Petras - 'Centre-Left' Regimes in Latin America - History Repeating Itself as Farce

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'Centre-left' regimes in Latin America: History repeating itself as farce?James Petras Professor Emeritus in Sociology

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Debate

‘Centre-Left’ Regimes in Latin America:History Repeating Itself as Farce?

JAMES PETRAS

Examined here is the phenomenon of the‘centre-left’ regime that

has emerged recently in Latin America, and the reasons why such

palpably neo-liberal governments attract the uncritical support of

leftist intellectuals worldwide. The‘centre-left’ governments of Lula

in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentina, Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay, Evo

Morales in Bolivia, Toledo in Peru, and Gutierrez in Ecuador are

measured against a set of criteria designating espousal of leftist

politics, a test failed by them all. It is argued here that, in order to

develop authentically leftist views about future patterns of agrarian

policy and transformation, and to support these once developed,

it is necessary first to sweep away the rhetoric that these days is

taken for‘leftist’ views.

INTRODUCTION

Several years ago I asked an editor of a leading US business journal (Forbes)

about how he characterized the politics of a Mexican President (Luıs

Echevarria) who was speaking at a leftist conference commemorating

Salvador Allende, the socialist President of Chile ousted by the military coup

of 11 September 1973. In what was a revealing answer, the business journal

editor replied: ‘He talks to the left and works for the right’.1 This response

captured more accurately than many leftist analyses, and certainly more

cynically than any of them, the nature of the political dilemma facing all

current and future attempts at grassroots mobilization – by movements com-

posed of poor peasants, agricultural labourers, and urban workers – throughout

James Petras is Professor Emeritus in Sociology, Binghamton University, New York, USA.

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.33, No.2, April 2006, pp.278–303ISSN 0306-6150 print/1743-9361 onlineDOI: 10.1080/03066150600819211 ª 2006 Taylor & Francis

Downloaded By: [University of California, Berkeley] At: 20:53 20 September 2010

Latin America. Namely, the disjuncture between a programme of social

reform promised by progressive politicians before taking office and the neo-

liberal policies implemented once they are in power.2 A review of the

performance by recent ‘centre-left’ Presidents in Latin America fits very well

with the comment of that Forbes editor, and undermines the faith placed in

them by much of the political left in Europe and the US.

Such political betrayals fuel a slide into a-political ideology. Combining

an initial optimism with a subsequent pessimism, they culminate in the belief

among those at the grassroots (and some leftist intellectuals) that nothing

will change, so there is little or no point in trying.3 Alternatively, they license

an unalloyed optimism; the view – more usually held by leftist intellectuals –

that the policies implemented are either the reformist ones promised, or the

best that can be done in the circumstances.4 Whilst almost everyone (political

leadership and intellectuals alike) seems to be against neo-liberalism, there-

fore, it is not always clear what – if anything – they are for.5 The assumption

frequently made – that if one is against neo-liberalism then this signals an

automatic support for a progressive politics, not to say socialism itself – is

incorrect.6 For this reason, the object of the brief presentation that follows is

threefold. First, to examine what constitutes a leftist position in the current

political climate. Second, to compare the latter with the policies now being

implemented by the political leadership in a number of Latin American

countries: Lula in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentina, Tabare Vazquez in Uruguay,

Evo Morales in Bolivia, Toledo in Peru, and Gutierrez in Ecuador. And third,

to try to explain why these regimes found support among intellectuals on the

political left.

There is an interesting contrast between an earlier generation of ‘leftist’

intellectuals linked to the foreign policy of the USSR, and the current

generation of ‘leftist’ academics either close to or supporters of what they

deem to be ‘centre-left’ regimes. The former argued that no agrarian revolu-

tionary movement was possible in the so-called Third World until a bourgeois

stage of ‘pure’ capitalism had been traversed, and this was the reason for

distancing themselves from revolutionary movements in the Latin American

countryside. Politically, that was disastrous. Now, however, ‘leftist’ intel-

lectuals identify ‘centre-left’ regimes as politically progressive, and insist

that – the implementation of neo-liberal policies notwithstanding – such

governments empower the rural (and urban) poor. This is akin to political

comedy. Taken together, the resulting transition from an unwarranted

pessimism to an equally misplaced optimism replicates a pattern identified

long ago by Marx: the tendency of history to repeat itself, the first time as

tragedy and the second as farce.7

In the light of this contrast, the object of what follows is critically to

analyse what passes for leftist credentials among those holding power in

‘CENTRE-LEFT’ REGIMES IN LATIN AMERICA 279


Latin America. The practical importance of this task, as distinct from the

necessity for it, is also clear: in order to develop authentically leftist views

about future patterns of agrarian policy and transformation, and to support

these once developed, it is necessary first to sweep away the rhetoric that

these days is taken for ‘leftist’ views.

I

WHAT LEFTISM IS

Given the shift away from socialist theory and politics, it is in an important

sense hardly surprising that claims made by intellectuals for the leftist nature

of a programme with which they are associated, or implementing, are

permitted to pass without substantial challenge. Prior to any discussion of

‘centre-left’ regimes in Latin America today, therefore, it is important to

understand exactly what it means ‘to be left’ – from a historical, theoretical

and practical perspective. The method for determining ‘what is left’ is based

on analysing the substance – and not the symbols or rhetoric – of a regime or

politician. The practical measures open to scrutiny include budgets, property,

income, employment, labour legislation, and priorities in expenditures and

revenues. Of particular importance is to focus on the present social referents,

social configurations of power and alliances – not the past – given the

changing dynamics of power and class politics. The third methodological

issue is to differentiate between a political campaign to gain power and the

policies of a political party once in power, as the gulf between them is both

wide and well known.

Historically there is a consensus among academics and activists as to what

constitutes criteria and indicators for defining a leftist politics. These include

the following 14 points, all of which combine to structure what might be

termed a minimal leftist programme:

(1) Decreasing social inequalities.

(2) Increasing living standards.

(3) Greater public and national ownership in relation to private and

foreign ownership.

(4) Progressive taxes (on income and corporations) over regressive

taxation (VAT, consumption).

(5) Budget priorities favouring greater social expenditures and public

investments in jobs, rather than subsidies allocated to capitalist

producers and to foreign debt payments.

(6) Promoting national ownership of raw materials and resources, and

protecting the latter from foreign exploitation.

280 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES


(7) Diversification of production to value added products as opposed to

selling unprocessed raw materials.

(8) Subordinating production-for-export to the development of the

domestic market.

(9) Popular participation and power in decision-making, not least central

planning, as opposed to de facto rule by businesses, international

bankers (IMF) and political elites.

(10) The selection of key cabinet ministers and central bankers in

consultation with mass grassroots movements (representing poor

peasants, agricultural labourers and urban workers) instead of those

representing simply local and foreign businesses and banks.

(11) Adoption of a progressive foreign policy targeted against the global

spread of laissez faire economics (¼ free markets), military bases, and

imperial wars and occupation.

(12) Reversing privatizations already carried out, and discarding the policy

of extending/consolidating privatizations.

(13) Doubling the minimum wage.

(14) Promoting legislation facilitating trade union organization, plus uni-

versal and free public education and health services.

With these criteria in mind, one can proceed to analyse and evaluate the

contemporary ‘centre-left’ regimes, so as to determine whether ‘New Winds

from the Left’ are in fact sweeping Latin America, as many claim.

II

BRAZIL UNDER PRESIDENT LULA, 2003–06

With the possible exception of Evo Morales (see below), no recent

assumption of the Presidency of a Latin American country has attracted as

much enthusiasm and acclaim from those on the global left as the election of

Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva as President of Brazil.8 Even before his election,

however, Lula, signed a letter of understanding with the International

Monetary Fund (June 2002) to pay the foreign debt, to maintain a budget

surplus of 4% (up to 4.5% subsequently), to maintain macro-economic

stability and to continue neo-liberal ‘reforms’. Once elected, he slashed

public employee pensions by 30%, and bragged that he had the ‘courage’ to

carry out the IMF ‘reforms’ that previous right-wing presidents had failed to

do.9 To ‘promote’ capital investment, Lula introduced labour legislation

increasing the power of employers to fire workers and lowering the cost of

severance pay. Social programmes in health and education were sharply

reduced by over 5% during the first three years, while foreign debt creditors



received punctual (and even early) payments – making Brazil a ‘model’

debtor.

Past privatizations of dubious legality of lucrative petrol (Petrobras),

mining (Vale del Doce) and banks were extended to public infrastructure,

services and telecommunications – reversing 70 years of history, and making

Brazil more vulnerable to foreign owned re-locations of production.10

Brazil’s exports increasingly took on the profile of a primary producer; thus

exporters of iron, soya, sugar, citrus juice, and timber expanded while its

industrial sector stagnated due to the world’s highest interest rates of 18.5%

and the lowering of tariff barriers. Over 25,000 shoe workers lost their jobs

due to cheap imports from China. After Guatemala, Brazil remained the

country with the greatest inequalities in the whole of Latin America.

Agrarian policy was directed toward financing and subsidizing agribusi-

ness exports, while the agrarian reform programme stagnated and even

regressed.11 Lula’s promise to his ‘ally’, the Landless Workers’ Movement

(Movimiento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, or MST), to distribute

land to 100,000 families a year was totally disregarded. Under the previous

centre-right regime of President Cardoso, some 48,000 families received land

each year compared to only 25,000 per year under Lula, leaving over 200,000

families camped by highways under plastic tents and 4.5 million landless

families with no hope.12 Lula’s policy favouring agroexport led to acce-

lerated exploitation of the Amazon rain forest and deep incursions into

Brazilian Indian territory, thanks to budget cuts in the Environment and

Indigenous Affairs Agencies.

In foreign policy, Lula sent troops and officials to occupy Haiti and defend

the puppet regime resulting from the US-orchestrated invasion and deposition

of elected President Aristide. Lula’s differences with the US over ALCA

were clearly over US compliance with ‘free trade’ and not over any defence

of national interests.13 As Lula stated, ‘Free trade is the best system,

providing everyone practices it’ – meaning that what he opposed was not free

trade per se but rather the failure of the US to adhere to this.14 Whilst Lula

opposed the US-sponsored coup against Venezuela in April 2002, as well as

other imperial adventures, and spoke for greater Latin American integration

via MERCOSUR, in practice his major trade policies focused on deepening

his ties outside the region – with Asia, Europe and North America.15

The evidence presented here in outline suggests that Lula fits closer the

stereotypical profile of a right-wing neo-liberal politician rather than a

‘centre-left’ President. Why, then, does he continue to be regarded by

‘opinion-formers’ in the media and the academy as a representative, not to

say the embodiment, of leftist interests? The answer is all too simple.

Intellectuals and journalists who classify Lula as a leftist do this on the basis

of his social, trade union and occupational background, an identity now



20–30 years old and no longer relevant to the interests and agency he

embodies in the present, plus his theatrical populist symbolic gestures.

ARGENTINA UNDER PRESIDENT KIRCHNER, 2003–PRESENT

Under President Kirchner, Argentina has grown at a rate of 8.5% per year,

substantially increased export earnings, reduced unemployment from over

20% to approximately 15%, raised pensions and wages, re-negotiated a

portion of the private foreign debt and rescinded the laws granting impunity

to military torturers.16 Compared to Lula’s ultra-liberal policies, therefore,

Kirchner appears as a progressive leader.17 Looked at from a leftist pers-

pective, however, the regime falls far short. Kirchner has not reversed any of

the fraudulent privatizations of Argentina’s strategic energy, petroleum and

electrical industries. Under his regime the profits of major agro-industrial and

petroleum sectors have skyrocketed with no commensurate increases in

salaries. In other words, inequalities have either increased or remained the

same, depending on the sector.

While Kirchner has financed and subsidized the revival of industry and

promotion of agricultural exports, salaries and wages have barely reached the

level of 1998 – the last year before the economic crisis. Moreover, while

poverty levels have declined from their peak of over 50% in 2001, they are

still close to 40% – a very high figure for a country like Argentina, which

produces enough grain and meat to supply a population six times its current

size. As in the case of Lula, Kirchner’s central banker and economic and

finance ministers have long-term ties to international capital and banks.

Whilst economic growth and some social amelioration have taken place,

much of it can be attributed to the favourable world commodity prices for

beef, grains, petroleum and other primary sector materials. In foreign policy

Kirchner – again like Lula – opposes ALCA only because the US has refused

to reciprocate in lowering its own tariff barriers.

That Kirchner’s foreign policy is hardly anti-imperialist is evident from the

fact that Argentine troops occupy Haiti at the behest of the US, and engage in

joint manoeuvres with the US. While Kirchner revoked the law of impunity

that had hitherto sheltered military torturers, no new trials have been

scheduled, nor have any punishments been meted out to those guilty of

human rights abuses during the ‘dirty war’. Although Kirchner opposes US

attacks on Venezuela, he supports the US proposal to refer Iran to the

Security Council of the UN. While unemployment has declined, one out of

six Argentines is still out of work. Unemployment relief remains at a very

low level, of no more than US$50 per family per month. Despite a nominal

increase in salaries, growing inflation of over 10% has reduced real earnings

for the majority of public employees.



The structures of socio-economic power remain in place – in fact Kirchner

has played a major role in restoring and consolidating capitalist hegemony

after the mass popular uprisings of December 2001. He has not redistributed

property, income or power – except among the different segments of the

capitalist class. His criticism of Washington only extends to the most extreme

interventionist measures which seek to prejudice Argentine big business and

convert it into a powerless client: hence Argentina’s opposition to the State

Department’s attempt to form an anti-Chavez bloc. Kirchner’s rejection stems

almost exclusively from economic considerations: the fact that Argentina

receives petroleum from Venezuela at subsidized prices, has secured a major

ship-building contract from Venezuela, and has signed lucrative trade

agreements with Venezuela to market its agricultural and manufactured

products. With regard to Cuba, Kirchner opened diplomatic relations, but has

maintained his distance. While on excellent diplomatic terms with Chavez,

Kirchner shares none of his redistributive policies.

In conclusion, Kirchner meets none of the leftist criteria set out above.

He is more clearly a pragmatic conservative willing to dissent from the

US when it is profitable for his agribusiness and industrial capitalist

social base. At no point has Kirchner shifted any of the budget surplus now

used to pay the foreign debt to fund the depleted health and educational

facilities and to provide better salaries for personnel in those vital public

sectors.

URUGUAY UNDER PRESIDENT TABARE VAZQUEZ

Tabare Vazquez was elected by an electoral coalition (The Broad Front and

Progressive Encounter) which included Tupamaros, Communists, Socialists,

as well as an assortment of Christian Democrats and liberal democrats.

However, his key appointments to the Central Bank and the Economic

Ministry (Danilo Astori) are hardline neo-liberals and defenders of continuing

previous budget constraints where social spending is concerned, while

generously financing the agro-export elites.

During the Economic Summit in Mar de Plata (Argentina) in November

2005, while tens of thousands protested against Bush, and Chavez declared

ALCA dead, Tabare Vazquez and Astori signed a wide reaching ‘investment

protection’ agreement with the US, which embraced the major free market

principles embodied in ALCA. With the full backing of Tabare Vazquez,

Astori has not only rejected re-nationalization of enterprises, but has given

notice of an intention to privatize major state enterprises, including a water

company, despite a popular referendum in which more than 65% voted in

favour of maintaining state ownership. The Tabare Vazquez regime has taken

no measures to lessen inequalities, and has put in place a paltry ‘job creation’



and emergency food relief programme which covers a small fraction of the

poor, indigent and unemployed Uruguayans.

Meanwhile the government has laid down the royal carpet for a Finnish-

owned, highly contaminating, cellulose factory which will have an adverse

effect on fishing communities and perhaps even the important tourist

facilities downstream. Tabare Vazquez and Astori’s unilateral signing off on

the controversial factory has resulted in a major conflict with Argentina

which borders the Uruguay River, where the plant will be located.

The Tabare Vazquez regime has repudiated every major programmatic

position embraced by the Broad Front (Frente Amplio) in its 30 years of

existence: from sending troops in support of the occupation of Haiti, to

privatizing public properties, embracing free trade, welcoming foreign inves-

tment and imposing wage and salary austerity controls on the working class.

Like Kirchner, Tabare Vazquez has re-established diplomatic relations with

Cuba, but he avoids any close relationship with Venezuela. Probably the most

bizarre aspect of the Broad Front government is the behaviour of the

Tupamaros, the former urban guerrilla group now converted into Senators

and Ministers. Mujica, the Minister of Argiculture, supports agribusiness

enterprises and foreign investment in agriculture, and simultaneously upholds

the law on evicting landless squatters in the interior. Senator Eleuterio

Huidobro attacks human rights groups demanding judicial investigations of

military officials implicated in assassinations and disappearances of political

prisoners. According to Huidobro, the ‘past is best forgotten’, thereby embra-

cing the military and turning his back on scores of his former comrades who

were abducted, tortured, murdered and buried in unmarked graves.

BOLIVIA UNDER EVO MORALES

Probably the most striking example of the ‘centre-left’ regimes that have

embraced the neo-liberal agenda is that of Evo Morales in Bolivia.18 His

background is both rural and radical: an indigenous farmer growing coca

(cocalero), he is also the leader of the Movement to Socialism (Movimiento

al Socialismo, or MAS), which draws on strong support from peasant small-

holders and the urban poor. Not only was Morales’ election victory beyond

dispute – he obtained 54% of the vote cast, a majority unrivalled in the past

half century – but it was greeted with enthusiasm by a wide spectrum

of world political opinion, especially on the left.19 Just why the latter in

particular should be so pleased about the accession to the Bolivian Presidency

of Morales, however, is unclear. Even before he took power, his political

record could only be described as ambivalent.

Between October 2003 and July 2005, scores of factory workers,

unemployed urban workers and Indian peasants were killed in the struggle



for the nationalization of petroleum and gas, Bolivia’s most lucrative

economic sector and source of revenue. Two presidents were overthrown by

mass uprisings in a two and a half year period for defending the foreign

ownership of the energy resources. Yet Evo Morales did not participate in

either uprising; in fact he supported the hastily installed neo-liberal President

Carlos Mesa until he, too, was driven from power.

As President, Evo Morales has ruled out the possibility that gas and

petroleum will be expropriated. Instead he has provided long-term, large-

scale guarantees that all the facilities of the major energy multinational

corporations will be recognized, respected and protected by the Bolivian

state. As a consequence, some multinational corporations have not only

expressed their support for Morales, but have also lined up to extend and

deepen their control and exploitation of these non-renewable resources.

By means of a none-too-clever linguistic sleight of hand, Morales claims that

‘nationalization’ does not correspond to the expropriation and transfer of

property to the state. According to his ‘new’ definition, state ownership of

shares, tax increases and promises to ‘industrialize’ the raw materials are all

equivalent to nationalization.

While the exact terms of the new contracts have yet to be published, many

of the major multinational corporations are in full agreement with Morales’

policies. Repsol (a firm based in Spain) promises to invest US$150 million,

while Total and BP (French and British, respectively) plus a whole host of

other major energy and mining corporations are all prepared to expand

investments and reap billions in profits under the protective umbrella of

Morales and his MAS regime.

No previous government in Bolivian history has opened the country to

mineral exploitation by so many foreign capitalist enterprises in such

lucrative fields in such a short period of time. In addition to the oil and gas

sell-offs, Morales has declared that he intends to privatize the Mutun iron

fields (60 square kilometres containing an estimated 40 billion tons of ore

with an estimated worth of over US$30 billion), following the lead of his neo-

liberal predecessors. Bolivia will receive an additional US$0.50 a ton to an

undisclosed ‘but reasonable’ amount (according to the multinational

corporations). Bolivia will receive 10% and the Indian corporation (Jindall,

Stell and Power) will receive 90%!

Reneging on his promises, Morales has refused to triple the minimum wage.

His Minister of the Economy has undertaken to retain the previous regime’s

policies of fiscal austerity and ‘macro-economic stability’, while the increase

in the minimum wage will amount to less than 10%. And although the Morales

government raised the teachers’ basic salary a meagre 7%, in real terms this

amounted to less than 2%. Now the basic salary earned by a teacher is US$75 a

month, so their net gain under the new ‘revolutionary’ indigenous president is



less than US$2 a month, and this at a time of record prices for Bolivian raw

material exports, and a budget surplus.

Despite being the leader of coca growing peasant farmers, Evo Morales has

declared his support both for the continued presence of the US military base

at Chapare, and for the intrusive presence of the US Drug Enforcement

Agency. In keeping with US policy demands, he has reduced the areas of

coca production to less than half an acre for domestic medical uses. To

appease his peasant supporters, however, Morales not only promotes and

funds indigenous cultural events/celebrations, but also encourages the use of

indigenous language in schools located in the Andean highlands, and at

public functions.20 Land reform will involve colonization projects in public

or uncultivated terrain.

Taking land away from large proprietors or plantations, however, is

not part of the agrarian reform programme. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, both

Morales and his Agricultural Minister are opposed to any expropriations of

large landowners, ‘whether they are owners of . . . 5,000, 10,000, or 25,000 or

more acres as long as they are productive’. This has effectively put an end to

the hopes of millions of landless Indian peasants for a ‘profound agrarian

reform’ as promised by the indigenous president. What Morales is doing

instead is promoting agro-export agriculture, a policy effected by means of

generous subsidies and tax incentives.

Like those of Lula and Kirchner, the appointments made by Morales to the

economic, defence and a number of other ministries all have previous links to

the IMF, the World Bank and earlier neo-liberal governments in Bolivia.

Indicative of Morales’ favourable disposition towards capitalist enterprise

was the signing of a pact with the Confederation of Private Businessmen of

Bolivia in February 2006, whereby he committed himself to maintain ‘macro-

economic stability’ and the ‘international credibility’ of the country. This

means in effect curtailing social spending, promoting foreign investment,

prioritizing exports, maintaining monetary stability and above all promoting

private investment.

Morales’ capitulation to the Bolivian capitalist class was evident in his

decision to re-activate the National Business Council, which will analyse and

take decisions on economic and political issues. About this Morales said,

‘I am asking the businessmen to support me with their experience’ (forgetting

to add their experience in exploiting the labour force). He went on to ask

these capitalists to advise him on ‘ALCA, MERCOSUR . . . on agreements

with China, the USA . . . as to their benefits for the country’. The president of

the Business Confederation, Guillermo Morales, immediately emphasized the

importance of signing up to the free trade agreement (ALCA).

Whilst Evo Morales was busy signing a pact with the business community,

he refused to meet with the leaders of FEJUVE (The Federation of



Neighbourhood Councils of El Alto in La Paz), the biggest, most active,

democratic urban organization in Bolivia. FEJUVE had been very active in

leading the mass struggle, both to overthrow the previous neo-liberal

presidents and to demand the nationalization of gas and petroleum. Ironically,

Morales received 88% of the vote cast in El Alto, an area where scores of

deaths and injuries occurred in the run-up to his election. He showed his

contempt for FEJUVE by naming two of its members as ministers – Mamani

as Minister for Water and Patzi as Education Minister – without even

consulting the organization, which takes all decisions via popular assemblies.

Both ministers were forced to resign from FEJUVE, in part because Patzi

rejected the long-standing grassroots demand to create a teachers’ college for

the 800,000 residents of El Alto, claiming it was an ‘unacceptable cost to the

system’ (given Morales’ selective austerity budget). For his part, Mamani

refused to expel the foreign multinational company Aguas del Illimani, which

overcharges consumers and fails to provide adequate services.

According to FEJUVE the Morales regime has failed to deal with the most

elementary problems, such as the exorbitant electricity rates, the absence of

any plan to provide and connect households with heating, gas and water lines.

The major trade union confederations and federations (COB, Miners and

others) have protested against the refusal of Morale to rescind the reactionary

labour laws passed by his predecessors which ‘flexibilized labour’ – depriving

workers of legislative protection against dismissal, and thus empowering

employers to hire and fire workers at will. As a reward for his pro-business

policies, Japan, Spain and the World Bank have ‘forgiven’ Bolivia’s

foreign debt.

In order to sweeten this kind of bitter neo-liberal economic pill, Morales

has adopted a familiar ploy: the rhetoric and agency of populism.21 He has

excelled in ‘public theatre’, consisting of a populist folkloric style that repro-

duces the discourse about a socio-economically uniform people, one of whom

is himself. Such images of ‘being’ no different from the masses, of ‘belonging’

to them, of sharing not only their interests and background, but also (and

therefore) their discomforts and aspirations, are aimed at securing grass-

roots acceptance of his programme/policies as theirs. To this end, therefore,

Morales not only dances with the crowds during carnival, declares a reduction

of his presidential salary as part of the austerity programme affecting the

living standards of already impoverished Bolivians, but also delivered a

section of his Presidential Speech to Congress in the Aymara language.

The same populist logic informed the announcement by him of a ‘plot’

aimed against his person by unspecified oil companies, the object being to

rally support among his followers while he prepares to sign away the

country’s energy resources to these same oil companies.22 Needless to say,

neither the Defence nor Interior Ministries were aware of the ‘plot’, nor was



any evidence of its existence ever presented. But the non-existent ‘plot’ did

indeed serve to distract attention from his energy sell-out. In a similar vein,

while Morales has spoken of his dear friend Hugo Chavez, and embraced

Fidel Castro, he has conceded military bases to the US and offices to its

DEA (the Drug Enforcement Agency), as well as granting concessions to

international (¼ ‘foreign’) capitalist enterprises interested in access to and

extraction of Bolivian energy and mining resources.

Although Morales has improved diplomatic relations with Cuba and

Venezuela, and secured social and economic aid, therefore, the economic

foundations of his policies are oriented toward an integration of Bolivian

development with the interests of Western capitalist countries. In this and

other respects, the Morales regime is following in the footsteps of his neo-

liberal predecessors, not least his pro-big business outlook and his obedience

to IMF fiscal, monetary and budgetary imperatives. Accordingly, the policies,

appointments, institutional ties of the Morales government all suggest that the

most appropriate political label in his case is not a leftist but much rather a

centrist one.

A NOTE ON PERU UNDER TOLEDO AND ECUADOR

UNDER GUTIERREZ

The elections of Toledo in Peru and Gutierrez in Ecuador were hailed by

many of those on the political left who in support of this endorsement cited

the plebeian origins of both presidential candidates, their alliances with

Indian organizations (such as CONAIE in Ecuador) or indigenous identity

(Toledo spoke Quechua and wore a poncho during his election campaign).23

Notwithstanding the fact that Toledo emerged from the neo-liberal graduate

programme at Stanford University, and was subsequently a functionary at the

World Bank, leftists’ acclaim centred on his opposition to the Fujimori

dictatorship (with US backing) which they asserted was a sign that ‘change

would come’.

Change did indeed come, but not of the kind that the global left had

anticipated. Much rather, it took the form of intensified privatizations of

mining, water and energy, subsidies for agribusiness and mining exporters,

the lifting of trade barriers, and a decline in living standards of the middle

class as well as the rural and urban poor. The diminished popularity of

Toledo’s neo-liberal programme over the last three years can be gauged from

the fact that his support in opinion ratings never exceeded 15% and mostly

hovered below 10%.

Much the same is true of Ecuador. Once in office, Gutierrez embraced IMF

doctrines, extended support to the US-instigated Plan Colombia, backed the

US military base in Manta, proposed the privatization of the state oil and



electricity companies, jailed protesting trade union leaders, and divided the

Indian movement through selective funding and ties to right-wing evangelical

leaders. He was eventually ousted in a popular uprising in 2005. The legacy

of Gutierrez was a much-weakened Indian social movement (CONAIE), the

discrediting of Pachacutik, its fraternal party, and a neutered trade union

movement.

Somewhat predictably, those on the political left were slow to comprehend

the direction being taken by these two ‘centre-left’ presidents whose election

they had greeted with such optimism. It was only after the political damage

was an accomplished fact, therefore, that those on the left belatedly recognized

the reactionary nature of the Gutierrez and Toledo regimes. At this point, and

almost reluctantly, they dissociated themselves from these politicians and

stopped referring to them as part of the ‘New Left Winds’. When combined

with leftist endorsement of Lula, Kirchner, and Morales, that of Toledo and

Gutierrez points to a serious failure on the part of progressive opinion

to understand the nature of the political programme being supported. Why?

III

THE UNFORTUNATE HISTORY OF THE LEFT INTELLECTUAL

The great majority of Latin Americans – workers, peasants, the unemployed

and the poor – have suffered grave consequences as a result of the support

given to ‘centre-left’ parties and coalitions by movements to which they

belong. Much of the blame for this situation must fall on the immediate

leaders of these movements, some of whom were co-opted, others were

deceived, manipulated or self-deluding. Part of the fault, however, lies with

leftist intellectuals, journalists, NGOs and academics who wrote and spoke in

favour of ‘centre-left’ politicians and parties. They promoted their virtues,

their histories and their promises; they lauded their opportunities, their

plebeian backgrounds and their probity – in a vastly uninformed, uncritical

and superficial manner.

The list of leftist intellectuals culpable of this covers three continents, and

reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of progressive opinion: Emir Sader, Adolfo Gilly,

Heinz Dietrich, Perry Anderson, Atilio Boron, Raul Zibechi, Frei Betto,

Immanuel Wallerstein, Noam Chomsky, Ignacio Ramonet among others.24

To a greater or lesser degree, and over a long or short time frame, all sang to

the chorus of ‘New Left Winds are blowing in Latin America’. A close

reading of their writings, however, reveals that these leftist intellectuals were

more influenced by the text and rhetoric of ‘centre-left’ personalities and

parties, and less by their class practices, economic policies, strategic political

appointments, and their elite linkages before and after being elected.



In general, the leftist intellectuals were seduced by what might be termed

superstructural phenomena. The latter encompass political symbols, political

forms and identity politics – especially the presence of ‘Indians’ and women

in positions of power – and not the socio-economic content and class nature

of the policies concerned. Much was made by those on the left of ‘Indian’

and/or ethnic identity, or the social origins of the party or politician, ignoring

or overlooking thereby their neo-liberal transformation, their current

business elite reference groups, plus their current socio-economic elite asso-

ciates. They bought into the carefully choreographed political gestures and

theatre: the promises to reduce presidential salaries (Morales), ceremonies

paying homage to past struggles (Tupamaros), and weeping or ‘feeling’

for the poor (Lula), all this rather than the selling-off of the strategic raw

materials to foreign multinational corporations.

It is difficult to overestimate the gravity of the resulting political focus by

leftist intellectuals/academics on form rather than substance. This uncritical

espousal by many on the political left of ethnic ‘otherness’ simply because it is

an identity that is indigenous, without interrogating the class ideology and

politics of this ‘other’ identity, has on occasion played directly into the hands of

the political right, who have factored this kind of response into their own

agendas. Thus, for example, in the case of the US-engineered coup in 1954

against the democratically elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz in

Guatemala, the US Central Intelligence Agency selected Castillo Armas as a

puppet to head the ‘opposition’.25 To those organizing the coup, one of themain

attractions of Castillo Armas was that he appeared to be of an indigenous

‘other’ identity in a country where half the population was Mayan.26

In part, the judgment of leftist intellectuals was impaired by a nostalgic

remembrance of years past – when they knew Lula as a trade union leader

(a quarter of a century earlier), the Frente Amplio as an organization of grass-

roots struggle (resisting the military dictatorship in Uruguay during the 1970s),

Evo Morales as a militant peasant leader (of coca farmers in the 1990s), and

Kirchner as a leftist sympathizer (with theMontoneros in the 1970s).27Writing

on the basis of identities which were no longer current, and thus irrelevant to

the present political situation, leftist intellectuals failed to appreciate the extent

to which there had been a shift from left to right. Instead they invented a non-

existent but hospitable ‘centre-left’ label which was affixed – inappropriately,

and without reason – to those such as Lula, Kirchner, Morales, Toledo and

Gutierrez. In this way, the label created neatly fits in with their wishes and

desires to be ‘against’ the system while being part of it.

Not a few of these left intellectuals were impressed by the ‘centre-left’

diplomatic gestures of friendship towards Cuba and Venezuela, the warm

reception of Hugo Chavez, even the occasional embrace of progressive

leaders. No doubt they confused the favourable diplomatic gestures by Cuba



and Venezuela toward the ‘centre-left’ regimes – understandable from the

view of state policies aimed at countering US pressures – as a general

endorsement of their internal policies. Regardless of any reasons for Cuban

and Venezuelan support, leftist intellectuals have invented a ‘common

purpose’ with the ‘centre-left’, some – such as Dietrich – even fantasizing

about the presence of a new ‘left bloc’.28 The latter was based, presumably,

on policies such as deepening foreign ownership of strategic materials,

widening social inequalities, and promoting free trade.

Symbolic politics is visually accessible on the front pages of the mass

media – it does not require a capacity to research, collect and analyse data.

Insofar as left intellectuals substituted the ‘symbolic left’ for the real existing

converts to neo-liberalism, they can with an easy conscience do things like

become political advisers, accept invitations to presidential inaugurations,

and imbibe cocktails at receptions. As history teaches us, this chance to be

close to power is indeed a heady experience. Most cynically, it could be

argued that the only place where the ‘Left Winds’ blow is through the empty

space between their ears.

IV

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

There are powerful left-wing forces in Latin America, and sooner or later

they will contest and challenge the power of the neo-liberal converts, as well

as their allies in Washington and in the multinational corporations. In the case

of Bolivia this is likely to be sooner, not least because the scale and scope of

Morales’ broken promises, together with his embrace of the business elite,

has already provoked the mobilization of the class-conscious trade unions,

the mass urban organizations and landless agricultural workers and poor

peasants. The insurrectionary movements on whose back Morales rode to

office are still intact, and – more importantly – their co-opted leaders have

been replaced by new militants. Populist ‘gestures’ and ‘folkloric’ theatre can

have at best only a short-term impact, in that the capacity to divert class-

conscious miners and the Indian militants in El Alto from the reality of

grinding poverty is of necessity limited. The insurrectionary forces that

brought Morales to power can also bring him down.

Left-wing forces are also powerful in rural Colombia. More than US$3

billion of US military assistance has been spent on Plan Colombia over the

past four years by the Uribe regime. Although the latter is propped up by

paramilitaries and some 1,500 US Special Forces ‘advisers’, the government

of Uribe has nevertheless failed to defeat the peasant-based FARC (The

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), and have suffered major defeats



in late 2005–06 in the face of a guerrilla offensive. Uribe was re-elected as

president of Colombia, but he will at best rule only half of the country.

In Brazil, the control/co-optation of the class collaborationist labour

confederation (CUT) by the Lula regime has led to the formation of a new

militant confederation ConLuta (founded May 2006). The critical collabora-

tion with the Lula regime on the part of the MST has led to a political

impasse, internal debates and a sharp decline in support within and outside of

the organization. This may lead to a political rectification and re-orientation

toward class politics. It is nevertheless the case that the Brazilian left faces a

‘long march’ toward re-establishing its political credibility. Much the same is

true of the left in Uruguay and Argentina: the new ‘centre-left’ neo-liberals,

unlike the old right, have co-opted many of the leaders of the major trade

unions and some of the unemployed workers groups. This has been done by

means of allocation of government posts, inclusion in Congressional electoral

slates, and generous stipends.

President Chavez of Venezuela stands as the major political figure

representing a real governmental challenge to US imperialism.29 He has led

the fight against ALCA and the US invasion of Haiti; he defeated a US-

sponsored coup attempt and has demonstrated that social welfare, nationalism

and political independence is viable in the Hemisphere. But as in Cuba,

Chavez faces not only US aggression from the outside but opposition from

within. Many officials in his party (The Fifth Republic), the state apparatus

and sectors of the military are not in favour of his proposed Twenty-First

Century Socialism. Between Chavez and the 10 million voters who support

him is a political apparatus of dubious political credentials, with notable

exceptions. In the case of Cuba, Fidel Castro has spoken of a similar internal

threat from a ‘new class’ of rich emerging from the scarcities of the ‘Special

Period in Peacetime’ (1992–2000) and the opening to tourism.30 He has

called for a new revolution within the revolution.

If there are ‘New Left Winds blowing in Latin America’, therefore, they

come from the call by Castro for a new revolution within the left, from the

insistence by Chavez that socialism is the only alternative to capitalism, and

from the new grassroots leadership in Bolivia, Brazil and elsewhere, as well

as from the advancing 20,000 strong guerrilla movements in Colombia. A

new generation of autodidactic popular leaders and young militants who are

also intellectuals, is emerging in the urban councils of El Alto, in the new

class-oriented trade unions of Brazil, and among the students joining the

peasant fighters in the jungles of Colombia. They are the ‘Left Winds’ of

Latin America.

By contrast, the ‘centre-left’ regimes and their leftist intellectual supporters

represent a sad epitaph on the ‘radical’ generation of the 1970s and 1980s:

they are a spent force, lacking critical ideas and audacious proposals for



challenging imperialism and capitalist rule. They will not fade away – they

have too much of a stake in the current system. Although there is a long

history in Latin America (and elsewhere) of this kind of deception – by others

of the leftist self, and by the leftist self of the leftist self him/herself – there is

a huge irony in the pattern of delusion that currently exists.

In the past, leftist intellectuals aligned with pro-Soviet communist parties

tended to put a brake on revolutionary mobilization, arguing that the time was

not yet ripe. Although such misrecognition persists, now it has been reversed.

Leftist intellectuals who are politically non-aligned currently argue that the

revolution is already here and must be supported. The element of irony is

unmistakable: whereas earlier leftist intellectuals saw no revolutionary

potential where this actually existed (at the rural grassroots during the 1960s),

present-day ones see revolutionary potential in places (the Presidential

Palace) where it is actually non-existent.

When measured against a set of criteria commonly accepted as designating

a leftist politics, the Latin American regimes hailed by many intellectuals as

‘New Winds from the Left’ fail to meet the test: none pursue redistributive

policies; most have implemented regressive budgeting policies, subsidizing

big business and reducing expenditures for social policy; class selective

austerity programs have been applied prejudicial to minimum wage earners

and low-paid public employees in health and education; privatizations – legal

and illegal – have been extended and deepened, even of lucrative publicly-

owned mineral and energy sectors; foreign investors have been given

privileged access to local markets, cheap labour and privatized enterprises

and banks. All the latter have had – and will continue to have – a deleterious

impact on the living standards of the rural poor.

