March 2003 

We print here the March 24 statement by the Rebolusyonaryong Grupo ng mga Komunista (Revolutionary Communist Group) in the Philippines, which sympathizes with the League for the Fourth International.

The world is pushed again by U.S. imperialism, the so-called sole superpower of the world, into another war of aggression, which according to its own officials, will see the use of all kinds of powerful weapons (including the MOAB or “mother of all bombs,” that is the world’s most powerful conventional bomb, and depleted uranium bullets which causes cancer) which the U.S. arsenal has against Iraq. An imperialist war of aggression that could push mankind toward a new world war that is bloodier, and bigger than the past two World Wars and into nuclear brinkmanship. At the same time, under the guise of the Balikatan 03-1 “military exercises”, U.S. aggression troops along with Philippine troops have started military operations here in the Philippines as the “second front” of the “global war against terror”.

The Rebolusyonaryong Grupo ng mga Komunista (RGK), along with other genuine revolutionary-Trotskyist groups in other countries, are calling for the defeat of the imperialist war of aggression by the U.S. in Iraq and to defend Iraq. The RGK for its part is calling for the defeat of the military operations that the U.S. and Philippine troops are waging in Mindanao and in other parts of the Philippines, and to defend the MILF and CPP-NPA which are now being targeted by these military operations under the Balikatan 03-1 exercises through workers action. The RGK is calling on the working people to defend themselves against the reactionary attacks from the Balikatan 03-1 military aggression.

Like the aggression in Serbia in 1996 by U.S. and its imperialist gang, under the auspices of the United Nations, the main reason for the imperialist invasion of Iraq is NOT to fight the so-called “axis of evil”, or simply because of oil (incidentally, only 12% of all the U.S. oil supply comes from the Middle East), or the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” for which the U.S. supplied the “seed” materials and technology to Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War, and especially, not just about Bush’s “obsession” to rid Hussein. Rather, its aim is to once again force the whole world to accept and recognize the political, military, and economic hegemony of U.S. imperialism, and that all who oppose or are planning to oppose this hegemony will be crushed and dealt with!

The point of view by the U.S. bourgeoisie is now reflected by its new military doctrine of “pre-emptive strike” by the Bush gang, which goes back to the paper – “Defense Strategies for the 1990’s” written by then Secretary of War Dick Cheney. This document calls for preventing a challenge by all the perceived enemies of U.S. imperialism that includes: competitor imperialist countries (France, Germany and Russia) that did not want to join a U.S. dominated war on Iraq, the remaining deformed workers states of China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam and all movements and organizations that are “anti-U.S” and anti-imperialist. This doctrine was implemented right after the collapse of the degenerated workers state of the Soviet Union in 1992 (which served as a counter-balance against imperialist ambitions of the U.S. for more than 70 years), and the “death of communism” triumphalism that paved the way for the new role of U.S. imperialism, that of the only superpower in the world.

Iraq, which is being run by a bourgeois-nationalist regime that is posturing as the leader of the Arab countries against Israel and the U.S., is the country that will be made an example of by the U.S. (after failing in 1991) to the whole world of how a country will be flattened and crushed if it does not follow the sole superpower-imperialist in the world, the U.S. That is why even if the other imperialist competitors (Germany, France and Russia) did not join the planned invasion, and even if the U.S. could only build a “coalition of the willing” (unlike in 1991) – including the “super-puppet” Philippine bourgeoisie now headed by Arroyo – it will still attack and crush Iraq just to show its force to the whole world.

As revolutionary Trotskyists, we call to defend Iraq against this lop-sided imperialist war that the U.S. is waging. As Trotsky said in what we see as a parallel condition during the 1930’s, when Japan invaded China: 

“In the Far East we have a classic example. China is a semi-colonial country which Japan is transforming under our very eyes, into a colonial country. Japan’s struggle is imperialist and reactionary. China’s struggle is emancipatory and progressive.” 
–Leon Trotsky, “On the Sino-Japanese War” (23 September 1937)

“The working class movement cannot remain neutral between those who wish to enslave and those who are enslaved. The working class movement in China, Japan, and in the entire world must oppose with all its strength the Japanese imperialist bandits and support the people of China and their army.” 
– Leon Trotsky, “Pacifism and China” (25 September 1937) 

On the other hand, under the guise of Balikatan “military exercises” 03-1, the war-minded militarists in White House are pursuing their “second front” of military aggression here in the Philippines by “assisting and training” the blood-drenched Philippine troops in “counter-terrorist techniques” which amounts to joint military operations against so-called terrorist groups. Among those that are to be pursued upon the recommendation of the warmongers in Malakanyang, are the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing the New Peoples Army (NPA). 

By citing the MILF and the CPP-NPA along with the ASG (which was created originally by the “psychological terrorist” Intelligence Service – Armed Forces of the Philippines or ISAFP as a counter organization against the Moro National Liberation Front, MILF, and NPA) as “terrorist” groups, the bourgeois state that is headed presently by Arroyo, has now unsheathed its saber to threaten, harass, attack, and crush all the groups, organizations and supporters. If for now, these are the groups that the bourgeois state is openly attacking, rest assured that the attacks would spread to other groups that are fighting the bourgeois state and imperialist domination. In the end, these attacks will focus on the basic organizations of workers, peasants, youth, women, the Moro people and other tribal minorities.

That is why even though the program of the CPP-NPA are very different – this group is a Maoist organization that still pushes the bankrupt theory of “socialism in one country” and the nationalist, anti working class “national-democratic revolution” – from that of the RGK (proletarian internationalism, worldwide socialist revolution/workers revolutions and permanent revolution), we are still calling to defend them. On the other hand, we are calling to defend the MILF, although we do not support its politics and its call to establish an Islamic State; instead, we recognize the MILF as one of the groups that fights for an independent Mindanao as the right of the Moro peoples that were colonized by U.S. imperialism and the Philippine bourgeoisie.

The “war on terrorism” and the war against Iraq by the bourgeois state now headed by the warmonger Arroyo and U.S. imperialism now headed by the gangster Bush is only one of the keys to open the doors of the new class war that is being waged against the working class and the peoples of the Philippines and the whole world. THE ENEMY OF THE WORKING CLASS AND THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD IS NOT IRAQ, BUT THE BIGGEST TERRORIST FORCE IN THE WORLD TODAY, U.S. IMPERIALISM! In the Philippines, the enemy of the working class, peasants and all the other sectors is U.S. imperialism and the Philippine bourgeois class that holds power for over seventy years now after being granted semi-colonial “independence” by its U.S. imperialist master in 1935, and continually supported every action, decision and move its imperialist master makes.

As proletarian internationalists, we must fight this new war of aggression by the U.S. and its puppet bourgeois class now headed by Arroyo, but what will be the right program to fight it?

To date, the most popular program in the struggle against this war is through “peace” and “anti-war” mobilizations calling on the bourgeoisie and the U.S. imperialists to stop the war and to talk through the differences through peaceful means and give way to the U.N. inspectors (which is actually an intelligence gathering operation by the C.I.A.) and the U.N. itself to intervene. This kind of program is currently pushed by almost all the left posturing groups (from the Stalinists, Maoists, psuedo-Trotskyists to the outright reformists) not only here in the Philippines but even in other countries. But this kind of program is actually begging the local bourgeoisie and imperialism to be “compassionate” or “to have a human face”, that is, in essence, begging to slow down the pacing of attacks, suppressions and war on the working class and the peoples of the world. This is not compatible with the inherent character of the ruling bourgeois class and imperialism that is pushed to compete and to dominate.

The “peace” and “anti-war” program of left posturing groups is actually binding the working class and the peoples of the world to imperialism and the local bourgeois class. This kind of program also pushes the working class, peasants and other sectors especially the youth who are fed up with war and aggression by the U.S. and the local ruling class to the illusions of reformism. Reformism poisons the consciousness of the working class, its resolve to struggle against the capitalist system, and to struggle for socialism and workers revolution.

The RGK along with other genuine revolutionary Trotskyists in other countries calls for class war against this imperialist war of aggression in Iraq through working class centered actions that can lead to workers revolutions. We are also firm in our resolve that only through workers revolutions can the war of aggression of the U.S. and other imperialist countries and its local ruling class be stopped, and not through begging the bourgeoisie and imperialism to stop the war as the left-posturing groups are doing.

