The Socialist School on Latin America on June 24 drew an audience of over 100, and heard an impressive panel of speakers including author Michael Lowy, Cuban "freelance Trotskyist" Celia Hart, Edouardo Diago from the French LCR along with speakers from Hands Off Venezuela and the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign John Lister It is not surprising that a number of countries in Latin America have been centres of rebellion in over the last 50 years, argued Michael Löwy, opening the discussion.
'Thev are some of the most unequal societies on earth, calling up the phrase "Swiss India" - with a ruling class as wealthy as the Swiss bourgeoisie, but a working and unemployed population as poor as peasants in India.
In the towns the rich live behind barricades and high walls, protected by armed guards, while the poor exist in shanty towns.
Although there are very big differences from one country to another, with the exception of Cuba they can all be classified as "dependent capitalism" - subject to economic, political, ideological and potentially military domination.
Within this framework the ruling elite plays its role in reinforcing the domination and exploitation of the peoples of Latin America, and the global institutions of capital18m0 - Ine Internanonal Monetary Fund and World inequalities with their pursuit of the neoliberal agenda.
The rebellions began in the 1950s, with further struggles following the victorious 1959 Cuban revolution: but in the 1960s and 1970s movements were ruthlessly crushed by murderous military dictatorships.
In more recent years military rule has been supplanted bv "low intensity democracies" which have been slow and timid in reversing neoliberal policies and so failed to
lives the
The rebellion against these conditions begins the lowest level with criminality -"since there is no justice for them, why should they not rob and kill to get by?" - but has also developed into more positive torms of protest in which waves of social unrest have exploded into rebellion.
In Argentina such movements kicked out one president and torced the removal of another.
And more recently mass movements nave made wenselves felt in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
"We must recognise that in many cases these social movements are many peasaol movements. It may be surprising for Marxists to realise that these - not the working class - are the most active and the most politically conscious forces," argues Löwy, while recognising some radicalisation among workers in Argentina and Bolivia.
Löwy also insisted that the ideology of many of the social movements, such as the original initiative to launch the landless peasant movement in Brazil, and Mexico's Zapatista rebellion, goes back not to Marxism or the class struggle but to forms of "liberation theology" promoted in Latin America by Jesuit and Dominican orders.
"The idea that the poor have to liberate themselves, and organise to do so is not so far from Marx's idea that the workers must take on the task of liberating themselves."
"People are looking for an Bank - also help maintain the alternative. They don't want the current position to continue. They see corruption, the power of US imperialism, they see neoliberal policies, and there is a growing anticapitalist sentiment."
The level of anger is very high in many parts of Latin America, but there are real problems finding an appropriate political expression for the movements that develop: most political parties of the left are way behind the popular movement and the struggles taking place.
There has been a shift to the lett in many Latin American governments, with increased power for workers' parties, and the emergence of left of centre coalitions as an inadequate reflection of the social movement: however each of these coalitions - such as the Lula government in Brazil, the Frente Amplio in Uruguay or the new government in Chile - remains inside the existing political and social framework.
As a result we see the emergence of "social liberal governments", which are better than neo-liberal governments - but not much better.
The exceptions have been Cuba, of course, and Bolivia: in each case there has been some political expression of the search for an alternative, although each government has problems.
In Venezuela there is Chavez with the support of many of the people, but there are no big parties of the left, leaving an inadequate political representation of the poor and the workers who want change.
In Bolivia on the one level it seems better: Evo Morales heads a party explicitly named the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS): "but it is a fragile party, a front composed of various social movements, rather than a party based on the working class."
The hope is that the alliance of Cuba with Venezuela and Bolivia can give a lead to the development of indigenous American socialism, created by the peoples of Latin America in their own way.
The America are to the left of any America, argued Celia Hart.
"We are witnessing a shift of the political pendulum to the left - in response to neoliberalism.