While none of the so-called ‘centre-left’ regimes can accurately be

designated ‘leftist’, there are some variations in the degree of adherence to

the neo-liberal model. Kirchner has channelled some of the economic surplus

towards the funding of national capitalist development, and also supported

some price controls on basic foodstuffs and electricity rates. Lula, by

contrast, is found at the other end of the spectrum: he has undermined a

specifically national development of manufacturing with an overvalued

Brazilian real and exorbitant interest rates favouring financial capital.

Occupying a slightly different position on this same spectrum, Morales

combines the pro-foreign investment programme of Lula – especially in

minerals and petroleum – with a chavista policy of increasing tax rates on

foreign-owned mining, gas and oil producers. While most of the ‘centre-left’

regimes considered here provide troops for the US-sponsored occupation of

Haiti, and continue to support US military bases in Bolivia and Brazil, they

are unanimous in their opposition of US direct intervention in Venezuela.

And although most on the ‘centre-left’ promote minimalist subsistence



anti-poverty programmes, none pursue structural changes in land tenure and

public investments aimed at creating employment, so as to get at the root of

poverty.

A final irony is that a US policy designed and executed by one of the most

extreme right-wing governments in recent Western history has led to some

frictions, particularly in its attempt to impose non-reciprocal free trade

agreements and a legal basis to punish electoral regimes for not conforming

to the dictates of Washington. Such pressure from above is in turn countered

by impetus from below. Within the framework of neo-liberal politics, there-

fore, these ‘centre-left’ regimes also face strong pressures from popular

organizations and threats of renewed mass direct action. This in itself serves

to compel these regimes to resort to populist discourse: making symbolic

gestures of solidarity with the grassroots on the one hand, and on the other

asserting their independence from the ultra-imperialist Bush regime, to which

they offer only rhetorical defiance/opposition, thereby seeming to distance

themselves from the US.

It would be a mistake however to consider such ‘centre-left’ regime

gestures as a sign of a major left revival. The credit for the latter development

is due to the mass movements outside the regime, mobilizations that in a

majority of instances are composed of poor peasants and agricultural workers

who demand more than just symbolic defiance and empty gestures of

(economically non-existent) ‘sameness’ and solidarity with the grassroots.

What the rural (and urban) poor require – indeed, demand – is a sharp turn

toward substantial socio-economic transformations. The way in which such

changes will affect the current agrarian structure is thus a matter of some

political urgency. It is an issue which leftist intellectuals and academics who

are enthusiastic supporters of ‘centre-left’ regimes in Latin America have yet

to address in terms that are specifically leftist.

V

POSTSCRIPT: APRIL 2006

By the third month of his regime, facing major strikes from teachers, health

workers, transport owners and pilots, President Morales made an open and

explicit appeal to the most retrograde oligarchical classes in Bolivian society

to come to his support. Addressing several hundred representatives of the

business elite at a National Chamber of Commerce meeting, he declared: ‘It’s

true, in the past I was against the oligarchy, but I recognize that was a mistake

because we need businessmen.’31 He promised to transfer foreign-owned

resources over to the Bolivian oligarchy. While declaring his ‘mea culpa’ to



the oligarchy, Morales’ ministers of the Interior and Justice (a female Indian

trade union leader) launched a frontal attack against the striking, lowest paid

public sector workers, declaring the health workers’ strike illegal and sending

the police to arrest and beat strikers. Significantly, the law declaring public

sector strikes illegal was passed by a previous dictatorial military regime.

More insidious, however, was the attempt by the Morales regime to mobilize

the parents’ associations to attack the striking teachers.

While President Morales sought to strengthen his ties to the ‘national bour-

geoisie’ and agrarian oligarchy, his vice president and principal theoretician,

Alvaro Garcia Linera, continued to provide an ideological gloss to the anti-

working class politics of the regime by invoking its Indianismo and family

based rural and urban economies. According to Garcia Linera, ‘Evismo’ – the

ideology of personalistic rule by President Evo Morales – represents a break

with past class-based strategies for exercising state power in favour of a ‘project

of self-representation of the social movements of plebian society’ (sic).32

According to Garcia Linera, ‘the Indian presents itself as an autonomous

political subject that proposes an expansive nationalism, a ‘‘nation of unity in

diversity’’’.33

Meanwhile the demands of the autonomous Indian rural teachers are

rejected, and told to accept a real wage increase of 3% (a nominal 7%) after

Morales had proposed to triple the monthly minimum wage, as stated above.

In the countryside, the Landless Rural Workers Movement has responded to

Morales’ agreements with the agro-business elite of Santa Cruz by occupying

several landed estates, arguing wryly that such action is done ‘in support of

the President’s agrarian reform’, which otherwise has a paper existence only.

The political strategy of Morales is to form an alliance between the oligarchy,

multinationals and co-opted Indian and family-based farmers and merchants

associations against unionized miners, factory workers, public employees and

Indian communities of the Altiplano; all the latter are affiliated to opposition

leaders. As Morales moves to the right, the multinational corporations and

Bolivian oligarchy demand ever greater concessions in terms of tax revenues,

joint ventures, and provincial autonomy, while his austerity budget is leading

to social confrontations in the countryside and cities.34

In Brazil the logic of state violence, and complicity between the judicial

system and the big landlords, is prefigured in the abandonment by President

Lula da Silva of his promised land reform, his backing for Brazilian

agribusiness interests, and the presence in Brazil of landless rural workers

denied their promised land. Anticipating Morales in Bolivia, and in an

important sense mapping out a template of betrayal, Lula has moved to

consolidate an electoral alliance with centre-right parties in Brazil, thereby

increasing campaign financing from the export and banking elites, while the

state apparatus criminalizes former allies in the socialmovements like theMST.



The decay of this agrarian movement, a process arising from and

accompanied by its stubborn support of the neo-liberal Lula regime, was

evident during the author’s recent research trip to Brazil in the spring of

2006.35 Interviews with leaders from the metal trades and public employees

unions who were in the process of forming a new labour confederation (called

CONLUTA) revealed a sharp decline in mutual support. While Lula slashed

public employees pension funds and weakened job security, the MST was

calling for demonstrations in support of Lula’s scandal-riddled regime,

presumably ‘threatened’ by the ‘Right’.

In 2005, a several hundred kilometre march convoked by the MST in

favour of agrarian reform drew fewer than 12,000 marchers, compared to the

100,000 urban trade unionists who joined a similar march in 1996. The MST

has misguidedly based its faith on (broken) promises from Lula of a

comprehensive land distribution, an undertaking from him that has yet to

materialize, leaving over 200,000 squatters living in plastic tents for over four

years. Interviews with urban community organizers in Belem (the State of

Para) reveal that many former land squatters are returning from the MST

campsites to the urban slums, with a sense of deception or betrayal. Several

local rural landless groups have split off from the MST and have engaged in

land occupations and are joining the new labour confederation.

The MST’s cooperatives, products of earlier land occupations, face

increasing financial and political difficulties. This has led the leadership to

depend on state financing and deep-pocket contributors from European and

Canadian NGOs, and religious organizations that are close to the Lula

regime. The financial links between the Lula regime and the leadership of the

MST is one likely factor leading to the loss of political independence and

decline of class solidarity. The MST’s decision to support Lula’s re-election

in 2006, in the face of the Lula regime’s confrontation and attacks on

national-populists like Venezuela’s President Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo

Morales, is likely to accelerate internal conflicts and the further isolation of

the MST. The MST leadership’s decision to embrace collaboration with

Lula’s ‘big business’ regime is another example of the general weakness of

peasant or rural worker-based movements in constructing class-based

political alternatives to capitalist hegemony.

