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p The specifics of anti-communist ideology and policy and the place and role of anti-communism in the life of the Latin American nations are determined by different historical 150 levels of socio-economic, political and cultural development and also by the degree of national self-determination and the maturity of the revolutionary changes. A simple classification of countries from this point of view brings to light the untenability of the geographical, continental approach.

p In Latin America today the highest level of national and social progress has been achieved by Cuba, which is in the final stage of transition from capitalism to socialism and is part of the world socialist system. New transitional sociopolitical structures have also emerged (for instance, in Peru), where anti-imperialist revolutionary regimes have to one extent or another broken the chain of dependence on imperialism and are destroying the system of monopoly exploitation.

p Capitalist relations of production and political relations predominate in most Latin American states. In some of them, for instance, Paraguay and Haiti, the level of capitalist development is low. Others have reached a medium level of capitalist development with more or less pronounced elements of state-monopoly capitalism (for example, Brazil and Mexico).

p In addition, there are new nations such as Guyana, which have received formal independence as a result of the crumbling of the old colonial system but have not put an end to neocolonialist dependence. Lastly, in Latin America there still are what are virtually colonies of the USA, Britain, France and the Netherlands. These states are mainly in the Caribbean basin which occupies a special place in international imperialism’s political and military strategy.

p This classification of the Latin American states in accordance with their level of historical and socio-political development leads, naturally, to the conclusion that the revolutionary liberation movements have a diversity of specifics.

p The objective basis of the revolutionary movements in Latin America is characterised by a combination of general and specific socio-economic prerequisites and conditions. A specific of most of the Latin American countries is their 150 years’ experience of socio-economic development as national- 151 state entities. The state-political independence won in struggle from the Spanish and Portuguese colonialists was reduced within a century to financial, economic, military and diplomatic dependence on the leading imperialist powers. This formal state-political independence and virtual economic, diplomatic, military and other dependence predetermine the nature of relations between the Latin American nations and international imperialism.

p A specific system of socio-economic and political contradictions has consequently taken shape in that continent. Chief among these is the contradiction between the Latin American peoples and foreign, chiefly US, imperialism. It has predetermined the anti-imperialist content and national- democratic nature of the revolutionary movements because it has grown from an external into an internal contradiction that permeates the entire fabric of social relations.

p Consequently, the democratic, anti-dictatorship, agrarian revolutions in Latin America have the solution of this main contradiction as their objective and are directed mainly against foreign imperialism and its class allies in each country. These revolutions thereby not only hit the foreign monopolies but also undermine the foundations of world capitalism, particularly as they evolve into socialist revolutions.

p The revolutionary processes in Latin America differ substantially from the national liberation movements in Asia and Africa by the combination of material, technical, objective socio-political and subjective prerequisites and conditions. Today most of the Latin American states have their own national internal markets, and although their economies are multistructural and are often mono-crop or mono- product, the image of the region is determined by capitalist relations of production. The level of capitalist development is, as we have noted, low or medium in the majority of the Latin American states, but local monopolies have been formed and state-monopoly capitalism is maturing in some of them.

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p In order to keep these countries in the channel of capitalist development, US imperialism is stepping up not only its economic penetration but also its interference in their political, ideological and cultural life. World imperialism uses anti-communist ideology and policy as a weapon against champions of social and national progress.

p Sources and varieties of anti-communism. In Latin America anti-communist ideas, concepts and methods have two basic historical sources: German nazism and US imperialism. Following fascism’s military and political defeat, the influence of the fascist variety of anti-communism sharply declined, although its remnants persist in some of the Latin American states. This relates not only to the numerous centres of former nazi agents who had taken refuge in South America to escape punishment, but to the attempts of the USA, the neo-fascist parties and other agencies of the monopolies to galvanise the pro-fascist type of anti-communism.

p In political practice this type of anti-communism has developed into a system of terrorist organisations specialising in subversion, in the assassination of revolutionaries, and in spying on Communist parties and other progressive democratic organisations. Pro-fascist anti-communism concentrates on kindling fear and on slandering socialism and progressive, revolutionary forces. However, this anti- communism does not satisfy the requirements of the reactionaries, who are evolving and disseminating other types of anticommunism.

p In Latin America the most conspicuous of these types is “positive” or “alternative” anti-communism. Gambling on the technical and economic backwardness and the poverty of the population in Latin American countries, its exponents, for instance, Robert J. Alexander of Rutgers University, USA, and Victor Alba, a former Spanish Trotskyist residing in Mexico, are spreading the idea of a “continental American democratic revolution” with the middle strata, particularly intellectuals and students, as its main motive force, and are writing of the integration of various social 153 groups and the integration of Latin America into a modern West. They are flirting with the working-class movement, stressing that it has to be united and, most important, “ independent”. These are obviously attempts to neutralise the influence of the Communist parties in the working-class movement and divert the latter from the political antiimperialist struggle.

