Rural Change and the Leftist Activism
Uneven capitalist development and import-substitution industrialisation endorsed in 1959 and its adverse impacts on agriculture resulted in increasing demands for social changein the late 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the rural highlands.40 State policies (domestic currency devaluation; price control on food products and subsidy for food imports, measures that were unfavourable for rural producers) were intended to provide cheap food for the industrial labour force and to increase the purchasing power of the middle class (Kay, 1982: 147). In particular, the new encroachment of the landed oligarchy into peasant communities, as well as population growth, led to more demand for land in the countryside. Consequently, the mid- twentieth century saw an escalating rural unrest in the highlands, raising concerns for the ruling class, including rural landowners. Pressure for land reform could not be ignored any longer and the military junta responded to peasant mobilisations in the La Convención and Lares valley by applying agrarian reform to this limited zone in 1962 (Petras and La Porte, 1971; Blanco, 1972).
In the face of social transformation and growing social unrest, the ruling oligarchy ended a long acrimonious relationship with the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana, APRA) and permitted a partial incorporation of the party into the political system in exchange for support for the government in 1956, a period called
convivencia. APRA, Peru‟s oldest political party, has been an important player in the
country‟s political scene since its foundation by Víctor Haya de la Torre in March 1931.41
During the 1930s, it entered into fierce competition with the Peruvian Socialist Party, led by José Carlos Mariátegui, and emerged as the main organisation following Mariátegui‟s death at the age of 36. It had long been a hegemonic party among popular sectors with its anti- oligarchy and nationalist rhetoric. However, its political activities had been declared illegal and obstructed by the military and the oligarchy since the Trujillo uprising in 1932, stimulated by claim of electoral fraud, with the exception of several years under the Bustamente y Rivero regime (1945-1948). Consequently, its incorporation into the main political system had become APRA‟s foremost objective over more than twenty years of
40 Due to the space constraints, rural migration, urbanisation and subsequent cholificación will not be treated
here (see Matos Mar 2004; Albó, 2004; Burt 2006; and Paredes 2011).
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clandestine activities, while suffering official repression. However, its adoption of a conservative stance in the mid-1950s lost a significant opportunity to gain mass support and to consolidate itself as a genuine hegemonic party among the popular classes, thus overcoming its northern and urban bias.42
The domestic context was changing in line with international events – the Sino-Soviet split and the Cuban Revolution in 1959 – which influenced the rise of a variety of leftist groups in Peru in the 1960s, including Maoists, Trotskyists, and Guevarists. First, dissatisfied with the party leadership‟s accommodation with the oligarchy, APRA‟s youth wing created the APRA Rebelde led by Luis de la Puente at the party‟s sixth national convention in 1959, after which the Movement of Revolutionary Left (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR) was founded in 1961 (González, 2011: 21). On 5 June 1965, MIR and the Army of National Liberation (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN), influenced by the Cuban experience and its foco tactics, launched guerrilla movements in the central and southern highlands, only being defeated by state repression within six months. Alongside the Belaunde government‟s (1963-1968) suppression, these guerrilleros, who were largely of urban middle class origin, lacked an appropriate understanding of rural conditions. More importantly, peasants had already become an important subjectivity on the political scene during their successful and organised demands for land during the period 1956 to 1964. However, the MIR and ELN did not fully appreciate their political power and regarded them as playing only a secondary role in the revolutionary struggle against state power. As a result, the gap between the peasantry and guerrilleros in terms of political objectives as well as tactics did not facilitate a repetition of the Cuban experience in Peru. With this failure, many leftist groups were seriously weakened as their leaders were imprisoned or killed. As Giesecke explains, the Shining Path‟s armed struggle in the 1980s and 1990s is partially reminiscent of the failure of the earlier guerrilla movements with little understanding of rural conditions and disrespect for the peasants as political actors (2008: 142).
In the meantime, international communism‟s division between Moscow and Beijing in the 1960s had influenced local fragmentation – either pro-China or pro-Soviet – and the decade saw the rising influence of Maoism within the Peruvian Communist Party (Partido Comunista del Perú, PCP). One of the main reasons for the PCP division was ideological
42 As will be seen in Chapter 5, APRA maintained a strong support base in Cajamarca due to the department‟s
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dogmatism, particularly concerning the pace of revolution. Differing with the central committee‟s revisionist stance and sympathising with Maoist emphasis on the role of the peasantry, a pro-China faction led by José Sotomayor, Santurnino Paredes and Manuel Soria split from the PCP (the rest of the PCP, the pro-Soviet faction, will be called PCP-Unidad or PCP-U) and created the PCP-Red Flag (PCP-Bandera Roja, PCP-BR) in alliance with the secretary general of the PCP‟s youth group (Juventud Comunista) in 1964 (Navarro, 2010: 156-7). However, a fissure within the leadership was made public in the midst of open conflict between the secretary general, Santurnino Paredes, and the Ching Kang group supporters who opposed Paredes‟ Maoist dogmatism in 1967. The latter created the PCP-Red Homeland (PCP-Patria Roja, PCP-PR) in 1969 (Navarro, 2010: 162-3). Finally, Abimael Guzmán split the PCP-BR again and founded the PCP-Shining Path (PCP-Sendero Luminoso, PCP-SL) in 1970, before its launch of the „prolonged people‟s war‟ in 1980.
Alongside the Maoist groups, Hugo Blanco, a Trotskyist peasant leader, became one of the left‟s leading protagonists when he ranked in third place in the Constituent Assembly elections in 1978, despite the faction‟s relative weakness in Peru. His role in peasant struggles in the La Convención valley led to this electoral success. During the 1960s, so- called New Left groups, neither aligned to the Soviet Union or to China, came to the fore, starting with the MIR in 1961. The Revolutionary Vanguard (Vanguardia Revolucionaria, VR), founded in 1965, is one prominent example and it was led by Ricardo Letts (originally from Acción Popular), Edmundo Murrugarra (from PCP) and Ricardo Napurí (Trotskyist and from MIR) (González, 2011: 23-4).43 VR became an important component of the Unified Mariateguist Party (Partido Unificado Mariateguista, PUM). As it will be seen later, the PUM was founded in 1984 and grew to become an intergral part of the United Left (Izquierda Unida, IU). Despite the increasing political activism of various leftist groups, the fragmentation of the PCP represented an important characteristic of the Peruvian Left: i.e., orthodox dogmatism and factionalism, which laid ground for a division between party leaders, as well as between the leadership and the rank-and-file. This influenced the misunderstanding of rural reality, causing the party leaders‟ differing revolutionary goals and tactics vis-à-vis the peasantry, a reason for the failure of both the intellectual-led guerrilla movement in the mid-1960s and the PCP-SL‟s two decades later.
43
VR had its root in „intellectual study circles and the university student movement‟ and included ideologically diverse groups (Roberts, 1998: 207).
８２ Military Reformism and Transition to Democracy
Scholars have offered various explanations for the rise of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces (RGAF) (1968-1980) (Cotler, 1978; McClintock and Lowenthal, 1983; Booth and Sorj, 1983; Gorman, 1982; Kay, 1985). Long-term and short-term accounts can be given for the „Peruvian Revolution‟ in the late 1960s and 1970s. Over the first half of the twentieth century, the Peruvian economy was dominated by export-led growth, particularly agricultural produce (sugar, cotton) – and natural resources (copper and oil) – which foreign capital and the landed oligarchy dominated. By the 1960s, however, exports of commodities declined due to the lack of new investment and partially due to resource constraints (Cotler, 1983: 41; see also Thorp and Bertram, 1978). In the meantime, import-substitution industrialisation started comparatively late in Peru and thus the domestic industrial bourgeoisie was weak. While traditional exports were in decline, chipping away at the oligarchical power base, newly emerging bourgeois groups did not have enough power to undertake the reform needed for industrialisation (Kay, 1985: 153). At this juncture of structural crisis, „the crisis of hegemony‟ among the ruling class became obvious in face of increasing social pressure (Kay, 1985: 153; see also Quijano, 1971). The 1963 election of Belaunde, with his reformist Popular Action party (Acción Popular, AP), and his, reformist efforts, such as agrarian reform and the nationalisation of the International Petroleum Company, were only obstructed by the conservative APRA-Odría coalition in Congress, leading to the military‟s intervention. In the meantime, the short-term explanation is largely based on officers‟ class, their ethnic, geographical and educational background; and their previous experiences. While the Peruvian military had been a firm guarantor of ruling class interests, signs of change appeared in the 1960s. Their participation in controlling rural unrest in the highlands raised awareness of the urgent need for agrarian reform as well as other changes. Additionally, the poverty and marginalisation of „deep Peru‟ („Perú profundo‟) were
reminiscent of their own humble socio-economic and provincial backgrounds. The education provided to officers in the Centre for High Military Studies (Centro de Altos Estudios Militares, CAEM) played an important role in providing them with „the critical analysis of
Peru‟s social and political problems‟ (McClintock, 1999: 322-3).
