During the past fifteen years, a new political reality has emerged in Latin America.  The process of change began with popular protests against the neoliberal project, with its orientation to the free flow of goods and capital, imposed by the United States and the global powers as well as the international finance agencies, with devastating consequences for the people, especially the most poor.  The energy and momentum of the popular protests were channeled toward the forming of alternative political parties, which were able to win elections and take power in several Latin American countries.  These nations have attempted to attain true independence, to control their natural resources, to provide for the social and economic needs of the people, and to strengthen commerce, cultural exchanges, and political dialogue within the region. 

    Leading this process of change have been Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, which have proclaimed socialism for the twenty-first century, in alliance with Cuba, persistent in its socialism.  Charismatic leaders (Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa) emerged in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador.  Using structures of representative democracy established after the fall of the Latin American dictatorships, they formed alternative political parties and won presidential elections.  Once in power, in accordance with campaign promises, they convoked constitutional assemblies, formed through democratic elections, which emitted new constitutions.  The leaders were subsequently elected presidents of their nations under the new constitutions.  Thus all three governments are legitimate, democratic, and constitutional governments.  However, inasmuch as they seek to fulfill the aspirations of the people for true independence, they are anathema to the US government and to the major international news media, owned by US corporations.

    The political orientation of the entire region of Latin America and the Caribbean has been affected, even those countries where traditional political parties are still in power.  The formation in 2010 of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, consisting of the 33 states of the region and excluding the United States and Canada, is an indication of the extent to which the new political climate has affected the region.

      US policy has sought to reverse the changes in Latin America, and a key part of its strategy has been to bring about the fall of the governments of Chávez, Morales, and Correa, by means of promoting destabilization.  US diplomatic missions have provided support for opposition parties and destabilization strategies, in flagrant violation of international rules of diplomacy, which stipulate that diplomatic missions should not become involved in the politics of the country in which they are located. 

     The US government has had the support of the international news media, which have demonized the three leaders, thus generating confusion among the people of the United States.  This confusion has the practical consequence of denying the people of the United States the right to reflect on the significance of the emergence to power of three charismatic leaders in Latin America on a basis of popular mobilization and organization, a reflection that conceivably could have important implications for US domestic politics and foreign policies.

     The most recent manifestation of the US policy is the attack on the government of Nicolás Maduro, who assumed the presidency of Venezuela upon the death of Hugo Chávez.  Personally designated as his successor by Chávez, Maduro was elected to the presidency, in accordance with the procedures established by the Constitution.  The latest US strategy has involved the encouragement of street violence by extreme right factions and the creation by the international media of an image of chaos and human rights violations in order to establish a justification for US military intervention.

     At the height of the violence by right-wing gangs and the distorted media images of the situation (see “Events in Venezuela” 2/25/2014 and “Venezuela and the media” 2/27/2014), US public officials began to lay the foundation for a possible intervention.  Secretary of State John Kerry proclaimed that the United States was deeply concerned by the growing tension and violence.  Spokesperson Jen Psaki asserted that the Venezuelan government ought to take more seriously the grave situation in which it finds itself.  Another spokesperson, Marie Harf, called upon the government of Venezuela to immediately release those who, according to her, had been detained for peacefully exercising their rights.  President Obama expressed that the government of Venezuela, instead of expelling US diplomats, ought to respond to the legitimate demands of the people.  Meanwhile, US Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida, demanded concrete action by the Obama administration.

      The Venezuelan chancellor issued a statement protesting the declarations of US public officials, maintaining that they “constitute a new and gross interference” in Venezuelan affairs, and noting that “they are based on false information and assertions without foundation.”  The statement also asserted that the independent governments and peoples of the world are waiting for the United States to explain why it “finances, encourages, and defends opposition leaders that promote violence.”

     The US strategy appears to have been defeated.  Maduro reacted with intelligence: he convoked peaceful demonstrations by supporters of the Bolivarian revolution; he announced the formation of a National Anti-Coup Command, which will organize popular vigilance in centers of work and study and in neighborhoods; and he called for dialogue with the moderate opposition, seeking to isolate the extreme right.  And the Venezuelan government received the immediate backing of many of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, as occurred with the attempted coups against legitimate, constitutional, and popularly elected governments headed by Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, attempted coups that also had US support.

      We the people of the United States must find the means to overcome the distortions of reality that serve the interests of the powerful, so that we can develop an understanding that would empower us and would enable us to establish a government that has international policies consistent with the ideals of democracy.  I refer here to democracy in the full sense, understood as including the right of all nations to sovereignty and true independence.  Let us find the means to bury forever imperialist foreign policies that hypocritically pretend to be democratic, accomplishing their objectives by means of distortions, manipulations, and lies.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Venezuela, mass media, US foreign policy

     The Cuban journalist Randy Alonso Falcón describes events in Venezuela as “a coup d’état attempted through premeditated agitation in the streets and the shameful fabrication of images.” 

     Alonso maintains that the coup is part of a “new imperial strategy of interference for the elimination of governments not to its liking.”  The strategy includes “provoked demonstrations; concerted and multiple media manipulations; and well-worn calls to respect the human rights of those who are aggressive and violent, seeking international condemnation and armed intervention.”  Thus we have seen in recent days “provocative and condemning headlines and dramatic images of Venezuela” as well as “images of chaos, of violent protestors as victims, and anathemas against the Venezuelan government.”  The campaign is accompanied by “a well-financed and concerted strategy through the social networks to inflame passions, generate anxiety, and spread lies.  Tweets circulate, one after another, riddled with false photos of the Venezuelan situation, snapshots whose true origins are in recent demonstrations and confrontations in Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, or Chile.”

      Alonso asserts that there is no limit to the manipulations and lies.  Anything is valid for those who attempt to overthrow a government that is not pleasing to the United States or to the Venezuelan oligarchy. He cites the political scientist Juan Carlos Monedero, who maintains that the media focus on Venezuela doesn’t have anything to do with violence in Venezuela; it has to do with the fact that the country is rich in petroleum, and its government does not submit to the mandates of the North.

     Alonso believes that the response to the imperial counteroffensive to the Latin American quest for true sovereignty must take many forms, and it must include the emergence of a new media of communication in service of the people.

       Randy Alonso Falcón is a prominent journalist, perhaps the most well-known, in Cuba.  He is director of La Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable), a Cuban television news discussion program, and Cubadebate, a Cuban news Website.  La Mesa Redonda discusses major international and national events and issues.  It usually has three or four guests, who are journalists, scholars and specialists, each of whom is given time to develop an explanation.  Alonso regularly moderates the program, and he is known for his careful listening, his relevant questions, and his succinct introductory and concluding comments. 

    Born in the western province of Pinar del Rio, an isolated region before the triumph of the revolution, Alonso has been formed by the Cuban Revolution.  He is not on the payroll of the giant corporations that own the major international news media.  He is a product of the thirst of the peoples of the world for social justice, and he has cast his lot with a style of journalism in which journalistic ethics and integrity are bound to the needs of the humble, and not the interests of the rich.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Venezuela, mass media, Randy Alonso

     I provide in this post a summary of recent events in Venezuela, as they are presented in the Cuban and Venezuelan news media.

     Beginning on February 12, violent groups in the capital city of Caracas have attacked people and engaged in acts of vandalism.   They have violently attacked the users and workers of the bus system; they have attacked and robbed a building of the state-owned petroleum company; and they have set fire to five vehicles of the state-owned telephone company.

      The government of Venezuela has responded to these events with appropriate action.  As of February 20, thirteen persons were arrested for crimes involving violence and vandalism.  There has not been a wave of political detentions, as was reported in the media outlets controlled by the Venezuelan bourgeoisie.  These privately owned media continue to operate in Venezuela; they have not been closed, in spite of their history of distorting information in service of the political agenda of opposition bourgeoisie.

      The instigator of these violent acts, according to the Cuban and Venezuelan media, is Leopoldo López, leader of the right-wing party Popular Will.  He convoked through the social media a nation-wide march by the opposition, without soliciting permission from the authorities.  Some feared that the call would provoke new disturbances, but only one march was carried out, peaceably, in a section in the eastern part of the capital city.  López is presently under arrest, charged with crimes related to the promotion of violence.  President Nicolás Maduras, concerned for Lopez’s safety as a result of popular hostility to his conduct, personally negotiated with his family his voluntary surrender.  The government has announced that he is being treated ethically and humanely, and that he will be tried in accordance with established principles of guarantees of the rights of the accused.  López has a history of political activities of the Right.  As mayor of the City of Chacao, he supported the failed coup d’état against President Hugo Chávez of April 2002, and he was involved in the illegal detention of the Minister of Interior and Justice that occurred during the coup.

       In addition, violent conflict has emerged in the state of Táchera, on the border with Colombia.  According to the Venezuelan minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Táchera has been besieged during the last two weeks by violent groups of the extreme right financed by the ex-US ambassador Otto Reich and the ex-president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Velez.  A battalion of army parachutists has been dispatched in order to protect the highways, and units of the National Guard are being sent to restore public order.

     Violent and illegal action of this kind have been undertaken for fifteen years by opponents of the Chávist revolution, which has been victorious in eighteen of nineteen elections since 1998.  The most notorious of these efforts was the failed coup of 2002.  But they have been intensified since the death of Hugo Chávez and the assuming of the presidency by Maduro ten months ago.

        The intention of these violent acts is to create a situation of confrontation and violence that can be utilized to create an international image of crisis in order to justify armed intervention.  The international actors are playing their part.  The international media of communication have been full of headlines such as “Tension in Venezuela,” “Political Crisis in Venezuela," and “Violence in Venezuela.”  They have given legitimacy to these violent groups, presenting them as peaceful protestors who are members of student movements.  The Chancellor of Venezuela, Elías Jaua, refers to the international media as an “apparatus of propaganda.”   And as we shall see in a subsequent post, some political leaders in the United States are calling for “concrete action” by the United States.

     President Nicolás Maduro calls it a fascist coup d’état.  His immediate response was to convoke popular mobilizations in support of the government, which were successful, especially in that they included workers in the petroleum industry, who had been opponents of the Chavist revolution in previous years.  Subsequently, on February 20, Maduro announced the formation of a National Anti-Coup Command, which will be installed in every factory, center of work, neighborhood, and university, with the intention of “defeating the fascist coup with an organized and mobilized people.”  On February 22, he proposed a National Peace Conference, inviting political actors and businessmen to participate, seeking to isolate the violent and extreme right from the more moderate tendencies of the opposition.  On February 23, he announced his intention to solicit the National Assembly to establish a commission to investigate the coup. 

      The formation of a National Anti-Coup Command by Nicolás Maduro is similar to the formation of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) by Fidel Castro in 1961, in response to acts of violence undertaken by the Cuban counterrevolution based in Miami and supported by the US government.  The CDRs continue to exist as neighborhood organizations, although their functions over the years have evolved to include blood donation and recycling campaigns as well as serving as outlets for neighborhood residents to voice concerns related to such practical issues as housing and transportation.

     On Sunday, February 23, Caracas was for the most part calm, and thousands of older persons and grandparents participated in a festive demonstration in support of the Bolivarian revolution.  Nicolas Maduro addressed the crowd, reminding them that prior to the Chávez government, there were 387,000 persons receiving retirement pensions, whereas now there are nearly 2 million, as a result of the commitment of the Chavist revolution “to those most needy, to those who always have been forgotten, and to those who yesterday were invisible but who today are the protagonists of history.”


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro

     In future posts, we will review the historical and social context that shapes the present reality in Venezuela: the neocolonial situation of Venezuela during the twentieth century; the emergence of a popular movement that sought to obtain control of petroleum resources, culminating in the nationalization of petroleum and the formation of a state-owned petroleum company (PDVSA) in 1976; the adaptation of PDVSA to the neocolonial world-system, exploiting the petroleum in accordance with the norms and interests of the international petroleum industry, rather than utilizing it as an integral part of a development plan for the nation; the emergence of Hugo Chávez as a national, regional, and global charismatic leader; the taking of effective control of PDVSA by the Chávez government, elected in 1998, generating conflict with powerful national and international actors; the development of a new Constitution in 1999; the development of social missions by the Chávez government, financed by oil revenues; the development of structures of popular participation; the transformation of the armed forces; and the leadership role played by Chávez in forging the unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as South-South cooperation, seeking to break with the neocolonial world-system.

      Reading on Chávez and the history of Venezuela can be found at:
http://www.globallearning-cuba.com/charles-mckelvey-chaacutevez-and-the-revolution-in-venezuela.html

     Even though we have not yet reached the moment in the evolution of the blog in which I can refer to previous posts that explain the historical and social context of the existing situation, I would like nonetheless to devote three or four posts to Venezuela, inasmuch as during the past week the country has emerged as a focus of attention by the media. 

     Here in Cuba we have access to news that is presented from the perspective of the South, and we are spared the distorted information and images that are disseminated throughout the world by the giant corporations of the news industry.  In Cuba, the right of the people to know is respected.  The right to know is not understood in Cuba as it is in the consumer societies of the capitalist world-economy, where there is “breaking news” of an act of violence, even before police authorities have had a chance to sort it out; where there is instantaneous coverage of the break-out of conflict somewhere in the world, with virtually no analysis of the historical and social roots of the conflict; and where there are accusations of scandalous behavior in relation to a public figure, without the slightest regard for the right of privacy or the right of due process.  In Cuba, the right to know is understood as the right to education with respect to all forms of knowledge: natural science, social science, literature, and the arts.  In accordance with a collective commitment to the right to know in this sense, the mass media functions to contribute to the political, scientific and cultural formation of the people.  In Cuba, you will not find instantaneous television coverage of violence, conflict, or scandal, occurring in Cuba or anywhere else.  You will find daily discussion programs in which informed journalists and scholars interpret international and national reality and events, seeking to understand them in historical and global context.  As a result, much as I found, as a young university student in the late 1960s at Penn State, that the discourses of my professors and the books assigned by them were educational, liberating me from false assumptions that were part of US culture; so in these recent years of my life, I find Cuban television, newspapers, and books (available to all at nominal cost) to be liberating, freeing us the people from the false assumptions and beliefs that pervade the ideologies and the mass media of the world-system.

      Some say that in Cuba there is not liberty of the press, because the major media outlets are not privately owned.  Indeed, most are state-operated, managed by professionals appointed by government entities, and thus they are not independent of government.  But this confuses the issue of freedom of the press with the issue of property rights.  There are limits to the right of property, imposed for the common good, even under capitalism.  Under socialism, it is believed that the channels of communication, information and the dissemination of knowledge should not become private property, because they are the common possession and heritage of all.  The structures for their dissemination and transmission should not be shaped by particular interests.  They should be regulated and controlled by entities established by delegates of the people, elected through structures of popular power.

     A free and autonomous press is one that is free from distortions in understanding, the origin of which is often found in the particular interests of the powerful.  A truly free press is one that can exercise in practice its right to educate the people, even in opposition to the interests of the global elite.  Thus freedom of the press is integrally tied to the right of the people to education, which includes the right to understand the social forces that shape the development of the political economy of the world-system.

       What are we learning these days through the mass media in Cuba about Venezuela?  We are learning that what is occurring is an attempted coup d’état, orchestrated by the national and international extreme right.  The attempt has involved the financing of violent gangs, accompanied by an international media campaign to distort events and to present an image of chaos and violence, in order to justify an armed intervention.  In addition, we are learning that this campaign is being waged against Venezuela because it has significant petroleum reserves, and because its government does not submit to the mandates of the global powers. 

        We will explore further the situation in Venezuela and the role of the media in subsequent posts.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Venezuela, freedom of the press

      In various posts since February 3, I have sought to formulate an understanding of the Mexican Revolution, utilizing as a principal source the classic work by Adolfo Gilly, The Mexican Revolution, originally published in 1971 as La Revolución Interrumpida.  The book has been adopted as a textbook by many departments of history in Mexico.   

     Revolutions do not inevitably lead to the ultimate frustration of the popular interest in taking power and governing in its own name.  The failure of the Mexican Revolution to triumph as a popular revolution was rooted in particular disadvantages.  Its principal charismatic leader, Emiliano Zapata, lacked the experiential foundation for the formulation of a national program that could unify the various popular sectors.  Moreover, the working class struggle was developing in a manner separate from the peasant revolution, making difficult the forging of a peasant-worker alliance from below.  In addition, the revolutionary sector of the petit bourgeoisie was not sufficiently advanced to lead a peasant-worker alliance from below.  The current most prepared to do so was led by Ricardo Flores Magón, who was isolated and in exile at the time of the triumph of the revolutionary army in 1914.  At the same time, the ascending petit bourgeoisie was able to offer a coherent national project.  All of these factors contributed to the inability of the revolution to maintain popular direction at the critical moment of its triumph. 

