STRUCTURE VS MORALISM – THE EXAMPLE OF “THIRD WORLD REVOLUTIONARIES”

We cannot say this enough – when examining a phenomenon you must look at the material conditions which underlie it and not simply reduce this to ideas and moralism. This is especially true when assessing the role of revolutionaries in the colonized and imperialized world in the post-War period.

In countries that were nominally independent – such as those of Latin America – it was soon evident that “regular” capitalism would not allow for development, or at best a distorted development in the interests of imperial capital. It was also evident that those countries that had developed, did so by ignoring the pleas of the political economists for laissez faire and minimum governmental action. The model that evolved, largely based upon the Mexican experience, could be called the nationalist, populist or social democratic model. The essential aspects of this model were infrastructural spending by government, national ownership of resources, land reform, tariffs to protect budding industry, import substitution, education and social reform.

Such policies were adopted in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico at various times from the late-1930s until the 1960s. The result was a great improvement in the living standards of the population. With decolonization, attempts were made to introduce similar policies into Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The nationalist model of development had a vicious adversary in imperial capital, chiefly US imperialism and its junior partners, the UK, Canada and France. Not only was there constant pressure to abandon the model and open one's country to imperial capital, but violence was commonly used to crush governments that seemed too independent. Thus the social democratic Arbenz government was overthrown as was the nationalist Mossedegh in Iran, Peron in Argentina, the populists in Bolivia, etc.

There was however, one country that had succeeded in the national form of development and had been successful in opposing the attacks by US imperialism . This was the USSR. You can understand why revolutionaries in the imperialized world, after seeking the brutal overthrow of social democratic or liberal governments by the US, might start to look closely at that model for national development.

Imperialism was able to take advantage of the looseness and complexity of a democratic system, by funding subversion and creating division within the state, leading to right-wing coups d'etats. The answer seemed to be to create an enforced unity through a one-party state, which would then organize the country to accomplish the necessary tasks of economic and social development. In the enthusiasm of the moment, the now-obvious drawbacks to such a model – corruption, sclerosis, paranoia and a population still powerless and therefore cynical, were not evident.

Thus, by the 1960s the Marxist Leninist model had become THE model of development. It had initially been a response to imperialism, but now this set of ideas had become a material force in its own right.

We now must examine the history of ideology in the imperialized countries, most especially – since they formed the vanguard – those of Latin America.

For the first 30 plus years of the 20^th Century the revolutionary movement in Latin America was anarcho-syndicalism. The movement remained strong in Bolivia until the 1940s, Cuba and Uruguay well into the 1950s, but in most countries it was a spent force by the 1930s, crushed out of existence by state violence. Had Che and Fidel been born 25 years earlier they would have been anarchists, since this ideology had hegemony at that time.

In the 1930s a new revolutionary force emerged and replaced syndicalism - populism. The model for the populists was the Mexican revolutionary process at its most radical. This was a form of national development with the nationalization of resources, state created infrastructure, land and social reform. All within a state which was at least nominally democratic.

The populist model had some successes, Venezuela, Costa Rica, for a brief period in Brazil under Vargas, Peron's Argentina, and Paz Essensaro's Bolivia. But the movement was defeated in Guatemala and Cuba. Fidel and Che, up till then had been populists. The former as a member of the Orthodoxo Party, the latter as a left-Peronist. With the crushing of populism, like the crushing of nationalism elsewhere in the 1950s, the way was cleared for the ascent of Marxist Leninist ideas.

Thus not a situation of “bad people” with “bad ideas” but one of a situation posed and limited by material conditions.

But the dialectic did not stop with the ML model. As before mentioned, the failings of that system also became evident. (And I suspect no one was more aware of that than Fidel Castro) From the 1970s-on there was a continual attempt to combine anti-imperialism and development with a pluralist state. The top-down, one party state model was abandoned. Successes were few at first. Unidad Popular was brutally crushed in Chile, The Sandinistas held out for a decade, but were voted out of power. Cuba chose mass involvement combined with an ever-increasing openness of discussion and I suspectthat this is one reason for the strength of that government. The 21^st century saw the “pink wave”. In spite of imperialism's successes in eliminating relatively progressive governments in Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador, the recent (and overturned) coup in Bolivia, and the on-going attack on Venezuela, this movement is far from being defeated.

Other revolutionary, anti-imperialist, but pluralist systems can be found with the Zapatistas and the Rojava Confederalists.

I think they key is mass involvement in autonomous organizations. This allows both pluralism and is a strong force against subversion.