Proposal
for the debate on change1
Ecuador forms part of the international capitalist system; it
is subjugated by imperialism, by globalization; it is a dependent country.
In
the first place, Ecuador faces plunder and foreign domination, the looting of
its natural resources, the yoke of the large imperialist businesses, mainly
North American.
Structurally,
Ecuadorian society has a capitalist social economic forma tion, it is a society
divided into classes. On the one side are the possessing classes, the
capitalists, and on the other, the working classes.
This
domination by imperialism distorts the development of the productive forces,
holding them back on an international level, confining them to specific areas
that are of use to the international division of labor. In this way Ecuador has
become a backwards capitalist country whose economy is based on agriculture and
the extraction of natural resources, particularly petroleum; with an incipient
industrial development, particularly in the food, plastics, textiles, assembly
industry (household appliance and automotive) in the framework of the Cartagena
Agreement and the Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA).
Ecuador
also suffers due to the national and cultural subjugation of imperialism: the
imposition of the North American way of life, of the deviant ideas of
individualism and decadent capitalist society, drug addiction, pornography and
crime.
In
the second place, Ecuadorian society faces the exploitation and domination of
the large local capitalists, the financial, industrial and commercial
businessmen who appropriate the surplus value created by the workers of the town
and countryside. Through wage labor, the owners of the means of production, of
the land, banks, industries, the large means of transportation and chains of
middle men, a handful of capitalists have accumulated material wealth. By means
of the State, the laws, the bureaucracy and the armed forces, those same groups
exercise political power, they concentrate authority in their hands and they
establish the institutionality, legality and legitimacy of their rule.
This
means that the big obstacles to development, to the social progress of Ecuador
are the domination and oppression of imperialism and its allies and servants,
the big pro-imperialist bourgeoisie. These form a reactionary union that only
can be ousted through a merciless fight waged by the working classes.
Imperialist
domination and the exploitation and oppression of the local bourgeoisie form a
whole. One cannot fight imperialism without at the same time fighting the
oligarchy and one cannot attack the large capitalists if one does not at the
same time confront imperialism.
The
capitalist system must be destroyed and replaced by a new society, a society of
the workers, by socialism.
We,
the working classes: the proletarians, the workers of the city and the
countryside; the petty bourgeoisie, those who work for themselves, the peasants,
the small and medium-sized producers; the semi-proletarians of the city and the
countryside, form the broad base of the Ecuadorian social pyramid.
Starting from the Marxist conception of the people, as a historically determined social subject, made up of the subordinate social classes, the peoples of Ecuador: we, the mestizos, Indians and blacks constitute the great majority of the population, we form part of the working classes.
The
Ecuadorian women who are part of the working classes, of the working class, the
semi-proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie, form an indivisible part of the
workers and peoples of Ecuador.
We
are the social forces who need the revolution
The
Ecuadorian revolution is a process. It is an irreconcilable political struggle
between the working masses of Ecuador, the mestizo, Indian and black peoples on
the one hand, and U.S. imperialism and its allies and servants, the big
pro-imperialist bourgeoisie on the other hand.
We,
the great majority of Ecuadorians, more than 12 million people, are exploited
and oppressed; we need the revolution; we form the social base of the
revolution. We are the exploited in the trenches of the revolution and we are
confronting a small number of families and big businessmen who count on the
State, the laws, the institutions, the armed forces and the police, who also
have the reactionary political and military support of imperialism.
We,
the social forces interested in the revolutionary transformation of society,
form a large popular bloc, we are millions: we are proletarians and other
workers of the city and the countryside, men and women, mestizos, Indians and
blacks who live from the sale of our labor power, who are the protagonists of
the social and material life, the creators of the wealth, the builders of the
roads and highways, of the ports and airports, the ones who built the cities,
the big buildings and avenues, the ones who cultivate the fields and work in the
factories, the creators of the material goods that society needs for its
development. We are the small and medium-sized producers, those who work for
ourselves, who work in the fields, in the industrial and handicraft shops, in
the small and medium-sized commercial establishments. We are the mestizo, Indian
and black peoples, who form one of the pillars of the economy of the country,
who produce food, clothing and material implements for internal consumption and
for export. We are the men and women who work with ideas and knowledge, we are
mestizos, Indians and blacks who, in our work and above all in our conception of
the world are committed to the present and future of Ecuador, to change. We are
the intellectuals of the process of liberation.
We,
the working classes, or what is the same thing, the popular classes, form the
social subject of the Ecuadorian revolution, the workers and peoples of Ecuador,
the popular revolutionary bloc.
