In
“Either a Socialist Revolution or a
Caricature of a Revolution”
by Celia Hart
“Great things are born small
Their power is in their growing”
—Rabindranath Tagore
[In
honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, we are posting this translation of
a major article by one of today’s most significant women in the international
left, Celia Hart, daughter of an outstanding woman leader of the Cuban
revolution, Haydee Santamaria. The Spanish-language original was first posted
on January19, 2006, on the web site www.rebelion.org
[While
I take responsibility for any failings in the translation, my thanks go to
Eduardo Quintana and Carlos Feliz for their invaluable assistance in the
month-long effort to bring this article into a form in English that we hope
will contribute toward clarifying issues in dispute concerning the prospects
for revolution in Bolivia and in all of Latin America.—George Saunders]
It seems that today, as the future is beginning to unfold in the Americas in an ever more radical way, with an indigenous man now in power in enigmatic Bolivia, the impassioned words, not always well remembered, of the Second Declaration of Havana are resonating like echoes of the Big Bang when first the world was born.
Above all, this is true when we hear those words [of the Second Declaration] as spoken [by Che Guevara], in his particular tone, that Argentinean who came from the south to Mexico, helped make the revolution in Cuba, then went precisely to Bolivia, to conclude his labors of love.
In 1964, in the halls of the United Nations, wearing his guerrilla uniform and speaking in the voice that to this day stirs our hearts, Che read from this Declaration in the name of the Cuban people [as follows]:
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For
all the grandeur that was the epic of struggle for Latin American independence,
for all the heroism of that struggle, an even greater epic has fallen to the
lot of today’s generation of Latin Americans, one that is even more decisive
for all of humanity. Because that was a struggle to win
freedom from Spanish colonial power, from a Today,
what faces us is a liberation struggle against the most powerful imperial
metropolis in the world, the most imposing force of the world imperialist
system, so that we must do a service for humanity that is much greater than our
forbears had to do. But
this struggle, more than that earlier one, will be carried out by the masses, by
the people; the masses are going to play a much more important role than at
that earlier time. Individual leaders now have and will have less importance
than they had in that earlier struggle. The epic that lies before us will be written by the hungry masses, the indigenous peoples, the campesinos without land, the exploited workers; it will be written by massive numbers of progressive activists, the honest and brilliant intellectuals of whom there are so many in our long-suffering lands of Latin America. It will be a battle of the masses and of ideas; an epic which will bring forward our peoples, despised and mistreated by imperialism, our peoples who until now have been unknown, unrecognized, but who are already beginning to awaken from their slumber. We were regarded as a lowly herd, both impotent and submissive; but already Yankee monopoly capitalism has begun to fear this herd, this gigantic herd of two hundred million Latin Americans, and to see in them its gravediggers. |
“This great humanity has said ‘Enough!’
and is starting to move” (as stated in the Second Declaration of
Havana). The above photo shows a Caracas mass march on Int'l Women's
Day 2006, demanding U.S. troops get out of Iraq now.
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The overwhelming electoral success of Evo Morales has given rise to a
flood of polemics. From one end to the other, on the spectrum of so-called left
opinion, quite distinct positions have been espoused—leaving aside the
ridiculous splutterings from the right. It is hardly worth wasting words on
those miserable utterances!
If the criticisms from the right provoke any sentiment, it is one of
laughter mixed with pity. Because the heights of
The revolutionary commentators have focused their attention and
expectations on what has been occurring in this country of Bolivia during the
last few years; and on the statements made by Evo Morales and his executive
[leadership team], especially the question of the coherence or ambivalence of
those statements.
Fortunately we have many excellent writings that describe the facts as
such—from the battle against privatization of water in Cochabamba in 2000; to
the battle in the Chapare region in 2003 [2002?] in defense of the coca leaf,
in which a dozen coca-leaf growers were killed; to the battle in La Paz [in
February 2003] against [IMF-imposed] income tax increases, resulting in 34
deaths; and of course, the mammoth demonstrations for nationalization of
Bolivia’s natural gas [in September–October 2003], forcing former President Gonzalo
Sanchez de Lozada to take to his heels [and flee the country] at the cost of
nearly 100 killed.
[Translator’s Note: Sanchez de Lozada was succeeded by his vice
president, Carlos Mesa.—G.S.]
But the Carlos Mesa solution proved hard to swallow for the people of
Bolivia, who knew their own strength and had nothing to fear because their
parties and organizations understood, once and for all, their reason for being,
and [in May–June 2005] they sent Carlos Mesa flying from his presidential seat.
Adolfo Gilly, in a memorable article in La Jornada, referred to
In the Bolivian insurrection [of October 2003] an
unprecedented combination of styles of action, both ancient and modern, made
their appearance, a new way of using the force of the people. Rather than
trying to explain the Altiplano insurrection by comparing it to revolutions of
the past, we need to analyze it in connection with the social transformations
and forms of capitalist domination that have emerged during the last decade of
the twentieth century.
If we do this, what we discover in the violent and
victorious Bolivian insurrection of October 2003 is the first revolution of the
twenty-first century. Let us try to decipher its content, its driving forces,
and what it presages.
[Author’s Note: See Adolfo Gilly, “
That observation will serve as my point of departure.
Any analysis that tries to assess the future of Evo Morales as
president of
Atilio Boron has pointed out:
Morales faces an
extraordinary challenge. He knows very well that, as Jose Carlos Mariátegui warned,
socialism in Latin Americ will be a heroic undertaking and that it cannot be a
“carbon copy.” It will have to find the strength to create, to seek its own path.
As was said by the Venezuelan Simon Rodriguez, one of the
most lucid intellectuals of Latin American independence, “Either we invent or
we will fail.” Evo will have to be inventive, and to act with resolve,
if he does not want to fail. Fidel himself said more than once, in earlier days,
that “every time we copied [other countries] things went badly for us.” If
there is anything original and inimitable in the history of nations, it is
revolution. No revolution can be a “carbon copy.”
People may object to the introduction of the term
“revolution” into this discussion. In the classical abstract model imagined by
many on the left this term is associated with the violent conquest of political
power, with the revolutionary “deed” par excellence, leaving out of view the longer
process—often a subterranean and silent one—that has led to this victory. An
unknown quantity is left waiting; nothing theoretical [can be said about it] for
certain: “When and how does a revolution commence?” In a speech Fidel gave at
the
“The revolution has different phases. Our program
of struggle against Batista was not a socialist program, nor could it have been
a socialist program, realistically, because the immediate objectives of our
struggle were not at all socialist, nor could they have been. Such objectives
would have gone beyond the level of political consciousness of Cuban society at
that phase. They would have gone beyond the level of what was possible for our
people in that phase. Our program at the time of Moncada was not a socialist
program. But it was the maximum social and revolutionary program which our
people could act on [plantearse] at that moment.”
[Author’s Note: See Atilio
Boron, “La encrucijada boliviana” [The Bolivian Crossroads] on the
Rebelión web
site, December 28, 2005.]
This analysis leads me to a number of different observations:
In the first place, [it’s correct to say that] no revolution has ever
been a carbon copy of another. At the same time, however, if the truth be told,
all revolutions have been identical on one essential matter, and that is, the
taking of power. A socialist revolution inevitably implies the taking of power,
depriving the oligarchy of its property. How this is done, what methods are
resorted to—such things of course will vary; the Russian worker may do it one
way and the indigenous Bolivian another; but that is a matter of form, not of
essence.
Second, if by a stroke of luck or as the result of a convincing speech
or of requesting politely, the [international] bourgeoisie, the transnational
gas corporations, the White House, and the IMF could be convinced that they
should go home and accept the fact that
But I very much doubt that that will happen.
I’m sure the example of the Bolivarian revolution in
Third. If we are going to quote from José Carlos Mariátegui—returning now to
Comrade Atilio Boron and the useful term “carbon copy,” and the sense of the
heroic, which seems to function like the joker in a pack of cards—I can cite a
counterargument from Mariátegui himself:
All those who, like Henri de Man, preach and
promote so-called ethical socialism, based on humanitarian principles, instead
of contributing in some way or another to the moral elevation of the
proletariat, are paradoxically working without an awareness of the
proletariat’s civilizing role. The road of “moral socialism,” with its
antimaterialist discourse, only throws us back into the pit of the most sterile
and teary-eyed humanitarian romanticism, the most decadent apologetics [or
attitude of pity] for “the pariahs of this world,” and the most sentimental and
inept plagiarizing from the Gospel text about “the poor in spirit.”
The pseudo-Christian and humanitarian doctrine of
so-called ethical socialism, which anachronistically tries to oppose itself to Marxist
socialism, can be a more or less lyrical and innocuous exercise by an exhausted
and decadent bourgeoisie, but it cannot be the theory [of the working class], of
a class that has “attained its majority,” that has come of age. These
mediocre, altruistic, and philanthropic speculations are totally alien to
Marxism, and utterly opposed to it…It is in the class struggle of the ascending
proletariat that all the elements of the sublime and the heroic reside. The
proletariat must rise to the level of the morality of the associated
producers. This morality is quite distinct and remote from the morality of
slaves, which the gratuitous professors of morality, horrified by the
materialism of the workers, persist in trying to promote.
[Author’s Note: See José Carlos
Mariátegui, “Sentido heroico y creador
More than once we will have to say a harsh word, perhaps exaggerated,
about what Mariátegui called “the sense of the heroic.” Nor am I inclined to
subscribe to every jot and tittle in the works of any great thinker. But for
some time now I have been increasingly interested in the way Mariátegui is
portrayed as a thinker who is supposedly opposed to Marxism somehow; he is used
as a justification for a certain “autochthonous” or “indigenist” reformism,
etc. What’s “heretical” in Mariátegui, just as with Che, Rosa, Trotsky, and so
many others, is precisely his well-rooted, consistent Marxism, and not the
reverse.
Fourth. Let me reply to the comment Boron made about Fidel Castro and History
Will Absolve Me [that is, the 1953 program of the July 26 Movement, as
expressed in Castro’s speech at his trial after the attack on the Moncada military
base]. Repeatedly the assertion seems to be made that we can’t call for
socialism immediately in
But yes, at that time already “we were Marxists.”
If we were able to interpret the reality of our country, it was because we had
already learned Marxism-Leninism…Our Moncada program already was a preamble to
socialism, and we already were socialists and Marxist-Leninists, even if we
hadn’t “reached the corner” [of our street].
[Author’s Note: See Fidel
Castro, “Encuentro con los partidos de izquierda” (Meeting with the Parties of
the Left; Mexico, 1988), cited in the book by Carlos Tablada, El pensamiento
económico de Ernesto Che Guevara (The Economic Thought of Che Guevara),
Fidel’s revolution not only reached the corner [of the street] but made
the rounds of the whole city. If socialism had not been included among the
objectives of the combatants [the July 26 Movement’s fighters], they could not
have achieved even one of their goals. It’s as simple as that. They adjusted
their actions to the concrete necessities. This is nothing more nor less than a classic case (almost the best case) of the
permanent revolution. [And of the transitional method — G.S.] Otherwise, I don’t see how
the revolutionary government could have nationalized industry, carried out the
agrarian reform, and done everything else it did, and continues to do. Of
course if we didn’t do this [immediately] on January 1, 1959, but did it instead
over the course of the next few months as the process was rapidly radicalizing,
we still arrived at the First Declaration of Havana [in September 1960] with
the project of socialism as something obvious. Not even the most naïve thought
this would not be socialism. The Cuban people condensed this reality into a
single chant:
“If Fidel’s a Communist,
Better add me to the list.”
That’s what it’s about: to keep the process moving, pushing it toward
socialism in a permanent way. Evo Morales and his government have all the [most
favorable] conditions in the world to do that. There is no need to conciliate
the
Some comrades on the left have gone so far as to angrily denounce, unnecessarily,
what I consider a magnificent piece of writing by James Petras, even though I
don’t subscribe 100 percent to what he says.
[Translator’s Note: Petras’s
article, entitled “Evo Morales: All Growl, No Claws?” may be read on the
CounterPunch web site for January 4, 2006. — G.S.]
I take this opportunity to point out that fortunately we have many
different points of view, and I find it counterproductive when people sling
slanderous epithets such as “extremist” or “perverse” just because an article
by someone expresses their opinions. James Petras, just like Atilio Boron or
anyone else on the immense spectrum of the left, is merely carrying out his
duty to present facts and draw appropriate conclusions, whether we agree with
them or not.
Ultimately, the workers of
We can simplify the polemic hidden behind all the commentaries on
New Names for
Socialism—Pretexts for Reformism?
Are not the new names with which socialism is being baptized merely
pretexts for reform within the framework of capitalism? [For example,] such tag
lines as “socialism of the twenty-first century,” “Andean socialism,” and all
these other roundabout expressions.
In an October 7, 2005, interview with Bolpres, Vice President Álvaro
García Linera said:
Andean capitalism is like imagining modernity
within capitalism for a period that’s medium to short term, but a modernity in
which the communitarian, artisan, and semi-mercantile potential will develop their
special, particular capacities for producing and distributing wealth and creating
technology and know-how. This economy of the indigenous community, of settlers,
of small producers, is linked with classical capitalism, but that is not a
reason for it to be crushed or subsumed or brutally denied recognition.
But we are talking [not about preserving some form of capitalism;
rather we are talking] about how rapidly Evo will or will not take measures of
a socialist nature. Indeed, the revolution is a process, and it is measured by
variables that are dynamic. Every moment in time should be more socialist than
the immediately preceding moment. That should be our way of measuring. In that
sense, the article by James Petras offers us very thorough experimental data
[as a basis for evaluating progress or lack of progress toward socialism].
Certain other statements by the above-mentioned vice president have caught
my attention—having to do with his definition of the new term “Andean
capitalism.”
This is an academic definition that I have used and
that expresses in a practical way the fact that
[Translator’s Note: Garcia
Linares’s term “communitarian economy” apparently refers to the communal
landholding system that persists among the indigenous majority in
Andean capitalism is a system founded on the
reality in
[Author’s
Note: García Linera, “Entrevista a Bolpress” (Interview with Bolpress),
October 7, 2005.]
So that means that socialism can be built only in highly developed
countries! My God, in order to reach those heights, Lenin, Mao, and
Fidel would have to renounce what they achieved! More than
that. [It must be asserted] precisely that Che Guevara did not choose
Guillermo Almeyra put it well in a recent article: “The success of
Morales cannot be explained by the lack of clarity in his program; and least of
all can it be explained by the slogan of ‘Andean capitalism,’ which his vice
president, Álvaro García Linares, pulled out of the hat purely for the sake of
the elections and which will fade from sight before this year is over.”
[Author’s Note: See
Guillermo Almeyra, “Evo, los analistas y algunas sugerencias” (Evo, the
analysts, and some suggestions), in the Mexican daily La Jornada, January
8, 2006.]
To repeat what García Linera said:
“[Andean socialism] is an academic definition that
I have used and that expresses in a practical way the fact that
In
And what he says about “stages”…it strikes me as very familiar, and very
annoying. The vice president didn’t invent this concept: “In order to have
socialism, it’s necessary to build capitalism.” [Translator’s Note: The same thing was said by the Mensheviks in
Che Guevara went to
[Author’s Note: The
quotation is from Néstor Kohan’s book Ernesto Che Guevara: Otro mundo es
possible (Ernesto Che Guevara: Another World Is Possible),
That’s the dilemma in
Of couse
[The Cuban semi-official journalist and commentator] Jorge Gómez Barata
asserts:
The centuries-old backwardness of
[Author’s Note: Jorge Gómez
Barata, “Despertar con
No! I don’t agree with this statement, though made by an excellent
journalist.
For a nationalist bourgeoisie with a populist outlook, this might be
the way to analyze things. But it was not for the sake of such reconciliation
between opposing classes that the people of
Either a
socialist revolution or a caricature of a revolution. And may it be achieved (God willing), on
this third attempt, by the working people of El Alto, the Chapare, La Paz,
etc., who will become in both word and deed the masters of their country and who
at this hour already are the masters of our most sacred dreams.
The
“Peaceful Road” to Revolution?
Another aspect that has been commented on a lot these days, in
connection with
[In regard to the question of a “peaceful road,] I honestly don’t see
how it would be possible that the owners would peacefully hand over their
properties, happily surrendering the keys to their factories and businesses to
the people of
Let’s look at what Che said:
Is it possible or not that the present conditions
on our continent will allow us to achieve it [socialism] by the peaceful road?
We unequivocally deny it. In the majority of cases it is not possible. The most
that could be managed would be the formal capture of the bourgeois
superstructure of state power, and the transition to socialism of any
government which, under the established conditions of bourgeois legality, had
reached formal state power, would have to be carried out through an extremely
violent struggle against all those who would seek, by one means or another, to
eliminate it and prevent its progress toward [establishing] new social
structures.
[Author’s Note: See Ernesto
Che Guevara, “Tácticas y estrategia de la revolución latinoamericana” (Tactics and Strategy of the
Latin American Revolution); written in October-November 1962; first published
in Verde Olivo [publication of the Cuban Rebel Armed Forces], October 6,
1968.]
That’s why I don’t think anything that has happened is absolutely new
to revolutionary thought. However impossible it is for me to believe, there
seems to be a resurgence of the slogan…“peaceful coexistence.” But no. This Stalinist “theory” has run out of time and
money, and it has been tossed into the dustbin of history, where mistaken
conceptions molder. Nonetheless, many people like Garcia Linares continue to
strike those dissonant chords.
In a kind of parody of the [Third, Communist] International, which was
founded by Lenin but later dissolved by Stalin, something was promulgated
which, when you hear it today, sounds for a moment like a real novelty: “The
working class and its vanguard, the Marxist-Leninist party, seek to make the
revolution by peaceful means.” [Translator’s
Note: This was a pronouncement, originating with Stalin, that was widely
publicized by the Khrushchev-era Communist Party of the
The Bolivarian revolution [in
In fact, Evo Morales has made some statements about Che which disturb
me, despite everything about the cocalero leader that is worthy of admiration. I
find it disturbing that anyone should express such sentiments at this point in
time, and even more so when it comes from the mouth of a person on whom the
revolutionaries of
[Author’s Note: See the
January 4, 2006, report by the Spanish news agency EFE headlined
“Morales dice
Evo Morales came to power as a result of the formidable mass actions in
his country [a general strike, with roadblocks shutting down most of the
country, in September-October 2003, at the cost of nearly 100 dead], while he
remained in Europe. As for [the suggestion that Che should not have been] taking
up arms, I don’t know what the Heroic Guerrillero should have been doing in
I will certainly take this opportunity to condemn with all the force I
can muster and to appeal to all those who call themselves revolutionaries to
also condemn the recent declarations about honoring the pharisaical, pro-Yankee
military assassins who supervised the capture and murder of Che in La Higuera.
According to a report in La Jornada of January 6, 2006:
“The Bolivian military men who captured and assassinated the
Argentine-Cuban guerrilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara in 1967 will be declared
meritorious patriots ‘deserving to be honored by their country’ [benemeritos
de la Patria] and will not have to retire from the public offices they
currently hold, according to official sources quoted by Erbol (the news agency
Educación Radiofónica de Bolivia).
“‘The members of the new government are Guevarists, but they recognize
the importance of the Bolivians who defended their country in 1967, people who
offered their lives to save us from Communism,’ asserted Deputy Carlos Nacif,
former president of the Commission on Defense Affairs in the Chamber of
Deputies and one of the sponsors of the measure.”
In
Jorge Martin was right on the mark when he wrote [in December 2005]:
[…when the question
of power was posed sharply in October 2003—and more recently in May-June of
this year [2005]—it was not solved decisively in favor of the workers and
peasants. This failure has allowed the ruling class to divert this huge
revolutionary energy into the safer channels of parliamentary and presidential
elections.]
The leadership of
the workers’ and peasants’ organizations played a key role in this. On the one
hand Evo Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) has
always insisted on a parliamentary road. Evo Morales, who was
absent from the movement in October 2003, helped prop up President Mesa.
When the latter [in turn] was faced with a mass revolutionary movement [in
May-June 2005], Morales helped the ruling class find a constitutional way out in
the form of President Rodriguez.
On the other hand, the leaders of the
more radical workers’ and peasants’ organizations, because of their lack of a
clear perspective at the crucial moment, were also responsible for wasting two
crucial opportunities. The leadership of the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB) even
made a very sharp analysis of their own shortcomings during the October 2003
movement. “If the workers did not take power it was because of the lack of a
revolutionary party,” they said, and they were completely right. At that time
there was a nationwide general strike with road blockades across the country,
while a mass of angry workers and peasants, with the armed miners at the
forefront, gathered outside the Presidential Palace in
[Translator’s Note: See the article by Jorge Martin entitled “Bolivian Elections—What Postion Should the Marxists Take?” Bolivian Elections — What Position Should the Marxists Take? on the Labor Standard web site, “New Articles for the Week of December 18, 2005.”]
The overwhelming popular support for Evo Morales is not, in my opinion, for “a personality.” Not this time. The people voted with the hope that their demands, expressed since 2000, would be carried out. The people have outlined a program which now Evo Morales and his leadership team must uphold. The program of government has been legitimized in the streets, and no other program will do. The new government doesn’t have too many options.
Unlike the Russian revolution, and the Cuban, this is a revolution that was born in the silent resonance of “the lower depths,” that “comes from the earth,” [desde el sonido sordo de la tierra]; it did not come from a political leadership, which, undeniably, was provided by Lenin and by Fidel Castro. The April Theses and the Moncada program, in this case, have been written by anonymous voices and by the anonymous blood that has been shed. All the government has to do is refer back to the uprisings and in a couple of hours its program will be written. Can this program be carried out? Can Evo Morales measure up to the circumstances that require him to be the legal arm of this revolution? This time (fortunately) social welfare measures will not be enough. The elected government must fundamentally transform the society in order to accomplish the demands that the immense majority elected it for. And these demands, my friends, can only be carried out by moving toward a socialist revolution.
To me it is clear that [full] socialism in one country is
impossible. But
The “recuperated factories” movement in Venezuela [in which factories
shut down by the owners have been taken over by the workers and are being
operated under workers control] and the radicalism that the Hugo Chávez
government has been displaying; the absolute prestige enjoyed by the Cuban
revolution despite all its current difficulties; the movements that are now
gathering around a left that is disenchanted with President Lula et al.; the
[coming ] elections in Mexico [in July 2006], with the real possibilities of
victory for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, but above all the impressive force that
the “Other Campaign” can exert, a campaign whose main protagonists are the
Zapatistas of the EZLN and which I certainly support with all my heart—all
these movements will be the beneficiaries of a clear self-definement by the
Bolivian revolution.
Nevertheless, I don’t believe we can say that Evo Morales is going to
implement neoliberal policies, as the article by James Petras implies. This is
something that I particularly do not believe. But neither am I
completely sure that he will capitalize on all the possibilities for socialist
revolution that have opened up in that country. Evo will have the possibility
of governing with almost unlimited powers. On the right, they’ll have nothing
to do but smile politely. [Morales doesn’t have a
whole lot of people whom he’ll have to please, on the right.] But how strong
the pressure is from the left! (And that’s great!) The social forces in
On another point I am more in agreement with James Petras—namely, that it
doesn’t matter much whether Evo Morales wears a poncho or a coat with tails. We
would fall into the same stupidity of capitalist formalities if we were to give
any credit on this occasion to such superficial aspects of events. Far more
important are the measures taken by the coca-leaf growers’ leader, or the
compromises he makes. The question is not the clothes that Evo wears, or those
of his uncles, or his humble grandmother in the Orinoca region. Much less is it
a question of his indigenous origin. Andean folklore is not what is under
discussion in
Because, as Adolfo Gilly has also said:
A revolution is not something that goes on within
the state or its institutions or among its politicians. It comes from below and
from outside. It succeeds when the front of the stage is taken, with the
violent strength of their bodies and anger from the depths of their souls, by those
who have always been precisely outside and below; those who have always been
forgotten; those who have been misled; those who the misleaders have considered
merely a sum total of votes, an electoral clientele…It succeeds when they break
onto the scene, put an end to politicking, and organize themselves through
their own decision-making and knowledge; and when they, with both intelligence
and violence, bring their own world into the world of those who have been
giving the orders and running things; and when, as in this case, they do it to
achieve their stated objectives. And whatever comes next comes next.
All that remains to be done by a revolutionary organization, which is
supposed to provide leadership, as in the case of the MAS, is precisely to be
on the same wavelength with the masses “from below and
from outside.” And never to fear violence. As you can
see for yourselves, officialdom is trying, little by little, to banish violence
from revolutionary processes, constantly using such terms as “the peaceful
road,” “electoralism,” and other stupidities.
Press Forward to Socialism
The MAS [Movimiento al Socialismo—Movement Toward
Socialism, the political party headed by Evo Morales] has no historical mission
other than to fan the flames of socialist revolution. In this country it would
be a crime against humanity for anyone, through puerile or conformist considerations,
to fail to press the people forward to rise to the summit, which the masses can
reach through their own efforts. Today, in January, when Evo assumes the
presidency, we will insist that this incipient revolution keep advancing and
not stop halfway.