Parallel to these developments in Brazil and Bolivia, ‘centre-left’ President

Kirchner of Argentina has increasingly relied on a combination of carrot and

stick policies to counter the urban labour movement and rural unrest in the

Northwest of Argentina. Against striking oil workers in Las Heras, the entire

city was militarized; scores of workers were injured and arrested in action

compared to the military dictatorship of 1976–83. During April 2006 the

Argentinean state intervened in a similar fashion against subway workers,

arresting leaders. The second major trade union confederation, the CTA, has



been denied judicial status: it organised a major walkout in late April to

protest over shrinking purchasing power of wages faced with near 15%

inflation. Kirchner’s high-growth strategy involves large-scale, long-term

incentives to ‘national’ agro-exporters and manufacturers, based on limiting

urban wage raises and keeping rural labour costs low. The strategy has

worked in large part because of the commodity price boom, and the fact that

wage levels in 2006 have achieved parity with 1998.

In Venezuela the nationalist centre-left regime of President Chavez faces

an equally daunting and two-pronged challenge: not only from the overt and

covert destabilizing policies of US imperialism, but also from his own state

apparatus. The much-proclaimed agrarian reform, forcefully re-iterated

by President Chavez, has been sabotaged by an incompetent, politically

indifferent and inefficient Agrarian Reform Institute. Barely 100,000 land

reform beneficiaries in five years is a result, with over two million peasants

still without sufficient holdings. Worse still, over 150 peasant leaders and

activists have been murdered in the period 2004–06 (to April), without any of

the landlords or paramilitary killers brought to justice.

Leaders of theFrente Nacional Campesino Ezequiel Zamora have organized

several demonstrations to protest about the current situation: participants

raise their voices, criticizing the failure of the Agriculture Ministry and its

agrarian reform agencies for incompetence and inertia, and condemning the

National Guard for repressing peasant movements while failing to pursue

landlords engaged in political murders of peasant leaders. Worse still, the

National Guard General and Technical Police have been accused of turning

over to the Colombian Secret Police (DAS) those peasant militants accused of

being ‘subversives’. The close ties between on the one hand the military police

and the landlord class in Venezuela, and the police and paramilitaries in

Colombia on the other certainly bodes ill for the survival of the Chavez regime.

It is also (and rather obviously) an obstacle to the implementation of the

agrarian reform programme.

Broadly speaking, the link between peasant movements and ‘centre-left’

regimes in Latin America is fragile at best, and in the worst of cases non-

existent or problematic. Where Bolivia is concerned, the Morales regime is

engaged in mobilizing the (self-) proclaimed Indian–peasant–regime alliance,

so as to offset the opposition of unionized urban workers, miners and public

employees. In Brazil the longstanding connection between Lula and the MST

enabled the regime to freeze the land distribution process and expand the

agro-export sector. The subsequent weakness – some would say destruction –

of the alliance has led to an increase in land occupations, but under onerous

legal-juridical conditions, as Lula discards the MST for deeper ties with the

banking and agro-business elite. In Venezuela, the judicial system, the civil

administration and the police/military apparatus all stand between the call by



Chavez for a ‘war on the latifundio’ and his mass peasant supporters,

blocking effective implementation and heightening internal contradictions.

Especially notable in each of these instances – Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina,

Venezuela and Ecuador – are the following: on the one hand the potentialities

and limitations of peasant movement radicalism, and on the other the

particular reactionary uses of identity politics. The ultimate balance between

class and ethnicity, and the kind of resolution that emerges as a result, will

have long-term implications for agrarian political economy and grassroots

agency throughout Latin America.

NOTES

1 This imagery conjures up a classic scene in film comedy about cowboys in the Americanwest: The Paleface (1948), in which the eponymous and cowardly dentist on the frontier,played by Bob Hope, stalks and is stalked by a gunfighter. On his way to a showdown withthe latter, Hope encounters all sorts of contradictory advice – ‘he shoots from below, so duckto the side’, ‘he fires to the left, so lean to the right,’ etc. – that fuels the hilarious outcome.Both the confusion generated by advice received, and the kind of advice itself, are not sodifferent from the ones experienced by the ranks of rural and urban workers when confrontedwith a politician who, like the gunman in the film comedy, says one thing but does another(¼ ‘talks to the Left [but] works for the Right’).

2 For the element of class struggle occasioned by the imposition of neo-liberal programme, seePetras and Veltmeyer [2000; 2001a; 2001c].

3 In the case of Africa, the view that as nothing changes there is no point in trying has led oneex-leftist [Kitching, 2000] to declare that he gave up African studies because ‘I found itdepressing’. The latter is not so different from the characterization by US foreign policy ofAfrica as ‘a basket case’.

4 An example, in rather a minor key it has to be said, is the review by Taylor [2005: 418–20] ofa book about Latin American peasants that critically examined the leftist credentials ofpostmodern theory (including ‘moral economy’ and ‘everyday forms of peasant resistance’).Objecting to the view expressed by a number of contributions to the volume that what such anapproach endorses is neither progressive nor socialist but a reactionary form of populist/nationalist politics, the position taken by the reviewer was by contrast that ‘anyone withfirsthand experience of grassroots rural organization in Latin America knows that issues suchas ‘‘moral economy’’ and ‘‘everyday forms of peasant resistance’’ comprise an essential partof the warp and woof of micro-level politics. Without an understanding of these, no progresscan be achieved.’ The inference both that it is necessary to fit in with rural ideology aspresently constituted, that this is somehow compatible with a progressive (never mind asocialist) politics, and that anyway this is the only way forward politically, highlights asclearly as one could hope the malaise among those who continue to think of themselves as onthe left. It is this, more than anything else, that has resulted in defeat after defeat for the left inmany parts of the Third World, where socialist and communist parties have locked ontoexisting grassroots discourse in the fond (and frequently unexamined) belief that the politicsof opposition are ipso facto socialist and progressive. What it overlooks is the fact thatagrarian mobilization against international capitalism is in class terms heterogeneous, andthus projects economic interests and contains programmatic demands that are contradictory,not to say incompatible. Rich peasants in these movements rather obviously want differentthings from the poor peasants and workers who are also part of the same mobilization, a reallyrather simple fact that seems to have escaped Taylor.

5 This is especially true of the now hugely fashionable analysis of Hardt and Negri [2000;2005] based on frothy and essentially meaningless concepts such as ‘multitudes’ and‘empire’, for a critique of which see Petras [2002]. Like many other ‘leftists’, they have



pinned their political hopes on new social movements such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas,Mexico. Composed for the most part of Mayan peasants, the Zapatista movement is largely adefensive one, about the reproduction of indigenous cultural identity and institutions (see thevolume edited by Washbrook [2005]). As such, it has little to do with socialist objectives.

6 When asked [Stefanoni, 2005: 2] what kind of system did the MAS want to build in Bolivia,the vice-president Alvaro Garcıa Linera answered: ‘A kind of Andean capitalism.’

7 Portions of the opening passage in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte meritquoting at length. Marx [1979: 103] begins by observing famously that: ‘Hegel remarkssomewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as itwere, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.’ What he thendoes is to identify the reason for this [Marx, 1979: 103–4]: ‘The tradition of all the deadgenerations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just as they seem engagedin revolutionising themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed,precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of thepast to their service and borrow from them names, battle-cries and costumes in order topresent the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowedlanguage.’ Drawing on images from the past that in the present circumstances are no longerapplicable is as accurate a description as one might encounter of the way in which populistdiscourse operates.

8 For the details about the effusive celebration by the left generally that greeted this electionvictory, see Petras and Veltmeyer [2003b].