We
are one great social conglomeration; we are immersed in a similar moral and
material situation. We have similar economic interests, we face the same
problems of subsistence: lack of employment, low salaries, lack of health care,
lack of education, low prices for our agricultural, handicraft and industrial
products and high prices as consumers, we are the main victims of the economic
crisis that Ecuador is facing today. We have common social interests: we suffer
the political oppression of imperialism and the oligarchy; we are victims of
social, ethnic, cultural and gender discrimination. Our basic aspirations are
the same: we want a free and sovereign Country, mental and material
opportunities for all: access to health care and education, to decent housing,
to democracy and peace, to solidarity and to the exercise of personal liberty.
A
great part of the workers and peoples of Ecuador are tied to capitalist cultural
alienation. The ruling classes manipulate the consciousness and political and
social behavior of the rural and urban masses. Through the dominant ideas, the
method of seeing and understanding things, through the imposition and
generalization of its conception of the world, the ruling classes legalize and
legitimize their nature, the exercise of their power.
This
means that throughout Ecuadorian society, the ideas, the way of thinking and
acting of the ruling classes, of the bourgeoisie and of imperialism,
predominate.
Under
the weight of these ideas, the workers and peoples of Ecuador, despite the
elements and factors that unite us, are divided by problems and contradictions
which conspire against popular unity, which are opposed to the united march of
those on the bottom, which open cracks, at times very deep ones, among us.
Those
contradictions and problems are of a political, ethnic, cultural, economic,
social and gender character
The
great majority of the Ecuadorian popular masses are workers: we sell our labor
power or we work for ourselves; but, we are located in different areas, in the
city and the countryside, in industry and in mines, in the services and in the
so-called informal sector, we work with our hands and with our brains. These
differences also lead to discord and at times hatred among ourselves.
What
was always a reality is now accepted formally, that Ecuador is a multinational,
multiethnic and multicultural country, but that recognition does not in any way
mean that there is cultural equality among the various peoples, nationalities
and ethnic groups.
On
the contrary, as a consequence of the bourgeois and feudal domination that our
country has suffered for centuries, the cultural diversity is marked by national
oppression of the black and Indian peoples by the Ecuadorian nation, formed by
the mestizos who are the majority and dominant nation.
That
relation of domination – dominated between the mestizos and the black and
Indian peoples is expressed daily in all social and economic, cultural and
spiritual manifestations. It is expressed in the idea that the indigenous and
black peoples are lazy, crafty, uncultured, ignorant, inferior beings, thieves
and that the mestizos are cultured, intelligent, hard-working, clever, skilled
people, etc. This discrimination is in the popular consciousness; it is
expressed in every day life.
Racial
discrimination and, in some cases, abject racism forms part of the cultural
diversity.
On
the other hand, the black and Indian peoples and nationalities, in defense of
their identity, assume racist positions; they attribute to the mestizos, as a
national whole, the full responsibility for their situation of exploitation and
oppression. To them, the mestizos, independent of their social situation,
whether they are workers or bosses, are the main enemy, the cause of their
misery and hunger. (One must note that the social differentiation that is
established within the Indian peoples is based on economic and social privileges
of bourgeois business groups that feed these ideas, in defense of their own
interests – "the Indians should not organize unions in Indian businesses,
since they are all Indians, brothers").
Within
the great mass of the workers and peoples of Ecuador, as a consequence of the
power of the bourgeois and feudal ideas, there is gender inequality, the
subordination, oppression and repression that working women suffer from the
social system and their own companions. The subordinate classes, the peoples,
reproduce in their ideas and behavior, the ancestral ideological patterns of the
bosses: "women are inferior and their place is in the home and the kitchen,
taking care of the children."
It
is important to note another thing that also affects the popular bloc –
regionalism. The historical reality of Ecuador has created a country in which
the interests of the regional oligarchic groups, mainly of Guayaquil and Quito,
stirred up by the ruling classes, confront each other. This confrontation
affects the ideas and behavior of the popular masses, in the form of the
confrontation between residents of the coast and of the mountains, between
residents of Quito and of Guayaquil; that contradiction extends, to a lesser
degree, to the inhabitants of other provinces and regions.
The
Ecuadorian popular movement has a long history of struggle of the exploited and
oppressed, of the workers and peasants, of the small and medium-sized producers,
of the teachers and the youth; it has to its credit a significant number of
social organizations, of workers' unions and peasants' cooperatives, of
committees, associations, societies, cooperatives, etc on the basic level, on
the provincial and national level, in federations and confederations; they
include various organizations and political parties of left, revolutionaries,
who struggle to establish roots, to grow and to develop in the fulfillment of
their historic responsibilities. Recently the popular movement has been
strengthened by the emergence of the organization and struggle of the Indian
peoples for their cultural and national rights.
Gradually
a popular bloc is being strengthened, a political and social process that forms
its own dynamic, that grows and develops, independently of the bourgeoisie and
its political parties, that is forming its own character.
