This document is one of the resolutions from the 12th World Congress of ISA (formerly the CWI), which took place in January-February 2020. Following a certain delay due to pressing work and interventions into the stormy world situation, it was uploaded to our archive in July 2020, for the benefit of our readers. Documents were agreed on World Relations, Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and on women’s struggles and socialist feminism.
Latin America has once again become one of the epicenters of the international class struggle, including elements of revolution and counter revolution.
For more than a decade and a half, several self-proclaimed anti-neoliberal, or simply non-neoliberal governments, were constituted as a result of the rising tide of struggles at the turn of the century. In the period following the 2007/8 crisis, the international crisis and the political ‘wear and tear’ of these governments (which although differentiated from each other, all remained within the logic of capitalism) opened space for a certain resurgence of the political right and even the ultra-right in a number of countries.
This happened electorally, as in the case of the election of Macri in Argentina in 2015, but also through coup d’état methods combined with elections, as in the case of Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2012) and, with a much greater impact, Brazil (2016). In Venezuela, the electoral defeat of the Maduro government in the 2010 National Assembly elections gave way both to a turn to the right of the government and also to explicit attempts by the reactionary right wing to carry out a coup, sponsored by imperialism.
The main feature of the present conjuncture is the crisis of the right wing forces that returned to power in this period, into the vacuum left open by the limits and betrayals of the center-left or so-called “progressive” governments. This crisis is being expressed in electoral defeats of the right, but also in mass movements that question the political system itself, most evidently in the cases of Ecuador and Chile.
Unlike the political processes at the turn of the century, this time the mass struggle against the neoliberal right is taking place following a rich experience which exposed the limits, betrayals and failures of different centre -left and reformist variants. This opens a situation of strong polarization in which radical Left alternatives can potentially find greater space.
Revolutionary Marxists must seek to occupy this space, with the right political approach in the different movements of workers and all oppressed sectors. Without this, the atmosphere of crisis and polarization can also generate impasses, and new frustrations that will open the way for far-right alternatives. The coup d’état in Bolivia in November 2019 once again shows that the military establishment, landowners and reactionary bourgeoisie, together with imperialism, will take every opportunity to impose their domination in the most brutal, raw and perverse of ways.
Stagnant economy and financial crisis
Most Latin American countries are experiencing a slowdown, stagnation or are even at real risk of an acute financial crisis. This situation, including its dramatic social effects, is undoubtedly a factor behind the popular uprisings and electoral defeats of the neoliberal right in many countries. Even where there is some growth, living conditions are only getting worse. These societies are like pressure cookers close to exploding.
Latin American economies have not recovered from the international crisis of capitalism and the end of the 2000s commodity boom. The trade war between China and the US may have some temporary positive effect for some countries, such as Mexico, but it will tend to be a further aggravating factor of the crisis in the region.
Stagnation of global demand is already affecting the Latin American economy, with a drop in sales to the European Union of 8% in 2019 and a slowdown in the case of China. Exports in 2019 are expected to fall by 2% compared to the previous year, and the prices of 26 of the 30 most exported products fell in the same period.
Predicted growth for 2019 for the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean is only 0.1% (according to the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, or CEPAL), a substantial drop from the already low growth of 2018 (0.9%). The slowdown affects 21 of the 33 countries in the entire region, but the worst results are concentrated in South America, where 17 out of 20 countries are expected to experience a decline in economic performance.
Venezuela and Argentina, once again, are among the countries with the worst results. The difference is that Venezuela is subjected to both a total economic embargo promoted by Trump, and also to internal sabotage by capitalists who are not part of Nicolas Maduro’s political bloc. The embargo imposed by US imperialism on Venezuela is now at the same level as that adopted against Cuba, Iran or North Korea. This is the first time that a US government has applied such harsh measures to a country in the Western Hemisphere in 30 years.
Argentina, on the other hand, has been hailed in recent years by Trump and the capitalists around the world as a great hope and an example of neoliberal policies. But at the end of his government, Mauricio Macri left a broken country. Recession, high inflation, the debt solvency crisis, unemployment, increasing hunger and misery are all part of the scenario. The US$57 billion IMF loan agreed in 2018 did not solve any problems and the austerity measures imposed by the IMF made the situation worse. With a significant flight of capital (which led neoliberal Macri to promote strong currency exchange controls) and the emptying of reserves, the country is on the verge of another default on its debt.
The potential trend towards hyperinflation will only worsen a social scenario marked by unemployment, low salaries and hunger, and will once again become a daily issue for millions of families. More than 14 million people (35% of the population) live under the poverty line, including 51% of the country’s children.
The much-hated International Monetary Fund has once again become an important political and economic player in Latin America. Today, 74% of all loans approved by the Fund are destined for two countries in South America, Argentina and Ecuador. It is no coincidence that these are two of the most socially conflicted countries, where the austerity measures imposed by the IMF have provoked strong opposition to governments and popular resistance.
Argentina — struggles and elections
In Argentina, five general strikes took place against Macri’s neoliberal policies, the last one in June 2019. One of the highlights of the struggle was the direct confrontation between mobilized workers and repressive forces in the immediate vicinity of the Congress during the vote on the counter-reform of pensions in December 2017. In this environment of struggle, the great mass women’s “green scarves” movement for the right to abortion in 2018 also gained prominence.
With the defeats of most of these movements, mainly due to the role played by their leaderships, the popular dissatisfaction ended up being directed mostly to the elections. The anti-Macri vote was channeled through the moderate Peronist, Alberto Fernández, and former President Cristina Kirchner (for President and Vice President respectively), who defeated Macri in the first round with 48.1% of the vote.
During the electoral campaign, Alberto and Cristina did everything possible to contain workers’ mobilizations and the potential for a social explosion on the one hand, and the risk of an acute financial crisis on the other. They defended a social pact as a way out of the crisis and sought to convince the “market” of their good intentions regarding the payment of Argentina’s debt and the agreement with the IMF.
Using its influence over the bureaucratic union leaderships and part of the social movements, the new Peronist government will try to establish a social truce and ask the workers for patience while trying to stabilize the economy by applying the neoliberal adjustments demanded by the IMF. But the chances of success are very low.
Today, from an economic and social point of view, Argentina is experiencing a situation very close to the one that triggered the popular uprising known as the “Argentinazo” in December 2001. If this social explosion could be avoided by manipulating electoral hopes in 2019, it will be much more difficult to continue to do so when those expectations are frustrated by the new government.
An example of what can happen from popular frustrations with governments that have adopted “progressive” rhetoric and have begun to apply neoliberal adjustment is what happened in Ecuador. Lenín Moreno’s government was elected using the same progressive, not neoliberal, rhetoric used by Rafael Correa in his self-styled “Citizen Revolution”. But faced with the economic crisis, Moreno quickly turned to the right, established an agreement with the IMF and began to adopt neoliberal policies that went in the opposite direction of what had been promised. This ended up provoking popular rebellion.
The strength of the mass movement and the elements of revolutionary crisis present could have led to a radicalization of the process, if only a direction with a revolutionary program and strategy had been present in this context.
Chile — mass movement against what remains of the dictatorship
An even bigger and more radicalized movement exploded in Chile a few days after its president Sebastian Piñera referred to his country as an “oasis of stability” in Latin America.
In Chile, the most praised model of neoliberal policies, this social explosion also reflected the deterioration of living conditions, even if official economic statistics camouflaged this reality. Chile’s GDP, for example, grew by 4% in 2018 and its growth projection for 2019 was 2.8% before the social explosion, according to CEPAL.
The hardcore neoliberal model was pioneered by Pinochet’s dictatorship and maintained by all governments since the democratic “transition” 30 years ago, including the governments headed by Michelle Bachelet’s Socialist Party. The result is that Chile is the seventh most unequal country in the world, where the privileges of an economic and political elite coexist with the lack of access to basic social rights such as health, education and retirement. Out of all income a family in Chile receives, 73% is destined to pay debts, according to the Central Bank. Public services are practically all privatized.
The explosion of the mass movement was marked by a strong element of spontaneity and distrust in traditional organizations and parties. In spite of this, the organized working class left its mark on the movement. The general strike of October 23 and 24 was massive and involved port workers, miners, education, health, public officials and other sectors of the working class, in addition to general popular support. Citizens’ assemblies (Cabildos Ciudadanos) have taken place in many municipalities all over the country, bringing together thousands of people to discuss the direction of the movement. However, there is no organized leadership present with a strategy and program to meet the needs of this potentially revolutionary situation.
In general, the opposition parties to Piñera have been very moderate and “open to dialogue”, as they fear the total loss of control of the situation. The Communist Party (which even participated in Bachelet’s second government) and the Frente Amplio (Broad Front), a new political force that emerged in the last period which includes a more left-wing sector and is inspired by the Spanish Podemos, put forward a constitutional challenge to Piñera in parliament. Despite this, the slogan for Piñera’s immediate fall has not been clearly stated in the demonstrations by these sectors. The only way to overthrow Piñera is with the power of the streets and the working class, not through the “democratic” institutions inherited from the dictatorship.
The Roundtable of Social Unity (Mesa de Unidad Social) which brings together the CUT, the No+AFP movement (against the model of private pensions), the teachers’ union, student organisations and others, is raising the slogan of a Constituent Assembly. But they are not doing so in a way that is clearly linked to the need to overthrow Piñera now, and for a Constituent Assembly that is organized by the mobilized forces of the working class and the people.
The scenario in Chile remains open and may give rise to different outcomes. Piñera, soon after declaring “war” on the movement in the streets with strong repression, had to retreat, asked for forgiveness, fired several ministers and announced a package of social measures to try to contain the movement. But this will not prevent the government from engaging in severe repression again, using the justification of “violence” in the streets and promoting an authoritarian turn in the political regime.
If the mass movement decreases in intensity over time, which is not the case now, maneuvers involving the opposition and negotiations can buy the government time and keep it in place.
But one cannot rule out an escalation of the struggles and, on the impulse of the workers, a political rupture, with the fall of Piñera and a change in the political regime. In this process a new generation of fighters and Marxist cadres may be built, and that will be the basis for a new revolutionary political leadership with a correct program and strategy.
The far right and the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil
Brazil, on the other hand, shows the risks of popular frustration being channeled into reactionary and even extreme right alternatives. By turning even more to the right in her second term, Dilma Rousseff of the PT lost her social base, caused enormous popular dissatisfaction and paved the way for the right wing to push through a parliamentary coup that removed her from power in 2016. With the inauguration of Michel Temer, neoliberal policies were implemented and there was an authoritarian escalation.
Despite strong resistance from the people, youth, women and workers in general, including the general strike of April 2017, the PT’s main strategy was to try to return to power through the 2018 elections with Lula as candidate. The consequence of this policy, of holding back the struggles on the streets, was disastrous. Lula had 40% support in the polls, but was arrested and prevented from running as part of a political-electoral operation implemented by a sector of the judiciary (notably judge Sérgio Moro in ‘Operation Lava Jato’), masquerading as a fight against corruption.
The level of popular frustration reached a point where the traditional right wing, the PSDB, lost space to the ultra-right organized around the former Army captain, Jair Bolsonaro, with rhetoric that associated corruption and criminality with the left in general. Relying on frustration with traditional politics in general and with the PT in particular, in addition to the manipulation of the knife attack on Bolsonaro during the campaign as well as the role of neo-Pentecostal evangelical churches and a million-dollar ‘Fake News’ mega operation on social networks, Bolsonaro’s ultra-right came to power in Brazil.
Other Latin American countries do not have an ultra-right political alternative with the same support base that Bolsonaro has in Brazil. However, radicalization and social and political polarization may open up a space for this in the future.
In Argentina, faced with the imminence of his electoral failure, Mauricio Macri even speculated on the possibility of making a “Bolsonarist” turn and adopting the rhetoric and positions of the ultra-right. But he has retreated from that line. In fact, Bolsonaro’s public support for Macri was a factor that damaged him electorally.
In the elections in Uruguay, the second round of which takes place on November 24, an ultra-right alternative emerged with the candidacy of former Army Commander, Guido Manini Ríos. Ríos was removed from his position by Frente Amplio (Broad Front) President, Tabaré Vásquez, for his statements in support of military personnel accused of crimes during the civil-military dictatorship in Uruguay. Ríos came in fourth place in the elections, but is a possible far-right alternative in the future in the context of frustration with the new government, be it of the Broad Front or the traditional right.
In Colombia, President Iván Duque, aligned with the far-right around former president Álvaro Uribe and faithful Trump lackey like Bolsonaro, is in crisis with falling popularity. His party lost power in Colombia’s 2 main cities, Bogota and Medellin (the latter a Uribe stronghold), and won in only 2 out of 32 counties. In Bogota, the new mayor is a centre-Left LGBT activist in opposition to Duque.
Resistance or authoritarian escalation in Brazil?
Like Duque in Colombia, Bolsonaro in Brazil is losing support and is the poorest rated president in his first year in office since the end of the dictatorship. Despite this, there is not a collapse in support for Bolsonaro as there was for Piñera or even for Macri. Bolsonaro is losing support in general, but is actually being strengthened among a base of about 20–30% of the population, mostly middle-class white men in southern and southeastern Brazil. This is the base upon which he tries to radicalize his authoritarian and neoliberal policies.
At the beginning of his government, Bolsonaro was partially restrained in his authoritarian tendencies by resistance from the people, women, youth, indigenous and the organized working class. The height of this resistance was the mobilization of more than one million people across the country against the attacks on public education in May 2019. A general strike against the pension counter-reform also took place in June of the same year.
Despite this, Bolsonaro managed to impose his radical neoliberal program on the country. There is strong unity among the bourgeoisie regarding these measures. But Bolsonaro’s attempts at an authoritarian escalation in a more explicitly Bonapartist direction, by strengthening the executive branch, confronting the other state powers and institutions and imposing a qualitative defeat on the limited bourgeois democracy in Brazil, has not proven feasible at this time. There are important divisions in the bourgeoisie in this regard, despite the deep unity of the ruling class around the neoliberal agenda.
The Bolsonaro government is a government that lives in a state of permanent confrontation and crisis. Crises exist within the right wing itself, in Congress, in relation to the judiciary, the media and in open confrontation with social movements. The crisis surrounding the involvement of Bolsonaro and his children in the murder of Marielle Franco, a PSOL councillor in Rio de Janeiro, shows the potentially fascist side of the political sectors closest to the president. This could also be an Achilles’ heel of his government in a context of deepening crisis.
Despite the permanent crisis and Bolsonaro’s weak fronts, his defeat and even the overthrow of the government can only be the result of a broad and powerful mass movement in the streets, workplaces, study centers, urban territories and the countryside.
Defeating Bolsonaro in elections through a broad coalition with sectors of the bourgeoisie continues to be the fundamental strategy of the PT and the Lulista camp. They are betting on the 2020 municipal elections, where they hope to see results like those mentioned in Colombia in relation to Iván Duque. Then, with the release of Lula, who has always declared his confidence in the Brazilian judiciary, they hope that they will win in 2022, just as Peronism returned to power in Argentina in 2019.
The problem is that Brazil does not live in a normal, stable and peaceful political situation. In the face of a likely electoral defeat, it cannot be ruled out that this government will promote some new authoritarian adventure or that the political system will deepen its Bonapartist and authoritarian characteristics. We have already seen this dynamic with the institutional coup of 2016 and the antidemocratic manoeuvres present in the 2018 elections, including the arrest of Lula.
In all these situations, the PT has relied mainly on bourgeois justice and the expectation of new electoral victories instead of leading the struggle in the streets to its ultimate conclusion. With this stance, the PT has shown itself to be a great organizer of defeats in recent years, making room for the extreme right. The road to defeating Bolsonaro is in the streets, as the Chilean and Ecuadorian people have shown. These are the examples to follow.
The fragility of political regimes in Latin America is evident in extreme cases such as that of Peru, where all of the last four past Presidents have been convicted of corruption in cases very similar to those in Brazil. One of them, Alan Garcia, shot himself in the head before he could be arrested in his home. The open conflict between the executive and the legislature reached its peak when the current president, Martín Vizcarra, closed the Fujimori right-wing majority Congress and called new legislative elections, which was questioned in the judiciary. Both Congress and the President are deeply unpopular and instability will remain.
Bolsonaro will continue to try to impose his authoritarian and Bonapartist policies. The winds of Chile, Ecuador and Argentina have raised the level of Bolsonaro’s anti-left rhetoric and his spokespeople speak of a return of dictatorship, etc. One cannot rule out a coup adventure on his part in the future, if he is cornered with accusations of corruption and involvement in crimes. But any coup attempt can end up backfiring and provoke a huge reaction of the radicalized masses that completely changes the balance of power in the country. This is what a part of the bourgeoisie fears.
Mexico
The continent’s other major player, and biggest industrial power, Mexico, is at least temporarily somewhat out of step with the dynamic at play to its south. On the surface, Mexico seems to be in a separate cycle, with a Left government in place and an economy which has still not clearly entered the worldwide recessionary dynamic. While this is based on a certain reality, this disconnection cannot be maintained indefinitely.
The above-described picture partially explains why Lopez Obrador (AMLO), after over one year in power, has generally avoided major crises and remains popular. It is also necessary to understand the historic nature of AMLO coming to power, and the hopes invested in him by wide sections of the masses. This may lead, even in the scenario of Mexico being dragged into the continent’s crisis, to a more extended “honeymoon period” for AMLO, as sections of the Mexican masses resolve to “give more time” to a government which has many years of hopes invested in it. Perspectives on this question must remain open.
There is an important difference here with the experience of the Lula administration in Brazil at the turn of the century. Once elected, Lula executed an immediate sharp neoliberal turn, alienating an important section of the working class and popular vanguard, laying the basis for the formation of PSOL, while at the same time shocking and demoralizing another section. AMLO’s administration is proceeding in a different manner. However, the determining factors will ultimately be, on the one hand, the unity of the demands of capitalism, especially in the current world scenario and impending crisis; on the other hand, the limitations of reformism which fails to question the logic of capitalism, which AMLO has already clearly demonstrated.
Another factor in Mexico which will prove of potentially great importance is the fact that despite the popularity of and illusions in AMLO, there has not been a complete demobilization or disorganization of the combative sections of the workers and social movements since his election. The wave of combative strikes in the Matamoros industrial belt, where workers took mass action to implement crucial aspects of AMLO’s stated program and won crucial victories, have important lessons for the future, alongside other struggles. While fighting to rebuild our forces in Mexico, striking the correct propagandistic and tactical balance between ultra leftism and opportunism will be decisive, a challenge for which we will have to draw on the best experiences and traditions of the CWI (now ISA) in Latin America and beyond.
A continent in flames
Within the general processes taking place in the continent, driven by events in the region’s main powers — Mexico, Brazil and Argentina — a series of smaller countries have witnessed severe crises, and been propelled into relatively advanced stages of mass struggle and conflict in the recent period. In what is increasingly becoming a continent in revolt, there are more than shades of the period around the turn of the century.
Most recently, elements of a revolutionary situation have featured in Ecuador, where the indigenous, working class and poor masses scored a crucial victory against both the Lenin Moreno government and the IMF, familiar foe of the Latin American masses. A popular uprising shook the country, with an indefinite general strike, the occupation and paralysis of over 20% of the country’s oil fields via mass direct action, and the storming and occupation of the National Assembly. There were even glimpses of dual power in the situation as, during a brief period of days, the indigenous movement imposed its own “state of exception” in response to Moreno’s, arresting and banning national police officers from their territories.
The experience of such a mass movement, and moreover, the fact that these revolutionary and insurrectionary methods of struggle won a (potentially temporary) victory, will not be lost on the masses of Ecuador or of the continent. However, the last word has still not been written and dangers in the situation remain acute. While the government has withdrawn the hated fuel subsidy cut which sparked the protests, this is subject to a process of negotiation with the leaders of the indigenous movement, with the objective of agreeing an “alternative” to the measure. Any rotten deal or attempt to replace the fuel subsidy attack with a different, more creative austerity measure or program, could have the effect of reigniting the movement.
Elsewhere in recent weeks and months, Presidents and Prime Ministers have fallen amid massive protest movements in Haiti and Puerto Rico. As mentioned elsewhere in this resolution, a popular uprising has put the Chilean government against the ropes, with the organized working class increasingly putting its stamp on the situation. This factor, that of victories, is of crucial importance in this conjuncture and indicates a shifting of the balance of class forces in the continent.
At the time of writing, a powerful general strike is also being prepared in Colombia. During the preceding year, Honduras and Nicaragua were also rocked by explosive class and social battles. In Honduras, a prolonged and multi-phased mass struggle continues against a right-wing coup carried out in 2018, with ebbs and flows and repeated explosions of mass struggle amid deadly repression.
Although of more limited international impact than events in the region’s main powers, these events indicate the combustible foundations which characterize the situation, as a new world crisis approaches. They also show that the revolutionary dynamic, which marked events throughout Latin America during the 2000s, is quickly being reproduced in the context of new crises. Moreover, the experience of those struggles, and the crucial political lessons learned since, can see the class struggle pushed onto a still higher level in the period we are facing.
