Unions in Peru move to form workers party

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On April 14, 1984, over 40 prominent Peruvian trade union been sidetracked by the class-collaborationist Izquierda Unida leaders united to form a National Organizing Committee for a (IU), a popular-front type formation that includes the large majorWorkers Party. The meeting was called by Victor Cuadros, presi- ity of Peru's left parties as well as small but significant sectors of dent of the National Mineworkers and Metalworkers Union of IU is led politically by the Stalinist Communist Party of Peru Cuadros, whose 50,000-member union has been at the fore- (PCU) and by the capitalist party of the generals of the Velazco front of the struggle against the country's various capitalist gov- Alvarado military regime (PSR). After the recent presidential ernments, is one of the best known and most respected trade elections, IU has offered its critical support to the newly elected ately published in pamphlet form, and voted to The emergence of a class-struggle current involving recogber Provisional Political Committee to prepare nized leaders of the Peruvian labor movement on the basis of a principled political program is therefore a major breakthrough The party's founding conference is scheduled During the past 18 months, the Organizing Committee has published six issues of its newspaper, "El Trabajo. " It has At its 11th World Congress in 1979, the Fourth International formed scores of local "political groups for a Workers Party," adopted a resolution on Latin America which urged its sections which have attracted union activists from various political ten- to "support any real steps taken by significant sectors of the workers' movement on the road to independent political dencies. According to Cuadros, many of the new recruits have action-even if these steps are accompanied by programmatic The editorial board of the committee's newspaper includes Victor Cuadros; Nazario Tintaya, general-secretary of the That resolution also affirmed support to electoral coalitions National Federation of Municipal Workers of Peru; Alejandro with other forces, provided that "any alliance be clearly indeTaza, general-secretary of the Electro-Lima Workers Union; and pendent of the bourgeoisie and that it be clearly opposed to Jose Ona, legal adviser to the National Mineworkers and MetalThis resolution oriented the Brazilian Trotskyists, organized around the magazine Em Tempo, to play a major role in helping to establish the mass-based Brazilian Workers Party (Partido The successful steps toward the formation of the Peruvian Workers Party are of key political significance for the workers of Peru and the rest of Latin America. The platform of this pro- Today, the example of the Brazilian PT is being extended to posed Workers Party, major excerpts of which are published Peru. This important development provides revolutionists with below, represents a clear call for independent, working-class new opportunities to effectively challenge the mounting attacks on the workers and peasants of this country. "There cannot be a peaceful transition from capitalism Cover of Peruvian Workers Party's platform reads, "Organize the Workers Party. " Drawing is of Jose Carlos Mariategui, founder of the Peruvian communist movement in 1920s and a sympathizer of Trotsky's Left Opposition in the Comintern.

10 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1985

FATIMMP

National Mineworkers and Metalworkers union Peru.

union leaders in Peru.

This meeting adopted a political platform, ference of the Peruvian Workers Party.

later this fall.

come from the Izquierda Unida' (Left Unity.)

workers Union.

politics.

For the past The following are major excerpts from the founding platform of the Organizing Committee for a Workers Party in Peru. The document was adopted in Lima, Peru, on April 14, 1984. The translation and abridgement are by Socialist Action.

By means of this political document we are addressing the workers, students, and progressive intellectuals (be they members of Izquierda Unida' or not) who, loyal to the principles of socialism, are fighting for a revolution that will emancipate the working class and all the oppressed from the yoke of imperialism and capitalism.

We are submitting our platform for an open and comradely discussion. We are certain that the document can be perfected with the contributions of other workers who, like us, are seeking the road to building a political organization that genuinely represents all the exploited and oppressed.

On the Belaunde government The current government of Fernando Belaunde Terry is a government of the capitalists. Like the previous Belaunde government of 1963-68, it is an agent of the imperialist oppressor.

Consequently, our position toward this government-as toward any government tied to native and foreign capitalism-is that the proletariat and the oppressed majority must maintain their fullest class independence. Only in this manner will they be able to win their demands and impose a government of the which it immedi set up a 14-memthe founding conto take place An important breakthrough Peruvian working class oppressed.

