The New Revolutionary Peasantry
The Growth Of Peasant-Led Opposition To Neoliberalism
By James Petras
I was invited to give one of the inaugural speeches at the
Second Latin American Congress of Rural Organizations (Congreso
Latinoamericano de Organizaciones del Campo, CLOC) that took
place in Brazil November 3-7, 1997. There were approximately 350
delegates from practically every country in Latin America (only
Uruguay and El Salvador were absent). The Congress marked a
turning point in Latin American revolutionary politics as it
signaled the revival and dynamic growth of popularly organized,
independent struggles to overthrow the neo-liberal regimes and to
create a humane and egalitarian alternative.
The growth of peasant-led mass opposition to neo-liberalism
is uneven. In some countries like Brazil, where the Landless
Rural Workers Movement (MST) represents hundreds of thousands of
farmworkers, the rural movement provides leadership to the
national struggle. In other countries like Chile, the
farmworkers' movement has not yet recovered from the savage
repression of the Pinochet years and is a marginal force even at
local levels. One of the key factors explaining the rising
influence of peasant movements is their autonomy and independence
from electoral parties and guerrilla "commanders" where they were
merely "transmission belts" of policy.
The second factor is their embrace of a national
socio-political agenda. In discussions with many peasant leaders
at the CLOC conference (as well as in prior meetings over the
past 5 years) the fundamental issue was "self-determination", the
idea that only the farmworkers through their own organizations
can liberate themselves. The FENOC in Ecuador, the MST in Brazil
and the Paraguayan Peasant Federation, all of which have played a
major role in shaping the national debate on agrarian reform,
emerged from peasant organizing from below, developed their own
structures and leaders, and were not beholden to any party.
In contrast, the Chilean peasant organizations are largely
adjuncts of electoral party elites (Socialist and Christian
Democrats) who are part of a government coalition implementing a
neo-liberal agenda. These organizations have little capacity to
organize and are beholden to the state for their meager
subsidies.
The influence and power of peasant movements is evident:
In Ecuador the peasant and Indian movements spearheaded the
movement that forced the resignation of President Bucaram, on
corruption charges and attempts to impose an IMF free market
agenda on the people. In Brazil, the MST has settled over 150,000
families representing almost a million people on uncultivated
lands through direct action - land occupation movements. Through
actions in 21 states the MST has pushed land-reform to the center
of political debate. One indicator of its success is found in
recent polls in Sao Paulo (Brazil's largest city) which indicate
that over 75 percent of the population support land distribution
favoring landless farm workers. In Bolivia, the peasants,
particularly the coca growing ex-tin miners, have led the
struggle in defense of national sovereignty and recently swept
the elections with their own candidates in the Cochabamba area.
In Colombia, the peasant-based guerrilla army, the Popular Army
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), has
extended its influence to close to half the rural municipalities
in the country. While not strictly speaking a peasant movement
since almost one-third of its recruits come from the town and
cities, many of its programmatic demands are rural-centered: land
reform, human rights in the countryside, unionization of farm
workers, etc. With close to 15,000 mostly peasant combatants it
is probably the most potent guerrilla army in the Third World
today and gaining strength. One indication is the fact that the
U.S. Defense Department has dropped the fiction that its
multi-million dollar military aid program is directed toward
fighting narco-traffickers. It publicly endorsed the shipment of
arms to fight peasant insurgency. In Paraguay, only a massive
mobilization of peasants and students blocked a threatened
military coup. Plummeting cotton prices have put hundreds of
thousands of peasants on the verge of bankruptcy. Free market
trade policies and state promoted agro-business exporters are
undermining local food producers, inciting a cycle of peasant
land occupations and violent military evictions. In Mexico, the
Zapatista movement (EZLN) has re-opened the question of Indian
rights, land reform, and more fundamentally the whole NAFTA/free
market policies promoted by Clinton and Zedillo. Without the
Zapatista uprising in 1994, the signing and implementation of
NAFTA would have passed as an elite ceremonial event. Since
implementation of NAFTA began, over one million peasants have
been ruined and tens of millions of salaried employees have had
their incomes cut by half. The demands and critique of the EZLN
resonate throughout the country.
The New Peasantry
The contemporary peasant movements are not comparable to
past movements, nor do they fit the stereotype of local,
traditional, illiterate peasants struggling for "land to the
tiller". Most of the peasant and Indian delegates at the CLOC
Congress were educated (both self-taught and with at least six
years of formal schooling) and aware of national and
international issues. The new peasant movements have a national
agenda: they are not solely concerned with rural issues. More
specifically they are aware that land distribution policies can
only succeed with credit, technical assistance, and protected
markets. They recognize that political alliances with urban
classes and organizations is necessary in order to transform the
regime. They are not simply "economic organizations". They are
socio-political movements, struggling against the free market
policies of privatization, de-regulation, and export promotion.
