We, Latin American organizations and militant activits, launched this declaration as a contribution to the new situation of serious economic crisis of imperialist capitalism, deepened by the world pandemic of the new coronavirus and the challenges presented to the exploited and oppressed of the world and, consequently, to revolutionary Marxists.
Capitalism is experiencing an apocalyptic moment. The outbreak of the pandemic and the unprecedented global health crisis, added to the most serious economic crisis in decades, both of unpredictable magnitudes, are plaguing the world, in particular the working class and their most exploited and oppressed sectors.
This scenario contributes to the increase in geopolitical tensions, mainly between the United States and China, which continue to dispute the hegemony of a world order that is increasingly in crisis.
Faced with this new reality, albeit in different ways and variations, the response of capitalists and their governments has been to seek a recovery of their profits, attacking ferociously the living conditions of the working class and the masses around the world. In that sense, the tensions and confrontations between the imperialist powers and / or blocs do not negate the agreements between them when it comes to charging the crisis on the working masses or to stop any struggles that threatens their interests.
Such events fully demonstrate the limits of the irrational and anarchic management of capitalism on the economy, society and nature, the consequences of which, so far, are hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of infected, hundreds of millions of unemployed and excluded of all means of subsistence and a dizzying growth of misery and barbarism in all its forms.
Due to the magnitude of the crisis, this new reality opens the contradictions of the capitalist domination in the eyes of millions and will undoubtedly impact the conscience of the working class and the oppressed people around the world and, to the extent, the proportion and intensity of the reaction that there is on the part of the working masses, it will create better conditions to demonstrate that socialism is a more urgent necessity than ever.
The confrontation and denunciation of imperialism continues to have decisive programmatic importance both in the dependent and within the imperialist countries. External debt remains central to the imperialist rule over dependent countries. The economic crisis and the pandemic will aggravate the states’ fiscal crisis. Within this framework, governments accelerate privatization at the same time that the budgets needed to face the health, economic and social emergency is diverted towards the payment of external debts.
The national bourgeoisies and their parties, minor partners of imperialism, cannot raise a consequent program of national and social liberation, as confirmed by the failure of the late Bonapartist governments that ruled important countries in Latin America during the early 2000’s, tensioning against the imperialism, but not consequently for its class nature. The tasks of national and social liberation are in the hands of the working class, the oppressed masses and their organizations.
The rise of struggles and the anti-racist uprising in the USA
In the battlefield of class struggle, the working masses worldwide have demonstrated a great capacity for mobilization in defence of their living conditions and rights, and with the new reality, mobilizations and even social explosions tend to increase.
Among the great mass social movements that stand out in several countries, the women’s movement has proved to be one of the most dynamic, mobilizing broad sectors especially of the youth, incorporating traditional methods of struggle of the working class such as strikes and mass mobilizations, adopting an internationalist character, opening space for the radicalization of an important sector that can be won by anti-capitalist and revolutionary ideas with the determined intervention of the revolutionary Marxists. Capitalism and patriarchy are linked by indissoluble material and class bonds and the women’s movement can play, as it has already been doing, a central role in the struggle to overthrow both.
The environmental movement must also gain even more importance given the growing perception of the destructive nature of capitalism on the planet and on the mankind, which threatens our survival as a species, especially with the pandemic of the new coronavirus.
The main focus of social struggle of that period was, with no doubt, the anti-racist uprising in the USA, generated from George Floyd’s assassination by the Minneapolis police. Such an atrocity, which reflects structural racism in the country, is not uncommon in the reality of the United States, but this time it spark generated a social explosion that crossed borders and impacted the structures of the correlation of forces between the classes at international level. The fact has generated a wave of massive and radicalized demonstrations across the United States, and has spread to other countries on all continents. The undisputed central agenda was the repudiation of racial violence under the black movement (“Black Lives Matter”) in the front line, which in itself is already very progressive. However, the rise also revealed multiracial characteristics, reflecting an advance in the awareness of the need to put an end to all forms of oppression, to social inequalities and injustices and, above all, to the recovery of the valorisation of life, especially of black men and women, but also of immigrants, for example. Such feelings found in the environment created by the pandemic a fertile ground to develop and came to the surface with a power never seen in the last decades. In Europe, it brought to the fore the fight against racism against the black population, but also the fight against other expressions of this oppression, common in that continent, such as that which affects immigrants and ethnic or religious minorities.
The strength of this uprising had an impact on the unions, and organized workers intervened with their methods in the struggles. For example, in the city that originated the incident, bus drivers refused to transport police officers or provide any service to the repression of the demonstrations – which later spread to other large cities like New York and Chicago. In Seattle, the central part of the city (which included the city hall and central police station) was occupied by protesters, many of them armed – the so-called CHAZ. Dockers shut down major US offshore ports on a strike on 19th June, the date of the defeat of the last slave armies in the civil war (Juneteenth) – which is expected to become a national holiday. There is an important presence of activists from the education movements, who have led very important struggles in recent years. These phenomena require revolutionary organizations to have a broad tactical and programmatic framework to intervene in these processes.
In the organizational perspective, these struggles express from the most traditional organizations, such as trade unions, to new embryonic and incipient organisms that took place in several massive processes that occurred in the world during the last year. Popular assemblies, territorial organizations, among others, are constructions of the working masses themselves in the fight against governments and economic adjustments.
