[The following interview with Hugo Blanco was obtained by Fred Murphy in Lima on July 29, the day after the formal installation of the Peruvian Constituent Assembly. Blanco is a deputy in the assembly, having been elected on the slate of the Workers, Peasants, Students, and People's Front (FOCEP).]
Question. You have been back in Peru for two weeks now; before you were deported, you had been in the country for two months. What are your impressions of the changes in the situation here since the May general strike and the elections?
Answer. Even before the recent events the consciousness of the masses was rising, but now that rise is far greater. There is also a much greater willingness to
That is the most important struggle.
change.
Q. The APRA' has the most seats in the Constituent Assembly. Despite being a bourgeois party with a long history of betrayals, the APRA has been presenting itself as the "democratic left" and has even lent support to the teachers strike and the hunger strike of the miners. What kind of policy do you think is necessary for winning the masses who support the Apristas? Isn't it necessary to do more than simply carry out propaganda about the APRA's past betrayals?
A. This is a complex problem. The APRA got its start as a reflection of the Russian Revolution. The revolution generally gave rise to workers parties, the Communist parties. But in Latin America, because of the absence of a strong working class, the Russian Revolution also gave rise to pettybourgeois anti-imperialist movements, such as Acción Demócratica in Venezuela, the MNR in Bolivia, the Radical parties in Argentina and Chile, the Febreristas in Paraguay, and so on. Before long, these currents moved to the right and the APRA was no exception.
But the APRA has an advantage in that it has never been in power. So despite all its betrayals, people still hope that the APRA will be able to make some changes if it can ever get into the government.
As you have seen, the APRA uses red flags, and banners with the map of Latin America. And it has a point in its program calling for the federation of Latin Ameri-
1. Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American People's Revolutionary Alliance).
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can states—an anti-imperialist slogan. The APRA thus appears as a sort of Latin American Social Democracy.
But as the APRA moved to the right, this aspect was combined with the development of fascist-like methods. Some people draw the wrong conclusion from this and simply say the APRA is fascist. But we can't characterize the APRA as fascist. Certainly it has fascist tendencies, and it might split into a Social Democratic wing on one hand and fascist bands on the other. But that hasn't happened yet, and we have to try to ensure that the bulk of the pro-Aprista masses go forward.
We have to understand why the APRA gained a plurality in the elections. It is the oldest party in Peru and the best organized. It has the longest tradition of struggle and has suffered the most murders, the most deportations, the most torture victims. It has been persecuted by many dictatorships. All this is part of its tradition.
Now, what policy does the Communist Party have toward the APRA? The CP has always called the APRA fascist, has always had a very sectarian attitude. But on some occasions the CP has actually stood to the right of the APRA-during the first Prado government in 1939-45, for example. And the APRA has suffered more persecution than has the CP. So this has something to do with the CP's great hatred toward the APRA. The rest of the left has inherited the CP's anti-APRA prejudices, but we should not get caught up in this.
In the election campaign, and up to the present time, the APRA has again taken up a lot of its old Social Democratic demagogy. It is raising many of the slogans of its early anti-imperialist years. Of course this is all simply verbal, but it is important to note. As soon as the Constituent Assembly opened, when we began raising the most acute problems facing the Peruvian people-the teachers strike, the miners' struggle, and so on—the Apristas joined in, and even went along with us to visit the miners on hunger strike. They solidarized with that struggle, and demanded a solution to the teachers strike.
The APRA does not control the government; the government is in the hands of the military. So our role is not to get in confrontations with the pro-Aprista masses, but rather to unmask the hypocrisy of their leaders. It was for just that purpose that we introduced a motion in the assembly yesterday.
In [APRA leader and assembly president] Haya de la Torre's speech yesterday, he said that the Constituent Assembly is sovereign, that it will not submit to any other power, and so on. The argumentation was completely against the government. But in conclusion Haya said exactly what [President Gen. Francisco] Morales Bermúdez said in his own speech earlier in the day: The assembly will write a constitution, there will be general elections, and only after that will there be a new government.
So we have presented a motion that the military government must go immediately and that the assembly should assume legislative and executive powers right now. Of course, we know that only a workers government can solve the country's problems or implement the emergency plan that is included in our motion: "full democratic liberties; reinstatement of the fired workers; and urgent measures to solve the economic crisis, which would have as their axis the repudiation of the foreign debt, a general increase in wages and salaries, and free land to the peasants."
We don't expect the assembly to adopt this motion, because it has a bourgeois majority. We know only a workers government could do this. But we have raised the motion precisely in order to unmask the APRA and the PPC. These gentlemen waged their entire campaign saying they were against the military dictatorship, but now they don't want to do anything concretely to put an end to it.
So this is the policy we should have. Toward the APRA's ranks, we raise some of the very same things the APRA itself said in its election campaign. Its ranks will come to see us as the most consistent fighters for what they too are demanding. Meanwhile, we can unmask the APRA leaders as capitulators to the military dietatorship.
This is a very important question. Yesterday we saw physical confrontations between the Apristas and the left. If these continue, given the level of the class strug gle and the contradictions in Peru, we could soon be faced not only with the whole repressive apparatus of the government but also with large sections of the pro-Aprista masses converted into fascist mobs. That's why we have to have this type of policy. Even in the heat of physical confrontations, when the Apristas are attacking us, our comrades have to try to communicate with them. We shouldn't chant "Down with APRA," while they are shouting "Up with APRA." Instead we should chant "Down with the military dictatorship." Then the Apristas will have to think twice about who they are beating up and ask themselves who they are defending by attacking us.
This is not the policy of the Communist Party, nor is it the policy of the Maoists in
2. Partido Popular Cristiano (Christian People's
Party), right-wing bourgeois party with the second-largest number of seats in the assembly.
the UDP [Democratic People's Union]. It is the Trotskyists' responsibility to put forward this policy.
Q. The workers deputies have been working together quite closely since the Constituent Assembly opened, especially the deputies from the FOCEP, the UDP, and the Aragón PSR. Does this mean there are good prospects for forming a new workers party on a class-struggle basis, as you were proposing before you returned to Peru?
A. Well, right now it isn't possible to speak of a party—it is one thing to make statements in Europe and another to see the concrete reality here in Peru. For the moment what we have is a united front involving the FOCEP, the UDP, and Aragón's PSR. At times this front will be extended to include the Communist Party, and in certain situations we can also reach agreements on concrete points with the parties of the so-called "progressive bourgeoisie."
There is an interesting example of how the relationship of forces on the left has changed. During the election campaign, only the Trotskyists took a position for working-class independence. We were the only ones who disagreed with popularfront policies. That is, we and the independents in the FOCEP, like Genaro Ledesma and Juan Cornejo.
Once the elections were over, it came time to elect the Executive Council in the Constituent Assembly. We Trotskyists again declared that we wouldn't support a slate that included representatives of the "progressive bourgeoisie." There was a day and a half of discussion and debate among the leftist deputies. We said it was against our principles to join a bloc with bourgeois forces. So we drew up our own slate, and at first only we two deputies the PST* supported it. Then the from comrades of the POMR, who had been planning to abstain, saw that we had a positive alternative and joined us. Then the independents from the FOCEP decided
Fred Murphy/Intercontinental Press-Inprecor leader Antonio
Miners leader Victor Cuadros, Hugo Blanco, and PSR Aragón at opening of Constituent Assembly in Lima July 18.
to support the slate, and Aragón's PSR did too. Finally, the UDP deputies, who had been vacillating, also had to join in.
So together we presented a workers and peasants slate for the Executive Council of the assembly. But the Communist Party wouldn't support it. They walked out, and so did the Christian Democrats and Leonidas Rodriguez's PSR.
This was a big success for us. There were only two slates-the bourgeois parties' slate and the class-struggle slate. There was no popular-front slate.
Q. The Communist Party seems to have been taken aback by the election results. Before, they were calling the FOCEP and the UDP "tiny grouplets," but now they don't seem to have a policy at all. What do you think they will do?
A. They may have to do a lot more of what they did when it came time to elect the Executive Council-walk out and keep still.
It is difficult to say what their policy will be. They are no longer seen as the big force on the left—we are. When we take a position now it causes problems for the CP. They have to say whether they support it or not. An example was the question of a popular-front slate in the assembly. They couldn't support our slate, so they had to do nothing.
At times they will reach agreements with the Christian Democrats and Rodriguez's PSR. But this means they will have to tell their ranks that they are seeking bourgeois allies and don't want to join forces with the left. Even in the Constituent Assembly these bourgeois forces are considerably weaker than we are. The CP is seeking unity with two Christian Democrats and the three deputies from Rodriguez's PSR-five representatives of the "progressive bourgeoisie" —instead of with the nineteen deputies of the FOCEP and the UDP, which represent real forces. So it's a very difficult situation for them.
Q. There still seems to be a big gap between the combativity of the masses and the degree of organization and centralization that has been achieved on the national level. How do you think this can be overcome?
A. First of all, we are going to continue to struggle for the organizational unity of the workers movement. At one level, this is the problem of the union organizations. But it is also a problem at the level of the struggles themselves. On August 2 the national miners strike will begin. We are going to try to organize the broadest possible solidarity with this strike, and put pressure on the CGTP to call a general strike in support of the miners.
There is also a CGTP congress coming up. We want to do everything we can to assure that there are a large number of delegates who are in favor of unification of the workers movement. This will pose a problem for the Communist Party, because if a real unification is achieved, they will be in the minority and the class-struggle forces will be in the majority.
Q. During the general strikes, forms of organization have developed that go beyond the trade unions-the "people's assembly" in Chimbote and the "fronts for defense of the people" in Cuzco and Arequipa, for example. How widespread have such developments been?
A. Unfortunately, these kinds of formations have only arisen conjuncturally; they haven't become permanent. Of course, we seek to extend this type of organization whenever it is possible to do so. But it is not realistic, for example, to call for such a formation in Lima as an immediate task right now. We raise the idea in a propagandistic way, and we also try to see that when these assemblies spring up they become more permanent and don't simply dissolve. In any case, I think these formations have played a big educational role. We point to them as examples to explain what kind of government we think should be set up.
Another thing we have to consider now is yesterday's announcement that the government will hold municipal elections. We have to think about how to raise the idea of the "people's assemblies" in these elections and present a program similar to the draft constitution we put forward in the constituent assembly elections.
Q. What are the prospects for the unification of the Trotskyist groups in Peru?
A. The Trotskyist movement in Peru is taking big steps toward unification. We have already had several joint meetings at the leadership level, and we have scheduled a plenary meeting for all the Trotskyists in Peru. We are beginning to carry out joint activities.
We are also working with the comrades of the POMR inside the FOCEP. We don't have the perspective of a rapid unification with them, since there are some problems at the international level as well as here in Peru. But we are working more closely with them now.
Q. What will happen in Peru in the coming months?
A. It all depends on the economic situation. For the moment, there is no solution to the crisis in sight—unless they discover a uranium mine in the Plaza de Armas tomorrow.
The economic crisis is going to make the class struggle and the problems of the masses more acute. The government is going to have to lay off more workers and decree more harsh economic measures. The government claims things are going to improve, but their pronouncements are based on hopes, not on concrete facts.
Their next big problem will be the miners strike. Unlike the teachers strike, it will have an immediate economic impact on the government. The miners strike will affect one of the fundamental economic bases of the country.
We will have to see what attitude the APRA and the PPC take toward all this, what the left is able to accomplish, how
Shinjitsu Meguro, a trade-union activist and a member of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League, Japanese section of the Fourth International, was severely beaten by guards in Chiba City jail July 24.
Meguro is a well-known activist in the Tokyo Section of the Japan National Railway Workers Union. He was one of the hundreds of demonstrators arrested as the result of a March 26 protest against the opening of the New Tokyo International Airport at Narita, near Chiba. Because prosecutors demanded extraordinarily high bail, most of those arrested are still in jail awaiting trial.
On the morning of July 24, after he and several other prisoners refused to answer roll call, Meguro was dragged from his cell by five guards who threw him into an interrogation room. There they grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head against the wall several times. One of the guards then held a blanket over his head while the others beat him about the face for several minutes until he lost conscious. ness.
In response to protests by other prisoners Meguro was allowed to see a doctor later that day, but a week later he was still suffering from loss of hearing in his right ear, persistent bleeding from the nose, and severe headaches.
Following the mass arrests at the airport March 26, most of those arrested have demanded to be tried as a group. But government prosecutors, anxious to minimize publicity surrounding the demonstrators' trials, have proposed that they be tried separately, and that most of the trials be transferred to courts outside of Chiba, where public opposition to the new airport runs high.
Defense attorneys and activists have launched a public campaign to defend the demonstrators' right to be tried in Chiba. As a way of protesting the proposed transfer of their trials, Meguro and other the workers are able to organize themselves. I think one very important thing has been the victory of the teachers strike.? This has tremendously raised the confidence of the masses in their own strength, in their own struggles.
The class struggle is definitely going to intensify.
7. Peru's 140,000 public-school teachers carried out an eighty-day strike that ended July 27 when the government granted most of their demands for union recognition, a wage increase, and better working conditions.
prisoners in his cell block were staging a campaign of passive resistance, refusing to answer roll calls or to obey other instructions from their jailers.
Reporting on the beating incident, the JRCL's weekly Sekai Kakumei called for "a broad campaign to publicize this outrageous repression in order to help defeat the attempt to transfer the trials."
Correction
We have been informed that an error in translation crept into the item "Interview With a Lebanese Trotskyist Leader," published in our May 1 issue.
As printed, on P. 527, the sentence in question reads: "Insofar as they are able to force the Zionist army out of southern Lebanon and to protect the Lebanese border against Zionist intervention, we support the UN forces; to do anything else would be to allow the occupation to continue."
The sentence should have read as follows: "Insofar as they are able to force the Zionist army out of southern Lebanon and to protect the Lebanese border against Zionist intervention, we cannot stand against the UN forces; to do otherwise would be to allow the occupation to continue."
Churches Aid Zimbabwe Rebels
The World Council of Churches has announced a grant of $85,000 to the Patriotic Front, which is waging guerrilla warfare against the Smith regime in Salisbury.
According to a report in the August 11 Washington Post, the council said that the money came from a special fund to combat racism, and that it would be used for food, medical, and educational programs for Zimbabwean refugees now living in neighboring countries.
Notes
3. Partido Socialista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialist Party). The PSR split in early July. The bulk of its trade-union and peasant leaders form one faction, headed by former Peruvian Trotskyist leader Antonio Aragón. The other faction, headed by Gen. Leonidas Rodriguez, includes most of the bourgeois-nationalist military officers who originally formed the party in 1976.
4. Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers Party), a Peruvian sympathizing organization of the Fourth International. The PST participates in the FOCEP; Blanco and Enrique Fernández are the two FOCEP deputies who belong to the PST.
5. Partido Obrero Marxista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Marxist Workers Party), Peruvian affiliate of the Organizing Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International.
6. The Peruvian workers movement at present is divided between the main union federation, the CGTP, controlled by the Communist Party, and a number of important independent unions led by forces to the CP's left. In addition, the Stalinist bureaucrats atop the CGTP carried out a purge of militant secondary leaders earlier this year, further endangering the unity of the workers movement.