ALVIN H. SCAFF. The Philippine Answer to Communism. Pp. viii, 165. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1955. $4.00
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400182 |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Author | Ernest Schein |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
195
orders
in
Mexico.
It
was
a
situation
not
congenial
to
democracy,
and
it
was
the
tragedy
of
Madero
that
he
chose
to
stand
or
tall
in
support
of
an
impossible
ideal.
Francisco
Madero
has
had
his
adulators
and
his
detractors.
His
character
and
his
role
in
the
Mexican
Revolution
has
in-
trigued
numerous
writers.
From
the
more
objective
studies
has
emerged
a
generally
accepted
representation
of
the
man.
The
writer
of
the
present
biography
adds
a
bit
of
colorful
detail
to
the
portrait,
but
it
re-
mains
substantially
the
same.
This
is
not
a
&dquo;new&dquo;
Madero.
On
the
contrary
it
is
simply
a
touching-up
of
the
kind
of
Madero
we
have
believed
he
was:
&dquo;a
sincere,
well-
intentioned
idealist&dquo;
whose
&dquo;conduct
was
influenced
by
a
generous,
emotional,
and
overly
optimistic,
overly
enthusiastic
na-
ture.&dquo;
Often
confused
and
vacillating,
he
proved
to
be
inadequate
presiding
over
a
nation
in
chaos.
Indeed,
who
could.
be
adequate?
The
reviewer
noted
with
surprise
that
this
book
contains
no
mention
of
Charles
C.
Cumberland’s
Nlexican
Revolution:
Genesis
Under
Nladero,
published
in
1952.
Could
Dr.
Ross
have
been
unaware
of
the
existence
of
this
volume?
If
not,
why
isn’t
it
mentioned?
Certainly
not
because
he
regarded
it
as
valueless,
for
in
fact
both
writers
use
substantially
the
same
source
materials
and
arrive
at
remarkably
similar
conclusions.
In
fact
Cumberland’s
final
chapter
&dquo;An
Evaluation,&dquo;
could
serve
equally
well
as a
final
chapter
of
the
Ross
study.
A
minor
difference
is
that
Dr.
Ross
is
a
more
interesting
and
facile
writer.
His
Madero
is
a
more
vivid
personality.
J.
LLOYD
MECHAM
University
of
Texas
ALVIN
H.
SCAFF.
The
Philippine
Answer
to
Communism.
Pp.
viii,
165.
Stanford,
Calif.:
Stanford
University
Press,
1955.
$4.00.
The
Republic
of
the
Philippines,
&dquo;show-
case
of
democracy&dquo;
for
the
Far
East,
has
to
display
a
practical
product.
Moreover,
as
the
only
predominantly
Christian
country
in
Asia,
it
is
the
proving
ground
of
West-
ern
religious
ideals
in
the
contest
against
an
ideology
which
would
nullify
God
and
en-
throne
the
state.
The
Philippine
Answer
to
Communism,
written
by
an
expert
in
Philippine
affairs,
now
on
the
faculty
of
Pomona
College,
is
the
result
of
a
Ful-
bright
Grant
study
of
the
successful
fight
in
the
Philippines
to
overcome
a
threat
of
communism
comparable
in
seriousness
with
that
in
China,
Korea,
Malaya,
and
Indo-
china.
Many
early
observers,
including
this
re-
viewer,
believed
that
the
Huks,
abbreviation
of
Hukbalahap
meaning
in
dialect,
People’s
Army
Against
the
Japanese,
were
a
loosely
organized
group
of
dissidents
reluctant
to
lay
down
their
arms
at
the
end
of
the
War
and
rather
enjoying
a
life
of
violence
and
plunder.
There
is
an
inertia
in
the
lawless-
ness
of
warfare
which
could
account
for
the
Huks
without
borrowing
trouble
from
the
worldwide
menace
of
communism.
Dr.
Scaff
points
out,
as
we
have
learned
through
harsh
experience,
that
the
Huk
revolt
was,
in
fact,
a
carefully
conceived
Communist
thrust.
The
hard
core
of
the
organization
de-
rived
from
many
uprisings
in
the
course
of
Philippine
history
and
militant
movements
by
Socialists
and
Communists
dating
back
to
the
’20’s.
Fattening
on
agrarian
unrest
it
was’ ready
in
1946
to
take
over
what
had
been
an
effective
guerrilla
unit
on
the
Island
of
Luzon
as
a
readymade
medium
for
direct
revolutionary
activity.
For
most
of
a
decade
following
Philippine
Independence,
greed,
political
corruption,
and
ineffective
military
controls, added
strength
to
the
re-
bellion
and
almost
cost
the
Philippines
their
democratic
government.
A
man
of
the
people,
Ramon
Magsaysay,
first
as
Secre-
tary
of
National
Defense
and
then
as
Pres-
ident
is
given
much
of
the
credit
for
stem-
ming
the
tide
of
revolution
and
breaking
up
the
Communist-Huk
organization
as
an
effective
threat.
A
specific
device
employed
by
the
Philip-
pine
Army
through
an
agency
labelled
Edcor
(for
Economic
Development
Corps)
is
a
farm-settlement
program
for
defecting
or
captured
Huks.
The
author
dwells
upon
this
recent
development
and
presents
many
case
histories
based
upon
interviews
and
illustrated
by
photographs,
throwing
light
on
the
motivation
of
the
malcontents
and
the
essential
elements
of
their
rehabilitation.
It
would
be
an
unwise
oversimplification
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