It has been nearly a year since President Belaúnde fell. An experiment which had begun under the aegis of reformism and under the auspices of a considerable sector of the national bourgeoisie ended up in the most miserable way in the wake of the scandalous and fraudulent agreement between the Peruvian government and the American IPC [International Pe troleum Company].
Any change, however small, had proved absolutely impossible in the framework of a policy that lacked the courage to infringe on the interests of imperialism in any way, that was anxious to avoid any break with the landholding oligarchy, and that accepted a traditional institutional mechanism enabling the most conservativè forces to paralyze any initiative they considered dangerous.
The immediate causes of the military coup which brought General Juan Velasco Alvarado to power were as follows: economic difficulties - above all, an extremely burdensome domestic national debt - a political crisis which among other things led to a split in President Belaúnde's own party; growing outrage among all sectors of public opinion resulting from a series of scandals of every kind; flare-ups of mass movements, which while localized in certain villages and regions still represented very significant symptoms.
Within the framework of the system, a regime based fundamentally on the army was the only possible alternative. But what was this alternative to be more precisely? Was Peru to have a "gorilla" regime like that of Brazil and other Latin-American countries at various times?
A knowledge of the tendencies existing in the Peruvian army would have made it possible to understand from the beginning that there was also another variant, a variant that, with all might be due sense of proportion, characterized as "Nasserite." In fact, since last October the country has been the theater of a nationalist-reformist political operation of unquestionable 1044
scope, which has aroused serious fears in the conservative and proimperialist circles and which has not failed to sow a certain confusion generally in the workers' and revolutionary movement.
Let us remember that already in 1962, at the time of the coup d'etat that brought Pérez Godoy to power, the revolutionary Marxists drew attention to the tendencies existing in the army and the specific character of the military regime which had been installed.1
It would have been well to return to this analysis when the occasion called for it and not to forget that it was the government of Pérez Godoy that created the Institute for Agrarian Reform (IRA), for example, and that opened the gates of power to the representatives of the more "modern" strata of the national bourgeoisie in the final analysis. The party of these layers of the national bourgeoisie, more over, was the only one of the big traditional parties that did not express hostility toward the military coup.
It could be said that the progressive wing of the military found Belaúnde deeply disappointing. That is why it decided to overthrow him and assume direct responsibility for an adventurous policy which the civilian governments had proved themselves completely incapable of carrying through.
Several times on other occasions I have stressed that in certain circumstances in underdeveloped neocolonial countries the army may represent the only solid and coherent force, the only instrument of rule which can be used with a minimum of efficiency. This occurs where the traditional ruling classes can no longer play the role they played in the past and where the bourgeois layers remain limited, weak, and insufficiently organized. More specifically, it occurs in situations of social disintegration and political brawling.
This function of the armed forces is the fundamental reason for the veritable mushrooming of open or camouflaged military regimes in Latin America as well as in Africa and Asia. But this does not mean that the only possible variant is an ultrareactionary dictatorship dominated by the most narrow-minded and brutal "gorillas."
For some time now tendencies have been developing among the military officers who are concerned about the long-term fate of the system, who understand the need for less irrational and more efficient economic development. And, although these officers most often have been educated in American military schools, they do not entirely lack impulses of national dignity.
These tendencies in the military realize that an improvement in the living standards of the broad masses, and the peasants first of all, is a precondition for averting or staving off revolutionary explosions, guerrilla movements, and civil wars.
At a time when all of Latin-American society is being shaken by an increasingly grave crisis, and even the Catholic Church itself is being shaken by an ever-deepening crisis, the army itself cannot be a homogeneous mass of hate-blinded reactionary "gorillas." This is all the more true because a considerable part of its cadres come from the middle classes, which most often live in difficult and insecure conditions. 2
The junta's first spectacular measure was the confiscation of the Talara refinery owned by the IPC. This was a move of greater symbolic value than practical importance.
In fact, the blow dealt to American holdings was minimal, if you bear in mind that all the U.S.'s investments in the petroleum sector come to roughly 6 percent of its total investment in the country.
It must not be forgotten either that after the measure against the IPC, the military government granted petroleum concessions to other American com- ¡panies, including Gulf Oil.
Nonetheless, everyone wondered at the time whether the American government would react on the basis of a violation of basic principles or whether it would prefer to view the affair from the empirical standpoint of its actual importance. It became clear quite rapidly that the imperialist administration had chosen the second alternative.
On December 5, 1968, the junta published a kind of manifesto, which was, so to speak, a programmatic statement. This declaration included discussion of long-term economic objectives, planning, a reform of business institutions with the workers sharing in the profits, a credit reform, the formation of cooperation - and all under state supervision. At the same time diplomatic and trade overtures were made to the European workers states.
An anecdote which I have not been able to verify, illustrates the junta's choice. Iwo progressive Brazilian economists, who had taken refuge in Peru, were already preparing to leave the country for fear of the military re gime when they were brought before General Velasco. He asked them to submit an analysis of the country's economic situation and possibilities to him in the shortest possible time.
University Law 17437 was another manifestation of the policy the junta had chosen. The objective was to reorganize education in the direction of strengthening scientific studies. If we can use European terminology, it was a neocapitalist reform. At the same time, it involved eliminating the old setup of university autonomy, including student participation in the administration (el tercio estudiantil-"the student third").
The student organizations were drained of their political content. Later, however, the government made some concessions, including one-third student participation in a university assembly. In a typically Bonapartist maneuver, General Velasco Alvarado himself sought to establish direct contact with the students to discuss the problems of concern to them.
or haaant
A crucially important problem which › the government had to confront was the question of the limit of territorial November 24, 1969
waters. (Peru, like other countries in Latin America, has set this limit at 200 miles, that is, a line far beyond the one established by the old international conventions which favor the big imperialist powers.)
Involved in this question was one
Involved in this question was one of the "new" strata of the indigenous bourgeoisie, the section active in fishing and the fish-meal industry. In the last decade, this sector has been one of the most dynamic (Peru is the world's biggest producer of fish meal). 3
A reduction of the offshore limit would benefit the American fishing companies, especially the ones operating out of California, which have ordered their boats to violate the line fixed by Peru. It was precisely the machine-gunning of a California fishing boat by a Peruvian naval vessel that touched off sharp tension between Peru and the United States and again raised the question of the 200-mile limit in a sharp form.
But the step of the military regime that aroused the greatest astonishment abroad and led Fidel Castro himself to take a position on it this last July was the adoption of the agrarian reform law. It was in fact an agrarian law which, at least on paper, seemed radical. The law applies to the entire national territory with the partial exception of the Selva [tropical forest areas. By this fact alone, the new law takes on an entirely different character from the previous regime's agrarian reform. Some expropriations have already taken place.
The basic standards set by the reform are as follows:
• For the coastal regions (where the capitalist-type enterprises are located as a rule) the property limit was set at 150 hectares [about 37l acres] in the case of land under cultivation and 1,500 hectares for land reserved for grazing.
• For the Sierra [mountainous region] and the Ceja de Selva (area bordering the tropical forest], the limit ranges from fifteen to fifty-five hectares but it can be quadrupled in the cases of landowners who pay wages above the necessary minimum, who possess basic capital improvements, or who are in good standing in their tax payments and who distribute profits to the workers.
• In the case of industrial farms, the economic unit will be maintained through the formation of cooperatives or agricultural companies.
• The owners of expropriated land are entitled to compensation. For live-
- in stock, compensation will be paid cash, while for land, cash compensation will be guaranteed up to a million soles [$25,580). For claims above that, the state has issued bonds for 15,000,000,000 soles which will be given to owners affected by the reform. These bonds will be transformable into industrial stocks through state ir.- tervention on behalf of those who want to invest in industry and can cover 50 percent of their investment with cash (the other 50 percent will be made up by the bonds).
• The peasants who get land - the minimum land holdings are set at three hectares - will have twenty years to pay the mortgages (the first payment having to be made within five years).
