I think you're conflating "Huks" with CPP or the Communist political leadership more generally. I think if you took your average Huk trigger-man in the barrios, they were not openly participating in the political process even if some of their leaders were. What I've been trying to say is that even if there were elements in the Communist leadership pursuing the political track as late as 1950, organized and directed violence against the Philippine state had begun far earlier, 1948 at the latest and I would argue as early as 1946.
So they had to defend themselves despite the fact that they weren't at war? I think you're being internally inconsistent. Either these were isolated incidents of constabulary vs. Huk violence, in which case the leadership cadres who you say were participating in the political process would have nothign to fear; or there was a war going on, in which case moves to fortified positions from where they would be safe from government reprisal would be logical for the leadership cadres.
I agree completely. I think there were many faults with the Quirino administration, and with Quirino himself, but nobody can argue that he faced an unenviable situation on taking office.
I'm pretty sure Quezon's convoy was ambushed in Neuva Ecija, one of the strongholds of Huk power from the earliest days of peasant organization in the 1930's through until the end of the Huk Rebellion.
Viernes wasn't a renegade. There's a significant amount of information on him. Nicknamed "Stalin", he had been a respected Huk squadron commander through World War II. His first split with the leadership came after Taruc disavowed the attack in response to popular disapproval of the attack.
I don't deny that I don't have your familiarity with Filipino culture. I don't think I've compared the Huks to the Viet Minh though, I don't know where you're getting that.
That doesn't mean that the four years of concerted Huk efforts to roll back governmental influence throughout Central Luzon weren't centrally organized or endorsed by the Huk leadership.
I'm a college student, I have no affiliation with the US military. My interest in the Huk Rebellion is recent. A large part of my thesis is based on a comparison of the Huk Rebellion with the Malayan Emergency in terms of how experience from both were applied to Vietnam pre-1964. Based on what I've seen here, I don't think you'd disagree with the thrust of my paper.
As for the sources I've used on the Philippines: I've done a significant amount of archival work here stateside, but I'm also leaning heavily on sources like a couple RAND Corporation econometric studies of the conflict, SSI papers, some Huk-sympathizer works like Benedict Kerkvliet's The Huk Rebellion and contemporary publications.
Some of the CCP leadership was out in the open. What became the Manila cadre was out in the open. The military command was operating out of Arayat as early as '46.
I think your terming the pattern of violence from '46 to '50 incoherent is off base. The Huks steadily rolled back government influence in congruent, strategically important blocs of Central Luzon through this period. A Huk squadron captured Nueva Ecija in the summer of '46 after fairly intense firefights with government regulars. Through 1947 you've got a patterns of raids and ambushes in Bulacan, Tarlac, and Pampanga. These weren't isolated instances of localized violence, these are full Huk squadrons engaging in operations aimed at denying entire provinces to the Philippine army and constabulary.
Okay, sorry for the misunderstanding.
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