Some voices have been raised from within the workers' movement [reference to Izquierda Unida and the Communist Party of Peru (PCU)The editors), calling on the ORGANICEMOS EI the capitalist class.

capitalist government of Alan Garcia.

for the Peruvian working class.

"Support real steps forward"

weaknesses."

class-collaborationism. "

dos Trabalhadores/PT).

-ALAN BENJAMIN Belaunde government change its economic policies.

But to ask this government to change its policies is like asking an elm tree to bear lemons. This government, which represents the imperialist monopolies, can only carry TRABAJADORES out policies in the interests of the oppressors.

We must defeat the positions put forward by the reformists, who are deceiving the people by calling for a change of the minister of the economy.

On the APRA Following the teachings of Jose Carlos Mariategui?, we characterize the APRA3 as a bourgeois party.

Although it is true that the to socialism."

APRA raised the banner of democracy and anti-imperialism in the 1930s, it has consistently capitulated to imperialism and to the capitalists since that time.

It for these reasons that we must reject the idea that it is possible to reach an electoral agreement with the APRA or even "a government with the APRA," as is being proposed daily by the PSR', one of the parties in the Izquierda Unida.

On Izquierda Unida Izquierda Unida (IU) is an electoral front which has won the sympathy of many important sectors of the people. But it is an organization which is led by reformists who reject the class struggle. Moreover, IU is permeated with the electoralist cancer of petty-bourgeois politicians who have forgotten about social revolution.

Having said this, it is also true that there are many individuals, currents, and organizations within Izquierda Unida who are resisting the reformist leadership of the front and who, through one form or another, are looking to express the revolutionary aspirations of our people.

The reformism of the leadership of IU, because of its policies of conciliation with the bourgeois state, can lead the Peruvian people to bloody defeat, as was the the case with the Chilean people under the Unidad Popular of Salvador Allende.

Only the united front of the workers, the peasants, and of all the oppressed against imperialism and the capitalist class can lead to victory and prevent Peru from becoming another Chile.

On 'Sendero Luminoso"

It is within the political void created by the absence of a genuine revolutionary alternative for the working class and the exploited of Peru that the armed actions of "Sendero Luminoso" (Shining Path) have taken place.

As revolutionary militants, we respect the heroism and self-sacrifice of those who have taken up arms to struggle, as they see it, against the present system of injustice.

We offer our solidarity to the fighters who have been detained. We will fight for their status as political prisoners and for their freedom.

But as proletarian militants, we have the duty to explain that we do not support the mititarist and vanguardist methods undertaken by "Sendero Luminoso. " There can be no victorious armed struggle without the organization and mobilization of the masses, with the proletariat in the leadership.

Military actions that are isolated from the struggles of the exploited in no way favor the cause of the workers and peasants. On the contrary, they offer the reactionary government the pretext to attack the organizations of the people.

It is true, though, that there cannot be a "peaceful transformation of capitalism" or a "peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. " The victory of the oppressed and exploited is impossible without the destruction of the capitalist state by means of armed revolution.

It is for this reason that a party of the workers must prepare itself and prepare its class for the transformation of (continued 11)

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Workers return to homes in Comas, one of Lima's shantytowns.

Miners' leader Victor Cuadros, PRT leader Hugo Blanco, and Antonio Aragon, a leader of a faction which split from the PSR. All three were elected to Constituent Assembly in 1978.

«We are with the Polish workers because they defend socialism."

(continued from page 10) the class struggle into a war against the class enemy.

On the National Popular Assembly Along with many other class-struggle currents in the workers' movement, the National Mineworkers and Metalworkers Union of Peru (FNTMMP) has fought over the years for the centralization of the local popular assemblies, defense fronts, unions, and other organizations into a National Popular Assembly.

Like the mineworkers, we therefore support the National Popular Assembly, which brought together 220 delegates from major unions, peasant organizations, slumdweller associations, political parties, etc., on March 7, 1984. This assembly expressed the deep desire of our people to form a united front of the oppressed to get rid of the Belaunde government.

Whereas the current governmental parliament is totally subservient to the president of the republic, the National Popular Assembly has begun to structure itself as the repository of the sovereign will of the masses—a will that has been trampled upon and ignored by bourgeois democracy, which serves only the ruling rich.

