When the Communist Party of China celebrated its 100th anniversary last July 1, the Communist Party of the Philippines issued a statement attacking it.
Back in the early ’70s, the faint broadcast of Radio Peking would be heard in many parts of the country especially in Luzon sending greetings to a fraternal communist party led by Amado Guerrero, nom de guerre of Jose Ma. Sison. However, things have changed. Sison lost a model communist party in power that can be relied on for support. He now thinks that the Communist Party of China is no longer faithful to Maoism.
Sison is now a leading critic of the Communist Party of China. The statement of the CPP that was posted on its website titled, “On the centennial of the once-great Communist Party of China,” carried the very reasons why Sison has taken this position with respect to the CPC.
The CPP statement claimed that the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” that China President and CPC General Secretary, Xi Jinping touted as the right path in his anniversary speech before a well-seated crowd that filled the Tian’amen square in Beijing was just a cover for the return of capitalism in China dominated by “state monopoly capitalists” in collusion with private capitalists both local and foreign.
The statement also said, “Mao’s criticism of the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as a social imperialist–socialist in words, imperialist in deeds–can now be applied to China and the CPC itself.
Despite the rhetoric of ‘socialism,’ China has become a brazen imperialist power aiming to impose its ultra national aims on smaller and weaker countries, exploit cheap labor and plunder their raw materials to feed its giant industrial machine and accumulate superprofits. It is engaged in rivalry with the US in the quest to divide the world to its favor.”
The statement even condemned China for its actions in the West Philippine Sea and said, “It has trampled on Philippine sovereignty by constructing artificial islands in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone of the country to erect military facilities and claim marine and mineral resources.”
But what Sison and the CPP really consider a big setback to their cause was the abandonment of the “proletarian internationalism” by the CPC that left “Marxist revolutions, national liberation movements and people’s struggles” without material support from the biggest communist party in power with 95 million members, governing some 1.4 billion people and managing the second-largest economy in the world.
The government-to-government and people-to-people relations seemed to have become more important for China than the old communist party-to-party relations. I read something about representatives of the ruling PDP-Laban going to China for a fellowship with the CPC, something inconceivable before.
Sison and the CPP’s ideological rift with the CPC has a peculiar impact on the country. Sison and the CPP believe in a “continuing revolution” that the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” inspired.
After the death of Mao the excesses of the GPRC were officially criticized by the new leadership of the CPC leading to the arrests or death of those declared guilty.
Sison calls this a party coup by the revisionists led by Deng Shiaoping. In contrast Xi Jinping in his anniversary address, as disseminated in English by the Xinhua News Agency, extolled Deng Shiaoping’s ideological contribution, “On the journey ahead, we must continue to uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development, and fully implement the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.
We must continue to adapt the basic tenets of Marxism to China’s specific realities and its fine traditional culture. We will use Marxism to observe, understand, and steer the trends of our times, and continue to develop the Marxism of contemporary China and in the 21st century.”
Sison’s role in criticizing the CPC logically puts pressure on the CPP to continue its armed struggle in the country despite the lack of foreseeable chance to grab state power just to provide experiential basis for what their “consultant” ideologically stands for.
Meanwhile, Filipinos die: Soldiers, rebels, civilians; but none from the so-called ruling elite of imperialists, feudal lords, and bureaucrat capitalists that Sison described as enemies of the people. And this is just to prove who really is a true Maoist.
