Bulatlatan
Written by: the editors of Bulatlatan
Published: Bulatlatan, March 9, 2010;
Source: Bulatlatan snapshot at the Internet Archive;
Markup: Simoun Magsalin.
It’s interesting how Party comrades, friends and allies of the broad open Left formation visit Bulatlatan,. In these websites, readers only have to glance at heads of articles to know the flow of the middle and end sections.
Bulatlatan serves as an alternative out-of-the box website to help comrades understand the burning issues underlining inner-party struggle. The concept is grounded on the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teaching that correct ideas “come from social practice, and from it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment.”
We believe that revolutionary practice and the application of Comrade Mao’s law on contradiction on contending view that will prove the correctness—or incorrectness—of our revolutionary theories and tactics.
We are thus open to opposing viewsa sharp departure from the stale, highly-predictable one-sided websites—to the point of triteness—that, by design, mark the Philippine Revolutionary Web Central, Bulatlat, and other national-democratic websites.
We thus thank our various contributors to this site. Some of the articles come from individuals cadres while some are official statements.
All contributors agreed to the fundamental Marxist view the elections as circuses, held under the rotten ruling reactionary state and system, and “concentrated competitions” between “rival elitist factions” in semifeudal, semicolonial Philippine society. No one disagrees that under such situation, the “exercise of suffrage is used as an adornment” to create the semblance of a “democratic” process, when in reality results are determined by the use of fraud and terrorism, perpetrated by the of the ruling elites’ guns, goons and gold.
But as the contributing articles pointed out, several leading comrades dare to challenge Party orthodoxy on strategy and tactics on combining armed struggle with parliamentary and electoral struggles. The issues came to a head on the correct tactics of the proletarian party towards the reactionary 2010 national elections.
On one hand, some comrades, especially Ka Dennie Mapatalang and Dorisse Mae at the national level criticized the official Party stand to participate in the elections as Right opportunism, tailism, capitulationism, accusing “progressive electoral parties aligned with the Left such as Bayan Muna (hitching) its wagon to a die-hard electoral party of bourgeois compradors and landlords, the Nacionalista Party of Manuel Villar.”
On a similar vein, Ka Dorissa emphasized that “that “permits to campaign” could only be issued to friendly and progressive candidates and will not be issued out to elitist candidates who merely practice demagoguery and deceive the masses with empty promises. Such permits will not be offered in exchange for money, but rather it is granted with goodwill in exchange for political support and cooperation from the deserving candidates.”
Recently, the official spokesperson of the NDF Southern Mindanao came out with a statement, basically supporting this position. Ka Rubi del Mundo echoed Ka Dorissa that “the revolutionary movement recognizes the important role of a progressive mass movement that engages in parliamentary struggle and electoral struggle as one of its forms in bringing to the fore the basic issues and the need for meaningful structural reforms.
She added that the NDF-Southern Mindanao “recognizes candidates and parties who push for the rights and interests of the workers, peasants, youth and students, women, the Moro, and Lumad, among others.”
Most certainly, that implies the recognition of the electoral formation Makabayan. It seems so far-fetched for her to include the Villar-Marcos clique in the Nacionalista Party.
The other side, on the other hand, castigated the “dogmatists, “Maoist fundamentalists”, what it calls the Senderistas. Emailed by bandakathmandu, the author criticizes the dogmatists for maligning “comrades for forging tactical alliances and cooperation with some sections of the reactionary classes to isolate the die-hard and most corrupt faction of the ruling class. These charges had been leveled on our comrades mostly in the united front work and in the urban sectoral movements.”
He (she?) debunks the notion that “Marxism-Leninism-Maoism does not allow tactical alliances with non-Marxists and even with reactionaries or sections of the reactionaries. In the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks forged tactical alliance with the Bourgeois Liberals and the Socialist Radicals against the absolutist rule of the Tsar. In the Second World War, USSR initiated an alliance with the Allied imperialist powers (USA, Britain, France) to fight international fascism of the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Italy, Japan). In China, the CPC extended its arm in alliance with its arch-enemy the Kuomintang Generals and Jiǎng Jièshí (Chiang Kai Shek) to fight Japanese imperialist aggression.
Ang Bayan supports this contention. It said that “the revolutionary movement also seizes the opportunities presented by elections in order to expand alliance work on various levels. It unites with candidates and parties that are ready to advance the democratic and patriotic interests and welfare of the people. As allies and progressives win seats, the people’s struggles are also advanced inside parliament. Such opportunities are utilized by mass movements and organizations and enable them to use the resources of the reactionary state to directly benefit the people.”
The emphasis on all levels implies the inclusion in alliance work of “candidates and parties that are ready to advance the democratic and patriotic interests and welfare of the people” and the use of “the resources of the reactionary state to directly benefit the people” imply going beyond the limits set by Comrades Dennie, Dorissa and Rubi, i.e, to the progressive electoral parties.
In fact, the Ang Bayan statement categorically calls for making use of the “contradictions among reactionaries…to further isolate and target the main and most rabid enemies of the people and the revolution.” That means alliance work with a faction of the ruling class, which basically confirms the contention of the so-called “dogmatists” with the Villar-Marcos clique.
As the El Niño and the 2010 factional infighting of the ruling classes intensifies in the coming weeks and months, we anticipate the debate to intensify as well. How the intermediate and backward masses answer the call of either camp will decide the correctness of the contending tactics.
Will the struggle for national freedom and democracy experience a revolutionary upsurge after the elections as Ang Bayan as the statement seems to imply as it enjoins the whole Party to be “more flexible and exercise even more initiative in order to seize opportunities for the people and the revolutionary forces to prevail and gain strength.”
The Editors