Pingkian Vol. 5

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1
FEBRUARY 2020
pingkian
noun \piŋ-kē-ən\
1. flint
2. nom de plume of revolutionary
Emilio Jacinto
3. metaphor for struggle
PINGKIAN
Journal for Emancipatory and Anti-imperialist Education
Volume #5 Number #1
ISSN-2244-3142
Copyright© 2019 CONTEND and ILPS
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, except for brief quotations for the purpose of research or
private study, or criticism or review, without permission of the
publisher.
Editors
Gonzalo Campoamor II (University of the Philippines)
Gerry Lanuza (University of the Philippines)
Karlo Mongaya (University of the Philippines)
Geniska Ybañez (University of the Philippines)
Layout
Rai Balderama
Kristine Camille Sulit
Cover design
Tilde Acuna
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 5
Study Marx to Resist Imperialism 9

Jose Maria Sison
Marx’s commodity-fetishism 15
and the crisis of contemporary
conceptual and post-conceptual art
E. San Juan
Marx Hinggil sa Pag-aalyansa ng mga 31

Manggagawa sa Ibang Uri
at ang Komuna ng Paris:
Aplikasyon sa Pambansa-Demokratikong
Rebolusyon sa Pilipinas
Edberto Villegas
Elsewhere schooling 52
The Lumad bakwit school
in the national university*
Sarah Raymundo
The Dialectical Foundation of 59

Marx’s Sociology of Conflict:
Methodological implications
for the study of conflicts
Gerry Lanuza
CONTEND STATEMENTS 86
INTRODUCTION
THE ENDURING LEGACY OF
KARL MARX’S
REVOLUTIONARY
IDEAS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
LAST MAY 8 2018, the world celebrated the bicentennial of the greatest
revolutionary leader and thinker, Karl Marx. Karl Marx, the most vilified
thinker under capitalism, often dismissed by academic economists as mere
propagandist, was voted as the greatest philosopher in the BBC poll in 2005
besting Hume, Wittgenstein, Plato and Aristotle. “The Communist Manifes-
to” still ranks among the three most frequently assigned texts in economics in
American universities. The billionaire speculator George Soros even claims,
“Marx and Engels gave a very good analysis of the capitalist system 150 years
ago, better in some ways, I must say, than the equilibrium theory of classical
economics.” Andrew Chitty, who, at Sussex University, teaches the UK’s only
MA in Marxist philosophy, said: “But I think it’s more likely that people un-
derstand that in this increasingly capitalist world Marx gives us the best vision
with which to understand that world. Terry Eagleton, another renowned Brit-
ish Marxist literary critic remarks, “Very few thinkers, as opposed to statesmen,
scientists, soldiers, religious figures, and the like, have changed the course of
actual history as decisively as its author” (Marx’s Communist Manifesto).
Yet many claim that the history that Marx spoke is dead. It has ended with
the demise of really existing socialism in the Soviet Union, the collapse of the
Berlin Wall, and now the marketization of Chinese economy. Many critics of
Marxism and even sympathetic scholars argue that Marx failed in his economic
“prophecies”.
Yet Terry Eagleton, boldly claims, “Marxism is a critique of capitalism….

It is also the only such critique that has transformed large sectors of the globe.
It follows, then, that as long as capitalism is still in business, Marxism must be
as well.”
Marxism therefore is not yet dead. It is alive and will continue to inspire
people for as long as there is capitalism and exploitation of individuals and
destruction of environment.
In celebration of the revolutionary legacies of Marx to people’s struggle

worldwide, the Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy
(CONTEND), a progressive group of teachers and educational workers based
in the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, held a one-day
conference entitled, The Continuing Relevance of Marx’s Revolutionary Ideas
to National democratic Struggle. This modest conference gathered individuals
and scholars from various educational and non-academic institutions, local and
international, to share their experiences and reflection on the continuing rele-
vance of Marx and to the national democratic struggle of the Filipino people and
situate this struggle in the wider context of global crisis of monopoly capitalism.
The diversity of topics and themes pursued and discussed in the confer-
ence attested to the enduring relevance of Marxism to the 21st century. The
Marx@200 conference covered the following themes:
Marx and Revolutionary Theory (philosophy, epistemology, ontology, postmodernism)

Marx and the Social Sciences
Marx. Pedagogy, and the Neoliberal Reforms of Education
Marx and the Philippine Communism
Marx on Peace and Justice
Marx and the Woman Question
Marx, Sexuality, Identity Politics, and LGBTQ Struggle
Marx and the Peasant Struggle
Marx and Popular Culture
Marx and Literature
Marx and Language
Marx and Neoliberal Capitalism
Marx and the Question of Religion and Theology
Marx, Party, and Politics
Marx and Nationalism
Marx, the Workers’ Movement, and Unionism
Marx, Art and Culture Marx and Performance
Marx and Anarchism
Marx, Revolution and Education
Marx and the Colonial Question
Marx and Imperialism Today
Marx, Revolution and the Youth Movement
Marx and Mass Media
Marx in Cyberspace
Marx, Racism, Ethnicity and Indigenous People
Marx, Science and Technology
Marx and Ecology
Indeed the conference itself, and all other conferences and public for a held
worldwide, were testimonies to the revolutionary power of Marx’s ideas to guide
the oppressed people of the world against the intensifying virulence of global
monopoly capitalism using neoliberal gauntlet to pacify the restive working
classes worldwide.
The Editors of Pingkian therefore are delighted to present to the wider

audience some of the papers delivered and read during the Marx@ 200 Confer-
ence. We are presenting three papers delivered during the conference: a Marxist
critique of conceptualism in literature by a radical literary critic E. San Juan,
Jr. and the relevance of Paris Commune to Philippine revolution by a notable
Marxist thinker Ed Villegas. We are also including the two papers of Gerry M.
Lanuza on youth activism in the age of slacktivism to highlight the pedagogical
thrust of the journal, and his essay on Marxist dialectic to highlight the relevance
of Marx’s philosophical worldview. We hope that theses papers will provide
teachers, educators, students, and those interested in critical pedagogy the mate-
rials to analyze our current crisis and deploy them for social transformation. As
Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chair of the Communist Party of the Philip-
pines, wrote in Ang Bayan to celebrate the 200 years of Marx’s birth:
We are at a crucial juncture in world history, in which the parties and mass
organizations of the proletariat and the people are once more avidly studying the
teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao and grasping Marxism, Le-
ninism and Maoism as their theoretical and practical weapons in the resurgence
and renewed advance of the world proletarian revolution for national liberation,
democracy and socialism against imperialism and all reaction.
The Editors
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PINGKIAN Journal for Emancipatory and Anti-Imperialist Education
Study Marx to Resist

Imperialism
Jose Maria Sison

International League of Peoples´ Struggle
On behalf of the International League of Peoples´ Struggle,

I convey warmest greetings of solidarity to the Institute of
Political Economy and to all the participants in this study
conference to celebrate the 200th birth anniversary of Karl
Marx. I congratulate the institute for its success in organizing
this conference.
The theme of the conference correctly relates the teachings of Marx to the
current conditions of the world capitalist system and to the urgent need for
revolutionary change by the proletariat and the people: “Continuing relevance of
Marx’s teachings in social movements and their struggles”.
The study of Marxism is indispensable for understanding the current status

and crisis of global capitalism. It was Marx who first uncovered systematically
the laws of motion of capitalism, how the capitalist class extracts surplus value
from the working class in the process of social production, over-accumulates
capital and shrinks the wage fund and thereby creates the crisis of overproduction
relative to the purchasing power of the working people.
Marxism is not a fixed set of dogmas. It has been extended, developed and
applied in correspondence to the emergence and growth of free competition
10 STUDY MARX TO RESIST IMPERIALISM
capitalism to monopoly capitalism Thus, Leninism is Marxism in the era of

modern imperialism and proletarian revolution. Further, Marxism-Leninism has
been further extended, developed and enriched by Maoism in the face of modern
revisionism and the danger of capitalist restoration in socialist countries.
The topics lined up for discussion in your study conference cover two
necessary points: first, the correct analysis of global capitalism that lays the
ground for changing the world and second, the process of changing the world
to what is fundamentally better for humankind, socialism, through the anti-
imperialist and democratic struggle of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples.
You start on the correct track by analyzing the role of investment liberalization
and its impact on labor and production. The limits of abusing monopoly finance
capital in order to override the recurrent and worsening crisis of overproduction
and continue profit-making and the accumulation of superprofits are exposed by
the excessive and unrepayable debts at the level of households, corporations and
central banks. Since the financial meltdown of 2008, the economic and financial
experts of the capitalist powers have been unable to overcome the prolonged
stagnation and depression of the global economy.
The unbridled abuse of investment liberalization has been in combination

with labor flexibilization and global subcontracting. The rapid overaccumulation
of capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie has been at the expense of
the working class which has been subjected to deprivation of job security, to
wage freezes and to violation of trade union and other democratic rights. But the
blowback is the now prolonged stagnation and depression of the global economy.
The monopoly capitalists have been able to manipulate to their advantage

the reserve army of labor on a global scale and in nearly every country in the
world. Moreover, they have used global subcontracting and outsourcing as well
as compelling labor migration from the underdeveloped and impoverished
countries to attain more intensified forms of exploitation by migrant workers
who are deprived of democratic rights and are easier subjected to the worst forms
of exploitation.
The adoption of higher technology, from the electro-mechanical processes

of the industrial revolution to the current digital age of speedier systems of
production and distribution, has enabled the unprecedented acceleration of
JO.SE MARIA SISON 11
the concentration and accumulation of monopoly capital, the higher organic

composition of capital and diminution of wage income. It has led to the now
severe economic and financial crisis and the prolonged depression of the global
capitalist economy. As Marx pointed out a long a time ago, capitalism creates the
conditions and diggers for its own burial.
Monopoly capitalism profits much from the cheap labor of the migrant
workers. And the migrants who suffer from separation from their homelands and
families are subjected to further suffering by being deprived of democratic rights
and fair wages and being subjected to xenophobic, racist and fascist movements.
But they are driven to seek international solidarity with their fellow migrant
workers and the workers in the host countries.
The monopoly bourgeoisie makes all attempts at mass distraction to conceal

or obscure the root causes of capitalist exploitation, socioeconomic crisis,
political crisis, social discontent, disorder and wars of aggression, with outright
reactionary propaganda as well as opportunism, reformism and revisionism .
But the global workers’ movement perseveres in struggle against the evils
of monopoly capitalism under the leadership of Marxist-Leninist parties which
uphold the red banner of proletarian internationalism and inspire the proletarian-
socialist revolution in the world and in particular countries.
Contrary to its claims of developing the whole world under imperialist

neoliberal globalization. monopoly capitalism has generated grossly uneven
development, further enriching a few imperialist countries and impoverishing the
majority of countries supplying cheap labor and cheap raw materials. Ín many
underdeveloped countries of the world, where there are still significant vestiges
of feudalism persisting. The working class and its revolutionary party strive to
lead and generate the revolutionary peasant movement and the struggle for land
reform.
They build the basic alliance of the working class and peasantry and ensure
the mass mobilization of the overwhelming majority of the people, win over the
urban petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie, and take advantage of the
splits among the reactionary classes in order to isolate and destroy the power
of the enemy, which is the most reactionary force and most servile to foreign
monopoly capitalism.
12 STUDY MARX TO RESIST IMPERIALISM
There are huge sectors of society, such as the women and youth who if
aroused, organized and mobilized like the basic exploited basic classes to take the
revolutionary road can accelerate the advance of the revolutionary movement and
the downfall of any regime or even the entire ruling system.
The broad masses of the people have suffered for so long from the US-
instigated neoliberal policy of unbridled greed since the onset of the 1980s and
from the neoconservative policy of stepping up war production and continuous
wars of aggression since the full restoration of capitalism in the revisionist-ruled
countries and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But such policies have also been far more costly than profitable to the US
and has accelerated its strategic decline despite the passing phase of the US having
become the sole superpower in a unipolar world from the end of the bipolar world
of the Cold War in the 1991 upon the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, it has become obvious that the US
has undermined its own global dominance by having financialized its economy
and conceded consumer manufacturing to China and squandering at least USD
5.6 trillion in its wars of aggression. Now, there is conspicuously a multipolar
world in which the US increasingly finds itself unable to decide global issues
unilaterally and dictate on other capitalist powers.
The rise of new imperialist powers like China and Russia is aggravating the
crisis of global capitalism. The inter-imperialist contradictions sharpen as the US
tries to stop its strategic decline from the peak or primacy of the sole superpower
and the new imperialist powers strive to obtain dominance. The intensification
of the inter-imperialist contradictions are bringing about worse conditions of
economic and financial crisis, oppression and exploitaion and wars of aggression.
The broad masses of the people can never accept these conditions which inflict
on them terrible and intolerable suffering. We are in a period of transition in which
interimperialist contradictions and the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary
currents are escalating. The economic crises and wars of global capitalism are
pressing on the revolutionary proletariat and broad masses of the people to fight
back.
JO.SE MARIA SISON 13
We are therefore moving in the direction of the global resurgence of the

revolutionary forces of the people and the advance of the movements for national
liberation, democracy and socialism against imperialism, revisionism and reaction.
We are living in an increasingly turbulent world of crises, social disorder and wars.
But the proletariat and people in the traditional and new imperialist
countries and in the less developed and underdeveloped countries are resisting
imperialism and reaction through various forms of social movements and
revolutionary struggles. We are once more on the eve of great social upheavals and
great revolutionary victories on an unprecedented scale in the people´s struggle
for greater freedom, democracy and socialism against imperialism and all reaction.
Long live the memory and legacy of Karl Marx!

Long Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Carry forward the Philippine revolution!
Contribute ro the advance of the world proletarianrevolution!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
JOSE MARIA SISON also known by his nickname Joma, is a Filipino writer and
activist who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines and added elements
of Maoism to its philosophy. He applied the theory of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism on Philippine history and current circumstances.
Marx’s commodity-
fetishism and the crisis of
contemporary conceptual and
post-conceptual art
E. San Juan Jr.
IN SOTHEBY’S CONTEMPORARY art auction in November

2013, avant-garde art has confirmed its absorption by the market
with the $104.5 million sale of Andy Warhol’s 1963 “Silver
Car Crash (Double Disaster)”. In 2007, Warhol’s “Green Car
Crash” is sold for $1.7 million, proof that the aura of the name
is dictating market value, with the subject or content of the art
work that is adding enough differentia specifica to mark its
historical period or milieu. In the past, Francis Bacon’s “Three
Studies of Lucien Freud” is sold for $142.4 million, while
Gerhard Richter’s abstract “A.B. Courbet” is sold for $26.4
million, and Cy Twombly’s “Poems to the Sea” (1959 drawings)
is sold for 21.6 million (New York Times 2013). The earlier
commodification of cubist art (Picasso, in particular) has been
diagnosed by John Berger (1989; see also Raphael 1980).
Commodification seems to have climaxed in a species of trading rituals

involving postmodern art, including both “conceptual” and “post-conceptual”
species. Exchange-value (embodied in money as cause) has displaced use-
value (now conceived as effect). At the outset, the term “conceptual art” offers
16 MARX’S COMMODITY-FETISHISM AND THE CRISIS OF CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTUAL AND POST...
a conundrum, since it is not clear what concept is referred to or whether the

term designates the artist’s intention that has not been necessarily fulfilled or
carried out (Smith 1994; Godfrey 1998). A metalepsis seems to have occurred.
Art generates the concept (telos or universal significance) instead of the concept
engendering the performative, linguistic/discursive, visual practice (vision or
intuition).
In 1973, the “dematerialization of the art object” from 1966 to 1972 has
been documented by the critic Lucy Lippard. It has been inaugurated by Marcel
Duchamp’s ‘readymades’. With this gesture, Peter Osborne asserts, “art changed
its focus from the form of language to what was being said” that is changing
the nature of art by focusing not on morphology, structure, or medium, but on
function—from ‘appearance’ to conception. Osborne further notes that “all art
(after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually”
(2002, 13). The idea/intention/concept pre-empts its hypothetical realization.
The epochal transformation initiated by Duchamp has abolished the

categorical distinction between creative artifice and natural, objects that are
found in nature and everyday life. Minimalism has further destroyed traditional
barriers and conventions. Performance art has reconceptualized the art-object
as an act or event being constituted through and disappearing into time that
is sustaining itself at the level of its motivating agenda. No longer can art be
confined to its visual or spatial experience and pleasure attached to the medium
or vehicle. Following the break-up of formalist modernism, minimalism has
followed after with Sol Lewitt’s 1967 manifesto, “Paragraphs on Conceptual
Art”.
Osborne summarizes the lineages of negation characterizing conceptual art

and its aftermath as follows:
1. The negation of material objectivity as the site of the identity

of the artwork by the temporality of ‘ intermedia’ acts and events;
2. The negation of medium by a generic conception of ‘objecthood,’
made up of ideal systems or relations;
3. The negation of the intrinsic significance of visual form by
a semiotic, or more narrowly, linguistically based conceptual
content; and
E. SAN JUAN JR. 17
4. The negation of established modes of autonomy of the artwork

by various forms of cultural activism and social critique.
(Osborne 2002, 18)
It is the last negation that generates art-oriented activities intervening into

everyday life in order to transform socio-political structures. In this process,
alternative or subaltern ideological positions are explored, analyzing and defining
the relations of power at play in all cultural institutions; in particular, the
appropriative mechanisms of the museum and the market. Social and political
critique ensues from the practice of diverse forms of conceptualist experiments,
procedures, and historically defined forms.
Consequences of dematerialization
As early as 1970, Mel Bochner, one of the practitioners of “conceptual

art”, has questioned the epithet’s ambiguity and lack of precision. In any case,
the rubric “conceptual art” has been used to cover the works created by artists
such as Sol Lewitt, Robert Smithson, Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner, Bruce
Naumann, and others during its apogee and crisis in the years 1966 to 1972
(Godfrey 1998). While Kosuth proposed that conceptual art defines itself by
questioning the nature of art, Lewitt has posited its essence to be found in “the
idea or concept” which becomes “a machine that makes the art” (1967), the
concept itself subsuming the planning and decision-making that enable the
execution of the art-work.
Lewitt’s pronouncements have become so scriptural that a popular Dictionary

of Theories ascribes conceptual art as a “cerebral approach” championed by
Lewitt in 1967 as a reaction against postwar formalistic art. Since the concept
or idea becomes paramount in the artistic process, “the planning and concept
are decided beforehand, but the end result is intuitive and without recognizable
purpose” (Bothamley 1993, 108–9). Why and how do we explain this shift of
aesthetic concern from the material embodiment of art-ideas to the ideas/notions
themselves? One answer is provided by Marx’s theory of commodity-fetishism
and its further elaboration in Marxist-Leninist thought.
Marx’s theory of reification
In the initial chapters of Capital, volume 1, Marx delineated the two aspects
of the mysterious entity—the commodity. The use-value of commodity refers

to the utility of the product and its realization in the act of consumption. Its
twin aspect, the exchange-value, only manifests in the process of exchange in
the market where the deposited quantity of labor-time expended in producing
the product—the form of value—is recognized. Its “metaphysical subtleties
and theological niceties” inheres in the fact that “the social character of men’s
labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of
that labor” so that the social relations among producers appear then as relations
among the products/commodities. In short, “definite social relation between
men… assume, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things”
(Marx 1978, 320–21).
What lesson is conveyed by Marx’s insight? In producing any useful thing

that is exchanged, the objective value of that thing is ideal, a suprasensible notion
translated into price, whereby private labor appears as part of social total-labor.
The commodity’s abstract ideal property (exchange value), however, appears as
if it is an objective, socio-natural property of the object itself, embedded in the
product. Thus social relations between people assume a phantasmagorical form
of relations between things, ‘social hieroglyphs’ (Osborne 2005, 15). Something
purely social, exchange value, conceals itself in the product, generating social
illusions found in religion, ideologies, and various mystifying practices—the
rationale of the hegemonic neoliberal political economy devastating the world
today.
How do we escape from this fetishized world based on historically varied

exploitation of labor-power? Marx responds,
The religious reflections of the actual world can vanish only

when the practical relations of everyday life between people,
and between humanity and nature, present themselves in a
transparent and rational form. The social life-process, which is
based on the material process of production, does not strip off
its mystical veil until it becomes production by freely associated
men and women, and stands under their conscious and planned
control. (Marx 1976, 173)
Art as a form of religious thinking draws its power from the exchange-value it
E. SAN JUAN JR. 19
commands as illustrated earlier. In order to suppress this potential, conceptualists

strive to eliminate the concrete embodiment (various media or performance) of
the artists’ intention, including the situations or places where they customarily
occur (museums, galleries, etc.). Those sites/situations are transvalued, negated,
and sublimated. But paradoxically, these do not create transparent, rational
arrangements; since the whole transaction of learning, judging, and appreciating
the art-idea still transpire in a capitalist, profit-dominated society. Ironically, the
motivation-idea becomes a value to be communicated or exchanged. While art-
as-commodity may be transcended intentionally, the artist remains anchored and
circumscribed in a world of alienated institutions and practices governed by the
profit-motive capital accumulation. The conceptualist remains a victim of this
illusion, his desire for knowledge free from object-attachment is left unsatisfied
due to the inescapable reality of his reified, commodified milieu (Wood 1996).
Aesthetic discipline
Before venturing further into nomenclature and examples, it might be

illuminating to review the field of aesthetics and, with it, the theory of art.
Art and aesthetics need to be differentiated. The former is dealing with the
object produced or created, and the latter with the experience and knowledge
of the art-object. Ultimately, however, with the postmodern interrogation of
the concept of art—in both the ontological and phenomenological senses—
the two aspects coalesce in the conceptualist revision. Whether such a result is
helpful in clarifying both aspects remains to be resolved. Meanwhile, a historical
investigation into the status of the art-object as a distinctive category might be
useful in this brief inquiry.
Foregoing a complete history of the origin of aesthetics from classical

antiquity up to the Renaissance, we may begin with German philosophical
idealism. Aesthetics comes from the Greek word aesthesis, meaning perception
or sensation. It is first theorized by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in 1750 as
“the science of sensory knowledge or cognition,” whose aim is beauty, not truth.
It is later elaborated by Kant as “the science of the rules of sensibility in general”
which is concerned with the a priori principles of sensible experience. In Thomistic
aesthetics, the intuitive knowledge of the sensible is grounded in intellectual
judgment as knowledge of the universal. The artistic criteria of integritas,
consonantia, and claritas are abstract ideas mediating the comprehension of the
sensibles (Eco 1988).
In his Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant has posited aesthetics as involved

with the subjective feeling of pleasure and pain; hence aesthetic judgments pertain
to the subject, not the object represented. The beautiful is tied with disinterested
pleasure, a judgment of taste based on immediate intuition without a concept.
Kant argues that “Beauty is the formal aspect of purposiveness, insofar as it is
perceived in the objectified without the representation of purpose... [T]hat which
is generally pleasing, without a concept, is beautiful” (quoted by Guttman 1963,
18). In effect, conceptualists reject this aesthetic speculation about beauty as
meaningless. Formal purposiveness without purpose—this axiom has established
the privileged autonomy of art which is prevailed up to Clement Greenberg’s
pontifications on abstract expressionism.
Two additions to Kant may be cited here. First, Schelling has proposed the
romantic theme of beauty as “the Infinite infinitely presented,” while Hegel is
said to have summed up the classic traditional thinking in his view that ‘Beauty’
equals ‘Idea’ wherein beauty is the sensuous manifestation of the idea. The
beautiful, however, is nothing, unless it is externalized or mediated in the work
of art , wherein the beholder’s and the artist’s minds encounter each other. The
idea then is the content of the art-work in its dynamic historical evolution. In the
nineteenth century, the psychological approach has dominated the investigations
of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Herbart, and Fechner, by which the latter has been
inaugurating the empirical-experimental approach to aesthetics. This is followed
by Theodor Lipps’ notion of empathy, with esthetic enjoyment conceived as
‘objectivized self-enjoyment,’ an inner imitation of artistic creation. With
Benedetto Croce, the idealist line of speculation culminates in art as intuitive
activity, an expression of inwardness eluding the screen of formal mediation.
Hegelian articulation
Meanwhile, Hegel has emphasized the philosophical function of art as

a vehicle of reason in quest of universals realized in history. While Hegel has
believed art to furnish “the sensuous semblance of the idea,” for Croce, universals
and history disappear. Croce reduces art into lyrical intuition, separated from the
phenomenal contingent world, pure intuition whose modes of expression exists
in the artist’s mind. The actualization of this intuition is secondary; expression
E. SAN JUAN JR. 21
and communication do not affect the value of the unreflected intuition.

Unconcerned with the play of imagination or the immediacies of feeling, Croce
has absolutized intuition as a complex blend of idea, image, and expression whose
singularity, however, resists philosophical generalization (Richter 1994, 145).
Croce’s expression theory complements the formalist stress on essential form in
Clive Bell, Roger Fry, I.A. Richards, and their American counterparts in the
New Criticism. Whether the naturalism of John Dewey’s theory of art as intense
experience can be reconciled with Croce, this is still a debatable proposition.
Aesthetics as an inquiry into normative concepts and values regarding beauty

may have given way to the modern interest in a descriptive and factual approach
to the phenomena of art (production and reception) and aesthetic experience.
Beauty is now construed as an effect of form, of discursive signifying practice.
One can mention Charles Morris’ idea of art as iconic symbol of value, as well
as Susanne Langer’s conception of art as the symbol or expressive form, whereby
emotions are rendered apprehensible in their formal embodiments or styles. Both
thinkers are anathema to conceptualism.
Historicizing form
Together with beauty and the sublime, the ideal of autonomy and artistic
genius have dissolved with the age of mechanical reproduction. Walter Benjamin
has dealt a fatal blow to the norm of authenticity; the ‘Here’ and ‘Now’ of the
original is constantly being destroyed by capitalism. Besides the formal properties
that authenticate the art-work, the contents of art (idealistic content-aesthetics)
have suffered the impact of contingency, chance or accident, entropy, the
inexorable incursions of the unpredictable. Art is not timeless but changeable,
subject to the process of becoming. Hegel’s “bad conscience” implies that art is
never for itself but requires, in fact, demands the exegesis and interpretation of
others outside the artist. Art’s truth-content cannot be fully exhausted by any
single hermeneutic organon. Since interpretations are open and endless, all art is
subjected to the historicity and mutability of standards, and criteria of judgment
(Morawski 1974).
In this new catastrophic period of triumphalist globalism, the issue of

materialist aesthetics appears not only as anachronistic but also as perverse
joke. Except those fashioned for immediate use-value (for therapy, etc.), all art
in capitalism has become a commodity (exchange-value), as being attested by

the auctions enumerated earlier. And since Marxist revolutionaries have become
obsolete if not rare today, aesthetics has become the preserve of museum curators,
academic experts/shamans, and pseudo-theologians attached to art galleries and
auction houses. Except for Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, John Berger, and
the late Polish philosopher Stefan Morawski, no serious Marxist thinker has
devoted a wholesale engagement with the theory of art with aesthetic criticism
and inquiry.
Indeed, in a 1983 international conference on “Marxism and the

Interpretation of Culture,” Michelle Barrett has bewailed the lack of adequate
discussion of aesthetic pleasure and value among various tendencies in the left.
Given the vogue of poststructuralist textualism and postmodernist nominalism,
aesthetics is overshadowed by or subsumed in discourses on ideology,
representation, and the deconstruction of the subject. Nature and objective
reality have been cancelled out to give room to the floating signifier, differance,
relativism, and contingency. Henceforth, the “free play” of the liberated signifier
would call the shots. Subjectivity, or subject- positions, becomes reduced to
simulacra, aporia, or undecidables wholly vulnerable to infinite semiosis that are
interminable sequence of interpretations without any conclusion.
But this chaos has not discouraged Barrett from giving self-confident
judgments. She has nonchalantly dismissed vulgar concerns about art’s “truth”
and social relevance; because the meanings of art works are not immanent but
constructed “in the consumption of the work” (1988, 702). Readers/spectators
actively co-create the meaning and significance of the art-work. Contrary to the
orthodox ideas about typical characters and organic form, Barrett holds that
ideological content and political implications are not given in the art-work but
are effects or constructions by readers/audiences, an assertion justified within
the framework of a reader-response/reception aesthetics. This position is clearly
symptomatic of the move of Barrett’s cohort towards a more open-ended,
adventurist, innovative stance, rejecting not only reflectionist theory (Lukacs;
Goldman) but also interventionist approaches (Gramsci; Sartre). But what
exactly do we mean by a Marxist approach to aesthetics as a mode of distributing
the sensible (Ranciere 2004)?
E. SAN JUAN JR. 23
Interrogating the messenger
In the wake of the poststructuralist transvaluation of texts, the ceaseless

play of differance of the unchoreographable dance of signifiers, which one may
interpret as a historically specific reaction in the Western milieu to dogmatist
leftism in its various manifestations—economistic, sectarian, mechanical,
empiricist, etc.—I would like to reaffirm once more the occluded yet irrepressible
matrix of art in the Marxist concept of praxis and political struggle based on
Marx’s insight into commodity-fetishism. Enunciated by Marx in Theses on
Feuerbach and The Eighteenth Brumaire in particular, this inscription of the
aesthetic in transformative action I would call as the “Leninist moment,” the
hegemonic or ethico-political crux in Marxist critical theory. Let us explore
its relevance to understanding the politics of conceptualist writing, as the
original intent of conceptual artists which has been democratic, subversive, and
revolutionary. Not only have art and its institutions are converted by them into a
field of negotiation in order to link these with the everyday politics of bourgeois
society; they have rebelled against the fetishization of art and its systems of
production and distribution. But as Benjamin Buchloh (2006) has observed,
Pop art and other postconceptualists achieved a “liberal reconciliation” and
compromise of high art and mass culture. A test-case can be offered here in the
controversial performance of canonical ‘uncreative’ writer Kenneth Goldsmith.
On 13 March 2015, in the program interrupt3 sponsored by Brown

University, Goldsmith has performed a 30-minute reading of the official St. Louis
County autopsy report on “The Body of Michael Brown.” Brown is an 18-year-old
black man fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in August
2014. The first report has stated that Goldsmith has introduced his poem as
“something to do with quantified self,’ but an artist Faith Holland remarked that
Goldsmith has rearranged the original text, focusing on the description of the
Cranial Cavity in the line “The weight of the unfixed brain is 1350 gm,” with the
poem ending in the line “The remaining male genitalia system is unremarkable”
(Steinhauer 2015). What immediately came is an avalanche of negative responses,
such as “Goldsmith appropriates Michael Brown’s murdered body, reframed as
his poetry, and retweets the angry reactions. A troll with tenure.”
Death threats have ensued, prompting Goldsmith to apologize for the pain
he has caused, asking Brown University to withhold the video of his performance.
C.A. Conrad summed up the outrage in quoting the poet Anne Waldman’s
comment: “What was Kenny Goldsmith thinking? That it’s okay to self-appoint
and perform the autopsy report of murdered black teenager Michael Brown and
mess with the text, and so “own” it and get paid for his services? No empathy
no sorrow for the boy, the body, the family, ignorant of the ramifications, deaf
ear to the explosive demonstrations and marches? Reeks of exploitation, of the
‘racial imaginary’, Black Dada Nihilismus is lurking on the lineaments of the
appropriated shadow of so much suffering” (Conrad 2015).
Anatomy of an inquest
What seems on trial here are the central techniques of the allegorical gesture
of appropriating a pre-existing object or text, and the procedure of montage. True
to his previous practice of copying and reproducing raw materials—eyewitness
reports from radio/television broadcasts, as shown in his 2013 book, Seven
American Deaths and Disasters, Goldsmith tries to prove that an inflammatory
material, handled in a certain way, can “provoke outrage in the service of a social
cause”. His Facebook entry reveals the “idea” or motivating principle behind the
import of information:
I took a publicly available document from an American tragedy that was

witnessed first-hand (in this case by the doctor performing the autopsy)
and simply read it. Like Seven American Deaths and Disasters, I did
not editorialize; I simply read it without commentary or additional
editorializing… The document I read from is powerful. My reading of
it was powerful. How could it be otherwise? Such is my long-standing
practice of conceptual writing, like Seven American Deaths, the
document speaks for itself in ways that an interpretation cannot. It is a
horrific American document, but then again it was a horrific American
death… I indeed stated at the beginning of my reading that this was a
poem called The Body of Michael Brown; I never stated,” I am going to
read the autopsy report of Michael Brown’… That said, I didn’t add or
alter a single word or sentiment that did not pre-exist in the original
text, for to do so would be to go against my nearly three decades’ practice
of conceptual writing, one that states that a writer need not write any
new texts but rather reframe those that already exist in the world to
greater effect than any subjective interpretation could lend. Perhaps
people feel uncomfortable with my uncreative writing, but for me, this
is the writing that is able to tell the truth in the strongest and clearest
E. SAN JUAN JR. 25
way possible… Ecce homo. Behold the man… (quoted in Flood 2015)
Evidently, in quest of the truth via reframing, the poet’s ethics becomes
muddled in defending his habit. Contradicting his testimony that he has not
editorialized, Goldsmith has added that he has “altered the text for poetic effect;
he has translated medical terms into plain English and narrativized the words
“in ways that made the text less didactic and more literary”. Goldsmith claims
that he has acted normally for an artist: “People behave very badly in the art
world, but it’s what pushes boundaries and makes discussion” (Wilkinson 2015).
A group called Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo has called Goldsmith’s
conceptual poetry as “building blocks of white supremacy.”
Despite the conceptualist emphasis on context, sites, and situations,

Goldsmith has failed to recognize the socio-political parameter of his
performance and the institutional constraints of the information being moved.
Concepts are historically grounded and mobilized/immobilized. Instead of
animating the fragments of copied texts, or satirizing them as quantifying modes,
Goldsmith in “The Body of Michael Brown” has evoked the “rigid immanence
of the Baroque” devoid of any anticipatory, utopian sense of historical time,”
and fixed by an attitude of melancholic, awed contemplation. His montage
technique of fragmenting and juxtaposing depleted signifiers has mimicked the
fabrication of sold commodities. Thus, instead of rescuing the possible elements
of communicative value in the report (for example, the excessive shooting that
has been inflicted on the victim’s body), Goldsmith has allegorized his act of
“uncreative” composition by accentuating the ethnic/racial resonance of the
anatomical catalogue. Walter Benjamin has presciently described the collage/
montage aesthetics underlying conceptualist works: “The devaluation of objects
in allegory is surpassed in the world of objects itself by the commodity. The
emblem returns as commodities” (Buchloh 2006, 29). Goldsmith has repeated
and reinforced the instrumentalist devaluation enacted by the state, repudiating
the classic avant-garde practitioner’s anti-conformist, anarchist stance.
Revenge of the immaterial
Marx’s concept of commodity-fetishism exposes the irony in the post-

Duchampian, conceptualist program of dematerialization. Goldsmith’s
“uncreative” alteration of the “ready-made” does not issue into “immaterial”
creativity. On the contrary, it has materialized a racialized foregrounding
of semantic features otherwise buried in scientific, empirical discourse

instrumentalized by the state. As Boris Groya has noted, the conceptual artist’s
submission to the art institution (usually under academic patronage) and its
commodifying hegemony is symptomatic of the failure of avant-garde movements
in their avowed aims. What happens is the triumph of alienated abstract labor
over non-alienated creative work so that, as Groys notes, “It is this alienated labor
of transporting objects combined with the labor invested in the construction
and maintenance of art spaces that ultimately produces artistic value under the
conditions of post-Duchampian art.”
The crisis of conceptualism originates from the stoic acceptance of unity

of opposites— marketed art produced by the culture industry enabling the
sophisticated elite culture of the oligarchy. In 1979, Adrian Cristobal, a Filipino
bureaucrat-spokesman for the Marcos authoritarian regime has argued that mass
culture serves profit-making big business, while the state sponsors its opposite,
humanist culture. Amid widespread human-rights violations committed by state
agencies, Cristobal pays homage to the dictator and his wife:
One sees and one appreciates the role of the First Lady in her sponsorship
of such ventures as the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Folk Arts
Theater, the Metropolitan Theater and all other similar ventures. For
these are, in the main, institutions designed to deliver that redeeming
humanist culture to the people. A point of view no doubt shared by the
President himself who is, in his own right, a competent writer and more
than this, himself a contribution to the development of a truly national
culture. (Cristobal 1979)
The humanist culture so highly extolled here coincides with the religious
imagination, the realm of illusions, which is the antithetical reflex of the world
of commodities in ‘the heartless world’; this is invoked by Marx’s double-edged
praise and rejection of the people’s opium:
“Religion is, in fact, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who

has either not yet gained himself or has lost himself again... It is the
fantastic realization of the human being because the human being has
attained no true reality... The wretchedness of religion is at once an
expression of and a protest against real wretchedness. Religion is the sigh
of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul
of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people… The abolition of
E. SAN JUAN JR. 27
religion as the illusory happiness of the people is a demand for their true
happiness. The call to abandon illusions about their conditions is the call
to abandon a condition which requires illusions... (Marx 1970, 131).
Here, Marx grasps the superstructure (religion) not as epiphenomena but as

integral element of an all-pervasive social practice. Religion, like art, subsists on
the fixation with illusions. In conceptualizing the contradictory relation between
intellectual objectification and social reality, Marx has laid the groundwork for
the active, dynamic, and creative intervention of transformative agents, such as
artists and intellectuals fully cognizant of the power of fetishize objects, beliefs,
practices, and institutions.
One conclusion emerges from this brief survey of the nodal stages in the
vicissitudes of Marxist critical theorizing on the politics of aesthetics—without
the focus on the moment of praxis, the artist’s or critic’s intervention in the
concrete arena of political struggle for hegemony, any reflection on the nature
of art and its function will compulsively repeat the metaphysical idealism (Kant,
Hegel, Croce) it seeks to overcome. It is in the arena of political and ideological
conflict that consciousness is grasped in its overdetermined trajectory as a complex
of material practices functioning in conserving or disintegrating a determinate
conjuncture, a lived situation. The problematic dialectic of conceptualist writing
as previously discussed is an example of such a conjuncture. Without positing
this moment of rupture or opening for intervention, we shall reproduce the
predicament of the bourgeois intellectual that progressive thinkers such as Brecht
Lukas (San Juan 1973), Gramsci, Caudwell, Berger, and others (Arvon 1973;
Laing 1978) have acutely diagnosed—the division of mental and manual labor;
the antinomy between subject and object, society and individual, nature and
history, which revolutionary practice hopes to gradually and eventually resolve
despite the mistakes made by avant-garde artists, lacking in totalizing vision and
dynamic praxis of intellectuals working in the Marxist tradition.
References
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Barrett, Michele. 1988. “The place of aesthetics in Marxist criticism.” In Marxism
and the interpretation of culture. edited by Lawrence Grossberg and Cary Nelson.
Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Berger, John. 1989. The success and failure of Picasso. New York: Pantheon Books.
Bothamley, Jennifer. 1993. Dictionary of theories. London: Gale Research

International Ltd.
Buchloh, Benjamin. 2006. “Allegorical procedures: Appropriation and montage in
contemporary art.” In Art after conceptual art, edited by Alexander Alberro and Sabeth
Buchmann. Vienna: Generali Foundation.
Caudwell, Christopher. 1937. Illusion and reality. New York: International
Publishers.
Conrad, CA. 2015. “Kenneth Goldsmith says he is an outlaw.” Poetry Foundation.
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2015/06/kenneth-
goldsmith-says-he-is-an-outlaw.
Cristobal, Adrian. 1979. “Mass culture also means big business.” Sunday Times
Journal 12 (N.a.) November 25.
Eco, Umberto. 1988. The aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press.
Flood, Alison. 2015. “US poet defends reading of Michael Brown autopsy report as
a poem.” The Guardian (United Kingdom), March 17
Godfrey, Tony. 1998. Conceptual Art. London: Phaidon Press.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1957. The modern prince and other writings. New York:
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Groys, Boris. 2010. “Marx after Duchamp, or the artist’s two bodies.” e-flux journal,
no. 19. Retrieved from: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/19/67487/marx-after-duchamp-
or-the-artist-s-two-bodies/.
Guttmann, James, ed. 1963. Philosophy A to Z. New York: Grosset and Dunlap.
Jameson, Fredric. 1971. Marxism and form. Princeton: Princeton University.
Laing, David. 1978. The Marxist theory of art. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Lenin, Vladimir Ilych. 1967. On literature and art. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Lukacs, Georg. 1970. Writer and critic. London: Merlin Press.
Macherey, Pierre. 1978. A Theory of literary production. London: Routledge.
Marx, Karl. 1976. Capita volume 1. Translated by Ben Fowkes. New York: Penguin.
---. 1978. The Marx-Engels reader. Edited by Robert Tucker. New York: Norton.
Morawski, Stefan. 1974. Inquiries into the fundamentals of aesthetics. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Mulhern, Francis. 1974. “The Marxist aesthetics of Christopher Caudwell.” New
Left Review 85: 37―58. Retrieved from: https://newleftreview.org/issues/I85/articles/
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The New York Times. 2013. “Grisly Warhol painting fetches $104.5 million, auction
high for artist.” (New York), November 14. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.
com/2013/11/14/arts/design/grisly-warhol-painting-fetches-104-5-million-auction-high-
for-artist.html
Osborne, Peter, ed. 2002. Conceptual art. New York: Phaidon Press.
---. 2005. How to Read Marx. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
E. SAN JUAN JR. 29
Raphael, Max. 1980. Proudhon, Marx, Picasso. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Richter, David H. 1994. “Croce, Benedetto.” In The Johns Hopkins guide to literary
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Steinhauer, Jillian. 2015. “Kenneth Goldsmith remixes Michael Brown autopsy
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Nelson and Richard Shiff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
30
Marx Hinggil sa Pag-aalyansa

ng mga Manggagawa sa Ibang
Uri at ang Komuna ng Paris:
Aplikasyon sa Pambansa-Demokratikong
Edberto M. Villegas
SUSURIIN NG PAG-AARAL na ito kung paano ginagamit

sa pagsulong ng pambansa-demokratikong rebolusyon sa
Pilipinas ang mga analisis ni Karl Marx tungkol sa pag-
aalyansa ng uring manggagawa sa ibang uri. Ang unang bahagi
ay maglalahad muna ng maiksing bakgrawnd ng tunggalian
ng mga uri sa France at tungkol sa Komuna ng Paris ng 1871
na naganap sa panahon ni Marx. Ang analisis ni Marx sa
mga pangyayaring ito ay mababasa sa tatlong akda niya: Ang
Tunggalian ng Mga Uri sa France (1848-1850), Ang ika-18 na
Brumaire ni Louis Bonaparte at ang Gera Sibil sa France.
Ngunit bago ang lahat, mahalagang alamin muna natin kung ano para kay
Marx ang komposisyon ng uring manggagawa o proletaryado. Ayon sa kanya,
ang uring ito ay binubuo ng mga manggagawa na naglilikha ng mga kalakal at
yung nagbibigay ng serbisyo na pinagmumulaan din ng sobrang halaga para
sa mga kapitalista11. Kaya kasama dito ay mga manggagawa sa mga opisina,
restoran, ospital, at iba pang sektor sa serbisyo. Ayon kay Marx sa kanyang Mga
Teorya ng Sobrang Halaga:
Ang parehong gawa ay maaaring maging produktibo o di-

produktibo… Ang isang mang-aawit na ipinagbibili ang kanyang
1 Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, ed. S. Ryazanskaya, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978),
409–12.
32 MARX HINGGIL SA PAG-AALYANSA NG MGA MANGGAGAWA SA IBANG URI AT NG KOMUNA NG PARIS
sariling awit para sa kanyang sarili ay di-produktibong manggagawa.

Ngunit, ang parehong mang-aawit na ito na kinomisyon ng isang
negosyante para kumanta para kumita ang huli ay isang produktibong
manggagawa dahil naglilikha ang mang-aawit ng kapital...22
Kaya, sabi ni Marx at Engels sa Manipesto ng Partido Komunista

nagiging bayarang manggagawa ang mga tinatawag na propesyonal sa ilalim
ng kapitalismo. Ginawa ng mga kapitalisa ang “doktor, abogado, pari, makata,
siyentipiko na mga sahurang proletaryado.”33
Sa kabilang banda naman ang kapitalista, sabi ni Marx, ay nagtatamo ng

salapi para bumili ng mga kalakal upang palakihin ang kanyang orihinal na
salapi sa pamamagitan ng paghuthot ng sobrang-halaga mula sa mga manggagwa
niya. “Ang walang pagod at walang katapusang proseso na paglikha ng tubo ang
tanging nilalayon niya…”44
Ang Tunggalian ng mga Uri sa France (1848-1850)
Sa Tunggalian ng Mga Uri sa France (1848-1850)55, tinalakay ni Marx

kung paano ginamit ng burgesya ang uring manggagawa, petiburgesya, at
sa mas limitadong paraan ang uring magsasaka sa pagpabasak nito sa haring
Louis-Philippe noong Pebrero 1848. Ang gobyerno ni Louis-Philippe, duke ng
Orleanda at pinsan ni Louis XVI — ang huling pinugutan ng ulo sa panahon ng
Unang Rebolusyon sa France noong 1792, ay pagpapatuloy lamang sa tinatawag
na “Pagbabalik ng mga Hari sa France” o Ang Restorasyon.
Ang Restorasyon ay nagsimula noong 1815 sa pagkalupig sa Hukbo ni

Napoleon Bonaparte sa Waterloo ng mga Ingles at mga ka-alyado nito. Pagkatalo
kay Napoleon, nilululok muli ng mga tinatawag na “Allies” ang angkan Bourbon
sa trono ng France, mula kay Louis XVIII, na pinalitan ni Carlos X at pagkatapos
ni Louis-Philippe noong 1830.
2 “The same kind of labour may be productive or unproductive... A singer who sells her song for her own account
is an unproductive labourer. But the same singer commissioned by an entrepreneur to sing in order to make mon-
ey for him is a productive labourer; for she produces capital.” Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Vol. 1: 409.
3 “It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labour-
ers.” Karl Marx at Friedrich Engels, “The Communist Manifesto”, sa Selected Works in One Volume: Marx/
Engels (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1980), 38.
4 “The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at.” Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique
of Political Economy, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House), 153.
5 Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850, sa Marx Engels Collected Works Volume 10 1849-1851
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), 45-145.
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 33
Sa panahon ng Restorasyon sa France, ninais ng mga hari na mabalik

muli ang kayamanan at mga malalaking lupain ng mga pyudal na panginoon.
Ang ginawang reporma sa lupa ng batas ng Agosto 28, 1792 ng gobyernong
Jacobin ng Unang Rebolusyon sa France ay ibig ipagwalang-bisa ng mga haring
ito at bawiin ang mga pinamahaging lupa sa mga panggitnang magsasaka at
maralitang magsasaka na nakinabang sa reporma sa lupa ng 1792. Ngunit,
ayon kay Marx, ang pag-unlad ng mga pwersa ng produksyon sa kanayunan ng
France sa pamamagitan ng pag-inbest o pagpopondo ng mga burges o kapitalista
sa negosyong agrikultura, lalo na sa pagtatanim ng mga ubas para gawing alak,
ay tumataliwas sa balak ng mga nobilidad na ibalik ang pyudalismo sa France.66
Upang dagdagan ang pondo ng estado ng monarkya, itinaas ng mga hari ng
Restorasyon ang mga buwis na pinapataw sa mga magsasaka at mga kapitalista
sa kanayunan, lalo na sa buwis sa alak. Ang uring manggagawa ay nagigipit
din sa panahon ng Restorasyon dahil sa walang takdang oras na pagtratrabaho,
mababang sahod, mataas na buwis at sa sunud-sunod na krisis ng ekonomya
dulot ng pangkabangkarote ng estado dahil sa lumalaking utang nito sa mga
bangko ng mga burges at sa maluhong pamumuhay ng mga nobilidad, lalo na sa
kanilang mga magagarang salu-salo.77
Ang mga paktor na nabanggit ay naging mainam para sa uring burgesya

upang mobilisahin ang ibang uri na patalsikin si Louis-Philippe, huling hari ng
Restorasyon, at magtatag muli ng isang republika na tatawaging Pangalawang
Republika na mamana sa Unang Republika ng Rebolusyon 1789 sa France.
Noong Febrero, 1848, nautyogan ng dyaryo “National” na nilalathala ng mga
petiburges sa tulong ng mga burges o mga kapitalista, ang mga manggagawa ng
Paris na magtayo ng mga barikada at simulaan ang atake sa palasyo ng hari sa
Tuileries. Pagkatapos ng tatlong araw na labanan, nagbitiw si Louis-Philippe sa
trono niya, at sinumulaang magtatag noong Pebrero 25 ang mga nagkakaisang
uri ng isangs probisyonal na gobyerno na gagawa ng bagong konstitusyon para
sa Pangalawang Repulika. Sa labanan upang patalsikin si Louis-Philippe ang
pwersa ng mangagagawa sa Paris ang nanguna.
Ngunit di sinali ang lider-manggagawa na si Louis Blanc sa loob ng

Asembleyang Konstitusyonal, kung saan susulatin ang bagong konstitusyon at
kung saan ang mga burges ay nagdodomina. Sa paghubog din ng konstitusyon,
ang pangako na gagawing 10-oras lamang ang pagtratrabaho sa isang araw ay
6 Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850.
inisantabi ng mga representante ng mga burges at ka-alyado nila sa Assemblya

Konstitutional. At imbes na droite de travail o “karapatan na magtraho” na
hinihingi ng mga mangagawa na ipasok sa bagong konstitusyon ay pinalitan
ito ng “droite d’assistance” o karapatan na tulungan ng gobyerno ang mga
nangangailangan. Pati ang pinangakong Ministro ng Paggawa ay naging
palamuti lamang sa porma ng pagtatayo ng bahay daw ng mga manggagawa o
ang “Luxembourg” kung saan binibigyan ng kontraktwal na gawain ang mga
proletaryado (piece-work) at pinatapon pa sa probinsya ang mga manggagawa
na hindi pinanganak sa Paris upang magbungkal ng mga lupa. Ayon kay Marx,
“Ang Ministro sa Luxembourg ay isang ministro na nakapon, isang ministro
ng mga ilusyon.”88 Kumparahin ito sa regular na Ministro ng Pananalapi at
Ministro ng Pangangalakal na agad itinayo ng mga burges. Sa sunud-sunod
na pagtratraidor sa kanila, ang mga manggagawa sa Paris ay nagtayo muli ng
mga barikada sa mga kalye ng lungsod na ito at nanawagan ng “Aux Armes,
Camerades” (Magsantada, Mga Kasama) upang maglunsad ng panibagong pag-
aalsa noong Hunyo ng 1848.99
Samantala ang petiburges at uring magsasaka, na pinangakuan ng bagong

republika na hawak ng mga burges na babaan daw ang malaking buwis pagkatapos
ng pagsupil sa bagong “kaaway ng estado” na uring manggagawa, ay nahikayat
na sumama sa hukbo ng burges, ang Guarde de National at Guarde de Mobile
upang atakahin ang mga barikada ng mga komunards sa Paris. (Ang katagang
“komunard” ay hango sa Commune o Konseho na tinutukoy ang mga distrito ng
Paris na hawak ng mga proletaryado.) Ang Guarde de Mobile ay hukbong militar
na binuo ng gobyernong burges mula sa mga lumpen-proletaryado, na ayon kay
Marx ay “mga magnanakaw, mga kriminal na iba’t-ibang klase na nabubuhay
sa mga tira ng lipunan, mga taong walang trabaho, mga istambay, mga taong
walang bahay….”1010 Ang mga myembro ng Guarde de Mobile ay binayaran ng
mga burges ng sahod, kagaya sa CAFGU, upang labanan ang kapwa mahihirap
— ang mga manggagawa ng Paris.

