(This article, the second of two parts, appeared in the September 25 issue of the French-language fortnightly Inprecor, published in Paris. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.
(The first part of this article, published in the October 27 issue of Intercontinental Press, discussed the growth of the Thai and Philippine Communist parties, their positions on various international questions, and some of their assessments of the Chinese government's foreign poliey.]
The military conflicts in Indochina and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan have made the Chinese theory of "socialimperialism" and the view of a world dominated by the conflict between two "superpowers" seem more credible to many militants in Southeast Asia.
In a declaration adopted at its Third Congress, the Thai Socialist Party "condemns" both "the occupation of Kampuchea and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. "22
In an article in Ang Bayan, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) also denounced the invasion of Afghanistan, recalling the precedents of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The article analyzed Soviet policy as part of a conflict between two "superpowers" (the U.S. and the USSR) for control over the Third World and its wealth. 23
Undoubtedly, the policies of the Soviet bureaucracy should be denounced since they do considerable damage to the cause of socialism in the world. But when these two parties see Soviet policy as "gocialimperialism," similar to U.S. policy, but avoid subjecting the positions of the Chinese bureaucracy to an in-depth critique, the Thai and Philippine CPs end up covering over some of the worst crimes committed in the name of communism and ignoring the establishment of counterrevolutionary blocs.
Thai CP's Positions On the Sino-indochinese Crisis
Until July 1979 the Communist Party of Thailand (CT) had a radio station that broadcast from the Chinese province of Yunnan. On July 7, 1979, the Voice of the Thai People aired a long declaration by Sri Inthapanti, a representative of the Committee for Coordinating Patriotic and Democratic Forces (CCPDF). The declaration sharply attacked Vietnam for occupying Kampuchea (and Laos) and for posing a threat to Thailand.
The world has witnessed a revolution of a new type, exported by the Soviet Union... It can manufacture or build up all sorts of united fronts to spark civil wars in any country, prior to sending in its own troops or those of its lackeys, as happened in Angola. It can also send its own or its satellites' troops to overthrow legitimate governments and shamelessly occupy one or another country with the help of traitors-like Heng Samrin-who open their country's doors to the enemy. Such is the socialist revolution in Kampuchea. ...
The truth is that Vietnam has sent its troops close to the Thai border and is ready to invade the country at any time. It has made attempts to set up a puppet united front and army. In Bangkok, the Soviet Union is now trying to get certain military groups to foment a coup.
We Thai people should take heed of the disaster that lies in wait for us, learning from the war of destruction and genocide in Kampuchea, from the tears of the Lao people, from the suffering of the Vietnamese themselves, who risk their lives to escape being sent to fight a fraternal country and to escape the oppression exercised by the ruling class and those in power. And finally we should learn from the infiltration of Vietnamese spies as part of the flood of refugees...
The Thai people will unite to defend their country. ... Instead of creating a sentiment of solidarity among the people, the ruling class continues [to repress], with nine-tenths of the army assigned to repression and the remaining one-tenth sent to the borders.... There is every reason to promote national unity. ... The government must stop repressing the people and committing injustices because these activities are an obstacle to defense of the country against the aggressors, who represent the real threat today."
For a long time this declaration, broadcast less than a month before the Voice of the Thai People went off the air, was the only official CCPDF or CPT statement on the Sino-Indochinese conflict. It seemed to exclusively define the Soviet Union and Vietnam as the "principal enemies" of the moment, using words and arguments taken directly from Chinese propaganda (including on questions like Angola). It gave the appearance of being an as yet veiled appeal for the formation of a national union that would include the temporarily reconciled CPT and governmental forces.
This declaration was the Thai acknowledgement of the split between the Thai and Vietnamese CPs. The Thai CP had long been getting simultaneous aid from China (equipment, political training), Laos (base camps, aid routes), Vietnam (transport, military training, medical training), and the Khmer Rouge (camps in Kampuchea after 1975).
For a long time political differences had existed between the Thai and Vietnamese CPs. For example, the Vietnamese reproached the Thais for lining up with Peking in the Sino-Soviet dispute and criticized their weak national strategy.
Despite these important earlier political differences, the real split took place only in 1978-79. In 1975, after the victory of the Indochinese revolutions, the Vietnamese leadership had offered the Thai CP massive aid to give the liberation struggles in Thailand a shot in the arm. The Thai CP rejected that aid.25
The split actually took place around the Kampuchean affair. Hanoi told the CPT (probably in 1978) that it would no longer provide aid unless the Thai Communists broke with the Chinese-Kampuchean bloc against Vietnam.
But the Thai CP refused to publicly break with "Democratic Kampuchea." During a visit to Bangkok in September 1978, Pham Van Dong, the prime minister of Vietnam, publicly announced that Vietnamese aid to the CPT had been terminated. The final break, however, was consummated in early 1979 following the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime. The Thai CP's camps in Laos were closed several months later.26
Undoubtedly the Vietnamese leadership bears a heavy responsibility for this split, or at least for the deep confusion that the split and the intervention of Vietnamese troops in Kampuchea provoked in Thai
25. Sources close to the Thai CP assert that one condition for this aid was the inclusion of Vietnamese and Lao soldiers in the ranks of the Thai resistance. This led the Thai CP to refuse, fearing it would fall under their thumb. Other sources, however, state that the aid was proposed "à la carte," with the Thai CP free to decide what aid it needed, and that its rejection of the Vietnamese proposal was due to Chinese pressures, with Peking not wanting a revolutionary development in Thailand. See in particular Bulletin thai d'information, No. 19. pp. 10-11.
26. Various local underground publications gave a very harsh description of shameful treatment of CPT members in Laos in 1979. See especially the references given by Santi Mingmonkol, "Laos Deserts Old Comrades," in Southeast Asia Chronicle, No. 73, pp. 24-25. According to other sources, including some from the CPT, the withdrawal from the camps in Laos was carried out under proper conditions. Southeast Asia Chronicle published two partially contradictory articles on the evolution of the CPT in its issue No. 69:
anti-imperialist circles.
Vietnam had never publicly and politi. cally explained the real nature of the problems posed in the Indochinese crisis. It went directly from silence to vilification. In its denunciations of the Pol Pot regime it used documents previously forged by rightists and it called the Maoist CPs in the region "reactionary parties" that were docile instruments of Peking's policy of territorial expansion in Southeast Asia.2
But whatever responsibility the Vietnamese bear does not diminish the responsibilities of the Thai CP leadership. The declarations of official bodies of the Thai resistance on the question of Kampuchea paint a picture that has little relation to Kampuchean reality. The Thai leadership, which had a front-row seat, cannot claim ignorance of what was going on there.
While guarding against yesterday's Western and today's Vietnamese propaganda, it is now possible to draw up a partial assessment of the Khmer Rouge leadership's policies after it took power in 1975.28
There is widespread agreement on three aspects of that policy. First, there is agreement that very early the Kampuchean Communist Party leadership, and especially the Pol Pot faction, began to settle differences within the party and army through the physical elimination of "deviants." These purges became enormous in 1977-78.
Second, although the new regime des-
"Crisis for Revolutionaries" by Helen Chauney, and "Another View of the Crisis" by Martha Winnacker.
28. For an analysis of the Kampuchean events one can go to two studies published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia, No. 1-2, 1980: "Conflicts in the Kampuchea Communist Movement" by Ben Kiernan and "The Kampuchea Revolution 1975-1978: The Problem of Knowing the Truth" by Gavan McCormack.
See also Stephen Heder's mimeographed study "From Pol Pot to Pensovan to the Village," prepared for the International Conferences on Indochina, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, June 19-21, 1980.
All three of these authors are longtime supporters of the Khmer Rouge. Today they have differing points of view regarding the Vietnamese presence in Kampuchea. Stephen Heder, who is presently working under contract for the U.S. State Department, describes it as a colonial situation. McCormack thinks that it is the only situation possible today. But all three, based on high-quality studies, draw an essentially identi cal assessment of the Pol Pot regime.
troyed the power of the old ruling class and the imperialist grip on the country, it immediately subjected a large part of the working population to an authoritarian regimen of forced deportation (the "new people") and it never tried to set up any mass democratic structures whatsoever. Little by little, as a result of the blind brutality of the system that was established, it lost the popular base it had had earlier in the liberated zones.29
Finally, the Pol Pot leadership played an active role in starting the border conflict with Vietnam, playing the "Chinese card" to the hilt against Hanoi.
As a result of all this, the Kampuchean CP government rapidly lost whatever popular representativeness and legitimacy it had won during the liberation war. It is among the regimes that committed the worst crimes against its own population. And it did this in the name of Communism! But this is the regime that the Thai resistance groups now call on us to support! For example, the New Year's message published by the CCPDF deals almost exclusively with condemnations of the USSR and Vietnam.30
The Thai Socialist Party went so far as to hail the "correct" character of the new front established by the Khmer Rouge leadership (the Patriotic and Democratic Front of the Great National Union of Kampuchea) and the "political line of the government of Democratic Kampuchea"31 (the Pol Pot government).
In the resolution of its Third Congress the Socialist Party called on "all countries to use every effective means to force the
29. We should note that even the Chinese leadership can no longer completely deny the gravity of the Khmer Rouge policy. In an interview with journalist Nayan Chanda, Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Han Nianlong, while seeking to justify the continuation of multilevel aid to the Pol Pot forces, was forced to recognize that what Nayan Chanda said (that the population's fear of the Khmer Rouge sweeps away their fear of the Vietnamese) is true: "I believe what you say entirely, and I believe they are all facts." He notes that the Khmer Rouge went "rather far in carrying out some of their wrong policies." Han expresses the hope that the Khmer Rouge have changed their policy but seems skeptical: "Of course, we will have to see whether they genuinely change.... It is only then that we will have hope."
Han Nianlong does not try to defend the Khmer Rouge as representatives of the Kampuchean people. The only real argument he puts forward to call on the Kampucheans to support the Khmer Rouge is that they are the most effective force for fighting the Vietnamese. See Far Eastern Economic Review, April 18-24, 1980, pp. 19-20.
.31. Thai Socialist Party's solidarity message with Democratic Kampuchea, TIC News, May 15, 1980, pp. 2-3.
Vietnamese troops ... to immediately withdraw from Kampuchea....
A regional CPT cadre interviewed in the Phu Phan Mountains declared that "the struggle waged by Pol Pot for the liberation of the country ... is correct" and merits "full support, adding that the
Kampuchean CP is a party that seeks to "stand up by its own means." He stated that he did "not want to comment on the political problems that arose in Kampuchea itself," because those were "internal problems."33
Implications of Defending Pol Pot
This apology for a leadership with such a well-known criminal policy is sickening for revolutionaries. And the problem is not just moral. It has deep political implications, first of all for the Kampuchean people. It is correct to defend their right to self-determination, and to say that as long as the regime now in place in Pompenh is so heavily dependent on the Vietnamese presence, that right cannot be truly exercised.
But it is impossible to pretend that the Khmer Rouge (who are hated by the bulk of the populace) and the Khmer Serei and Khmer Serika (who are agents of imperialist forces or simple profiteers) are leading a national liberation struggle. As a result of the arming of Khmer Rouge and Khmer Serei guerrillas on the Thai border, part of the Kampuchean population views the continued Vietnamese presence as indispensable protection!
And knowing what happened in Kampuchea, it is clearly unacceptable for internationalists to argue that discussion of the "problems" posed by the Kampuchean CP's policies after the 1975 victory would be interference in the "internal affairs" of a fraternal country or party.
Under the circumstances, the Thai CP's attitude adds up to refusal to extend solidarity to the Kampuchean people. Such solidarity, moreover, should have been expressed even before the Pol Pot regime fell and against that regime.34 That would have been the best way to avert Hanoi's final decision to apply a military solution to its conflict with the Pol Pot regime.
We could say that under the circumstances the Thai CP followed the same policy Hanoi had followed until 1978 (with dramatic consequences). In the name of relations between fraternal parties, and for opportunist reasons as well, the Thai CP maintains public silence about the crimiin
AMPO, second quarter 1980. AMPO, a Japanese publication published in English, opened a discussion on Indochina and the fundamental problems raised by the Sino-Indochinese crisis in its issue of the first quarter of 1979, and that debate has continued in each subsequent issue.
nal character and policies of the Khmer Rouge. Worse yet, it becomes involved in the Chinese bureaucracy's game and greatpower realpolitik.
The policies of the Thai CP leadership place the Thai resistance movement in an insoluble contradiction. On the one hand the CPT still defines the Bangkok regime and imperialism (especially U.S. imperialism) as the principal enemy. On the other hand the CPT calls on these same forces to intervene more actively in the region against the USSR and Vietnam.
This policy, which is fundamentally contradictory, has helped to create the confusion around these questions that is seen in the anti-imperialist milieus of Bangkok. The policy also runs the risk of encouraging the growth of strictly nationalist sentiments that, in the final analysis, would benefit the right-wing and far-right currents.
This policy also explains the CP's lack of reaction to the counterrevolutionary maneuvers by the Thai regime and imperialism to fight the Indochinese revolutions.
Bangkok and Washington (as well as Tokyo and the main European capitals) are obviously not fighting against the bureaucratic deformations of the Indochinese workers states, nor are they fighting for the rights of the peoples! Fundamentally, they are not even fighting Soviet influence.
Washington, in particular, is seeking above all to strangle the Indochinese revolutions that it was unable to defeat. It seeks to reconsolidate its presence in Thailand and in Southeast Asia, including the reestablishment of its influence in Laos and Kampuchea.
For several weeks Bangkok imposed an economic blockade on Laos, whose impoverished economy is extremely dependent on trade moving through Thailand. An editorial in the official Bangkok Post clearly revealed the real aim of this particularly severe measure: "The Laotian government," according to the editorial, "is receiving an important lesson with the closing of the border. The lesson consists of making Laos realize that it is more dependent on Thailand than on Vietnam. ... Thailand has always considered Laos as a younger brother needing our help. "35
Did the CPT protest Bangkok's highhanded policy? Not to our knowledge. Would the Thai CP favor an even longer blockade of Laos, in the name of the battle against the USSR? One hopes not.
The Thai CP did, however, very quickly make its position known regarding the border skirmishes and the Vietnamese incursion into Thailand in the spring. The June 27 issue of Forward News criticized the Thai government when Bangkok was obliged to acknowledge that the initial alarmist reports of the fighting had been exaggerated. It concluded that "in the face of this situation, the Thai people must draw closely together and organize themselves in order to be fully prepared to unmask and resist the Vietnamese invasion and oppose the internal repression pursued by the government."*36
Like its predecessors, the article was silent about Thai responsibility for the worsening of border tensions. For example, Thai military patrols, in contact with American officers, enter Kampuchean territory with Khmer Serei and Khmer Rouge groups. Do Thai revolutionaries think this is acceptable? If they do, would the Thai CP want to incorporate its forces into the Holy Alliance that has been set up on the border, and would it participate in the operations aimed at Kampuchea (and, by the way, would it still call on government soldiers and officers to desert)?
The position of the Thai CP is very dangerous in that it covers up imperialist maneuvers aimed against the Indochinese revolutions from Thai territory. It is important that this be stated by militants who are actively involved in supporting the struggles of the Thai people. The appeals made by the official bodies of the Thai resistance for support to the Khmer Rouge (and more generally in favor of the anti- Vietnamese bloc) have placed militants who are involved in the struggle in a difficult position. Many of them want to continue their support for the Thai resistance, but do not want to give any aid to the Khmer Rouge, the Khmer Serei, or the Thai and American maneuvers on the border. In addition, many of them do not agree with Peking's international policy.
The Committee for Coordinating Patriotic and Democratic Forces (led by the CPT) seems to have understood this. In a letter, its own the CCPDF, while reaffirming position, asserted it was ready to "develop the broadest ties with progressive political organizations in different countries with a view toward mutual support and solidarity. Such organizations need not necessarily have the same political views or analyze the world situation in the same terms that we do, as long as they truly wish to support our fight."37
More fundamentally, a debate now seems to be taking place in Thai (and Philippine) anti-imperialist circles, including on Indochina and the Chinese policy. First Signs of a Deepgoing Debate
The Communist Party of Thailand officially defends the international line of the Chinese bureaucracy, but also tries to define its own national objectives within
Thailand. Peking's regional policy, however, has direct implications in Thailand itself. The Chinese bureaucracy wants to develop the broadest possible anti-
Vietnamese alliance, while developing special ties with the Bangkok regime. And in an interview with the Bangkok Post, a Chinese leader publicly laid out the conclusions that Peking feels the Thai Communist Party should draw from the situation.
Vice-premier Ji Pengfei told the Bangkok Post that the Thai communists should set up a united front with the government to respond to the Vietnamese "threat."3 But this is precisely what the Thai CP does not want to do.
The existence of differences between the leadership of the Thai CP and the Chinese leadership have now publicly surfaced. Kem Kongdul, a member of the Thai CP's Northeast Regional Committee, specifically noted:
It is true that there are some differences of perspective between our party and the Chinese party. Regarding the attitude toward the United States, for example, we still see the United States as our principal enemy, while China sees the USSR as its principal enemy. Moreover, regarding the attitude toward ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], we feel that ASEAN is an enemy of the Thai people's revolution.... On this point [our position] is different from China's. In regard to the Chinese position, they perhaps look at ASEAN from an overall strategic viewpoint. Perhaps China is seeking to win the support of these countries. But we are involved in a political struggle. We are not yet in a position to act as the government of a country. Therefore our attitude on such a question differs from China's, as we understand it today. 39
Kem Kongdul is still trying to present the problems that have arisen between the Thai and Chinese CPs as flowing from their different situations rather than as, in fact, opposing lines. He reiterates that "China continues to give us its support as its international obligation toward the working class."
But public acknowledgement of these "different perspectives" on key questions is quite new and significant.
This context probably explains why radio broadcasts by the Voice of the Thai People have been suspended since July 11, 1979. The shutdown of the radio station in Kunming in southern China seems to reflect a temporary compromise. Apparently the Thai CP agreed to scuttle its main propaganda instrument as the price for Bangkok's support to the Khmer Rouge. But it seemingly preferred to stop its transmissions completely rather than continue them without any denunciations of the Thai regime. While this is only a hypothesis, it seems logical.
The Thai CP apparatus does not want to break with Peking. But it also does not want to follow the Chinese bureaucracy's positions to their logical conclusion. Furthermore, it is probably subject to very strong internal tensions, given the contradictory situation it is in.
There seems to have been strong pressure on the national CPT apparatus from some of the ranks and the apparatus of some regions to open a discussion on the whole gamut of questions, including questions concerning Chinese policy. In mid- 1980 the magazine Siam Nikorn published a series of contradictory articles on Kampuchea that reflected certain concerns current in the Bangkok anti-imperialist activist circles. 4°
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) adopted a position similar to the CPT's (and thus to Peking's) on the Indochinese conflicts, although using milder terms. In an article in Ang Bayan, the CPP mainly denounced the hand of "Soviet social imperialism" in the invasion of Kampuchea and reproached the "Vietnamese leadership" for "allowing itself to be used" by the USSR. It also called on the Vietnamese to "correct their grave errors and break completely with social imperialism." The article provided a totally distorted view of the real situation in Kampuchea and the history of the Kampuchean CP.41
A similar approach could be seen in a declaration adopted by the Preparatory Commission of the CPP-led National Democratic Front, which declared its "support for the just struggle of the Kampuchean people to regain their national independence and sovereignty." The declaration made reference to the "rapid formation of an international united front against hegemonism" (meaning the USSR), without making clear in advance who was part of that front. 42
Later Ang Bayan published an article that essentially justified the Chinese invasion of Vietnam. The article was uncon-
40. These were: a typically pro-Chinese article that analyzes the world situation in terms of a confrontation between "superpowers" and makes an abstraction of the class struggle; an article that is very critical of Pol Pot's regime; and another article presenting an analysis of the "errors" of the Pol Pot leadership. For the last article see also excerpts of a document of a CPT work group (and not its Political Bureau) quoted by Marcel Barang in Le Matin, December 27, 1979, and Far Eastern Economic Review, January 11, 1980.
In a February 1980 interview, a member of the CPT, speaking in its name, defined "three errors" of the Pol Pot government: absence of any tradition of work in an urban milieu; evacuation of Pompenh in fear of CIA activities; absence of international work. He explains these "three errors" by the fact that the Kampuchean CP fought almost exclusively in the jungle. But he considered the Pol Pot leadership as a sister leadership.
cerned by the fact that this so-called socialist "lesson" had been paid for by the deaths of thousands of Chinese and Vietnamese workers and peasants. *3
But behind these seemingly orthodox repetitions of Peking positions, it could be seen that there was a debate taking place within the Philippine CP. In July 1978 BMP carried an article on the Sino-Vietnamese conflict. The article noted that the cut-off of Chinese aid to Vietnam "in some ways recalled July 1960, when the USSR suddenly withdrew hundreds of Russian engineers, economic advisers, and technicians from half-finished Chinese factories and sent them home. The factors at work in the two confrontations were not unrelated: border dispute, hegemonic power, attitude toward the Third World, and, in particular, cooperation with the United States."
In a certain respect, the article put Hanoi and Peking on the same level. It stressed the "open support" that China has given to ASEAN for "purely national interests," while "refusing to raise the problem of ASEAN's counterrevolutionary structure." Vietnam, the article maintained, is "doing the same thing" by opening Southeast Asia to the USSR "perhaps partly in order to neutralize ASEAN." And the article concluded that "for the Third World national liberation forces who still reject the 'logic of the lesser evil' between hegemonic choices, the China-Vietnam conflict is not a happy event."44
Two months later, in a "Forum" column that is now closed, BMP printed two articles. One criticized the position expressed in July and asserted that Chinese policy remained the policy of a socialist and internationalist power (as opposed to the Soviet Union's policy). The other article took the July position further, denying that there was any internationalist character to the Chinese policy and asserting that the Philippine CP had to make it clearly known that it would not abandon armed struggle, as the old CP (PKP- Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas) had done on Stalin's orders in 1945.45
A Difficult Legacy to Shake
To understand why such a debate, which is developing in an informal way, takes so long to come to fruition, we must take note of the depth of the Maoist commitment of these parties.
In Southeast Asia militant commitment to Maoism was seen as a two-sided break with reformist "models" that had failed. On the international level the Chinese leadership was denouncing Moscow's willingness to establish "détente" with imperialism, its policy of "peaceful coexistence," and the illusion that there was a "peaceful road to socialism." That was a period in which China seemed to be the potential center for the revolutionary regrouping of the world Communist movement and the most active supporter of liberation movements.
On the national level, adherence to Maoism was seen as a response to serious difficulties (in Thailand) or bloody setbacks (in the Philippines) and became an element in the struggles taking place between different political tendencies.
The ferocious repression unleashed in Thailand in 1958 put an end to the Thai CP's attempt to carry out more or less legal trade-union, political, and urban work. It led the members of the party to fall back into the countryside and then to take refuge in the jungle. The CP turned toward the outlying regions of the country, seeking zones where it could organize a mass base that would be sheltered form preemptive repression. The Maoist wing of the party steadily gained control over the reins of leadership in the course of a little-known tendency fight. 46
The new (so-called reestablished) Communist Party of the Philippines was set up on the basis of a thoroughgoing criticism of the "right and left errors" successively committed by the former organization, which was paralyzed by clique functioning and subject to sudden policy changes worked out by Moscow.*
The failure of the PKP (the pro-Moscow Communist Party) was, in fact, sealed in the 1940s. First it greeted the returning American Army as "liberators." Then with the change in the international and national situations and the beginning of the Cold War, the PKP launched an ill-prepared guerrilla struggle that was carried out in an adventurist manner (the Huk uprising).
Under the blows of the repression most of the surviving leaders of the PKP politically capitulated in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s the PKP advocated an orientation of critical collaboration with the Marcos regime.
Adherence to Maoism as seen first and foremost as a commitment to revolution. This adherence was strengthened by the fact that often the only knowledge the new generations of activists had about Marxism came through the writings of Mao. Of course there were individuals who had a much wider acquaintance with the classical works of Marxism, but on the whole the political training of these movements was based almost exclusively on pamphlets that spelled out their parties' national policy and short writings and speeches by Mao, such as those gathered under the title Five Articles.48
It was only very recently that the Philippine CP published its first somewhat systematic work on basic Marxist education and began to distribute a series of works by Lenin. The Thai CP still does not seem to have done this.
In this context, the bulk of the revolutionary activists in Southeast Asia saw, and often still see, the works of Mao as "not only a correct and fully worked out response to the problems of the people's democratic revolution in a semicolonial and semifeudal country, but also the most recent and most complete summary of the experience of the proletariat and the peoples of the world."49 In a general way, international events are examined through the Chinese leadership's eyeglasses.
The introduction to the main document of the founding congress of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968 clearly expresses the place of Mao Zedong Thought and China:
All proletarian revolutionaries must express themselves and act in accordance with Mao Zedong Thought, which is the highest level of Marxism-Leninism in this world epoch.... Under the direct leadership of Chairman Mao, the People's Republic of China has become the central base of the world revolution. It is the center of gravity of the countrysides of the world that are encircling the cities of the world.so
In addition to the political and ideological attraction to Maoism, in the case of the Communist Party of Thailand we should add the weight of an apparatus that includes many ethnic Chinese Thais, who through culture and language are close to China. Many of them spent a long time in Peking or Kunming. The Communist
We should note that there are members of the Thai and Philippine CPs who specifically recognize the role Mao played in applying Marxism- Leninism to the Chinese reality, without making him a new theoretician of the world revolution.
movement in Thailand was, in fact, established largely by ethnic Chinese members (and Vietnamese in the northeast).51
This is not the case in the Philippines, where the Chinese community occupies a different role than in Thailand. We should note, for example, that the Philippine CP is the only party in the region that never had a radio transmitter in Yunnan.
Peking probably has means of applying very direct pressure on the CPT apparatus, more so than in the case of the Philippine CP. But in both cases a reevaluation of their relations with the Chinese leadership is not an easy thing. It is too late for subtle distinctions. Today one cannot even be pro-Mao and pro-Peking at the same time!
Yesterday's followers of the "capitalist road" are now at the summits of power in China, like Deng Xiaoping (the "second Chinese Khrushchev"), or have undergone spectacular rehabilitation, like Liu Shaoqi himself (the "first Chinese Khrushchev"). Yesterday's heirs apparent, like Lin Biao and the "Four," have in turn been denounced.
There are more and more sharp official criticisms of Chairman Mao for the policies he followed in the late 1950s. The highly touted "models" of the Mao era, like the Daichai peasant commune, are now attacked as frauds. One by one all the specific developmental approaches and ideological themes of Maoism are being abandoned in favor of the lines that Mao fought against while he was alive. Symbolically, the Chinese press "forgot" to write about the fourth anniversary of Mao's death, and slowly but surely Mao's pictures are being taken down from the walls. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is now viewed as one of the biggest calamities ever to hit China.
In a recent interview Deng Xiaoping put forward an unambiguous assessment of the role of Mao Zedong. Deng referred to Mao Zedong Thought in laudatory terms, but dated it specifically to the Yenan period and stressed that Mao's role had changed in the 1950s.
Deng stated that Mao:
gave such a contribution that, without him, in the least the Chinese would have spent much more time in groping their way in the darkness. ... It was Chairman Mao who combined the principles of Marxism and Leninism with the realities of China. ... Yes, until the Sixties, or to be exact before the latter part of the Fifties, has today been overcome with the rise to responsible posts of younger people who are more uniformly integrated into Thai society as such. This is probably true on the local and perhaps the regional levels. But on the national level?
51. The Vietnamese implantation in the northeast probably disappeared a long time ago. But the fact that the Thai CP first developed roots in non-Thai sectors and that its apparatus still partially reflects that state of affairs posed a lasting problem. Some members of the Thai CP recognize that this created difficulties within the apparatus but assert that this situation
some | ideas of Chairman Mao were very correct, and many of the principles through which we achieved victory.
But Deng describes the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s as a "mistake" and notes that "in the last part of his life, he committed mistakes. Particularly the Cultural Revolution mistake. And as a result many misfortunes were brought upon the party, the country, the people."
During that part of Mao's life:
Unhealthy thinking emerged, both by his actions and his style of work..•. Well, maybe victory had made him less prudent, or maybe he had lost contact with reality. ... He enjoyed a tremendous prestige among the Chinese people and so he received many praises. Too many. He thus failed to institutionalize the very good principles he had set up for years, such as democratic centralism..• - A patriarchal behavior began to develop in him. And the life of the party, the life of the country, ceased to be normal.
According to Deng, Mao was wrong when he chose his own successor (Lin Biao), stating that "choosing his own successor is a feudal practice for a leader." Mao also covered up Jiang Qing's rise to power, a woman whom Deng describes as "a thousand times a thousand below zero."52
Deng's assessment of Mao is clear: overall, the historic role of Mao remains positive, due to his activity during the struggle for power. But the Chairman's policies and practices since the mid-1950s deserve condemnation.
Present developments in China should make it possible to open a broad, critical debate within the world revolutionary movement on the balance-sheet of the Chinese revolution since the taking of power, a debate that goes far beyond the Deng/Mao differences alone and touches on basic questions of the transition to socialism and workers' democracy.
Reevaluation of the character of the Chinese leadership's policies means opening a whole series of discussions, which are both indispensable and explosive. It means opening discussions on Maoism itself, on the history of the Thai and Philippine CPs, on the international situa tion and the perspectives of the world
This is also what happened in the Philippines where the PKP agreed to follow a line decided in Moscow, the same line that was rejected by the Chinese CP. It is unfortunate that this question has never been dealt with in Philippine CP documents.
revolution, on the USSR and the bureaucracy in the workers states. It is easy to see why the leaders of the CPT and CPP hesitate to open such a multifaceted discussion. However, it is even more important that this be combined with a steady reorientation of the national strategy of these parties.
Evolution of the National Strategy
One of the special features of the Thai CP (except perhaps in certain zones) and the Philippine CP is that they got involved in armed struggle without having a previous mass, organized presence in key sectors of society. As a result, their struggles developed quite differently from the Chinese or Vietnamese precedents and are closer (especially in the case of the Philippine CP) to the experience in Latin America in the 1960s.
In his own way Kem Kongdul noted this difference when he remarked that in China the CP already had at its disposal a considerable military strength when the guerrilla movement began, which was not the case with the Thai CP.53 This difference stems from the fact that the guerrilla struggle in China followed important worker and peasant uprisings that marked the history of the second Chinese revolution, while the Thai and Philippine guerrillas were organized independently of a real mass uprising.
It is difficult to analyze the relationship between military work, political work, and mass work in Thailand, especially due to the clandestine character of the party and the big differences in regional situations.
The Thai CP is not a pyramidal organization. The national leadership defines the big political and ideological orientations, but it does not control the practical work carried out in each region. The mass base of the Thai CP differs by region (mountain-dwelling minorities, Lao-Thai, Thai) as does its history. But there is one striking fact: the absence of a detailed political program concerning mass work and espe cially peasant work.
As far as we know, until some specific details were added in January 1978, the Thai CP had only a very general "Ten Point Program."54 It does not have a concrete agrarian program that it could use to make its views known to the peasant masses even in areas where its organi. zational infrastructure remains very weak.
The Philippine CP does possess such a program, the "Revolutionary Guide for the
Agrarian Reform,"55 which it began to circulate in 1972. The CPP members use this program more frequently than the "Ten Point Program" of the CPP-led National Democratic Front, which does not explicitly put forward the slogan for redistribution of the land, contenting itself with general statements about the need for a "real agrarian reform." But so far the peasant mass work has been carried out primarily by the guerrillas themselves.
The period immediately after the imposition of martial law in the Philippines in 1972 was marked by a series of errors by the CP, including ill-prepared student activism against the repression and an orientation marked by militarism.
For a time the role of the CPP's urban network was primarily to provide support for the guerrillas-collecting funds, weapons, and so on. It reached the point that when mass mobilizations began to take shape in the cities against the martial law system, the members of the CPP were unable to intervene, leaving the initiative to the Christian currents.
The same thing happened in Thailand, where the Thai CP was unable to concretely organize the student movement in 1973 when the dictatorship fell. The initiative was then left to small groups led by activists like Seksan Prasertkul and Thirayudh Boonmee (who later went to the zones controlled by the CPT).
Over time the Philippine CP changed its orientation. It paid more attention to the need to carry out real mass political work, including in the cities. It focused more on the need to build mass organizations and at the same time strengthen the ranks of the party to give it a mass character. It saw the need to change the social composition of the party by making efforts to recruit not only in peasant milieus but also among the workers. It recognized the need to combine the mobilization of the urban and rural masses in a more interconnected manner.
The Thai CP seems to have undergone an evolution after 1973, similar to that of the Philippine CP, although perhaps more unevenly.
The declaration published on the occasion of the eleventh anniversary of the founding of the Philippine CP recounts that evolution. It stresses the role of the Third Plenum of the Central Committee, held in December 1975, which drew up a critical balance sheet of the organizational stagnation of the party, and especially the Central Committee meeting of June 1976, which adopted the resolution "Our Urgent Tasks." That resolution also argued that on the ideological level it was particularly necessary to fight against "dogmatic ten-
, which were more pronounced dencies,' than "empirical tendencies."56
Recently both the Thai and Philippine
55. This program can be found in a pamphlet by the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP) in the United States: People's War in the Philippines.
CPs have decided to step up their efforts directed at the industrial working class. And at the big workers meeting on May 1 in Manila this year, which the press reported drew 30,000 people," the influence of the CPP and the National Democratic Front was evident.
The time is now long gone when the Philippine CP set itself the goal of establishing a Philippine "Yenan" in Cagayan Province on the northeastern tip of Luzon Island, based on the Chinese precedent of establishing a base that would be militarily impregnable, despite the absence of revolutionary mass mobilizations in the country. The repression put an end to that hope.
The Philippine CP (like its Thai counterpart) obviously continues to place crucial importance on work in the rural sector, where the majority of the population is found. But on the level of strategy, the views of the Philippine Communist movement (and at least a portion of the Thai Communist movement) have become more rounded.
The resolution adopted in 1976 dealt more systematically with the function of urban work, which was only sketched out in the Philippine CP reference work Philippine Society and Revolution.58
"Our Urgent Tasks" analyzes the strategic perspective of urban work in these terms:
By combining legal and illegal methods, we can develop the revolutionary mass movement in the cities. Our principal tactic ... is, to use a metaphor, to conquer the enemy fortress from within... It is necessary to penetrate the economic struggles [of the workers] and raise them to the level of political struggles in such a way that the working class as a whole is capable of not only struggling in the most effective way possible for its own interests, but is also able to fully link itself to the rest of the population in the powerful rise of the people's democratic revolution. ...
The population of the cities must realize that the long-term development of locally-led clandestine work and the sustained growth of mass actions prepare the way for the final day when the ruling system will be overthrown, when a general uprising will combine with a general offensive of the people's army.59
This enrichment of the strategic perspective of the revolution on the one hand, and of the mass work carried out jointly in the urban and rural sector on the other hand, is very important. Nonetheless, a number of problems still remain.
In terms of combining the rural and urban mass struggles, the constant references to the "encirclement of the cities by the countryside" seem to place an obstacle in the path of some discussions, even in the Philippines. In a December 1978 article in Ang Bayan about the revolutionary struggles then going on in Nicaragua and Iran, the following conclusion was drawn: the lessons of these revolutions show "the Iranian people that there is no alternative to the armed struggle, with the revolutionary effort in the cities playing only a secondary and supporting role."60
This is a curious way to approach the problem since the lesson of Iran in fact turned out to be precisely the strategic importance and independent capacity of mobilizations of the urban masses (and not simply in "support" of rural guerrillas). Even though there was no revolutionary party, weren't the urban masses able, through intense and repeated mobilizations, to politically undermine the army until a section of it went over to the side of the masses and helped them arm themselves for the insurrection? Moreover, this was the most powerful army in the Third World.
In Thailand it appears that it is still difficult to debate these questions. Anyone who wants to raise the question of the distinct revolutionary dynamic of urban class struggles and the possibility of taking power by combining rural and urban uprisings is quickly accused of taking the "Soviet road of the coup d'état."61
Responding to accusations from the "splitters" that the Thai CP did not have the perspective of preparing an urban uprising, Kem Kongdul was content to state that the "splitters" "don't say it clearly, but they have found that the tactic of encircling the cities from the countryside takes too long. Therefore they think that if an urban uprising were launched, it would take less time, especially if foreign troops came to their aid."62
We should also mention the absence of a creative discussion of the socioeconomic structure of Thai and Philippine society. These societies are simply characterized as
60. Ang Bayan, December 15, 1978.
"semifeudal" and "semicolonial,"
although they have undergone a profound evolution in recent decades.
In historic terms, these parties tend to make overly mechanical references to the Chinese CP's analyses of pre-World War II China. As a result they often disregard the specific features of national development in their own countries.63 In developing short term perspectives this creates a dangerous gulf between their frozen overall analysis of society and the empirical corrections of the party's work by social sectors and the development of concrete analyses in one or another regional situa tion. 64
But the most serious political problem regarding national orientations in recent years is the question of the united front. In Thailand and the Philippines this question is posed in different terms than in many other Third World countries. The programs of these fronts, as generally put forward by the CPT or CPP, are written in a highly opportunist manner, especially regarding the national bourgeoisie. But the internal or programmatic documents of these par. ties, like the public polemics they carry out, are aimed at warning against the influence of the national bourgeoisie. And in practice most often they are sectarian.
But, at any rate, Philippine society has under. gone an extremely different development than China's: a very backward society socioeconomically (except for the Muslim states in the south) at the time of the early colonization, direct colony of Spain, penetrated very early by English and American capital, the only direct colony of the United States of such importance; today involved in the development of agribusiness and widespread industrialization of a neocolonialist form.
According to Amado Guerrero, the considera ble development of export agriculture and plan. tations was a "prop" for feudalism under the Spanish, and for "semifeudalism" under the Americans.
To classify in this way the transformation of land into capital, the transformation of a peasant mass into an agricultural proletariat, the spread of the market economy, the forced inte gration of the country into the world market, and the birth of a national "mestizo" bourgeoisie, really gives the term "feudalism" (which is normally based on serfdom) too wide a definition.
This lag in the CP's historical analysis is even less understandable given the fact that the work of a historian like Renato Constantino has added considerably to the understanding and analysis of the history of the Philippines. See the bibliographic reports in issues Nos. 1 and 2 of the Bulletin, published by the French Comité Solidarité Philippines.
64. It is striking to see that, on this question, the comparison made of the Chinese and Philippine strategies, for example, largely focused on geographic and topographic factors (size of the
The CCPDF, at least as it was established in 1977, has been broken up by recent splits. This is the third time that a united front has fallen through in Thailand, and this time it seemed to have had greater potential for success than in the past. The formation of the CCPDF had effectively reflected both a broadening of the social base of the Thai resistance and the beginning of a political alliance. For example, the Thai Socialist Party, a member of the CCPDF, never was an independent political party in the strict sense. It brought together several factions and it included individuals and currents that had roots or real influence in the country, and who had a different history from the CPTs.
Most of them have now left the CCPDF. One of the reasons they quit was because they felt they were being manipulated by the CP without being able to really influence the policies of the front itself.
In the Philippines the National Democratic Front has still not been formally constituted. Since 1973 it has been represented by a Preparatory Commission, in which the Philippine CP is the only independent political force. There too the front has not been the arena in which lasting political alliances could be established. The absence of progressive political organizations functioning on a national scale, outside of the CP itself, obviously makes it difficult to form such a front.
However, in the Philippines too there are currents, groups, and individuals whose adherence to the front is, or could be, valuable but who have too often run up against manipulatory practices. And this question causes a cleavage in Philippine anti-imperialist circles, even though it is not expressed as dramatically as in Thailand.
Today the Thai CP is again seeking to broaden the CCPDF. The Philippine CP is trying to win over sectors influenced by the Social Democratic Front to the perspective of the National Democratic Front.65
country, continental state versus island group, extent of mountain areas, road network, etc.) and not on historic, social, and economic considera. tions, although in this area too there were big differences between the two countries. See Amado Guerrero, Specific Characteristics of People's War in the Philippines, International Association of Filipino Patriots, United States, 1979.
65. The Social Democratic Front is a heterogeneous movement in which the influence of the Jesuits is very large. In its leadership are some squarely anticommunist elements as well as progressive currents. It is much weaker than the National Democratic Front, but it has mass influence in some sections of Manila and in Davao on the island of Mindinao. In addition there is a United Opposition, a cartel of groups dominated by the former "great families" and pro-American lobbies based in the U.S. The Social Democrats have several small guerrilla areas; some sectors of the United Opposition are tempted by terrorist action.
But although the CPP's strategic view of the revolutionary process and of mass work has been broadened, as yet there has not been a similar broadening in how it views the front. Rather, the way the front is still conceived actually limits possibilities for mass work, especially in the cities. Strengthening International Solidarity
The Thai and Philippine revolutions run the risk of being isolated internationally at a crucial time in their development. It seems that China cut off all aid to the Philippine CP in 1975-76 and reduced the Thai CP to short rations. Today it probably provides the Thai CP with only a smattering of aid, just enough to keep it from turning toward Vietnam, or the USSR.
The Vietnamese leadership, in turn, is trying to break out of its isolation in the region. It will pay whatever price is necessary to accomplish this, without worrying too much about the situation of the revolutionary movements in the region.
The Thai and Philippine movements have benefitted from the weakening of the imperialist presence and the ASEAN regimes that followed the U.S. defeat in Indochina. The tendencies favoring the growth of the class struggle in these contries have not been reversed, despite the new Sino-Indochinese crisis, because of the deep social dislocations caused by the neocolonial model of agrarian and industrial development.
But the masses of these countries have to confront a series of measures that aim to stabilize ASEAN, strengthen the American presence, and increase Japanese imperialism's ability to intervene in a counterrevolutionary way (including through military intervention).
There can be no doubt that if there is a sharp rise in class confrontations in these countries, imperialism will act, if it can, to maintain its control in Thailand and especially in the Philippines, where it has a network of strategically important mil itary bases. The stakes in the struggles now taking place are clearly international rather than national.
Revolutionary and anti-imperialist activists throughout the world must be ready to defend these revolutions. They must, therefore, support the present struggles against the ASEAN neocolonial regimes and the imperialist hold over Southeast Asia.
Solidarity does not mean that there should be no critical debates between revolutionary movements over policy. But this necessary debate only makes sense to activists if it takes place within the context of active, unconditional, and nonfactional solidarity work.
The Thai and Philippine CPs remain by far the most important organizations in their respective countries, and are capable of providing leadership to the mass struggles. While there may also be other groups and currents in Thailand and the Philippines whose struggles merit support, in the coming period the organized development of struggles fundamentally depends on the activity of the members of the Thai and Philippine CPs.
Both these parties have undergone an evolution that forces them to rethink their relationship with the Chinese leadership. Previous disappointments caused by the
Chinese bureaucracy's policies, coming on the heels of the disappointments engendered by the Soviet leadership, and the sharpness of the Sino-Indochinese conflict could lead some members and currents to retreat into nationalism and others to seek allies in the realpolitik power game. On the other hand, the existence of a solidarity movement that is independent of the countries of the "Socialist world" could help to awaken a new internationalism.
Notes
22. TIC News (Sweden), May 31, 1980, p. 2.
23. Ang Bayan, December 31, 1979.
24. The text of the declaration is reproduced in the Bulletin thai d'information, No. 19, pp. 27-32.
27. See in particular the pamphlet La vérité sur les relations vietnamo-chinoises durant les trente dernière années, published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Hanoi, 1979, p. 17: "In Southeast Asia, for the goals of expansionism and hegemonism they used several tools: the 'fifth column' made up of the Chinese citizens, the so-called Communist organizations following Peking, the ethnic minorities of more or less Chinese origin living in the region."
30. The basic sections of this CCPDF message can be found in the Bulletin thai d'information, No. 20-21, pp. 20-22. The whole text is published in the January 31, 1980, TIC News.
32. TIC News, May 31, 1980, p. 2.
33. TIC News, July 15, 1980, p. 12.
34. On this subject see especially Pierre Rousset's article "Towards a Critical Solidarity,"
35. Bangkok Post, July 17, 1980.
36. "The Patriotic Thai People Must Be United and Fully Prepared to Resist the Invaders," an article from Forward News, June 27, 1980, reproduced in the TIC News, June 30, 1980.
37. Letter from the CCPDF dated July 15, 1980 and signed by the secretary of that body, Thirayudh Boonmee.
38. Bangkok Post, October 21, 1979.
39. "Phuphan Interview," conducted by Peter Kistemaker, TIC News, July 15, 1980, pp. 12-13. nastemaker, te tews, duty 1o, 1900, PP. 12-15.
41. Ang Bayan, January 15, 1979.
42. Liberation, special issue, February 1, 1980.
43. Ang Bayan.
44. BMP, July 29, 1978.
45. BMP, September 1978.
46. See Sylvia and Jean Cattori, L'enjeu thailandais, (Paris: L/'Harmattan, 1979) p. 161.
47. This analysis appears in one of the principal documents adopted at the founding congress of the Communist Party of the Philippines, "Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party, " December 26, 1968. Recently published by the Filipino Support Group in Britain.
48. Five Articles, a 60-page pamphlet published by Foreign Languages Press, contains short politico-moral essays by Mao. The five are "Serve the People," "In Memory of Norman Bethune," "The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains," "On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party," and "Combat Liberalism."
49. This evaluation was made by the Central Committee of the Philippine CP at its June 1976 meeting in its resolution "Our Urgent Tasks." The mere fact that Mao's works are characterized in this way when Mao's works do not say very much about class struggles in the imperialist centers shows how far removed these parties in Southeast Asia are from developments in other parts of the world, including other parts of the Third World, such as Latin America for example.
50. "Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party," p. 2. This basic document of the Philippine CP also salutes Lin Biao (then the heir apparent) and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a person and event that are now denounced in Peking.
52. The first part of this interview with Oriana Fallaci was published in English in the August 31, 1980 Washington Post. We should note that Deng also criticizes Stalin's role and the role of the Soviet bureaucracy. Deng, aligning himself with remarks made earlier by Mao, states that "Stalin committed errors with regard to the Chinese revolution as well: for example, after the Second World War he did not want us to break with the Kuomintang and begin our liberation war" (see Corriere de la Sera, August 29, 1980, p. 3).
53. "Phuphan Interview," TIC News, July 15, 1980, p. 7.
54. One can find a presentation of these "Ten Points" in the Bulletin thai d'information, Nos. 14 to 19. Point Six deals with the agrarian reform and the distribution of land to the peasants, but it notes that the application of agrarian measures depends on regional bodies and does not try to describe how mass work might progress in a rural environment.
56. The declaration commemorating the eleventh anniversary of the founding congress of the Phillipine CP was reprinted in Ichtys, February 22, 1980, pp. 21-27. In it there are citations from the 1976 document "Our Urgent Tasks."
57. Figure from May 2, 1980, Bulletin Today.
58. Amado Guerrero, Philippine Society and Revolution, (Hong Kong: Ta Kung Pao, 1971), pp. 281-82.
59. "Our Urgent Taske," mimeographed document. We note also that the Philippine CP engaged in a long polemic against terrorist type activities that could only aid a bourgeois coup and not an authentic revolution. See, for example, "People's War, Not Coup d'Etat," Liberation, January 1979.
61. See the general presentation of the debates in the Thai resistance in the Bulletin thai d'infor mation, No. 19. See also the polemic by some authors favorable to the CPT against the "Pin Bu-on group" (from the name of a former member of the Political Bureau who is reputed to have pro-Soviet sympathies today but more or less works with the anti-Communist command of the Thai Army) in the Bulletin thai d'informa. tion, No. 20-21.
62. "Phuphan Interview," TIC News, July 15, 1980, p. 6.
63. On this subject see Philippine Society and Revolution. The analysis of Third World societies is a complicated process. The definition of "feudalism" is the subject of big debates in Marxist circles.