Today marks the 20th anniversary of the assassination of
Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman at the hands of enemies of the working class. As a
comrade of Popoy, drafting this reply is my personal contribution to
commemorating his legacy. An article penned by John Malvar and posted in the
World Socialist Website
(https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/27/lagm-n27.html) slammed Popoy as
every bit a Stalinist as his rival Joma Sison. I am tempted to say that
Malvar’s article is a slander—but no. Slander is the favorite retort of
Stalinists and Maoists like Joma, and even others in the Rejectionist camp who
cry “paninirang-puri” (defamation) every time they are criticized for their
slogans or tactics. Slander and defamation are the responses of self-proclaimed
vanguards who believe that only they possess the correct line and ideas for the
revolution. Instead, I’m going to treat Malvar’s criticism as a theoretical
polemic against Popoy’s conception of the Philippine revolution.
In his vision of the class struggle of the working class in
the Philippines, Popoy consistently advocated for a continuing or permanent
revolution that will pass from the democratic to the socialist stage. This
conception of a proletarian revolution is undoubtedly Leninist. This is crystal
clear from his writings from the period of the split with the Stalinist-Maoist
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in the early 1990’s to the founding of
a revolutionary party, the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino (PMP) in 1999.
In contrast to the Leninist continuing revolution, Joma laid
down the Stalinist-Maoist framework of a two-stage revolution that paid lip service
to proletarian leadership. In the two-stage revolution, the democratic
revolution was disconnected to the socialist stage because the essential
requirements for ensuring agency by the working class was missing. In the CPP’s
program and practice, the focus, nay obsession, was on national democracy to
the detriment of a socialist platform. It organizes and mobilizes workers on
the basis of a program of national democracy not socialism. Instead of
concentrating on the class struggle of the proletariat, the CPP sought to
directly organize all the “democratic” classes from the peasantry to the petty
bourgeoisie to what it called the national bourgeoisie. The proletarian
leadership in the two-stage revolution is therefore only by proxy, through the
CPP directly organizing other classes, not directly by a class conscious
working class movement that inspires and allies the revolutionary peasantry.
How was it possible then for Malvar to accuse Popoy of being
a Stalinist rival of the CPP? By simply glossing over Popoy’s ideas in the
“Counter-Theses” and imposing a preconceived notion that Popoy was no less a
Stalinist than Joma.
Malvar read Popoy’s “Counter-Theses” but appears not to have
understood it. Or didn’t take the arguments in the “Counter-Theses” seriously
since it does not conform to his a priori opinion of Popoy. According to
Malvar: “While Lagman himself might have denied it, his criticisms amounted to
an attempt to turn the CPP away from the Maoist variant of Stalinism which it
upheld, back toward the Soviet Stalinist perspective: a two-stage revolution
and an alliance with the capitalist class, but a party based predominantly in
the urban working class and with a program that made explicit references to
socialism.”
However, Malvar cannot present one instance in the “Counter-Theses”
where Popoy advocated for an alliance with the capitalist class during the
democratic stage. In fact, it is not possible for Malvar to quote Popoy for nowhere
in “Counter-Theses” did he say that an alliance with a “national bourgeoisie”
is necessary.
Unlike Joma who
explicitly included the petty bourgeoisie and even the national bourgeoisie in
the “united front” that is one of the three instruments—along with working
class leadership and the people’s army—in advancing the national democratic
revolution, Popoy always insisted that the proletariat must ally with the
peasantry in order to abolish feudalism and complete the democratic tasks of
the continuing revolution.
In the “PPDR: Class Line Vs. Mass Line” part of the
“Counter-Theses,” Popoy wrote: “This is a new-type of democratic revolution
because, with the leading role of the proletariat in the people's revolution,
it will be a continuing revolution towards the transition to socialism. It will
and it must smash all the remnants of feudal and colonial rule to facilitate
the free development of the class struggle.”
Further, in the founding “10 Theses of the PMP,” which was
almost entirely written by Popoy, it is stated:
Una sa lahat, hinalinhan ng
Maoistang Sisonistang partido ang Marxista-Leninistang linya ng permanenteng
rebolusyon ng bastardong konsepto ng "dalawang-yugtong rebolusyon" na
mekanikal na pinaghiwalay ang pakikibaka para sa demokrasya sa pakikibaka para
sa sosyalismo.
