We’re back with the second part of a series of short interviews with comrade Joma Sison! He is the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines and currently is the chief consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
Full transcript below the video.
‘State power is an instrument of the class.
Is it true that automatically you can jump from capitalism to socialism? No. The ruling bourgeoisie will try to kill you first, oppress you. So when Marx says in the Communist Manifesto, ‘you must win the battle for democracy’, it means you must assert your democratic rights, the rights to assemble and speak out and all the other rights. And then, when your mass movement becomes big they will try to suppress you and come up with fascism. So before you can have socialism, the monopoly capitalist class will unleash fascism. Under various pre-texts they use chauvinism against immigrants, xenophobia, islamophobia and many other tricks just to hide the roots of the crisis.
It’s not just a transfer of the power of the bourgeoisie. In a certain sense, their arms may be transferred to you but the class, and the state as a class instrument, cannot be passed in whole. You have to smash the bureaucratic and military machinery. Meaning to say, you have to form an entirely new organization of your own administration and your own military force. Don’t throw the question of power so easily, giving a chance to the old reactionaries to make use of their old influence. Some other fator, you have to take away the voting rights of the counter-revolutionaries and the unrepentant bourgeoisie. You can only grant voring rights to the exceptionals because there are also people who come from the exploiting class but they are no longer defending that class.’
