IMF austerity policies spark Latin American powder keg

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Bolivian mine workers descend into La Paz during March 1985 general strike.

"A series of factors are coming together that are leading to a revolutionary situation."

SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1985 6 A series of explosive factors are coming together in Latin America that are rapidly leading to the development of a revolutionary situation. In a recent interview, Fidel Castro referred to this region as a "powder keg" about to explode.

The backdrop to the current situation is the gigantic debt owed by these nations to the imperialist banks. The total Latin American debt is currently $400 billion. One tenth this amount-or $40 billionmust be paid yearly to the banks in the form of interest. Some countries are forced to use as much as 50 percent to 60 percent of their export earnings to pay the interest on the debt every year.

Most of this debt was accumulated during the past two decades by the various U.S.-backed dictatorships, who opened their doors wide to the imperialist banks and multinational corporations. Banks were running after debtors, offering them loans at low interest rates.

The economic policies of the Argentine, Brazilian, Bolivian, Uruguayan, and Chilean dictatorships led to the near destruction of the national industries, as the native corporations were unable to compete with the foreign competition. Their ability to export was thus sharply curtailed.

Consequently it became necessary for these countries to increase their imports from the industrialized nations at prices that were constantly rising. This only deepened the entire debt spiral. In order to maintain their level of imports, it became necessary to borrow more money-but this time at the higher interest rates charged by the banks.

Attacks on working people Tied in with the mounting debt was the sharp increase in the level of inflation in most of the Latin American continent. In 1984 the inflation rates were astounding: 2300 percent in Bolivia, 675 percent in Argentina, 200 percent in Peru, and 195 percent in Brazil.

Due to the multiple devaluations of their currencies, Argentina and Bolivia had to issue 1-million peso notes. One U.S. dollar today is worth 75,000 Bolivian pesos. Fidel Castro pointed out with great irony that the "great success of these military governments is that they turned all the citizens into millionaires."

But while the cost of living skyrocketed, wage levels were kept constant. Living standards declined throughout the continent on an average of 50 percent to 60 percent of what they were two decades ago. Unemployment levels also soared. It is estimated that 45 percent of the working-age population in Latin America is either unemployed or underemployed (occasional odd-jobs at lessthan-minimum wages).

"Democratic openings" and the IMF Over the past few years the resistance of the workers, peasants, and impoverished masses to the austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund has increased dramatically. The IMF, it should be noted, demands that the debtor countries maintain low wages, open the doors to foreign investment, cut back on social spending, and devalue their currencies in exchange for further credits from the imperialist banks.

It was the mobilization millions of people in the streets against the austerity policies of these regimes that forced the military to withdraw to the barracks and to allow presidential elections to be held in Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Bolivia. The dictatorships had become so despised and discredited—and so unable to contain the mass upsurge-that they organized a careful transition to civilian rule.

The end of military rule was hailed with great enthusiasm by the masses, who expected that the new civilian governments would make good on their promise to not implement the IMF austerity measures. After decades of repression and utter poverty and humiliation, a new mood of heightened expectations and combativity had developed. Latin American workers and peasants were not about to accept the same treatment from the civilian governments.

In Argentina, for example, the newly elected president, Raul Alfonsin, resisted applying the IMF measures for 17 months out of fear of sparking an open rebellion such as occurred in the Dominican Republic last year.

In early June, however, Alfonsin totally gave in to the pressure of the imperialist banks and announced his "economy of war," which includes wage and price controls and the reduction of government spending.

The private banks applauded the accord reached by Alfonsin with the IMF and announced that new credits were on their way to help Argentina pay back the $1.2 billion in arrears on interest payments.

But the financial circles were also worried. "The sharp drop in living standards that is implicit in the IMF pact could find Mr. Alfonsin in significant political danger, notes the June 10 Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, when Alfonsin first announced that Argentina would have to accept an IMF plan to a rally of 200,000 on April 26, over half the crowd— including leaders of his own party-walked away in protest.

The case of Bolivia The transition to civilian rule occurred in different countries at different times. In Bolivia, massive general strikes brought down the Banzer and later the Garcia Meza dictatorships.

In 1982; a left-wing bourgeois candidate, Hernan Siles Suazo, was elected to office at the head of the Democratic Popular Unity (UDP) coalition. The UDP was a popularfront type formation, i.e. a coalition of the traditional workers' parties with a sector of the national bourgeoisie.

The UDP included the two major bourgeois-nationalist formations that had participated in the 1952 revolution, as well as the Communist Party and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Two CP members actually participated in the government until last December-one as minister of labor and the other as the minister of mining.

Siles Suazo inherited a catastrophic situation. The national debt stood at $3 billion, with nearly 70 percent of revenue from copper and tin going to pay the interest on the foreign debt. But instead of attacking the privileges of the landowners, the capitalists, and the multinational corporations, the new government agreed to carry out the dictates of the IMF.

For nearly three years, the situation continued to deteriorate for the Bolivian masses. This in turn led to over 500 strikes and three general strikes. The Bolivian Labor Confederation (COB), which had initially given critical support to the UDP government, began to directly oppose the policies of Siles Suazo. The MIR eventually withdrew its support to the government.

In March 1985 a near-insurrectional situation developed for 16 days as Bolivia was paralyzed by a nationwide general strike. The demands of the strike were a sliding scale of wages (to keep up with the extraordinary 2300-percent yearly inflation rate) and workers' control over the nationalized mining industry. The government response was only a 230-percent pay raise and an offer to bring the COB directly into the government-to link the COB to the austerity measures.

The tin workers descended onto the nation's capital and occupied the city until they were brutally dislodged by the army. Siles Suazo, who claimed to represent the Bolivian working class, was compelled to bring out the army to crush the Siles Suazo accused Juan Lechin, head of the COB and Suazo's close ally in 1952, of doing the "dirty work" for the right wing. Lechin, hardly a revolutionist, hit home with his response that it was the "IMF. dictated policies of the government that [were] paving the way for the return of Banzer."

On March 23, by a vote of 22-6, the COB ended the strike with only a few minor demands met. Although the workers had been forced to go back to work, it was clear this was not a defeat, but rather a temporary truce.

The case of Peru Five years ago, the military stepped down in Peru and handed over a country in ruins to President Fernando Belaunde Terry. This past April 14 new presidential elections were held. The ruling party, Accion Popular, received a scant 5 percent of the vote-a clear rejection of the policies responsible for a $13-billion debt, 16.5-percent unemployment, 58-percent underemployment, and 200-percent inflation.

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A street in Santiago, Chile, shortly after 1973 military coup. "Situation is ripe for building mass workers' parties like the 10 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1985 Powder keg (continued from page 9)

The winner of the first round of the elections was Alan Garcia, candidate of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA)—a longstanding bourgeois-populist party. Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, candidate of the leftwing, popular-front-type coalition Izquierda Unida (IU), received 23 percent of the vote and was scheduled to run in a second round against Garcia.

However, as a result of pressure from forces inside IU— notably the Communist Party (PCU) and the three small bourgeois parties led by ex-generals and businessmen-Barrantes withdrew from the second round. The reason he gave was "to calm tensions and stabilize the democratic institutions during Peru's first transition from one elected president to another in 40 years."

Garcia will therefore assume office on July 28.

Since the April elections, the major spokespeople of the IU-with the exception of Javier Diaz Canseco of the Partido de Unificacion Mariateguista-have spoken favorably of some form of governmental alliance between the APRA and IU.

In fact, on the central programmatic questions-particularly on the foreign debt-both APRA and IU have similar positions. Both are silent on cancelling the debt and severing ties with the IMF. Instead, they call for "renegotiating" the debt and not paying interest to the private banks for a few years. This, of course, is what Alfonsin told the Argentine people during his election campaign.

But the elections in Peru provide only a distorted reflection of the rising mood of the Peruvian masses. Over 400,000 public employees of the Confederacion Intersindical de Trabajadores Estatales (CITE) were on strike nationally during the election campaign itself. (Barrantes, the presidential candidate of IU, denounced the strikers for "endangering the An important wage increase was gained after a hard 20-day struggle.

