संयूक्त नेपाली मोर्चा, यूरोप, माषिक बुलेटिन,नयां तरङ्ग, जुन २००७ वर्ष१,अंक२

United Nepalese  Front, Europe,Monthly Bulletin ,New wave,June 2007 ,Year 1, Issue 2

Paper presented in the International Communist Seminar Brussel
Message to the May first demonstration inBerlin
Leaflet distributed in theMay first Demonstration in diffirent cities in Europe
Leaflet distributed in the demonstration  against the G8 meeting in Germany

Message presented in the memory ceremony of Maoist Leader Ibrahim Kayapakaya

By United Nepalese Front Europe

By Communist Party of Phillipne

By FRDDP

 

Contribution to the 16th International Communist Seminar
"The validity and current relevance of the October Revolution of 1917 for the 21° century".

Brussels, 4- 6 May 2007

http://www.icsbrussels.org , ics@icsbrussels.org

The type of Party needed to respond to the challenges of the 21st century –Concrete experiences of Party building in the working class and among the youth.

By Nepalese People’s Progressive Forum, Belgium

Dear Comrades,

We would like to thank the organiser the Worker's Party of Belgium for providing us to express our opinion on this International Communist Seminar in Brussels. We extend our heartfelt revolutionary greetings to all the delegates here and the revolutionary people around the world on behalf of the revolutionary masses of people of Nepal.

The set of topics of this seminar "The validity and current relevance of the October Revolution of 1917 for the 21st century – the type of party needed to respond to the challenges of the 21st century - concrete experiences of party building in the working class and among the youth" covers up comprehensive aspects required to make revolution in any country in today's world. These topics are interrelated, interdependent and complimentary to each other. Very often discussed in the International Communist Movement about are the subjects as what is capitalism, what is imperialism, what is exploitation and so forth. But, rarely touched is 'how to make revolution!' The primary task of the proletarian is not only to understand but to change the world, as Marx had brilliantly pointed out 'the bourgeoisies have understood the world but the main point is to change it'.

The duty of the proletariat is not only to understand how the economic, political and social phenomenon moving under the mode of capitalist production, social relation generated by this capitalist production, and methods of thinking under such social relations, which the bourgeoisie intellectuals limit itself around it, but to change these course of phenomenon to change the world for freedom of human being. This is the question of understanding the dialectical relation between 'necessity and freedom'.  As long as the proletariat is confined and limited itself by the bourgeoisie ideology, opportunist politics, pragmatic methodology, it will never understand the necessity to change the world, and will never put itself to achieve such freedom to change the world. The need today is to break away from all these alien ideologies to Marxism, and grasp the scientific ideology hitherto developed to the highest stage of Marxism: that is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In spite of the reach experiences in the 20th century revolutionary struggle against revisionism, economism, gradualism, reformism, parliamentary cretinism and performance of stereotype bourgeoisie politics, against which the great leaders of the proletariat Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao had struggled hard and defeated, the left movement today is falling back to the same trap. Today, in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, and in the stage of imperialism, that is acting like a global state, two wrong tendencies in the international communist movement are prevalent, there are the right opportunist and ultra leftist currents; on which the various degrees of right opportunist trends are most dangerous. 

Having fought against non-Marxist trends of spontaneous, perplexity and uncertainty, Lenin put forward a thesis "two tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution" of Russia. This thesis lays out a comprehensive political, organizational and military line to make Socialist revolution. This thesis emphasises on fundamental principals of proletarian revolution, which are comprehensive, interconnected interdependent and complementary to each other and are not only valid and relevant for today's revolutionary movement, but are also the fundamental principles of revolution. These principles contain dialectical relation between political and military line of proletarian revolution. As Lenin put forwarded are the Formation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry and the Election of the Constituent Assembly. The election of the constituent assembly is defined as pressure from up and pressure from down, and this pressure from down is defined as preparation of insurrection. This was the fundamental essence and fundamental line of 1917 October revolution, and this science in a perfect way is being applied in the concrete reality of the Nepalese revolutionary People's War. 

Development of People’s War in Nepal cannot be separated from the vigorous two line struggle and forceful class struggle. Alike the international Communist Movement, the Nepalese Communist Movement was also mired into reformism, revisionism, economism, sectarianism, right opportunism, post modernism, dogmato-revisionism and parliamentarian cretinism. These kind of revisionist and neo-revisionist, trends were defeated ideologically, politically prevalent in the Nepalese society as well as within the Communist Party of Nepal. As Lenin said, only he is Marxist who extends the recognition of class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, today we can profoundly say: only he is Communist who makes departure from Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to accomplish Socialist Revolution and advance to Communism by exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat in smashing the old state and to make world proletarian revolution. Lack in clarity in this question will take to revisionism.

A discussion has very often taken place on the need of organisation in relation to make revolution. Lenin had stressed on a radical, disciplined vanguard Party of the proletariat. Mao Tsetung has made compressively a scientific analysis that a revolutionary party, a people’s army under the leadership of the vanguard and the united front are the key elements to make revolution. Communist Party of Nepal has emphasised on four preparations, namely ideological political preparation, organisational preparation, logistical preparation and preparation for struggle. From three slogans of Lenin to the key elements of Mao Tsetung and to the four preparations for revolution are the interconnected elements to make revolution. Today, many theoretical questions are posed before the proletarian Party, why the Great Socialist States as Russia and China fall right after the death of Stalin and Mao Tsetung, why the Red Army and the People’s Liberation Army could not prevent counterrevolution, rather it became the tools of counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie to suppress the revolutionary masses? CPN Maoist has analysed that along with the revolutionary state mechanism corresponding to the proletarian line of the Party, the Party needs to be constantly rectified and developed among the masses of people.

Lenin had time and again stressed on militant struggle. Further, Mao Tsetung developed it to the level that if people have no people’s army, people have nothing. It is only struggle that is so powerful that rallies the masses around the world behind it. Whether one agrees or not on the political line of the forces carrying out life and death resistance in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, these resistances have compelled all the nationalist, democratic and revolutionary forces as well as general masses of people to support it. As Mao taught us wherever there is repression there is resistance. Our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq have been resisting the US imperialist war juggernaut for there is direct repression. The proletarian have consciously carrying out revolutionary people’s war in Nepal, Peru, India, Philippine, Turkey while fighting against their own reactionary states, puppets and lackeys of imperialism and hegemonism. Here, the experiences of the revolutionary People’s war, the national liberation resistance and the national democratic movement have clearly illustrated that if a Communist Party is to lead youth, workers and other strata of the masses of people, it can lead only through organising a radical struggle with a concrete strategy and tactics to smash old state and establish new, scientific and socialist one.

As Lenin pointed out that the correctness or otherwise determines the revolutionary struggle, the correctness or otherwise will determine if we can defeat imperialism, accomplish Socialist revolution and bring the Socialist State into being. Hence this International Communist Seminar must inspire us to transform ourselves to cast away all reformist illusions and grasp Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the scientific ideology of the international proletarian class.

Dear comrades,

I would like to talk in brief on the political development in Nepal. Alike in the Russian history, at the very historical juncture of the Nepali politics, the election of the constituent assembly has been the central issue of the entire nation. It is not only the central issue for the country but also for imperialism and expensionism. Three main trends are prevalent to direct CA for their political propose. One trend wants to establish feudal monarchy, the other wants to maintain status quo or bring back to 1990 parliamentarian situation and the Maoist want to mobilise entire people to accomplish New Democratic Revolution and advance to socialism.

The US imperialism and the Indian expensionism along with the feudal monarchy are working overnight to defeat the revolutionary people. And, the communist Party of Nepal Maoist is now raising slogan like peace, bread and development. Both the foreign and domestic reactionary elements are conspiring against the aspiration of the people, which is leading the entire nation to a popular armed insurrection.

Once this insurrection is completed under the leadership of the Maoist Party, a Socialist State will be brought into being in Nepal, following the accomplishment of the New Democratic Revolution.  

With revolutionary greetings to all the delegates on this seminar once again!

  Nepalese People’s Progressive Forum, Belgium

May 2007


Message to the Berlin Revolutionary 1st May Demonstration 2007 

To the organizers and participants,

Dear comrades, sisters and brothers,

On this occasion of the Revolutionary 1st May Demonstration, we would like to extend our revolutionary greetings to all the Revolutionary masses of people of the world. Today, the revolutionary masses of people are fighting against imperialism in all notch and corners of the world. Either it is Maoist revolutionary people's war of Nepal, Peru, Turkey, India, Philippines or national liberation movement of Palestine, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey, Spain, Britain, Colombia; either it is the people's resistance of Iraq and Afghanistan, or people's democratic movements of the people against war and oppression around the globe, people are fighting against imperialism, its oppression and domination. All these struggle of the people have to be united for a common goal, that is to demolish imperialist domination, exploitation and the abolition of imperialism itself.

Having been a imperialist superpower of the world, the US imperialism has been  shattering the bone and flesh of the oppressed masses of people. The US brutality against the brothers and sisters of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, its conspiracy of creating conflicts among the people of many countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and its supporting to the brutal regimes of these countries have constantly been humiliating the people of the world. The US imperialism has repeatedly been threatening of war against Iran, North Korea and any country it wants to fight. Looting, plundering and launching wars have been the general characteristics of imperialism today.

The only way of smashing imperialism is to make revolution in every country, either it is developed or developing or under developed. As the imperialism has united reactionaries for oppression against the masses across the globe, the revolutionaries also need to fight imperialism in the global level. At the same time it is also necessary to make fusion of wars being waged as the Maoist revolutionary war, national liberation movement and as well as democratic movements.

We believe that this Revolutionary 1st May Demonstration will open up new chapter in this process of uniting all the revolutionary people around the world, and lead struggle against imperialism and its global oppression. 

With best wishes

United Nepalese Front (Europe)


Celebrate 118th May-day as the day of political resistance against imperialism!

March ahead with new strategy and tactics for world proletarian revolution!

The working class and the oppressed masses of the people!
We are today, in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Among all the major contradictions, the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed masses and people has intensified as principal one. The imperialism and its order has plunged the world into oppression and exploitation and war and destruction. The war against Iraq and Afghanistan, internal and external conflicts in many countries of the Asia, Africa and Latin America and the threat of war against Iran, Syria, North Korea, and cowardly bulling against Cuba are the general phenomenon of imperialism today. Similarly the threat and intervention against Maoist people’s war in Nepal and Peru, the threat and intervention against the revolutionary movements of Turkey/North Kurdistan, India and Philippines, the killings of dozens of Iraqi as well as the Palestinian people every day in the Middle East are the horrendous crimes of imperialism today.
In this present situation, the struggle of the masses of people in the world is advancing with three major characteristics – as revolutionary movement under the leadership of the proletariat class, national liberation movement under the leadership of the nationalist and capitalist classes and democratic movement under the leadership of the middleclass bourgeoisie. The Maoist revolutionary movement of Nepal, Peru, Turkey/North Kurdistan, India, Philippines are led by the international proletarian class. The national liberation movement of Sri Lanka, Kurdistan, India, Burma, Colombia, Spain, Britain and many countries of Africa are led by nationalists, democratic as well the capitalist classes. Similarly the resistance movement against the imperialist war are led by the middle class bourgeoisies.
In spite of the different classes and trends and goals of struggle existed in the present social realities, the common and principal target of all these forces today has been imperialism, whcih has emerged as a global state to rule and plunder over the masses of the world over. In these contexts while the countries want independent, nations want liberation and people want revolution, a revolutionary unity of these classes to smash imperialism and establish socialism has emerged as urgent task.
It is only in the revolutionary Social state, the people can have the right of self determination, it is only in the revoltuionary Socialist Societies the people can have democracy and right to intervene against rulling class whoever is raised over power, it is only in the revoltuioanry Socialist state the war by one state against another can be eliminated. This kind of world – the world of peace, prosperity and democracy – is possible, and this is posiible only by making revolution not only in the opressed countries but also in the imperialist counrties like Europe and the United States of America. It is only by making revolution and overthrowing the monopoly capitalist class can the European and American people rid off the wars, death and distructions. Similarly, only by making revolution and overthrowing monopoly capitalist class on their own countries can the peoploe of imperialist countries assist to their oppressed brothers and sisters in the oppressed countries.
In this context, the world demands the unity of the workers and the oppressed masses of the people, and the world demands the fusion of all revolutionary movements; as the Maoist revolutionary movement, the national liberation movement and the revolutionary democratic resistance movements against imperialism and monpoly capitalist class. Since the imperialism has united the all reactionary ruling classes in the world to suppress and exploite the masses of the people, the oppresed masses of the world cannot deal a deadly blow agaist world imperialism seperately and inpedently, and the unity of the masses also requires to the global level.
Only with this revoltuionary strategy of making socialist revoltuion and with the tactice of unity of all the oppressed masses of people against imperialism and its lackys at home will the masses of people eliminate the imperialist imposed war and distructions, oppression and discrimination, and exercise the peace, prosperity, democracy and brotherhood among human beings in the world over.
The May Day celebration once again reminds us to reverbarate the unity of the workers and the oppressed masses of people ever before in the history, and demands to deal consternating blows against imperialism and reaction harder ever before.
- Workers and oppressed masses of people of the world, unite!
- March ahead with new strategy and tactics for the world proletarian revolution!
- Long live world proletarian revoltuon!
- Down with imperialism and reaction!
United Nepalese Front (Europe) 


No G8! No Any Gangsters!! People must have all powers!!

 The G8 meeting is underway here at Heilegendam in Germany. Group of Eight "prosperous"  nations (better known to be group of plunderers) is a conglomeration of the monopoly capitalists from Asia, Europe and America. These monopoly capitalists are now gathering in the name of Group of Eight prosperous nations, in a highly fortified banquet halls of Germany, in order to chart out many plans to shatter the flesh and bones of billions of poor across the world.

Along with the polarization of the group of 8 and 20, or so others, the polarization between the rich and the poor has extremely widened up in last decades. What is revealed statistically is that the Bill Gates, the Sultan of Brunei and the Walton family together are the richer than the world's 48 poorest countries (not companies!!). While a poor in India, China and Bangladesh live in less than $1 a day, a rich in the US bags $70 an hour. While the Americans spend $8 billion a year on cosmetics, the 5 billion people get less than a dollar a day. While few millions Europeans spend $11 billion a year on ice cream, the billions of poor are not getting merely $9 billion to provide safe water and moderate sanitation. The United States and the Europe alone spend $17 billion on pet food every year. But, $10 billion could feed 15-calorie meal for a month to entire Indian people. Yet, one billion poor of the world are not getting $13 billion to establish rudimentary healthcare.

The globalization, liberalization and open market policies of the imperialists have brought these miseries upon people. According to the World Bank statistics, the 37% population of the lowest income earns average $825 and less a year, whereas 16% high-income population earns $10,066 or more per year. The high and the upper middle class group comprise 25% of the world population where as the number of the poorest people comprise 75%. These poor people live in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This widening gap between the rich and the poor not only exists in between the rich and the poor countries, but also exists within the rich and poor people in both rich and poor countries. Among the Asian countries, 20% upper class Malaysians posses 53.7 % of the national wealth, whereas 20% poor posses 4.4%. Among the African countries, 20% upper class Sera-Lions possess 63% wealth whereas 20% poor possess 1.1%. Similarly, among the Latin American countries, 20% upper class Brazilians possess 64.1% of the national wealth whereas 20% poor possess 2.2%. Among the European countries, 20% richer German possess 38.5% of the national wealth whereas 20% poor German possess 8.2%. Similarly in America, 20% richer Canadian possess 39.3% of the national wealth whereas the 20% poor possess 7.5 %.

The imperialism has not done any better for the peoples living in the land of the sole Supper Power of the world, either. A journalist once pointed out this remark: "In their 1992 campaign for the White House, Bill Clinton and Al Gore liked to point out that the top 1 percent of Americans owned 40 percent of the country’s wealth. They also said that if you eliminated home ownership and only counted businesses, factories and offices, then the top 1 percent owned 90 per cent of all wealth. And the top 10 percent, they said, owned 99 percent!"

The imperialism has not only caused a horrendous gap between the rich and the poor, either among rich and poor countries or the rich and poor within one country, but also caused the war and destructions over one country after another. Similarly, it has piled up more than 200,000 nuclear bombs of varieties, around the world, and caused a huge natural disaster, including the global warming and nuclear waste, to bring a calamity to the present and future generation.  What are ongoing and further looming over the humanity are the hunger and malnutrition, destabilization and uncertainty, terror and counter-terror in both the developed and developing countries.

Hence, this G8 summit is the gathering of the masters of all these horrendous social crimes against humanity. These masters who are buried under the booty of billions of people of the world won't be hearing what they shout from the streets across the world. Neither can they shape this world better able to live for the future generation. Hullabaloos and cacophony among these pirates about global-warming, war on terror, global economy is nothing but senseless hilarity. People cannot tolerate this any more! And, it should not be tolerated any more!! And the only way to rid off this catastrophe is the way to overthrow them from power in their own countries and seizing power in the hands of the people by accomplishing the Socialist and Communist Revolution!!

 

Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Long Live international Proletarianism!

Down with imperialism and reaction!

 

United Nepalese Forum, Europe. June 2007


Message presented in the memory ceremony of Maoist Leader Ibrahim Kayapakaya

Dear comrades,

Revolutionary greetings! 

We would like to put a brief presentation on Nepal situation, that has been developing since the initiation of people's war. On 13 February 1996, a whole new chapter in the history of Nepal was begun, when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) led the masses of the downtrodden in Nepal in daring simultaneous assaults throughout the country. Although the scale of the initial actions was small and the People’s War was begun with only a few weapons, from the outset the goal was mighty—to carry out a new democratic and socialist revolution as a part of the international proletariat’s historic mission of sweeping imperialism, reaction and indeed all traces of class exploitation from the Earth. For eleven years the revolution in Nepal, under the leadership of our party, with comrade Prachanda at its head, has gone through twists and turns, victories and losses, and faced political complexities. There have been many sacrifices and boundless heroism among the party and among the people. Today, ten years later, those initial small squads with a handful of arms have grown into a mighty People’s Liberation Army, and backward Nepal, while still poor and oppressed, has become an advanced beacon in a world so much in need of revolution. Most of the territory of Nepal is already under the rule of the people, led by the party, and the revolution is knocking on the doors of nationwide power. These achievements fill the hearts of communists and revolutionary-minded people all over the world with joy and are rekindling hope among the oppressed that there is a solution to the exploitation, misery and oppression that enslaves humanity.

The nepalese people's war developed through twist and turns, ups and downs, ebbs and flows. İn this process the People’s War had reached to a historical juncture. The power of the people's war deepen the crisis over the system of the reactionary state. The reacitonary state had fallen into unresolveable crisis and thus disintegrated into split and causing fractions into the government and within and among the parliamentarian parties. Ultimately the king Gyanendra took his last option to stage a coup detat and hold executive power of the country, simply lifting the rock to drop on his own feet, by dissolving the parliamentarin government and imposing his direct rule. On the background of these develpments and mainly based on the principle of Maoism, that suggests to unite the people and destroy enemy bit by bit, the Party reached to 12 point agreement with the parliamentarian parties by which the royalist parliamentarian parties for the frst time came to accept that the autocrat feudal monarchy was the main obstacle of the peace, progress and democracy in the country. Then, they also agreed to abolish the monarchy, to establish democratic republic of Nepal and restructure of the Nepalese society.

Hence, on the background of 10 years of people's war and 19 days people's movement, the king had been forced to step back. But, true to the reactionary clas charater of the parliamentarian parties, they surrendered to the king and committed a historical blunder. While the agreements were held between seven party alliance (SPA) and CPN (Maoist) to abolish monarchy, to dissolve royal army and restructure the national army, to reastructure of the nepalese society, through the process of holding election of the election of the constituent assembly, the parliamentarian are shrinking back from different agreements. The parliamentarian parties accepted reistate of the dissolved parliament and gave situation to save the king once again.

As a tactics to destroy the Nepalese Maoist revolurionary movement, US imperialism always tried to make the parliamentarian parties surrender to the king, bring split among the parliamentarian parties, and split into the tactical unity between the SPA and the CPN(Maoist). The Nepali Congress, among the parliamentarian parties has sujugated itself as a stooge of the king and the imperialist forces. This history has clearly manifested that any bourgeoisie can never stand for the people and can never loose side of the reactionary class. At the sametime, this history has also manifested that in spite of the reactinary charater of the parliamentarian, it is sometimes necessary to forge united front against imperialism guided by the princpal of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The process of negotiation is a war with enemy, different to the form of armed struggle.

The history has again manifested that the war on dialogue is much tougher than the war in the battlefield. The reactionary ruling class whose hands are dipped on the blood of masses of people wouldn't volunterily dethrone from the power. As an attempt to destroy revolutionary forces, to dissrupt the peace process, to divert the method of war to different direction, the feudals and the imperialists have staged Gaur massacare on which 29 Maoist revolutionaries were killed. Even today the reactionaries are hatchinng many conspiracies to destroy leadership, party and attempt to never let the government hold the election on time and want to create political anarchy through violence and killings as in Gaur- Ruthat.

The bourgeoisies have been propagating that the newly formed government is as old one as parliamentary used to be. The reactionaries are trying to confuse the masses and make them forgotten that this interim government was build on the background of ten years of people's war and strong people's movement generated by the people's war and consiquently after the down fall of the old reactionary parliamentarian system, following the abrogation of the 1991 constitution, and after the implimentation of a new interim constitution. It is true that some of the the old murderors from these parliamentarian parties are in posts of the interium structure and their attempts are to destroy the achievements people attained and lead the country back to parliamentarian system, it is true that in spite of all ppower scrapped from the king and its vertual suspension, it is there and in spite of the name changing of the Nepal Army it is Royal Army in content. But, it is also true that those old reactionary institutions are politically hacked several layers and fallen on the pit of grave.

This government has a historical responsibility to held the polls of constituent assembly by Mid–June through free and fair ways. But this date line is aborted through the conspiracies hatched by the imperialis and the domestic feudals. The postponement of the election of the constituent assembly has caused a constitutional crisis. Feudal elements within the parliamentarian parties want to constantly violate constitution so that the keng could be made active. Hense, following the constant violation of the Comprihensive Peace Accord by these parliamentarians, the nasis of unity between the SPA and the Maoist has gotton obsolate. The only way to mentain such unity is to declare the republic from the interim lagislature and hold the election of the constituent assembly on time agreed.

At this juncture of Nepali politics, the election of the constituent assembly has been the central issue of the entire nation. It is not only the central issue for the country but also for imperialism and expensionism. Three main trends are prevalent to direct CA for their political propose. One trend wants to establish feudal monarchy, the other wants to maintain status quo or bring back to 1990 parliamentarian situation and the Maoist want to mobilise entire people to accomplish New Democratic Revolution and advance to socialism

No doubt new obstacles will appear and new sacrifices will be required, but by continuing to firmly base ourselves on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Prachandapath by flexibly applying these principles to the complexities of the class struggle a New Democratic Nepal can emerge and brighten the whole world.

 

Thank you for your attention to the presentation

 

NOTES ON PEOPLE’S WAR IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

 By Jose Maria Sison

Founding Chairman

Communist Party of the Philippines

19 May 2007

 Introduction

 Let me present to you the armed struggles led by communist parties in Southeast Asia before, during and immediately after World War II, focus on the people’s war when Southeast Asia developed into the storm center of the world proletarian revolution from 1960 to 1975, evaluate the post-Mao China policy against people’s war in the region, describe the people’s war in the Philippines and explore the prospects of people’s war in Southeast Asia. 

1.  Before World War II, 1926 to 1941 

Under the auspices of the Third Communist International (Comintern), communist parties were established in Southeast Asia before World War II. The earliest to be established was the Communist Party of the East Indies in 1920.  It had the distinction of being the first communist party in the whole of Asia.  It led an armed uprising for national liberation against Dutch colonialism in 1926, the first armed struggle in the region led by a communist party.  The armed uprising was brutally suppressed by the Dutch colonialists but gave the Communist Party of Indonesia the highest prestige as the fighter for the national liberation of the Indonesian people. 

Under the shadow of the Great Depression and upon the intensified work of the Comintern, the Communist Party of the Philippine Islands, the Communist Party of Indochina and the Communist Party of Malaya were organized in quick succession in 1930. The Vietnamese communists launched in 1930 and 1940 uprisings against French colonial rule. Both failed but raised the prestige of the communists as fighters for national and social liberation.  The Communist Party of the Philippine Islands was suppressed by the US colonial authorities a few months after its founding. 

The main thrust of the political work of the communist parties in the 1930s was to oppose the Western colonial powers and seek national liberation through all forms of struggle.  Like the Filipino, Indonesian and Indochinese communists against US, Dutch and French colonialism respectively,  the Malayan and Burmese communists were so focused on opposing British colonialism that  it took sometime for them to accept  entirely the decision of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935 to focus the revolutionary struggle against the fascism of Germany, Italy and Japan and develop the popular front.   

2.  In the Course of World War II, 1941 to 1945 

Immediately following its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japan invaded the Southeast Asian countries.  The inter-imperialist war created the excellent conditions for the communist parties and the people to build their revolutionary strength in fighting the Japanese invasion and occupation.  The communist parties organized people’s armies against Japan mainly among the peasant masses, engaged in land reform and built organs of political power in Indochina, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya and Burma. 

The Communist Party of Indochina had organized the Revolutionary League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh) since 1941 to unite the communist and other anti-fascist forces to engage in guerilla warfare against the Japanese invaders and occupiers. It defeated the Japanese aggressors,  launched  the uprising of August 1945 to seize political power, proclaim the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and suppress the pro-Japanese collaborators and made preparations to fight the plan of the French colonialists to reconquer Vietnam in 1946 and thus to ignite the First Indochina War. 

The Communist Party of Indonesia was able to build guerrilla forces during the resistance against Japan and an alliance of the left wing and youth section of the Indonesian Socialist Party. These were the most reliable forces for upholding the proclamation of national independence by Sukarno in August 1945, frustrating the British military intervention and continued use of Japanese military units and fighting the return of Dutch colonialism to Indonesia. The US also began to intervene in Indonesian affairs. 

The merger party of the Communist and Socialist parties in the Philippines organized the People’s Army Against Japan (Hukbalahap) in 1942, independently of the US Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE).  Despite Right opportunist errors in strategy, it was able to build units of the people’s army and organs of political power and carry out land reform.  But it overconcentrated in only one region close to the national capital region and was unable to expand the revolutionary movement on a nationwide scale.   

Right opportunism persisted in undermining the merger party of the Communist and Socialist parties because of the leadership’s decision to welcome the return of the US imperialist military forces and the puppet Commonwealth government.  Subsequently, the Browderite line of peace and democracy blew in from the Communist Party of the USA, which had had a long relationship with the merger party. 

The Malayan Communist Party built the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army and  cooperated with British military forces in fighting against the Japanese occupation.  But it maintained its initiative and independence. It demanded the independence of Malaya from British colonialism upon the defeat of Japan, thus incurring the hostility of British imperialism which was determined to recolonize Malaya and secure British interests in Southeast Asia. 

The Burmese Communist Party took a major role in organizing the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) to fight the Japanese occupation which began in 1941-42.  The AFPFL cooperated with the British military forces to expel the Japanese in 1945.  

3.  Aftermath of World War II, 1946 to 1959 

After proclaiming the independence of Vietnam in 1945, the Viet Minh formed the National Assembly in January 1946.  The French government recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a free state of the French Union in March 1946 but declared war against it in November of the same year and began the First Indochina War. It set up the puppet government of Bao Dai in Saigon in 1948.   

In 1951 the Indochinese Communist Party decided to divide into three parties in order let them focus on the problems in their respective countries.   In the name of the Cold War, the US started to give substantial political and financial support to the French war effort in 1949 and at the same time increased its influence among prospective Vietnamese puppets. The Vietnamese people’s army defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 on the eve of the Geneva Conference. 

The Geneva Conference of 1954 agreed to divide Vietnam into North and South temporarily and to reunite it after elections in 1956.  But the US-supported Ngo Dinh  Diem regime that had deposed Bao Dai regime in 1955 refused to hold elections. Following orders from the US, it declared South Vietnam a republic. It unleashed a reign of terror against the Viet Minh, the people and all opposition forces, including patriotic religious organizations. t

Following the declaration of Indonesian national independence in 1945, Indonesian president Sukarno proceeded to call for national unity to fight against the British military forces and thereafter the Dutch military forces who sought to reconquer Indonesia.  At first, he relied mainly on the disciplined and battle-tested guerrilla forces of the Communist Party of Indonesia.  But he and his vice president Hatta increasingly relied on the pro-US and pro-Western military officers, including those who had served in the Japanese occupation army.  The communists were massacred in Madiun in 1948 to make way for the neocolonial compromise in the Round Table Conference Agreement. 

Challenged by the US and pro-US forces and ultra-reactionary forces in Indonesia represented by Hatta and the right wing forces of the Masjumi and Socialist Party, Sukarno sought once more the alliance of the Communist Party of Indonesia in 1951.  The Communist Party of Indonesia appeared to thrive politically by pursuing the peaceful and parliamentary road of struggle and by keeping an anti-imperialist alliance with Sukarno and his nationalist following.  

The old merger party of the Communist and Socialist parties pushed for and welcomed the grant of nominal national independence to the Philippines by the US in 1946.  It agreed with the reactionary authorities to demobilize the people’s army and surrender its arms despite the rising brutal acts of the US and local reactionary forces against units of the people’s army and the peasants who had undertaken land reform during the Japanese occupation.  It was heavily influenced by the Browderite line of peace and democracy. It formed the Democratic Alliance to compete in the electoral struggle.  

The Democratic Alliance won enough seats in Congress in 1946 to prevent the passage of an amendment in the 1935 Constitution for the purpose of allowing US corporations and citizens to have rights at par with the Filipinos in exploiting Philippine natural resources and operating public utilities.  The puppet government ousted from Congress the progressive members on false charges of electoral fraud and terrorism. Moreover, the brutal attacks on the people in the revolutionary areas escalated. Thus, the ground was laid for a decision of the old merger party in 1948 to start revolutionary armed struggle.  But only in the latter half of 1950 was the people’s army able to launch some relatively large offensives on a wide scale along the Sierra Madre. 

The “Left” opportunist  line of seeking to win complete victory in two years’ time  without painstaking mass work, without land reform and without building the people’s army in stages but relying on the growth of the spontaneous uprising of the people due to the severe crisis of the system and violent contradictions among the reactionaries proved

disastrous.  The enemy was able to launch a sustained counter-attack against the forest-based camps of the people’s army and capture most of the city-based principal leaders in 1950-52. Since then, the old merger party swung back to Right opportunism, including the orders to liquidate the people’s army in 1955 and the party in 1957, and caused the party to become moribund, until efforts were made to revive it from 1959 onwards. 

The British colonialists legalized the Malayan People’s Anti-Japan but banned it in 1948 and declared a state of emergency in order to suppress it. Peace talks between the Malayan communist leaders and the chief ministers of Malaya and Singapore broke down as the latter officials demanded the dissolution of the Malayan Communist Party.

The state of emergency was ended in 1960 after the authorities estimated that they had virtually crushed the people’s army. But in fact this continued to fight from a relatively secure area along the Thailand-Malaya border area.  

After being expelled from the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League in 1946, the Burmese Communist Party launched an armed revolution in 1948. It operated mainly in Central Burma and the in the Arakan mountains and Irrawaddy delta.  It engaged in alliances with the minority nationalities that were also waging armed struggle against the Burmese reactionary government.  

4. People’s Wars in Southeast Asia, 1960 to 1975 

The communist and noncommunist forces in the armed struggle against the US-supported Ngo Din Diem regime united to form the South Vietnam National Liberation Front in 1960.  In 1961 the US began to deploy large numbers of “advisors” in the South Vietnamese military and bureaucracy and in 1964 it began to launch military operations against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam by land, sea and air.   

The US war of aggression against the people of Vietnam became indubitably clear with the rapid deployment of hundreds of thousands of US troops and with large military operations from US military bases inside and outside of Vietnam. The Vietnamese communists and people were determined to carry out a war of national liberation against the US war of aggression through the strategy of protracted people’s war. 

At that time, the Vietnam Workers Party was close to the Communist Party of China under Comrade Mao Zedong. It was disappointed that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under Khrushchov was hyping the general line of peaceful coexistence and the road of peaceful transition and was not interested in assisting the Vietnamese communists in people’s war.  

The US escalated its military intervention through military advisors and military supplies to the level of a full-scale war of aggression. It engaged in all types of vicious military campaigns in South Vietnam and made frequent bombing raids on North Vietnam. The Vietnamese people intensified their resistance and inflicted heavy casualties on US and puppet troops on the ground, shot down thousands of US planes and destroyed convoys of enemy vehicles. 

The US instigated the military coup against Sihanouk by Lon Nol in 1970 in the vain hope of disrupting and preventing the passage of supplies for the South Vietnam National Liberation Front through either the so-called Ho Chi Minh trail or ports of Cambodia.  The overthrow of Sihanouk brought about the conditions for the alliance between the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the forces of Sihanouk with the support of the Communist Party of China.  

The people’s war led by the Communist Party of Cambodia advanced very rapidly. The alliance of patriotic forces formed the Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea. The Vietnamese, Kampuchean and Laotian revolutionary parties and peoples united in waging people’s war against US imperialism and its puppet forces. Their intensified people’s wars compelled the US to negotiate towards the Paris Peace Accord of 1973 and paved the way for the total victories of their revolutionary struggle for national liberation against US imperialism . 

From 1960 onward, the calls for people’s war in Southeast Asia resounded against the continuing aggressiveness of the US in expanding its hegemony.  In the growing Sino-Soviet ideological debate the revisionist line of Khrushchov did not dull but sharpened the resolve of the communist parties to wage armed revolution.  The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China further sharpened such resolve and the Communist Party of China under the leadership of Chairman Mao was enthusiastic in supporting the communist parties that decided to wage people’s war in Southeast Asia. 

The Communist Party of Indonesia, which had become the biggest communist party among those in nonsocialist states by pursuing the line of peaceful and legal struggle from 1951 to 1965, began from 1963 to consider the necessity of armed revolution against armed counterrevolution. It intended to take advantage of the “crush Malaysia” campaign to justify arming the people.  However, it was unclear and vacillating about what form of armed revolution it would undertake, even as the US, British and Dutch imperialists and their puppets headed by Suharto were feverishly preparing to massacre the Indonesian communists, their mass following and sympathizers in 1965-66. 

Since 1961, the Communist Party of Thailand had taken a strong Marxist-Leninist position in the Sino-Soviet ideological debate and decided to adopt the strategic line of protracted people’s war.  It started guerrilla warfare in 1965 in the northeastern provinces of Thailand along the border with Laos, where they won the support of the Meo tribesmen, and subsequently spread to the northern provinces and to the extreme south, where the Malayan Communist Party and people’s army were based. In the early 1960s the Burmese Communist Party also took a strong Marxist-Leninist position in the Sino-Soviet ideological debate.