p Spurious slogans of “national integration” and “ national unity” are the keynotes of a variety that may be called nationalistic anti-communism. Its central idea is that as the generalisation of the experience of solely European nations, Marxism-Leninism reflects the reality of industrialised capitalist countries and is unsuitable for an analysis of Latin American reality and the solution of its social problems.

p The reservation must be made that far from all the na tionalistic socio-political trends in Latin America are anticommunist. A combination of class and national antagonisms and the general importance of national democratic problems in the anti-imperialist struggle predetermine the existence of democratic elements in nationalism.

p There are many varieties of nationalistic anti-communism, but it is perhaps most strikingly seen in the ideology and political programme of the so-called Peruvian Popular Revolutionary Party, whose political leader Haya de la Torre juggles with slanderous theories about the bourgeois nature of the Soviet State and the need for a united front of small nations for a joint struggle against the “great powers”, in which he includes the Western imperialist states and the USSR. While proclaiming a nationalistic concept of an “ underdeveloped front”, the leaders of that party are attacking the anti-imperialist reforms being put into effect by the progressive regime in Peru.

p A more subtle form of nationalistic anti-communism is propagated by a number of sociological theories, in which an attempt is made to show that Latin America has its own road of historical and social development. The bourgeois theories about a special Latin American road of development 154 are founded on the absolutisation of psychological and religious traditions, of the “spiritual essence” of the Latin American peoples. Theories of this kind are typical of ecclesiastical anti-communism. Reactionary ecclesiastics have, for a long time, and not without grounds, taken pride in the fact that the Catholic Church has been one of the most solid mainstays against communism. Today they are displaying considerable manoeuvrability and ideological and political flexibility in order to use even the new trends in Catholicism as a “positive alternative of atheistic materialism and communism”. It should be borne in mind that Latin America is the only continent that may be called Catholic in the sense of that Church’s traditional predominance.

p The ecclesiastical elite has long ago and not unsuccessfully been adapting itself to the zigzags of modern sociopolitical processes. Whereas formerly a Catholic was threatened with excommunication if he joined a revolutionary party, in 1966 the Vatican, speaking through Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, allowed Catholics to join Communist parties. True, this “progress” was accompanied by the essential reservation that a Catholic should not embrace and propagate the “wicked” teaching of dialectical materialism.

p In Latin America ecclesiastical anti-communism has worked out and is preaching a theory about a “Christian revolution”. In one of these theories it is asserted, for instance, that neither “individualism” (i.e., liberal capitalism of the past and present-day economic imperialism) nor “ collectivism” (Marxist communism, or “new imperialism”) are suitable for the Latin Americans. As the ideal social prospect for the “Catholic continent” it propounds “Christian solidarity”, which, when put to the test, for example, in the practice of the Christian-Democratic parties, turns out to mean truncated reforms that preserve capitalism and dependence on the imperialist monopolies.

p However, the logic of the anti-imperialist struggle, and of world and their own revolutionary experience convinces the working Catholics, the Christian-Democrats and the Catholic 155 priests linked with the people that ecclesiastical anti- communism is untenable. This logic thereby fosters the growth of the front of anti-imperialist revolutionary forces.

p Police-militarist anti-communism, exported to Latin America from the USA, is directed precisely at this growing anti-imperialist front. Drawing upon the experience of imperialist reaction’s attacks on the liberation movement, it propounds a programme of military, political and ideological operations, a sort of “preventive war”, against “ subversive and communist actions”, calling for the psychological and ideological indoctrination of public opinion, economic and political pressure and blackmail, clandestine spy operations and direct military suppression of revolutionary actions.

p The architects, organisers and ideological leaders of this “preventive war” are the Pentagon and the US intelligence agencies, while the executors are the reactionary elite among the Latin American military and the officers and troops specially trained for “counter-guerrilla” warfare. According to the underlying military-political doctrine, the old geographical frontiers, i.e., the frontiers of the Latin American states, are replaced by “ideological” frontiers with the aim of “containing the pressure of communism and safeguarding the foundations of Western civilisation”.