The organization that will emerge
victorious in
Evo and his party, the MAS, can do this. They have the governing power and all the necessary guarantees. But to do what they can do, they must remain true to the revolution. And as Che said, if it is not socialist, it will be a sorry caricature.
To paraphrase Jose Marti: The MAS must either definitively open the channel for the revolution or it will destroy the unchanneled revolution.
Rosa Luxemburg said in her 1918 pamphlet on the Russian revolution:
In this way it may
be understood how in every revolution only those parties that have the courage
to put forward the most advanced slogans, and to move ahead and accept all the
consequences [for raising those demands]—only they will know how to take the
leadership and to take power. This explains the lamentable role played by the
Russian Mensheviks…, who despite at first enjoying extraordinary prestige among
the masses, vacillated from one position to another for a long time and fought
arduously to reject the seizure of power, refusing to assume the necessary
responsibilities, so that they were finally driven from the stage with neither
honor nor glory.
The only party that
grasped the mandate and duties of a truly revolutionary party, and that, with
the slogan “All power to the proletariat and peasantry,” assured the continuation
of the revolution, was the party of Lenin.
[Author’s
Note: See Rosa Luxemburg, “La revolución rusa. Un análisis crítico” (The
Russian Revolution: A Critical Analysis), in the collection Sobre la
revolución rusa (On the Russian
Revolution),
[Translator’s Note: Compare Rosa
Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution and
“Leninism or Marxism?”(University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor Paperback,
1961), p. 38.]
We hope that the MAS will measure up to this task. Certainly it can count on much more than the Bolshevik party could count on.
I will finish by quoting further from the Second Declaration of Havana:
But the hour of its
vindication, the hour which it has chosen itself, has come, with distinction
and precision, now, from one end of the continent to the other. Now this
anonymous mass, this America of color, dark and taciturn, which is singing
everywhere on our continent with the same sadness and disillusionment, now this
mass is beginning definitively to enter into its own history, it is beginning
to write that history with its own blood, it is beginning to suffer and to die to
make that history.
For this great
humanity has said “Enough!” and is starting to march. And its forward march,
with giant steps, can no longer be stopped short of conquering its true
independence, for which on more than one occasion people have died in vain. But
today, in every instance, they will not die in vain. They will die, like those in
[Note: The
Spanish text of Fidel Castro’s “Second Declaration of Havana” (“II Declaración de La Habana”) was
printed in Obra revolucionaria, No. 5,
February 1962.]
And at Playa Giron, already [in April 1961], we know what was being defended—the socialist revolution!
Let Evo Morales and the MAS defend the same thing
in
Translator’s Notes
The Second Declaration of Havana was
adopted by a National General Assembly of the people of
The
Second Declaration spoke of “two hundred million” Latin Americans. Today,
nearly half a century later, the combined population of the former colonial
lands of Latin America and the
On
December 11, 1964, Che Guevara read passages from the Second Declaration of
Havana at the end of his address to the UN General Assembly. For the English
wording of the Second Declaration, we refer readers to the translation
published in a special issue of The
Militant dated March 5, 1962.
José Carlos
Mariátegui
(1894–1930) was the most prominent figure in the founding of the Communist
movement in
Violent resistance encountered by the
Venezuelan revolution in 2002. As is
generally known, the propertied classes, the Venezuelan oligarchs and the U.S.
imperial power behind them, attempted a coup in April 2002, removing the
elected president, Hugo Chávez, for a few days, but he was restored to power by
a vast outpouring of the masses of urban and rural poor people who had already
benefited greatly by social reforms carried out by the Chávez government. In
December 2002, the counterrevolution struck again, with a bosses’ lockout
shutting down
Playa Giron—the Cuban name of the seaside town and beach on the
“Bay of Pigs,” where some 1,500 armed, CIA-trained and financed Cuban
counterrevolutionaries with U.S. logistical support landed early on the morning
of April 17, 1961, with the aim of establishing a beachhead and proclaiming an
anti-Castro government, to which the U.S. government could then funnel massive
military and financial aid to reconquer Cuba and reestablish a pro-U.S. regime
like that of Batista.