RE: RENAMO (was Unita)

["Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky" <gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, Louis is right here:

:
:Many people, especially disaffected Marxists, claim that the
defeat of the
:Nicaraguan revolution and the messes in Angola and Mozambique,
are proof
:that socialism does not work. I would argue the opposite.
Anglo-American
:imperialism was deathly afraid of success in these poor,
marginal
:countries. Nicaragua, whose gross national product was less than
the
:American population spends on blue jeans each year, could not
survive as an
:example of a society based on human need rather than private
profit. That
:example might be coveted by larger and more powerful nations,
such as
:Brazil or Mexico. That is why Angola, Mozambique and Nicaragua
were punished.
:

The 'no example allowed' policy is a very strong pillar of
imperialism, and it has worked against non-socialist regimes as
well. In Latin America we have two immediate examples: Vargas was
forced to suicide and Peron was forced to exile after a bloody
coup that set up what ONLY NOW is recognized by some of the most
progressive anti-Peronists as an economic and social civil war
that lasted until Menem took any revolutonary contents off what
had once been defined as the 'the accursed fact of the bourgeois
country'. And, remember, Fidel was harassed long before he
overtly turned to socialism. Winston Churchill is reported to
have stated in Yalta (1945!) that Argentina must not be allowed
to become an industrial power, because the whole of Latin America
would rally behind her (will search for the source, I promise).

This 'no example allowed' policy is a wonderful illustration of a
major theoretical point. History is not only a matter of past
actions or current interests, it is also a matter of _future_,
and in a most definitive way. The example shows that imperialists
act and decide _with their eyes cast on the future_, on the
_consequences_ of seemingly minor developments and with their
project for the future shaping their ways to mould the present
and to understand the past. That is why the everpresent question
'why should capitalists, so thrifty a bunch, waste their monies
in those tiny and frolorn rebellious lands?' is, at best, silly
and at worst perverse.

This punitive effort by imperialism is disregarded too often by
Leftists who easily dismiss weak governments in semicolonial
countries. It is so easy to ask for other people's heroism...

All the above does not mean that we have to be blind at their
shortcomings, but that we must see them in the same way
we -sometimes unconsciously- view the workers in First World
countries: that is, keeping in mind that their action (or lack
thereof) results from their peculiar insertion in a world so
framed as to foster or enforce it. If we can be soft on Homer
Simpson, the more reason to be soft on haunted movements in the
Third World... and even on Russia today!

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxx