Venezuela: what has really happened and what may lie ahead (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Venezuela has once again been making headlines around the world. Explosions, military movements, international pressure, mutual accusations and a great deal of confusion. To understand what has happened so far, it is necessary to look beyond the propaganda, both from the Venezuelan government and the US, and from those who defend one gang or the other.

It’s nothing to do with democracy or freedom

The first thing that needs to be made clear is this: the US is not acting out of a desire to defend the Venezuelan people, nor out of love for democracy or human rights. We have seen this many times before in other countries. When a major power intervenes, directly or indirectly, it does so to defend its own economic and strategic interests.

Talk of fighting drug trafficking or restoring democracy serves to justify actions that, at heart, are about political control, natural resources and regional power.

Nor is it about defending ‘sovereignty’

On the other hand, the Venezuelan government and its allies present what has happened as an imperialist attack on national sovereignty. But here is another uncomfortable truth: the Venezuelan state does not represent the interests of the majority of the working class.

For years, millions of people have suffered from inflation, low wages, forced emigration, deteriorating services and repression. All this happened without direct foreign intervention, under a government that claimed to rule on behalf of the people.

Will there be any real change?

There is much talk of ‘regime change’, but in reality what is happening is, at most, a change of administrators within the same system.

As long as there is:

• wage labour,
• production for the market,
• social inequality,
• a state that protects the property and power of a minority,

the lives of the majority will not fundamentally change. Changing a president or a ruling group does not change the system that produces poverty and insecurity.

Will there be more attacks or more pressure?

No one can predict exactly what will happen, but there is a clear logic: as long as Venezuela remains a strategic country because of its oil and geographical position, the pressure will continue, whether military, economic or diplomatic.

This does not depend on whether a government is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but on how states function in a capitalist world in constant competition.

The role of China and other powers

Some believe that China or Russia are a fairer alternative to the United States. But these powers do not act out of solidarity, but out of their own interests. China invests, lends money and negotiates to secure access to resources, economic benefits and international influence.

It is not a struggle between good and evil, but a dispute between great powers, where the workers get caught in the middle.

Internal betrayal?

There is much talk of betrayal, but such language tends to confuse more than it clarifies.

High-ranking officials, the generals and politicians do not betray the people, because they have never governed on their behalf, but rather in accordance with their own interests and privileges. When they switch sides or negotiate, they do so to protect their position, not to improve the lives of the majority.

Who loses out in all this?

The answer is clear: the working class in Venezuela, as well as in the United States and other countries.

Workers do not decide on wars, they do not benefit from sanctions, they do not control resources, and they always pay the price with more insecurity and less of a future.

An uncomfortable but necessary conclusion

What is happening in Venezuela will not be resolved by choosing between Maduro or the US, nor between Washington or Beijing. They all operate within the same system, a system that puts profit and power above human needs. As long as that system remains intact, crises will repeat themselves, with different names and different countries, but with the same losers.

The real solution will not come from leaders, armies or foreign powers, but from the conscious organisation of ordinary people, here and around the world, to build a society where production and wealth are at the service of all and not just a few.

SOCIALISTA MUNDIAL

(Translated from a contribution to a discussion on our Spanish-language Facebook page)

Cuban Background (1961)

From the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

To anyone who follows the Latin American scene, so many aspects of Cuban politics seem familiar that there is a danger of failing to see just what distinguishes the Cuban question from the traditional turmoil in that part of the world.

When Spain’s colonies in the New World fought for independence a hundred and fifty years ago, their main source of inspiration was revolutionary France and the young United States. However, in one fundamentally important respect they fell short of the requirements of real social change; a unified and coherent class demanding the overthrow of the outmoded system on the strength of its mastery of the new productive and social forces.

As the present situation in the Congo shows, not all independence movements are the expression of a powerful embryo bourgeoisie, ready to effectively take the place of the former Imperialists on the backs of the local working-class and peasantry. The ousting of Spain from the Americas was due more to the weakness of Spain than to the strength of its colonies. The social vacuum, the rapid collapse into anarchy could not, in those days, become the concern of a United Nations Organisation acting as a broker and a policeman of international capital. The high-flown language of the constitutions drawn up by the South American disciples of Washington, Jefferson and even Tom Paine was not matched by the level of economic and class development in their respective regions. From Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, the whole continent was to relapse into a state of autocracy where power rested with decadent, constantly feuding landowning interests.

At the turn of this century, the needs of European Industrialism led to the “Scramble for Africa”. Perhaps less spectacularly, and certainly without the formal annexation of territory as was the case in Africa, a similar process began in the Americas. The outcome of this process has, to a remarkable degree, run parallel to Afro-Asian developments. Britain, France, the USA and then Italy, Germany and Japan have, over the years, poured capital in and drained profits out. Vast rail networks were established. Soon hides and grain, meat and coffee, sugar and bananas, were flowing onto the world market.

The precious metals that had provided the funds for Spain’s “siglo de oro”, its century of supreme power and culture, were no longer of prime importance. Not silver from the mines of Potosí, but tin from neighbouring parts of Bolivia, was to become the source of immense wealth for the mighty foreign Corporations who were equally busy in their exploitation of copper and nitrates from Chile, petroleum from Venezuela, quebracho from Paraguay, and so on. Countries, most of them larger than any in Europe, were to become utterly dependent upon a single crop; here coffee, there bananas or sugar.

Guatemala, which in its time played the rôle of David to the American Goliath, is known as a banana republic. In Cuba, on whom the mantle has fallen, it is sugar that dominates. True, tobacco from these parts is justly famous throughout the world. In view of Cuba’s increasingly intimate relationship with the Russian Capitalist bloc we may yet witness the paradox of the Havana cigar as a status symbol of the Russian ruling class. We shall see bloated Commissars yet! Nevertheless, it is sugar that is Cuba’s economic life. As goes sugar so goes Cuba—boom or slump; it is the basis of its foreign trade which in this context means, overwhelmingly, trade with the USA. Fidel Castro now challenges the status quo.

As a “middle-class” Robin Hood, Fidel readily appealed to an American public weaned on the exploits of Davy Crocket. At the point where it became evident that in serving the needs of aspiring Cuban Capitalism the existing order of things would be upset, Castro fell from his pedestal. He was unmasked as the harbinger of “Communism” (read, Russian influence) in the Western Hemisphere. The bearded warrior of the mountains was romantic no longer.

The modern history of Cuba could be written around its relations with the United States. Of all the former Spanish colonies it was the last to break from the grip of the old country. It did so only to find itself a virtual colony of its erstwhile ally; to such an extent that there was an American governor at first, and US troops were not withdrawn from the island until eleven years after the signing of the peace treaty with Spain in 1898. US marines returned “to restore law and order” in 1920. The United States census of 1947 revealed that their industrial investments alone were only slightly less in Cuba than in Brazil; $64,000,000 as against $65,000,000 (Germán Arciniegas, The State of Latin America, p. 302). This figure later increased.

Trade Unions

Through this century, Cuban government has been a succession of “strongmen,” as Time magazine likes to call them, who have depended upon American patronage. Fractional alterations in US sugar tariffs in line with the protectionist demands of Hawaii or Porto Rico have had overnight repercussions on the Cuban economy. Laws passed by the US Senate actually reducing Cuba’s sugar quota, as in 1951, when the quota was varied in favour of Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Peru and Porto Rico could mean and often did lead to gross economic instability. In working-class terms this means unemployment, destitution.

Out of bitter experience there grew in the 1930’s a significant labour movement. In a limited sphere, in the cigarette and cigar factories and the Havana docks, Spanish immigrants of the Anarcho-Syndicalist school had introduced the principles of trade-unionism at the turn of the century. In more recent times a far wider range of trades has become involved although at the price of Stalinist influence out-weighing that of the old Anarcho-Syndicalists who, for all their faults, did not compromise their class interests with the state requirements of a world power as do the so-called Communists. In fact, the Communists’ record in Cuba puts them in a rather curious position in relation to the current “togetherness” of their home and “mother” countries.

