program to fight against the oligarchy and for national liberation. Thiryears after the formation of the
Independent and Democratic Left teen
Frente Amplio, including ten years of repressive authoritarianism, which have produced substantial changes in our social life, after all this the significance and
The Independent and Democratic Left (IDI) is a grouping of organizations and activists representing the left wing of the Frente Amplio. Under the umbrella of the Frente, it will run its own slates in the November 25 local elections.
In August, it made public a draft program in which it defined itself as an instrument for creating a new party and for "waging a more effective struggle for a socialist society, to ensure that the authoritarian link is only the last one in the chain (1), to help to prepare the way for replacing capitalism and dependence with a new system."
gram is built around four cardinal principles:
socialization of the means of production, a strategy based on mobilizing the masses, and an international policy of nonalignment with any decision- making center.
The following are major extracts from the programmatic platform of
In Uruguay in recent decades, capital- Socialist democracy ism has starkly revealed its fundamental incompatibility with the needs of the masses and of the nation.
It combines social exploitation, subordination to foreign powers, and stagnation in the domestic economy; and it engenders political dictatorship....
last ten years, the crisis has
Financial speculation has assumed a central place and become completely dominant over productive ac-
Wages and living standards are worse than anything ever experienced in the modern history of Uruguay.
The authoritarian neoliberal economic policy imposed has favored the finance sector. At the same time, it has spectacularly increased foreign control over our financial system.
such dominance by the financial wing of the ruling class and this readjustment of dependence have created a new mechanism for appropriating the social wealth produced by the workers.
This process has been accompanied at the same time by spiraling foreign debt, which has contributed in a decisive way to increasing the foreign control over the country.
The political attitudes of big businessmen show the historical continuity between the last ten years and the preceding stages. It has to be remembered that a lot of the capitalists who are protesting today against authoritarian neoliberalism and thereby helping to isolate the regime, in the past, supported the implementation of such policies.
This attitude was maintained as long as profits were increasing, as was the case for certain export industries up to 1981, for the big stock raisers up till 1978 and 1979, and for the biggest building firms up to 1981.
To sum up, the dictatorship set up in
1973 was the last link in a chain, one attempt to rescue the dependent capitalist system that oppresses the worclass and all the working people, blocks the development of the country, and promotes the interests of the oligarchy, foreign capital and imperialism....
"participatory democracy,
The political project we are fighting for is based on five basic points of depar-
The first is that this political project is designed to bring about a revolutionary transformation of Uruguayan Being convinced that dependent capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with the needs of the masses and of the nation, we are putting forward the historical perspective of replacing this system with one that can bring liberation, a system that we call socialist democracy.
We conceive of socialist democracy as a system based on four essential foundareal, pluralistic, organized participation by our people; collectivization of the most important social and political decisions; socialization of the means of production, as the only real guarantee that such decisions will be made collectively; and the actual functioning of a social structure without exploited or exploiters and without the dominance of a bureaucracy, a means of functioning that would be the result of the measures outlined above.
The second point of departure is the united, because it is the renovating the social and political system. Only the left can take charge of carrying through this process of deep-going his-
The unity of the left means the confirmation on the political level of the unity of the workers, students, small producers, urban and rural small owners, and other sections of the working people - the unity that has been forged in decades of struggle against the authoritarian policy applied in subjection to the IMF. This political unity of the various social forces can, and must, be placed above whatever differences might exist between political currents or organizations with respect to their view of the society we are fighting for.
weight of this coalition and of its leader have not only not diminished, but have increased.
The effectiveness of the political instrument created by the Uruguayan left in its quest for unity is increasing more than ever. This coalition is occupying more and more space in the political spectrum, as is shown by the growing influence of the Frente and its president among the Uruguayan people.
Our fourth point of departure stressing the need for strengthening the Frente Amplio and all the organized forms of the people's movement. tasks must be assumed collectively by the fraternal organizations that belong to the coalition. Among these tasks, one is, however, a fundamental one for all -the political organization of the independent left into a party.
This must be a party incorporating those who support the project of socialist democracy rooted in the specific conditions of Uruguay. It has to grow out of practical convergence in the course of social struggle. It has to be able to give organizational form to the ideological contributions and traditions of struggle of a very broad range of organizations and comrades who agree with the prinparty open to all those who share these proposals and are doing real work to achieve them, who assume the responsibility to work politically to put them into
This party has to take as its point of departure the unity of the left as a whole, to be ready to make a special effort to forces that identify with socialism. has to be a party conscious of the fundamental role the working class is called on to play in building a socialist alternative. It has to integrate the fight for national and social liberation into the context of the struggle of the Latin American peoples for their emancipation. And in this respect it will have to take particularly into account the historical experiences of the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, as well as of the setbacks sufferred by the Chilean people's movement, by the people's movement in our country and elsewhere. meaning that it is necessary to assure that the alternation of bourgeois democratic and dictatorial governments stops here, with an advance toward socialism.
