Segunda respuesta de Ben Garza en inglés

A Reply to the Grupo de Propaganda Marxista (GPM) of Spain: Since

when was Trotskyism Marxism-Lenininism?!!

ben garza 08/19/01

I apologize to those that I promise in finishing this article. I have had to come back to it many things over the last three weeks mainly because my hands are full with the many fights in the Mexican community where I live. All criticism on this article should be directed at me and not the PRD, since I am its author.

It is clear that the GPM doesn’t really pay close attention to Mexico or even Latin-America. For them, the victory of Chavez in Argentina is insignificant and so is the upcoming election of the Sandistas in Nicaragua, as was the election in of Toledo in Peru. All of these new governments are important for the people of Mexico and Latin-America because they are expressing the actual struggle for Revolutionary Democracy. For this reason, it is important to expose the politics and ideology of the GPM.

It is a real mistake to think that the PRD is trying to hide the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and, if anything, the website that I maintain believes that if the PRD says that it is a ‘Mexican Left political party’, then it has the bound duty to place in every website the classical works of the Left, not only in Mexico, but of the world. This was exactly what was being done when the GPM send in their negative email. Everybody knows that there cannot be a real change in Mexico without the Mexican working class making that change. But just like in the United States and Europe, where the existing organized working class is under the control of the ruling state, in Mexico the PRI tightly controls the labor unions and even the labor movement. These proletarian organizations do not work for the Mexican people but with their ‘charro leaders’ they have a history of serving the existing ruling class and state. As for the revolutionary labor leaders, they are forced out and many end up as undocumented immigrants in the United States. Such leaders are the ones that lead the movement calling for Amnesty of the Undocumented workers, for a militant democracy and socialism.

As for the Mexican section in the United States, we are talking around ten million workers! Should the PRD in the United States not place revolutionary material for these workers in English and Spanish in order to influence the growth and future of the Mexican labor movement?

It would be foolish for us to hide the very proletarian ideology that will help Mexico to move away from the present corrupt Mexican capitalist system and state and from the yoke of U.S. imperialism and the present neo-liberal policy of Free Trade. Does the GPM still think that what is being done is for a lack of Marxist-Leninist consciousness and because we are following a bourgeois line?

Only until now and after some thirteen years of revolutionary democratic struggle by the PRD and the other Mexican democratic people’s forces, has there been a real space for the labor unions and the labor movement. The death of their grand leader and the fall of PRI, the labor unions are in a transitional stage and there are big cracks showing from maintaining with the old regime. A window has been open and created by the movement under the ideology of revolutionary democracy. For that reason alone, Marxism-Leninism has a big part in Mexico.

Things are never done by one’s blind sight and for a lack of political consciousness. The PRD may not be a Marxist or Marxist-Leninist party but that does not mean that the Mexican Left is standing outside watching in. That means that in the PRD there is a rich experience of Marxism-Leninism. By this I mean not only in ideology but also in practice. It is a mistake for the GPM to think that just because the PRD does not declare itself an open Marxist-Leninist party that we stand against it. Where, exactly, we ask the GPM, can the genuine Mexican Left anchors itself if it isn’t in Marxism-Leninism! Does the GPM not recognize that revolutionary democracy is a transitional ideology and period for Mexico? Just because we don’t run out to the streets with Red Banners and Flags, and instead use the Mexican Aztec Banner and Flag of Mexican Revolutionary Democracy, does not make us anti-Marxist or anti-Marxist-Leninist! Such foolish conclusions can only be construed by such backward thinking political and sectarian groups, like the GPM.

This only says that the GMP who doesn’t know how to construct political relations with Marxist-Leninist and none Marxist-Leninist political parties across the world.

This, then, is a reply to the member(s) who represent the Grupo de Propaganda Marxista (GPM) from Spain in their position concerning the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). I have placed the GPM’s criticism of the PRD for people to read. Let us see if the GPM will have the decency to do the same in their website. For those people who do not know who the GPM is or where they stand in class ideology, this article will serve to expose that purpose. The world proletariat is much too aware of the GPM class ideology and it will continue to combat and expose it in the line of struggle for Democracy, Unity of the Working Class and Socialism.

Let us start with the great slogan of the GPM: Sólo

estamos dispuestos a trabajar con quienes sientan más

horror al vacío ideológico en sus conciencias que al vacío

social en torno suyo: GPM (Grupo de Propaganda

Marxista)

As we can see that the GPM is very selective with whom they want to work with. This goes to show the sectarianism in their line. To not be a Marxist-Leninist does not imply that one is not a revolutionary-even under modern day imperialism. If that was the case, we must as well condemn 95% of the world proletariat that lives in the capitalist countries of the world. Too bad that ideologically this group does not bring about any democratic consciousness and much less a Marxist-Leninist consciousness to the proletariat and, instead, leads people down a wrong path: to Trotskyism.

I can also see the many contradictions in GPM’s backwards’ politics and its views towards the PRD. The GPM is totally off the wall and I can see where they exist in a political vacuum. I will not speak officially for the PRD, as I am no elected party leader, but I will defend the PRD-especially when I see people and organizations that say that they are Marxist and who try to put down the PRD just because the PRD is not an official Marxist or Marxist-Leninist party and/or it does not fit their own ultra-left definition of Marxism or Marxism-Leninism.

If I was to asked to choose between joining the GMP or joining the PRD of Mexico, I would join the PRD of Mexico for all of the following reasons and arguments that are contained in this reply. In order to understand where the GMP is coming from, it is very important to first understand Trotskyism and its ideological roots. After this important explanation, there will be a reply directly to the GMP on the PRD.

Lets talk about GPM and their ‘horror concerning ideology’. It is said that Leon Trotsky was one of the great leaders of the Russian Revolution that brought forth Socialism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to that part of the world. That is totally not true and, instead, it is based on a lie and illusion by those that continue to spread this very lie to the world proletariat through their Trotskyite ideology. For the GPM, the spread of Trotskyism among the world proletariat is important because it is important that the working class stays ignorant of Marxism-Leninism and ideologically confused. Ask yourself: WHEN HAS TROTSKYISM EVER WON A SOCIALIST REVOLUTION IN THE WORLD?

Now that one cannot answer this fundamental question in the positive, it was the duty of Trotskyism to continuously discredit the Russian Revolution and every Socialist Revolution that followed thereafter, including any revolutionary movement in the world.

Ask the Trotskyite where they stand with Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought and they will spit at your face. Ask the Trotskyites where they stand with Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution and they will tell you that he is a lackey of U.S. imperialism-even though the United States would love to eliminate Fidel Castro from this world and are waiting for this great leader to give his final exit from it. So who is doing the dirty ‘ideological work’ for the bourgeoisie inside the working class? None other than the Trotskyites! This is, indeed, the very "ideological horror" that the world proletariat proclaims against Trotskyism!

Exactly what is Trotskyism, since the GPM fails miserably in ideologically explaining this to the world? The GPM cannot claim that Trotskyism is Marxism-Leninism. There is no such thing as Marxism-Leninism Trotskyism. There is only Trotskyism and it stands totally against Marxism-Leninism and all of the additional revolutionary experiences and ideological additions and enrichments that have been added to it as the world proletariat engages and struggles for Socialism.

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was a reactionary intellectual who opposed the thesis of Marxism-Leninism. Leon Trotsky was no Bolshevik. In fact, Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Bolshevik circles and movement, which later became the Russian Communist Party, and was even expelled from Russia, after the Bolshevik came to power and with good reason. Leon Trotsky continued running from country to country and putting down the Russian Socialist Revolution until a group loyal to the Russian Communist Party in Mexico put a stop to his negative politics and killed him. Since then the bourgeoisie and Trotskyites have tried to make Leon Trotsky a mortal of the Russian Revolution but this has not had the same fate as what the world proletariat has made of Che Guevara and the many other world leaders that died in making revolution for the liberation of their nations. It has been the pro-capitalist countries and their leading ruling class that has made sure that Trotskyism flourishes and for good reason. In the socialist countries,Trotskyism is dead and only reference as part of Russian history and used as a source to expose the negative practices of the petty-bourgeoisie the world over.

Today the Trotskyite want to make it look like V.I. Lenin, the main leader of the Russian Revolution, was supportive of Leon Trotsky. I would ask people to read and examine the important articles I have placed in the website, as testament of how much Lenin detested the politics of Leon Trotsky, and for those that wish to further examine how critical Lenin was of Trotskyism, it would be important to read the works of Lenin so that they can see the real truth. I have placed on the website a special section called Marxism-Leninism and the Russian Communist Party criticism of Trotskyism. Enough articles are there for people to see how the Russians discredit the attempt of the Trotskyites trying to make good on their ideology for the people of the world who are ignorant of Russian Politics and History.

Still, this much has to be said about the GPM’s ideological foundation. The history of Trotskyism is merely one of anti-communist and anti-Soviet struggle by small groups standing outside the organized working class movement. The Trotskyite "4^th International" (which the GPM wants to rebuild) was set-up in 1938, and it was a false front calling for the political system in the Soviet Union to be overthrown and for the purpose of spreading defeatist moods among the working class. Trotskyism alleges that the struggle for peace and democracy is useless, it denied the liberation character of the struggle against fascism in World War II and even opposed the creation of an anti-Hitler United Front. This discredited Trotskyism even more and its groupings had no other choice but to dissolve. Some revival of Trotskyism was registered in the 1960’s and 1970’s which again uses pseudo-revolutionary and leftist phrase-mongering by non-proletarian strata that were drawn into the anti-imperialist movement of those days.

The Trotskyites like to make bold statements on the Socialist Revolution the world over. Their main foundation and ideology is based on the "theory of a permanent revolution" and which does nothing but plagiarizes the idea of an uninterrupted revolution put forward by Marx and Engel. It was Leon Trotsky and his cohorts that tried to direct this against Lenin’s thesis of the transition of a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. The main traits of this ‘permanent theory’ is the mistrust of the ability of the working class to rally its allies; denial of the revolutionary role of the peasantry (campesinos); adventurous attempts to boost revolution and skip its incomplete phases; rejection of the existing democratic movements and special emphasis on waging revolutionary wars; including the denial of the possibility of building socialism in onecountry.

During the heyday of the Russian Revolution, which struck a blow to world imperialism and boosted the militancy of the working class, Trotskyism down-played the revolutionary potential of the Russian working class as "insufficiently prepared for accomplishing a revolution". The attitude of Trotskyism towards the Russian campesinos was one in which this peasantry was assessed as a reactionary force which was bound to strike the proletariat ‘from the rear". Also, Trotskyism attitude to the democratic phase of the revolution and the struggle for democracy was considered as a "past stage of the proletariat movement".

Furthermore, the Trotskyites love to slander the working class of the capitalist countries,talking of its ‘passivity’ and ‘demoralization". These Trotskyites deny the need for massaction by the working people in making general democratic demands and it is hostile to the traditional forms of class struggle. Trotskyism also frowns upon making revolution in accordance with the national and historical conditions of a particular country and instead of fighting against imperialism, it fights the revolutionary vanguard of our time with the objective of disarming the working class and all of its allies.

To sum up ideologically, Trotskyism is a petty-bourgeois opportunist current in ideology and politics that is hostile to Marxism-Leninism and shrouds its opportunism with radical leftist phraseology. The political bankruptcy of the GPM is the same bankruptcy of the one and only leader: Leon Trotsky. Trotskyites can try and analyze every revolutionary and progressive movement and party in the world. But one thing is clear: they cannot lead it, they cannot guide it, and they cannot bring about any concrete Socialist Revolution because that is not their role. Their role is to divide and confuse people. Their role is to attack the workers and non-workers progressive movements and political parties.

Now let us examine the specific Trotskyite group that makes reference to the PRD by the name of GPM. As one can see that the GMP today is following the same old road as its former predecessors and going nowhere. Just to paraphrase some of GMP’s view about the PRD and Mexican politics:

"Los comunistas consideran indigno ocultar sus ideas y propósitos"

(K.Marx-F.Engels: Manifiesto Comunista Cap. IV)

Hemos visto que habéis incluido en la página del PRD of California algunos de nuestros documentos de propaganda marxista. Dichos textos aparecen bajo el apartado que vosotros dedicáis a la "educación política". Vamos a callar aquí acerca de lo que se puede suponer o conjeturar acerca de las razones o motivos políticos de tu organización para tomar semejante iniciativa. Sólo decir que somos férreos seguidores de la idea del Manifiesto Comunista que preside esta carta, en el sentido de que la confusión teórica del "totum revolutum" no es la mejor metodología para los fines que anunciáis en vuestro apartado. La intención de este trabajo, pues, va en el sentido de contribuir a la claridad y delimitación precisa de los matices entre vuestra posición política y la nuestra.

Si tú eres marxista, sabrás que Marx es comunista, porque está más vivo que nunca. Y si ése es tu ideal, cabe suponer que estarás de acuerdo en que "la historia de la humanidad es la historia de la lucha de clases", y que la historia del capitalismo es la historia de la lucha entre burguesía y proletariado, esto es, entre quienes viven del trabajo ajeno, explotando mano de obra asalariada, y quienes viven exclusivamente de su propio trabajo.

Si estás de acuerdo con esto, ¿qué haces contribuyendo a que buena parte de la clase obrera mejicana permanezca metida en el PRD? Tu nos podrás contestar con mayor o menor enfado, que luchas del modo más eficaz contra el imperialismo para iniciar el camino hacia el comunismo, la emancipación social de los trabajadores. ¿Es cierto esto? Vamos a verlo.

Si nos hemos empezado por poner de acuerdo en que la historia de la humanidad es la historia de la lucha de clases, suponemos que también acordarás con nosotros en que el modo de vidacapitalista se basa o sustenta en la explotación del trabajo asalariado y que, sin esta condición básica, estructural, de la sociedad en que vivimos no quedaría piedra sobre piedra.Y el caso es que la estrategia o finalidad de los pequeños patronos que se hacen representar por organizaciones políticas como el PRD, consiste en preservar su condición de capitalistas, esto es, en mantener vigente el sistema de vida basado en la explotación de trabajo ajeno,bien que a pequeña y mediana escala.

The GPM also said:

Esto quiere decir que la vigencia política de la teoría burguesa del "enemigo principal" que justifica la táctica de los frentes policlasistas, no es históricamente incondicional sino que está vinculada, a la dialéctica histórica material entre cantidad y calidad.

Según los análisis económicos de Marx y Engels aplicados a la sociedad de su tiempo -completados por Lenin y Trotsky- esta teoría alcanza el límite de su vigencia, cuando en los países colonials o dependientes las relaciones capitalistas se extienden socialmente en un grado tal, que la masa de capital en funciones y el consecuente crecimiento de los asalariados, alcanza la medida en que les pone ante la posibilidad real de dar el salto cualitativo en su forma de organizarse y de luchar, a partir de ese punto nodal no ya como clase "en sí" -según su contrario estratégico- sino como clase autoconciente, independientemente de la burguesía, para alcanzar su emancipación como clase. Los "marxistas" que todavía siguen jugando la carta del antiimperialismo pequeñoburgués pacato y ramplón como presunta vía al socialismo, sea por ignorancia o por intereses creados se pasan este corolario político del materialismo histórico por la entrepierna.

…..Estas condiciones estuvieron dadas en Méjico desde la guerra de la independencia hasta las luchas de los liberales encabezadas sucesivamente por Benito Juárez, Zapata, Villa y Madero.

…Así, personajes políticos transitorios en apariencia rivales, como López Portillo y Quactemoc Cárdenas y el actual Domingo Fox, actuando desde organizaciones como el PRI, el PRD o el PAN, son los que, a inmstancias de la alternancia "democrática" se encargan de que esas leyes objetivas acaben cumpliéndose.

Furthermore, I have gone out of my way to investigate their website, which for those who wish to see it, is located at: http://www.nodo50.org/gpm/. This is what they say who they are:

¿QUÉ SOMOS?

Sólo estamos dispuestos a trabajar con quienes sientan más horror al vacío ideológico en sus conciencias que al vacío social en torno suyo

GPM (Grupo de Propaganda Marxista)

Somos un grupo de gente que pretendemos estudiar la teoría marxista para llevarla a la práctica, para aportar a la revolución.

El estudio de la obra fundamental de Marx, El Capital, no es para nosotros una tarea teórica, intelectual, sino un quehacer revolucionario, un paso necesario para la toma de conciencia política, para dotarnos de herramientas, para poder analizar, accionar, aportar en un sentido revolucionario. Este es el objetivo que nos mueve a reunirnos periódicamente para estudiar en grupo El Capital. De este estudio van saliendo acuerdos, análisis, charlas... Y son estos resultados los que vais a encontrar aquí.

What then seems to be GPM main problem on the question of the PRD and Mexico? Too many to mention here but I will touch on just a few.

The most telling evidence of Leftist sectarianism and opportunism in GPM’s writing can be seen in their reference to the ‘Communist Manifesto’. It would do well to ask GPM if they read further down the line in the ‘Communist Manifesto’ that said something about the relationship of communist to other political parties in the world-that, of course, would include the PRD. This section in the ‘Communist Manifesto’ is called: Position of the Communist in relation to the various existing Opposition Parties. There are no surprises in GPM saying nothing of it. I would like to include it here because this is one most important piece of Marxist principles on the relation of communist towards the non-communist parties, such as the PRD.

IV

POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS

IN RELATION

TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING

OPPOSITION PARTIES

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the AgrarianReformers in America.

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. In France the Communists ally themselves with the Social-Democrats,* against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie,

* The party then represented in Parliament by Ledru-Rollin, in literature by Louis Blanc, in the daily press by the Réforme. The name of Social-Democracy signified, with these its inventors, a section of the Democratic or Republican party more or less tinged with Socialism. [Note by Engels to the English edtion of 1888.]

The party in France which at that time called itself Socialist-Democratic was represented in political life by Ledru-Rollin and in [cont. onto p. 75. -- DJR] literature by Louis Blanc; thus it differed immeasurably from present-day German Social-Democracy. [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890.]

page 75

reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard to phrases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution. In Switzerland they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of Democratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical bourgeois.

In Poland they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.

In Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.[62]

But they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.

The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carried out under more advanced conditions of European civilisation, and with a much more developed proletariat, than that of England was in the seven-

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teenth, and of France in the eighteenth century, and because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution.

In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

It is obviously clear that the GMP places ultra-left demands on the world communist when it comes to supporting this or that progressive party; especially in a country where the proletariat has yet to form a genuine Community Party and where it has yet to win the people over to the struggle for Socialism; as is the case in Mexico. All the ripening conditions cannot be ripe if the Mexican people have not supported a massive movement for Socialism and instead are still at the stage of rejecting PRIismo and testing PANismo. It is PANismo that is on the grill today and it is not standing up to the Mexican people’s needs. Thereafter, follows the PRD and only the future will tell and show where the PRD really stands with the Mexican people. We do not fear that it will be in good standing and that the only ones that will complain will be the former losers and their followers.

