The debt is now over $100 billion, and the interest alone takes up 6% of the gross national product, and 45% of all export revenues. The Mexican government does not get any gold stars or favors from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), despite being one of its most diligent pupils.
The government is therefore in a delicate situation, all the more so because it has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of a large segment of the population. But it still has room to
After the elections, the government was able to bring a significant section of the intelligentsia back into the fold. Although they had voted for Cárdenas, in the final analysis they threw their support behind Salinas de Gortari. This type of sell-out is somewhat of a tradition in Mexico where the state has a great deal of capacity for coopting intellectuals, who play an important role in the country.
In the same manner, Salinas de Gortari exploited the visits of the presidents of Cuba and Nicaragua, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, to the full when they attended his inauguration.
A few days before the ending of his term, Miguel de la Madrid paid an official visit to Cuba. This was the first such official trip by a Mexican president since the Cuban revolution, and it had only one aim — to ensure Castro's presence at the official inaugural ceremony in Mexico.
Castro and Ortega attend inauguration
Castro and Ortega agreed to appear. The Mexican bourgeoisie was very reticent about Castro's visit, but in the end they managed to make good use of it. Many people were very disappointed because it appeared that Castro implicitly supported Salinas. In fact, it was the first time that Castro has come to Mexico (apart from his trip to Cancun), and it involved much more than a symbolic presence at a ceremony.
After the inauguration, Castro also went to Tuxpan, the point from which the Granma set sail in December 1956 to begin the armed struggle in the Sierra Maestra. There he opened a small museum on the Cuban Revolution. He was accompanied by the Mexican minister of the interior who had detained both Fidel and Che Guevara at that time, but who treated them quite well. It so happens that this minister is now in charge of the police force, and as such bears the responsibility for all of the human rights vio-
Mexico, in particular the disappearances (see article on page 28).
So people had a very heated reaction to Castro and Ortega's presence. A demonstration and meetings were organized to express their disappointment. However, the reaction was more nuanced in the case of Ortega, because everyone is very aware of Nicaragua's economic difficulties and the lack of maneuvering room for the Sandinista leaders. Even if Ortega's presence was as much of a political error as that of Castro, it was the Cuban leader who drew most of the
In his speech, Castro referred to the imperialist threat to Cuba and Nicaragua and the dangers of military aggression. He added that a revolutionary upsurge in a big coun try such as Brazil, for instance, would make such an aggression much more difficult. However, in Mexico — the second largest country in Latin America — while the Mexican masses were taking the first steps toward a struggle against the government and imperialism, Castro preferred to support the government against the masses!
This position is very hard for the Mexican masses to understand or to believe, and it is clear that Castro's attitude will rebound on Cuba. For his part, Cárdenas spoke out very strongly against Castro, saying that the Mexican population supported the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, but that this did not mean that they supported their leaders. The Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT, Mexican section of the Fourth International) also took part in the debate, explaining that it would continue to support Cuba and Nicaragua, but that the visits did not serve the interests of these revolutions.
Because, in the future, who will put pressure on the Mexican government so that it helps Cuba and Nicaragua, if not the Mexi-
Salinas de Gortari (left) fiddled election results to beat Cuauhtémoc Cardenas (right) for the presidency (DR) can population, which today is in opposition to its government?
Within the trade-union movement, the government still has some room to maneuver, despite the crisis within the PRI. The major union leaders are in fact incapable of breaking with the state, because all of their privileges are based on their links with the state apparatus. A few months ago, the biggest union federation, the Mexican Workers' Confederation (CTM) entered into violent confrontations with the small Regional Workers' and Peasants' Confederation (CROC). The latter has recently received state support. This type of confrontation between union structures may well intensify in the months to come because the state no longer wants the CTM to maintain its old hegemony over the workers' movement. The old union bureaucracy symbolized by Miguel Velasquez (leader of the CTM since 1930!) has become an obstacle to the state's moderniza-
At the same time, things are beginning to move in the union movement, but outside of the direct control of the apparatus. It is not the union leaderships that are deciding the when, where and how of struggle, but the workers, who are acting spontaneously "parallel" to the union structures.
### Workers demonstrate against wage review
Thus, in December, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers (a sector which includes about 2.5 million workers) demonstrated their opposition to the wage review proposed by the government. Salinas had proposed an increase of 8% for the entire year, which is a ridiculous amount given inflation and the fall in real wages. This entire mobilization was organized outside of union structures, but also independent of any left political organization.
All of which leads us to believe that in the next two years we will see an increase in contradictions and crises, not only between the state apparatus and the union bureaucracy, but also within the union structures themselves. We can expect breaks in the middle levels of the bureaucracies — the layers most closely linked to, and still influenced by, Mexican workers.
The annual incomes of the Mexican working class rose regularly throughout the 50s and 60s, but then the situation changed abruptly. In some areas — oil, for example
— the average wage in the 1970s was ten times the minimum wage, while today it is only double. This is a big change that is reflected in Mexican workers' new living
MEXICO standards. It is therefore not too surprising that the oil workers' union played the biggest role in the confrontations within the union movement, and has developed a very aggressive line against the government.
