Twentieth century socialism is moribund. In the Americas, socialist-oriented movements were dealt severe blows by the elec- toral defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990, the general impasse of Central American revolutionary movements and the crisis of Cuban Communism with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Radical grass- roots movements as Judith Hellman noted in a previous anniversary essay, have by no means disap- peared in the Americas, but those that enunciate socialist goals are few and far between. 1 Can socialism be reborn? And if so, what might it look like? Over the years NACLA has played a critical role in reporting and analyzing the four major socialist or neo-socialist experiences in the Americas-- Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas in Berkeley California. He has been associated with NACLA as volunteer, staff and editorial board member since 1972. His most recent book, coauthored with Orlando Nufez and Boris Kagarlitsky is Globalization and Its Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern Socialisms, (Pluto Press, 1997). The May/June 1980 cover of NACLA Report on the Americas. Cuba, Chile, Grenada and Nicaragua. The latter two were not self-proclaimed socialist experi- ments, but the processes were anti- imperialist and the governments enacted policies designed to allevi- ate or eliminate economic and social inequalities. Moreover, the dominant political parties of these two revolutions-the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the New Jewel Party-were powerfully imbued with socialist concepts and ideals. The reasons for the failure or demise of each of these experiences are varied, although if there is one Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEC 1997 overriding cause it is that U.S. imperialism proved to be very flex- ible and adaptive, developing a variety of interventionist strategies in the economic, social and political spheres. Interestingly, it was not direct U.S. military intervention that defeated them. The 1961 invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs was an abysmal failure and led to the con- solidation of Cuban socialism, while the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 came only after the revolu- tionary movement had self-destruc- ted and executed its own leaders. My general thesis is that twenti- eth century socialism has been defeated for two contradictory rea- sons. In those socialist experiments that were the most democratic, like Chile from 1970 to 1973, the United States was able to exploit relatively open political and economic processes to destroy them from within. On the other hand, in those centralized and verticalist socialist projects such as Cuba, the lack of authentic democratic processes weakened their popular support and led to the implementation of ineffi- cient state-dominated economies. This provided grist for the ongoing 15ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ SOCIALISM U.S. ideological campaign against Communism and socialism. Yet before a new socialism can be postulated, we need to understand the nature of late capitalism and imperialism as we approach the new millennium. Here, I maintain the starting point is that capitalism in recent years has undergone an epochal shift with globalization. 2 Briefly stated, those who view glob- alization as a new stage of capital- ism argue that the economies of the world are now integrated under the aegis of transnational capital and that the nation-state is losing much The September 1971 cover of the NACLA Newsletter. of its autonomy to international institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the International Mone- tary Fund (IMF). The state is still a very powerful entity, but now it responds to the needs of transna- tional capital rather than national interests. In a sense this newness is a matter of degree. A century and a half ago, Marx argued in the Communist Manifesto that capital was an inher- ently universalizing process that continually internationalized itself, breaking down regional and national barriers as it advanced. Certainly this process has deepened since Marx's time, but for over a century, the Manifesto's corollary-- the growth of an international strug- gle for socialism generated by the expansion of capital and its contra- dictions-has been undermined by the nation-state and its ability to co- opt the working class into national and chauvinist conflicts among nations. Yet with globalization, the conditions that facilitated the coop- tation of national working classes are changing, and we are seeing the emergence of an array of social movements, many of which have internationalist perspectives. For socialists, the epochal shift to globalization also means that the historical argument of Lenin and other Marxists that imperialism nur- tured a labor aristocracy is losing its validity. In the era of globalization, transnational capital is now free to roam the world, tapping the cheap- est labor markets, thereby under- mining wages and the standards of living in the core countries. The two wealthiest countries in the Western Hemisphere-the United States and Canada-have experienced a grow- ing economic polarization and a decline of the influence of their working classes and trade unions. These processes have also had adverse effects on the middle classes of these nations. Both the United States and Canada have become "third worldized" due to the pauperization of certain sectors and the expansion of immigration from the Third World-a phenomenon also related to the process of global- ization. Simultaneously, as capital be- comes increasingly international- ized, it incorporates Third World elites into its fold. NACLA's recent Report on Latin American billion- aires documented the extent of this process.3 These elites now view their interests in an international context and are increasingly opposed to national, protectionist policies-policies once favored by important sectors of the bour- geoisies in countries like Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. he shift to globalization has also altered the political para- digm that the core countries are advocating for the Third World. As William Robinson shows in "Promoting Polyarchy," the United States has turned against many of the dictators it once nurtured, and has adopted a policy of supporting, and even imposing, controlled democracies in order to integrate the third world into a global neolib- eral economy. 4 The effort to oust Pinochet in Chile was the first manifestation of this new policy approach in the hemisphere. More recently, the invasion of Haiti to reinstall Jean-Bertrand Aristide served as a dramatic illustration of this policy shift. In general, the United States and the other imperial powers now recognize that dictators can be politically unstable and may not provide the best terrain for the advance of free trade and transna- tional capital. Of course this approach does not prevent the United States from endorsing pseudo-democracies such as the Fujimori regime, which shut down Peru's Congress in 1992, ruled by emergency decree and then adopted a new constitution that granted President Fujimori virtual dictatorial powers. But it is impor- tant to note that even in these instances, the regimes do hold refer- endums and elections that give them a certain sense of legitimacy, both domestically and internationally. The implications of this epochal shift for the future of socialism and socialist struggles are many. For one, it means that it will never again be effective for socialists to build their movements around a vertical- ist Marxist-Leninist state or politi- cal party. Imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, is now extremely adept at using the language and even the basic forms of democracy 16NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ SOCIALISM Socialism is not just one path. Nor is it a beaten path. We're used to reciting and repeating, to quoting correctly. But if we aspire to a future, now more than ever we have to overcome our fear of creativity, to recover the utopian dimension of socialism. Socialism came to power unexpectedly in 1917, a mere 70 years ago, in one of the most unlikely places imaginable. Years later, after the Second World War, it spread to other conti- nents, Asia and Africa. Capitalism, on the other hand has been expanding for several cen- turies. The doors to socialism are not permanently closed; we just have to find news ways to open them. A third, fourth, fifth way. A socialism built on new foundations, one that recog- nizes the dreams, hopes and desires of the people. A socialism with room for these needs. Alberto Flores Galindo, JanuarylFebruary 1991, Vol. XXIV, Number 5 to advance the interests of the transnational elites. Radical move- ments for change can only be suc- cessful to the extent that they are able to demonstrate that they are more democratic in their struggles and goals than the neoliberal demo- cratic paradigm. In particular, they need to continually demonstrate that capitalist democracy is insuffi- cient; that true democracy extends to the economic arena; and that the unregulated market advocated by neoliberals is incompatible with authentic democracy. 5 Despite the limitations of capital- ist democracy, the growing aware- ness among socialists of the impor- tance of transparent elections and basic political freedoms explains why Cuba in recent years has ceased to serve as a model for socialist struggles in the Americas. It is not the economic difficulties Cuba is experiencing nor the U.S. blockade that has weakened the appeal of Cuba. In fact, Cuba's eco- nomic plight was much more severe in the late 1960s than it is today. But in the 1960s the revolution enjoyed extensive popular support because Cubans then had a sense of partici- pation in the political and economic life of their country. It was during the 1970s that the Cuban Communist party and the state con- solidated control over virtually all facets of the economy and exercised centralized control of the trade unions, the educational system and "mass organizations." In recent years in Cuba there has been a devolution of many state enterprises to worker and peasant run cooperatives, particularly in the agricultural sphere. Few steps, how- ever, have been taken to democra- tize the country as a whole, as Fidel Castro and the party insist on retain- ing total political power. The Cuban variant of socialism may survive into the foreseeable future, but until the political system opens up, the revolution will remain in a largely defensive position, unable to pro- vide inspiration for a renewal of socialism in the Americas. The Sandinista revolutionary leadership understood to a certain extent that the old socialist para- digm of single-party states was no longer viable and that democratic elections were necessary. Thus the Sandinistas, instead of monopoliz- ing political