crisis of® the military regime by Guillermo Lima It was only toward the end of the afternoon that the army intervened in force and eventually managed to reestablish the situation. Throughout the capital, people asked questions: Why was this intervention so belated? Why were the navy and air force held aloof from the events and decisions of February 5? Why were the official communiqués on the situation in the capital signed by General Leonidas Rodrigues, chief of' the military region of Lima, if they were released before 3:00 p.m. but signed by the Secretary of Public Relations if they were released after 3:00 p.m.? Why was Minister of the Interior General Richter Prada removed from control of the capital? Why did General Velasco Alvarado, chief of the military junta, wait nearly two weeks before addressing the Peruvian people on the subject of events of such gravity? The answer to the last question is obvious. The events of February 5 revealed grave dissension within the military junta, which began to break into several opposed The background and the detonator The immediate cause of the events was the discontent of the police and the members of the Civil Guard, which served to reveal the growing social tension that exists throughout the country. The police had not received any salary increase in eight years, although the cost of
living had gone up more than 80 percent during that time. This led to demoralization and a relaxation of discipline in the ranks of the police. For its part, the Civil Guard has never been treated as a part of the armed forces in the expression of the mechanisms of power. Its officers have no access to the government. It is thus easy to see how police and members of the Civil Guard could be impelled to go on strike and to disobey government orders. Under conditions of relative calm such a strike could have been rapidly resolved. It is clear, however, that some sectors of the government and the junta deliberately let things slide and even aggravated the conflict by refusing to respond to the demands the police had presented several months earlier. But the root of the problem is that a serious social crisis has been shaking the country for one year now. On February 5, 1975, a strike of social security employees coincided with the police strike. Some hospital - не сото workers had just been suspended after a strike for economic demands by. these employees. Even the CGTP (Confederación General de Trabajadores Peruanos -General Confederation of Peruvian Workers), the trade-union federation that is dominated by the Communist party and noted for its unconditional support of the military junta, was involved in innumerable wage conflicts and had been forced to call for a day of national strikes on September 25, 1974. Some 10, 000 workers of the Lima metalworking industry went on strike on that day and stayed out for more than two weeks to protest massive layoffs, the closure of factories, the sentencing of trade-union leaders, the arbitrary detention of workers, and police interference in the unions. More than 120,000 teachers mobilized and launched staggered strikes to resolve a genuinely desperate wage situation. The government finally granted them a small increase that did not even compensate for the cost of living increase of 1974 (about 20%). A new strike was thus called for April 1975. The proletariat in the mines also launched significant mobilizations. The miners of Cata and of Acari left their mining villages to march on Lima, 190 miles away; it was only the arrival of military reinforcements that prevented them from reaching the capital. The workers of the Marcona Mining Company went into struggle to protest police intervention in their trade union. The aggravation of the class struggle was marked by growing conflicts not only with imperialism, but even with Peruvian big capital and the military government that represents it in a general way. This aggravation of the class struggle had the effect of stimulating growing differentiation within the armed forces themselves. The economic crisis There are two major features to the economic policy of the military junta. On the one hand, economic growth is posed in terms of the accumulation of big capital
(both private and state). Enormous quantities of capital have been invested in basic industries and the infrastructure, where the maturation time easily runs to five years, which is an additional stimulus for inflation. On the other hand, the corollary of this accelerated accumulation of capital is the superexploitation of the workers and peasants. More than 80 percent of available resources are directed toward industry. Agriculture lacks credit, technical aid, and fertilizer. The agrarian reform has been a failure in large part. Redistribution of land was supposed to be completed in 1975, but by the end of 1974 half of the land slated to be redistributed had not yet been touched. There have already been reactions to this state of affairs from the peasantry. The peasants of Piura (some 700 miles north of Lima) initiated "illegal" land occupations. The same has occurred in Andahuaylas, where the occupations were vigorously repressed by the army. The underdevelopment of agriculture causes large food deficits. This has triggered an increase in food imports, which weighs on the balance of payments. The government has had to subsidize the prices of foodstuffs in order to partially make up for the difference between internal prices and import prices so as to moderate the rate of inflation somewhat. The result has been a considerable budget deficit, which has compelled the government to reduce these subsidies for the period 197576 from 12 million to 3 million soles (that is, from $300 million to $75 million). This has led to a rise in the cost of living, which is estimated to amount to additional expenditures of 2, 400 soles per month for an average household with three children; at the same time, the maximum wage increase granted the workers has been only 1, 800 soles. Further, there has been not only a new explosion of the prices of bread, milk, chicken, nonalcoholic drinks, vegetable oil, and cigarettes, but also an even higher increase in the charges for water, electricity, mass transport, wood, furniture, gasoline, etc., an explosion that has caused new reductions in the real incomes of the masses. Moreover, the government recognizes that it is not at all in position to improve the situation before 1977. An effort at coordination? The immediate response to the events of February 5 was the formation of the "Coordinating Committee of Popular Organizations, " which includes twenty-seven organizations representing some 4 million workers and peasants. Largely influenced by the Peruvian Communist party's "anti-imperialist front, " "popular front, " and class collaboration, this "Committee" was notably axised around support to the military junta more than independent defense of the interests and demands of the toiling masses. This clearly resulted from three basic programmatic points advanced when this "Committee" was first formed: "(a) Collaborate in an organized way in continuing production and supplying the population. "(b) Resolutely support actions aimed at preserving pub-
27
PERU lic order, and oppose vandalism, robbery, and all forms of sabotage. "(c) Carry out work of clarification of the political reality under which the country lives in order to prevent gossip and distortion of news that is aimed at dividing Peruvians. In spite of this servile policy toward the regime, the junta regarded this first step toward a national regroupment and centralization of the broad masses with trepidation if not outright fear. Never in Peruvian history has such an exiensive mass regroupment of workers and peasants occurred. The government's reaction was cool to say the least. All the tendencies within the military junta, including the most "progressive" ones, demanded ow of the oppor the dissolution of the Committee. In view of the opportunist attitude of most of the leaders of the Committee, not much pressure was required for it to practically cease functioning. Nevertheless, the civilian forces closest to the military junta, above all circles of intellectuals and of the state bureaucracy and its "allied" organizations, also felt the necessity of doing something about the troubled political situation revealed by the events of February 5. They therefore issued a manifesto in favor of the formation of the Movimiento de la Revolución Peruana (MRP _ Movement of the Peruvian Revolution). This movement, however, did not obtain the slightest popular support. General Velasco Alvarado publicly disclaimed it in a press conference on February 17, 1975. Although all the reformist supporters of the junta expected a violent denunciation of the APRA and other pro-imperialist forces, it was communism that was violently denounced in this speech. The general made a distinction between those who were "militants of the Peruvian revolution" and those who were entitled only to support it as sympathizers. In the first category he placed only those who reject any form of class struggle or adherence to Marxism. up to the junta itself to determine the forms of mass support that seemed appropriate. (This is what the masses have called "participation by decree. " Several days later, the Organization of the Peruvian Revolution was launched under the aegis of fierce ly anticommunist generals like Minister of the Interior General Richter Prada, the "No. I interventionist" in the trade unions, General Sala Orozco, General Tantaléan Vanini, whose inspiration is clearly fascist, and others.
The mass organizations fragmented
In face of the aggravation of class contradictions and conflict, political polarization is advancing, but in a very specific form. Although the military junta is increasingly aware of the risks of independent mass mobilization and organization and is concentrating all its efforts on preventing this (despite all the oaths of fidelity addressed to the junta by the leaders of the CP and other reformists), the toiling masses remain disoriented
28 for the most part. They have not yet attained a level of consciousness sufficient to clearly formulate a class alternative. Apart from the ideological and political confusion caused by the reformists, the divisions introduced by the junta within the mass movement play a predominant role in this respect. The rate of unionization among the working class is about 35 percent. The trade-union movement is divided into four major federations: the CGTP, led by the CP, which has been partially outflanked by the most combative sections of the working class, who have refused to moderate their demands in order not to embarrass the junta, as the CP has urged; the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo - National Confederation of Labor), of Christian Democratic inspiration, which is much weaker than the CGTP but also unconditionally supports the government; the CTP (Confederación de Trabajadores Peruanos - Confederation of Peruvian Workers), controlled by APRA, which is the only labor confederation that opposes the government, but from rightist positions, and has thus lost ground among the working class because of its ideological and political orientation; and the CTRP (Central de Trabajadores de la Revolución Pervana -Central Workers Union of the Peruvian Revolution), created by the junta itself, which is charged with broadening the mass base of the regime and especially grouping together small trade unions formed among backward sectors of the working class. There are two large organizations among the peasantry: the CCP (Confederación Campesino del Peru - Peasant Confederation of Peru), which has a more combative orientation, and the CNA (Confederación Nacional Agraria - Agrarian National Confederation), of official inspiration, whose aim is to orient the peasants in a corporatist direction. In view of the great discontent that prevails among the peasantry, even the CNA, despite the fact that it was created by the government, has begun to escape government control and to move closer to the CCP. As for the teachers, 90 percent of them are organized in the SUTEP (Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores de la Educación del Peru - United Federation of Educational Workers of Peru), the leadership of which is controlled by the Maoists. There are also a few small unions of instructors, one of which is controlled by the CP and another by the government. Politically, the division and confusion are even more pronounced. The largest organization of the working class is the Communist party. But the CP is being weakened little by little because of its orientation of supporting the military junta. Its influence has especially declined among the most combative and most conscious sectors of the proletariat, and it also suffers from an internal crisis caused by the political position to which it has rigidly adhered since 1968.
The far left is generally powerless. It has proven incapable of working out an overall alternative to "military reformism" or of proposing a correct approach to the
Tanks were used by the current Peruvian regime to crush the mass upsurge in February, 1975.
problem of unifying the mass movement. The Maoists follow an orientation that appears objectively provocative to the broad masses. As for those who claim allegiance to revolutionary Marxism, they are divided into a number of weak groups. Divisions within the junta The military junta itself is not a monolithic bloc. Incontestably, it holds to the dogma of the "institutional unity of the armed forces, " which guides the behavior of the officers as a whole. But it is torn by many differences, both ideological (what attitude to adopt toward communists, Marxism, fascism, etc.) and political (what attitude to adopt toward imperialism and its representatives in the country; specific reactions in face of workers and peasants movements for demands; responses to the economic crisis, etc.). All the initial efforts to win a broad base of popular support for the junta through the traditional mass organizations have failed. The various mass organizations have preserved their own autonomy, in spite of all the opportunist maneuvers of their leaders. That is why the junta has progressively oriented toward the organization of popular support outside the trade unions, especially through the creation of SINAMOS (Sistema Nacional de Apoyo a la Movilización Social - National Network of Support for Social Mobilization). This organization, founded on the principles of class collaboration, seeks to convince workers that ever since the creation of the "Industrial Community" (the Peruvian "factory reform ") there has no longer been any bourgeoisie or proletariat, since the workers "partially control" the means of production. "All Peruvians" are thus supposed to "collaborate in the development of the country." But this whole ideology has proved to be completely contradictory to the facts revealed by the developments of the past several years. SINAMOS has thus been able to organize only the most backward sections of the popular masses. Moreover, it is increasingly detested because of the authoritarian methods used by its leaders. Its objective function was to divide the mass movement. And that is how it is seen by a good part of the toiling This attempt to penetrate the mass movement in an organized way was backed up by a considerable financial effort. An enormous army of functionaries was created for SINAMOS, whose budget for the fiscal year 197576 alone amounts to the tidy sum of $150 million. It was also accompanied by a growing repression against the class-struggle sections of the trade unions, the arrest of strike leaders, etc. But this attempt to create a popular basis for the junta also accentuated the divisions within the junta itself.
29
PERU Although they all adhere to the ideology of class collaboration, the officers are nevertheless divided into two distinct ideological currents: a so-called humanist current strongly marked by Christian Democratic ideology and a so-called anticommunist nationalist current, which today controls almost the whole apparatus of the "mass organizations" of the junta, beginning with the SINAMOS and the Ministry of Labor. While the "humanist" tendency favors more or less "liberal" methods of government because it believes in the virtues and objective results of the "withering away of the class struggle" and of the "integration of the working class, " the "anticommunist nationalists, " who are more practical, are aware that the rise of mass struggle will not be able to be beaten under the given economic and social conditions except through the systematic use of manipulation, corruption, and violence. Paradoxically, while the "anticommunist nationalist" wing is strengthening itself within the government and the apparatus, "humanist Christian" wing is making progress within the army. This results in a situation under which the "anticommunist nationalist" wing commands too weak a base to be able to organize the repression of the mass movement by itself. Hence its objective conjunction with the APRA and other right opposition groups and hence the protection that these groups enjoy from the repressive apparatus. But in view of the many armed clashes that have taken place in the past between the APRA and the Peruvian army, there is a real "anti-corps" in the army, which has been produced by systematic collaboration with the rightist and far-right opposition. Hence the divisions thai have appeared within the armed forces with respect to the orientation of the "anticommunist nationalist" faction and hence also the relative progress made by the "humanist Christian" tendency among the officers. The prospects Up to now the Peruvian big industrialists as well as the representatives of the "joint ventures" with imperialist firms have on the whole supported the military junta. It is rather among the sectors of the small and middle-sized companies that the advocates of a "return to constitutionality " are to be found. Moreover, this division corresponds to an economic reality, for the policy of the junta primarily favors big Peruvian capital and the most advanced technological sectors rather than the small traditional industries. In view of the meager results of the efforts to organize and control the masses on the basis of corporatist support to the junta - efforts up to now undertaken primarily through competing with the traditional trade-union organizations and without essentially suppressing the trade unions' freedom of action - there is a growing temptation within the ruling class and the ranks of the junta itself to put an end to the "reformist-corporatist" experiment and to move to more directly repressive and violent forms of rule. 30
The exacerbation of the class struggle nationally is leading to a progressive polarization of social and political forces, which is expressed above all in the emergence of an ultrareactionary current of clearly fascist inspiration within the junta itself. It puts itself forward as the only "realistic" alternative in face of the rise of mass struggle. This current is represented within the junta by Generals Tantaléan and Richter. It is supported by the MLR (Movimiento Laborista Revolucionario - Revolutionary Labor Movement), a paramilitary shock group increasingly associated with the APRA gangs in assaults against the trade unions and other working-class organizations. It is financed by the Ministry of Fishing, that is, by General Tantaléan. In the past Velasco Alvarado himself has tried to put Tantaléan forward as his dauphin. Nevertheless, Velasco's serious illness poses the question of his succession in the very near future. The candidate who seems to command the support of the majority of the army officers is General Morales Bermudez, who is rather allied with the "humanist Christian" tendency. Hence a certain uneasiness among the far right, an uneasiness that was strikingly expressed on June 20, 1975, when the most reactionary commanders of the navy deposed the commanding general and minister of this branch of the armed forces in a movement of clear insubordination that the junta was forced to swallow after the fact. The rumor is now making the rounds that a similar operation is being prepared in the air force. Several days ago, General Richter, one of the two main chiefs of the far right, told a journalist: "Many things can change between now and July 28 (the date of Peru's national festival). " But if Velasco's illness were to worsen even more sharply than expected, a breakthrough by the "humanist" officers around Morales Bermudez is not excluded. This breakthrough could take the form of the demotion of the leaders of the profascist wing: Generals Tantaléan, Richter, Sala (of the SINAMOS), Segura (of the Central Information office), and others. Even in that event, the far-right danger would not at all be eliminated. The top levels of the armed forces as a whole are immersed in an anticommunist spirit. Imperialism and the APRA are working frantically in the same direction within the armed forces and within the country as a whole. And big capital, which up to now has supported the experiment of "military reformism, " is increasingly disturbed by the rise of mass struggles and could in its turn opt for a tougher regime in one form or another. The fascist danger will not be eliminated unless the working masses assert their class independence in increasingly generalized mobilizations and through the increasingly centralized organization of their forces, at the same time resolving the question of the alliance with the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie in forms such that tests of strength are not undertaken in isolation, under an unfavorable relationship of forces that leads to defeat. July 2, 1975
SPAIN cont'd. from pg. 32. In this context the dictatorship has decided to condemn to death two Basque revolutionary patriots: J.A. Garmendia (Tupa) and Angel Otaegui. They are accused of having caused the death of one of the members of the Information Service of the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard), a member of the Francoist repressive apparatus hated by the Basque people for the torture it has inflicted on the fighters who have fallen into its hands. The trial against Garmendia and Otaegui may begin at any moment. We know that the dictatorship needs no evidence to unleash the most bestial repression against all those struggling against the dictatorship itself and all forms of national and social oppression, just as it needed no "evidence" to murder seven persons in Euzkadi (the Basque country) and one person in Vigo in the space of one month or to allow the Basque revolutionary patriot Eustacio Erquicia die slowly after the torture he was subjected to in the police station in Bilbao. Once again the dictatorship is directing its aggression against the entire workers and people's movement, in the person of two eminent fighters, two Basque revolutionary patriots. The dictatorship probably thinks that its terrorist repression will avert the popular mobilizations that will put an end to exploitation. But that is. not true. Powerful mobilizations are breaking out throughout the Spanish state with a dynamic toward a general strike, even under the state of exception in the Basque country itself. Today, these battles must be united in order to transform the trials now being prepared into new Burgos trials. At the time of the Burgos trials (1970), the working class, with its organizations standing at the head of the oppressed strata and acting jointly with the international proletariat, waged an exemplary and unprecedented struggle and thus saved the lives of six 3asque revolutionaries who had been sentenced to death. That is the road that must be followed. The workers and people's movement must not permit a repetition of the experience that led to the murder of the revolutionary militant Salvador Puig Antich, when the lack of a mass mobilization left the regime a free hand to commit murder We must remain vigilant. The dictatorship knows that it has not much time left. It is engaged in a race against time in the hope of averting mobilizations. For this reason, we must begin and prepare them immediately. In view of the possible murder of Garmendia and Otaegui and the threats hanging over the heads of Eva Forest, A. Durán, and others, we must try to unify the struggles of the working class and the other oppressed layers of all the peoples of the Spanish state in order to save the lives of these revolutionaries and to advance on the road to the overthrow of the dictatorship. From our prison of Carabanchel, we, political prisoners of the undersigned organizations and independent political prisoners, firmly support this fight, and we declare ourselves prepared to join in this struggle to the full extent of our strength.
Decisive battles are now being prepared. Make the dictatorship back down, that is the objective. FREE GARMENDIA AND OTAEGUI! NO MORE LEGAL MURDERS! DOWN WITH THE STATE OF EXCEPTION! DISSOLVE THE REPRESSIVE BODIES AND THE SPECIAL TRIBUNALS! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS AND LET ALL EXILES RETURN TO TO THE COUNTRY! DOWN WITH THE MURDEROUS DICTATORSHIP! Liga Comunista Revolucionaria/Euzkadi ta AskatasunaVI (Revolutionary Communist League/Basque Nation and Freedom-VI); Liga Comunista (Communist League); OICE; Partido Comunista de España, Marxista-Leninista (Communist party of Spain, Marxist-Leninist); Oposición Sindical Obrera (Workers Trade Union Opposition, members of the Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota - Patriotic and Antifascist Revolutionary Front); Basque revolutionary patriots; militants of the Workers Commissions; independent militants. July 12, 1975 EXPLANATORY NOTE BY THE LCR/ETA-VI The organizations that signed this Carabanchel appeal do not exhaust all the organizations that have reached agreement on actions to save the lives of Garmendia and Otaegui. These organizations include, in addition to those listed above, the MCE, the ORT (Organización Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores - Revolutionary Workers Organization), and militants of the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español — Spanish Socialist Workers party). But because of their participation in the Platform of Democratic Convergence, these three organizations posed as a condition for their adherence to the Carabanchel manifesto the inclusion of the Carlist party among the signers. The LCR/ETA-VI, the LC, the OICE, the PCE(M-L), the OSO, and various militants of the Workers Commissions, as well as various independent militants, refused to include in an appeal to the working class and oppressed peoples of the Spanish state the signature of a bourgeois party, hangman of the Spanish proletariat in 1936, whose present confused declarations in no way constitute a break with the bourgeoisie or with its own past. All these organizations, with some nuances, believe that to allow the signature of the Carlist party would imply sowing confusion about the class character of this organization and consequently about its capacity to defend, even in a purely tactical manner, the interests of the working class, those exploited and oppressed by the dictatorship and by capitalism. For this reason, two manifestos will come out of the Carabanchel prison on the same subject. Some Basque patriots and some independents have signed both manifestos. Other Basque revolutionary patriots have signed only the document that excludes the signature of the Carlist party.
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AUTONS GARMENDIA & DTAEGE