Batista, murderous and corrupt, Farouk to Castro’s Nasser, had been given Communist support in his early years of power (M. Poblete,  El movimiento obrero latinoamericano, p. 196). It was he who gave the Party legal recognition. Batista came to power first in October, 1940. In December of that year the second congress of the Communist-slanted Workers Federation of Cuba, T.U.C. of sorts, drew up a statement with which a Socialist could scarcely disagree.

“Cuban workers …. resolve to struggle against the Imperialist war, to expose its Imperialist character and the war-aims of both belligerents and to develop a nation-wide movement to ensure that our country keeps out of this criminal conflict“.

When “you know what” happened, new instructions were given out. The first resolution to be carried at the third: congress of the C.T.C. went as follows:

“The supreme task of the labour movement at the present time is to concentrate all its efforts and to use all its might towards the defeat of the Axis. Workers organised under the C.T.C. are willing to collaborate with all those in favour or national unity, that is to say, willing to subordinate any grievances that may arise within the country in their over-riding interest in destroying the foreign enemy. For the duration of the war, Cuban workers wish to avoid strikes and disputes likely to interfere with production.”

The congress called upon working-class youth to volunteer for service at the war-front.

C.P. just in time

Communist support for Castro’s guerrilla struggle came late but, like Russia’s entry into the war against Japan, in time. At this stage, however, it would be a mistake to regard Castro as a Caribbean Kadar, a mere puppet of the Eastern bloc. Like many a Nationalist before him he is attempting to play off one great power against another in the hope that advantages will accrue to the would-be elite he represents. It is the universal demand of the Latin American bourgeoisie to free their respective national economies from the preponderance of Anglo-American capital.

As early as 1926, in a polemic with Lozowsky, chief of the Profintern, Haya de la Torre, of Peru, pioneer student of the development processes of backward countries within the Imperialist orbit, denied the accusation by the Communists that he favoured unconditional support of Japan in the event of a war between that country and the U.S.A. Nevertheless, he considered it would be a valuable opportunity to take advantage of their rivalry (Haya de la Torre, El antimperialismo y el APRA, p. 101). A mightier rival appears on the scene and, one by one, the Latin American rulers see how to use their bargaining position to diversify their means of production and to intensify or quite often to initiate industrial development. Back in Havana from Prague just recently, a Castro man announced he had secured promises to establish thirty new industries by East European concerns. Of course, for a small power to attempt playing off the great powers involves considerable risks. It is sometimes swallowed up in the process.

The overthrow of the Batista clique with its record of gangsterism in the Chicago tradition, has been followed by a vigorous and forward-looking regime under a new dictator; what in Spanish is wryly called a “dictablanda” rather than a “dictadura”, a mild dictatorship whose authority is used towards social reorganisation rather than to feather the generalissimo’s private nest. Be that as it may, the massive programme of nationalising most Western owned utilities, agrarian reform meaning the breakup and redistribution amongst the rural population of the great estates (a retrograde step from the long term point of view), the attack upon widespread illiteracy add up to a really serious attempt on the part of Cuba to enter the Capitalist arena on a more equal footing.

“In Europe, Imperialism is the culmination of a series of developments within Capitalism and is characterised by the export of capital and the capturing of markets and sources of raw materials in the economically backward countries. However, what in Europe is (according to Haya de la Torre whom we are quoting) ‘the last phase of Capitalism’ is in Latin America the first. For us Indo-Americans, imported capital marks our first step in modern capitalist society” (Haya de la Torre, El antimperialismo y el APRA, p. 51).

Pending a dramatic awakening of working-class consciousness within the metropolitan powers, the repetition elsewhere of our own bitter experience seems inevitable, though tragically so. But this much, at least, we can say: that the Socialist, on the strength of his Marxian analysis, cannot be deluded into believing that this latter-day development of Capitalism, the most inhuman of all social systems, whether of the state-owned variety or not, is the first stage of our revolution; the beginnings of a society built democratically by a conscious, international working-class to serve human needs on the basis of common ownership of the means of living— Socialism. Would that it were!

Eddie Grant

From America: The Panama Canal and the right of free access (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the hottest pieces for conversation in America these days is the Carter Administration’s treaty with Panama, scheduled for a pomp-and-ceremonial signing on Wednesday, Sept. 7, in Washington, with a glittering crowd of little Latin-American dictators and other dignitaries in attendance. Ownership of the Panama Canal is to be transferred to the Panamanian Government, effective as of 1999, albeit with continuing US rights in the area of military defense. As of this writing, opinion polls indicate that a sizeable majority of the US population opposes the deal and that, in the end, the US Senate will refuse to ratify. The Government is mounting an all-out propaganda blitz to win over popular sentiment and save the Treaty.

In a nutshell, the positions are: Pro: in the final analysis, it is free access and not ownership that is important. Panamanians in particular, and Latin Americans, in general, are said to feel that 75 years of US ownership of a waterway in their area is enough. Good public relations between US and the latinos demand the transfer. Con: “We” (the us Government) built the Canal and paid for it. It makes no sense to give it away to a tinhorn dictatorship. Surely American military muscle can easily handle the hostile guerrilla action by anti-Yanqui latinos, but to surrender it to Panama would be to invite trouble from the Communist world — particularly Soviet Russia — which might seize control.

There is much meat here for socialists to chew on. But first it may be helpful to have a look at some bare facts concerning the history of the Canal, facts which are easily verified in the history books. To begin with, the “sovereign” nation of Panama came into being just 75 years ago as the fruit of a conspiracy involving a French capitalist consortium, the Government of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Panamanian revolutionists who sought independence from Columbia of which the Isthmus of Panama was a part.

The French capitalist group had recently abandoned its attempt at building a canal across the Isthmus after sinking some $260 million. A major, insurmountable, obstacle for them was malaria-bearing mosquitoes that devastated the work force. Roosevelt's government now commenced negotiations with the Columbian Government to pick up the rights from the French after agreeing to pay some $40 million for their franchise and unfinished work. But the Columbian Parliament stalled, attempting to raise their ante, and the US Congress hemmed and hawed. Then, enter the conspirators, and a Gilbert & Sullivan-type production ensued.

The group of Panamanian rebel-nationalists was set in motion on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus and the flag of independence was raised. At the same time, three US warships showed up at Colon and Marines were landed to “restore order”. The entire Columbian military force on the Pacific side was bought off, privates receiving $50 a head and officers more, and the revolution was over — bloodless save for the accidental killing of a Chinaman. The news reached Washington at 11.30 in the morning of Nov. 6, 1903, and the Republic of Panama was recognised before one o’ clock of the same day.

There is much more, of course, to this fascinating tale of intrigue in high circles but the foregoing are, at least, among the more salient facts. American capitalism licked the malaria problem by draining the swamps that provided the breeding ground for the mosquitoes. In other words, rather than waste time swatting the critters or spraying them with the 1903 equivalent of Flit, the US got down to bed-rock — the source — and corrected it, a tactic we can hardly expect capitalism to pursue in its perpetual confrontation with problems such as poverty-in-the-midst-of-porential- abundance; war; discrimination, etc.

Now, what should we make of all this noise about the Canal, today? Does it really matter either to Panamanian or American workers which nation possesses the deed of ownership? President Carter tells us, soberly, that it is not ownership but free access that is really important. Aside from our feeling that this move is an attempt by US capitalism to get further out of the more overt type of colonialism, we can only wish that the majority would apply such reasoning to all of wealth-producing property. The reason that the Treaty is of no import either to American or Panamanian workers is that ownership and free access, under capitalism, is generally confined to the capitalist class, even in cases of government-owned and government-operated industry.

But in the face of this truth there is something strange, even weird, about capitalism. Whether or not the Panama Canal will actually become the property of the Panamanian capitalist class depends on how successful the political leaders are in selling a bill of goods to American and Panamanian workers in order to provide the necessary pressures on the politicians to pass and to ratify the legislation.

Socialists maintain, then, that there are three rather than two positions on the Panama Canal Treaty: (1) Agreement; (2) opposition; (3) a simple working-class declaration: It is not our property so don’t bother us. But think carefully about that point made by President Carter on ownership vs. free access. And apply it to the world situation. The answer is inescapable: World Socialism will mean the end of ownership in the sense of class ownership. And common ownership can only spell free access to all that is in and on the earth, even the Panama Canal, by all mankind.

Harry Morrison, 

WSP, Boston. 

Rise of American Civilisation, Beard 

A New American History, Woodward

Chile during and after Salvador Allende (2023)

From the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

September 11 marks 50 years since the violent death of the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in 1973, and the overthrowing of his government by a military coup backed by the CIA, establishing a brutal dictatorship presided over by General Augusto Pinochet. This caused the death of thousands of Chilean workers, students, union leaders, political activists, and many were incarcerated, ‘disappeared’, and tortured via electric shock, sexual abuse, beating and waterboarding.

The election and death of President Allende took place in the middle of the Cold War and the struggles for world hegemony between the USA and the Soviet Union and the influence of Cuba in Latin America. Chile was hemmed in by several conservative and military dictatorships in the region backed by the USA government who also protected the economic interest of the US capitalist class, along with the internal ruling class. There was also a huge economic crisis facing Chilean capitalism.

The objective of the US government was to avoid another enclave like Cuba on its own backyard since Cuba had a heavy political influence in Latin America, and the Cuban government had diplomatic, commercial, and military relations with the Soviet Union, and was backing guerrillas in several Latin American countries.

The government of Chile called itself socialist in the same way that the Cuban government called itself socialist or Marxist-Leninist, and Fidel Castro was a close ally of the Chilean government. Moreover, Castro himself visited Chile in 1970 in the middle of the social upheaval caused by miners’ strikes.

The government of Chile proclaimed the so-called ‘Chilean path to socialism’, as Cuba also had proclaimed the Cuban road to socialism. The reality is that neither one of them were establishing a socialist society, but state capitalism as in the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. The basic principles of a capitalist society were retained, including wage slavery, production for profits and the domination of a state apparatus over the working class.

Allende was elected in 1970 with the support of a coalition of leftist political parties known as the Popular Unity, obtaining one third of the votes with a narrow margin of 36.2 percent over Jorge Alessandri, the former president of Chile who obtained 34.9 percent, and the Christian Social Democrats who got 27.8 percent. As such, Allende was not elected by a majority of votes but, according to the Chilean constitution of the time, if no presidential candidate obtained a majority of the popular vote, Congress would choose one of the two candidates with the highest number of votes as the winner, and the decision was effectively made by the Christian Social Democrats which approved his nomination as president of Chile.

Social reforms

The government of Allende, immediately after his nomination as President, initiated various social-democratic reforms for the Chilean working class, and the nationalization of large industries such as copper, iron, coal, cement and large extensions of land, the creation of a health and medical program, a food program, and education for the poor. All those reforms were described as the Chilean path to socialism, but in reality, they were reforms made for and within the context of a capitalist society, and they would not have turned Chile into a socialist society run in the name of the workers. Instead, the economic reforms would have established a state-capitalist system of production administered by the state, the same process that took place in Cuba in 1960.

They established diplomatic and commercial relations with countries on which the US had placed embargos and commercial blockades, such as Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, and several African and Asian countries, and they also became a member of the Non-Aligned countries movement (Third World). They developed a relationship with the Soviet Union but their relations with the US were not of the same order as the previous conservative government who had openly aligned with the US capitalist class. The nationalization of several US corporations created further friction with them.

Strikes

From the very beginning of the Allende government, thousands of mine workers in different parts of the country went on strike for high wages and better working conditions, as their real wages had gone down due to high levels of inflation. The response of the Allende government was to send in the military and police to reprimand them and tell them to make sacrifices to produce for the so-called homeland. Fidel Castro regarded the workers as reactionaries and counter revolutionaries, demagogues, agitators and agents of US imperialism. The Left, instead of supporting the workers, supported the so-called socialist government; the Communist Party which was part of the Popular Unity also supported the actions taken by the military and the police against the workers, and the strikes continued spreading to others sectors of the working class including the transport workers.

The Popular Unity government was obliged to incorporate the military as part of the state administrative apparatus, under the name Popular Army. But the Popular Unity government was no longer able to run an economy based on state control of the means of production, and had weak support. The military duly took the opportunity to execute a bloody coup d’état, and Allende either shot himself or was assassinated.

The Pinochet dictatorship

The subsequent conservative government of Augusto Pinochet (which the leftists often call fascist) lasted for a period of 16 years, and all reforms implemented during the government of Allende were reversed and most sectors of the economy were privatized including workers’ pensions. This is what the leftists wrongly call neo-liberalism, though the reality is probably in some ways more in line with monetarism. The reversal of all those Allende reforms is a clear indication that reforms implemented by leaders can also be reversed, they are not permanent, and sometimes those reforms are implemented in order to try to pacify the working class. There is certainly no guarantee they will succeed, as Allende’s didn’t.

Chile since Pinochet

In 1988 a plebiscite was held and the majority of the Chileans workers voted for the removal of the presidency and dictatorship of Pinochet, and a new election subsequently took place. A Christian Democrat president was elected, and several legal actions brought against Pinochet and the military. He was indicted and placed under house arrest where he died, but the military kept the power of the state and its agencies, despite the fact that various presidents, governments and Congresses from different political tendencies were elected including social democrats and leftists. None of them were able to resolve the underlying problems of the people.

The present government of Boric was elected with a coalition of ‘Communists’ and ‘Socialists’ offering many promises for workers and for women. A new constitution was put to the vote and rejected by the electorate, including the indigenous Mapuches. The government of Boric knew in advance that the new proposal was most likely going to be rejected and they arguably wanted it to be rejected because they knew that most of the constitutional clauses were not going to be implemented due to the fact that the right-wing faction controls the Congress and was not going to allow any drastic economic and political changes.

The case of Chile is a clear indication that the problems facing the working class cannot be resolved by left-wing or right-wing governments and that the problems are not the leaders, political parties, fascism, neoliberalism, or other political tendencies, or the exact implementation of reforms – the real underlying problem, whatever the regime, is capitalism.

MF.

Latin America: poverty and pollution (1993)

From the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Latin America has provided many of the striking images of ecological devastation which have fuelled debate on the environment in recent years. Few have been left unmoved by the relentless deforestation of the Amazon Basin or the mercury-polluted moonscapes left by gold prospectors still searching for the mythical Eldorado.

Reactions to the crisis vary. Some view the problems as intractable; the result of overpopulation and a flawed human nature. They retreat into defeatism—mouthing prophesies of the eco-Apocalypse as they go. Others retain their faith in the tired arguments of the reformists; there’s no environmental problem that couldn't be solved with a few more laws, a change of leader, some nature reserves and a little more charity. Socialists, however, reject both reformism and defeatism, recognizing that the roots of environmental destruction lie in the capitalist system and its uncontrollable production for profit, a system incapable of incorporating the rational and democratic decision-making process which will be necessary to ensure an ecologically- sustainable future.

How then has capitalism developed in Latin America, and what have been the consequences for the environment?

Precious metals

Following colonization by European powers in the 15th and 16th centuries Central and South America and the Caribbean were forcibly subjected to the priorities and demands of the fledgling capitalist world market. The new social system imposed on the Americas gradually swept away the technologies, agricultural techniques and cultures of centuries and replaced them with an economic system geared solely to capital accumulation for the few based on the exploitation of the many.

Greed for precious metals led the colonists all over Central and South America. The resultant human misery and environmental degradation was catastrophic. Open-cast mining left wastelands from Mexico to Bolivia, and the timber extracted for mineshafts accelerated deforestation. As the richest seams were exhausted the colonists used mercury from the Peruvian Andes to separate metals from the crushed ore of poorer seams. The waste was just dumped, and poisoned workers and polluted ecosystems bore witness to the new exploitative social system which saw no need to worry about environmental conditions.

The introduction of sugar-cane plantations early in the 16th century, first in the Caribbean and later on the mainland provided the basis for the exploitation of further wealth. However, owing to the genocidal effect of colonization on the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas the ruling class needed a further source of labour.

The African slave trade developed and millions were transported to work on the plantations. The triangular trade routes which flourished between Europe, Africa and the Americas not only strengthened the emerging capitalist class, and left a bitter legacy of racism but led to wholesale deforestation and soil erosion in the plantation areas. The irrigation systems of the plantations also facilitated the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria.

Cash crops

The political map of the continent was reshaped by the nationalist independence movements of the 19th century as local élites freed themselves from the remaining shackles imposed on them from Europe. However, the workers and peasants remained shackled with a class society organized around their exploitation. Environmental problems escalated as new cash-crops such as coffee, bananas and cotton were introduced. By the late 19th century much of the fertile arable land had been taken over by commercial plantations. Cattle ranching and deforestation developed apace.

Those displaced by the plantations and huge estates were forced to find new land on which to grow food. They found it on steep hillsides where rain washed away the topsoil, leading to serious erosion. New land was also found as more and more forest was cleared. The monocultures, deforestation and soil erosion affected the hydrology of many parts of Latin America. Topsoil washed into lakes and rivers causing silting problems and ultimately affecting delicately balanced marine ecosystems. For example, the coastal mangrove swamps of El Salvador were reduced from 300,000 to 6,800 acres and local fish populations dwindled.

As ecologically unsustainable monocultures bled the soil dry and were plagued by pests the owners turned to fertilizers and pesticides to bolster production. Again, it was the workers and the environment who suffered the consequences. Harmful pesticides were, and still are, used with abandon. In many parts of Central America cotton workers are sprayed along with the crop, while their children bathe in and drink polluted water. Mother's milk in parts of Nicaragua reportedly carrries the world’s highest levels of DDT. On the extensive banana plantations on the Atlantic coast of Central America thousands of workers have been sterilized by pesticide poisoning.

Debt crisis

The large-scale borrowing from Western banks made by Latin American governments and private companies during the 1970s and the ensuing debt-crisis have had profound effects on worker and environment alike. With the falling prices of cash-crop and raw material exports such as coffee, bananas, tin etc and the rising prices of essential imports, e.g. machinery and oil. Latin American economies faced serious balance of payments crises. Following the advice of those in power in Western countries many Latin American governments sought to boost their own industrial base in a vain attempt to compete on more equal terms with the more highly developed capitalist economies. Huge amounts were also borrowed to fund the military forces necessary to maintain the status-quo within their borders.

The Western banks were only too keen to lend the “petro-dollars” deposited with them by the oil-producing countries as a result of the OPEC price rises in the early 1970s. The industrial developments financed by the borrowing were often totally inappropriate to local conditions, and incredibly environmentally destructive. For example, huge hydro-electric power schemes in Amazonia necessitated the damming of many rivers flooding vast forested areas occupied by indigenous groups and poor farmers. The dams affected the regional hydrology causing silting problems and the proliferation of floating weeds. Malarial parasites also spread in the artificial lakes.

The Latin American economies borrowed at floating interest rates, so that as interest rates rose in the early 1980s a debt crisis developed when they were unable to keep up with the interest payments. They were also hit by contemporaneous further falls in the prices of their essential exports, and a world slump. Fearing the consequences of large-scale defaulting to the international banking system, the World Bank and the IMF negotiated Structural Adjustment Programmes for those Latin American countries troubled by debt. All the Structural Adjustment Programmes included the slashing of public expenditure, and the boosting of cash-crop exports in order to provide governments with extra revenue for debt repayments.

The benefits to the capitalist class of the IMF and World Bank plans are clear: the stabilization of their economic system. The victims, as ever, are the propertyless majority. The slashing of public expenditure has led to redundancies, wage-cuts, less social services, and less environmental protection. Boosting cash-crop production has led to further deforestation, soil erosion and the increased use of fertilizers and pesticides.

As the region has been progressively immiserated by debt, unemployment and worsening environmental conditions thousands more have flocked to the urban squalour of Latin America’s shanty-towns. The poor sanitation, over-crowding, pollution and disease suffered there is a direct result of a social system which organizes all production around the prospects of profitability for the owning few.

What is the way out of this intolerable state of affairs? As ever reformists offer national solutions, piecemeal reforms and schemes to preserve nature in isolation from humans. What they fail to recognize is that the environmental problems faced are not new or isolated phenomena but intricately linked with the rise to dominance of world capitalism over the last 500 years. It is the uncontrollable nature and ecological unaccountability of capitalist production which must be abolished to rid Latin America and the world of environmental destruction and of working-class poverty. Socialists work to replace a divided world governed by capital with a stateless, moneyless commonwealth under the democratic control of a socialist majority.

Peter Owen

Not Peru's failure (1985)

Book Review from the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peru: Paths to Poverty by Michael Reid  (Latin American Bureau, London, 1984).

Peru’s prominence in the modern world began with a period of boom in the nineteenth century based on the export of guano. Its economy has always struggled and as early as 1879, after attempting to pay off foreign loans by printing money, it declared itself bankrupt. The pattern that gradually emerged was one in which power came increasingly to be held by a small proportion of the population with interests in sugar and mining. It was also dominated by foreign capital, particularly American, and this trend continued until General Velasco took power in 1968.

The Velasco government, a military regime, expanded the role of the state in the economy through a series of nationalisations and takeovers of foreign and oligarchic enterprises. This was done partly out of fear that the poverty of the population might lead to insurrection, but more importantly represented a transfer of economic power from one section of capitalists to another. Reid sees this as radical and contrary to "capitalist orthodoxy” but does not explain how either process would have been beneficial or detrimental to the interests of workers. In the event, the interests of private capital were rejected in favour of a state controlled economy, although there were those who criticised the government "under the banner of anti-communism” (p.54). Such propaganda merely feeds the confusion over what is essentially a conflict between state and private capitalism and it is a fault of this work that it tends to be descriptive rather than analytical.

By 1974 the Peruvian economy was suffering the effects of economic stagnation and the government responded by printing money and taking on board foreign loans. In 1975 it began cutting wages to reduce the budget deficit, restricted public investment and devalued the currency. Reid provides a clear picture of the increasing poverty of most of the population as government spending on health and education was cut but arms purchases from abroad were increased. Popular protest continued to be met with repression.

Under Fernando Beluande in 1980 there was a transfer of resources to private ownership and a series of mini-devaluations to maintain the international competitiveness of Peruvian exports. Peru continued to fund state spending by foreign loans and printing money but by 1983 the former had dried up and the country was entrenched in a deep recession. As usual, those who suffered most were the impoverished majority. The government equated strikes with the subversion of democracy and the failure of the system to satisfy human needs was covered up by blaming those who suffer its consequences the most. Within Peru the unions have become ineffectual and this pinpoints the weakness of trade unionism as a means of coming to terms with capitalism.

The book does not explain why capitalism has failed to fulfil the Peruvian people's needs or even offer a practical alternative. The main response described by Reid is Sendero Luminoso, which seeks violent insurrection and a "rejection of the capitalist money economy in favour of barter” (p. 109). It also rejects modern technology as a tool of imperialist penetration and desires a return to some "golden age” before the advent of capitalism. What is really needed is a strategy of revolutionary transformation of society. Peru has failed to generate internal sources of capital development and this has exacerbated its problems at a time of world recession. It is not Peru’s failure, however, but that of world capitalism.

Philip Bentley

World View: The world crisis spreads (1998)

From the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The dominoes are falling all around: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Japan, Russia, and now Latin America. “On Wednesday, Colombia became the first Latin American country in the region to devalue its currency following weeks of intensive pressure, sparking a slide in bond and stock markets in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina. Venezuela, whose currency has been under intense pressure for weeks, launched an immediate round of public spending cuts” (Observer, 6 September).

Venezuela is particularly vulnerable at the present time. It is one of the world’s leading oil producers; it also has vast deposits of iron ore and gold, much of which including other mineral resources have yet to be explored. Twenty years ago, when the price of oil plummeted on the international exchange, Venezuela suffered mass unemployment as well as inflation. In 1988, the price of oil went down further; and in February 1989, the government introduced austerity measures which severely cut working-class incomes. The result was mass rioting, which caused millions of dollars in property damage and the loss of 300 lives.

The 1990s, therefore, opened with Venezuela teetering on the edge of total instability. On February 2 1992, a faction of middle-rank officers tried to overthrow the government in a coup. The army, however, backed the President and soon regained control. On 27 November the same year, another coup was attempted, this time by junior officers of the air force; again it was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, many people wanted change, if only to end the cycle of corruption and instability.

In January I 994, Venezuela’s second largest bank, the Banco Latino, collapsed, and the government had to nationalise it. It had to pump in two billion dollars to cover its losses.The government began an enquiry, but the bank’s assets had been relocated overseas, and it proved almost impossible to get the money back. This caused panic among depositors, and most tried to withdraw their money without success. The effect was to undermine the economy and drain Venezuela’s already dwindling cash reserves. The Venezuelan economy has never really recovered.

What of the working class? It can only get worse for them. And they have always existed in poverty. Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is a huge city of modern high rise buildings, mixed with many building which are in desperate need of repair. But even the people who live in these dilapidated apartments are “lucky” compared with the people who reside in the ranchos ringing the city, and in the mountains around the city. They only have run-down shacks. As in most of the world, the majority of the people in Caracas are poor.

The present, and the future, is indeed grim unless the workers of Venezuela, as elsewhere, rouse themselves and organise for the replacement of the present system by a new world-wide system of production for use and the satisfaction of individual and social needs. There really is no viable alternative.

Peter E. Newell

Death (in prison) of a guerrilla (2021)

From the November 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

In September the ex-Maoist guerrilla leader Abimael Guzman died in a prison in Peru where he had been for nearly thirty years. He has been portrayed by the Peruvian and world press as one of the most criminal and brutal ‘Marxist’ leaders in the world, blamed for the death of more than 80,000 people and the destruction of private and government property

He was the founder of ‘Gonzalo Thought’ (after ‘Mao Zedong Thought’) and he created his own cult of personality, seeing himself as one of the ‘four swords’ of Marxism, after Marx, Lenin and Mao. He travelled to China in 1966 and 1967 during the Cultural Revolution and was part of a split from the Communist Party of Peru (Red Flag). Mao’s Little Red Book became his Bible. When he returned to Peru, he formed a guerrilla group called Shining Path with some of his professors and young students who came from peasant families,

The name Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) was taken from José Carlos Mariategui, a Peruvian Marxist-Leninist who had founded Peru’s first Communist Party in 1928 and who advocated a peasant/indigenous people’s ‘socialism’. His maxim was: ‘El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución’ (‘Marxism-Leninism will open the shining path to revolution’). Many political movements were inspired by his writings including the Tupamaros in Uruguay and Evo Morales’ indigenous peoples’ movement in Bolivia. Three ex-leaders of these guerrilla movements later became presidents in Latin Americas and allies of the ruling class and the corporations.

Was Guzman really a communist? Was he a Marxist? Were Mao and Lenin genuine Marxists and socialists? Are Leninism and Maoism valid socialist/communist currents? Can the crimes that were committed by Guzman and Shining Path be blamed on Marxism and socialism?

The Socialist Party and the World Socialist Movement have said for decades that Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism have never been Marxist or socialist conceptions; that, instead, they were representative of an economical current described by Engels as State Capitalism; that the concept of a violent uprising was a tactic created by Lenin and the Bolsheviks to overthrow the government of Russia, an idea borrowed from the French Blanquists. It was not a Marxist conception. Shining Path’s first action was to attack a polling station and burn it down, in defiance of Marx’s insistence on the political education of the working class, the revolutionary use of the ballot, and universal suffrage among the working class.

In Latin America Maoism was a complete failure from the first, having been adopted by several organisations that had abandoned Castroism. It sacrificed the lives of many young people who became members of the urban guerrillas and infiltrated themselves into workers’ unions, or went to the mountains or jungles of several countries in Latin America and were assassinated by the police or the armed forces, along with many peasants and members of the workers’ unions, university teachers, and young professionals.

Maoism’s failure in Latin America is a clear indication that a minority group of individuals will not liberate the working class and humanity. It suggests that Marx was correct when he wrote that only the working class can liberate itself. Maoism was a tactic, earlier criticised by Engels, of a conscious minority acting in the name of an unconscious majority. But socialism cannot be established without a class-conscious working class

Mao Zedong Thought attracted many young people in different countries in Latin America including the Caribbean islands as an ideological replacement for Castroism, but in essence it was the same adventurist programme advocated by Regis Debray who had been in Bolivia with Che Guevara. The main attraction was the concept of ‘anti-revisionism’ started by China and Albania against the ‘Khruschevites’. It claimed to be a restoration of true socialism and true Marxism, but it was just a variety of Leninism and Stalinism. Maoism was Chinese nationalism, just as Castroism was Latin American nationalism.

Latin American Maoism was basically a nationalist/patriotic movement, and all the so-called Communist parties that were created were nationalist parties of the countries where they were formed. None of them had a socialist programme; their programme was for reforms, statism and the nationalisation of natural resources.

It was mainly a movement among young people and university students. It never had any support among the industrial working class. Although many Marxist-Leninist parties sent their best cadres to work with the peasants, it never became a peasants’ movement; it was capitalist governments that provided the peasants with what they wanted – land reform, agricultural equipment and supplies. They confronted a force which was stronger than them, the forces of the capitalist state, and suffered the consequences.

When China openly opted for state-run capitalism and collaboration with Western powers and Western corporations, all these organisations collapsed and disbanded themselves. Some of their leaders were killed or deported; others later became government ministers. The USA wanted them to leave and provided visas for them to emigrate, but they were no threat to capital and to capitalist society; they were anti-imperialists, but they were not anti-capitalists.

The new government of Peru refused to bury Abimael Guzman’s body, citing so-called national security. So his body was cremated and the ashes scattered at a secret location. Maoism and Shining Path are no longer popular within any section of Peruvian society nor a threat to security. At first they had some support within the peasant class, but then the peasants were caught in the cross-fire between the Maoist guerrilla fighters and the government’s armed forces and many were killed. Maoism is a dead movement in Peru today. Most of the members of Guzman’s group became part of some gang or drug trafficking.

Many of the deaths blamed on Shining Path and Guzman were not committed by them. The police, the paramilitary and the armed forces should be blamed for most of the killings, like most of the killing committed in Colombia in the fight with the Maoist/Castroist guerrillas known as the FARC – another group which is not socialist or Marxist, as the media alleged. Being connected to and armed by Cuba does not make a group socialist. Nor were the Tupamaros in Uruguay a socialist or Marxist movement (one of their ex-leaders later became president) but were more like a Robin Hood movement, taking money from the rich to give to the poor.

Maoism in Latin America showed its terrorist and anti-working-class nature, and was a total negation of the revolutionary nature of Marxism and socialism. It was only the capitalist press and the anti-communists who labelled Guzman and those like him ‘Marxist’, just as they did with FARC.

Maoism could not have been applied in developed capitalist countries like the USA, Britain, or Germany. It was basically a theory for a peasants’ movement, similar to the Russian anti-Tsarist Narodniks who, similarly, had no support among the peasants and ended up using terrorist tactics. It could only be applied in Third World countries, but even so was a complete failure in all the economically backward countries where it attempted to take control of the nation and the state apparatus. It turned out not to be a shining path to anywhere.

Marcos

Letter: Are we anti Latin American? (2022)

Letter to the Editors from the May 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are we anti Latin American?

Dear Editors

In your last issue, reviewing ‘The Truth About Trotsky’, you state ‘In 1937 Leon Trotsky, from his exile in Central America…’. Well, he was not exiled in Central America, he was exiled in Mexico. Unless of course you did that intentionally placing Mexico outside North America, thus implying that only the two English speaking countries, USA and Canada belong to North America, therefore Mexico as a Spanish speaking should be in Central America.

The shape of the American continent, from Alaska to Cape Horn, is that of geographical giant with a thin isthmus in the middle linking North from South America. In that sense, even if it burns the writer reviewing the book on Trotsky, Mexico’s place is in the North of the continent.

This brings me to a pattern in your constant depiction of anything political and ideological pertaining Latin America. And is that of a veiled attitude of dismissal every time it is mentioned.

I find this quite offensive – Guzman in Peru ‘was not a Marxist’, ‘Allende in Chile apart from nationalizing the copper, did very little’. AMLO in Mexico, Lula in Brazil, etc, etc.

As a Chilean who came here after being in prison from 1974 to 1976, I cannot help but to think of the typical position of those pseudo Marxists who love criticizing everybody else, without ever themselves doing anything practical for Socialism.

Salvador Allende was the leader of the Popular Unity government 1970-1973 which in itself is an achievement. The first Marxist to be elected by the vote in the Western Hemisphere, he showed that Chile could be transformed. First of all, the nationalization of the banks was the first measure taken by the Popular Unity, copper the second. Many of the big industry, especially textiles, were passed over to the Social Property Area. It created the ‘comandos populares’, which encouraged the participation at the municipal/local level of the working class, the same can be said of the ‘cordones industriales’ where all the big industries surrounding Santiago had been taken or expropriated and were now ran by their workers.

The Agrarian Reform was also a total success. It nationalized the largest privately owned land measuring over 40 hectares. Thus, not only economically benefited the rural workers of the countryside who became syndicalized but also the indigenous population of Southern Chile who for centuries had been reclaiming back their land.

Allende’s government lasted only for three year, but were filled with advances and hopes for most Chileans. In the last local elections before the coup, the Popular Unity had increased their votes supporting the government but, as Kissinger said, the CIA had to push for military intervention before it was too late.

As you can see, this is not an essay or article but a rough letter pointing out that you cannot make swiping statements as you do. I’m planning to continue reading Socialist Standard because it’s worth it.

Nigel de Vere, 

Bromley

Reply:

We take your point that we should not have referred to Mexico as being in Central America. We can assure you that it was an honest mistake – based on a common practice that we should no doubt have questioned – but it was in no way an attempt to belittle any particular country or part of the world.

However, while we apologise for that, we can find no reason to apologise for references in past issues of the Socialist Standard with regard to political events and developments in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking parts of the American continents which you have found offensive. You mention Guzman in Peru, AMLO in Mexico, Lula in Brazil and, in particular, Allende in Chile, and you object to our not considering such people or movements as ‘Marxist’. You are particularly critical of the views we have expressed about Allende’s Chile. While we acknowledge and appreciate your personal opposition to the post-Allende Chilean dictatorship which led to your imprisonment and to your leaving your home country, we cannot accept that the reforms brought in by the Allende government, beneficial as they may have been for many Chileans, had anything to do with Marxism or socialism as we define those terms. They clearly had a lot to do with ‘reformism’, i.e. the attempt by ‘progressive’ governments to run the capitalist system in a more liveable, and often less oppressive, way for workers. And we do not question that this brought with it ‘advances and hopes for most Chileans’. But the kind of reforms you mention, for example nationalisation of banks and industry, in no way amount to the moneyless wageless society without buying and selling based on economic equality and free access for all to all goods and services, which is the basis of Marx’s prescription for a socialist form of society.

Of course nothing prevents those advocating or practising policies of reform from calling themselves Marxist or socialist (or others referring to them in that way, often pejoratively), but our contention is that what they represent is a particular way of running the capitalist system, not a fundamental transformation of that system, which is currently dominant in various forms in all countries. We would contend that nothing in Allende’s policies or practises (though they sadly cost him his life) represented or even pointed the way forward to the wholly democratic society of common ownership and voluntary association that is truly worthy of the name ‘Marxist’ or socialist.

Having outlined our disagreement with you on this point, we nevertheless consider it a credit to your open-mindedness that you say that you will continue to read our journal because ‘it’s worth it’. Needless to say that is something on which we do agree with you.

Editorial Committee.

Religion and Freedom? (2021)

From the October 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some expressions are on the face of it contradictory, military intelligence being one. Another possible example would be liberation theology: what can possibly be liberating about belief in a hierarchy of religious leaders and a god that influences events on earth? Nevertheless, so-called liberation theology has had a reasonable amount of influence within the Catholic church, though it has declined in popularity and influence since the 1990s. Its impact has been especially felt in Latin America, home to nearly one third of the world’s Catholics, and where the traditional church was seen by many as part of the social and political establishment. The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and other peoples was often justified in terms of missionary endeavour, even if its main aim was plunder.

Liberation theology is of course controversial within Catholicism. It has been described as ‘a social and political movement within the church that attempts to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ through the lived experiences of oppressed people’ (Kira Dault in uscatholic.org, 14 October 2014). But for another writer, it is a ‘combination of Marxist philosophy with certain biblical motifs’ and involves ‘radical revisions to every traditional Christian doctrine’ (John Frame at thegospelcoalition.org). In the words of Ernesto Cardenal, a Nicaraguan priest, ‘For me, the four Gospels are all equally Communist. I’m a Marxist who believes in God, follows Christ and is a revolutionary for the sake of His kingdom.’ Cardenal was at one time the Sandinista Minister of Culture, though he later left the movement, describing it as a dictatorship, and saying that he preferred ‘an authentic capitalism’ to ‘a false Revolution’ (Wikipedia).

Overcoming poverty is a central aspect of liberation theology, with a decent life on Earth seen as at least an alternative to freedom in the afterlife. In one formulation, it ‘advocates orthopraxis (right action) over orthodoxy (right belief)’ (philosopherkings.co.uk). Critics within the church see liberation theology as advocating people gaining salvation through their own efforts, rather than from god, which is for some reason seen as objectionable. Many liberation theology supporters regard Marxism as a set of ideas that can be partially adopted or agreed with, so they do not see Marx’s critique of religion as a problem for them.

Another criticism is as follows: ‘The missing link in liberation theology is the absence of a concrete vision of political economy. It refuses to say how safeguards for human rights, economic development and personal liberties will be instituted after the revolution’ (Michael Novak in nytimes.com, 21 October 1984). But this point can be taken much further, in that liberation theology has little concrete to say about how society should be organised at all. Wanting to do away with poverty is something that few people would disagree with, and the appeal to Marx’s ideas is at best confused and probably better described as being as much of a distortion as Leninism.

And liberation theology is indeed a contradiction in terms. Religion of all stripes teaches reliance on a supreme being of some kind, on prayer, on submission. Catholicism in particular involves the rule of the pope, oppression of women and rigid social policies. Liberation of the ninety-nine-plus percent of the earth’s population must come from their own efforts, to gain control of the planet and its resources, not from the mystification of religion and some confused supposed mix of religion and Marxism.

Paul Bennett

A Plan, A Canal, … (2006)

From the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first proposal to build a canal across some part of the Central American isthmus to link the Atlantic and Pacific dates back to 1529. The Spanish rulers saw it as a way of shortening the time taken to transport gold and other booty from their South American empire to Spain. But nothing concrete was done until the late 19th century, when a French company carried out a great deal of excavation but failed to complete the project.

Then the American government got in on the act. Unfortunately for them, the site of the unfinished canal was within Colombia, which was ruled by ‘a government of irresponsible bandits’, in the words of US President Teddy Roosevelt. But a revolt in the province of Panama, aided by a US battleship and a load of marines, soon produced a new country, with a government prepared to let the Americans in (for a price, of course). The US Army re-started work in 1904 but the canal was not completed till ten years later. It was a tremendous engineering feat, marked among other things by special attention to avoiding the malaria and yellow fever that had contributed to bringing down the French effort (it’s estimated that in all over 30,000 people died in building the 50-mile canal).

Having spent millions of dollars and established Panama as a new nation, the US rulers naturally wanted to gain maximum profit from their canal. Apart from its role in increasing American exports and shortening journey times between New York and California, tolls for using it were paid to the US operators rather than to Panama. American troops have been sent to Panama on a number of occasions (e.g. in 1925 to put down a strike and in 1958 to counter demonstrations). A 1903 treaty granted the Canal Zone to the US ‘in perpetuity’, but from the 1970s, formal control was gradually handed over to Panama, with this being complete by 1999.

The canal has, however, declined in importance to some degree. An oil pipeline across the isthmus has cut the number of oil tankers using it, but above all the new super-size ships are just too big for it. In 1982, a commission was set up, consisting of Panama and the two main users of the canal, the US and Japan, to consider improvements. One proposal was to widen the narrowest part of the canal and so increase capacity to fifty ships a day.

Nothing was done then, but there is currently a proposal to widen and deepen the canal, to be financed by the Panamanian government, provided a national referendum gives the go-ahead. The US are again exerting pressure, in none too gentle a way. ‘It’s in our nation’s interest that this canal be modernized,’ said President Bush on a recent visit to Latin America. Capitalism’s need for reliable routes to transport raw materials and manufactured products remains as pressing as it was when the Panama Canal was first built.

Paul Bennett

The Great Tin Crash (1987)

Book Review from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Great Tin Crash. Bolivia and the World Tin Market by John Crabtree, Gavan Duffy,  Jenny Pearce.  (Latin American Bureau, London, 1987)

1985 saw the collapse of the world tin market with the price of tin falling from over £8.000 a tonne to less than £4,000 in October alone. A market surplus of tin had been occurring for some years but changes in dollar and sterling exchange rates exacerbated the market collapse. The repercussions were felt in areas as wide apart as Cornwall and Bolivia, where tin miners lost their jobs.

But capitalism takes no account of the human misery it causes as this book makes clear. It quotes Eduardo Galeano as saying that:

Bolivians die with rotten lungs so that the world may consume cheap tin. Tinplate is made from tin and the tin is worth nothing: a half dozen people fix its global price.

Seventy per cent of workers in Bolivia’s state mining company, Comibol, lost their jobs and this in a country where poverty is second only to that in Haiti in the Western hemisphere. Bolivia is a country in debt. It has been estimated that as many as 50 per cent of the population may be unemployed. It is also a country unable to compete effectively — a victim of new technology, of changes in consumption patterns and of economic recession. But the authors of this book also point out that Bolivia is a victim of capitalism, a "system [which] is fundamentally wasteful of the resource which lies at its very foundation: human beings".

But the human tragedies created by poverty are not the concern of the London Metal Exchange which dominates the world metal market. It ensures that consumers are not dependent on a single producer and guarantees a single price for metal of a given type and quality, regardless of source. But the metals market has been subject to the economic recession that has affected all aspects of the world economy. Demand for tin has fallen and so only low-cost tin producers could survive. The International Tin Association attempted to maintain the price of tin by the operation of a stockpile: during periods of shortage tin was released onto the market and during periods when demand was low tin was purchased for the stockpile.

Bolivia is a high cost tin producer and its position has been worsened by competition from Brazil — a major low cost producer — and a fall in the amount of tin sold on the world market due to substitution, technological change and the use of alternative materials for packaging. In addition. Bolivia was more vulnerable because of its dependence on tin production — in 1980 tin made up about 40 per cent of Bolivia's exports — and its generally weak economy. In 1985 the inflation rate was 8,163.5 per cent. The exchange rate fell from 25 peso to the dollar in 1980 to over one million peso in September 1985. In an attempt to stabilise the economy the government froze wages (but not those for members of parliament or the military). It is little wonder that many Bolivians turned to coca cultivation where money could be made preparing cocaine paste for export to USA. The tin miners' response to the wage freeze and the removal of subsidies on food was to organise mass underground hunger strikes. The response of the management at Comibol was to be grateful to be freed from their contractual responsibility to pay wages.

Bolivia's future looks bleak. It will perhaps be able to weather the present crisis because of the informal economy — one estimate suggests that the production of coca has risen to 160.000 tonnes in 1985, enough to produce 437 tonnes of cocaine. But, as with other exports, it is the American sellers who make the profits. Nevertheless it does provide employment, with as many as one in six families engaged in coca production. Meanwhile the Bolivian miners' union. FSTMB. still argues that losses at Comibol have been exaggerated by the government and they reject "the closure of any mine without a prior technical and economic survey", a rearguard campaign not unlike that waged by the NUM in Britain over pit closures. But increasingly the role of the FSTMB has been one of negotiating compensation for redundant miners.

The precarious situation of tin miners in Bolivia is typical of workers in any industrial nation. The FSTMB has long been a thorn in the flesh of the Bolivian government and the present administration of Paz Estenssoro has been happy to see a weakening of the miners' influence. At the same time the competition for employment has turned miner against miner within Bolivia and. internationally, the insecure future of tin mining divides workers between countries.

This book claims that the failure of the rich nations to maintain stable exchange rates and to support the International Tin Council means that they must "bear the considerable responsibility for this hardship". The use of tin is undergoing a profound change and the management of that change is harsh because capitalism permits change to occur regardless of human cost.

 Under capitalism, however, not only are the benefits not shared but the very process of change itself generates losses and hardships to its victims. National agreements in the third world do not have the resources to compensate their citizens for changes in the international division of labour. The tin crash has shown the importance of sharing the costs of a crisis of this dimension equitably, with wealthy consumer nations assuming more of the burden.

Benevolent capitalism, as suggested here, is a pious hope. The authors call for "a more humane and democratic world order" and "a genuine transfer of economic power and wealth". Neither are possible without the abolition of the capitalist system which, they recognise, takes no account of the needs of human beings.

Philip Bentley

The Death of John Paul II (2005)

From the May 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

  The Pope’s funeral drew the devout from around the world and deification now seems likely. But how much of a sinner was this potential saint? John Bissett investigates the dark side of Pope John Paul II

Being brought into a discussion on the death of Karol Wojtyla, alias Pope John Paul II, with a few elderly ladies while waiting for a bus, I commented that they would be wiser contemplating the hundreds of thousands he had sent to their deaths than mourning the passing of this enemy of their class. The ladies were visibly shocked, said I was out of order and that I shouldn’t speak so irreverently of someone so holy. I tried to explain my remark, but they were having none of it.

Like countless millions in all countries, they had undoubtedly been caught up in that media-generated flood of sentiment that swept around the world when news of the Pope’s death was broadcast; ready to defend the claims made by announcers on the TV news and in the 20-page papal death exclusives the press was churning out, that a living saint had died. One hundred and fifty world leaders were going to Rome to pay their respects to one of the “greatest men” who had lived, so I was in no position to pass sacrilegious judgement. 

Days later the Pope’s funeral was reported as the biggest in history. It had attracted 70 presidents, dozens of prime ministers, the leaders of fourteen religions, nine kings and queens and countless other dignitaries. Joining this farcical parade of the infamous were 4 million devout followers of the Catholic Church who had descended on Rome from all over the world.

The very fact that 150 world leaders, the heads of the executive body of world capitalism, were keen to attend this funeral must have suggested something. Karol Wojtyla was on their side and was clearly perceived as being a man who promoted their case. Had he been a critic of the profit system, had he publicly criticised the world’s corporate elite and the governments who defend their interests by any means, they’d have spat on his grave. As it turned out, this was like a big mafia don’s funeral at which the gangster fraternity had turned out to pay their last respects to a fellow enemy of law and order.

John Paul’s 28 years in the Vatican were certainly controversial. He lived through interesting times, as the saying goes, and like any Pope worth his salt involved himself in world political affairs when it was convenient to do so and made acquaintances with many world leaders, yet rebuked none of them. 

He, for instance, referred to Chilean dictator, Pinochet, and his wife as “an exemplary Christian couple”. When this enemy of Chilean democracy, who had killed tens of thousands of his opponents, was arrested and charged with crimes against humanity, the Pope waded in on his defence demanding his release, stating that as a Chilean leader at the time of his crimes he was entitled to immunity – a kind of papal infallibility for fascists. 

Throughout South America, John Paul sided with the forces of reaction, supporting right wing elites and restraining any priest who saw themselves as on the side of the impoverished masses. The papal nuncios to the Chilean and Argentinean military dictatorships he promoted to cardinals. In Central America, he reproached members of the clergy who had sided with the Sandinistas and promoted to the status of cardinal one archbishop who had opposed them.

Few news reports on the Pope’s death did not refer to his time in the Vatican during the dying days of the Kremlin’s empire. Some reporters were even bold enough to claim that it was his intervention in the Polish political scene in the 1980s that eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The rise of Solidarity and working class militancy in Poland at the beginning of the 1980s panicked governments around the world. The ‘communists’ of eastern Europe feared a growing threat to their rule, while the governments of the West saw the mobilisation of an angry section of society that could only inspire militancy in their own countries.

While John Paul wished to see the end of Stalinist rule, he was keen this should not be via violent revolution and, moreover, at the hands of left wing sections of Polish society, but by the right. Here he had the backing of the USA. In 1980 John Paul granted an audience to a group headed by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and in the coming years the Vatican would find tens of millions of dollars to finance Solidarity’s struggle. Make no mistake; the Vatican was not openly supporting the demands of the workers in their struggle against an undemocratic, unaccountable Stalinist bureaucracy. After all, what was the Vatican if not undemocratic, unaccountable and bureaucratic? Instead, its aim was to contain the movement, to see it had the guidance of nationalistic and right-leaning Catholic ideologues and to ensure its confrontation with the Polish leadership did not get out of hand and win larger international support from workers.

Many news commentators referred to the 473 beatifications under the JP papacy, a figure that is twice the number of saints made in the previous 400 years. One can only assume that with more social problems facing humanity than at any time in its history the Pope thought we needed an increase in the number of saints to pray to for help in solving them.

However, among those beatified and elevated to the ranks of the saints by John Paul II was the anti-Semite Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius XII, the latter being the same Pius who collaborated with the fascist regimes in Spain, Italy and Germany. Pius XII ordered the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany to steer clear of political activity, to close its political parties and to stifle its newspapers. Hitler would refer to this Papal move as “a great achievement” and of enormous advantage in the “fight against international Jewry”. Under Pius’ watchful eye, the Catholic Church went on to collaborate in the “racial certification” of all Germans and refused to openly condemn Hitler when it was known that millions were being sent to the extermination camps.

Also elevated to sainthood was Josemaria Escrivç, the founder of the hierarchical and clandestine Opus Dei in Madrid in 1928, and described by Hitler as “the saviour of the Spanish church”, along with Mother Theresa who, when questioned on how her opposition to contraception in Calcutta was leading to unnecessary infantile deaths, countered that even a child who breathed only a few hours meant another soul for heaven. For Mother Theresa, suffering was a blessing from the almighty, for it enabled carers to reveal their love for the afflicted.

One scandal the press tended to steer clear of – and one humiliation John Paul was keen to ride out on behalf of Catholicism – was the sexual abuse scandals concerning priests and Church officials. Since the 1950s, 4,450 catholic clergy in the US alone have been accused of molesting children. The allegations have persisted down the years in spite of a Vatican decree in the 1960s which threatened anyone exposing child sex abuse within the Church with excommunication. John Paul continued the cover-up, issuing an edict demanding Church secrecy in child abuse allegations. The Pope’s ruling on the matter was felt to be so conclusive that one leader of a Spanish seminary persuaded his scholars that he had the Pope’s blessing to masturbate them.

John Paul’s complicity in attempting to conceal sexual exploitation in the American, Irish, Austrian and other Churches, and his undermining of the importance of the allegations once they had come to world attention, merely emphasized the Vatican’s double standards on issues of sexual morality.

While covering up the excesses of a sexually frustrated clergy who found it impossible to adhere to the vow of chastity, John Paul was ever ready to pronounce papal verdicts on homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, divorce, abortion and the use of birth control.

In recent years, in spite of a growing Aids epidemic which now infects tens of millions in impoverished countries, the Vatican withdrew its support from those organisations that distributed free condoms. The head of the Vatican’s office on the family, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, propagated the lie that the Aids virus can pass through microscopic holes in condoms, and John Paul referred to the use of condoms as a ‘culture of death’. In El Salvador, after a long struggle by the Church, packets of condoms were printed with the warning that they did not protect users from the spread of HIV and, in Nigeria, the archbishop of Nairobi proclaimed that condoms actually caused Aids.

Undoubtedly, millions who looked to the Catholic Church for guidance, who declined the use of protection during sex, were handed a death sentence. Perhaps millions of women were forced, by fear of the flames of hell, to bring young families into a world of abject poverty and early death through disease and hunger.

Whilst many saw JP as a champion of democracy and human rights, a one-man Amnesty International as one commentator suggested in the press, the truth is he was a conscientious defender of the established order of western-style class privilege, even if he did once refer to elected governments as the spreaders of “nihilism”. He might have lambasted as an atheistic dogma what many refer to as “socialism” (state capitalism) in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus, whether it existed in Eastern Europe or Central America, but this seems to be his only reason – “socialism” was associated with atheism and therefore was a serious challenge to rule from Rome

More importantly, the Pope headed an organisation with 1.3 billion followers who were encouraged to put their trust in a god and to pray to this god to solve the major problems of the day, thus diminishing people’s faith in their own ability to sort out their own problems and undermining the likelihood of workers uniting and organising with a common objective.

Accordingly, the Pope became just another reactionary agent of oppression, like all of his predecessors. And the Vatican’s reactionary credentials are nothing recent. Indeed, it has been part of the foundation of reaction since the start, whether it was urging the masses to obey the Caesars, supporting the feudal hierarchical order, opposing the Protestant reformation or siding with the capitalist class against the workers, determined always to stifle the anger of the oppressed with promises of reward in heaven for their sufferings if they struggle on uncomplainingly, and an eternity in the sulphurous pits of hell if  they organised to better their lot.

John Bissett