Cf. Jorge Castenada book onthe Latin American Left After The Cold War, "Utopia Unarmed." Castaneda has a piece in the latest Science and Society, the long-time marxist quarterly.
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categories/venezuela/ Two lefts and a rifle by Eduardo Mayobre
Teodoro Petkoff has put on the table a topic that without any doubt is important. In his last book, he proposes the existence of two lefts. In one side, there is the one embodied by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and on the other, that represented by Lula, Lagos, Kirchner and Tabare Vasquez. He points out that these leaders that rule part of Latin America and constitute a reaction to the neo-liberal policies of the last decade of the last XXth. Century. Despite this common trait, he considers them to be very different. In his own words: "These two currents of the left coexist in the continent and even if superficially they can be taken as part of the same "family", there are visible contradictions that oppose each other."
The difference consists-according to Petkoff- in that while one left, that of Fidel and Chavez, persist in the "infantilism" and "voluntarism" and tries to impose itself with the use of force, the other one has internalized democratic values and tries to march "by a path of advanced reform, which makes compatible social sensibility with the understanding that transformation in societies passes through economic development with equality and through the strengthening and deepening of democracy"
Teodoro's analysis is intelligent and astute, as he has accustomed us to. But it lacks two factors that, we think, can not be forgotten. On the one hand, that the contrast between the two lefts exists not only when you compare different countries, but that you also find it within each one of them. On the other hand there are factors foreign to leftwing movements that condition this contradiction, very particularly their militarism.
With respect to the first, the democratic left and the totalist left
(let's not call it totalitarian) have coexisted throughout the years.
Thus, the diagnose can not be made looking only to what is currently
happening, but also considering what happened in the previous years.
>From this last point of view, limiting ourselves only to Venezuela, we
can observe how the two lefts have had a struggle that goes back to
the thirties of the XXth. Century. While one advocated making changes
that would have as their base the democratic system, the other one
insisted in making a total revolution, like the Soviet one, so as to
advance faster towards the forefront of history. The first reached
power in 1945 and part of the second one in 1999.
The other observation about Petkoff's focus is that he does not give sufficient importance to militarism as a live and present force in our history, the same one that led to some of those leftwing projects to support themselves on the crutches of the men of arms. The progressive left, that in Venezuela has been nothing but Accion Democratica, partnered itself with a military conspiracy in 1945 in order to reach power. As Romulo Betancourt referred to the revolt: "The de facto Government was born from a typical coup d' etat and not a brave popular insurgence. One should not underline what the negative aspects of that circumstance". The other left has also reached power, half a century later, behind a military officer.
The difference between one ascent and the other consists in that while in 1945 Accion Democratica reached power with a big welcome and imposed its policies during three years, the role of the totalist left in the current Government is almost symbolic and it limits itself to the submission in front of the strongman On October 17th 1945, a day before the coup, Betancourt sad at a rally that "Accion Democratic will never be part of a Government like the poor relative that goes in thru the service door and occupy two or three of the so called technical ministries" That is exactly what the totalist left has done now.
In both cases they ended up being dominated by the military. In the first, sending the adecos to jail or exile. In the second, managing to put the vanguard to its service. The adecos learned that it was not possible to rule together with the military without them ending up drawing their revolver, while the vanguardists concluded that it is better to lower your head when they draw it.
On the other hand, in the sixties there appeared a left that wanted to confront the military with weapons. They had their inspiration in the triumph of Fidel in Cuba and counted on the army being weakened, in the face of public opinion, due to the abuses committed by the regime of the armed forces in the fifties. They were defeated.
>From the experience, two currents arose that began to differentiate
themselves more and more with the passage of time. On the one hand,
those-like Teodoro-incorporated themselves to democratic life. And, on
the other, some decimated and demoralized groups that he has called
the "borbonic" left, because it does not learn, nor does it forget.
The latter ones hid themselves out until they found a military officer
that remembered them. Thus, they arrived to the Government on the
coattails of the lieutenant colonels. And they were more borbonic than
ever, because, much like the royal house, they only fulfill a role of
protocol in the effective Government. Because one has to have it clear
that the regime is, before anything else, the armed forces
Unfortunately, in our history, besides the one, two, many lefts-we have always had as a determining factor the men of arms. That is why both in political practice as well as in the historical analysis, it becomes very difficult to do away with the role of the rifle. (This Government has this very clear, that is why it imports them from Russia). The left that, has forgotten that it has been right, but it does not have the public positions. We could call it-imitating Teodoro- the anti-borbonic left, because it forgets, it learns, but it never gets the power and is only left to write in the newspapers, if by chance they are allowed to do so.
The difference between Venezuela with the other South American countries lies in the fact that in the latter the Armed Forces are profoundly and recently discredited due to the barbaric acts they committed during the second half of the XXth. Century. That has determined that the military have retired themselves to their forts and do not participate in political life. This has allowed an ideological debate without the interference from the men of arms. The discussion has benefited most of the time progressive forces, and because of this, in many of them the representatives from the left have won.
Here, on the other hand, the military have been absent from politics for almost forty years-but they have come back en force. Because it was little what they had to offer, they had to search for a political orientation and they found it in the borbonic left. But because they had learned the lesson in 1945, they did not allow their leadership to be taken away. The civilian that has pretenses of leadership is sidelined (Miquelena's case) and those that want to stay have to obey... That is why the military promotions of this month of July have been followed with passion and with the detailed attention that was once dedicated to the elections of the general secretaries of political parties.
The evident dominance of the military recently led the British magazine The Economist to conclude, after making an evaluation of the current administration, that "whatever the outcome of the revolution is, the most lasting legacy of Chavez will be a politicized Armed Forces". Thus it is possible that we may have to wait until, much like the South,, the military establishment loses its prestige (hopefully not for the same reasons) in order to have a civilized civilian life and in order to have a meaningful debate about the two lefts without having a rifle pointed at us. Fortunately a politicized Armed Force always loses its prestige, as has been possible to observe already. But hopefully it will not be necessary to have a confrontation for the military to have conscience of this. Meanwhile, in our analysis we can not forget to consider that, between one left and the other, there is a loaded weapon.
10:11:34 PM comment [5]