9 This kind of ‘hard man’ bragging by newly elected politicians who espouse what they claimto be ‘centre-left’ views (¼ ‘Third Way’) is designed to demonstrate fiscal rectitude both tothe domestic middle class and to international capital. The same kind of utterances were madein the UK after 1997 by Tony Blair and ‘New’ Labour (or, more accurately, New ‘Labour’), asituation memorably described by the late (and much lamented) Paul Foot, a socialist of the‘old’ school. About this he wrote [Foot, 2005: 429]: ‘The case against capitalism, and for ademocratic socialist society to replace it, seems every bit as strong in 2003 as it was when thevote was first granted to most people some 85 years ago. Yet the sad fact is that in those yearsLabour Governments, including particularly the majority Labour Government that came tooffice at the end of the twentieth century, have done little or nothing to achieve the Party’sfounding aim – namely to use the power given them by the franchise to represent theorganized workers and to close the gap between the rich and the workers in this country or inany other. In the past Labour ministers used to apologize for this failure. Now they boastabout it.’

10 Lula’s key economic ministers were dominated by right-wing bankers, corporate executivesand neo-liberal ideologues, all linked to the IMF and multinational corporations. Theseministers occupied the Finance, Economy, Trade and Agriculture Ministries, plus the CentralBank.

11 On the agrarian reform, see Petras and Veltmeyer [2003b: 17ff.].12 The dynamics of the previous regime, that of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, are

outlined in Petras and Veltmeyer [2001b].13 ALCA (Area de Libre Comercio de las Americas) is the Free Trade Area of the

Americas.14 What Lula objected to, specifically, was the policy of US agricultural subsidies com-

bined with tariff protection extended to US commercial farmers and agribusinessenterprises.

15 The MERCOSUR treaty established a common market covering the Southern Cone countriesof Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

16 A quarter of a century after the end of the military dictatorship, immunity extended by theArgentinean state to those who operated death squads during the ‘dirty war’ (guerra sucia)that lasted from 1976 to 1982 remains a live political issue. According to the report ofCONADEP, the National Commission on Disappeared People [1986], nearly 9,000 people‘disappeared’ during this period, although the real figure is said to be around 30,000. Amongthe ‘disappeared’ were many participants in rural labour organizations [National Commissionon Disappeared People, 1986: 378]: ‘There were numerous disappearances amongst workers



and small farmers . . . particularly in the northern provinces of Tucuman and Jujuy and theborder provinces of Chaco, Formosa, Corrientes, and Misiones, in the two latter especially inconnection with the Agrarian Leagues. There were many amongst the members of theseLeagues who are now dead, in prison, or disappeared.’

17 For more on Kirchner, and general background information on the economic crisis faced byArgentina, see Petras and Veltmeyer [2003a: 68ff.].

18 This section draws on materials contained in Petras [2006].19 Morales received congratulations from Fidel Castro, as well as from President Chirac of

France and Wolfowitz (of the World Bank).20 The extent to which the language of class has been displaced by that of indigenous ethnicity is

evident from the approving statement by the Bolivian vice-president [Garcıa Linera, 2006:75–6] that ‘The Aymaras of the altiplano, the cocaleros of the Yungas and Chapare, theayllus of Potosı and Sucre and the Indian people of the east have replaced trade unions andpopular urban organizations as social protagonists.’ In explaining why this happened, GarcıaLinera [2006: 79] goes on to say that ‘the upper, middle and subaltern urban classes – thelatter having abandoned all expectations of protection from the state and workplace unions –saw in this offer a new path to stability and social betterment’. The inference is that theirmembers deserted trade unions because the latter were too close to the state, and thus part ofthe problem. This, however, is questionable. As McNeish [2002] has pointed out, a resurgentethnic identity in 1990s Bolivia was due to the fact that rural trade unions had beenundermined by neo-liberal policies, a space which was occupied politically by traditionalindigenous authorities. It was because trade unions had been weakened by the state, therefore,and not because they were too close to the Bolivian government, that grassroots membersturned to traditional indigenous forms of representation.

21 On a resurgent populism in Latin America, see Brass [2000], Demmers, Fernandez Jilbertoand Hogenboom [2001], and Petras and Veltmeyer [2002].

22 This, of course, corresponds to the relay-in-statement common to populism: namely, that I –your representative, who embodies your (¼ plebeian) interests and those of the nation – amthreatened by ‘foreigners’ who are against me, you, and Bolivia. Such a discourse not onlyfuses the identity of President and people, fostering thereby the element of national solidarity,but also focuses this on the ‘outsider’ who is, it is inferred, to blame for the ills of ‘the people’and their President.

23 Formed in 1986, the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAI) was thepublic voice of all the different indigenous groups in Ecuador [Lucas, 2000]. For an accountof the mobilization in Ecuador of its indigenous population, see Petras and Veltmeyer [2003a:185ff.].

24 For this intellectual support, see Gilly [2002; 2005], Sader [2005a; 2005b], Dietrich [2006],Anderson [2002], Boron [2005], Zibechi [1997; 2000; 2003; 2005a; 2005b], Betto [2003],Chomsky [2006], and Ramonet [2005]. Frei Betto was one of Lula’s chief advisers untilDecember 2004.

25 A wide-ranging agrarian reform was central to the Arbenz government programme, a policywhich entailed the expropriation of the large uncultivated reserve belonging to the US-ownedagribusiness enterprise, the United Fruit company. The latter was, unsurprisingly, the maininstigator of the move to overthrow Arbenz [Schlesinger and Kinzer, 1982].

26 The intention was to present to the Guatemalan population a seemingly plebeian figurehead ofwhat was actually a foreign coup, thereby presenting the latter action as a form of domesticgrassroots agency. According to the CIA [Schlesinger and Kinzer, 1982: 122], therefore,Castillo Armas ‘had no strong ideology beyond simple nationalism and anti-Communism.But he ‘‘had that good Indian look about him. He looked like an Indian, which was great forthe people’’’.

27 Not the least interesting development is the way in which erstwhile guerrillas and/or theirsympathizers are now being co-opted into governments carrying out the kinds of neo-liberalprogrammes to which – as guerrillas – they were originally opposed. As well as theassumption of ministerial rank by those previously linked to the Tupamaros in Uruguay andthe Montoneros in Argentina, therefore, in Bolivia Morales’ vice-president – Alvaro GarcıaLinera – used to be a leader of the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army (EGTK). Such a



development is not, of course, new: history is littered with instances of erstwhile freedomfighters finding comfortable niches in the very government apparatus against which theystruggled. Most cynically, this bears an interpretation that is very different from the usualone: instead of being evidence of victory achieved by those who conducted the struggle,therefore, it frequently signals their defeat. Those occupying senior government posts, bycontrast, could be forgiven for seeing their erstwhile guerrilla experience as a ‘good careermove’, and as such no more than a preparation for high political office in the capitalistnation state.

28 For this ‘new left bloc’, see Dietrich [2006].29 See Gott [2005] for an interesting account of the domestic policies effected by the Chavez

regime.30 See Deere, Perez and Gonzales [1994] for an account of the contradictions that surfaced in

Cuba during the ‘Special Period in Peacetime’. The relaxation by the Cuban state of controlson peasant markets in the 1980s generated a trend towards privatization, in the form ofdecollectivization, sharecropping, and diverting inputs from state enterprises into privateproduction.

31 See Econoticia (La Paz), 11 April 2006.32 See Pagina 12 (Buenos Aires), 4 April, 2006, cited in www.rebellion.org 13 April, 2006.33 Ibid.34 Cochabamba, the third largest city in Bolivia, was the site of a successful 24-hour strike in

April 2006.35 This research was conducted jointly with Henry Veltmeyer.

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Petras - 'Centre-Left' Regimes in Latin America - History Repeating Itself as Farce

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