p This programme for the creation of an invisible empire, for colonisation without colonies has been deciphered long ago in Latin America. Former President of Guatemala Juan Jose Arevalo eloquently described the situation when he spoke of the imperialist shark and the Latin American sardines. He spoke with the knowledge of his country’s bitter experience. Following suppression of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution by a military intervention in 1954, the USA has for two decades been supporting subservient military dictatorships in Guatemala. Arevalo’s book Anti-Communism in Latin America (An X-Ray of New Coloni- sation)^^6^^ is a blistering indictment of the policy and ideology of the USA, the local military-oligarchal juntas and the ecclesiastical elite, showing them as the socio-political 156 foundation of the anti-communism directed against the liberation movement in Latin America. The significance of this indictment is accentuated by the fact that, far from being a revolutionary, Arevalo is an exponent of “ethical socialism”.

p Imperialism and the internal reactionaries in Latin America are attacking the revolutionary forces along a wide front, flexibly combining repressions with social demagogy and bourgeois reformism.

p International imperialism is determined to crush the liberation movement in that region of the world with the aid of a policy of “sanifying” the socio-economic structure of the Latin American states. This policy, alongside intensified expansion in all its forms, has brought to life plans for bourgeois agrarian reforms and for stimulating the national economy by attracting foreign investments and applying the latest scientific and technological achievements at enterprises run by local monopoly capital. Encountering growing popular resistance, the US, West German and Japanese monopolies continued their neocolonialist expansion under the guise of assistance to a “younger brother”, under cover of “ goodneighbour”, “New Frontiers”, and “Alliance for Progress” programmes and a modified “equal partnership” doctrine.

p Foreign capital continues its massive penetration of the Latin American economy. There has been a notable growth of the influence exercised by West German and Japanese monopolies, but over 80 per cent of the investments are from the USA. A new element in the export of private capital is the swift growth of direct investments in the processing industries of the Latin American states and the larger measure of control gained by the foreign monopolies over their advanced and most profitable industries and spheres of finance, credits and trade.

p Nearly one-third of the industrial output in the Latin American countries is in the hands of the US monopolies.

p Without entirely renouncing their former policy of acquiring economic concessions, these monopolies began setting up mixed enterprises and followed this up by investing in 157 the processing industry in order to retain command of key branches of the economy and intensify the technological dependence of many Latin American countries on the USA. As is stressed by the Programme adopted by the Communist Party of Colombia at its llth Congress in December 1971, US imperialism “is completely or partially predominant in the key branches of the economy through direct or technological control”.^^7^^

p These tactics are designed to place the Latin American countries in heavier economic and political dependence on foreign capital. A case in point is Chile. Prior to the coup of September 1973, when the Salvador Allende Popular Unity Government was in power, the US monopolies ceased exporting machines, equipment and other manufactured goods needed by that country’s industry in order to halt the changes that were being instituted.

p Where imperialist-run enterprises are nationalised, monopoly capital denies the revolutionary governments supplies of means of production, of equipment, hinders the sale of traditional goods in the world market and seeks to undermine the economic basis of the countries concerned and discredit the revolutionary changes in them. The Latin American Free Trade Association and the plans for economic integration and regional common markets are new, disguised forms of domination by US monopoly capital and its anticommunist policies. These policies are only intensifying the economic plunder of the Latin American nations.

p Parallel with its heightened financial and economic penetration of the Latin American countries, US imperialism is aiming to turn the armed forces of these countries into its main weapon for suppressing popular revolutionary actions and crushing the guerrilla movement. Reporting to the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Argentina, the CPA’s General Secretary Geronimo Arnedo Alvarez spoke of the aggressive plans of the US military with regard to the Latin American liberation movements; he quoted the US journal U.S. News & World Report as saying that currently the USA 158 was conducting a new type of secret war, using 25,000 specially trained people and spending 2,000 million dollars annually for this purpose.^^8^^

p In their policy of aggression and violence toward the countries of this region the imperialists maintain and plant, in most cases by military coups, reactionary dictatorships, intensify their splitting activities in the trade union movement and spread their influence in the armed forces and the police.

p Their record includes the coup in Brazil, where the government of Joao Goulart was deposed, the overthrow of the government of Carlos Julio Arosemena and the installation of a military junta in Ecuador, the overthrow of the government of Arturo U. Illia and the establishment of a semi-fascist military dictatorship in Argentina. The US monopolies inspired the violence of the “lawful” government of Carlos Lleras Restrepo against the revolutionary masses in Colombia, the massacres in Guatemala by the “ democratic” Montenegro administration, and the bloody repressions against Venezuela’s finest sons by the “republican methods” of Romulo Betancourt and Raul Leoni. US capital is the mainstay of the military dictatorships of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay and Hugo Banzer Suarez in Bolivia, who came to power as a result of a coup and the overthrow of the government of Juan Jose Torres in August 1971.

