[Under the title, "Hugo Blanco Analyzes the Crisis in the Revolution," the following article appeared in the September 21 issue of Vea y Lea, a widely circulated weekly magazine published in Venezuela.
(The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
As an outcome to the failure of many guerrilla campaigns to achieve their objectives, Latin America is going through a welcome stage of discussing the best roads to liberation.
But the lines being discussed are not new. No matter in what novel forms they are clothed, we can still recognize the old positions of left movements throughout the world.
One line is reformism. This is represented by the pro-Moscow Communist parties and like-minded groupings. They hold the positions that distinguished the reformism of the Second International and of all periods.
The reformists' method for changing society is based on making choices within the bourgeois system in order to obtain reforms which, as they see it, will lead to our liberation. The axis of their activity is not mobilizing the masses, but supporting sectors of the bourgeoisie that they consider "progressive."
The reformists' participation in elections as well as their capitulation to regimes like the present military junta in Peru are based on their confidence that if properly supported these sections of the bourgeoisie will carry out increasingly deep-cutting reforms that will lead to socialism.
The reformists sometimes make use of mass mobilizations. However, they do not stimulate the masses toward independent action but toward support or reinforcement of some sector of the bourgeoisie, some opportunist candidate, or some "progressive" military officer.
They promote illusions in parliamentary democracy. Their participation in elections does not differ essentially from that of bourgeois candidates. They give the masses the idea that by voting for the candidates they 061
list, the people can solve all their problems.
As the reformists see it, hiding the truth is an "intelligent tactic." They think that by doing this they are fooling the enemy, while in reality it is the masses they are deceiving.
In the recent period the failures of the guerrillas and the reformist measures taken by governments like the one in Peru have served to reinforce the reformist current somewhat. Unfortunately, Compañero Fidel has helped to strengthen it by his support to the military junta currently entrusted with defending the capitalist system in Peru.
Another recognizable line is ultraleftism. This takes the form of glorification of urban or rural guerrilla warfare (guerrillismo) and various types of terrorism. The ultraleftists engage in all these activities without any regard for the mass movement.
A false interpretation of the Cuban revolution, the discrediting of reformism, and the weakness or absence of Marxist parties were the causes that gave rise to this current. Its essential social base is the middle class, especially desperate student elements.
The ultraleftists have a profound contempt for the mass movement. Because they have arrived at revolutionary conceptions they consider themselves far above the rest of the people; they see themselves as the saviors, as the messiahs of the people.
The third line is our road. It is not a novelty the other two are not either). Our line is a development of the old Marxist conception that "the emancipation of the workers will be the achievement of the workers them- 'selves." We do not believe that the emancipation of the workers will be the achievement of "progressive" elements of the bourgeoisie, or members of parliament, or military officers reforming the system.
Nor do we believe that the workers will be emancipated by a group of courageous fighters making the revolution for the people, whose only role would be to "support" or "reinforce" the revolutionary action of a group of supermen. We believe that the masses will emancipate themselves.
We know that the masses are now at a low level of struggle but we are certain that this level will rise gradually until they attain power.
We believe that our activity as revolutionists must be based on the present level of consciousness, organization, and struggle of the masses; that our task lies in taking the masses progressively up the ladder leading to the conquest of power and building socialism.
Our roots in the masses, in the working class, or the peasants and students and other sectors, give us an awareness of their most deeply felt aspirations at the moment, their organizational forms, and their methods of fighting. This is where we start from. But this does not mean capitulating to spontanéism. From the start, 'no matter how low the level of the masses, we stress the importance of direct, independent action without relying on any other force but the mobilized masses.
No matter how modest the victories that are won, we use them to demonstrate the effectiveness of mobilization by the masses. Every victory is exploited to raise the consciousness of the masses, to increase their self-confidence, to advance their forms of organization and tactics of struggle. For us such partial victories are not a "solution" to the problems of the people but an impulse to new struggles.
We do not exclude utilizing the tactics the reformists value so highly, such as electoral and legal activities. Nor do we exclude resorting to guerrilla warfare, bombings, or the other favorite activities of the ultraleftists.
The difference between us and the other currents is that we use both kinds of tactics in subordination to mass mobilization, as an outgrowth of the level of the masses.
One example of applying our method was given in the peasant movement of La Convención and El Cuzco. Here we started off from demands such as observance of the eight-hour day and ending the mistreatment of the peasants. Many times we participated in commissions sent by the masses to present petitions for the establishment of a school.
Throughout the entire process we fought against the reformism of the Communist party, in comparison with which, at the beginning, our influence was miniscule. Legal and electoral actions were exalted as the ultimate methods by these opportunists.
When they did not resist mass mobilizations as provocations or adventurism, they oriented them in accordance with their reformist methodology. The victories achieved were attributed to the skill of some leader or some lawyer, or to "conscientious enforcement of the law" by some functionary.
We were branded as provocateurs and agents of imperialism and the landlords.
However, the people can learn from reality and we pointed out the reality to the peasants. We showed them the failure of purely legal activity. We showed them the success of mass mobilization, even though the authorities and the bureaucrats tried to hide it under the legalism with which they covered their retreats. We demonstrated this success later by mobilizations that did not push for enforcement of the laws but overrode the bourgeois antipeasant laws.
The state apparatus was increasingly exposed as the servant of the exploiters. The peasants moved nearer and nearer to the conviction that they had to arm themselves in order to defend their rights. Our guerrilla movement and the militia that preceded it emerged as a result of this rise in consciousness. It took form within the mass movement, as its composition indicated. Our guerrillas were peasants, in whose ranks were union leaders elected by the masses.*
Certain people construed this development to mean that we Trotskyists had been forced to "abandon our orthodoxy under the pressure of reality," and that we "had come to understand the necessity of armed struggle." That is, as they saw it, we, the followers of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee that directed the taking of power in Russia, the followers of the organizer of the Red Army, had to abandon our "Trotskyist orthodoxy" and come, finally (!), to realize the need for armed struggle.
This interpretation is very instructive; it shows the way the minds of some ultraleftists work. If in some country we work with the masses at a low level of struggle, trying to raise them to a higher one, they think that our consciousness is as low as that of the masses. They think that only preparing for guerrilla warfare (or talking about it) shows that you are convinced of the necessity of armed struggle.
As these ultraleftists see it, the masses count for nothing. It is enough for one person or a group to come to an understanding of the necessity of armed struggle in order to carry it out. Therefore, they think that the fact that we took up arms in 1962 meant that only then had we come to grasp the need for armed struggle.
The masses reach an understanding of the necessity of armed struggle when they see that bourgeois legality is a farce, when they see that the "public" institutions are only instruments of the exploiters, when they see that the majority is for change and that the minority in power refuses to carry it out.
We revolutionists have known all these truths for some time, but the masses are in the process of learning them. Some sections have learned more than others. In addition, the masses are learning how to organize and mobilize themselves, to believe in themselves, to understand that they are capable of doing great things. If they are correctly led in this learning process, they will come to understand that they are capable of taking power into their hands.
The party, that was our weak point in La Convención. The lack of cadres and the dynamic of the mass movement in which we were caught up blocked us from building the party.
It is not enough to raise transitional slogans in ascending order. You need an organized party to formulate these slogans correctly as befits each case, and to apply them.
Today the enemy is so well organized that even torturing prisoners has been elevated to a science, with specialized institutes for training and theoreticians who teach the art by correspondence.
Facing such highly perfected organizations, it is suicide to deny ourselves the right to organize.
While the mass organizations are important, organizing the enlightened vanguard of the masses, the elements that understand the necessity of a socialist revolution and the method to be followed, is no less important.
It is too simplistic to bring up the negative role played by the CPs as an argument against the necessity of a party. The Stalinist parties are guided by the reformist and counterrevolutionary ideology of the Soviet bureaucracy, the product of the ebb of the Russian revolution. These parties were subjected to the bureaucratic norms appropriate to the braking role which they have played and continue to play.
The Stalinist parties are one thing; revolutionary parties are quite another. Revolutionary parties are not in the service of the Soviet bureaucracy, but of the revolution. They have the Marxist ideology of revolution and not the Stalinist doctrine of "peaceful coexistence." They practice democratic centralism, not bureaucratic authoritarianism.
If the task of revolutionists is to orient the masses from their present level, the revolutionists must organize to carry out this work. And their organization cannot be a military one; it must be a political one, which will approach trade-union, electoral, and also military problems from the standpoint of mass action within the framework of an overall strategy. A revolutionary organization cannot address itself to only one aspect of the revolution, the military one.
Rates of development differ, diverse transitional slogans can be used, the level of consciousness of the masses varies widely, but there are some general principles that can be pointed out.
We must start from the present level of the masses, raising them through a program of transitional slogans and the most varied forms of mass mobilization toward the struggle for power.
In order to carry out this task scientifically, we must organize in a party operating under the rules of democratic centralism.
Pentagon Shell Game
That Mysterious 'Submarine Base' in Cuba
"Will the Pentagon please make up its mind," editorialized the Christian Science Monitor October 15. "Does it or does it not believe that evidence indicates that the Soviet Union is building, will build or contemplates building a missile submarine base at Cienfuegos, Cuba?"
Neither the Pentagon nor its chief commander showed any inclination to answer the Christian Science Monitor's question. In fact, the Nixon administration had been caught in the act of trying to whip up hysteria against Cuba.
On September 25 an unidentified White House official told newsmen:
"We are watching the deployment of Soviet naval activity and of possible construction there. The Soviet Union can be under no doubt that we would view the establishment of a strategic base in the Caribbean with the utmost seriousness."
The Pentagon made similar charges the same day. According to an article by Benjamin Welles in the October
14 New York Times, a Pentagon spokesman "said that it (the Pentagon] had indications that the Russians wanted to establish 'a permanent submarine facility' in Cuba. He implied that the information had come from flights of American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft."
The Cuban government, of course, has every right to extend any facilities it wishes to the Soviet Union. In this case, however, Washington appears to have constructed the Cienfuegos "submarine base" from whole cloth.
Tass, the Soviet press agency, denied any plans to establish such a base, and Pravda, the official organ of the Soviet Communist party, suggested that the Nixon administration had raised the charges in an attempt to create an atmosphere favorable to Republican Congressional candidates.
At least one U.S. Congressman had reason to share Pravda's view. On October 13 administration officials who had been invited to testify on the matter in a secret session of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee failed to appear.
Said Dante Fascell, the subcommit- October 26, 1970
tee chairman: "... I do find it exceedingly strange that the discussion of a matter which is alleged to be of such grave importance as to threaten our national and international security should be conducted strictly between high administration officials and the press."
Three days earlier, James Goodsell had written in the Christian Science Monitor that "United States officials in Washington say the information upon which the White House statements were based was both dated and somewhat tenuous."
This did not stop U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird from telling a press conference October 12 that "there is evidence naval base construction is going forward" at Cienfuegos.
The next day not only the construction but even the construction plans had disappeared. Benjamin Welles reported in the October 14 Times:
"The Defense Department said today [October 13] that new evidence from Cuba made it now appear less likely that the Soviet Union was planning to build a submarine base there."
Welles went on to describe what the evidence did show:
"... it was disclosed here [Washington] that the extent of the construction being carried out ... amounted to two single-story barracks - which a qualified source described as resembling chicken houses-plus a soccer field, a tennis court and an exercise area."
So far, not even Nixon has claimed that a tennis court is an offensive weapon.
REVIEWS
Israel and Nationalism
The Truth About Israel and Zionism by Nathan Weinstock and Jon Rothschild, Pathfinder Press, New York,
N. Y. 15 pp. $.25. 1970.
Nathan Weinstock is the author of Le sionisme contre Israel [Zionism Against Israel]. A resident of Palestine prior to the creation of Israel, he now lives in Belgium. Jon Rothschild is the Socialist Workers party candidate for lieutenant governor of New York state.
Weinstock deals primarily with the Israeli state: how it was formed, how it manages to continue to exist. He provides a great deal of little-known information - such as the fact that in 1968 Israel received 10 percent of the world foreign aid to all underdeveloped countries - in the process of refuting the myths of a "democratic" or "socialist Israel.
He places the Palestinian revolution in the overall context of the colonial revolution and demonstrates the necessity for the Jewish community in Palestine - in its own interest-to ally itself with this struggle.
Rothschild takes up some of the arguments of "left" or "radical" Zionists, who believe that Israel can be cleansed of its more openly racist and imperialist features.
Such a belief, Rothschild holds, is generally based on the claim that Zionism represents a Jewish nationalism comparable to that of Blacks or Chicanos in the United States. He shows, however, that unlike the latter movements, Zionism represents petty-bourgeois nationalism. Instead of struggling against the oppression of imperialism, it has necessarily become a junior partner of imperialism in oppressing Palestinians.
Together, the two essays provide a brief but clear explanation of the revolutionary-socialist approach to the Middle East question.
- Allen Myers
REVIEWS
Fateh's Case for a Democratic Palestine
The goals of the Palestinian revolution have often been subject to distortion by Zionists and their allies, one of the most notable incidents being Nixon's claim during a television broadcast that the Palestinians wanted "to drive Israel into the sea."
Dissemination of the truth about the aims of the Palestinians has been aided by publication of a document in the October 9 and October 16 issues of the American revolutionary socialist weekly The Militant.*
Entitled "Towards a Democratic State in Palestine," the document states the position of Fateh, the largest of the Palestinian liberation organizations.
Fateh is fighting for "a progressive, democratic and non-sectarian Palestine in which Christian, Moslem and Jew will worship, work, live peacefully and enjoy equal rights." It hopes that Jews living in Israel will join in carrying out this revolutionary transformation.
In support of its stand, Fateh reviews the experience of both Palestinians and Jewish immigrants.
No attempt is made to gloss over the anti-Jewish sentiments that were aroused among the Palestinian masses after 1948; in fact, these are squarely condemned. At the same time, Fateh maintains that this anti-Jewish attitude is being overcome as the liberation movement gains size, strength, and self-confidence.
Fateh acknowledges that it will be more difficult to change the attitude of Jews living in Israel. They stand in the unhappy position of a once-oppressed people now acting as oppressors, with a reactionary government serving as an outpost for U.S. imperialism in the oil-rich Middle East. The document deals with the contradiction in considerable detail, citing the historical record to show how it came about.
The winning of Jews -both outside and within Israel-to the Palestinian revolution, the document maintains,
* The two issues can be obtained from The Militant, 873 Broadway, New York, N. Y. 10003. Send 40 cents.
N. Y. 1000s. send 40 cents.
will be based on the objective reality that Israel cannot solve the problem of anti-Semitism as the Zionists have claimed. "Security" for the Jews in Israel has proved to be utopian. By depriving the Palestinian Arabs of their security, the Zionist state generated counterforces that have led to permanent war and ever-increasing insecurity for the Jews. But this has likewise led to a new perspective:
"In the 1948-1967 period, Jews enjoyed security when the Palestinians and eventually all other Arabs with them were deprived of security.
"The Palestinian revolution has provided a new set of alternatives, no security in the racist state but all the security in the new democratic Palestine."
Fateh outlines its vision of a democratic Palestine.
A truncated Palestine consisting of the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza Strip is unequivocally rejected, as are a number of other proposals which have been advanced and which might be characterized as an attempt to create a "Zionism with a human face."
"The new democratic Palestine is NOT a substitute for liberation. Rather, it is the ultimate objective of liberation. A client state in the West Bank and Gaza, an Avneri-style de-Zionized or Pasteurised Israel or a Semitic Confederation are all categorically rejected by the revolution. They are all racist blueprints to delude the Palestinians and other Arabs and continue Israeli hegemony and Palestinian subjugation. ... The sine qua non of the new Palestine is the destruction of the political, economic and militarist foundations of the chauvinist-racist settlerstate."
The objective as defined by Fateh is to liberate all of Palestine and end its status as a beachhead of imperialism in the Middle East:
"The liberated Palestine will be part of the Arab homeland and will not be another alien state within it. The eventual unity of Palestine with other Arab states will make boundary problems less relevant and will end [the]
artificiality of the present status of Israel, and possibly that of Jordan as well.
"The new country will be anti-imperialist and will join the ranks of progressive revolutionary countries. Therefore, it will have to cut the present life-links with, and the total dependence on, the United States. Therefore, integration within the area will be the foremost prerequisite."
The recognition of Palestine as an inseparable part of the Arab world does not imply any curtailment of the rights of Jewish residents willing to accept the nonsectarian state. This is an important point, on which the document places heavy stress.
Fateh does not specify the political or economic structures which it believes will be established, saying that this will be decided in the process of the liberation struggle. Thus certain questions that are crucial to the fate of the revolutionary movement in the Middle East are not touched on, such as the nature of the future economy, the role of Nasserism, of Stalinism, the need for a revolutionary-socialist leadership, etc.
But the document does set a certain framework by rejecting "a theocratic, an authoritarian, or a racist-chauvinist form of government. It will be a country that does not allow oppression or exploitation of any group of people by any other group or individual; a state that provides equal opportunities for its people in work, worship, education, political decisionmaking, and cultural and artistic expression."
One outcome of the current developments in the Middle East is certain to be an intensification of discussion on the great political and theoretical questions facing the liberation movement and how to answer them. This document is a valuable contribution to that discussion.
The Patriot
"When the Hashemites came, Amman was a village. If I ever have to leave Amman, then I will leave it as my ancestors found it." - King Hussein, quoted in Der Spiegel, October 5, 1970.
Driver Education
Since the beginning of 1969 sixteen motorists in Uganda have been beaten to death by angry crowds after being involved in driving accidents.
Notes
* The analysis of the peasant struggle in La Convencion including the armed struggle, as well as more extensive explanations of our method and how it differs from the others, are contained in my work Tierra o Muerte! Venceremos, which is soon to be published.