IV. The new fighting tasks
It is an achievement of great national and world significance that the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Filipino people have carried forward the new democratic revolution through protracted people's war for more than four decades and in the process overcome the most vicious campaigns of suppression unleashed by US imperialism and the local reactionary classes.
The Party has taken an outstanding role in exposing and opposing the ideological, political, economic, cultural and military offensives of the US and other imperialist powers abetted by the revisionist betrayal of socialism. It has analytically anticipated the resurgence of the forces of national liberation, democracy and socialism as a result of the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system under the policy of neoliberal globalization.
It is fine that the Party has resolved to advance the people's war from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate in five years' time. The sight of the near horizon has aroused the optimism and heightened the vigor of the revolutionary forces as they rise in triumph over the harse difficulties and trials inflicted in the course of the enemy's vicious Oplan Bantay Laya just as they have triumphed over all past similar counterinsurgency campaigns, and rallied to push forward and make a new leap in the struggle, armed with deep resolve, valuable lessons and increased strength. Inspired by their victories accumulated in more than 40 years of ardent struggle and the higher new challenge, the Party membership, NPA units and revolutionary forces are resolved to raise the level of intensity and quality of their struggle, fulfill the requisites, carry out the required tasks, and advance the people's war. The Party must take advantage of the favorable conditions created by the crisis of the world capitalist system for waging revolution. It must confront and defeat the scheme of the enemy to destroy the armed revolution in the Philippines. It must make great strides in realizing the people's aspirations for national and social liberation.
Certain requirements have to be fulfilled in order to advance the people's war. We must be clear about the tasks to be carried out in order to fulfill such requirements.
The Party must expand boldly without letting a single undesirable in. It must increase its membership to an extent that it has a Party branch in a majority of barangays and in every NPA company and it has Party groups at various levels of mass organizations and institutions. It must be able to recruit Party members from the urban and rural-based mass organizations as well as from units of the NPA.
The main source of Party recruits is the revolutionary mass movement. The mass organizations of workers, peasants, national minorities, urban poor, women, youth, migrants, professionals and others must run far ahead of the Party in recruiting their own members from the unorganized masses. Recruitment can be carried out in large numbers, because acceptance of the constitution and program of the mass organization with patriotic and progressive character suffices for a recruit to become a member. Members thus recruited take general and special mass courses to deepen their understanding, adherence and commitment to the national and democratic cause. Rapid expansion of membership can be realized especially when these mass organizations are at the lead of propaganda campaigns and mass mobilizations of the people to fight for their immediate and strategic aspirations.
The Party can expand easily upon the rapid growth of the mass organizations. It gives priority to the recruitment of the most advanced mass activists at every given time. Any resident of the Philippines at least 18 years of age who accepts the Party Constitution and Program can qualify immediately as a candidate-member. Within the period of candidature, the recruit is provided with the basic Party course and has the same rights and obligations as the full members, except the right to vote.
The period of candidature for workers and peasants is six months; for those of the urban petty bourgeoisie, one year; and for the middle bourgeoisie, two years. Kabataang Makabayan Communist Youth League members automatically become full members of the Party upon reaching the age of 18, provided they have finished the basic Party course.
The Party must enforce the provisions on Party membership as stated in the Constitution. Any notion that there are rules and standards for membership other than those in the Constitution must be dispelled. The long-running neglect and indefinite delay in the promotion of candidate-membership to full membership must be rectified. Party candidate-members must be provided with the basic Party course promptly, tasked and promoted to full membership upon completion of their period of candidature.
After the candidate-member becomes a full member, he/she must take the intermediate and higher Party courses as soon as possible. A full Party member is expected to become more inspired and more active in fulfilling tasks within the Party and the revolutionary mass movement or in any unit of the people's army.
All Party organs must continually conduct assessments and summing up of their experiences to determine their strengths and weaknesses and draw new plans for their work. The Central Committee of the Party must require all regional Party Committees, Commissions and similar leading organs to make reports and recommendations on the status of the revolutionary forces in their respective areas and lines of work, find out from them their strengths and weaknesses, and provide them with guidance for enhancing their strengths and overcoming their weaknesses. It must require strong and well-developed regions to help weaker ones in augmenting cadres and resources for strengthening the Party, the people's army and people's mass organizations and the united front. Every higher Party organ must inquire from the organs below it what are their strengths and weaknesses and what are the errors and shortcomings of leadership as well as the impact of enemy campaigns of suppression and the interrelation of the subjective forces and the circumstances.
The Party must direct the New People's Army to increase the number of full-time fighters. Every fully developed guerrilla front must have a total strength of at least one company. It should develop in stages from the seed unit deployed from a previously existing guerrilla front. Developing a guerrilla front entails integration of the revolutionary armed struggle, the agrarian revolution and building the mass base and the organs of democratic political power under the leadership of the Party.
The leadership of the Party over the NPA is ensured with the Central Committee and the Military Commission making the strategic policies and plans on the basis of reports and recommendations below and then issuing the directives to the NPA National Operational Command. At every level of command are a political department and a political officer to maintain the dual leadership with the commander in charge of military command and operations. Every company or platoon has a Party branch and every squad a Party group.
The units of the NPA must be increased by fighting the enemy forces and seizing their weapons. The NPA units must wage only battles that they can win. They do so by concentrating enough strength to wipe out an enemy force, using such elements as surprise, favorable terrain and favorable conditions. They must give priority to battles of annihilation that take the form of ambuscades and raids. By annihilation, we mean taking away by armed force the capability of enemy units to fight but treating the captives leniently after they are disarmed or they lose the ability to fight.