In addition, on April 12, a 24-hour strike led by the fishmeal and metal workers paralyzed the coastal city of Chimbote. On April 19 the miners in Guiruvilca went on strike for better working conditions. Soon after the electrical workers walked off the job nationally, followed by the national teachers union (SUTEP). Both these strikes, in turn, were supported by a one-day work stoppage called by the CITE.

The government that takes office on July 28 will face the worst economic and political crisis in the country's history. And it will have to perform an impossible balancing act of having to carry out the orders of international finance capital without frontally taking on the workers' movement. The victory of the APRA will only sharpen the mass struggles, leading to an open revolutionary situation in the coming period.

The case of Brazil After 21 years of military rule, a civilian president was nominated by an electoral congress on Jan. 15, 1985. Despite the gigantic mobilizations for direct elections in the spring of 1984, the president was indirectly "selected."

The winner, Tancredo Neves, was to have been sworn into office in April. (See March 1985 Socialist Action.)

But Neves' sudden death on April 21 put the carefully planned transition to the "New Republic" into a tailspin. Jose Sarney, Neves' running mate and now Brazil's new president, had supported the dictators over the past two decades and had been a leader of the military's Democratic Socialist Party (PDS). His open identification with the hated regimes of the past has become a liabil. ity for the Brazilian ruling class.

Even before Neves' death, however, it was clear that the "New Republic" would not resolve the tremendous problems confronting Brazil's working class. Neves had promised to promptly pay back the $12billion annual interest payments to the imperialist banks and to pursue the harsh austerity measures demanded by the IMF.

The Brazilian working class, in fact, did not give the new civilian government much of a "honeymoon" before massively engaging in struggle for higher wages and a shorter workweek with no cut in pay. Beginning on April 11, the largest strike wave of the past 21 years swept Brazil, led by United Confederation of Workers (CUT) and the Workers Party (PT). The strikes, of course, were declared illegal by the Labor Court.

Luis Inacio da Silva (Lula), the Brazilian metalworkers' leader and president of the PT, stated the tasks of the PT very clearly at a London rally in solidarity with the striking British miners last February. He said:

"Tancredo Neves has said publicly he won't break with the IMF and that he won't recognizé the independent trade union confederation (CUT).....

"He has promised the businessmen to open up the economy and to privatize many state enterprises. He has promised incentives to the big agricultural, producers....

And he has talked to the banks and promised them peace and calm....

"To the workers he has promised nothing. He has asked them for time. He's asked for a 9-12 month truce in order to get the economy back on its feet.

But, look, to whose benefit is this economic recovery going to be achieved?

Is it going to be a recovery for the workers or for the employers, for the workers or for the bankers, for the workers or for the big landowners?...

"The role of the PT is to explain to the Brazilian people what Tancredo's alliances and all these people represent, and to turn its energies into the social struggles which orginally gave birth to the PT."

The one-month strike wave, which the PT helped to launch, involved 43 national unions and approximately half-a-million workers-300,000 of whom were metalworkers affiliated to the CUT.

On May 9, approximately two-thirds of the metalworkers in the small and medium-sized companies went back to work after reaching agreement with their companies. Most of the agreements included a fourhour reduction of the workweek, a 100 percent inflation correction, a 5-6 percent wage increase, and a three-month wage adjustment. Workers in other unions reached similar agreements.

The large multinational automobile manufacturers, however, were unwilling to negotiate with the strikers. In fact, 4419 striking workers were fired from their jobs at the General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, and Mercedes factories.

In the GM plant in Sao Caetano, the 3000 workers occupied the plant for three weeks to demand the reinstateWorkers Party in Brazil."

ment of 200 fired workers—a demand which was won. In the GM Sao Jose Dos Campos plant, 10,000 strikers occupied the plant to protest the sacking of 93 members of the union's Work Council and Health Commission.

After GM called in the military police on April 25, the workers decided to leave the plant but to continue the strike. As of this writing, tens of thousands of metalworkers are still out on strike against the multinational corporations.

