Workers' Liberty

Oaxaca

As we went to press, teachers in Oaxaca city were planning to take strike action in a further sign of the revival of the movement which rose to prominence last year.

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007

For many years the ‘International Section’ of conference has been dominated by motions and amendments offering various interpretations of the world situation.

By Paul Hampton

In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez has nationalised companies in telecom and electricity privatised by previous administrations. Chávez says he wants to form a new Bolivarian socialist party. And he has announced the extension of communal councils and even “workers’ councils” as a means of recasting the state.

Trotsky had been expelled from the USSR by Stalin in 1929, and spent the rest of his life trying to find a country which would let him stay. He arrived in Mexico on 9 January 1937. A longstanding Mexican Trotskyist, Manuel Rodríguez, suggested the asylum to his boss, General Francisco Mujica, a member of the Cárdenas cabinet (and his predecessor as governor of Michoacán). For Trotsky it became a life-or-death matter in November 1936, when it looked as though the Norwegian government might hand him over to the USSR.

By Nancy Davies

Students involved in the SAS week of action in February, which highlighted the struggles of Mexican workers in Oaxaca, will be interested to hear that the movement has begun to revive.

This abridged report from Nancy Davies in Oaxaca is great news. Full report on the Narconews website.

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A Program, Not a Plan

We are not dealing here with a “plan” in the true sense of the word. In a society where private property prevails, it is impossible for the government to direct economic life according to a “plan”. The document contains algebraic formulas but no arithmetic facts. In other words, it is a general program for governmental activity and not strictly speaking, a plan.

Andres Aullet, a lawyer involved in a Committee of Relatives of Political Prisoners of Oaxaca recently toured the UK speaking about the situation in Mexico. The tour was organised by No Sweat. Paul Hampton interviewed him.

Mexican Trotskyism

There was small Trotskyist group in Mexico during Trotsky’s stay there. A section was formed in 1930 and in 1933 took the name Oposicíon Comunista de Izquierda, renamed the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (LCI) in 1934. Its best-known supporter was the muralist Diego Rivera. Apparently the leading trade unionist and Stalinist Vicente Lombardo Toledano attended its meetings in early 1934 and considered joining the organisation. (Trotskyism in Latin America, Alexander 1973 p.184)

Trotsky’s final assessment of Mexico under Cárdenas

Trotsky’s evaluation of developments in Mexico went through a series of stages and modifications, as the battle between the state and the working class was played out. In the last eighteen months of his life, in discussions with Mexican socialists, he further clarified his views on the nature of the regime and the ruling party, its relationship to the unions and on workers’ administration.

Permanent revolution in Mexico

Despite its relative economic backwardness in the 1930s, Trotsky did not rule out the possibility that Mexican workers might seize power – even before their counterparts in the US. (Latin American problems: a transcript, Writings supplement 1934-40, p.785) However he was concerned about a mechanical interpretation of permanent revolution as applied to Mexico by some of the LCI.

Trotsky on the ruling party and the 1940 presidential election

Trotsky never equivocated on the nature of the ruling party, including the character of the PRM created by Cárdenas in March 1938. In his discussion with comrades in November 1938 he argued: “The Guomindang in China, the PRM in Mexico, and the APRA in Peru are very similar organisations. It is a people’s front in the form of a party… our organisation does not participate in the APRA, Guomindang, or PRM, that it preserves absolute freedom of action and criticism.” (Latin American problems: a transcript, Writings supplement 1934-40, p.785)

Trotsky on the nature of the Cárdenas regime

Trotsky made few remarks on the nature of the Mexican regime in the first eighteen months of his asylum, and when he did, these were brief allusions. For example in the article on the freedom of the press in August 1938 he described Mexico’s democracy as “anaemic” and to Lombardo’s “wretched Bonapartist pretensions” – the first mention of what would the mainstay of his conception. (Writings 1937-38 p.419, p.420)

Trotsky and the unions in Mexico

Trotsky began to write about developments in the unions in mid-1938. Before the Stalinist-organised pan-American trade union congress in Mexico City on 6-8 September 1938, which set up the Confederation of Latin American Workers (CTAL), he denounced (in the name of Diego Rivera) Toledano’s links with Stalin. He wrote that Lombardo was “a ‘pure’ politician, foreign to the working class, and pursuing his own aims”. His ambition was “to climb to the Mexican presidency on the backs of the workers” and in pursuit if that aim had “closely intertwined his fate with the fate of the Kremlin oligarchy”. (Trade union congress staged by the CP, 27 August 1938 in Writings 1937-38 p.426)

Trotsky on freedom of the press and the working class

In the summer of 1938 Lombardo began a campaign against the reactionary press in Mexico, intent on placing it under “democratic censorship” or banning it altogether.

Trotsky’s attitude towards the oil expropriations

Trotsky publicly supported Cárdenas’ expropriation of the oil industry. On 23 April 1938 he wrote to the Daily Herald in Britain, pointing to the hypocrisy of the Chamberlain government and defending the move of the grounds of national economic development and independence. He argued that the Labour Party should set up a commission to investigate how much of the “living sap of Mexico” and been “plundered” by British capital. (The Mexican oil expropriations: a challenge to the British Labour Party, Writings 1937-38 p.324)

Trotsky’s analysis of Mexico

Trotsky arrived in Mexico on 9 January 1937. A longstanding Mexican Trotskyist Manuel Rodríguez originally suggested the asylum to his boss, General Francisco Mujica, a member of the Cárdenas cabinet (and his predecessor as governor of Michoacán). However it became a life-or-death matter in November 1936, when it looked as though the Norwegian government, which had held Trotsky in prison for four months, might hand him over to the USSR.

Cárdenas veers left

Cárdenas enhanced his reputation as a leftist with an aggressive agrarian policy. During his presidency around 50 million acres (18 millions hectares) of land were distributed to peasants, mainly in the form of collective ejidos – double the entire amount of land redistributed since the revolution. Around half of all cultivated land was under the control of ejidos by 1940. This gave Cárdenas a wide base of support, with two-thirds of the population still living in the countryside. (Burton Kirkwood, The history of Mexico, 2005 p.171)

The first years of Cárdenas

Lázaro Cárdenas was chosen by Calles as his candidate for the presidency in 1934. Cárdenas had been an acclaimed officer during the revolution and was made a general in 1920 at the age of 25. Between 1928 and 1932 he was governor of his home state of Michoacán and loyal to Calles.

The origins of Mexican Bonapartism

The Mexican revolution (1910-1920) resulted in the defeat of the old landowners and their allies but also the exhaustion of other contending classes, particularly the bourgeoisie and the working class. Between one and two million people (out of population of 15 million) were killed.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has made a series of radical announcements following his re-election in December, which require the attention of socialists everywhere. He announced plans to nationalise companies in telecom and electricity privatised by previous administrations. Chávez says he wants to form a new Bolivarian socialist party. And he has announced the extension of communal councils and even “workers’ councils” as a means of recasting the state.

In December twenty human rights lawyers, journalists, authors, students and activists from the United States and Canada went to Oaxaca to investigate violations of civil and human rights since 14 June 2006. Here are extracts from their report (prepared by Robin Alexander). An activist from the Oaxaca struggle will be touring England from 12 February. The full report can be found at www.nosweat.org.uk

By Eugene Gogol

(My participation in an Emergency Human Rights Delegation in Oaxaca in the third week in December served as the catalyst for this essay.)

Oaxaca is a land of revolutionary upsurge, repression and resistance. At the present moment, (the end of December), repression with a mano duro (hard hand) is the order of the day as Oaxaquenos, who have been active in the upsurge, are picked up on the streets, beaten by local or state police as a warning to spread fear in the community, and then released. Others remain imprisoned weeks after they being swept up by the federal prevention police, who viciously broke up a protest march in late November. Ulises Ruiz, the fraudulently elected, corrupt governor and the undoubted author and manipulator of the present repression, still remains in power.

By Gerry Bates

In the aftermath of the titantic struggle in Oaxaca last year, the repression of militants continues.

Narconews website reported at the end of December that three prominent leaders from the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) were kidnapped at gunpoint, taken to a private home, beaten and tortured and then dumped behind a shopping mall area after two hours.

The struggle in Oaxaca was one of high points of workers struggle anywhere in the world last year. Now the movement of teachers and others in APPO is facing savage repression. We need to tell the story of the Oaxacan commune and make practical solidarity with workers under attack. (For an eyewitness account of the struggle on this website click here.)

The latest issue of Mexican Labor News and Analysis is now available online. I think this is one of the best sources on the real balance of forces in Mexico today.

By Jack Staunton

La lucha continua – the struggle continues! That’s the message from teachers, activists and other workers in Oaxaca, despite the wave of repression against them from Mexican police over the past two weeks.