revolutionary party of the proletariat armed with Marxism. This party became the advanced detachment of the working class. It became the political leader and general staff of the proletariat in the revolution for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As an organized party of the proletariat, the Bolsheviks carried forward the torch of the Paris Commune. They opposed the renegacy of the Second International and went on to prove their correct proletarian revolutionary line of overthrowing the bourgeoisie by armed force and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In the Chinese revolution, Comrade Mao Zedong built a well-disciplined party armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism, using the method of criticism and linked with the broad masses of the people. This was the core of leadership of the whole Chinese people. It was the leader of the people’s army and of the united front of all revolutionary classes and revolutionary groups.

The Communist Party of China, following Chairman Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line, has opened wider the road of armed revolution by upholding and implementing the theory of waging people’s war and establishing Red political power in the countryside before seizing the cities. Inheriting, defending and developing Marxism-Leninism to a new and higher stage, Comrade Mao Zedong has insisted on the road of armed revolution as the only one for the liberation of all oppressed peoples and has also discovered the theory of continuing the revolution under proletarian dictatorship and personally led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to prevent the restoration of capitalism and consolidate the proletarian dictatorship in the socialist society.

Learning from the experience of the Paris Commune and all revolutionary movements following it, the Communist Party of the Philippines has been re-established under the supreme guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, has taken the road of armed revolution and has striven to build a people’s army, the New People’s Army, to defend the broad masses of the people and seek to defeat the counterrevolutionary forces of US. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. Taking great stock from the experience gained in the course of World War II and afterwards, the Communist Party of the Philippines has learned that to lead and build a people’s army is to truly take the road of seizing power. To lay down one’s arms upon the behest of US. imperialism and the local reactionaries and to hanker for official seats in the puppet reactionary government is to betray the revolution.

The Communist Party of the Philippines must adhere to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought in theory and practice and repudiate all revisionist and opportunist trends. It must wage a people’s war in accordance with Chairman Mao’s strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. It must also develop a united front based on the worker-peasant alliance and led by the proletariat to isolate all enemy diehards. It is absolutely necessary for a true Marxist-Leninist party to wield such powerful weapons as armed struggle and the united front.

Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought has emerged as the supreme guide for all proletarian revolutionary parties. Within one hundred years since the Paris Commune, the world proletariat has produced a comprehensive ideology to destroy the counterrevolutionary state, establish and guarantee the growth of socialism, destroy imperialism and modern revisionism on a world scale, and assure the realization of communism in the future.

III. Rely on the revolutionary masses

Lenin took special note of the fact that in the autumn of 1870, a few months before the Commune, Marx warned the Paris workers that any attempt to overthrow the government would be the folly of despair. But when in March 1871, the revolutionary workers of Paris revolted against the bourgeoisie and created the Commune, Marx set the example of a true revolutionary thinker and leader by welcoming the Paris Commune and considering himself a participant. He paid tribute to the revolutionary enthusiasm and initiative of the workers and closely studied their movement for what it was greatly worth.

The creators of history are indeed the masses. Leaders can make a summing-up and synthesize new tasks only on the basis of the revolutionary mass movement. True leadership cannot be established and cannot act correctly without relying on the masses and without learning from them. From the masses to the masses is the correct slogan that must be followed by the revolutionary party of the proletariat and by its cadres.

The Paris Commune showed the boundless capacity of the revolutionary masses for creating new things after they destroyed the bourgeois state machine with their own armed power. They created a new government based on a truly democratic exercise of universal suffrage among the workers. They put up a leadership from their own ranks, working conscientiously and receiving pay equal to that of the worker, with no representation allowances. Such a leadership shunned the separation of executive and legislative functions. It was the complete opposite of the parliament, a talking shop of the bourgeoisie and the landlord class. Any leader was subject to recall by the people. The Paris Commune had the attributes of a true democracy while being at the same time a class dictatorship over the exploiting classes.

The workers of Paris were capable of so much. Yet they were straining for political and economic life in a country defeated in war and in a city besieged not only by the ruffians of Thiers but also by the troops of Bismarck. How much more would the workers have been capable of had they had their own class-conscious party thoroughly instructed on Marxism! How much more would they have been capable of had they not been prevented from a revolutionary juncture with the peasant masses in the provinces of France. The Paris Commune envisioned a nationwide system of people’s communes with a national delegation seated in Paris.

