ABSTRACT
In "Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party," a brutal critique of Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) history, Jose Maria Sison argued that the earlier communist-led insurgencies could have succeeded had the proper strategy and tactics been adopted. Whereas the old PKP leadership had careened from one extreme to the other as it attempted to set the strategic and tactical course of the earlier rural rebellions, Sison maintained a firm, ideologically steady hand. One key element of Mao's strategy that Sison adopted for the New People's Army was the development of stable base areas in the countryside. "Specific Characteristics" was in part an attempt by Sison to reassure his battered forces in the countryside that the strategic line of protracted people's war would ultimately lead to victory. The most far reaching, innovative policy emerging from "Specific Characteristics" was that of "centralized leadership, decentralized operations.".