The section on the relationship between Communist and non-proletarian political parties is enough to prove that the GMP is not Marxist or Marxist-Leninist in character and, much less, in ideology. Rather it is an ignorant group of Trotskyites who do not understand Mexican History and Politics, much less Marxism-Leninism.

Now, let me answer to some of the claims that the GPM makes of the PRD and of Mexican History and Politics.

It is clear that the GPM does not understand an iota of Mexican History and Politics. For one thing, the GMP has incorrectly confused what was the politics of Revolutionary Nationalism to Liberalism when it came to Zapata and Villa. The GMP has failed to understand that the Mexican Revolution was the first important challenge-even before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917-to the then existing world order of the industrial and capitalist nations made by an undeveloped nation trying to assert control over its economy. Mexican revolutionary nationalism was revolutionary indeed because it was anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist for its time and day. Mexican nationalism was revolutionary because it gave the poorest of the poor a direction of struggle and it was a blow to U.S. imperialism and Mexican feudalism under the Diaz Regime. Mexican nationalism united the Mexican people and further gave the Mexican people a sense of nation and future. That the Mexican people support revolutionary nationalism not only has to do with the Revolution of 1910 but also with the menacing of U.S. imperialism just across the border.

Also different from Russia and Europe, where Socialism was at the forefront of the struggle, we cannot say that this was true in Mexico and Latin-America. Therefore, given such political conditions, revolutionary nationalism was indeed very revolutionary because it thrust the first world revolution against imperialism and brought forward a Mexican bourgeois revolution. This is a radical break from Mexican feudalism and, therefore, Mexican revolutionary nationalism must be praised for its time and space in Mexican History and Politics.

Also, there is no need to counter-pose Marxism-Leninism in Mexico against revolutionary nationalism. Under this movement and ideology the underdeveloped countries nationalize their resources and economy against monopoly capitalism! The result of this nationalization practices brought about the development of State Capitalism-the same State Capitalism that Lenin (with the new Russian Socialist State and the Chinese Socialist) used to further construct their own countries after their victories. The only difference between the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the newer Socialist Revolutions is that the Mexican one did not have a Socialist Blueprint accompanying its victory nor did they establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And how could it be if its own leaders were not Marxist-Leninists but revolutionary nationalist.

There is no need for GPM to use Marxism-Leninism as an ideology to hide exactly where they are. Their alignment with Trotskyism says it all and their ultra-Left criticism shows clearly that they do not understand the History of Mexico and, much less, the development of the Mexican Left. Here is more proof.

The GPM also said that even Benito Juarez was a liberal forgetting that liberalism of the times of Juarez in the 1830’s was revolutionary. How is it possible that Karl Marx had an admiration for Abraham Lincoln and the GPM detests a Benito Juarez? Why don’t the GPM just say that they are nothing but a bunch of Spanish chauvinist pigs and admit it since they forget that this so-call ‘liberal Juarez’ was one of the greatest leaders of Mexico. It is also important to note that Juarez was of indigenous blood and ancestry and that the Mexican people are very proud of this; as the European White Skins in Mexico has since ruled among the workers, the campesinos and the indigenous oppressed nations. Of course the GPM makes no reference to this form of present day racism and does nothing to criticize the fascism that comes with this racism but it is important to let the GPM know that it was Juarez who was the leader that liberated Mexico from Spain! If anyone was reactionary, backward and so forth it was GPM’s formers Spanish Government and ruling class in the days of Juarez! Why isn’t the GPM criticizing them? The bottom line is that all these historical and political errors only amounts to GPM’s failure to understand Mexican History and Politics

Reactionary is the GPM because at least Juarez liberated Mexico from Spanish colonialism. Juarez is the George Washington of Mexico! Reactionary is the GPM because Villa and Zapatista did not know anything of Marxism-Leninism but still stood up to U.S. imperialism and Mexican feudalism and brought about a Mexican Bourgeois Democratic Revolution to Mexico! These great leaders did not have a high level of education nor did they have a high degree of ideological training. They were not schooled, as were many of the European Socialists and Marxists were, but they did what many of the Europeans failed to do: they created a revolution in Mexico, where the European have miserably failed in their Socialist objectives! That Zapata or Villa did not go beyond Socialism is not a sin nor do the Mexican People hold this against them. They achieved what they believed in: Tierra, Libertad y Justicia! That was better then being under the yoke of U.S. imperialism! The point is this: Mexico changed from feudalism into a Bourgeois Democratic country that finally introduced modern capitalism and brought about the Modern Mexican proletariat. This is a good revolution for Mexico because it moved from the feudalistic stage into the bourgeois stage! The Mexican revolution brought about the socialization of land, education and the other reforms.

What has the GMP brought to Spain with their leadership, may we ask? The point is this: your members live in a political and ideological vacuum! This just shows the despotic nature of modern-day Trotskyism. No wonder Trotskyism has yet to achieve a Socialist Revolution in the world! No wonder that Trotskyism serves the ruling class so well against the ideas of revolutionary progressive.

Furthermore, here is another of GPM’s political errors. The GPM cannot make heads or tails of PRIism and Cardenismo and I believe that they do not even know what Cardenismo means in Mexican Politics and History! Just look at some of their ignorant writings:

…Así, personajes políticos transitorios en apariencia rivales, como López Portillo y Quactemoc Cárdenas y el actual Domingo Fox, actuando desde organizaciones como el PRI, el PRD o el PAN, son los que, a inmstancias de la alternancia "democrática" se encargan de que esas leyes objetivas acaben cumpliéndose.

If these people are examples of the modern Mexican bourgeoisie, the GPM cannot even correctly identify them for the world proletariat! The GPM cannot even correctly spell the names of the persons they are referencing! I would ask the GPM to reference ‘Domingo Fox’ as none other than ‘Vicente Fox’! That he is a reactionary bourgeois, this cannot be denied. But the Mexican people knew this way before the GPM raised it! It is we-the PRD-who confronts this bourgeois everyday. For doing so we, we have earned the same Class Identity as Fox from the GPM. Does this make sense?

How can you place Cardenismo in the same Camp of Foxismo and PANismo? Is the GPM sure that they are reading Marxism-Leninism or some screwed up book on Marx and Mexico written by Trotskyism? It would have been good that your great leader, Leon Trotsky, while he was in Mexico that instead of criticizing and putting down the Russian Socialist Revolution that he would have written and left some material on the Mexican Revolution because it is clear that the GPM is utterly ignorant on the facts and way off the mark!

I would only ask the GPM to correctly reference ‘Quactemoc Cardenas’ as none other then ‘Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’-the son of Mexico’s great president Lázaro Cardenas, who was very progressive for his times and day. It was president Lazaro Cardenas that nationalized Mexico’s oil, gave millions of hectares of land to the campesinos, brought about a modern educational system for Mexico, etc. Here is proof that Mexico did amazing semi-socialist projects. The Mexican people do not forget this-not even today.

That is the main reason why the Cardenista Movement in Mexico has outlasted the PRI! That was also the main reason why the PAN came into existence-in order to counter-arrest the Cardenista Movement. But does the GPM take these factors into account?

Modern day Cardenismo is a progressive movement. Its main kernel is revolutionary democracy and that is why millions of people today follow Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, and why the PRI and the U.S. refused to recognize his victory in 1988, why the PRI invested millions up millions of dollars to buy out the vote in 1994 and also used heavy media and money to buy out the vote in the 2000 presidential election in favor of the PAN candidate-Vicente Fox.

The fact is that the GPM really doesn’t know who Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is and the progressive tradition of the Cardenistas in Mexico. They even forget that it was Lázaro Cardenas that gave one-day citizenship to so many Spaniards when Spanish Fascism came to power in their country. Ask these Spaniards if they support Cardenismo or if they stand with the GPM. In fact, today the sons of these Spaniards are and represent the many leaders in the PRD! We are proud of them because they have assimilated very well the history and culture of Mexico but also have maintained their Left position. These progressive Spaniard-Mexicans have worked as the real militants-the sons and daughters of Spanish Marxist-to unite as many Mexican Left organizations into one much needed "Mexican Left Party" that daily confronts the Mexican bourgeoisie inside the Mexican Congress and fights for empowering the Mexican people. This is much more that we can say about the GPM that is still reading Karl Marx under a candle light and throwing darts at the PRD while pondering as to ‘why do the Mexican working class follow these bourgeois leaders?’

The point is this, my dear GPM: what does it matter if Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is part of the Mexican bourgeoisie? Was not Engels part of the same class in England? Was Lenin part of the working class? And I am sure that the many other world revolutionary leaders were also proletarian? You, yourself, said it: ideology matters and yet you have failed miserably at understanding the progressive politics that Cardenismo has for Mexico given the fact when the PRI repressed all progressives and especially the Mexican communist movement. Cardenismo is not a communist movement but it is a revolutionary democratic movement.

And, my dear GPM, what did Lenin have to say about revolutionary democracy?

This is what he said: ‘if we do not employ the phrase ‘revolutionary democracy’ as a stereotyped ceremonial phrase, as a conventional epithet, but reflect on its meaning, we find that to be a democrat means reckoning in reality with the interest of the majority of the people and not the minority, and that to be a revolutionary means destroying everything harmful and obsolete in the most ruthless manner" (V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p.337) Lenin also said ‘We cannot be revolutionary democrats in the twentieth century and in a capitalist country if we fear to advance towards socialism" (V.I Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 25. p. 360).

What does this mean my dear GPMist? It means that a revolutionary-democratic activists positions himself/herself based on the relationship and tasks of social development put forth at certain stages of the liberation movement. For the sake and in the interest of the majority of the people, and especially the oppressed classes, Revolutionary Democracy proclaims war against all that is obsolete and reactionary. That is why the PRD and, especially its main leader-Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas-declares war on the PRI, the PAN and on Foxismo today in Mexico.

But what is more significant in the struggle for revolutionary democracy is that in the present historical period that the Mexican people find ourselves and in the transition between from capitalism to socialism, a revolutionary democratic solution of urgent historical problems is achieved in the struggle against the monopoly and comprador Mexican bourgeoisie and imperialism and signifies a direct step towards socialism or socialist-oriented socialist development. Under present day conditions the revolutionary democrats are strengthening our alliance with the working class and with the socialist states and movements because of the fact that the world proletariat and the Communist parties form the nucleus of any anti-capitalist bourgeois democracy. It seems that the GMP doesn’t know this and its makes seems that they don’t: they are not Marxist, much less Marxist-Leninist!

If the PRI and the PAN, including the imperialist in the United States and Europe fears anyone it is Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas for five major and fundamental reasons:

• His historical and political background in being the son of one of the most popular and progressive president that Mexico ever had: Lazaro Cardenas,
• His ability to bring about a genuine Mexican center-left political movement in the late 1980's that won him the Mexican presidency in 1988; in spite of the PRI stealing the elections and bringing to power the narco-crook of Salinas de Gortari,

 

• For the ability to create- from the ground up- the PRD who now numbers over two million members,
• For the ability to win the Mayoral elections in Mexico City in 1997 and paving the way so that Mexican could see that the Cardenista government is based on hard work, honesty, and dedicate service to its the people in the Mexico City. and,
  

 

• For his political program which takes into consideration the needs of Mexico and the Mexican people-especially the lower middle-class, the working class, the campesinos, the poor and the indigenous communities that have historically been ignored by the PRI.