The case of Uruguay Another case of a tightly controlled transition from a brutal dictatorship to civilian rule occurred last Nov. 25 in Uruguay. For the first time since the 1973 coup d'etat, general elections were held. Julio Sanguinetti, pro-U.S.head of the bourgeois Colorado Party, was elected president with 39 percent of the vote.

The left-wing Frente Amplio (FA), or Broad Front, received 20 percent of the vote. It failed to gain a majority in Montevideo, the nation's capital, by less than 2 percent.

The FA, like the Izquierda Unida in Peru, is a popularfront type formation. It is a programmatic coalition that subordinates the working class to capitalist interests. It is an electoral alliance that includes the bourgeois Christian Democracy, a number of exgenerals, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and a coalition of far-left groups and independent trade unions organized in the Independent Democratic Left (IDI).

The FA's program says nothing about rejecting the policies of the IMF or refusing to pay the foreign debt. It offers no program or demands on the central questions of jobs and wage levels. It is also silent about freeing all the political prisoners and punishing those responsible for the systematic tortures of the past 11 years— two politically explosive issues.

Prior to the elections, the FA signed the so-called Naval Club agreements with the Colorado Party and the military government. The purpose of this pact was twofold: (1) to block any mass mobilizations of the Uruguayan workers that could obstruct the transition to civilian rule, and (2) to curtail the democratic rights of the opposition before and after the elections.

Since the elections, the FA has become a "loyal opposition" party in the Senate by blocking with the Blanco Party, the second largest bourgeois party, on a series of important issues under debate. The FA's line is that nothing should be done during this period to obstruct the "consolidation of the democratic process" in Uruguay.

The president of the FA, Liber Seregni, was reinstated into the army • last March and given back his rank as a general. President Sanguinetti met with Seregni in early May and offered him a cabinet post in the government. Seregni said publicly that he would seriously consider the offer.

The Uruguayan working class, however, is not so ready to make compromises and concessions to the IMF and to the native ruling class. In January 1984, the Inter-union Workers Plenum (PIT) organized the first successful general strike since 1973.

The following May 1, over 350,000 workers demonstrated in support of the demand for amnesty for political prisoners and the return of those living in exile. On June 27, in response to a call from the PIT, a new "national people's strike" received the support of the entire population.

And on May 1 of this year, an IMF delegation visiting Uruguay was greeted by a gigantic demonstration and rally organized by the PIT-CNT, the country's umbrella labor federation. The hundreds of thousands of workers protested the first economic measures taken Zerbino and called for a moratorium of the debt.

Like in Peru and Bolivia, the aspirations of the working class are bound to come into conflict with the policies of the civilian governments and of their reformist misleaders—in this case those in the Frente Amplio.

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"Distinction must not be blurred between anti-imperialist united front and popular front."

Partido dos Trabalhadores Election poster of the Brazilian Workers Party (PT). Poster reads: "PT, the party without bosses," and "For a Workers SOCIALIST ACTIC JULY 1985 11 (continued from page 10)

Any serious political current in the Latin American workers' movement that seeks to advance the struggles of the workers and peasants must fully come to grips with the pernicious counterrevolutionary role of Stalinism in the region.

The Stalinist Communist parties in Latin America are not mass parties as in Europe, but they benefit from the material aid of the Soviet bureaucracy and have longstanding roots in the workers' movement. Their influence-and thus their ability to betray— goes way beyond their numerical size.

In Brazil, the Stalinists of the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCB) are the most hardened opponents of the Workers Party (PT) and of the newly formed United Confederation of Workers (CUT).

The _PCB energetically fought at every step of the way to prevent the formation and development of the PT (see Socialist Action, July 1984). Together with the governmentpaid union bureaucrats (the "pelegos"), it organized a split in the trade union movement, forming a parallel labor confederation-the CONCLAT.

And the PCB joined the bourgeois opposition in opposing the direct elections and in calling for a "social pact" with the trade unions (an agreement to hold down union demands to "stabilize" the capitalist profit system).

