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There are more than 20 developing countries in Latin America. Together with colonial countries and territories they occupy approximately 23 million sq. km. and have a total population of more than 284 million.

Area and Population of Some Latin American Countries Area (sq. km.) Population All Latin American coun- tries 22,800,000 284,000,000 of which: Mexico 2,000,000 50,700,000 Argentina 2,800,000 24,300,000 Brazil 8,500,000 95,200,000 Venezuela 900,000 10,400,000 Columbia 1,100,000 21,100,000 Peru 1,300,000 13,600,000 Chile 760,000 10,000,000

p The majority of the population of the Latin American countries speak either Spanish or Portuguese. Approximately a tenth of the population are indigenous inhabitants of Latin America and speak Indian languages. The non-assimilated European settlers use their native languages.

p Latin American countries won political independence as far back as the beginning of the 19th century. But having become formally sovereign, they soon fell into great economic dependence on the West European imperialist powers and then on US monopoly capital.

p Latin America has great natural wealth. It is particularly rich in mineral raw materials and occupies the first or one of the first places in the capitalist world for the production of a score of the most valuable raw materials such as niobium, tantalum, antimony, beryllium, iron and manganese. Venezuela, Argentina and a number of other Latin American countries have approximately a tenth of the proven deposits 148 of oil and gas of the capitalist world. Latin America is one of the world’s greatest sources of gold, silver, platinum, rareearth and trace elements, uranium ores and non-metallic minerals. Nowhere else are there such vast reserves of redwood, eucaliptus and other valuable species of trees as in the tropical forests of South America (Amazon basin).

p Having the world’s highest population growth rate, Latin American countries possess large manpower resources. Their gainfully employed population is estimated at over 80 million, of which 50 million are industrial, office and other wage workers. Imperialist domination and the still widespread survivals of feudalism are engendering a steady growth of a reserve army of labour in Latin American countries. The number of unemployed, who now account for a tenth of the total able-bodied population, is steadily mounting.

p The militarisation of some Latin American states is increasing under the pressure and with the support of the US imperialist circles which are also instrumental in foisting military-dictatorial regimes on them. In the past 150 years there were over 500 government coups in Latin America, of which seventy took place in the post-war period.

p Determined at whatever the cost to preserve and consolidate their sway in Latin American countries the United States is using the Organisation of American States (OAS) established in 1948 to achieve this objective. Having subjected the OAS to their influence the US ruling circles are trying to turn this organisation into a military-political bloc similar in character to that of the aggressive North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The Pentagon-designed plan for establishing inter-American armed forces under the OAS is also being put forward out of aggressive considerations.

p Nevertheless, the aggressive policy of US imperialism in Latin America is coming up against mounting opposition and resistance on the part of its peoples. The national consciousness of the masses is awakening in all countries of the continent: their revolutionary spirit is strengthening and they are extending the front of struggle against foreign and local monopolies and the latifundistas.

p The Government of the National Unity Front that came to power in Chile in 1970 has advanced a programme designed to ensure her independence and progress. In Latin American countries an increasing number of foreign-owned 149 enterprises is being taken over by the government or transferred to the national companies. More and more Latin American countries are establishing diplomatic and trade relations with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

p In the post-war years there has been a marked growth in the volume of the national income and industrial production of the Latin American countries, and their economic potential has grown considerably. Today the Latin American countries whose total population is equal to a sixth of the population of all the developing states account for 50 per cent of the latters’ industrial output. At the same time the per capita national income of the Latin American countries is a third of that of the West European states and an eighth of that of the United States.

p The dominating position in the industry of Latin America is held by the extractive branches supplying the principal capitalist states with a variety of mineral raw materials. Their extraction is, as a rule, controlled by foreign, primarily US, monopolies.

p Foreign capital is also striving to move into command positions in the manufacturing industry which is taking shape in the advanced Latin American countries. In Argentina, Brazil and Mexico where US investments are especially large, the greater part of them have been channelled into the engineering, electrical engineering, chemical and other manufacturing industries.

p The single-crop farming, the domination of the latifundistas and foreign companies, and the archaic agrarian relations are mainly responsible for the stagnation and backwardness of agriculture, the poverty of the rural population and shortage of food in the Latin American countries. To this day the per capita production of food in these countries is much lower than in other capitalist states. The solution of the agrarian problem in the Latin American countries and the introduction of other fundamental reforms are an essential precondition of their economic and cultural development.