This class war centered on proletarian actions is calling on the working class to mobilize its inherent power – the power to stop the rolling of production – and is independent of any strains of the politics of the bourgeoisie. This includes: refusal to transport arms bound to Iraq, calling to stand for the military defense of Iraq and defeat the imperialist war of the U.S. in Iraq, and calling for workers strikes to fight the war of aggression. 

In the Philippines where the local bourgeois class is tied by a thousand strands to imperialism, the RGK calls on the working class to: 

– Call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism’s war of aggression and defend Iraq; 

– Call for the defeat of the new military campaign of suppression by the bourgeois state and intervention of foreign troops in Mindanao and other parts of the Philippines and for the defense of the struggle against the colonialist military occupation;

– Recognize the right for independence from the Philippine state of the Moro people which has been continually suppressed under Spanish rule, by the U.S. colonizing troops who carried out horrendous mass murder (such as the 1906 Jolo massacre) when they arrived over 100 years ago, and under the semicolonial Philippine state;

– For a socialist federation of workers states of Southeast Asia which could enable the genuine emancipation of myriad of peoples and national minorities of the region;

– Fight the general clamp down on security by the state through workers actions and for working-class centered self-defense to thwart the attacks of the bourgeoisie and the state.

It is important that all the actions and calls of the working class should be independent from the “anti-war” and “peace” movements by bourgeois politicians and the bourgeoisie itself since they are the class enemy. “Anti-war” groups of bourgeois politicians or capitalists (national bourgeoisie / liberal bourgeoisie / bourgeois opposition), are only against the fast and aggressive way that the war is going. It is also important to fight the schemes of the Stalinists, Maoists and other fake left groups to impose bourgeois “anti-war” politics on the working class because this only leads the working class to the poison and illusions of reformism. Such “popular fronts” only lead to defeat for the working people, as occurred in the “people’s power” movements of EDSA1 [1986, which brought down Ferdinand Marcos and replaced him with Cory Aquino as president]* and EDSA2 [2001, which replaced Joseph Estrada with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as president]. As opposed to class-collaborationist anti-war coalitions, the RGK calls for a fight against imperialist war through the mobilization of the proletariat on a revolutionary class program.

That is why it is important to build a genuine revolutionary party of the working class to ensure that the struggle of the class will be directed towards independent actions and fight imperialism and the local bourgeois class. A genuine revolutionary party will make sure that all the actions of the working class will be independent of any bourgeois and fake left actions and calls for “peace”. This will also enable the working class to stand-up for its class and struggle to wrest political power from the bourgeoisie and kick off the yoke of imperialism here in the Philippines and not just be a part of the “bourgeois / national democratic” revolution where the working class is the “horse” and the bourgeoisie is the “jockey” (like what happened to EDSA1 and EDSA2).

A genuine revolutionary-internationalist party of the working class will make sure that the struggle for the victory of the working class not just be limited in the Philippines but also in other countries especially in the imperialist countries, so that once and for all, the war between countries, the aggressions of imperialism and its local puppet ruling class against the working class and the peoples of the world, the continuous hunger and deprivation, the wanton destruction of the environment, and the 300 years of exploitation and oppression of capitalism on the working class and mankind will finally stop. The RGK as part of the international Trotskyist movement is struggling towards this. Be a part of this historical struggle. JOIN US!!

DEFEAT U.S. IMPERIALISM!! DEFEND IRAQ!!

FOR CLASS WAR CENTERED ON PROLETARIAN ACTIONS AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST WAR!!

DEFEAT THE MILITARY SUPPRESSION OF THE WORKING CLASS AND THE MORO PEOPLES IN THE PHILIPPINES!! DEFEND THE CPP-NPA AND THE MILF AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST COLONIALIST MILITARY OCCUPATION!!

FOR NEW OCTOBER REVOLUTIONS OF 1917 IN THE NEW MILLENIUM!!

FOR A GENUINE REVOLUTIONARY-TROTSKYIST PARTY IN THE PHILIPPINES, PART OF THE REFORGED 4TH INTERNATIONAL OF LEON TROTSKY!!

REBOLUSYONARYONG GRUPO NG MGA KOMUNISTA

March 24, 2003

To contact the RGK, send e-mail to: rgk7@hotmail.com