The correct spirit in appraising the armed struggle that persisted in the Philippines after World War II is to give tribute to the revolutionary masses and draw lessons from their experience. In so doing, it is inevitable that the series of Lava leaderships that sabotaged and misled their movement must be ruthlessly criticized. In honor of the revolutionary masses, we will even dare to say that their armed struggle after World War II is the general rehearsal for the seizure of power that is still to come in our country.

After the anti-fascist resistance against Japan, the Lava revisionist renegades showed their utter contempt and distrust for the broad masses of the people. They helped US. imperialism and the landlords disarm the people after World War II. They insisted that the people were tired of war. Even now, Jesus Lava is being prompted by his imperialist and reactionary masters to prate that the Red fighters in the Hukbalahap who wanted to continue fighting were merely motivated by selfishness and were clearly incapable of waging a people’s war. He still wishes to justify his bygone scheme to become a congressman at the expense of the revolutionary masses.

In the present upsurge of the revolutionary mass movement in both city and countryside, a handful of persons in abject imitation of their Soviet modern revisionist masters prefer slandering the broad masses of the people to expressing verbal support for them at the least. The Lava revisionist renegades condemn the revolutionary mass movement as nothing but a minor part of the CIA plot to overthrow their fascist puppet ally Marcos. They do everything to ingratiate themselves to US. imperialism and the local reactionaries.

In the world proletarian revolution today, the People’s Republic of China stands as the strongest bulwark of socialism and the anti-imperialist struggle because the several hundreds of millions of Chinese people have taken state affairs into their own hands; have overthrown the capitalist-roaders led by the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shaoqi and have revolutionized their thinking. Never before has mankind witnessed as extensive a democracy as that in China in the course of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This extensive democracy, a revolution under proletarian dictatorship and inspired by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, has further consolidated the proletarian dictatorship, has prevented the restoration of capitalism and has guaranteed the total collapse of US. imperialism and the world victory of socialism in the present era.

Moved by the great spirit of the Paris Commune and the principle of proletarian internationalism, the revolutionary proletariat of the world and all its Marxist-Leninist parties are struggling to unleash the great masses of the people against US. imperialism, modern revisionism and all reaction. Such revolutionary struggles as those of the people of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya, Indonesia, Thailand, Palestine, Burma and others in the countryside of the world should help the proletariat in all imperialist countries. The revolutionary struggles of the proletariat in all imperialist countries should in turn help all the oppressed peoples. And the proletariat and peoples who have liberated themselves from imperialism should help all oppressed peoples still fighting for their liberation.

Workers of all countries, unite!

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!

People of the world, unite and defeat the US aggressors and

all their running dogs!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Long live proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship!

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought!

Long live the people’s democratic revolution!

Long live the revolutionary spirit of the Paris Commune!

Tribute to the Great Communist Mao Zedong

September 25, 1976

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Comrade Mao Zedong belongs to the immortal company of great communist leaders: Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. He has left to the proletariat and people of the world a legacy that will shine forever. His teachings and the fruits of his teachings are indispensable to the ultimate victory of communism.

Comrade Mao Zedong comprehensively and brilliantly inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism. He integrated this universal theory of the revolutionary proletariat with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution and won resounding victories of world historic significance against imperialism, opportunism and modern revisionism and all reaction. He made great contributions to the development of the fundamental scientific teachings of Marxism and Leninism in the course of triumphantly guiding and leading the new democratic and socialist revolutions in China.

His greatest and most unique achievement lies in putting forward the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship and in personally initiating and leading the first great proletarian cultural revolution to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, prevent the restoration of capitalism in socialist society and ensure the onward march of mankind towards communism in the historical epoch of socialism.

The revolutionary victories of the Chinese people under the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Mao Zedong up to the present means that at least one-fourth of humanity are steadfastly on the road of socialism, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is consolidated in a country as vast as China and that imperialism, social-imperialism and modern revisionism have no future but doom.

