DECLINE MEXICAN BONAPARTISM by ALFONSO RIOS imperialist political crisis. In a paradoxical manner, however, this conjunction permitted a certain renovation of the eroded political structure, as the regime made use of its most cherished populist themes to take advantage of a propitious opportunity to strengthen itself internationally. In fact, one of the main characteristics of Mexican Bonapartism from its origins to the periods of its greatest triumphs has been its "anti-imperialism." This political position that has been adopted by the Mexican government is only the reflection of the objective situation it has found itself in since 1920; it serves as a factor that helps the government to balance between the imperialist forces and their most powerful local bourgeois allies on the one hand and the Mexican proletariat of the cities and countryside on the other hand. Consequences of the decline of U.S. hegemony In 1974 Echeverria's program of the "democratic opening" appeared to pick up some strength after having experienced some difficulties and come under attack from the most conservative capitalist forces (the provincial groups, except for those in Monterrey). Of the three principal countries of Latin America, Mexico is the one that has felt most deeply the penetration and aggressiveness of Yankee imperialism. If the Bonapartist Mexican government has been sensitive to any popular pressure throughout its history, it has been anti-imperialist pressure. During the 1950s and 1960s the government largely ignored its duties in this area. At that time, even
such traditionally proimperialist governments as those of Argentina and Brazil were taking some distance from Yankee imperialism. When he became president, Echeverria tried to make up for lost time. Acting as it always has since 1920, the government took advantage in a short-sighted and opportunistic way of the crisis of North American hegemony on the continent, which was already visible in 1971 and 1972. But the present "anti-imperialist" stage does not correspond simply to the pressure of workers struggles and to the attempts of the nascent bourgeoisie to make use of those struggles, as was the case in the past. It is also linked to the policy of expanding the markets for the products of the Mexican industrial bourgeoisie, which, along with its Brazilian and Argentine counterparts, has emerged during the past few decades as a secondary regional power. (This has led certain Latin American Marxists to speak rather rapidly of "subimperialism. ") From this standpoint, it can be seen that Echeverria's turn (the "democratic opening'") was a deliberate attempt to link the government program to the Mexican bourgeoisie by promising the bourgeoisie substantial profits, which would result from the future realignment of Latin American economic forces on a continental scale. What was involved was depriving imperialism of a part of the surplus-value it was extracting, or at least negotiating a more favorable agreement with imperialism. The "sphere of influence" that Mexico would contest with the United States would be Central America and the Caribbean. Forming an alliance with countries like Venezuela is thus a primary necessity for Mexico. Last year Echeverria took a trip to try to realize these objectives. He stopped in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, and Jamaica. He tried to set his policy in motion concretely by seeking support for a "Charter of Economic Rights and Duties" his government had presented to the United Nations and by promoting "multinational Latin American" projects. These efforts succeeded in winning overwhelming approval for the Charter at the end of 1974 - by 120 nations of the UN General Assembly. Neverthe less, this diplomatic victory was not translated into substantial economic gains in practice, as could have been expected in light of the significant abstention on or open opposition to this Charter by the imperialist countries, the United States in the first place. In practice, Echeverria's efforts to build multinational companies with Latin American "brother countries" have not received much response from the strongest bourgeoisies that could have accepted the offers. In fact, the Argentine and Brazilian bourgeoisies have their own interests and spheres of influence; they have absolutely no desire to share these with the Mexican bourgeoisie. Moreover, the emergence of Venezuela as a financial power (a result of the $10,000 million this country received for the sale of oil in 1974) erected a new obstacle on Echeverria's "Latin American" road. Contrary to Echeverria's insinuations, Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez has not accepted Mexican entry into the Andes Pact. In Pérez's view, Venezuelan petrodollars will dominate this Pact, and his country projects becoming the fourth "subimperialist" center on the continent. Only Jamaica responded favorably to Echeverria's call. Three multinational companies have been set up on the island; they have an initial capital of about $500 million (Mexican and Jamaican) and will be involved in processing locally produced aluminum. But be that as it may, even the limited results of Echeverria's maneuvers still represent competition for imperialism. This competition has not been concretized (far from it) in a "body of permanent economic cooperation and consultation complementing already existing bodies and having functions and spheres of operation that really and effectively respond to common needs and aspirations. " It was this sort of Latin American Common Market that Echeverria had