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( New People's Army)
The New People's Army (NPA) is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA conducts its armed guerrilla struggle based on the strategical line of 'protracted people's war'. The NPA's roots can be traced from the Hukbalahap, the armed wing of the earlier pro-Soviet Philippine Communist Party. The Huks first mobilized and fought against the Japanese Empire's occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Under the leadership of Luis Taruc and Communist Party General Secretary Jose Lava, the Hukbalahap continued waging guerrilla warfare against the United States and the first independent governments before largely surrendering to President Ramon Magsaysay in 1954. By the early 1960s the communist Huk campaign was waning. After the Sino-Soviet split, communist parties around the world fractured into pro-USSR and Maoist groups. The upstart CPP broke from the older Soviet-line Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 on December 26, 1968. Three months later, on March 29, 1969, the CPP reformed the vanguard party's old militia, the Huks, and renamed them the New People's Army, on the anniversary of the date that the guerrilla resistance against Imperial Japan was formed in 1942. The formation was created when José María Sison met with a former Huk, Bernabe Buscayno, also known as "Commander Dante". The NPA follows Maoism, claiming to fight for that ideology's concept of "New Democracy." Starting out with 60 fighters and 34 rifles, the NPA quickly spread throughout the Philippines during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. After the declaration of martial law on September 21, 1972 thousands of students joined the ranks. President Marcos lifted martial law on January 17, 1981.
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