Fight for the Pacific -The occupation of the Philippines by US imperialism and the bloody suppression of the liberation movement of the Filipino people

Fight for the Pacific 

V.Y. Avarin.

1. The occupation of the Philippines by US imperialism and the bloody suppression of the liberation movement of the Filipino people

At the end of the XIX and at the beginning of the XX century, Capitalism has passed into its last stage. Imperialism is the stage of dying capitalism, when its internal and external contradictions reach their extreme sharpness, their extreme limit.

Comrade Stalin notes three major contradictions of imperialism: the contradiction between labor and capital; the contradiction between various financial groups and the imperialist powers in their struggle for sources of raw materials, for foreign territories;  the contradiction between a handful of ruling nations and hundreds of millions of colonial and dependent peoples of the world.

Analyzing these contradictions, Comrade Stalin says: “Imperialism is the omnipotence of monopoly trusts and syndicates, banks and the financial oligarchy in industrial countries... Imperialism is the export of capital to sources of raw materials, a frenzied struggle for monopoly possession of these sources, a struggle for the redivision of an already divided world, a struggle waged with particular ferocity on the part of the new financial groups and powers seeking "a place in the sun" against the old groups and powers tenaciously holding on to what they have occupied. . Imperialism is the most impudent exploitation and the most inhuman oppression of hundreds of millions of the population of the vast colonies and dependent countries.(1) .

The law of the uneven development of capitalism in the era of imperialism was discovered by Lenin and developed by Comrade Stalin. “The uneven economic and political development is an unconditional law of capitalism” (2), wrote Lenin. Based on this law, Lenin and Stalin came to the conclusion about the possibility of the victory of socialism initially in a few or in one, separately taken country.

New properties of uneven development, which manifested themselves with great force in the imperialist era, are spasmodic and catastrophic. The essence of uneven development and its consequences were explained by Comrade Stalin; “According to the meaning of this law,” Comrade Stalin wrote in 1924, “the development of enterprises, trusts, industries and individual countries is uneven, not in the order of an established queue, not in such a way that one trust, one branch of industry or one country goes all the time is ahead, while other trusts or countries lagged behind successively one after another - but in leaps and bounds, with interruptions in the development of some countries and with leaps forward in the development of other countries ” (3) .

Comrade Stalin pointed out that in the epoch of imperialism the extraordinary development of technology intensified the unevenness of development and led to a jump ahead of some countries by others. The fact that by the time of the final transition of capitalism to imperialism the world had already been divided among the major powers, and that the balance of forces between them was changing as a result of spasmodic development—this fact leads to the resolute striving of the newly emerging powers to redistribute the world by force, by means of imperialist wars.

“The law of uneven development in the period of imperialism means the spasmodic development of some countries in relation to others, the rapid ousting of some countries from the world market by others, the periodic redistribution of the already divided world in the order of military clashes and military catastrophes, the deepening and aggravation of conflicts in the camp of imperialism...” ( 4) .

Wars, which are a natural state of affairs for capitalism, are inevitable under imperialism.

In the life of England and the United States by the end of the XIX century, powerful capitalist associations and banks acquired a decisive role. Financial capital has become the absolute ruler in these countries. This capital, with untiring greed, demanded new markets, the capture of new colonies, new places for the export of capital, new sources of raw materials. The financiers and monopolists were madly eager for wars. Their servants, operating on the ideological front, came up with all sorts of excuses, both for wars of conquest undertaken with the aim of redividing the world, and for wars against colonial peoples, whose struggle for liberation began to develop more and more.

The United States, which became the arena of the very rapid development of monopolies, was the first to hasten to mark the final entry of the world into the imperialist epoch with an aggressive war for the redivision of the colonies. American imperialism started a war against Spain, a once powerful country, but by the end of the 19th century, which has become the weakest of all possible opponents of the United States owning the colonies. This war then turned in Cuba and the Far East into the most disgraceful, incredibly cruel and bloody colonial war, which especially clearly revealed the wolfish features of American aggression.

The US Congress, in its resolution on April 25, declared that the United States had been at war with Spain since April 21, 1898. The purpose of the war was hypocritically declared to be "the liberation of Cuba from the Spanish yoke and granting her independence" (5) .

But Theodore Roosevelt, who at that time held the post of Deputy Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Navy Long and President McKinley discussed the issue of capturing the Philippines in the event of war with Spain as early as September 1897, 6 months before the start of the war, In order to ensure the fulfillment of American aggressive plans in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, as early as October 1897, a "man of action" - Commodore Dewey (6) was appointed commander of the US Far Eastern squadron .

At the beginning of 1898, Dewey went with a squadron to Hong Kong and began to prepare for an attack on the Philippines. On February 25, he received a completely official order, which stated that in the event of hostilities against Spain, he would have to undertake "offensive operations" against the Spaniards in the Philippines. When Dewey received his final orders on April 25 to head for the Philippines and launch an attack, everything was ready for the attack. The British maritime authorities in Hong Kong, well aware of Dewey's preparations, overestimating the Spanish forces in the Philippines, hoped that Dewey would be defeated. The defeat of the Spanish squadron was an all the more unpleasant surprise for the British because they could not intervene: they were bound by the war in the Sudan and the preparations for the war in South Africa (7) .

Just as unexpected for the British, as for other countries, was the demand of the American government to Spain for the transfer of the Philippines to the United States. Members of the American government not only did not publicly make such a demand before, but the instructions of the American peace delegation, which went to Paris in October 1898, spoke only of demanding from Spain the cession of the island of Luzon. Only at the end of October did President McKinley send an order to demand the entire Philippine archipelago from the Spaniards. On December 10, the Spanish-American peace treaty was signed. In order to quickly obtain the consent of Spain, before other powers had time to get involved, and following their usual hypocritical policy, the United States offered the Spaniards to pay them $ 20 million for the captured vast territory.

The British initially believed that the United States would be satisfied with a naval base in the Philippines or one or two islands, and the rest would be given to them as a reward for "neutrality". And in any case, they resolutely resisted German harassment against the Philippines. While White, the American ambassador in Berlin, agreed to convene an American-German conference to discuss the question of how to dispose of the Philippines, London rejected any German participation on this issue. The British Foreign Office told the American envoy Hay that it preferred that the United States take the Philippines, or, if they did not, England would insist on giving her "rights of first priority in the event of the sale of the Philippines" (8). Objecting to the provision of any stronghold in the Philippines to Germany, British politicians, however, did not think that the US government, in spite of the energetic protests of American democracy and in spite of the determined resistance of the population of the Philippines, would annex the entire vast archipelago.

The McKinley government pursued the most pronounced policy of vile double-dealing. Extremely in need, before the arrival of large contingents of their troops, in the help of the Filipino rebels and also trying to hide from other powers their intention to annex the Philippines, the American authorities in the summer of 1898 declared that they were only trying to "help the Philippine people free themselves from Spanish rule and gain independence".

However, already in July, the American command began secret negotiations on the surrender of the Spaniards with the commander of the Spanish garrison in Manila. The purpose of these negotiations was to remove the Philippine army from participating in the occupation of Manila and to conclude an alliance with the Spaniards, now against the Filipinos. These secret negotiations with the enemy against the ally ended successfully. On August 13, by agreement with the Spaniards, an ostentatious attack on Manila was announced, after the start of which the Spaniards immediately announced their surrender and, together with the Americans, opposed the Philippine army, which was not allowed into Manila. But the American invaders still had to settle the Philippine issue on an international scale, and then ratify the annexation in Congress. Therefore, the American authorities continued, on the one hand, to flirt with the leaders of the rebel army, which took over most of the country and announced on June 12, 1898 the creation of an independent Philippine Republic; on the other hand, they already used to armed struggle against the Filipinos, capitulating Spanish garrisons remaining in various points in the Philippines.

In early February 1899, just two days before the Senate was to approve a peace treaty with Spain to annex the Philippines, American troops took up arms against General Aguinaldo's Philippine army. American troops treacherously attacked the Filipinos on the night of February 4, and, as usual on such occasions, the American command announced that the Filipinos had started the attack. But a few days later, General Otis, the commander of the American forces, telegraphed Washington with great complacency that the American offensive had taken the Filipinos by surprise. This attack by American troops, followed by the claim that the Filipinos started the clash, was also intended to stir up chauvinistic sentiments among the Americans, since the treaty with Spain to annex the Philippines met with strong resistance. There were fears that even in the Senate two or three votes might not be enough to approve it. The American attack followed a signal from Washington.

With an attack on the Philippine army, the real conquest of the Philippines began, requiring almost four years of military action. The American army was increased from 10,000 to 70,000 men.

By the end of 1899, the weakly armed Philippine troops turned to guerrilla warfare. The war continued in the archipelago during 1900, 1901 and 1902. The internal struggle that arose in the rebel camp played into the hands of the American invaders. The careerist Aguinaldo, who acted in the interests of the United States, killed the head of the anti-Spanish national movement Bonifacio during the uprising against the Spaniards, and now striving for a personal dictatorship, killed the best military leader of the Philippine army, General Luna, luring him into a trap, and removed from the leadership of the inspirer of the national liberation Mabini movements. By his actions, he brought disorganization into the ranks of the Philippine National Army and greatly weakened it.

The bloody colonial war in the Philippines was marked by brutal atrocities on the part of the American invaders. Bloody General Smith issued an order to kill anyone who falls into the hands of American troops. Often captured Filipinos were subjected to terrible torture. Since 1900, American troops in the Philippines have been led by Major General Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur, the strangler of the Japanese people. During the ruthless colonial war, the invaders exterminated hundreds of thousands of freedom-loving Filipinos, many areas were subjected to terrible ruin. Thus, by shedding rivers of blood, the American imperialists carried out their "civilizing mission" in the Pacific basin.

Even such a bourgeois figure as US Senator K. Schurz, describing American policy in the Philippine archipelago, wrote: “I studied in detail everything that happened in the Philippines, and came to the deep conviction that the history of the conquest of the Philippines is a history of deceit and lies, gross betrayal their friends, the misappropriation of power, betrayal of the basic principles of democracy, the senseless sacrifice of our soldiers for the wrong cause, the brutal beating of an innocent people and, in general, a horrific bloody crime without equal in history” (9) .

In the Philippines, Hawaii, Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, as well as in North America itself, as in Africa - everywhere in the world, the words, Howit, which he said about the Christian colonial system, quoted by Marx in I volume of "Capital": "The barbarity and shameless cruelties of the so-called Christian races, committed in all parts of the world in relation to all the peoples whom they managed to subjugate to themselves, surpass all the horrors committed in any historical epoch by any race, not excluding the most savage and ignorant , the most ruthless and shameless" (11) .

President McKinley, who, like most other US presidents, was distinguished by boundless hypocrisy, declared that the Philippines had to be annexed in order for Christianity to triumph on the islands. Without any puritanical hypocrisy, Frank Vanderlip, US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, explained the reasons for the capture of the archipelago. He pointed out that the Philippines was the key to the Far East and that Manila, in the hands of the Americans, would become the greatest rival of the British base, Hong Kong (12) .

Theodore Roosevelt and his associates declared that the Philippines would have to play the role of "a forward American base in the development of commercial relations with China." How many times has this motive - penetration into China - been cited to justify American expansion! It figured when the US seized Oregon and California, when the US "bought" Alaska, when they took possession of Hawaii. The desire of American capital to infiltrate China, to profit by exploiting its population, is truly as old as American capital. Moving towards China, the American colonialists seized and plundered other countries on the Pacific Ocean, turning their population into their colonial slaves, or brutally exterminating them.

Despite the protests of the democratic elements of the American people, the troubadours of the American monopolies in the years when the US troops on the threshold of the 20th century. waged a shameful and brutal colonial war in the Philippines, came out with a delusional sermon of the conquest of the whole world, a sermon of asserting the dominance of the "chosen by God" American people over all other peoples on earth. Here, for example, are excerpts from a speech by Senator Albert Beveridge, which was greeted with enthusiastic applause by all the apologists for American imperialism in Congress. Speaking on January 9, 1900, Beveridge declared: “The Philippines is ours for all eternity ... And there, immediately beyond the Philippines, is an immense Chinese market. We will never deviate from either one or the other ... Our trade should henceforth develop most widely in Asia. The Pacific Ocean is our ocean... And the Pacific is also the ocean of future trade. Most future wars will be due to commercial interests. Therefore, the power that dominates the Pacific is the power that dominates the world. And in possession of the Philippines, that power is and will forever remain the American Republic.(13) . There is no need to comment on this pronounced, inexhaustible greed imperialist creed.

Striving to establish its dominion over the world, to seize the Philippines, Guam, Porgo Rico, American monopoly capital naturally came into sharp conflict with the British monopolies. Therefore, the statements of some American historians that one of the reasons for the annexation of the Philippines was the desire of the United States to meet the wishes of England, which allegedly longed for the transfer of these islands into the hands of the Americans, are absurd. “England,” writes the American historian Bailey, “welcomed the annexation of the Philippines by the Americans ... Of course, the Americans could not disappoint the people who supported them so nobly (in the war against Spain. - V. A), while continental Europe showed unfriendliness » (14). American bourgeois historians try to explain the capture of the Philippines with such childish tales, glossing over the Anglo-American imperialist contradictions. These contradictions, as a result of the intensified desire of American capital for world domination, began to be felt with particular force just at the end of the last century.

The facts do not at all support the version of sympathy of the British ruling circles for the capture of the Philippines by the United States. Owning the only cable communication line with the Philippines at that time, the British used this connection during the war to the detriment of US interests. President McKinley even made a diplomatic protest against England's violation of neutrality, as she used cable communications in the interests of Spain.

The city of London at the end of the 19th century considered himself the ruler of most of the world and sought to expand the boundaries of his possessions even wider. However, from the fact that England spread her imperialist possessions extremely widely throughout the world, her difficulties also arose. It came into conflict with all other imperialist countries. In every corner of the globe, on any issue, other major powers encountered the opposition of England. Under these conditions England, despite her might, would not have been able to resist all other imperialist countries. She began to maneuver even more than before, tried to push her opponents against each other, she was forced to give up something in favor of some rivals in order to win them over to her side,

In addition, the British imperialists at that time were already preparing to seize the Boer colonies in South Africa and needed to neutralize the United States. The Second Boer War began in 1899. All this led to the fact that even at the beginning of the Spanish-American War, some representatives of the British government, taking advantage of the moment, began to make calls for an Anglo-American alliance. Such an appeal was made, for example, by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain on May 13, 1898 (15) . Gray, the foreign secretary, even offered to help the United States with the help of the British fleet in order to quickly deal with Cuba, but on the condition that England would be rewarded.

The aggressive war of the American expansionists provoked condemnation in the United States itself on the part of the class-conscious proletariat and on the part of the progressive circles of the bourgeoisie. Lenin, characterizing the position of certain circles of the American bourgeoisie, wrote:

“In the Union. In the United States, the imperialist war against Spain in 1898 aroused the opposition of the “anti-imperialists”, the last Mohicans of bourgeois democracy, who called this war “criminal”, considered the annexation of foreign lands a violation of the constitution ... ” (16) .

These voices of protest were unable to influence the general course of US imperialism. Thanks to the rapid capitalist development of the United States, there was an unusually rapid growth of finance capital, which strove with particular force to acquire colonies. With the development of finance capital and trusts, the features of parasitism became an ever-sharper characteristic of the American bourgeoisie. In the United States, the economic development of capitalism proceeded at a rapid pace, "precisely because of this, the parasitic features of the latest American capitalism came out with particular clarity" (17) .

The imperialist war of the United States against the Philippine people, undertaken on the initiative of the American monopolies, was one of the important milestones that marked the final replacement of the old capitalism by the rule of the monopolies.

"Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in America and Europe, and then in Asia, was fully formed by 1898-1914." (18) .

The new stage of capitalist development, which began in the United States on the threshold of the 20th century, “is capitalism at that stage of development when the dominance of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape, the export of capital has acquired outstanding importance, the division of the world by international trusts, and the division of the entire territory of the earth by the largest capitalist countries has begun" (19) .

The US war to take over Cuba and the Philippines was a war for the territorial redistribution of land. The American monopolies craved their own colonies for the export of capital and goods, for raking in monstrous super profits.

By this time, Germany had also become one of the main rivals of British imperialism in the Pacific. The main naval base for the German Far Eastern squadron was equipped in Qingdao. German goods began to penetrate into all corners of the Pacific Ocean, and German capital investments grew rapidly. They reached especially large sizes in China. Here, Germany's investments by the beginning of the World War of 1914-1918 reached the amount of 263.6 million am. dollars. German investment at that time exceeded Japanese investment in China.

German imperialism, which had entered the broad world arena, clashed with British imperialism everywhere on the globe.

Since Germany was increasingly clearly emerging as the main and most direct imperialist rival of England (20), the United States found itself in a favorable position and could consolidate its imperialist acquisitions of the late 19th century. However, by its policy of opposing Japan to the United States, and by various diplomatic maneuvers, British imperialism succeeded in stopping the further territorial expansion of the United States. Before the outbreak of World War II, British imperialism and other US imperialist rivals also succeeded in putting a brake on the economic expansion of American monopoly capital in the western Pacific. But the United States in the first decades of the XX century. established their economic dominance in Canada, in Central and South America.

Relations between Britain and the United States in the Pacific from the time the United States openly entered the path of imperialist aggression to the First World War are characterized by temporary successes of British diplomacy in the Far East, joint Anglo-American actions against the national liberation movement in China, and in some cases also against a number of imperialist rivals in the Far East and the beginning of a noticeable displacement of British capital from Central and South America and Canada.

(1) I. V. Stalin, Soch., vol. 6, pp. 72-73.

(2) V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 21, p. 311.

(3) J. V. Stalin, Soch., vol. 6, p. 369.

(4) J. V. Stalin, Soch. ., vol. 9, p. 106.

(5) American President Polk first commissioned the US envoy to Spain to negotiate the purchase of Cuba in 1848. He offered $100 million for Cuba. their current boundaries. They will repeatedly seize the lands of their neighbors. They will form autonomous regions on these lands, declare their independence, and then annex them. We've already taken over New Mexico and California. We will take all of Mexico and Cuba. Neither the isthmus of Central America nor the St. Lawrence River will stop us...” (“De Bow's Review,” VI, July 9, 1848; Bailey, p. 306). Already in 1850 and 1851. the Americans organized large gangs (Lopez), who, with weapons in their hands, tried to "liberate" Cuba, but were defeated. In 1854, taking advantage of the fact that England had started a war against Russia, American Secretary of State Mercy again suggested to the envoy in Madrid that Cuba be ceded to the United States. Despite threats, Spain rejected this proposal as well.

By the time of the US war with Spain, about 50 million dollars of American capital had been invested in the Cuban economy, mainly in sugar plantations and factories.

The American imperialists, who were preparing for war with Spain, were greatly helped by the yellow press, especially by the press of Hurst, who began his activities in the newspaper field in 1895. When, long before the war, one of Hurst's correspondents, Remington, sent in advance to Cuba to sketch illustrations for military operations, telegraphed: “Everything is calm, no war is expected,” Hearst replied: “Take care of the sketches, I will take care of the war” (Winkler, WR Hearst, NY 1928, p. 144; Bailey, p. 497).

After the explosion of the Maine, the Hurst press was filled with ultra jingoist articles demanding an immediate war against Spain.

(6) Bishop and Bucklin, Theodore Roosevelt and his Time, N. Y. 1920, v. I, p. 83.

(7) Dulles, р. 202—203.

(8) Roosevelt, An Autobiography, N. Y. 1919, p. 231—232.

(9) Dennis, Adventures in American Diplomacy, p. 100, Hay to Day

(10) Bancroft Frederic, Life of Schurz, vol. Ill, p. 446. Цит. no Dulles, p. 259.

(11) К. Маркс, Капитал, т. I, стр. 755.

(12) «The Century Magazine», August 1898, p. 555—556; F, Vanderlip, Facts abоut the Philippines.

(13) «Congressional Record», 56th Congress, 1-st Session, vol. 33, 1900, p. 704.

(14) T. Bailey, Diplomatic History of the American People, New York 1940, p. 522.

(15) Gelber, The Rise of Anglo-American Friendship. Oxford University Press, 1938, p. 24.

(16) V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 22, p. 274.

(17) V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 22, p. 287.

(18) V. I. Lenin, Soch. ., vol. 23, p. 95.

(19) V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 22, p. 253.

(20) Lenin wrote in April 1911: and Germany are arming extremely heavily. The competition of these countries in the world market is becoming increasingly aggravated. The military clash is approaching increasingly menacingly” (Soch., vol. 17, p. 145).