El Frontón Prison
Until a few years ago Peru was essentially in the hands of the oligarchy and of the imperialist interests bound up with this sector. Imperialist domination rested on the country's backwardness and its position as a raw-materials producer. However, within this imperialist structure a manufacturing industry was pene trating into the country and enjoyed favorable conditions as against the weak national bourgeoisie.
Although fundamentally benefiting imperialist sectors, this process of industrialization strengthened sections of the national bourgeoisie and the upper strata of the middle class (technicians, managers, engineers), which shared in this development.
It is these imperialist sectors, and the national sectors linked to them, that this government fundamentally represents, although it continues to be an arbiter among all the exploiters.
As a representative of these sectors, the government is interested in promoting the development of the country, but its aim is a bourgeois kind of development benefiting the new-type exploiting sectors and not the Peruvian people.
Measures such as the agrarian reform and the nationalization of La Brea-Parínas reveal this bourgeois objective.
The formation of an extensive layer of agricultural proprietors who would consume the products of the manufacturing industry would benefit the interests of the capitalists and for this reason they have an interest in the agrarian reform. Moreover, this measure has the advantage for them of dampening the combativity of the peasants and creating a social base of relatively passive rural proprietors. This is what the new exploiting sectors want to do in the countryside. However, they cannot achieve it because of the manifold contradictions among the exploiters and between them and the people.
The nationalization of La Brea-Parinas means cheaper fuel for industry, besides removing the source of embarrassment to the Peruvian government represented by the scandalous illegality of the possession of these oil fields by the IPC [International Petroleum Company]. This embarrassment was becoming intolerable in the face of the growing nationalist consciousness of our people.
A clear proof that the government is not nationalist is that it has not proceeded to nationalize the other enterprises in imperialist hands, such as Toquepala, Cerro de Pasco, Marcona, etc. On the contrary, the government not only gave assurances that the measure taken in the case of La Brea-Pariñas was exceptional, but has continued the tradition of past Peruvian governments of selling the national resources, handing over the Cuajone oil fields to the imperialists.
In the disputes between the imperialist companies and the workers movement, the government's position has been unquestionably proimperialist. We saw this in the strike of the Cerro de Pasco workers. We saw this at the time of the Toquepala strike against Southern Peru Copper Corporation (when the Peruvian workers were fighting heroically against this imperialist concern, the "nationalist" government was turning over Cuajone to the same company).
We are seeing that in the conflict between the Texoro workers and the imperialist Duncan Fox company, the government is clearly and scandalously taking the side of the imperialist bosses.
The antiuniversity law is another demonstration that the government is not nationalist, since the objective of this law is to make the universities conform to the needs of capitalist development under the control of the Yankees and not for the benefit of the Peruvian people.
With the rise of Belaundismo the politics associated with President
Belaúnde Terry, who was ousted by the present military regime], the developmentalist sectors took a big step forward, but one which was largely neutralized by the "opposition" representing the old oligarchy. With the coup d'etat, the developmentalist sectors won a greater victory. However, this does not mean that the oligarchy has been defeated. The struggle among the exploiters continues.
The promulgation of the agrarian reform law was a serious blow against the oligarchy; but the hardest blow was the expropriation of the industrial plantations of the Costa [the coastal strip], which is a strong bulwark of the old oligarchy. In its other aspects, the law does not differ essentially from the previous one.
By expropriating the industrial plantations and paying compensation in the form of bonds that can be invested in the manufacturing industry, the government is trying to liquidate this sector of the old oligarchy, not by crushing it economically but by incorporating it into the developmentalist sectors.
Two other important measures taken by the government against the old oligarchy are the reform of the judicial branch and the "Freedom of the Press Statute."
Although the reform of the judiciary proposes to streamline the ultracorrupt bourgeois court system, fundamentally it represents replacing the old oligarchical bureaucracy with a projunta bureaucracy.
The "Freedom of the Press Statute" is aimed at limiting the effectiveness of the great bulwark of the oligarchy: its control of virtually all the country's newspapers and magazines. Undoubtedly this "statute" will also serve the government as another instrument against the left, but its fundamental objective is to curb the power of the old oligarchy.
The old oligarchy is rending its garments for "democracy" and clamoring for elections.
The junta has expressed its intention to remain in power for a long time and someday to call a constituent assembly that would give the vote to illiterates (until now the great majority of the Peruvian people have been prevented from participating in our "democratic elections").
The FIR [Frente de Izquierda Revolucionario - Front of the Revolution- March 30, 1970
ary Left-the Peruvian Trotskyists] fights for a workers and peasants government, for a socialist government.
support; and (2) striving to get the unions to present unified lists of demands at the level of the regional federations, industrywide, and at the
It felt fords or the we hande
We know that we can achieve this only through a revolution, that the exploiters will not readily surrender power into the hands of the workers.
But we also know that the Peruvian people are still not ready to struggle for power.
The various popular sectors are struggling for their immediate, most deeply felt, and fundamentally economic needs.
We are accompanying our people in this struggle, realizing that all aspects of it, if they are conducted effectively, lead toward the revolution.
The masses learn in struggle, and this apprenticeship is not wasted when it is guided by a revolutionary party, when this party incorporates the best fighters in the mass struggle, when the party continues to learn from this struggle.
The Peruvian working class has two acute problems at the present timethe rising cost of living and unemployment.
The workers are continually struggling against these two tragic problems.
Unfortunately, mass mobilization methods are not being used correctly.
Moreover, the struggle of the workers is atomized. Every union confronts the employers separately. The CTP [Confederación de Trabajadores Peruanos--Peruvian Workers Federation] led by the APRA [Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana— American People's Revolutionary Alliance] never centralized the workers' struggle. Unfortunately, the CGTP (Confederación General de Trabajadores Peruanos - General Confederation of Peruvian Workers], led by the pro-Moscow Communist party, has continued this tradition and has never played the role of centralizing the struggle.
In view of this reality, our position is for centralizing the struggle and for systematic, rational utilization of mass mobilization methods.
The fight for centralization takes two forms: (1) unifying the unions engaged in struggle, giving them the maximum level of the national confederation.
Regarding methods. Theworkers are accustomed to concentrating their efforts on the legal aspect of their demands, neglecting the need to mobilize. When they resort to mobilization, they do so at the last minute and in a debilitated way, sometimes finding themselves forced to adopt desperate attitudes.
We do not discount the legal aspect of economic struggles. We think that in order not to give the bosses any pretexts and so that the compa- ñeros will see that we have exhausted all legal means, this aspect must be given careful attention. The difference is that we fight for centering the struggle from the beginning on a planned mobilization of the masses, and, if a strike is being considered, for calling the action after a whole previous mobilization has created a favorable atmosphere.
The recourses which are now used to win support for a strike after it has already been going on for several days must be employed not only from the beginning of the strike, but long before it begins, from the beginning of the presentation of demands through legal channels. And these methods must be utilized to the fullest extent and in a systematic way, mobilizing all of the masses. In its general lines, the problem of the white-collar workers is the same.
On the peasants. Our position is clear: Land yes, payment no. In my article on the peasants, I went into more detail on the forms this struggle is taking.*
On the students. We support the valiant struggle of the student movement against the university law.
Unfortunately, even the students who already understand the necessity of a socialist revolution still do not understand that in order to give impetus to the revolutionary process, or even to strengthen their campus struggle, they must penetrate into the workers movement and the peasants movement. This more than anything would give solidity to the student movement.
Anti-imperialism. We are ready to fight alongside all those who struggle for the nationalization of the foreign concerns and for all measures that represent a step forward toward national independence.
Our active solidarity with Vietnam, Cuba, and other countries in a similar position is part of the anti-imperialist struggle.
Elections and civil liberties. We do not confuse the struggle of the exploited sectors for their liberties with the struggle of the old oligarchy to recover its full power.
its tull power.
We are for a constituent assembly in which illiterates would participate. We know that neither this government nor any bourgeois government is going to surrender power to the workers through elections.
However, since the Peruvian people have not yet undergone this experience, they may be attracted by the lure of elections. It is our duty to accompany "the people in this experience so that they will learn its lessons to the full, so that they will realize that, even if the exploiters give the vote to illiterates, there is no possibility that they will yield power to the exploited through peaceful means.
At present this point does not interest us greatly. The masses are concerned with immediate, essentially economic, gains. And the vanguard is already beginning to see the need for a socialist revolution, even though it does not know how to carry it out.
We fight for unrestricted freedom for the workers', peasants', and students' movements.
We fight for freedom for the left movement.
We fight for freedom for the social and political prisoners.
The capitalist press has always opposed such freedom, such democratic rights for the Peruvian people. Therefore, it would be a foolish mistake to confuse our struggle for civil liberties with the struggle of the old oligarchy for its freedom of the press.
We fight to put the press, as an expression of power, into the hands of the workers.
Nor do we believe what the government says about "Peruvianizing" the press or putting the publishing concerns in the hands of the workers in some cases.
We know that the developmentalist 280
capitalist sector wants to move into the place of the old oligarchy in the area of control of the press.
We know that the press, like all other organs of power, will pass into the hands of the workers only as a result of a tenacious struggle against all
Letter from Bolivian Political the exploiters. We know that, as always, in moments of danger all the exploiters will close ranks against us. They will forget their internal disputes to fight their common enemy - the working classes, the real Peru.
February 1970.
Notes
* See "The Mobilization of the Peasants," Intercontinental Press, October 13, 1969, page 904. - IP