 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| How Now, Brown Maos? By Antonio C. Abaya November 28, 2002 The topic is not as spicey as, say, the word war between between Mark Jimenez and Willy Villarama on the one hand and Nani Perez on the other. Neither can it be squeezed of more blood than the turnip of a runaway budget deficit. What can possibly be more boring than ideology and ideological correctness? But recent developments in the People�s Republic of China have relevance to our long-running struggle to build a prosperous and successful nation in the Philippines, a struggle that has been seriously disrupted, derailed and discombobulated by a socialist revolution that has been waged, off and on, by mostly UP Diliman intellectuals, for the past 60 years or so, . In the 1940s and 1950s, that revolution was waged by the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) organized by Jesus and Jose Lava and supported by such communist intellectuals as Jose and Teodosio Lansang (I became good friends with Teddy during his last years), the American ex-GI William Pomeroy, the late ideologue Renato Constantino Sr. (with whom I became a business partner), Dodong Nemenzo and other Diliman revolutionaries enamored of the allegedly scientific and supposedly inevitable triumph of Communism. The PKP and its military arm, the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan or HMB (founded by the peasant leader Luis Taruc) were defeated in the early 1950s by then Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay, with the help of the American Col. Edward Landsdale. The PKP signed a peace accord with President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s, under which it was allowed to continue to exist openly as a political group, on condition that its armed struggle was terminated. In the meantime, the quarrel between the Soviet Union under Stalin and the People�s Republic of China under Mao Zedung, which had been percolating in the 1950s (Stalin died in 1953), over how best to wage the socialist revolution, broke out into an armed border conflict in 1961 and led to a schism in the world communist movement, between a pro-Soviet camp (the USSR and its eastern European vassals, plus Mongolia) and a pro-Maoist camp (the PROC plus Albania). (According to a senior Soviet diplomat who defected to the US, the Soviet politburo actually considered using nuclear bombs against the �slit-eyed yellow bastards� but eventually decided against it.) This global schism led to the decision of Joma Sison, who had been a member of the PKP, to bolt the party and found his own, in 1964, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), with a military arm, the New People�s Army (NPA, founded in 1965 by Bernabe Buscayno). Its political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF) was set up in the 1970s by ex-Marcos bureaucrat Horacio �Boy� Morales and ex-SVD priest Edicio de la Torre. Joma Sison�s CPP-NPA-NDF was itself sundered in 1991 when the late Popoy Lagman broke away from Sison, taking with him most of the CPP�s cadres in Metro Manila and Rizal Province. Lagman rejected Sison�s Maoist strategy of waging the revolution in the countryside and then strangling the cities; he and his faction were called �rejectionists�. Sison and his faction reaffirmed their commitment to the Maoist strategy and hence called themselves �reaffirmists.� Lagman contended that Sison failed to grab control of the Edsa I �revolution� in Metro Manila because most of the CPP cadres were in the countryside building their mass bases. Lagman opted instead to politicize the labor unions and squatters in Metro Manila (in the manner of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua) and promised his followers that if and when there is an Edsa 2 �revolution�, he would grab control of it and lead it into the socialist revolution that would usher in the allegedly inevitable triumph of Communism. But when Edsa 2 did come, in January 2001, Lagman failed to grab control of it, as he had promised, and instead allied himself with the quintessential trapo and hacendero Jose Cojuangco and burgis political meddler Pastor Saycon. I suspect, though I have no proof, that Lagman was assassinated by his own followers who felt that he had reneged on his promise and betrayed his own revolution. ***** All Marxists and Marxists-Leninists of whatever stripe, whether pro-Soviet or pro-Mao, whether they are members of Lava�s PKP, Sison�s CPP or Lagman�s rejectionists, have certain core beliefs that set them apart from, say, monarchists, republicans, liberals, conservatives, social democrats, etc. Pre-eminent among these core beliefs is one derived from Marx�s theory of surplus value. The theory of surplus value, in a nutshell, says that when a worker creates a useful product from raw materials, he invests that product with value equal to the labor that he has devoted to it. There is no problem when the worker reaps that full value when he sells that product, as long as he is self-employed. The problem is when that worker is employed by another person, such as an entrepreneur or a capitalist, who derives a profit from his labor. Marxists believe that a worker working for another does not get paid the full value of his labor, only a part of it. The rest of that value, the surplus value, is pocketed by the entrepreneur or capitalist as profit. Hence the worker is being �exploited�, no matter how high his wages may be and no matter how generous the fringe benefits he may enjoy. This categorical rejection of profit explains why all enterprises in the late unlamented Soviet Union were owned by the state, even taxis and shoe repair shops. No one was allowed to make a profit from the labor of others. Even the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev did not get around to allowing private enterprises; he allowed co-operatives to operate, starting in 1988, but under strict supervision to make sure that co-ops were not just a cover for profit-making private enterprises. It was the visionary Deng Xiaoping who first allowed entrepreneurs in 1979 to hire others for profit, at first only in the rural areas, eventually even in the cities; at first under a limit of only eight workers per entrepreneur, later under a limit of 50 workers, eventually with no limit whatsoever. Thus were capitalism and the profit motive reintroduced into China under the pragmatic slogans; �It does not matter if a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.� And, most heretical to Marx�s theory of surplus value and Maoist egalitarianism,: �Get rich through hard work! To get rich is glorious!� Now the outgoing Supreme Leader Jiang Zemin has decreed through the recently concluded 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party that the Party should embrace not just the workers but also the managers, the entrepreneurs and the capitalists as �fellow builders of socialism with Chinese characteristics� and that �the elimination of class struggle as an element of what socialism is about is really fundamental.