Devrim
15th August 2009, 17:19
Proletarian voices have been raised against the massacre in Bagua[1]. The comrades of the Proletarian Nucleus of Peru have sent us a position denouncing the brutal massacre of the indigenous population carried out by the Peruvian state in a conflict over their ancient Amazonian communal lands in the name of "bringing progress", which means imposing a high level of exploitation of the region's natural resources
At the same time, we have received, in the form of a comment on our website, a leaflet signed by a group from Lima that defines itself as anarchist - "Young Proletarians" - *which also defends very important positions.
These two leaflets were not only a statement of position; they were also distributed on demonstrations that took place in Lima in June after the repression.
We warmly welcome these two initiatives. We greatly appreciate the proletarian courage and engagement that this expresses. As the comrades of the Nucleus put it: "Faced with events such as the massacre in Bagua it is important to give voice to a clearly proletarian perspective in opposition to all the nationalist visions, whether in defence of state capitalism or inter-classism; whether in the name of** the ‘citizen' or the ‘struggle for democracy' defended by Ollanta[2] , the unions and the worshipers of ‘Socialism of the 21st Century', that great fraud perpetrated by Chavez and his followers".
We are also publishing a new internationalist position by another group of comrades from Peru, the Circle for Scientific Social Analysis, which defends the same internationalist vision as the other two.
The common point of these three documents is that they address these events from the point of view of the proletariat:
How to develop the struggle? How to show solidarity towards the victims of the massacre?
How to maintain the proletariat's class autonomy?
How to denounce not only the government's barbaric repression but also the traps and false perspectives of the opposition parties?
The three documents share a common defence of proletarian internationalist positions, along with a denunciation of nationalist, state capitalist, inter-classist positions that try to divide, dislocate and finally defeat the proletariat and thus in the end the whole of humanity.
This common framework is very important and is what unites all internationalists.
That said, there is a question that is posed in the three texts and which, we think, needs to be the object of a very interesting discussion.
This theme we can sum up as: what attitude must the proletariat adopt faced with the struggles of other non-exploiting strata that are not proletarian?
*
This problem was clearly posed in Russia in 1917 when scarcely more than 3-4 million proletarians were immersed in a heterogeneous mass of a 100 million peasants. The proletariat had to win this gigantic social layer to its struggle. We think that it was able to do this from its own class base: the struggle to end the imperialist war, the world revolution, the struggle that gave all power to the Soviets or Workers' Councils. Faced with the peasants' demands, a widespread discussion took place amongst the Bolsheviks as well as the international revolutionary movement, which highlighted the position taken by Rosa Luxemburg that criticised the Bolsheviks' policy towards the peasants.
We believe that it will be very interesting to take up this discussion again in order to orientate ourselves in the present situation. However, it is not the same as then. For example, the agricultural sector in the major countries has been brutally reduced over the last 40 years, notably in Latin America where since the beginning of the 60's the peasant population has fallen from 50% of the total population, to being hardly more than 20% today.
The peasants have been forced back into their old communities in the mountains and forests due to the voracity of capitalist expansion. This has seen the introduction of commodity production, principally through the state. This has meant the introduction of a brutal tax burden and the development of cooperative movement[3], forcing people to abandon the agrarian life, which was marked by backwardness, isolation and poverty, but which did offer the advantage of a certain economic and communal stability.
And what perspective are these people offered? Either emigration to Europe or North America or falling into desperation in the great cities that have seen the growth of poverty-stricken areas where millions of people are crowded together in deplorable conditions.
We have to take up this problem in the discussion through addressing questions such as;
Is it possible to stop the process of depopulation of the agrarian area, which is being worsened by the deepening capitalist crisis?
Can there be demands that guarantee a minimum stability in these communities?
On what terrain and what basis can the proletariat express its solidarity?
ICC 23/7/9
http://en.internationalism.org/2009/icconline/august/bagua
At the same time, we have received, in the form of a comment on our website, a leaflet signed by a group from Lima that defines itself as anarchist - "Young Proletarians" - *which also defends very important positions.
These two leaflets were not only a statement of position; they were also distributed on demonstrations that took place in Lima in June after the repression.
We warmly welcome these two initiatives. We greatly appreciate the proletarian courage and engagement that this expresses. As the comrades of the Nucleus put it: "Faced with events such as the massacre in Bagua it is important to give voice to a clearly proletarian perspective in opposition to all the nationalist visions, whether in defence of state capitalism or inter-classism; whether in the name of** the ‘citizen' or the ‘struggle for democracy' defended by Ollanta[2] , the unions and the worshipers of ‘Socialism of the 21st Century', that great fraud perpetrated by Chavez and his followers".
We are also publishing a new internationalist position by another group of comrades from Peru, the Circle for Scientific Social Analysis, which defends the same internationalist vision as the other two.
The common point of these three documents is that they address these events from the point of view of the proletariat:
How to develop the struggle? How to show solidarity towards the victims of the massacre?
How to maintain the proletariat's class autonomy?
How to denounce not only the government's barbaric repression but also the traps and false perspectives of the opposition parties?
The three documents share a common defence of proletarian internationalist positions, along with a denunciation of nationalist, state capitalist, inter-classist positions that try to divide, dislocate and finally defeat the proletariat and thus in the end the whole of humanity.
This common framework is very important and is what unites all internationalists.
That said, there is a question that is posed in the three texts and which, we think, needs to be the object of a very interesting discussion.
This theme we can sum up as: what attitude must the proletariat adopt faced with the struggles of other non-exploiting strata that are not proletarian?
*
This problem was clearly posed in Russia in 1917 when scarcely more than 3-4 million proletarians were immersed in a heterogeneous mass of a 100 million peasants. The proletariat had to win this gigantic social layer to its struggle. We think that it was able to do this from its own class base: the struggle to end the imperialist war, the world revolution, the struggle that gave all power to the Soviets or Workers' Councils. Faced with the peasants' demands, a widespread discussion took place amongst the Bolsheviks as well as the international revolutionary movement, which highlighted the position taken by Rosa Luxemburg that criticised the Bolsheviks' policy towards the peasants.
We believe that it will be very interesting to take up this discussion again in order to orientate ourselves in the present situation. However, it is not the same as then. For example, the agricultural sector in the major countries has been brutally reduced over the last 40 years, notably in Latin America where since the beginning of the 60's the peasant population has fallen from 50% of the total population, to being hardly more than 20% today.
The peasants have been forced back into their old communities in the mountains and forests due to the voracity of capitalist expansion. This has seen the introduction of commodity production, principally through the state. This has meant the introduction of a brutal tax burden and the development of cooperative movement[3], forcing people to abandon the agrarian life, which was marked by backwardness, isolation and poverty, but which did offer the advantage of a certain economic and communal stability.
And what perspective are these people offered? Either emigration to Europe or North America or falling into desperation in the great cities that have seen the growth of poverty-stricken areas where millions of people are crowded together in deplorable conditions.
We have to take up this problem in the discussion through addressing questions such as;
Is it possible to stop the process of depopulation of the agrarian area, which is being worsened by the deepening capitalist crisis?
Can there be demands that guarantee a minimum stability in these communities?
On what terrain and what basis can the proletariat express its solidarity?
ICC 23/7/9
http://en.internationalism.org/2009/icconline/august/bagua