The major problem of governability, for the Ecuadorian bourgeoisie, has been the collapse of production and finance, together with the process of dollarization of the nation's economy initiated recently. With this last measure the government of Mahuad attempted to end the agony of the national currency that in the beginning of January suffered an unprecedented devaluation, in effect, in less than a week the dollar went from 7,000 sucres to up to 25,000 sucres. Since 1997, to date four presidents have fallen and the equivalent of 15 million dollars has fled the country, it is notable that the world crisis has provoked an economic catastrophe. Under these conditions and the impact of the austerity measures that have been adopted has transferred the cost of the crisis and the attempts at economic recovery onto the backs of the workers causing a mass revolt.
In the course of the Mahuad administration the Ecuadorian bourgeoisie has split. The forces of the government, in order to negotiate a new package of "economic adjustment" with the IMF, intended to recover the confidence of the international markets, has not only implied the continuation of the brutal offensive against the workers, but also put into question the practicality of the guardianship of important business sectors for the bourgeoisie by their creditors in a combination of intolerable impositions. The attempts at raising the new Value Added Tax (IVA - Impuesto al Valor Agregado) by 50%. The tripling of the price of fuel during the last year that taxes the consumption or raises the costs of operation of capital has provoked a bourgeois movement of opposition to the inevitable consequences of these measures. These sectors have donned the cloak of nationalism and are expressed as much at the institutional level, particularly in parliament where they have blocked many of the initiatives of the executive), as in the streets. Their central demand is to impose a moratorium on the payment of external debt and maintain sovereignty in the face of the IMF, behind which is the fear that their intervention may be as catastrophic as that which has taken place in Southeast Asia during the last crisis.
In the course of the final week of January, millions of people have participated in the protest actions against the government's measures. The movement in the streets is directed by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), by the bourgeois nationalists and by the National Popular Democratic Movement, a political organization with parliamentary connections run by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) or PC(M-L) a Hoxhaist formation.
"I want to say that the Ecuadorian people have triumphed. We are going to work for the people and fight against corruption. This is the objective". Antonio Vargas head of the CONAIE and second member of the triumvirate's declaration on the afternoon of Friday, Januray 21 (La Jornada 1/22/00).
During the days of the eighteenth to the twenty first of January the situation began to move with dizzying rapidity. The streets and military barracks were at the boiling point. On the afternoon of Friday 21, there simultaneously occurred a popular uprising on the streets and in the ranks of the army that already on the first day joined together in an operation to bring down the government of President Mahuad. Under instructions to "crush the government of bankers and businesses", thousands of workers accompanied by officials and "insurrectionary" soldiers of the FFAA (Ecuador's Armed Forces) stormed the presidential palace and the house of parliament. The number of people first estimated by the press stood at 100,000, this number was later adjusted downwards to 10,000, surrounding the parliament, the presidential palace and subsequently entering both of them without encountering any resistance. Immediately afterwards they formally declared the dismissal of Mahuad and they installed a triumvirate formed by a representative of the CONAIE, an ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a Coronal of the Armed Forces that was rapidly relieved of his functions by the Ministry of Defense. Finally, this new organism to which they gave the label of "Junta Popular" entrusted to itself the task of organizing a new government of "national salvation". Immediately, the Organization of American States and the heads of state of various South American countries associated with the Rio Group convened an emergency meeting called to give support to Mahuad and the "legitimately constituted institutions" against which they had labeled the take-over as a coup d'etat. A few hours later, at three in the morning of January 22, after a meeting held on the grounds of the US embassy, there was announced a new political accord between the military and the representatives of the old government, that entailed the dissolution of the "popular" triumvirate and the ascent to the presidency of Gustavo Noboa. The regime had survived the impasse through constitutional means, selecting Noboa in a unicameral parliament in which he was chosen almost unanimously.
Certainly, the situation has not yet come to a conclusion. The last episode is still being written and appears to be proceeding along the same tragicomic course that we have already written about in our article on Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The leadership of the indigenous movement finds itself in a historical gap in respect to the social base of the ethnic groups that have shaped it. While the stratum in charge of this movement is formed by artisans, shopkeepers, tradesmen and other small proprietors both rural and urban, that aspire to maintain an eternally economy of private exchange from within their own communities of small proprietors, the base of the movement has long since joined in the scheme of capitalist reproduction as a part of the army of wage labor that serves in the industry of private construction, in the fishing industry, as day laborers on the plantations, among salaried workers in the service sector, or in the automotive service industry. Diverted by indigena nationalism united with military populists and unions and linked to Ecuadorian stalinists, the workers - whose true motives for action are to be found in the conditions they face as a class in society and not in their ethnic quality. The ineptitude of the indigena leaders is extraordinary. Instead of striking when they could achieve their greatest effect they renounced their enormous deployment of forces, that we saw in the last weeks of January, for the promise of the new government of paying more attention to the plight of the indigenous, suggesting that Noboa has not only the intention, but even the capacity of tossing aside the dollarization of the economy and combating the misery that reigns in this segment of the population which collectively includes 42% of the 12.4 million inhabitants of Ecuador.
Nevertheless, through more than two years of continuous agitation it is also possible that these workers have learned a decisive lesson likely to be proven within the following days: that their force is enormous, but without a revolutionary program that comprehends the course of development of capital and can give an indication of the tasks to be accomplished and the enemies to be defeated, without the formation of their own independent organizations of power - workers councils - they will not be able to guarantee the defense of their own interests, work that in our times is inextricably linked to their class offensive. Today there is no difference between the immediate struggle for the defense of workers lives and communism. Neither the new state nor any national "revolutionary" sector of the bourgeoisie is able to save workers of Ecuador or Latin America from the shock-waves of international speculation or from the requirements of the financial powers of the world because none of them are able to assure an efficient and skillful management of the overwhelming macro-economic variables and in particular of the monetary mass. The defense of workers has today as a precondition the international organization of the proletariat against the transnational monopolies and financial powers within a social offensive in each country against the bankers, the states and national bourgeoisies that serve as the appendages of global capitalism. With a revolutionary leadership from the class and with their own experiences of power, not one military force would be able to resist the movement of the masses of Ecuadorian workers, or rather that never again will there take place the maneuvers with which they were ingenuously tricked in the end. Therefore the true problem today does not reside in whether the masses of workers are predisposed to mobilize themselves with audacity and decisiveness, but rather in the type of social and political leadership that they allow to head their movement.
In effect, in the 17 months of Mahuad's management, the indígenas made two uprisings and thousands marched on Quito making a convincing demonstration of their power. But, instead of considering the repercussions of the global crisis in their country, they took the conditions of the capitalist economy as the result of the policies of "their" national government, the indigenous and "popular" movement attributed to a caste of corrupt politicians and to their neo-liberal guidelines their real suffering and misery. In some cases they reduce the behavior of the capitalist economy to economic and political ideologies and in other cases they converted it into a simple accounting problem that could be resolved by assigning the accounting of the wealth robbed by the government bureaucracies to another official, the people. In reality the only possible change in the choices of action of the ruling groups take is in the profitability of capital and not an ethical decision. Linked to conditions of domination and exploitation of the working class, to obtain profitability under conditions of global crisis would be demanded from any government - whether of the right or of the left - to provide their contribution it is necessary to squeeze it out of the workers a little harder every time. In pretending to reverse actual social evolution the "indígenista" left and the unions have forgotten that exploitation is a social relation subject to constant conflicts of antagonistic interests between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Only if the proletariat breaks from and surpasses this relation will they be able to dispose rationally of the fruits of their labor. The leadership of the movement of the masses has not taken advantage of their previous experience. Even when in their first protests, in July of 1999, the movement obliged Mahuad to reverse himself in certain neo-liberal economic policies, having learned nothing from the fact that to the contrary the situation has since only gotten worse. Finally they believed that with the exit of Mahuad and the dissolution of congress and the judiciary, they would conquer better conditions for the masses of workers. This illusion has made this movement easy pickings for the maneuvers of the bourgeoisie.
Despite all this, the perspective is one of a continuation and upsurge of social struggles. In short, there will not be a social and political consensus while there is no solution to the social crisis. It is manifested in the imperialist plans of creating a dollarized in the Western Hemisphere, they stumble on the more profound recession of the economies of the area and the desperate and exasperated resistance of the millions of victims of the system. There is a context of social war and of confrontation that not only offers important opportunities for the construction of the party in delimiting clearly the different camps and interests in the struggle but also in which the political nucleus prone to the development of the communist program may contribute to its elaboration. So that the next revolt will begin at the same point as the current one, and all will remain in order, the survivors will bury their dead, the workers will return to their prisons, the bureaucrats to their larceny, the bourgeoisie to their profits, the gentlemen to their whores and the ladies to their lovers: "S the country awoke this morning as if nothing had taken place, after a coup that threw out Mahuad and brought in Noboa, who proceeded swearing in the new members of his cabinet, while the shopkeepers and students returned to their activities, the pricing of the dollar remained stable and the stock market functioned as usual" (La Jornada 1/24/00).
juanamando
The fact that the recent war in the Balkans took place in Europe itself plus the way it was fought (both during and after the NATO bombings) shows that we have taken a significant step towards generalized imperialist war. The wars which have broken out in Daghestan and other former Soviet Republics are yet another step. Here Russia is opposed to guerrilla movements operating under a radical mixture of nationalist and religious ideologies, but which in reality are encouraged by competing imperialisms.