� This is heresy, pure and simple, enough to make the dear departed comrades rise up from their graves and hound the capitalist-roader Jiang to his. If the profit motive is now ideologically acceptable and respectable, then there is no surplus value, there is no exploitation in the Marxist sense, there is no need for socialist revolution, the triumph of Communism is not inevitable, and the Oliver Twists of the world are best liberated by the Fabian Society or the social democrats of Western Europe (who do not espouse the overthrow of capitalism), than by the fire-breathing revolutionaries of Lenin, Fidel Castro and Joma Sison. How now, brown Maos? I have been waiting for Joma to issue a statement in reaction to this ultimate desecration of his Marxist ideal. But not a peep from Utrecht. I have also been monitoring the columns of the most avid defenders of the Maoist revolution of Sison and Lagman � Luis Teodoro in Today, Argee Guevara in BusinessWorld, and Conrado de Quiros in the Inquirer � but, unless I missed an issue or two, nothing from them either. This silence constitutes intellectual dishonesty. Having misled thousands of young minds down the path of socialist revolution, they now say nothing when no less than the direct inheritor of the mantle of Mao Zedung, in effect, says, �it was all a mistake and we had it all wrong, comrades.� Imagine the members of a Flat Earth Society in Europe, having passionately preached all along that anyone who sailed past a certain point on the map would inevitably fall off into the void, now hearing the news in September 1522 that Juan Sebastian del Cano and 16 other survivors of Ferdinand Magellan�s original crew of 241 had returned to their Spanish home port of Sanlucar de Barrameda after circumnavigating the planet in almost three years, thus demolishing the allegedly scientific Truth of the day. I suppose the Flat Earth ideologues would have said nothing either. Self-love means not having to say you�re sorry. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the December 16, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �How Now, Brown Maos?� HI THERE Mr. Tony, Saw you in ANC's On Line with Gene Orejana few days ago. You were great! Just this morning I read your column (through my email) of Nov. 28th re: Brown Maos. I love it. I don't know much about the other two but I follow Conrad de Quiros's column regularly. You are correct his silence about Jang Zemin's pronouncement during the recent Peoples's Congress is truly a professional dishonesty. And Joma? He must be gritting his teeth, like a guy doused of ice cold water on top of Mt. Everest. N.P. Serrano. [email protected]. Saudi Arabia December 14, 2002 ������������������������������ TONY. THIS is an excellent capsule description of the evolution of Communism in the Philippines. I printed it and am sending it to (my stepson) in Seattle because he's always interested in this subject. Ken Wright. [email protected]. December 14, 2002 �����������������������������. AGAIN, BRAVO ! This is as good if not better than your "A Funny thing......" written eons ago; speaking of which I would appreciate your giving me a copy of (lost my copy when moved house). Mabuhay ka ! Dick Powell. [email protected]. December 13, 2002 ������������������������������ YOU HIT the nail on the head. Intellectually dishonest so-called intellectuals! About time they were exposed. Gras Reyes. [email protected]. December 14, 2002 ����������������������������� JOMA SISON is so busy enjoying his good life in the Netherlands made superb by the profit motive to utter a squeak. If anything, Joma is a megalomaniac who thinks he can do better while enjoying the bounties of a bourgeois society he is mouthing to spurn. What is amazing are the bigger fools in the countryside, denying themselves decent lives shorn of the company of their families in pursuit of a passe' armed struggle��.. Joe. [email protected]. December 14, 2002 ������������������������������ I AM NOT bothered much by Joma & Co. in Utrecht. Nor of Nemenzo and his Menshevikized arm-chair pseudoleftist. But why the persistence of armed "communist" rebellion is something to think about. I think it has to do with the stagnant economy. We should beware. We are falling into the Latin-American mold of prolonged civil strife and an incomptent political and business leadership. Ross Tipon. [email protected] December 14, 2002 MY REPLY. The prolonged civil strife in this country is a function of the stagnant economy, as you pointed out. It is also nurtured by the ideological belief that the triumph of Communism is historically determined and therefore inevitable. ������������������������������ JUST A FEW corrections: The CPP was founded in December 1968, the NPA in March 1969, and the NDF was first led by Hermie Garcia, a member of the original CC. And it seems that Joma's turning to Maoism is not attributable to the global split between Mao and the Soviet Union. Even before he joined the party in 1964, Joma seems to have been influenced by Maoist thinking, through his trip to Indonesia in 1962 and his meeting with DN Aidit of the PKI. Aidit was of course very Maoist in thinking. In fact, one scholar says that Joma's PSR is simply a shameless rehashing of Aidit's own book on Indonesian revolution. Raul Rodrigo. [email protected]. December 14, 2002 MY REPLY. I stand corrected. Joma founded the CPP in 1968, not 1964. I got it mixed up with the founding of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), which was officially launched on November 30, 1964, at the YMCA on Arroceros St., near the Manila City Hall. And the NPA followed in 1969, as you pointed out. Joma was definitely influenced by Aidit and the PKI when he stayed in Indonesia, but as a charter member of the KM, I can tell you that there was little or no mention of Aidit and the PKI (other than the fact that Joma�s poems had been translated into Bahasa), in the KM. Besides, in 1968, the PKI had been wiped out by the military counter-coup that began in 1965. Garcia may have filed the incorporation papers, so to speak, of the NDF, but I think Morales and De la Torre are more associated than Garcia with its phenomenal growth. ���������������������������� HELLO, mr. abaya! may i request that you include [email protected] for all the articles you usually post at the [email protected] and kompil2 lists. you do not need to be subscribed to the [email protected] list as i have defined your email address above to be allowed to post even if not a member, so your posts to our list will not necessarily clutter your inbox. thank you and best regards. Eben Ramos. [email protected] December 17, 2002 MY REPLY. Your egroup has been included in our mailing list. Thank you. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |