Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 12:09:01 -0400
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Chilean Stalinists in '38 support the Good Neighbor Policy and


Adolfo Olaechea:

>
>They conspired with the Khruschevites and caused untold damage and delay to
>the revolution in Latin America, which alone could have saved Cuba from its
>isolation and provided all the raw materials which it lacks within a Soviet
>Union of Latin American republics.  The plight of the Cuban bureacrats is
>self-inflicted, and the people of Cuba would certainly one day draw the
>balance sheet of all this charade.
>

More addled history from Olaechea. If the enemy is Krushchev, who is the
savior? Stalin? Not hardly, based on the evidence of a stalwart pro-Stalin
party:

"On the basis of the Good Neighbor Policy and its consistent application,
relations can and must be established with the Roosevelt administration,
which is attacked so violently by Wall Street. The Good Neighbor Policy,
according to a strictly realistic criterion, is a useful instrument for the
purposes of the struggle for peace and democracy.

"As for foreign capital invested in Chile, the people have always respected
and always will respect the provisions of the political Constitution of the
state which guarantee the property of foreign capital and, in general, of
all capital, requiring at the same time that the capitalists, national and
foreign, respect them on their side. The people have never ceased to
recognize the need for the cooperation of foreign capital and are still
disposed to solicit that cooperation in the future, if the national
interest requires it. The riches of Chile form an integral and inseparable
part of its right of existence as an independent and free nation and must
be allocated to the service of maintaining and extending democracy and
safeguarding peace among the people, on the basis of concerted action."

(From the 1938 article "The Popular Front in Chile", by Carlos Contrera
Labarca, General Secretary of the Chilean Communist Party)

So was Stalin asleep when this was written? No, this was the official
policy of Stalin's Comintern.

And let's be clear about the nature of "foreign capital" that Labarca is
welcoming. He is talking about Anaconda Copper, which *owned* the copper
mines that rightfully belonged to the Chilean people. The Cuban government
has not permitted any foreign ownership of Cuban resources. It only permits
co-ownership of manufacturing facilities.

Cuba only gave the green light to foreign investment after it lost 90% of
its national income and had to make up the loss somehow. It was being
pragmatic. The Chilean Communist Party's support for foreign investment was
driven by ideology, not pragmatism. It is tied up with the belief in a
"progressive wing of the bourgeoisie".

FDR was not progressive. His Good Neighbor Policy was a club used against
the Latin American people the way that his uncle used "gunboat diplomacy"
against the Chinese and Filipinos. FDR crowed to the world that Somoza
might be a son of a bitch, but he is "our" son of a bitch.

This rotten FDR was worshipped by Communists world-wide. Communist
households often had portraits of FDR and Stalin on the wall side-by-side.
It was this Stalinist political support for the imperialist FDR that
disoriented the American people. When you line up the American people
behind "their" government during an imperialist war like WWII, it is not so
hard to take them on the next phase of imperialist world domination: the
crusade against the USSR. History tells us that it was the Democratic
Party, led by a bona fide New Dealer by the name of Harry Truman, that shot
the first salvos against Communism.

I know that none of this will have any affect on hard-core Stalinists like
Lou Godena, Sid Chatterjee and Adolfo Olaechea, but is useful for the rest
of us who wear no ideological blinders to be reminded of Stalin's affection
for "good" capitalist politicians.

(Of course, the Trotskyites wear a different set of ideological blinders.
They believe that all that is necessary to defeat capitalism is to join
their sects. There is historical evidence that capitalism has prospered,
with or without the presence of Trotskyite groupuscles. When the Chilean CP
in 1938 was making opportunist mistakes, the Chilean Trotskyists were
posturing in a "vanguardist" manner that was guaranteed to isolate them.
When Allende came to power, his "popular front" was supported by the
Communists and Socialists alike. A real revolutionary alternative was
needed, but all the Trotskyites could offer was sterile rhetoric. "Chile
needs a socialist revolution, not a popular front," they shouted. The
problem with calls for socialist revolution is that when made in isolation
from any mass movement and without any notion of how they can be
specifically implemented, they are bound to be ignored.)

Louis Proyect




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