RE: [Marxism] and how ourepigones react...

[Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Walters: >>Hmmm. It appears to me that Alarcon's view as that all we
need are "progressive gov'ts" and the problems of capitalist
political-economy disappear! That these 5 heads of gov't acted on their own
and that the role of the mass movements *against* the FTAA were
irrelevant.<<

Hmmm. Alarcón describes a concrete event at the summitt of the Americas, and
David wants to immediately liquidate it into idealist eternal verities of
abstract political line. 

Did David even *listen* to Kirschner's speech? How much thought has he given
to waging struggles in the *diplomatic* arena? Haa any attention been paid
to THIS aspect of things? Or are we still stuck where Trotsky was in 1917,
who imagined he'd walk into the foreign ministry, issue a couple of
manifestos, and close up shop? You know, the Old Man did learn a thing or
two from the experience.

What Alarcón is talking about is the central importance of *national*
movements as the road to socialist revolution in Latin America, but not "THE
NATIONAL MOVEMENT" in the abstract, as a category, but actual national
movements in the concrete, contradictory, imperfect, buffeted by the
initiatives of different social forces and political actors. 

This imputing to Alarcón views he does not express is absurd, like "that the
role of the mass movements *against* the FTAA were irrelevant." Alarcón just
happened to BE in Mar del Plata, and precisely as a symbol of Cuba's
commitment to the mass movement *outside* the fence. And from this we draw
the conclusion that Alarcón thinks the mass protests he was part of and
helped to build were "irrelevant"? 

He is NOT saying what went on outside the fence is "irrelevant." The point
is not at all about the irrelevance of the social movements, it was about
the RELEVANCE of the governments and the men who head them. He is
polemicizing against the ultraleft sectarians who REFUSE to recognize that
something ALSO happened INSIDE the fence, indeed, that these specific,
concrete governments, nay, these specific concrete presidents, put the FTAA
in the morgue. 

I can hear the objections now. "NO IT WASN'T THE GOVERNMENTS, IT WAS THE
PEOPLE'S SOCIAL MOVEMENTS" and blah blah blah. This is typical of the
ultraleft sectarians who view social forces as disembodied essences and
actual concrete politics as mere shadows of these essences. OF COURSE the
class conscious workers of the continent and the popular classes of Latin
America were against the FTAA. But that opposition only exists in the real
world, not in a spirit world, with real political actors and protagonists,
not mere automaton shadows, and the failure to UNDERSTAND just who those
particular, concrete actors were and what exactly they represent is to leave
out of your activity all concrete POLITICS and move instead to the realm of
abstract SLP-style propaganda: Capitalism bad, socialism good. 

That is easy enough for US to do; it is not a luxury a statesman from a
country like Cuba has. Cuba can't eat, drink, and get to work in the morning
on the basis of scoring brilliant propaganda points. It needs concrete
social, economic and political SPACE in the REAL world of trade, politics
and diplomacy, and scoring points in the ideological sphere is no substitute
for people having three square meals a day. 

To IGNORE the difference between a Chavez, or even a Lula, and a neoliberal
proimperialist president is to ignore the actual contradictions not only
that allow Cuba to survive, but that are the fissures through which
oppressed classes find expression.

Joaquín



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