Alongside features common to all of Latin America, there are distinctive characteristics determining the place and the role of each country of this part of the world. The level of the socio-economic development is the highest in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina which together account for approximately 75 per cent of the total volume of industrial 150 production of Latin America. Relatively advanced countries are Columbia, Uruguay and Chile. Many other Latin American states are considerably behind them.

MEXICO

p Mexico (United States of Mexico) occupies the southwestern part of the continent of North America. Mexico City (over 6 million inhabitants), the capital, is situated in the Federal District of Mexico.

p Thanks to relatively high and stable rates of post-war industrial development Mexico is gradually turning into an industrial-agrarian country whose industrial production is already yielding about a third of the gross national product. In addition to the mining industry which produces oil, sulphur, silver (first place in the world), iron, non-ferrous metals and other items of export, Mexico is building up metallurgical, aircraft, automobile, electronics and other manufacturing industries. The chemical and petrochemical industry is developing on the basis of a steady growth in the production of oil (25 million tons a year) and natural gas (over 16,000 million cu.m.). A factor promoting the growth of the industry and the economy as a whole is that a relatively large share of the economy (oil, power engineering, a part of the metallurgical and other industries) are controlled by the state.

Agriculture lags far behind the industry. The staple crops (corn, beans, wheat and rice) are sold on the domestic market, while coffee, cotton, sugar cane, bananas, oranges and pineapples are exported. To raise its productivity agriculture is being supplied with increasing quantities of mineral fertiliser. The irrigated area is being gradually enlarged, and a land reform is being carried out, although a third of the peasants are still without plots of their own.

VENEZUELA

p The Republic of Venezuela is situated in the north of South America. Two-thirds of her population reside in towns, of which the capital, Caracas (population 2 million with environs) is the biggest.

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p The oil industry established on the basis of the biggest oil deposits (estimated total reserves 2,200 million tons) in South America is the core of Venezuelan industry. For the production of oil (up to 190 million tons annually) Venezuela ranks second after the United States in the capitalist world, and first for the amount of oil exported. Over nine-tenths of the value of Venezuelan exports and about a third of the gross national product are yielded by the oil industry which accounts for only about 1.5 per cent of the country’s gainfully employed population.

p US capital occupies key positions in this crucial branch of the economy, and also controls iron-ore production and other branches of the developing Venezuelan industry, including oil-refining, petrochemical, metallurgical, textile and food industries.

An agrarian reform has been initiated after the war, but large private estates are still predominant in agriculture. About 80 per cent of the cultivated area belongs to a handful of latifundistas who are exploiting the tenants and farm labourers. Venezuela produces both industrial (tabacco, cotton, sugar cane) and food crops (coffee, cocoa beans, bananas and corn), which are grown in most equatorial countries.

PERU

p The Republic of Peru whose people have launched a struggle against US imperialism is called a land of profound changes. The capital, Lima, has about 3 million inhabitants. Situated in the zone of tropics and subtropics in the west of the South American continent, Peru is a country of sharp natural contrasts and difficult history. High mountain ranges frequently capped with glaciers and cleft with deep canyons, in places come right up to a narrow and arid coastal plain, or descend in numerous spurs towards the Amazon lowland in the northwest. Nature has not been too generous to the Peruvians.

p Peru has large proven deposits of oil, copper, iron, lead, zinc, bismuth, gold, mercury, tungsten, uranium and other minerals. The extraction of many of them is still controlled by US monopolies, but the foundations for a national mining industry are being laid.

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p Manufacturing is weakly developed and its chief branches are the chemical industry and the production of fish meal. Steps are being taken to develop the metallurgical, engineering, textile, food and other manufacturing industries which use local mineral and agricultural raw materials.

p The current agrarian reform will be decisive in boosting agriculture and the economy as a whole.

