LATIN AMERICA
Latin American Communist Parties:
The impact of perestroika
WE PUBLISH BELOW extracts of a document issued in
March 1990 by the Communist Parties of Costa Rica,
Honduras, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and
Argentina, which deals with the recent events in Eastern
Europe and appeals for revolutionary unity. The text is taken from Quetzal, March 1990. INTRODUCTION THE OPEN LETTER of the Communist Parties of Costa Rica, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Argentina published below is a sign of the rethinking going on among revolutionary and progressive forces - whether of Christian or Communist inspiration - since the collapse of the bureaucratic dictatorships in Eastern Europe. A central theme of these reflections is the concern of revolutionary movements in the Third World over the risk of a "peace of the mighty" limited to the North, and cutting out the two thirds of the planet which remains plunged in misery and under-development. The implicit criticism of the present international course of Soviet policy is all the more significant in that it is coming from parties that have until now been completely subordinate to Moscow.
Whatever our disagreements with some of the political judgements expressed in the document, they open up debates which are needed for the renewal of Marxist thought, debates which cannot be dissociated from defence of the Cuban revolution, and of the FSLN and FMLN, who are caught in the vice of East/West negotiations. - Janette Habel
The arms build up is the main cause of the crisis of North American imperialism. The same is true for the USSR - for different reasons and on a different economic base — which is faced with economic stagnation and crisis. The perestroika reform programme has been born from the need to confront this crisis and renew socialism. After being limited for a period to economic acceleration and intensive development, these reforms have been carried through on the level of political democratization and openness with regard to information.
This necessary change has provoked new and unforeseen problems and is evidence of big ideological weaknesses in the absence of a coherent strategy for socialist renewal and a force capable of leading it successfully. The Bush administration's arrogance is fed by the big weaknesses of the socialist camp, which has known crises, deviations and theoretical deficiencies, which have provoked a worrying decline in anti-imperialism and revolutionary positions.
Some people, indeed, have gone so far as to claim that imperialism "no longer exists", that it is no longer "hostile" and that it can even become an "ally" in the framework of a convergence between systems and forces that are really antagonistic. Imperialism remains the main enemy of the peoples; it is responsible for the dramatic misery and sufferings that afflict humanity. Imperialism cannot be judged solely from the point of view of its superdeveloped poles — those capitalist countries that have reached the maximum of social and economic well-being, building themselves on the exploitation, and pillage of the Third World.
The obverse side of the system
The Third World is the obverse side of this system made up of injustices, discriminations, insecurity, unemployment; there forms of alienation that no longer exist in the developed countries continue to flourish.
We find the new thesis, according to which anti-imperialism is out of date along with popular revolutions in the oppressed, super-exploited and impoverished regions, disturbing and disgraceful. This theory is finding, unfortunately, a certain echo in the new thinking and the new mentality present in perestroika.
However we judge positively the efforts made by the USSR and other countries, obliged to reach governmental accords with capitalist power, to avoid the big tragedies which menace humanity. We understand the preoccupation that may be felt in Europe over nuclear war and the dramatic ecological disequilibria provoked by industrial civilization.
We rejoice as well that aspirations for change, democratization and self-determination have been strengthened in
N THESE times of crisis, of intense capitalist offensive and great revolutionary possibilities, we have decided to make public our problems and perspectives. This is not the time to keep silent, for we have reached a vital stage for the revolutions and for the patriotic and popular struggles in America and throughout the Third World.
Our continent, along with the rest of the Third World, has never known such a crisis. United States imperialism has met great difficulties and risks as a result of its aggressive policies. The possibilities for development in Latin America and the Third World have been stifled. This has rebounded on imperialism through massive emigration which menaces its inter8 ral a cal sa bicy, bringing the problem. nal social stability, bringing the problems step.
Instability and pressure for social change are growing in the dependent countries. Our peoples' deepest aspirations have not been satisfied by limited democratic regimes which refuse all real popular participation in decision-making.
The US imperialists remain arrogant, despite the deep crisis which is afflicting the system of domination and the decomposition of their society. This arrogance is reinforced by the crisis of certain models of socialism afflicted by bureaucracy, super-centralism, dogmatism as well as structural and conjunctural factors. These regimes have become authoritarian and repressive in the highest degree, and are far away from the initial ideals of social justice and democracy.
International Viewpoint #193 • October 29, 1990
Eastern Europe, where the bureaucratic models are in crisis and agony.
Dogmatism, arbitrariness and faith in sterile old schemas are no longer the guidelines for our thinking.
Democratization should not be limited to the Eastern European countries and should not copy the schemas and models of representative democracy - which have shown their crisis and their limits in the Western world - for they are too formal and do not guarantee popular participation in decision-making.
We do not believe in the proclamations about liberty and democracy from the capitalist countries which oppress mil lions of people and condemn them to hunger, illiteracy and disease.
We are in solidarity with the forces that are fighting in these countries to defend the interests of everyone.
We do not believe in the virtues of peace between the Great of the world nor in a humanism which is limited to Northern Europe or the Common European Home, ignoring the two thirds of the planet that lives and suffers in the Third World. Imperialism - enemy of the peoples
We do not believe that the United States or the other imperialist countries are going to cease to be the enemies of the people or of socialism. We do not believe in the unilateral disarmament of socialism and the revolutionary forces at a moment when the US is stepping up its strategy of low intensity war and their projects for the militarization of space to carry their hegemony to its height.
No general interest can cancel out the need for the emancipation of the oppressed peoples of the Third World and the struggles for democracy, peace, justice and self-determination which are continuing in Central America, Palestine, South Africa and in all the down-trodden countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. We are outraged by the attempts at imposing a dubious "ideal" democracy, which is in fact limited and made up of discriminations and manipulations.
The weakening of internationalism in the Soviet Union reinforces the counterrevolutionary chauvinism which is menacing the unity of the country. The political weakness weighs on the USSR and still more on the Eastern European countries — due to the crisis and the absence of vanguards with the confidence of the people, capable of giving a socialist direction to these events.
The efforts of those who are trying to renovate socialism, without at the same time allowing it to be denatured by capitalist influences, deserve our admiration.
The weakening of socialism facilitated the military intervention in Panama, the right's counter-offensive in Nicaragua, the US's freedom of action and that of the
LATIN AMERICA genocidal regime in El Salvador, the grave threats to the Cuban revolution and the imperialist escalation throughout the region.
We believe in socialist renewal.
We believe in a democracy where popular power allows the increased participation of new organizations and new social and political actors.
We believe in the necessity of re-establishing the original socialist ideal, involving both social and democratic changes.
We believe in peace, which goes together with liberation.
ve belleve in the necessity and poss
1lity ot popular revolutions to achiev democracy, social justice and sovereign-
We believe in revolutionary internationalism and anti-imperialism. Our peoples are victims of imperialism and we cannot renounce the revolutionary struggle for popular emancipation and a new democracy.
In the Third World, the situation is terrible. Capitalist models and structures offer no solution; on the contrary, they make the problems worse. The institutions are corrupt, democracy is mutilated and restricted, sovereignty is scoffed and social and political mounting. The revolution is a historic challenge. It preserves all its actuality and gains historic legitimacy, and, furthermore, it is indispensable for dealing with the Third World's problems.
It is necessary to create and encourage the revolutionary vanguards through a unitary policy, through struggle and through close links with the popular masses. It is necessary to build a big alliance for democracy and self-determination. Intransigent defence of Cuba needed
This implies intransigent defence of Cuba, for this country is the pioneer of the revolutionary transition in Latin America and the symbol of anti-imperialism and internationalism in the region. It is necessary to strengthen solidarity with the Sandinista people's revolution in Nicaragua, represented by the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN), and with the organs of popular power which continue to function after the election defeat.
It is necessary to reflect on the causes of that defeat in order to go beyond the errors that were committed. It is also necessary to continue solidarity with the fight of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and with all the patriotic and democratic forces in El Salvador, and with the fight of the Revolutionary National Union of Guatemala (URNG) and the democratic struggles in Haiti, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina,
Mexico, Honduras and elsewhere.
It is impossible to overlook the impact of the events in Eastern Europe in Latin America. The effects on the revolutionary and progressive forces is contradictory. Sometimes it has led to demoralization and stimulated the appearance of ideas foreign to our reality; in other sectors it has has reinforced profound revolutionary anti-imperialist and socialist convictions. We are of the second category and we will employ all our forces to think for ourselves and develop our positions in the framework of the enormous revolutionary potential of our continent.
Our revolutionary renewal must take into account everything that is positive in the innovative currents and advance towards worldwide democratization, adapting it to our conditions.
The East European events, with all that they represent in a positive sense for democratization and self-determination, are in sharp contrast with the oppression that rules in Latin America and the Third World.
Let us unite our forces.
Let us open up to reflection on everything that is new. Let us not permit dispersal and demoralization to become irreversible.
Unite the fronts of struggle beyond dogmatism
Let us unite all the fronts of struggle to relaunch the revolutionary ideal, to go beyond all dogmatism and confront the rightist deviations, to fight our enemies, to rectify and innovate in a revolutionary fashion, to reinforce anti-imperialism and give a popular direction to the struggle for democracy, to advance towards democratic and patriotic revolutions and develop concrete struggles which reinforce the morale and potential for the liberation forces in the periphery and in the centre of the world capitalist system.
Let us unite in order to struggle to show that the forces of change can and must recover from the impact of these negative phenomena, that these deleats are temporary, that the present crisis can be overcome, and that the crisis of the capitalist system and our opponents is an enormous point of support. In the Third World, in this crushed continent, new revolutionary hopes must find their expression.
• Let this revolutionary unity be manifest throughout the world.
• For the broadest unity of all forces and sectors bearing the idea of justice, independence, democracy and peace.
• A more vigorous anti-imperialist firmness.
• More revolutionary creativity.
• For revolutionary internationalism
• In the continuity of the Latin American ideas of Bolivar, Sucre, San Martin, Morelos, Santa Maria, Morazan and Mar- 9 ti. *
SOUTH AFRICA A first step towards defeat THE SOUTH African situation has its historic programme withnever been more paradoxical than out the government ceding at present. The process of anything beyond its own agenda of reforms. Although own negotiations is continuing and nothing has changed for the everything Indicates that the ruling oppressed of the country, de
Klerk has just been the first class Is definitively engaged in a
South African head of state to radical reform of society. At the pay an official visit to the same time the contradictions of a United States for 45 years. society modelled by decades of And in September, for the the course of the last few months have to some extent represented a transfer of the conflicts from Natal to the heart of the migrant workers' hostels. There is clear evidence of external manipulations, and of connections with sectors of the employers, the extreme right and the police.
Finally and above all the blind and murderous attacks on black people in stations, trains and taxi queues in mid-September, carried out this time by commandos, have confirmed that at least a part of the state apparatus is pulling the strings. Several dozen people were murdered during the rush hours, in the course of a few days, without ethnic distinction. It is no longer a "blakcs against blacks" conflict but a strategy of tension, directly linked to the negotiation process.
Massive police apparatus does nothing
Whether the de Klerk government closes its eyes to these attempts or manipulates them directly is irrelevant it is the first beneficiary of the violence. It is astonishing that in such a well-policed country, it has not been possible to find the slightest clue to the identity of commandos attacking in broad daylight and in the heart of the city. It is also astonishing that all the information supplied by witnesses has been treated lightly and cynically 4.
The regime has done its utmost to guide public opinion towards the simplistic idea that the violence is simply a conflict between the ANC and Inkatha. To this end a round table has been held, chaired by Pik Botha, minister of Foreign Affairs, between the president of Transkei (where the Xhosa populations live) and the King of the Zulus.
Communiqués, commitments to good behaviour, a "peace conference" style atmosphere, all under the television cameras! There followed two big separate 1. The comparison with desegregation in the United States is often made. The analogy falls short in that black people were never in the majority in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s, and the land question was not posed as in South Africa. 2. 1990 has seen the laying off of 25,000 miners. Redundancies are continuing but the trade union leadership appears to be seeking a compromise with the Mining Chamber. In September the rent boycott was ended in Soweto through an agreement between the administration and a self-appointed committee of ANC personalities. Whereas the segregation of living areas has not been modified in the least, AN supporters plan to enter the regional chamber of Greater Johannesburg. One of its members declared that this was equivalent to the creation of a "local constituent assembly" (Sunday Star, September 23, 1990). 3. See /V 191. 4. The Weekly Mail of September 21 revealed that a base in Namibia had been used by the South African army for the training of Inkatha supporters. The rest of the press has studiously ignored this enquiry. The possibility has also been invoked that the commandos have been constituted from supporters of Renamo, the armed Mozambiquan organization sponsored by the South Africans. Finally it has been said on several occasions that whites with blackened faces have been seen in the mini-buses of the commandos.
racial discrimination are exacerbating.