beginnings of political recomposition
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military overturned the Nine years after the golpe, the Chilean situation is still government of Salvador Allende. They thus brutally put an end marked by the weight of this terrible defeat and the physical to the revolutionary rise that Chile experienced after the elec- destruction that the Chilean workers movement underwent.
toral victory of the Unidad Popular (UP - Popular Unity) at the Nevertheless, these last few years, the first signs of a change in the political situation have appeared.
policy that tended to limit imports; the general elections of September 4, 1970.
Under the effects of the new rise of class struggle in Latin America, marked a hyper-protectionist customs
- a policy of agrarian reform, which
A first economic debate arose among between those who were advocating a could only be carried out to a limited corporatist model founded on a semiparticularly by the revolutionary develop- degree because of the resistance of the ments in Central America, changes that affect other countries of the Southern Cone such as Argentina or Bolivia, and by the effects of the world economic crisis that are hitting Chile hard, the first cracks are appearing in General Augosto Pinochet's dictatorship. The workers and popular forces are reorganising themselves. A new process of political recomposition is taking place.
THE DESTRUCTION OF CHILE
After September 1973, the military junta undertook the systematic destruction of workers and popular tions. Massive repression, assassinations, imprisonment were daily occurrences. It was necessary to "root out Marxism to the third or fourth generation", according to the words of airforce general Leigh, member of the military junta.
This operation of annihilation was not to the workers movement. Almost ten years later, the Chilean military have also destroyed the economy, sold off the country's principal resources, and overturned the foundations of traditional Chilean society.
Since the 1920s, and up until September 1973, Chile went through a process of industrialisation that, apart from conjunctural variations and despite the deformations inherent in any dependent economy, developed in an almost continuous industrialisation shaped modern Chile.
By using the State as an essential lever, (particularly with the creation of CORFO - Corporacion para el Fomento de la Produccion - Productions Development Coporation),the economy was developed in a combined way:
- the creation of national industries under the control of the state (textile, steelworks, electricity, etc.)
- the "progressive Chileanisation" of mining resources, particularly copper, from the mid-60s under the ChristianDemocratic government of Eduardo Frei;: 20 landed oligarchy.
Thus, despite the existence of huge British and especially American compa(particulary the famous Anaconda or Kennecot Co in copper extraction), the country had a modest industrial development, scattered over small units of production, but concentrated in sectors metalworks, chemicals,
This is what determined the progressive marginalisation of the landed oligarthe benefit of the industrial bourgeoisie, the bloating of the public sector, and the integration into the civil service of the Chilean middle classes, the development of a proletariat concentrated in a few sectors, but especially in the
These social transformations since the beginning of the century created a political terrain similar to that of more developed capitalist countries, with classic bourgeois parties such as liberals and conservatives, the the Democracia Cristiano (DC - Christian Democrats) and the Partido Nacional (PN - National Party), mass independent working parties such as the Partido Socialista (PS - Socialist Party) and the Partido Comunista de Chile (PCC - Chilean Communist Party). This is unique in Latin America.
It was this structure that was profoundly overturned by the military. The 1973 coup did not only restore the values of the reaction after having broken revolutionary rise. It did not only wipe of three years of the "experiment". It broke the entire dynamic of Chilean society
Effectively, the bourgeoisie made use ot the new relationship of forces between the classes arising from the brutal defeat of the Chilean proletariat, in order to reorganise the capitalist economy, to increase the rate of exploitation of the workforce and to create the conditions for an economic recovery based on crushing the workers.
autarchic economy (a project defended notably by Pablo Rodriguez and the leaders of the fascist movement "Homeland and Freedom", inspired by the example of Spain at the start of Francoism), and the supporters of a neo-liberal economic policy, totally opening Chile to the laws of the world market, conforming to the monetarist theories of economists of the Chicago School, disciples of Milton Friedmann, nicknamed the Boys". The pressures of imperialism and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
maximal integration into the
At a time when the crisis of overproduction was raging and the imperialist system was avidly searching for new markets, imperialism had to take full advantage of the new relationship of forces installed in 1973 to impose its demands on Chile. For the multinationals and the "financial transnationals", the country had to become a new market, that could be swamped with finished and semi-finished products (consumer dura-
Japanese cars, textiles, steel, etc.) and with surplus American agricultural goods (wheat). It became a privileged hunting ground for financial and banking
The Chilean economic policy thus conformed to the needs of the IMF and the "Chicago Boys":
- putting into question the role of the state under the pretext of restoring private initiative;
- modernisation of production by letting the laws of competition run rampant and by suppressing any protective legislation of national industry and all customs barriers.
- refusal of any budget deficit by the suppression of a series of social services, and limitation of the role of the state in economic planning to the sole control of money supply.
This policy as a whole had profoundly devastating effects. It resulted in the privatisation of a series of sectors such as the wood industry, the steelworks, electricity and certain mineral resources, even
if the junta did not go as far as denationalisation of the principal copper mines. Key social services such as health, social security and education were dismantled. Teachers were turned into municipal employees. The establishment of the lowest tariff rights in the world opened the way to an invasion of imported products. Finally, the economic restructuring was conducted on the basis of a massive debt reaching more than 15 million dollars in 1982.
But the disaster was such that the state had to intervene in opposition to its own economic dogmas to redeem the mounting debts to private banks on the verge of bankruptcy. The effects of this policy were multiple:
— It provoked a collapse of the industrial apparatus: a reduction in production of 20 to 30% in textiles, of 50% in the steel industry, of almost 60% in construction;
multiplied in the industrial sector: 433 in 1981, already 500 in the first
-It caused a fall in production: - 80% for the production of wheat for example;
- It engendered a galloping growth in unemployment. Chile went unemployment of the active population in the 60s to almost 30%, that is more than one million unemployed out of a total population of 10.5 million;
- It imposed a catastrophic reduction in buying power with a continual rise in prices. Similarly, constant pressure held down wages. Whereas productivity went up by 74% between 1976 and 1980, wages only went up by 42.5%. To get an idea of the standard of living of Chilean workers, the average salary of a worker is from 6,000 to 8,000 pesos, while the price of a kilo of bread is 40 pesos. In comparison with the price of the kilo of bread, the average Chilean salary would be equivalent to an average salary of £50 a month in Britain;
- Inequalities widened as the crisis progressed. In Santiago de Chile, the capital, one resident in 16 is homeless (the city has 3.4 million inhabitants). Whereas the per capita revenue in the bourgeois quarter of Providencia is estimated at 2,500 dollar per month, it is only 24 dollars in the working class suburb of Pudhuel. Whereas for one illiterate in 4,000 inhabitants in Providencia, there is one out of 35 in La Granja (another working class quarter). Soup-kitchens have multiplied in the shanty towns (poblaciones) of Santiago;
- There is a generalised financial crisis and a free fall in the value of Chilean money: the dollar has gone from 39 to 60 pesos, indeed 90 on the black market. The sector in debt is thus ruined and speculation is let loose.
These few facts offer a glimpse of the destruction that Chile has experienced and the social changes that have thus resulted. The liquidation of entire industrial sectors has shoved aside the industrial bourgeoisie to the profit of the new sectors of finance capital closely tied to foreign capital. It is the financial groups linked to banking capital that today congroups: Vial, Cruzat-Larrain, Angelini, Matte, Edwards.
The proletariat has maintained certain social positions, particularly in the mining bastions and the related industries, as well as in certain sectors indispensable to the internal market. But, with an unemploy-
30% added to the police repression, the working class has undergone a process of division and social atomisation. The division is particularly pronounced between those who have jobs
The petty bourgeoisie has undergone a process of proletarianisation, and even, in certain cases, of "lumpen-proletarianisation", as the small merchant or taxi driver who lose their business funds or their working equipment cannot, in these conditions, be integrated into the process of production. They survive by "odd
Whereas formerly they had profited from the development of state serthe petty bourgeoisie is today ground down by the crisis. This is one of the most important transformations of Chilean society over the last few years.
As for the peasantry, who represent 20% of the active population, it is suffering from endemic unemployment tied to the lowering of wheat production and to the liquidation of all principal measures of previous agrarian reform.
