Message to the Jose Maria Sison Legacy Foundation on the opening of the mini-exhibit on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Kabataang Makabayan
Marco L. Valbuena, Chief Information Officer
Communist Party of the Philippines
November 30, 2024
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) extends revolutionary militant greetings to the Jose Maria Sison Legacy Foundation on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Kabataang Makabayan. The Party is elated that the JMSLF is now holding a timely mini-exhibit in The Netherlands to open the archives of Jose Maria Sison and Julie de Lima to feature some important writings which form a crucial part of the history of the Kabataang Makabayan and the revolutionary movement in the Philippines.
It is certainly auspicious that the mini-exhibit will open on the occasion of the foundation day of the Kabataang Makabayan, which Ka Joma organized and led exactly six decades ago today. It is a most fitting tribute to Ka Joma whose revolutionary leadership guided the KM in its task of arousing, organizing and mobilizing the Filipino youth and the broad masses of toiling people, with a clear historical perspective of continuing the Filipino people’s interrupted revolution for national freedom and democracy.
Through the KM, the Filipino youth were able to collectively give form to their outrage against US imperialism and the tyranny of reactionary ruling classes. They took to the streets to oppose the US wars of aggression in Korea and Vietnam, denounce the subservience of the puppet regime, condemn corruption of the rotten bureaucrat capitalist state and resist fascist oppression. They raised the banner of national democracy and put forward calls for genuine land reform, national industrialization, a scientific and mass oriented culture, people’s democracy and other urgent demands of the Filipino people.
Ka Joma, together with other proletarian cadres, infused the KM with revolutionary ideology by encouraging the youth to read and study the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other great communist thinkers, and to use these as guide in their social practice or participation in the revolutionary transformation of society. Tens of thousands of young Filipinos in the 1960s drew inspiration from Red China, which saw the rapid industrialization and modernization of the once backward country by waging a new democratic and socialist revolutions.
The KM produced a new generation of proletarian revolutionary cadres who later joined the reestablishment of the CPP in 1968. The KM activists vigorously repudiated the modern revisionist ideology and policies of the decrepit old communist-socialist merger party. The most committed activists of KM would later join the New People’s Army in 1969. In the following years, KM served as a wellspring of young proletarian cadres which kept the Party young and vibrant, and provided the NPA with a constant stream of new Red fighters and commanders, and political officers of the people’s army.
The KM was forced to go underground with the imposition of martial law in 1972 but persisted on the path of revolutionary resistance. Over the past few decades, KM continued to carry out propaganda and education among the youth to draw them to the path of national democracy. In the course of fighting and overthrowing the Marcos dictatorship, and exposing and resisting the successive pseudo-democratic regimes since 1986, the KM served as the solid core of the youth mass movement, both the student and workers youth in the cities, and the peasant youth in the countryside.
Through close to six decades now, the KM has served as an ever-reliable partner of the CPP in waging the people’s democratic revolution. It has done so by having served as one of the most vibrant schools for studying the writings of Ka Joma and shaping the commitment of the Filipino youth in his scientific outlook, revolutionary patriotism and selfless spirit of service to the Filipino people and the international proletariat.
We hope that the mini-exhibit of the JMSLF can grow and expand its reach in the coming months. Various organizations can work with the JMSLF to replicate and install the exhibit in various parts of the Philippines, and at the same time, hold discussions, lectures and other educational activities to promote Ka Joma’s writings. In doing so, they can reach and encourage more young people to become critical thinkers and active participants in the movement to overthrow imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, carry out the revolutionary transformation of the Philippines, and advance the international communist movement towards a new global resurgence.
We mark KM’s historical landmark as the Party and revolutionary movement carry out a rectification movement to overcome ideological, political and organizational errors and weaknesses, and serious setbacks in waging armed struggle and advancing the revolutionary mass movement. The CPP is currently waging a struggle against various strains of petty-bourgeois thought which have permeated and weakened the Party and caused grave setbacks, especially in the face of the all-out terrorist attacks of the fascist state under Marcos.
Let us draw inspiration from the first and second great rectification movements led by Ka Joma as we carry out a vigorous ideological struggle to strengthen the Party and revolutionary movement. The current historical circumstances put the Kabataang Makabayan and the Filipino youth in a situation of great significance, as a source of renewed vigor and revolutionary energy, in many ways similar to the role it played in the 1960s and early 1970s.
In the face of the sharpening economic and political crisis of the ruling system, the Party and Filipino people place profound trust on the revolutionary Filipino youth to march at the forefront of the people’s struggles against skyrocketing prices, low wages, massive unemployment, land grabbing and economic dislocation of the toiling masses in both the cities and countryside. The Party and people are confident that the revolutionary youth will heed the call for them to join the units of the New People’s Army and contribute all they can to spread the flames of the people’s war across the archipelago and wage armed struggle to defend the people against state terrorism, carry out land reform and build the future people’s democratic government.
To perform its historical task, the KM and the revolutionary youth must sharply identify and combat all forms of reformism, liberalism, ultrademocracy, anarchism, pseudo-radicalism and other forms of petty-bourgeois mentality that lead them away from the revolutionary path. They must rebel against social apathy and decadence and other individualist practices promoted by the imperialists through social media under the signboard of post-modernism that aim to weaken the collective strength of the youth and socially incapacitate them.
There is a pressing need to rouse revolutionary ferment and wage a cultural revolution among the Filipino youth, particularly the student intellectuals, to challenge the dominant backward ideas that help reinforce the ruling economic and political system. They can reprint and promote the writings of Ka Joma, especially the compilation of articles in the book Struggle for National Democracy and the Philippine Society and Revolution, both of which today remain relevant as they were around fifty years ago. We encourage KM to resume regular publication of Kalayaan, and circulate it widely with new critical articles that tackle the current issues of the Filipino youth and people, in order and promote widespread discussions.
More importantly, they must encourage the young intellectuals to come down from their ivory towers to ground level, to study and conduct social investigation among the toiling masses, the workers and peasants, who directly produce value and wealth, but who suffer the worst forms of poverty and hunger. As a young intellectual, Ka Joma, himself immersed among the workers and peasants, and deepened his knowledge with social practice. The current generation of young Filipinos, indeed, can learn from Ka Joma’s example.
Without a doubt, the Filipino youth are forever grateful to Ka Joma for shining light on the revolutionary path as the only guarantee to secure a bright future. Ka Joma’s writings is a boundless source of inspiration and optimism for young people in the Philippines and around the world.
In celebrating its 60th anniversary, we call on the KM to pay tribute to Ka Joma by renewing its commitment to resist imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, to fight all forms of oppression and exploitation, and to wage revolutionary struggle to break the shackles of the semicolonial and semifeudal system. By reaffirming its commitment to rally the students and young toiling people to the Red banner of national democracy and socialism, the KM will continue to serve as the historically most significant organization of the youth for generations to come.