Against this backdrop, the RGAF pursued „the broader goals of national development‟ by implementing nationalist and anti-oligarchy reform, hoping to promote „political stability‟ by incorporating the popular sectors „from above‟ and establishing a support base for the regime (Gorman, 1982: 2). Due to constraints of space, here it suffices to mention briefly one of the
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major reform programmes and its limited results: the agrarian reform.44 The Velasco government proclaimed the Agrarian Reform Law in 1969. Its principal political and economic objectives were: „increas[ing] the agricultural marketable surplus for the rapidly growing urban centres as well as expanding the internal market for the incipient local industry [and incorporating] the peasantry into the political system under the tutelage of the State‟ (Kay, 1982: 149). Reform was mainly applied to two different geographical areas: the coast and the highlands. The reformed sector was organised into cooperative enterprises: Agrarian Production Cooperatives (Cooperativas Agrarias de Producción, CAPs), Agricultural Societies of Social Interest (Sociedades Agrícolas de Interés Social, SAIS), and Peasant Groups (Grupos Campesinos) or Communal Cooperatives (Cooperativas Comunales) (Kay, 1982; McClintock, 1982). Although this agrarian reform was considered to be one of the most radical in the region, ending the existing oligarchic order, it had rather mixed consequences.45 In contrast to a small minority of ex-hacienda workers, the majority of poor peasants were largely marginalised from reform benefits due to the persistence of government policies favourable to capital-intensive export agriculture and the relatively slow pace of the reform process in the highlands, among others (although the result varies from region to region). Better access to pasture and „the end of some feudalistic services to hacendados
[landowners]‟ were partial benefits for poor peasants from communities or landless temporary workers (McClintock, 1982: 140). In addition, state control over decision-making within the cooperative enterprises concerning „land use, employment, wages and managerial nominations‟ did not produce positive results to agricultural development and quelling rural unrest (Kay, 1982: 155). Accordingly, Kay considers the Peruvian agrarian reform as taking the „State capitalist road‟ in that, despite the organisation of collective nature and the government‟s rhetoric, these enterprises were actually controlled by „the State‟ (1982: 165- 166). When economic conditions became increasingly negative during the second phase of the RGAF, poor peasants started organising in response to the slow reform pace and the government authorities‟ control. They actively participated in land invasions and also engaged in anti-government mobilisations in the late 1970s in an alliance with trade unions and other popular organisations.46 As Paredes notes, „[T]he unresolved struggle over land…
44
For more on various reform programmes, see Schydlowsky and Wicht (1983). More details on the agrarian reform can be also found in Kay (1982) and Mayer (2009).
45 Nearly 39 per cent of the land (8.6 million hectares) and about 8 per cent of livestock (2.2 million head) were
distributed to almost 390,684 peasants by 1980 (Hunefeldt, 1997: 110).
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led peasants in the southern highlands to strengthen their ties with parties of the left‟, particularly VR which had sent their militants in order to work with peasants since 1970s (2011: 138-139). In organising the peasantry, party affiliates introduced traditional party structure led by cadres, which was „adopted willingly by peasants in the context of increasing confrontation with the state… Moreover, land seizures were tactically demanding operations, involving the sort of vertical, semi-military organisation introduced by left-wing militants‟ (Paredes, 2011: 140-141).
