After five years since the economic crisis of the capitalist system broke out, its effects are still present in the different countries of the world, with greater or lesser intensity in some than in others.
The most outstanding thing, in recent months, is the response by the workers, youth and peoples to the economic measures implemented by the governments and international financial institutions that had the supposed aim of overcoming it. The bourgeoisie finds it increasingly difficult to place the burden of the crisis on the backs of the workers, because these workers have a better understanding that those who caused the crisis should pay for it.
Europe is a living example of the enormous and sustained social mobilization against the neo-liberal economic programmes; the working class and youth are playing momentous roles in this. This is not the only place in the world where the governments in office and the ruling classes in power are targets of the protest: northern Africa, Asia and Latin America are also the scenes of important struggles. In general, we can state that dissatisfaction with the status quo is spreading throughout the whole world and the desire for change is encouraging the actions of the peoples.
On our continent, after a period of decline of the social struggle particularly in countries ruled by regimes labeled as “progressive,” we are witnessing a reawakening of the struggle of the working masses that transcends national boundaries and encourages the struggle of the fraternal peoples.
They are fighting for decent wages, for education, for health care, for bread, for democracy, for political rights, in defence of sovereignty, of natural resources, against corruption; in short, they are struggling for life, for freedom!
These contests are taking place both among the peoples of the countries in which the openly neo-liberal bourgeoisie still remains in power and as well as in those ruled by so-called “progressive” governments. And in each of these governments, beyond the evident differences that we cannot lose sight of, there are also many aspects that coincide. It is difficult to differentiate, for example, between the Colombian Law of Public Safety and the similar Ecuadorian law or the reforms to the Integral Criminal Code in that country that criminalizes social protest; little or nothing distances the labour reforms of obvious neo-liberal content implemented in Mexico from those in Brazil, or the so-called anti-terrorist laws that are being carried out in Argentina, Peru, etc..
Both the “progressive” governments as well as the neo-liberal ones are relying on extractive industry (plunder of natural resources) as the road to development, progress and well-being that history teaches us well is the way for the consolidation of foreign dependence, pauperization of the peoples and the irreversible affect on nature.
These governments also agree on promoting legal and institutional reforms in favor of a revitalization of bourgeois institutions necessary for the new processes of capitalist accumulation and also oriented towards social control and the criminalization of popular protest.
From different but not irreconcilable political conceptions, the bourgeois factions heading those governments agree on the processes of modernization of capitalism, with which they aim to create increased levels of accumulation for native oligarchies and improvements in their participation in the global capitalist market.
The changes that are taking place in Latin America and the Caribbean are nothing other than a development of capitalism itself; in some cases they go beyond neo-liberalism but in no way a negation of the prevailing system, since they do not affect private ownership of the means of production, they do not affect the rule of the bankers, businesspeople and landowners, they do not harm foreign dependence.
The dangerous thing about this process is that there are governments such as that of Rafael Correa in Ecuador or of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil which promote it in the name of supposedly revolutionary processes, pretending to be anti-imperialist and even socialist. There are also those who act under the signboard of national and popular regimes, such as those of Cristina Fernandez in Argentina or Danilo Medina in the Dominican Republic.
The so-called progressive governments are causing serious damage to the consciousness of the workers, the youth and people. The significant social and material programmes and the abundant and efficient government propaganda have created the fiction, internally within the respective countries and on the international level, that in fact they are creating processes of structural change. But the reality is different; their economic and political programmes only serve to affirm the ruling class in power and foreign dependence.
The modernization taking place is going hand in hand with foreign capital, whether of the United States, Europe or Asia, which has made Latin America and the Caribbean a scenario of intense inter-imperialist dispute in the economic and political fields. We note the rapid growth of Chinese investment in the region and the loss of positions by U.S. imperialism, which does not make it less dangerous for the peoples.
The organizations participating in the 17th International Seminar Problems of the Revolution in Latin America agree on the need to confront, with the same frankness and energy, the neo-liberal governments and the so-called “progressive” governments, because they both represent the economic and political interests of the bourgeoisie and of imperialist finance capital.
We call on the workers, the youth and the peoples in general to close ranks against the ideological and political currents that are supposedly leftist, revolutionary or progressive that manipulate the consciousness and desire for change existing among the peoples and that act against the organized popular movement and against the forces that represent genuine positions of the revolutionary left.
We support the peoples who choose the path of struggle to make their voices heard and win their demands; we encourage the peoples, and particularly the youths, of Turkey, Brazil, Chile and Egypt who, with energy and initiative in the streets, have won significant victories.
We stand with the people of Ecuador who are facing a demagogic government that is resorting to repression and fear to prevent social unrest from taking the form of open and continuous struggle. We reject the prevailing criminalization of social protest, we support Mery Zamora, Clever Jimenez, the Cotopaxi 7, the 12 Central Technical College students and more than 200 social leaders and activists who face criminal proceedings on charges of sabotage and terrorism.
We applaud the Venezuelan people who are fighting to prevent the right wing and imperialism from reversing the political process begun by Hugo Chavez, while we also encourage the demand that radical measures be taken to move the process forward.
Our goal is socialism! We are fighting for a genuine revolutionary process, therefore we base ourselves on the unity of the workers, peasants, youth, women, indigenous peoples in the tradition of liberation of the Latin American peoples. We are directing our energies against foreign domination and against exploitation by the local ruling classes; only by putting an end to their oppression will we win freedom. This is our commitment.
Quito, July 19, 2013
Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina