The following article is a very limited attempt to draw a balance sheet of fifteen years of struggle in Latin America and to identify the economic, social, and political tendencies that are operating in the present period. Its objective is to pose questions rather than give answers. Even where answers are attempted, these are only hypotheses that I hope can stimulate the discussion, since this is already lagging behind the needs of the organizations involved in the struggle.
Fifteen Years of Rising Mass Struggle
In the period following the second world war, the Cuban revolution represented a major turning point. It was not in itself the cause of the continent-wide crisis that has gripped Latin America. The crisis was the result of the end of the economic conditions engendered first by the world war and then by the Korean boom, coupled with the explosion of the contradictions of the national-populist movements after they had held hegemony over the broad masses in many countries for two decades.
But the Cuban revolution had considerable consequences. By establishing a workers state, it introduced a qualitatively new element of imbalance in the system, and it stimulated manifold advances in political consciousness. And so, it is right to put it at the center of an analysis of the period as a whole.
Let us briefly review the most important events in chronological order. In 1959-60, there was the victory of the revolution and the establishment of a workers state in Cuba. In 1961-63, there was a resurgence of the peasant movement and a wave of workers struggles in Peru.
In 1963-64, the struggles of the workers, peasants, and petty-bourgeois layers assumed more radical forms in Brazil, with repercussions in the armed forces. In 1964, there was a new upsurge in Bolivia, with the overthrow of the Paz Estenssoro regime. In 1965, there was the uprising in Santo Domingo.
In 1967, there was a new radicalization in Bolivia and the launching of guerrilla warfare. At the same time, there were the first signs of a new radicalization in Argentina (the crisis in the Tucumán region). In 1968, there were struggles and mobilizations by students and workers in Brazil, the upsurge of the student movement in Mexico, and a rise in the combativity of the masses in Uruguay.
In 1969, the Córdoba uprising ushered in a turn in Argentina. In 1970, there was the victory of Unidad Popular (UP-Popular Unity) in Chile, which was accompanied and followed by big mobilizations of the students, peasants, and working class.
In 1972-73, there were strikes, mass mobilizations, and urban guerrilla actions in Argentina; the military dictatorship fell; and in early 1973 there was a situation close to a prerevolutionary crisis. In 1973 also, there was a general strike with factory occupations in Uruguay.
The balance sheet unfortunately is a simple one. These upsurges ended in an impressive series of defeats. In 1964, the military dietatorship was established in Brazil. In 1965, the Santo Domingo uprising was smothered by imperialist intervention. In August 1971 there was the victory of Banzer in Bolivia. In July 1973, the general strike in Uruguay was defeated. In September 1973, the UP government was overthrown in Chile. In 1976, there was the military coup in Argentina.
Such defeats are the landmarks of an epoch. Their breadth and the systematic character of the repression that they brought with them exceed all historical precedents on the continent.
Some people, even in the revolutionary Marxist movement, have rejected and continue to reject such a conclusion for Argentina. In my opinion, we should dispose of false questions such as whether the defeat there was a historic one or not. Likewise, we should realize that the fact that a working class endowed with considerable organizational strength and a great tradition of struggle proved able immediately after a grave setback to wage some battles does not automatically mean that it was not defeated.
For still stronger reasons, we cannot accept any argument that the Argentine proletariat did not suffer a defeat because it did not get involved in a conflict between two sections of the bourgeoisie. The very fact that a working class that played the leading role in a powerful upsurge between 1969 and 1973, and which in 1975 organized massively in the Coordinadoras [coordinating committees], remained a spectator in a situation gravely affecting its fate indicates the scope of its defeat.
The indisputable fact is that for long decades the Argentine working class has not experienced such severe repression, lost so many cadres, nor been forced to give up so much ground in every area (living standards, basic democratic rights, freedom to organize, and so on).
Moreover, the 1976 coup marked the conclusion of an entire epoch in the political history of the Argentine proletariat. Over a thirty-year period, the Peronist movement had many ups and downs, even in its relations with the broad masses. In this instance, however, there is no question but that Peronism met with a historie defeat, its historic defeat.
It is not excluded that Peronism may still feed some currents, reappear in some form, or regain a marginal influence. But it will never again be recognized by the great majority of the working class as its leadership.
This development is not the result of the Peronists being replaced by a workingclass leadership, either revolutionary or reformist. Rather, it has so far involved an absence of leadership; thus, I think that my estimate of the events in Argentina is all the more justified. And I think that this conclusion can be extended more generally.
Has not the defeat in Bolivia made possible the establishment of the least unstable regime the country has known in decades? Did not the defeat in Uruguay precipitate profound structural and political changes? Has Chile ever experienced an upset of such proportions in its entire history?
In characterizing the period, all these considerations seem far more decisive than how much resistance the working class put up or even how long the mass movement remains crushed.
Origin of the Defeat
For years, in the prisons, in the underground, or in exile, the Latin American militants have been puzzling over the causes of their defeats. Many of them agree in general on an answer: There was no revolutionary leadership; there was no revolutionary party.
This answer is correct, but risks being too abstract. In the period of rise, a series of countries did in fact experience revolutionary or prerevolutionary situations that the working class failed to take advantage of. But these situations occurred in markedly different political and socioeconomic contexts.
In one category of countries, to begin with, the working class is small and has only a slight specific weight in the society. I do not mean to suggest that in such countries it is necessary to adopt a strategy of revolution by stages, or that we have to water down the theory of permanent revolution. However, the fact that the working class represents only a very small part of the working people in these coun tries is an obstacle to a victorious conclusion of a revolutionary dynamic even in a context of profound crisis. In the case of Santo Domingo, for example, the political weakness of the insurrectionary movement was not unrelated to the structural weakness of the working class. This weakness, moreover, made it easier for a section of the bourgeoisie to gain hegemony over the insurrection.
There is a second category of countries in which the working class, while having considerable or even a predominant specific weight, did not before or during the crisis achieve political and organizational independence. We are touching here on a crucial question for understanding a half century of Latin American history, one whose concrete implications we ourselves have sometimes tended to lose sight of.
On this question, as well, we have to avoid slipping into any mechanistic approach. At bottom, structural factors have unquestionably played a role. But political factors have also exerted an influence, and in the last analysis, a decisive one. I am referring to the fact that the first attempts to organize the workers movement, especially in certain countries, followed foreign models. But most of all I am referring to the consequence of the Stalinization of the Communist parties, which sabotaged real possibilities and squandered a painfully accumulated legacy.
It was precisely the conceptions and the orientations of the Stalinists in the 1930s and during the war that facilitated the emergence and rise of the national-populist movements that have held predominant a. The effects of influence among the masses. The effects of this continued to be felt into the period of rise whose balance sheet I am drawing here.
In Brazil in 1963-64, the Communist Party was not a negligible force, and sections of the union movement, in São Paulo for example, were guided by classstruggle conceptions. But the overwhelming majority of the working class had not reached the level of political and organizational independence, much less the rest of the exploited masses. Their actions remained subordinated to the logic of the conflicts within the ruling classes.
In Argentina, the working class had had a very great weight for thirty years; and, beginning in the late 1960s, important sections, especially in Córdoba, freed themselves from the tutelage of the Peronists. But in their majority, even in 1973-74, the masses did not break the umbilical cord tying them to a political movement whose conservative nature had become more and more apparent.
In Bolivia, despite an extremely rich experience, very broad strata of the working people continued under the Torres regime to harbor illusions in bourgeois or petty-bourgeois currents and their organi. zations (for example, that of Juan Lechín).
Finally, there is the case of a country like Chile. Here a prerevolutionary crisis occurred when there was a working class with a considerable specific weight in the society and in political life, and which had long been organized in unions and parties independent of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, during the crisis, this working class achieved a level of consciousness comparable to that of the most politicalized and militant proletariat in Western Europe.
Unquestionably, if there is an instance where the decisive factor in the defeat was the lack of a revolutionary party-which by means of a correct well-rounded strategy could have averted the dangers of mass mobilizations occurring in an uncoordinated way and dissipating their force, and could have directed the dynamic of such mobilizations toward the objective of seizing power—it is the case of Chile. In this, the reformists and neoreformists of the Socialist and Communist parties bear a very grave historic responsibility.
Responsibility of the Castroists and Centrists
An analysis of these defeats must also take into consideration another factor, the responsibilities of the Castroist and centrist currents.
In the case of Castroism, we should never overlook the distinction between the influence of the Cuban revolution, which may be termed a structural factor, and that of Castroism as a political current. The Cuban revolution exercised a very great influence throughout the period analyzed and will continue to do so in the future, unless the imperialists succeed in overthrowing the Cuban workers state.
The Castroist current exerted a powerful force of attraction, not only for the vanguard layers of the working class and the radicalized petty bourgeoisie but also for the masses. This was a result of the prestige deriving from the victory of the revolution, as well as the impetus given by Castro and Guevara, sometimes in open conflict with the bureaucratized Communist parties, to revolutionary conceptions concerning crucial questions of the nature of the revolution and the seizure of power.
However, the Castroist current devel oped in a context in which a crisis had broken out or was brewing in all the national-populist movements. It acted as a pole of attraction for the sections of these movements that were in crisis, and in this area it achieved greater results than in the traditional workers movement. This had concrete political and ideological implications, inasmuch as the linkup with these currents has represented an additional obstacle to the theoretical development of the Castroist current in relation to Stalinism. Also in the last analysis, it led to its becoming adulterated by absorbing the ideological residues from which these currents had not succeeded in freeing themselves.
Most importantly, as a result of the social composition of the national-populist currents, the Castroist movement became much more integrated into the radicalized petty bourgeoisie than into the working class. Unfortunately, the fact that the working class stood relatively apart from the process of regroupment of the revolutionary movement was not felt to be a serious deficiency. Rather it engendered substitutionist conceptions denying or greatly minimizing the role of the working class in the struggle for power.
Régis Debray's book Revolution in the Revolution, the Bible of thousands of Latin American revolutionists, was the most systematic expression of such an orientation. Guevara had many objections to Debray's work, and it was not in line with the doeument submitted by the Cuban delegation to the OLAS Conference in 1967.
Nonetheless, Revolution in the Revolution was published with great fanfare in Havana, and thus received the endorsement of the Fidelista leading group. And this work played a central role in the education of the Castroist current throughout the continent.
In certain countries, such as Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and others, the Castroist current also gained influence in sectors organized by traditional workers parties. But it was precisely here that its limitations and contradictions came out most clearly. It proved incapable of consolidating its influence politically and organizationally. What is worse, because of its empiricism on the question of Stalinism, it not only did not help to advance the consciousness of the sectors under its influence but rather reinforced their ambiguity about some crucial questions, sowing disastrous illusions.
In the case of Chile, for example, Fidel's criticisms of the "peaceful road" were neutralized by his all-out support for the UP leadership. In Bolivia, Che himself counted on a section of the pro-Moscow CP and on its leader Monje to organize the support network for his guerrilla operation.
Che Guevara once said that the revolution had to be a "socialist revolution, or a caricature of a revolution." And, apart from some confused formulations, the Second Declaration of Havana repeated the conception of the permanent revolution. This was a major gain. But the course followed remained an empirical one. As long as the Cuban leadership judged that there was a possiblity of a victory of the revolution in the short run in other coun tries in Latin America, it followed this perspective. It harked back to the best internationalist traditions and polemicized openly with the bureaucrats of the Soviet Communist Party and of the Latin American CPs.
However, following a series of setbacks, whose causes it has not yet analyzed, the Cuban leadership began to consider that a prolonged isolation of the Cuban state was inevitable. Then it not only undertook a series of diplomatic operations directed at other Latin American countries but it went so far as to "forget" its previous general conclusions and to idealize certain national bourgeoisies and their armed forces. In the case of Peru, this had the effect of liquidating the Castroist current as a revolutionary current.
Coming to centrism, in the 1960s and 1970s, we saw a dual development. There was both the emergence of a new kind of centrism and the reemergence of a more traditional centrism (and even a combination of the two. In Bolivia, the ELN [Ejército de Liberación Nacional- National Liberation Army], which came out of Che's guerrilla movement, belongs to the first category. But the old centrism of Lechin and his more or less conscious allies (including Lora) played a much more decisive role in the 1971 defeat.
In Chile, the Socialist Party was the scene of a convergence between traditional centrists, who often had a "Trotskyist" education, and new centrists (who were called "Elenos").! The latter were more interested in stockpiling arms and in accumulating technical expertise for use when the "zero hour" came than they were in waging a consistent and principled struggle against Allende's strategy.
I cannot analyze here all the components of this new centrism. It was a byproduct of the Cuban revolution. It was also shaped, whether those involved realized it or not, both by the crisis in the international Communist movement and by the traditions and experiences of the national-populist movements. (In its initial phase, the Argentine PRT? was also influenced by a peculiar interpretation of Trotskyism.)
I will limit myself to recapitulating the criticisms the Trotskyists have made of the Chilian MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria-Movement of the Revolutionary Left). This was the most important of these new centrist formations, which drew on many ideological sources (including even revolutionary Marxism). In the period of the UP government, it acquired a real mass influence and won an important layer of the vanguard:
1. Before the Allende victory, when the upsurge of the mass movement was already clearly taking shape, the MIR was guided by putschist and substitutionist conceptions. (The break that the leadership provoked in 1969 with a sector influenced by Trotskyism was an eloquent testimony to this.)
3. Even when it began to differentiate itself more clearly from the UP, it hesitated to fight consistently for an alternative, revolutionary strategy. (An example of this is the empiricism with which it confronted the crucial problem of dual power and the errors it made when the "cordones industriales" [industrial belt committees] appeared).
4. For a long period, the MIR chose to build its organization first among the students and secondly among the peasants and slum dwellers. What work it did in the proletariat was subordinated to these priorities. Even when it changed its axis, focusing much more on the working class, it concentrated its efforts in relatively marginal sections, which were supposed to be easier to penetrate. All this had very negative consequences for the composition of the organization and its ability to play an effective role at the crucial moments.
5. The organization was built on the basis of a verticalist conception, assuring total control by the leadership and its apparatus over the cadres and activists. (It is sufficient to note that no congresses were held after 1967.
6. During thè entire period of the UP government, the MIR avoided taking any clear positions on the major international questions. In this field, it limited itself to taking the Cuban revolution as its point of reference. It made no analysis of the policies of Moscow or of Peking. Fundamentally, this attitude was inspired by an underlying illusion, shared for example by the PRT of Santucho, that in this way it could maintain good relations with everybody and hopefully get material aid.
Balance Sheet of the Dictatorships
In drawing a balance sheet of the dictatorships, Brazil offers the best point of departure. The Brazilian regime, which was imposed and has been maintained by the most brutal force, has in fact succeeded for years in promoting substantial economic growth. In this way, it won a real social base not merely among small layers of exploiters but also among the middle and petty bourgeoisie in the cities.
Such growth has been possible, as we know, by increased exploitation of the working class (which in general has suffered impoverishment in the absolute sense), by imposing a miserable standard of living on the lower strata of the petty bourgeoisie, and at the expense of very broad strata of the peasantry, who have either been superexploited or driven from their traditional place in society and left without perspectives.
However, these "conditions" do not appear as a debit in the eyes of the native ruling class and the imperialists, at least not as long as they can be imposed on the victims without major conflicts. So, the Brazilian example could be offered as concrete evidence that it is possible to regenerate a process of capital accumulation by establishing a new political regime in which the military and political apparatuses are tightly interwined and in which the armed forces become in fact the dominant political party of the ruling classes.
From the standpoint of the bourgeoisie and the imperialists, the Bolivian military regime also represents a success, although more limited in scope. Since August 1971 Bolivia has undergone rather profound changes. First of all it cannot be seen as any small thing that a country whose economy has suffered from serious bottlenecks for decades achieved an annual increase of 6% in the national income between 1971 and 1976, and this even went as high as 7% in 1977.
It is no small thing either that in the recent period the increase in prices has been running at 12% a year (it will probably be 15% in 1977), after it went as high as 64% in 1974. Moreover, in the past six years monetary reserves have gone from $34 million to $180 million, and savings and investments have been strongly stimulated (although the foreign debt remains quite high).
However, what is more important is that the economic structure has undergone or is in the process of undergoing a considerable transformation. The economic center has shifted from the mining regions to the Santa Cruz area, the heart of the oil industry. In 1970, tin exports were 44.6% of total exports. In 1976, this figure fell to 30%, while oil exports rose from 6% to 25% of the total (and natural gas rose to 10%).
It is expected that in 1980, the mining sector as a whole will account for 52% of exports (35% for hydrocarbons), with agricultural exports accounting for about 12%. In this same year, Bolivia is supposed to be able to smelt five-sixths of the tin it produces. A petrochemical industry is developing in Santa Cruz and a steel industry in Mutun. The imperialists are trying to assure the success of these operations by granting very large loans. At the same time, they are providing enough military aid to make Bolivia the third largest recipient in Latin America in absolute terms and the largest in proportion to population.
This restructuring of the economy has gone hand in hand with a partial reprivatization of the traditional mining sector itself and a reconsolidation of big land holdings (operated according to typically capitalist methods).
There is scarcely any need to point out that a heavy price has been paid for this "renewal" by the masses of workers and peasants, whose living standards have plummeted. But Banzer's success lies precisely in the fact that he has succeeded in imposing such superexploitation and in depriving the masses of their means of defense over a period that, in terms of Bolivia's chronic instability, seems rather long.
Should the conclusion be drawn from this that the Brazilian "model" can be applied generally?
It may be debated how scientific the concept of subimperialism is. It is unquestionable, however, that, expecially beginning at a certain stage, the fact that Brazil has been able to find foreign outlets for its products and its capital in other Latin American countries and in Africa was one of the preconditions for its economic "miracle."
The Argentine bourgeoisie wanted to follow the same path, as indicated by its propaganda slogan calling for La Argentina potencia [a "great power Argentina"], expecially under the neo-Peronist regime [the second Peronist regime, which began in 1973]. But practice has shown that at least in a context of economic stagnation, there is scarcely room for two subimperialisms in Latin America. (Note, for example, the conflict between Brazil and Argentina over the exploitation of certain areas in Bolivia and the very sharp competition between the two countries in the automobile industry.)
Let's consider a second aspect. The kind of capital accumulation achieved under the military regime, based on the government cutting the wages of workers, could be carried through without boomeranging inasmuch as in Brazil a large part of the population remains outside the capitalist market. It was this reality that those who tried to impose the same model on Chile chose to ignore. There, it failed, even though the political conditions were about the same as in Brazil (the mass movement was crushed, the workers parties destroyed, etc.).
Although the Chilean economy was more backward than the Brazilian, it was more balanced, and, taken as a whole, less far removed from the developed capitalist economies. Mass consumption, not just by the petty-bourgeois masses but also by masses of workers, played a much more important role in the capitalist national market. Therefore, the steep drop in the buying power of the broad masses brought about by wage cuts and massive unemployment-and so far not compensated for by the opening up of new outlets-has had disastrous consequences for important sectors of industry and for the services.
Finally, the Brazilian model could be applied with a relative success because it achieved a takeoff when the prolonged economic boom of the world capitalist economy had not yet lost its momentum. The economic situation began to cloud over, beginning in particular in the early 1970s, and this trend worsened as a result of the 1974-75 world recession.
The recession hit Brazil itself hard and created additional obstacles for countries such as Argentina and Chile. At the same time, it upset the precarious balance in countries that had made it through the fifteen years in which the mass movement was on the rise, without major conflicts. (This is true notably of Mexico, where the recession has brought a serious drop in the standard of living of broad strata of the working people.)
Argentine Junta Charged With
Murder of Four Political Prisoners
Amnesty International said March 8 that it had received "reliable reports" of the murder of four political prisoners who had been held in La Plata Prison in Buenos Aires Province.
The four were reportedly released from La Plata on February 2 and then killed on a railway line near the prison. One of the victims was Gonzala Carranza, a university student who had just completed a three-year term on charges of collaboration with the ERP (People's Revolutionary Army). Of the other three, only the last names of two were known-Dominz and Segalli.
"Fears for the lives of the estimated 15,000 individuals who have disappeared without trace since the March 1976 mil itary coup must now be extended to those prisoners in official custody," Amnesty International said.
The Argentine military regime admitted in December that it was holding 3,067 persons in official custody. As of March 8, the junta had published five lists containing the names of 2,699 prisoners. However, Amnesty International estimates the true number in detention to be 8,000.
"Regularly buy and read INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS!"
That's the handwritten advice supporters in Tokyo.
717°
the periodical from one of our
All.
Intercontinental P.O. Box 116
Press/Inprecor
Varick Street Station New York, New York 10014
Name
Street
Zip -
City.
State
() Enclosed is $12 for six months. () Enclosed is $24 for one year.
Right on!
We can only add that the easiest way to "regularly buy and read" is to subscribe.
So fill out the blank and mail it in.
Notes
1. National Liberation Army, with the initials ELN in Spanish, was a common name of guerrilla groups inspired by the Cuban experience.- IP/I
2. Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (Revolutionary Workers Party). Before 1968, this was the name of the Argentine Trotskyist organization as a whole. After a split that took place that year, it was used by both factions, which were distinguished by the names of their newspapers, until 1972, when the PRT (La Verdad) took the name Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores. The reference here is to the PRT (El Combatiente), which formally severed its ties with the international Trotskyist movement in 1973 and disavowed Trotskyism.-IP/I
2. After September 1970, faced with the reality of the UP success and the mobilization of the masses, the MIR made a 180- degree turn, adopting a tail-endist attitude toward the UP. It failed to see the need to differentiate its strategy from that of the UP right from the start of the process.
3. "Eighty million Brazilians do not have the means to become consumers." Le Monde, dossier economique, 1977, La Langueur, p. 81.