Interview of Pavel Blanco, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Mexico (Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM), to the International Communist Press / August 20, 2016.
ICP: In
the recent years, violence in Mexico, both related to drug
trafficking groups, or as a part of a clearly paramilitary activity
against the progressive forces, organizations and people and
especially the communists has been on the rise. Your Party, PCM has
also suffered attacks of these paramilitary forces. What are the
causes of this wave of violence and what will be the consequences of
this situation in the context of the class struggle? Can you also
comment on the relation of this situation with the U.S. imperialism
that never ceased to mark its presence in Mexico?
Pavel
Blanco: First
of all, I would like to send my brotherly greetings to the Communist
Party of Turkey, with whom we share the same line in the
revolutionary regrouping of the international communist movement. We
will do everything to reiterate our solidarity on the face of the
political events that violently convulse the class struggle there.
In
Mexico it is possible to literally observe the face of capitalism
that Marx was speaking of. It drips mud and blood from all its pores.
The wave of violence that shakes us with more than 200,000 dead in 10
years is not a system failure. Rather, it is the logical consequence
of capitalism that consists of barbarianism, terror, uncertainties,
hunger and death. The so-called war of narco-trafficking, in which
the Mexican state is directly involved, is a process of
re-accommodation of markets, routes and stakeholders in order to
control this business, which is laundered rapidly through financial
investments, and sectors such as the real estate and production.
Here we don’t only refer to the agricultural industry but also to
the branches such as metals, mechanics, iron and steel and
extractivism. So, it is a process of amplification of accumulation
and a new economic branch that rapidly generates consequences for
politics. The money buys the political parties, candidates, elected
state officers, mayors, MPs, senators and governors, all of which
strongly influence the presidency of the republic.
In
this context, it is necessary to plant terror, demobilize and
immobilize the people in order to prevent any kind of possibility of
protest and opposition to the plundering of the country. It is
imperative to avoid the popular or syndical organizations that would
prevent the processes of overexploitation.
It
is very striking that they force displacement of populations that
decimate cities such as Ciudad Juarez or desolate towns and
territories such as in Tamaulipas. Paradoxically, after the expulsion
of the inhabitants and destruction of their houses and lands, they
found oil wells and mine zones in these places.
The
popular organizations are under the threat of state terror. For
example, look at the class-based demands of the educational workers,
or the Federation of the Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico, 43 of
which disappeared in Ayotzinapa, and of course the Communist
Party of Mexico. Five of our comrades including Raymundo Velazquez,
who was the political secretary of the party in that region, were
assassinated in Guerrero because they were opposing the Canadian
mines there. Moreover, Enrique Lopez, who is a member of our Central
Committee, has disappeared in Tamaulipas. In addition to a number of
prisoners, we also have comrades passing through judicial processes.
We would like to clarify that this is the consequence of having a
specific position in the class struggle, in other words, fighting for
the revolution. Only those who do nothing are at the margin of the
possibility of suffering these strikes.
It
is true that the North American imperialism has big interests and
that since the late 1970s they promoted the narcotic operations on
Mexico. They did it in collaboration with Colombian groups to finance
their fight against the insurgent movements in Nicaragua and in other
Central American countries. This is not a secret. Moreover, we should
underline the presence of the Chinese capital in the important harbor
of Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacán, where they exchange steel with
the chemicals used in the production of the raw material of a number
of drugs.
At
this point we would like to stop and think about this theoretical and
practical question: In Mexico and for sure in almost all Latin
America imperialism is identified with North America, and this
position constantly creates deep political errors and strategic
problems. The Communist Party of Mexico has the idea that imperialism
as the actual phase of capitalism and characterized by monopoly
capitalism also means that imperialism is not only an exterior but
also an interior phenomena. Speaking of the North American
imperialism shouldn’t make one forget about the fight against the
EU as an imperialist center or the inter-imperialist pact between
Russia and China. Neither can other pacts between states or
between capitalist economies such as MERCOSUR can be considered with
sympathy. For us, the anti-imperialist fight is not an anti-North
American fight. Rather, it is a fight against monopolies and we fight
by confronting the monopolies in our country and in any other
imperialist core. There is no “less bad” imperialism, all mean
exploitation, pillage, plundering, war and death
ICP:
There are millions of Mexican citizens and descendants of Mexicans in
the United States, whose vast majority is part of the working class
in this country. U.S. has never been an example of integration and
acceptance but in the recent years the xenophobia and racism have
increased even further and Mexicans, as the largest immigrant group,
are one of the primary targets of xenophobia and racism. What is your
opinion on the presence and role of Mexican workers in the struggle
waged by the U.S. working class and the class character of the
xenophobia?
PB: There
are about 20 million Mexican or of Mexican origin workers in the US,
and the number increases day by day, and year by year; it is our duty
to contribute to raise awareness and organization of this population;
during the bourgeois democratic revolutionary process in the last
century, the Mexican workers of the USA were a stronghold of the
anti-dictatorship fight which politically and financially supported
the revolutionary forces of our country; phenomenon of migration
peaked with the Second World War, and depending on the need for
workforce, the North American border and the anti-immigrant
mechanisms become more flexible or more harsh. The xenophobia and
racism has been raging, not only against the Mexican workers but also
workers of all nationalities who risk their lives in pursuit of
employment there. It is PCM’s duty to fight to organize the Mexican
workers to support the revolutionary process in our country and also
to intervene in the class struggle for their rights and claims along
with the North American workers and workers of other nationalities,
who are exploited in the US. This happens by having a party
organization at the borders, with which we’re moving forward, and
for starting to have PCM cells among the Mexican workers in the US.
It is clear that the class character of racism is one of the
ideological pillars of the imperialist domination, which attacks all
the workers.
ICP:
Donald Trump is now officially the Republican candidate for the
presidential elections, He is known for its anti-immigrant,
anti-worker and racist rhetoric, towards the Mexicans in particular.
What awaits the Mexican workers in the U.S. if Donald Trump is
elected? The question can be asked for the working class in Mexico.
PB: Whoever
wins the elections, may it be Mrs. Clinton or Trump, the loosing side
will be the North American workers and the workers from other
nationalities that shape the immigrant labor force. Trump resembles a
scarecrow that is destined to express: "vote the lesser evil,
vote the democrats", which we consider to be a very dangerous
position. Democrats or Republicans, the bourgeois parties of the USA
do politics that are functional to imperialism. We already saw the
fall of the myth, which claimed that it was a system only for the
white; and the Obama administration turned out to be such an
aggressive warmonger that it has no reason to envy Obama’s
predecessor Bush. Now we will see how the myth, which claims that
with a woman leading the USA, the world would go in a better
direction, also crushes and falls. This is delusion, purely delusion.
No
to Clinton and No to Trump, and we lament the wrongful politics done
by CPUSA that navigates the opportunist flag of choosing a lesser
evil. Whoever wins, will be a sworn enemy of the workers of the USA
and the peoples of the world.
ICP:
As the violence and repression increases in Mexico, the resistance of
progressive forces and communists intensifies in response. We realize
there is a revolutionary potential in the objective conditions in
Mexico. What are the challenges, opportunities and the potential of
revolutionary politics in Mexico?"
PB: That
is true, the class struggle intensifies and the class conflict is
present and evident. The labor-capital antagonism crystalizes
especially wit the so-called structural reforms applied by the
Mexican State, which embrace measures that devalue the labor and seek
stability in the middle of the economic crisis.
We
consider that the conditions are mature for a revolutionary process
that according to our evaluation will be an anti-capitalist and
anti-monopolist one with the goal of socialism-communism. We believe
that a major obstacle at the moment is the mismatch between the
objective bases, the limits of capitalism and subjective conditions
of the moment, which are delaying; that is why since the V. Congress
of PCM we are working to resolve this issue in two directions:
building a strong, class-based workers and syndical movement on the
one hand; and the development of the party itself in the principal
strategic areas of the economy.
We
are aware of the fact that without a strong communist party no
revolutionary process would have any possibility to be successful.
Where
are other revolutionary or anti-capitalist forces in Mexico, but none
of them puts the proletariat in the center of their activity; in PCM
we insist that the working class will be the epicenter of the
revolutionary transformation; that is our advantage. Some
words about an ingredient that is necessary for the revolutionary
processes: the unity. We do not see it as a mere unification of
organizations but as the unity of the class, we work exactly for that
every day in every single work place.