Sa naganap na labanan sa Paris noong Hunyo 1848, 3,000 mangagawa ang
8 “[A] ministry of impotence, a ministry of pious wishes, a Luxembourg Commission.” Marx, The Class Struggles
in France, 1848-1850: 56.
10 “Thieves and criminals of all kinds living on the crumbs of society, people without a definite trade, vagabonds,
gens sans feu et sans aveu [men without hearth or home].” Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850: 52.
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 35
nasawi at 15,000 ang pinatapon sa malalayong lugar. Pagkatapos masugpo ang

rebolusyon ng mga manggagawa, inaprubahan ang bagong konstitusyon noong
Oktubre 1848 na tinawag ni Marx na “republika ng mga burges” o “diktadura
ng burgesya.”11
Pagkatatag ng Pangalawang Republika na France, nagkaroon ng bangayan

ang mga uri sa loob na itanayong Assembleya Nasyonal, sa pagitan ng mga
burges, mga petiburges sa partido nilang Montagne (Bundok) at sa tinatawag na
Partido ng Kaayusan (Parti d’Orden) na binubuo na mga natitirang nobilidad sa
Asembleya, ang mga Legitimist at Orleandist.1212 Nagsasapawan sa isa’t-isa ang
mga lider nito upang makakuha ng pangunahing kapangyarihang pampulitika
sa Asembleya — kagaya ni Caviagnac (isang heneral na namuno ng pagsugpo
ng rebolusyon ng mga manggagawa), si Ledru-Rollin, lider ng mga petiburges,
at si Louis Bonaparte, suportado ng malaking burgesya at pinapalabas na
dinadala ang interes ng mga petiburges na gitnang magsasaka. Sa eleksyon para
sa presidente noong Disyembre, 1848, nanalo si Louis Bonaparte, pamangkin ni
Napoleon, dahil sa kanyang pangalan at sa suporta ng uring magsasaka, na siya
pang mayorya sa populasyon ng France noong panahon na yun. Ngunit nang
umupo si Louis Bonaparte bilang presidente, hindi niya tinupad ang pangakong
babawasan ang buwis, hinigpitan niya ang mga pahayagan at mga politikal na
asosasyon ng mga karibal niya sa pulitika, at pinagbawalan ang mga samahan ng
mga manggagwa na napilitang magtatag ng mga sekretong organisasyon. Ang
isa sa huli ay ang tinatawag na “Liga na mga Magkakapantay” na di kalaunan
ay naging Partido Komunista. Para labanan ang mga mapaniil na patakaran ni
Bonaparte, naglunsad muli ng mga demonstrasyon sa Paris ang mga maliliit na
burges, ilang elemento ng burges, at ang mga magsasaka noong Hunyo 1849.
Hindi na sumama ang mga manggagawa ng Paris sa mga pagkilos na ito dahil sa
mapait nilang karanasan sa pagaalyansa sa mga petiburges at burges. Tinuya ni
Marx sa susunod na obserbasyon ang mga demonstrasyong ito na dala-dala ang
banderang talong-kulay (tricoloeur) ng mga republikano at walang banderang
pula ng uring manggagawa: isang kakatuwang prosesyon ng mga petiburges at
ang layo sa mga barikada ng mga manggagawa noong Hunyo 1848.13

12 Karl Marx at Friedrich Engels, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, sa Selected Works in One
Volume: Marx/Engels (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1980), 104-106.
Noong Disiyembre 10, 1851, naglunsad ng coup d’etat si Louis Bonaparte

para konsolidahin ang kanyang kapangyarihan. Itinakwil niya ang konstitusyon
ng 1848 at nagtayo ng tinatawag niyang “Pangalawang Imperyo” sa France batay
sa “Unang Imperyo” ng kanyang tiyo, si Napoleon Bonaparte. Noong umangat
si Louis Bonaparte sa kapangyarihan, agad niyang binuwag ang Guarde Mobile
ng mga lumpen-proletaryado at pinalakas ang regular na armi. Nababahala kasi
siya na baka balang araw ang Guarde Mobile na marami ay dating manggagawa
at magsasaka na nawalan ng trabaho ay sumali sa anumang bagong rebolusylon
na maaaring ilunsad ng mga proleteryado ng Paris. Ito ay halimbawa na kapag di
na kailangan ng uring burges ang suporta ng isang sektor ng masa, ito’y iniiwan
na lang sa kangkungan ng kasaysayan.
Ang Komuna ng Paris
Sa panahon ng Pangalawang Imperyo lumawak ang mga negosyo ng

malalaking burges sa France at nagkahirap-hirap ang masa. Ayon kay Marx,
ang “diktadura ng burgesya” ay tuluyang nahubaran ng mascara sa lantarang
diktadura ni Louis Bonaparte. Sa ambisyon ni Bonaparte — na binansagan ang
sarili bilang “Napoleon III” — na gayahin ang kanyang tiyo, naglunsad siya ng
gera laban sa Alemanya para palawakin ang teritoryo ng France. Ngunit natalo
siya sa babakan sa Sedan. Kinuha ng mga manggagawa sa Paris ang pagkakataon
ng kaguluhan dulot ng digmaan at ng lumalalang krisis pangkabuhayan upang
mag-alsa muli sa rebolusyon ng Komuna ng Paris noong Marso 18, 1871.
Nakontrol ng mga manggagwa ang Paris at nagtayo sila ng isang gobyerno sa mga
komuna sa Paris. Nagkaroon din ng mga komuna na sinuportahan ang gobyerno
ng Paris sa lungsod ng Lyon, Saint-Eteinne, Marsaille at Toulouse. Sa Paris
nakalahad sa manipesto ng “L’ Union aux Mechanics et Associaion d’Ouevre
Metal” na kasali sa Komuna ng Paris na “ang emansipasyong pangkabuhayan ay
magagawa lamang ng samahan ng mga manggagawa.”
Sa alyansa ng hukbo ng mga burges mula sa Alemanya at hukbo ng

France, na pinayagan ng una sumali sa pag-atake sa mga manggagawa sa Paris,
nalupig ang Komuna ng Paris noong Mayo 21, 1871 sa labanan na tinawag na
“semaine sanglante”, madugong isang linggo. Mahigit 20,000, na karamihan
ay manggagawa, ang nasawi sa bakbakan. Libu-libo ang minasaker habang
sumusuko at ibinaon sa iisang libingan. Tabi-tabi ang mga bangkay ng mga
manggagawa, at mga ka-alyado nilang mula sa petiburges, mga estudyante, mga
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 37
guro, at intelektwal sa mga komun na libingan.14
Analisis ni Marx
Ayon kay Marx, nagkulang ang uring manggagawa sa rebolusyon ng Hunyo

1848 sa pag-oorganisa sa uring magsasaka na siyang pinakamaraming uri sa
France noong panahong iyon. Bagaman ang uring magsasaka ay binubuo ng mga
indibidwal na may kamalayang petiburges dahil sila ay may mga sariling lupa na
ipinamahagi sa reporma sa lupa noong 1792, karamihan sa kanila ay salat din
ang kalagayan at baon sa utang sa mga bangko ng burges. Nagigipit din sila ng
malalaking buwis, kagaya ng uring manggagawa, na ipinapataw ng monarkyang
gobyerno. Bagaman hiwalay-hiwalay ang lugar ng pinagtratrabahuhan nila dahil
sa distansya ng kanilang mga sinasakang lupa sa isa’t-isa — di kagaya ng mga
manggagawa na nagtutumpukan sa mga pagawaan — mahalagang magsikap
ang mga organisasyon ng proletaryado na abutin at organisahin sila bilang uri
na may komun na problema. Ani Marx; “Ang pagbasak lamang ng dominasyon
ng kapital ang makakaligtas sa uring magsasaka, ang isang kontra-kapitalista,
isang pamahalaang hawak ng mga manggagawa ang makakawasak ng kanilang
kahirapan, ang kanilang pagiging alipusta sa lipunan… Ang rebolusyon ay
siyang mabilis na tren ng kasasayan.”15
Dahil sa kapabayaaang organisahin ng mga manggagawa ang mga

magsasaka, nakuha ng mga burges, patuloy ni Marx, na ma-engganyo ang
uring magsasaka na ibaba daw ang buwis sa kanila kapag napabagsak na ang
haring Louis-Philippe na di naman natupad. Namobilisa din ng mga burges
ang mga magsasaka upang salakayin ang mga barikada ng kapwa-mahihirap, ng
mga komunard o manggagawa ng Paris, noong Hunyo 1848, na binansagan ng
mga burges bilang “bagong kaaway” ng estado pagkatapos mapatalsik si Louis
Philippie noong Pebrero 1848.

14 Karl Marx, “The Civil War in France”, sa Selected Works in One Volume: Marx/Engels (London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1980), 302.
15 “Only the fall of capital can raise the peasant; only an anti-capitalist, a proletarian government can break his
economic misery, his social degradation... Revolutions are the locomotives of history.” Marx, The Class Struggles in
France, 1848-1850: 122.
Hinggil naman sa mga petiburges na binubuo ayon kay Marx ng mga

“may-ari ng mga maliliit na tindahan, nagbebenta ng mga alak, maliliit na
mangangalakal, may-ari ng mga café at restoran…”1616 : mahirap silang pakilusin
bilang uri. Para kay Marx, ang mga petiburges bilang uri ay kalimitan palit-palit
ng katapatan – kung umaasenso ang kanilang negosyo ay sinusuportahan nila
ang mga burges at kung naiipit sila nagsisimpatiya naman sa mga manggagawa.
Ang puntong ito ang naging dahilan na tawagin ni Lenin na ang petiburges
ang siyang pinaka-oportunistang uri, papalit-palit kung anong uri ang
susuportahin sa pulitika. Ngunit, tuloy ni Lenin, maaari naman pakilusin ang
mga progresibong indibidwal sa hanay nila upang itaguyod ang sosyalismo.17
Hinggil naman sa mga lumpen-proletaryado na kadalasan ay nagagamit

ng gobyernong burges para supilin ang mga manggagawa, mahalaga ayon kay
Lenin na matuto sa analisis ni Marx tungkol sa rebolusyon sa France noong
Hunyo 1848 at hikiyatin sila upang tangkilikin ang programang sosyalista.
Marami sa lumpen-proletaryado ay mga dating manggagawa at magsasaka na
nawalan ng trabaho at may pag-unawa sa kalagayan ng mga mahihirap. Sabi
ni Lenin, maaaring sumali sa Partido ng mga Komunista ang “mga magsasaka,
pulubi, intelektwal, puta, sundalo, guro, manggagawa…“18

Higit sa lahat, ayon kay Marx, kailangan magkaroon ng sariling programang
pampulitika ang uring manggagawa at huwag magpadala sa mga abstraktong
islogan ng burges at ng mga teorista nilang petiburges sa kanilang ideolohiyang
liberalismo. Huwag maengganyo sa mga ideyalistang islogan na “liberte,
egalite” at “fraternite” na ginamit ng mga burges at petiburges upang itulak ang
mga manggagawa na magtayo ng mga barikada sa mga kalye ng Paris noong
rebolusyon ng Pebrero 1848. Ayon kay Marx, ang fraternite, ang pagsasamahan
ng lahat ay “Ang kataga ng katha-isip na pag-abolisa sa mga relasyon ng mga
uri… isang unibersal na pagmamahalan at pagkakaibigan ng lahat. Ang
magandang abstraksyon na ito na tangkang burahin ang mga tunggalian ng mga
uri, ang sentimental na pagkakaisa ng mga nagbabanggaan na uri, itong mainam
16 “Keepers of cafes and restaurants, marchands de vins [wine merchants], small traders, shopkeepers, handicrafts-
man, etc.” Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850: 74.
17 Basahin ang V.I. Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky” sa Vol. 3 at “Left-Wing
Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality” sa Vol. 2 ng Selected Works in Three Volumes (Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1971).
18 V.I. Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 39
na ilusyon sa ibabaw ng lahat ng kontradiksyon ng mga uri, ay yun naging

islogan ng rebolusyon ng Pebrero. Ang mga uri daw ay nahihiwalay lamang ng
di-makakaunawaan sa isa’t-isa at noong Pebrero 24 si Lamartine (lider ng mga
burges) ay bininyagan ang probisyonal na gobyerno bilang “isang gobyerno na
aalisin ang masamang di-pagkakaunawan ng iba’t-ibang uri.”19
Dahil sa nakita niya kung paano inuto ang mga manggagawa na maaaring
maging balanse daw ang interes ng burges at mga manggagawa at hindi
magbanggaan kahit sa katunayan naman ay nagtutungalian, inilunsad ni Marx at
iba pang lider-manggagawa ang pagtatatag ng “Unang Internasyonal” sa London
noong 1864. Ang Unang Internasyonal ay naglatag ng politikal na ideolohiya
at programa para sa uring manggagawa upang iwasan ang paghiling lamang ng
mga reporma mula sab urges na estado ng mga kaluwagan sa buhay ng uring
manggagawa, kagaya ng taas sahod, limitasyon sa panahon ng pagtratrabaho,
baba presyo, atbp. o ang mapako ito sa ekonomismo. Ayon kay Marx na siyang
sumulat ng programa ng Unang Internasyonal, ang estado — mula pa noong
sumulpot ito sa kasasasayn ng tao, ay laging dinodomina o nakokontrol ng
isang uri at mga kaalyado nito upang protektahan ang interes ng uring ito. Ang
“republika” na para sa lahat daw ng mamamayan (“citoyens”) ng France ay sa
katunayan isang diktadura ng uring burgesya.
Sa obhektibong analisis ng mga relasyon ng produksyon at kung sino ang

may-ari ng mga pwersa ng produksyon, matututuklasan kung anong uri ang
humahawak ng estado at lahat na instrumento nito, hukbo, pulis, hukuman,
katawan pagpinansya, atbp. Ibig sabihin, para sa tunay na emansipasyon ng
manggagawa at ibang naghihirap na masa, kailangan wasakin ang estado ng
burges, kagaya ng pagwasak ng mga burges ng estado ng mga hari, na ang ginawang
mga bala sa kanyon ay ang mga manggagawa. Kailangan palitan ang republika
ng diktadura ng uring burgesya ng isang republika sa ilalim ng diktadura ng uring
manggagawa na bubuwag sa mga istruktura ng dating sistema at titiyakin na hindi
na muling makakabalilk ang mga burges sa kapangyarihan. Kailangan palitan
ang demokrasya ng mga burges ng demokrasya ng proletaryado para mapatupad
sa wakas ang kapakanan ng masa. At ang pamahalaan sa pamumuno ng uring
manggagawa ay gagawa ng mga hakbang upang ilipat sa darating na panahon
ang lahat na kapangyarihan ng estado sa mga organisasyon ng mga mamamayan
sa kanilang mga konseho, kolektiba, atbp. at dahan-dahan mawawala na ang
19 Une gouvernment qui suspend ce malentendu terrible qui existe entre les differentes classes.” Marx, The Class
Struggles in France, 1848-1850: 58.
mga opisyal ng gobyerno. Ito ang tinatawag na yugto ng komunismo mula sa

sosyalismo, na mayroon pang estado, panahon na kung saan tunay na magiging
malaya ang mga tao, mawawala na ang mga sukatan sa isa’t-isa ayon sa kanilang
uri, dahil wala ng uri, walang mga pribilehiyadong institutslyon, kagaya ng
mga simbahan, gobyerno, at iba pa. Ayon kay Engels, parang panahon ito ng
primitibo komunismo ng gens ng mga sinaunang Greko at Iroquois na Indyan
sa Amerika noong nakaraan na walang estado at uri20 bagaman ang modernong
komunismo na ipanganganak ng sosyalismo ay nasa mas mataas na yugto dahil
sa pag-abante ng teknolohiya. Hindi lamang ito kathang-isip, sabi ni Engels,
dahil nangyari ito sa kasaysayan ng daigdig na tumagal ng mga apat na libong
taon bago pa dumating ang mga estado21. Ngunit, habang may kapatalista
pa at mga suportado nilang mga gobyerno, kailangan pa ang estado ng uring
manggagawa upang iwasan makabalik ang mga dating nagsasamantalang uri,
ngunit gagawa na ng mga patakaran upang ilipat ang mga kapangyarihan ng
gobyerno sa mga organisasyhon ng mga mamamayan mismo. Sa puntong ito,
tinuligsa ni Marx ang mga anarkista kagaya ni Proudhoun at Bakunin na nais
kaagad abolisahin ang estado at patakbuhin kagyat ang mga gawain ng lipunan
ng mamamayan. Kay Marx, di siyentipikong ang paraan ng mga anarkista
dahil kailangan pa ng estado hawak ng pinaka-abanteng uri ng masa upang
tuluyang buwagin ang kapitalismo at dahan-dahang ilipat ang kapangyarihan
ng gobyerno sa mga samahan ng mga (mga konseho at komuna) sa pamamagitan
ng paglaho ng estado.
Nang nagwagi ang Komuna ng Paris noong Marso 18, 1871, kung saan
may partisipasyon ang mga myembro ng Unang Internasyonal ngunit mas
marami ang mga manggagawang Jacobin at mga radikal na republikano at
mayroon din mga anarkistang Bakunista at Prouhoudnista, ang pangyayaring
ito ay kinatuwa ni Marx. Ang Komuna ng Paris ang kauna-unahang nagtayo
ng isang republika ng uring manggagawa, ayon kay Marx, pagkatapos buwagin
nito ang lahat na istrukturang politikal ng burgesya sa Paris, kapital ng France.
Pinalitan ang parlyamento ng mga burges ng isang Pamahalaang Komunal na
pinapamunuan ng isang Komite Sentral. Lahat ng kasapi ng pamahalaang ito ay
halal at ipinapailalim dito ang iba’t-ibang komuna sa Paris at mga probinsya. Ang
20 Friedrich Engels, “Origin of Family Private Property and State”, sa Selected Works in One Volume: Marx/
Engels (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1980), 46-565.
21 Engels, “Origin of Family Private Property and State.”
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 41
mga palabok ng mga burges tungkol sa balanse ng kapangyarihan (check and

balance sa Ingles) ng ehekutibo, lehislatibo at hukuman na sa katunayan sila ang
nagdodomina ng lahat na ito at isinusulong ang kanilang maka-uring interes ay
pinalitan ng karapatan ng mga mamamayan na tanggalin sa anumang panahon
(droite de rapel) ang sino mang opisyal na hindi tinutupad ang kanyang mandato
na pinirmahan niya sa harap ng mga mamamayan o kanyang mga konsituent.
Pati opisyal ng mga hukuman ay ginawang halal ng mga tao at itinakda ang
mga sweldo ng mga opisyal ng gobyerno na hindi nalalayo sa sahod ng uring
manggagawa, walang espesyal na alawans at kung ano-ano pa. Pakinggan natin
si Marx, kung paano winasak ng Komuna ng Paris ang estado ng burges sa iba
pang probisyon nito:
Pagkatapos abolisahin ang armi at ang pulis, mga pwersa pangsupil

ng lumang gobyerno, ang Komuna ay masugid na hinahangad ang
pagwakas sa pagamit ng ispiritwal na pwersaang bilang kasangkapan
ng supresyon, ang kapangyarihan ng mga pari, sa pamamagitan na pag-
alis sa simbahan ng karapatan mag-ari. Ang mga pari ay pinabalik sa
kanilang pribadong buhay at umasa na lang sa mga limos mula sa mga
kapatiran nila kagaya ng ginawa ng mga orihinal na Apostoles.
Ang kabuuang sistemang edukasyon ay ginawang libre para sa

publiko at independente sa pakikialam ng Simbahan at ng Estado.
Hindi lamang binuksan ang edukasyon sa lahat, ngunit ang siyensya
ay pinakawalaan sa mga pagkatali nito sa maka-uring interes na
ipinapataw dito sa tulong ng dating pamahalaan.22

Ang mga pagbabagong ito ay inilagay sa tinatawag na Konstitusyong
Komunal na inilipat din ang mga pribadong pag-aari ng mga burges sa mga kamay
ng mga kooperatiba ng mga manggagawa na ininatag. Sa ilalim ng kapitalismo,
ang pribadong pag-aari, ani ni Marx, ng mga pwersa ng produksyhon ay
humahantong lamang sa tuwi-tuwinang krisis ng ekonomya na pinipinsala ang
mga mahihirap. Kaya, nararapat magkaroon ang estado ng plano sa ekonomya
upang maiwasan ang mga krisis na ito.23
22 “Having once got rid of the standing army and the police – the physical force elements of the old government
– the Commune was anxious to break the spiritual force of repression, the “parson-power”, by the disestablishment
and disendowment of all churches as proprietary bodies. The priests were sent back to the recesses of private life,
there to feed upon the alms of the faithful in imitation of their predecessors, the apostles. The whole of the educa-
tional institutions were opened to the people gratuitously, and at the same time cleared of all interference of church
and state. Thus, not only was education made accessible to all, but science itself freed from the fetters which class
prejudice and governmental force had imposed upon it.” Karl Marx, “The Civil War in France: 287-291.
23 Karl Marx, “The Civil War in France: 291.
Bagaman, hinangaan ni Marx at ng Unang Internasyonal ang Komuna ng

Paris ng 1871, binanggit ni Marx ang kahinaan nito na di kaagad kinontrol at
pinangisawaan ang Banque de France, pinakamalaking bangko ng mga burges
sa Paris, at ang di kagyat na pagbubuo nito ng isang militia ng mga manggagawa.
Kaya sa tulong-tulong ng hukbo ng gobyerno ng mga burges ng France, na
lumipat sa Versarilles ang parlyamento, at ng hukbo ni Bismarck ng Alemanya
ay nasugpo ang Komuna ng Paris noong Mayo 21, 1871.
Ang Tunggalian ng mga Uri at ang Pambansang Demokratikong

Talakayin naman natin ang impluwensiya ng mga ideya ni Marx tungkol

sa tunggalian ng mga uri at tungkol sa Komuna ng Paris sa bagong Partido
Komunista ng Pilipinas lalo na sa pagbubuo ng Nagkakaisang Pambansang
Demokratikong Kilusan o ang National Democratic Front of the Philippines
(NDFP).

Ang bagong Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas o Communist Party of the
Philippines (CPP) ay tinatahak ang perspektiba ni Marx at ng mga Marxistang
Lenin at Mao Zedong hinggil sa paglulunsad ng isang rebolusyon at pag-
oorganisa ng isang nagkakaisang prente. Mula kay Marx, namana nito kung
paano ang interes ng mga naghaharing uri, sa kalagayan ng Pilipinas ang mga
komprador burgesya at panginoong-maylupa, ay binabangga ang interes ng mga
uring napapaiialim dito, ang mga manggagawa at maralitang magsasaka. Dahil
ang ekonomyang pampulitika ng Pilipinas ay mala-kolonyal at mala-pyudal,
kagaya ng sa Tsina noong panahon ng rebolusyon nang dekada 1930’s-hanggang
1940’s sa bayang ito, ang kilusang masa sa Pilipinas ay nagpupursiging buwagin
din ang imperyalismo at pyudalismo.
Sa pag-aalyansa, tumatangkilik ang CPP-NPA (New People’s Army) sa

perspektiba na ang uring manggagawa ang siyang mamumuno sa pagbabago ng
lipunan dahil ito sa katunayan ang siyang lumilikha at nagpapatakabo ng mga
pwersa ng produksyon, pag-imbento ng mga bagong makinarya, teknolohiya,
paglilkha ng mga ito sa mga pagawaan, atbp. Ngunit binibigyan diin din ng
CPP-NPA hango sa karanasan ng rebolusyon sa Tsina ang pag-oorganisa at
pagmomobilisa ng mga maralitang magsasaka, kasama ang mga tenante at mga
manggagawang bukid. Ang mga nagtratrabaho sa mga bukirin ay bumubuo ng
26.9% (Hulyo 2017, Philippine Statistics Authority) ng kabuuang pwersa ng
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 43
paggawa na 40 milyon katao sa Pilipinas. Ang kalagayan ng mga maralitang

magsasaka ay mas grabe sa uring manggagaw sa mga lungsod at bayan at
bagaman hiwalay-hiwalay ang lugar ng kanilang pinagtratrabahuhan, nararapat
ayon kina Marx, Lenin at Mao na mulatin ang uring magsasaka na ang tunay
na makakapagpalaya sa kanila sa kanilang kahirapan ay sila mismo na may dala-
dalang sariling programa at ideolohiya ng sosyalismo sa pamumuno ng uring
manggagawa na siyang pinakaabanteng uri ng masa. Sa mahalagang papel ng
uring manggagawa, nanawagan si Lenin sa mga nagtulugtulugang kasapi ng
uring ito, lalo na yung tinatawag niyang “mga mangagawang aristokrata”, na
gumising na sa kanilang ilusyon, na sa katunayan ay oportunistmo o katamaran,
na ang lipunang hawak ng mga burges ay mabibigyan sila ng kaginhawaan at
makakalaya sila sa pagiging alipin ng kapital.
Sa hanay ng uring manggagawa na sa kasalukuyan ay bumubo ng 73.1 %

(Hulyo, 2017, Philippine Statistics Authority) ng kabuuang pwersa ng gawa sa
Pilipinas, ang mayorya ay nasa sektor ng serbisyo, halimbawa, mga tindahan,
transportasyon, call-center, atbp. at 18% ay nasa sektor ng manupaktura.
Kailangan paigtingin ang pag-oorganisa sa kanila, hindi lamang para isali
sila sa mga unyon (10% sa kasalakuyan ay kasapi ng mga unyon sa Pilipinas).
Kadalasa’y ayon kay Marx at Lenin, ang mga unyon ay napapako lamang sa
ekonomismo. Di ba sabi ni Marx, ang mga unyon na inimbento ng mga burges ay
nagpapalambot ng rebolusyonaryong diwa ng uring manggagawa?24 Nagbubuo
din ang CPP-NDF-NPA ng mga konseho (commune) ng mga manggagawa sa
mga pagawaan at mga asosasayon at kooperatiba ng mga magsasaka, ang huli lalo
na sa mga napalaya na mga lugar sa kanayunan. Ang mga samahang ito bukod
sa ipinaglalaban at itinataguyod ang kabuhayan ng mga kasapi nila kagaya ng
isang unyon, ay higit sa lahat inihahanda ang mga anakpawis na magtatag at
magpatakbo ng isang lipunan tungo sa sosyalismo.
Sa larangan naman ng mga lumpen-proletaryado na ang karamihan ay

mga dating manggagawa at magsasaka na nawalan ng trabaho, mahalagang
pakilusin din sila para sa rebolusyon sapagkat sinasakop nito ang 2.8 milyon
katao na walang trabaho (mababang estima ng Philippine Statistics Authority na
7%, taon 2017, ng kabuuang 40 milyon pwersa ng gawa sa Pilipinas). Kailangan

abutin ang mga lugar kung saan sila naroroon o nag-iistambay, halimbawa, mga
parke, basketball court at atbp. at ipailalim sila sa mga organisasyon pangmasa.
Sa kasaysayan ng mga lipunan, ginagamit ang mga lumpen ng uring burges
upang supilin ang uring manggagawa at ibang kapwa-mahihirap nila dahil
madaling masilaw ang mga di-mulat na lumpen sa pilak ng mga mayayaman.
Sila ang bumubuo ng mga pribadong hukbo ng mga pulitiko at mga sindikatong
kontrolado ng may mga salapi sa Pilipinas.
Tungkol naman sa mga petiburges, kalimutan na ang hangad organisahin

sila bilang uri, ayon kay Marx, na napatunayan ni Lenin sa kanyang mga
sariling karanasan sa mga petiburges, lalo na yung mga sosyo-demokrata na
nagpapanggap na sosyalista kagaya nina Karl Kautsky at Edward Bernstein. Ang
mga petiburges na sosyo-demokrata, mga rebisyonistsa ng Marxismo, na ito
ayon kay Lenin ay nililigaw lamang sa pamamagitan ng repormismo sa loob ng
kapitalismo ang mga manggagawa tungo sa landas ng tunay na emansipasyon
nila sa pagiging mga alipin ng kapital at nagagamit pa ng mga kapitalista para
manatili ang kanilang dominasyon sa lipunan. Ani ni Lenin,
Sa likod ng mga mapagsamantalang kapitalista, ay sunod-sunod

ang mga malaking grupo ng mga petiburges, na sa kasaysayan ng
mga bansa ay napatunayan na urong-sulong, di malaman kung saan
pupunta, isang araw ay mamartsa sa likod ng mga manggagawa, at sa
susunod na araw naman ay kinakabahan sa kahirapan ng rebolusyon,
nag-papanik sa unang pagkatalo o pasamantalang pagkatalo ng mga
manggagawa, nenerbyos, parito-dito parito-doon, pahikbi-hikbi,
papalit-palit ng kampo – kagaya ng ating mga Mensheviks at Sosyal
Rebolusyonaryo.25
Para naman sa tinatawag ni Mao Zedong na mga pambansang burgesya,

di din sila mapapakilos bilang uri sapagkat mas malapit ang kanilang interes
sa mga malalaking burgesya at imperyalista. Ngunit, bilang mga progresibong
indibidwal, kagaya ng mga petiburges, maaaring kunin ang kanilang suporta.
Dapat ipailalim ang mga aktibidades ng mga taong ito sa isang kabuuang pang-
ekonomyang plano ng pagtatatag ng sosyalismo sa Pilipinas. Sa katunayan,
.
25 V.I. Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky: 90
EDBERTO VILLEGAS 45
pinagtraiduran ng uring pambansang burges ang Partido Komunista ng Tsina

sa ilalim ng isang Nagkakaisang Prente noong dekada 1930 sa panahon na
tinatawag na War of Resistance laban sa mga Hapon sa bayang ito.
Ang Mga Propesyonal na Rebolusyonaryo
Organisahin din, ayon kay Lenin at Mao Zedong, ang iba’t-ibang sektor
ng mga mamamayan na hindi naman nagbubuo ng isang uri (ibig sabihin
di mapapailalim sa isang komon na tipo ng relasyon sa produksyon sa isang
lipunan) kagaya ng mga kababaihan, kabataan (na kadalasa’y madaling maging
militante), mga relihiyoso (pari, madre), mga katutubo (bagaman karamihan
dito ay mga magsasaka), atbp. Sa kilusan tungo sa sosyalismo at komunismo,
nararapat maghubog na mga tinatawag nina Lenin at Mao na mga “propesyonal
na mga rebolusyonaryo” o ang mga tinatawag na pultaym na rebolusyonaryo
na nangunguna sa pagrerebolusyon, di-makasariling mga tao, matatag ang
disiplina at malalim ang pag-aaral ng siyentpiikong sosyalismo, ekonomyang
pampulitika, komunismo at kasaysayan, lalo ng sariling bayan. Sa mga ganitong
tao, magmumula ayon sa Marxistang Ernesto Che Guevarra ang mga bagong
tao, mga “sosyalistang tao” sa pagtatag ng bagong daigdig, mga taong handang
magsakripisyo sa masa na walang kapalit upang di iilan lamang sa sa ilalim ng
isang bagong sistema itatatag ang maaring maging maligaya sa kanilang trabaho
at kontento sa buhay. Sabi ni Che,
Di pwede na hindi ginagabayan ng pagmamahal ang tunay na

rebolusyonaryo... Ang ating mga nangungunang rebolusyonaryo ay
nararapat gawing matayog na layunin ang pagmamahal sa masa, isang
sagradong adhikain at ipatupad ito ng walang pasubali at buong-buo.
26
At nabuhay ang Marxistang Che nang ganito, laging nakikisalamuha

sa mga mahihirap na masa, kahit noong nag-aaral pa siya sa pagka-doktor sa
Argentina at pagkatapos ng pagwagi ng rebolusyon sa Cuba bilang Komandante
Che Guevara. Kahit noong itinalaga siya ni Fidel Castro bilang pinuno ng
26 “[T]he true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love… Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this
love of the people, of the most sacred causes, and make it one and indivisible. They cannot descend, with small
doses of daily affection, to the level where ordinary people put their love into practice.” Ernesto “Che” Guevara,
“Socialism and man in Cuba,” sa Marxist Internet Archives, https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/03/
man-socialism.htm.
Departamento ng Pinansya at ng Bangko Sentral ng Cuba, patuloy na

nakikiugnay si Che sa mga manggagawa sa pagkakarga ng mga sako sa pantalan
ng Havana bawat linggo at sa pagtabas ng mga tubo sa mga kooperatiba ng mga
campesino (magsasaka). At nakatira siya sa isang maliit na apartment kasama ang
kanyang asawa, dating kasamaan niya bilang gerilya, at kanyang dalawang anak.
Isang araw, nang nakita na ni Che na umaarangkada na ang ekonomya ng Cuba,
nagpaalam siya kay Castro sa pamamagitan ng isang liham upang tumulong sa
pag-oorganisa ng iba pang rebolusyon ng masa laban sa mga naghaharing uri.
Nadakip siya ng mga alagad ng CIA sa kabundulkan ng Bolivia kung saan siya
napatay sa edad 39 noong 1967 at ibinaon sa tagong lugar.
Sabi ni Che, kung di maghuhubog ang rebolulsyon ng mga bagong

sosyalistang tao, baka manaaig na naman sa bagong gobyerno ang burukratismo
at korupsyon na siyang nangyari sa Rusya, na masidhing pinupuna niya, kung
saan nakabalik ang mga rebisyonista pagkamatay ni Stalin noong 1954 at binalik
ang bansang ito sa kapitalismo. Ayon kay Che, ang rebolusyon ay hindi lamang
politikal, ngunit isang moral na pagbabago27. Kay Che walang posisyon-posisyon
at walang paimportante-importante, ang mahalaga ay puspusang pagmamahal
sa pakikipaglaban na walang hinihinging kapalit para sa kapakanan ng mga
inaapi at mahirap na masa.
Ang mga bagong taong ito ni Che ay kabaligtaran sa tinatawag na “liberated

person” o malalayang tao daw ng ideyalistang ideolohiya ng liberalismo ng mga
burges at kanilang mga teorista na petiburges. Dahil ang diin ng liberalismo ay
sa kalayaan ng indibidwal (liberal democracy) at hindi sa kolektibong kalayaan,
kolektibang demokrasya (ibig sabihin ang pagwasak ng mga istruktura ng
lipunan ng burges upang tunay na lumaya ang mga alipin ng kapital) ay nagiging
mainam ang liberalismo bilang rasoynalisasyon sa may maginhawang buhay
na, bagaman hindi din sila tiyak sa kanilang kalagayan sosyal dahil sa tuwi-
tuwinang krisis ng kapitalismo. Humahantong ang ideolohiya ng liberalismo
sa walang pakialam ng isang tao sa problema ng iba o pakitang-tao lamang na
pagkalinga sa mahihirap at kadalasa’y natutulak siya tungo sa oportunismo
upang paunlarin lamang ang kapakanan ng sarili at kanyang grupo. Ang kultura
ng liberalismo na pop culture ay lalong pinalalala ang pagiging indibidwalista ng
isang tao dahil sa diin nito sa mga pang-sariling emosyon kagaya ng romansa,
27 Guevara, “Socialism and man in Cuba.”

EDBERTO VILLEGAS 47
kahibangan sa sports at sex na nagigiging opio sa kasalakuyan upang makalimutan

pansamantala ng mga mahihirap, kasama na ng uring manggagawa, ang kanilang
mga problema sa buhay. Ani ni Marx, sa mga konstitusyon ng mga republika
ng mga burges ang mga karapatan pang-tao ay nakatuon lamang sa indibidwal
“isang indibidwal na nahihiwalay sa komunidad, inaasikaso lamang ang sarili,
at napapagalaw lamang ng kanyang mga sariling kapritso.”28 Sa madaling salita,
ang moda ng buhay ng isang matagumpay na burges ay siyang ginawang mga
basikong karapatan ng tao.
Ang CASER ng NDF-CPP-NPA
Nilalahad sa ilang probisyon ng Comprehensive Agreement on Social and

Economic Reforms (CASER) ng NDF-CPP-NPA kung ano ang magiging anyo
ng isang lipunan tutungo sa sosyalismo. Ang CASER ay isang dokumento na
nagsisilbing gabay sa pagtatatag ng isang transisyon tungo sa sosyalismo, ang
yugto ng pambansa-demokratikong lipunan. Batay sa CASER, inoobliga ang
lahat na pagawaan sa industriya at sektor ng serbisyo, publiko man o pribado,
at sa mga samahan sa kanayunan na magtayo ng mga konseho at asosasayon
ng mga manggagawa at magsasaka na may paki-alam sa puliltika at ibang
problema ng lipunan at hindi lamang sa ekonomismo. Kung may unyon sa isang
pagawaan, maaaring intransporma ito sa konseho ng mga manggagawa o maaari
ang dalawang samahang ito ay kumilos sabay-sabay.29

Mayroon din isang buong bahagi sa CASER (PART V-C) sa pagpaplano
ng sosyo-ekonomikong paggabay ng lipunan batay sa isa hanggang limang taon.
Mahalagang magplano sa ekonomya at ipailalim sa isang pambansang plano
ang mga pinapayagan pang mga pribadong kumpanya sa yugto ng pambansa-
demokratikong lipunan upang maiwasan ang mga krisis pangekonomya, na
sakit ng kapitalismo at imperyalismo dulot ng walang direksyon at sobrang
produksyon nito na ang unang naiipit ay mga mahihirap. Sa loob ng CASER
ay may mahabang (Part IV) bahagi tungkol sa mga karapatan sosyal ng mga
mamamayan, kagaya ng karapatan sa pagtrabaho, libreng lupa sa mga magsasaka,
28 “[A]n individual withdrawn into himself, into the confines of his private interests and private caprice, and
separated from the community.” Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” sa Marx Engels Collected Works Volume 3
1843-1844 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), 164.
29 NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms. Draft Comprehensive Agreement
on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER) of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (Utrecht: NDF
International Information Office: January 2017), Part III, A- Art. VIII, Sec. 3, B – Art. IV, Sec.7-10, Part V, B-Art.
I, Sec. 11.
libreng edukasyon, libreng pagamot, mababang buwis, atbp. Ang ginagabayang

pagtakbo ng ekonomya sa isang lipunan sa pamumuno ng uring manggagawa
na suporta ng kanilang mga kaalyado ay siyang tiyak na magpapalaya mula sa
kahirapan at makakapagbigay ng tunay na katarungan sa masang Pilipino.
Kongklusyon
Ang tunggalian ng mga uri ay siyang nagpapaliwanag sa kasaysayan ng

daigdig ng pagpapalit ng isang lipunan na may lumang relasyon sa produksyon
tungo sa isang bagong poma ng gobyerno at panibagong relasyon ng produksyon.
Ito’y napatunayan mula sa kasaysayan ng England na siyang unang naglunsad
sa pamumuno ni Oliver Cromwell ng rebolusyon laban sa monarkiya noong
1648 na nagresultra sa isang parlyamentong kontrolado ng mga burges. Ito ay
nakita din sa rebolusyon sa Tsina noong nakaraang siglo laban sa pyudalismo
at imperyalismo na nagresulta sa pagtayo ng isang republika sa liderato ng mga
manggagawa. At sa Cuba, ang rebolusyong 1959 ay nilansag din ang “republika
ng mga komprador na burgesya at panginoon maylupa” na pinalitan ng isang
republika sa ilalim ng diktadura ng mga manggagawa. Bagaman ang republika sa
pamumuno ng uring manggagawa sa Tsina at Rusya ay nabalik sa mga republika
ng mga burges, ang takbo ng kasasayan ay tuloy na dadaloy sa bagong anyo kahit
tuwi-tuwinang nagkakaroon ng mga sagabal dito. Di ba ang mga republika ng
burges ay nagkaroon din ng mga pansamantalang restorasyon sa England noong
1660 kung saan nabalik ang kapangyarihan monarkiya sa ilalim ni Charles II
at ito din ang naganap sa France noong 1815? Pansinin na sa loob ng mga 300
na taon lamang naging dominante ang relasyon ng produksyon ng kapitalismo
at mga pamahalaan kontrolado nito. Ang kasaysayan, ayon kay Marx, ay may
tendesiyang pausad at paatras at ang mga mulat na pwersa ang nakakapag-abante
nito tungo sa bagong makataong relasyon sa produksyon.

Si Marx ang unang nakatuklas ng pagtakbo ng kasaysayan batay sa
tunggalian ng mga uri at pag-usbong ng mga bagong relasyon ng produksyon
na tinawag niyang “materyalismong istorikal” o siyentipikong sosyalismo. Ayon
kay Marx, sa kasalakuyang panahon, ang dominanteng tunggalian ng mga uri
ay ng kapitalista (burges) laban sa uring manggagawa. Kung sino ang nagiging
naghaharing uri pagkatapos ng mga matinding tunggalian ng mga uri, ito ay
siyang nagdedetermina ng klase ng gobyernong itatatag at mga ideya at ugaling
ipapalaganap.

EDBERTO VILLEGAS 49
Sa pag-unawa sa unang beses kung paano tumatakbo ang kasaysayan batay

sa tunggalian ng mga uri, nanawagan si Marx sa mga aping uri sa ilalim ng
kapitalismo at si Lenin at Mao sa ilalim ng mga mala-kolonyal at mala-pyudal
na bansa na gamitin ang karunugan ng materyalismong istorikal upang isulong
ang isang rebolulusyonaryong kilusan tungo sa sosyalismo. Ang kapitalismo,
lalo na ang bagong anyo nito na monopolyo kapitalismo o imperyalismo, ay
nagiging hadlang upang gawing makatao at makatarungan ang umusbong na
dominanteng relasyon sa produksyon sa sistemang nito – ang sosyal na paggawa
ng mga produkto at serbisyo ng uring manggagawa dahil iilan lamang ang
nakikinabang dito dulot ng pribadong pag-aari ng mga pwersa ng produksyon.
Kaya ang lumalabas na anyo ng bagong mundo ay isang sosyalistang lipunan,
kung saan ang mga produkto ng produksyon ay mababalik sa malaking bulto
nito sa mga mismong lumikha nito na sa kasalukuyan ay naghihirap at nagiging
mga alipin ng kapital.

Mula sa mga pag-aaral nina Marx, Lenin at Mao, tinuturuan tayo na ang
hakbang pausad ng mga lipunan at ng buong daigdig ay pamumunuan ng uring
manggagawa. Ito lamang ang paraan ng pagdating ng isang lipunan kung saan
ang pag-unlad ng bawa’t isa ay nakabatay sa pagunlad ng lahat, ang kolektibong
demokrasya.

Sa Pilipinas, ang perspektiba sa kasaysayan nina Marx, Lenin at Mao ay
dinadala ng CPP-NPA-NDFP. Pinapalaganap nito sa mga samahan ng mga
manggagwa at iba pang pangmasang organisasyon ang malalimang pag-aaral sa
istorikal materyalismo at ekonomyang pampulitika, sa partikular ng Pilipinas.
Sinisikap nito, kahit sa panahon ng paglunsad ng isang armadong pakikibaka,
ang pagbuwag sa mga teorya ng liberalismo at neoliberlismo, ideolohiya ng burges
sa kultura at ekonomya, at pinapalit dito ang isang pananaw na pagsasakongkreto
ng paglilingkod sa masang Pilipino. Ayon kay Marx, aanhin ang teorya tungkol
sa lipunan kung di ito magagamit upang bumuo ng isang makatarungan at
maginhawang lipunan. Magagamit ang analisis ng siyentipikong sosyalismo
upang makikilala ang mga maling pagbabaluktot ng mga naghaharing uri na
komprador burgesya at panginoong maylupa ng mga tamang paraaan tungo sa
tunay na pagbabago ng lipunan. Kaugnay nito, sabi ng mga burges at mga alagad
nito na si Kristo daw ay isang malambot na tao na palaging hinahangad lamang
ang kapayapaan para sa daigdig. Di ba alam nila na sa na sa pakikipaglaban
ng karpenterong Kristo para sa kapakanan at katarungan ng mga mahihirap at
aping masa , sabi niya sa kanyang mga disipulo: “Huwag ninyong isipin na dala
dala ko ang kapayapaan sa daigdig. Dumating ako na may dalang espada, hindi
kapayapaan.” (Mateo, Kapitulo 10, Berso, 34-35). Ito ay nagpapatunay lamang
na kung sino ang mga naghaharing uri, mula noong pang panahon ng Imperyo
Romano hanggang ngayon, ang kanilang interpretasyon sa mga bagay-bagay,
kasama na ang sa Bibliya, ay siyang nananaig upang preserbahin ang kanilang
mga maka-sariling interes.

Ang Hukbo ng Bayan, kahit na anong pagsisinungaling tungkol dito
ng rehimen US-Tsina-Duterte ay lumalago at lumalakas dahil sa asal ng
kasalakuyang pamahalaan na lasing sa kapangyarihan, bulok ang kaisipan,
mapagpanggap, ngunit duwag at masunurin sa Estados Unidos at sa mga Tsino,
korap at mamamatay-tao. Lahat na ng kasamaan, kayabangan at kababawan
ay nasa pamahalaang ito kaya ang bilang ng mga mahihirap sa Pilipinas ay
lalong lumala mula 46% ng buong populasyon noong 2017 na naging 47% sa
unang dalawang buwan ng 2018, ayon sa Social Weather Station. Samantala,
ang pinakamayamang 50 pamilya sa Pilipinas ay lalong yayaman dahil sa mga
patakaran ng gobyerno ni Duterte sa taong 2018, ayon sa Forbes Asia. Wala
talagang pakinabang ang masang Pilipino sa sistemang ito na diktadura ng mga
panginoong maylupa at burgesya komprador na suportado ng imperyalismo.
Ngunit dahil sa mga pag-aalipusta ni Duterte at ilan sa kanyang mga kasama
sa mga kababaihan, lalo na sa mga babaeng kawal ng NPA, lalong lumalakas
ang determinasyon ng Hukbo, lalo na ng mga babaeng kawal, na pabagsakin
at wasakin ang pasistang-diktadura at kasuklam-suklam na estadong ito, kung
saan naghahari ay ang kasakiman, walang-katarungan at terorismo. Ang
determinasyon ng mga babaeng kawal na ito ay napatunayan ng isang video
na ipinakalat ng NPA na nagpapakita ng isang malaking grupo ng armadong
babaeng NPA naka-unipormeng berde at kaki na sumasayaw at kumakanta ng
awit tungkol sa pag-ibig sa rebolusyon noong Pebrero 14, 2018.

At sa mga oras na malapit na ang mga hukbong rebolusyonaryo mula
sa kanayunan tungo sa mga bayan at lungsod ng Pilipinas, sa loob ng mga
huling lugar na ito ay nagkakaroon din ng mga malawakang pagkilos ang mga
militanteng manggagawa at kanilang mga ka-alyado. Ang tawag ng batang
bayani na si Emilio Jacinto na “Tama na ang tiis, mga kasama, magsantada”
ay maaaring muling tumaginting. “Aux Armes, Camerades”, sigaw nga ng mga
manggagawa ng Komuna ng Paris.
Elsewhere schooling
The Lumad bakwit school
in the national university*
Sarah Raymundo
University of the Philippines
PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE subjected Mindanao,

the richest island in the Philippines, under Martial Law in May
2017 on account of the so-called terrorist siege of Marawi. One
of the most affected groups in this island are the autonomously
built and fully functional Lumad Schools. These schools have
been the foci of community empowerment among the Lumad
who live in various Mindanao regions. It was the year 2015 (a
year before Duterte came to power) when the Lumad struggle for
land and life began to catch national and international traction.
Global call to stop Lumad killings
Since 2015, Lumad activist leaders and advocates went on a national

caravan in the major Philippine islands and an international tour in Europe and
North America to educate allies from all over the world about the impact of
extractive industries owned by big capitalists of the global North, as well as the
attendant state-sponsored human rights violations on account of the Philippine
government’s bias for foreign direct investors and the standard procedure of
bureaucrat capitalism that plagues Philippine governance.
SARAH RAYMUNDO 53
While the Lumad have enjoyed the solidarity and support of peace-loving
peoples worldwide, they have have yet to find respite from nervous conditions
which shape their everyday life in Mindanao. The campaign “Stop Killing
Lumad” and “Defend Lumad’s Right to Self-Determination” has been very
much alive, and has renewed its relevance in academic discourse. It has, since
2015, been part of syllabi, academic conferences, books, required textbooks, even
student projects and research papers.
This global and proactive resistance has earned the ire of a necropolitical
State—a mode of elite governance that uses legitimate bureaucratic power
to make decisions on who is to live or die. This has resulted in the shocking
death toll of Oplan Tokhang (Duterte’s war on drugs) and Oplan Kapanatagan
(Duterte’s counterinsurgency program that targets activists).
Effective resistance does not always yield decisive victories but can function
as an important factor in the balance of power. Currently, as the Philippines
remains hijacked by pro-imperialist and corrupt politicians under the leadership
of Duterte, effective resistance—the kind that yields broad support from peoples
all over the world—is met with reactions which reinforce the power of the local
ruling elite and its imperialist allies. These reactions take the form of actual
killing of activists, red tagging and red bashing, and the spread of disinformation
and distorted representations of organized resistance from state and non-state
agents alike. This shows how organized resistance is only a step toward the
peoples’ struggle for self-determination by taking back power from an elite-
controlled State.
The University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP), where I work, finds itself

in the middle of the dialectical encounter between resistance and right-wing
reaction. UP actively supported the 2015 Lumad caravan that initially aimed to
call attention to the Lumad killings and militarization of Lumad communities.
In 2019, this support acquired a different form when UP agreed to host the
Lumad Bakwit School in its premises, transforming spaces in the University as
learning centers for Lumad students.
I aim to share the diverse spatial strategies, including concrete institutional

interventions, innovations and new forms of pedagogy which resulted in this
unprecedented project taken on by the University and its volunteers from the
faculty and students.
54 ELSEWHERE SCHOOLING The Lumad bakwit school in the national university*
In particular, I aim to feature the ways in which the standard curriculum

is being gradually modified if not transformed into a qualitatively different
pedagogical organization based on the right to space, right to education and the
Lumad struggle for self-determination.
Spatial strategies
Diverse spatial strategies include physical spaces whose availability depend

on alliance building. Alliance building involves preparatory work. We have a
built-in structure through Save Our Schools-Diliman, whose main convener is
the esteemed UP Diliman Chancellor Dr. Michael Lim Tan. Months before,
SOS came out with campaign materials and scheduled talks with possible allies,
and in this case, our colleagues who will be willing to host the Lumad Bakwit
School in various ways: provision of classrooms, sleeping quarters, assist in
everyday needs such as food. The budget for food is P7,000 or US$ 572 a day
for 100 people. 75 Lumad students and 15 volunteer teachers from Mindanao. A
total of 25 resident teachers and 30 guest lecturers from the University— faculty,
students, alumni volunteered to teach at the Lumad Bakwit School.
Institutional intervention as a spatial strategy includes a strong alliance work

with Administration, an entity that provides permission for entry and duration
of stay, the Chancellor writes Deans of all colleges to contribute to this endeavor.
The responses were generous. We got classroom spaces and sleeping quarters
available. People chipped in regularly for food and other provisions.
Innovations and new forms of pedagogy
We only had a little bit more than two months to finish a curriculum, and
some backlog from last year. I was in charge of Grade 11 students —15 of them
from various Lumad Schools in Mindanao. I had to collapse four subjects into a
schedule of 50 hours, that is three times a week for two hours. The courses were
Composition in English and Filipino (mainly writing based on reading), Social
Research, and Statistics. This means that the students will be getting grades in
four subjects even if our lectures on the courses were mutually dependent and
quite fluid.
SARAH RAYMUNDO 55
The link between Social Research and Statistics is obvious. So we began with
a project that they wanted to pursue. They wanted to do research on the Lumad
Bakwit School itself. Statistics was then incorporated to the lectures on Social
Research. Composition was a little bit challenging as I did not speak Bisaya.
But most of them speak Tagalog. So our innovation was to first write drafts of
their initial research and reflections in Tagalog. After two drafts, the task was to
translate their work from Tagalog into English. We spent two weeks, 12 hours
working on the formal side of the task— sentence construction, grammar, etc,
both in Filipino and English. It was very challenging as I am not a Language
teacher. But their resolve was solid, and their love for reading and writing was
inspiring, it only made me a better teacher.
Their reading assignments include some texts from June Jordan. They
particularly liked the speech she made in a high school graduation in Brooklyn in
which she was talking about the necessity of Life Studies. Most of the strategies
I used were also inspired by June Jordan’s Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary
Blueprint, which I have encountered in a conference on June Jordan last year
at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The book contains
experimental exercises on writing that draws mainly from students’ experiences,
focusing on challenges and aspirations. The Lumad students delightfully found
it very intriguing and enlightening that people in what they have always known
as the richest country in the world— nation that wields power on their lives, and
they know this fact very well—also nurtures struggling populations and is able
to do so through efforts similar to our current endeavor.They were also reading
texts by their own leaders from other subjects so it was easy to build an interface
between reading and writing for and about themselves in order to reach out to
others.
Modification of the standard curriculum
I have learned that an effective departure from the standard curriculum

would not be an abrupt departure but one of modification. I’ve had debates
with comrades, particularly, Lumad teachers on this matter. My initial view was
that of a quick fix. I was being requested by my comrade who used to teach
Linguistics in the University but is now a volunteer Lumad teacher in Mindanao
to teach the course on Composition in English and make sure that we follow the
56 ELSEWHERE SCHOOLING The Lumad bakwit school in the national university*
standard curriculum provided for by the Department of Education. My initial

response was one of shock and resistance: “Why? Are we also going to send these
Lumad youth abroad so they need to be good English writers and speakers? Is
this what the struggle for self-determination looks like to you? I do not think so.”
Eventually, I attended the volunteer Lumad teacher briefing. And of course,

we ran into the same debate. But this time, I was a little bit sober and less self-
absorbed. I was made to understand that Lumad schools are being attacked,
closed down with theirs students and teachers killed. And all because the
Philippine State claims that Lumad shcools are training grounds for rebels. In
June 2017, President Duterte announced that these schools will be bombed. The
Department of Education is one with the project of Whole of Nation Approach,
a program which boils down to counterinsurgency. And part of which is building
schools in areas where Lumad schools are already in place. Since 2016, teachers
in these school are from the military, and is part of their civil-military activities.
Community members are obliged to transfer their children to these schools lest
they be accused of rebellion.
It was therefore paramount for the Lumad school administrators to maintain

their accreditation. Hence, they need to follow the standard curriculum. Lumad
students undergo academic evaluation using standard curriculum measures.
Thus, working with the standard curriculum is basic for the survival of Lumad
schools. It is a claim on legitimacy addressed to a government agency like the
Department of Education that cannot claim autonomy from the executive
branch of government.
The debate on the standard curriculum speaks directly to the fact that the
State is not there to protect its people. Therefore, observing the curriculum, at
least its formal characteristics, is not even a step for the Lumad Schools to affirm
the existing elite and colonial curriculum but rather, to survive, to save lives,
which I now understand as necessary and should be the main focus if our work
is to continue.
Some lessons
The Lumad Bakwit School exposes the inherent failure of liberal

democratic institutions to ensure justice for all.
SARAH RAYMUNDO 57
Under the Free mobility of global capital, or the promise of free capital, the
resisting Lumad are not able to flow with capital. In fighting for their ancestral
domain and pushing back against extractive industries and built-in political
infrastructure for these business to exist, the Lumad are displaced, exploited,
and as refugees are rendered as surplus labor. The Lumad Bakwit School at
UP s also a space to think through how state manipulates rural populations in
order to keep wages of farm workers low by creating a whole migrant population
as refugees elsewhere. The whole process of displacement becomes a lucrative
measure for capital in fulfilling its interest in creating infrastructures for surplus
value extraction and surplus labor at the expense of refugees and migrants.
But Elsewhere schooling also means building solidarity. The Lumad Bakwit
School at UP is all about that. It demands for rights yet at the same time it is able
to think beyond sovereign power. How so? By simply recognizing the grounds on
which we relate to each other. I am arriving at this conclusion from a politics of
anti-imperialism. And through the Lumad Bakwit School, I have learned that we
need to make a claim on the State and expose how foundational liberal discourse
has never been for the Lumad or for the majority of this world’s working poor.
Having recognized that, making a claim on the State also means starting to
build on our own, just as the Lumad have in the late ’90s when they started to
build Lumad schools in the different regions in Mindanao. The Lumad and their
advocates have been very effective in terms of defending the rights of people to
the point that “sovereign right” finds reason to inflict itself in ways that full scale
state violence operates against marginalized peoples worldwide.
Sarah Raymundo is a full-time faculty at the University of the Philippines-

Diliman Center for International Studies. She is engaged in activist work in
BAYAN (The New Patriotic Alliance), the International League of Peoples’
Struggles, and Chair of the Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship
Association. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal for Labor and
Society (LANDS) and Interface: Journal of/and for Social Movements.
58
The Dialectical Foundation of

Marx’s Sociology of Conflict:
Methodological implications
for the study of conflicts
Gerry Lanuza
Philippine Sociological Review
Vol. 64, Special Issue: Sociology of Peace and Conflict (2016)
pp. 103-133
Marx without Marxism
IN CHAPTER ONE of The State and Revolution, Lenin (1965)

talks of attempts to convert the revolutionaries into ‘harmless
icons’ after their death and of ‘robbing’ their revolutionary
theories of their ‘revolutionary edge.’
What is now happening to Marx’s teaching has, in the course of
history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary
thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for
emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries,
the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their
teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred
and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After
their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless
icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names
with a certain halo for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes
and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time
emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting
its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. (Pp. 5–6)
Who now reads Marx on conflict, revolution, and violence? It is ironic that
as sociologists we tend to skip Marx’s analysis of violence when we address the
60 THE DIALECTICAL FOUNDATION OF MARX’S SOCIOLOGY OF CONFLICT
problem of conflicts and political violence in contemporary society. Sociologists

tend to shy away from mentioning Marx in fear of being reprimanded as agent
provocateur or in league with destabilizers. Yet Wall Street analysts tend to
appreciate Marx better than sociologists themselves who learned early in their
sociology classes that Marx is the father of conflict sociology. Sociologists turn
to Max Weber or even George Simmel in explaining violence and conflict rather
than confronting the challenge of Marx and his system. Today, those who have
the courage to embrace Marx and proclaim his gospel in academic circles tend to
be humanistic. They accept the critique of the violence of capitalism but refrain
from embracing his call to overthrow capitalism through violent revolution. But
as Engels reminds us in his graveyard eulogy for Marx, “Marx was before all else
a revolutionist… Fighting was his element.”
Today, those who champion a postmodern shift in social theory, would

rather recommend Michel Foucault’s biopolitics and Deleuze’s molecular
revolution rather than Marx’s supposed “grand” theory of conflict-driven
capitalism. A defender of dialectic rightly observes, “With the collapse of the
Soviet state and of other ‘Soviet’ type states in Eastern Europe, it is often argued
that dialectics has been buried, once and for all, under their ruins” (Michael-
Matsas 2008:163). Does dialectical materialism fall together with the collapse
of revisionist socialism in Soviet Union? Dialectical materialism has always been
tied with the revolutionary working class world outlook. So when the really
existing socialism collapsed, dialectical materialism was also consigned to the
Stalinist and Leninist dustbin of history.
With the demise of really existing socialism, the waning of violent

anticolonial struggle that inspired the New Left in the sixties and the resurgence
of religious violence and conflict, sociologists today are drawn to Gandhi, the
democratic consensus of Habermas, and the third way alternative of Giddens
that all proclaim we should simply operate within the existing parameters of
liberal democracy. This trend is exemplified in the study of Crost, Felter, and
Johnson (2015) on the condition cash transfer (CCT) in the Philippine villages
threatened by insurgency. Other scholars simply follow multicausal analysis
along the Weberian lines with regard to land problems (Rutten 2010). Other
postcolonial theorists, while criticizing the violent system of colonial history
and romanticizing Fanon’s anticolonial violence, opt for cultural and literary
criticisms rather than invoking class struggle (Veneracion-Rallonza 2015). In
short, to invoke Marx’s theory of conflict and violence today is embarrassing
GERRY LANUZA 61
for a sociologist. It invites laughter, smear, and disbelief. Why fight for a lost
cause? So, sociologists, like the early proponents of dialectics, who champion and
defend dialectics today invite violent ridicule and terroristic laughter.
Surprisingly, among Marxist scholars, the recent ascendancy of the “new

dialectic” is a recent interpretation of the Marx-Hegel relationship that veers away
from the dialectical materialism of Engels (Burns and Fraser 2000; Moseley and
Smith 2014; Ollman and Smith 2008). Rather than seeing dialectic as a method
of the working class, this new systematic dialectic attempts to deal with whether
dialectic is idealist or materialist in the hands of its Master, Hegel (Smith 1990).
I will not deal with this problem. This interpretation, while resurrecting the
relevance of dialectical materialism, nevertheless, mutes its power by dissociating
it from the revolutionary theory of Karl Marx and Engels11. At the opposite
extreme are some scholars who even argue that Marx has nothing to do with
Hegel (Arthur 2004; Bell 2003; Murray 2003).
This paper therefore is an attempt to rescue Marx from this self-imposed

academic allergy and turn his ideas as a fruitful springboard to analyze the current
problem of violence and conflict. In the recent book of Louis Kriesberg (2012),
Marx’s theory of violence and conflict is downplayed in favor of its modern
versions in Simmel and Coser. Randall Collins’s (2015) new book on violence
meanwhile simply reduces the analysis of violence to social interactions and
social situations. This is just an updated version of methodological individualism
rooted in neo-Weberian ontology. What these alternative theories of conflict lack
is the dialectical method used masterfully by Marx in analyzing social change in
different modes of production.
1 Colleti, Carver, and other interpreters of Marx and Engels tend to dissociate Marx from his “Lieutenant” to save
the honor of Marx. Engels is considered dogmatic and reductionist, while Marx is creative and humanistic. This is
a mistaken view of Marx and Engels’s relationship. I therefore follow the position of Sebastian Timpananaro, Sean
Creaven, Sean Sayers, Jolyon, Benton, Novack, Grant and Woods, and others who have a better appreciation of
Engels in relation to Marx.
THE ONTOLOGICAL UNIVERSE OF MARXISM
Unity of Theory and Practice: The Revolutionary Import of

Dialectics
Carol Gould’s (1978) otherwise masterful work on Marx’s ontology, just like
any academic interpretation of Marx, separates Marx’s revolutionary practice
from his systematic philosophy. What distinguishes Marx’s analysis of violence
and conflict from other classical sociologists like Simmel and Weber is that it is
a product of his own political and social engagement bordering on instigating
world revolution. Practice is primary in Marx; it is the origin, instructor, and
goal of theory. Second, Marx further developed his theory on the basis of new
revolutionary activity; for instance, the class struggles in France (1848–1851).
The movement here is from theory to practice to theory. Henri Lefebvre (2009)
captures this unity of theory and practice:
Dialectical materialism’s aim is nothing less than the rational expression of the
Praxis, of the actual content of life—and, correlatively, the transformation of
the present Praxis into a social practice that is conscious, coherent and free. Its
theoretical aim and its practical aim— knowledge and creative action— cannot
be separated. (P.100)
Marx grounds his analysis of conflicts on the material basis of society where
the relations of production and the people’s access to the means of production
generate diametrically opposed interests among classes that will eventually lead
to the violent overthrow of the system (Gilbert 1979:10). Marx came to the
conclusion that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways
but the point is to change it, after a long struggle with Hegel’s pure idealistic
dialectic in which Reason becomes the ground of its own logical analysis. Marx,
unlike Hegel, saw the revolutionary potential of dialectic. It is negative. It refuses
to compromise with what is (Williams 1989:150).
“All things… meet their doom; and in saying so, we have a perception that
Dialectic is the universal and irresistible power, before which nothing can stay,
however secure and stable it may deem itself,” writes Hegel in The Encyclopedia
of Philosophical Sciences (quoted in Novack 1971:85). But Hegel misses the
historico-political potential of dialectic in transforming the Real. Marx advances
beyond Hegel by insisting that contradictions are not done away peacefully
GERRY LANUZA 63
through rational sublation in the act of thinking, but through concrete struggle
in the real world.
This is the basis of Marx’s rejection of the position of political economists

during his time. Because reality is fraught with contradictions, Marx criticized
the political economists for equating capitalism with what is natural and eternal.
Capitalism is not a seamless and frictionless system. Capitalism contains its own
seed of destruction. But Marx is not simply claiming that he has a moral critique
of capitalism. He shows that capitalism itself contains its own seed of destruction
that will lead it to a new social and economic formation.
Thus, Sean Creaven (2002:106) is right to oppose those who try to separate
Marx’s dialectics from real class struggle: “[P]hilosophy and social theory was
always disciplined by its ‘lived relation’ with class struggles and the international
labour movement, and hence by the litmus test of political practice.” In the
same vein, Ollman and Smith (2008:3) argue, “Marx’s dialectics is also largely
developed from the standpoint of engaged practical agency, rather than from
the sort of detached intellectual contemplation that characterized dialectical
thinking in the West from the Greeks through Hegel.” Unlike those Marxologists
who simply provide a commentary on dialectics, Sean Creaven (2002) points
out, “the classical Marxists were simultaneously philosophers, social theorists,
and political activists because they recognized that philosophy ‘left to its
own devices’ was prone to abstractionism and scholasticism, just as a politics
uninformed by critical social theory and philosophy was narrowly empiricist
and instrumentalist. The task was to unify practice and theory in practice as
practice.” Any discussion of dialectics therefore must take into account Marx’s
revolutionary practice—including those of Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.
John Milios (2002:209) righty maintains, “Marxism is constructed not

simply as a theoretical system, but also as an ideology of the masses, as an
ideology which determines the political action of organizations and movements
of the working classes.” Hegel is right, whereas the Greek philosophers were
finding abstract categories to make sense of their life, we modern individuals are
drenched and floating in the universals. We need to find concrete ways to make
these abstractions appeal to our daily life.
Inverting Hegel’s Idealism to Get Rational Kernel of Dialectic
Lenin summarizes Marx’s dialectical method in his Philosophic Notebooks

when he remarks, “Properly speaking, the dialectic is the study of contradiction
in the very essence of things.” The dialectic can be briefly defined as the theory
of the unity of contraries. Thereby one grasps the kernel of the dialectic” (quoted
in Planty-Bonjour 1967:104). Hegel’s mystification of dialectic through his
Absolute Idealist interpretation does not diminish the fact that he was the first to
explore and develop systematically its logical form and movement. With Hegel,
dialectic was standing on its head. Marx’s materialist philosophy inverted Hegel’s
system to discover the rational kernel within its mystical husk (White 1996:210).
Karl Marx’s materialist dialectic ‘turns Hegel on his head’ by insisting that the
starting point for accurate historico-economic understanding should not be
the dynamics of the Mind, but rather through the social and material relations
through which individuals and their societies maintain coherence and organize
their way of life (Buchwalter 2015:162).
Marx and Engels in The German Ideology (1976) wrote, “Men [sic] are
the producers of their conceptions, ideas etc., that is real, active men, as they
are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the
intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness
can never be anything else than conscious being, and the being of men is their
conscious life process.” This germ of materialism will be the guiding light for
Marx’s inversion of Hegel and deriving the kernel out of Hegel’s idealist shell.
Marx, unlike Hegel who starts with abstract categories, begins with concrete
objects like commodity. The materialist transformation of Hegelian dialectic is
not just to get rid of God and absolute spirit, but to purge the system of the
ideal thoughts that are included in the process of thinking about categories.
And this can only be done by looking at the concrete material realities that those
categories refer to. The mystical shell in Hegel’s dialectic consists in the pure
abstraction in thought that is emptied of all material content. In contrast, Marx,
no matter how much abstraction he makes, is firmly grounded in the material,
concrete objects.
Marx and Engels forged their dialectical materialist method in their polemics
against the Young Hegelians. Marx (1976) outlined his method contra Hegel:
GERRY LANUZA 65
My dialectical logic is, in its foundation, not only different from the
Hegelian, but exactly opposite to it. For Hegel, the process of thinking,
which he even transforms into an independent subject, under the name
of ‘the Idea,’ is the creator of the real world, and the real world is only the
external appearance of the idea. With me the reverse is true: the ideal
is nothing but the material world reflected in the mind of man, and
translated into forms of thought… The mystification which the dialectic
suffers in Hegel’s hands by no means prevents him from being the first
to present its general forms of motion in a comprehensive and conscious
manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be inverted, in
order to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell. (P. 102)
In contrast, the Young Hegelians deduced the essence of the fruit from
individual fruits. And they think that the real existence is the idea of the fruit
abstracted from the concrete fruits. What they failed to see is that the essence
of the fruit is purely meaningless apart from the concrete fruits. Speculative
philosophers believe that the abstracted fruit is the real fruit and the real fruits
are nothing but examples. If we therefore claim that Marx imposed his dialectical
method on the welter of things and processes to form a totality, that would be
idealism.
What troubles Marx is the dogmatic and mystified expression that takes in
Hegel’s thought. In Hegel’s speculative idealism, thought and being are linked
through a process wherein reality is generated out of thought itself. For Marx
(1973), Hegel conceives “the real as the product of thought concentrating itself,
probing its own depths and unfolding itself out of itself” (p. 101). In Marx’s
materialist account, by contrast, theory has a more modest function, one that
simply refashions in conceptual form claims and assumptions about an already
existing reality. On his view, ideas are “nothing else than the material world
reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought” (Marx 1996:
361) . In other words, Marx’s dialectics is realist. Even when human beings
transform the world through labor, the world remains as independent of human
consciousness2. Dialectical thinking only reflects the dialectical structure of
the world which is thought about. If dialectical thinking enables the mind to
2 It is therefore wrong to argue that Marx takes dialectic not as a method and ontology as in Hegel, but simply
a method of exposition (Williams 1989:X). In this view, Marx does not write capital to prove that reality is dia-
lectical but that the world can only be understood dialectically. This is a pure idealist reading of Marx’s method.
Marx and Engels as well as Lenin believed, contrary to Williams’s interpretation, that dialectic is also the heart
of reality. Roy Bhaskar (2008) describes the general meaning of dialectic better than Williams’s idealist reading:
describe the world, that is because dialectic mirrors the real world. And if Marx
thinks that dialectic is the best way to describe the world, it is because, upon
meticulous study and empirical investigation, the human mind resembles the
essential character of the world (Wood 2004:217).
Despite the fundamental opposition between the materialist standpoint

of Marxism and the idealism of Hegel, these two schools of thought have one
extremely important element in common: their logical method. This is the
rational kernel of Hegel’s method. Allen Wood (2004) aptly summarizes Marx’s
inversion of Hegel:
The ‘rational kernel’ of Hegel’s dialectic, then, is his vision of reality

as structured organically and characterized by inherent tendencies
to development. The ‘mystical shell’ is Hegel’s logical pantheistic
metaphysics, which represents the dialectical structure of reality as a
consequence of thinking spirit’s creative activity. Marx’s ‘ inversion’ of
Hegel consists in viewing the dialectical structure of thought not as a
cause or explanation for the dialectical structure of reality, but merely
as a consequence of the fact that it is thought’s function to mirror a
dialectically structured world. (P. 217)

It is therefore wrong to argue that Marx takes dialectic not as a method and
ontology as in Hegel, but simply a method of exposition (Williams 1989:X). In
this view, Marx does not write capital to prove that reality is dialectical but that
the world can only be understood dialectically. This is a pure idealist reading
of Marx’s method. Marx and Engels as well as Lenin believed, contrary to
Williams’s interpretation, that dialectic is also the heart of reality. Roy Bhaskar
(2008) describes the general meaning of dialectic better than Williams’s idealist
reading:
In its most general sense, dialectic has come to signify any more
or less intricate process of conceptual or social (and sometimes
even natural) conflict, interconnection and change, in which the
generation, interpenetration and clash of oppositions, leading to
their transcendence in a fuller or more adequate mode of thought
or form of life (or being), plays a key role. (P. 3)
For Marx, as a practical as well as a philosophical materialist, resolution of a

contradiction is also possible, but this involves something additional: a change not
GERRY LANUZA 67
just in thought, but of states of affairs in the world through practical engagement
or praxis (Creaven 2003; Norrie 2010:72). Following Marx’s distinction and
method of exposition itself, one can say that in Capital, Marx presented the
dialectical method of examining the inner connections among things within a
concrete totality derived from Hegel. Marx rejects Hegel’s derivation of Nature
from the nature of consciousness itself. Nature is dialectical not because of
consciousness but consciousness itself is a product and reflection of nature.
In the end, critics can argue that this is just pure Hegelian speculative
philosophy and not a good method for doing sociology of conflict. Let us remind
ourselves that in his Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right,’ Marx (1975)
castigates this attempt to deduce the empirical characteristics of a historical
phenomenon from the dialectical development of the Idea. Marx contends that
philosophical reasoning cannot recapitulate empirical reality; rather, historical
explanation must be founded on empirical investigation. What Marx did is to
foreground dialectical investigation in empirical data. It was never an aprioristic
analysis that simply plays with dialectical concepts and movement.
We are now able to interpret Marx’s celebrated remark that with Hegel the
dialectic is “standing on its head. It must be inverted, in order to discover the
rational kernel within the mystical shell” (Capital II:103). “In its rational form…
[the dialectical method] regards every historically developed form as being in a
fluid state, in motion, and therefore grasps its transient aspect as well” (Capital
II:103). This is the rational kernel of dialectic— the discovery that things are
not isolated from one another but are part of the entire process of movement
and constant transformation. But this is only possible by looking critically and
meticulously at the concrete empirical data and situate them within the historical
flow of things or temporal transformation across time. Finally, the inversion
of Marx proposes that instead of beginning with ideas and attempting to
reproduce the material world in thought, we must begin with the material world
and attempt to arrive at ideas that adequately describe its real characteristics.
Dialectics is vindicated by the empirical investigation of Marx about the conflict-
ridden nature of capitalism. Marx was able to vindicate Hegel’s dialectic via
historical and empirical analysis. But this dialectical character of social reality
and nature in general is not something that is imposed by Marx nor speculatively
deduced by Hegel. It is the reality or essence of reality itself. This is the problem
of Daniel Little’s (1986) interpretation of Marx’s dialectic. Little evaporated
Hegel’s dialectic in Marx’s method and sociology of conflict by turning Marx’s

dialectic into an empiricist model.
Essence versus Appearance
“All science would be superfluous,” wrote Marx (1981:956), “if the outward
appearance and the essence of things directly coincided.” The appearance-
essence distinction can be illustrated in the capitalist system: whereas capitalism
in appearance makes equality possible, yet essentially it creates a very unequal
society. Or, behind the exchange of commodities in the market, the underlying
exploitation of labor is concealed.
Marx’s method is different from empiricism of Locke that is common among