As social explosions, mass movements and uprisings converge throughout the continent as they did 2 decades ago, they do so this time against a radically different international background. At the turn of the century, revolution swept through Latin America “against the grain” of a world situation marked by relative stability, economic growth and a low level of mass struggle. In contrast, the revolutionary movements of the next period will swim with the stream of world events, with crises and mass movements elsewhere (especially in North America) having a potentially crucial impact.
‘Bolivarians’ in crisis and a lack of alternatives
The failure of right-wing forces to establish stability in different Latin American countries contributed to the failure of the coup plotters in Venezuela taking power in the last period. Despite Maduro’s profound turn to the right, adapting to a neoliberal logic with strong elements of authoritarianism, the majority of the population realizes that a traditional right-wing alternative would be even worse.
For this reason, Guaidó did not find popular support in Venezuela and, left with little more than the support of Trump, added to the list of failed pro-imperialist coups in Venezuela in recent years. In the face of this Maduro recuperated a certain electoral base, winning the elections in 2018 which, though their legitimacy was questioned, showed that his social base is bigger than that of the opposition.
However, the coup d’état in Bolivia in November is an alarm signal for Venezuela and all of Latin America. In the Bolivian case, even with a generally more favorable economic situation, the right wing and US imperialism took advantage of the dissatisfaction with the growing maneuvers of the Morales government among part of the population and also the undermining of the government among its own social base — the indigenous population, peasants and workers — to promote a reactionary coup.
For years, the MAS government has sought to contain social movements, curb independent action by the masses and marginalize any opposition from the left. Even when he decided to resign and leave the country under pressure from the military and the ultra-right in the Santa Cruz region, in a coup also supported by US imperialism, Morales continued to insist on reconciliation.
In this scenario, the popular movement of workers and indigenous people showed willingness to struggle and resist, but it was weakened and without consistent leadership. This became evident when the leaders of the main workers‘, peasants’ and indigenous organizations accepted an agreement with the illegitimate President Jeanine Áñez. The coup d’état in Bolivia shows the failure of purely electoral political strategies. Only the path of mass struggle and independent organization of the workers and all the oppressed can offer a way out.
There is no prospect of pacification of the country, with the maneuvers of the bourgeoisie and imperialism around new elections called in anti-democratic conditions. The history and experience of the struggle of the workers, peasants and indigenous peoples in Bolivia makes it clear that the mass movement will resurface with force, and that there will be the basis for the construction of an alternative mass left.
In both countries, Bolivia and Venezuela, the great challenge for the Marxist left is to help in the construction of a left-wing alternative that clearly stands against the maneuvers of the right and of imperialism, while at the same time standing in opposition to the pro-capitalist policies of Morales and Maduro.
Left alternatives
A new period of revolutionary struggles and opportunity is opening up in the 2020s for Latin America. However, at the same time, the danger of reaction also looms large. The role of the subjective factor, so crucial in its absence during the failed revolutionary wave of the turn of the century, will once again be decisive. With a new stage of the masses’ experiences with progressive and center-left governments, if a real socialist left-wing alternative isn’t built right now, new defeats could come about in Latin America.
Old and worn-out ex-leaderships, such as the PT in Brazil or Kirchnerism in Argentina, are rehabilitated only to the extent that mass alternatives of the left have not yet been built with sufficient force. In the case of Argentina, the FIT-Unidad, for example, had an electoral result below its historical average. This was mainly due to the pressure for a “useful vote” against Macri in favour of Peronism. But it should also lead to a reflection on political limits, the need to overcome the internal sectarian conflicts, to take root in the struggles of the workers and to develop policies capable of attracting the dissatisfied base of Peronism while remaining a left-wing opposition to the new government.
This is also true for the Brazilian PSOL. In relation to the PT, PSOL saw its various internal sectors oscillating between the opportunistic pressures of uncritical adaptation to Lulism and the sectarian pressures of differentiation at all costs without taking into account the situation of struggle against the ultra-right. More contradictory and fragile formations, such as the Chilean Broad Front, which had some of its MPs participating in negotiations with Piñera along with the other traditional parties, show even more political weaknesses in the face of the enormity of the challenges posed.
For Marxists, it is necessary to combine an uncompromising policy in defense of a socialist programme demanded by the situation of each country with tactical flexibility so that we can live through political experiences side by side with these sectors of the masses. In this way, the CWI (now ISA) in Latin America can be an important part in the construction of a strong socialist and revolutionary left alternative in the region.
