We document an translated statment of the Chilenian newspaper "El pueblo" (Editorial Staff) on the actual peoples struggles. [Source: demvolkedienen]
“We can no longer return to normality:
Because ‘normality’ was the problem”
Among the countless slogans that have emerged during the days of October, there are those that express the profound wisdom of the masses. There are words of encouragement to those who fight, of anger at the oppression and of redoubled hope in witnessing the transformative potential of the masses when they unite against oppression and exploitation. A profound conviction has also emerged, that reflects a new level of political consciousness in the mobilized masses: “We can no longer return to normality because ‘Normality’ was the problem”.
The heroic days initiated on the 18th and 19th of October shook this old society. Broad sections of our people have been forged in this struggle and, to some extend, things will no longer be as before. But in order to accomplish the profound longings that have emerged during the glorious popular revolt, there is still a long way to sweep away of this old ‘normality’ and to build the instruments that permit the proletariat and the people to construct a new society for the benefit of the broad majority.
The extreme oppression and exploitation that pushed hundreds of thousands of people into a violent and massive revolt has very profound roots, and to see its intricate ramifications we must look quite far in history, as well as well beyond national borders.
The common destiny of the Latin American peoples
In the condition of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, our country shares the same fate with all other Latin American countries.
During the last four decades, in distinct moments and through diverse mechanisms, the so-called “structural reforms” established by the Washington Consensus have been imposed in all our countries. In Chile, the Fascist Military Junta of Pinochet pioneered by imposing them with blood and fire. Tax cuts, sales or dismantling of state-owned companies, facilities for the entry of imperialist investment, worsening working conditions and numerous other measures against the people that deepen the semi-colonial condition of our countries have been implemented in an uneven form, but in an increasing manner, throughout Latin America without exception.
The governments of the comprador faction of the big bourgeoisie have promoted and [still] promote these measures openly, under the slogan of “globalization” and “openness to the world market”. The governments of the bureaucratic faction, opposing the word and even using a radical discourse about the construction of a “socialism of the 21st century”, in the same way subjected their peoples to imperialist capital, disguising the external debt as “sovereign debt”, opening the extraction of raw materials to foreign investment and subject to the imperialist institutions: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization - all under the control of US imperialism - while facilitating the penetration of other imperialist powers such as Spain, China, Russia, Japan, Germany, etc.
Every time the reactionary governments have introduced the “packages” - which are part of the conditional loans of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank - there has been popular resistance for the defense of rights and achievements that were accomplished with great struggles during the twentieth century. Invariably also, these heroic struggles have been betrayed by compromises driven by those opportunistic elements that have leaped onto the struggles in order to gain positions in the old state.
The last two decades have seen large mass uprisings that have even led to changes in government in different countries. A clear example of this are the mass revolts of Argentina in December 2001, which politically destabilized the reaction until five governments were knocked down consecutively, but without preventing the “structural adjustment” measures from being continued to be introduced by successive governments leading to an extremely critical situation for the Argentine people at the present time.
The small periods of economic growth of the last decades, always sustained by the global rise in the price of raw materials, have taken place in deeper and deeper crises. The crisis of 1998 was followed by the crisis that began in 2007-2008, from which there is still no recuperation. Faced with this deepening of the general crisis of imperialism, the current recuperation efforts demand greater super-exploitation of our countries and greater guarantees for the return of capital to the imperialist metropolis, worsening the situation of the masses during the present decade. The illusion of the decades of “modernization” has vanished: after the boom in the price of raw materials, the shell of prosperity broke and the true structure of our societies appeared.
The sharpening of the economic crisis made the general crisis of this old society and of all the institutions that sustain and defend it appear clearer. There is a political crisis in the comprador and bureaucratic factions, widespread corruption and discrediting of all electoral institutions and parties as a constant throughout Latin America, including the most numerous opportunist parties such as the PT in Brazil - with Lula in the lead - that during the periods of economic prosperity could deliver some “dough” and enchant broad sectors of the masses of their country for a while, until the situation became unsustainable and exploded in mass protest during 2013-2014.
With the aggravation of the imperialist crisis, the contradictions of Yankee imperialism with the bureaucratic faction led first by Chavez and today by Maduro in Venezuela were also sharpened. Not satisfied with taking advantage of cheap oil, the Yankees now demand the “privatization” of companies that have remained as state property and greater facilities to introduce their capital into the country, threatening the invasion of the country to achieve it, but the bureaucratic faction requires these companies to maintain under their control in order to sustain the clientelism and to protect their own privileges.
The current situation in Ecuador on its part - which also led to a great popular revolt in early October - was triggered precisely by the submission of the Lenin Moreno government to the Yankee dictates through the IMF. Today in Ecuador the reaction managed to maintain the current government through negotiations with the so-called “social movements”, led by opportunist and reformist elements willing to demobilize the protest of the masses in exchange for stopping the increase in the price of gasoline, but keeping unchanged the bulk of the measures of the “package”.
Faced with the wave of popular protests in our continent, imperialism and its local lackeys count on the demobilizing role of opportunism and revisionism in each country my means of “negotiations”, “dialogue tables” and “peace agreements”, but they have also been preparing for the inevitable violent response of the masses. They know that sooner or later it will happen. Therefore, the set of oppressive economic measures is accompanied by the political measure of centralization of power in the executive in all countries, with the consequent strengthening of the state repression apparatus.
To this end, numerous resources have been allocated for the “modernization” of the state apparatuses, especially the judicial systems. The police and armies train their officers and the repression apparatuses in military bases in different parts of Latin America under the direct orders of the Southern Command of the United States. In Chile it is public knowledge that the “Jungle Command” was trained in the military bases of Colombia to suppress the Mapuche struggle in La Araucanía and that the Yankee training base in Concón has been used for years in the preparation of troops for counter-insurgent combat in cities, which has been put into practice against the people in these last days of the state of emergency in the main cities of our country.
All of this must be taken into account as the expression of a revolutionary situation in development, which unfolds in an unevenly manner in the different countries of Latin America, but which is present in all of them: Those above cannot continue to govern as they have done until now, and us below do not want to continue being governed as we have been until now. It is a concrete expression that the revolution is the principal historical and political tendency.
This revolutionary situation in development is expressed in a palpable form in the popular revolts of Ecuador and Chile. It also expresses itself in the actions of solidarity of the Latin American peoples that have manifested in Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Argentina and other countries, showing that beyond the national chauvinisms driven by the reaction, there exists a sentiment of unity based on the conviction, that we share the same fate and that our struggles must unite.
The combat educates
The class struggle has given us a great example of its validity. The days of fighting that began on October 18 have been extremely instructive for broad sectors of the Chilean people. In a few days of struggle the masses have educated themselves in an accelerated form and a lesson of transcendental importance appears clear: the people have never obtained anything by the will of the rulers, everything is conquered with struggle.
It is also becoming clearer that the unity of the immense majority of the Chilean people against the arch-reactionary government of Piñera expresses in fact the aggravation of the deepening of the contradiction between popular masses and reactionary government, particularly since it is the reactionary government that sustains and defends the privileges of a tiny minority at the expense of oppression and exploitation of the immense majority of the country. And it is becoming completely clear that this reactionary minority is ready once again to plunge the people into a bloodbath to defend their privileges, and that the people must prepare for this.
There are many other lessons that still have to be discussed and systematized to give the correct course to the current and future struggles, since we have already warned that the solution to the profound problems of our society will not be rapid.
If we, as revolutionaries, aspire that the ongoing struggle does not end simply with the resignation of Piñera, nor with a social make-over in the name of the constituent - as has been the ‘normality’ in our Latin America before - we must learn from the current struggle, from our own history and the history of the peoples of Latin America and the world, especially of the revolutionary experience of the ongoing People's Wars.
We also warn that those opportunists and revisionists among the masses who intend to climb in this old state selling the blood of the fallen, wounded and tortured - as they ‘normally’ do – will have to account for it in front of history and the people. In this special issue of El Pueblo Newspaper - published in the middle of the glorious revolt of October 2019 - we present our positions in relation to several important questions that are on the order of the day, hoping with this to promote the ideological and political struggle around the revolutionary path that our country must follow for the true and definitive emancipation of our peoples.
By the Editorial Staff of the Newspaper El Pueblo