"In this context there have been attempts to integrate the Bolivarian alliance between has encountered some problems."
The ALBA was signed by the three governments in Havana on April 29 2006 -with an appeal for other governments to join. It is seen as an alternative framework of cooperation to the US-dominated neo-liberal Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
"But I don't think it is possible to integrate governments such as Lula's in Brazil into such an alliance," said Celia.
Morales has taken a slightly different approach and proposed a "people's agreement", establishing links with movements in Brazil, in Argentina or Chile. In Bolivia the government is not a socialist govbut it implementing socialist-type measures such as the nationalisation of Petrobras.
Meanwhile the benefits of ALBA have already been demonstrated in Venezuela, which in just one year of cola DoraDo with Cuba has freed its people from illiteracy. Hundreds of medical surgeries and clinics have been opened up with health programlies the neighbourhoods.
Cuba has also benefited: it has overtaken China (TO become Venezuela's top trading partner.
ALBA can be a clear examof Latin ple of what can be done, underlining the fact that it is of the governments in Latin impossible to offer such benefits to the people under governments that hang on to the capitalist framework and neoliberal agenda.
Che Guevara long ago concluded that the local bourgeoisies in the dependent countries had lost any capacity they may have had to mount any real opposition to imperialism.
The process of integration of Venezuela Cuba and Brazil means that we have to assess the possibility for integration of Marxist forces on a class based perspective for Latin America," argues Celia.
What is happening in Latin America also has lessons and stirs developments in the established in Celia Hart: a Trotskyist voice now speaks out in Cuban debates Cuba. Cubans working in Venezuela have experienced the activities of several left parties, factory occupations, and campaigns for workers' management and workers' control.
"These lessons are now being discussed: this can help us in developing our politics in Cuba," says Celia. "Latin America today is the kind of situation Lenin would have hoped for when he created the Bolshevik party".
Eduardo Diago explained that Venezuela is a fascinating revolutionary development, which has continued a process of radicalisation since 1998. The turning point was the deepening of class struggle in the three years from 2001, the period in which the right wing did everything it could to destabilise the government.
The process of radicalisation combines elections and mobilisations.
The democratic struggle centres on the establishment of a new constitution, and creating a popular movement to debate coal constituton
The social movement takes on board the fact that there cannot be a social transformation of Venezuela without a mass mobilisation. Chavez has been able to unify the various traditions of the left - not just drawing in the reformist currents but also former guerrillaist elements and revolu tionaries.
Diago summed up some of the questions posed and debated in Venezuela today, which included:
How to fight and destroy capitalism - ana wnal lo replace it with?
What is the role of the working class in this process?
What model should Venezuela adopt given that oil is its main source of wealth?
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Venezuela is not a completed process,
or a finished or
perfect model: the
point is to
encourage the
movement and
develop the anticapitalist challenge.
All of these debates lead to the bigger issue of whether there should be a socialist revolution in Venezuela. But the lack of clarity on these issues was highlighted during the visit of President Lagos of Chile: huge posters went up in Caracas welcoming the "socialist president" - despite his relatively weak reformist, social democratic politics.
Issues which revolutionary Marxists are raising include the relationship between the federation.
There is also the question of the struggle against the right wing in Venezuela, who have so tar been deteated on the electoral level, but retain significant control over sections of the economy.
Ana ol course inere ls a total absence of a political organisation to take forward the socialist revolutionary movement.
"The Bolivarian revolution is now caught in a pincer between those who base themselves on social movements, and those who say we must sow down the mass movement, so as not to play into the hands of the right wing.
"For example some goveluvls low wall lo olivalisc electricity: we need to oppose that without allowing this level of opposition to the govVenezuela: in some
respects the Chavez government is ahead of the movement. The
Minister of Labour criticised a meeting of 5,000 trade unionists
for not taking over
enough enterprises despite being given a
long list by the ministry. D vol ¡Uh! ¡Ah! Dal Pasado @ al