Revolution and counter-revolution
The Sandinista victory in Nicaragua has accelerated in a qualitative way a process of extension of the revolution to the whole of Central America. At the same time, imperialism - above all American imperialism - caught off balance by the failure of its attempts to replace Somoza's bloody dictatorship with a more flexible bourgeois regime, is now trying to do all it can to set up more effective counter-revolutionary buffers in El Salvador and other countries of the region. To achieve this objective it is above all counting on the repressive forces of the region itself, supported increasingly by other Latin American bourgeoisies who are equipped with more and more sophisticated and expensive American arms. Therefore what is taking place in this part of the world is the parallel processes of the internationalisation of the revolution and the counter-revolution. The stakes involved are decisive for the masses of Central America. They are clearly important for
The breadth of the urban insurrections and mobilisations during the decisive days of the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 blew apart the project for a transition of this dictatorship towards a bourgeois- democratic regime to be set up in the course of the final phase of the armed struggle against Somoza. Thus a situation was produced in Nicaragua which was unforeseen by all the active political forces. It was a situation in which the bourgeoisie found itself militarily disarmed and nuch more shaken up on the economic and political levels than even the FSLN itself had envisag-
The Fourth International characterised this situation as one of dual power since all the strongholds of bourgeois power had not been eliminated.
But it is a question of a particular type of dual power, very different from what we have seen in the course of previous revolutionary crises. What remains of bourgeois power is no longer centralised at the level of the state - except in the person of a few ministers who are largely powerless and
'prisoners' of the FSLN. It is significant that the only body capable of speaking in the name of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie is the COSEP (confederation of bosses in the private sector) which still has extensive economic power but dynamic enough to facilitate in an irreversible way real planning of the
Nicaraguan economy as a whole. By limiting production and investment, by organising the flight of capital and speculation (and thereby accentuating tendencies to galloping inflation that are normally present in any situation of severe revolutionary crisis) the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie is not only carrying out economic sabotage that is classic during a phase of dual power. It also
Editorial d e f e e h t e ed.
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EDITORIAL in Central America the Latin American and world proletariat as a whole. lacks a corresponding political power. However the public sector of the
creates political and social tensions which periodically worsen and stimulates in the same way the transformation of these tensions into a latent civil war. This is aided by the actions of counter-revolutionary bands operating from Honduras and by the blockade organised from Washington.
In this sense events in Nicaragua confirm the correctness of all the analyses based on the theory of the permanent revolution. A state which is neither bourgeois or proletarian ('a mixed state') cannot exist. Neither can a mixed economy exist. We have seen and continue to see capitalist economies with powerful nationalised sectors. We have also seen socialist and planned economies with a strong private sector. But the first type of society still continues to evolve fundamentally according to the laws of the market and the imperatives of profit given the weight of internal private property on the one hand and dependence on the world capitalist market on the other hand. The second is capable of imposing economic development based on the satisfaction of major social needs due to its capacity of achieving real economic planning. There is no 'non-capitalist development' possible which is also not anti-capitalist development - that is, development premised on the bourgeoisie losing its economic and political power.
This loss of power - not to be confused with the total suppression of private property, which let us recall did not even take place in Russia until
15 years after the October revolution - has not yet taken place in
Nicaragua. But the real threat of this runs through all the events that have occurred in this country since the fall of Somoza. This course of events has been speeded up during summer and autumn 1981, notably by a new extension of the nationalisations, by the suppression of the legal guarantee for private property and by the arrest of four COSEP leaders, guilty of economic sabotage. This process has up to now been led by the FSLN. But it has done so in a manner not always in line with the course of the mass struggles, taking inadmissible repressive measures against certain sectors of the workers movement and showing distinct hesitation concerning the margin of
There is no 'Chinese wall' separating political power from economic power. The construction of a new type of state, with broader and broader popular mobilisations goes hand in hand with ending the predominance of the private sector of the economy. The interconnection between economies and politics is too great to allow the coexistence of lost political power with a continued economic power of the capitalists. The decisive mediation of this is the social situation and relations of the masses. To tolerate a private sector capable of de-capitalising the economy, aggravating the shortage of basic necessities and seriously worsening the employment situation is to tolerate the development of mass discontent which will finish by resulting in their demobilisation, creating the conditions for the political and military
The FSLN leadership, which up to now has proved that it is conscious of the necessity of preventing by all means the reconstruction of a bourgeois state is objectively following the road of the construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of a workers state - whatever might be the rather unclear theoretical formulas which it uses to express this real process. It should complete this evolution by eliminating in the near future the remains of capitalist power in the country, if it wants to avoid not only an economic
4 manoeuvre still available for the bourgeoisie.
counter-offensive of the counter-revolution.
