Strategies to take power: reform and revolution in Latin America

1. Strategies to take power: reform and revolution in Latin America IIRE Youth School 2011

2. Outline I. Historical overview • Latin America and its historical capitalism • Struggles and strategies :from Haiti to the present day • Permanent revolution II. Modern strategies :social movements, electoral policies, revolution • Debate :Hearse-Holloway • Problems with ‘autonomismo’ III. Anti-imperialism, Regionalism and Revolutionary Project • Reform and revolution • Neoliberal experience and democratization • Latin American integration, ALBA • Changes in Cuba

3. Why Latin America? “On no continent is neoliberalism so widely rejected as in Latin America, and no where has the resurgence of the Left been so powerful. The election of Evo Morles in Bolivia and the evolution of the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela are hugely ideologically important. Whatever the direction and eventual outcome of these governments, they have already done an enormously important thing –given the arithmetic content to the algebraic formula that ‘another world is possible’, the only possible one is socialism.” _____ Phil Hearse

4. Socialism as a process • Renewal of the left in the fight against neoliberalism • A new encounter with the struggles from the past • Getting rid of Eurocentrist ideas • Competition between different political ideas • Working out new strategies

5. I Historical reflections

6. Latin America and historical capitalism • Necessity of understanding the history of Latin America in order to understand global capitalism • Capitalism and Colonialism as twins • Resistance against the expansion of early European capitalism (racist, patriarchal, heterosexist, anti- ecological) • Further reading: The black Jacobins (1938) by CRL James, on the Haitian revolution 1789-1805

7. Before, during and after the 19th Century • Before: fragmented struggles against colonialism = important because part of revolutionary work today • During and a bit later: formation of first working class …coinciding with Europe (plantations and industrial) • Trade Unions (legal and illegal) • Political organisations : communists, anarchists, socialists, nationalists/anti-imperialists • Strategies focused on unity between workers of different races and farmers against imperialism (in alliance with petty bourgeoisie) • Indigenous question is still not resolved (Read: Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Realityby Jose Carlos Mariategui (1928)

8. Revolution : some benchmarks • 1811 – Proclamation of Bolivarian independence (Venezuela) • 1868 – Uproar of Lares and of Yara • 1891 – 1889 war between Spain and North America over Cuba • 1910 – Mexican Revolution (Emilio Zapata against Porfirio Diaz) • 1927 – 1933 Agusto Sandino against Yankee occupation • Anti-imperialist alliances, industrial workers, farmers, (indigenous people)

9. Stalinization of the communist movement • Petty bourgeois character of the CP’s • Dependent on Moscou. Near the USA • Strange alliances and contradictions within populism, for example: Cuban PSP supports Fulgencio Batista or communists inside peronism; lombardism; • Michael Löwy: Historia del marxismo en America Latina: 1908 hasta hoy (1980 primera edicion) • Emergence of Trotskism (Mexico, Cuba, Argentine)

10. Strategies to take power • 1950s nationalist revolts in Puerto Rico • 1950-1954 Arbenz government in Guatemala • 1959 Cuban revolution (50 years of socialist characteristics) and its legacy: guerrilla against dictatorship, foquismo and voluntarism (legacy of Che) = strategies historically dated – the Cold War; anti imperialism; many struggles in one; revisit Marxism • 1970-1973 Popular Front in Chili • 1979- Nicaragua and its legacy: the comrades who were present; revolution in a very poor Latin American country; liberation theology; the indigenous question (again); handing over to liberal democracy …why?

11. Summary • Record of struggles and of strategies in Latin America shows us the validity of the Permanent Revolution • Role and leadership of the working class in the anti imperialist and anti colonial struggles is essential • The fight against capitalism is the fight against ideological colonialism

12. II Strategies and Debates

13. Debates on strategies • Change the world and take the power (Hearse-Holloway): starts with the Chiapas Revolution of 1994 and Zapatismo • Read: State and revolution (Lenin, 1917) and The damned of the Earth (Franz Fanon,1961) • Academic level: postmodernism versus amodernism • Autonomism versus revolutionary socialism; Read: Los problemas del autonomismo (problems of autonomism) by Claudio Katz