The rural movements have formed political alliances with trade
unions and have contributed to the organization of urban slum
dwellers. The general strikes that rocked Ecuador in February
1997, Brazil in June 1996, Bolivia in December 1996 for example,
were based on peasant-Indian-trade union alliances.
At the CLOC conference most of the delegates were between 20
and 30 years old. They were fresh from national and regional
struggles. The historic first Latin American Assembly of Rural
Women was held before the CLOC conference and attended by close
to 100 delegates. Over 40 percent of the delegates to the CLOC
meeting were peasant women, mostly in their 20s to early 30s.
This was an extraordinary change: at the previous CLOC meeting 3
years earlier less than 10 percent of the delegates were women.
The younger delegates fortunately had not passed through the
sectarian leftist wars of the 1960s or 1970s. Their support for
the Cuban Revolution was based on its resistance to U.S.
intervention and its progressive agrarian reform. Few, if any,
took their "doctrinal cues" from Fidel Castro. They
"incorporated" Che Guevara or Fidel Castro to particular national
and social struggle. Hence the coca farmer delegate spoke of
Che's anti-imperialism in the struggle against U.S.-DEA
eradication policies. Fidel Castro was cited as a forerunner of
the Brazilian peasants struggle to occupy land and resist
eviction. Thus there is neither repudiation or iconization of
past revolutionaries.
The upsurge of the new peasant movements faces important
challenges that were raised in both the formal sessions and
informal discussions. For example, one of the slogans of the
conference was "agrarian reform, anti-imperialism, and
socialism", yet the representatives of the Guatemalan
organization (CONIC) told me that it was impossible to raise any
of those issues in Guatemala. "The mass terror and the continual
operation of the paramilitary death squads still weigh heavily on
the peasants." The peace accords signed by the guerrilla
commanders left the genocidal generals immune to any prosecution.
The emerging electoral political system is still linked to the
state institution of violence (army, judiciary, and secret
police) which have been only given a facelift, renamed, their
personnel reshuffled.
"The highest priority is to create an umbrella organization
for the dozen or so peasant organization that have emerged in
recent years. We have to temper our activity as to not endanger
the precarious and very limited political space that we occupy",
one peasant leader commented. U.S. AID has utilized its rural
funding to create rival organizations to the militant peasant
movements and to encourage groups to think in terms of "projects"
not agrarian reform.
Culture And Revolution
Cultural issues, particularly Indian demands for territorial
autonomy, recognition of their religions, linguistics, and
community-based economies were central issues raised, especially
by Ecuadorean, Bolivian, and Guatemalan delegations. One Bolivian
peasant leader spoke of the sacred and religious nature of coca
production, which she engaged in to support her family. The
Guatemalan voiced a common concern of all the Indian-peasant
delegations for greater right of self-government.
What became clear, however, in the course of the discussions
was a profound difference between these militants and the public
figures that the Western mass media present as "Indian spokes
people." For example, the Bolivians spoke disparagingly of the
so-called "Quechua-speaking vice-president" who talks to the
Indians and works for the rich foreigners. The Guatemalans were
very critical of Rigoberta Menchu for her embrace of symbolic
"Mayan" cultural changes divorced from the larger
political-economic and human rights issues. And the Ecuadorean
FONIC-I leaders spoke critically of two Indian leaders of the
umbrella CONAI movement who were co-opted by the corrupt free
market Bucaram regime. The leaders of the Indian movements at the
CLOC congress were not falling victim to the "cultural identity"
politics designed to divide and co-opt local leaders in order to
undercut the movement's demands for land rights.
The new peasant movements have been deeply influenced by the
social doctrines of the Church. At one of the plenary sessions,
Fray Beto, the Brazilian Catholic theologian, asked the delegates
how many had been influenced by religious teachings: over 90
percent raised their hands. Popular religiosity, the fusion of
biblical lessons, and religious values has had a direct effect in
stimulating the new generation of peasant leaders, along with
Marxism, traditional communitarian values, and modern feminist
and nationalist ideas. The organizational discipline, personal
integrity, and moral commitment that infuses much of the movement
comes from their earlier religious background, even as many of
the militants have taken their distance from the conservative
Church hierarchy and the Vatican.
The success of the Latin American Assembly of Peasant Women
was manifested by the overwhelmingly favorable response to their
proposals for equal presence in all levels of the peasant
organization (from international to local) and in all instances
of the agrarian reform process (from land titles to co-op
leadership). The energies and enthusiasm unleashed gave added
vitality to the proposals for coordinated joint continental
action around peasant demands.
The new militancy of peasant women was manifested in other
instances. A delegate of the Cochabamba peasant movement
described the struggle of the coca farmers against the
U.S.-directed eradication campaign. "This year they have already
assassinated several of our members and one of our leaders. We
have resisted and will continue to resist. I am supporting my
elderly mother and my only son on my four acres. We negotiated
with the government a pact in exchange for the eradication of
7,000 acres of coca production the government promised to finance
alternative economic activity, including a factory to employ the
displaced farmers. We have reduced coca production by 3,000 acres
but they have not even started to build the factory. They have
tricked us again. Now they are threatening to send the military
to massacre us and eradicate all our sacred lands and leave us in
misery. I want to learn how to use a gun. Because I want to be
able to be part of the armed resistance when the Army invades."
Militarization & State Repression
The neo-liberal regimes and their backers in Washington have
responded to the growing peasant movements by demilitarizing the
countryside: there are 40,000 soldiers in Chiapas, Mexico in
addition to at least 5 new paramilitary groups since 1995. In
Colombia, the military has armed scores of paramilitary forces,
terrorizing and displacing several hundred thousand peasants
perceived as real or potential sympathizers of the FARC. In Peru,
the U.S.-backed military occupies three quarters of the
countryside and President Fujimori holds his press conferences
and top strategy meetings in the barracks. In Bolivia the
military with U.S. DEA advisors has savaged the coca growing
peasants and is saturating the region for a major assault on over
40,000 families whose only livelihood is coca leaf cultivation.
Washington's responsibility for the militarization of the
Latin American countryside and the ensuing violence is
transparent. Clinton's push for free markets is undermining local
peasant producers who are ruined by cheap U.S. corn and grain
imports. The White House's financing of agro-business export
strategies is converting the countryside into one big plantation
displacing peasant and Indian communal farmers. Those not
displaced by the market, those who decide to stay and organize or
to grow alternative crops that are marketable, are driven out by
the U.S. trained and armed military and paramilitary forces. It
is abundantly clear throughout Latin America that peasant
activists perceive the Clinton administration as complicit with
some of the most damaging economic policies they have
experienced. With Washington's backing of the increased
militarization of the continent, Clinton may surpass Reagan's
bloody record of 275,000 dead Central Americans in the 1980s.
But the new peasant movements have grown, even against the
repression of the new civilian regimes. In Santa Carmen there had
been a land occupation where peasants with their machetes were
clearing the land and feeding each other through a common
kitchen. In August 1996, the Army invaded and killed three
peasants, destroyed their crops and houses, and drove scores of
families off the land. Several months later the peasants re-
occupied the land and organized a national conference attended by
over 1,000 people including students, professionals, progressive
businesspeople, and peasants from all over the country. They
formed a national coordinating committee for agrarian reform.
Likewise, in Brazil in Para, 18 landless peasants peacefully
blocking highways were butchered by the military police under
orders from the governor. A photographer videotaped the event. A
national outcry ensued. Massive demonstrations took place in Sao
Paulo, Rio, and other cities. Public opinion polls demonstrated
overwhelming support for the MST. They organized a march on the
capital and were joined by over 100,000 people, including trade
unionists and urban slum dwellers. President Cardoso, who
denounced the MST as an "movement" fighting outdated battles
(like land reform), faced with the mass protests, invited one of
the leaders to the Presidential Palace to discuss the best way to
implement the reforms. The 15 member national leadership showed
up to demonstrate that there is no single leader and refused
Cardoso's offer to sign an agreement suspending land occupations
in exchange for settling 49,000 families camped on contested
terrain. As Joao Pedro Stedile, an MST leader, said later, "It is
necessary to negotiate but never at the price of demobilizing the
movement. Otherwise you have nothing to negotiate in the future."
But not all peasant movements are in a position to respond
to death-squad repression. A peasant leader from Colombia at the
Congress told of the systematic extermination of peasant
activists and their families by paramilitary groups who suspect
any proponents of land reform or advocates of human rights as
disguised guerrilla sympathizers because the FARC (Colombian
Revolutionary Armed Forces) also support those demands.
In Peru, the Peasant Confederation of Peru (CCP) is in the
process of regrouping forces, battered by assassinations by the
Fujimori regime, Sendero Luminoso the fanatical Maoist sect, and
the political divisions provoked by the Leftist electoral parties
cannibalizing members. In some regions the CCP has organized
"rondas campesinos", peasant self-defense groups to resist
paramilitary forces and the "exemplary actions" of Sendero
sectarians. Lopez and other peasants are critical of the
trajectory of former movement leaders who gain elected office.