Prior to 1968 latifundistas, who comprised but one per cent of the total number of landowners, owned an estimated 80 per cent of the cultivated area. Now land is being transferred to small tenants from among metayer Indians, to farm labourers and to all those who till it. The government is encouraging the transformation of peasant communities into co-operatives. Changes are taking place in the sphere of banking and credits, communications and transport and other branches of the Peruvian economy. The diverse forms of feudal exploitation which are still in evidence are being abolished. Generally speaking, all the current changes are anti-feudal and anti-imperialist in character and are directed against the domination of the oligarchy.

BOLIVIA

p Bolivia is a landlocked state. Her chief topographical feature is a great central plateau. The country’s political centre La Paz is situated at an altitude of over 3,000 metres above sea level. The high Andes with their arid western and humid eastern slopes occupy a part of the territory. The eastern part of Bolivia consists of plains with a hot climate, tropical forests and pastures in the savannas.

p Bolivia is a typically Indian country, even more so than Peru: over two-thirds of the population are Indians, the indigenous inhabitants, whom the Spanish conquistadors had enslaved in the beginning of the 16th century.

p Established almost 150 years ago, Bolivia has witnessed over 180 military coups: presidents came and went but Bolivia’s economic backwardness and dependence on foreign capital persisted and even increased. The standard of living of the majority of the population is no higher than several centuries ago.

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p Life itself dictates the need for socio-economic reforms. In 1970 a new government came to power which announced the liberation of Bolivia from foreign dependence and improvement of the living standard as its prime objectives.

Industry and building yield approximately a third of the national income. Mining is its most developed branch. Bolivia is the world’s biggest producer and exporter of tin. Agriculture, the occupation of more than two-thirds of the population, cannot meet the country’s food requirements.

BRAZIL

p Situated in the eastern and central parts of South America, modern Brazil is the most extensive Latin American state. She is also the richest in natural resources. Brazil covers approximately a half of the South American continent and has about half its population. Her Atlantic coast extends for thousands of kilometres and she owns a number of Atlantic islands.

p The world’s biggest Amazon lowland in the northwest of Brazil is covered by tropical forest which is the home of rubber trees and a great source of mahogany and other valuable species of timber. The Amazon carries its waters for thousands of kilometres through the lowland to the Atlantic.

p The Amazon and its tributaries flow through a huge and sparsely populated region called Amazonas. Here, there are millions of square kilometres of reddish soil, a vast realm of water and trees; floating islands; and an almost colourless river as vast as a sea.

p Occupying the central and southern parts of the country, the Brazilian Highland has the capitalist world’s biggest iron-ore resources and rich deposits of bauxites, manganese, chromium, nickel, gold, zirconium, beryllium, titanium, oil, graphite, diamonds and other minerals which have not yet been fully explored. Despite her wealth of natural resources, Brazil, according to the Brazilians themselves, still resembles a pauper who is sitting on a heap of gold, but is unable to use it.

p Since the end of the Second World War the Brazilian industry has been developing at a comparatively faster pace 154 than her agriculture. The greatest headway has been registered in the mining industry which exports most of the extracted iron ore, manganese, chromium and rare and nonferrous metals. Producing up to 12 million tons of oil a year, Brazil is able to meet 50 per cent of her requirements in liquid fuel.

p Other developing branches are power engineering (about 45,000 million kwh annually), iron and steel (over 4 million tons of steel), engineering (motor vehicles, ships, electrotechnical and other products), chemical, light and food industries. Some industrial enterprises belong to the state, but thus far dominating positions in the Brazilian industry are held by foreign, mainly US capital, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of the total foreign investments in the Brazilian economy.

p Agriculture, the occupation of 50 per cent of the population, yields 40 per cent of the world coffee, the principal item of export. Cocoa beans, cotton, sugar cane, bananas, pineapples, tobacco and other export crops are also cultivated. Brazil is not self-sufficient in foodstuffs and imports wheat from neighbouring Argentina and the United States.

p The backwardness and the low productivity of Brazilian agriculture are due to its export orientation and the existence of landed estates. Wealthy latifundistas own one-half of the cultivated area, while the large rural population has only small plots or none at all. Impoverished Brazilian peasants are swelling the army of the unemployed in the cities.

p Brazilian cities are developing rapidly and account for about 50 per cent of the total population. The biggest cities are Sao Paulo (7.7 million inhabitants), Rio de Janeiro (over 4 million), Recife, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre, each with more than a million inhabitants. The new capital, Brasilia, founded in 1961 has almost 400,000 inhabitants.