The Communist Party of the Philippines was reestablished on December 26, 1968 and in a few months’ time founded the New People’s Army on March 29, 1969.  The enemy tried to nip the armed revolutionary movement in the bud from 1969 to 1971, pitting a full division against a few squads of the NPA, but failed. Then in 1972 the Marcos regime began to impose a fourteen-year fascist dictatorship on the Filipino people. The revolutionary forces and people grew even stronger through people’s war.  

The period of 1960 to 1975 may be described as the period when the whole of Southeast Asia was the focus of the storm of the world proletarian revolution through people’s war and the eye of the storm was in Vietnam and then the whole of Indochina, when the people’s war completely triumphed in 1975.  In view of this great victory, there were bright hopes for the peoples of Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines to persevere in people’s war and win their own great victories. 

5.  Post-Mao Policy of China, 1976 to the present  

 After the demise of Comrade Mao Zedong, the alliance of Centrists and Rightist in the Communist Party of China paved the way for a counterrevolutionary coup  and the restoration of capitalism, under the slogans of “reforms” (capitalist-oriented reforms), “opening up to the world” (integration into the world capitalist system). China took the line  of  “promoting peace, stability and economic development in the region”.  This meant  the withdrawal of support from the Southeast Asian communist parties, the dissolution of  Central Committee delegations of fraternal parties in China and wherever possible the liquidation of people’s war. 

What obfuscated China’s policy of liquidating people’s war in Southeast Asia was its conspicuous support for the Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 onwards and in the entire duration of the Third Indochina War from 1979 onwards, its opposition to the invasion of Kampuchea by Vietnam and its counter-invasion of Vietnam also in 1979 and its support for Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CDGK) based on the three-way alliance of the Party for Democratic Kampuchea (the erstwhile Communist Party of Kampuchea), the Sihanouk forces and the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front led by Son Sann  in 1982, extending up to 1991.   

But the Party of Democratic Kampuchea was put in the position of being cornered by its two major allies in the coalition government.  It was supported by China but it was also required to collaborate with the US and Thai governments to allow all allies in the coalition government free passage of personnel and materiel to and from Kampuchea across Thailand.  Democratic Kampuchea retained the UN seat of Kampuchea until 1982. Then this was passed on to the CGDK until 1993.   

The Party of Democratic Kampuchea became bound to agreements in 1991 under the auspices of the UN to liquidate the people’s war and attain national reconciliation among all political forces through elections in the 1993 under the supervision of the UN peacekeeping mission.  The Party of Democratic Kampuchea was outmaneuvered  by the other political forces, including its allies in the CGDK, and by the US, Chinese and Thai governments.   

The war between Vietnam and Kampuchea disrupted the previous important relations and arrangements of the Communist Party of Thailand with the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the People’s Revolutionary Party of Laos.  China also used its support for the Party of Democratic Kampuchea and its allies in the coalition government to advise the Communist Party of Thailand to refrain from revolutionary radio broadcasts against the Thai government and finally to close down its Yunnan-based radio broadcasting station.  

In connection with its policy of peace, stability and economic development and policy of supporting the resistance in Kampuchea, the Chinese authorities had advised, pressured and induced the Communist Party of Malaya to make a peace agreement with both the governments of Malaysia and Thailand since the early 1980s.  The peace agreement was done in 1989. Subsequently, the Malayan Communist Party liquidated itself, surrendered its arms to the Thai authorities and converted the former revolutionary base at the Thai-Malaysian border into a tourist spot. 

There are reports that upon Deng Xiaoping’s return to power, the Chinese authorities prevented the leaders of the communist parties of Thailand and Burma from promptly communicating and meeting with their forces across the border.  It may be true that these parties suffered setbacks due to external factors.  But in the first place there are internal factors to consider. A communist party has to develop on its initiative and be self-reliant. Otherwise it becomes dependent on other party and becomes vulnerable to dictation from the outside. 

6.  Perseverance and Development of the Communist Party of the Philippines 

By virtue of its own history and circumstances, the Communist Party of the Philippines could be reestablished in 1968 and could resume the revolutionary armed struggle in 1969.  A series of major Right and “Left” opportunist errors had afflicted the old merger party of the Communist and Socialist parties and needed to be rectified in the light of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. 

The CPP was among the parties least expected to succeed in people’s war, supposedly because the Philippines was an archipelagic country, without the advantage of having a common land border with China.  That is not the only disadvantage.  The Philippines is the favorite secure base from which US imperialism launches all kinds of intervention and military aggression in Asia. The ruling classes of big comprador and landlords are well schooled and trained in counterrevolution.  Moreover, the US-Marcos regime imposed a 14-year long fascist dictatorship on the people. But it failed to destroy the CPP and the revolutionary movement. Instead, these grew from small to big and from weak to strong.

 The CPP has proven that under correct leadership it can preserve and develop the people’s army and other revolutionary forces, such as the organs of political power and the mass organizations. It has generated powerful mass movements in the economic, social, political and cultural fields for the benefit of the people along the line of national democratic revolution.  The people’s army has been waging people’s war for more than 38 years, far longer than it took China to win the people’s democratic revolution. The CPP has learned much from the teachings of Comrade Mao about protracted people’s war and has successfully applied these on the concrete conditions of the Philippines. 

But there are those who might say that the people’s war has been extremely protracted in the Philippines.  If this is said  to demoralize the people and the revolutionary forces, the riposte is: how much more successful at social revolution or basic reforms are those who are engaged mainly or solely in legal and electoral struggle or those who wish for a quick victory in armed struggle? 

The CPP has accumulated enough experience and knowledge to respond to the challenge of accelerating the advance of the people’s democratic revolution. In this connection, it must study well and analyze the concrete conditions of the Philippines.  At the same time, it must consider the current conditions of the world capitalist system and see how in the particular conditions of Southeast Asia people’s war can again resurge.   

7. Prospects of People’s War in Southeast Asia 

There are some bright prospects, especially in the objective conditions, for the resurgence of people’s war in Southeast Asia.  The world capitalist system is in an increasingly severe economic and financial crisis.  Southeast Asia has never fully recovered from the crisis of 1997.  This has been covered up merely by new lethal doses of foreign borrowing to cover trade and budgetary deficits.  The people of Southeast Asia suffer from intensifying exploitation and oppression. They are therefore being driven to wage resistance. 

The policy of “neoliberal globalization” has accelerated as never before the concentration and centralization of productive and finance capital in the hands of a few imperialist powers. The adoption of higher technology has only served to maximize monopoly profit-taking and step up the accumulation of constant capital and reduction of variable for wages.  After every round in the crisis of overproduction, unemployment rises and incomes of the working people sink, thus the market is further constricted. 

The economic and financial crisis of the world capitalist system has become so grave and deep that it is leading to acute political crisis and pushing the monopoly bourgeoisie to step up military production, whip up war hysteria, chauvinism, racism and fascism on a global scale and unleash wars of aggression under the pretext of a permanent and preemptive global war of terror.  Since 9/11, US imperialism has been drumming up the line that the Philippines and the adjoining countries with large oil resources and Muslim population constitute the “second front” in the “global war on terror”. 

The restoration of capitalism in the former socialist countries has resulted in the increase of imperialist powers competing for economic territory (sources of oil and other natural resources, markets, fields of investment and spheres of influence) and struggling for a redivision of the world. The world cannot accommodate too many imperialist powers. As the US and the NATO preoccupy themselves and are overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan, their attention to other parts of the world is reduced or their spurts of attention are increasingly rebuffed by the people and various forces. 

The basic contradictions in the world are intensifying, those between the imperialist powers and the oppressed peoples, those among the imperialist powers and those between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the imperialist countries. Driven by greed for oil, the US imperialists insist on staying in Iraq and are incurring significant losses. Elsewhere in the world, especially in South Asia, there is high probability of widespread people’s war.  We can also look forward to the emergence of revolutionary forces in countries where the ever worsening conditions of oppression and exploitation drive the people to wage armed resistance. 

As the Communist Party of the Philippines was able to rise from the ashes of the 1950-52 defeat of its predecessor party and from the prolonged period of violent anti-communist reaction, so can other communist parties in Southeast Asia rise from defeats and setbacks through summing up and analysis of conditions and experience, through a rectification movementand through resolute and militant efforts to resume the revolutionary struggle.


PEOPLES'   STRUGGLE   IN   LATIN   AMERICA 

By FRDDP/Revolutionary Front of Defense of the People’s Rights

Red anti-imperialist greetings to the heroic resistance of the Iraqi, Palestinian, Afghan and Lebanese people.

Red greetings to the proletariat and oppressed masses who fight all over the world.

Red greetings to the people's wars, to the masses and militants who fight those wars, to the martyrs and communist parties that lead them in Peru, Philippines, Turkey, India and Nepal.

Red greetings to the heroic Ibrahim Kaipakaia who opened the revolution’s way in Turkey with the people's war.

Red greetings to the organisers of this important event and to the present people as well.

 I. A new revolutionary situation has been developing  

From the end of the 90s onwards massive movements and people's rebellions have been rounding Latin America, shaking all the region. The growing of the  people's protests and massive and radicalised struggles  are a direct result of the horrible policies on "agreements" and "reforms" dictated by IMF and The World Bank and imposed by several governments of the countries, lackeys of imperialism, mostly Yankee. With the aggravation of the imperialist domination over the Latin American countries, such fights and rebellions point out, once more, to the principality of the contradiction nation / imperialism.  This is not a particular situation. In the present world, the Bush-led Yankee imperialists - using the condition of hegemonic and only power from the USA - want to take their "everlasting war" to all parts to rule the planet. All over the world the peoples rise in struggle. 

In Latin America, as an immediate result of people's dissatisfaction, the political traditional conservative forces, that have been for decades playing the role of imperialism-led governments, have been taken out of the management of the old State of the big bourgeoisie and landlords. And this works through the electoral mechanisms managed  by imperialism itself, for whom the "democratic elections" are the constitutional path, the only legitimate and democratic one for confirming the governments. Hugo Chavez's election in Venezuela, by the end of the 1990s, marked the starting of a period of election failures for those traditional conservative forces. However it was with the coup d'etat planned by the Yankee embassy that the Venezuelan masses rose in rebellion to oppose the coup, beginning a new anti-imperialist and anti-Yankee clamour in the continent. A clamour that the Cuban revolution would explode in the 1960's, the Nicaraguan Revolution would renew in the end of the 1970's and the People's War in Peru would echo in the 80's and beginning of the 90's. 

In Argentina, Buenos Aires, with the economic crack, people's rebellions would blow up. In Ecuador, the indigenous masses came down the hills and revolted in the capital, Quito; the urban masses united to them in many days of confrontation with the repressive forces. In Bolivia, in the beginning of 2000, in Cochabamba, a rebellion exploded against the privatisation of water sources and supply. In the next years new and successive uprisings in defence of oil and gas nationalisation occurred. Also in Paraguay, a vigorous peasant movement rose in defence of the fair prices for their production and for protection policies of the national production as well as the struggle for land against the landlords besides the fights against the privatisation policies.  

In Colombia, the many strategies of the Yankee imperialism for defeating the armed struggle - which has been developing in the country for more than 40 years - have been unsuccessful day by day. In Peru, even with the hard blow the people's war and PCP leadership have suffered, despite the loss of great part of the ground acquired by the guerrilla and the important difficulties for the people's war, the armed struggle goes on. In Mexico in state of Oaxaca, the masses have risen in rebellion and established a parallel power in a long struggle of confrontation against repression and the State intelligence. In Brasil, the peasant struggles for land have ups and downs; however it does not stop. In the last 10 years more than 500 peasants were murdered in land conflicts. The workers' strikes have restarted in the whole country. 

The combative Cuban people continue fighting the provocation and terror campaigns from the Yankee imperialism in a permanent mobilisation. The defamation and provocative campaigns of the press, that are nothing but the monopoly of the imperialist media in the dominated countries, are now turned to Venezuela. In Haiti, the masses repudiate the occupation of their homeland, resist in the possible way. 

All this whirl of the masses which has been for more than a decade shaking Latin America is the sign of a new moment and characterises itself as a new revolutionary situation in development. A situation generated by the chronic crisis of a semi-colonial system that has been imposed for decades by imperialism, mostly Yankee and that , in the last years, has aggravated as a direct result of the decomposition of its material basis and the impact on it of the world-wide restructuring of capitalism, the so-called globalisation, and the so-called "neoliberal" policies.   

In the last 8 decades the USA has implemented and consolidated the hegemony of domination over Latin America and Caribbe whose people have experienced the most terrible phases of their existence. Nowadays, in the "New Order" with "democratic governments", "human rights" and Bush version of the "War to Terrorism" they plan to implement the control on the whole region.  

 Latin America, as one of the weakest links in the chain of the imperialist dominance, marches towards an afflictive situation. A situation for which the imperialists cannot give satisfactory answers but aggravating them more and more. At every street demonstration, at every struggle, as before, the old State responds with the most brutal and bloody repression. Every single social fight has been criminalised; one lives in a revolutionary violence spiral of the State.   

Latin America lives a new moment in which a revolutionary situation has been developing. Even within the environment of still world-wide counter-revolutionary offensive, the masses keep struggling. The objective situation pushes them into fighting. The great challenge for the Latin-american people's masses is of developing the subjective factor, the raising of their political class consciousness, expressed in a higher level of organisation and struggle, to find a revolutionary way out to the situation. It is a task which depends on the existence and development of the true proletarian revolutionary vanguards.  

II - Rotten basis and chronic crisis 

Latin America and Caribbe have nowadays a population of 570 million inhabitants. The population economically active (PEA) of 245 million composes a group of productive forces that gathers and combines advanced technology with semifeudal, semi-slave and slave relations. The GNP, in 2006, of 2,22 trillion dollars corresponds to a production of fundamentally primary, agricultural assets, wood and mineral extraction and services. The world external debt today is of 656 billion dollars, equivalent to 27% of GNP. In 2004, 264 billion dollar interests were paid for the external debt. The commercial deficit in the region is of 78,8 billion dollars.  

Two hundred million live below the so-called poverty line and 57 million live in a permanent state of misery. The ones that live without potable water are around 57 million and 180 million do not have sanitation care. Unemployment, for some other countries it goes up to more than 30%.   

The independence processes from the former colonialism to the Latin America countries did not mean any change whatsoever in the internal relations of power and property.  Condemned to this system of misery and violence under the boot of the most cruel and corrupt regime, the peoples of Latin America and Caribbe have been resisting and have been waging revolutionary uprisings along the last two centuries. And most of the times they have suffered hard setbacks as in the past period of the Cold War with the bloody military regimes. 

The pending agrarian problem, as a question of acute crisis and that has never been solved, has potentialised itself under a new trend for a larger land concentration. With the colonial imposition to strengthen the specialisation in production of grains and mineral/wood extraction in those countries for exporting, with the energy issue the agrarian problem, the problem of the land propriety relations are not exclusively democratic and more than ever are a national and territorial issue. 

III - The management of the old State by opportunism 

As it has been confirmed, the arrival of opportunism to the management of the old State are nothing but the last cards of imperialism and their cohorts before passing to the old resources for their salvation, that is, the fascist and bloodshed military regimes, as a means to stop the inevitable uprisings of the masses and maintain their systems of domination and exploitation 

The defeat of the revolutionary armed movement in Latin America in the 70s had as a fundamental cause the absence of a proletarian leadership in the movements. The result of a sinuous process lived by the communist movement in the region after the war, that had been deeply contaminated by the "developing" reformism and sank in the constitutional illusions with a strong pacifist and electoral trend, was the predomination of the modern revisionism of Khrushev. The struggle against this sort of revisionism, with rare exceptions, has been quite weak and superficial. With the influence of ideas from Cuba, mostly by Castro-oriented ideas - "castrism" - as an expression of the "armed revisionism", the fights and ruptures were mostly centred against symptoms of revisionism as for instance pacifism.  Such a thing led to the petit-bourgeois and military ideological trends as the focus theory and consequently most of those movements were defeated. 

As long as the revolutionary processes had been defeated their emptiness was fulfilled by the new kinds of opportunism. In this capitulation atmosphere the petit-bourgeois intellectuality sank into the "post-modern" theories about the end of the social classes, the "new actors", "social movements", NGOs, etc. which, in their opinions, had been revealed with the failure of the "real socialism" and end of the Cold War.

 This "new left wing" - as its ideologists and supporters call it - has reached the management of the old State in many countries; many bourgeois analysts call it " the left  wing overturn in Latin America". For that the reformist, opportunist "left wing" has taken commitments with sectors of the ruling classes, mostly with the Yankee imperialism for the maintenance of its economic, commercial policy and its strategic political-military interests.  

This has been repeated with Lula in Brasil, Kirchner, in Argentina, Tabare, in Uruguay, Bachelet, in Chile, Chavez, in Venezuela, Morales, in Bolivia, Correa, in Ecuador, Ortega, in Nicaragua, etc. All of them represent the same opportunist trend of the bourgeois reformism under specific nuances of each country. They talk about "peaceful revolution", "development", "bolivarism", "Andean capitalism", etc. preaching a sort of fictitious anti-imperialism. The pseudo anti-imperialism of the so called axes Cuba/Venezuela/Bolivia/Ecuador and Brasil/Uruguay/Argentina are nothing but - as product of the inter-imperialist and inter-bourgeois contradictions - a reflex of the movement in struggle and collusion within imperialism.  

Chavez's socialism in the XXI century 

Although he has been promoting better life conditions for the Venezuelan masses, the so-called "Bolivarian Revolution" is supported by a large group of social classes whose sectors have been exploiting people besides implementing international relations with Europe Russia and China. The State model of Chavez which displeases the bourgeoisie of the whole continent, has not so far made the giant oil enterprise in the country, PDVeza, a completely national and State company. The enterprise has maintained strong connections with the Yankee capitals and interests. The only relationship Chavez has with the mass movement is in the sense and direction of their being co-optated for corporate organisations and under his and his government tutelage. 

Chavez and his "Bolivarian Revolutions" talk about a "socialism of the XXI" out of the leadership of a revolutionary proletarian party, without the proletarian dictatorship and without the expropriation of the big bourgeoisie, landlords and imperialism. He repeats his preachment with new terminology, the old doctrines of Khrushev's revisionism of the "three peaceful" and the "two wholes". In the present situation, imperialism prefers to have leaderships like Chavez, Morales, Ortega and others at the head of the State than having the risk of a real armed revolution which would threaten to sweep away all the exploiters and oppressors and spread out its flames all over Latin America. 

IV - The problem of the people's war in Peru 

The unquestionable importance of the Peruvian Revolution has been maintained nowadays. The 27 years of people's war, despite the hard blows received in the 90s, are not only an endowment of the proletariat and masses in Peru but the proletariat and masses' all over the world. The right wing opportunist line which presented itself defending the "peace negotiations" for laying down arms worked out as an instrument for hard blows on the revolution forces. However, the continuation of the people's war, despite the terrible losses they had had and the complex conditions for the people to maintain it, goes on heroically against the storms. They persist under the hardest conditions with the people's war in spite those who intend to justify the capitulation. 

From the positive and negative lessons given by the people's war process to all the world revolutionaries the most important has been the affirmation that a real communist party is able to apply the universal truth of Marxism-leninism-maoism to the reality of a country, melting it with the concrete practice of the revolution on it. It has been confirmed there is not an easy way for the revolution and that the searching of a pragmatic way-out that will not save it from being defeated but persisting with the arms. It is the armed masses which will make imperialism and all reaction tremble and they will do their best to disarm them, to destroy its armed force and its vanguard party, either by the war or by the negotiation, either by the terror of the armed counter-revolution or by the white tactics with their "sweet bullets". That is why the recent events in Nepal cause much concern to all communists, revolutionaries and democrats in the world. It is convenient that the leadership of the heroic Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) reconsider the wrong policy of disarming the masses even it being partial or a small part of it. 

V - Combat and unmask revisionism and all opportunism for releasing the revolutionary energies of the masses and wage the revolution 

In Latin America nowadays in which under the objective conditions a new revolutionary situation develops, though in unequal ways in different countries, the tasks for the political struggle for power demand a hard combat against revisionism and all opportunism to release the huge revolutionary energies from the masses. To develop the subjective factor which can potentialise and develop such a revolutionary situation, the communists' central task is to develop, constitute and reconstitute true communist parties. 

To destroy the semi-feudality, the bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism, making the revolution of the new democracy uninterrupted to socialism, in the perspective of a Latin America Union of socialist countries and communism. 

The revolution once more knocks at the door of Latin America. Such a thing represents a nightmare for all imperialists and all reactionaries in the world, mostly for the Yankees who have the region as a supporting basis for their world-wide domination.  

FRDDP/Revolutionary Front of Defense of the People’s Rights

Brasil

May 19, 2007