R •h . Pr th an th an sti pr gle tio tas Illa Cu Ar mi re re ter ne sp dis mi de tio sel on or CO en sul an int cri ev pri
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International Marxist Review
Revolution and counter-revolution in Central America 5 catastrophe but especially the revival of the civil war initiated by the bourgeoisie and imperialism.
The Sandinista victory, through it's example, and by the political and material encouragement that is a consequence of it, has strongly stimulated the extension of the armed struggle against the reactionary regimes established in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. What is happening in these countries is not the pure and simple repetition of the processes which led, after years of struggle, to the military victory of the 26th of July movement against the Batista dictatorship in Cuba or of the FLN victory agianst the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua - both of which victories unleashed the classic mechanisms of the permanent revolution. In each of the three countries where the anti-dictatorial and anti-imperialist struggle is developing today the extent of organisation and tradition of mass peasant, workers and plebian struggles is greater and there are longer experiences of struggle than in Cuba or Nicaragua. The assimilation of the experiences of the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions adds a supplementary dimension. All this stimulates the emergence of revolutionary leaderships which are debating problems of the relationship between the armed struggle and the mass strug gle, between arming the vanguard and arming the masses, between the solution of the national democratic tasks of the revolution and the socialist tasks, between the organisation of fronts and the self-organisation of the masses, all at a level superior to that which characterised debates among Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutionaries before their victory.
It is necessary to underline the point that the revolution in Central America is in the process of producing new types of organisations, politicalmilitary organisations with their mass fronts. While each of them have their own characteristics, they are beginning in general to go beyond the 'revolution-by-stages' conception of the old communist parties of the region. Increasingly they assimilate, even if in an empirical way, the main teachings of the theory of permanent revolution, understanding the necessary liaison between military organisation (the guerrilla properly speaking) and the mass organisations. They no longer conceive the disintegration of the dictatorial bourgeois state solely as a product of its military defeat but also as a result of the body blows dealt by the mass movement, before the necessity of passing over to forms of mass armed self-defence. Therefore what is integrated more and more within this conception of the revolutionary process is the emergence of local bodies of mass self-organisation which, according to the circumstances, take in charge not only the self-defence and protection of the population, but also the organisation of local distribution, production and administration. Such a conception of the revolutionary process will necessarily end up in the emergence of a dual-power situation which in practice will prevent the substitution of a bourgeois dictatorial state by a bourgeois democratic state — unless there is a new defeat and disarming of the masses.
The hardest and most tenacious confrontation between the revolution and counter-revolution at the moment is taking place in El Salvador. The international press and television have shown us the obscene, intolerable crimes of the counter-revolution: massacres of peasants; headless corpses, even children, floating in rivers; torture and systematic massacres of prisoners; and a continued series of assassinations of opposition figures not
involved in the armed struggle, including Salvadorian priests and foreign missionaries. This bloody military dictatorship, lauded by the 'Christian wing of the Salvadorian and international bourgeoisie, has not been able to maintain its image of 'liberalisation' and 'agrarian reform' in these conditions. The choice is clear in El Salvador. It is not a choice between reform or revolution. It is a choice between bloody repression, whose crimes are equal to those of fascism before the Second World War, and a
The proof of this very broad support can be seen after the failure of the general strike in January 1981 and the downturn of the mass movement in the capital. At that time the junta, its fascist para-militaries in ORDEN and above all its international allies in Washington and elsewhere thought the moment had come to smash the guerrillas and the armed struggle. Despite increasingly abundant imperialist aid, the supply of helicopters and other ultra-modern arms this counter-offensive did not achieve its objective. Not only have the FMLN armed forces not been eliminated, but they have even been capable of regaining the initiative in August 1981, despite a blockade of Nicaragua which very much slowed down the arrival of material aid. It is the popular base that the FMLN fighters have that explains its capacity to continue and even to deepen the struggle, despite a material relationship of
In Guatemala the development of the guerrilla struggle - still led by several organisations of whom the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) is becoming increasingly strong - is fundamentally explained by its massive implantation in the rural areas, especially among indian communities. Furthermore it is the only country in Central America where the unfolding civil war takes the triple form of anti-dictatorial/anti-imperialist revolution, national revolution of the Indians and a social revolution of the poor peasants and workers. The Guatemalan ruling class which in the sixties succeeded in crushing the Yon Sosa and Turicio Lima-led guerrilla struggles has not managed to destroy the roots of the mass revolutionary movement. These roots run deep due to the sharpness of the social and national contradictions, the misery of the people, its tradition of struggle, and the incapacity of the regime to grant the masses the minimum of economic concessions that could render credible or viable political reforms. Half a million Indians are forced to work in the Pacific coast plantations for less than 3 dollars (£1.80)
a day. Consequently violence has remained endemic in the country - the repressive violence of the dictatorship and its paid thugs, with more than
3000 assassinations carried out by the far right in 1980 and which has lasted many more years than the violent fightback of the masses and vanguard organisations. Under the inspiration of the Sandinista breakthrough the latter have reactivated the guerrilla war in a more consistent way.
The attempt of the Guatemalan dicatorship to prevent the independence of the tiny ex-British colony of Belize and to annex the country is situated in the same perspective of concentrating the counter-revolutionary forces on the sub-continent. The Lucas Garcia regime fears that revolutionary forces from the whole region will find too much advantage within the bourgeois-
As for Honduras, a country with a more ambiguous and less repressive regime than that of Salvador and Guatemala, the ruling military caste have
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popular revolution based very broadly on the masses. forces that has not evolved in its favour. democratic climate of an independent Belize. International Marxist Review
Revolution and counter-revolution in Central America held out the bright prospects of free elections in November 1981. But as the main base of the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries, as it was the base of the counter-revolutionary operation against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in
1954, Honduras is finding itself sucked into the whirlpool of the internationalisation of the civil war in Central America. Whatever may be the reticence shown by a part of its ruling class and army, it is already involved in armed conflicts with the Sandinista forces on its South East frontiers and with the FMLN on its South West frontiers. The FMLN forces have been
'sandwiched' on several occasions between the Honduran army and the army of the Salvadorian military junta which wants to liquidate the guerrilla bases straddling this frontier. Due to the very fact of the escalation of the armed struggle on an international level in which the Salvadorian army is involved, the rise of the mass movement in Honduras takes more and more
Even in Costa Rica, a country formerly considered to be the Switzerland of Central America, the combined effects of the economic recession, a hardening or workers struggles and the political polarisation within the whole sub-continent are undermining the basis for the survival of this bourgeois parliamentary democracy. In Panama, the death of Colonel Torrijos still more reduces the margin for compromise between de-facto imperialist domination - above all over the Canal Zone - and the anti- imperialist aspirations of the masses and its storing up in the medium term an explosive crisis of bourgeois domination. Therefore the whole of Central
America is being dragged, whether it likes it or not - into the growing confrontation between the revolution and the counter-revolution.
This confrontation is systematically prepared, organised, initiated, stimulated, broadened and generalised by American imperialism with the aid of the more 'hawkish' fractions of the ruling classes of the region and the
Washington has already sent in hundreds of 'military advisers'. It equips the counter-revolutionary armies with increasingly sophisticated and modern material which is regularly serviced. It is pushing forward the formation of a political and material co-ordination of the international counter-revolution, which was no doubt the main item for discussion during the recent meeting in the Honduras capital, Tegucigalpa, between the President, Paz Garcia (Honduras), Napoleon Duarte (Salvador) and Lucas Garcia
(Guatemala). American imperialism has set up a real counter-revolutionary
'international brigade', the Atlacatl Brigade, composed of ex-Somozista National Guards, Cuban emigre mercenaries, Salvadorean hired guns from
ORDEN and paid killers from other Latin America countries — all solidly officered by the CIA. Recently the Chief of Staff of the Argentinian army stated the determination of his government to fully support, including with troops and materials, the counter-revolutionary international operations in
From August to November 1981 the USA armed forces organised the big gest land-sea manoeuvres in the Caribbean since the Second World War called 'Operation Ocean 1981' involving 250 ships and 120,000 troops, notably from the USA, other NATO countries, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and
Venezuela. These manoeuvres are due to last until October. They were conew ign lan not in petose da the i in and the ite ner
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7 rest of Latin America.
the sub-continent.
centrated on the zones close to Cuba and Puerto Rico.
The ruling class of all Central America, indeed of all Latin America, understands very well that its own fate is at stake today (in a long term sense) in the confrontation between the revolution and the counterrevolution in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala and that the results of these confrontations will influence in the short-term the fluctuations of the
As was the case with the civil war in Russia (1917-1920), the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) and the Indo-Chinese war after the victory of the Chinese revolution, the 'fall-out' of these struggles on neighbouring countries corresponds in Latin America both to inevitable political and social logic and to
The consolidation of workers power in Managua or any step forward in the Salvadorian revolution will powerfully stimulate the revolutionary struggle in at least a half-dozen other Latin-American countries, just as the overthrow of the Sandinista regime or a defeat of the Salvadorian revolution would inflict a very hard blow on the mass movement in the whole region. The Central American bourgeoisie is perfectly conscious of this. It would have hardly any hope of maintaining such an oasis of stability in the area, in the case of new victories of the revolution. It acts therefore more
As for the logic of human geography it works in a way that is no less precise. The southern and northern neighbours of Central America are among the two Latin American countries which are the biggest and most important: Mexico and Colombia. Of these two countries Mexico is by far the richer and less stable. Nevertheless both of them risk being profoundly shaken up by new revolutionary victories in Central America.
This is particularly the case for Columbia where the parliamentary regime based on the two traditional parties of the bourgeoisie, the Liberal
Party and the Conservative Party has less and less legitimacy in the eyes of the masses (75% abstentions in the last elections!) and the guerrilla struggle has a long tradition. As for Mexico the Indian and agrarian question remains explosive in its poorest areas and in fact one of these regions is along the frontier with Guatemala, with the same Indian ethnic groups living on both
That is why we must not get carried away and make premature generalisations and extrapolations regarding the opposition expressed by the Mexican, Venezuelan or Colombian bourgeoisie against the aggressive course of American imperialism and its closest allies in Central America.
Furthermore the Colombian bourgeoisie is already involved in a terrtorial conflict with Nicaragua. There is tension between the Colombian and
Venezuelan bourgeoisies and the latter confronts Guyana over a more important territorial conflict, where it denouces the support Cuba gives to its enemy. This situation leaves no room for doubt on the unfolding alignments.
Certainly the Lopez Portillo regime in Mexico, partly out of its own objectives (it treats Central America more and more as its private 'reserve' for its industrial and commercial power which is rapidly growing), partly out of political calculation (flowing from the popularity of the Salvadorean cause in Mexico), and partly in function of a more general appreciation of the lack of long-term counter-revolutionary efficiency of purely dictatorial bourgeois regimes recommends a policy of truce, negotiation, and ' de-
8 class struggle in many countries of the continent.
the logic of human geography.
sides of the border.
International Marxist Revieu' and more in line with a recognition of that reality.
escalation of violence" in El Salvador, indeed for the whole of the region. It has an associate in this operation in the shape of the Socialist International, which is continuing its strong turn to Latin America, based above all on
Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador with quite important outposts elsewhere, and on certain fractions of the European imperialisms. The joint French-Mexican declaration of the 27th of August
1981, demanding that the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) and the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) be part of any negotiation for a peaceful solution to the civil war in El Salvador, appears to back up such efforts to look for a 'third way' between counter-revolution
However to judge the true value of these initiatives we must above all define their real significance and limits. Straightway we see that on this terrain imperialism arms, finances and massively supports the counterrevolution, while the good souls of the third way keep well away from giving any concrete support to the Salvadorian revolutionaries (not to speak of those in Guatemala or Honduras) which is already a contrast with the real aid given by Costa Rica Panama and Venezuela to the Sandinista fighters. It has to be stated that the objective pursued by the partisans of the
'negotiated solution' is nine times out of ten a halt to the struggle if not the disarmament of the guerrillas, which does not correspond at all to a compromise but to capitulation and a defeat of the revolution. Finally it must be clearly pointed out that there are less tactical differences between the Mexican and European bourgeoisies and Yankee imperialism than there are within the three forces. American imperialism is far from being unanimous on taking the most aggressive line (witness the recent visist of an American
Under Secretary of State to Managua to try to renew contact, despite the present blockade). The Mexican bourgeoisie could very easily harden its position after the change of administration in 1982 and already it is involved in a revealing re-militarisation programme. As for the European imperialisms they are hardly unanimously for a 'flexible line' on one side the purely verbal hypocrisy which characterises them all.
Furthermore efforts for a military crushing of the revolution do not exclude the periodical relaunching of negotiations. Military actions can prepare a better relationship of forces for the negotiations. Negotiations in turn continued the aim of weakening to the maximum the commitment, even the military apparatus of the insurgents. Through these many tactics the political aim of imperialism and the ruling classes remains the same - to defuse the revolutionary bomb and to re-establish the rule of Capital over
Faced with the conscious, systematic, material, military and political organisation of the international counter-revolution in Central America, it has to be recognised that the international organisation of the revolution is trailing behind on the material level - not to talk about the level of conscious political and material co-ordination. While the principal bourgeois state in the world, the United States gives one hundred per cent support to the counter-revolution, the commitment of the main workers state, the
Soviet Union, on the side of the Central American revolution is more modest and limited. The same remark applies to the other workers states with the honourable exception of Cuba. Up to now the main efforts made to come to
10 and revolution.
the region.
, if one leaves it a a d
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International Marxist Review
Revolution and counter-revolution in Central America the aid of the Central American revolution has been from the Cuban workers state and the Nicaraguan revolution. However, on their own their forces are too limited to be able to counter-balance in an effective way the massive intervention of American imperialism and the increasingly clear coordination of the resources of the Latin American bourgeoisies against the people of El Salvador and the other insurgent forces of Central America. In addition they risk paying a very high price for this internationalist aid: the practically total blockade of Nicaragua; the accentuated blockade of Cuba;
growing threats of direct military aggression against Nicaragua; and similar
As for the mass movement in opposition to the counter-revolutionary intervention in Central America, and in solidarity with the Nicaraguan and
Salvadorian revolution, it is developing in numerous countries. To date its highpoint has been the 3rd of May 1981 demonstration in the United States which drew 100,000 people. The Fourth International has played a frontline role in the united organisation of campaigns, meetings and demonstrations in solidarity with the Nicaraguan and Salvadorian revolution in many countries, in line with the decisions of its last world congress. It will multiply its efforts to broaden this campaign and will persistently try to involve more representative sectors of the organised workers movement in different
Having said that, it also has to be said that for the moment the political and material effects of this solidarity campaign have hardly managed to hold back the criminal arm of imperialism and its allies. Despite the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of people across the world, El Salvador is being drowned in blood and fire. The peoples of Guatemala and Honduras, indeed of Nicaragua, which went through such an ordeal during the long struggle against Somoza's dictatorship, risk tomorrow experiencing a similar
We have to resolutely combat any fatalist or cynical inclinations with regard to this. No, it is not the 'inevitable' price of taking the revolutionary road. No, this is not the expression of the real relationship of forces on a world scale. It is above all the result of the contrast between a real international concentration of counter-revolutionary forces on the one side, and the division and dispersal of the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist forces on the other side. Furthermore the reinforcing of the latter forces is held back by the weight of the conservatism of the ruling bureaucracies in the majority of the workers states and the bureaucratic leaderships of
Therefore we must work for the reinforcing, the mobilisation and the unification of these forces in order to give more effective aid to the Central
We have to win the international workers movement to a position of initiating many solidarity actions in favour of the Central American revolution and building a massive political and material barrage against the counter-
We have to demand that the USSR and its allies considerably extend the aid granted to the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolution. Even if we should not have any illusions on the immediate results of such appeals, increasing mass pressure throughout the world can trigger off, as in the case of Indochina, a dialectic between the anti-imperialist movement, the CPs of the
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organisations.
11 threats which hang over Cuba.
most mass
American revolution.
revolutionary intervention of American imperialism.
capitalist countries and the governments of the USSR and Eastern Europe, which ends up having effects on the battle field. In the same way we need to demand that Peking and the Maoist organisations abandon their counterrevolutionary alignment in Central America and cease subordinating the interests of the Central American revolution and the masses of this part of the world to the diplomatic manoeuvres and motives of the Chinese
It's up to revolutionary Marxists to demonstrate, in relation to the Central American revolution, just as for the Polish revolution or any other strug gle of the oppressed and exploited throughout the world, that they are in full support without reservations or conditions. There is no other means of working in favour or the world revolution than by also resolutely supporting
(1) When its particular interests are at stake, particularly in Africa, French imperialism strikes 'quickly and hard', whether under Mitterrand or under Giscard. An attempted "leftwing" coup d'etat in a small country such as Gambia recently was crushed by the military intervention of the Senegalese army in less than 24 hours.
This army is trained, officered, if not commanded by the French army. Involved in a still timid flirtation with the Mitterrand regime the Soviet bureaucracy denounced....
the responsibility of British imperialism in this counter-revolutionary intervention.
covering up in this way the real facts as they are well known in Africa.
12 bureaucracy.
1 November 1981
Footnotes:
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all developing revolutions, whatever their leaderships.