14. Background of the debates in Latin America • Resistance against neoliberalism from the 1980’s on – economic/debt crisis, workers mobilizations, defeat/decomposition of workers movement, (1989 Caracazo in Venezuela) • Political/theoretical defeat post soviet/neoliberal thinking; F. Fukiyama; Castenada, Castells, Hardt and Negri (Empire); focus on local struggles • The State=modern structure, power corrupts… • The Cuban exception

15. 1994, Zapatistas and subCommandant Marcos • Positive points: the indigenous question indigenous and racism, anti-neoliberal, orientation towards the community, inclusiveness • Differences: the example can not be reproduced outside Chiapas, the Mexican State (and its breakdown) remains the determining factor; ironically, authoritarian (see for ex. The Other Campaign, 2006)

16. Argentine, 2001-2002 • Popular revolts in reply to neoliberal measures and recipes of the IMF/World Bank; ends with defeat of 3 presidents in one month • Not instigated by political parties • Several experiments of workers self- management, occupations, bailouts, communes, etc. • Today there is a coexistence between the Kichners and the piqueteros

17. Brazil, 2002 • Historical elections, Lula from the PT wins presidential elections (but not absolute majority in parliament) • Important: a large country, fifth economy of the world, candidate from working class, left party with different tendencies (our section DS was important in the development of projects) • Participatory budget (since the nineties) • MST and PT • Lessons: reactionary character of social democracy • Debates after the purge, our party PSOL • Continuity on the reformist road

18. 1999, Venezuela State/Revolutionary Process? • Process started with Caracazo in 1989, anti-neoliberal movement, coup attempt by Chavez 1992, movement for 5th Republic; • Historical elections, Chavez, mulatto from the working class • Immediate changes; military-civic movement; new constitution; creation of parallel structures in management to eventually finish with the bourgeois state structure • Radicalization after the coup of 2002 • Building of the Party (different tendencies) after the victory (2007) • The nationalizations and EAS create a space from which the working class could take the power • Ideological inconsistencies

19. 2006, Bolivia • Historic elections, first indigenous government in a modern State • MAS, a party with many tendencies, rooted in social movements, in indigenous movement and particularly in trade-unions • Criticism of the modern State, new constitution = pluri-national Bolivia • Combination of autonomism and party politics (progressive). “Indigenous socialism” (a project of decolonization) • Rapid changes in form but not in content • What to do with the economy? Conflicts, contradictions

20. III Anti-imperialism, Regionalism and the Revolutionary Project

21. Three Tendencies at the national governments level • Reactionary-conservative: (Colombia, Peru until recently, Mexico, Chile again, Honduras after the coup) • Social liberal (latin american social democracy): Argentine, Chile (Bachelet), Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador • Socialist tendency, revolutionary situation: Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela,

22. Imperialism as a current issue • Cuba • Haiti • Honduras • Colombia • Ecuador • Puerto Rico (colony of the U.S.A.) • Suriname (former Dutch colony) • Dutch and French Antilles (colonies)

23. Anti imperialist answersAgainst hegemony • Capitalist integration (Mercosur, Banco del Sur, UNASUR) • Post-neoliberal integration (ALBA) • Decomposition of the OEA • CELAC • Telesur • Capitalism of the State, neo-structuralism, Control of the Market

24. Contradictions • Indigenous protests in Bolivia and Ecuador • Abolition of unions in EAS/ cooperatives in Venezuela • Religious influences against women/ homophobia in Nicaragua

25. Cuba after the sixth congress of the CCP • Socialist? • State Capitalism? • Degenerating workers State? • Market Socialism? • Transition to Socialism?

26. Sources • http://rebelion.org • http://telesurtv.net • http://aporrea.org • http://katz.lahaine.org/

27. Questions proposed, suggestions for the discussion • Theoretical consequences of the rejection of Eurocentrism? • Lessons of the autonomous experience (in particular for the revolts in the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean and the “Spanish Revolution”)? • Role of revolutionary socialists in the process of change at the level of the State and at the regional level?

28. Antonio Carmona Baez antonio@iire.org carmonabaez1@yahoo.com