social scientists. From an empiricist point of view, “[M]ental generalizations are
based upon external relations selected by the observer, while real abstractions are
based upon material reality, and they disclose concrete universals that include
the essence of the particulars” (Saad-Filho 2002:9). In contrast, materialist
dialectics selects the most important feature of the concrete and reconstructs the
other features systematically on the basis of this essence (Meikle 1985). Marx
followed Hegel who went beyond Kant’s dualism between the thing-in-itself
and the thing as it appears to the observer. Hegel argued that to accept the
thing-in-itself leads to materialism, while accepting the gap between reality and
appearance leads to Berkeley’s idealism. Marx and Lenin rejected this dualism by
arguing, like Hegel, that the Kantian thing-in-itself is fully knowable by rational
investigation (Sayer 1979:22). Hegel refuted Kant’s dualism between the knower
and the known by arguing that necessity and universal categories do exist in the
world (Agar 2006). Reality and appearance therefore should also exist in the
world (Sayer 1979).
In sum, materialist dialectics examines the concrete in order to identify

the material structures of determination of reality, especially the essence of the
phenomena under investigation and the mediations between them. Marx and
Engels pointed out that the true state of affairs was the exact opposite of Hegel:
“We comprehended the concepts in our heads once more materialistically— as
images of real things instead of regarding the real things as images of this or that
stage of development of the Absolute Idea” (Engels 1976: 41).
According to Psychopedis (1992:32), “In contrast to the Kantian conception
GERRY LANUZA 69
of the material as subsumable, amorphous matter, the Marxian theory of

materiality appears as a complex relation of conceptual determinations.” The
highlight here is the appearance-essence distinction, then, concretion or the
movement from concrete abstraction to more complex analysis of concepts and
complex relations. The entire movement is toward more accurate appropriation
of reality in their complex and concrete states. The concrete is the maximum
synthesis of the differences in unity. We must always start with subtraction,
concrete abstraction. Karel Kosík (1976:32) calls this approach as concrete
totality that focuses on the internal relationship among phenomena in contrast
with hypostatizing the phenomenal appearance.
Marx is distinguishing between “the inner connection, the physiology of

the bourgeois system,” and “the external phenomena of life, as they seem and
appear.” This conception establishes Marx’s basic paradigm: To explain a social
phenomenon is to identify the underlying social relations that gave rise to it. The
obscure structure represents the most fundamental aspect of the capitalist mode
of production, but its effects on the level of surface structure are mediate in the
extreme (Little 1986:97).
The abstractive method provides a scientific understanding of that complex

range of empirical detail. It is necessary to abstract from observation and arrive
at a set of hypotheses about the social relations behind that “chaotic given” (Little
1986:103). Central to this abstractive method is the view that (1) beneath the
empirically given social formation are layers of structure that, taken as a whole,
explain the observable shape of that empirical social formation; and (2) the
scientifically accurate explanation of the given must reproduce these levels in their
correct articulation and order. Dialectical analysis of conflict therefore moves
beyond the dominant practice in sociology that stays on the surface and remains
suspicious of underlying causes. Marx and Engels went beyond empiricism’s
naïve belief in surface appearances through Baconian sense perception (Grant
and Woods 2002:74). They regarded the bewildering array of surface phenomena
as a falsification of the real nature of the social system. Hence the abstractive
method is the means to uncover the underlying generative mechanism beneath
the ripples of appearances. Thus, abstraction, far from taking us further from the
truth, brings us nearer to it (Little 1986:101).
Unity of Opposites, Reality of Contradictions
Engels made the point that ‘three laws’ of dialectic—the ‘unity of opposites’,
the ‘transformation of quantity into quality,’ and the ‘negation of the negation’—
can usefully be distilled from Hegel’s work. And this has been the main
misgivings of scholars of Marxism against Engels (Dupré 1977). But Engels
did not cast these dialectical laws as metaphysical truths that can be applied
universally. For Hegel, these are ways of specifying how dialectical processes
unfold in conceptual thought. Marx, especially Engels, adopted these basic
analytical tools of Hegel’s dialectic, but they did not assume that these three
fundamental laws of Hegel’s logic capture or exhaust every dialectical process at
work in the world (Agar 2006; Creaven 2002:90; Hollander 2011; Smith 2009).
In Hegel’s system, contradictions are harnessed for conservative ends. The

conservatism of Hegel’s system is thus buried in his notion of contradiction.
Contradictions in Hegel are merely intellectual contradictions to be resolved
by merely intellectual methods. Or in the words of Marx, “a divine dialectic…
the pure products of the labor of thought living and moving within itself and
never looking out into reality” (Rees 1998:63). In Hegel, contradictions are easily
resolved by showing they are just products of underlying concepts and logical
sublation.
Lenin provides the best interpretation of Marx’s materialist inversion

of Hegel by arguing in his Philosophic Notebooks, “Properly speaking, the
dialectic is the study of contradiction in the very essence of things.” Lenin
further adds that the dialectical method is all about the unity of opposites. In
Hegel’s method, the unity of opposites is dissolved in the ground. The positive
passes to its negative. For Marx, however, the opposites remain opposites and
are not sublated in the ground. Marx, like Hegel, believes that the essence of an
object or concept in thought is only made possible by excluding its negation or
opposite. But are contradictions real? Or are they only real in thought? Williams,
like many interpreters of Marx notably Colleti, avoid the Hegelian notion of
contradictions as true in nature. He dismisses this by arguing that contradictions
only arise from linguistic processes. Contradictions are not in things but in our
experience. This is an empiricist slip in Williams (1989:240). But Lenin already
distinguished between objective and subjective contradictions.
Hegel conflates the abstract movement of thought with the order of reality.
GERRY LANUZA 71
Dialectic is always revolutionary because it negates what is. But in the hands
of Hegel it becomes reactionary. Contradictions are resolved to stabilize the
system (Creaven 2007:77). In Marx’s hands, dialectics leads to the positive
understanding of what exists, but also to a simultaneous recognition of its
negation, its inevitable destruction. The dialectical method moves through the
positing and overcoming of contradictions—which are nothing but the tension
between what a thing inherently is and what it explicitly is. The truth, the result
reached in this way, can be a concrete totality of simple unity looked at from a
higher-level perspective. But it never terminates here. It is a new determinate
starting point.
The Ontological Dimension of Dialectic
The young Marx entertained a pragmatic theory of knowledge (Moore

2008). But the Marx of Grundrisse embraced a realist theory of knowledge.
One can argue that dialectic is just a metaphilosophy that does not inhere in
the real world. This is to fall into a Kantian dualism between the world and the
perspective or knowledge about the world (Smith 2009; Williams 1989:224).
But Marx, Engels, and Lenin believed that the dialectic works in history and in
the world. This is not a purely academic or intellectual assertion but grounded in
the belief that we need to understand the world to change it. Understanding the
world leads necessarily to a practice as a way of transforming it. Dialectic is not
just about the contradictory nature of the world but of using this knowledge to
change it. In opposition to Hegel’s idealism, but agreeing with Hegel’s monistic
critique of Kantian dualism, Marx explicitly adopts from this point onward a
realist epistemology (Agar 2006). The object of knowledge, he asserts, exists
independently of any act of a knowing subject. Having abandoned the pragmatist
ambiguities of his Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts and subsequent works,
Marx became a materialist in the restricted sense of that word (Moore 2008:420;
Smith 2009).
Roy Bhaskar (2008) has done a great job in elaborating Marx’s dialectic
materialism by interpreting it along a critical realist paradigm. By detecting
these contradictions, we can look for the grounds of the generative mechanism
that cause these contradictions and transform it. Classical political economy was
ultimately unsuccessful because it failed to recognize the need to formulate an
account of the underlying social relations of the capitalist economic structure—
the inner physiology. In insisting on this point, Marx is rejecting a very narrow
Humean empiricism, since he directs scientists to go beyond the empirical given.

Marx’s dialectical materialism is unwelcome to social scientists who imagine the
role of their science to be the systematic description of observable phenomena
(Little 1986:98).
The problem of Bertell Ollman (2003a; 2003b) and others who emphasize the
relational and processual nature of dialectic is that they negate the ontology of the
relata (Creaven 2005; Bhaskar 2008:3). The basic ontological presupposition of
the system is that of an objective reality: the existence of the world is independent
of the human mind. But this is realism. What makes it materialist is the assertion
that matter itself is driven by contradictions. Marx starts with the concrete. And
each concrete as material reality is submitted to rigorous critique as a product of
the multiple determinations from other elements. This is concrete totality (Kosík
1976). And it is through these relations that conflicts are generated. As more
contradictions and conflicts are resolved, human beings draw closer to perfecting
their essence (Lefebvre 2009:137).
Recognizing the ontological dimension of dialectic does not mean

mechanically imposing unity of nature and mind, society and natural world. In
an important passage in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German
Philosophy, Engels wrote that although “dialectics was… the science of the
general laws of motion, both of the external world and of human thought” and
that although they were “two sets of laws which are identical in substance,”
they were necessarily “different in their expression insofar as the human mind
can apply them consciously, while in nature… these laws assert themselves
unconsciously, in the form of external necessity.” (Rees 1998:72).3
It is true, says Creaven (2002:91), that “[C]lassical Marxists adopt these basic
analytical tools of Hegel’s dialectic.” But he is quick to add that “[T]hey do so, not
as a mechanical or deterministic formula adopted prior to research, into which
real world processes have to be fitted, but rather as elements of an explanatory
framework, based on the findings or knowledge of empirical science, which is
also of practical efficacy in interpreting and organizing research data.”
3 In short, contrary to those who accuse Engels of imposing determinism on Marx’s method, and accusing En-
gels of distorting Marx’s creative method (see Carver, 1980;, 1981), it must be acknowledged that Engels (1954;
1962) provided a profound elaboration of Marx’s dialectic.
GERRY LANUZA 73
THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL STANDPOINT OF MARXIST DIALECTIC
Totality and Dialectic
Metaphysical approaches, including formal logic, tend to view the concrete

as an agglomeration of ontologically independent elements linked only externally
and more or less contingently. Metaphysical approaches are generally structured
around mental generalizations (Saad-Filho 2002:13). Empiricism, which is a
rebellion against metaphysical conception of the world, falls into the same mold
as metaphysics. For it regards “dead objects” as unconnected to everything else.
Motions are possible only through conjunctions of events, the cause of which
cannot be traced back to reality. Against metaphysics and empiricism, materialist
dialectic insists that the human and non-human world is inseparable and
transforms through a myriad of relationships that are internally contradictory
(Grant and Woods 2002: 66). When Marx accepts Hegel’s dictum that the True
is the “whole,” he rejects its idealist overtone. The “whole” is not the Absolute
Spirit but the mode of production that organizes the totality of human life under
modern societies. If we think of spatio-temporal causality as central to human
life, then human beings are caught in a structured flow of being and becoming
in which the totality of past, present, and future relations is implicated (Norrie
2010:88).
What follows from this dialectical assertion is the methodological direction

of investigating the element based on a system of inner relations. It is necessary
to acquire a concrete understanding of the object as an integral system, not
as isolated fragments; with all its necessary interconnections, not torn out of
context, like a butterfly pinned to a collector’s board; in its life and movement,
not as something lifeless and static (Grant and Woods 2002).
Dialectical thinking begins by positing that all categories are concrete

realities of the whole (Kosík 1976). And this whole or system completes the
system, and therefore what is the end naturally makes each concrete as part of
the system. Each part embodies the elements of its differences with other parts.
This is not a product of deduction but reconstruction in which the completeness
is comprehended through an unending process of failed completion. Hence all
stages in the reconstruction and concrete are deficient in relation to the whole.
Thus, the analysis of conflict and contradictions within a given system will always
be intelligible only in the final analysis on the outcome or the end process itself.
In every resolution of conflict, nothing is lost. Refuted positions and categories
are assumed to ever higher form of synthesis.
The first step towards dialectical thinking is to think of “dead objects,”

unconnected things, as related to each other in a whole. Dialectic takes on a realist
ontology that sees the isolated objects and things in the world as interconnected
through a larger process within a system. Then there is the epistemological step
in which we study how to organize the world into layered levels of reality. Third,
there is the inquiry itself where we put to the work our assumptions. There is the
level of clarification in which we modify and adjust our assumptions as a result of
the inquiry. There is exposition when we try to explain the result and process of
the investigation. Finally, there is the moment of praxis when we apply and seek
to transform the world through our knowledge of it.
Marx totalizes capitalism as unit of opposites and changing through its

internal relations. He therefore rejects the classical economists for universalizing
the form of capitalism. Marx demolished the Robinson Crusoe approach.
Capitalism is not just the aggregates of individuals but a unified whole with
contradictions (Grant and Woods 2002.).
Unlike system theory that starts with the system and treats each part as
isolated, in dialectics each part is seen as an embodiment of the universal notion
or the concrete (Levins 2008). From a system theory, the economy cannot be the
determining force of violence and conflict. For they too are determined by other
factors. The forces of production are also determined by climate and geographical
factors. In return, these factors are also determined by non-economic factors.
But this is precisely what is wrong with system theory—what if the mode of
production is not just one among the many factors but the network or the
framework that lodges these factors? Unlike system theory, dialectic does not
see violence and conflict as driven towards certain goals. It is anti-teleological.
Everything changes due to conflict but the direction will always be uncertain
and unpredictable.
All totality cannot be closed. It always fails. Marx recognizes that reality
is shaped by social structure and tendencies and countertendencies which can
GERRY LANUZA 75
be derived dialectically, as well as by unpredictable contingencies which cannot

be so derived. The outcomes of their interactions cannot be determined in
advance; this means that dialectical analysis will always see conflict as open
and unpredictable (Fine and Saad-Filho 2003:7). Hence one cannot cast Marx’s
dialectical analysis of conflict as an exact prophecy of what will happen in the
future. Engels himself rejected the notion of closed totality that is the favorite
linchpin of postmodern deconstructionists, “From the moment we accept the
theory of natural evolution all our concepts… correspond only approximately
to reality. Otherwise there would be no change. On the day when concepts and
reality completely coincide… development comes to an end” (quoted in Creaven
2002:111).
Or in the words of Marxist historian of science,
What can be seen at any given moment is the composition of the economic
and political forces of the time, their necessary struggle and the new
conditions which will arise as a result of it. But beyond that we can only
foresee a process which has not ended and will necessarily take on new
and strictly unpredictable forms. Marxism is valuable as a method and
a guide to action, not as a creed and a cosmogony. (Bernal 1937:63)
Because the object of investigation is a totality, dialectic grasps phenomena

in their interconnectedness, something beyond the capacity of analytical reason
and linear logic (Mussachia 1977; Novack 1971; Sayers 1981). Dialectical
thinking does not challenge Aristotelian formal logic. What it rejects is the
unqualified application of this logic to the real world. Or in the words of
Merleau-Ponty (1969:120): “A dialectical world is a world on the move where
every idea communicates with all others and where values can be reversed.” Or,
as Joel Kovel (2008:238) says, “To practice dialectic well, an individual has to
be open to contradiction and emergence. Dialectic is therefore for those who
accept struggle, in the hope that truer knowing and a better world might be
the outcome.” He further adds, “Dialectic resists totalization, yet moves in the
direction of totality” (p. 240).
Grasping the totality of inner connections does not mean dogmatic

imposition of dialectic on the real world. It simply means that social phenomena
exist and can be understood only in their historical context. Trans-historical
generalizations, supposedly valid everywhere and for all time, are normally
either vacuous, or invalid, or both (Fine and Saad-Filho 2016:3). Furthermore,

Lefebvre (2009) concludes his study of dialectical materialism:
The exposition of dialectical materialism does not pretend to put an end

to the forward march of knowledge or to offer a closed totality, of which
all previous systems had been no more than the inadequate expression.
However, with our modern awareness of human potential and of the
problem of man, the limitation of thought changes in character. No
expression of dialectical materialism can be definitive, but, instead of
being incompatible and conflicting with each other, it may perhaps
be possible for these expressions to be integrated into an open totality,
perpetually in the process of being transcended, precisely in so far as they
will be expressing the solutions to the problems facing concrete man. (P.
99)
CONCLUSION: METHODOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Creative Use of Dialectics, Against Mechanical Application
We can now draw some methodological principles from the discussion of

dialectical materialism as applied to the sociology of conflicts. First, dialectics
and dialectical method cannot be treated simply as ready-made framework to be
applied mechanically. Allen W. Wood (2004) provides a good caveat:
Only harm can be done by representing dialectic as analogous to formal

logic or mathematics… Instead, dialectic is best viewed as a general
conception of the sort of intelligible structure the world has to offer, and
consequently a program for the sort of theoretical structure which would
best capture it.44 (P. 198)
According to Wood (2004:207), dialectic is not conceived by Engels as a

technique for “constructing proofs” or “for producing explanations by fitting
particular cases to general laws.” Rather the function of dialectical ‘laws’ for
Engels is purely descriptive; the explanations which appeal to dialectical
4 Wood (2004) later explains, “Dialectic is not a method in the sense of a set of rules or procedures for inquiry,
or a general prolegomenon to science of the Baconian or Cartesian kind, which tries to prescribe the right way
to employ our cognitive faculties irrespective of the way the objects of our knowledge may be constituted. But
dialectic does involve some recommendations about how science should approach the world, what sort of order
to look for in it, what sorts of explanations to employ, even a theoretical program to be followed” (p. 219).
GERRY LANUZA 77
interconnections and tendencies depend ‘on the particular nature of each case.’
Any study of conflicts should proceed with the concrete totality (Kosík
1976). The investigation of concrete totality should proceed in an orderly and
abstractive fashion to construct a theory of the social system that begins with the
most fundamental categories and principles or concrete totality, and successively
fill in this theory with more superficial factors. According to Daniel Little
(1986:106), “This view maintains that social scientists must approach the given
social formation with a highly selective eye, disregarding phenomena with little
systematic significance and focusing on phenomena that give some indication of
the underlying mechanisms.”
This means some categories about conflict should be highlighted as

underlying mechanisms that generate the overall direction of social change
and the superficial elements that simply describe the empirical data. “Vulgar
economics,” argued Marx, “actually does nothing more than interpret,
systematize, and turn into apologetics the notions of agents trapped within
bourgeois relations of production” (Capital III:956). The same should be said to
social scientists—they are trapped in the bourgeois perspective that sees violence
as completely out of joint in a capitalist society. In this sense, any sociological
analysis of conflict cannot be separated from the social institutions within which
conflicts are generated and there is no distinct and independent range of purely
conflict-ridden phenomena, entities, processes, or the like.
Dialectics, Historicity, and the Problem of Determinations
Next, is on the historicity of conflicts and violent revolution. Looking for

a common denominator among conflicts and violent struggle, while laudable,
cannot dispense with the historical specificity of struggle and confrontation. A
study of conflicts should always be seen within the wider development of society
and the contradictions that generate them. Ultimately, these contradictions must
be grounded in the material foundations of society,
It must be borne in mind that dialectical materialism loses its value if pushed
beyond its historical context. For example, there is no correspondence between
labor under capitalism and slave society. Social phenomena exist, and can be
understood, only in their historical context. Trans-historical generalizations,
supposedly valid everywhere and for all time, are normally either vacuous, or
invalid, or both (Fine and Saad-Filho 2016:5). Lenin (1904:409) declared that
genuine dialectics does not justify the errors of individuals, but studies the
inevitable turns, proving that they were inevitable by a detailed study of the
process of development in all its concreteness. Lenin adds that, “One of the basic
principles of dialectics is that there is no such thing as abstract truth, truth is
always concrete” (quoted in Mayer 1999:44). In this vein, E. San Juan’s (2009)
observation about Marxism applied to Philippine society holds true:
Marxism as a theoretical guideline, not a set of fixed doctrines, still

demarcates the horizon of our everyday life. Whatever the historical
specificities involved, given the domination of transnational capital
over the state and civil society in the Philippines, one can say that the
resources of the Marxist tradition, its efficacy as a theory-practice of
radical social transformation and people’s empowerment, still remain
to be fully understood, mastered, and creatively applied by millions of
Filipinos, notwithstanding haphazard attempts in the past to do so (P.
145).
A very simple introduction to Marxist dialectics will show that one cannot
study conflicts and violence in isolation from other conflicts. Marxists will always
insist that focusing on one conflict contain only partial elements of truth. For
instance, unemployment can be grasped in its full complexity and concreteness
if it is traced back to the inner structure of capital. It must be seen as an essential
manifestation of the logic of capital accumulation and reproduction (Smith
1993:14).
The Hegelian theory of syllogism in which one finds the universal, the
particular, and the individual cannot be sublated in either one of these. As
Tony Smith (1993) argues, “Hegel insisted that neither a syllogism in which
individuality is the middle term, nor one in which universality is, nor again one
in which particularity takes that position, is adequate by itself.” Applied to non-
class conflicts, this means that gender conflicts (the particular) cannot be isolated
from the totalizing system of capitalism (universal). But neither of these two are
sufficient. Sexism and capitalism are also mediated by the individual who are
either victimized or perpetuate the violence of sexism and capitalism.
In this sense, Murray Smith (2009) rightly argues that Marxist monistic
dialectic is capable of addressing other conflicts other than class better than the
GERRY LANUZA 79
dualistic thinking in non-Marxist accounts. For there is nothing in dialectic that

prevents Marxism from addressing these issues whereas dualistic thinking avoids
connecting non-class struggles to social relations. Only a dialectical understanding
of non-class conflicts can generate better appreciation of contradictions and
their resolutions. For what distinguishes Marxism from virtually all versions of
dualistic social theory is not a constitutive blindness to “culture” or extra-class
conflicts, but rather an insistence upon approaching all such phenomena with
due attention to the historically specific and alterable material-natural and social
conditions in which they are manifested (Smith 2009:365). The fruitfulness of
this method is utilized fully by San Juan (2009:160) in his analysis of global
migration of Filipinos that situates this phenomenon to “dynamics of capital
accumulation” that “hinges on, and subtends, the sustained reproduction of
iniquitous social relations.”
Another lesson that can be drawn from this monistic view of conflict is the
affirmation of Hegel’s dictum that the true is the whole. Following Hegel, one
might ask: Why oppose conflict with peace? Why choose between violence and
non-violence? The truth is in the whole and not in the one side of the opposition.
The question therefore is not violence and non-violence but the transformation
of the system that generates these contradictions. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1969)
puts this issue of the dialectic of violence forcefully:
We do not have a choice between purity and violence but between

different kinds of violence. Inasmuch as we are incarnate beings,
violence is our lot. There is no persuasion even without seduction, or in
the last analysis, contempt. Violence is the common origin of all regimes.
Life, discussion, and political choice occur only against a background of
violence. What matters and what we have to discuss is not violence but
its sense or its future. (P. 109)
Dialectical Method and the Question of Agency
Studying conflicts does not mean neglect of the subjects. Fredric Jameson
(2009:284) has probably put it most clearly when he states that the experience
of negative constraint and violence that occurs in the commodification of labor
power dialectically produces the positive content of its experience as the self-
consciousness of the commodity. This means that conflict and contradictions
produce different subjects and subject positions. There are no interstices that
are independent and outside of conflicts and contradictions. But this does not
mean that dialectical materialism reduces consciousness and the subject to mere
epiphenomenon of the material world. While insisting that thought is a ‘form of
material motion,’ Engels rejects any attempt to ‘reduce’ thought to mechanical,
physical, or chemical processes. The ‘essence’ of thought, he insists, is not
‘exhausted’ by the mechanical, chemical, thermal, and electrical motions which
‘accompany’ thought and out of which thought ‘develops’ (in Wood 2004:170).
Resolving conflicts and fighting them out in the open therefore does not
only mean fighting for ideas but organizing people who will fight for these
ideas— activity must remain a foil to materialist analysis. Subjectivist idealism is
the method by which people come to accept capitalist social relations by blaming
their effects on personal problems, while materialism is the method by which
people come to understand the objective basis of the state of those relations
(Luria 1974). Dialectical method may employ qualitative methods of inquiry to
study armed conflicts (e.g., Veneracion-Rallonza 2015) but it does not dwell only
on the storylines of the agents. Agency is always tied with the limits generated by
the economic condition of social reproduction.
Dialectics and the Transformative Commitment of Sociology
Finally, dialectical investigation of conflicts leads to transformative praxis.

The dialectical materialists stress that the first basis and the final objective of
all theory of all thought is “practice” or action. We see then that dialectical
materialism shares some tenets with pragmatism (Lubnicki 1948:34). Pragmatic
theory of truth states that the origin of our valuable cognition of the world is of
practical nature. But this should be qualified by saying that our understanding of
the world works because of the very nature of reality we investigate.
But dialectical investigation of conflicts is not Darwinian Theory applied

to the evolution of society, no matter how Marx and Engels recognized the
contributions of Darwin. Dialectics does not explain conflicts in the concrete.
Rather, it helps us see and investigate the capitalist relations and processes, of
which we ourselves are part of, as they have unfolded, are now unfolding, and
have yet to unfold. Using dialectics—and with a lot of hard empirical research—
we can develop a theory that can explain capitalism in its becoming. Marxism
is such a theory. Given that the future is undecided a priori, exploring possible
other worlds is an integral part of dialectical reasoning. While dialectics aims for
GERRY LANUZA 81
grasping the totality, it does not foreclose the possibility of uncertainty.
Fredrick Jameson (2009) asks rightly, “Why dialectic now?” For Jameson
(2009:286), “it is capitalism which totalizes, which constitutes a total system, not
its critics. We have to think, however, in terms of a totalizing transformation of
the social system precisely because this system is itself a total one.” Zizek laments
the fact that people today can imagine the end of the world but they could not
imagine the end of capitalism (Wright and Wright 1999:55). Dialectical thinking
breaks this prohibition to think of an alternative future (Jameson 2003). In the
end, pursuing dialectical investigation of conflicts today demands transforming
the world through collective struggle. As Z. A. Jordan (1967) argued apropos
Lenin and the dialectic:
Lenin did not attempt to conceal the fact that this dialectical materialism
was conceived as a weapon in the class struggle and an instrument for
the achievement of victory in it. As he himself confessed, “materialism
includes partisanship, so to speak, and enjoins the direct and open
adoption of the standpoint of a definite social group in any assessment
of events. (P. 286)
In our world where capitalism tries desperately to pacify convulsive conflicts

through counter-terrorism, ecologically destructive superconsumerism, and
market fundamentalism, while at the same time generating irreconcilable conflicts
and contradictions, the challenge of Marx’s dialectical method today remains
alive as ever. In the age of post-isms, perhaps Fredrick Jameson (2009:279) is
right to argue that, “the dialectic is not a thing of the past, not some chapter in
the history of philosophy, but rather a speculative account of some thinking of
the future which has not yet been realized: an unfinished project.” Revolutionary
praxis brings the dialectical project into completion.
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GERRY LANUZA 85
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Gerry M. Lanuza is currently affiliated with the Department of Sociology,

UP Diliman, where he teaches Sociological Theory, Sociology of Religion,
and Sociology of Education. He has published in journals both local and
international. He is the Chair of Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism
and Democracy and Board member of Center for Trade Union and Human
Rights (CTUHR).
86
STATEMENTS
LET’S UPHOLD OUR RIGHTS

AS EDUCATORS BY UNITING
WITH THE BROAD MASSES
OF OUR PEOPLE, AND FIGHT
BACK AGAINST THE VICIOUS
ATTACKS OF THE US-DUTERTE
FASCIST REGIME ON HUMAN
RIGHTS!
Congress of Teachers/Educators for
Nationalism and Democracy
ON THE 71th year since the United Nations General

Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (1948), the members of CONTEND reaffirm their stanch
commitment to defend human rights, not only of education
workers and teachers, but all sectors of our society that are being
abused viciously under the US-Duterte fascist regime.
Most brutal in this attack against the rights of our people is the terrifying
war on drug, notoriously called as Tokhang. The drug war, according to the
PNP’s tally, has led to 6,600 deaths, fatalities during “legitimate operations,”
while 20,000 others are “deaths under investigation.” The International Criminal
88 LET’S UPHOLD OUR RIGHTS AS EDUCATORS BY UNITING WITH THE BROAD MASSES...
Court’s (ICC) Report on Preliminary Examination Activities for 2019, which

includes the Philippine case, states, “The majority of the victims have notably
been from more impoverished areas and neighborhoods, especially those within
urban areas” (No. 245). Meanwhile fifty-seven children have already been killed
by the administration’s war on drugs based on the documentation work of the
Children’s Rehabilitation Center. The brutality of Tokhang has spilled over to
non-drug operations and was tweaked with the whole-of-nation approach to
counter-insurgency as defined in Executive Order Number 70.
Deploying all resources of the government, weaponizing all government

agencies, including Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and
Skills Authority (TESDA), and the Department of Education, and positioning
retired military officers– notorious for their human rights abuses—in strategic
line agencies of the government bureaucracy, the US-Duterte fascist regime
has birthed the notorious Oplan Kapanatagan that primarily aims to end local
armed communist insurgency by using all legal and extra-legal offensives against
all suspected personalities and red-tagged organizations. In Metro Manila its
version Oplan Kalasag led to the profiling of members of red-tagged people’s
organizations including members and officers of the Alliance of Concerned
Teachers union (ACT).
Under Oplan Kapanatagan the fascist rule of Duterte already arrested close
to 400 political prisoners, according to Karapatan. It emboldened the military
and paramilitary groups to harass Lumad communities, occupy Lumad schools,
and vilify their supporters and organizers. The military has not even spared the
80 year-old Sister Elenita Belardo of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines,
just like the deportation of 70-year old nun Sis. Patricia Fox in 2018. Sis.
Belardo has been very active in promoting and defending the rights of Lumad
communities and farmers.
As the fascist rule of Duterte consolidates its grip on our institutions,

educators and education workers have not recoiled from asserting their rights.
As a result, our sector has not been spared from the assaults of the government
repressive agents. Our fellow academics, Prof. Arnold Alamon of Iligan Institute
of Technology and Prof. Phoebe Sanchez of University of the Philippine Cebu
were targets of vilification campaigns by the military this year. After profiling
and vilifying our fellow teachers by the Philippine National Police, the worst
attack came when Zhaydee Cabañelez, a member of Alliance of Concerned
89
Teachers, was attacked by gunmen in front of schoolchildren during a flag

ceremony at Dalet Elementary School at Barangay Lumbayao in Valencia City
in Bukidnon. Many officers of ACT union were already vilified through terror-
tagging by local military and para-military groups.
In the pretext of monitoring schools and providing security, the Senate

Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs and National Security and
Defense, after several hearings, came up with Senate Committee Report Number
10 that purports to extend the whole-of-nation counter-insurgency approach to
schools and higher learning institutions that will allow the PNP to meddle with
school activities, to profile student organizations, to actively monitor teachers, to
scrutinize the curriculum and out of school activities if they are being used for
so-called communist indoctrination.
So today, as we celebrate International Human Rights Day, we urge all

our fellow teachers and education workers to stand united, and firmly defend
our rights against the escalating human rights abuses of the US-Duterte fascist
regime. The barbarians are now knocking at the gates of our campuses. Activism
in the name of human rights is not a choice at this juncture. We cannot win and
enjoy our collective and individual rights without sacrifice and struggle. Hence
activism is our duty. We have to defend and uphold our academic freedom, our
right to dissent and our duty to teach students to question our government, our
right to freedom of assembly, the right to join voluntary organizations, and the
free exercise of critical thinking! We should never allow the fascist in uniform
to police our consciousness and impose what we should and should not think!
As teachers, we cannot defend our rights as educators and education workers

if we stand fragmented as individuals fighting for our rights. As individuals we
can easily be overpowered by the repressive state agents. Our only chance to
win our struggle and end the fascist attacks against our rank is to strengthen
our unity and stand with the rest of progressive organizations and our patriotic
fellow Filipinos as we uphold our collective rights. Defending our rights also
demands defending the rights of others. Any attack on the rights of our fellow
human being is also an attack against all of us and our democratic institutions.
90 LET’S UPHOLD OUR RIGHTS AS EDUCATORS BY UNITING WITH THE BROAD MASSES...
UPHOLD AND DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS!
STOP THE ATTACKS!
NO TO CAMPUS MARTIAL LAW!
HANDS OFF OUR SCHOOLS!
HANDS OFF OUR TEACHERS!
DEFEND ACADEMIC FREEDOM!
ASSERT OUR RIGHT TO DISSENT!
JUNK SENATE COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 10!
JUNK OPLAN KAPANATAGAN!
JUSTICE TO ALL VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES!
DATE PUBLISHED: December 10, 2019

TEACHERS, EDUCATION WORKERS,

AND STUDENTS, LET’S UNITE TO
THWART THE FASCIST ATTACKS
AGAINST OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND
ACADEMIC FREEDOM!
Statement of Congress of Teachers/Educators for
Nationalism and Democracy on the Foiled Attempt
to Harass the Office of Philippine Collegian

AT AROUND 9:30 PM LAST NIGHT, November 16, 2019, a
certain individual who identified himself as Wilfredo Manapat
tried to force his way in into the office of the Philippine Collegian
located at Sampaguita Residence Hall inside UP Diliman
campus. Two other unidentified companions were also seen at
the College of Home Economics Annex besides the Collegian
office. Based on the report of the members of the Collegian
present during the altercation, Manapat explained they were to
conduct inspection in the office for surveillance purposes. When
the incident was reported to the UP Diliman Police, Manapat
was apprehended and is currently under custody of the UPDP.
Interestingly, upon apprehension, Manapat changed his stories
denying his earlier statements.
In view of this grave incident, the members of CONTEND UP Diliman

and all its allied organizations and faculty call on our fellow faculty, students
and education workers to strengthen our solidarity to effectively thwart the on-
going attempts under the current fascist Duterte government to puncture the
92 TEACHERS, EDUCATION WORKERS, AND STUDENTS, LET’S UNITE TO THWART THE FASCIST ATTACKS
perimeters of our campus to pave the way for the revision of curriculum along
militarized totalistic thought, to allow the presence of police in our campus to
harass our progressive faculty, and keep watch on student activists.
It is not only our local campus policies that are being breached by outside
despotic personalities with the intent to politically harass our students, but
more alarming, are the continuing red-tagging of specific organizations in our
campus, the vilification of these organizations and their members, and the red-
tagging even of academic subjects being taught by our faculty.
And the Philippine Collegian incident happened while the nefarious state
forces are wantonly arresting farmers, human rights defenders, teachers, union
organizers, and Lumad leaders, vilifying progressive organizations, and raiding
offices of identified legal and legitimate people’s organizations in and outside of
Manila.
We have reached the point of the implementation of Executive Order

No. 70, or the institutionalization of whole-of-nation approach to end local
communist armed conflict, when even schools and universities are no longer
safe from militaristic intrusion. The police in cahoots with the military and even
local school administrators are now singing the same fascist tune to forcibly open
up campuses for military training, and conduct police lectures and seminars
to vilify so-called “communist” fronts that infiltrate schools. Even parents are
being warned sternly of the repercussions if they allow their children to join and
be recruited by these demonized organizations. Teachers are threatened that they
will be charged legally if they bring their students to rallies identified with these
demonized organizations.
As educators, we strongly condemn these terroristic acts of the military and

their pawns based on Executive Order No. 70. The Philippine Collegian has
been the beacon of free and critical journalism in our University for decades.
Now it has become a target of silencing all oppositions and anti-government
groups. Now that the armed agents of the state are attempting to breach our
academic perimeters, we should never allow our academic freedom, the freedom
of assembly, and freedom of thought to be squashed by fascist forces. We should
maximize the use of these rights to defend our fellow Filipinos –farmers, Lumad,
93
workers, human rights defenders, church people, environmental activists– from

totalitarian whims of the US-Duterte regime.
If we tolerate these fascist intrusions to penetrate the sacred walls of our
University, then, we, as an academic community, is surrendering our solemn duty
to defend free expression and the right to pursue and seek knowledge wherever
this endeavor might lead to. And if we surrender this solemn duty as members
of the academic community, we are allowing the fascist armed agents of the
state even to impose, design and define what knowledge is for the University,
who should validate it, and how it can be attained upon the behest of the state.
That would be the complete and total eclipse of reason and democracy. That is
barbarism at its peak.
HANDS OFF COLLEGIAN!
DEFEND CAMPUS PRESS FREEDOM!
DEFEND THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT!
DEFEND OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES!
JUNK EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 70!
HANDS OFF OUR STUDENT ACTIVISTS!
DOWN WITH STATE FASCISM!
DATE PUBLISHED: November 17, 2019

JUSTICE FOR TEACHER ZHAYDEE

CABAÑELEZ! STAND WITH
OUR TEACHERS! DEFEND
OUR TEACHERS AGAINST THE
BARBARIC ATTACKS FROM STATE-
GENERATED TERROR-TAGGING!

THE MEMBERS OF CONTEND together with all its allied

groups and members strongly condemn the shooting of teacher-
unionist Zhaydee Cabañelez, by 4 masked men last October 15
around 8:00 AM, during the school’s flag ceremony at Dalet
Elementary School in Barangay Lumbayao, Valencia City,
Bukidnon, with several witnesses—including school children—
around. She is in critical condition with two gunshot wounds
on the chest and two on the feet. Teacher Cabañelez, the 2016
Outstanding Teacher awardee in her barangay, also a vigorous
union member who have been campaigning for the advancement
of the welfare of teachers and of the people, is the most recent
victim of vicious attack against terror-tagged organizations and
95
individuals.
As educators, we are horribly saddened by such attack against our fellow

teacher. It means our schools and universities are no longer safe for our educators
and education workers who are terror-tagged by state forces and vilified by right
wing anti-communist vigilante groups. It also supports our firm conviction
that martial law in Mindanao is ineffectual in protecting our teachers and
maintaining peace and order in the region. Martial law in Mindanao failed to
protect teacher Zhaydee Cabañelez. Martial law from the beginning is a blanket
national security strategy to suppress the rights of teachers, farmers, Lumad
and other marginalized sectors in Mindanao. It was intended not to defend the
rights of the vulnerable sectors of Mindanao but to enable big plantation owners,
foreign investors, mining companies and their local lackeys to operate in the
region without any opposition and resistance.
We express our deepest solidarity with teacher Zhaydee Cabañelez and

all our fellow teachers and educators in Mindanao as they struggle to arouse,
organize and mobilize our fellow teachers and education workers to have better
learning environment and decent working condition. Our teachers have the right
to organize to defend their economic rights and civil liberties. Thus, it is gross
barbarism to witness our teachers being attacked publicly, vilified in social media
for fighting for their economic rights.
We implore our fellow teachers and other members of the academe to stop
vilifying our teachers through terror-tagging. We cannot emphasize enough
the truth that such irresponsible actions, publicly or through social media, put
the lives of some of our teachers in danger. The Duterte administration has
already created an enabling environment, not only to terror-tag teachers who
join progressive organizations, but to encourage state armed agents to harass
the latter. We should vigorously oppose this anti-democratic policy rather than
fueling it further.
We urge our fellow teachers not to cower in the face of these threats,
harassment, and brutal attacks against our fellow teachers. After Zhaydee
Cabañelez, who is next? We are all potential targets of state repression and fascist
attacks from state armed agents simply because we teach human rights. But if we
96 JUSTICE FOR TEACHER ZHAYDEE CABAÑEZ!
show our fear in the face of this reign of terror engulfing educators and schools,
then, the perpetrators will be encouraged to be more violent and brutal. Hence,
we have to stand together as educators. We have to unite as teachers to show
these real “terrorists” that they can never silence us even in the face of these
ruthless attacks. If we stand alone, we are vulnerable. But if we stand united, we
are undefeatable. Teachers united, can never be defeated! It is the “terrorists” out
there that should be terrified. The state forces should now tremble in fear. They
stand for nothing! They live in violence. But as teachers we teach social justice.
We teach and defend human rights. And our people, students, and the world
will stand with us as we struggle to push for better working condition and just
society for our children.
JUSTICE FOR ZHAYDEE CABAÑELEZ!
STOP THE ATTACKS AGAINST OUR TEACHERS!
DEFEND OUR TEACHERS AGAINST TERROR-TAGGING!
STOP MILITARIZING OUR SCHOOLS!
DATE PUBLISHED: October 17, 2019

IN FACE OF STATE-
SPAWNED ECONOMIC
AUSTERITY AND STATE-
BACKED FASCIST ATTACKS
AGAINST EMANCIPATORY
EDUCATION AND CRITICAL
EDUCATORS, LET US
CONTINUE TEACHING
TO EXPOSE AND RESIST

TODAY, THE MEMBERS of CONTEND and all their

allied faculty and education workers express their highest
praise and acclaim to all teachers, who despite of increasing
economic difficulties, dehumanizing bureaucratization of
their profession, sinister militarization of schools, and vicious
political harassment of teachers’ unions, continue to defend
academic freedom and struggle to defend their rights and
uphold their dignity. As teachers and education workers, we
deplore the way the Duterte administration stonily respond to
teachers’ warranted clamor for salary increase.
98 IN FACE OF STATE-SPAWNED ECONOMIC AUSTERITY AND STATE-BACKED FASCIST ATTACKS...
When Duterte was campaigning, and even when he was already serving
as the President, he kept on harping about increasing the salary of public-
school teachers. In 2018 he raised the salary and benefits of uniformed men and
women. It is now more than three years that Duterte is the President and still the
promise of salary increase for teachers is illusive. Today, teachers are burdened
with many required paper works, saddled with extra-school works, burn out by
extended school hours and assignments, and are wallowing in misery of financial
deprivation.
As teachers, we believe that teaching is a vocation. Teaching is above all an

emotional labor. We teach because we care and love our students. But it does not
follow from this that teachers can be exploited by the state in the pretext that
they pledged solemnly to educate our youth. Teachers are also human beings.
They must eat and pay their bills in order to survive and continue teaching with
dedication and motivation. The underpayment of our teachers is an indicator
of the way our market-driven society treats and pays its gratitude to our
impoverished teachers. Our teachers need gratitude. But equally important, they
need material sustenance and enabling teaching environment.
Hence the demands of teachers for salary increase and better working
condition are necessary if we want our teachers to live a decent human life and
maintain their self-respect. Our students will have difficulty showing respect for
our teachers if our government denigrates their social contributions. Teachers do
not just teach! They mold characters, create skillful workers, raise critical citizens,
train dedicated leaders, and produce graduates who will shape the future of our
nation.
Sadly, as our teachers organize to struggle for their rights and benefits, the
US-Duterte administration responds by terror-tagging teachers who organize
unions. The military, aided by the rabid anti-communist Senator Bato de la Rosa,
are just too eager to enter campuses and universities in order to monitor teachers
and students who are allegedly recruiting students to fight the government.
The fascist lapdogs of the state, armed with all the resources of the agencies of
government, now seek to legislate measures to punish teachers for indoctrinating
their students.
Rather than addressing the pressing issues of salary increase, the perennial
99
lack of classrooms and facilities, the need to hire more teachers, the armed agents
of the state, using the “communist menace” as an excuse, want to regulate,
monitor, and limit the exercise of academic freedom of our teachers.
Such repressive measures ensue from the nee to push the neoliberal reforms
of our educational system that want teachers to simply manufacture docile and
obedient citizens. For these fascist barbarians, the reasonable clamor of the
teachers for salary increase is part of the “communist agenda” to destabilize
the state. These fascist barbarians are backed up by our educational bureaucrats
who religiously believe that what teachers need is financial literary so they can
manage their meager salary.
Today, as we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, we enjoin our fellow teachers to

unite and stand against the creeping intrusion of military forces in our schools
and the spread of fascist mind-set into our school culture. Fighting for our rights
is just and morally right. As teachers we do not beg for our rights to have better
teaching conditions and benefits. We fight for them militantly. We cannot
maintain our self-worth as teachers if we cower in the face of these threats and
harassment perpetrated by the state.
Thus, we urge our fellow teachers to take courage! Teachers are not mere
state pawns to transmit skills and knowledge to the young generations. Teachers
are leaders, unionists, scholars, researchers, and above all, cultural workers
whose duty primarily is to enlighten young minds to use knowledge and skills
acquired from schools in order to challenge the neoliberal-inspired philosophies
of education and transform their economic edifice.
UPGRADE TEACHERS’ SALARIES NOW!
SALARY INCREASE FOR ALL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES NOW!
NO TO MILITARIZATION OF SCHOOLS!
100 IN FACE OF STATE-SPAWNED ECONOMIC AUSTERITY AND STATE-BACKED FASCIST ATTACKS...
STOP-TERROR TAGGING TEACHERS AN THEIR UNIONS!
TEACH FOR NATIONALIST, SCIENTIFIC AND MASS-ORIENTED

EDUCATION!
DATE PUBLISHED: October 5, 2019

NEVER AGAIN TO MARTIAL

LAW! REMEMBER THE
LESSONS OF OUR PEOPLE’S
STRUGGLE AGAINST MARCOS
DICTATORSHIP TO OPPOSE
VIGOROUSLY DUTERTE’S DE
FACTO MARTIAL LAW!
TODAY, THE MEMBERS of CONTEND and its allied

organizations and education workers, as we remember the
darkest period of our national history, solemnly reaffirm our
commitment to struggle against forgetting and revising the
historical interpretation of martial law. Also, we reaffirm our
commitment to struggle against all forms of repression that
extend the worst practices of martial law to our present situation.
Remembering martial law is not just about remembering the
horrible atrocities of the Marcos dictatorship against our own
people, but, more importantly, giving voices to the survivors
and victims of Marcos atrocities, who are still seeking justice
and reparation until now. It also means struggling against the
current fascist policies of the government that drastically clamp
102 NEVER AGAIN TO MARTIAL LAW!
people — repressing their freedom to express views contrary to

the government.
The Philippines today is the most dangerous nation for human rights
defenders, for environmental activists, and farmers. According to the Philippine
National Police (PNP), 22,983 deaths since the “war on drugs” began are
classified as “homicides under investigation.” Police have killed dozens of
children since the start of the “war on drugs” in June 2016, deaths which Duterte
has dismissed as “collateral damage.” Under the pretext of drug war, the US-
Duterte administration has harassed and arrested human rights defenders and
activists. Combined with Proclamation No. 70, the whole-of-nation approach
to counter-insurgency, that weaponized all government agencies to crush
communist insurgency and all forms of oppositions, and Memorandum Order
No. 2, that deployed additional battalions of military in Samar, Bicol, and
Negros, human rights violations have soared beyond what Marcos dictatorship
horribly accomplished in 9-year martial rule. President Duterte has now 250
extrajudicial killings under his watch. Worse than the Marcos’ bloody human
rights record, the fascist rule of Duterte targets media personalities, media
outfits, local officials, Lumad communities and their schools, LGBT and
women’s rights, teachers’ unions, students and their organizations, legitimate
people’s organizations, peasant leaders, and church workers.
In the face of these horrendous assaults against civil liberties of our people
and democratic institutions that our people fought during the Edsa Uprising,
we, as educators and education workers enjoin our people to unite to expose and
oppose the de facto martial that is currently in place in our country, not just in
Mindanao. As educators, undeterred by the threats of armed agents of the state,
we will teach our students the value of critical thinking, engaged citizenship,
and the necessity of struggling against dark forces that want to intrude into our
academic freedom.
We recognize the fact that the current political repression under the fascist
rule of Duterte is the ultimate weapon of the ruling class, the oligarchs, and
imperialist plunderers to create a “peaceful” and “orderly” society conducive to
the nefarious pillage of our natural resources, cheap labor, and patrimony. It is in
this economic context that academic freedom is under siege today.
103
Never before has our academic freedom been subjected to sinister

threats than today under the anti-communist crusade of Senator de la Rosa.
Defending academic freedom today, like during the Marcos martial rule, is
not just struggling to be left alone doing our research and attending to our
academic rituals. It means using that freedom to question existing ideas and
the dominant ideologies that legitimize the militarization of schools and
campuses. Defending academic freedom is defending our right as education
workers to organize and defend the rights of the marginalized sectors of
our society. It is the freedom to refuse the legitimacy of the anti-people
economic policies of the present government.
So, today, we raise our clenched fist as we honor our fallen comrades —
educators and students and education workers— who valiantly fought the
Marcos dictatorship. In their honor, we pledge our unrelenting commitment
to struggle to end Duterte’s reign of terror. To them we owe our current
struggle, and for the future generations, we are bound to keep the beacon of
resistance burning.
NEVER AGAIN TO MARTIAL LAW!
NEVER AGAIN TO DICTATORS AND TYRANTS!
END MARTIAL IN MINDANAO NOW!
STOP MILITARIZATION OF LUMAD SCHOOLS AND PEASANT

COMMUNITIES!
NO TO THE RETURN OF MARCOSES TO POWER!
JUSTICE TO ALL VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS!

104 NEVER AGAIN TO MARTIAL LAW!
END STATE IMPUNITY!
DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM!
DATE PUBLISHED: September 21, 2019

ACTIVISM IS NOT A WASTE

OF YOUTHFUL LIFE! IT IS LIV-
ING LIFE TO THE FULLEST IN
DEFENSE OF THE POWERLESS
IN THE NAME OF A JUST AND
HUMANE FUTURE!
THE MEMBERS OF CONTEND and all its allied organization

and individuals will join the National Day of Mourning on August
20, 2019, Tuesday. To date, 226 farmers have been killed, of whom
30 were women, 29 were elderly, and 10 were children, according to
peasant women’s group Amihan. August 20 is also declared by UP
Student Regent Office as “UP Day of Walkout and Action” to assert
students’ “right to academic freedom to organize, and to protest.”
In solidarity with the farmers, the victims of state violence in Negros, and in
defense of the rights of teachers and students to organize and protest, we will troop
to the streets and march with our patriotic people and progressive organizations.
We abide in the perennial wisdom of S. P. Lopez, the UP President when martial
law was declared: “While I am proud of the UP’s tradition of academic excellence,
which must be maintained, I would be embarrassed to see this University become
106 ACTIVISM IS NOT A WASTE OF YOUTHFUL LIFE...
an ivory tower amid a society in turmoil, indifferent to the problems that torment
the nation.”It is in this economic context that academic freedom
Today our people, especially our students, teachers, workers, farmers, women,
and human rights defenders are experiencing the worst blow of the consequences
from the bankrupt neoliberal restructuring of the economy, education, our
culture –TRAIN law, rice tariffication, contractual labor, onerous loans from
China, destruction of environment from mining and large plantations, massive
conversions of agricultural lands into hubs of imperialist plundering operations.
As our people resist and struggle to defend their lives and rights against the
relentless assaults of neoliberal restructuring of our society, US-Duterte’s fascist
regime has mobilized its armed agents and henchmen as well as weaponized all its
ideological /propaganda agencies and repressive apparatuses to quell and smash
all oppositions and resistance. The fascist regime of Duterte has launched “Oplan
Sauron,” a so-called “one-time-big-time” Synchronized Enhanced Managing of
Police Operations (SEMPO) to flash out supposed criminals and drug dealers,
which later targeted activists and human rights defenders.
National and even international rights groups and people’s organizations

have strongly condemned Oplan Sauron. The Archbishop of the Archdiocese
of San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, Bishop Gerry Alminaza, described the
climate of brutal repression on the entire Negros Island as tantamount to martial
law.
As educators and education workers, we stand with our Negros people. It

is not only Negros, Samar and Bicol that are being terrorized by Oplan Sauron.
The armed agents of the state and its war machines are now desperately extending
the scope of state terrorism to include schools together with overt vilification of
teachers, students, and their organizations. The barbarism of the military is now
knocking on the doors of our universities. Some schools have already been forced
to open their gates for fascist barbarians to conduct mandatory drug testing and
to intensify police presence inside and outside schools.
As educators and education workers, we are alarmed by Senator Ronald de

la Rosa’s belligerent public statements that teachers are “brainwashing” their
students to join the New People’s Army. Our University has been vilified as a hub
for “deceptive recruitment”. The parents of our students are now being warned
107
that they should watch their children vigilantly lest they fall into the deceptive
traps of their Leftist teachers.
These irresponsible pronouncements from Senator de la Rosa simply

reverberate the fascist strategy of the US-Duterte regime that maligns and labels
all anti-government individuals and groups as “terrorists”. Such militaristic
approach undermines democracy by silencing all legitimate oppositions against
the government. Consequently, such vilification emboldens the police operatives
to violate the rights of teachers and students as the latter are subjected to
surveillance, covert monitoring.
As educators and education workers, we will not be paralyzed by this state

harassment. We will continue to teach our students the value and importance of
human rights in a democratic society. We will carry on our duty as transformative
educators. We will be marching with our students on August 20. When students
march with us, they are being initiated into the role that they will have to assume
actively as adults: active citizens and leaders of Philippine society.
Our students will be the future leaders of this great nation. We, the adult
ones, often complain about the social cancer afflicting our nation: corruption,
economic backwardness, hopelessness, lack of discipline, and absence of
national pride. Yet we deliberately prevent our children from actively analyzing
and seeking solutions to these problems. We do not trust their autonomy and
political judgment. Our society wants them to become clones of our traditional
politicians. Hence our children feel left out as they retreat into their own private
worlds of computer and other videogames, and gimmicks.
Today, we want them to be responsible and to care for our great nation. And
we will not stop them when they begin to take a step towards that direction. As
the young revolutionary Emilio Jacinto stated in Kartilya ng Katipunan, “Ang
buhay na hindi ginugugol sa isang malaki at banal na kadahilanan ay kahoy na
walang lilim, kundi damong makamandag.” Activism is not a waste of youthful
life. It is living life to the fullest in the service of the victims of the current
tyrannical system, and defense of the powerless in the name of a just and humane
future.
108 ACTIVISM IS NOT A WASTE OF YOUTHFUL LIFE...
DEFEND ACADEMIC FREEDOM AGAINST FASCIST ATTACKS!
HANDS OFF OUR STUDENTS!
DEFEND NEGROS!
STOP KILLING FARMERS!
NO TO MARTIAL LAW!
DATE PUBLISHED: August 18, 2019

DEBUNKING THE MYTHS ABOUT

THE “FASCIST COMMUNIST LEFT”
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE
PHILIPPINES SPUN BY SYLVIA
ESTRADA CLAUDIO, DEAN OF
COLLEGE OF SOCIAL WORK AND
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Statement of Congress of Teachers/Educators
for Nationalism and Democracy University of the
Philippines Diliman on the Series of Facebook
Posts of Dean Sylvia Estrada Claudio Vilifying and
Red-Tagging the So-called “Fascist Communist
Left” Teachers

IN THE CODE OF ETHICS [Approved at 63rd UC meeting,
Dec. 8, 1998; noted at 1128th BOR meeting, Jan. 28, 1999],
the faculty of the University are enjoined to:
VI. Relate with our colleagues in the spirit of

cooperation, camaraderie, and professionalism;
VII. Maintain honesty and fairness in our dealings

with colleagues, students, and entities outside of the
University;
Further, the Faculty Manual of 2003 under 10.0 CONDUCT,

110 DEBUNKING THE MYTHS ABOUT THE “FASCIST COMMUNIST LEFT”
RESTRICTIONS, AND DISCIPLINE stipulates the proper decorum of

faculty with regard to complaint against other faculty members: 10.2.11
Complaints Against Other Faculty Members
No member of the faculty, officer, or employee shall publish or discuss
publicly charges or complaints against any other member of the faculty, officer,
or employee concerning his/her official duties or his/her private life or conduct.
Any such complaint or charge shall be addressed to the proper authorities of
the University for action before resorting to any other remedy available to the
complaining party. [Art. 247]
In this light, the members of CONTEND UP and other allied

organizations and individuals express their reservations against the series of
diatribes by Sylvia Estrada Claudio, current Dean of the College of Social Work
and Community Development (CSWCD), on her Facebook account, which
she dubbed as “Kwentong Diliman Series.” They detail her supposed knowledge
about certain fellow teachers and organizations, whom she derided as affiliated
with the so-called “fascist communist Left.” In these narratives, Dean Claudio,
claiming she is the self-appointed spokeswoman of the imaginary anti-fascist
league in the University, vilified the said individuals and organizations as
“arrogant,” “dogmatic,” “authoritarian,” “dictators,” deceitful, and violators of
students’ rights.
We are alarmed by the way Dean Claudio, acting not only as a private
individual, but as the Dean of CSWCD, engages in besmirching her colleagues
and students of the University—furthermore in a manner forsaking verification
and evidence, akin to blind-item showbiz news.
As fellow members of the academe, we do not mind Dean Claudio’s

personal feelings. But we take offense against her ideological attacks against our
fellow teachers alluded in her narratives of vilification.
We ask Dean Claudio: do the state and its armed agents have the exclusive
monopoly to red-tag progressive groups and activists? By exempting herself as
a red-tagger, Dean Claudio is being duplicitous. For she wants her cake and
eat it too. She wants to red-tag the “fascist communist Left”, while deliberately
exempting herself from conniving with and aiding the violence of the state.
111
Interestingly, she even accuses the “fascist communist Left” of feigning they
are in danger so they can attack without restraints those who red-tag them
(Kwentong Diliman Series, Post No. 6, July 2, 10:50 AM, Facebook).
We are not paranoid. But the fear of political repression is real. Our country
is now the deadliest place for land rights, fourth most dangerous country for
civilians, and worst country for environmental defenders. Let us remind Dean
Claudio that in the last two years, a total of 169 extrajudicial political killings
took place, roughly two (2) EJKs per week while the attempted EJKs figure is
362. And many on the Left have been arrested based on trumped-up charges,
with some murdered in cold blood. In fact, many of our fellow educators,
just like journalists, lawyers, farmers, environmental defenders, indigenous
people, and human rights advocates, have been vilified and terror-tagged
simply because they are identified with Dean Claudio’s “fascist communist
Left.” In the defense of these targeted educators, the academic institutions and
professional organizations of these teachers had issued statements of support.
In an undeclared “state of emergency,” anything that is uttered to vilify the
critics of the state will always, wittingly or not, play into the hands of the armed
agents of the state. The Dean cannot simply wash her hands and shrug off any
political responsibility, and claim that she does not understand the concept of
unintended consequences of social actions.
Also, she keeps harping about “fascist communist Left” teachers violating
students’ rights! Dean Claudio alleges that Leftist teachers do not follow the
official syllabi; Leftist teachers present one-sided view of issues; Leftist teachers
do not listen to other arguments; Leftist teachers dismiss contrary evidence and
arguments without benefit of reasoning; Leftist teachers grade students based
on their Leftist leaning; Leftist teachers force students to attend rallies and
demonstrations that are remote from the course outline and learning outcomes
(Claudio, Kwentong Diliman Series 5, The Fascist Left Violates Students Rights,
posted on Facebook June 28, 3:03 PM).
Some of these accusations are trivial, while others are of serious concern.
As fellow academics, we recommend that Dean Claudio should use the proper
channels to address these concerns, which she thinks is her divine calling. We
do not condone these wrong practices! But we are surprised why the Dean
singles out the “fascist communist Left teachers” when these practices are not
endemic to them. “Policing” her fellow teachers, which the Nietzschean Left
112 DEBUNKING THE MYTHS ABOUT THE “FASCIST COMMUNIST LEFT”
would call as neo-fascism, we believe, is far from the mind of Dean Claudio,
who advocates respect for academic freedom.
We will not deal with the personal crusade of Dean Claudio. What matters
for us, as her colleagues, is the administrative position she uses to enunciate
ad hominems against her fellow teachers whom she dislikes personally and
ideologically. We believe this is unethical behavior unbecoming of a faculty with
an administrative position. This is grave abuse of academic freedom granted to
her by the University, notwithstanding the fact UP Diliman Chancellor Michael
Tan already issued a statement defending UP against red-tagging:
“Whatever academic degree they might be pursuing, our students need

to explore and appreciate the world outside of UP and to develop their
competencies, linked to social realities. This is why red baiting tactics always
alarm us because besides causing distress to students and parents, we worry
about how the red baiting will impact soldiers and police, especially in rural
areas.” (Michael L. Tan, Statement on Allegations of UP Students Being Forced
to Join NPA, January 15, 2019).
Nonetheless, we assure the Dean that we and our fellow “fascist Left”
teachers she vilifies exercise our pedagogical duties according to the mission and
vision of the University. She is welcome to sit in in our classes anytime.
Also, we assure Dean Claudio that when the “fascist communist Left”
teachers bring their students to rallies and public demonstrations, it is not just to
swell the number of participants. Far from it—such activities are symbolic forms
of political socialization, normal part of social rituals of citizenship, that allow
students to engage actively as citizens with current social issues. In most cases,
these public activities are even sanctioned by the University (like anti-martial law
rallies, anti-pork barrel mobilization, One Billion Rising, human rights, defense
of Lumad communities, etc.). We do not just encourage and bring our students
to rallies and demonstrations. We also require them to attend public fora and
symposia, poetry readings, film showings, art exhibits, concerts, and with proper
University permission, to integrate with communities in order to learn about the
lives of marginalized sectors of our society.
If the Dean believes zealously that such activities are meant to indoctrinate
and brainwash students, then, the reductio ad absurdum conclusion is that all
113
forms of education are indoctrination (Claudio, Kwentong Diliman Series, Post

No. 8, Recruitment or Brainwashing, Facebook Post). So we riposte the same
concern for Dean Claudio: Is she not also advocating a form of brainwashing
when she fanatically argues for her own vision of pedagogical ends? What makes
her alternatives any better?
We do not just ask our students to attend these activities (that Dean
Claudio believes are forms of brainwashing). On the contrary, we believe these
activities are opportunities for conscientization. We also require our students
to engage in deep and profound reflection about these experiences. And this
is consistent with the mission and vision of the University to instill critical
thinking and broaden their intellectual horizons. And many UP students,
including faculty, have become engaged citizens because of these experiences.
It is quite regrettable that we are forced to engage with the ideological and
personal resentments of Dean Claudio at an historical juncture when all our
resources and efforts should singly be directed at resisting the tyranny of the
current regime.
Despite our disagreements, we are always open to working with Dean

Claudio, as a colleague, in resisting Duterte’s tyranny by peaceful means. But
we cannot agree with her absolutist position that nominates non-violence as the
ONLY morally justifiable means for system change. The question of violence is
not up for us to decide in advance. To do so is sheer dogmatism.
Of course, we do not expect the good Dean to agree with our ideological
and political views. Nevertheless, we expect that Dean Claudio will observe
the highest ethical standard and collegial spirit that governs UP faculty (as we
cited in the beginning) in criticizing us, the way she demands the same for
the alleged “fascist communist Left” teachers. If she has additional grudges
against us, we are willing to debate her anytime in the spirit of “free and equal
contest of ideas,” as she challenges us. But as for the rest of her personal grunts,
we suggest she go directly to proper University authorities. And we assure the
Dean that the teachers and organization she pilloried are willing to answer her
indictments using these official channels rather than going public and maligning
her colleagues.
Date published: August 1, 2019

STAND WITH THE LUMAD

SCHOOLS! AGGRESSIVELY
OPPOSE THE CLOSURE OF LUMAD
SCHOOLS AND MILITANTLY
DEFEND THEM AGAINST TERROR-
TAGGING!
Statement of Congress of Teachers/Educators
for Nationalism and Democracy on the
Temporary Closure of 55 Lumad Schools in
Davao City

THE MEMBERS OF CONTEND UP DILIMAN express

their outrage against the temporary shutdown of 55 Lumad
schools in Davao operated and owned by the Salugpungan Ta’
Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Centers catering to
indigenous peoples communities for allegedly deviating from
the basic curriculum and teachings their students to rebel
against the government. We strongly condemn the kowtowing
of the Department of Education of Southern Mindanao to
the outrageous and unfounded allegations of the report of
National Security Adviser Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr.,
who chairs the National Task Force to End Local Communist
Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
115
As educators and education workers, we deplore how President Duterte,

by issuing Executive Order No. 70 in December 2018, establishing a whole-
of-nation approach in ending local communist armed conflict through the
creation of a national task force (NTF-ELCAC), has emboldened the armed
agents of the state to terror-tag teachers, scholars and schools. Worse, it has now
led to the closure of more Lumad schools.
As educators who welcome the Lakbayan of these national minorities

in our University, as educators and education workers who volunteered in
the bakwit schools, we are deeply dismayed by this ludicrous move of the
Department of Education.
It is infuriating to be confronted with the fact that the Department of

Education has neglected the Lumad communities for many years, and now it has
the gall to close the schools the that Lumad communities had collectively built,
maintained and organized.
We therefore enjoin our fellow teachers, education workers and students

to express our outrage against this gross violation of the Lumad right to self-
determination. The right of the national minorities to self-determination
is clearly expressed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous People (2007). Part of this right to self-determination is the right
of the indigenous people “to establish and control their educational systems
and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner
appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.” Moreover, our
Constitution stipulates the right to education of all our citizens (Article 14, Sec.
1).
By closing these Lumad schools, the Department of Education has

abandoned its duty to uphold the right to education of the indigenous people.
It has servilely genuflected to the whims and fascist caprices of the military.
And this genuflection does not have any pedagogical merit but simply rests on
mindless terror-tagging and red-baiting.
We, as educators, are proud that the military have been alarmed by the way
Lumad children and students criticize the government. For we believe that the
116 STAND WITH THE LUMAD SCHOOLS!
business of education is not just about acquiring knowledge and skills to become
useful workers and obedient citizens of authoritarian state. The ultimate purpose
of education is to challenge the status quo and debunk the myths perpetrated by
the ruling class and their armed goons. Education is a weapon in the struggle for
social justice.
The Lumad students and national minorities are collectively standing

up against the government, especially under the fascist US-Duterte regime,
because they are courageously protecting their ancestral lands and culture
from the invasive genocidal interests of big businesses -mining companies and
big plantation companies. And their education has taught them to resist this
perverse development aggression. By closing the Lumad schools, the military
in cahoots with the Department of Education hope to dispossess the Lumad
the educative capacity to question this genocidal development plan. The fascist
military want them to remain in state of ignorance while they are wretchedly
exploited by imperialist resource-plunderers and forcibly driven out of their own
lands.
In the face of these threats, harassment, and spate of Lumad killings,

education is the beacon for the Lumad to defend their lives, culture, and
ancestral lands.
We therefore express our full support and solidarity for the Lumad schools.
As educators and education workers, we stand proudly with the fearless Lumad
teachers. The government-led attacks against the Lumad schools is a direct
attack against us, teachers and education workers. For closing Lumad schools
is tantamount to robbing the Lumad students of their future. It is therefore an
affront to us, educators, when we witness the dark forces of big businesses and
imperialist plunderers descend upon our schools galloping in the chariots of
state armed agents.
JUNK EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 70!
SAVE OUR SCHOOLS! STOP LUMAD KILLINGS!
DEMILITARIZE LUMAD SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES!
STOP TERROR-TAGGING LUMAD SCHOOLS!

117
WE STAND WITH THE LUMAD’S STRUGGLE FOR SELF-

DETERMINATION!
NO TO THE CLOSURE OF LUMAD SCHOOLS!
END MARTIAL LAW IN MINDANAO NOW!
DATE PUBLISHED: July 13, 2019

LABANAN ANG
IMPERYALISTANG
OPENSIBANG PANGKULTURA!
IPAGLABAN ANG
PAGTUTURO NG FILIPINO AT
PANITIKAN SA KOLEHIYO!
NITONG NAKARAANG LINGGO lumabas ang desisyon ng

Korte Suprema na pinagtitibay ang Commission on Higher Ed-
ucation (CHED) Memorandum Order Nos. 12, Series of 2013 na
nagtatanggal sa mandatoryong pagtuturo ng wikang Filipino at
panitikan sa kolehiyo.
Noong Mayo 30, ilang araw matapos lumabas ang desisyon, kinaladkad
at tinangkang hulihin ng kapulisan ang mga kabataang nagprotesta sa harap ng
tanggapan ng CHED laban sa nabanggit na memorandum.
Bakit tinatanggal ng estado sa tersyaryong edukasyon ang pagtuturo ng

pambansang wika at panitikan na mahalagang sangkap sa pakikipag-usap,
pakikipag-ugnayan, pagkakaunawaan, at pagbubuo ng pambansang pagkakaisa?
119
Hindi natin mauunawaan ang usaping ito ng labas sa konteksto ng

imperyalistang opensibang pangkultura na sumasagka sa pag-unlad ng mga salik
na kinakailangan ng isang bansang umuunlad. Malinaw na ang namamayaning
estado na pinamumunuan ng pangkating Duterte-Arroyo-Marcos ay hindi
naglilingkod sa ating sariling bayan kundi isang utusan lamang para sa interes
ng parasitikong dayuhang monopolyo kapital.
Ang pagtanggal sa wikang Filipino at panitikan sa tersyaryong edukasyon

ay magdudulot ng kawalan ng trabaho ng libo-libong mga guro sa kolehiyo. Ito
rin ay isang anyo ng pagpapatahimik ng mamamayan na walang pagkakaiba
sa pagtotokhang, pandurukot, pagsensura, at iba pang anyo ng panunupil na
layong gawing katanggap-tanggap ang ating patuloy na pagkatali sa dayuhang
imperyalismo, domestikong pyudalismo, at burukrata kapitalismo. Pinalalalim
nito ang malakolonyal o indirektang dayuhang paghahari ng mga imperyalistang
bayan tulad ng Estados Unidos at Tsina sa ating bayan.
Ibinunga ng malakas na pagsulong ng anti-imperyalista at demokratikong

daluyong noong mga dekada ‘60 at ‘70 ang pagsulong ng intelektwalisasyon at
institusyonalisasyon sa akademya ng pag-aaral ng Filipino, panitikan, at araling
Pilipino sa kabila ng panunupil ng diktadurang US-Marcos sa mga progresibo,
makabayan, at kritikal na kaisipan. Ang pagtanggal ng Filipino at panitikan sa
tersyaryong edukasyon ay bahagi ng pagtatangka na bawiin ang mga tagumpay
na ito. Nais baligtarin ang mga nakamit na pagsulong laban sa kolonyal na
edukasyon sa Pilipinas.
Karugtong ito ng mga neoliberal na patakaran tulad ng internasyunalisasyon

ng tersyaryong edukasyon at programang K-12. Naging tampok nitong huling
apat na dekada ang neoliberal na atake ng mga imperyalistang naghaharing-
uri na naglalayong muling pasiglahin ang akumulasyon ng tubo at pabagsakin
ang sahod ng mga uring anakpawis sa harap ng lumalalim at lumalawak na
kapitalistang krisis.
Nangangahulugan na pinatitindi nito ang kolonyal, komersyalisado, at

represibong sistema ng edukasyon na layon lamang lumikha ng mura at siil na
lakas-paggawa para sa pandaigdigang pamilihan. Pinanatili nito ang paghahari
ng dayuhang monopolyo-kapital sa pamamagitan ng pagpapalaganap ng kultura
ng pagpapakatuta at pagiging sunud-sunuran. Sa huli, ito ay pagtatangka na
pahinain ang kolektibong pakikibaka ng mamamayan sa pamamagitan ng
120 LABANAN ANG IMPERYALISTANG OPENSIBANG PANGKULTURA...
at siil na lakas-paggawa para sa pandaigdigang pamilihan. Pinanatili nito ang pa-

ghahari ng dayuhang monopolyo-kapital sa pamamagitan ng pagpapalaganap ng
kultura ng pagpapakatuta at pagiging sunud-sunuran. Sa huli, ito ay pagtatang-
ka na pahinain ang kolektibong pakikibaka ng mamamayan sa pamamagitan ng
pagbura ng kanyang pagkilala sa sariling wika, kultura at kasaysayan ng paglaban.
Kaya hindi hiwalay ang laban para sa pagpapalakas ng pag-aaral ng

wika, panitikan at araling Pilipino sa pagpapasigla sa kilusang maka-
bayan at demokratiko ng masang anakpawis na manggagawa at magsasa-
ka kasama ang mga progresibong kabataan, intelektwal, at petiburgesya.
Malinaw na ang pagsusulong ng mga pakikibakang anti-imperyalista, an-
ti-pyudal, at anti-pasista ang papanday ng espasyo para sa higit na pagsu-
long ng intelektwalisasyon ng ating wika, panitikan, at araling Pilipino.
Mariing kinokondena ng Congress of Teachers and Educators for

Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND) ang CHED Memo 20 at
ang pagpapatibay nito ng Korte Suprema. Naninindigan kami sa CON-
TEND kasama ang ibang progresibo at militanteng guro, iskolar, ma-
nanaliksik, akademikong kawani, at iba pang sektor na ipaglaban ang
pagtuturo ng Filipino at panitikan sa mga kolehiyo at unibersidad.
LABANAN ANG IMPERYALISTANG OPENSIBANG

PANGKULTURA!
LABANAN ANG NEOLIBERAL NA ATAKE SA EDUKASYON!
ISULONG ANG PAMBANSA, SIYENTIPIKO, AT MAKAMASANG

EDUKASYON AT KULTURA!
WIKA AT PANITIKAN IPAGLABAN!
DATE PUBLISHED: June 2, 2019

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VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1

Copyright© 2019 CONTEND and ILPS

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Study Marx to Resist Imperialism 9

Marx Hinggil sa Pag-aalyansa ng mga 31

The Dialectical Foundation of 59

Yet Terry Eagleton, boldly claims, “Marxism is a critique of capitalism….

In celebration of the revolutionary legacies of Marx to people’s struggle

Marx and Revolutionary Theory (philosophy, epistemology, ontology, postmodernism)

The Editors of Pingkian therefore are delighted to present to the wider

Study Marx to Resist

Jose Maria Sison

On behalf of the International League of Peoples´ Struggle,

The study of Marxism is indispensable for understanding the current status

capitalism to monopoly capitalism Thus, Leninism is Marxism in the era of

The unbridled abuse of investment liberalization has been in combination

The monopoly capitalists have been able to manipulate to their advantage

The adoption of higher technology, from the electro-mechanical processes

the concentration and accumulation of monopoly capital, the higher organic

The monopoly bourgeoisie makes all attempts at mass distraction to conceal

Contrary to its claims of developing the whole world under imperialist

We are therefore moving in the direction of the global resurgence of the

Long live the memory and legacy of Karl Marx!

IN SOTHEBY’S CONTEMPORARY art auction in November

Commodification seems to have climaxed in a species of trading rituals

a conundrum, since it is not clear what concept is referred to or whether the

The epochal transformation initiated by Duchamp has abolished the

Osborne summarizes the lineages of negation characterizing conceptual art

1. The negation of material objectivity as the site of the identity

4. The negation of established modes of autonomy of the artwork

It is the last negation that generates art-oriented activities intervening into

As early as 1970, Mel Bochner, one of the practitioners of “conceptual

Lewitt’s pronouncements have become so scriptural that a popular Dictionary

Marx’s theory of reification

of the mysterious entity—the commodity. The use-value of commodity refers

What lesson is conveyed by Marx’s insight? In producing any useful thing

How do we escape from this fetishized world based on historically varied

The religious reflections of the actual world can vanish only

commands as illustrated earlier. In order to suppress this potential, conceptualists

Before venturing further into nomenclature and examples, it might be

Foregoing a complete history of the origin of aesthetics from classical

sensibles (Eco 1988).

In his Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant has posited aesthetics as involved

Meanwhile, Hegel has emphasized the philosophical function of art as

and communication do not affect the value of the unreflected intuition.

Aesthetics as an inquiry into normative concepts and values regarding beauty

In this new catastrophic period of triumphalist globalism, the issue of

in capitalism has become a commodity (exchange-value), as being attested by

Indeed, in a 1983 international conference on “Marxism and the

Interrogating the messenger

In the wake of the poststructuralist transvaluation of texts, the ceaseless

On 13 March 2015, in the program interrupt3 sponsored by Brown

I took a publicly available document from an American tragedy that was

Despite the conceptualist emphasis on context, sites, and situations,

Revenge of the immaterial

Marx’s concept of commodity-fetishism exposes the irony in the post-

of semantic features otherwise buried in scientific, empirical discourse

The crisis of conceptualism originates from the stoic acceptance of unity

“Religion is, in fact, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who

Here, Marx grasps the superstructure (religion) not as epiphenomena but as

Arvon, Henri. 1973. Marxist esthetics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Bothamley, Jennifer. 1993. Dictionary of theories. London: Gale Research

Marx Hinggil sa Pag-aalyansa

SUSURIIN NG PAG-AARAL na ito kung paano ginagamit