Another similar case of privatization concerns the purchase by the ABB multinational of three enterprises producing turbines which had been its direct competitors, in particular on certain Third World markets. This Swiss-Swedish monopoly immediately stopped production of the competitor turbines in Poland, reorganizing production to limit it to the local mar-
Apart from these examples, direct foreign investment in Poland remains limited. The $200 million invested by US capital essentially amounts to investments seeking to facilitate the flow of US production onto the local market and not to big productive
The current economic crisis is to a large extent the direct product of the orientation which has been adopted. It is true that the Polish economy of the 1980s was not exactly flourishing: ageing machinery19; stagnant industrial production; a foreign debt in the neighbourhood of $40 billion; a structure of international trade worthy of an under-developed country, without speaking of the agricultural crisis, the poverty and inflation which became hyper-inflation
The economic policy of the new regime sought the suppression of hyper-inflation and an opening to the outside world; and some success has been obtained in this, even if it amounts to less than the promises
Inflation, which was running at more than 1200% at the end of 1989, was brought down to 600% in 1990 and 70% in 1991. The predictions for this year put it at around 50%. This reduction has essentially been achieved by lowering real wages in the public sector - by nearly 50% on average at the end of 1991 in relation to 1989 - which has led to a structural modification of household consumption. In December 1989, unavoidable expenses (rent, energy, water) and food costs accounted for around 45% of the income of an average workers' household, whereas in June 1991 they represented 75 to 80%.20
The deflationary policy has provoked a serious recession., with GNP falling between 17.8 and 20% in 1990-1991.21 The recession has been particularly sharp in industry, where production fell by 24% in
Consequently, public enterprise debt has sharply increased, and it is estimated today that nearly a third of debts held by the banks cannot be repaid.
The Group of Seven (G-7), alarmed by the danger of a banking crash in one of the countries on the road to capitalist restoration, has just agreed to the transformation of the funds for the stabilization of the zloty agreed in 1990 into insurance funds for the restructuring of the debt of the Polish enterprises.
Another of the effects of the deflationary policy is that unemployment, still insignificant in Poland in September 1989, has just reached 2.2 million (or 12.2% of the population of working age); the government forecasts 3.5 million unemployed at the end of 1992 (or 19% of the active popula-
Budget crisis provoked
This recession has provoked a crisis of state finances. The budget deficit is very large and now seems to be a structural phenomenon - despite the pressures of the IMF and the World Bank the new cuts in social expenditure seem quite simply
Finally, the foreign debt has not been reduced from what it was in 1989, despite a significant reduction of the debt agreed by the principal public creditors in 1990: it is currently at $45.5 billion (in May 1992) whereas it was $40 billion in 1989. Thus, apart from a degree of success in bringing down inflation, the economic policy carried out since 1989 could be summed up by the old anti-bureaucratic joke: "We were on the brink of the abyss but thanks to the farsighted policy of the new regime we have taken an immense
The comparison between the results obtained and the price paid - unequally shared among the population, for a small minority of the new bourgeoisie has become very much richer — is the basic cause of the crisis of the new Polish state. Emerging from the tradition of the workers' revolt of Solidarnosc, it has betrayed the hopes of the great majority of the people.
It is implementing a policy in the interests of the bourgeoisie which does not represent, for the moment, a great deal in
POLAND terms of social force in Poland. Subject to the diktats of the imperialist institutions, it cannot, nonetheless, hope for sufficient support from them to assure stability.
The social weakness of this state overdetermines the weakness of the political forces represented in it and the absence of a social structure in which they can root themselves. Suspended in mid air, these political forces seek an ideology and are always ready to abandon one recipe for another.
But this weakness of the state, which the authoritarian plans can at best mask for a while, is counterbalanced by the destruction of the social tissue which had allowed the Polish workers to come to the fore in the 1980s. For, if one wants to speak of the success of capitalist restoration in Poland, it is in terms of the destruction of the combative potential of the workers.
The state of the trade union movement is evidence enough. It has, in the image of the parties, been reduced to an apparatus of full timers which manage for better or worse an essentially passive rank-and-file. In such conditions, the explosions of anger which come here or there are doomed to
The atomization of the workers increases, on the other hand, the bureaucratization of their organizations contributes to the alienation of their leaderships. These latter, integrated, in part at least, into the political pseudo-parties, are caught up in the same divisions cleavages and confusions. Their role is very often reduced to that of a means of transmitting the "war at the summit" to the base.
While, in 1989 and even at the beginning of 1990, the majority of workers were ready, in the name of change, to accept sacrifices, the subsequent absence of an overall movement by workers against the deterioration of their living and working conditions is not the result of illusions in the policies which have been implemented but of their absence the of hope of possibly changing it. Weak as the adversary is, it appears at the same time as all powerful and impossible to pin down. * 18. Gazeta Bankowa, no. 24, June 14, 1992; Poliryka no.22, May 30, 1992. 19. It is estimated today that 40% of the machinery installed in Poland date from before 1970 and that 40% dates from the period 1970-79. 20. B. Szopa, "Transformation of the system and living conditions of the people", Praca i Zabezpieczenie Spoleczne, no. 3, 1992. 21. Calculations of Stefan Felbur in Zycie Gospodarcze no. 23, June 7, 1992. tion stopped falling in the first months of 1992, 1 7 22. According to some estimates, industrial producwhich would constitute a success.
From Sao Paulo to
International Viewpoint # 234 • September 14, 1992 instrumentalist and hegemonic intentions - inevitably means in the medium or long term the division and destruction of organizations which have different structures and objectives.
This experience is true both in the case of organizations built around a politicomilitary conception and those that have been able to work within the legal and ins-
THE third meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum* took place in the Nicaraguan capital Managua from July 16 to 19, 1992, with 122 delegates representing 61 organizations from 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as 60 observers from all over the world. Its central theme was
"the alternatives for development and integration in Latin
America and the Caribbean".
ALFONSO MORO
HE declaration of Managua (see
T p. 20) is characterized by a clearly anti-imperialist content, and is in this respect substantially better than the results of the second meeting in
Mexico in 1991. This time a series of definitions were put forward which can serve to shape the activity of the currents taking part in the Forum. Concretely, among eight elements, there is an initial attempt to tackle the false dichotomy resulting from the identification of capitalism and democracy which is currently so much in vogue and which underpins projects such as US president Bush's "Initiative for the
Americas".
This theory holds that without the presence and dominance of the market economy, and without the continued application of the so-called structural adjustment programmes, our countries will continue to be condemned to permanent crisis and live in their ancient backwardness.
The reply to this vision is based on two observations: firstly the fact of the protracted economic crisis which descended on most imperialist countries in 1990 and which is accompanied by sharp rises in unemployment and the impoverishment of large sections of these countries populations; and on the other, the certainty that the adjustment policies applied since 1982 in Latin America have not only not resulted in resolving the most serious problems but have added a new element that is simply perverse; that is to say, they have seen a destructuring of the economic and social tissue of our countries making them yet more dependent and vulnerable to the vagaries of the world capitalist market.
While this definition is important, there exists another which merits as much or more attention. Point III of the declaration
(Elements for the defence of popular inter-
... in order to sts) states clear that change the nature of the traditional struc ture of production, or to defend those changes where they have been successfully made" is it necessary to fight against "structural adjustment policies whether orthodox or heterodox".
This statement implies a more or less veiled criticism of the economic policies pursued for example by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas in their last three years in government with catastrophic results for the majority of the population. There was the underlying hope that these measures, whether taken diluted or in pure form, could in the end give rise to a viable economic policy for our countries. For the same reason it is important that the declaration explicitly mentions that "the neoliberal project proposed for Latin America and the Caribbean does not allow for amendment" that is to say that it cannot be used as part of the design and working out of a radically different economic policy.
### Concepts of democracy
There are other encouraging aspects in the declaration which reflect the discussions that took place in Managua even when they retain an inevitable tingle of heterogeneity. The incorporation of a series of observations on the left's concept of democracy is very important. Here there seems to be agreement on the need to push forward all forms of self-organization and popular participation, not only as something to pronounce on at meetings (before being forgotten after the revolution) but as an objective to be pursued permanently in the here and now.
