POLITICAL SITUATION IN. PERU
[The | following: article, uitten by the Secretariat of. Foreign Relations of tthe Frente de> Izquierda Revolucionario Peruano (Front: of the Peruvian Revolutionary Left).located in Buenos: Aires, has been translated from the March issue: of Tierra o Muerte! | :
. The candidacy, of Bolavinds and his subsequent victory marks = the beginning of a new experience for the masses in Peru, For the first time a, government has:taken office. with a’clearily defined pro-.gram voicing the aspirations of the new industrial sectors and the new.-middle. class, These aspirations. coincide with the imperialist policy expressed-in the: Alliance for Progress -- to carry out reforms within the legal. framework-.in-order to avoid social disturbances that could endanger the-capitalist system, .Thus Belatinde's program includes agrarian. reform, nationalization of the oil industry, plans’. for. the solution. of the. problem: of - continuing and deve Loping indus~- ‘rye os cod
Bit ‘this ‘government: came to power .. in “face of an opposition that holds the majority in parliaments The APRA- -~Odriista% alliance, a political expression of the Peruvian oligarchy, is blocking pro-. posals of the executive wing of the government that might undermine the reactionary economic interests.:
The. Belatinde.- ‘government is” seeking to solve the nation's prom: blems .within the legal framework, Because ofthis it is tied hand-.. and foot and unable to carry through its program, In order to move ahead it would have to break through the blockade of the oligarchy and resort to the mass movement, forcibly dissolving parliament ; which is the principle obstacle. In brief, it would have to- “preak with "legality" and appeal to the workers of: the country.
Belatinde, representing our weak bourgeoisie, is incapable. of applying his bourgeois~democratic. program through mobilizing the masses, He will thus inevitably end in the arms of the oligarchy | along the road of successive concessions that will lead uo the con= | stitution of a broad government of "national unity" or "superior com-= mon, aims" through a coup d'état. position of _the Political Parties ; The APRA and the Unién Nacional Odriista oppose the government coalition of Accién Popular [Popular Action] and the Democracia Gristiana [Christian Democracy]. The pact between the former two organizations is not accidental, Both parties are spokesmen of the
“Combination between the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana of” Victor Ratl Haya de la Torre and the Unién Nacional Odriista of form er dictator General Manuel A. Odria.
Sociedad Nacional Agraria [National Agrarian Society] and the imperialist companies, Both are opposed to the Project for Agrarian Reform presented by the regime and they defend the interests of the © cotton and sugar barons. In the discussion over the Agrarian Reform bill in the legislative bodies they presented a substitute for Article 43 in order to make it illegal to touch the lands of the big sugar and cotton haciendas along the coast,
With regard to the oil problem, the Aprista [members of the APRA] legislators opposed the law projected by the executive wing and served as the best lawyers for the International -Petroleun Comm pany which is illegally profiting from our oil resources. 7
The Communist party, in accordance with its traditional cus= tom, is olinging to the tail of the bourgeoisie, Fortunately its — unconditional support for Belatinde has been repudiated by the Juventud Comunista [JC -- the Communist Youth] and several regional committees, The CP leadership, in addition to the electoral aid which it gave Accién Popular, continues to support the Belatinde government under pretext of defending democratic rights, The majority of the Juventud Comunista have come out in favor of Mao Tse-tungism, breaking with the central’committee.. The main leader of this grouping is Tauro Lamas, The regional committee in Lima has also expressed its opposition to the CP leadership,
The extreme left, despite the unifying efforts of ‘the FIR (Frente de Izquierda Revolucionario], remains atomized. Its characteristic feature is blind opposition: to the government and lack of correct tactics in relation. to Belaundism, The central force here is the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria],
The Mass Movement
The most important aspect of the present stage of the Peruvian revolution is the mobilization of millions of campesinos [peasants] behind the slogan "Tierra o Muerte" [Land or Death], which expresses their hunger for land. This process, which began with the occupation of areas in the Cuzco zone, has spread throughout the country. Still more, it has divided all political organizations into two camps: on the one side, those who are unconditionally in favor of occupying the tand, and, on the other, those who are against it. The mobilization of the campesinos, coming up against the regime of private property, has given full vigor to the class struggle, bringing it to an unprecedented level in the social history of Peru. The peasantry has been overcoming, during recent years, its characteristic limitations: the isolation and local nature of its struggles, Through peasant unions and the organization of powerful centers, hundreds of thous- | ands of peasants have been brought together under a revolutionary leadership that has an overxall grasp of the problems ofthe agrarian revolution,
Its fusion with a revolutionary Marxist leadership’in a strong peasant sector -= Cuzco, Apurimac, Ayacucho == has overcome
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its historic limitations, placing it on a national level,
In the cities, the problem is'complex, The proletariat is divided into two trade-union federations, the CTP [Confederacion de Traba jadores: Peruanos] and: the CTP Reorganizada [reorganized], «This division is the reflection,.in the superstructure, of fissures exist~ ing in. the enemy camp, becoming expressed in the working class through the struggle. of the bureaucratic tendencies, one led by the Communist party, the other by the APRA. In the political field the consequence of this is that. one supports the oligarchy, the other the Belatinde government, The working class has not yet recovered from the disastrous defeats inflicted in recent: years, This does not mean, that the working class has been beaten, At present it is carrying. on hard battles in defense of its standard of living and a growing sec~ tor of the vanguard is struggling to overcome the present situation and bring about a centralized leadership... With regard to its rela-« tions. with, the peasantry, we.can testify that the links are weak, Sympathy. for the peasantry has been demonstrated by moral, support through verbal declarations.that have not’ led: to direct action, The position of the miners is different, above. all_in the center of the. country; on many..occasions they have given material support to: the peasant movement with ‘Strikes. and work ‘stoppages.