p The new concept of the anti-communist policy of “equal partnership” was proclaimed in the lengthy Rockefeller Report on the Americas that was drawn up following four tours of Latin America by Nelson Rockefeller in 1969. Drawing attention to the ominous neocolonialist declarations in the Rockefeller Report, a conference of twelve Latin American Communist parties noted that “we are dealing with a perfidious, sinister, cunning and experienced enemy, who skilfully combines the most brutal repressive measures with demagogy, with concessions to some circles among the ruling classes that are loyal to him and whom he needs in order to preserve his rule”.^^9^^

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p The fact that the Soviet Union grants the Latin American states long-term (12 year) credits at 2.5 per cent interest repayable with traditional exports, while US capital charges from 5 to 6 per cent interest payable in dollars is regarded by the US monopolies’ ideologists as a threat to the USA’s positions. It worries them that the events in Peru and Bolivia in 1968 and 1969 had gradually led to a considerable expansion of aid and trade ties between these countries and the USSR and East European states.

p Relying on the reactionaries among the Latin American bourgeoisie and latifundistas, US imperialism uses anti- communism in an effort to disunite the revolutionaries in the Latin American countries and isolate them from their staunchest friends—the socialist states and the revolutionary working-class movement of the capitalist states.

p The Rockefeller Report supports the renovated variant of the “inter-American peace forces”, saying: “The United States should respond to requests for assistance of the police and security forces of the hemisphere by providing them with the essential tools to do their job. Accordingly, the United States should meet reasonable requests from other hemisphere governments for trucks, jeeps, helicopters, and like equipment to provide mobility and logistical support for these forces; for radios, and other command control equipment for proper communication among the forces.”^^10^^ The USA thus displays touching concern for the organisation and material supplies of a variety of the “special war”, whose substance is that Latin Americans should kill Latin Americans in order to bring larger profits to imperialism and preserve the sanctity of US monopoly investments.

p The anti-communist policy of the monopolies is thus expressed in open support for military and civilian pro-US terrorist dictatorships, in the stepped up militarisation of the continent, in the formation of a “co-ordinated command of armed police forces” (a repressive organ that is a variety of the “inter-American peace forces”) and in the enlargement of the police force in each of the Latin Airerican republics.

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p Moreover, the imperialist bourgeoisie is engaged in the total ideological mobilisation of all reactionaries under the flag of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism. Its ideologists are trying to persuade the Latin American peoples that “ intensified economic growth requires a larger flow of private capital, both local and foreign”. While acknowledging that most people in Latin America regard US private investments as a form of exploitation and economic colonialism, they vainly endeavour to disprove the widespread opinion that this capital takes more from these countries than it gives them. They argue that there are no grounds for these suspicions and fears, contending that economic development is most successful in the Latin American states which encourage US private investments.

p However, the facts expose the duplicity of the anti- communist “equal partnership” doctrine. For instance, the events of 1970 in Bolivia brought to power the government of General Torres, which relied on the alliance of the patriotic bourgeoisie and some segments of the petty bourgeoisie, took steps to protect the interests of the people and safeguard the nation’s sovereignty, and sought popular support for a democratic anti-fascist and progressive policy.

p The considerable involvement of the working people in the unfolding struggle opened up new prospects for giving the political process a more revolutionary content. The higher level of organisation and political unity gave the working masses the possibility of changing in their favour the alignment of forces that emerged as a result of clashes between different circles in the armed forces. The historical prospect for building socialism opened in Bolivia.

p However, the formation of an anti-imperialist popular front was cut short by the military fascist coup of August 19, 1971 that was engineered and financed by US imperialism with the assistance of the dictators who rule in Brazil, the pro-imperialist dictatorship in Paraguay and some extreme Right-wing circles in Argentina.

p Anti-communist military dictatorships were installed in 161 Bolivia and then in Uruguay in accordance with a pattern worked out and approved by US imperialism. This evoked no surprise in the Latin American states, much less among international opinion. The character of the events in Chile in 1970-1973 and then international reaction to them was totally different. First, the very fact that the Left-wing bloc won the presidential elections and that a National Unity Government was formed constitutionally and remained in power for three years eloquently showed that given certain conditions an extremely rare and valuable possibility arises and may be utilised for taking power peacefully.

p Of the many theoretical and political problems linked with the Chilean events attention must be drawn to those in which new aspects of imperialism’s neocolonialist expansion came to light. It is indicative that instead of direct military and political interference at state level US imperialism preferred to use a combination of economic, ideological and political means of pressure in order to prepare and accomplish an internal counter-revolutionary coup. It was revealed that the Right-wing, pro-fascist elements in Chile were co- ordinated and directed by special agencies of the Pentagon and the CIA and by emissaries of the multinational monopolies. The actions of the bloc of internal and external counterrevolution were of a clearly pronounced anti-communist and anti-democratic character. Although Chile remained a capitalist country where the people’s revolutionary government was instituting not socialist but anti-imperialist and anti- oligarchal reforms, the leaders of the military-fascist junta acted under the hypocritical slogan of “liberating the country from Marxist oppression”.

p The counter-revolutionary coup and its tragic consequences are evidence of a new phase in the intensification of militarism and neo-fascism in the Latin American states. The relatively small armed forces in these countries are organised and trained by the imperialist and internal oligarchy as professional armies for a preventive war against “subversion”. Despite the certain spread of anti-imperialist feeling, the 162 officers’ corps in the Latin American states is on the whole brought up in the spirit of “law and order”. Besides, in Chile the imperialist and internal oligarchy made adroit use of the illusion about the democratic attitudes of the Chilean army.

p From the theoretical angle, the experience of Chile is a “presidential” variant of peaceful revolutionary development that was halted at its anti-imperialist, democratic phase. A significant outcome of the Chilean events is the revival of the anti-communist and ultra-Left attempts to discredit both the presidential and parliamentary variants of revolutionary changes, and to show that the “price for the revolution” was the break-down of production, the shrinkage of exports and a sharp deterioration of the living standard. Actually, all this was provoked through the concerted efforts of the external and internal counter-revolution, which to this day uses those setbacks as arguments vilifying the idea and theory of the socialist revolution.

p The tendency toward Latin American solidarity, which became manifest after the Chilean events, is spurring the intrigues of the ideologists of neocolonialism. Attention is attracted, in particular, by the attempts to portray the events in Chile as a defeat of socialist ideas in the Latin American continent. At the same time, they are preaching the idea of “Latin American democratic socialism” as opposed to existing socialism.

p In Latin America the revolutionary process is compounded not only by the anti-communist policy of the US monopolies and their local sycophants. Today the need and feasibility of the anti-imperialist, agrarian, democratic and socialist revolution have to be substantiated theoretically, and the tactics meeting the specific conditions and national features of the Latin American states have to be mapped out in an unremitting struggle against various schools of “Left” anti-communism, particularly petty-bourgeois ultra- revolutionary theories.

p Adventurist Left-opportunist groups have mushroomed in Latin America under the impact of the anti-Marxist theories 163 of Maoism. Ultra-Left views found the social soil for their dissemination among the petty-bourgeois non-proletarian strata that have joined the revolutionary movement. The political guidelines of these Left-opportunist groups coincide with the “theories” of the Trotskyist elements, who, relying on Maoism, are also trying to win more influence in the Latin American revolutionary movement.

p The ultra-Left and pseudo-revolutionary trends and groups, which comprise “Left” anti-communism, style themselves as the “true revolutionary forces” and sometimes claim to act in the name of Marxism and “true Leninism”. Their attacks are spearheaded not at imperialism, the big Latin American bourgeoisie and the landed oligarchy but at the Communist parties, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. These trends and groups are constantly engaged in provocations, which in some cases are the result of their petty-bourgeois desperation and hopelessness, while in others they are led by police and agents of international intelligence services who have infiltrated their ranks. “Left” anti-communism complements the attacks of the Right-wing forces on the Latin American Communist parties.

p In the Latin American states the Communist parties unhesitatingly denounce the revolutionary verbiage of the ultraLeft and Right extremists, who have discarded the MarxistLeninist theory of the socialist revolution, the theory of Marx, Engels and Lenin on the forms of the struggle for power and the leading role of the working class in the antiimperialist movement, the principles underlying the workerpeasant alliance and the role of the Marxist-Leninist Party as the political vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.

The Latin American Communist parties are pressing for the unity of all democratic and progressive forces in a political army of the anti-imperialist, agrarian, democratic revolution that will put an end to US imperialist domination and the power of the latifundistas and big bourgeoisie and clear the road to the socialist revolution. They have denounced Maoism as an anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist trend and 164 are condemning all forms of anti-Sovietism. “The fact cannot be ignored,” said Luis Corvalan, “that the Soviet Union is the bulwark of the liberation cause of peoples and that it and its Party have played and continue to play the decisive role in the history of our epoch.”^^11^^