File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9803, message 420


Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 18:07:32 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-TH: Marxism and the Indians of Peru, part 2 of 3


José Carlos Mari=E1tegui believed that the key to the Peruvian Indian
question in the 1920s was land ownership. In Peru, Chiapas or Wounded Knee,
this issue is fundamental for indigenous peoples. Capitalism has driven
them from ancestral lands in order to exploit minerals, soil and water for
naked profit. Only socialism can redress this injustice.

Mari=E1tegui is the Western Hemisphere's most influential Marxist thinker. He
compares favorably to Gramsci because of his ability to understand and
write about class relations in a fresh and creative manner. In addition to
founding the Communist Party of Peru, he was also a major intellectual and
political influence on the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions. (The leaders
of Peru's "Shining Path" Communist Party also claim him, along with Mao, as
a major intellectual and political inspiration. I will have more to say
about the Shining Path in my next post.)

Mari=E1tegui's "Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality" (U. of
Texas, 1971) is a masterpiece of Marxist thought that analyzes the class
structure of Peru as well as its religion and literature. His major concern
in these essays is with the oppression of the Quechuan-speaking Indian, the
descendants of the Incas.

He argued that Peru was simultaneously communal, feudal and capitalist. The
Peruvian government might have represented itself as a modern democratic
republic to the outside world in the 1920s, but Mari=E1tegui saw beneath the
surface. What he saw was feudal property relations in the countryside and
Indian villages that clung to ayllu collectivism. He proposed that the vast
feudal estates be broken up and that the land be turned over to the Indians
to reinvigorate the ayllus. The ayllus would form the basis of a new
revolutionary society. Without showing any evidence of direct influence,
Mariategui's program for revolution in Peru bore a striking resemblance to
the proposals that Marx made to his followers in Russia in 1880. He urged
them to support the Populist struggle to turn the peasant communes into
building blocks for a socialist society.

There is a tendency in dogmatic Marxism to see all societies as evolving
through successive stages, like a larva becoming a caterpillar first before
turning into a butterfly. In reality, all class societies retain modes of
production from the past as well as anticipating those of the future.
Barbara Brady's "'Resistance to capitalism' in the Peruvian Andes"
characterizes the economic and social mix of modern Peru in the following
terms:

"If we were to take an economic cross-section of an imaginary but typical
province in the Peruvian Andes we would find examples of virtually every
'mode of production' in the book: modern industrial capitalism in the form
of the multi-national mining corporation, large-scale farming for the world
market perhaps organized by the same mining capital, traditional haciendas
presided over by unruly and paternalistic gamonales, state capitalism with
some form of workers' participation where the Agrarian Reform had taken
over one of the two latter forms, petty commodity production around the
urban and mining centres, share-cropping and the various forms of
pre-capitalist rent, right down to the survival of some communal forms of
labour in the Communities [ayllus]. If we start to do the same thing from
the point of view of labour in the area, we shall find that not only is it
involved in all these forms, but of necessity we must move outside the area
in both possible geographical directions: down to the agricultural
plantations of the jungle area on the east side of the Andes, and down to
the coast on the west, where we will find labour employed both by large-
and small-scale capital, and in a welter of petty service and commodity
occupations on the margins of the capitalist sector." (in "Ecology and
Exchange in the Andes," edited by David Lehmann, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982)

Why do precapitalist modes of production persist in Peru? Marx and Engels
argued that capitalism seeks to uproot all previous forms of social and
economic relationships. If it had to obey the laws of commodity production,
why would the Peruvian bourgeoisie tolerate a feudal landed gentry in its
midst?

Mari=E1tegui's caustic dismissal of the Peruvian bourgeoisie leaves no doubtThis was an underdeveloped class that lacked the social and economic power
to transform Peru into a modern democratic republic in the classic mold of
the USA or France. The Peruvian bourgeoisie was not a revolutionary class,
especially when it came to the demand for radical land reform.

