Internationalist Notes 21

At the end of August the main unions (CUT, CGTDC, CTC were running to keep ahead of a mass strike movement of city and countryside alike. Ninety five percent of economic activity was paralyzed for two days. In the cities masses of desperate wage workers took to the streets. With the economy in recession - the first six months of 1999 saw a six percent drop in GDP - government announcements to implement an IMF-supervised "adjustment" program of public spending cuts and a wage freeze were met by direct action.

Background

The eruption of mass class struggle in Colombia this summer is no freak accident. In Latin America as a whole the capitalist crisis is biting with a vengeance. With over 78 million officially living on less than a dollar a day (according to the World Bank), there are almost daily revolts against capitalist exploitation and the political regimes propped up by US imperialism. In Central America, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil and Chile there is now a situation of continual popular revolt embracing both tradition peasant and indigenous people's movements and the spontaneous rebellion of the proletariat and sub-proletariat. Without a revolutionary program or organization of their own, the working class is being sucked into leftist nationalist movements that seek a state capitalist solution to the crisis. These guerrilla bands have nothing in common with working class internationalism or the struggle for communism. With their banner or "anti-imperialism" (by which they mean only anti-US imperialism) and opposition to the IMF (seven countries Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia as well are under direct control of the IMF) they are an increasing threat to the existing regimes. In particular, the recent success of the Colombian guerrillas - the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) claim they have pushed out government troops from an area the size of Switzerland - has made them a reference point for insurrectionary movements throughout Latin America. At a time when the neo-liberal capitalist model has resoundingly failed throughout the region and with "economic liberalization" programs of the IMF leading directly to wage cuts, growing unemployment, increasing hunger and a further erosion of the traditional economy, ever greater sections of the population are becoming sympathetic to the nationalist movements of the local bourgeoisie who seek to get rid of competition from foreign capital and the strictures of the IMF.

The US is getting worried. Under the smokescreen of "fighting drugs" Washington already makes Colombia its third largest recipient of US military aid, military aid which increasingly involves direct military collaboration with the Colombian army against the guerrillas. As the Colombian government's position became even more tenuous over the summer one of Washington's chief spokesmen on Colombian affairs, the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, General Barry McCaffrey, responded to the threat to US imperialism by proposing a Pan-American "multinational intervention force" to be ready to act, as he put it, in the event of a "a national emergency which puts US interests in the region at risk". Needless to say, the plight of Colombia's working masses in itself does not constitute an emergency. It is a testament to the bankruptcy of capitalist democracy that this is the only response the richest and most powerful "democracy" on earth can make to the crisis born out the desperation of the mass of the Colombian population.

With pittance wages and virtually no social security, the working masses of Latin America are facing a life or death situation. In Colombia on the 31st of August were tired of promises. For 48 hours they tasted working class power. Factories and workplaces were taken over. With the slogan "We Are the Hungry!", workers expropriated food for themselves. The unions joined forces with the government in calling for "calm" while the state got together a 250,000 strong force of military and police to fire on the "looters". The next day the protests were even more intense and the expropriations continued.

The unions had to find a way of getting the masses to renounce their independent action and get themselves back in control. The union leaders joined a government round table to devise a way breaking the unity of the masses. The government announced delaying tactics: a month-long "working party" to negotiate the workers' demands along with promises of international credits and national funds to be used to solve economic problems. Union leader, Tarciso Mora, promptly announced that "the Colombian people and workers have won". As usual, the unions are feeding workers the illusion that capitalism can be reformed so that poverty wont exist. For the bourgeois media, this was all delinquency on their part since they cannot admit that there is no solution for the masses.

Despite the absence of a communist alternative at present, the upsurge of mass anger demonstrated the inability of the bourgeoisie's control mechanisms to put a brake on the mass reaction to poverty. Only cooperation between the union leaders and the government prevented the movement from becoming a full-scale revolt. Today there is more need than ever for a revolutionary party to show the masses that there is no solution within capitalism, to urge for the creation of class based mass organs, and one that has a sufficient historical perspective for the massive struggles ahead.

In mid-October a series of high profile drug arrests rounded up 1,290 people on drug trafficking charges. This operation reportedly involved 15 countries and its high visibility allowed US officials to boastfully claim they had driven the price of cocaine up by 15%. This figure is most likely a lie, like the claim that sales of military hardware to Colombia are for drug interdiction.

On October 5th protest marches, approved of by the Colombian government, took place in 700 cities and towns across Colombia. The government welcomed the protests as a means of putting pressure on Colombian guerrilla armies. 1

Of the money currently allocated by the US congress to aid the Colombian government in reestablishing some semblance of control over the country, some $540 million are earmarked for military equipment such as Blackhawk helicopters. $405 million are earmarked for increased "air interdiction efforts" and $365 million is to be used to "enhance regional drug interdiction". Of all this money only $120 million is to be spent on developing alternatives to coca and poppy production in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. An even smaller amount of $70 million is being set aside to bolster "democracy and human rights" in Colombia.