power, brought other parties into the process in a coali- tion government and began holding open elections in 1984. But the Sandinista revolution was caught between the new and the old. While allowing pluralist elections, the FSLN was a vanguard party with a "national directorate" that exercised tight control not only over the party but also over the affiliated "mass" or social movements. On the economic front, the Sandinistas advocated a "mixed economy," wherein some enter- prises were controlled by the state while others remained in the hands of private interests. Those economic and political spheres that remained autonomous were thus in a position to undermine or sabotage San- dinista initiatives. In the end, the United States and its allies inside and outside of Nicaragua proved to be adept at tarring the Sandinistas with the "totalitarian" brush while manipulating public opinion and civil society. They forged a counter- revolutionary bloc comprised of a number of political parties, civic and business organizations, the Catholic hierarchy and even trade unions and sectors of the peasantry. This bloc brought Violeta Chamorro to power in 1990. Can the most democratic socialist experience in the Americas, Chile of the early 1970s, serve as a model for the future? Here it was not verti- calism or the lack of democracy that debilitated the Popular Unity coali- tion, but the "invisible blockade" of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. 6 The blockade under- mined the economy, destabilized the political system, and laid the ground for the U.S.-backed coup by General Pinochet. The government of Salvador Allende made one fatal mistake- it's failure in mid-1973 to retain General Prats as head of the military and to purge the officers who were conspiring against him. Such a move would also probably have required the arming of working- class civilians and the overnight creation of popular militias to fight with the loyalist sectors of the mili- Vol XXXI, No 3 Nov/DEC 1997 17ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ SOCIALISM To locate the science and organization of work in the hands of working people, and to put an end to capital's ceaseless attack on labor in all its myriad forms, it is imperative that the working class seize control from capital of the means and process of production. The interna- tional struggle of the autoworkers and of all workers must be an international struggle for socialism. Internationalism has served capital well; now it's labor's turn. July/August 1979, Vol. XIII, No. 4 For the Soviets, the 1970 election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile was a vindication of their contention that a peaceful road to socialism was possible, albeit a socialism that had little in common with the Soviet variety. January/February 1987, Vol. XXI, No. 1 tary. However, as Allende realized, a decision to back Prats with these measures would have provoked a civil war and required the suspen- sion of the Chilean parliament and constitution. These measures were abhorrent to Allende and to most of the parties of the Popular Unity coalition, given their deep commit- ment to maintaining Chile's democ- ratic institutions. It was this para- doxical choice between maintaining the Popular Unity's commitment to democratic institutions and proce- dures and the need to take military steps to destroy the opposition that makes Chile the most tragic social- ist experience in the Americas and perhaps in the history of twentieth century socialism. Many of the socialist leaders who survived the Pinochet years now argue that the economic policies of Allende's Popular Unity govern- ment may never have been viable. For some of them, especially those who have been incorporated into the center-left government led by the Christian Democrats, policies that would nationalize sectors of the economy are even more problem- atic in the era of globalization because any efforts to restrict or control the flow of international capital by a given government are immediately met by capital flight and economic crisis. This argument of leftists against any effort to revive such state socialist policies is perhaps best encapsulated in Jorge Castaneda's book, Utopia Unarmed, which argues that the left has to accept "the logic of the market" and limit itself to choosing what type of capitalist system it buys into-- neoliberalism or the "social market" of Western Europe or Japan. 7 hile any economic alter- native will have to deal with the realities of the global market, we cannot limit our- selves to choosing one variant of capitalism over another. The devel- opment of a new economic model is key to the resurrection of the left. Any new approach, of course, can- not be simply willed into existence; it will have to emerge out of con- crete, ongoing economic and politi- cal struggles. At this point in history, the left, instead of lamenting the lack of "grand narratives" and an explicit economic alternative, can draw inspiration from the fact that there are so many local, unconnected movements occurring throughout the Americas. As James Petras points out in a recent essay, for example, there is a renewed insur- gency among the peasantry of Latin America, as demonstrated by the landless movement in Brazil, the struggles of the coca farmers in Bolivia and the Zapatista movement of Chiapas. 8 These struggles are more than defensive. The landless movement in Brazil is developing alternative economic projects and securing lim- ited international funding, often from non-governmental organiza- tions. As for the Zapatistas of Mexico, a central plank of their struggle is that the indigenous com- munities of Chiapas are entitled to the resources necessary to carry out their own autonomous economic development. These are important self-help approaches, calculated to develop alternative, viable eco- nomies at the local and regional level. 9 In fact, these local and regional initiatives can be viewed as part of a deeper long-term process of creat- ing alternatives to modern capital- ism. Here it is important to recog- nize that the globalization process of transnational capital is both cen- tripetal and centrifugal. It concen- trates and integrates capital and trade, while at the same time casting off industries, peoples and even countries that it has no use for. In the parts of the world that cap- italism discards, a new mode of pro- duction is taking hold, which is comprised of what can be called "popular economies," or what we have elsewhere referred to as "post- modern economies."' 0 These economies do not and cannot com- pete head to head with transnational capital in the globalization process. Rather they lurk on the sidelines, seizing those activities that the transnational world decides to dis- pose of. This historic process Meanwhile, the past 15 years have also been dominated by the crisis and death of existing socialism. From Perestroika- that desperate but belated recognition- to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the world has witnessed one of the most profound changes in history. What was believed to be irreversible- Soviet socialism born of the most powerful revolution of the twentieth century- showed itself to have feet of clay and fell to pieces in less than five years. The world became unipolar. The painful evolution of the Latin American: left from Allende to the national-security regimes forced it to begin to value political democracy. People began to abandon the old dichotomies- economic democracy vs. political democracy, formal (bourgeois) democracy vs. real (workers') democracy- which were only smokescreens that concealed a pitiful reality: an undemocratic, authoritarian left, politically cast in the Soviet mold, which raised the banners of political liberties to attack its opponents, but was not prepared to practice them inside its own structures, not to mention if it ever achieved power. Ruben Zamora, July/August 1995, Vol. XXIX, No. 1 resembles the transition from feu- dalism to capitalism. Capitalism first took hold in feudalism's nooks and crannies, slowly gathering momentum until it became the dominant mode of production. The new popular or postmodern economies are still incipient in Latin America and other parts of the world, comprised of highly differ- entiated activities and economic islands that rise out of what capital- ism discards. The most extensive of these economies, particularly in Latin America, is the informal sec- tor-the ever more numerous street vendors, flea markets, petty family businesses, and even garbage scav- engers who recycle aluminum cans, cardboard and bottles while using what they can of the refuse. On a larger scale, the struggles of peas- ants and workers in post-Sandinista Nicaragua are reflective of another kind of popular economy: the sell- ing off of large but weak enterprises to worker and peasant cooperatives. Over 350 enterprises of all sizes and types are now owned and run by the workers, many of which were con- trolled by the state under the Sandinista government. When the Chamorro government began to sell them off as part of the privatization process demanded by the IMF and World Bank, the workers on many of these enterprises simply occu- pied them, and/or began to negoti- ate for taking control of them. Today there is a national association of worker-run enterprises that facil- itates their development and access to technical assistance and capital while lobbying with the govern- ment and the banks for their growth and expansion into new areas of the economy." All these areas of postmodern economic activity are growing in importance in Latin America and the Caribbean, not because they can compete in any significant way with transnational capital, but because they are the only option available to ever-increasing numbers of people. A subcontractor for a large corpora- tion, a refuse scavenger, a worker- run cooperative, a micro-entrepre- neur in the informal economy, a peasant or a street vendor-none of them abandon their activities because there is little else they can do to survive. While none of this constitutes socialism, these are all proto-socialist activities because they represent efforts by people to take control of their lives at the most fundamental, grassroots level. The postmodern economies and their participants will continue to grow in importance because global capitalism excludes more and more people, and also because of inherent crises and contradictions within the system itself. Clearly these new economies need to advance in tan- dem with alternative political movements and with the struggles The September/October 1995 cover of NACLA Report on the Americas. of workers and peasants. Popular economies can survive and grow even in the midst of a globalized world only if people become increasingly conscious of their need to struggle for them-building a "new politics" along with new eco- nomic activities. Here the EZLN and the Zapatistas in Chiapas are particu- larly illustrative of how this process
can unfold. Their political and eco- nomic demands are focused largely on the needs of Chiapas an its indialgenous peo- ples. This is probably the first national liber- ation movement that did not proclaim as its objective a march on the capital city and the seizure of state power. Rather, the Zapatistas have centered on civil society as the agent of change, calling for the mobilizationU o a wideU array of civic associations and organizations to demand authentic economic and political democracy. The strength of the Zapatistas has not come from the "barrel of a gun"--in fact at times they have had only wooden guns-but from their ability to wage a political-ide- ological war against Mexico's rul- ing party and the state. In the introduction to the recent NACLA Report, "Voices on the Left," which contained interviews with activists from around the hemisphere, the NACLA editors note the remarkable reality that "that in this age of doubt and cyni- cism, the activists interviewed maintain a radical commitment and enthusiasm." In the interviews with these activists, all of whom are "engaged in the struggles of their times and places," the editors note an emphasis "on democratic modes of development, mass participation in politics and structural, 'achiev- able' reforms." l2 In other articles, I have argued that this constitutes a new, postmod- ern politics, a politics that is leading to the rise of postmodern social- isms.' 3 It is a socialism of place, a socialism with a local agenda, a socialism with a hundred faces and experiences, a socialism without a name or a grand narrative at present. The genius of these struggles is that every effort to raise consciousness or to develop self-help projects at the local level is innately part of the long-term process of building new socialisn of Chia rebels ns. As Bishop Samuel Ruiz pas remarks, the Zapatista "emerged without faces 1- 1 because L ey repre- sent many unseen faces from elsewhere which are now em- erging as new sub- jects."' 4 They exist here and now, even if socialism is not men- tioned and capitalism retains control of the global economy and the formal political I The concept of postmodern socialisms will not become a ban- ner that people fight and die for; rather the term is a conceptual framework for viewing the diverse struggles that are growing through- out the hemisphere and the rest of the world. These movements over a period of time will have to frame and characterize their struggles from the ground up, creating local, regional and international ties to other struggles and movements. Only they have the capacity to cre- ate a grand new narrative capable of challenging capitalist globaliza- tion and replacing the state social- ism of the twentieth century with a new emancipatory project. The trade union is an organ for winning immediate conquests while the party should be the organ for changing society. The party has to have a program that takes care of the society in a general sense, transforming it. And we know that this means a struggle against capitalism for socialism. Jaco Bittar, Brazilian oil workers leade, May/June 1979, Vol. XIII, No.3 Notes 1. Judith Adler Hellman, "Social Movements: Revolution, Reform and Reaction," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 30, No. 6, May/June, 1997, pp. 13-18. 2. Roger Burbach, "Globalization as an Epochal Shift," paper presented to the International Conference on Critical Geography, Vancouver, Canada, August 10-14, 1997. 3. See "Latin America in the Age of the Billionaires," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 30, No. 6, May/June, 1997. 4. William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony, (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 5. For an extensive discussion of democracy and its relationship to neoliberalism and the struggles of the left, see Steve Volk's anniversary essay "'Democracy' Versus 'Democracy,"' NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 30, No. 4, Jan/Feb, 1997, pp. 6-12. 6. See especially one of NACLA's most important groundbreaking reports, Elizabeth Farnsworth, Richard Feinberg and Eric Leenson, "Facing the Blockade," NACLA Latin America and Empire Report, Vol. III, No. 1 (January, 1973). 7. Jorge G. Castenada, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), p. 432. 8. See James Petras, "The Peasantry Strikes Back," New Left Review, No. 223, May/June, 1997, pp. 17-47. 9. While Petras argues for a revived peasant movement in Latin America, it is clear from his article that he does not believe the NGO's are useful in this process, nor does he place hope in the building of alternative economies among the peasantry as this essay does. 10. For an extended discussion of postmodern economies and postmodern socialisms, see Roger Burbach, Orlando Nuhez, and Boris Kagarlitsky, Globalization And Its Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern Socialisms (London: Pluto Press, 1997). Orlando Nuiez develops the concept of the popular economy in: La economia popular: asociativa y autogestionaria, (Managua: CIPRES, 1995). 11. Orlando Nuiez, La economia popular, pp. 289-312. 12. "Voices on the Left," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 31, No. 1, July/August, 1997, pp. 5-6. 13. Globalization And Its Discontents, see especially Chapter 9, "The Long Transition To Postmodern Socialisms," pp. 153-169. 14. "Voices on the Left" NACLA Report on the Americas, p. 5.