Without such a strategic vision of the meaning of popular self-organization, and without taking into account the respect due from political organizations to social organizations, no alternative project is possible. The impact of attempts to "direct" the latter - which in practice flow from titutional frameworks of various countries, independently of their size and social roots. This is one of the areas where the Latin American left is the weakest and the discussion on this point must continue alongside that of the development of an alternative economic strategy.
Still on the subject of the alternative economic project to be constructed, the Managua meeting took its first steps concerning various experiences of regional popular participation where one is certain to find the participation of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Without really developing this necessary debate, the Declarations correctly asserts that "the sum of micro-economic tasks, however autonomous and popular they may be, do not in themselves amount to a national alternative"
That is to say, however important and necessary such experiences are for the accumulation of forces on the popular field they are not enough to break out of the circle of the capitalist system if they do not set as their objective advances in the formation of a national project which must go beyond a regional vision, however advanced this may be.
### Customary practices
While the Managua meeting allowed the process of elaboration and reflection that began in Sao Paulo in 1990 to be continued, it also revealed the persistence of practices which have been customary among sections of the Latin American left, who often confuse pragmatic attitudes bordering on opportunism with a real internationalist vision which could be presented as a viable project not only to the population of one's own country but also to other
Two important facts marked the carrying through of the Third Meeting and caused tensions; the way in which they were resolved has set a bad precedent that could be repeated and whose consequences could be fatal for the survival of the Sao Paulo Forum.
On the initiative of the four Mexican * The Sao Paulo Forum is an annual meeting of left wing political parties and movements of Latin America and the Caribbean. The first meeting took place in Sao Paolo in July 1990 at the initiative of the Workers Party (PT) of Brazil, hence the name. See I 190 and 212 for reports of the two previous meetings.
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LATIN AMERICA Managua
September 14, 1992 • # 234 International Viewpoint parties represented in Managua [Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), the Workers Party (PT) and the Popular Socialist Party (PSP)], a proposal was put to the meeting for a declaration denouncing the latest electoral fraud perpetrated by the Mexican government in the elections for the governorship of the state of Michoacán that took place at the start of July.
Discussions and consultations over many hours allowed us to achieve a proposal which centred its denunciation on an aspect that would be central for all those at the meeting; the repeated violation by the Mexican government of such a basic democratic right as the right of the citizen
The problem was posed clearly; either the leftists gathered in Managua would make their own a demand which comes not only from Mexican political organizations but from that country's people or, for "tactical reasons" — valid or not (this is another question) - involving the relations which almost all left organizations in Latin America have with the Mexican government, to simply oppose any declaration that touches on the Mexican government and its party/state, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
### Unwelcome guests
The pressure exercised in this respect by many organizations who said they would not sign resulted in the withdrawal of the proposal. However, what is more serious, the organizers of the meeting took it upon themselves to invite an "observer" who turned out to be a member of the Mexican PRI itself, who, although representing nothing inside the meeting, but with the agreement of the organizers, claimed that the elections in Mexico had been characterized by their "cleanness" for which reason he could see no grounds for issuing such a declaration.
The second case was no less disturbing. Among the observers at the meeting were official representatives of the Chinese Communist Party, the North Korean Party of Labour and the Iraqi Baath Party. The atmosphere of the discussion therefore became extremely tense when the representative of the Brazilian Party of Labour (PT) asked that, just as the meeting had already passed a declaration of solidarity with the people of Iraq, demanding the lifting of the blockade imposed after the Gulf War, the same meeting should also issue a declaration of "support for the Kurdish people, today suffering repression by the governments of Turkey and Iraq".
This declaration was approved in principle with votes against from the Cuban Communist Party, as well as abstentions by the Colombian ELN, FARC and CP, the Communist Parties of Argentina and the Dominican Republic and the Socialist
This democratic decision was then whisked away. The representatives of Saddam Hussein's government were invited, once again by the organizers of the event, to speak and give their mythical account of events, which had nothing to do with the situation of the Kurdish people and the respect of its human rights by the Iraqi
Although a new draft was proposed which the representative of the Brazilian PT accepted in order to maintain the united character of the meeting, this turned out to be a futile gesture since we can find published in the July 20 number of the Sandinista daily Barricada all the declarations of international solidarity apart from the one which refers to the Kurds.
These events threw a sizeable shadow over the third meeting, revealing antidemocratic methods of functioning and a lack of internationalism on the part of several of the organizations represented there; this will have inevitable repercussions on future debates on the participants in the Sao Paulo Forum. It is clear that a rebirth of internationalism, which every one is pleading for, cannot arise on the basis of a narrow vision restricted to the frontiers of one country and which belongs to this or that organization in particular.
Either there will be a frank and open discussion on the implications of relations between states and the forces involved in the Forum or, sooner or later, it will be necessary to sacrifice one of the original
LATIN AMERICA principles explicitly embodied in the Sao Paulo Declaration which states: *... active support for the defence of human rights and with popular democracy and sovereignty as strategic values confronting the forces of the socialist left and progressives with the challenge of constant renewal of their thinking and activity".
After the shock experienced by the international left and in particular that of Latin America after the fall of the bureaucratic dictatorships in eastern and central Europe and the events following the US invasion of Panama in December 1989 and the Gulf War of 1991, it is clear that a good proportion of our former certainties have disappeared and many questions have taken their place. Finding the answers to these questions will take time, and will without doubt require a renewed capacity for reflection and analysis. In the circumstances it would be impossible to askthe forces making up the Sao Paulo Forum to find immediate and global responses to the complex problems that today confront all organizations of the left, together and separately. But, having said this, some of the themes on which the exchange of opinions and discussion must advance in the future can be identified.
The problem of the state
Until now, little or nothing has been said about the problem of the state both in the capitalist societies and in the so-called transitional societies. If we look at the Declaration of Managua (and the same can be said of those produced in Sao Paulo and Mexico City) we can see that a more concrete analysis of the present day role of the state is almost absent. Of course some advances have been made, in denouncing the errors of both the ideas underlying a statist vision of politics and those of the neo-conservatives who see no role for the state in economic affairs. But the problem
When reference is made to the need for the state to be democratized, we have also to state that this is the main issue that all experiences of revolt and revolution have had to confront without exception. How to avoid the bureaucratization and degeneration of those parts of the left that find themselves in the ambit of the state apparatus, through, for example, participation in parliament? Can one talk of a struggle for the democratization of the state independently of putting forward a project for a radical democratic rupture? What kind of balance-sheet can today be drawn of the left in our countries over the relation between the state, political organizations and social movements? How should the left pose the issue of the deprivatization of state activities? These are questions, 19 which, as we have insisted, it will take
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September 14, 1992
LATIN AMERICA time to resolve, but it already clear that a real alternative development project (including the creation of a new popular, political and cultural project) will have to go hand in hand with the effort to work out possible answers.
If the question of the state merits a profound discussion, the same applies to the debate on a new international order which was raised by several organizations at the meeting. We think that the proposal is in itself valid and more necessary than ever, but the ways in which the idea is being presented are inadequate from every point of view.
In fact, if we read point VIl of the declaration (alternatives and demands) we find a proposal for "a total reorientation of the policies and functioning of the IMF and World Bank". However it is clear a new international order must rest on quite a different type of organization. Just like the neo-liberal economic policy, neither the IMF, the WB nor similar institutions, whether providers of credit or not, can be reformed.
For popular
sovereignty
THE third meeting of the
Sao Paulo Forum at
Managua ended with the adoption of the following declaration by the 61 organizations and political parties participating: we reproduce the most important extracts below.
DOCUMENT
A S SHOWN by its third mee-
ting and the international recognition it has received, the Sao Paulo Forum has proved its usefulness as an instance for meetings and exchanges between the different democratic, nationalist, popular and socialist forces. Five hundred years after the invasion, the conquest and the colonization of Latin America, we hope not simply to continue five centuries of indigenous, black and popular resistance, by reaffirming the right of our peoples to liberty, sovereignty and social justice and development. We wish also, by the autono20 ming our historic and cultural identity, and mous organization of the workers, in affirInternational Viewpoint # 234
This is a debate in which no confusion is possible, if we do not want to repeat the experiences of the mid-1970s when a good part of the international left embarked on a similar discussion, but failed to go beyond the Third Worldist vision and experienced defeats which are apparent to everyone