When the workers and the people of Ecuador, through their struggle and combat in the streets rid themselves at Bucaram of the president of the republic in February 1997, we can say that this event marked in the clearest form that a period of upsurge in the struggle of the masses was on the agenda.
In fact, during the interim government of Fabian Alarcon the struggle of the people and of the various social sectors of the country showed its persistence, continuity and movement upwards. The sharpening of economic, political and social crisis; the pressure from bourgeois economic groups to take forward the implementation of neoliberal policies, enabled sectors that in the past had been passive to involve themselves in protest, in this way, becoming agents in the social struggle so that the so-called “modernisation of the state”, which hid the real aims of privatising state industries in the strategic sectors of the economy of the country, could not be carried out. In this context one must note also the radicalisation of the people’s forms of struggle, particularly among the youth.
When Mahuad took power in August 1998, despite the intense propaganda aimed at pacifying people’s demands, the movement of the masses was not only maintained but actually advanced. After 45 days of government, Mahuad had to face the first general strike of workers, peasants, teachers, small traders, and students, all of whom rejected the economic package launched in September.
Always, when faced with protest, the government’s answer was repression, this time costing 11 lives, the wounding of dozens of people and the imprisonment of about a thousand. Among the 11 victimised comrades, the trade unionist Saul Canar, and comrades Jaime Hurtado, Pablo Tapia and Wellingrton Burja were murdered.
March and July 1999 constituted two peaks of popular struggle. The terrible conditions of life of the working masses deteriorated even more, through a conjunction of economic measures which consisted of, among other things, the withholding of the bank savings of millions of Ecuadorians in March; and a rise in the price of food in July, which unleashed important mobilisations. On two occasions the answer was the popular uprising which paralysed the country for several days. In spite of the brutal repression and the state of emergency declared by the government the peoples of Ecuador seized the country; the government had to retreat, thus allowing the people to gain important victories in relation to their demands, and in political and organisational spheres.
Those were struggles which began and developed through the demands of the masses but in doing so these militants set before themselves the aim of the overthrow of the president Mahuad, without, however, being able to achieve this. In March the Patriotic Front was re-activated and for the first time they took place the Paople’s Congress which gathered together all the organisations which had taken part in the struggle.
Social democracy represented in the National Congress by the Democratic Left parties and Pachakutik, on two occasions held out means of escape to the tottering government. Thus, political negotiation saved Mahuad in exchange for him conceding a few points of the programme demanded by the popular sectors. Not withstanding this, the government remained weak as did all the bourgeois institutions, and so the morale of the people was raised: since they had the conviction that they would be able to corner Mahuad and given the next opportunity, through their own struggle they would be able to get rid of him.
In March, our party in making an analysis of these successes, came to the conclusion that a flame continues to burn, which at any moment could burst into a fire.
Our people have been involved during these months in constant and important struggles, in response to the accelerated worsening of the conditions of life, to the government’s submission to the demands of the IMF and its neo-liberal policies, to the political interference of North American imperialism and its attempts to assimilate us like a colony, and to the scandalous corruption to be found in every branch of the regime.
And it cannot be otherwise since, during Mahuad’s government wages were reduced, in their buying capacity by 170 per cent; the sucre was devalued by 450 per cent; in less than a year 300 thousand employees lost their jobs from the state and private sectors, filling the queues of the unemployed who in total now number 675 thousand (on top of which there are 1,100 thousand under-employed), and we can see thus that scarcely 27 per cent of the labour force are fully employed. To the foregoing we can add an annual rate of inflation above 60 per cent.
In 1998 the difference in income between the five per cent poorest and the five per cent richest was a factor of 109, while in 1999 this figure rose to 203; of the 12 million inhabitants, 7,700 thousand people could not supply their daily necessities of food, education and health. Out of this population sunk in poverty, 1,629 thousand are native. Of those who ěsurvivesî in poverty, the poorest 10 per cent is made up of 240 thousand households who receive hardly 0.8 per cent of the national income with an average of 17.84 US dollars per month per household. According to official data, the basic monthly household basket of goods costs 180 US dollars, and the poverty line basket costs 136 US dollars, but the wages of a worker are just 47 dollars a month.
While these conditions of life are strangling the working masses the financial bourgeoisie has benefited with three billion dollars to aid its business; it has carried out the robbery of the century, stealing the deposits of savers; it has taken millions of dollars abroad and much of this money has left the country with government complicity. These corrupt bankers and businesses financed the electoral campaign of Mahuad, so producing a scandal which he wishes to be forgotten.
Ecuador is going through the worst crisis of the last 70 years with an economy in recession, which had negative growth of -7 per cent of the GNP in 1999; with general state budget of which 51 per cent goes to pay foreign debt.
These are the circumstances which had generated conditions in which discontent is constant. Within the working masses a profound discontent has been developing, a pronounced dissatisfaction which, from one moment to the other, has posed the necessity of making profound changes in society, leaving behind the present conditions of life.
That is why throughout the government of Mahuad, popular mobilisation was continual and the efforts of the bourgeoisie to carry through their neo-liberal programme, in accordance with their posture of total submission to North American imperialism, were set back. The Mahuadist government rapidly lost its way. Opinion polls carried out by companies for the same bourgeoisie, showed a president who, in the last few months, had a level of popular acceptance rated at no more than 8-10 per cent; and around 60 per cent were of the opinion that the president must go.
In December 1999, the Front called for a popular uprising in the month of January against the exploiting and treacherous government. This had at its central aims to overthrow the Mahuad government, and dissolve the National Congress and the courts of Justice on the one hand; and, on the other, to install a patriotic government of national unity, made up of representatives of popular organisations, small and medium businesses, progressive political parties, patriotic armed forces, religious leaders committed to the poor, and all those progressive and democratic people who desired the well being of the country. This transitional government was to be guided by a specific programme.
The programme of the Government for a New Ecuador contains measures whose character is popular, democratic and in defence of national sovereignty. It proposes, among other aspects, the fixing of the exchange rate of the sucre in relation to the dollar, and the confiscation of the shares in the hands of bankers, industrialists and big export-import businesses; a moratorium on the payment of foreign debt; the adoption of measures to reactivate as a matter of urgency the productive infrastructure; a general rise in benefits and wages; respect for the political rights of various nationalities and the Indian people, and the promotion of the cultures of such nationalities and peoples; opposition to the establishment of North American military bases; measures to put an end to and punish corruption in the country, etc. The Programme is to be carried out by the progressive and democratic sectors of society. It is not a plan for a revolutionary government and it was not possible at this time to conquer popular power. CONAIE also put forward a programmatic proposal, which basically coincided with that of the Patriotic Front.
Within this general framework and calling on the CONAIE to relate also to the struggle, the Patriotic Front on 6 January launched protests throughout the country with mobilisations in the cities, road-blocks in rural areas, meetings, etc. The government’s answer was to declare once more a state of emergency, to unleash repression and to describe the movement as ěsubversiveî.
It was evident that the struggle would take on greater intensity in the days to come; the instructions of Fuera Mahuad, Patriotic Government!!. were being ignored on all sides and in fact the government was shaking. CONAIE in these circumstances called on its affiliates to organise a native uprising from the 15th of January and to occupy the capital of the Republic. In reality these actions began on Monday, 17th.
Mahuad knew that his days as president were numbered and in a bold political manoeuvre he decreed on 9 January the ědolarisationî of the country’s economy. The bourgeoisie rapidly grouped itself around this proposition and supported it enthusiastically; some sectors of the population were confused by this measure and, in a certain sense, it caused the movement to hesitate. Nevertheless, this was momentary; the intense agitation with respect to the consequences which dolarisation would bring caused the unmasking of the real nature of this measure, and the masses then re-grouped for struggle. The sectors of the bourgeoisie who when faced with a popular demand for Mahuad’s resignation had adhered opportunistically to this proposal, now dropped their banners and took shelter in the government’s proposal; the people insisted that Mahuad must go.
As distinguished from the uprisings of March and July 1999 which had at their centre demands around material needs, this last uprising was a political movement. The people struggled to overthrow Mahuad, to dissolve the National Congress and the Courts of Justice and to establish their own government. This was the overriding element of this struggle.
In the leadership of the uprising two tendencies were expressed, both agreeing on the need to overthrow the government, but with different strategic objectives and mechanisms of struggle.
The Patriotic Front which groups together organisations of the working class, of the peasantry, of the Indian movement, of the judiciary, of the students, popular and people’s organisations in general, as well as democratic, progressive and revolutionary parties and political movements, among which our party is active, was one pole of leadership. This Front is a revolutionary project which subscribes to the idea of accumulating forces for the revolution, and which, with the objective of incorporating new sectors into the struggle, has worked to maintain the functioning of the Congress of the People.
The Patriotic Front called for the development across the country of various forms of struggle which would enable the demands of the movement to go forward. It called for a confrontation with the forces of order and for overcoming them through popular mobilisation.
The other element was the CONAIE which is also a popular project, but from within, and especially in its leadership, it has imposed reformist and social democratic positions which have moderated the role of those who are fighting because this organisation might play a revolutionary role.
Some of the main leaders and advisers of the CONAIE insisted, from the beginning, on giving a peaceful character to the uprising, separated from political involvement, agreeing in this way with the calls of the bourgeoisie itself to maintain the protest within the frame allowed by law and "the demands of civilized and democratic behaviour ". They went further than this, because they condemned beforehand the possible interference of political agitators in the fight and showed their disposition "to denounce and to expel infiltrators".
In the development of the uprising, those same leaders were determined to concretise the unity of both tendencies leading the struggle, and, in the process, to give priority to its agreements with sectors of the Armed Forces, which, without a doubt, prevented the movement from being strengthened, mainly in the arena of political understanding of aims and the forms of struggle necessary to accomplish them. Despite that position of the leadership of the CONAIE, in several provinces united actions were developed that harnessed the popular participation in the struggle at high levels.
The Patriotic Front made a call for the organization of popular uprising throughout the country and followed this through; the CONAIE invested their major effort in making specific agreements with a sector of the Armed Forces.
January has shown a degree of ideological and political development of the movement of the masses, showing more involvement with this type of struggle. The popular uprising has become the instrument of protest which has made the bourgeoisie back down on several occasions, which animates the confidence to fight, and affirms the combative way to conquer rights and victories.
In the past, the people hoped, in some sense, to find an answer to their claims in the National Congress. This happened for example when Bucaram was dismissed, and also in the uprisings of March and July 99. Today, on the contrary, the Congress is fearful of the fight and the people are hoping to establish their own government, overcoming the fear that if Mahuad falls a similar government may be installed. This search of the working masses to attain their own government reflects a new stage in their consciousness.
People tried to capture the government but were unable to achieve this. In the course of the uprising, government institutions were taken over such as the National Congress, the Supreme Court of Justice, several governmental institutions like ministries, General Office Controlling Public Spending, and, in most of the provinces the provincial governments, together constituting regional governments, chosen in popular assemblies, which express the desire of the people to create their own regime. Despite this, after the movement, these institutions stayed intact and the bourgeoisie itself appropriated the results.
One can conclude, at this point, that a sector of the people is going beyond discontent, and beyond the yearning of change, to become the protagonist of change itself.
The people conquered a politically and ideologically important victory, nevertheless this is partial.
With the mobilization of the masses we overthrew the government of Mahuad, which was maintained with the open support of the Clinton administration and the powerful economic circles of the country. Mahuad fell and a government of continuation was restored.
We defeated the economic and political group of Mahuad, which was grouped around the Party of Popular Democracy (Christian Democratic); we inflicted a blow against imperialism and the bourgeoisie as a whole, on the ideological and political plane, because the bourgeois institutions were struck hard; the masses have lost respect for the institutions of the system.
North American imperialism saw, with absolute clarity, that their economic and political interests were in danger in Ecuador, in addition to its interventionist plans against the Colombian people; for that reason it threatened the commercial and political isolation of the country and mobilized its forces, obtaining declarations from the presidents of several States, as well as of the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), in favour of "democracy ".
As Marx indicates, the crisis has revealed the contradictions.
The Armed Forces are divided; within them acute political contradictions between the low officers have become evident and the top military leaders are jeopardized by corruption. The magnitude of the movement affected a sector of the Armed Forces, which identified with it.
It is clear that the High Command was compromised through a conspiracy to carry out a coup d’etat, through which it hoped to take advantage of the movement in order to seize the government - and in one sense it did so- but it was stopped by Yankee imperialism which ordered it to apply the procedure of constitutional succession, which the High Command, while ordering others to respect it, were going to violate. Also splits in the national Police appeared, since, in the course of the uprising some officers showed attitudes in support of the movement.
On many occasions, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church have tried to show their "political impartiality" and including their commitment to those who are "unprotected", and, faced with demands, they have tried to play the role of intermediaries. On this occasion, their agreement with dollarisation, their condemnation of the popular uprising, of the Patriotic Front, and its Program of Government and of the Parliament of the Indian People, damaged its image. In spite of this, within the hierarchy, we found voices and dissident positions, like that of the Bishop of Cuenca, Mnsr. Alberto Luna Tobar, that from the beginning identified with the protest and joined the Patriotic Meeting of the Azuay. In the same way, monks and nuns in other regions supported the uprising. This also shows the splits in the Church.
The distrust in the dominant classes and the political parties of the bourgeoisie has grown and, with it, has also increased rejection of Courts of Justice and of the National Congress. After the uprising, 80 per cent of the population express the view that the national Congress would have to dissolve, because they saw that the great majority of deputies were co-responsible for the economic and political crisis; they were incapable and corrupt.
The confidence of the people that it is worth fighting has been fortified, as has their belief in the unity and organization; the popular and political organizations of the left are in better shape and have given birth to many leaders of different levels.
Anti-imperialist consciousness has grown. Something that remained constant in the struggle was opposition to the presence of North American troops in the base of Manta. All this promises positively for the revolution, which has taken a step forward.
In this process, subjective conditions have been developed.
The popular uprising of January of 2000, added to those of March and July of 99, can be described as a test of an insurrectionary uprising which prepares the way for the conquest of popular power.
The oligarchies were unanimous in organising against the uprising, and unlike in February of 97, they used the people to get rid of Bucaram, and they openly put the " institutionality " to one side.
Furious speeches, demonstrations and denunciations were made against the Patriotic Front, the CONAIE and the people; warnings and threats came from all sides. The ruling classes knew that there was something major coming.
The popular uprising ended on 21 January in the morning with the setting up of a government of National Salvation, with the participation of the president of the CONAIE, Antonio Vargas; of Colonel Lucio Gutierrez, leader of the military uprising; and, the ex- president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Carlos SolŰrzano. To this we gave our support.
In the evening, those involved with the government accepted the replacement of Lucio Gutierrez by the Head of the Joint Commando of the Armed Forces, General Carlos Mendoza. That was the beginning of the end of the new government. Three hours later, Mendoza left the new government, saying that, from the beginning, he had only joined it with the agreement of the Generals, in order to overthrow the government and to allow the Vice-president, Gustavo Noboa, to assume the presidency "constitutionallyî. The people described this as a betrayal of the movement.
In this way a change of puppets took place in the government. As soon as Noboa took over the presidency, in the Ministry of Defence and with the endorsement of the bourgeoisie, imperialism and the Military High Command, expressed its will to continue with dollarisation and the policy of neo-liberalism. A government continuing with the old policies was therefore restored.
The bourgeoisie which had been terrified by these events was now able to breath freely again, although with some anxiety, because they do not know what the future may hold.
Having recovered the reins they went on the counterattack. Taking advantage of the fact that temporarily they had overcome their internal contradictions, the bourgeoisie took repressive measures against those sections of the military who rebelled, against the popular and political leaders of the left and also against those deputies who had shown solidarity with the struggle. The dominant classes, when they see their system in danger, always unite furiously to punish those who dare to rebel.
The bourgeoisie, with Noboa at the top, has set out to restore a government of force and repression; and they have, at the moment, the political conditions in which to do this, and they have set the revolutionary organisations and forces as their target.
This new government counts on the support of all the bourgeois parties, which have supported the National Congress and all issues of the State, the neo-liberal policy of Noboa. Only the Democratic Left, has expressed their opposition.
Nevertheless, in spite of the support offered to it by imperialism, the military command, and the different economic and political groups of the bourgeoisie, it will not be able to solve the deep economic and political crisis. This is not about, as we logically understand it, a circumstantial crisis or a result of a "wrong model". We are facing a structural crisis of the capitalist system, which, in our country’s case, has problems of such magnitude that we cannot see the possibility of them being overcome in a short time.
Insofar as objective conditions for action persist, we will see the development and fortification of the popular organizations, political revolutionaries, and, obviously the mass movement.
Momentarily the political crisis has been solved, but we are referring to the conjectural crisis which we are analysing. The social problems are so acute that we expect in a short time new general struggles, because the movement of masses is in a state of growth.
There also remain the limitations of the movement of masses and the revolutionary forces.
Above we outlined that important sectors of the people are proposing struggle to attain a popular government; nevertheless it is important to reiterate that, in reality, they do not understand the magnitude of what this means, of how to conquer popular power, how to organise it, what kind of programme must be implemented through this power; the forms of struggle necessary to win it and to defend it. These political and ideological limitations of the mass movement which are not unconnected with the kind of political action which the revolutionary forces undertake, mediate their action and limit their horizons. This is a primary and serious problem which we must overcome.
The great ideological offensive unleashed by the dominant classes, imperialism and their acolytes against the people, has had some positive results for them. Those criticisms which condemn the use of revolutionary violence and support pacifism; which spread apoliticism and apathy; the social consensus; the defence of the bourgeois democratic system, are reproduced in the popular sectors, and it is this which guarantees the stability and persistence of the system and leaves the field free for the bourgeoisie to dominate the political arena.
The revolutionary organizations have shown weaknesses mainly within the workers’ movement and that of the Indian’s, and in general, it is well-known that the leap forward taken by the forces of revolution has not been sufficient to determine the course of the events.
Faced with this reality, it is necessary for the party of the proletariat to urgently adopt measures to overcome the existing deficiencies.
What is needed is an intense ideological offensive towards the masses to combat the ideas introduced by the bourgeoisie and to affirm the strategic aims of the party. What is Popular Power and how to conquer it; What is the way forward for the triumph of the revolution; The need for the people to develop revolutionary politics; and who are the participants in the revolution and what is the party as the leading force in it. These are, among others, the points which must be taken on board in the proposed ideological offensive. To persuade the people of the undeniable necessity of the use of revolutionary violence, is an obligatory task, even though the people, because of the counterattack by the bourgeoisie, have a better awareness of this need.
The politics of unity, with all those forces interested in fighting the present government and in organizing the revolution in the country, is a basic issue for our work. For that reason, and in this sense, we are promoting the proposal of the Patriotic Front to unite the People’s Congress with the Parliament of the Indian Peoples in Ecuador in a United Congress of the Peoples of Ecuador; we support the initiative of calling meetings of workers from various sectors and national unions for the establishment of a central United Organisation of Workers, as in other popular sectors.
We have a challenge before us to make this advance in the ideological, political and organizational construction of the organizations of masses and the forces of the party, itself.
All this must be developed in the middle of the struggle of the masses, of the Popular opposition to the continuing and reactionary government of Gustavo Noboa.
We have taken an important step; the popular movement and the organizations of masses and revolutionary policies have accumulated important experiences that show us the way to the conquest of greater victories. Our commitment to the working class of Ecuador and the international proletariat is reaffirmed.
M-L Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE)
February 2000