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Reading Joma: a traveller's guide to revolution
Review of Volume 2: For Democracy and Socialism Against Imperialist Globalization
By Dr. Bert de Belder
9 May 2009
Reading Volume 2 of Jose Maria Sison's Selected Writings, For democracy
and socialism, against imperialist globalization, is a huge learning experience.
It's like a major refresher course in Marxism-Leninism, in Philippine history,
society and revolution, indeed in world history, society and revolution, all
in one. Most of the articles in this volume I had read before. I also had
already had the opportunity and the luck of having assisted to many an
education course or a conference given by Joma. And yet, going through
this volume, it struck me more than ever before how great a teacher Jose
Maria Sison really is.
The Professor he is, Joma's articles always follow a clear line of thought and
have a systematic approach, enabling the reader to unequivocally grasp their
meaning, whether he explains the basic characteristics of Philippine society
and revolution, the subsequent stages of revolution, the different forms of
struggle and their combination, the basic contractions in today's world or
the perspectives for the revolutionary struggle and for socialism.
Joma's writings never fail to provide concrete guidance to the people's struggle,
to which he himself is directly connected. This is illustrated by the variety of
audiences to which he addressed many of the articles in this book: protest
rallies, international conferences, the People's Assembly and Conference in
Seattle, the Brussels International Seminar and many others. His guidance
often comes in the most simple language and in a most straightforward
manner. I particularly like this one: "We must expose and oppose the evils
of imperialism. But we must also have a clear goal. This is socialism." (p.173)
Period.
More important than issues of form, Jose Maria Sison's writings are consistently
explanations and applications of the same set of basic principles that have
guided genuine revolutionaries throughout history and the world over.
"The fundamental teachings of all great communist thinkers and leaders
retain their basic validity", Joma writes (p.79). Which does not preclude,
of course, "learning well the lessons of the past and taking full account
of new conditions" (p.136).
The book encompasses an enormous wealth and variety of articles,
ranging from the general principles of the Communist Manifesto -- eloquently
synthesized in just two pages! -- to the history of Philippine revolution; from
the agricultural policies in the Soviet Union to the character of the Filipino
nationality and how to deal with national minorities; from the history of the
October Revolution and detailed descriptions of the work of Aguinaldo, Marx
and Lenin, to longer essays on how imperialism leads to war and to fascism.
As the volume covers the period from 1995 to 2000, several articles are
dedicated to the critical analysis of so-called "globalization", a term and
concept, Joma explains, that is "used by the big bourgeoisie and its
petty-bourgeois followers as a supraclass, supranational and universalist
process of irresistible all-round homogenization of the world under the
auspices of monopoly capitalism". Social Democrats, Greens, imperialist-funded
NGOs and other 'civil societeers' use the term and concept of 'globalization'
"to obscure the basic contradictions in the world capitalist system" (p.61-62).
They "gloss over the oppressive nature of the monopoly bourgeois state
and the aggressive nature of imperialism" (p.181).
In the many articles on imperialist globalization there is, unavoidably,
some repetition. Maybe these Selected Writings could have been a
bit more, well, selective. But the only major criticism I have doesn't
concern the form but the content, namely certain -- in my opinion --
exaggerated claims regarding the former Soviet Union and the People's
Republic of China. Joma continues to use the labels the Maoist movement
put on the revisionist-infested Soviet Union in the late 60s and early 70s,
such as "social-imperialist" and even "social-fascist". From what we know
now, twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those
characterisations do not appear to have been sufficiently substantiated
by facts. And I am not aware of any communist force in the former
Soviet Union or ex-Comecon countries that would corroborate them.
The labels used are neither really helpful in understanding the complex
reality of the then USSR -- whose degeneration took 35 years to result
in the full restoration of capitalism -- nor in guiding and uniting today's
international communist movement in a constructive manner.
More than ten years ago, Jose Maria Sison wrote that in China, "more
than 90 percent of the population was reduced to a miserable level
of subsistence" and that entire regions "were rapidly plunging into
lower levels of stagnation, depression and refeudalization" (p.108).
Today, without glossing over the serious challenges the country is
facing -- not the least of which is the growing inequality between
rich and poor -- these affirmations can hardly be maintained. While
the degree of capitalist relations of production existing in today's China
of course means that there is indeed a bourgeoisie and that there is
indeed exploitation, few analysts would go as far as speaking of "the
unbridled exploitation and oppression of the proletariat and people by
the imperialists and the Chinese bourgeoisie", the latter being a "comprador
big bourgeoisie" (p.87), as Joma does. I have the impression that in his
more recent writings, after another decade of breath-taking developments
in the world arena and inside China, Joma's judgment on China has become
less black-and-white.
If you approach socialism as a science, with its historical and dialectical
materialism and its political economy, as Jose Maria Sison invariably does,
it doesn't really come as a big surprise that as long as ten years ago, Joma
was already speaking of "the crisis of overproduction, accelerated by the
use of high technology and the most abusive methods of finance capitalism"
(p.58), including "the most imaginative forms of making money on money"
(p.139) and leading to "production cutbacks, mass unemployment, bankruptcies
and the use of state funds to bail out the monopolies" (p.183).
But in a dialectical way, Joma immediately adds that the"unprecedented crisis
of monopoly capitalism has laid the ground for the great struggles for national
liberation and socialism" (p.157-158). Indeed, Joma's writings never fail to
espouse revolutionary optimism -- not as a sentiment, not even as a commitment,
but with a "scientific basis in the accelerated contradiction between the forces
and relations of production under capitalism" (p.75). Joma states that "the
urgency of the socialist cause is clear because of the tremendously higher
social productivity fettered by monopoly capitalism"-- or, in other words,
because of the growing contradiction between the ever more social
character of production and the concentration of the means of production
in ever fewer hands -- "and because of the bitter consequences of imperialist
globalization ravaging the entire world". He goes on to explain that "the
struggle for socialism takes a whole historical epoch, with advances and
retreats, twists and turns", but that in any case, "the chronic crisis of
imperialism generates the conditions for the subjective forces of the
revolution to regain strength and surge forward". (p.146)
Joma wrote all this well before 9/11 gave a boost to the militarization
and fascisation of imperialism -- of which he himself became a victim, as
a branded and persecuted so-called "terrorist" -- and well before the
recent surge in the financial and economic crisis of world capitalism.
Today's world situation not just validates, but still adds to the validity
of the analyses and perspectives Joma has been advancing for years.
Jose Maria Sison's For democracy and socialism, against imperialist globalization
is certainly a book of major value for honest people of different generations
and countries who are looking for a clear orientation to lead them away
from the crisis-ridden capitalism and the crime-ridden imperialism towards
another world, a socialist world. Joma's writings are, in fact, no less than
a comprehensive traveller's guide to revolution.
Bert De Belder, International Department, Workers' Party of Belgium
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