Stalinism in Chile

"On the basis of the Good Neighbor Policy and its consistent application, relations can and must be established with the Roosevelt administration, which is attacked so violently by Wall Street. The Good Neighbor Policy, according to a strictly realistic criterion, is a useful instrument for the purposes of the struggle for peace and democracy.

"As for foreign capital invested in Chile, the people have always respected and always will respect the provisions of the political Constitution of the state which guarantee the property of foreign capital and, in general, of all capital, requiring at the same time that the capitalists, national and foreign, respect them on their side. The people have never ceased to recognize the need for the cooperation of foreign capital and are still disposed to solicit that cooperation in the future, if the national interest requires it. The riches of Chile form an integral and inseparable part of its right of existence as an independent and free nation and must be allocated to the service of maintaining and extending democracy and safeguarding peace among the people, on the basis of concerted action."

(From the 1938 article "The Popular Front in Chile", by Carlos Contrera Labarca, General Secretary of the Chilean Communist Party)

So was Stalin asleep when this was written? No, this is official policy of Stalin's Comintern.

And let's be clear about the nature of "foreign capital" that Labarca is welcoming. He is talking about Anaconda Copper, which *owned* the copper mines that rightfully belonged to the Chilean people. The Cuban government has not permitted any foreign ownership of Cuban resources. It only permits co-ownership of manufacturing facilities.

Cuba only gave the green light to foreign investment after it lost 90% of its national income and had to make up the loss somehow. It was being pragmatic. The Chilean Communist Party's support for foreign investment is driven by ideology, not pragmatism. It is tied up with the belief in a "progressive wing of the bourgeoisie".

FDR was not progressive. His Good Neighbor Policy was a club used against the Latin American people the way that his uncle used "gunboat diplomacy" against the Chinese and Filipinos. FDR crowed to the world that Somoza might be a son of a bitch, but he is "our" son of a bitch.

This FDR was worshipped by the Communists world-wide. Communist households often had portraits of FDR and Stalin on the wall. It was political support for the imperialist FDR that disoriented the American people. When you line up the American people behind "their" government during an imperialist war like WWII, it is not so hard to take them on the next phase of world domination: the crusade against the USSR. History tells us that it was the Democratic Party, led by a bona fide New Dealer by the name of Harry Truman, that shot the first volleys against Communism.

I know that none of this will have any affect on hard-core Stalinists like Lou Godena, Sid Chatterjee and Adolfo Olaechea, but is useful for the rest of us who wear no ideological blinders to be reminded of Stalin's reformism.

(Of course, the Trotskyites wear a different set of ideological blinders. They believe that all that is necessary to defeat capitalism is to join their sects. Historical evidence is that capitalism has made its way happily, with or without the presence of Trotskyite groupuscles. The Chilean CP in 1938 was making opportunist mistakes, while the Chilean Trotskyists were posturing in a "vanguardist" manner that was guaranteed to isolate them. When Allende came to power, his "popular front" was supported by the Communists and Socialists. A real revolutionary alternative was needed, but all the Trotskyites could offer was sterile rhetoric. "Chile needs a socialist revolution, not a popular front," they shouted. The problem with calls for socialist revolution is that when made in isolation from any mass movement, they are bound to be ignored.)

Louis Proyect