He blames this on the foreign domination of guano fertilizer and nitrates
industries in the 18th century. Business and finance in the seaport cities
like Lima remained in foreign hands, while development of the guano
fertilizer and nitrates industries relied on the cooperation of the
landowning class. The landed gentry cut deals with the British and the
Americans, who had the capital and technical expertise to extract the
resources. A powerful local manufacturing bourgeoisie never emerged. The
power and wealth of the gentry created a class of professionals who could
flatter it and cater to its needs: lawyers, writers, priests. Meanwhile,
the traditional social base of the bourgeois revolution--shopkeepers and
peasants--was narrow as a reed. He writes:

"Guano and nitrates, first and foremost, generated a lively trade with the
Western world during a period when Peru. in its unfavorable geographical
location, had little hope of attracting the colonizing and civilizing
currents that were sweeping through other Latin American countries. This
trade placed its economy under the control of British capital. Later, as a
result of debts guaranteed by both products, Peru was forced to hand over
to England the administration of its railroads, that is, the very key to
the exploitation of its resources.

"The profits earned from the export of guano and nitrates created in Peru,
where property always had preserved its aristocratic and feudal character,
the first solid elements of commercial and banking capital. Those who
profited directly and indirectly from the wealth on the coast began to
constitute a capitalist class. The bourgeoisie that developed in Peru was
related in its origin and structure to the aristocracy, which, though
composed chiefly of the descendants of colonial land-holders, had been
obliged by its role to adopt the basic principles of liberal economics and
politics."

Eventually German scientists developed chemical fertilizer alternatives to
guano, while Chile seized the nitrate fields in a brief war with Peru. The
landed gentry found alternative ways to accumulate capital, mostly through
raising cotton and sugar for the export markets. It continued to function
as a ruling class in a nominally capitalist country, but remained hostile
to the democratic values and enterpreneurialism of textbook examples of
bourgeois democracies. Their vast estates remained undercapitalized and
indentured labor was common. Most importantly, the law on the estate was
what the gamonale, or aristocrat, said it should be in the last analysis.
The scenario described in Argueda's "Pongo's Dream" was accurate. The lord
could tell his retainers to bark like a dog if it pleased him.

Mari=E1tegui describes the bondage of the Indian in the feudal-like estates:

"In the agriculture of the sierra exactly those features of feudal property
and work are found. The free labor system has not developed there. The
plantation owner does not care about the productivity of his land, only
about the income he receives from it. He reduces the factors of production
to just two: land and the Indian. Ownership of land permits him to exploit
limitlessly labor of the Indian. The usury practiced on this
labor--translated into the Indian's misery--is added to the rent charged
for the land, calculated at the usual rate. The hacendado reserves the best
land for himself and distributes the least fertile among his Indian
laborers, who are obliged to work the former without pay and to live off
the produce of the latter. The Indian pays his rent in work or crops, very
rarely in money (since the Indian's labor is worth more to the landlord),
and most often in mixed forms."

The difference between the gamonale of Mari=E1tegui's era and the Spanish
viceroys of the 16th century is that the modern aristocrat produces for the
export market rather than for trade in the rural economy. In the 16th
century, there might have been some paternalistic kindness offered to the
Indian through a sense of "noblesse oblige," but the modern capitalist
system provides no such concessions. When the liberal revolution of the
19th century abolished the formal structures of feudalism, it destroyed the
slender fabric of mutual support that existed on the plantation. Cash, not
loyalty, now dominated the relationship between lord and servant.

Mari=E1tegui did not believe that capitalism, either of the latifundista
variety or the modern industrial version, could provide a better life for
the Indian majority of Peru. Rather than patiently waiting for an
industrial proletariat to emerge, he urged the socialist movement to work
with the human material at its disposal. Peru, like China and Vietnam, had
a disenfranchised and economically exploited peasantry. Moreover, Peru's
peasantry had traditions of communally owned property that could provide
the basis for a new socialist society. While it was reasonable to look to
the trade unions and factories of modern Germany and England for a base of
support, socialists in Peru had to look to the countryside.

Marx had come to similar conclusions in the 1870s after studying Russian
society. He thought that the peasantry could spearhead a revolution on its
own. After achieving victory, it would look to the Western European
proletariat to make successful revolutions in advanced countries. The West
would then supply capital and technical aid to an infant Russian socialist
state. The notion that Russia would have to endure decades and decades of
capitalist growth in order to complete this necessary preliminary to
socialism was a distortion of his theory. Furthermore, the introduction of
capitalist property relations into the countryside would only undercut the
possibilities for revolution, since it would turn the collectively minded
peasant into a grubbing, individualistic rural entrepreneur. The village
commune needed protection from capitalism, if socialism was to triumph.

I could find no reference in Mari=E1tegui to Marx's late correspondence with
Zasulich or Danielson, but it is obvious that the similarities between
Russia in the 1880s and his own Peru impressed him. He says, "Feudalism
similarly let rural communes continue in Russia, a country that offers an
interesting parallel because in its historical process it is much closer to
these agricultural and semi-feudal countries [like Peru] than are the
capitalist countries of the West."

Capitalism besieged the Peruvian ayllu from all sides, just as it did the
Russian peasant commune. Liberal apologists for the ruling class thought
that they were relics of an outmoded past. They thought that Indian
"backwardness" could be overcome through a combination of private property
and education. Mari=E1tegui was not alone in seeing value in the ayllu. Luis
Varc=E1rcel, the most influential "indigenist" of the 1920s, wrote
extensively about Incan culture and the persistence of the ayllu. He was an
important influence on Mari=E1tegui, even if he regarded his statements as
"too colored by his ideal of an Indian renaissance."

Mari=E1tegui thought that the Indian remained unassimilated by Peruvian
capitalism:

"The Indian, in spite of one hundred years of republican legislation, has
not become an individualist. And this is not because he resists progress,
as is claimed by his detractors. Rather, it is because individualism under
a feudal system does not find the necessary conditions to gain strength and
develop. On the other hand, communism has continued to be the Indian's only
defense. Individualism cannot flourish or even exist effectively outside a
system of free competition. And the Indian has never felt less free than
when he has felt alone."

Since the 1920s, the ayllus continued to be undermined by capitalist
pressures. Some scholars believe that the process is complete. Rodrigo
S=E1nchez argues in "The Andean economic system and capitalism" (in the
Lehmann collection) that there has been large scale proletarianization,
reinforcement of the nuclear family as a unit of agricultural production
and class differentiation between rich and poor peasants. In the same
collection, Barbara Brady's "'Resistance to capitalism' in the Peruvian
Andes" makes the case that communal solidarity persists even when wage
labor is the norm.

"Even if we confine our view to the Andean area itself, we find that
capitalism is present in the area in many forms. We find wage labour, we
find small accumulated funds, we find the products of capitalist
mass-production, we find money almost everywhere we go. In what sense are
we to say then that the area is 'outside' or 'resisting' capitalism? To
show what I mean with an example: if we take Carhuapata, a largely
subsistence Community [ayllu], where a number of the men work in the nearby
mines for two or three years of their life, then it would be strange to
talk about the Community 'resisting' capitalism. The men may be keen,
rather than reluctant, to go and work in the mines. The capitalist firms
involved may have no interest in taking over production in the Communities.
At the same time, subsistence production itself is changed by temporary
emigration: not only will changes in the division of labour within the
household be necessary, but the possibilities of using the wage for buying
in the products of advanced capitalism (fertilizers, improved seed, tools
both for agricultural and other uses) mean that the amount of land needed
for subsistence may actually be decreased, allowing population increase in
the subsistence area. But if the subsistence production differs from some
'pure' model, because of its articulation with capitalism, then so does the
capitalist presence; it is not like 'advanced' capitalism, since the wage
form is not related to 'necessary labour', nor is it the only way in which
the worker and his family can obtain the 'necessaries' of life. The
worker's family stays in the Community and often provides him with food
while he works in the mine. The wage then becomes 'surplus' from the
Community's point of view --a means of access to 'luxury' goods traded in
the company store; and from the company's point of view it can be seen in a
way similar to that of married women's wages in 'advanced' capitalism--
'pin-money', or 'money for holidays.'"

The long-term viability of the ayllu is not something that can be used in
itself to validate Mari=E1tegui's interpretation of Peruvian reality. He was
a Marxist revolutionary, not an anthropologist. Unfortunately he died of
tuberculosis in 1930, so we were deprived of his talents. He was only 35, a
tragic loss. It would have been wonderful to benefit from his continuing
analysis of Peruvian social reality, as well as his analysis of the rise of
fascism and the decline of the USSR.

Mari=E1tegui is an antidote to all forms of dogmatism. His only "theory" is
Marxism and his only subject matter is the class struggle of his own
country. His Marxism has been described as a "National Marxism" and there
is some truth to this. In a certain sense, all Marxism must be rooted in
the particularities of a time and place, or else it is useless. If one
wants to understand the class struggle in one's own country, Mari=E1tegui's
"Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality" is a good place to start.
If you can understand and appreciate his methodology, then you are in a
good position to undertake a similar study of your own society.

One of the more controversial aspects of Mari=E1tegui's thought is his
description of Inca society as socialistic. More recent scholarship, such
as Thomas Patterson's, makes a convincing case that the Incan empire was a
classic "tributary" society. In the Byzantine world of Maoist polemics,
detractors of the Peruvian "Shining Path" try to make Mari=E1tegui appear
like a fool. How could a movement regard an "Inca worshipper" as a major
Marxist thinker? Clearly the Incas were repressive.

Mari=E1tegui, to the contrary, understood the true nature of the Incas. He
wrote in a lengthy footnote to the third essay in his collection that calls
for understanding the Inca state in context:

"It is not possible to speak abstractly of tyranny. Tyranny is a concrete
fact. It is real to the extent that it represses the will of the people and
oppresses and stifles their life force. Often in ancient times an
absolutist and theocratic regime has embodied and represented that will and
force. This appears to have been the case in the Inca empire. I do not
believe in the supernatural powers of the Incas. But their political
ability is as self-evident as is their construction of an empire with human
materials and moral elements amassed over the centuries. The Incas unified
and created the empire, but they did not create its nucleus. The legal
state organized by the Incas undoubtedly reproduced the natural
pre-existing state. The Inca did not disrupt anything. Their work should be
praised, not scorned and disparaged, as the expression of thousands of
years and myriad elements."

The nucleus of the Inca state was the ayllu. This was the egalitarian and
collectivist core that Mari=E1tegui supported, in distinction to the
sometimes arbitrary and cruel practices of the Inca ruling-class. His
embrace of this culture was not romantic or reactionary. It was an attempt
to ground the Peruvian revolutionary movement in the traditions of
resistance against Spanish colonial rule. It was a celebration of Tupuc
Amaru's revolt. It was also a rejection of the institutions that capitalist
Spain imposed on the indigenous peoples.

We must understand Mari=E1tegui's Indian nationalism in the context of the
awakening that was taking place throughout Latin and Central America, as
intellectuals and revolutionaries sought to create an authentic national
culture. It inspired the Mexican novelists and mural painters to look to
Aztec culture, another ancient civilization like the Inca's. Mariategui's
embrace of the Inca past helps to fortify the revolutionary movement of the
present era, as he states in "Nationalism and Vanguardism":

"In opposition to this spirit, the vanguard proposes the reconstruction of
Peru on an Indian foundation. The new generation is recovering our past,
our true history. Our antiquarians content themselves with the fragile,
courtly memories of the viceroyalty. Vanguardism, on the other hand, seeks
truly Peruvian and more remotely ancient materials for its work.

"And its indigenismo is neither literary speculation nor a romantic
pastime. Nor is it an indigenismo that, like many others, reduces itself to
an innocuous apologia for the Incan empire and its splendors. In place of a
Platonic love for the Incan past, the revolutionary indigenistas show an
active and concrete solidarity with today=92s Indian.

"This indigenismo does not indulge in fantasies of utopian restorations. 1t
perceives the past as a foundation, not a program. Its conception of
history events is realistic and modern. It neither ignores nor slights any
of the historical facts that have modified the world=92s reality, as well as
Peru=92s, in these four centuries."

In my next post, I will take a fresh look at the always controversial and
often misunderstood Shining Path movement.

Louis Proyect




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