On the need for political independence The struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie is an irreconcilable struggle that must end with the victory of the proletarian revolution over capitalism.

In our country, the banner of class independence has been defended through a permanent battle with the class-collaborationist, reformist forces-particularly the Peruvian Communist Party "Unidad" (PCU). These forces have consistently offered support to the ruling capitalists and have therefore been compelled to carry out divisive politics in the workers' The PCU, which still controls the CGTP [the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers], has carried out these class-collaborationist policies for the past 15 years.

The PCU sought to deceive the workers by offering its full support to the armed forces under Gen. Velazco Alvarado® It told the workers that the army was the "vanguard of the Peruvian revolution. "

Flowing from its politics, the PCU consistently justified the military government's repression of the mass organizations: the massacres of Huanta and Ayacucho in 1969, Cobriza in 1971 and the persecution of the miners in Cuajone and Millontingo, etc.

For this reason, the PCU, carrying out the government's dirty work, organized one maneuver after another to break and divide the National Mineworkers Union headed by Victor Cuadros. It went so far as to slander Victor Cuadros and the main leaders of the Tress Fred Murphy/Intercontinents miners' union as "counterrevolutionaries." The PCU applauded their imprisonment and subsequent deportations.

Today the PCU advocates a policy of critical support to the Belaunde government. Together with the rest of Izquierda Unida (IU), it has adapted to the bourgeois parliament and to bourgeois legality.

The PCU and IU called for a change of the minister of the economy and opposed the call for immediate and direct general elections following the defeat of the ruling party in the municipal elections of November 1983.

Nonetheless, the reformists and the ruling class have not been able to contain the development over the past 15 years of important independent class-struggle currents in the major union federations such as the FNTMMP, SUTEP', CCP®, and other important unions.

This broad, class-struggle current has been at the center of the major class battles against the Velazco, Morales Bermudez, and Belaunde governments. These currents contributed to the formation of the FOCEP® and UDPIO.

And today these currents are seeking to become organized politically in a genuine working-class, revolutionary party.

For proletarian internationalism As it was for Jose Carlos Mariategui, who explained that the "Latin American revolution would be purely and simply one phase of the world revolution," proletarian internationalism must be the guiding principle for our revolutionary activity.

Concretely, this means that the Peruvian working class must solidarize itself with the struggles for emancipation of the working class and the oppressed people in all countries of the world. This must be done through organized campaigns and concrete acts of class solidarity.

At the root of our internationalism is the understanding of the international character of the world economy and the international unity of the class struggle.

Unfortunately, as a result of the degeneration and reformist deviations of the so-called Communist parties, proletarian internationalism also degenerated and was liquidated.

But we, as worker militants, have the duty to fight for the international unity of the working class, as Jose Carlos Mariategui sought to do. We must fight for a genuine revolutionary international organization of the workers to advance in a more effective way the struggle against imperialism and for the international socialist revolution.

Contrary to what the bourgeoisie and its agents in the workers' movement. tell us, fighting for proletarian internationalism does not mean turning one's back on the national struggle.

On the contrary, only consistent internationalists can fight for national emancipation and sovereignty against the imperialist oppressor. It is the so-called "patriots" who end up being the agents of imperialism.

It is for this reason that, at the same time we unconditionally support the struggles of our brothers and sisters in Central America who are fighting, guns in hand, against Yankee imperialism, we must also fully support the struggles of the Polish workers and their union, Solidarity.

We do not hide our ideological and political differences with leaders of Solidarity, like Lech Walesa. But the ideological struggle and debate within the workers' movement must not prevent us from forcefully demanding the release of the Polish unionists who have been jailed for fighting to form unions independent of the state.

We are with the Polish workers because it is they who are defending socialism, not COLOMBIA ECUADOR Chicoyo LUcayall BRAZIL Trujilo •Chimbote Pacific oluzco Ocean Arequipo ckm 500 those who put them behind bars for forming their own trade unions.

Our principal slogan must continue to be the one put forward by Marx and Engels: "Workers of the World, Unite!"

For socialism The struggle of the working class and of all the oppressed for their emancipation is the struggle to replace the rotten and agonizing capitalist system with socialism.

