Mexico

Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist)

Practical Steps to Advance the Building of the National Assembly of the
Proletariat and Peoples of Mexico and the General Political Strike

We, the Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist), conclude that there are two urgent tasks for the class struggle that is taking place in our country, first, to build the National Assembly of the Proletariat and Peoples of Mexico and second, to prepare the General Political Strike. A series of events in the political, economic and social sphere have developed regarding these two tasks.

The situation that the country is going through is characterized by the move towards fascism, which is deepening with the approval of the 11 structural reforms that further enslave and leave without rights the workers in the city and countryside. These reforms were imposed by the executive and legislative power in 2013, that is, in the first year of the 6- year term of the current government. These reforms are meant to accumulate more capital for the financial oligarchy, lengthening the working day and intensifying the exploitation of labor without wages increasing and swelling the ranks of the industrial reserve army with rising unemployment that has reached 2.3 million people (official figures). These reforms further sharpen the contradiction between capital and labor, since production has become more social and what is produced has become more private; the low pay of the majority of the population does not cover the basic monthly food expenses. Also to the regime, these reforms have provided conditions for a new offensive against the oil workers, those in education, the health sector, the countryside, electricians etc., because they have imposed measures that crushed their labor gains that in earlier periods of the class struggle had been won through organization and street fights.

Added to this situation, Peña Nieto is maintaining a policy of militarization of the country, first under the pretext of "fighting drug trafficking," of which the government is a party; it is now clear that militarization has the purpose of creating a policy of terror among the masses who want to organize and mobilize against the structural reforms. A proof of this is that in the state of Oaxaca, currently the military convoys and the national gendarmerie are patrolling the streets to intimidate the most combative sector of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), section 22, and the popular movement of that state that in other times, in 2006, has shown in practice what concretely the two urgent tasks are.

The clearest and most descriptive fact of how they attempt to impose the structural reforms in Mexico is the forced disappearance of 43 students of the Rural Teaching School in Ayotzinapa, in Iguala Guerrero, on September 26 and 27 2014. Although this action was perpetrated in order to eliminate the 16 rural teaching schools in our country, its main objective was to open a violent offensive against any organized sector that would try to confront or oppose the implementation of the reforms. This blow with fascistic traits was followed by other similar ones, such as: the killing of families in open view in Apatzingan, municipality of Michoacan, the killing of more than 20 young people in Tlatlaya, municipality of the state of Mexico and the murder of our comrades Gustavo Salgado Delgado and Antonio Vivar Diaz, members of the Communist Party of Mexico Marxist-Leninist and of the Revolutionary Popular Front. In all these events, the Mexican army and police participated directly, both intellectually and materially.

In the case of the missing teaching school students, there is evidence that the army and its intelligence center monitored the Ayotzinapa teaching school, and on September 26 when the students of the teaching school went out in an organized way to raise funds and take trucks to go to Mexico City, in order to participate in the traditional mobilization of October 2, the date on which, from the 1960s until 2015 the youth mobilize to repudiate the historic massacre of 1968 against the student movement; the 43 teaching school students were detained and disappeared by the municipal, state and civil protection police. The collusion of all the police commanders and the Mexican army with organized crime show that the State is the main one responsible for the events that took place on the night the 43 students disappeared, because once the students were forced by these police patrols to get off the truck, they were forced into the police vans and from that moment on nothing was heard of their whereabouts. All these facts show that the disappearance of the teaching school students is not a coincidence, as the official report of the government has tried to present it. On the contrary, it was an act planned at the highest echelons of bourgeois power, who wanted to send a message of terror to the people, both organized and unorganized, to show them what they are willing to do, in order to implement the structural reforms at all costs.

