Sison Reader

Jose Maria Sison: "Inasmuch as culture is a reflection of economics and politics, literature and art are the finest and most sensitive ideological forms for summing up social reality. We can create revolutionary literature and art only by carefully and meticulously keeping to the revolutionary stand, viewpoint and method of the class which leads the broad masses of the people in the life-and-death struggle between progress and reaction."

On the Philosophy of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism demonstrates Jose Maria Sison's comprehensive and profound knowledge of the epochal stages through which the theory and practice of the world proletarian revolution have developed. Such knowledge is well propagated among the cadres and members of the Communist Party of the Philippines. This book demonstrates Sison's excellence as a theoretician and teacher of dialectical and historical materialism as well as a communist thinker and leader who has made significant contributions to the conduct of the new democratic revolution in the Philippines and to the study of the history, circumstances and prospects of the world proletarian revolution.

Critique of Philippine Economy and Politics seeks to explain comprehensively the basic character of Philippine society and the basic problems that afflict the Filipino people, especially the toiling masses of workers and peasants. Since 1946, the US has granted nominal independence to the Philippines but has retained. US dominance over the economic, political, cultural and social life of the Filipino people. The shift has merely been from direct colonial to semicolonial or neocolonial rule The semifeudal economy has persisted. There has been no genuine land reform and national industrialization. Imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism perpetuate underdevelopment, extreme exploitation, mass unemployment and widespread poverty. About the series: The International Network is proud to present the third book of the Sison Reader Series, Critique of Philippine Economy and Politics. To follow shortly will be the fourth book on the People's Democratic Revolution..

This book focuses on the people's war being waged by the New People's Army (NPA) led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). It presents the reader with the NPA basic founding documents and my writings that reflect the NPA's growth in strength and advance from decade to decade since its founding on March 29, 1969. Waging people's war is not a purely military process. It involves the NPA taking ideological and political guidance from the CPP, integrating the armed struggle with agrarian revolution as the main content of the democratic revolution, mass base building and developing the united front mainly for armed struggle. It is a great victory for the NPA to have grown from a small and weak force of only nine automatic rifles and 26 inferior firearms shared by some 60 Red fighters in the second district of Tarlac province to thousands of Red fighters armed with high-powered rifles in more than 110 guerrilla fronts in more than 90 percent of Philippine provinces.

Sison Reader Series Book 21, People's Rights, Justice and Peace clarifies the relationship between the struggle for national sovereignty and civil rights. This involves understanding the structure of political relations and of political power in a given society. We learn that national freedom necessitates recognition and assertion of the fact of classes and organized groups within our society and within which conscious individuals exist and operate. These classes and organized groups mediate or bridge without exception the individual with the nation.

The chain of armed power in the Philippines leads to US imperialism. With this understanding, the masses have a strategic hatred for US imperialism as the presiding power. They recognize their domestic exploiters and their armed satellites are subordinated in this hierarchy of power. It is very important for people to understand how through the control of the Philippine military the US and other imperialists are able to maintain the continuing stranglehold on Philippine society through puppets and collaborators among the domestic ruling classes of compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists. Thus, the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces are required to wage the struggle for national and social liberation.

The crisis of the world capitalist system and that of the Philippine ruling system have become worse than in any period after World War II. The US-instigated policies of neoliberal globalization, state terrorism and aggressive war have wrought havoc on the lives of the people and continue to escalate oppression and exploitation. The Filipino people cannot tolerate their suffering and they are fighting back against imperialism and all reaction. The loss or erosion of livelihoods is the most concrete and widespread impact of the current crisis of the world capitalist system on people's lives, both in the advanced capitalist countries as well as in the underdeveloped countries. Despite recent pronouncements from state officials and the business press that economic recovery is in sight, the global economy continues to tumble with the gross domestic product of the leading capitalist countries still contracting, consumer spending still in decline and unemployment still rising.