The uprising in the U.S., coupled with the lack of control on the pandemic by the government’s negationist policy, contributed decisively to the weakening of Trump, one of the main axes of support for governments like Bolsonaro and the far-right that had been advancing worldwide. If the movement in the USA and the pandemic can lead to the weakening of these governments, the far-right has strengthened itself as a more reactionary and dangerous current to the workers’ movement in several countries and the fight against the far-right and its agenda within the working class must be taken seriously by the revolutionaries in the next period. The defence of democratic freedoms and punctual united action, including with bourgeois sectors to fight reactionary and far-right governments are important, as long as they do not sacrifice the class independence.
The transition program acquires, in a similar scenario, full power to respond to the great needs of the working masses, the peasant sectors, native peoples and other subjects of the struggles that traverse the world and the continent. The responses that health systems need to face the pandemic, for example, place the nationalization of health systems on the agenda, including the expropriation of pharmaceutical laboratories and corporations that produce drugs specially for the purpose of free or low cost production and distribution of medicines and vaccines, something on that the big multinationals plan to make big fortunes at the expense of people’s health.
In this scenario, the centrality of the United Front tactics for the period is the need for the unity of the working class and its allies to face the attacks of the bourgeoisie and for the revolutionaries to intervene at the bases of the mass organizations mainly led by the reformist and conciliatory tendencies in general, to whom we must face combining policies of demands and denunciations, without incurring sectarian or self-proclamatory mistakes. On the other hand, the United Front is also a way to make a qualitative progress in the mass struggle – as demonstrated by the first battles in the pandemic – pointing out the need for a government and a program for workers and the oppressed as an alternative to overcome the crisis.
Latin America and Venezuela
Latin America, crossed by dependence, the plundering of its natural resources and the application of economic policies based on chronic indebtedness, has been the scene of great mass actions in the last year. This was the case in Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, etc. Against the coup attempts are examples of resistance in Venezuela and Bolivia. In the face of a situation in which, as a result of structural adjustments in their budgets, public health is collapsing or on the brink of collapse, further mass uprisings can be expected as a result of the open disputes in the pandemic and post-pandemic. In these processes the masses will continue their experience with the political tendencies guided by the national bourgeoisies, opening new opportunities for the revolutionary socialist militancy.
We share the view that in Latin America, any anti-imperialist policy should have as its starting point the confrontation with the Pentagon’s policy for the region. In the case of Venezuela, the elements of organization and mobilization of the masses that still persist in the revolutionary process are the cause for the defeat of the coup attempts and the overthrow of Maduro government. We unequivocally denounce the economic blockade and the policy of imperialist aggression against the Venezuelan people and their government. We reject the policy of some Trotskyist organizations to place an equal signal between imperialism and Maduro government or even in the practice of unity of action with pro-imperialist sectors. We also reject the capitulation policies to the Venezuelan government.
However, being in solidarity with Venezuela in the face of imperialist aggression does not mean that we fail to assert our political independence from the Maduro government. We must demand that the government adopt the necessary policies to face imperialism and its allies in the interior of Venezuela at the same time that we demand freedom of organization and mobilization for workers and popular sectors as a key to confront imperialism and its national agents. We denounce the arrests and harassment of honest activists by the government.
Campaigns and support for struggles and mobilizations
We declare our solidarity and support for the current struggles and those to come. In addition to the ongoing anti-racist rebellion in the United States, the Middle East region remains an important stage in the development of struggles and a sign of instability. In Lebanon, the great docks explosion that devastated part of Beirut exposed the chronic corruption and bankruptcy of the regime erected after the end of the civil war and marked the return of the masses to the streets. The deterioration in living conditions aggravated by the global pandemic, which threatens to worsen further with the destruction of the port, and the mass movement that has been on the streets since last year has led to the fall of the government. The threat of Israel’s annexation of much of the West Bank territory with the complicity of the Gulf monarchies could lead to a new intifada and mass movements against the occupation across the region.
In Latin America, mobilizations under the pandemic and the recent victory of the Chilean people against the pension system is an example to follow. The ongoing mobilizations in Bolivia against Janine’s far-right government’s attempt to postpone the elections next October are a new boost in the face of the defeat imposed by the coup against the government of Evo Morales.
At the same time, we must promote and be part of the campaign against foreign debt in our continent and participate in the global action that is being organized against financial capital that will take place between October 10 and 15, 2020. We will also be present in the line of ahead of the campaign against imperialist aggression against Venezuela.
And, finally, we defend promoting and participating in the reorganization (meetings, congresses, forums etc.) that seeks to unify the left and the social movements that were at the forefront of global struggles, such as the women’s, climate, black movement, in addition to youth , popular, indigenous, peasant and union movements. In this sense, we support the world (virtual) education conference convened for September and the 1st (face-to-face) conference scheduled to 2021.
Group the revolutionaries
We, the organizations and activists who signed this statement, defend the importance of the debate, the common elaborations and initiatives among the revolutionaries, especially in the face of the new moment of the international situation, with the objective of contributing positively to the struggle against the scenario of international revolutionary fragmentation. Knowing the challenges, but at the same time the greatness of these tasks, we firmly believe that the action of the working class in movement is the raw material to overcome the problem of the leadership and the fragmentation of the revolutionaries.
This statement is open to new signatures.
Liga Unitária Chavista Socialista (LUCHAS) – Venezuela
Movimiento por el Socialismo – Paraguay
Opinión Socialista – Argentina
Resistência-PSOL – Brazil
Elio Colmenarez – Venezuela
Raúl Devia, Partido Comunes, Frente Amplio – Chile
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