'We are fighting for revolutionary socialism'

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Rosario Ibarra, a renowned human rights leader in Mexico, was the presidential candidate of the PRT, Mexican section of the Fourth International, in 1982 and 1988.

I first met members of the Fourth International in 1976. They were members of the Mexican Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT). I met them in the hunger strikes that we waged along with the families of the disappeared and political prisoners. I met them in the militant actions that we led at the plant gates. In every realm of struggle, they were there.

Later, as part of the international campaign to expose the tremendous violations of human rights of our people, I met members of the Fourth International elsewhere—in Europe, in Latin America, and especially here, in the belly of the beast, where it really counts.

Hearing comrade Jeff [Mackler] speak, I found myself in great agreement words he expressed.

For me, the defense of human rights is also the struggle for women's rights, for the emancipation of women from oppression-especially in Mexico, a country where machismo is so rampant.

The comrades in the PRT focused their attention not on a young woman, but on an old woman like myself, to be their candidate. My being the PRT's presidential candidate [in 1982] was an historic moment in Mexico. It was historic because it was a victory to have a woman candidate for the left, for the PRT, in Mexico.

We have many points of agreement. As many of you know, I am not a member of the PRT or of the Fourth International. But I think that as long as we are rooted in the struggles of the oppressed, we will continue fighting side by side.

A major point of agreement between the PRT and me is that we both do not want any alliance with the bourgeoisie. We want to struggle consistently for democracy, for the independence of the working class, for socialist democracy, and it is precisely because of our principled position that a lot of pressure was put on us to line up behind the [1988] presidential candidacy of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.

But it was precisely because we maintained our independence from Cardenas that we represented the only revolutionary socialist pole in the Mexican elections. We want the people to take the reins of government in their own hands. We want government—a populist, bourgeois regime.

The old Mexican Communist Party, and particularly Lombardo Toledano [a Stalinist union bureaucrat], organized demonstrations to demand that Trotsky be expelled from the country. The CP and Toledano were also responsible for tying the working class and the peasant movement to the bourgeoisie. It was the period of the Popular Front.

Because of this line, because of this betrayal of the working class, the bourgeoisie and its party, the Institutional the workers and the peasants to rule. We want "los de abajo," the downtrodden, to be the new masters of society-not only in Mexico, but throughout the world.

We were the only ones in the recent Mexican elections to say this—to say, "Yes we want to fight for revolutionary socialism." I am proud that everywhere we went we said that we were fighting for revolutionary socialism.

I want to talk about the current situation in my country. Cardenas, who represents a split within the ruling-class apparatus in Mexico, won the recent elections. We are convinced that he won the elections.

Cardenas is not a socialist. He is a nationalist. We want socialism. And because we want to fight for socialism, we must consistently struggle for democracy. It is for this reason that we created a limited alliance with Cardenas and with the rightwing National Action Party (PAN) to defend the vote.

Our time will come. But today we believe it is essential to consistently fight for the defense of that vote today.

We are the only ones who are struggling against the current. Many have said, "Don't go against the current." But it is because we are doing this that we feel so optimistic. We are optimists, just like Leon Trotsky was an optimist. He was a man who even under the most adverse conditions remained optimistic not only about the present but about the future of humanity.

It is because Front-this time behind another Cardenas. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the son of the general [Lazaro Cardenas], is the new populist bourgeois leader.

But now comrades-and this is the point I want to make—we are in a different situation. This is our contribution to the SPECIAL REPORT / MEXICO'S NEW POLITI optimistic that 91 franrisco (hronicle so inspired by the work of the young Trotsky, who wrote:

"As long as there is life, there is hope. If I were one of the celestial bodies, I would look with complete detachment upon this miserable ball of dust and dirt. I would shine upon the good and evil alike. But I am a man.

"World history, which to you, dispassionate gobbler of science, to you, bookkeeper of eternity, seems only a negligible moment in the balance of time, is to me everything! As long as I breathe, I shall fight for the future, that radiant future in which humankind, strong and beautiful, will become the master of the drifting stream of history and will direct it toward the boundless horizon of beauty, joy, and happiness!"

These lines were written by the young Trotsky in 1901, when he was 22 years old. They remain a source of inspiration for us today. Just as Jeff said, the ideas of Trotsky have not only survived, but they will prevail.

Tonight, we have with us Trotsky's grandson. But even if Trotsky's grandsonor any other relative—were no longer with us, those very ideas would still prevail because they are right. They're the ideas of all those rebels who are struggling. They're the ideas of the Mexican revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magon, who died in jail in the United States.

As Jeff and the other comrades have said, the ideas of the Fourth International will prevail. Long live the Fourth International!

continuity of the Fourth International We in the PRT are a small but very active political party in opposition to the line of the Popular Front in Mexico. This is the difference. The situation created at the end of the '30s will not be repeated in Mexico. We are sure we are not going to have another 30 years of stability from the bourgeois regime in Mexico.

All those old times have been ended, and now there are more revolutionary organizations charting a correct way forward thanks to Rosario, thanks to the militants in the PRT, and thanks, of course, to the older generation in our movement who not only maintained their ideas, but theit militancy and their activities. Long live the Fourth International!

luesday. August 23, 1988 In 1877, she founded the National (om. milter to Delend Political Prisoners, FuRi. lives, Exiles and Disappeared Persons, and in 1979 she was one of the leaders in the formation of the National Front Against Repression.

Shr is proud of the accomplishments of distressed that there is still much to do. the committee for the "disappearea." but "This month we commemorate the an. through that strike we forced the Rovern. ment to decree an amnesty and 1500 politi niversary of our first hunger strike cal prisoners were freed," she sald. "In 10 years we have been able to free 148 disap. peared. We know of 547 more who are still detained. The government had never recoR nized that they held these people. Many told us they were freed to roam around on their own, but were threatened with further pun ishment if they told their stories."

A "number of political organizations lank note of my work," and she was askrd to be the presidential candidate of the Revolu. donary Workers Party in the 1982 clertion She received enough votes to become a deputy in the Chamber of Depulies. "I don't want you to get the impression that I have become egotistical," Ibarra suid "but I think that my candidacy in '82 was an lake a more active role because they saw Important signal, a catalyst for women to that a woman just like them could become involved, could run for office. They asked themselves. 'If shr ran do i what om y

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Joseph Ryan/Socialist Action Actior