Development of the PRT and the Mexican Left by Alfonso Rios O in the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT - in May 12 Alfonso Peralta, known as Alejandro Martinez Revolutionary Workers party), of which he was a leading member, was murdered in Mexico City. (See INPRECOR, No. 7 new series, 26 May 1977.) It was the first dramatic loss of a comrade of the Fourth International in Mexico since the murder of Leon Trotsky. This murder, committed with impunity by professionals of politica! crime on the campus of the University of Mexico, where Alejandro was giving courses, provoked enormous emotion in the independent and revolutionary workers movement in Mexico, for it was considered a direct attack on the movement itself. Dozens of public messages of solidarity with the PRT and the union of university employees, of which our comrade was a member, were sent by trade unions, university organizations, and student and political groups; they were reproduced in the bourgeois press and read aloud at various meetings held throughout the country. In order to understand the importance the PRT, the Mexican section of the Fourth International, has suddenly acquired in the eyes of public opinion, it is necessary to look briefly at the history and essential political roots of the revolutionary Marxist generation of the 1960s. In fact, the Mexican PRT arose recently (in September 1976) as the result of a long process which began at the time of the historic change in 1968. The Internationalist Communist Group (GCI), founded by a dozen comrades (Alfonso Peralta among them at the height of the repression of Tlatelolco, began the recomposition of Mexican Trotskyism by gaining it a base among the student vanguard. The experience of the GCI can be summed up this way: Initially containing only a minority of Trotskyist cadres trained before 1968, it was gradually "Trotskyized" through increasingly close relations with the Fourth International. An additional factor was the manifest crisis that was then racking what had up to then been the most dynamic current of the Latin American revolutionary movement, the CastroistGuevarist current, and was to impel the components of the majority of the GCI toward Trotskyism. The PRT owes its origin to the political rapprochement of the Internationalist Communist League (LCI, the product of a fusion between the GC and the Rojo group) and the Socialist League (LS). The unification of these two groups united the greater part of the forces of Trotskyism in Mexico around the PRT. (This unification process will culminate this July with the incorporation into the ranks of the PRT of the Socialist League, the former minority faction of the organization of the same name, and the minority faction of the LOM, a Lambertist organization.) The decline of Mexican bonapartism The objective conditions which enabled the PRT to begin to develop a credible alternative on a national scale in less than one year lie in the gravest economic crisis the country has seen in fifty years, as well as in the decomposition of the bonapartist system of government that has been in force for the past six decades. The generalized economic recession hit Mexico especially hard since during the years 1973-75 the government had succeeded in holding off its effects on the Mexican economy. Initially, the rise in oil production (caused by the discovery of new deposits in 1974) had given the Mexican state a margin for maneuver which other Latin American countries lacked, Brazil and Argentina for example. But at the end of 1976 the charm was broken and the avalanche of economic problems came tumbling down when the Mexican peso was devalued in August 1976. After twenty-three years of an exchange rate of 12.50 pesos to the dollar, the peso is now hovering at about 23 to the dollar. The reduction of the buying power of the peso by nearly half has resulted in
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MEXICO phenomenal debt in the country (more than $25 million), the exhaustion of several branches of production that depend directly on imports, massive unemployment on an unbelievable scale (more than 10 million unemployed and under-employed spread by the hundreds of thousands to the northern border), an economic crisis aggravated by the population growth rate (3.5% per year), which exceeds the rate of economic growth (2% in 1976). Thus, the shock of the generalized economic recession, while delayed, was no less severe and provoked complete chaos in the economic policy of the government, previously so assured of its strength and projects. The new government of López Portillo took over from the Echeverria government in late 1976 under genuinely critical conditions: a budget deficit of 150,000 million pesos and a loss of confidence on the part of many creditors, who no longer believed that the Mexican government could pay its debts. This loss of confidence was reflected in a massive flight of dollars owned by Mexican and foreign capitalists as well as high-ranking functionaries (more than $5,000 million during the last three months of 1976). The consequence of this crisis on the ruling oligarchy that embodies the bonapartist system was to open further fissures in the government edifice, already strongly shaken by the 1968 political crisis and its consequences. The bonapartist system's capacity for manipulation has been based on a fundamental instrument to which it has constantly resorted: reformism. During the 1950s and 1960s this reformism was fueled primarily by the increase in social services, wage concessions (real wages declined in 1975 for the first time after a decade of constant increase), division of land, massive growth in university education, accelerated urbanization, and so on. The generalized economic recession and its devastating effects on the Mexican economy combined to reduce the maneuvering room of the bonapartist regime. Mexican bonapartism, which was trapped in an impasse as early as 1968, tried to survive by turning to the "democratic opening" initiated by President Echeverria, an opening which turned out to be hollow. The national bourgeoisie and imperialism, stronger than ever, were the forces that were capable of stepping up their action. Inasmuch as Mexican bonapartism had been rapidly "bourgeoisifying" during the previous thirty years, it had lost the "revolutionary" populist features that had been its traditional common denominator. Echeverria's project of breathing new life into Mexican populism ran straight into the artillery barrage of a bourgeoisie conscious of its political interests and not at all inclined to give an inch in face of the government offensive. Thus, the Echeverria regime, in spite of important conflicts with the bourgeoisie, did not succeed in advancing toward its objective, which was to introduce some safety valves into an increasingly ossified bonapartist system. The 1968 crisis has continued to generate unrest among the toilers. A series of important mobilizations has unfolded over the past ten years. First it was the student movement which extended its field of action throughout the country; then there were workers mobilizations, involving only minorities, but with national impact (the electricians railway construction workers, some factories in the industrial belt of Mexico City); then there was the movement of university employees, the telephone workers, and the professors; finally, 1976 saw the beginnings of peasant mobilizations, in the states of Sonora, Oaxaca, and others. Changes in the left These massive mobilizations and struggles substantially renewed and recomposed the spectrum of the traditional left in the country, whose principal component has been the Stalinist movement, represented by the Communist party of Mexico (PCM) and its specific Mexican variant: Lombardism, the current led by the political and trade-union leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano. This recomposition of forces in the Mexican left was predictable even before 1968. The factors in the renovation of the left were the shakeup created by the Cuban revolution, which itself came after the crisis of Stalinism represented by the Sino-Soviet conflict, and finally, the rise of Trotskyist currents in Mexico for the first time since Trotsky's stay in the country. In 1968 it was obvious that this historic process of renovation had reached a very high level. The National Strike Council, highest body of the immense student and people's mobilization of that year, had totally escaped the control of the Stalinists and even permitted an open break with them on the part of the most consistent revolutionary forces. Lombardism, speaking through the voice of its leader himself, condemned the popular mobilization and justified the repression conducted by the president and butcher Gustavo Díaz Ordáz (today ambassador to Spain). The processes under way within the PCM were more complex. This party began to renew its ranks following the repression against its national leadership grouped around Dionisio Encina. Most of the members of this leadership were imprisoned in 1959 when the national railroad strike was broken by the army. This left a clear field for a "transitional" leadership directed by Martinez Verdugo, which to this day echoes the waves of new members that have come into the PCM. The PCM is a party without a significant working-class base; hence, unlike its counterparts that are more strongly implanted in the working class in other countries, it was more sensitive to the pressures of the student movement of the 1960s. The renewal of the PCM began as a product of the radicalization of university sectors between 1960 and 1966. Nevertheless, competition with the Maoists, Guevarists, and Trotskyists prevented the PCM from gaining hegemony over the student and popular upsurge of 1968. It was thus forced to share leadership of the movement and even to find itself in a minority. After 1968, the PCM itself continued to gain strength within the broad mobilization of students and youth which
spread nationally as a result of the movement in Mexico City. Its positions continued to be determined by its Stalinist origins, but there began to be important changes in its policy, which led it to take some independent positions on several occasions, such as during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, which it condemned. In 1971 the PCM suffered a left split which was to lead to the formation of a militarist organization, the September 23 Communist League (which is in full decomposition today and totally infiltrated by agents of the government and reaction). At its Twenty-Sixth Congress the PCM, for the first time since the 1930s, set as a strategic political objective not the revolution of national liberation in the abstract, but the "democratic and socialist revolution." The evolution of the PCM has since been marked by an increasingly eclectic course which has obvious similarities to "Eurocommunism" but at the same time remains specifically Mexican. The relationship of forces between the PCM and the other organizations of the revolutionary left is less favorable to it than is the case in capitalist Europe. This maintained since 1975 with the forces of the Fourth International in Mexico. In 1976 an electoral accord was reached with the Liga Socialista, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, to support Valentín Campa, an old worker militant, as a candidate for president. This was a great electoral success, with nearly 2 million votes for Campa. But it was undoubtedly the foundation of the PRT as the Mexican section of the Fourth International which was to exert an important influence on the attitude of the PCM. The general secretary of the PCM sent a warm message to the PRT when it was founded. In the student movement the PCM and the PRT are the forces that press for the Union of Students as a new form of organization of the mass student movement. And just recently, after the cold-blooded murder of our comrade Alfonso Peralta, the PCM has been among the strongest supporters of the solidarity extended to our party. Moreover, among the left wing that is now evident in the PCM the idea of an alliance with the PRT is arising in opposition to the projects upheld by the central leadership, directed by the old Stalinist Gascon Mercado, in particular that of an organic alliance with a dissident wing of the PPS (Lombardist). Development of the PRT It was this political panorama that made the fusion of the International Communist League and the Socialist League into the new PRT so important. The regroupment of Trotskyist forces within the PRT is the major point of departure for a qualitative growth of the Fourth International in Mexico. Through its intervention in the student movement, the workers movement, and, for the first time in the history of the Mexican Trotskyist movement, even in the peasant movement, the actions, program, and concrete initiatives of the PRT have an impact and are considered as having the same credibility as those which come from the PCM or other parties. In terms of propaganda, because of the mass communications media, the country knows of the existence of a party which openly declares itself the Mexican section of the Fourth International and raises the banner of the socialist revolution of workers and peasants councils as a credible project in this historic period. As far as ideological activity is concerned, Trotskyist literature is circulating on a vastly greater scale. In 1977 a revolutionary Marxist weekly appeared for the first time in Mexico, Bandera Socialista, whose average distribution is 8,000. The magazine La Internacional has a circulation of 2,000; three issues of its new series have appeared. INPRECOR is reprinted in Mexico in order to respond to the high demand. Pamphlets are published every week on special themes with press runs of 1,000-2,000. Finally, as far as theoretical-political work is concerned, the Latin American edition of the magazine Criticas de la Economia Politica has been successful. The significance of the PRT cannot be understood without a deep understanding of the peculiarities of the Mexican left. Nor can it be understood without locating the PRT in the evolution and present strengthening of the Fourth International. The crisis of Stalinism is strongly felt in Mexico because the reformist role of bonapartism deprived a reformist force of the type represented by the PCM during its classical Stalinist period of any reason for being. On the.other hand, the Lombardist variant of Stalinism in Mexico had succeeded in maintaining important mass influence because of its significant links with the Mexican regime; but at the time of the death of its leader, the erosion of its structures and political projects became obvious. By 1960, the year Lombardo Toledano died, the PPS (the Lombardist party) was simply an appendage of the official party. It was later to divide, leaving a clear field for the various forces that coexisted within it. In practice the PRT represents a political alternative within the revolutionary left. The generation of students and workers that arose during the 1960s has built a revolutionary movement qualitatively different from that which existed in Mexico during preceding decades. Mexico is probably one of the Latin American countries in which there has been the greatest change and recomposition in the past ten years. The present situation favors the strengthening of a Mexican left in which revolutionary Marxist positions will be given an impetus by the mass upsurge of sectors of workers, peasants, and students who will be impelled into political action by the approaching social crisis, which is already expressed in the chaotic economic situation. The novelty and peculiarity of the Mexican PRT lies in its ideological combativity, which has been maintained for more than ten years by a leadership team that has been able to assimilate and implement the best revolutionary Marxist traditions of the country. With the exception of the Argentine PST (Socialist Workers party), the Mexican PRT is the Latin American Trotskyist party which commands the greatest and deepest continuity in the class struggle of its country. The particular feature of the experience of the PRT is that it has been the first organization of the Fourth International in Latin America that has assimilated the International's con-
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MEXICO ception of internal democracy; various international tendencies exist within it which in other countries are still maintaining separate organizations. The united experience of the Mexican PRT is a centrepital force attractive not only to the Trotskyist forces but also to the left in general. In the past month the PRT has had a recognized presence in social conflicts. In the space of two weeks it participated in three major demonstrations with its own ordered and disciplined contingent, palpable proof of its recent growth. On April 26 there was the demonstration protesting the nomination of Díaz Ordáz, responsible for the Tlatelolco massacre, as ambassador to Spain; on May 1 the PRT had an independent contingent in the trade-union and people's demonstration celebrating the international workers festival;
and on May 13 there was the massive demonstration of 10,000 in memory of Comrade Alfonso Peralta, murdered by the reactionary forces acting with impunity. Since September of last year the Mexican section has been one of the Fourth International's strongest and most dynamic sections anywhere. It deserves the attention of the entire International, for it is through the development of the PRT, along with other parties, that the International's presence and action on the Latin American continent will rise to the level required by the present crisis. It is in this way that revolutionaries will be able to play their role of leading the proletariat. May 14, 1977 new peasant coordinating body