During the recent strike wave, the PCB showed its true colors by opposing the strikes and accusing the PT and the CUT of being "adventurers who [were] fueling the crisis."

Hercules Correia, head of the PCB, stated, "Our party cannot go along with these strikes because such a policy runs the risk of destabilizing the present political balance."

In Bolivia, the Stalinists openly participated in the Siles Suazo government and were responsible for implementing the IMF policies against the workers and peasants. At the last national congress of the COB, the Bolivian CP was expelled from the leadership of the labor federation by a newly formed alliance of Trotskyists, independent unionists, and Juan Lechin. The alliance called itself the Revolutionary Unified Directorate (DRU). The DRU accused Siles Suazo and the CP of "betraying the working class."

In Peru and Uruguay, the Stalinist Communist parties have been instrumental in forging multiclass electoral blocs including bourgeois forces, i.e. the popular-front coalitions of Izquierda Unida (IU) and the Frente Amplio (FA).

The Stalinists argue that the conditions are not ripe for socialist revolution in Latin America and that consequently what is needed is a stage of "economic development" and "consolidation of the cratic processes."

This stage, they argue, requires a programmatic alliance of workers and peasants with the so-called progressive sectors of the bourgeoisie and army.

But popular-front coalitions and governments, as history has bitterly taught us, are not instruments that can advance the mobilizations of the masses on a revolutionary course. In fact, they are deadly obstacles in the path of the revolutionary The experience of Salvador Allende's government in Chile in 1970-73 shows how a popular front in power actually demobilizes the independent mass movements and paves the way for a fascist onslaught. The presence of the bourgeoisie in an electoral coalition-even though the bourgeois forces may appear to be insignificant as in Peru-is a pledge that capitalist property relations will be preserved and that the rules of bourgeois legality will be respected.

Writing in the Dec. 13, 1971, issue of Intercontinental Press, Joseph Hansen, a long-time leader of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, had this to say about the Uruguayan Broad Front (FA):

"In its purpose and main structure (its subordination to a bourgeois leadership), the Broad Front constituted a Latin American variant of the popular front long ago utilized by the Stalinists and Social Democrats in wheeling and dealing with bourgeois parties in the electoral arena.

"It is true that the Broad Front was not a mere replica of the popular fronts seen in Europe in the 1930s. Like every political formation in Latin America that seeks popular support today, it stressed anti-imperialism.

"Its 30-point platform

included the following planks: An agrarian reform, the nationalization of private banks, the nationalization of the main firms engaged in foreign trade, and energetic industrial action by Government. "

the state, including nationalization of the meat-packing industry.

"But fitting its platform to the radical mood of the Uruguayan masses did not change the essence of the Broad Front. Like the popular front seen elsewhere in the world, it was designed to divert the masses from the road of revolutionary struggle."

It must be noted that. the program of the FA was far more radical in 1971 than it is today and that the composition of the front has not changed since that time.

Fidel Castro and the debt Fidel Castro has given dozens of speeches and interviews in recent months on the issue of the Latin American debt. The thrust of his position is that the debt owed by the Latin American governments is "unpayable" and "unjust" and should therefore be canceled.

In these interviews Fidel thoroughly exposes the way in which the imperialist banks and nations continue to plunder Latin America. [See the fourpart series beginning on May 10 in The Militant, the newspaper of the SWP, and the excerpts from Fidel's Feb. 13 interview reprinted in the April 15 issue of Intercontinental Press.] Fidel's specific proposal is that the United States and other imperialist governments should reach into their treasuries and pay the private banks the $400 billion owed by the Latin American governments.

His proposal has received wide sympathy from the Latin American governments. Ecuador's President Leon Febres Cordero, who met with Fidel in O Partido sem Patrões April, stated that Fidel's position would be "attractive to governments that don't have any possibility of paying their debt."

It appears that Cuba will now be invited to participate in the so-called Cartagena group of Latin American countries, which has met several times in the past year to consider a joint approach to the debt problem.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Roger Lowenstein refers to Fidel's debt campaign in the following manner:

"While the Cuban leader is urging his fellow Latin Americans to form a 'common front' for cancellation, he has shied away from radical proposals that might scare them off. He hasn't, for example, suggested that countries simply refuse to pay the debt.... Mr. Castro has stated publicly that the [debt] problems must be solved by means of political dialogue and negotiations."

According to Lowenstein, Fidel "is using the debt issue to break out of his isolation and reestablish formal and informal ties to the rest of Latin America."

Fidel and the "democratic processes"

Cuba's new bonds in the hemisphere, according to the May 18 New York Times, already include a $600-million loan from Argentina, the resumption of diplomatic ties with Brazil (with signs that Uruguay and Peru will soon follow suit), close personal ties with President Belisario Betancur of Colombia, and a state visit to Cuba last April by President Leon Febres Cordero of Ecuador.

Fidel Castro-as a statesman of a Latin American nation-is perfectly entitled to find ways to help the Cuban Revolution break out of the isolation to which it has been subjected for over two decades.

The problem, however, is that Fidel-as a leader of the Cuban Communist Party and a revolutionist with great prestige-is not offering any concrete perspective for how Latin American workers and peasants can mobilize independently to break with the IMF and its policies.

Moreover, in presenting his case, Fidel uses many formulaNAMER tions which can only misorient the oppressed and exploited of the hemisphere.

In an interview published in the Dec. 26, 1984, issue of The Guardian, Fidel asserts that the Cuban Revolution cannot be held up as a model for Latin America today. He also states:

"In Latin America socialism is not the question....Proposing socialism would not only clash with objective economic realities; it would also create obstacles to the revolutionary movement in the rest of Latin America.... I do not believe that socialism is on the agenda in Latin America.

What is on the agenda is national liberation."

Fidel stated similar views in his Feb. 13 interview, which is reprinted in the April 15 issue of Intercontinental Press. Referring to the "democratic processes" opened up recently in various Latin America countries, Fidel states:

"There are more important things than this [the reestablishment of relations between Cuba and the rest of Latin America-A.B.], from my point of view, such as the consolidation of these democratic processes, and I feel that everyone should help and cooperate in this and not present difficulties" [my emphasis].

the Stalinists and other reformists to attack the independent working-class struggles and to urge the workers to moderate their demands.

Fidel and the two-stage theory Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was John F. Kennedy's adviser on Latin America, was part of a United Nations delegation headed by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar that met with Fidel this past May 28. In an article published in the June 12 Wall Street Journal he writes the following about the discussions with Fidel:

"Mr. Castro said, ' If problems of development cannot be solved, a revolution by itself will not solve them. We want to (continued on page 12)

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LATIN AMERICA F "Fourth International's program of class political independence is required for socialist victory."

Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, 12 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1985 Powder keg (continued from page 11 avert revolutions— because explosions will help no one?

Mr. Castro now appears to see development as the pre-condition for revolution....

He repents some of his earlier enthusiasms.

«We had many ideas, well-intentioned ideas? he told the Washington Post in January, 'but they were not very realistic; we wanted to skip stages? "

Fidel's statements-which he also presented to Spanish newspapermen in February-are deeply mistaken. The pre-conditions for the socialist revolution have existed for decades in Latin America. The "skipping stages" criticism of "extremism" comes from the Stalinist léxicon.

In fact, the entire Stalinist justification for class-collaborationism is rooted in the idea that a prolonged stage of economic development is required before the socialist tasks can be directly posed. But such a strategy delivers the revolution to the "progressive" bourgeoisie-the necessary ally during this first "democratic" stageand ultimately paves the way for the defeat of the revolutionary movement.

The entire history of the workers' movement in the 20th century-including the history of the Cuban Revolution itself-has taught us that the tasks of national liberation and economic and social development are inextricably bound up with the socialist revolution. In other words, without a socialist revolution there can be no national liberation and development in Latin America.

Revolutionists of action

Fidel and the Castroist current have paid a tremendous political price for their dependence on the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy. But the Castroists are not Stalinists. They are archtypical "revolutionists of action, a term describing pragmatic revolutionists who have displayed a capacity to go beyond their strategic misconceptions in their genuine comName.

