URUGUAY: FIERCE REPRESSION by PABLO RAMIREZ
Pablo Ramirez is the editor of the monthly Revista de Americos: The old Uruguay died for good with the defeat of the general strike of July 1973. In the old Uruguay they added up cows and votes to create a bourgeois democracy supported by a broad mass base. Today the cows are still around, but there is nobody to buy them any more. The ballot box has been replaced by boots, bankers, and Bordaberry. The crisis has eaten away the value of both cows and votes and has impelled the exploiters to attack the gains of the workers, primarily their wages and the democratic rights that made it easier for them to struggle in defense of their interests. The change was big. The leap from bourgeois democracy to a particularly antiworking-class and repressive Bonapartism constituted the epilogue of a war waged by the workers against the bourgeois offensive for about a decade. The outcome of the final battle, the two weeks of general strike against the coup, tipped the scales decisively. The employers won this war, defeated the workers, and prepared themselves to take maximum advantage of their supremacy. The aim of this article is to analyze this reality in order to help to transform it, The magnitude of the defeat of the Uruguayan workers requires of us, particularly as Trotskyists, that our analysis be sharply critical - even self-critical - for that is the only point of departure that can define a correct policy, which is needed to reorganize the proletariat, overthrow the dictatorship, and develop the revolutionary party. The basic causes of the coup were the danger of the rise of the workers struggles and the inability of a divided bourgeoisie to hold back those struggles by means of its democratic institutions. The putschists intervened into this social and institutional panorama in a preventive manner, moving before the aggravation of these two elements (especially the first) could make the operation much more dangerous. This, then, vas the first objective of the putschists: crush the workers in order to defend capitalism, which was confronted by an economic, social, political, and institutional crisis. Further on we will examine their plans in more detail.
Bordaberry The task of the putschists was made easier by the policy of the Convención Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT - National Workers Confederation), which was led by the Communist party, the Frente Amplio (Broad Front, an interclass bloc), and the majority of the left, which had unanimously expressed confidence in the good intentions of the supposedly "Peruvian-style" officers who had burst onto the political scene with the semi-coup of February 1973. The same policy of betrayal of the workers that allowed the putschists to advance without meeting resistance was later to lead to the defeat of the general strike through which the masses responded spontaneously when the coup became a reality. At first, the Stalinists and their allies tried to negotiate with the government, and later with a sector of the military that was counted on for a countercoup. The strike was given a defensive coloration so as not to frighten potential bourgeois allies. Neither the CP nor the ultraleftists, who made a bloc with the CP about two days before the end of the strike, called for going over to the offensive, for organizing the population ground the occupied factories, for establishing workers control in these factories, for mobilizing and taking the streets, for forming armed self-defense pickets, and for working out a tactic aimed af dividing the armed forces. All this awaited the decision of a "progressive" sector of the employers. The result is well known. Only the Trotskyists of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajodores de Uruguay (PRTU — Uruguay Revolufionary Workers party) posed this offensive and revolutionary orientation for the strike, although with errors and imprecisions. But our party locked the strength to modify the course of the struggle. The betrayal of the Stalinists paved the way for the end of a prerevolutionary stage which, during the final two days of the strike, had taken on revolutionary characteristics. A counterrevolutionary stage then opened up. A stage we are still living through today. Once they had defeated the strike, the putschists consolidated their power. Not because they were able to resolve the economic crisis or becouse they had won the bulk of the bourgeoisie to their cause,
URUGUAY and still less because they were able to develop a petty-bourgeois base of support. The fundamental cause of the dictatorship's relative stability - within which crises may break out periodically - was the magnitude of the defeat of the workers. The national bourgeoisie can have - and does have - some spats with the proimperialist dictatorship. What it lacks is sufficient strength to overturn it. The decisive forces are imperialism and the proletariat. The dictatorship consolidated itself on the basis of the historic defeat of the proletariat. Why do we characterize the defeat this way, even though there was no civil war in which the proletariat exhausted all of its forces? We do so for two Fundamental reasons that are, to a certain extent, peculiar to the Uruguayan process. In the first place, the coup that took place in Uruguay differed from the Chilean coup and similar ultra-reactionary coups in that these coups began with an ultra-repressive "explosion" - made possible by a certain mass social base - in order later to move to more "normal" forms of repression. This did not happen in Uruguay, for two basic reasons: The putschists never had a mass social base on which to carry it out, and they did not have to confront an armed resistance that would have compelled them to do so nevertheless. But the repression did take on a systemafic and persistent character determined by the fact that the dictatorship lacked mass social roots, which forced it to govern as though it were occupying the country against the will of the overwhelming majority of the population. For the dictatorship, easing the repression would have meant beginning to weave the rope with which the regime itself would have been hanged. Let us take a look at some facts that confirm this. The number of comrades murdered during the strike is insignificant when compared to the number murdered by torture after the consolidation