- The basis of the AP-DC combination is a. ‘big. sector of the middle class, The municipal elections revealed a shift in. the vote from the Unidén Nacional Odriista and the APRA to Accién Popular, This process was most apparent in Lima where Bolaundism defeated a . combination. of the two parties, The municipal elections showed | that Bolaundism had grown in the cities at the expense of the APRA. and UNO, the pro-oligarchical parties. But it is Significant, too, that in some departments, including Lima, there was a rise in blank ballots which in this instance signifies repudiation of the. electoral: road, The student sector continues to display its radical characteristics and as in previous years the left continues to retain leadership, ;
The poorest sectors of the middle class, those Living. in the -* barriadas-Lslum areas in the outskirts] <- displaced peasants in most cities or, in Lima, from the provinces -- constitute a quite contradictory. layer, On.the one hand this is fertile soil for all the demagogues, who have exploited their misery, and on the other .. hand they are militant participants in demonstrations organized to. protest the-massacre of peasants. They are mostly small artisans, peddlers, construction workers, unskilled laborers,.domcestic: ser~ vants and declassed persons, in recent times they.,have. undertaken significant mobilizations to take over. land in. suburban areas for .. their homes and, most important, like the peasants they have adopted the slogan of "tiorra fe) Muerte, With all their contradictions, : they are the vonguord in the struggle for the Urban Reform in tho cities,
Present Characteristics of the Class Struggle
There is no mistaking the line demarcating the two camps in the struggle. -Peru at present is politically divided into two seotors «~ .the legalistic and the revolutionary, The oligarchy talks about legality insofar as it serves its interests, The government is upholding the law, but within limits -- specified by the oli~ garchy «= which in the final analysis serve its interests, :
The oligarchy favors the law whenever it can utilize it to maintain its rule and its monopoly over the country's main .economic resources, Taking advantage of the juridical set up, which favors it in every way, it presses the government constantly in its schemes to take an energetic attitude toward the mass movement. The government, aware that unless it can succeed in bringing the masses in the near future to use only legal means, it will be swept aside by the oligarchy through a coup dtétat, is carrying out its policy, massacring peasants, But the landholders are not sure that the government. will succeed in repressing and smashing the. peasant movement and so. they are organizing armed groups to fight the peasantry, strengthening repressive bodies -- assault guards, special police and civil guards -- and training for a general showdown, The rise of dual power in these conditions angers the oligarchy and the result is increasingly brutal repression of the peasantry. The government, weighing these contradictions, continues in its race with time, hoping that the peasantry, tiring of suffering such slaughter and prison sentences, will accept the legal road no matter what it leads to, All the latest occupations of land, ending in brutal massacres, show that this kind of action has reached the end of the peaceful road and that in the future the occupation of land will have to. be closely combined with armed struggle. We can sum up by sings ing out the following aspects: ve
(a) In the cities, ‘the class struggle has two fundamental aspects, The working class is continuing on the reformist road and has not overcome the crisis of leadership, But it is interesting to note that it easily passes beyond these limits, isolated actions going so far as occupation of the plants. <A sector of the population opens. a struggle to take over urban land. In mobilizing, it runs. up against private property and overflows the limits of bour= geois legalism, The government still has room economically to maneuver, enabling it to satisfy some of the demands of the working class, but it counts mainly on keeping the workers divided, Confrontations between sectors in the city and the police forces of the regime have mounted to the fever point but not gone beyond, These landless, homeless people, although they engage in revolution-— ary actions, have not yet reached revolutionary consciousness, But | they do not conceal their sympathy for the peasantry from whom they. : picked up their central slogan, The struggle over ownership of the land in the cities points to the rise in fact of dual power, [In |. occupying the land of others, the people challenge the authorities disregarding judicial procedures, in this way bringing the authority
of _the bourgeois regime into question jupidically,
(b) ‘The highest pitch of the class struggle has been peached | in the countryside, The organization of the peasants in unions and the subsequent occupation of the land brought dual power into being in many places, This is exercised through the unions and peasant communities, It is characterized by the displacement of the government authorities and the designation by the peasants of their own authorities, division of the land and..the planning of irrigation pro =— jects, . building of schools and medical posts. The growth and exten- : sion of this power is limited by the armed action of the repressive. organs and the armed bodies of the landholders, The disorganized . action of the peasantry with regard to the armed struggle places in danger the security of the revolutionary power ,and threatens its early disappearance,