International Viewpoint 10 December 1984
Our fifth point of departure concerns the role of the rank and file. Our political project is one that is to be built from the bottom up. This work must be based on a practice of internal democracy, which is indeed the fundamental base for uniting and organizing the independent left. More than a method of work -although it is that - the active and organized participation of the rank and file is one of the central features of our ideo. logical profile. From this standpoint, our profile is based on the objective of establishing a genuinely democratic people's government. This goal is vital in order to assure that the Frente Amplio can offer a real political solution for transforming Uruguayan society. It is in this context that our project looks fundamentally to the workers and to their struggle to achieve a society in which they will be the major moving force....
The political movement that we are building takes its inspiration from various
From a historical standpoint, it shares the democratic and radical traditions that emerged in the epic of Artigas (2) and which were expressed in a series of economic proposals (such as the Land Settlement of 1815), as well as social and economic ones that made up the program of liberation for which the Uruguayan people fought under the perceptive leadership of Jose Artigas. A party for a socialist revolution
This initial struggle also gave impetus to other movements in the history of our country. One of the expressions of this tradition was the movement for mass
This tradition later manifested itself in workers' struggles, in various proposals and mobilizations by the left inspired by socialist principles, as well as in the more advanced Colorado and Blanco parties.
This process potential power with the development of a strong workers' movement closely linked to the activity of all the left forces, which took the lead in innumerable days of mass struggle, the culminating point being the heroic general strike of 1973.
Our most recent history has left us every clear evidence of the growing closer together that has been sought and promoted by all those who are for a socialism deeply rooted in our specific national conditions and a style of work that is participatory, democratic, antidogmatic, and always open to discussion and self-
We might cite many important examples in this respect, mention prolonged experiences of political intervention among workers and students, and in the neighborhoods. We might consider the evidence of convergence before and after the formation of the Frente
With respect to the experience around the Frente Amplio, we should mention a series of actions that arose and developed in the framework of the base committees of the Frente, as well as various forms of International Viewpoint 10 December 1984 participation in all the elections of the period that began with the plebiscite in
Another important factor that distinguishes us is that the step we want to take today involves adopting a more developed form of organization - the creating of a party of the independent
It is in this way that we want to put the crowning touch to a process that has passed through some extremely important stages. And in order to do this, we want to adopt a unified political structure for all of those who have been involved in this project, and in so doing abandon our past separate identities. This political initiative will impart greater strength, organization and impetus to a broad tradition, to the democratic and national vital forces that are today oriented toward the fight for a socialist program encompassing all spheres of social
The social project we want for Uruguay assumes a recognition of the fact that in today's world a transition is underway from capitalism to socialism. To this process there is no single road or single national form but a variety of forms and roads that have already appeared and others that will ap-
In this context, we are raising the banner of socialism here and now, recognizing its universal values and incorporating our special national features. No one can say today what Uruguayan socialism will look like in the end. It is the organized people who will build the road to socialism and will give it its concrete context. But what we want to do is to propose a specific historic phase on this road
It is certain that the path will become wider after we recover the democratic liberties that we are fighting for today. But it is also certain that achieving these freedoms will only be a step in the direction of socialist democracy. The latter must be based on an economic structure and find its reflection in social structure, in political systems, and in a change in the relationships of power. Therefore, we the following proposals for vancing toward socialist democracy in the
The economic structures and the roads toward the socialization of econ-
The economic basis for genuine demecracy lies in the collective ownership of the means of production and the collective organization and direction of the productive process. In the historic phase that we are referring to in proposal, state ownership is one of the means of socialization. But it is not the only one. Cooperatives and all similar forms of self-managed associations, for example, can open the way for the prevailing of the collective and national interest and for creating mechanisms that can give impetus to the development of people's power....
On this basis, state ownership will be the road to socialization in cases where the most important features overall are the strategic character of the industry concerned, its national importance, and a strong concentration of cap-
Besides those sectors in which the Uruguayan state has traditionally intervened, today the clearest examples sectors in which socialization is needed are finance, a series of key industries, and all the country's international economic
In other cases, this fundamental course of socialization will be pursued through the transformation of the social relations of production in the sphere of private
This transformation will make the workers the central active force in this sector, in the framework of cooperative and self-management organizations in which they will collectively exercise ownership of the basic industrial products, organize production and determine the destination of the goods pro-
All this does not exclude the possibility that in certain sectors the two forms we have just defined will be combined, through the setting up of collaboration between state enterprises and collective or private organizations of the
On the other hand, we have to accept the fact that both in the cities and in the rural areas there will continue to be a significant range of small-scale businesses that will continue to develop for a long time on an individualistic basis. The big change from the past will be the general context in which these activities will be placed. It will be one dominated by socialism.
For a state that can guide this process, a democratic state open to participation by the masses, and with these different roads to socialization, we propose planning as the central instrument of govern-
The fundamental role of such planning will be to assure the efficient and rational coordination of the activity of the public and private sectors in the context of the guidelines adopted by the
Social structure and mass mobilization... The fundamental basis for this is democratic participation. this standpoint, our proposal assumes an organization of real democracy at various levels. It implies a recognition of the fact that without real participation by the organized making the big national decisions and in all areas and at all levels of social life, the state based on justice and the elected bodies will become only forms without
This participation will be exercised in
Through the political institutions of people's power, which have to resolve all the problems affecting society as a whole. groups - unions, student associations, etc. - which will give form at a certain level to the various forces in social life.
The hero of the Uruguayan war of inde the one that triumphed with which Uruguay otherwise has almost no national differences.
The experience of the
Through the management structures set up by the workers and the people to direct the productive process and everything that affects living conditions - the environment, health, culture, etc. And finally through political and other organrevolutionary left
All these forms of participation will take account of the positions taken by
Conclusions of a proscribed workers leader the various social forces.
another way, in order for real democracy
The persons deprived of political rights, the "proscribed," were excluded to work, it is necessary to rely on pluralism, a diversity of forms of participation, by the signing of the Naval Club agreements between the Colorado Party, and continual mobilization....In short, we the Frente Amplio and the dictatorship. One of them, Ruben Sassano, support popular initiative and decision who has been a political refugee in France for several years, is a represen making in all spheres and at all levels of
He was an activist in the Montevideo dockers' union, partici solving the problems facing the nation...
pated in all the struggles of the workers' movement, and was also a victim sum up, we advocate building of all the repression against revolutionary and worker militants. But he socialism on the economic level through also exemplifies the trajectory of the revolutionary militants favorable to democratic political forms that will avert the positions and orientations followed in struggle by the March 26 Movebureaucratization and permit a real dement, which today are being carried on by the IDI.
velopment of people's power.
The following interview was given to Daniel Jebrac in Paris on Octoway, we want to create the conditions so that the people and the people only will exercise political and social hegemony.
also state clearly that we see working class as the organizing and leading force in the people's movement, as the driving and central conscious force in bringing about the range of economic, political, social and cultural changes that will lead to socialist democracy....
In this sense, respect for the autonomy of the trade-union organizations is the central axis of our conception of socialist democracy. We know that it is necessary to respect and to help to safeguard the independence of the unions with respect to the economic, social, political and cultural organizations. It is unquestionably in the framework of such social freedoms that the workers will be able to combat the tendencies that may arise for a misappropriation of the economic form of bureaucratic privileges in the management or administrative bodies of structures of collective
Our historic project is national and social. Because it is national, it calls for fighting to free the country from depen-
It considers that breaking the ties dence.
of dependence is an essential precondition for developing the potential of country and of the Uruguayan the people....
The unity of the peoples and liberation movements of Latin America is an essential factor to give impetus to this anti-imperialist policy. By laying out an international policy of anti-imperialism and Latin American unity, we are only giving a regional content to some of the general principles valid for international relations on the world scale. That is, condefense of friendly relations sistent among all peoples of the world, peace states, the sovereignty and selfamong determination of peoples, nonintervention in the internal affairs of any people and nonalignment behind any decision- making center.
The Independent and Democratic Left
Program Commission
Montevideo, August 1984
24 ber 30.
Question. For many years, you were an activist and a leader in the Montevideo dockers' union. Today, on the eve of the elections, you are among those who remain proscribed. I have seen writing on the walls of Montevideo calling for your return. To put it another way, the demand for the release of all the political prisoners, starting with Raul Sendic; and for the return of the proscribed, starting with yourself and the poet Benedetti, illustrates the limitations of the loosening up in Uruguay. Moreover, it points up the need for a struggle that will con tinue after the November 25 elections. What is your situation today exactly?
Answer. I have been in France for seven years as a political refugee. When I heard talk about a loosening up, I went to demand my papers so that I could go back since, even for a convinced internationalist, exile remains a terrible torture. I had problems enough with the fine points of the language in Uruguay, so you can imagine in France what it is like. After seven years, I still express myself a bit like Tarzan. To cut a long story short, they refused to give me the papers, and I remain proscribed.
Q. How do you see the organization going on in the Uruguayan workers' movement and the significant of these
A. I have kept up contacts with the country and with, worker activists passing through France. One of them told me recently that because of all the people killed and in exile the working class there is like a big body with only a very small
This is also true of all the left parties. And the military are very much aware of this, even if they are obliged today to make some concessions.
The political refugees authorized to go back find themselves being subjected to warnings, pressures and threats. The repressive forces have withdrawn intact from the front of the stage. But they remain in the backroom, sharpening their knives, taking miles of photographic
Their rights were sacrificed