However, the government of Mexico did not achieve the results it expected with the disappearance of the 43, that is, to intimidate and terrorize those of us who oppose their reforms. It only managed to show that there are over 25,000 disappeared persons in Mexico, since while the parents along with other organized sectors of society were searching for the 43, hundreds of mass graves in which were thousands of bodies were discovered, in addition to the more than 150,000 killed over the past six years. This whole scenario shows the state of social decay and decomposition of the capitalist mode of production that is subjecting millions of workers and popular masses in Mexico. In other words, it shows that the bourgeois State only has to offer the proletariat hunger, misery, death and exploitation.

On the other hand, the price of a barrel of oil is not likely to increase; on the contrary it has fallen. It is the same with the peso, which is showing low prospects for growth of the Mexican economy in the coming years. In addition to these economic conditions, in the political arena the bourgeois institutions have been largely discredited, since they are mostly linked to organized crime, and create violence and injustice from which the working people suffer. This makes the judicial system lack authority in the eyes of the working people and they have organized in various ways such as the community police or self-defense units which are elected in popular assemblies.

Regarding the National Assembly of the Proletariat and Peoples of Mexico:

In the present context as described above, the tactics of the United Front continue to be expressed at different levels of organization and unitary reference points. To name a few, there are: Social Congress Towards a New Constituent Assembly, Social and United Broad Front, the Federation of Socialists and Communists of Mexico, Forum of the Proletarian Left, United Front of Struggle of Baja California, United Front of Struggle for the Reconstruction of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, Guerrero Popular Movement, National Student Coordinator, Federation of Socialist Peasants Students of Mexico, New Federation of Workers, Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, International "Back to Marx," National Coordinator of Education Workers, National People's Convention (CNP) and National People’s Assembly (ANP), led by the Committee of Parents of 43 Disappeared-Detained Teaching School Students. All these are sectoral and territorial unitary processes throughout the country, which largely contribute to the masses taking to the streets. However, for the current period this is not enough; on the contrary it is limited, since we cannot remain on the defensive but must pass on to the offensive against capitalism-imperialism.

These ups and downs show that the task of centralizing the process into one single unitary reference point is needed. The building of the National Assembly of the Proletariat and Peoples of Mexico is necessary, so that all organized and unorganized forces must take up the role of jointly leading every mobilization, from which the movement should adopt a unitary command and a political program, containing a minimum and maximum program that pulls together all sectors affected by neoliberalism, as one single organized force that acts for a genuine transformation of the political, economic and social conditions to the benefit of the proletariat, the poor peasants and the broad popular masses. Only by carrying out this task can we really and qualitatively move towards the formation of the United Front.

For now what has most closely resembles an embryo of the National Assembly of the Proletariat and Peoples of Mexico is the National People's Convention, which has held three sessions; the fourth will be held on October 16, 17 and 18 at the facilities of the Rural Teaching School "Raul Isidro Burgos" in Ayotzinapa. There we will take stock of the protests after a year since the disappearance of the 43 teaching school students, the killing of 3 teaching school students and 3 civilians, perpetrated by the State in the last year. We can say that the actions of mobilization around the first anniversary were a barometer to measure the mood of the masses, which is reflected in the rejection by the masses of the historical lie of the State, which says that the 43 teaching school students were burned in a garbage dump by hired gunmen of organized crime. The results of the mobilization of last September 26, reaffirmed the slogan “for the presentation alive of the 43,” which was strengthened by the findings of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, who proved scientifically on September 6 that the 43 teaching school students could not have been burned in that place, so that the version of the State is clearly false. Obviously the united mobilization on the first anniversary of the forced disappearance of the teaching school students, which mobilized more than 100,000 people (source: desinformemonos.org.mx) and the simultaneous actions in the north, center and south of the country, showed that the masses in their tens of thousands are against the present government of Peña Nieto, for the presentation alive of the 43 students and that we have to advance towards a rupture with the regime.

Now, with the show of force that we carried out, it is important to note the following facts:

1) To prepare the days of action of October 2, 12 and 14, as practical steps that will raise the forms of struggle and organization with the perspective of preparing the General Political Strike and the National Assembly of the Proletariat and Peoples of Mexico, two tasks that demand practical measures towards their formation and the political and ideological leadership necessary for their realization.

2) To strengthen our work in the working class, both organized and unorganized, so that the mobilized sector goes beyond its syndicalist character and assumes its class character and become the leading actor in this period.

3) To work hard for our participation with delegates in the united sectoral and territorial processes, as well as of the mass organizations of the PCMML, in the fourth session of the National People's Convention, to take stock to strengthen the ANP and the CNP itself, as well as the unitary processes in the states and to draw up a plan of work and action for 2016.

Regarding the Process of Building the General Political Strike:

Since December 1, 2012, the day that President Enrique Peña Nieto took office, there has been a tendency to raise the forms of struggle and organization. It should be noted that in the context of his taking office, there was confrontation between the police forces that were meant to protect Peña Nieto, and the masses who did not see themselves represented by him. This was a confrontation that began at 6:00 AM and ended at about 9 PM. The fight had a single slogan: "Mexico does not have a president."

After this, in 2013 the CNTE in its fight against the educational reform took over the Chamber of Deputies and set up an encampment with the participation of tens of thousands outside the premises of the executive branch, to then call the Teachers and People’s Meeting. From this organizational space two teachers and people’s strikes broke out, of 24 and 48 hours. Thousands of workers in education took to the streets, with popular support, throughout the country. This teachers' struggle had as its height, the fight for the main square in Mexico City, where barricades were erected, rockets, Molotov cocktails, stones and sticks were thrown, and then withdrew in an orderly fashion. This avoided a large-scale repression, in which the result was only the moving of the encampment and some beatings, but no arrests.

In 2014 the streets of Mexico were flooded by the demand for the 43 Normal school students.  It also brought the masses to take up some forms of struggle of greater significance against the regime, since at times the masses were confronted by the police forces, mainly in the state of Guerrero.

In 2015, what stands out in the struggle of the masses is the active and effective boycott of the electoral process, in which federal deputies and mayors were elected. The masses decided to take to the streets before the elections of June 7, with marches and encampments. Thus they already showed their rejection of the electoral farce. Later, during the electoral process itself, dozens of ballot boxes were burned, the police forces were confronted in mass once again, leading to the withdrawal of the repressive forces, including the military, in Huajuapan de Leon and Huautla de Jimenez, regions of the State of Oaxaca, and also the cancellation of the elections in at least one district in Tixtla, a municipality in the state of Guerrero. Also, we must point out that the boycott of the elections made it possible to build a People’s Assembly in Tixtla, which also elected a Great Council as the highest form of power and government; but also the arrest of 25 members of the Revolutionary Popular Front, who are in maximum security prisons. We say that this is part of the formation of Soviets that the united front from below is beginning to acquire. This again shows the willingness of the masses to advance towards a rupture with the regime. It also shows how outdated is its system of elections, in order for us to build and establish a form of revolutionary government. In conclusion, the 2015 elections showed that the masses can break with bourgeois legality and institutions, for example by boycotting them. Therefore we say that in this country, the federal deputies do not represent us, and that Mexico still has no president.

The General Political Strike does not have a fixed date, because despite the fact that our Party pushed for it for September 26, as recognition of the first anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, this did not materialize. To think that therefore the strike slogan is losing intensity among the masses would be a mechanical method of taking up the class struggle. On the contrary, the dialectics of the class struggle in our country places at the center the need for the General Political Strike, as a concrete and cohesive example of the tendency to raise the forms of struggle. This tendency was strengthened by the imposition of Peña Nieto as President of Mexico, and it will be the masses through the formation of a unified command that will give concreteness to this other urgent task, which is expressing the desire that the masses show in each stage through which the class struggle is advancing.

This is how we are giving practical steps to achieving the two urgent tasks, which seek to find a way out of the class struggle and not of class conciliation in the present general crisis of capitalism-imperialism in Mexico.

September of 2015

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