      As we have seen, in the October Revolution, when armed militias took control of the capital city, Lenin immediately convoked the establishment of new political power, which immediately issued decrees that responded to popular demands, including the demands of the peasantry (“The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014).  In future posts, we will see that, similarly, in the cases of Vietnam and Cuba, when popular armies took control of capital cities, the leaders of the people in arms took immediate steps toward the implementation of popular programs, thus establishing that the revolutions would triumph as popular revolutions.  In both cases, the revolutionary movements were led by a leadership cadre that was overwhelmingly petit bourgeois in composition.  In the two cases, charismatic leaders emerged who were nourished and formed by both petty bourgeois Third World nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, and they forged a synthesis of these two currents of thought, providing a solid ideological foundation for the consolidation of the revolution as a popular revolution.

      Classical Marxism taught that the proletariat is at the vanguard of the revolution.  But the unfolding of revolutions in the twentieth century teaches us a different lesson.  Popular revolutions are characterized by the active participation of peasants and the petit bourgeoisie as well as workers.  And in the second half of the twentieth century, other popular sectors would emerge to identify themselves as actors independent of their class: Afro-descendants, women, and indigenous peoples. 

     In this mixture of popular classes in movement, we can see that the role played by the petit bourgeoisie is critical.  When revolutions failed to be consolidated as popular revolutions, one finds a petit bourgeoisie in which confusion, division and opportunism prevails.  On the other hand, when popular revolutions are able to sustain themselves, one sees the emergence of a petit bourgeoisie that conducts itself in an informed and dignified manner and in accordance with universal human values, led by a charismatic leader who is lifted up by the people, and who leads the people to the consolidation of the popular revolution.  Examples of the former include the Mexican Revolution and the US Revolution of 1968 (which we will discuss in future posts).  Examples of the latter include the October Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, and the Cuban Revolution.

     Revolutions, whether or not they are able to sustain themselves as popular revolutions, are exceptional moments that call persons to action and self-sacrifice, and therefore they produce heroes and martyrs.  The Mexican Revolution produced three of universal significance: Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, and Ricardo Flores Magón.  All three dedicated their lives to the better world that they envisioned, and all three were killed by the forces that correctly perceived them as a threat to the established order.  We today have the duty to remember them in a form that recognizes their limitations but that also appreciates their exceptional qualities.  We must do this not only because they deserve it, but also because we must overcome the cynicism, rooted in a consumer society, that seeks to induce us to believe that there are no heroes.

       All popular revolutions have their imperfections, even those that have been able to sustain themselves as political and cultural projects dedicated to the protection of the interests and needs of the people.  We must seek to understand why this is so, and we should be aware that those who seek to preserve privileges for the few will exploit these imperfections to induce us to think that revolution is not possible.  There are various factors in each national case that contribute to limitations and contradictions in the revolutionary project.  The single factor that pertains to all national cases is the fact that, in the context of a political economic world-system that has global structures, revolutionary transformation in a single country is not possible, and any effort to do so will necessarily have its limitations.

     Thus let us understand the Mexican Revolution as a particular heroic moment in a global process of revolutionary transformation, a transformation that continues to unfold, and that ultimately will triumph, because of the unsustainability of the world-system itself, and because of the demonstrated heroism of those who seek a better world.

     

Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Mexican Revolution

     Adolfo Gilly describes the Mexican Revolution as a peasant revolution.  He writes that during the period of 1910 to 1920, “the peasant masses—that is, the people of Mexico, 85 percent of whom lived in the countryside in 1910—underwent the most dramatic experiences: they took up arms, forced their way into a history that had previously unfolded above their heads, marched across the country in every direction, shattered the army of their oppressors at Zacatecas, occupied the national capital, raised Villa and Zapata (two peasants like themselves) to the summit of the insurrection, issued a series of laws, and embarked on a systematic attempt at self-government in the South, creating elementary decision-making bodies and a new juridical structure” (2005:330).

      But the peasants did not arrive to power.  As we have seen in various posts since February 3, the ascending sector of the petit bourgeoisie, concentrated among the officers of the Revolutionary Constitutionalist Army, was able to take advantage of the changes provoked by the peasant revolution to seize land and to constitute themselves as a new elite in a new political-economic system, characterized by revolutionary rhetoric and modest concessions to working class demands.

        In addition to being understood as a frustrated peasant revolution, the Mexican Revolution can be understood as a nationalist anti-imperialist revolution.  Anti-imperialist nationalism was a perspective shared by the various competing and conflicting tendencies.  The liquidation of the landholding oligarchy had nationalist implications, inasmuch as that the estate bourgeoisie had commercial ties with foreign enterprises and tended to serve as direct agents of imperialist interests.  Reflecting a nationalist perspective, the Constitutionalist government in 1914 tripled the tax on foreign-owned petroleum companies, and in 1915 it issued decrees designed to control foreign investments in land, oil, and minerals (Gilly 2005:212, 214). 

     The administration of President Lázaro Cardenas (1934-40) represented an attempt by the revolutionary sector of the petit bourgeoisie to revitalize the Mexican Revolution.  It nationalized the petroleum industry and stimulated the development of industry, the expansion of the domestic market, and the strengthening of workers´ organizations.  In addition, an agrarian reform program converted twenty million hectares of land into cooperatives.  However, the rapid growth of rural and urban consumption provoked a high inflation, a situation that was used by international and national opponents of the project.  President Manuel Ávilo Camacho (1940-46) reversed many of the Cardenast reforms, although he did so with a populist rhetoric that obscured his intentions (Harperin 2002:413-15).

     During the 1940s and 1950s, the Mexican government functioned relatively well as a developmentalist state that was typical of Latin America during the period.  From 1960 to 1980, there occurred the metamorphoses of the Mexican state from a developmentalist state into a neoliberal state, displacing from power those sectors of the Mexican national bourgeoisie most oriented to the strengthening of the domestic market.  This period was characterized by the privatization of state enterprises and by the oppression of those elements of the Left opposed to the process of de-nationalization (Regalado 2008:44-45).

     Thus, the Mexican Revolution can be understood as having two phases.  The first was the period of 1910 to 1920, during which a peasant revolution facilitated that the ascending sector of the petit bourgeoisie could constitute itself as a new ruling elite.  During this phase, there were three significant revolutionary developments:  (1) The alternative political structures and land redistribution of the Zapatist commune in Morelos, which was brought to an end through military occupation from 1916 to 1919; (2) the 1917 Constitution, which affirmed the goals of the peasant revolution and the workers’ movement, reflecting the influence of the revolutionary sector of the petit bourgeoisie, but which was for the most part was not implemented, a reflection of the influence of the ascending sector of the petit bourgeoisie; and (3) nationalist policies designed to protect natural resources before imperialist interests.  The second phase of the Mexican Revolution was the period of 1934 to 1940, during which there occurred a renewed struggle by the revolutionary sector of the petit bourgeoisie to implement the goals enshrined in the 1917 Constitution, which up to that point had simply functioned as rhetoric to obtain the support of workers and peasants for the project of the ascending petit bourgeoisie.  However, many of the gains of 1934 to 1940 were soon reversed.  The second phase also was characterized by a deepening of nationalist policies in opposition to imperialist interest, which were erased in the transition to neoliberalism following 1960. 

     In spite of its incapacity to sustain itself as a popular revolution, the Mexican Revolution was an event that transcended the frontiers of Mexico.   It inspired and influenced revolutionaries in Cuba in the 1920s, such as Julio Antonio Mella and Antonio Guiteras, and it inspired the indigenous rebellion in El Salvador of 1929-32.  These nations later would forge revolutionary movements that would challenge the structures of the neocolonial world-system, as we will discuss in future posts.

     The memory of Emiliano Zapata was invoked in Chiapas in 1994, when a new stage of the Latin American popular struggle was inaugurated with the Zapatista rebellion.   This new stage was characterized by popular mass demonstrations throughout the region in opposition to free trade agreements and the neoliberal project.  After 1998, beginning with the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela, the popular struggle would pass to a more advanced stage, in which progressive and leftist parties and organizations would arrive to participate in government, establishing a situation in which many Latin America governments, to a greater or lesser degree, are seeking to bring to an end the structures of neocolonialism, thereby establishing the definitive independence of the region (Regalado 2010).  The new political reality of Latin America is a theme that we will discuss in future posts.

     Although the Mexican Revolution ultimately was contained by the structures of the neocolonial world-system, it was an advanced expression of popular aspirations for a more just and democratic world.  It remains an event of universal significance, which should be studied as we seek to understand the components and dynamics that are necessary for advancing the global popular revolution of our time.


References

Gilly, Adolfo.  2005.  The Mexican Revolution.  New York: The New Press.  (Originally published as La Revolución Interrumpida by El Caballito, Mexico, in 1971).

Halperin Donghi, Tulio.  2002.  Historia contemporánea de América Latina.  Madrid: Alianza Editorial.

Regalado, Roberto.  2007.  Latin America at the Crossroads: Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements, and Political Alternatives.  New York: Ocean Press.

__________.  2008.  Encuentros y desencuentros de la izquierda latinoamericana: Una mirada desde el Foro de São Paulo.  México D.F.: Ocean Sur.

__________.  2010.  “Gobierno y poder en América Latina hoy,” Curso de actualización: América Latina: entre el cambio y la restauración conservadora, Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional, La Habana, Cuba, 22 de noviembre de 2010.   


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Mexican Revolution

     The petit bourgeoisie is critical to the success or failure of a popular revolution.  On the one hand, the middle class plays a central role in the opposition, as can be seen in: the petit bourgeois counterrevolution in Russia that was tied to the rise of Stalin and bureaucratic control from above (see “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 1/29/2014); the flight of the Cuban middle class from 1960 to 1962 and its formation of a counterrevolution in exile; and the role of the Venezuelan middle class today in opposition to the Chavist revolution.  But on the other hand, the most important charismatic leaders of the twentieth century revolutions were of the petit bourgeoisie, and they surrounded themselves with followers and advisers also petit bourgeois for the most part.  Examples include Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel, Chávez, and Rafael Correa.

     In Mexico, Gilly notes that the political ossification of the Porfirian regime blocked upward mobility by the petit bourgeoisie (2005:41).  This gave rise to two tendencies within the petit bourgeoisie.  First, an ascendant or opportunist tendency, which sought to take advantage of the peasant revolution to seize land and constitute itself as a new bourgeoisie (see “The new Mexican bourgeoisie of 1920” 2/12/2014).  This tendency was most strongly represented among the officers of the Constitutionalist Army.  Secondly, a revolutionary or Jacobin tendency, which could discern that the economic and social development of the nation, by promoting a higher standard of living for peasants and workers, would create possibilities for the expansion the petit bourgeoisie, in areas such as commerce, education, and health.  Its presence was most strongly felt in the Conventionist government, established as an alternative to the Constitutionalist government in 1914, and in the Querétero Constitution of 1917, and it would later re-express itself in the Cardenas government of 1934-40.  As we have seen, the revolutionary tendency was not sufficiently advanced to forge a unity based on a peasant-worker alliance from below.  It was unable in 1914 to define a direction that would enable the revolution to be consolidated as a popular revolution.

       The most promising possibility was represented by Ricardo Flores Magón.  Born in 1873 in the state of Oaxaca, Flores Magón was the son of a mestizo military officer.  The family relocated to Mexico City in 1881, and Flores Magón studied law in in the capital, although he did not complete his studies.  He began to participate in protests against the Porfirian regime at age 19, and he forged a career as a revolutionary journalist and politician.  In 1900, he founded with his brother Jesús the journal La Regeneración, which became an influential journal of opposition.  In 1906, with his brother Enrique, he founded the Mexican Liberal Party, which organized strikes of miners in Senora and industrial workers in Vera Cruz in 1906 and 1907.  Based in Los Angeles, California at the time of the breakout of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the Magonists launched an insurrection in Baja California, taking the cities of Mexicali y Tijuana.  But the insurrection was isolated from events elsewhere in Mexico, and it was overcome by the federal army.  Flores Magón was forced to seek exile in the United States, where he was located in the critical year of 1914.

     As we have seen (“The proletariat and the Mexican Revolution” 2/14/2014), the program of Flores Magon synthesized the goals of the peasant revolution with the demands of the working class organizations.  Flores Magón combined all the components necessary for the forging of a united popular revolution: anti-imperialist nationalism, which was shared by the various tendencies, although sometimes violated by the bourgeoisie in pursuit of particular interests; an understanding and endorsement of the program of the peasant revolution; and an affirmation of the demands of the workers’ movement.  And he combined intellectual work with militant political action. 

      Gilly maintains that the Magonists did not have sufficient material resources or organized forces to make their peasant-worker program a reality, and they did not have the means to establish contacts and form alliances with peasants in arms (2005:88).  But it is possible that the isolation of Flores Magón was in part a consequence of a tendency toward sectarianism.  Unlike Zapata, Flores Magón rejected the San Luis Plan issued by Maduro in 1910, in spite of its calling for land redistribution, because he considered it to be a bourgeois plan that did not have adequate social provisions.  And there is some evidence that he did not accept an invitation by Zapata in 1913 to establish the headquarters of the Mexican Liberal Party and the publication of La Regeneración in Morelos, because he viewed the Zapatist project as merely a rural program of land redistribution, not adequate for the nation as a whole. 

     From today’s vantage point, on the basis of observation of popular revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we can more fully understand the strategic decisions that Flores Magón faced.  We can see that the popular revolutions that were able to sustain themselves adopted a strategy of forming alliances with various tendencies, and defining the right path in the context of the on-going struggle, unifying the people on the foundation of a national program.  It is in this context that charismatic leaders emerge, defining the correct way and calling the people to its fulfillment, bringing on board most of the principal actors who emerge from the various tendencies.  In addition, we can see today that sectarianism, or the tendency to disassociate from tendencies with insufficient revolutionary consciousness, created divisions in many popular revolutions of the twentieth century, and thus it should be considered an error that must be avoided.

       Errors are an unavoidable component of revolutionary processes, and they do not take away from the heroic qualities of revolutionary leaders.  Ricardo Flores Magón possessed the most advanced understanding of his time of the direction in which the Mexican Revolution ought to go in order to sustain itself as a popular revolution, an understanding to which he arrived as a consequence of his life commitment.  The trajectory of his life can lead us to no other conclusion than that, in any strategic errors that he may have made, he was motivated by a desire to push the revolution in a popular direction, avoiding the pitfall of being channeled by bourgeois interests.  In exile in the United States, Flores Magón published with Librado Rivera in 1918 a manifesto to the anarchists of the world, which led to his imprisonment.  Suffering harsh prison conditions, he died in the federal penitentiary of Leavenworth, Kansas on November 20, 1922, at the age of 49.

       When Zapata and Villa were in control of the nation in December 1914, they agreed to turn power over to the “educated people” of the Conventionist government, entrusting to them the task of carrying forward the popular revolution.  But the revolutionary petit bourgeois Conventionists were confused and divided.  There was not among them a leader who could show the way: an alliance of peasants and workers forged from below on the basis of a program that defends their interests.  What would have happened if Ricardo Flores Magón, who possessed the understanding, the commitment, and the political experience, had been present?  Is it possible that a charismatic leader, necessary for revolutionary processes, would have emerged?

References


Gilly, Adolfo.  2005.  The Mexican Revolution.  New York: The New Press.  (Originally published as La Revolución Interrumpida by El Caballito, Mexico, in 1971).

"Ricardo Flores Magón." Microsoft® Encarta® 2009 [DVD]. Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

“Ricardo Flores Magón.” Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre.  Oct. 6, 2013.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Mexican Revolution, petit bourgeoisie, Ricardo Flores Magón

      In his classic work on the Mexican Revolution, Adolfo Gilly notes that the working class played a secondary role in the revolution (2005:332).  This was rooted in several factors:  the relatively small size of the proletariat; the dynamic and influential organization of peasants into revolutionary armies by Zapata in the South and Villa in the North; and the formulation of a national plan by an ascending petit bourgeoisie, which was able to attract sectors of the working class to its project.

     The rapid construction of railways in Mexico beginning in 1880 through investment by British and US companies led to the formation of a modern working class, and it expanded as a result of foreign investments in the mining industry in the 1890s as well as the emergence of new industries in steel and electric power in the first decade of the twentieth century.  The emerging working class formed labor organizations, organized strikes, and founded journals and newspapers, and in these activities they were influenced by the working class movement in Europe and by European social democracy.  Their demands for the most part were focused on the wages and working conditions of workers (Gilly 2005:20-22, 28-39).

     A potential in the evolution of the Mexican working class movement was represented by the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), a petit bourgeois group headed by Ricardo Flores Magón, which was active in organizing workers’ strikes in 1906 and 1907 in Senora and Veracruz.  The PLM program combined issues of workers with those of peasants: it called for a minimum wage, an eight-hour working day, a ban on child labor, and workers’ compensation insurance as well as the cancellation of peasant debts to landowners, the restitution of village land, the redistribution of unused land to peasants, and the protection of indigenous peoples.  But the potential for a peasant-worker alliance represented by Flores Magón and the PLM was not realized.  When Madero called an armed uprising in 1910 (see “The Mexican Revolution” 2/3/2014), Magonists organized an insurrection in Baja California, taking the cities of Mexicali y Tijuana.  But the rebellion was isolated, and it was defeated in June 1911 by the federal army.  In the critical year of 1914, when the revolutionary armies triumphed and the conflict among the revolutionary factions emerged (see “Peasant armies occupy Mexico City, 1914” 2/5/2014), Flores Magón was in exile in the United States (Gilly 2005:50-52, 86-88). 

     From 1911 to 1914, the working class movement was isolated from the two peasant armies of Villa and Zapata that were advancing the revolution.  With the taking of Mexico City by revolutionary armies in 1914, the principal actors were the peasantry, the petit bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie.  In 1915, workers’ organizations gave support to the Constitutionalist Army of Carranza, in exchange for concessions in regard to workers’ wages and conditions.  They organized Red Battalions, which played a decisive role in the successful military campaign against the peasant army of Villa in 1915 (Gilly 2005:190-92; see “A peasant-worker alliance from above” 2/10/2014).  Thus, instead of an alliance of workers and peasants organized from below, what occurred was armed conflict between workers and peasants, orchestrated from above.

      Following the successful military campaign against Villa’s Northern Division, the government in 1916 turned against workers’ organizations and arrested leaders.  In response, a three-day general strike by 90,000 workers in Mexico City broke out, the first general strike in the history of Mexico.  And a National Workers Congress was called, attended by workers’ delegates from throughout the country, which approved the foundation of the Mexico Regional Federation of Labor.  But these actions were carried out in isolation from the peasant struggle spearheaded by the Morelos Commune and the army of Zapata in the South and the guerilla war of Villa in the North.  And the statutes of the Federation of Labor appear to affirm the proletarian class struggle without seeking to define the role of the proletariat in the context of the peasant revolution of Mexico (Gilly 2005:217-22).

     Beginning in 1918 and with the transition from Carranza to Obregón (see “The consolidation of reform from above” 2/11/2014), workers organizations played a main role in the consolidation of the new class system led by the triumphant “revolutionary bourgeoisie” (Gilly 2005:223).

       The secondary role of the working class in the Mexican Revolution suggests the need for further reflecting on the insights of Marx, who formulated his understanding on the basis of the emerging proletarian movement in Western Europe, a movement that was then at the forefront of popular struggles in opposition to the structures of the capitalist world-economy.  But during the twentieth century, the workers’ movements of the core nations would become reformist, and Third World revolutions would move to the forefront of the global revolution.  In the context of the colonial situation of the Third World, the revolutions would have characteristics different from those that Marx anticipated, in that the petit bourgeoisie and the peasantry would play a central role (see “The social & historical context of Marx” 1/15/2014).  This is a theme that will be addressed further in future posts.


References

Gilly, Adolfo.  2005.  The Mexican Revolution.  New York: The New Press.  (Originally published as La Revolución Interrumpida by El Caballito, Mexico, in 1971).

"Ricardo Flores Magón." Microsoft® Encarta® 2009 [DVD]. Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

“Ricardo Flores Magón.” Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre.  Oct. 6, 2013.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Mexican Revolution, proletariat, working class, Ricardo Flores Magón

     From 1913 to 1917, the peasants of Morelos, led by Emiliano Zapata, established an alternative political-economic system.  There were three fundamental characteristics of what Adolfo Gilly calls the “Morelos Commune,” invoking an analogy with the Paris Commune of 1871 (see “The Paris Commune” 1/20/2014): (1) Nationalization and radical land redistribution; (2) the development of structures of popular democracy and popular power; and (3) the military defense of the alternative system by the armed people.

     (1)  The Zapatist revolution appropriated, without compensation, the large haciendas and the sugar mills in the state of Morelos.  Agrarian commissions “handed over all the land to the villages, nationalized the sugar mills, and effectively eliminated the capitalist and landowning class.  All the capitalists and big landowners living in the state fled abroad or to the capital.”  The nationalized sugar mills were managed by the workers, proving “that the industry could go on functioning perfectly well without the bosses” (Gilly 2005:241, 245-46, 289-90). 

      There was a tendency among the peasants, once they had acquired land, to cultivate subsistence crops for their own consumption and for sale in the local market.  But Zapata believed that the peasants also should produce sugar for export, in order to generate income necessary for economic development.  Measures designed to encourage sugar production were adopted, but they had only limited success (Gilly 2005 245-46). 

     (2) In villages under Zapatist control, structures of self-government were established.  The men in each village met each month to discuss and decide on issues that they considered important, and they elected delegates who served in a municipal assembly, which in turn elected delegates to represent them at the district level.  Alongside these structures of village self-government, the villages formed associations that created primary schools for children and night schools for adults and that functioned as committees to address everyday problems (Gilly 2005:268-72, 290-92).  With reference to these popular associations, Gilly writes: “As each village association gained experience, it assumed many tasks: to read and explain declarations from the revolutionary headquarters; to settle disputes between villagers; and to arrange talks by revolutionary lecturers.  In short, it operated as a true peasant committee for all the political matters and everyday problems of peasant life” (2005:271). 

     The structures of village self-government and popular association of the Morelos commune are more participatory and more truly representative than bourgeois structures of representative democracy, which limit popular participation to biannual elections in which voters choose from among candidates with whom they have not had opportunity for interchange in village, municipal, or district assemblies.  The structures of popular democracy in Morelos were similar to the soviets of the Russian Revolution (see “The Russian Revolution (February)” 1/22/2014; “The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014).  They also are similar to the structures of popular power that would later be developed in Cuba after the triumph of the revolution in 1959, although Cuban popular power and popular democracy would be characterized by the full and equal participation of women (see “The Cuban revolutionary project and its development in historical and global context”).

     (3)  As we observe revolutionary processes in the world, we see that revolutions that are able to sustain themselves are characterized by the development of some structure of popular armed self-defense.  This occurred in Morelos: the federal army was expelled, at least for a period of time, and the functions of protecting villages and peasant land and defending the rights of citizens were assumed by the Southern Liberation Army of Zapata, an army led by and consisting of peasants (Gilly 2005:56-57, 62-63, 66, 72, 290).

     The Morelos Commune was a regional alternative to the official revolutionary government of Carranza in Mexico City.  Once Villa’s Army in the North was eliminated as a serious threat, the Carranza government undertook the re-conquest of Morelos.  In May and June of 1916, the federal army occupied the major cities of the state, killing hundreds of persons, including combatants and civilians and including women, children and the elderly.  However, Zapata’s Army organized into small guerrilla units of 100 or 200, and with its base in the local population, it was able to control the countryside.  But in late 1918, in the wake of an influenza virus that killed thousands, the federal army launched a new offensive and occupied the main towns, forcing the Zapatist Army to retreat to the mountains.  This situation provoked vacillation, confusion, and contradictions within the Zapatist leadership.  Emeliano Zapata was assassinated on April 10, 1919, bringing to an end the peasant revolution (Gilly 2005:261-66, 284-88).


References

Gilly, Adolfo.  2005.  The Mexican Revolution.  New York: The New Press.  (Originally published as La Revolución Interrumpida by El Caballito, Mexico, in 1971).


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Mexican Revolution, popular power, popular democracy, Zapata, Morelos Commune

     The tendency that eventually prevailed in the Mexican Revolution was forged by leaders of the capitalist petit bourgeoisie form the state of Sonora, who grouped around them Constitutionalist Army officers from the Mexican provincial urban petty bourgeoisie.  They were able to prevail over the peasant forces, in spite of the far greater numbers of peasants, because the Sonora group had a program for the development of the nation, whereas the peasant leadership did not, as we have seen (“Peasant armies occupy Mexico City, 1914” 2/5/2014).  The Sonora group was also able to prevail over the Carranza landholding tendency, because it was prepared to promise more concessions to peasants and workers, thus enlisting popular support for its project (Gilly 2005:332-33).

     In his classic work on the Mexican Revolution, Adolfo Gilly describes the manner in which petty bourgeois military officers of the revolutionary army were able to acquire land.  The agrarian reform law of January 6, 1915 mandated the restoration of land unjustly appropriated during the regime of Porfirio Díaz.  Gilly notes that the law stipulated that all claims for the restitution of land should be addressed, not to the elected village officials as was being done in Zapatist controlled areas in Morelos, but to the governors of each state.  In addition, the law permitted claimants to address “senior officials specially authorized by the Executive Power.”  This centralization of the decision-making process in the executive branches of the state and federal governments “was the foothold for a huge land-seizure operation conducted by Constitutionalist generals, senior officers, functionaries, and politicians.  The most direct beneficiaries of the ‘agrarian reform,’ they would enrich themselves with a voracity comparable to that of the bourgeoisie in the great French Revolution,” constituting a landholding nouveaux rich that came to be known as the “revolutionary bourgeoisie” (Gilly 2005:187, 333).

     Gilly further writes:  “The officers of Carranza’s army had enriched themselves by buying up the best lands of the old Porfirian oligarchy at knockdown prices, while the agrarian redistribution for which the peasants had fought the revolution barely went further than the parchment of the Constitution.  Under Obregón, this system of capitalist class formation reached quite scandalous proportions, and state-organized plunder became a veritable national institution through such forms as economic concessions, handouts, public contracts, and even more brazen diversion of public funds.  The postrevolutionary bourgeoisie developed through this peculiar system of ‘primitive accumulation’ . . . then invested its gain in banking, industrial, and commercial concerns and went on enriching itself by the normal mechanism of capital accumulation.  Forces newly attached to the state political apparatus then took their turn to become capitalists through the plunder of state funds” (2005:325).

     Thus the state apparatus was central to the formation and growth of the Mexican bourgeoisie.  The large landholders were excluded from the state, displaced from power by the rising petit bourgeoisie from the provinces.  The victorious provincial petit bourgeoisie legitimated its rule by recalling its leadership role in the armed struggle and by adopting popular revolutionary rhetoric (Gilly 2005:333).

     The failure of the Mexican Revolution to triumph as a popular revolution was rooted in particular disadvantages, which we will highlight in a subsequent post.  And we also will note that the Vietnamese and Cuban revolutions, in different historical and social conditions, were able to maintain the popular direction of the revolution at the critical moment of its triumph, thus consolidating popular revolutions. 


References

Gilly, Adolfo.  2005.  The Mexican Revolution.  New York: The New Press.  (Originally published as La Revolución Interrumpida by El Caballito, Mexico, in 1971).


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Mexican Revolution, Mexican bourgeoisie, revolutionary bourgeoisie