The tactics of annihilation must be complemented by tactics of attrition at the sure expense of the enemy. The NPA must train from the ranks of the full-time fighters and the militia special teams for reconnaissance, sniping, producing and employing command-detonated explosives and other means, with the objective of destroying moving and parked vehicles used for transporting military personnel, weapons, fuel and other war materiel as well as storage facilties for these.
Enterprises that do not comply with the rules and regulations of the people's democratic government, disregard and violate the welfare and interests of the people, and conduct abusive and antagonistic actions against the people must be banned, disabled or dismantled. These include those that engage in destructive large-scale logging, mining and plantations for export; plunder nonrenewable resources; ruin the environment and take land away from land reform. The military forces and security agencies protecting these enterprises are targets for annihilation by the people's army.
As a matter of revolutionary law and justice, those who have committed murder and other serious crimes against the people and the revolutionary forces, including human rights violations and plunder, must be arrested by the people's army and militia, investigated by the people's prosecution and tried by the people's court. Such criminals are subject to the necessary amount of force by the arresting units if they are armed and dangerous, resist arrest or are protected by bodyguards and units of the reactionary military or police.
The NPA must use the tactics of concentration in order to win the tactical offensives against target enemy units. But it must also be vigilant against the enemy using the same tactics of concentration. When a superior enemy force comes looking for a fight and implements a plan to occupy an area, be it a guerrilla front or a part of it, the NPA must be ready to use the tactics of evasion or shifting in order to avoid being put at a disadvantage, to trade space for time and to move to an advantageous position for conducting a counteroffensive at a later time or at a location where the enemy is weak. When the enemy forces set camp, the NPA must harass and inflict damage on them and be on the lookout for opportunities to annihilate any enemy unit or element going out of the camp.
The NPA must use the tactics of dispersal to cover a wide area for mass work and develop a wide network of mass organizations, self-defense units and militia against the enemy. In a guerrilla front, the NPA must always maintain a relatively concentrated unit (e.g., a platoon) and relatively dispersed units (e.g., two platoons divisible into squads and propaganda teams).
The NPA can carry out intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare and flexibly use the tactics of concentration, shifting and dispersal only if it has an ever widening and deepening mass base. The peasant masses are ever willing to let their best sons and daughters join the people's army. They are the active base and limitless source of Red fighters and resources for the armed revolution because the NPA is their instrument for fulfilling their demand for land and for realizing their economic, social and political liberation.
The NPA must promote the establishment and development of the mass organizations of workers, peasants, youth, women, cultural activists and other sectors of people in the localities. It must help build the organs of political power. Initially, these are appointive committees of the people and eventually elected by the representatives of the mass organizations or by the entire community. The Party must systematically deploy urban-based mass activists to the countryside so that they can learn from the peasant masses, render service to the peasant communities and in due course join the people's army. Party cadres and members from the ranks of the workers and educated youth are urgently needed for strengthening the people's army and the Party in the countryside.
The Party must strengthen the basic alliance of the working class and peasantry. This is the combination of the leading force and the main force of the new democratic revolution. Through the Party as the advanced detachment, the working class is the leading force because it directs the current course of the revolution towards the socialist future. The peasantry is the main force because it is the most numerous exploited class whose struggle for land is the main content of the democratic revolution. The proletariat and the peasantry constitute more than 90% of the people. Their combination is indispensable and decisive for winning the new democratic revolution.
The basic worker-peasant alliance must win over the urban petty bourgeoisie as allies in order to constitute the alliance of progressive forces. The National Democratic Front is the best expression and most consolidated underground alliance of the workers, peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie. It must be strengthened further. The urban petty bourgeoisie is a small part of Philippine society and constitutes the lower part of the bourgeoisie. It suffers a certain degree of oppression and exploitation and it can be won over to contribute its capabilities and influence to the revolution.
The Party must further win over the middle bourgeoisie to cooperate with the alliance of progressive forces and become active in a formal or informal alliance of patriotic forces interested in strengthening the anti-imperialist and democratic movement of the entire people. The middle bourgeoisie is interested in national industrialization and can understand land reform as a way of releasing capital, expanding the domestic market and serving as the source of food and raw materials for industry. The alliance of patriotic forces is interested in the rise of an anti-imperialist and democratic government.
The Party must be open to the broadest possible alliance, which includes the reactionary forces opposed to the enemy that is the most reactionary and most servile to the imperialists. Reactionaries are temporary and unreliable allies. They join the alliance because of their self-interest and they are inclined to attack the revolution once they come into power. But alliance with them is necessary in order to isolate and destroy the enemy. Relative to the broadest possible alliance, the Party must maintain its independence and initiative and must draw benefits for the revolutionary movement from the conflicts of the reactionaries and build its strength for eventually overthrowing the entire ruling system.
So far, in the history of our Party, the reactionary force considered as the enemy has been the ruling clique. But the Party does not foreclose the possibility of an anti-imperialist alliance and truce with a regime in power that takes an anti-imperialist and democratic position. It considers the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations as a way of encouraging and stimulating the emergence of a government of national unity against the imperialists and their unrepentant puppets.
For as long as no possibility exists for such a government to arise, the Party and the Filipino people must exert all efforts to carry forward the new democratic revolution through people's war. After we succeed in advancing from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate, our task is to fully develop the strategic stalemate until the conditions are ripe for the nationwide seizure of power through the strategic offensive.
