On
the occasion of the 20th IMCWP which took place in Athens
in November, the First Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Mexico (Partido Comunista de Mexico) Pavel Blanco Cabrera talked to “Rizospastis”, the official newspaper of the KKE. In the following interesting interview, the Mexican communist leader talks about the situation in his country, the new illusions created by the “left-wing” AMLO government, the tasts of Mexican communists in a large country, a member of G20 and the 2nd most developed economy of Latin America, with nearly 130 million people and tens of millions of immigrants in the United States:
- The bourgeoisie of Mexico managed to trap the majority of the people
during the last election and, as of December 1st, the new
social democratic government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has
assumed office. What does the CP of Mexico expect from the new
government which presents itself as “left-wing”?
- First
of all we thank “Rizospastis”, organ of the CC of the KKE, for
the opportunity to convey some of the thoughts and activities of the
CP of Mexico and to clarify certain confusions and deceptive news
spread outside Mexico regarding what is happening in the country and
how the class struggle evolves.
In
fact, the result of the presidential and parliamentary elections of
July 1st, where the absolute winner was the so-called
MORENA movement, Obrador presents it as “a victory of the Left”.
But that's not the case at all. Of course, we need to look deeper the
significance and the character of this type of governments and how
they serve the interests of the capital, whether they are called
“left” or social democratic are part of the authority and the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The
programme and the alliance of this specific party include a far-right
party, the so-called Social Encounter Party, which contributed to
Obrador's electoral victory and has a clearly anti-worker,
anti-people character. The first thing that this government does is
managing capitalism and deepening the so-called reforms in certain
areas where the neoliberal governments didn't proceed, for example in
the North American Free Trade Agreement (TLCAN) – which is now
called US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) – or in the Merida
Initiative, which has been asked for years by the South Command of
the U.S. Army through the National Guard. [These are] Tough measures
which reduce the labor power value and provide two key issues: 1)
Mechanisms of repression and control of social protest and 2)
re-legitimation of the state and the dominance of the bourgeoisie,
supposedly with a democratic mask.
It
is very interesting how the renegotation of the Free Trade Agreement
took place, where the government of Peña
Nieto
was
in fact overriden and the discussions were made directly with
Obrador, who had not yet taken up his duties. The text of the new
agreement is not fully known, it is in the legislature, but it is
clear that it was mainly caused by the needs of the U.S. automobile
industry inder Trump and because the spare parts from China, which
dominated the market, were coming from Mexico. This is an approach
between Obrador and Trump who apply the so-called national-state
protectionism. In other respects, this will be a follow-up to the
attacks in the rights and the achievements of the working class as a
whole in North America as well as new privileged for the monopoly
groups of Mexico, the US and Canada.
It
is regrettable that various forces in the world believe that there is
a “left turn” in Mexico. They will be utterly refuted, as it
happened in the case of SYRIZA in Greece. Neoliberals and social
democrats govern for the interests of the monopolies, with
intensification of the exploitation, with barbarity and people's
misery. The CP of Mexico will not be trapped in the fake dilemma
between the one or the other mix of capitalist management but, on the
contrary, despite the difficulties, it highlights with optimism that
socialism-communism is the necessary way for the solution of the huge
problems in our country and the solution so that the working class
will stop suffering.
 |
| Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). |
- Last
August we held the 6th
Party Congress and decided to set all our forces to action within the
working class, in the trade union work, in the work with young
workers and women of the working class.
An important
issue regarding young working people: Obrador has made agreements
with the employers' unions, which unify almost all the monopoly
groups of the country, and makes a proposal for supposedly tackling
unemployment that is really very dangerous: He suggest 2 million
young people to work for the various monopolies, with the salary
covered from the state budget, that is as a subsidy to the employers.
These are, of course, part-time jobs, without rights, without social
security, without allowances and days off. This is a barbaric measure
of reducing the price of labour power which contributes to the
superprofits of the capital. At the same time, he [Obrador] tries to
integrate these 2 million workers both in MORENA and the new
government.
Going back to
the issue of the tasks of the CP of Mexico, as a party of the working
class, it is clear to us that the proletariat is the class which will
pull forward the revolutionary process and, for that reason, our
first task is to organize it politically and within trade unions. On
the issue of working women we have made steps forward, adopting the
basic position regarding woman's emancipation, which will not come
with the so-called feminism but by highlighting the class nature of
the problem.
We are working
in such a way so that at the end of 2019 we will be capable to
organize a large trade unionist meeting of labor unions,
organizations, workers and trade unionists from various sectors, in
order to create a strong militant rally with a stable class
orientation, for the organization of the clash with the capital, in
every workplace and then through the concentration of forces to go
through a period of development of the workers' struggle.
Also, a
priority for us is to intervene to migrant workers, both within
Mexicans who live in the US (around 10 million) as well as in other
nationalities living in our country.
- What are the
difficulties that the Party encounters in this effort? What
distinguised positive steps have been made?The difficulties are various, but we have to deal with them, because it is an absolute necessity for a strong Communist Party to carry out the revolutionary tasks. The first difficulty is related to the organization of the workers' trade union movement, this is the “Achilles heel”, not only for the CP of Mexico but for the working class as a whole for many decades. This issue requires ideological intervention and we are now able to intervene in a better way.
We have a
well-developing Communist Youth which interferes within the studying
youth.
In general
terms, the 60th Congress dealed with the basic difficulty
which is related to the massification of the Party's intervention in
the working class, the popular strata, of the ideological, political
and organizational intervention in the daily struggles associated
with the historical revolutionary goals.
Also, in 2019,
it is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Mexican
Department of the Communist International and we are committed
towards our own History: The Communists, the Communist Party, is the
revolutionary force which will change Mexico and, as we declared in
our demonstrations on December 1st, the day Obrador was
sworn in, against the anti-people measures that are coming: Without a
workers' power there can be no real change.
Translation: IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©
