Latin America rebels and begins to turn left
By Alejandro Bodart, reference of the MST and coordinator LIS
The rebellion of youth and working people against Duque's government in Colombia, The result of the election of constituents in Chile and the triumph of Pedro Castillo in Peru are the latest expressions of the profound changes that are developing on the continent. They confirm that we are going through a pre-revolutionary situation that poses important challenges and opportunities to revolutionaries..
Year 2019 It was a global turning point.. A wave of rebellions and revolutions against the adjustments of capitalism in crisis swept the entire world. The irruption into 2018 of theyellow vests in France it foreshadowed what could come. But it was the popular uprisings at the end of the 2019 in different countries of the Middle East and Latin America those that began to change the international situation. These two regions of the planet became the epicenters of the rise.
In our beloved Latin America we saw our brother Ecuadorian people rise, throw down the adjustment agreed with the IMF and put Lenin Moreno's government on the ropes; We witnessed the rebellion against the Piñera government and the “30 years” regime inherited from Pinochetism in Chile; the historic general strike against the adjustment in Colombia; the effervescence of the workers against the government of Evo Morales, the assault on power of the right and its subsequent defeat and many more processes.
Maybe you are interestedA new revolutionary upsurge touches the world
The pandemic imposed a pause, but since the causes that caused the rebellions were not resolved nor did the advance in the consciousness of the masses stop, It didn't take long for them to return to the streets.. In full 2020, American blacks and youth carried out a mobilization process with historical characteristics, central factor in the electoral defeat of the supremacist Trump and the Peruvian people rose up and overturned two presidents, while the mobilization began to be reactivated in other countries.
Entered the 2021, We are witnessing a new and massive popular uprising against the Duque government and the Uribista regime, responsible for the misery of millions of Colombians, of having left youth without a future and sown State terrorism for decades. Without shrinking in the face of bloody repression with dozens murdered and hundreds missing, The mobilized people have already managed to overthrow the hated Minister of Economy and the fiscal and health reforms, important partial victories that have invigorated the movement. Weeks of mass mobilizations, barricades, roadblocks and popular assemblies express massive rejection of the government of one of the most unequal countries on the continent.
With the Colombian rebellion in the background, The elections for the Constituent Convention were held in Chile on 15 Y 16 of May. The Constituent Assembly, torn from below by mass mobilization, represented a monumental triumph of the rebellion that began in 2019 not only against the increase in ticket prices that triggered it, not only against the right-wing government of Piñera, but against the entire regime of the Pinochet constitution imposed by the dictatorship and sustained since then by the parties of the Chilean Concertación, the PS and the DC.
The results of the elections were another blow to that moribund regime and the confirmation of a profound turn to the left of the mass movement.. The ruling right did not reach the third of the constituents that would have allowed it to veto any substantial change to the current constitution. The parties of the former Concertación were also punished, and the candidacies of the left, the social movements and the “independents” who were at the forefront of the rebellion, emerged as the first force, surpassing the 50% of the constituents.
The appearance of Colombia and Chile at the forefront of continental rise is not minor. During the revolutionary rise that shook Latin America in the first decade of the millennium, were the two main bastions of the reaction, with their regimes and the neoliberal model intact, propagandized by imperialism as examples to follow. The uprising of their peoples and the decline of those regimes mark a new moment in the region and a monumental blow to the reactionary right wing that had come to power in various countries in the past decade.. This can be seen in Brazil, where the mobilization to get rid of Bolsonaro has begun and was seen in the promotion that shocked Paraguay months ago..
Maybe you are interestedChile: it is possible to liquidate the "30 years" regime
This new moment has been more than confirmed in the presidential elections in Peru. Pedro Castillo's surprise victory in the first round, a rural teacher who developed the most radical speech of all the candidates who presented themselves, It is a complete demonstration of the changes that are taking place and the shift to the left of the most impoverished sectors of Peruvian society.. At the time of sending this article, Castillo is winning the second round against the right-wing Keiko Fujimori and the people are mobilizing so that the election is not stolen.. This, despite Castillo's limitations, A new political earthquake is already detonating not only in Peru but in the entire region.
Maybe you are interestedPeru: crisis elections and surprises on the left
We must characterize the new moment we are going through in Latin America as apre-revolutionary situation. The central dynamic of the mass movement is fed up with the status quo, of rupture with the hegemonic political leaderships of the last period, and willingness to go out into the streets to confront and destroy them. Any provocation can unleash the devastating force of the masses: a ticket increase, a tax adjustment, a case of corruption… Any spark can detonate a revolution in almost any country in Latin America today.
Nevertheless, This is a pre-revolutionary and non-revolutionary situation because there are still no revolutionary socialist parties with the influence, accumulation and location necessary to direct the rebellions and revolutions that explode and lead them to definitive triumphs on capital and establish governments of workers and the poor people. This leaves the bourgeoisie maneuvering margin, The union bureaucracies, reformism and social democracy to avoid destroying the old and the new does not finish growing. In Chile, The Frente Amplio and the PC forged a pact with the government to support Piñera when the people demanded his resignation en masse and now they will try to ensure that the Constituent Assembly does not exceed the limits of bourgeois democracy.; In Colombia it is the bureaucracy of the National Paro Committee that has been holding Duke and trying to divert the process towards a negotiation with the Government, While social democratic variants work to channel everything towards an electoral process that still appears very distant. What none of these traitorous and reformist leaderships can do is turn back time and they will have to live with a new situation that in the midst of great polarization will tend to deepen and detonate recurring rebellions..
In Peru, The question is how far a possible Castillo government will be willing to go., in unity with Verónica Mendoza and other expressions of the center-left. And one thing is for sure: if he does not dare to take anti-capitalist economic measures - something he does not seem willing to do- and carry out a constituent process supported by mobilization and surpassing bourgeois institutions, It will quickly wear out and the enthusiasm of a sector of the masses will transform into disappointment and anger..
The masses have the ability to destroy the regimes that oppress them with their own spontaneous revolutionary force. But its creative capacity, To replace these regimes with new structures and build a new society, It is limited to the political organizations that have their heads. To carry the revolutionary mobilization to the end, liquidate bourgeois regimes, dismantle the capitalist state, impose workers' governments and build socialism, A revolutionary direction is needed.
At the same time, It is in the heat of rebellions and revolutions that revolutionary organizations are built, They are tempered and can grow in leaps. Because, The current situation poses enormous challenges and opportunities to the revolutionaries of our countries. It is intervening in rebellions, promoting permanent mobilization and self-organization of the masses, without sectarianism or opportunism, unmasking the reformist forces that divert the processes and raising the fundamental solutions that are needed, that we can build the parties that can lead the socialist revolution. That is the challenge that we take on from the International Socialist League and each of our organizations and we invite the fighters to organize with us to make the new society that we all want to build a reality..
