Marvin Gandall wrote:
> Depends what people have in mind when they describe themselves as
> "socialist". For most, it doesn't correspond to the classical Marxist
> notion
> of a "proletarian dictatorship" and public ownership, but to the
> capitalist
> welfare state model favoured by social democrats. The poll notes that only
> a
> small percentage of the sample was attracted to what Gallup calls the
> "extreme forms of socialism" practiced under Chavez in Venezuela (21%),
> Morales in Bolivia (28%), and Correa in Ecuador (31%).
It's a bit more complicated. Garcia won by a small margin against an opponent who had exactly the same kind of politics that are supposedly "extreme" and in fact the bourgeois press in Peru made a big to-do about this, helping to frighten people into voting for Garcia. This is a point that Joaquin was trying to make recently--and one I strongly agree with. People don't make revolutions because they are converted to socialism. They are instead trying to overcome huge obstacles in the way to living a decent life, including not having land to grow food on, etc.