The repression carried out by the dictatorship still holds back the explosive political expression of these upheavals. THE CRISIS OF THE DICTATORSHIP
Nine years after the 11 September 1973 coup, not only the working class forces, but all the sectors of the opposition - including within the armed forces -, and even the official press like El Mercurio, is talking about the beginning crisis of the dictatorship. The alteration of the governmental team at the end of August 1982 is another indica-
To speak of a crisis may seem exaggerated or premature considering the effectiveness of the repression in blocking the situation. The military-police apparatus rests solidly buttressed behind General
Pinochet. But, behind the apparent political stability, the foundations of the dictatorship are profoundly undermined.
Without being identical to the fascist regimes in Europe between the two wars, it is a fact that the counter-revolutionary regime installed in 1973 initially had at its disposal a certain social base, not only in the bourgeoisie, but in the mobilisation of a significant sector of the petty bourgeoisie. In the polarisation at the beginning of the 1970s, these sectors were not only lined up against the UP, but also against the proletariat and its organisa-
The big change that has been happening since the beginning of the 1980s, is regime, Leigh (former proclaim "duros ship assembly.
moreover, also has these divisions, mediated by the vertical functioning of the military institution and the personal weight of Pinochet at the heart of the assembly of fifty generals who meet regularly to decide everything. Pinochet, who had the habit of proclaiming that the army marched behind him like one man, recently responded to a journalist who asked him about possible divisions amid the military: "I don't know!"
However, power rests in the hands of the military, not because of the very force of its apparatus, but because of paradoxical conditions created by the coup. Whereas the economic and social crisis is reaching dizzying proportions, we are only now seeing the first change in the situation of the mass movement, nine years after the coup. The gap between the socio-economic crisis and the weakness of the mass movement explains the margin of manouevre that the junta still has. This also holds true for the absence of a capitalist alternative to the dictatorship. While numerous sectors of bourgeois
Chilean masses had "lost all, even fear", logic will be a determining tactor.
opposition exist, imperialism still solidly backs Pinochet.
The right and the extreme right remain para-governmental Christian Democracy, party of the Chilean industrial bourgeoisie, supported by the petty bourgeoisie, lost an important part of its social base in the crisis. It can always serve as a cover for a series of oppositional demonstrations, as at the time of the funeral of its the ex-president Eduardo Frei (1966-1970). It can even reconstitute itself in the event of a change in the situation. But it cannot represent, because of the crumbling of its social base, a guarantee of a viable political alternative in the eyes of imperialism and big Chilean capital.
It is this combination between the crisis, the weakness of the development of the mass movement and the absence of alternative, holds back the explosion of a political
Before the ripening of the conditions of such a crisis, different positions are nevertheless appearing within the ranks of the bourgeoisie:
- The first, taking sides in the confrontation that it already considers inescapable, intends to prepare itself to inflict a second defeat on the workers movement. Certain sectors of the army are openly engaged in this. Others, like Pinochet himself, envisage it while trying to put it off for as long as possible. This project really does exist, even if it is not immediately realisable, so great would be the risk of social explosions.
- The second intends to profit from the actual weakness of the mass movement to prepare a controlled democratic opening excluding those who they call "the Marxists", reestablishing certain formal democratic freedoms. The project is hardly credible immediately, political means capable of guaranteeing it.
- The third is the one that prevails at the moment. It consists of the pursuit of the present policy while striving to recomposition of the mass movement by a policy of selective repres sion. This explains Pinochet's support of
Everyone realises that such a policy is impractical in the long term, and that sooner or later it will be necessary to choose between a new confrontation and the narrowest possible opening. Consequently, it is possible that the present will explode and that new differentiations will appear. awakening of the mass movement and the nature of its leadership that will determine to a great degree the dynamic of
Whatever they may be, the political choices facing the Chilean bourgeoisie justify more than ever for the workers movement the perspective of a revolutionary overthrow of the dictatorship by means of mass mobilisation, of a general strike and the arming of the workers.
The breadth of the economic catastrophe and the repercussions of political developments in the Southern Cone means we cannot exclude a sudden turn in the situation even before protagonists, proletariat, are ready to confront them.
September 111973, phases in the dynamic of the mass movement can be distinguished:
- From 1973 to 1977-78, the counterrevolutionary movement. All the workers and popular organisations were liquidated or disinte-
The only union confederation was dismantled. The workers parties were broken by systematic repression against the militants or by forced exile of their members and officials. The generalised terror by the DINA and the CNI in the factories, the neighbourhoods and the poblaciones thus paralysed the entire movement. The only ones who stood up to it and resisted were the PCC, the Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR - Movement of the Revolutionary Left), a few nuclei of the PS and Trotskyist militants.