presented, particularly to the Venezuelan president, who accepted it with pleasure (although only in order to carry it out concretely through the Andes Pact). But the atmosphere is not favorable to imperialist designs. That is why Echeverria's maneuvers, even though they have not yet succeeded, have provoked a hard and aggressive response from the Ford-Kissinger government. Limits of bourgeois anti-imperialism The imperialist attack is based on concrete and indisputable facts, such as the financial and industrial ties of dependence, even tighter today than during the 1960s, linking the Mexican economy to the Yankee economy. Clearly, the attack is motivated by the discovery of oil deposits in Chiapas and Tabasco in southeast Mexico. This discovery, made at the end of last year, shook the official world, for it coincided with the "oil crisis." Both imperialism and the Mexican government, for different reasons, tried to hide the real facts about the discovery. Each party sought to profit according to its own interests. Some petroleum organizations in New York spoke of deposits "just as rich as those of the Persian Gulf. "Echeverria, on the other hand, declared that such statements were nothing but formulas aimed at driving down the price of oil, which the Mexican goverment did not want and which he himself would oppose. According to PEMEX, the state oil-prospecting monopoly, the discovery of the Chiapas and Tabasco deposits made possible both self-sufficiency
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MEXICO in crude oil (that is, the end of some imports that have been necessary up to now) and an increase in exports. There would also be an effect on the balance of payments. While the astronomical foreign debt (a $2, 500 million balance of payments deficit in 1974 and a debt of more than $15, 000 million for the same year) would not be eliminated, the striking deterioration of the national treasury could be eased somewhat. Those of the political groups in power most inclined to consistently follow the course initiated by Echeverria, in particular Horacio Flores de la Peña, the secretary of the nationalized sector on which PEMEX depends, began to advocate Mexican entry into the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Coun tries (OPEC) and even began to take initiatives in this direction. But Echeverria publicly declared that Mexico would not enter OPEC. During Echeverria's meeting with Ford, which took place in Kissinger's presence, Flores de la Peña openly spoke of the advantages Mexico would derive from membership in OPEC. It seems that this political position was too extreme, and a short while later Flores de la Pena found himself obliged to give up his ministerial post "under strong pressure, " according to his own statement. Flores de la Peña's resignation (in December 1974) emphatically indicated the limits beyond which Echeverria was unprepared to go in his opposition to the government of the United States; it also revealed the real limits of the bourgeois anti-imperialism of the Mexican government. As for American imperialism,. it is obvious that it is interested in averting any possible union of the Latin American bourgeoisies. In a situation in which the ruling Arab groups have shown how it is possible to take advantage of interimperialist contradictions, the possibility of a Latin American entente is not a utopia - although this does not in any way mean that this possibility can be realized in the short term. What is certain is that this possibility is now playing a role in the policies of both sides, imperialist and Latin American. The aggressiveness of Carlos Andrés Pérez is rather annoying to Washington, which sees him as the principal representative of the policy of OPE on the Latin American continent (Ecuador being a simple pawn of Venezuela). It is also obvious that Kissinger would not have been very happy to see the aggressive position of Venezuela strengthened by explicit and objective support from Echeverria. The front opened up by the Pérez government would be strengthened qualitatively if it were joined by the three most important countries of Latin America. These limits to Echeverria's anti-imperialism, limits beyond which the Venezuelan government has gone in practice, are linked to the different financial 8 situations of the two governments. Venezuela received more petrodollars in 1974 than any other country in the world except Saudi Arabia and Iran. If is the major foreign supplier for the Yankee market. The Carlos Andrés Pérez government commands an enormous fund of petrodollars with which it can maneuver, and the problems of Venezuela, while they should not be underestimated, affect a population of only 15 million. Mexico, on the other hand, with its 55 million inhabitants and its broader geographical problems, is tied to international credit agencies, particularly North American agencies, by the golden chain of the third-largest national debt in the entire capitalist world, after Brazil and India. The incontestable limits within which Echeverria's present policy functions are responsible for the oscillations and zigzags he has carried out during his international maneuvers. The government's opposition to imperialism appeared at the time of the adoption by the U.S. Congress of the new Foreign Trade Bill. And the limits of this opposition also appeared. Unlike the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, the Echeverria government expressed with great caution its opposition to this bill, which attacks the most elementary commercial interests of the bourgeois sectors producing raw materials on the continent. Secretary of Foreign Affairs Rabazo went to Washington to "negotiate" and "speak frankly" with Kissinger. That is, by entering into the North American game aimed at dividing the strongest Latin American countries, the Echeverria government hopes to become the "mediator" between the most extreme parties. As the liberal press stressed, this position is in contradiction with the one the Mexican government expressed when it signed the "Charter of Economic Rights and Duties, " many of whose articles are openly violated by the new trade bill adopted by the U.S. Congress. Instead of reacting strongly and immediately to the U.S. trade bill, the Echeverria government was the first to take a position demonstrating that it considered the "Charter" nothing but a scrap of paper, even though the government had claimed to be committed to the "Charter" by honor and policy. The letter Echeverria sent to Carlos Andres Pérez in no way eliminated Secretary Robaza's ambiguity. In fact, it even intensified that ambiguity and revealed the dilemmas faced by the Mexican bourgeoisie and its state. Clearly, Echeverria wants to enter into special arrangements with the Venezuelan government, but he does not want to lose his old "special relations" with the United States. That is the reason why Echeverria has not decided to boycott the meeting of Latin American ministers with Kissinger, which is supposed to take place in Buenos Aires. At the same
time, he reiterated to Pérez his total agreement with the "defense of Latin American interests. " But still, in practice he did not agree to Pérez's boycott. Thus, by wanting to have his cake and eat it too, Echeverria lost a clear opporlunity to become the "standard-bearer of Latin America. " The Venezuelan government went considerably further, and even the Organization of American States (OAS) responded to the demands of Caracas. The 1975 change In 1975 the project of the "democratic opening" is entering a much more complex and difficult stage. There have been attempts to consolidate the "openning" during the past four years. But today, although it is nearing the attainment of its goal, the main interest is to prolong the political orientation through the next presidential vote. The debate within the highest levels of the government and the bourgeoisie is unfolding precisely around these questions: Should the policy of competing with imperialism be continued or not? Is the Mexican bourgeoisie ready to go further in its political confrontation with the Ford-Kissinger team? And, above all, a response must be given to this key question: What will be the reaction of the Mexican people, whatever path is chosen? In fact, unlike the other countries of Latin America (Venezuela in particular), Mexico will not experience an original wave of anti-imperialist populism of a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois character, and if Echeverria succeeds in putting across his bourgeois-reformist orientation during the next presidential vote, the dangers of the masses going beyond the government's limits are more real than in any other country of Latin America today. To understand the basic reason for the deep erosion of the Mexican populist project it is necessary to recall a number of essential points. The presidential succession that will be organized this year takes place after the country has gone through a period of deep transformation of class relations, a transformation that began in 1968. In oddition, the dangerous economic situation of the international capitalist system is aggravating the complex economic conditions in the country. The choice facing the bourgeoisie in 1975 is not an easy one, although there are many weighty reasons to suggest that the balance will be fipped in the direction of continuing the government's "opening" style rather than toward a Draz Ordaz type solution, that is, a government whose penchant for the bourgeoisie is such that it forgets the elementary compromises that the Bonapartist government has made over the years. To be sure, surprises are possible. That is just what happened with Echeverria, who six years ago was considered a faithful follower of his chief, Díaz Ordaz, but later turned out to be the promoter of the present "democratic opening. " But as has been seen during the reign of this "democratic opening" government and during the reign of other Latin American governments similar to Echeverria's, in particular the Argentine government, there is always significant maneuvering room for reformist groups, especially in the absence of opposition from the proletariat. What we are seeing in Mexico today is a wellplanned and not at all clumsily executed government strategy that treats the daily mechanisms of political repression of revolutionaries and communists as though they were "provocations" (on whose part, nobody knows). The recent case of the murder of an old communist militant in the cellar of the police station in Mexico City provides a significant illustration of this. Professor Hilario Medina, who had been active in the Mexican Communist party for more than thirty years, was found dead, apparently "hanged" in his cell after several days of "interrogation" by the Mexican police. He had been arrested under the pretext of having entered into relations with Guatemalan emigrés. But democratic public opinion is alerted by this type of "suicide, " which occurs rather frequently in the regime's political prisons. According to all indications, Professor Medina died after being subjected to torture. This was an open slap in the face to the "reformist" Echeverria regime. What attitude did the government take? DEMOCRyiNO MAS INDICAL LIDERES VENDIDOS!. AQUERTE
