The Awakening of the Struggle of the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean Demands a Revolutionary Leadership

Statement of the Meeting of Marxist-Leninist Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean

The Awakening of the Struggle of the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean Demands a Revolutionary Leadership

Latin America is the scene of a new wave of social protest. It is the response that the workers, the youth and the peoples are making to the unfulfilled promises, the anti-popular policies, the rampant corruption in the upper echelons of governments, the handing over of the natural resources to foreign capital, in short, to the old and new economic and political programs that seek to affirm the rule of capital.

The current struggle overcomes the temporary state of decreased level of struggle of the peoples that occurred, particularly in those countries in which the so-called "progressive" governments emerged that generated expectations and hopes that things would change in favor of the workers and peoples, but after a few years we are witnessing processes that show them to be instruments in the service of one or another bourgeois faction and of foreign capital.

Not surprisingly, we find a kind of political agreement among virtually all governments in the region in key aspects of economic and political management as well as on the implementation of tax measures that punish the working classes with direct and indirect taxes, the support of extractive industry as the way to obtain economic resources, the implementation of reforms in various spheres such as labor that aim to legalize mechanisms of capitalist super-exploitation and to affect the right of the workers to free trade union organization.

They also agree on the implementation of measures of social control, through judicial reforms and the adoption and implementation of laws that, in the name of public security, essentially aim at the criminalization of social protest.

Through clearly neoliberal programs in some cases, and through "progressives" social programs that even speak of revolution and socialism in others, the bourgeois factions in power are interested in pursuing a process of capitalist modernization in the region that would allow them to obtain higher levels of accumulation, and to count on better resources to intervene in the world capitalist market. In this process, we note the loss of political space by U.S. imperialism, which has traditionally considered Latin America and the Caribbean as its back yard, and we find the aggressive penetration of Chinese imperialist capital. Thus, in several countries, we are faced with a kind of renegotiation of foreign dependence.

In the midst of a severe economic crisis that shook the global economy, the countries in this region were able to avoid some of its effects due to high prices of raw materials produced here, as well as certain established tax policies that have allowed most of the governments to count on sufficient economic resources to develop a social and material project that, in the minds of broad sectors of the population, have created the fiction that we are indeed living in times of change, putting their spirit of protests and struggle to sleep.

However, this situation is changing. The repressed dissatisfaction and the desire for change in millions of workers, youths, women, peasants, etc. are making themselves felt and breaking out.

The struggle that the Brazilian youths and people have been carrying out these days, which in two weeks brought more than 2 million people into the streets and won victories in several states, shows us this. It is not the 20 cents [the increase in bus fare that sparked the Brazilian protests – translator’s note] that stimulates this whole fight! The people are fed up with corruption, low wages and the handing over of the oil resources to foreign capital; they want hospitals, jobs, schools and decent housing; they reject the policy of privatization; they repudiate the spending of millions of dollars on the World Cup from which small local groups and various foreign monopolies will reap huge profits. The youth took to the streets overcoming repression and the supposedly conciliatory discourse of the government and the warning to be careful because protest can lead to a coup and the right, by means of which the government wanted to prevent the right to protest.

For months, Chilean youth have been carrying on a massive and militant struggle. They are raising concrete demands around educational issues and at the same time they are clashing with the government of Sebastian Piñera. This fight has motivated other social sectors to fight for their own demands, causing a political crisis that forecasts the loss by the forces that are now in the government in the upcoming presidential election.

In Argentina the struggle of the urban and agricultural workers, the youth, the state employees and the unemployed is also gaining strength.

In several countries, such as Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia the fights against the extractive policies, particularly against open pit and large-scale mining that cause enormous damage to nature and the peoples of these regions and are a source of millions in profits to foreign capitalist enterprises, are taking shape and gaining strength. They are also demanding better living conditions, access to health care, education, continuation of democratic rights and are condemning the criminalization of social protest.

In Central America, the struggles of the peasants and residents of popular neighborhoods (Honduras), of retirees (Nicaragua), of state employees (Costa Rica), etc. are also taking place.

In the Dominican Republic the struggle of teachers for the implementation of the state budget for education, as well as the popular mobilization against foreign mining companies that are taking the country's wealth, and against the scandalous corruption at the highest levels of government, stand out.

The teachers, the student youth and the workers of several state companies in Mexico have been at the head of major combat actions against both the current and the former government, pawns of the neoliberal IMF policies.

The political struggle in Venezuela, in which broad contingents of the masses are involved, is shown particularly in the defense of the gains achieved during the government of Hugo Chavez, in the confrontation with the right-wing that is trying to end the process taking place, and in the demand that deeper social and political measures be taken to benefit the workers and people.

The protest actions that are taking place in Latin America, together with those in Europe, in northern Africa and other parts of the world, show us a world in upheaval.

In these circumstances, we Marxist-Leninist communist parties present our policies and energies to build up revolutionary forces. In many of the fights described above we have been present, playing our role; however we are aware that we need to develop our abilities much further in order to lead those fights along the path that leads to the triumph of the revolution and socialism.

As a result of a major offensive promoted by imperialism, by various right-wing sectors, by revisionism and opportunism, the workers and peoples show a strong ideological acceptance that leads them to trust the discourse and social programs that do not go beyond the scope of reformism and bourgeois democracy.

We are working to reverse this situation and to win the masses towards revolutionary politics, to strategic proposals and those that we are putting forward in the present situation. For that purpose we will increase our efforts in propaganda actions and mass work.

We will continue fighting together with our people, contending for political leadership and directing them towards new, higher struggles for their material and political demands, against imperialist interference and in order to play the role of the basic revolutionary force to which history has entrusted them.

We will provide the force to the movement promoting its unity, both in the social and popular movement, as well as at the level of political organizations of the left.

Our commitment to the revolution and socialism raises the need for us to more rapidly achieve the strengthening and development of our party structure. The political circumstances demand from our organizations greater skill in developing policies that will be embraced by the masses, but we also need sufficient force for their materialization. We are working for this, in order to establish our position as revolutionary vanguard.

The workers and the people of the Americas and the world are challenging the rulers, they are seeking change, they are fighting for it; we Marxist-Leninists have the responsibility to fight together with them and lead these changes to fruition, to the triumph of the revolution and socialism.

Quito, July 2013

Revolutionary Communist Party (Brazil)
Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Party of Labor – Dominican Republic
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist)
Peruvian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela