Reform and Revolution in Latin America

							Strategies to take power: reform
 and revolution in Latin America

               IIRE
        Youth School 2011
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
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
           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
I


    Historical reflections
        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
            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 Reality by Jose Carlos
     Mariategui (1928)
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)
       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)
        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?
               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
II
     Strategies and
         Debates
          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
      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
1994, Zapatistas and sub
Commandant 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)
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
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
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
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
III


Anti-imperialism, Regionalism
and the Revolutionary Project
 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,
 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)
       Anti imperialist answers
         Against 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
          Contradictions

• Indigenous protests in Bolivia and
  Ecuador
• Abolition of unions in EAS/
  cooperatives in Venezuela
• Religious influences against women/
  homophobia in Nicaragua
   Cuba after the sixth congress
            of the CCP
• Socialist?
• State Capitalism?
• Degenerating workers State?
• Market Socialism?
• Transition to Socialism?
Sources

• http://rebelion.org
• http://telesurtv.net
• http://aporrea.org
• http://katz.lahaine.org/
  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?
Antonio Carmona Baez


antonio@iire.org
carmonabaez1@yahoo.com