Ang ideolohiya ng Rebolusyong 1896 at ang tunggalian ng burgisya sa loob ng Katipunan (The ideology of the 1896 Revolution and the struggle of the bourgeoisie within the Katipunan)

Abstract

Historians debate whether Bonifacio’s Katipunan and the Bourgeois Revolution of 1896 had an ideology comparable to that of the Creole and anti-colonial revolutions, which later evolved into the anti-imperialist revolutions like the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, and Indonesian revolutions. Some claim that this ideology can be discerned in the writings of Bonifacio and Jacinto, which supposedly drew inspiration from the French Revolution and its foundational liberal philosophical tradition, together with the doctrines of the Masonic movement. Others insist that the writings of Bonifacio and Jacinto should be reread and reviewed repeatedly because it is there that this ideology may be found, and not in Rizal or in the tradition of protest during the long period of Spanish colonial rule. What exactly is this ideology or theory of revolution, if it indeed existed? Was it the philosophical foundation of the Katipunan that ignited the uprising? Or was the Revolution of 1896 essentially a purely spontaneous armed mass movement, with the formation of the Katipunan being the result of Bonifacio’s agitation and that of the radical stratum of the petty bourgeoisie linked to the tradition of protest in the face of the decaying colonial regime in the Philippines? By way of a bibliographic review and an examination through a Marxist lens, this paper will discuss this ideology—or its absence or insufficiency—in the Revolution of 1896. It will likewise examine the struggle among bourgeois factions within the Katipunan that led to the liquidation of Bonifacio and the  dissolution of the Katipunan in the face of the counterrevolutionary violence of the Caviteño haciendero-bourgeoisie.