"The closer to parliament the further from the people."
NGOs
NGOs create many problems for peasant struggles: the huge
outside funding linked to pursuing policies compatible with the
free market; the focus on local projects rather than structural
changes (land reform); the emphasis on self-exploitation and
survival strategies (self-help) instead of comprehensive,
publicly funded health, education, and housing programs.
Peasant leaders and activists have described how the NGOs
competed with peasant leaders, divided communities, and co-opted
activists with their funds. A Brazilian activist told of efforts
by the women of the MST to formulate a common strategy at a Latin
American Meeting of Peasant Women. "We proposed a united strategy
for agrarian reform, an active role in the leadership in the land
occupation struggles and confrontation with the repressive role
of the state. The meeting failed to come to an agreement", she
said, "because of the manipulative behavior of the NGO
professional women, who wanted to control the agenda and limit it
exclusively to international cooperation and to confine the
struggle to exclusively feminist issues which meant no support
for agrarian reform, anti-imperialism and anti-neo-liberalism."
She went on to describe these feminist NGO professionals as
"authoritarian and with a colonialist mentality; they have nobody
behind them except their wealthy outside backers." An Ecuadorean
peasant leader commented, "I have no objection to overseas NGOs
funding our land reform movement if that's what they are willing
to do. What is offensive is their setting down their priorities
and funding professionals from our country to come in and
undermine our struggles."
Peasants have learned from the past that even well meaning
progressive professionals have used their support for peasants to
build a political or lucrative professional career as a foreign
consultant or expert. That doesn't mean that peasants are turning
their back on intellectuals or professionals. The main difference
is that they want the intellectuals to be resource people for the
movements, rather than the movements serving the intellectuals
and professionals as sources for outside grants.
Rural-Urban Alliances
The most promising aspect of the new peasant movements is
their understanding of the limits of strictly "peasant movements"
confined to rural struggles. All of the major peasant movements
are making a concerted effort to build an urban base of support
and to coordinate rural and urban struggles. In Ecuador, FENOC is
involved in the struggle to elect a constitutional assembly,
reflecting the interests of the urban and rural poor. The
Paraguayan Peasant Federation has formed an Agrarian Reform Forum
including students, professionals, and businesspeople. They have
expanded their political horizons to oppose free market
capitalism and the narco-capitalist elite. In Bolivia the coca
farmers have formed a new electoral party, the Alliance for the
Sovereignty of the People. It swept to victory in all the coca
growing countries, gathering over 60 percent of the vote and
electing Evo Morales to Congress.
In Brazil the MST has begun a systematic effort to organize
the giant favelas or slum settlements that surround Sao Paulo,
Rio, and other major cities. They have found great receptivity
among the favelados, mainly because of their successful rural
struggles and the fact that most favelados are recent emigrants
from the countryside. The MST is not only focussing on immediate
demands for land titles and infrastructure (lights, water, paved
roads, public transport, etc.), but also on political education
through leadership training schools and the development of an
anti-capitalist perspective based on an understanding of the
exploitative nature of financial and real estate capital. They
hope to avoid the previous pattern where local leaders who led a
courageous struggle, then got themselves elected to the City
Council, and subsequently built electoral machines based on
clientelistic politics.
The MST sees their urban organizing project as part of a
national political struggle. To that end, they have formulated a
program called "Project Brazil" which is based on a reversal of
all the major free market counter-reforms: the re-nationalization
of basic industries (petroleum, telecommunications, etc.), the
socialization of the strategic heights of the economy—banking,
foreign trade and an integral agrarian reform, which limits cheap
exports and promotes linkages between cooperatives and industrial
food processing plants.
Winning the cities is not an open road. There are obstacles:
the urban middle class and even the trade unions still have a
patronizing view of the peasantry. Today it is the rural workers
who are challenging the traditional belief that the urban working
class leaders are the designated vanguard of historical change.
Today's peasant leaders are looking for an alliance with urban
workers, as well as the urban poor in the giant slums, but only
on terms of a common program in which agrarian issues share
center stage. The old style internationalism tied to a socialist
fatherland has been replaced by a new voluntary, decentralized,
consultative internationalism in which diverse cultures flourish
and common struggles are being forged not by charismatic leaders
but by the steady organizing and everyday heroism of peasant
women and men traveling all day and all night to the villages of
Guatemala, the highlands of Ecuador, the wide expanses of Brazil,
teaching, learning and creating a new revolutionary politics of
social liberation and spiritual fulfillment.
(Source: Z Magazine - October 1998)
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