By Communist Party of the Philippines
In behalf of the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces, the leadership and entire membership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) pay the highest tribute to Comrade Joan Hinton, indefatigable communist, anti-revisionist and proletarian internationalist. The working class and oppressed peoples across the globe feel a deep sense of loss with the passing away of Comrade Joan last June 8. She was 89. We express our heartfelt condolences to her children, family, friends, comrades and all the people she served and loved.
Through the most part of her life, Comrade Joan, with husband Ernest "Sid" Engst and brother William (Bill), served the Chinese people and worked tirelessly with them to advance the revolutionary struggle and build socialism in China. She and her husband worked in various people's enterprises, including an iron factory, various dairy farms and other agricultural projects where they contributed all their efforts and expertise. She continually integrated with the workers and peasants, helped build the Party, upheld Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and fought revisionism and the restoration of capitalism in China.
Comrade Joan was a pioneering nuclear physicist in the United States in the 1940s. She was one of those chosen by the US government to form an elite team in Los Alamos, New Mexico to secretly work on the Manhattan Project for the development of the first atomic bomb. The dropping of the US atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the mass destruction they caused among innocent Japanese people in 1945 shocked and angered Comrade Joan, prompting her to leave the project.
She was inspired to go to China in March 1948 by her then fiancé Sid who left for China in 1945 and joined the Chinese revolution and the work in the liberated areas under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chairman Mao Zedong. Sid was an American agriculturist. They got married in 1949 in Yanan, the main base of the people's revolutionary government when the national democratic revolution in China was about to be completed and the People's Republic of China was to be innaugurated.
For the next several decades, Comrades Joan and Sid devoted all their efforts to the Chinese revolution and the socialist cause. As they served the Chinese people and revolution, they expressed disdain against the special treatment of "foreign experts" and sought to be treated equally, to have the same living standard as their local counterparts and not be accorded special distinctions based on their specializations. She worked as an equal among workers and peasants as they built socialism from the 1950s to the 1970s, established their communes, developed industries and agriculture, carried out criticism and self-criticism, consolidated the Party, studied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and launched struggles against revisionism.
She witnessed and experienced setbacks in the struggle for socialism leading to the restoration of capitalism in China as the revisionists seized power within the CPC from 1976 onwards. She criticized the rise of exploitation in China as the revisionist leadership of Deng Xiaoping tore down the socialist system and paved the way for the return of the big bourgeoisie and foreign monopoly capitalists in China. It was due to her fearless and undying devotion to the socialist cause and the proletarian revolution that she persisted in revolutionary work and the struggle for socialism in China despite the many difficulties she, her family and the people she worked with have encountered since revisionism took over and set back the socialist revolution in China.
Comrade Joan, as well as her husband Sid and brother Bill were long-time friends of the Philippine revolution. Their writings chronicling their experiences in building socialism in China from the 1950s to 1976 and the rise of revisionism and restoration of capitalism there from 1977 onwards have been well read by Filipino communists and revolutionaries. Her writings provided the Filipino communists and revolutionaries a clear picture of the Chinese people's daily struggles and practical lessons in the merging of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teachings with the concrete experiences on the ground in the context of the Chinese revolution, especially in carrying out of agrarian revolution and advancing the socialist transformation of agriculture. Their incisive analyses and criticisms of revisionism and the restoration of capitalism have further enriched our grasp of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
She helped develop solidarity between the Filipino and Chinese peoples. She took great interest in the development of the Philippine revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and supported several progressive causes in the Philippines. She visited the Philippines with her brother Bill in 1996 to participate in the People's Campaign Against Imperialist Gloablization and the People's Caravan Against the APEC summit. She warmly welcomed Filipino comrades who visited her in China and fostered frienship with Philippine progressive and democratic forces. She particularly developed a special interest and close friendship with the Filipino women comrades.
Comrade Joan was a staunch proletarian internationalist. Her loyalty to the working class and people transcended national boundaries. The significance of her work and writings has contributed greatly to the proletarian ideological counter-offensive throughout the 1990s and the resurgence of revolutionary struggles in the past decade.
She will continue to serve as an inspiration to the oppressed Chinese, Filipino, American and other peoples, and to all victims of imperialist globalization, semicolonial and semifeudal oppression and capitalist restoration. Her memory will forever be etched in the hearts of the world's proletariat as they continue to carry forward their historic mission to put an end to capitalism, build socialism and achieve communism.
Raise high the red banner of proletarian revolution in memory of Joan Hinton!
Long live the international communist movement!