Another aspect of the „Peruvian experiment‟ included corporatist social mobilisation which was intended to allay social unrest by providing state benefits. In fact, the implementation of mobilisation policies was less coherent than that of economic reform due to the lack of consensus over its ultimate goal within the military government (Mauceri, 1997: 17). The government created the National Support System for Social Mobilisation (Sistema National de Apoyo a la Movilización Social, SINAMOS) in 1971. Before the mid-1960s, labour unions were predominantly controlled by the APRA-led Confederation of the Peruvian Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores Peruanos, CTP). The Velasco government implemented several legal measures favourable to workers: the legalisation of trade unions and passing an employment security law. Consequently, the rate of unionisation of workers doubled. The military‟s lingering hostility toward APRA led to them officially recognising the General Confederation of the Peruvian Workers (Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú, CGTP) under the influence of the Communist Party, and the Christian-Democrat dominated National Central of Workers (Central Nacional de Trabajadores, CNT) in 1971. By 1977 the number of unions affiliated to the CGTP rose to 44 per cent, while 27 per cent were aligned with the CTP (Mauceri, 1996: 22). In 1972, the government created its own union organisation, the Central of Workers of the Peruvian Revolution (Central de Trabajadores de la Revolución Peruana, CTRP), in order to weaken independent labour organisations and to take control of them, although to no avail. In 1972, the government formulated the National Agrarian Confederation (Confederación Nacional Agraria, CNA) in order to organise rural producers in a corporatist manner (CNA came into de facto existence in 1974). However, these state attempts to incorporate the popular sectors and to gain their support were not successful, only helping further mobilisation of society. Given the economic crisis and more orthodox policies initiated after 1975, these sectors led mobilisations and protests in alliance with other leftist groups against the military government and contributed to a transition to democracy.
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By 1973, the military-led reforms faced challenges as the national coffers were running low, traditional exports were falling and industrialisation lagged with little investment motivation and poor economic management. Alongside economic crisis, the government increasingly depended on external borrowing with the exaggerated expectation of a commodity boom and favourable Eurodollar market (Thorp, 1983: 51). Consequently, external debt and a crisis in the balance of payments forced the Bermúdez government to adopt a series of austerity programmes in the midst of rising pressure both from international creditors and popular sector protests during the second half of the 1970s (Mauceri, 1995: 17). After the initial general strike led by the CGTP on 19 July 1977, an alliance of various popular organisations and leftist groups protesting against the austerity package, the Bermúdez regime announced a schedule for the Constituent Assembly elections in 1978 and a transition to democracy (Balbi, 1989: 113-114). Two major general strikes took place in 1977 and 1978, and to a large degree rising labour militancy and popular mobilisations were influenced by many leftist groups. In face of the PCP and CGTP‟s relatively moderate stance towards the military government, most adopted a clasista position, radicalising their rhetoric and tactics, which raised their level of influence over various popular sectors alienated by government repression of popular mobilisations as well as the firing of labour leaders after their participation in protests against economic austerity. For example, the Peasant Confederation of Peru (Confederación Campesina del Perú, CCP) became reorganised under the leadership of VR in 1974, while Maoist parties exerted control over the teachers‟ as well as the miners‟ unions. Additionally, the government‟s own corporatist organisations, such as CNA, took a more independent and anti-government stance. In the 1978 Constituent Assembly elections these alliances between leftist parties and popular sectors helped generate positive results for the Left for the first time in Peru‟s history: five groups gained a combined 29.4 per cent of the vote, an impressive increase from less than 5 per cent.47 In sum, state capitalism was implemented under a reformist military regime in response to a structural crisis in the country‟s economic development, only producing mixed results. Moreover, state- led industrialisation was unfavourable to rural producers and increased peasant struggles in the southern highlands. In the aftermath of agrarian reform, the traditional oligarchy lost power, leaving a political vacuum in the countryside where many leftist parties and unions attempted to control. While the military regime mobilised society in a corporatist manner
47 The five leftist groups included FOCEP (Frente Obrero, Campesino y Popular), Pro-Velasco PSR (Partido
Socialista Revolucionario), PCP, UDP (Unidad Democrática Popular), the Frente Nacional de Trabajadores y Campesinos (Roberts, 1998: 320). Maoist groups abstained from participation.
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with an aim to gain legitimacy from the popular sector and quell social unrest, this effort only encouraged social protests in late 1970s, leading to democratic transition.