Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Apr 23, 2020):
Long live Leninism!
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today joins the international proletariat in marking the 150th birth anniversary of the great communist leader and thinker Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as guide in ideological, political and organizational building, and in leading the Filipino proletariat and people in waging class struggles and carrying out the two-stage revolution in the Philippines.
The Party has drawn from the rich theoretical treasure of Leninism. Generations of Filipino proletarian revolutionaries have studied Lenin’s work, alongside the writings of Marx, Engels, Stalin, Mao, Ho and other great communist thinkers and teachers. Lenin’s key writings, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” “State and Revolution,” “What is to be Done,” “The Two Tasks of Social Democracy,” “Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder,” “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” and others have served as theoretical guides in the practical work of the Filipino communists.
Lenin developed Leninism by applying and developing Marxism in the period of monopoly capitalism or imperialism and proletarian revolution. He opposed the revisionists of the Second International which promoted national chauvinism and class collaborationism.
He incisively analyzed the moribund state of monopoly capitalism and saw the possibility of waging revolution and building socialism in one country. He developed the strategy and tactics and practice of waging proletarian revolution. Lenin underscored the task of seizing political power as the key task in waging revolution and further developed the strategy and tactics of waging revolution.
Under Lenin’s leadership, the working class of Russia was able to triumph over tsarism and bourgeois democracy, establish a proletarian dictatorship in 1917, and usher in the new era of socialist revolution on a global scale. Under the guidance of Leninism, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics rapidly developed and modernized under which rapid advances were achieved in all aspects of society–political, cultural, educational, medical and so on. Having political power in their hands, the proletariat and people enjoyed the full benefits of the proletarian dictatorship and socialist construction.
The achievements of the proletariat in the Soviet Union were systematically dismantled starting 1956 upon the seizure of political power (both the leadership of the communist party, as well as the state apparatus) by the modern revisionists who restored capitalism through the imposition of the system of state monopoly capitalism where the social product was claimed by the state functionaries and bureaucrats. For more than half a century, Russia returned to the old profit-hungry capitalist system resulting in grave sufferings on the proletariat and people–unemployment, poverty, injustice, disease, crime and social decadence.
The lessons from the struggle against modern revisionism was encapsulated by Mao Zedong in his theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship. This theory served as guide for the Chinese proletariat in carrying out the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which for ten years successfully exposed and resisted the modern revisionists and prevented their aim of restoring capitalism in China. The overthrow of the proletarian revolutionaries in the communist party and state in China in 1977 ushered in the era of capitalist restoration. The state monopoly capitalists took advantage of the achievements of the proletariat, took over ownership and control of the vast forces of production, oppressed the workers and peasants and have aggrandized themselves as giant monopoly capitalists.
Today, the working class and toiling masses and people in China and Russia, as well as in the industrial centers and underdeveloped countries, suffer worsening forms of oppression and exploitation, as the global crisis of capitalism continues to worsen resulting in sharpening contradictions. Across the world, class struggles intensify as workers and people are rising up in great numbers against capitalist oppression, fascism, corruption, social austerity measures, environmental plunder and other aspects of the capitalist system.
We remain in the era of imperialism as defined by Lenin. The key features and contradictions of imperialism or monopoly capitalism as elucidated by Lenin remain although they have become even more sharper. Capital and wealth are getting concentrated in the hands of a fewer monopoly capitalists, intensifying capitalist competition and the resulting crisis of overproduction. Over the past decades, the crisis of global capitalism has erupted in one crisis after another, resulting in massive destruction of productive forces in the form of chronic unemployment, poverty, oversupply of capital goods, bankruptcies, and so on.
The capitalist crisis has worsened since the 2008 financial crisis and more than a decade of economic stagnation in the key industrial centers. The world economy is on the path of a further sharp downturn as a result of the production shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The working class and people around the world are bound to suffer far worse exploitation, oppression and repression, as the competition and contradictions among the monopoly capitalist intensify and their race to generate superprofits further heat up.
The objective conditions demand that the revolutionary proletarian forces consolidate and provide leadership to the working class and people in their economic and political struggles in both the industrial centers and in the far greater number of underdeveloped countries.
Amid the imperialist crisis, it is essential for revolutionary proletarian forces and cadres to study and review Lenin’s theoretical writings to guide them in their practical work of waging revolution in their countries and establishing international anti-imperialist solidarity.
Lenin’s legacy continue to remain valid. It is as relevant today as it was more than a century ago, because the monopoly capitalist parasites which fed on the proletariat and people during Lenin’s time continue to feed on the proletariat and people of the 21st century.
Guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the proletariat can strengthen and exercise leadership in the resurgence of socialist and democratic struggles across the world. With lessons from the past, the coming second wave of the socialist revolutions is bound to achieve far greater victories in the future.
Carry forward the national democratic and socialist revolutions around the world!
Long live the memory of the great communist Lenin!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
https://cpp.ph/statement/long-live-leninism/