Mao Zedong Thought sums up the proletarian revolutionary teachings and work of the great communist Mao Zedong and points to the latest peak in the unceasing development of the theory and practice of the revolutionary proletariat. It proceeds from the stages of Marxism and Leninism. And thus we speak today of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.

The new democratic revolution

Comrade Mao Zedong founded the great, glorious and correct Communist Party of China on July 1, 1921 under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism. And thus the Chinese revolution clearly entered the stage of the new democratic revolution, a bourgeois-democratic revolution under the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard, and became linked with the world proletarian-socialist revolution.

The salvoes of the October Revolution of 1917 led by the great Lenin had brought Marxism-Leninism to China. In the course of the May 4th Movement in 1919, the young revolutionaries of China had started to study and seek guidance from Marxism-Leninism as a way out of the defeats and humiliation suffered by the Chinese people in the hands of the imperialists and their local accomplices in the revolutionary struggles since the Opium War in 1840.

Comrade Mao Zedong used the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method in examining the history and circumstances of China. Making a thoroughgoing analysis of what was then a semicolonial and semifeudal society, grasping the basic class contradictions therein, he was able to make clear the targets. tasks, motive forces, character and perspective of the Chinese revolution. In this regard, he wrote Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society, Report on An Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan and other works which were the result of concrete social investigation and study of historical forces in the course of revolutionary struggle.

He pointed out that the imperialists and their local running dogs—the warlords, big landlords and big compradors—were the targets of the revolution. He defined as the tasks of the revolution the armed overthrow of the reactionary state and the national liberation and social emancipation of the people, especially the peasant masses whose struggle for land was the main content of the democratic revolution.

Among the motive forces of the revolution, he pointed to the proletariat as the leading class, the peasantry as its closest and most reliable ally, the urban petty bourgeoisie as another reliable ally and the national bourgeoisie as still another ally with a dual character. He referred to the character of the revolution as new democratic because it was no longer part of a world bourgeois-capitalist revolution but of the world proletarian-socialist revolution and sought to prepare for and bring about a socialist revolution in China.

Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that the three basic weapons of the Chinese revolution in seizing political power were: a communist party using the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and the style of being closely linked with the masses; a people’s army under the leadership of such a party; and a united front of all revolutionary classes under the leadership of such a party.

Through the twists and turns of the new democratic revolution, Comrade Mao Zedong always put forward the ideological and political line to put the Party on the correct road. Under his leadership, the Party defeated the Right opportunist line of Chen Duxiu, the Left opportunist lines of Chu Chiubai and Li Lisan, the Left and then Right opportunist line of Wang Ming and the splittist line of Zhang Guotao.

Chen Duxiu did not believe that the proletariat could lead the revolution and believed that a bourgeois republic must first be established under the Guomindang. He surrendered all independence and initiative of the Chinese Communist Party in the united front during the First Revolutionary Civil War, cast away the leadership of the Party over the revolutionary armed struggle and hankered for parliamentary struggle under a bourgeois republic. On the other hand, Chu Chiubai believed that by relying on the proletariat alone power could be seized through putschist methods. Both opportunists did not recognize the peasant masses as the main force behind the leadership of the proletariat and took every occasion to denigrate them.

During the Agrarian Revolutionary War, when they took turns at usurping the leadership of the Party, Li Lisan and Wang Ming considered the middle forces as the most clever enemy of the revolution and opposed the entire bourgeoisie. They did not recognize the necessity of a protracted people’s war in the countryside and they acted according to the erroneous line that the faster they could take on the cities by armed force the better, without regard to base-building in the countryside. Later on, Wang Ming would swing to Chen Duxiu’s line of surrendering all independence and initiative to the Guomindang during the War of Resistance Against Japan.

After leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in August 1927, Comrade Mao Zedong created the first revolutionary rural base and the first detachment of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants in the Jinggang Mountains and carried out agrarian revolution. The troops of the Nanchang Uprising of August 1, 1927 that signaled the armed resistance to Chiang Kai-shek’s betrayal of the revolution came to merge with Comrade Mao Zedong’s forces in April 1928.

Under the leadership of Comrade Mao Zedong, the Red Army of Workers and Peasants defeated the first, second and third