This union has 100,000 members and has great economic strength. It is led by real union gangsters who have physically liquidated all of their opponents and competitors. Despite that, the union has a nationalist, Cardenist past, linked through the elder Cárdenas (Cuauhtémoc's father, who always maintained close ties to the unions) to the oil nationalizations of the "30s. In the July 1988 elections, the oil workers' union implicitly supported the young Cárdenas, providing him with financial aid and political support in specific areas.
It is in this context that what Salinas calls the "transition" took place. But it was a very different transition from that which has taken place in most other Latin American countries, where it was a matter of ending a military dictatorship by means of a more or less democratic and constitutional process. In Mexico, the transition is taking place with the same party, the PRI, in power, without any agreement about or change in its single-party structures.
No change in the single-party system
After the fraudulent elections in July, the PRI had to recognize that it had no more than 52% of the votes. But this party's organizational tradition and ideological references do not allow for any real transformation of the single-party system, which 11 means there will be no transition in Mexico
International Viewpoint #157 • February 20, 1989
MEXICO on the PRI's initiative.
Cárdenas understood this. He represents a possible transition, but what he proposes is also very different than what is occurring elsewhere in Latin America. Cárdenas does not enjoy support from imperialism or from the national bourgeoisie, for in the eyes of the latter, he is synonymous with communism. The bourgeoisie feels that because of what he represents in the popular consciousness, it would be impossible to rely on him to bring about a transition.
Cárdenas swimming against the stream
That is one of the things that complicates the possibility of a summit accord between
Cárdenas and Salinas. Besides, Cárdenas defends the old populist conception of the
Mexican state as it was built by his father, on the question of the foreign debt, on wages, nationalizations and so on. Therefore he is totally opposed to Salinas' vision of a modernized state, one that will pursue the preceding government's policies on privatizations. In six years, out of 1,800 existing state enterprises, 1,400 were either privatized or simply shut down, if the bourgeoisie did not want to buy them. So the two projects are incompatible on this point.
Cárdenas' project channeled all of the democratic and nationalist aspirations of the Mexican poor, but he is going against the stream. In Peru, for example, Alan
García, who had had a similar project, was unable to carry it out because he was going in the face of the world economic situation.
This is no longer the '30s or '40s, when it was possible to develop production based on the substitution of manufactured goods for imports, the process that underlay the rise of nationalist currents.
Now the situation is reversed.
The dependence on the IMF and foreign capital penetration leave little space for populism.
Obviously, Cárdenas is not going to call for an insurrection or a general strike against the government. But, in spite of his hesitations, weaknesses and neither is he in a position to make any summit agreement, because the same movement that has supported him until now would then turn against him.
Unlike other mass movements in Latin America, the process of radicalization in
Mexico is quite impressive.
One example is that people are not afraid of the army. In other places, people were in a hurry to get rid of military dictatorships but were afraid that the military would remain, or that there would be a new coup
12 d'état. So the bourgeoisie used this fear of the military in order to channel the movement towards a controlled transition. In Mexico, on the other hand, the population has not gone through the same experiences and does not see the army as a threat. Therefore it is pushing Cárdenas to go further and faster.
Cárdenas is also conscious that he cannot win the day without the support of at least a section of the bourgeoisie, of the army and of the union bureaucracy. For that reason he has adopted a very cautious attitude, especially as concerns organizing the
But he has chosen to fight this battle outside of the PRI and to build his own party, and this has created a very contradictory situation. In fact, in popular consciousness, this break with the PRI - given the relationship between the PRI and the state — is a step towards the development of class independence.
Cárdenas has said that the construction of his party, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) was necessary in order to give expression to the success shown by the July elections. However, not all of the sectors and small parties that supported his clectoral campaign are part of the new party. Some of them maintain links with Cárdenas but refuse to participate in organizing the PRD
Left forces in Cárdenas'
On the other hand, the Mexican Socialist Party (PSM) - which includes the former Communist Party — as well as the rest of the far-left, except the PRT, decided to join Cárdenas' party. So, among others, forces in the party include a Maoist organization called the Revolutionary Left Organization/
Mass Line (OIR/LM); Punto Critico, an independent left group that has remained independent until now and which trained the major leaders of the 1968 student movement; a section of the nationalist and revolutionary left called the Revolutionary
National Civic Association (ACNR); comrades who left the PRT; leaders of the 1986 student movement; and, finally, many intellectuals and independents, who are taking part in such a political process for the first time.
Contradictory positions in the PRD
Cárdenas' party presents itself as a citizens' party and not as a class party. But this party" is rife with contradictions, some of which were immediately evident.
Shortly after its founding, biggest university in Mexico, the UNAM, went on strike. Most of the union leaders in this dispute were involved in building the
PRD. At the same time, some of the administrators and the university authorities also belonged to the new party. The union members took part in the strike, while the administration was bitterly opposed and labeled it as "provocative" and opportunist.
As a result, contradictory positions were held by members of the same party.
The PRD will continually face this type of situation. Another example is that while many peasants belong to the party, so do many big land-owners. Thus, the debate over land reform is likely to be explosive!
Again, there will be two diametrically opposed positions.
For the PRT, the situation is rather complicated. After 1982, we believed that a critical period of recomposition and reorganization in the Mexican extreme left had opened up, with the Communist Party at the center. Today, the whole of the
Mexican extreme left has unified...but behind Cárdenas.
There is no doubt that he has total control over the direction of this process, although some joined him believing that they could maneuver and fight him for leadership of the operations.
This section of the left going over to Cárdenas has also raised problems of political orientation. Today, these groups are developing an entirely electoralist strategy and virtually discarding the radical vision of the
Mexican left. Not so much because they have joined
Cárdenas' party, but because they are adapting to his vision of the mass movement and popular mobilizations. They are saying, for example, that today it is not possible to challenge and confront the state and therefore we will have to go
February 20, 1989 • #157 International Viewpoint through a period of three to six years before we can change anything.
From the PRT's point of view, we are in a new situation as far as the election period goes. We mounted a big political campaign against electoral fraud. For that purpose we made a tactical alliance with Cárdenas and other sectors that defended the Cardenist victory. So the party had a presence in the mass movement and was not marginalized, despite the fact that it did not join the PRD
Today, we must develop an alliance in action with Cárdenas around two questions. First, we must continue the fight around the illegitimacy of the Salinas de Gortari government and demand that he step down. This is a point that Cárdenas raised in the context of a huge mobilization, and one which we defend. Second, we should act together around a series of democratic questions: wages, the foreign debt, full employment, democratic liberties and so on. They are immediate demands and make up the minimum basis of activity in the mass movement. That is the platform of a political accord with Cárdenas. We will see if it works in practice, but nothing is certain, even if Cárdenas has indicated his
However, we must combine the construction of such a political front with independent activity and our own profile. Today, the PRT is not only the sole revolutionary party in Mexico, but also the only socialist
Thus, there is no longer the possibility of building political fronts with other forces on the far-left in order to put pressure on the bourgeois nationalists. On the contrary, we must build a front with the nationalist current, and those militants of the far-left who have joined it will oppose this because, for them, the PRT is an obstacle.
These sectors are opposed to the continued existence of an independent party on the left because their base is hesitant and doubtful about the politics they have chosen. So the very existence of PRT represents an unrelenting pressure on them.
PRT lost its legal registration
Our situation is complicated all the more by the fact that we have to regain our legal registration. The PRT was officially credited with 0.38% of the vote in the July 6,
1988 elections and lost the legal registration we had gained in the 1985 elections when we were credited with 1.5%. We have launched a PRT supporters' campaign, and we need 65,000 supporters in order to have this registration restored. Not only does bourgeois law demand that we collect that many signatures, but the people who sign must also declare that they agree with the program and statutes of the party.
We think that it is nonetheless possible, as the PRT has a widespread influence. Besides, for us this campaign will be one not only of finding signatures, but of recruitment. The challenge for the PRT is therepolitical force capable of putting pressure on Cardenism on the ground, in action.
The PRT has a presence in the reorganization of the independent mass movement. For example, in the capital, Mexico City, where Cárdenas received 48% of the votes and the PRI only 23%, an assembly parallel to the official one was set up with the participation of Cardenists and the PRT, and was accompanied by the organization of local committees in each district. At the inaugural meeting of this assembly, the major speeches were given by Cárdenas and Rosario Ibarra [the PRT's presidential Political space opened for revolutionaries
The PRT is also involved in the peasant movement and the shanty-town struggle. It is active in the leadership of the Popular General Union of Workers and Peasants
There, the stakes are high - unification with all of the other peasant organizations outside of UGOCEP, some of which are Cárdenist, would bring together over 2 million peasants. Such a process of unification would even be capable of putting strong pressure on the peasant organizations
The specific intervention and united poll tics of the PRT in certain regions of the country have strengthened peasant structures overall. In the region near the border between the states of Veracruz and Oaxaca, for instance, the PRT is in the leadership of a peasant organization numbering from 30,000 to 40,000 people. This work takes on a political dimension, as well.
At a public meeting organized by the PRT to present the members of the local party committee, 8,000 peasants turned up. All of a sudden it became clear that these peasants considered themselves members of this party committee! The PRT was forced to reorganize its structures and create many more committees in the region.
Another advantage for the PRT is that the electoral fraud and the lack of respect for their votes has generally discredited elections and the electoral system in the eyes of a large section of the population. This has led to higher and higher levels of ab-
In the last elections for the governor, mayors and deputies in Tabasco state, the rate of abstention reached 80%! But this was not a sign of depoliticization, shown by the fact that both before and after these elections, there was no let-up in the demonstrations. As Cárdenas' entire strategy is based on forming and using his party in order to participate in elections, this leaves a great deal of political space for the PRT. *
MEXICO • BRAZIL