(c). The peasantry is inclined to inet. the government! s- organs. of repression and the landholding oligarchy on the field of armed struggle, This has been demonstrated at Cuzco, Junin, Pasco, Huan~ cavelica, Ayacucho, etc, All the attempts to take back the occupied lands have been resisted heroically but have ended in massacres of the peasants. The recent experience-at San Pedro was quite instructive. The revolutionary determination of 8, 000 peasants, armed with old shotguns and slings, could not defeat a ‘detachment of 25 ‘police-. men, New methods of struggle are required, Stage of the Process in Peru and Our Tasks
. We believe that in Peru the prerevolutionary stage has been passed and that we are now in a revolutionary one. This stage has contradictory characteristics and bears within it all the special peculiarities belonging to the social, geographic and political. conditions of our country. Fundamentally our revolutionary process bears the seal of our immense agrarian population and the :nassive mobilization of the campesinos under the slogans of the agrarian revolution, The bourgeois-democratic revolution is in full development and we run the danger that successive defeats of the peasantry and an ultimate sag and consequent displacement of the present revo-~ lutionary leadership of the peasantry can place the peasant movement in the hands of the national bourgeoisie or open it to being smashed by. the oligarchy,
‘The masses, in a still unconscious way, have understood that the advance of the agrarian revolution cannot continue except through armed struggle. They have learned this at the expense of hundreds of deaths, This holds now above all in view of the fact that the bourgeoisie and the oligarchy, with different tactics, are carrying out a systematic policy of repressing the peasantry.
It is: up to our organization, the Frente de Izquierda Revolucionario, to open the road and.work out tactics that will enable the Peruvian revolution to develop. This cannot occur except by
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organizing the armed struggle, Any victory, no matter how small, along these lines will strengthen the movement as a whole and riultiply the forces of the peasantry a hundredfold. While it is true that our organization is not a huge one with many cadres and militants, it includes the best leaders _of the’ national . peasantry and has ‘the sympathy of the biggest part ofthe vanguard peasant sectors; and we are also at the head of the most powerful peasant organizations of | the country, embracing hundreds of thousands of peasants, If we believe that the rise of dual power is one of the fundamental characteristics defining the present stage of the agrarian revolution, just as does the armed struggle between campesinos and repressive bodies of the landholders, we must be consistent and conclude that in the present stage the main task of the party is to organize and. lead the armed struggle. It is through this that we will succeed in building a mass structure for our party and bring the process of the Peruvian revolution to its culmination, Our FIR, no matter how © small it may be, must strengthen itself in the present conditions of the class struggle. We must express what the masses want, systematize their wishes, give them form and in.the end put the party in leadership, Today the peasant movement wants to fight and we, unless we want to miss the boat, must teach: them how to fight and organize them for combat, learning how to combine their ways. of fighting with new methods, We must review the peasantry'!s methods. 6f struggle, based fundamentally on guerrilla warfare, and utilize without any prejudice any -tactics that can help win against. the ; enemy. The outline, moreover, is known: Process of peasant union ization, occupation of the land, rise of dual power, police repres-~ sion. Only through armed struggle can the process of the revolution overcome this vicious cycle, Only through armed struggle can we end the atomization of the dual power and succeed in centralizing it, strengthening and extending it.. Whether. the revolution will triumph in Peru or be channeled into legal limits and defeated hinges on our organizing the armed struggle in time, expressing the aspirations of mi liions: of campesinos, . Other Tasks | Cora a
“We have indicated that within the present conditions of the class struggle in Peru not all the exploited social sectors have reached the same level of revolutionary consciousness. This means that there is a gap in the evolution of the revolutionary conscious= ness of the masses in the citics and the countryside, In relation to this phenomenon, without losing sight of the fact that in the countryside we are doaling with the fate of our revolution, we must have a policy that will accelerate the experience of the masses with formal ‘bourgeois democracy. Our tactic must be constant demands on the United Front of Belaundism to dissolve-parliament and convoke a constituent assembly. The pretext Belaundism uses to do nothing is that a majority opposition in parliament keeps their hands ticd, By indicating a way to untie them, we expose them before their own ranks and, at the same time, expose the fraud of representative bourgeois democracy, We must insist on this aspect in our news papor and
