ABSTRACT
The revolution began in the fertile mind of a college English literature teacher fond of poetry and philosophy, but ultimately drawn to the writings of Karl Marx, V. I. Lenin, and Mao Zedong. Martial law marked the first critical test of survival for the struggling revolutionary movement. Hundreds of activists and Party members were arrested in Manila and other cities. The Philippine communists had proudly waged an indigenous revolution and had relied primarily on arms and materiel captured or bought from the AFR. In the early days of slavish Maoism, the revolution received token aid from China. By 1985, the barrio revolutionary council-which by included some members of the legal barangay council-was openly governing Barangay Rose. The indigenous nature of the revolution also had a soothing effect on many middle- and upper-class Filipinos, who argued that the absence of foreign involvement was proof that the movement was "uniquely Filipino" and not really a classic Marxist-Leninist revolution.