With President Pastrana launching his plan for "peace, prosperity and the strengthening of the state" it is clear that the main priority is not with fighting a war on drugs but to continue the war against the FARC and ELN. Peace talks are being made at the same time as preparations for further war. With Colombian army units being trained by US advisors and an extraordinary influx of military hardware conflict will only escalate should rebels prove uninterested in making a deal. This is a conflict that threatens to involve the whole region.

Since the close of the main military bases in Panama the US army southern command is looking around to find new bases from which to impose an order favorable to US capitalism. Conflict also has its reflection at home in the US with a permanently mushrooming prison population, that makes for a perfect slave labor work-force, as well as an increase in police violence all in the name of fighting drug sale and use. This is a part of the establishment of US capitalist order both here and abroad, its basis rests in the violence of the state.

To further compound the terrible situation in Colombia the International Monetary Fund put forward its agenda for Colombia that includes:

- The reduction of state salaries by holding annual pay increases to less than 10%, this is below the cumulative rate of inflation for 1999.
- A draconian budget reduction, where investment outlays will be most effected.
- A halt on expenditures to municipalities and regional administrative districts.
- An increase in labor "flexibility" to reduce the so-called "burden on business".
- New fiscal reforms to be enacted which are intended to expand the tributary base (i.e. workers pay more).
- Elimination of retroactivity (backdating) for dismissals in the public sector.
- The continuation of planned privatizations of state run entities.

As far back as last year the US government was attempting to chart a course in Colombia that would allow them to reassert control over the region. Recommendations made by chosen experts of the bourgeoisie on August 5, 1998, include:

- The main priority US policy should be placed on combating the threat to Colombia's "basic security".
- Promote Colombia's entrance into the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
- Promoting a peace agreement between the various factions of capitalist gangsters in Colombia.
- An increase in "humanitarian" or development assistance (i.e. economic subsidies).
- More pressure on monitoring human rights policies, to combat the bad image of both the government and the guerrillas. 2

It is US imperialism that cannot maintain order in its own "backyard", but as long as the working class does not take up its historic revolutionary task - capitalism will continue to get worse.

Notes

1. Rohter, Larry. Colombia Begins Talking Peace with Rebels. New York Times. Oct. 25, 1999.

2. Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on International Relations House of Representatives. Regional Conflict: Colombia's Insurgency and Prospects for a Peaceful Resolution. Washington: US Printing Office, August 5, 1998.

Based on reports from our correspondent in Colombia, except where noted.

New Democretinism

The following is a response to a submission to Discussion Bulletin by New Democracy

New Democracy's statement of principles has offered us another serving of platitudes. To illustrate the vague nature in which these principles are worded I have taken the liberty to rewrite this statement as follows:

1 - We are for revolution to create a real Communism (libertarian socialism or whatever). We call on people everywhere to end elite rule and to create real communism based on shared principles of solidarity and equality. Communism means ordinary people shaping all of society with their shared values. It means people together freely deciding their goals and how they will cooperate to achieve them. This includes transforming goals, organization, and control of work to create an economy where the productive wealth of society is used to meet the human needs of all.

Thus what has accomplished in this platform is hardly more than a substitution of words, the program itself is hardly any different than those statements from organizations that spring from a Marxist background. Production for human need and not for profit is so quintessentially Marxist that it hardly bears mentioning. Is this perhaps a hint of Marxist heritage of New Democracy? Say it is not so.

Why this substitution, why call the ruling class the ruling elite? The idea behind New Democracy is hardly a new one. The desire of organizations of the left to place as much distance between themselves and anything that seems too "Marxist" or revolutionary has been a source of conflict among every major organization on the left in the US since the end of the nineteenth century. The Socialist Labor Party sought to rid itself of groups of militant armed workers. Later, the Communist Party in its infancy could not cope with being an illegal party and subsequently initiated a series of political front parties, seeking any attempt to gain their coveted acceptance and legality.

However the problems with New Democracy do not end there. In issue 87 of Discussion Bulletin Dave Stratman states of page 3 that:

"Though the enemies we confront are powerful, the chief obstacles to our success have been internal problems within the labor reform movement. It is within our power to solve them."

This statement seems to hold out the false illusion of being able to transform the unions. Since the turn of the century this has been attempted, from the tactic of boring (yawn) from within the union to the idea of creating a new union. Every attempt at altering the relationship of unions to the ruling class has failed, from the CNT in Spain to the Teamsters for a Democratic Union of the US today. Good intentions of reformers will not alter the trajectory of an institution that serves the ruling class.

In the same article he writes on the subject of the Detroit Newspaper strike that:

"This strike may seem to be just a "reform" struggle for a better contract. In fact it is an implicitly revolutionary struggle over what values should shape society."

This error is quite common and is found frequently among those vulgar leftists who often seek to elevate one struggle to epic proportions when indeed it is a struggle to gain a better contract and little else. Within the unions or outside of the unions the task of revolutionaries in the workplace is the same - to always seek out the most militant workers, to encourage and aid them in the defense of their own class interests.

Again in the same article he intentionally misrepresents Marx in an attempt to achieve a shortcut to avoid any attempt at understanding Marx, history of revolutionary movements or their historical context. Stratman states that:

"Marx aimed to create a "science of revolution" based on supposed laws of economics and history which operate independent of human intentions."

First, Marx did believe that people, social classes, make history collectively. That history was not simply the product of powerful men. Marx also believed that capitalism for the first time in human history allowed an exploited class to collectively change its fate. Finally, these "supposed laws of economics" include such things as the general tendency for the rate of profit to fall. This tendency, which Marx expressed in the third volume of Capital is real and not a supposition. This was not to be understood as an eternal constant but as a general tendency. Of all the various methods the capitalists have employed to avoid this general tendency for the rate of profit to fall, from austerity to world war to the expansion of debt, it is a problem that always comes back to haunt them.

In issue 96 of Discussion Bulletin in his article "Why is the U.S. Bombing Yugoslavia?" Stratman writes that:

"Milosevic is really the U.S.-IMF man in Belgrade."

He comes to this conclusion presumably from the belief that if the Milosevic government instituted IMF austerity measures in exchange for loans previous to the bombing and the U.S. state through NATO has not succeeded in removing Milosevic from power, Milosevic must therefore be the U.S. man in power in this region. Furthermore, he does not consider any of strategic regional goals of the imperialist powers that have divided up ex-Yugoslavia or consider that there must be something beyond greater Serbia at stake in the region. The proximity of neighboring Turkey and beyond that the oil of the Caspian Sea must provide a more compelling reason for a permanent military presence of NATO armies in Kosovo. Oil flowing to Europe through both Russia and Turkey has made every state from the Caucasus to the Black Sea of supreme interest to the various forces of imperialism.

In number 94 of Discussion Bulletin, Stratman writing in his article "You'll Never Be Good Enough: Schooling and Social Control" states that:

"At the heart of the educational system, there is a conflict over its goals."

Yet there is no conflict over goals, no matter how hard educators and parents struggle to make schools better, the capitalist religion of the bottom line ultimately prevails. This critique of opposing goals and value systems echoes through the writings of New Democracy. The ruling class is in a race to the bottom and this is portrayed as a conflict of values.

More recently, in issue 97 of Discussion Bulletin, he writes of Kamunist Kranti's activity in Fadirabad criticizing them for suffering from a "Marxist conception of human beings." Whatever Kamunist Kranti might be criticized for, they have apparently succeeded in gaining some kind of a foothold in the factories of Fadirabad. What comes across is not so much a critique of their views but a patronizing chiding for being too "Marxist".

In the final sentence of point three of the New Democracy Statement of Principles it is stated that:

"The basis of a new society is a new, positive view of people."

How is a positive view of people supposed to shake the power of the ruling class? Such phrases are meaningless. After such sweet sentiments readers might have to brush their teeth. The real basis for rebuilding a revolutionary movement has to lie in an analysis of the failings and successes of previous revolutionary movements.

Point 5 follows with the statement that:

"Class struggle is a struggle over what values should shape society, what goals it should pursue, and who should control it."

On the contrary class struggle today is driven by necessity, the ruling class needs to accumulate profit and workers struggle to keep their heads above water. A revolution is not built on hope, if that were indeed the case previous attempts at revolutions would have succeeded.

There has been a great deal of criticism of the statements of New Democracy and Dave Stratman since Discussion Bulletin first started publishing these writings. Yet Stratman, to my knowledge, has not once answered anyone's criticism. This is because instead of a political movement, instead of debate and conflict, he seeks to evangelize and convert people to a movement that is more religious than political. In a rather undemocratic manner, it seems as if New Democracy is not seeking to organize revolutionaries but is looking for sheep to lead.

There is a revolutionary alternative, there always has been, it is found in those groups who were courageous enough to fight all forms of capitalism and capitalist ideology. A part of this revolutionary alternative can be found among the political heirs of the Italian Communist Left. It is not worth ignoring the historical experience of revolutionaries and workers for the sake of a handful of nice sounding words about democracy and values.

ASm