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try to concretize this line, above all in departments and zones distant from Lima, where poverty-stricken followers of Belatinde are under the tremendous pressure of the peasant mobilization, This likewise is in complete conformity with appealing to the land hunger) of. the inhabitants of the barriadas and their mobilization in combination with the peasant struggles, ,
In the workers movement we must press for the organization of a revolutionary trade-union tendency to -etruggle for unity among:.all. the workers and for a Single Set of Demands to meet. the high cost .of living. Among the mine workers our policy must center in strengthen-~ ing their ties with the peasantry and, taking the example.of the workers and peasants in the central area, extend the pacts for. unity in action to all of Peru, The armed struggle in the countryside, the unity of the labor movement, agitation and demands’.on. the United Front of Belaundisn, concretely to dissolve parliament and call for a constituent assembly to deal with the agrarian reform, .nationali-~ _ zation of the oil industry, and voting rights for the peasants -these, we believe, are the fundamental tasks of the FIR. In addi- ~~ tion, we must continually call for a. revolutionary United Front with the tendencies of the left such as the Juventud Comunista, the MIR and: others for the constitution of the PURP [Partido Unico de la. Revolucién Peruana -=- Single Party of the Peruvian Revolution].
Perspeotives
Sumning up what has been indicated above, we ‘believe that the achievement of the objectives of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. and its transformation into a socialist revolution depends on accom plishing the following objectives:
(2) Centralization, extension and strengthening of the dual power that has arisen in the countryside, by means of armed struggle. The present level reached by the class struggle in the countryside faces us with the alternative of expressing the sentiments of millions of campesinos and organizing the armed struggle, or in a short period, as a result of constant defeats, the peasant movement will recede and:be captured by reformist leaders who will deliver it to the bourgeoisie, Despite our weakness, we have a favorable térrain and population to carry forward this task, In addition we have a peasant. vanguard ready to fight and the backing of mass organizations representing hundreds of thousands of campesinos, Actions are re~' quired, carried forward by recognized mass. leaders with mass support, expressing, above all, their desire to fight which they have shown ~ at every opportunity.
(2) Struggle for the unity of the workers movement in a single trade-union federation. A national congress attended by all trade-union tendencies, A single set of demands, Intensive propagandistic work in behalf of uniting’ workers and peasants, Advocacy and extension of worker-campesino pacts for common action,
- (3) Agitation for urban reform, Occupation of: urban lands for the homeless, Creation of groups: for self-defense in struggling against the forces of repression sent to oust them. The slogan of "Land or Death," used by the inhabitants of the slums must be extended - “among the people in all cities of Peru where slums exist, Ooscu-« pation of the urban lands owned by. churches and. monasteries, federal or municipal governments and the big real-estate companies, Continu~ ally explain the common interest city people have in the agrarian revolution, (To carry out these objectives, a fundamental require~ ment is the regular appearance of our ‘newspaper, whether legally or illegally, and the distribution of leaflets. ana’ folders, We must not forget that the principal organizer of our party in the cities . is our newspaper. ) 7
(4) Agitation for the slogan. of a constituent assembly, De-= — mands levelled on Belaundism around a concrete point: dissolution of congress in order .to elect a constituent assembly to put into effect: agrarian reform, nationalization of the oil industry, voting rights for the peasa ntry, urban reform (expropriation of the big realestate companies, of lands belonging to the church, and urban land ) and commercial and diplomatic: relations with all countries in the world, etc, Pass resolutions by the peasant federations and tradeunion organizations demanding the dissolution of parliament and establishment of a constituent assembly,
(5) Constant appeals for the unity of the whole Revélutionary Left and the constitution of the Partido Unico de la Revolucioén eruang.. see
“Our activity in the countryside will be bound up “intimately with intensive organization of district, provincial and departmental congresses. of campesinos in which we will clearly explain our objectives,
ITALIAN, COMMUNIST