INTERVENTION, IN THE GUATEMALAN DISPUTE
By Livio Maitan
Fidel Castro! s closing speech at the Tricontinental Conference has. drawn the attention of workers and revolutionists on an interna-~ tional. scale to the difficulties and divisions experienced by the guerrilla movement in Guatemala now for some time.. Moreover, the Cuban leader, in repeating, at least in part, what others wrote,(l) deemed it advisable to employ violent terms against. the Fourth International, which he holds responsible for having led Comandante Yon Sosa and his forces astray.
Unfortunately, we are not able. to check up on all the details that. should be considered. It is difficult, for example, to estimate the exact degree to which the guerrilla. forces have become rooted at this stage, particularly with respect to .the various fronts and movements. We are likewise unable to ascertain the facts about such episodes as the Galvan affair, mentioned.in a document by Luis AY Turcios, and the story about the businessman, who, according to- Castro, was put in charge of the "political side" of the MR-13 [November 13 Movement](2). Nevertheless, these gaps, however regrettable, cannot prevent us from stating where we stand on.a whole series OF burning questions. oo
‘It goes without saying that we feel under no obligation +0 reply in this article to the arguments: concerning. our alleged characteristic of being "agents of imperialism" -~ we have already re- . plied to Castro.on this. (4) We shall limit ourselves, by way of beginning, to stressing the following three points:
(1) Fidel deliberately made amalgams; in particular, with respect to Guatemala, he made out that he was in ignorance of the (1) Besides the documents of the Communist PGT {Partido Guatemalteca del Trabajo -- Guatemalan Labor party] and the declarations of Iuis A. Turcios, we have in mind the article by A. Tzul which appeared in the International Review of the Communist parties (April 1965 Italian edition) where the differences are attributed to the influence of "Protskyist provocateurs. " Also see the. December 1964 issue of the same publication. . a + (2) According to Turcios, Galvan, after being arrested, "was freed by the Guatemalan dictatorship..." For our part, we likewise recall that -the PGT leader Carlos Alvarado Jerez was freed in 1964. (See. thesarticle by Tzuk»in the.September 1964 issue of the International Review of the Communist parties.) Galvan, a member of the’ Posadista tendency =~ if it is actually the same person -- left the Féurth’ International in’1961. As.for the businessman mentioned by Castro, the léadership of’ the Fourth International knows nothing about: him. (4) See the "Open Letter to Comandante Fidel Castro" sent by the ‘United. Secretariat of. the Fourth. International [in World Outlook February 18] and . ‘the statements made by the organs of the various sections.
fact that the PosSadas group has nothing to do:with the Fourth International. However , Luis A. Turcios wrote in a document that Fidel certainly is aware of (4) that in Mexico -- the country where the "Trotskyists" involved in the Guatemalan affair came from -- "two Trotskyist groups. exist that do not want to have anything to do with each other: the Liga Obrera Marxista [Marxist Workers League] and the Partido. ‘Obrero Revolucionario [Revolutionary: Workers Party]. The Trotskyists. of the MR-13 belong to the second group." It is thus natural to-conclude that all the main protagonists in the polemic ‘mow. the. truth perfectly well and are aware of the ‘completely antag-. onistic. position of’ the Fourth International with respect to the Posadista grouping. Everything is’ crammed into ‘the same sack for factional purposes and in the interest of ideological terrorisn.
(2) By engaging. ‘directly. ‘and completely in the polemic in the way : , he did, Fidel is. responsible for utterly distorting a political debate which is without the least doubt of capital importance and of substituting a witch-hunt in the classical Stalinist style for a theoretical and political confrontation based on living experience. -This attitude is all the more reprehensible since it is a question. of men fighting, arms in hand, and who, because of that fact alone, have the right to expect solidarity. without: reservation from every revolutionist, a solidarity that does not mean withholding all political criticism, but which does mean that criticism must be aimed at helping, and not destroying them.