Address Clty. note Telephone mitment to advance the interests and well-being of the masses.

It should be noted that Fidel's campaign of "advice" to imperialism to write off the $400-billion Latin America debt has a side with enormous revolutionary implications. The U.S. government cannot absorb such an increase in its already unmanageable national debt of $1.65 trillion without bringing about the collapse of the U.S. economy.

Fidel's campaign of "advice" to the imperialists to cancel the debt or face social revolution is also a signal to the Latin American masses to take up the demand when it becomes clear that the U.S. government won't accept his "advice."

The test of Fidel's contradictory stance is still before us. His record leaves room for optimism.

Still, any political support granted by Fidel to the Latin American bourgeois-nationalist governments can only erode the :31 great authority the Castroists have commanded in the continent. The Cuban Revolution and the revolutionary state created by that revolution would be the great losers.

The anti-imperialist united front A key component of a revolutionary strategy in Latin America is the correct application of the anti-imperialist united front. This strategy for the underdeveloped countries was first outlined by the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1922.

According to the Comintern, it was permissible and at times even necessary for revolutionists to form tactical and limited alliances with sectors of the national bourgeoisie in order to advance the class struggle and expose the temporary bourgeois allies.

Enclosed is S6 for 12 months Enclosed Is $ contrib tion CA 94110 The ica is r of gel based Peruvian women trade unionists In Brazil, for example, it was totally correct and necessary for revolutionists to be at the forefront of the struggle for direct presidential elections last year-even though the movement included sizable components of the bourgeoisie. That was the bourgeoisie's contradiction. The demand for the "Direitas Ja" mobilized nearly 15 million people in the streets against the government and the IMF.

The temporary bourgeois allies in the opposition party, the PMDB, were soon exposed before millions of working people when they backed off from fighting for direct elections. Only the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) held high the banner of direct elections and democracy. It marched under its own banners and explained to the workers that direct elections would offer better conditions for continuing the fight for its program of working-class political independence.

Anti-imperialist united fronts can and should also be carried out in Latin America to protest U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and Central America or British intervention in the Malvinas.

But these alliances must be limited and restricted in nature. Electoral, programmatic fronts with sectors of the bourgeoisie-no matter how insignificant they might seem-have nothing to do with the anti-imperialist united front. Such alliances are called popular fronts.

The experience of the international workers' movement— which is concentrated in the program of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938—has demonstrated that it is impermissible for revolutionists to join a popular front. To do so, under whatever pretext and intentions, only contributes to misorient and demobilize the workers. Ultimately it permits the reformist misleaders to derail the revolutionary struggles.

The fight for independent politics situation in Latin Ameripe for the development luine workers' parties on the independent trade-union movements. The momentous upsurge of the Brazilian working class and the growth of the PT and CUT are clear indications that an entire generation of trade-union, student, and peasant leaders and activists are looking for a political alternative to the class-collaborationist policies of their traditional leaders. This is not just true of Brazil.

There is a significant process of recomposition underway in the Latin American workers' movement. The examples of the Brazilian PT and of the Nicaraguan Revolution are being widely discussed. The depth of the economic and political crisis of the existing regimes, moreover, is pushing ever greater numbers of leaders and activists onto the arena of class-struggle politics.

At a recent public meeting in Ecuador, which included members and leaders of the Revolutionary Workers MovementMRT (the Ecuadorian section of the Fourth International) and of the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Ecuador (PSRE), the major theme of the discussion was the experience of building the PT in Brazil.

In Peru, Victor Cuadros, the president of the National Miners Federation, one of the country's largest and most militant unions, has launched an organizing campaign with other trade union leaders and members to form a Peruvian Workers Party. Cuadros, a few years earlier, had been a close ally and collaborator of Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, the presidential candidate of the Izquierda Unida.

In Bolivia, a major confrontation between the reformists and the class-struggle currents took place at the last congress of the Bolivian Labor Federation (COB). The pro-government forces were routed by the currents in the Revolutionary Unified Directorate (DRU). This was a tremendous step forward.

But the March general strike revealed the serious programmatic limitations of the DRU. Ultimately, it will be necessary for a new mass workers' party to develop based on the COB; a party that can draw the correct lessons from the strike and offer a clear political perspective in the coming class battles.

Labor and the debt In addition, there are very promising developments at the level of the trade unions themselves. The May 1985 issue of Em Tempo, the newspaper of PT members in support of the Fourth International, reports on an upcoming Latin American conference of trade-union federations called to discuss the debt to the imperialist banks.

The conference call, signed by the Brazilian CUT, the Uruguayan PIT-CNT, and the Argentine CGT, states the following:

"The question of the debt is a political question. As such it requires a political solution. No country in Latin America today is in a position to pay back the debt, let alone the interest on the debt....

"In our respective countries, the working class must confront the consequences of the debt.

Trade unions of different political tendencies have spoken out and fought against this situation of hunger, unemployment, and misery....

"For the workers and all the people in Latin America, the foreign debt is a central and common issue. A clear, united, and firm response to the question of the debt is a necessary condition for us to have a future with hope."

In addition, the last congres: of the Peruvian National Miners Federation adopted a platim that states the following:

"We hereby agree to organize along with the CGTP [the national labor confederation—A.B.] and all the independent class-struggle unions a national political campaign for the non-payment of the foreign debt and for a break with the IMF. In this effort, we will use the public call by the Bolivian COB to bring together a Latin• American Anti-imperialist Front that would expell the IMF from our countries."

Fred Murphy/IP Victor Cuadros, leader of the Peruvian miner's federation Indeed, the situation in the Latin American continent is explosive. It is rapidly developing toward the opening of a revolutionary situation. Under these conditions there are real possibilities for building parties of the Fourth International in the struggle to build mass workers' parties and independent labor unions.

The formation of Peruvian, Bolivian, or Ecuadorian workers' parties would be historic steps forward. But ultimately, the victory of the socialist revolution will require the development and leadership of mass parties based on the program and heritage of the Fourth International.

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By DIANNE FEELEY Last fall more than 50 North Americans worked on a reforestation project organized by the Nicaraguan Institute for Natural Resources and the Environment (IRENA), a government agency created in the weeks following the 1979 insurrection.

Some of us were in Somoto, near the Honduran border. Others were stationed in an isolated area outside Leon, while my work-group lived and worked in the area around Managua. We planted more than 25,000 trees with shovels and digging sticks. We planted eucalyptus, gavilan, roble, and leucaena-fast-growing trees. vegetables provide money with which the agency purchases supplies.

Diversification and self-sufficiency IRENA has conceived a 40-year plan for developing Nicaragua's natural resources. This wide-ranging plan includes a new national-park and wildlife-refuge system.

It has nominated Bowsawas, the largest tropical rain forest in Central America (located in the northeast area of the country), as a candidate for biospherereserve status under a UNESCO program.

It has also set up a center where various woods can be tested for better utilipulp, which is usually dumped into the rivers, causing pollution, into animal feed. The Nicaraguan Energy Institute (INE) is also working on bio-gas projects that use animal excrement to create organic fertilizer and gas fuel.

Keeping Lake Managua clean Pollution and reforestation are major problems in Nicaragua. This dramatically indicates the level of destruction imposed by the Somoza regime, which allowed multinational corporations to denude areas of the country, to poison the water supply, and to endanger the lives of the Nicaraguan people.

Lake Managua receives all of the workshop that not only considered approaches to cleaning up the lake, but explored as well possibilities of using it as an irrigation source.

The commission discussed its hydroelectrical potential, as well as the redevelopment of the surrounding deforested and polluted basin area's ecosystem. It discussed the possibility of utilizing the sewage as a source of methane.

The commission banned further industrial development in the lake basin and established regulations for existing industry, which is located primarily along its shores.

However, it is estimated that to reverse the process of pollution in Lake

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This argument, unfortu- nately, is the same one used by

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