In the face of this escalation of war the passivity of the proletariat still persists. Yet the conditions which have led to that escalation make the strengthening of the revolutionary internationalist forces within the working class even more urgent. This is the context for resisting the dramatic twists in civil and political life which war always brings. The revolutionary program alone constitutes a solid reference point for the proletariat which before, during and in the immediate aftermath of war, can and must begin to react as a class. The imperialist phase of capitalism has made the alternative obvious: it is either war or revolution. This does not mean that the onset of war ends the possibility of revolution. The events of World War One (1914-18) and the October Revolution (1917) demonstrate this.
Without getting into a sterile debate about its likelihood, revolutionaries must prepare for all eventualities, including war. To start with, we have to consider the mortal danger of finding ourselves so weak that we will be reduced to silence, and swept away by the storms of war. The central, most important, task is to begin building the revolutionary party starting from the present condition of dispersal of revolutionaries and the confusion amongst them as well as the dead weight of arguments from the past. The issue of war, including the kind of opposition revolutionaries carry on against it, is the best way to select those forces capable of contributing to the future party. This will be within the framework of some fixed principles which we indicate here. They are the non-negotiable basis for our political initiative aimed at reinforcing the revolutionary front in the face of capitalism and its wars.
2. Imperialism is therefore the way of life of capitalist production, and maintains all its fundamental characteristics, including the anarchy of production, production for profit, the absolute priority of the search for profit above any other consideration or political, ethical or humanitarian motivation, the competition between larger and smaller accumulations of capital (on a regional, national or multinational basis) and the incessant struggle between them, in the same search for maximum profit and the maximum exploitation of the proletariat.
3. Today the unequal balance of economic forces between states - or rather between the state organs of the national and regional fractions of the bourgeoisie - reflects the characteristic features of the imperialist stage: from the varying levels of accumulation achieved and, above all and consequently, to the necessity to participate in the carve-up of global profit.
4. Some national bourgeoisies will have a smaller or almost non-existent share of global profits but this does not in the least contradict the fact that they are an integral part of imperialism. As such they are naturally and irreconcilably opposed to the idea of freeing the working class from the chains of wage Labor.
5. Thus, the notion that clashes between different bourgeoisies are moments in the weakening of imperialism is a fundamentally reactionary one that obscures the very nature of imperialism and would tie the proletariat to the weaker factions of the bourgeoisie. This would postpone the emergence of any autonomous revolutionary class perspective and force the proletariat onto one or other of the imperialist war fronts.
6. The collapse of the Soviet imperialist front was due to the same crisis that struck world capitalism from the beginning of the 70's, at the beginning of the downturn in world capitalism's third cycle of accumulation.
7. The fall of the USSR has opened up a new political period. New relationships are being established between states as the attempt to resolve the crisis brings them into conflict with each other and moves them towards the recomposition of the fronts.
8. The main motive for the Second World War was the struggle for supplies of raw materials and markets for investment which corresponded to that period of imperialist development. Today, on top of this can be added the urge to control the mechanisms for appropriating revenue (with control of oil foremost) and the Labor market. These are both striking products of globalization and part of capital's initial response to it.
9. The crisis is violently shaking whole areas of the world economy and makes state rivalries become more rapidly acute. Thus, the tendency towards the re-establishment of imperialist blocs involves competition on a world scale for financial revenue, raw materials, oil and Labor. The wars in ex-Yugoslavia, as well as those in the Caucasus and in Asia in general, have all taken place in this context.
10. In principle we have to rule out and combat as counter-revolutionary any suggestion of support for one or other of the combatants in any such war - no matter how it is disguised or ideologically justified because this already means lining up with one side or other of imperialism.
11. Equally, we have to reject any theory re-echoing the old idea of super-imperialism which - instead of seeing the enemy as the capitalist system (whatever stage it might have reached) - sees it as one or other capitalist state (particularly the USA) against which any opposition or war would be welcome.