of the dictatorship. During the height of repression, in the midst of the strike, about 2,000 prisoners were taken (who were added to the 3,000 or 4,000 who had already been imprisoned before the coup.) Two and a half years later, a raid against the CP netted 1,400 prisoners - and this without any social struggle. The new prisoners were added to the approximately 8, 000 people already in jail. What would we say if three years after a defeat of the French workers there were 200,000 political prisoners, or 1 million prisoners in North America? How could we avoid noting that what we would be dealing with would be a defeat of historic proportions? But those are the figures that are equivalent to the number of political prisoners now being held in Uruguay. Although the number of prisoners is a very important index of the magnitude of the defeat of the workers, it does not seem to us that this is the decisive facfor preventing a recovery of the workers. We believe that the second element is even more important: 42
The emigration of hundreds of thousands of young workers from the country. It is impossible to nail down the exact figure, but estimates range between 400,000 and 500,000, that is, about 15 or 20 percent of the population. The emigration of such a large portion of the population takes on a qualitative significance. This is not a peasant migration, but an urban one; it includes a section of the most active and resolute layers, educated people and rebels, particularly among the youth, as well as elements of the industrial proletariot and the radicalized middle class. The emigration, the economic crisis, the repression, and the lack of a revolutionary leadership with any real weight among the masses have combined to make it extremely difficult to reorganize the workers; these factors thus aid indirectly in the consolidation of the dictatorship. Only an important change in the relationship of class forces in the neighboring countries or in the world revolution as a whole can modify the present trend, which points to a rather prolonged period for the recovery of the Uruguayan workers. How to characterize the dictatorship Uruguay is now living through a counterrevolutionary period in which the relationship of forces is quite favorable to the bourgeoisie, while the proletariat has been unable to recover from the historic defeat it suffered at the hands of the armed forces and Bordaberry. constitute the government. It is a government that has been consolidated through the defeat of the workers movement and that draws its main support from the politico-military apparatus, Yankee imperialism, and the "axis" made up of the financial bourgeoisie, the owners of the meat industry, and the export industries. It is a government that must be defined as Bonapartist and ultra-reactionary, but not fascist, for to be fascist it would have to rely on, or to have previously relied on, the active support of some important sector of the petty bourgeoisie, which is precisely the opposite of what has occurred. The main pillar of the government is its own armed forces. The totally secondary character of the role played by the army in the political and economic life of the country until only a few years ago leads us to believe that it is not likely that the army could have established itself as a sharply distinct caste within the space of four or five years, and more particularly since the coup. But there is no doubt that such a process is under way. The basis of the army's privileges lies in the fact that the milifary budget represents 55 percent of the total national budget. And in evaluating the significance of
this sum, it must be remembered that these are armed forces of internal repression; only a tiny amount is spent on heavy and sophisticated weaponry, which is expensive. The army's growing intervention in all the organs of the state apparatus is considerably broadening its field of economic opportunities, which are seized upon through wheeling and dealing, bribes, and graft of all varieties. The two sectors that, along with the military, appropriate the lion's share of the national income are Yankee imperialism and the previously mentioned "axis. " The first acts mainly through its loans, finance capital, the Chevron (Standard Oil) petroleum concession, and the totality of activities it carries out jointly with the financial oligarchy and the export industries (and also, of course, with the landowners). The second is made up of an oligarchy whose structural base lies in the sectors mentioned above, but which constantly directs its capital toward conjuncturally more profitable areas of the economy, from currency speculation to industry to cattle rustling. From this description it follows that there is an accumulation of interbourgeois contradictions: between imperialism, which wants a reduction in military spending, and the officers, who defend their privileges; between the officers who, basing themselves on the state apparatus, are attempting to transform themselves into partners and competitors of the oligarchy, and the imperialists, who are in turn their partners and competitors. More generally, a contradiction is developing between those who hold power and are thus the main beneficiaries of the division of surplus value and the bulk of the remaining bourgeoisie. More precisely, with all the bourgeois sectors that have been unable to get their piece of the plunder of the country in one form or another, particularly a growing number of ranchers not linked to the meat distribution and export industry and the banks. The strong contraction of the world meat market makes it difficult for them to run their ranches profitably, this makes them even more vulnerable to the greedy policy of the meat packers and exporters, buf does not exempt them from the rather high taxes. The clashes of this sector with the government have even led to the imprisonment of the president of the Rural Federation and of other leaders of that organization. Plans of the government The government's programs respond to a specific obTec five: to win maximum benefits for imperialism and its lesser indigenous partners. To do this it is necessary to reconstruct the Uruguayan economy, to partially modify the role of exporter of meat and wool assigned to it by the world division of labor, and to adapt the state apparatus to its new functions and opportunities.
The central objective of the Yankee bankers, for whom Vegh Villegas was a functionary before he took over the post of minister of economics, is to transform the city of Montevideo into the financial center of their activities throughout the "souther cone." They want a sort of Bahamas or Hong Kong, but one that also has cows and can this be used to establish subsidiary industries complementary to or distinct from those the Yankee octopus already possesses in Argenting or Brazil. In order to accomplish this, they had not only to crush the workers movement, but also to take two initial decisive measures: the establishment of free exchange, which meant the abolition of trade controls, and the passage of an investment law that would open the country up to imperialism. One of the main objectives of the plan is the development of the export industries in an attempt to channel the majority of them into becoming complementary to the export industries of the Cuenca del Plata. This policy is based on the one hand on the insignificance of the domestic Uruguayan market and on the other hand on the large profits the ruling monopolies could make if they managed to centralize their production or diversify it on the basis of lower operating costs. In addition, this policy is in the interests not only of imperialism but also of some sectors of the national bourgeoisie in the various coun tries. Uruguay has two advantages in implementing this policy: its geographical location in the Cuenca del Plata and its wages (although the Argentine crisis has reduced this latter advantage considerably). But it has one great disadvantage: its very poor natural resources (almost complete lack of minerals ani, at least so far, hydrocarbons). So far, the development of new industrial sectors is only incipient. The two main new industries, fishing and oil, began operating recently. Fish exports did not exceed S4 million last year, and the oil industry, which has just now been set up, will require considerable time before it becomes profitable (this also depends on whether prospecting results are positive). The two other big problems the government plan intends to deal with are inflation and the national budget deficit, which is caused by the extremely high cost of the bureaucratic-military state machine (BO percent of the budget goes to pay salaries). The part of the plan whose realization is most advanced is the conversion of Montevideo into a financial hub, a center of usury and speculation for the "southern cone. " As partial but illustrative data, we may mention that foreign deposits in private banks have increased 600 percent and that the state has doubled its planned sales of treasury bonds in foreign currencies (without altering deposits in national currency). This, in addition to the opening of
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URUGUAL new branches of foreign banks, is only the most visible and modest aspect of the program. The investment law, which the imperialist press described as "particularly attractive, * has encouraged the entry of some foreign capital from various sources (Yankee, Japanese, and Italian, among others). In general, this capital has been used to buy old plants in order to renovate them and adapt them to new uses. As for the plans for industrial development, their application has been slow and difficult. For example, sales to Argentina have amounted to only 10 percent of the export value that had been approved by the Uruguayan goverment. The explanation for this is simple. Although this policy favors the imperialist monopolies and a sector of the national bourgeoisie, it simultaneously injures another sector, which thus resists and erects obstacles. On the basis of this general characterization - the inability of the bourgeoisie in the region to bring their interests into a more or less profound harmony - it is important to analyze whether the slow pace of application of the plans will continue, as appears to be the case, or whether there will be some acceleration. On the problem of inflation, the government managed to achieve considerable success, diminishing the rate of inflation from 107.26 percent in 1974 to 66.84 percent in 1975 (20 percent higher than initially expected). This was accomplished not on the basis of a substantial increase in production, but insteod through the contraction of the domestic market through the dual effects of emigration and low wages, which permitted the amount of money in circulation to be reduced. On the question of the budget, the results were quite different, We lack the year-end figures, but for the third quarter the deficit was 27,1 percent instead of the predicted 14 percent; moreover, the tendency was toward further increases, so if is likely that the total deficit for the year will be three times higher than had been expected. The explanation for this is clear: The officers would not accept cuts in their budget, and the government cannot make reductions in the rest of the budget without moving to massive layoffs of functionaries. To resort to this measure with a private sector that is incapable of absorbing even the present reserve army of labor would be to create a dangerous focus of social tension, which the regime appears to want to avoid for the moment. It seems to us, contrary to the opinion of the entire left, that the regime is beginning to achieve a certain economic respite. For the present, all.this means is that the depth of the crisis has eased slightly, not that it has been resolved or is even on the road to being solved. The accentuation of the deformed and dependent character of the economy, 44 the superexploitation of the workers, the expulsion of nearly a fifth of the population, and the total surrender to imperialism constitute the price that has been paid for this respite. This year will be decisive in determining the general trend of the economy. And here once again, as during the period of Vegh Villegas, the decisive point will be whether or not it is possible to sell meat and wool at favorable prices. The workers and students movements Earlier we mentioned the basic factors making a recovery of the workers difficult (defeat, economic crisis, emigration, repression). To this we must add another factor, this one subjectiver a skepticism based on a confused and embryonic consciousness that the struggle was not waged as it should have been at the right time and that now the consequences are being paid. As far back as 1964 the workers had voted to launch a general strike in the event of a coup; they reiterated this resolution time and time again; they heard their Stalinist leaders respond to those who demanded that this strike be prepared by claiming that everything was ready, that the strike would be "insurrectional, " that the party had all the weapons it needed. Hence, the workers can only feel disoriented, demobilized, and defeated, especially since a great number of them believed the lies of the Stalinists. The policy of the CP after the end of the strike only complicated the problem still further. Incapable of telling the masses the truth and of properly labeling the defeat the workers had suffered, the CP decided to continue lying, to claim that the workers movement had not been defeated, that the leadership of the CNT had simply acted like the Vietnamese, orr dering a tactical retreat in order to weaken the enemy and then return to the offensive (this was the official balance-sheet of the strike drawn by the CNT leadership). During 1974 the Portuguese revolution allowed the Stalinists more propitious propagandist conditions For presenting their old aspiration of bringing "progressive" officers to power. Montevideo was covered with CP posters bearing such slogans os "Do as in
Portugall For a democratic and patriotic government!" But the CP did not limit itself to propaganda. It resolved to call upon the workers to make new sacrifices. In August 1974 the CP launched one of the strongest and most combative unions, one which had remained intact, into struggle alone. The construcfion workers were brutally repressed. Military patrois went from work site to work site with a list of activists to arrest. Totally without leadership, the workers were nonetheless able to strike for twenty-four hours. The price of the CP's adventure was that the trade-union organization in the construction industry was broken and the possibility of this union's emerging as one of the linchpins in the process of the recovery and reorganization of the working class was eliminated. At present, the workers movement continues to be passive and disorganized, with the exception of a few isolated clashes. There is still some activism in some unions, largely based on CP members, but the latest wave of repression has had considerable effect on these embryonic forms of organization. The workers movement is defeated and demoralized, headed by a CP — or what's left of it - that lacks any program and policy capable of offering the workers a clear way forward. As long and difficult as the struggle may be, the central task of revolutionaries can only be to fight to modify this situation, to present clear proposals to the workers, to press for their reorganization, gaining their respect and confidence and taking the lead in all their struggles, no matter how small and partial they may be. The student movement, particularly the university sector, has been slightly more active than the workers during the past year. Nonetheless, here again similar problems of leadership are posed. The most advanced sectors, like the medical students, have launched isolated, ill conceived, and badly organized actions, one of which ended in the arrest of 300 comrades. The CP, with its ultraleftist-opportunist policy, had dragged along the majority of the other currents, thus aiding in the decapitation of all the sectors of the vanguard that remained or were re-emerging. Stalinism in Uruguay will not take the initiative in a long defensive struggle in which every position, no matter how small, must be carefully defended and transformed into a springboard for new small advances, thus gradually moving toward the development of the strength and independent organization of the workers. But that is the only thing that can allow us to seriously face the struggles, as difficult as they may be. A fight led in this manner, even if it is defeated, can show the way forward. It is an irony of history that anarchist-style spontanéism was applied in Uruguay by Stalinism. But the old pundits of the CP are not applying this policy out of ignorance. They launch isolated batties and send the best elements into slaughters as part of a deliberate policy: to bring pressure to bear and knock at the gates of the barracks in an attempt to rouse the "progressive" officers from their long slumber. Situation within the left The repercussions of the defeat on the different organizations and militants of the workers movement has been varied. It appears to us that, even simplifying reality, we can distinguish four phenomena within the organized workers movement:
* The very broad milieu of militants and sympathizers of nearly all the left groups - especially the CP and the guerrillas - have become demoralized and have abandoned political struggle.
* As the organization with the greatest links to the proletariat, the CP had a strong internal cohesion and was the only force having significant weight in Uruguay; it was one of the few organizations that - up to the time of the coup - did not undergo a process of internal discussion and political struggle, or af least so it appeared from the outside.
* In the guerrilla and ultraleftist organizations, the discussion not only led to splits, as in the case of the MLN (National Liberation Movement), but also to a serious self-criticism of their terrorist past, which instead of bringing them to Marxism - in deeds and not just in words — led them to popular-fronttype class collaborationist positions; to a certain extent, they returned to their original starting points, the national liberation movement or front.
* On a much smaller numerical level, small groups or factions within larger currents are trying to draw the fundamental conclusions of the experiences through which they have lived.
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URUGUAY Here we would like to especially look at the problem of popular frontism. The importance of this question derives not only from the fact that the Tupamaros and other smaller parties and groups held such a strategy, but also from the fact that this was the common heritage of the entire left, with the exception of the Trotskyists. This entire policy is aimed - whether consciously or not is of little importance - at preparing an alliance with the bourgeois oppositionists (or their "shadows" or petty-bourgeois agents). It is the democratic noose that tightens around the neck of the proletariat once it has destroyed the dictatorship through its struggle. The bourgeoisie makes enormous efforts to prevent a Portuguese-style situation from developing after the fall of the dictatorship. In any event, the cost is small. They will even sign some declarafions calling for the overthrow of the dictatorship, promise "structural" changes, issue some publications, while waiting for the masses to bring down the dictatorship so that the bourgeois oppositionists can take its place by virtue of their alliance or excellent diplomatic relations with the "left." It is clear that these "fronts" are much more symbolie than real, since today it is impossible to form a front of any real weight without the participation of the CP and some figures representing the bourgeoisie. Nonetheless, in the UAL (Unión Artigisto de Liberación), for example, ultraleftist and centrist groups participate alongside bourgeois figures, certainly ill-regarded by most of the bourgeoisie, like Michellini and Erro. This policy of fronts with the bourgeoisie in which nearly all the left is engaged is the best service they could render copitalism. It means to prepare and oil the alternative bourgeois mechanism in case the dictatorship falls or is liquidated by the masses. The differences that now exist between the CP and the majority of the ultraleftists on how to apply this policy are not differences in content, rather, they are differences over which sectors the alliances should aim at involving. At the moment, the CP holds that the only solution can come from the armed forces, and it is here that the efforts should be concentrated (without, of course, neglecting the civilians entirely). The majority of the ultraleftists and centrists - correctly - cannot forget that the "progressive" officers were the ones doing the torturing and killing, the ones who viciously destroyed the guerrillas and ferociously repressed the workers. They thus orient toward the civilian bourgeois oppositionists. Are we Trotskyists then crazy for not realizing that we must all join forces today to destroy our main enemy, the dictatorship? No, we are not crazy. We propose the formation of a workers united front to reorganize the workers and fight the dictatorship. 46
We are not willing to join any front with the bourgeoisie, nor to sign any common program with the "democratic" exploiters, but we are the most insistent defenders of the need to struggle together in common action in practice (for example, a demonstration for freedom of the press or assembly or for the release of political prisoners). We want to tear off the dictatorial mask of the bourgeoisie, but not in order to replace it with a democratic mask. We want to and must make use of the contradictions of our class enemy, but in the service of the struggle for workers power. For this reason, even if they agree to carry out common actions with the workers, we will not cease our criticisms and atlacks on the bourgeois appositionists, for they remain our enemies. The tasks of Trotskyism Uruguay provides one of the most complete tests of where the guerrilla conception leads; likewise, it shows the results of CP leadership of the frade-union movement. Obviously, various ultraleffist and opportunist currents can still play an important role. But this does not invalidate the most important conclusion that flows from the preceding analysis: There are great subjective possibilities for the development of Trotskyism. But for this development to take place to its full extent, the relationship of class forces has to be shifted, and the Trotskyists must play an Important role in this, standing in the front lines of the reorganization of the workers movement on the basis of a class policy. The present regression makes it difficult for the experience of the Tupamaros or the CP (especially the CP) to be understood in depth or for the small number of activists now coming forward to be able to judge the positions of the revolutionary Marxists against those of the Stalinists or ultraleffists in pracfice. It will be in the struggle to reorganize the workers movement and bring down the dictatorship that the Trotskyists will have to develop as an alternative leadership. To achieve these objectives - which in general terms relate to leading the proletariat to power -we Trotskyists must draw all the conclusions of the process, including that undergone by our own organization. We must draw the lessons of reality and of our own errors, on the basis of the Leninist principle that "the attitude of a party toward its own mistakes is one of the most important and reliable ways of judging the seriousness of this party and how it fulfills its duties toward its closs and toward the toilers." This is the criterion we intend to apply in andlyzing the blow repression dealt to our party in MarchApril 1975 and to our whole policy. The program and tasks facing the Uruguayan Trotskyists must, we believe, revolve around this axis: reorganize the workers movement on the basis of struggles for its elementary demands and for the overthrow
INTERNATIONAL
THEORETICAL JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP - of the dictatorship, preparing the workers' road to power through these struggles. In pursuing these objectives we believe it is necessary to work ouf a program that af the present time can be used only in the propagandist explanation of our positions and to recruit to our party by ones and twos. In the future, however, this program will be able to serve as a guide for the workers when they begin to struggle again. The program that follows is of a very general character; many of its slogans will have to be modified according to the exigencies of reality. Likewise, it does not include many slogans that are indispensable in a prerevolutionary period or during a struggle for power. It is a defensive program that also contains two slogans (on the party and the regime which we believe we must insist on, even under the present conditions in our country, for reasons of political education. We also include a general anti-imperialist slogan, which will have to be rounded out and complemented by the demand for workers control:
* For general wage increases to lift buying power back to the level of January 1967. For automatic adjustments to increases in the cost of living, Against unemployment: for the division of working hours without reduction in pay; for the nationalization of factories threatened by closure. For the abrogation of the decree permitting layoffs without compensation. For guaranteed jobs for all emigrants who wish to return to the country. For respect for the right
BRITISH SECTION OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL just out spring 1976 issue
Price for this issue: Britain & seamail: E. 65; $1.80 (including postage) Airmail: E1., $3.00 For subscription information, write to : INTERNATIONAL 97 Caledonian Road London N1 9BT of unionization on the factory, industrial, and national level. For the legalization of the CNT and the proscribed unions. For the utilization of every scrap of legality that aids in the reorganization of the workers movement.
*For freedom of the press and assembly. For the legalization of all political parties and the elimination of the bans. Immediate release of all political prisoners, Unconditional amnesty to permit the return of all exiles. For the overthrow of the dictatorship and the organization of free elections without restrictions or polítical prisoners.
* For the expulsion of imperialism from the country and the expropriation of its property.
* For the workers united front to reorganize the workers and bring down the dictatorship. Against any popular or democratic front. For the unity in action of all those prepared to carry out actions on points in defense of the workers.
* For the construction of a Trotskyist party capoble of leading the proletariat to power.
* For a workers and people's government that expropriates and destroys the dictatorship of the exploiters through revolutionary means. For the Latin American Socialist Federation. February 23, 1976
Ernest Mandel on
Imperialism in Latin America
UNITED SECRETARIAT
THESES
The British crisis and the way out for the working class
PORTUGAL WOHLFORTH
AFTERMATH ON TROTSKY'S OF NOVEMBER WRITINGS
DEBATE ON NATIONALISM 47
Our comrade