The Russian revolution of October 1917 was the beginning of the international socialist revolution. Since that time, and with its own distinct national particularities, the proletarian socialist revolution has been extended to China, Cuba, Korea, Nicaragua, and other countries that have torn themselves away from imperialism through revolutionary struggle.

Despite the degeneration and bureaucratic deformations in the Soviet Union and other countries where the workers overturned capitalism, socialism continues to be the only solution to the agonizing capitalist system.

The struggle against the violence and arbitrary actions of these bureaucracies-like in Poland-is also an integral part of the world socialist revolution.

In Peru, it will be the proletarian socialist revolution that will expel the imperialist oppressor and will simultaneously begin the abolition of private property in the means of production.

1-Izquier da Unida (Left Unity) is an electoral alliance between working-class parties and sectors of the capitalist class. Formed in 1980, IU came in second place in the recent presidential elections in Peru.

U's presidential candidate, Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, capitulated to the pressure of the capitalist forces in IU and withdrew his candidacy from the second electoral round, thus securing the election of Alan Garcia, the candidate of the APRA. 2— Mariategui founded the Peruvian communist movement and the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) in the 1920s. He won the Peruvian Socialist Party to the Third International (Comintern) of Lenin and Trotsky and was a a great admirer of the Bolsheviks.

After declaring his sympathies for Trotsky and the Left Opposition in the OCIALIST ACTION fight that broke out in the Soviet Union after Lenin's death, he was vilified by the Stalinized Comintern. He died at a very young age before he could fully take up the struggle for the Left Opposition. 3—Alan Garcia, the current president of Peru, is a member of the APRA. This party was founded in the 1930s by Victor Haya de la Torre, who died in August 1979. 4—The Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR), its name notwithstanding, has nothing to do with the struggle for socialism. It is a capitalist party formed by the generals of the "first phase" of Gen. Velazco Alvarado's bourgeois-nationalist government (1969-75).

Gen. Leonidas Rodriguez, who heads the PSR, was a key figure in that government. He was in charge of SINAMOS, an abortive scheme for subordinating all mass organizations to the military regime. The PSR is an important component of Izquierda Unida, with the generals of the "first phase" being the front's most prominent and visible leaders.

In April 1978, Hugo Blanco, the leader of the Peruvian Trotskyist movement, explained that he would never join a common programmatic or electoral front with the PSR. 'We have seen that those gentlemen have not used arms in defense of the peasants but in defense of the oppressors," Blanco said. "From now on we have to educate the working class not to place confidence in its class enemies. ", 5—Partido Comunista Unidad (PCU) is the pro-Moscow Stalinist party in Peru. Its secretary-general, Javier del Prado, is also the provisional national coordinator of IU, demonstrating clearly the predominant influence of the Stalinists in this front. 6-Gen. Velazco Alvarado was president of Peru from 1969 to 1975. He enacted a series of limited reforms but was unable to incorporate the independent mass organizations into his capitalist government. 7—The Sindicato Unico de los Trabajadores de Educacion del Peru (SUTEP) is the national teachers' federation of Peru. Although one of the more combative unions in the country, it has been saddled by the misleadership of Patria Roja, an ultraleft Maoist group. 8-The Confederacion Campesina del Peru (CCP) is the major independent peasant federation of Peru. 9-The Workers, Peasants, Students, and Poor People's Front (FOCEP) was formed in 1977 by the various Peruvian Trotskyist organizations and hundreds of independent union and peasant leaders. Hugo Blanco and other Trotskyists were elected to the Constituent Assembly on the FOCEP slate. 10—The Democratic People's Union (UDP) was formed in 1977 at the same time as FOCEP by a series of important trade union leaders and centrist political parties. The difference between the UDP and the FOCEP, as Hugo Blanco explained in 1978, "is that the UDP thinks it is possible to get together with the generals of the 'first phase,' and we think not. The UDP's two major leaders were Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, currently mayor of Lima and president of the IU, and Victor Cuadros, president of the National Mineworkers and Metalworkers Union of Peru and current head of the Peruvian Workers Party. Cuadros, who was elected to the Constituent Assembly on the UDP slate, broke with Barrantes Lingan and the class-collaborationist policies of IU after seeing the IU capitulate to the Belaunde government from 1980 to the present.

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On the contrary, we have an obliga-

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