[The exiled Peruvian revolutionist Hugo Blanco gave the following interview to a Canadian student in December in Mexico City. We have translated Blanco's answers from Spanish.]
Question. What do you think Fidel's recent visit to Peru means for the Cuban revolution and for Peru itself?
Answer. First of all, I think that his visits both to Peru and Chile were progressive in one sense. They represented a tacit recognition by both the Chilean and Peruvian governments of Cuba and its revolution, a break in the U.S.-erected blockade against Cuba. These are very positive symptoms. If Peru decides to trade with Cuba, if it recognizes Cuba, that is a very good thing. It is a triumph for the revolution throughout the continent.
But there were many negative aspects to this visit. Unfortunately, it also marked a capitulation by the Cuban government to the Peruvian dictatorship. I repeat, we are not against establishing trade or diplomatic relations with Peru. But we are against paying the price of political capitulation to achieve this. We are against Fidel Castro and the Cuban government in general having to say in return that the Peruvian government is revolutionary, that it is advancing toward socialism, and even, according to what we have been told, to say that anyone who opposes this regime is a counterrevolutionary. I think that all this was very negative.
You have to remember that Castro's invitation to visit Chile, as well as the reception he got in Peru, was a reflection of mass pressure, a reflection of the revolutionary rise that is occurring in Latin America in general, and particularly in those countries. It was specifically to ingratiate themselves with the masses that these governments welcomed Castro. And precisely this should make us understand, and should make the Cuban government understand, that the upsurge of the Chilean and Peruvian masses should be impelled forward and not pulled back. Capitulating, saying that these governments are revolutionary, injures not only Peru - that is, the Peruvian and Chilean working masses — but it injures Cuba itself.
The best kind of support Cuba could get would be the victory of a socialist revolution, of a workers' revolution in Peru, in Chile, or in any other country of Latin America. But the statements of Castro and of the Cuban government in general, by supporting the bourgeois regimes currently in power in both Chile and Peru, tend to hold back such a revolution. Therefore, even from the standpoint of Cuba's interests, the best thing would have been to tell the truth to the Peruvian and Chilean masses, not to surrender to the blandishments of these governments.
Telling the truth to the masses, I repeat, does not contradict opening up trade connections or diplomatic relations, or even agreeing on common actions with these bourgeois governments so as to strengthen your position against imperialism. But there must be full political clarity about such diplomatic maneuvers. If we realize that it is the masses who make revolutions, we must educate them. And we cannot do this by diplomatic lies. The applause Fidel received, both in Chile and Peru, was the applause of the Peruvian and Chilean masses for the Cuban revolution; it was not for Fidel's capitulations to the bourgeois governments of these countries.
Q. Fidel came to Peru after visiting Chile. How similar are the governments in these two countries?
A. The Peruvian government is a regime sponsoring industrial development. While it represents the Peruvian bourgeoisie as a whole, it is more inclined to favor those sectors with an interest in industrial development. This category includes not only Peruvian bourgeois sectors but also the imperialist sectors of the United States, the European countries, Japan, and also petty-bourgeois strata whose interests are tied up with Peruvian industrial development. The measures introduced by this government were taken fundamentally in accordance with these economic interests.
Undoubtedly, in order to carry out its plan, the Peruvian government will have to take into consideration the pressures from the proletariat and the other exploited classes. In order to achieve its objectives, it will unquestionably have to resort to a certain demagogy to win the support of the masses, or at least neutralize their action. But there is a great difference between the government in Peru and the one in Chile. In Chile, the main factor in the rise of Allende and the measures he is taking is the pressure of the masses. In Peru it is only another factor, the main one being the government's development schemes. In Chile it is fundamental. This is the principal difference between the Velasco and Allende governments, as it was between the Velasco and Torres governments.
Q. The government of Allende is now just over one year old. Many said when he was elected that his regime represented the road to socialism in the particular conditions of Chile. What do you think about this claim and what do you believe his government represents?
A. Allende rose to power as the result of an election. But, as we all know, this election could have been thrown out by the legislature. In order to win in the congress he needed support outside his own grouping. Concretely, this meant from the Christian Democrats. But in order to get this backing, Allende had to promise that he would preserve inviolate the main bulwarks of the bourgeois system - the judiciary and the army -- pledging that they would not be replaced by organs arising out of the people, such as people's courts in the case of the judiciary, and popular militias in the case of the armed forces.
Besides this, Allende also made a lot of promises about maintaining respect for the church. We defend freedom of religion. But all Allende's long-winded avowals showed a complete capitulation to the bourgeois system.
We must understand that if the army is left untouched, then the main defensive force of the whole bourgeois apparatus remains intact. We see this now. Allende cannot nationalize the basic industries. He has nationalized some mines, he has expropriated some ranches, all of course with compensation. But he has not touched the manufacturing sector. And naturally he cannot do it, because if he did, the army would topple him immediately. Of course, this might turn into a civil war; it might open up risks for the bourgeoisie of a real revolution that would really destroy the bulwarks of the bourgeois system and really open the way for a socialist government. But what I wanted to show was that in promising at the start of his administration to respect the basic pillars of the bourgeois system, Allende committed himself to respect the bourgeois system as a whole.
I am not saying that whatever nationalizations he carries out are not progressive steps. I do not mean that they represent what the nationalizations in Peru generally represent, since the latter are completely bourgeois measures to improve the functioning of the Peruvian capitalist system. Unquestionably, in Chile many of these measures are the result of great pressure from the popular masses. But one swallow doesn't make a summer, that is, these measures do not mean that there is socialism in Chile.
For all these reasons, I do not believe that the Allende government represents the road toward socialism, at least not in the sense that Allende, by his actions, is leading Chile toward socialism. His government may be a step toward socialism in another sense, in the sense that it will give the masses their final experience with a bourgeois reformist government and that, as a result of this lesson, they will come to understand that they themselves must take power, destroying all the foundations of the bourgeois system. That is, for what it is teaching the masses, the Allende government can be, and unquestionably is, a step toward the socialist revolution. But not in the sense that it is on the way to becoming a socialist government.
Q. In recent weeks there have been signs on several occasions of a powerful right-wing mobilization against the Allende government. What measures do you think the Allende government should take in order to respond effectively to this threat?
A. The government should explain to the people what is happening and call on them to act. The only way to halt the resurgence of the right in Chile is to mobilize the popular masses to block this mobilization. The task of stemming the rightist tide cannot be left to the bourgeois army, because it is only lying low, waiting for its chance to strike at the government, a chance that may be created precisely by such right-wing demonstrations. It is quite likely, moreover, that these demonstrations are being fomented by elements in the army itself.
I said that the army is lying in wait for the right moment to move, to overthrow Allende. It is calculating the relationship of forces, estimating whether or not the popular masses have been sufficiently weakened to permit a coup. Thus, the only way to block these intentions effectively is to mobilize the masses. Clearly Allende is not doing this. He is afraid to do it. For if the masses did mobilize actively against these right-wing maneuvers, the mobilization would burst beyond the limits Allende, or the leaders of his Unidad Popular, want to impose. Therefore, I think it is the duty of the revolutionary left in Chile to organize the popular masses themselves to resist these rightist schemes, even though Allende opposes such a mobilization.
Allende's attitude is like Perón's at the time of the 1955 coup in Argentina. Demonstrations began against the regime, and afterward the army took charge of the offensive. But Perón held back mass action and blocked all attempts to mobilize the masses. Allende is taking this same suicidal attitude, suicidal for him, perhaps, and for his regime. But I firmly believe that Allende is one of the capitalist system's last cards in Chile, that is, the fundamental reason Allende is failing to mobilize the masses is that he prefers the capitalist system to be saved, even if his regime falls.
Q. After the defeat of the Frente Amplio, Fidel was reported as saying that this defeat showed that in Uruguay an armed struggle would be needed to bring about the victory of socialism. What is your opinion of this statement?
A. It seems that the Cuban government still lacks a coherent strategy for the Latin American revolution. The option for revolutionists is not limited to capitulating in a popular front, or in an alliance with bourgeois sectors, which Fidel defends in Peru; it is not limited to what Fidel is defending in Chile, or what he would defend in Uruguay if need be. That is, we do not have to choose between this and guerrilla warfare, or immediate armed struggle. What we must do is raise the consciousness of the masses, starting off from their present level, using various tactics depending on the real situation in each country. We have to raise them up until they understand that they must overthrow the capitalist system and establish a socialist one by means of a workers' government, or a workers and peasants' government.
It seems to me that what has to be done in Uruguay is encourage the masses to organize to struggle for the demands they are fighting for now, to lift them toward better forms of organization and struggle until they gain the awareness that only by overthrowing the capitalist system can they see their aspirations satisfied.
There is no question that when the working masses come to understand this, the bourgeois system is going to defend itself tooth and nail. It is going to attack the masses fighting for their rights, just as it has always done. And then the masses will learn that they must also destroy the fundamental bulwarks of the capitalist system in order to establish their own state. To put it in a nutshell, our difference with Fidel is not that we are opposed to armed struggle but that we do not think that the answer to the Frente Amplio's defeat in Uruguay is to create guerrilla units.
Q. What is the significance of the Peruvian government's recent repression of union struggles?
A. The essential meaning of the repression is that the Peruvian government represents precisely the class enemy, that is, it is the representative of the exploiting classes in Peru. This is the underlying significance of the heavy blows this government has inflicted on the working class.
But, of course, there are immediate causes. This government has followed a zigzag policy. Sometimes it has made concessions to the working masses in order to win their favor; other times it has found itself obliged to repress them. An example of repression is the teachers' strike, which the government found it necessary to crush, although later it relented somewhat. Specifically, it was in this repression that I was deported, along with a student leader and several officials of the teachers' union. Another acute case of repression was the recent massacre of the miners, in which the government clearly demonstrated its class character, as well as showing clearly what, in the last analysis, its attitude will be in confrontations between the Peruvian working masses and an imperialist company.
The case I am referring to was the bloody repression of the workers in the copper mine owned by the Cerro de Pasco Corporation. More than twenty-five members of the mine union were murdered. More than a hundred of them were wounded, many seriously. Over a hundred miners have disappeared. And the surviving union activists are being hunted like wild animals in the vicinity of the mine and throughout the central region of the country, where the mine is located. There are dozens of prisoners; they are being savagely tortured. The repression, moreover, has spread to other urban sectors; and political leaders have been jailed, like Ricardo Onapurí. The scope of the attacks has extended to include some student leaders like Julio Castro and left activists like Jacqueline Lobatón, the widow of a guerrilla leader in the 1965 campaign who was murdered by the repressive forces.
Q. You began your political activity in Peru as a leader of the struggle of the Peruvian peasants to obtain land. What is the government doing today to meet the needs and demands of the people and the peasantry for land?
A. Actually, my work in Peru, that is, my work as a Trotskyist activist, began in the Lima labor movement. But later I went to live among the peasants in my native region, the Cuzco area, to be precise, in the valley of La Convención. In that period, the masses themselves took many of the things they were demanding, that is, won the gains they were seeking by the strength of their organization and the power of their struggle.
For example, their main achievement was winning possession of plots of land that formerly belonged to the landlords so that the peasants could work this land. Besides winning the ownership of these plots, the peasants made gains with more far-reaching implications, such as getting the lands being cultivated by the landlords turned over to the union, which worked them collectively for the collective good. Also, the fallow lands were distributed among peasants who had no plots of their own. These last two gains were lost; the repressive forces compelled the peasants to retreat and wrested these victories from them.
But the first and fundamental gain, the possession of the plots of seized land, remains essentially intact throughout the province of La Convención and in the valley of Lares. The successive governments that have ruled since that time, that is, since the early 1960s, have been unable to crush the peasants, have been unable to take this victory back from them. Of course, the various governments did not recognize the peasants' possession of these lands, but they did not dare take them away either. In this sense, the repression had to stay within certain limits. They crushed the peasant movement. They jailed many of us and murdered others. They broke up the unions for a time. But they did not dare drive the peasants off these lands. This would have led to a mass insurrection, since we had already initiated armed resistance.
In this respect, what the previous government did -- and what, fundamentally, the present government is doing -- was to leave the peasants in possession of these lands but demand that they pay the ranchers for them. This payment, of course, was to be channeled through the government. But, in the last analysis, it would go to the landlords. Therefore, the peasants in the La Convención and Lares region see the present agrarian reform law as a negative development. They already have the land, or at least a plot of it; they won it through their struggle. And now the government goes and says that it is going to recognize their title to this land but that they are going to have to pay for it. The peasants are not interested in pieces of paper; they are interested in land. So, they reject this agrarian reform law. I am referring here to the peasants in the areas of La Convención and Lares, which was the region where I worked, that is, the center of the region.
In other areas, the government has employed widely differing measures in dealing with the peasants, and the reactions of the peasants have also differed widely. There are areas where the peasants regard the agrarian reform law as negative; to others, it seems progressive. But in no case has it fully satisfied the aspirations of the peasantry. Therefore, no section of the peasants supports the government with enthusiasm. Some do support it, but half-heartedly. Others oppose the measures of this government but, in general, also not very energetically. The agricultural workers in the coastal region are an exception. The same is true of the peasants in Huanta, where the government has perpetrated a massacre. But most peasants are indifferent toward this government. If the peasants have not mobilized on a large scale to win their objectives, it is not because they believe in this government. They have been intimidated to some extent by the massive repression carried out all over Peru in the 1960s.
The present agrarian law, you must remember, has many limitations. In the first place, it was introduced not to satisfy the aspirations of the peasantry but to meet the needs of the government's policy of bourgeois industrial development. Fundamentally, this government is interested in having a layer of small and middle peasant proprietors who can provide a market for the products of industry. Secondly, it is interested in having a broad base of social support. These were reasons for introducing the agrarian reform law, as well, of course, as to check the revolutionary struggle the Peruvian peasants were moving toward.
But even this limited law is not being fully enforced. It is not being put into practice in the way the government originally wanted and, for the most part, would still like to see it put into practice. The reason is that the means of enforcement is a far-reaching bureaucratic network which is under heavy pressure from oligarchical landholding elements throughout the country, and in some areas more than others. And since the law includes a clause against peasant mobilizations, which provides for jailing any peasant who tries to mobilize the masses, the pressure on the bureaucracy is coming from only one direction, from the landlords. Within the bourgeois system, bureaucrats are easily bribed. And this is a further check on the law, besides its inherent limitations.
Q. How would you describe the economic situation of the Indian population in Peru in comparison to the Peruvian population as a whole?
A. Their economic situation is much lower than that of the Peruvian people as a whole. In fact, the Indian people are generally peasants. But "Indian" is a relative term in Peru. Iago Isalves Prada, a Peruvian writer of the last century, said that it would be more proper to talk about people being Indians in social status rather than in blood, that is, Indian is a complex, cultural category, not a distinction of race. I say this because there are Indians who have blond hair and blue eyes, but socially they are Indians. They speak the native language, dress like natives, follow native customs, and are treated like natives. Some men who were racially Indians or mestizos with a strong percentage of Indian blood have even reached the presidency of the republic by serving the landlords and the imperialists.
So, when we speak of Indians in Peru, it is more of a social than a racial category. And this category is much lower than the other sectors of the Peruvian population. Indians generally go barefoot, or wear very poor sandals. They live in huts. Their diet is very poor, sometimes almost completely lacking in protein. They are forced to work very hard. The law on the eight-hour day is not enforced in the case of Indians. They live in places beyond the reach of most of the amenities of civilization, medical care, movies, and other cultural advantages.
As for the diet of the Indians, I repeat, they don't drink milk, they don't eat meat, they don't eat eggs. Their nutrition comes essentially from carbohydrates such as corn, potatoes, and dehydrated potatoes, which have less food value than regular ones. And this is true for all the native areas in Peru. The specific foods may differ, but the level of nutrition remains extremely low. The native population is in the worst situation all over Peru. There is a terribly high rate of infant mortality among the native population. Diseases such as tuberculosis, anemia, and parasitosis are endemic in the Peruvian peasantry, which is composed fundamentally of natives.
Another important aspect is illiteracy. Ninety percent or more of the indigenous population is illiterate. This means, moreover, that a large part of the population is not only illiterate but also cannot speak Spanish, the official language of Peru, in which all official transactions take place and in which all documents are written. In Peru, the native languages are very widely spoken. The primary ones are Quechua and Aymara but there are many other dialects.
Q. To what extent does this situation of the Indians result from a policy of discrimination, economic, political, or cultural, by the rulers of Peru?
A. Unquestionably one of the devices of the Peruvian exploiting classes has been discrimination against the natives, discrimination that goes back to the Spanish conquest. Indians were regarded as animals. The priests argued over whether they had souls. Today, of course, we have reached the conclusion that the ones who said that they did not have immortal souls were right! But that is something else again. The conclusions the Spaniards reached served to justify their inhuman exploitation of the natives.
When the Spaniards came, the Indian population was 12,000,000. As a result of the massacres perpetrated by the conquerors, the population dropped to 4,000,000. These massacres were not carried out with weapons but by sending the Indians to work in remote mines, especially in the Potosí mines in Bolivia, where the working conditions were so inhuman that the mortality was massive. Against these gigantic crimes in the Potosí mines, in mines throughout Peru and on the estates of the Spaniards, there were many native uprisings. The most important of these was the one led by Tupac Amaru. And it is no accident that this insurrection originated in the Department of Cuzco, because this is the most heavily Indian area in Peru, the area where the Indians are most beaten down and discriminated against.
Later, under the republic, this discrimination, this oppression of the Indians, continued. The Indians did not get very much from Peruvian independence. In some cases, they even lost something. Bolívar, who is considered a hero, was from a family of landlords. He introduced a law dissolving the Indian tribal communities, with limited success. Today something of primitive communism is still practiced in the surviving communities. These communities were used to exploit the peasants first by the Incas and later by the Spaniards, but they were still respected. But Bolívar tried to break them up, break them up into small private holdings. There was no benefit in this for the Indians, but the big landlords swallowed up the individual peasants one by one, and the Indian population as a whole suffered.
There was so much resistance to this measure that the state was forced once again to recognize the validity and legality of the Indian communities. But, as I said, all through the history of the republic, this discrimination against the Indians has continued from the economic, social, political, and cultural standpoints. For example, on the pretext that they are illiterates, Indians are not allowed to vote. The schools are taught in Spanish, a foreign language for the Indians. When they cannot pronounce some Spanish letters, some Spanish sounds that do not exist in their language, they are called stupid, good-for-nothing, and worse. But none of our ministers of education have ever been required to pronounce Quechua. Because, if they were, there is no doubt that they would not be able to pronounce the sounds that Indian children learn when they are one year old.
Such discrimination extends to everything. For centuries an entire culture has been suppressed. But it refuses to die. Everywhere it struggles for survival. The degradation of the Indians is, of course, fundamentally economic, but not only economic. Their language is regarded as a badge of shame. It is not unusual to find people who can speak Quechua or some other native language denying that they know it. That is, the idea has been taught that it is a sign of education to be ignorant of these languages.
Of course, when the Indians begin to gain self-awareness, they completely change their scale of values and begin to take pride in everything native. But while they have not gained this consciousness, the scale of values imposed by the European conquerors of Peru remains in force. That is, the feeling remains that the Indian style of singing, their songs, their style of dancing, their way of talking, of dressing are all inferior, all shameful. Besides this, the Indians have to walk in the road; they cannot walk on the sidewalks. They have to walk with the animals, even in some villages. I say even in some villages because this is the way it is in the cities. Often in buses Indian women are forced to give their seats to European women -- after being given a few insults for daring to sit there in the first place, as if they were human beings.
Q. What demands are Indians putting forward to change their situation? And what demands do you think will be necessary in the future for the movement of the Indians to achieve their equality and liberation?
A. In fact, the Indian movement has not raised any cultural demands. It has raised only demands of an economic and general political character -- such as demanding a general amnesty -- that cannot be termed specifically Indian. But it is undeniable that as these struggles for economic or broadly political aims gain momentum, a cultural struggle is also taking root.
The Indians are forcing respect for their cultural heritage. Their music is played more, for example. And in the big demonstrations in the main square of Cuzco, an Indian got up on the platform in front of the cathedral dressed in native clothes and spoke his own language. This was never done before. The Indians were ashamed to speak Quechua. And in the marches through the city, every native aspect was stressed. On the other hand, a nativist movement has existed for some time. It gained a great deal of prominence as a reflection of the Mexican revolution.
Of course, all this must be done in a coherent way. That is, the demands raised by the nativists must be linked with the real native movement, with the peasant movement. And this must be done by the revolutionary party. It must study this problem and work out consistently what Indian demands must be raised. We, for our part, have already raised the slogan of votes for illiterates, and we placed great stress on it in the last elections. Actually this is a demand for the native peasantry, which in Peru is essentially illiterate. But this, I repeat, requires more systematic formulation of a program of national -- that is, cultural, political, and social -- demands, besides the economic and general political demands raised by the native movement as a peasant movement.
Q. What do you think will be the role of the Indian people and the Indian problem in the coming Peruvian revolution?
A. I think that the Indian question and the Indian movement are going to play a very important role in the Peruvian revolution. It was not surprising that José Carlos Mariategui, a very important Marxist theoretician we had in Peru, singled out the Indian question as one of the fundamental problems of the Peruvian people. Although he came to the conclusion that the Indian question was one of land, Mariategui clearly already understood something of the complexity of this problem -- which is not simply economic but national, that is cultural, social, and political.
I think that the Indian people will play a great role, and it was precisely for this reason that I said in my last answer that we must make a deeper study to see what concrete proposals we should make in the field of the cultural, social, and political demands of the Indian people as such -- besides the economic and political demands of the Indians as peasants that have so far been raised. We must study this problem because the Indian people represent a large sector in Peru, in Ecuador, and in other Latin American countries.
Besides this, we are seeing the importance these kinds of struggle and this type of demands can have in the social revolution in general, such as the demands of the Black people or the Chicanos in the United States, or the Northern Irish, or the demands of the Bengalis in Pakistan, or the Québéquois and the Indians in Canada.