(3) The arbitrariness of the attempt to convert the Trotskyists into scapegoats for all the difficulties of the Guatemalan movement can be ascertained from certain statements made by Turcios himself. He explicitly admits that the divisions existed before the alleged "Trotskyists" intervened in the situation.
But let.us turn to more substantial questions. Luis Turcios' Criticism
Iuis A. Turcios, who was the second. in command in the. MR-13 before breaking with Yon Sosa, has played a role of prime importance in the whole affair and was recognized by the Tricontinental Conference as the head of the Guatemalan delegation. He declared where he stands particularly in his letter of resignation from the MR-13, and it is restated more briefly in the interview published in January of this year in the Cuban press. It is to be noted that while repeating the old arguments against Trotskyism and its alleged failure, Turcios, at least in these two documents, keeps the polemic essentially on a political level. Fundamentally he accuses Yon Sosa of having permitted his movement to fall under the political influence of a cell of Trotskyists who came from Mexico and whose activities. methods and concepts made any collaboration impossible. Among other things, he states that his signature was arbitrarily affixed to the
ETD (4) The document is one we shall refer to again; i.e., Turcios' letter of resignation from the MR-13, published in the No. 13 (1965) issue of Correo de Guatemala which is printed in Havana.
Declaracién de la Sierra de las Minas which was published in Revolucién 1 Socialista, the organ of the MR- 13.
Let us note that if it is true that adherents of the Mexican Posadista POR [Partido Obrero Revolucionario] did collaborate with the MR-13, it is difficult to believe that members of an organization whose influence, according to Turcios himself, is infinitesimal in their own country could impose themselves on a movement in another country that is unquestionably rooted among the masses. Analysis of a series of documents points to the conclusion that the Posadistas quite probably participated in publishing some issues of Revolucién Socialista, but this could not possibly have occurred if the MR-13 itself did not have a certain line, if only an approximate one, opposing in particular the opportunism and ambiguities of the PGT. Getting down to cases, what are Lluis Turcios' criticisms? Essentially they are as follows:
The Trotskyists interpret the situation in Guatemala in a subjective way, ignoring the necessity for.a prolonged war. and talking about a general insurrection in the near future, thus risking fostering adventurist actions and useless massacres. They are op- . posed to preparing and organizing a genuine people's war, and they follow the "international line of Trotskyism oriented. toward an urban insurrection, by means of special committees, as the form of gaining power in no matter what country and under no matter what conditions." They idealize mass action and underestimate the need to create a revolutionary army, without which the mass movement is inevitably crushed. They launch islogans without taking into account specific situatioris’... For example, ‘they agitate.for the building of special mass committees, forgetting that it is impossible to build. them unless you confine yourself to legal activities. They act in such a way as to make unity impossible and they | exaggerate the leadership role of the MR-13 by deliberately ignoring the role of other -leaderships in the Guatemalan guerrilla: movement.
“Similar arguments are advanced in another document quite likely written in collaboration with Turcios; namely, a declaration of the Provisional Center*of the Revolutionary Leadership,.which .. criticizes in particular’ the téndency "to attribute a socialist. character to every mass movement" and to exaggerate the level of socialist consciousness achieved by the masses.(5) :
We repeat once more: when Turcios and his friends talk about ‘Meotskyisn, they systematically mix up the Trotskyist movement, organized in its overwhelming majority in the Fourth International, and ‘the tendency represented by the small Posadista grouping. While it is evident to us that the documents of the MR~-13 are influenced by Posadista ideas, it is difficult to draw a clear line between these documents and other documents where this influence is not manifest. Therefore we can form a judgment only on the basis of the documents at hand, including the Primera Declaracién de la Sierra de las Minas, a May Day (1965) appeal, a few issues of Revolucién Socialista, some interviews with Yon Sosa and Francisco (5) See the previously cited Correo de Guatemala.
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Amado. |
There is no doubt that some of Turcios' criticisms are quite pertinent. Moreover they correspond, by and large, to the criticisms developed by the leadership of the Fourth International itself in the ‘polemics of 1960-62. In the documents attributed to the MR-13, we recognize in particular a tendency to idealize the masses and “their level of socialist consciousness, a sometimes grotesque exaggeration of objective situations, a highly simplistic concept of the revolutionary process in the world, a methodology that consists of always assembling all the slogans, putting them all in the same sack and forgetting or minimizing the questions of perspective and rhythm, a tendency to grossly deform reality through the subjective methods of tendentious propaganda. For example, in the May Day appeal, we read that "the revolution in the capitalist countries is developing in a constant and indefatigable intermittent struggle of the European proletariat," that "there is preoccupation, there is constant political life among the North American masses" and that “the proletariat has begun strike actions that reveal its decision as a class to face Yankee imperialism," that "there is a world anticapitalist revolution constantly on the rise." Anyone who knows the analytical documents of our movement can see that insofar as one can speak of Trotskyism here, it is a parody ofthe real thing.
In the same May Day document, we encounter in addition an-~ other characteristic expression of Posadism; namely, the curious concept of atomic war equating "to the world revolution, tumultuous and uncontainable." Permit us to recall that the "theoretical" lucubrations of Posadas on nuclear war were at the center of the polemic accompanying his departure from our movement. (6)
With regard to the situation dealing more closely with Guatemala, while it is difficult for us to offer an accurate judgment on the basis of incomplete evidence, in our opinion the perspective of a generalized guerrilla war, peasant militia and organs of dual power on a national scale "manana -~ en un corte plazo" ("tomorrow -- in a short time"] is correctly criticized as fanciful(7) and that certain appeals to the workers and students -- for example, in the declaration of the Sierra de las Minas -- disregard the real situation. In the best of cases, at least in the documents, propagandistic formulas are erroneously placed on the same level as immediate slogans. It is difficult to say whether this is due to the Guatemalan authors or whether it represents the intrusion of Posadista fantasies. Finally, for examples of a platform in which everything is placed on the same level, certain passages could be cited. from the May Day appeal or the document celebrating the fifth anni-
an (6) Nevertheless the Guatemalan documents do not contain the wildest formulations of Posadas calling for preventive nuclear war by the USSR.
(7) See the May Day appeal, previously cited.
versary of November 13.(8)-
~ A word on the: methods: used in. the dispute. We have long known ‘the’ nethods employed by the leaders of the Communist parties -when. they discover the presence of "Trotskyists,": whether it is a ques-. tion of real or imaginary Trotskyists. The PGT has continued to employ the classic epithets against Trotskyism and we cannot take their word for it when they profess to uphold unity.: Nevertheless. with regard to the Posadistas,; it is true that they. are given to sectarian methods and rabid factionalism and even resort to outright swindles.(9) In addition, we consider. it more generally to be wrong. for a quite small team, coming from the outside, to attempt by -artificial means to impose almost all their ideas and slogans on -a mew. “ovement ‘that is developing in.a difficult and contradictory situan tion on the basis of. its own - experiences. ms a The Concepts of ‘the MR-13_ and . the. Por
All this having been said; we mst turn, to the heart of ‘the’ differences. Independently of the role of this or that figure, of. the intervention of a few Posadistas, etc., the divisions in the Guatemalan movement are determined by the existence of different concepts on the capital question ‘of. the nature of the revolution in Guatemala and its motor forces. On this the concepts of Comandante . Yon Sosa and his team are opposed to the concepts of the. PGT. Tur-cios, it appears, does not identify himself with either side.(10)-
The ‘line of ‘the MR=13 is stated in a series of..documents and summarized in the interviews granted by Yon Sosa. "The MR-13," Yon.. Sosa says, "is convinced that. conditions ‘do not exist for a. national (8) My reference is the translation appearing. in- ‘the January 9, "1966, issue of Mondo Nuovo, the weekly of the PSIUP: {Italian Socialist. Party of Proletarian Unity]. In a-May 1965 document: dealing with. the American landing in Santo Domingo,:.we encounter. another. slogan that is continually advanced by the Posadistas in a-way devoid of meaning: "An unlimited general strike." It: goes without saying. that the slogan in and of itself is not bad ~~ we criticize applying : it as.a caricature. ; (9) The main ‘swindle clearly is to continue to proclaim themselves to be the "Fourth International,".etc,, when they left the organization after-‘they saw that they would never be able to win even a... small’ sector of the movement to their ideas. ae (10) In ‘his letter: of resignation, Turcios speaks of ‘differences over “the méthods-of work" and the "theoretical concepts" of. the PGT, ‘which would lead one to believe that he does not agree with - ' the "ideas of the PGT on the nature of the Guatemalan revolution. . (We have already indicated the axis of his criticisn: of "Trotskyism.")) However, in a declaration made in Havana: January 4, he criticizés the perspective "of immediately making :the ' socialist revolution" and explains that "it is preferable to make an anti-imperialist and antifeudal revolution, going through the necessary stages. to create the basis for socialism."
democratic revolution; that is, to have representatives of the workers and the peasants and the bourgeoisie in the government, because you can't: put a cat. and a dog in the same kennel...How would such a government function? Would there be a coalition between the workers, the peasants and the bourgeoisie?".
Consequently the MR-13 speaks of. socialist revolution and a workers and peasants government. "Independently of the fact that in Guatemala you can't find a national bourgeoisie," Francisco Amado Granados declares, "to conceive of such a bloc as an objective, signifies ruling out all the means of revolutionary class struggle belonging ‘to the working class. For. example, it means ruling out a revolutionary general strike, the occupation of the plants, the arming of the proletariat -- in short those methods that are revolutionary and not peaceful, breaking the above-mentioned bloc. They put : the proletariat into opposition against the bourgeoisie, against the company management, whether they are Guatemalans or foreigners. And the ruling out of methods belonging to the working class means to limit the extent of the struggle and its effectiveness, it means preparing its defeat. " ; 3 In another interview, Yon Sosa states that he. drew his. conclusions "in fighting, in living with the peasants," for whom, in addition, "the idea of the socialist revolution is so simple and logical that they don't want to listen ‘to those who talk about a différent road."(11)
The current concepts of the PGT, which have been explained many times in the organs of the international Communist movement,. are summarized in a March 1965 resolution of the Central Committee. According to the PGT, "the Guatemalan revolution is, at the present stage, popular, anti—imperialist and agrarian in its content" and one can therefore seek an alliance not only between the workers and peasants, but also with the middle layers of the petty bourgeoisie and the so-called national-bourgeoisie. The working class is called on to play the leading role, which will enable it to deepen the content of the revolution: "The national’ democratic revolution and the socialist revolution are two distinct, indissolubly united stages of a single revolutionary movement."
(11)- The quotations are from Revolucién Socialista (supplement No.1, October 1964), and Mondo Nuovo (issues of June. 6 and June 14) respectively. These documents do not: justify the accusation, made in. the declaration of the Provisional: Center of Revolutionary Leadership, previously cited, according to which the socialist character of the revolution was deduced solely from a revolutionary rise. throughout the world and not from a concrete analysis of the :specific national reality. In addition, the authors once again devote themselves to an arbitrary extrapolation of the Posadista documents, presenting them as documents of the Trotskyist movement, when they write: "The Trotskyist schema of the ‘socialist revolution emanating from the leadership of the Fourth: International is a general sieve “through which they want to force the: diverse and multiple reality of every country in the world." ..
-With all due deference to the cultivators of the "new," the "specific" at all costs, and everyone who has joined the- cult. of "national roads," the problems that have brought the Guatemalan tendenctes and organizations in opposition to each other today were posed, certainly not” in identical terms, but in analogous ones just the same, in a-series of countries in recent decades, beginning with the Chinese revolution of 19e5- 27. oye
“It is: “true that. after ‘the capital experiences of the postwar period’ and more particularly with regard to Latin America after..the. victory. of the Cuban Revolution,-certain- questions appeared in a. new. light. First of all,“no-one dares to.express himself exactly as... ..:; formerly and even the: rightists must pay homage to the revolutionary... road if they hope’ to'hold any audience whatever. Thus- while. talking. about-two stages of the revolution, they at times: stress..its -unine .3, terrupted character’ and the necessity for the: working elass, in. : alliancé' with the peasantry, to play the leading. role from.now on.. On the Other hand, there are militants who, appealing to the Cuban... ~ experience’, hold that any possible confused. concept cannot interfere with’ the dynamics of the revolutionary: process.and that there: will always be time for the necessary rectification provided that: ‘a. 7 real struggle develops. Democratic. Revolution or Permanent Revolution?
— oIn any: ‘case it is not a matter of: scholastic quarrels nour. ished by people squabbling over this::or. that- formula in the’ books.. vd In the final analysis the stake is a practical. one and behind the...” formulas’ and nuances are hidden -prectise: political implications. ‘This . is all the truer in the case of: Guatemala, which has already: lived. ; a through tragic experiences ‘im which: certain organizations have neces— sarily been gudged, and primarily on: dhe basis of their past activi- | ties. nee foes 7 , man
Thus, when the question of the PGT comes up, it.must not be... forgotten what the consequences were ofits line of democratic rey- .olution, which involved collaboration with the national. bourgeoisie .” in the Arévalo-Arbenz period up to the aggression of 1954. In-practice the PGT gave up any autonomous role and transformed itself “into a pillar of the reformist bourgeois’ government, which.at the¢-crucial moment - ‘capitulated: -infacé ofisthe forces of the. masapeeees At ‘and the . indigenous reaéctionariesa:It is worth recalling that already: in. 1952 | the very JsM.Fortunti::who writes in the International Review of: the . Communist parties. made .a self-critical report in which he ‘repretted™ amorig-6ther® (things. ‘that the party:had not "brought out.with sufficient clarity an firmness*the leading role of the proletariat in... the present: stage’ of struggle." The self-criticism remained . on paper, even in” the" tragic: turn. of June 1954.
tt ‘must be recalled again that after 1954, the line of the Communist party for years was aimed at restoring, "democracy" in Guatemala; and it’ was not until 1961 -- under the influence of the . Cuban. Revolution -- that a turn toward armed struggle was projected... Again, it was necessary to wait two years at least before this was. translated into practice. Even after the turn, moreover, the line
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appeared rather eclectic and up until recently was still based on legal activities, at. least ‘in several regions: of the country. (12) |
The problem. of the nature of the. revolution, as-we have already indicated, is concretized around the question of what social classes are participating in the struggle, which ones will continue through to the end and which one must play in actuality -- and not in the literary proclamations of resolutions -~- the leading role. Trotskyism has never denied a priori that national-bourgeois layers could become associated in an anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle,. but it has stressed that if the leadership reverts to these layers, the struggle will inevitably be slowed down, channelized, detoured, and will end in the best of cases in the installation of a neocolonial regime in which imperialism substantially maintains its grip and the masses are robbed of the fruits of their struggle. That is why it is absolutely imperative to understand and to make it understood what the dynamics of the process must be, to work out a platform that leaves no equivocation whatsoever and to assure -- this is decisive in the final analysis -- the leadership of the working class . allied with the poor peasants. This by no means signifies confounding the beginning of a revolution with its final phase, nor launching from the beginning slogans that can only become concretized at the | culmination of an entire revolutionary process. Nor does it mean replacing analysis of concrete situations by subjective interpretations | and by an absurd idealization of the masses. Thus what is important is to grasp the permanent character of the revolution whose deepest logic is not only anti-imperialist and antifeudal, but also anticapitalist; to bear clearly in mind that under no "condition can the possible convergence at certain stages with petty-bourgeois and national bourgeois forces be paid for at the cost of renouncing or diluting in any way the primary leading role of. the proletariat and the poor peasants; i.e., the only genuine motor forces surging up from the structures of an economically backward society in the context of the contemporary world. It must be noted well that the touchstone for a revolutionary leadership resides in its capacity at each concrete stage to advance slogans and organize actions that will. feed the anticapitalist dynamics of the struggle while starting from a mobilization for democratic objectives and national: liberation. ~
This concept is clearly reflected in a document adopted by the Reunification Congress of our movement(13) which can. well be be recalled here for the information of those who prefer not to judge Trotskyism on the basis of arbitrarily chosen sources: (12) See the articles by J.M.Fortuni and José Milla in the. December 1964 issue of the International Review of the Communist parties (Italian edition), and the article by Tzul already referred to in the April 1965 issue of the same magazine. Tzul speaks particularly about combining the use of legal and illegal forms of struggle. (13) This document was previously adopted by the seventh. congress and thus is not the document alluded to by the declaration of the Provisional Center of ‘the Revolutionary Leadership. ‘previously cited several times.
"As in the case.of equating the beginning of the colonial revolution (under bourgeois or petty-bourgeois nationalist leadership) with its victorious conclusion under proletarian leadership, any idea that this process will-occur automatically or inevitably within a certain time limit necessarily leads to a distorted estimate of the actual relationship of forces and replaces scientific analysis by illusions and wishful thinking. It presupposes that the objective process will solve by itself a task which can only be solved in struggle © through the subjective effort of the vanguard; i.e., revolutionarysocialist conquest of the leadership of the mass movement. That this is- possible:in the very process of. the revolution, and in a-relatively short time, has been adequately demonstrated in the case of Cuba. That it is not inevitable, and that without it the revolution is oo certain to suffer serious defeats or be limited at best to inconclu- Sive victories is demonstrated by much in the recent history of other Latin-American countries; for instance, Bolivia,. Argentina and Guatemala." ("Dynamics. of World Revolution," International Socialist Re- — view, Fall 1963; D- 117. Also -avaitable as a pamphlet. [Emphasis in original. J) a
Finally, there is an obvious lesson in the fact that the line oriented on a "national liberation, agrarian, patriotic and democratic, anti-imperialist and antifeudal" revolution, in which the national .bourgeoisie would also be:-"interested," was advocated in Cuba by the former ‘Communist PSP {Partido Socialista Popular] up until 1961, and it was by rejecting this line through audacious revolutionary practice that the Fidelista leadership assured the socialist victory of the revolution. An.analogous lesson can be drawn from the fact that absolutely false and opportunist ideas on the nature of the revolution as well as the role of the national bourgeoisie greatly facilitated the Brazilian defeat in 1964. The same can be said for Indonesia where the outlook of collaboration with the national bourgeoisie, personified by Sukarno, led the Indonesian Communist party --'despite its affirmations about. the. continuity of. the revolutionary process and the leading role of the proletariat -to a defeat even more tragic ‘than that in Brazil and.to the massacre of more than 100, 000 Communists.
The questions under debate. within the Guatemalan. movement are thus of absolutely vital importance. That it is occurring among men engaged in guerrilla warfare under the difficult conditions imposed on them by the forces of reaction should not be forgotten for an instant by those outside the country who are partisans of their struggle. It is grievous that Fidel Castro should have to be reminded of this. It is in the interest of no one on the side of the guerrillas to replace reasoned discussion with.epithets and slanders and to launch a campaign of real ideological. terrorism. That is why the way in which Fidel Castro intervened, slanderously and arbitrarily striking at the Fourth International, far from assuring the success of the contribution which the leader of the Cuban Revolution could unquestionably: bring, will inevitably have negative repercus-—' Sions and make more difficult the clarification that is required among the Guatemalan vanguard and among Latin-American revolutionists in general. February 19, 1966
INDIAN TROTSEYISTS LAUNCH NEW MAGAZINE
We ‘have received ‘the first issue of Marxist Outlook, the journal of the Socialist Workers -party,