Ang usapin dito'y hindi ang
paggamit ng termino kundi ang interpretasyon at aplikasyon. Mismo si Lenin ay
gumamit ng sariling pormulasyon — continuing revolution — para sa konsepto ni
Marx at Engels ng permanenteng rebolusyon. Iba rin ang hugot dito ng mga
Trotskyista. Inaabangan nila ang pagsiklab ng pandaigdigang rebolusyon kaya't
obligadong maging "permanente" ang rebolusyon sa mga bansa.
First
of all, the Maoist Sisonite party replaces the Marxist-Leninist line of
permanent revolution with the bastard concept of the "two-stage
revolution" that mechanically separates the struggle for democracy and the
struggle for socialism.
The
point here is not the use of the term but the interpretation and application.
Even Lenin used his own formulation--continuing revolution--for Marx and
Engels' concept of permanent revolution. The Trotskyists have their own
conception. They await the eruption of the world revolution thus it is
necessary to make the revolution in countries "permanent.” [Note: My translation]
Whether the term continuing or permanent revolution is used,
it was evident to Popoy that the proletarian revolution in the Philippines will
have to complete the democratic tasks in alliance with the peasantry but, on
the basis of working class leadership, then move on to the socialist stage.
This conception of a proletarian revolution is undoubtedly Leninist. This was
sharply spelled out by Lenin in “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the
Democratic Revolution,” which was a polemic against the Mesheviks who didn’t
want to advance radical democratic demands lest the liberal bourgeoisie abandon
the 1905 Revolution whose participation they saw as necessary in achieving
victory. In contrast, Lenin insisted that the democratic revolution must be
pushed to the limit and it can only be done against the wishes of the liberal
bourgeoisie through the militancy of the revolutionary peasantry of Russia.
This perspective of a proletarian-led democratic revolution resulted in Lenin’s formulation of a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. The democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry
will provide the best foundation for further advancing the class struggle to
the socialist revolution.
The difference between Popoy’s Leninist conception and
Joma’s Stalinist-Maoist line for the Philippine revolution is clear. The latter
explicitly wants an alliance with the national bourgeoisie to win the
democratic revolution which is disconnected from the socialist revolution since
the working class is organized along national democracy not socialism. For
Joma, this makes sense since the national bourgeoisie will be repelled by
socialism but can be attracted by national democracy, which is really a program
for local capitalist development. Before this concept became appropriated by
Stalin and Mao, this was basically the Meshevik line that Lenin debated against
in “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.”
Popoy applied the Leninist line to the Philippine revolution
by arguing that the working class has to be mobilized—even during the
democratic stage—by a program of socialism not national democracy. However in
recognition of the immediate democratic tasks of the Philippine revolution, the
proletariat will have to ally with the peasantry and this means coming to terms
with their demand for the eradication of feudalism. Nowhere in his writings did
Popoy advocate for an alliance with national bourgeoisie. In private
conversations, he even questioned whether a national bourgeoisie exists in the
Philippine in the period of globalization.
Given Popoy’s conception of the Philippine revolution, where
then does the difference with Malvar lie? Popoy affirmed Lenin’s continuing
revolution while Malvar upholds the particular interpretation of Trotsky’s
permanent revolution by WSWS. Herein lies the distinction—Malvar conflates the
democratic and socialist revolution into one. While conceding that there are
indeed democratic tasks that the proletarian revolution will have to complete,
Malvar argues by quoting Trotsky, that this can only be done under socialism.
This conflation of the democratic and socialist stages into one maybe
Trotskyist but it is certainly not Leninist. But there are in fact revolutionary
parties coming from the Trotskyist tradition whose understanding of permanent
revolution hew close to Lenin's concept of continuing revolution.
Malvar engages in historical revisionism by claiming that
Lenin abandoned the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry—in other words, the continuing revolution—for Trotsky’s permanent
revolution after the April Theses of 1917. Yet the historical record is crystal
clear—the October Revolution ushered in a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat
and the peasantry in the form of the soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers
which took power on the basis of a program of “bread, peace and land.”
The program of the October Revolution was democratic not
socialist. First, the Soviet state implemented land redistribution—the
Socialist Revolutionaries’ (SR) program of land-to-the-tiller. This policy was
even less radical that the Bolshevik program of land nationalization which was
state ownership of land that will be farmed by individual families. Nonetheless
even nationalization of land was a democratic not a socialist policy as Lenin
explained in the Bolshevik program. However, the appropriation of the SR
agrarian program was a necessity to forge and preserve the alliance with the
peasantry. In fact, it can be argued that the key challenges of the early
period of the Russian Revolution from the Civil War to the New Economic Policy
was how to sustain the alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry in the
face of the counter-revolution and imperialist aggression.
Second, the Soviet state did not immediately expropriate the
bourgeoisie in October 1917 as workers’ control not workers ownership was
instituted. Only banks and foreign trade were promptly put in state control.
Gradually the private property of the Russian bourgeoisie was indeed
confiscated but this is far from Malvar’s fantasy of the socialist stage of the
revolution being instantly necessary. The Russian experience clearly reveals
the correctness of Lenin’s line of a continuing revolution from the democratic
to the socialist stage.
Beyond the Russian Revolution, the experience of all
revolutions in the backward capitalist countries from China to Cuba to Vietnam
to Nicaragua, show the necessity for grappling with the democratic tasks of the
proletarian revolution. In no sense can the experience of the 20th century
proletarian revolutions be understood using the WSWS framework of overstepping
the democratic revolution and skipping into the socialist revolution. Instead
it is Lenin’s conception of a continuing revolution from the democratic to the
socialist stage that shines a light into the class dynamics of the Chinese,
Cuban, Vietnamese and Nicaraguan revolutions. In all these countries, despite
the dominant capitalist dynamic of their societies, the persistence of the
peasantry as remnants of feudalism and domination by imperialism called for
concretely wrestling with the democratic question and highlighted the
democratic tasks of the proletarian revolution which could not be disregarded.
In the Philippines, the very same problematique of the
peasantry confronts the working class in its program for proletarian
revolution. It is in recognition of this fact that Popoy applied Lenin’s idea
of a continuing revolution to the proletarian revolution in the Philippines.
Basing on an understanding of Philippine society as capitalist despite all its
backwardness, Popoy advocated for the Party to exclusively organize the working
class instead of dispersing its forces into mobilizing the “democratic classes.”
With the Party organizing the working class into a powerful mass movement, the
latter will become the vanguard class which will inspire, through its militant
struggles, the peasantry to take the road of revolution—without the Party
directly undertaking the task of organizing the democratic classes. The
proletariat can only be organized as a hegemonic class if it is conscious of
its historical task, thus the imperative for it to be organized on the basis of
socialism not national democracy which is merely a program for local
capitalism. To advance the proletarian revolution, the working class will have
to ally with the peasantry by satisfying the latter’s class demand for the
abolition of landlordism. This implies the completion of the democratic tasks
of the proletarian revolution and exposes the fallacy of overstepping the
democratic revolution.
Malvar creates the myth of Popoy as a Stalinist on the basis
of two fallacies. One, by alleging that Popoy called for an alliance with the
national bourgeoisie. I dare Malvar to find one quote from “Counter-Theses” or
the “10 Theses of the PMP” where Popoy does a Joma by arguing for an alliance
with the capitalist class.
Second, by claiming that Lenin abandoned the formula of a
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry in favor of
Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” that skips the democratic stage. Popoy explicitly
and concretely applied a Leninist not a Trotskyist nor a Stalinist perspective
to the Philippine revolution. Like Lenin, Popoy advocated for an alliance with
the peasantry but with the proletariat exercising leadership to facilitate the
revolution’s continuation into the socialist stage.
Popoy may have been felled by physical assassination in 2001
but his theoretical legacy and Leninist conception of the Philippine revolution
endures despite attempts at character assassination.
Juan Manggagawa
February 6, 2021
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