The meaning and objective of the reform are, then, quite clear. These are measures which will favor the richest and most "modern" strata; and, to the extent that they are realized, will produce a restructuring of the ruling classes.
On the one hand, capitalist agriculture will be strengthened and stimulated; on the other, resources will be drained off toward industrial development. The countryside is to emerge more perceptibly than in the past from its relative isolation by breaking the cycle of subsistence farming.
From the social standpoint, the "modern" bourgeois sectors are to grow and at the same time a layer is supposed to emerge of peasants and smallholders who would be less subject to revolutionary temptations than povertystricken landless peasants.
So far, American imperialism has adopted a very prudent attitude. Tensions have risen; for example, at the time of the affair with the California fishing boat, but at the same time there have been conciliatory declarations and measures.
For example, this May, while deploring the Peruvian government's decision against a visit by Rockefeller, the State Department let it be known that there was no danger of a rupture between Peru and the United States and continued training Peruvian officers in the Canal Zone. After the agrarian reform was passed, Washington declared that the new law was in line with the Alliance for Progress. In August the Interamerican Bank granted Peru an $80 million loan.
Such an attitude shows clearly that the United States has learned the lesson of Cuba and did not want to precipitate a major crisis by an extreme response. Moreover, this attitude also represents a line of favoring reinforcement of the more modern capitalist sectors, which in the last analysis have the prospect of gaining and not losing from the new course in Peru.
Let us remember that the American interests that have not been touched are incomparably more important than those that are being or will be infringed upon and that compromises are possible on the fishing question. And, finally, let us remember that to a certain extent tensions between the U.S. and Peru dovetail with tensions among different layers of the American capitalist class. (Even in the fishing question, those American investors in the fishing and fish-meal industry in Peru do not have the same interests as certain California companies). 4
The State Department could be all the more "moderate" because the turn in Peru was not the result of a mass movement whose dynamics might give cause for fear but was carried out under the control of military officers.
In fact, Velasco Alvarado wants to play a Bonapartist role, exploiting the support of the masses while favoring the "modern" sections of the national bourgeoisie. And it is possible that he will maintain himself in power by plebiscitary votes. 5
But he is carefully trying to avert any independent mass mobilization by alternating paternalistic attitudes with repression (such as the measures against the students in Cuzco and Lima, the repressions against the peasants in Huanta and Ayacucho, and the intervention against the Mala miners and the Cerro de Pasco workers).
Though it is not excluded that the government may make some spectacular decision with regard to certain prisoners and that it has already apparently made some overtures toward the 1965-66 political emigrés, the regime will not relax its grip.
The answer Velasco Alvarado is said to have given to a foreign journalist who asked him if he considered it opportune to mobilize the masses to block any coups by the oligarchy is an eloquent expression of his attitude. Velasco is supposed to have said: "Why should I do that if I can use the army?"
The plans of the military regime, then, seem clear: a rather radical reformist policy involving restructuring the ruling classes and making possible the creation of a base in the peasantry and some layers of the urban petty bourgeoisie; giving a new impetus to economic development; a readjustment of relations with the United States, especially with certain sectors of imperialist capital; a move toward certain workers states (the USSR and the East European countries) and an attempt at a détente with Cuba; use of the army as the essential agency of the normal functioning and defense of the system; and isolation of the revolutionary vanguard that inspired the struggles of 1962-64 and 1965.
Under the most favorable variant, Velasco and the wing of the national bourgeoisie which supports him would achieve all these objectives. However, there is a considerable gap between laying out perspectives and realizing them. The military regime will have to confront a series of intricate problems and it is hard now to predict exactly how it will come out on these.
First of all, the economic problems persist. For example, the domestic national debt has not shrunk and remains extremely burdensome. Secondly, the achievement of a new kind of relationship with the United States may not get beyond pious wishes inasmuch as the banks, which are tightly linked to American interests, retain full control over the economic life as a whole.
As for the oligarchy and the conservative currents in general which are fearful of having to pay for the reformist operation, their prudence today - doubtless inspired by the United States - should not deceive anyone.
These forces are only waiting for a favorable occasion to launch their counterattack. For the time being they are retrenching themselves in local positions of strength, which have substantial weight and offer considerable possibilities for maneuver and engagi ing in provocations (note the role played by the local strongmen in the brutal repression in Huanta).
A similar attitude is held by the traditional political teams, which are not ready to leave the stage. (This is especially true of APRA [Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana - American People's Revolutionary Alliance, an old radical nationalist party turned proimperialist), whose influence persists, especially in certain regions.)
It must also be taken into consideration that in the army itself the conservative tendencies are far from having disappeared; and they might, under certain circumstances, bloc with other right-wing forces and certain imperialist sectors.
Finally, in the specific case of the agrarian reform, enforcement of this law will run up against enormous difficulties. We can rely on the landowners and their lawyers to find all sorts of escape clauses and loopholes, etc., even aside from the economic problems that will arise.
Furthermore, what would happen if, regardless of the wishes of the junta, the masses in general, including the peasants, mobilize and intervene as an active factor? This is an essential point we can bet Velasco Alvarado is the first to wonder about...
The Peruvian revolutionary Marxists face first of all the task - and they are already carrying it out? - of care fully analyzing the changes that have occurred and of strictly defining the nature of the military regime. Any weakness in analysis would inevitably lead either to sectarian and dogmatic attitudes or to opportunistic concessions.
It is evident that some will want — in fact, they have already seized the occasion to do so - to drag out their old line on the so-called progressive nature of the national bourgeoisie and the necessity of collaborating with it.
At the same time, others will see only the repressive side of the regime, a military government, etc., and limit themselves to empty "denunciations."
j It is obviously essential to "denounce" the Velasco regime, exposing its class nature and procapitalist dynamics. But at the same time it is necessary to move into position to intervene in the actual play of the existing forces, striving at all costs to regenerate and revive the mass movement. Velasco's "reformist" paternalism must be broken by the independent action of the workers and peasants.
The appeal of the FIR (Frente de Izquierda Revolucionaria - Revolutionary Left Front, the Peruvian section of the Fourth International] to the students to intervene in the struggle for agrarian reform in the countryside - which was published in the previous issue of Quatriéme Internationale 8— is an absolutely correct guideline in this regard.
The revolutionary Marxists will fight to make the agrarian reform bring real changes. They will fight to get it carried through without the peasants having to pay for the land they receive, to have the cooperatives organized by the peasants themselves on the basis of the comunidade [indigenous communal forms.
They will demand the expropriation of the banks and the nationalization of foreign trade, which is the only way to break the imperialist grip. They will demand workers control in the nationalized enterprises.
They will struggle for the right of the working class, the peasants, and the radicalized petty-bourgeois strata to freely organize political parties and trade unions.
And they will fight for the independence of new student organizations, which through their participation in the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggle, will avoid any temptation to isolate themselves along professional lines.
Finally, they will demand unconditional release of all the political prisoners beginning with Hugo Blanco, the symbol of the revolutionary peasant struggles in Peru.
September 25.
& See Intercontinental Press, September 22, p. 839. November 24, 1969
Gulf Oil Declares War
Projects Pincers Attack on Bolivia
Gulf Oil Corporation is lobbying in Washington for retaliation against Bolivia if sufficient "compensation" is not paid for the Gulf holdings nationalized in that country October 17. The company also announced that it would use private means to put pressure on the military regime of General Alfredo Ovando Candia.
This two-pronged strategy was outlined at a press conference held by Gulf's chairman, E.D. Brockett, in Washington October 30. The Wall Street Journal reported that Brockett "warned that any effort by Bolivia to sell oil abroad will be countered by an 'embargo.""
Brockett said he was "confident" his firm could secure an injunction against the sale of Bolivian oil in the United States. The Wall Street Journal added that Brockett "indicated he thought it likely similar marketing bans could be enforced in such other potential markets as Japan."
On the second front, the report said, "The prospect of a crackdown by the U.S. government on Bolivia was also invoked. Mr. Brockett remarked pointedly that the so-called Hickenlooper Amendment is 'the law of the land'- and contended that this seizure would clearly call for its application if compensation isn't prompt."
This law requires cutting off all American aid to any country that nationalizes U. S.-owned businesses without "just" compensation. Washington has refrained from invoking the Hickenlooper Amendment in Peru where a military junta also nationalized U.S.-owned oil operations at the end of 1968.
At present, Bolivia, the poorest country in continental Latin America, receives $15 million per year in U.S. "aid," although most of this has strings attached requiring purchases of certain American goods that could behad at better prices from other countries.
General Ovando has offered to pay Gulf an unspecified amount in installments from the proceeds of Bolivian oil exports. Gulf has refused to accept this, claiming that it still owns all the oil produced at its former holdings.
Gulf's stand is in contradiction even with U.S. law, written to protect the interests of American corporations in their colonial adventures. Washington officially recognizes the right of other countries to nationalize property if "compensation" is paid. The use of revenues from property that has been nationalized is not banned.
Gulf has refused to name a figure it would consider "fair" for compensation. It has indicated it will demand far more than its actual investment in Bolivia. The Wall Street Journal reported: "It [Gulf] contends it should recover investment of about $150 million plus an allowance for profits which could have been anticipated in the future."
The Bolivian oil fields represented only a tiny fraction - 1.1 percent - of Gulf's worldwide production. Bolivia, in producing some 2.2 million tons of crude oil in 1968, ranked in eighth place among the ten oil-producing countries of Latin America. Venezuela, with 188.4 million tons of crude oil in 1968, ranked as number one by a wide margin. (Peru, with 4.2 million tons, ranked only slightly higher than Bolivia.)
Bolivia has hoped to export its oil to neighboring Latin-American countries, particularly Peru. The Gulf executive indicated his company would try to prevent this. He also pointed to the fact that Bolivian crude oil is of such thin quality that it is mainly refined into gasoline, while the prime industrial demand in Latin America is for fuel oil.
Marcel Niedergang, in the October
29 English-language weekly edition of the Paris daily Le Monde, indicates some of the pressures that have forced the otherwise pro-American dictatorships in Peru and Bolivia to take over U.S. oil companies.
These regimes have traditionally accepted the unfavorable balance of trade imposed by American imperialism, and have allowed U.S. corporate giants to extract millions in profits without significantly furthering local industrialization. Recently, however, the relationship has been altered still more unfavorably for the oilproducing countries in Latin America.
The "rules of the game between the United States and the oil-producing countries of the Western Hemisphere," Niedergang writes, "are being modified by Washington's need to assure its strategic reserves, and by changes taking place in the international market.
"The east coast of the United States will soon be able to get Alaskan crude oil at $l a barrel, and Venezuela's oil is bound to appear very costly by comparison."
President Nixon, in a March 4 press conference, suggested that it was not magnanimity that kept him from invoking the Hickenlooper Amendment in Peru: "I hope that is not necessary because that would have a domino effect all over Latin America."
Even without direct retaliation by Washington, the dominoes have begun to fall. The October 17 seizure of Gulf's Bolivia operation was the most dramatic incident, but Ecuador has demanded that Texaco give up two-thirds of its concessions in that country, while left-wing parties in Chile have introduced bills calling for nationalization of the American oil corporations.
These are all small producers. The big dominoes - Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina - have yet to be heard from.
demand unconditional release. If we are going to fight imperialism, it makes no sense to continue persecuting and imprisoning the best antiimperialist fighters.
Together with the revolutionary people, we demand the immediate re lease of Felipe Vásquez, J. Moreno, Córdova, Chambi, Ortega, Pereja, Orosa, and all the revolutionary patriots imprisoned in the Panóptico de San Pedro.
At the same time, we demand the release of Loyola Guzmán, Tertu T. de Orasa, Geraldine de Coronado, who are being held in the Obrajes women's prison; Régis Debray and C. Bustos who are in the military prison in Camiri.
Together with the revolutionary
Bolivia
Release the Political Prisoners!
La Paz
With respect to the recent developments, the La Paz Regional Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario [Revolutionary Workers party, the Bolivian section of the Fourth International] states the following:
1. The nationalization of the Gulf Oil Co. is a triumph of the Bolivian people and its revolutionary sectors. It is a battle won in the war of national and social liberation that the Bolivians are waging against capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression.
In saluting this popular victory and declaring our support to it, we Trotskyists remind the people that this anti-imperialist triumph is bound up with the struggle of the Nancahuazú guerrillas, with Che Guevara, Inti Peredo, and their comrades. It is a result of the struggle of these fighters, who, in March 1967 and later, said, "Enough imperialist exploitation!" and by their example and their heroism touched a responsive chord in our entire Bolivian fatherland.
2. The expulsion of the Gulf Oil Co. is a step forward. But the struggle of revolutionists does not end there, because no other road to civilization and progress for the peoples is possible but the one that leads through socialist construction.
If the capitalist system is retained, 1048
if the oppressive structure continues with the bourgeoisie in power, imperialism will find ways to pervert this conquest and integrate it into its machinery, as was the case with the measures enacted under the MNR [Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionaria - Revolutionary
Nationalist
Movement] regime.
Therefore, we call upon the Bolivian masses to mobilize and close ranks around the consistent revolutionists, who, arms in hand, opened up the road for the liberation of Bolivia. We call upon the masses to remain alert against the machinations of the defenders and lackeys of imperialism and those others who would substitute tinkering and piecemeal measures from above for the great revolutionary march of socialism which is generated from below.
Every step forward, every triumph, must be consolidated; but we cannot stop there, we must go forward.
3. The struggle against imperialism in Bolivia has its martyrs, its heroes, its victims. To those who gave their lives, like Che Guevara, Inti Peredo, and their companions, we pay grateful homage in this hour when the people have dealt a blow to imperialism.
But for the victims of this patriotic struggle, who crowd the prisons, we people, we Trotskyists demand cessation of the furious persecution and non or lne turous persecunon and the attacks on the liberty of the general secretary of the POR, Hugo González Moscoso, and all our national leaders.
The release of the revolutionary fighters will also be a victorv over fighters will also be a victory over imperialism!
For the La Paz Regional Committee of the POR:
José F. Mirabel M.; Juan M. Alegría L.; Macario Plata Siles.
October 17, 1969.
Czechoslovakia
Uncover Dangerous
Crossword Puzzle
Under the inspiring direction of Moscow's political police, the Husak regime is gradually making Czechoslovakia once again safe for Stalinism.
A recent example of prize detective work was the discovery of a counterrevolutionary crossword puzzle in the pages of Prace, the journal of the trade unions.
A definition read: "Name of a national Czechoslovak hero."
The solution was "Palach," the name of the young student who set himself on fire last year to protest the Soviet invasion.
Prace was fined 50,000 crowns [alt most $7,000] for the crime.
Notes
1. See my article, "Amerique Latine 1962," Quatrieme Internationale, December 1962.
2. General Velasco Alvarado himself comes from a family of modest circumstances; and, in a conversation with Le Monde's correspondent Marcel Niedergang, he stressed the fact that the ma ity of the military officers have come fr the middle classes.
3. The greater part of the capital is Peruvian but there is already major American involvement which, according to the estimates, ranges between 25 and 40 percent.
4. This is stressed in an article by Niedergang (Le Monde, September 12, 1969). The facts in this article are generally useful.
5. Among the more recent decisions of the government, along with nationalization of the country's water resources, was the de cision to undertake a constitutional reform that would give the right to vote to illiterates, that is, the great majority of the population.
6. After the seizure of power, Velasco de cided to shorten the workweek of the state bureaucracy. It is true, however, that later he laid off clerks in certain ministries.
7. At this writing, I have a draft document in my hands submitted for discussion in the FIR, Hugo Blanco's organization. As soon as it is adopted in its final form, we will publish it. I have already made considerable use of it in my analysis.