The position of urban and rural workers is extremely hard. Brazil, as was pointed out at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in 1969, is now oppressed by a dictatorial military pro-imperialist regime which suppresses the progressive aspirations of the people and has placed the country at the service of US imperialism. Nevertheless, revolutionary forces are gathering strength among 155 the working class and other social strata fighting for democratic rights and freedom of the Brazilian people and for social and economic progress that will turn Brazil into a flourishing country.

ARGENTINA

p Argentina is a federal republic. Its capital Buenos Aires with environs has a population of over 7 million. Though smaller in area than neighbouring Brazil, the Argentine Republic surpasses her in the level of economic development. The production of cereals and beef (nine-tenths of the value of exported commodities) is the foundation of the Argentine economy.

p Agriculture, which specialises in the cultivation of wheat (more than 6 million tons annually), corn (over 8 million tons), linseed, sunflower seed, and in the breeding of cattle, sheep and pigs, is the principal branch of the Argentine economy. Meat-packing, flour-milling, sugar-refining and other branches of the food industry are important.

p Since the war, particularly in recent years, the metallurgical, engineering, petrochemical and other branches of the heavy industry have made great strides. Argentina has emerged to third place on the continent in the production of pig iron and steel, and is increasing the output of machinetools, motor vehicles and tractors which are partly exported to the neighbouring countries.

On the whole, Argentina is an agrarian-industrial country dependent on foreign capital. Her key branches of the economy are controlled mainly by North American and partly by British and West German monopolies associated with the local bourgeoisie and landowners.

CHILE

p Following the people’s victory in the 1970 Presidential elections, Chile has taken the road of far-reaching revolutionary reforms. The country has taken the first steps towards achieving national and social emancipation and the establishment of genuine democracy and socialism.

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p Chile occupies a narrow strip of land over 4,000 kilometres long on the southwest coast of the continent. The capital Santiago (population about 2.6 million) is situated almost in the centre of the country.

p The Republic of Chile is sometimes likened to a sword attached to the side of South America in memory of its people’s battles for liberation against the Spanish conquerors, and sometimes to a copper thread stretching from the continent’s tropics to its cold, near-Antarctic regions. The Chileans have a legend that having created land, God discovered that he still had a large number of cliffs, islands and lakes to spare. So gathering them in one place he made Chile, a land with considerable reserves of copper, saltpetre, coal, oil, iron, manganese, and ores of non-ferrous and rare metals essential for industrial development.

p Mining is the core of the country’s economy. Chile occupies a leading place among the capitalist states in the production of copper and also in the production and export of molybdenum, saltpetre and iodine. Foreign, primarily North American, monopoly capital controls the exploitation of Chile’s natural wealth. It also controls budding branches of the manufacturing industry.

p The people’s government of Chile has launched a programme of the building of a national economy. The state has confiscated or assumed control over iron-ore deposits, coal mines, the iron and steel industry, many factories and private banks. The nationalisation of the copper industry, the country’s chief extractive industry, will enormously strengthen the state sector in the economy. Steps are being taken to eradicate semi-feudal relations in agriculture and accelerate the agrarian reform. The people of Chile are intensifying their struggle against imperialism and the local oligarchy and for the inauguration of revolutionary reforms in their country which has chosen the socialist road of development.

Latin American countries have distinctive natural, economic and social features. Nevertheless, they all have a common feature: the mounting struggle of their people against the domination of foreign imperialism and the local reactionary oligarchy, for economic progress and genuine national independence.