MEXICO First, it authorized the broadest possible denunciation by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois sectors close to the regime and under its control of such acts. Then it announced an "inquiry" into the "suicide." Next, the president named a personal representative to the commission of inquiry, a deputy of the PRI. Finally, some of the policemen involved in the case were arrested and accused of having stolen jewels from houses they had occupied during arrests that were made at the same time as the arrest of Professor Medina. This type of selective and arbitrary repression obtains better results for the government than an open anticommunist repression would. Unfortunately, the CP itself fell into the trap set by the government, which is not surprising considering that this party has been preparing a right turn for a year now. Other leftist groups also accepted the argument that the murder had been a police "provocation." The reality is that an inquiry could be made and all possible changes could be made among the police of the Federal District if the president even lifted his little finger. It is not logical to think that there are agents provacateurs secretly opposed to Echeverria's policy lurking among the Mexican police, especially when it is kept in mind that the victim in this case was a communist. After all, an inquiry was also promised after June 10, 1971; but today, more than three years later, the government is still absolutely unable to produce the slightest results, and nobody knows where the "hawks" are.* What is even more serious is that the Mexican left around the CP does not have the slightest experience that would enable it to grasp the acts of this Bonapartist government, which is capable of the greatest zigzags. On the contrary, the Mexican left under Stalinist influence has traditionally been the interpreter for the "progressive" sectors of the Mexican government and bourgeoisie. It is thus symptomatic of the change in CP policy - which was extremely "antireformist" in 1971 and 1972 — to see manifestos appear in the CP press today speaking of the "provocation" of which Medina was the victim. Everything indicates that it is not possible to absolve the government of responsibility for this crime, just as it was not possible in the case of the murders of June 10, 1971, or in the case of the October 2, 1968, massacre just before the Olympic games in Mexico City. This is true in spite of the "anti-imperialist" *On June 10, 1971, a massacre was committed during a demonstration of 10, 000 students in Mexico City. Dozens were killed. The attackers were "hawks, " a repressive paramilitary gang linked to the police. Echeverria promised an "inquiry, " of which nothing was ever heard again. 10 and "positive" measures that the government has taken. The CP and the traditional Mexican left have been especially impressed by the way in which the Echeverria government reacted to the military coup in Chile in September 1973. The Echeverria government acquired some interational prestige through the attitude it took in accepting many refugees, through its breaking of diplomatic relations with the Pinochet government, and through its policy of clearly differentiating itself from the most reactionary governments. This prestige is about to be further increased by the Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes of the Chilean Junta, which is scheduled to meet soon in Mexico City. This meeting was inspired by the Soviet Union and the Mexican CP, which are under heavy pressure to declare their agreement with a policy that most satisfies the groups of jurists and diplomats that compose the Commission, which is a kind of Soviet version of the Bertrand Russell Tribunel. The sniping and shifting among the groups in power has not yet gone beyond the limits of the Mexican Bonapartist system. All the candidates for presidential succession place themselves under the sign of the Bonapartist system. None of them has a qualitatively different program. The various "precandidates" so far are: Moya Palencia, secretary of the government and the most logical successor to Echeverria in view of the political apparatus that supports him; López Portillo, secretary of finance, who is closely linked to the president, Cervantes del Rio, presidential secretary and, as such, the one most closely linked formally to the high court; and Munez Ledo, secretary of labor, a key post for controlling the vertical trade unions. Each candidate, and especially Moya Palencia, is identified with given sectors of copitalist interest. But today they are all responding more or less firmly to the program of the "opening, . " Moya Palencia being the one most oriented toward a position of changing this policy; that is, he is the one most closely tied to the most conservative and powerful bourgeois sectors. Within the sniping and shifting, the maneuvers of the various candidates are carefully planned and put into practice. For example, the recent case of the resignation of Flores de la Peña, which was considered a real triumph for the pro-Moya Palencia sectors, cannot be isolated from the overall context. If that mistake is made, it would not be realized that the populist policy received a new impetus with the elevation of the Department of Agricultural Affairs, one of the key bastions of the "opening" policy identified with Lopez Portillo and Cervantes del Rio, to the rank of a state secretariat.
Account must also be taken of the various factors that determine the policy of the government, which is far from having pronounced itself clearly for any of the candidates for succession. General trajectory of Mexican Bonapartism The new situation that is emerging on the Mexican political scene is the source of a series of new problems for the bourgeoisie and its government. On this point it is necessary to briefly sum up the main political facts that have marked the political scene since 1968. During that year political events took place in Mexico City that substantially transformed the social panorama of the country. The government was shaken by a crisis, and the whole society was indelibly marked by the massive, democratic, and independent character of the mass mobilizations in the capital. The national bourgeoisie was haunted by the specter of a French May 1968 occurring on Mexican soil. The Díaz Ordaz government, after attempting several forms of partial repression, unleashed a wave of repressive violence and opted for a bloody confrontation with the movement. On October 2, 1968, in Tlatelolco square, a volley of bullets put an end to an important phenomenon of Mexican political life, a phenomenon that can be called the emergence, consolidation, and apogee of Mexican Bonapartism. The succeeding stage of crisis and erosion of the Bonapartist regime opened over the bodies of more than 500 people. The democratic opening In spite of the fantastic blow represented by the Tlate lolco massacre, the period opened in 1968 has not been ended. The year 1969 was a difficult one; 1970 opened with a very significant event. Dozens of political prisoners in Lecumberri jail were attacked and were on the point of being deliberately massacred during a "mutiny" of common prisoners prepared by the authorities in order to break the hunger strike of the political prisoners. This polarized the general tension existing in the student movement and among several other sectors of the population; it was the expression of deep changes going on. In spite of the repression of October 1968, the government was convinced that it could not give up its populist and demagogic methods. The objective of Díaz Ordaz's successor was to revitalize the regime. Luis Echeverria began his campaign with this leit motiv: A solution must be found to the problems of the country; all Mexicans must be united once again; the government must revitalize itself. He thus inifiated the "democratic opening."
The first year of the Echeverria government was directly determined by the crisis inherited from the Díaz Ordaz years. The new massacre of June 10, 1971, hit the student movement. But this time it was carried out a lot more "intelligently. " The Eche verria government used methods that were much more clever, modern, and liberal than the Draz Ordaz government had used in the Tiatelolco massacre. The government washed its hands of all responsibility, and it was easy to fool broad sectors about the real character of the "hawk" band, which was in fact obviously linked to official circles. These criminal bands, armed with machine guns and other weapons and protected by the police, had launched a mortal blow against the demonstration on that day. The Echeverria regime made use of the confusion provoked by the combination of its liberal course and its repressive actions. Echeverria politically liquidated a number of politicians who were too closely identified with Diaz Ordaz. He issued a call for a big demonstration to support the regime, and, most surprisingly, instead of tightening the repressive vise, he reeled in the police apparatuses. No students or leftists were arrested, and Echeverria even promised from the presidential balcony to initiate an inquiry into the massacre. June 10, 1971, a key date for the government, showed that Echeverria's style would be different from that of Draz Ordaz. In practice, the merciless fist would still strike revolutionary opponents of the regime. The repression would also be maintained, but it would be more measured, more effective, and more selective, relying on unofficial parami lifary apparatuses actually linked to government circles, the "hawks" being an example. Unlike Draz Ordaz, Echeverria encouraged a reanimation of political life in bourgeois and petty-bourgeois circles, especially reformist ones, in order to regain the social support that had been lost in 1968 and that af the time seemed to have been lost irrevocably. Echeverria began to insist that the "Mexican Revolution is not only a living concept, but also a reality that has experienced periods of acceleration and periods of slowdown. ... but is in process of continual revision and permanent renovation. " Echeverria has not changed his verbiage; he still insists, as he did on November 19, 1974, that "in Mexico we have a revolution that is still half incomplete, that has much to correct, that has committed many mistakes and hesitations, that has left behind many tired persons who believed that the revolution was already finished because they had obtained important positions." For both objective and subjective reasons, Echeverria has been unable to bring off a new version of the course toward "national unity. " The objective reasons lie in the fact that the economic and
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MEXICO social problems are far from resolved; on the confrary, they are worsening. The subjective reasons relate to a more and more critical and perceptive spirit in regard to the real nature of the Bonapartist "social contract" that has begun to develop among the population. This distrust of the government has not yet been expressed in a revolutionary form among broad layers of the population. But it is being expressed in a more conscious form than ever among vanguard sectors. And even among the broadest sectors, a malaise continues to be felt; only a catalyst is needed to allow it to become conscious. Responsibility of the revolutionary left The Mexican political conjuncture is approaching one of its critical points. The year 1975 will be very important. The economy will feel the effects of the generalized recession. According to a statement of the secretary of finance, the central goal of the 1975 budget is "to prevent the onset of recession and to slow down inflation, a goal that is not at all modest. If some formula capable of realizing that goal is discovered in Mexico, we can be sure that the other capitalist countries will want to know about it! Mexican imports will not be able to expand in a world that is feeling the first jolts of a trade war among the countries that constitute the main markets for Mexican products. Whether the growth in the gross national product reaches 7 percent in 1975 (which is not easy to foresee or whether the growth remains at the level it has reached during the past few years, the country's trade deficit will still be the largest in its history. The foreign markets for Mexican textiles have been closed; the same is true for the markets for minerals. And even the advantage that meant so much for the development that occurred during the 1950s is disappearing rapidly: the country's capacity for absorbing foreign capital. (It is disappearing not so much for internal reasons as because of international liquidity problems.) If to all this is added the present policy of Echeverria, it can be seen that even imperialist capital will seek more secure markets, like those of Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, etc. Conscious of the dangers, the government is reacting, examining the maneuvering room it commands and considering the solutions it could resort to. It is clear what criterion determined the government's elaboration of its 1975 budget: increase public expenditures within the limits required so that they do not become a burden on the economy but on the contrary function as a classical anticyclical factor.
In order to provide more resources for the state, the government is proposing the adoption of a "fiscal 12 reform" that all the specialists consider to be a simple "adjustment, " that is, a minimal fiscal alteration and not a real transformation of the system now in force. Thus, in spite of the "adjustment, " which will above all affect the "middle class" consumers since it will influence the consumption of gasoline, the government will still have to resort to international agencies to request a loan of $6,000 million, an astronomical figure that will further increase the coun try's debt. This loan will be necessary to finance public expenses for 1975, which have been raised by nearly 40 percent compared with 1974 in order to play an antirecessionary role. The most lucid bourgeois economists themselves have stressed the inconsistent character of such a policy. But Echeverria is perfectly aware of the problems with which his government is confronted. Significantly, he declared last December 21: "What is important now is that during the year about to begin, which will be a year of generalized crisis, we unite as Mexicans, as one people, around the essential tasks. And this must also be understood by the advocates of a consumer society and by those who oppose social solidarity in the sphere of the economy because they see the effects of the recession and the unemployment in the capitalist countries that they take as models. " A bourgeois leader could not have spoken better! But Echeverria also announced a program of "national unity." And the part of the left that wants to hear this is preparing to respond to his appeals. The traditional left tied to the CP, to Lombardoism, and to Cardenism is preparing a turn that will lead it toward being co-opted into Echeverria's program of "national unity. " From this standpoint, the alternative that he is projecting must not be considered as a simple conjunctural maneuver, If the Bonapartist apparatus wants to survive, it must deepen the course initiated by Echeverria. The most lucid representatives of the present administration know this: Echeverria saved the apparatus from disaster. Gómez Villanueva, the recently named secretary of agrarian reform, stated not long ago: "If Echeverria had not opened the way, Mexico would have entered into a stage of very hard violence, and the peace we have enjoyed for so long would have been broken. " Once again, the high financiers have a much clearer idea of the character of the state than many "Marxists" do. In fact, Bonapartism is a "hard regime"; but in order to survive in Mexico it needs the support of layers of the population that back it up in its confrontation with imperialism. That is what gives Mexican Bonapartism the special character that Trotsky described in his writings on the country. Neverthe-
less, the contradiction of this regime is appearing more and more clearly. The contradiction lies in the fact that despite its undeniable bourgeois character, this regime has had to politically expropriate the bourgeoisie in order to carry out its tasks. After fifty years of taking the measures necessary to help the bourgeoisie withstand the blows of the revolution of 1910, after providing the bourgeoisie with the infrastructure it needed to be able to carry out its accumulation of capital, and after engendering within the bourgeoisie entire layers that have penetrated the most privileged sectors of the population, the Bonapartist regime now seems to have reached the end of its road. The bourgeoisie that developed and strengthened itself under Bonapartist protection now wants to get rid of this regime and replace it with a different regime. But the bourgeoisie is not "ungrateful" toward the regime. What is happening is that in a certain sense the bourgeoisie never considered this regime as its own; and today it is stronger and more conscious and wants to directly take up the reins of power itself. Thus, the Echeverria regime has been attacked by the most reactionary and most powerful sectors of the bourgeoisie, those sectors most closely tied to American imperialism. But while the bourgeoisie is repudiating the present regime, which no longer responds at all to a situation in which capital has been strengthened (and in which the working class is generally stronger too), it cannot replace it except with an even "worse" dictatorship. In fact, there is no precedent in the historical and political traditions of the country that allows one to think that the democratic bourgeoisie is going to flourish at a time when it is in decline in all the advanced capitalist countries. But a military dictatorship is not necessary in Mexico at the present time, for it would only exacerbate the existing contradictions and it could not emerge independently of the regime itself. Thus, the bourgeoisie has to pay the price for its belated birth and its pronounced political weakness. One of the prices it has to pay is that the army itself has traditionally been one of the pillars of the Bonapartist regime and, in fact, was one of the principal sources of political personnel for it (Obregón, Calles, etc.). Thus, in spite of everything, the bourgeoisie has to continue to develop its plans within the framework of the existing regime if it does not want to provoke a succession of political crises that go beyond the acceptable limits of security. Echeverria's alternative has no foundation. He hopes to produce a new version of the Cardenas annals. But as Enge Is said, historic re-editions are caricatures. Conditions do not exist in Mexico for forging a great populist movement based on the peasantry or for continuing to confine the working class within the framework of the trade-union bureaucracy.
The importance of the collaboration of the left in carrying out the solution of the "democratic opening" is reflected in Echeverria's constant efforts to appear as a "third worldist" leader. He has obtained some results with this. Today, thanks to his attitude on the question of Chile, he is the natural ally of the liberal forces that see his "antifascism" as a solution for their own problems and desire to be taken into consideration in the program presented by the president. The responsibility of the revolutionary left in Mexico is thus very great. An ultraleft course in the present circumstances would be fatal, as is shown by the tragic examples of the urban groups that have resorted to "direct action. " The hundreds of imprisoned militants are proof of the failure of their line and of the superficial character of Echeverria's "democratic" position. Under other circumstances, the death of Lucio Cabañas during a clash with the army also showed the limits of an armed confrontation with the state, even though such a confrontation is justified. In the south of the state of Guerrero, the peasantry, both historically and socially, has no great alternative other than guerrilla struggle. But the death of Genaro Vásquez in 1972 and of Lucio Cabañas last year dealt very hard blows to the spontanéist conception of an armed confrontation with the state limited to a particular region without the slightest links with other regions and without a strategy of implantation of an organization on a national scale. All the heroism of these revolutionary peasants, the inheritors of Zapata, threatens to be nothing but a labor of Sisyphus if their revolutionary efforts are not politically and organizationally supported by the working class in the cities. the gci congress The recent