CH
- From 1978 to 1980 the first mobilisations took place. Presented with the plan laboral which legalised unions within a restrictive framework, the workers began to use the new legislation to start meeting together to defend elementary demands against redundancies and closure of factories. They thus began to act as a class, that is to say, in a collective way. This produced the first strike against the liquidation of factories, like PANAL, a textile enterprise threatened with closure. These strikes had a contradictory aspect: they failed on employ. ment or wages issues, but were the first step in the recomposition of the mass
- Starting from 1980-1981, the workers went beyond this first phase of semispontaneous struggle and, while pursuing these struggles, began a process of organisation or reorganisation of their forces, particularly on the union level.
After having undergone terror, the according to a union leader of MEDECO (copper industry) and started to reorgannise themselves. This evolution however was marked by very particular character-
First of all, the reorganisation of the workers movement had structural limitations because of the catastrophic economic situation, with 30% unemployment, daily bankruptcies of tens of industries, the reduction of labour force from 40 to 60%in a series of factories. The threat of and the division unemployed weighed heavily on the possibilities of the development of trade unionism.
On the other hand, tens of thousands of workers, without employment and practically without means of subsistence, indeed, violent Social explosions are
Also, the unification of all sectors of the working class, by joining the unemployed with the activity in the unions, by stimulating the coordination in the industrial zones and the poblaciones, between unions and popular organisations (associations of neighbours, women, of youth...) constitutes a central task for revolution-
Moreover, this is what union officials of the FESIMA (Union Federation of the region of Maipu in the suburbs of Santiago) undertook. They set up a regional coordinating body of more than 20 unions and mass organisations. This is also what was done in the poblacion of La Legua, where coordination of political parties PCC, MIR, PS-Vanguardia) organised "workers workshops" that is to say support committees of unions in association with the unemployed.
The main force in this still fragile rebirth of the mass movement comes from the "new generation": workers between the ages of 20 and 30, who were only 10 to 20 years old when the coup took place in 1973. Of the generation more experienced, but hard hit by repression, and exile, only a minority have been able to take up the fight. The mass of sympathisers of the UP are today taking up union or political struggles through structures that are not those of the workers parties of the UP, essentially the
This reorganisation of the mass movement is occurring in the context of still partial, fragmented and isolated struggles. In these conditions, a certain split is appearing between those sectors engaged in the reconstruction of union organisations within a "syndicalist" framework, due to distrust of the old UP parties and a more general rejection of politics, and other sectors whose conscious line of march is more directly anti-dictatorial, the capacity of throwing themselves into armed struggle in the poblaciones, in the politicised and among sympathisers.
For the future of the mass movement and the construction of a revolutionary party, overcoming these differentiations by understanding their origins and their
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TWO EXAMPLES OF MASS ORGANISATION
- The unions: after the rejection of the nationalist and corporatist reorganisation of society, any project of vertical unionism of the Francoist type, where bosses, management and workers of the same corporation belong to the same union, was ruled out. Also, in 1978, a law was passed which recognised the union section of the industry divided into three electoral bodies: workers, employers and administrators. While recognising the union section, the plan laboral of the junta defined a series of limitations on the right to strike: outlawing of any coordination at a national level of an industry; obligation of two months notice before any strike and time limit of 60 days for strikes; on the other hand, for the bosses, full freedom to hire scabs in the event of a strike.
Despite these restrictions, the workers seized the tolerated structures to elect their delegates by section (five delegates each), most of the time opting for "independents" against the docile "official" candidates of the junta.
Unions being the only legal workers organisations in Chile, it is normal that they be used by the workers to defend their rights and elementary demands, in spite of the legal restraints of the plan laboral.
It is at this level that a dual process is developing in the union reorganisation:
- On the one hand, the leadership structures inspired by parties (DC, PCO, factions of the PS, MIR) reorganise the trade unions at the top, with the support of the CUT in exile. Thus were born the Coordinadora (CD-CP), the UDT (current close to the socialists) and the FUT (socialist tendency). These structures, linked to party projects (broad opposition front of all social classes against the dictatorship) are today the only national coordinating bodies, united and democratic representation at the base of the unions.
- On the other hand, a movement is shaping up at the base of the unions themselves. The union of the MADECO company, for example, with its strong and authority, took the initiative of battling to call an inter-union conference for the region of Santiago. At this conference delegates elected by the base of their unions representatives who discuss the demands and the reorganisation of the unions.
More than 15 unions joined the appeal of MADECO. They addressed themselves to all rank and file unions, including those tied to the national coordinating bodies (Coordinadora, UDT, FUT). At the moment it is a question of opening a period of discussion. But there is no doubt that the perspective of regrouping unions on a united and democratic basis can attract today a good part of the active forces in the Chilean renewing the traditions and historic heritage of the CUT.
ETER GRAHAM, MEMORIAL LIBRARY
- The organisations of the poblaciones: the movement of the poblaciones is also developing, but with more difficulty and unevenness, mainly at the initiative of militants from political parties. Nevertheless it is achieving a mass character in
Thus, in La Legua, in the south of Santiago, out of a population of 5,000, almost 10% are organised at the initiative of the PCC, the PS and the MIR in a regular coordinating body that organises series of fronts: women, youth, cultural groups, liaison committees of unionists and unemployed. This coordination has also organised demonstrations, the distribution of leaflets, and surprise actions which, in the present conditions in Chile, must be protected. This is the function of the self-defence militias in certain poblaciones mainly made up of militants and sympathisers of parties that defend the mass movement.
In the first stages of the recomposition of the mass movement, the unions will be where the experience of the new generations will be fused. They will have to play a decisive role. But, from the this new-born movement is confronted with an economic and social crisis and the first political cracks in the dictatorship. This is why revolutionaries must combine daily trade union work with the development of an overall political perspective.
The central immediate tasks for fighting the dictatorship are around the defence of elementary demands of the workers, the construction of a union organisation, the defence of democratic rights (in particular the status of political prisoners). It is around these tasks that a front against the dictatorship can be constructed and the workers movement can be reconstructed.
But it is also necessary to integrate the fight for these tasks and demands into an overall strategic framework for the Chilean revolution, especially the experience of the UP. For, if the working class memory is mainly crystallised around small nuclei, there are also those who do not want to, or cannot draw the lessons of the UP. Then, there is the mass of the new generation that has not lived through this experience and who, in the absence of a mass revolutionary party, cannot draw all the strategic and tactical implications from it.
The entire dynamic of the mass movement under the UP, with the appearance of organs of " poder popular" (rank and file committees linked together in the industrial zones, and local self-defense groups), clearly demonstrated the proletarian character of the Chilean revolution and of its driving force. Moreover, despite the objective tendency of class confrontation, the Chilean masses have come up against the obstacle of hesitation, of compromise and of deals with the military hierarchy mainly advocated by the PCC in the workers movement and by the DC in the bourgeois opposition.
The PCC could not and cannot draw the of the UP. Enmeshed in their schemas of revolution by present phase is one of "anti-fascism in the democratic anti-feudal stage") and integrated into the international Stalinist camp, the PCC proposes today the same formulas as yesterday: "Broad antifascist front! Opposition movement of all classes against the dictatorship! National unity of all the opposition sectors, including sections of the military!"
Behind this policy they are agreement with the Christian Democrats and all the bourgeois components coming out of the crisis of the dictatorship.
Faced with this policy, it is more indispensable than ever to remember the
Chilean military (DR 23
lessons of the Popular Unity, to remember that it is class collaboration with the bosses, with the Christian Democrats, with the so-called progressive military, that caused the failure of the UP and swept in the terrible defeat of September 1973.
This UP policy expressed its legalism and constitutionalism vis-a-vis the armed forced who were to later massacre the
Chilean people.
The same policy would lead to the same defeat. This is why the daily strugdemands must be led by the workers and general strike, up to the overthrow of the that it is not only no longer possible to the Chilean people with total class inde-
- No "gremial" front: no corporate or union front with oppositional bosses like Vilarin, leader of the lorry drivers union, with a sinister past;
- No common permanent political front with the DC or other such bourgeois oppositionists, leading to a common governmental alternative.
The Chilean revolution will be socialist or it will not be at all. This is not to claim that the immediate tasks in Chile are of a socialist character, what will be the driving force of the revolutionary struggle: the proletariat and its allies. The social and democratic demands against the dictatorship can only be ultimately defended by resolute class struggle, implying a rupture with the oppositional bourgeoisie, in particular with the Christian Democrats.
Another thing is to reach precise and concrete agreement, under certain conditions, for mobilisation around this or that demand with all those, bourgeois or not, who would be ready to really act. But definitely not a common front or a common political block! How would it be possible to fight with determination for wages or for the defense of jobs while keeping up a "corporate front" with Mr. Vilarin? How would you fight with determination for democratic freedoms while discussing the possibility of governmental agreement with the Christian Democrats, who are hanging on to the oppositional sectors, which are hanging in turn on to the military opposition, who themselves
Today such a policy leads to inaction, if not to capitulation.
What is on the order of the day, is resolut combat for the defence of basic demands, the reestablishment of union rights, the reconstruction of a democratic union organisation. It is the fight for democratic freedom which means the fight for the overthrow of the dictatorship, the holding of free elections and the convening of a sovereign constituent assembly. Only this struggle opposes the dictatorship and the attempts to save its continuity by a controlling opening. Only this avoids lining up with this or that manoeuver of the bourgeois, civil or opposition. It prepares development of partial struggles in the direction of a generalised movement, the "paro nacional", traditional slogan of the Chilean proletariat, equivalent to the dictatorship and the establishment of a "workers and popular government without generals or bosses", to establish democratic freedoms and to put into practice a revolutionary democratic programme of socialist reconstruction in
The existence of a clear strategic perspective has an immediate practical importance, if one considers the last declaration of the four oppositional parties: the PCC, PS-Almeyda, Radical Party and the MIR. While recognising the validity of all forms of struggle - including armed struggle , to combat the dictatorship, this declaration does not breathe a word about its attitude towards the opposition sectors, and particularly towards the Christian Democrats. It is limited to advocating the formation of a government representsectors of the opposition, classes and social categories opposed to the dictatorship and ready to reestablish
We know what these general formulas mean concretely in the definition of a class collaborationist policy and its negative effects on the dynamics of the mass movement. For, if there is no room in Chile for a new period of industrialisation under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, able to lay the basis for a rerun of experiences such as those of the Popular Front or even the bourgeois reformist regime of Eduardo Frei, one cannot exclude, one must even foresee conjunctural phases of a democratic or pseudo-democratic which can provide the framework for class collaborationist operations.
The call of a Stalinist party like the PCC to armed resistance does not change our judgement on the global character of its politics of class collaboration. Historic examples abound, which have seen the Communist Parties combine armed struggle with open political class collaboration (particularly during the anti-Nazi resistance in Europe). Thus, the present policy of the PCC is very similar to that followed by the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) during the 40s and 50s against the
It is within this framework that we must discuss with the comrades of the MIR, main revolutionary organisation struggling today in Chile. The aim of this fraternal discussion is to advance the conditions of the construction of a revolutionary internationalist party.
In effect, on the basis of the social transformations in Chile, the MIR affirms
Arrest in Chile (DR) reconstruct Chile under bourgeois or imperialist hegemony, but it also reckons that there are structural limitations to the reconstitution of traditional organisations (union and party) of the Chilean workers movement.
Thus it tends to underestimate the work in the union organisations as well as the political weight of the PCC.
This is an error of appreciation. It is true that the traditional political parties are not, in the present conjuncture, playing a role as important as before the defeat in 1973. It remains nevertheless the case that the particular characteristics of the Chilean workers movement (power of a single union central and of the mass workers parties) can reappear with force as a result of the reactivation of the mass movement. The recent reappearance of a Communist Party as discredited and corrupt as the Argentinian CP gives food for thought...
The MIR, which under the UP was weakened by a limited presence in the union movement, can, by underestimating the reconstruction of the union organisations, cut itself off from an important part of the new working class generations and put aside a decisive task for the whole of the workers movement.
Also, the underestimation of the political weight of the PCC is serious because it leads to deprioritising the necessity to fight class collaboration. The MIR signed a common declaration with the PCC, the PS-Almeyda and the Radical Party, but it was not a framework for a united front for action. In this way it backs up the propositions of the PCC and sows illusions in its polities, particularly on the meaning of its involvement in armed struggle. These limitations of the MIR can be explained by the relations it has with the Cuban leadership, and the vacillations of the latter with respect to the Soviet bureaucracy.
In fact, MIR hopes to reproduce in Chile the same relationship of forces that exist in the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) in El Salvador, where the hegemony of revolutionaries and the subordinate positions of the Stalinists is indisputable. This is a big gamble if one takes into account the sociological and historic differences between the two countries. Essentially, it is counting on its strategy of prolonged revolutionary war to constitute an alternative in military
action and thereby defeat the PCC.
It is within this framework that it is now building the "people's revolutionary army". It hopes to accumulate the maximum means and forces to combat the dictatorship by a combination of mass work, armed propaganda actions, expropriations, actions of resistance and guerrilla tactics in the mountains. It also hopes to gain hegemony over the "Left Front" whether it be in the assumption of an opening, of a political crisis, or of a revolutionary explosion.
This gradualist vision of the development of the revolutionary army opens the way to a substitutionist practice towards the mass movement. The conditions for the construction of a revolutionary army are far from existing. They will only exist in a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situation. Besides, the MIR mixes up, without clearly choosing either, two strategic politico-military perspectives. It hesitates between an urban insurrectionary perspective and a perspective of prolonged popular war held up by liberated zones in the mountains, as in Neltume, mountainous zone where a group of cadres and militants of this organisation were crushed by repression.
This perspective is reaffirmed, moreover, in the June edition of El Rebelde, under the following slogan: "Hacer de la montana un baluarte de la guerra popular!" (Make the mountain a bastion
PETER GRAHAM, MEMORIAL LIBRARY of popular war!) In the geopolitical conditions in Chile, and taking into account the historical traditions, such a line seems to lead to an impasse, But these strategic questions demand a thoroughgoing discussion as, in light of the Nicaraguan and Salvadorian examples, the politico-military problem is posed again in the development of a struggle of the Chilean people against the dictatorship. At this moment, it cannot be tackled independently of the developments in the mass movement, which already implies concrete initiatives of protection of elementary mass activities, including the formation of pickets and self-defence militias as in a poblacion, where the militants of the PCC, the MIR and the PS-Vanguardia already take such initiatives.
This type of measure must be part of of the preparation of an unavoidable armed confrontation - contrary to all the pacifist illusions formerly touted by the UP - on the strategic horizon of the Chilean revolution.
Several elements can play an important role in the construction of a revolutionary leadership in Chile 10 years after the defeat in 1973.
On the one hand, there is an integration of revolutionary militants in the reconstruction of the union organisations. On the other hand, their participation in the discussion provoked by the crisis of the fragmentation of the Socialist Party. The Chilean SP is effectively split into various sections. A rightist current is regrouped around Carlos Altamirano and the Socialist Convergence (CS), which defends the perspective of a social opposition movement, taking up the themes of the current inspired by Michel Rocard in the French SP. A pro-Stalinist current inspired by Carlos Almeyda, that benefits from the PCC apparatus and the aid of the Soviet bureaucracy. Finally, a left current exists today dispersed in a series of sectors, like the PS-Vanguardia. Under the effects of the coup, and confronted with the necessary balance sheet of the UP, certain of these sectors can be led to raising the question of a revolutionary party, starting from the reconstruction of the PS on a revolutionary basis.
Finally, in certain zones or localities, mass work can be combined with an organisation of the currents and the revolutionary organisations, such as the MIR, sectors coming out of the crisis in the PS, and Trotskyist militants.
This is the framework open to revolutionary Marxist intervention, as much in the tasks of international solidarity as in the participation of the construction of a revolutionary party in Chile itself. This is the perspective of the comrades in the Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR), Chilean section of the Fourth International.
Poland: An "internal affair " for Yugoslavia
Catherine VERLA regime, but since the 1970s the dominant Party. That is to say that support for
'By our presence at the congress (of Solidarnosc) and our speech from the platform, we showed our solidarity with all the socialist and progressive forces in Poland who are fighting to overcome the present difficulties of the country!
This is how the delegation of the Yugoslav trade-union federation summarised its presence at the first congress of Solidarnosc (1). Their presence was notable given the complete absence of all the other 'trade unions' from Eastern Europe who had also been invited. Moreover, the Yugoslav population had been relatively well-informed of developments in