13. On the other hand, one of the reasons why the crisis phase has lasted so long is the acquiescence of the class in the comprehensive process of restructuring which has taken place. This has involved heavy attacks on workers with substantial devaluation of the value of Labor itself and the robbery of the indirect wage via cuts in so-called social services in both the metropolitan and peripheral countries. This acquiescence is due to a number of factors amongst which are the collapse of the USSR, the reactionary role of social democracy and the lack of a clear political reference point for the working class. The international bourgeoisie has used these factors effectively to grip the working class in a vice from which it is hard to escape.
14. The collapse of the USSR did not mean the end of the Stalinist counter-revolutionary deception that state monopoly capitalism is the same as socialism. The mystification lives on with the consequent rejection by a whole generation of proletarians of socialism and its premise: class solidarity against the bourgeoisie and capital.
15. It is this subjective condition of the class which makes it difficult for a significant enough proletarian movement to revive and threaten capitalism's course towards war. However, the first signs of a generational change within the proletariat are emerging which, freed from the dead hand of Stalinism, carry the hope of a return of class activity and struggle, even if only of a defensive kind. Putting the accent on the future proletariat isn't just a generational question or due to lack of knowledge of Stalinism but above all depends on the economic situation which the younger generation of the working class will be faced with. The future relationship between capital and Labor, of which we have already seen the first devastating signs, will be characterized by the absolute servitude of Labor in comparison to capital. This means concessions on work norms, lower taxes, and incentives on the one hand, unemployment, short-time working and starvation wages, on the other - without social security and without the real possibility of building even a minimum pension.
16. It is not possible to predict with certainty if the re-emergence of proletarian initiative will precede a generalized imperialist conflict (regardless of the form this may take) or will be a consequence of it. In either case it is only on this basis that the slogan of revolutionary defeatism will become real.
17. Concretely, therefore, the defeatist activity of revolutionaries focuses, by all possible means that are compatible with the long-term goal, on another revival of class initiative, against the national and intentional bourgeoisie and their political and trade union lackeys. Proletarian action never trails after a bourgeois faction because it happens to be under attack or because it is a weaker player on the imperialist chessboard. That would mean being swallowed up by one of the war blocs in the name of a fake anti-imperialism. The only possible anti-imperialism is that which passes through the struggle against capitalism, wherever it happens to be and whatever ideology is used to justify it.
18. The revival of the working class will come, if it does come, outside and against the official unions and all the other more or less "radical" forms trade unionism might take.
19. The appalling process of restructuring of production with its consequent destruction of the old structure of the working class is the prelude to a political reconstitution of the class from a different basis which will open up new perspectives for the work of revolutionaries, but will also favor a return of unionism, even if in new and seemingly more radical forms.
20. Whatever the form trade unionism takes today (once synonymous with reformist haggling over the price and conditions of the sale of Labor power within the capitalist system, now openly helping the system to survive by implementing capital's self-preservation policy of sacrifices inside the working class), wherever it crystallizes into mass organizations it inevitably means acting on behalf of the bourgeoisie and therefore supporting one or other fronts in imperialist war. Trade unionism must therefore be fought on the political as well as the organizational level. The next revolution will be made over the dead bodies of the trades unions.
21. It is the task of revolutionaries to appeal for the revival of proletarian initiative from below, via mass assemblies, strike committees, and a struggle directly controlled by them. In this way revolutionaries can both contribute to the revival of the proletariat itself, as well as the reinforcement of the revolutionary party.
Other political elements in this arena, although not falling into the tragic mistake of supporting one of the warring parties, have, in the name of a fake anti-imperialism or because of historically and economically impossible progressive visions, equally distanced themselves from the methods and perspectives of work which lead to regroupment in the future revolutionary party. They are beyond saving and are victims of their own idealist or mechanistic frameworks, incapable of recognizing the peculiarities of the explosion of the perennial economic contradictions of modern capitalism. They are more ready to wait messianically for the revolution or, in blind invariance, they cannot grasp the specifics of the present situation, whether in terms of the crisis and capitalism's responses to it or in the changing relations between capital and Labor over the intervening years.
Not one of the components of these currents has made an examination of capital and its relations with the working class which takes account of the real capitalist dynamic. All therefore appear to be lagging behind - above all because they lack method and adequate instruments - in relation to both current events and future perspectives.
How far the revolutionary movement is behind in its task can be measured by the delay of a part of it to definitely detach itself from the swamp in which they vainly try to move and where they multiply like photocopies in a neurotic syndrome of severe micro-partyism. We remain certain that there are living elements of the class movement which can appear and regroup on the basis of the method, the analysis and the revolutionary positions defended by the IBRP in open battle against the suffocating rule of capital, and its course towards barbarism.