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Socialist strategy by Sonny Melencio

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Reihana Mohideen
Reihana Mohideen

The document outlines socialist strategy and how it has evolved historically in response to different periods and turns in class struggle. It discusses Marxist thinkers like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, and Gramsci and their perspectives on strategy. Key points include: (1) Strategy involves a plan of action to achieve socialism through class struggle and revolutionary forces. (2) Strategy must change depending on the specific historic period and balance of class forces. (3) Periods discussed include the 19th century, times of world war, national liberation movements, and today's era of neoliberal globalization. (4) The document proposes a current strategy for the Philippines combining people's power actions with electoral intervention.

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Socialist Strategy Presentation by Sonny Melencio, Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) Philippines
What is strategy? Oxford dictionary: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. the art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle. Socialist strategy: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve socialism.
What is strategy? Trotsky: Revolutionary strategy refers to a combination of system or process of actions which by their association, consistency, and growth must lead the working class to the conquest of power. Mao: The task of the science of strategy is to study those laws for directing a war that govern a war situation as a whole.
What is strategy? Stalin: Strategy is the determination of the direction of the main blow of the proletariat at a given stage of the revolution, the elaboration of a corresponding plan for the disposition of the revolutionary forces (main and secondary reserves), the fight to carry out this plan throughout the given stage of the revolution.
Theres no strategy for all seasons Strategy is not something constant, fixed once and for all. It alters in accordance with the turns in history, or with historic changes. With each separate turn in history a separate strategic plan is drawn up corresponding to that turn, and effective during the whole period from that turn to the next. Strategy defines the direction of the main blow to be delivered by the revolutionary forces and the corresponding disposition of the vast masses on the social front. Naturally, a strategic plan suitable for one period of history, which has its own specific features, cannot be suitable for another period of history, which has entirely different specific features.
Historic Turns Development in the class struggle Intensification of the class struggle (class war) Political crisis Development in the balance of class forces (breakdown of consent)
Period of Marx and Engels (19 th century) For a long while during the period of capitalist development, when the capitalist class was still a progressive class, Marx and Engels remarked that the immediate task faced by the revolutionary socialists was to organize the broad masses of workers to fight for reforms. These are reforms that will be fought under the framework of a developing capitalist societyside by side with the advance of propaganda work and education among the masses on the ultimate objective of socialism.
There is no strategy during this period There is no talk of strategy during the time of Marx and Engels, save for the period of the outbreak of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in Europe in 1848-49. In Communist Manifesto, they anticipated the eruption of bourgeois revolutions in Europe, particularly in Germanyrevolutions which, they said, would occur in countries with more advanced capitalist system as compared to the bourgeois revolution in England during the 17th century and in France during the 18th century.
Historic turn: the 1848-49 revolution that eventually failed In the aftermath of the successive defeat of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in 1848-49, Marx and Engels reviewed their former assessment of the revolutionary epoch: History has proved us... wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the Continent [of Europe] at the time was not... ripe for the elimination of capitalist production.
Return to protracted organizing Period of extended preparation of the working class. The revolutionary socialists led the day-to-day struggle of the workers for economic and political rights, alongside conducting socialist propaganda among the working class masses. The formation of mass-based working class parties. Codified in the programs of the parties; the most famous of which was the Erfurt Program of the German Social-Democratic Party formed in 1891.
Historic turn: Lenins period While Lenin did not use the term strategy, the question of strategy was posed in the 1905 and the 1917 Russian revolution when it was resolved in the capture of political power by the working class.
Historic turn: World Wars The world wars constituted historical turns. The second world war gave rise to the national liberation movements. Mao: Peoples War or Protracted Peoples War
Rise of the National Liberation Movements (1940s-1960s) Strategy of national liberation movement (war and guerrilla movement) Victory in Cuba (January 1, 1959) Culminated in the victory of the Vietnamese revolution (1975)
Strategy according to Gramsci Gramscis war of positions and war of maneouvers. The key struggle for revolutionaries is not a direct assault on state power, but the struggle for ideological dominance, for hegemony. In Russia the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West ... when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks.
War of position & War of maneouver War of position -- a long drawn out struggle in which the two armies are deadlocked in battle, each hardly able to move forward, like the trench warfare of 1914-18. War of manoeuvre -- involves rapid movement by the rival armies, with thrusts forwards and backwards as each tries to outflank the other and its cities (frontal assault on the state, i.e., 1917 revolution in Russia).
Developing counter-hegemony The working class can only become counter-hegemonic by winning over the main sections of the intellectuals and the classes they represent. Generic/Traditional intellectual and the organic intellectual Until the working class has achieved the task of becoming the hegemonic class, attempts to seize state power can only end in defeat.
Historical Turn:1980s 1980s up to the present, period of Neo-Liberal Globalization Political impasse Combination of uprising and electoral victory (Venezuela and Bolivia, Latin America today)
PLM Strategy Combination of uprising (peoples power action) and electoral intervention (winning political seats). Gains in the barangay elections Prospect: Unresolved economic mess, unfolding political crisis Disunity of the Left former divide between the democratic left and the non-democratic left remains; but a new division among the left in terms of social democracy (reforms through alliance with the ruling elite) and revolutionary democratic project.
New Forces New forces: Military Rebels (OMRs), radicalizing layer Youth and students Unemployed labor force
Third Period Prospect for advance Escalation of class struggle (influence of the European escalation of class struggle; TINA replaced with CIM. There is no alternative replaced with Capitalism is a mess. Left unity Absence of left unity, the emergence of new forces and new leadership in the mass struggle.

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Socialist strategy by Sonny Melencio

  • 1. Socialist Strategy Presentation by Sonny Melencio, Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) Philippines
  • 2. What is strategy? Oxford dictionary: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. the art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle. Socialist strategy: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve socialism.
  • 3. What is strategy? Trotsky: Revolutionary strategy refers to a combination of system or process of actions which by their association, consistency, and growth must lead the working class to the conquest of power. Mao: The task of the science of strategy is to study those laws for directing a war that govern a war situation as a whole.
  • 4. What is strategy? Stalin: Strategy is the determination of the direction of the main blow of the proletariat at a given stage of the revolution, the elaboration of a corresponding plan for the disposition of the revolutionary forces (main and secondary reserves), the fight to carry out this plan throughout the given stage of the revolution.
  • 5. Theres no strategy for all seasons Strategy is not something constant, fixed once and for all. It alters in accordance with the turns in history, or with historic changes. With each separate turn in history a separate strategic plan is drawn up corresponding to that turn, and effective during the whole period from that turn to the next. Strategy defines the direction of the main blow to be delivered by the revolutionary forces and the corresponding disposition of the vast masses on the social front. Naturally, a strategic plan suitable for one period of history, which has its own specific features, cannot be suitable for another period of history, which has entirely different specific features.
  • 6. Historic Turns Development in the class struggle Intensification of the class struggle (class war) Political crisis Development in the balance of class forces (breakdown of consent)
  • 7. Period of Marx and Engels (19 th century) For a long while during the period of capitalist development, when the capitalist class was still a progressive class, Marx and Engels remarked that the immediate task faced by the revolutionary socialists was to organize the broad masses of workers to fight for reforms. These are reforms that will be fought under the framework of a developing capitalist societyside by side with the advance of propaganda work and education among the masses on the ultimate objective of socialism.
  • 8. There is no strategy during this period There is no talk of strategy during the time of Marx and Engels, save for the period of the outbreak of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in Europe in 1848-49. In Communist Manifesto, they anticipated the eruption of bourgeois revolutions in Europe, particularly in Germanyrevolutions which, they said, would occur in countries with more advanced capitalist system as compared to the bourgeois revolution in England during the 17th century and in France during the 18th century.
  • 9. Historic turn: the 1848-49 revolution that eventually failed In the aftermath of the successive defeat of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in 1848-49, Marx and Engels reviewed their former assessment of the revolutionary epoch: History has proved us... wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the Continent [of Europe] at the time was not... ripe for the elimination of capitalist production.
  • 10. Return to protracted organizing Period of extended preparation of the working class. The revolutionary socialists led the day-to-day struggle of the workers for economic and political rights, alongside conducting socialist propaganda among the working class masses. The formation of mass-based working class parties. Codified in the programs of the parties; the most famous of which was the Erfurt Program of the German Social-Democratic Party formed in 1891.
  • 11. Historic turn: Lenins period While Lenin did not use the term strategy, the question of strategy was posed in the 1905 and the 1917 Russian revolution when it was resolved in the capture of political power by the working class.
  • 12. Historic turn: World Wars The world wars constituted historical turns. The second world war gave rise to the national liberation movements. Mao: Peoples War or Protracted Peoples War
  • 13. Rise of the National Liberation Movements (1940s-1960s) Strategy of national liberation movement (war and guerrilla movement) Victory in Cuba (January 1, 1959) Culminated in the victory of the Vietnamese revolution (1975)
  • 14. Strategy according to Gramsci Gramscis war of positions and war of maneouvers. The key struggle for revolutionaries is not a direct assault on state power, but the struggle for ideological dominance, for hegemony. In Russia the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West ... when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks.
  • 15. War of position & War of maneouver War of position -- a long drawn out struggle in which the two armies are deadlocked in battle, each hardly able to move forward, like the trench warfare of 1914-18. War of manoeuvre -- involves rapid movement by the rival armies, with thrusts forwards and backwards as each tries to outflank the other and its cities (frontal assault on the state, i.e., 1917 revolution in Russia).
  • 16. Developing counter-hegemony The working class can only become counter-hegemonic by winning over the main sections of the intellectuals and the classes they represent. Generic/Traditional intellectual and the organic intellectual Until the working class has achieved the task of becoming the hegemonic class, attempts to seize state power can only end in defeat.
  • 17. Historical Turn:1980s 1980s up to the present, period of Neo-Liberal Globalization Political impasse Combination of uprising and electoral victory (Venezuela and Bolivia, Latin America today)
  • 18. PLM Strategy Combination of uprising (peoples power action) and electoral intervention (winning political seats). Gains in the barangay elections Prospect: Unresolved economic mess, unfolding political crisis Disunity of the Left former divide between the democratic left and the non-democratic left remains; but a new division among the left in terms of social democracy (reforms through alliance with the ruling elite) and revolutionary democratic project.
  • 19. New Forces New forces: Military Rebels (OMRs), radicalizing layer Youth and students Unemployed labor force
  • 20. Third Period Prospect for advance Escalation of class struggle (influence of the European escalation of class struggle; TINA replaced with CIM. There is no alternative replaced with Capitalism is a mess. Left unity Absence of left unity, the emergence of new forces and new leadership in the mass struggle.