This
popular movement is forging its own identity, an identity of liberation
In
the heart of the trade unions, in the economic, political and ideological
confrontation of class against class, between labor and capital; in the course
of a strike at an enterprise, in the daily life of the trade unions, in the
general strike, there is being formed, in deeds, the unity of the workers
without regard to ethnicity and nationality, to gender and creed, illuminating
the role of the workers, assuming their responsibility in the process of change,
forging the proletarian consciousness.
In
the peasant organizations, in the confrontations with the large landlords and
the robber State, in the process of their struggle for land, for water, for just
prices and technical assistance, for health and education, the organization is
developing, new levels of unity are being reached among Indian, mestizo and
black peasants, between residents of the coasts and the mountains; the peasants
playing an outstanding role in the popular movement; they are uniting their
aspirations and struggles with those of the workers of the city.
In
each of the social organizations, among the small merchants and the poor neighborhood residents, among the teachers and the
youth, among the professionals new heights of the popular movement are also
being reached.
The
popular movement is increasing in breadth and depth. The most recent examples
have shown high points of struggle for the general objectives of the workers and
the peoples, important levels of unity, actions of national significance and of
a political nature such as the popular uprisings that threw out Bucaram and
Mahuad and other general strikes and uprisings. The united and deliberative
efforts which took concrete form in the Congress of the People and in the
Parliament of the Peoples of Ecuador are of unsurpassed importance. But, above
all, of extraordinary importance are the new levels of popular consciousness,
particularly, the focus that is being placed on the problem of power.
We,
the Marxist-Leninists, the revolutionary left – Marxist and Christian, the
left-wing nationalists, the democrats and patriots, are taking an important
place in this process of the development of the popular movement.
What
we have just outlined means that the problems and contradictions that affect the
organized popular movement, the working classes, the revolutionary forces, can
be faced and resolved; it means that the present situation of those forces are
good, positive and that, above all, they can be and should be better in the near
future, they are creating and developing the conditions for the revolutionary
victory of the workers and the peoples of Ecuador, for the conquest of popular
power and the construction of socialism.
What
are the conditions and tasks that will allow us to advance more quickly?
First,
it is necessary to clarify the immediate and medium-range objectives.
We
have to struggle against capitalist oppression and exploitation, against the
conditions of hunger and misery that the system imposes on us, against social,
ethnic and gender discrimination, against injustice and repression, for the
defense of human rights, against the politics of neo-liberalism, privatization
and denationalization, against the measures of the International Monetary Fund,
for fair and stable wages, for health and education, etc.
We
must resolve to get rid of foreign domination and that of its local allies and
servants, to put an end to the oppressor State.
This
means that the liberation process has tasks of both a national and social
character.
Second,
it is necessary to win popular power, the power of the workers of the city and
the countryside, the power of the peoples of Ecuador, and to build a new
society, the society of the workers, socialism.
Third,
to bear in mind that the protagonists and leaders of these great deeds are we
the popular masses, the millions of Ecuadorian working people, the mestizo,
Indian and black peoples.
Fourth,
to hold fast to the idea and practice that it is the working class that is the
most prepared to assume the leadership of this process, since life, the
conditions of its nature and its activity, have made it into an organized,
disciplined class, with great practical energy; a social class that owns no form
of private property of the means of production and therefore is devoid of their
own exclusive interests; a social class with a high degree of organization, with
political, social and historic experience; a class that is certain that its own
liberation is impossible without the liberation of all the working classes,
without the emancipation of humanity. The workers, in this conflict, "have
nothing to lose but their chains."
Fifth,
it is necessary to lay out revolutionary politics collectively and through
debate. The process of liberation, its zigzag course, is the highest expression
of revolutionary politics. It is not true that politics have nothing to do with
the popular struggle; on the contrary, if the masses do not have their own
politics, their enemies, the bourgeois political parties will create their
politics for them, they will manipulate them and will lead them to defeat, to
the maintenance of the present state of affairs.
Sixth,
the clarification of these and other problems, in the heart of the popular
movement, must be the result of a free discussion of different theses and
proposals, of open and frank debate among all those interested in the struggle,
of the elimination of reformist and social-democratic ideas, of the isolation of
obstinate people and opportunists.
Above
and beyond these objectives, we the workers and peoples of Ecuador propose
"to take heaven by assault," that is:
To
build a new Ecuador, free and sovereign; to fully win ethnic, social and gender
equality, the democracy of masses, that is the full exercise of political and
social rights by the workers and peoples, and full personal liberty; the
material welfare of all Ecuadorians; a new culture that promotes and develop the ethical values of all the peoples of
Ecuador. We will build one single great country, united in its cultural and
regional diversity.
The
great objectives of the workers and peoples of Ecuador can not be attained
easily, they will be result of an uninterrupted process of organization and
struggle, of particular actions of different classes and social sectors and of
general and large-scale mobilizations, of the political and trade union
struggle, of the struggle for land and housing, of their participation with
their own voice in elections under bourgeois democracy, and principally, of the
armed popular insurrection that is the only road that leads to power, but that
cannot be waged apart from the use of all forms of struggle, legal and illegal.
The
struggle for the popular power requires the building up of the revolutionary
forces. This task is accomplished in the organic, political and ideological
spheres. It is a process that is already in motion but must be solidified.
A
first demand is the strengthening of popular unity. It is necessary to
strengthen the working classes in all that unites them and carry out a fraternal
and frank process of debate over differences, to find and to apply solutions.
Unity has a political and ideological character, it is expressed in organization
and action, in combat.
A
second great task is to build up the will to fight for emancipation, to create a
totality of moral values, a conception, an ideology, a way of seeing and doing
things by the totality of revolutionary social forces. This means that, within
the popular bloc, revolutionary ideas must be firmly maintained, a way of being
and understanding oneself as part of the forces of change, confidence in
oneself, in the capacity and possibility of building a new, full life for all.
We must promote the open expression of all cultures and alternatives proposed by
the various peoples of Ecuador.
The
role of labor in the creation of wealth. Science and technology, capital, the
instruments of production, natural resources, the means of production, can only
be transformed into material goods through the intervention of labor. It is the
workers who create surplus value, who create the wealth. This means that the
working class is at the center of the epoch, it is the best prepared to unite,
organize and lead the other popular classes in the process of emancipation.
Social
liberation, in the epoch of imperialism, requires national liberation, the
breaking of dependence. This means that social demands, the struggle against
exploitation, is indissolubly united with the fight against imperialism.
National
and social liberation, the democracy of the masses and solidarity, require,
demand, ideological struggle against their opposites: capitalist alienation,
individualism and utilitarian egoism.
The
revolutionary identity of the workers and the peoples of Ecuador has breadth and
depth for the great objectives of popular power and socialism; one must keep in
mind the commonality and differences between the workers of the countryside and
the city, between manual and intellectual workers; one must take account of the
ethnic, cultural and national diversity; the regional differences; it is
necessary to overcome gender discrimination.
We propose to strengthen this identity, affirming the
following values:
Freedom, that is the commitment to fight against the tyranny, oppression and repression of the capitalist system, against wage slavery, against social, ethnic and gender discrimination; the decision to fight for social equality, for a true cultural diversity among the ethnic groups, peoples and nationalities of Ecuador, for the democracy of the masses which is the only true democracy, one that guarantees personal rights of all men and women, with the realization of their collective aspirations.
The
fatherland, that is, merciless struggle against imperialist oppression and
aggression, in opposition to the North American way of life, to reclaim our
natural resources, for the reaffirmation of Ecuadorian culture in opposition to
the worship of foreign things.
Solidarity,
the opposition to individualism, to egoism, to utilitarianism imposed by
bourgeois-imperialist ideology and the promotion of the collective, of the
general interests over individual ones; the forging of the new man without the
obstacles and traumas imposed by centuries of feudal and bourgeois domination.
It
is a matter of values of an ideological character that have a daily expression,
that are manifested in political and social action, in the aspirations, the
collective and personal behavior that can and should galvanize the Ecuadorian
popular movement.
The
great objectives of the workers and peoples of Ecuador demand a united march of
all its participants;
the affirmation of their national and social, union, rural organizations, those
of the woman and youth, of teachers, neighborhood residents and small merchants;
the solidifying of their political organizations, particularly, the affirmation,
growth and strengthening of the revolutionary party of the proletariat; one must
promote hundreds, thousands of revolutionary cadres, men and women who take up
the responsibilities and tasks to contribute to the organization, unity,
education and leadership of the revolutionary social forces; they must learn to
struggle in new conditions, to arm themselves with the idea of being armed and
to be prepared to win the great battles for national and social liberation.
The
Ecuadorian revolution, its problems, its forces, its goals have a certain
future, they will be resolved, they will grow and develop and will be
crystallized in deeds, in the popular power and socialism.
The
revolutionary forces are advancing; they have in the forefront the revolutionary
proletarians, the leftists, the popular fighters of the countryside and the
city, the red flag of the workers, the tricolor flag of the Ecuadorian people,
and the huipala of the Indian peoples.
Three Banners for one single cause, national and social liberation, the
revolution, the popular power and socialism.
Pablo Miranda
Ecuador, January 2001
1)
Text published in the journal Espacios
No. 10, March 2001
PCMLE,
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador