Latin America

Slide 1: Latin America In recent years pre-revolutionary  situations in: Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and  Venezuela, Mexico. US imperialism weakened by Iraq &  Afghanistan.

Slide 2: Second choice Direct military intervention not  possible. Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, Chile,  Paraguay. Maintain class rule by using “left” neo-  liberal governments.

Slide 3: Inequalities Liberal counter-reforms continue.  Social inequalities growing.  No autonomy from imperialism.  Respect wishes of IMF and world bank.  In Bolivia 66% is engaged in the  informal sector, and the illicit coca trade

Slide 4: Social movements Brazilian landless, Argentine unions,  indigenous peoples. Can re-emerge as opposition. 

Slide 5: Bolivarian Bolivia and Venezuela are obstacles to  stabilisation for imperialism. Providing health, education & food.  Economies remain largely capitalist.  Islands of workers’ control.  Attempt to restore state control over  Bolivia’s hydrocarbon reserves puts the issue of social ownership back onto the agenda.

Slide 6: 1200 Venezuelan factories taken over after being shut down Faced with the same problem as the  recovered factories in Argentina. How to survive in a sea of capitalist  economic relations? How to ensure supply of raw  materials? how to ensure a buyer for the finished  product?

Slide 7: Differences Chavez dominates the mass  movement. Morales is directed by mass  movement. Morales vacillates between Chavez and  Lula.

Slide 8: Oil Oil price since Chavez took office in  1998 rose from $9 a barrel to the current of $78. Chavez has said that he expects the  price to rise to $100. Made it possible for Chavez to finance  many social projects without coming to conflict with the local capitalists.

Slide 9: Income decline Oil exports fell 15%.  Production dropped 7 percent in the  first quarter of this year. With lower global oil prices during part  of this year income from oil exports may decline by about 24 percent in 2007.

Slide 10: Struggle against counter-revolution Make it a decisive blow against the  capitalist state apparatus. Move towards the nationalisation  under democratic workers' control of the main levers of the economy (banks, large scale industry and the land).

Slide 11: The Army The idea that the Army is under  control and is loyal to the revolution could prove to be fatal. In all revolutions the revolutionary  mood spreads into the Army. Soldiers and lower-ranking officers.  Senior officers side with the counter-  revolution.

Slide 12: United Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV) Has signed more than 5 million new  members. It can only be a state party, a populist  party.

Slide 13: Congress of Factory Workers of Bolivia in October 2006 Argue that the neoliberal model deepened of the neocolonial • character of the Bolivian economy as a producer of raw material. Natural gas taking over the role that tin played for much of the • 20th century. Penetration of international capital in most important productive • sectors of the economy. Creation of unprecedented levels of unemployment. • Over110,000 factory workers and miners lost their jobs in the • 1980s as a consequence of privatization and the closure of factories.

Slide 14: Gas and tax 1998-2002 gas exports earned $232  million annually for the Bolivian state. 2006, due to transitory high tax  period and the new contracts, the Morales government took in $1.65 billion. Expects that annual figure to rise to  $2 billion in 2007, and $4 billion by 2010.

Slide 15: Reformist measures Acceptable tax arrangement does not mean  nationalization. Measures fall well short of those enacted in  following the 1952 revolution. Transnational petroleum companies remain  in control of the industry. Bolivia continues to be trapped in the  export of a primary commodity with no value-added

Slide 16: U.S. Council on Foreign Relations “Morales, despite the persona he has  tried to cultivate, is in many ways a traditional Bolivian political actor who doles out patronage to major supporters while simultaneously condemning those who came before him for doing the same.”

Slide 17: Contradictions A president at the head of a mass  movement pushing ever more in an anti-capitalist direction. In the midst of struggle to create a  revolutionary state and destroying the old state Urging working people on towards  socialism.

Slide 18: Situation is not stable Can only be transitional to a workers’  state the reestablishment of bourgeois control over the government. Such a government has to move to  work to dismantle the bourgeoisie state and replace it with a revolutionary one.

Slide 19: Cuba Raul Castro has identified low incomes  as weakness. Revolution still has legitimacy for  masses. Debate in leadership on Chinese  model.

Slide 20: Tasks Continue coverage in press.  Firm up contacts in Latin America.  Maintain involvement with BSC & HOV.  Readers’ groups discuss Latin America  twice per year.