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U.S. Imperialist Foreign Policy

Modern Communism continues its examination of U.S. imperialist activities around the world since the Second World War.

The Philippines

In 1899, after a protracted civil war, Filipino independence fighters, who had allied with the Americans, succeeded in driving the Spanish out of their country. The Filipino people proclaimed an independent republic and began to assemble a government of national unity. The United States, however, was in the process of negotiating the purchase of the former Spanish colony from Spain for the paltry sum of $20 million. When the newly formed Filipino government expressed its outrage, the Americans sent in 50,000 troops to occupy the country, overthrew the government and established their own puppet regime.

The U.S. military presence dwindled in the ensuing years, but American expropriation of the country's wealth of natural resources continued almost unabated for two decades. In 1945 the American military returned to the Philippines, this time under the pretext of liberating the country from the Japanese. There was already an independent Filipino people's army in place - the Huks (an acronym from the Tagalog name People's Army Against Japan). The Huks, founded largely by the Philippine Communist Party in 1942, were extremely well-organized with broad popular support. They had been waging an intense campaign against the Japanese for three years and had succeeded in liberating areas of the countryside. The Americans, concerned that this army could be used to resist their intervention, immediately began disarming Huk units, and arrested and imprisoned many of its leaders, along with the leadership of the Philippine Communist Party.

The Americans also established a U.S. Army Force in the Far East, comprised of both American and Filipino soldiers. This Force, besides fighting the Japanese, also actively engaged the Huks in combat and many times refused to come to the assistance of Huks units under Japanese attack. During the anti-Huks campaign, the Americans worked closely with Japanese collaborators, including large landowners and corrupt police and army officials.

After the war, the Huks agreed to participate in national elections. As part of the Democratic Alliance of socialist, communist and progressive parties, their two main platforms were for land reform and industrialization, and they won seats in both Congress and the Senate. However, they were prevented by the American military forces still in the Philippines from taking their seats (the Americans charged they had used coercion to win the elections) until after pro-American legislators were able to push through the controversial Philippine-U.S. Trade Act. The Act, which passed by only two votes, granted huge economic concessions to the U.S., including an equal rights clause in the development of the natural resources and operation of public utilities in the Philippines. When mass national protests broke out after the Act's proclamation, an American-trained force of soldiers was sent to put an end to organized opposition. They accomplished this by mass arrests and the disappearance of key leaders in the workers' and peasants' movements.

The Americans used the ensuing chaos to have another resolution pushed through; this 1947 agreement provided sites for 23 U.S. military bases in the country for the next 99 years. A companion military assistance pact prohibited the Filipino government from purchasing army supplies from any source other than the U.S., except with American approval.

The Huks, realizing that the Americans had no intention of ensuring democratic elections, began their second campaign against an occupying force, and civil war broke out. The U.S. used the same forces which had collaborated with the Japanese as the basis for organizing an indigenous Filipino army to fight against the Huks, and they also recruited impoverished boys from rural areas by promising them and their families wealth. In addition, the Americans gave their new army $200 million in military aid. This pro-American army became expert in counter-insurgency warfare, and its tactics of wiping out villages and communities that opposed it became a model subsequently used by the Americans in Viet Nam.