"Left unity must be forged in and strong opposition did campaign not fit in with that objective.
So the non-voters the bigwere the class struggle"
gest party on March 18, representing
34% of the total. The two governcomparison ment parties lost by with the 1986 elections, and together got well under 50%.
The PrdA also lost by comparison
FIVE Mexican left organizations have just confirmed their decision with the 1986 elections, somewhat to fuse into a single organization in May. The main ones are the unexpectedly. Because of the party's weak role in opposition, many tradi-
Mexican United Socialist Party (PSUM, the Communist Party) and the tional PvdA voters failed to go to the
Mexican Workers' Party (PMT). The three other formations are ballot box in these elections.
And smaller - the Revolutionary Patriotic Party (PPR); the People's tens of thousands voted for some one or another of the smaller parties
Revolutionary Movement (MRP), and the Union of the Communist to the left of the social democracy.
Left (UIC). A section of the PMT, the so-called Rank-and-File Cur-
These compariparties gained by the 1986 elections, rent, has refused to associate itself with this fusion, which has in fact son with which for them.
were disastrous
At the been carried out quite quickly. The PSUM only made the proposal time the
Communist
Party itself went out of the parliament altogether.
The Mexican section of the Fourth International, the Revolutionary
(See IV No 109, November 24, 1986.)
So, some sort of a comeback for
Workers' Party (PRT) has refused to participate in this accelerated them was expected.
unification, which is far from being the product of political con-
Arbeiderspartij
(SAP - Socialist Workers'
For example, the student movement that shook Mexico in Decem-
Dutch section of the Fourth International) ran candidates in 23 of ber-January showed the breadth of the differences existing among the 96 election districts and gained the various organizations. From the outset, the PRT were involved with students engaged in the struggle and in the University Student
At that time, 4,000 people voted
Council, the leading body of the strike. But the PSUM and PMT for the SAP nationwide. This time, in a small part of the country, it denounced the students' demands as reactionary and petty-bourgeois.
3,300 representing a
The following is a statement of the Political Committee of the significant advance.
PRT issued at the time of the official announcement of the fusion the SAP got 0.3%
In Deventer, of the vote; in the Hague, 0.2%; in
Rotterdam, 0.2%; and in Eindhoven,
0.3%. In the Hague, it got a good vote in three traditional working- class neighborhoods. Like the other parties, the SAP opted for a modest
Nonetheless, 125,000 papers were distributed free in the neighborhoods, in actions, factories and institutions.
Posters were put up, and some tens of thousands of pamphlets distributed
On March 7, together with the youth organization Rebel, the SAP organized a successful national rally in Rotterdam. The motto was "Let pay for the crisis!" That was the central slogan of the SAP's campaign. About 150 people took part in forum discussions with left parties (including a PvdA member of parliament) and trade-unionists. This
(BFL) on the situation in Surinam, and by Edgardo Sanchez of the
Mexican section of the Fourth International (PRT) on the student actions
26 in July 1986. vergence and common mass work. of the five parties.
As has been made known publicly, has decided not to participate in the present unification process being conducted by five left political organi-
The PRT considers that progress in a process of unification by a major sector of the Mexican left could have a considerable significance. For that very reason, we think that this can be accomplished only through a broad process of convergence.
desire for unity is not enough - it is necessary to measure carefully the real possibilities for such a step.
We are convinced of this, inasmuch as the frustration of such a move totally negative repercussions. And this is all the more true when we see in some sections of activists a certain skepticism about the present relevance of the fight for socialism.
Our party proposed a method that would make it possible to assess the possibilities for a unification. Since September 1986, we have noted that the formation of a federation of parties with its own organizational structure, but leaving a certain autonomy of functioning for each organizaion, could be a basis for deciding whether it was possible to form a unitary political organization.
We proposed the formation of a collective leadership to orient the process; joint functioning on a state and municipal basis; publication of a common journal and a joint internal bulletin; coordination of trade-union, urban neighborhood, women's and youth work; as well as holding public conferences to discuss the policy to be followed in all of these sectors; the drawing up of an agenda for discussion on a series of fundamental aspects of the class struggle and so on. As a guiding principle, we proposed that the ranks of the parties be the fundamental protagonists in this process, regardless of whether this extended the time necessary to conclude it. Because we were, and continue to be, convinced that only in this way could a solid unification be International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
achieved, in which the members of the themselves limited to reading the daily paper to find out about the deveopment of the unity process.
This proposal on method was based on a fact that seems to escape some people today. The left organiza tions have functioned separately for many years. This has not happened of the sectarianism of some of them, but because convergences. Today, under the slogan
"modernize or activists want to wipe out these
The PRT does not suffer from confusion on this score. We know that there are a myriad of political
They are not, have claimed in an attempt to discredit our position, over what happened decades ago or about everybody's ideology. judgements about the type of party
From our point of view, we need an organization that not only guarantees minority rights but also guarantees the usefulness of the party in the class struggle, a party whose members do not find themselves on opposing sides in a conflict, some supporting the movement and others the authorities.
We have no reason to hide the fact that there are differences over how the various forces assess the relationship that the party should have with mass movement, and over the significance of political independence from the PRI [the governing party in what to a large extent is a onecurrents and the the PRT's proposal was based on the Mexican left has begun to it was possible to initiate a process enabling us through joint work and serious discussions to test the possibilities for unifying the left into a single party. method, and we respect their decision. However, we want to point out in brief our differences with it. We think that under the pressure of approaching elections the parties involved in this fusion have turned the mechanisms for unification upside down. In their congresses, the five organizations are going to decide to fuse in May. They will legally register the new party with the Ministry of the Interior. Then they are going to discuss what policy this party will support in the mass struggle, and decide on what its analysis will be of
International Viewpoint 4 May 1987 what is happening in our country.
These questions will not be decided the new party's first congress, but it will have as a party legally since May. The PRT thinks that these questions are key to knowing whether it is possible to form a new party since this involves not merely tactics of a secondary importance but central political quesProblems
A single example suffices to demon-
Recently a trade-union congress was held by the five fusing parties and the PRT. This conference industrial reconversion and the strategy of the left in the workers' first question, only the PSUM and the PRT expressed a point of view, since the other parties indicated that they did not have a position on it (and we are talking here about a fundamental problem for the
However, the most revealing discussion was on the question of strategy. Here the PSUM proposed trade-union collaboration with the bureaucracy of the Congreso de Trabajo [Congress of Labor] as the key element. The MRP argued that the Mexican left should form a union confederation outside the Congreso de Trabajo, as has been done in. other countries in Latin America. The PPR maintained that in view of the crisis it along lines similar to that put by the bureaucracy, no more, no less). And the PMT argued that the basic element of strategy was to form party com.
It may be expected that if similar conferences are held for each of the sectors of the mass struggle, the result the same. It could not be otherwise when you have a discussion on the recent student movement at the University of Mexico in which some of these forces think that the (CEU) raised reactionary demands and fought for privileges. its conviction that unity is the fundamental element demanded today by the class struggle. Calls for such unity arise in every struggle that is waged regime's policy. The unity that is needed is unity of the mass movement unity around the struggle of the CEU to transform the university and to ward off attacks on the students' just gains; unity in the struggle of the Mexican the state policy of wage restrictions; in the struggle of the education workers against the undemocratic methods of the union bureaucrats; in the struggle of the Ford-Hermosillo workers against the starvation-wages policy of this transnational company and so
It is these struggles that will reveal what is consistent and what is sectarian. This is where we propose that unity of the left be forged; otherwise we would be reduced to an apparatus unity. It is to this struggle for unity that the PRT has devoted its efforts, as it has to its proposal to offer the people of Mexico a single democratic electoral alternative through the formation of a coalition of all the left for the 1988 federal elections. These are the roads to be followed and the challenges that face the Mexican people. Counter-austerity demonstration (DR)
ABAJO AUSTERIDAD PRISTA 27