Interview with Pável Blanco Cabrera, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM)

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Interview of Pavel Blanco, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Mexico (Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM), to the International Communist Press / August 20, 2016.

http://communismgr.blogspot.com/2016/08/interview-with-pavel-blanco-cabrera.html

ICP: In the recent years, violence in Mexico, both related to drug trafficking groups, or as a part of a clearly paramilitary activity against the progressive forces, organizations and people and especially the communists has been on the rise. Your Party, PCM has also suffered attacks of these paramilitary forces. What are the causes of this wave of violence and what will be the consequences of this situation in the context of the class struggle? Can you also comment on the relation of this situation with the U.S. imperialism that never ceased to mark its presence in Mexico?

Pavel Blanco: First of all, I would like to send my brotherly greetings to the Communist Party of Turkey, with whom we share the same line in the revolutionary regrouping of the international communist movement. We will do everything to reiterate our solidarity on the face of the political events that violently convulse the class struggle there.
In Mexico it is possible to literally observe the face of capitalism that Marx was speaking of. It drips mud and blood from all its pores. The wave of violence that shakes us with more than 200,000 dead in 10 years is not a system failure. Rather, it is the logical consequence of capitalism that consists of barbarianism, terror, uncertainties, hunger and death. The so-called war of narco-trafficking, in which the Mexican state is directly involved, is a process of re-accommodation of markets, routes and stakeholders in order to control this business, which is laundered rapidly through financial investments, and sectors such as the real estate and production. Here we don’t only refer to the agricultural industry but also to the branches such as metals, mechanics, iron and steel and extractivism. So, it is a process of amplification of accumulation and a new economic branch that rapidly generates consequences for politics. The money buys the political parties, candidates, elected state officers, mayors, MPs, senators and governors, all of which strongly influence the presidency of the republic.
In this context, it is necessary to plant terror, demobilize and immobilize the people in order to prevent any kind of possibility of protest and opposition to the plundering of the country. It is imperative to avoid the popular or syndical organizations that would prevent the processes of overexploitation.
It is very striking that they force displacement of populations that decimate cities such as Ciudad Juarez or desolate towns and territories such as in Tamaulipas. Paradoxically, after the expulsion of the inhabitants and destruction of their houses and lands, they found oil wells and mine zones in these places.
The popular organizations are under the threat of state terror. For example, look at the class-based demands of the educational workers, or the Federation of the Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico, 43 of which disappeared in Ayotzinapa, and of course the Communist Party of Mexico. Five of our comrades including Raymundo Velazquez, who was the political secretary of the party in that region, were assassinated in Guerrero because they were opposing the Canadian mines there. Moreover, Enrique Lopez, who is a member of our Central Committee, has disappeared in Tamaulipas. In addition to a number of prisoners, we also have comrades passing through judicial processes. We would like to clarify that this is the consequence of having a specific position in the class struggle, in other words, fighting for the revolution. Only those who do nothing are at the margin of the possibility of suffering these strikes.
It is true that the North American imperialism has big interests and that since the late 1970s they promoted the narcotic operations on Mexico. They did it in collaboration with Colombian groups to finance their fight against the insurgent movements in Nicaragua and in other Central American countries. This is not a secret. Moreover, we should underline the presence of the Chinese capital in the important harbor of Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacán, where they exchange steel with the chemicals used in the production of the raw material of a number of drugs.
At this point we would like to stop and think about this theoretical and practical question: In Mexico and for sure in almost all Latin America imperialism is identified with North America, and this position constantly creates deep political errors and strategic problems. The Communist Party of Mexico has the idea that imperialism as the actual phase of capitalism and characterized by monopoly capitalism also means that imperialism is not only an exterior but also an interior phenomena. Speaking of the North American imperialism shouldn’t make one forget about the fight against the EU as an imperialist center or the inter-imperialist pact between Russia and China. Neither can other pacts between states or between capitalist economies such as MERCOSUR can be considered with sympathy. For us, the anti-imperialist fight is not an anti-North American fight. Rather, it is a fight against monopolies and we fight by confronting the monopolies in our country and in any other imperialist core. There is no “less bad” imperialism, all mean exploitation, pillage, plundering, war and death

ICP: There are millions of Mexican citizens and descendants of Mexicans in the United States, whose vast majority is part of the working class in this country. U.S. has never been an example of integration and acceptance but in the recent years the xenophobia and racism have increased even further and Mexicans, as the largest immigrant group, are one of the primary targets of xenophobia and racism. What is your opinion on the presence and role of Mexican workers in the struggle waged by the U.S. working class and the class character of the xenophobia?

PB: There are about 20 million Mexican or of Mexican origin workers in the US, and the number increases day by day, and year by year; it is our duty to contribute to raise awareness and organization of this population; during the bourgeois democratic revolutionary process in the last century, the Mexican workers of the USA were a stronghold of the anti-dictatorship fight which politically and financially supported the revolutionary forces of our country; phenomenon of migration peaked with the Second World War, and depending on the need for workforce, the North American border and the anti-immigrant mechanisms become more flexible or more harsh. The xenophobia and racism has been raging, not only against the Mexican workers but also workers of all nationalities who risk their lives in pursuit of employment there. It is PCM’s duty to fight to organize the Mexican workers to support the revolutionary process in our country and also to intervene in the class struggle for their rights and claims along with the North American workers and workers of other nationalities, who are exploited in the US. This happens by having a party organization at the borders, with which we’re moving forward, and for starting to have PCM cells among the Mexican workers in the US. It is clear that the class character of racism is one of the ideological pillars of the imperialist domination, which attacks all the workers.

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ICP: Donald Trump is now officially the Republican candidate for the presidential elections, He is known for its anti-immigrant, anti-worker and racist rhetoric, towards the Mexicans in particular. What awaits the Mexican workers in the U.S. if Donald Trump is elected? The question can be asked for the working class in Mexico.

PB: Whoever wins the elections, may it be Mrs. Clinton or Trump, the loosing side will be the North American workers and the workers from other nationalities that shape the immigrant labor force. Trump resembles a scarecrow that is destined to express: “vote the lesser evil, vote the democrats”, which we consider to be a very dangerous position. Democrats or Republicans, the bourgeois parties of the USA do politics that are functional to imperialism. We already saw the fall of the myth, which claimed that it was a system only for the white; and the Obama administration turned out to be such an aggressive warmonger that it has no reason to envy Obama’s predecessor Bush. Now we will see how the myth, which claims that with a woman leading the USA, the world would go in a better direction, also crushes and falls. This is delusion, purely delusion.
No to Clinton and No to Trump, and we lament the wrongful politics done by CPUSA that navigates the opportunist flag of choosing a lesser evil. Whoever wins, will be a sworn enemy of the workers of the USA and the peoples of the world.

ICP: As the violence and repression increases in Mexico, the resistance of progressive forces and communists intensifies in response. We realize there is a revolutionary potential in the objective conditions in Mexico. What are the challenges, opportunities and the potential of revolutionary politics in Mexico?”

PB: That is true, the class struggle intensifies and the class conflict is present and evident. The labor-capital antagonism crystalizes especially wit the so-called structural reforms applied by the Mexican State, which embrace measures that devalue the labor and seek stability in the middle of the economic crisis.

We consider that the conditions are mature for a revolutionary process that according to our evaluation will be an anti-capitalist and anti-monopolist one with the goal of socialism-communism. We believe that a major obstacle at the moment is the mismatch between the objective bases, the limits of capitalism and subjective conditions of the moment, which are delaying; that is why since the V. Congress of PCM we are working to resolve this issue in two directions: building a strong, class-based workers and syndical movement on the one hand; and the development of the party itself in the principal strategic areas of the economy.

We are aware of the fact that without a strong communist party no revolutionary process would have any possibility to be successful.

Where are other revolutionary or anti-capitalist forces in Mexico, but none of them puts the proletariat in the center of their activity; in PCM we insist that the working class will be the epicenter of the revolutionary transformation; that is our advantage. Some words about an ingredient that is necessary for the revolutionary processes: the unity. We do not see it as a mere unification of organizations but as the unity of the class, we work exactly for that every day in every single work place.

http://houstoncommunistparty.com/interview-with-pavel-blanco-cabrera-general-secretary-of-the-communist-party-of-mexico-pcm/

Communist Party of Mexico - Against the wall, against imperialism ...


Date: February 5, 2017
Author: Miriam G. al-Mayiriti

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To confront Trump's imperialist policy: no submission, no "national unity"

As announced in his campaign, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order for the construction of the border wall between his country and ours, with the express purpose of containing the migration of Mexican workers and other nationalities that feed the labor force in the different branches of Production and services in that North American nation.

Without diplomatic mediations, Trump also assured that the construction of such a wall - along the 3185 km border - will be paid by Mexico, at a cost that is valued between 15,000 and 20,000 million dollars. He conditioned the announced meeting with Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico, to the commitment of this one with such payment. In addition, the US president adopts the measure of imposing a 20% tax on Mexican products entering the US. UU. To finance the construction of the wall, which concludes de facto with the tariff agreements included in NAFTA, which it seeks to review in search of even more advantageous conditions for the monopolies it represents.

The Communist Party of Mexico condemns the construction of such a border wall and presents its views on how workers must confront imperialist, anti-worker, anti-immigrant and racist aggressiveness.

In the first place, it is false that Mexican, Central American, Latin American, Haitian or any other national migrant workers are responsible for the miserable and poor living conditions of the American working class. This demagogic argument was already made in Germany in the 1930s against Jewish and Eastern European workers and is now being heard in the European Union against migrant workers of Arab and African origin. Unemployment and the devaluation of the labor force are part of the nature of capitalism as a mode of production. With racism and reactionary speeches, it is intended to distract US workers. UU. Of the main causes on the basis of its problems, among which the crisis of overproduction and overaccumulation, which began in 2009 and has its epicenter in the USA, stands out. And that in its eighth year continues to devalue the labor force, hitting social and labor rights. The multinational working class that conforms the American proletariat is also as exploited as the working class of other countries, in order to increase the super-profits of the monopolies, and the relocation of the industry that once devastated important cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg , Minneapolis, has as its fundamental motive the maximization of profits of the monopolies of the different branches of industry.

It is equally false that the attack on migrant workers and the protectionist measures promoted by Trump will put an end to the crisis of the capitalist economy. The deepening of this crisis is underway and, consequently, a greater attack against the whole working class and all the workers of EE. Which in the immediate future will mean brutal cuts to health services and welfare , further cuts to public budgets to sustain capital gains and rescue failed industries.

The racist attack on workers, intrinsic to bourgeois domination, grows in times of crisis, and the class response must also increase. The only answer to the capitalist crisis - which already manifests the historical limits of private ownership of the means of production and change - is to fight for the unity of the working class and its political demands, first the workers' power and Socialism-communism; There are no middle terms or previous seasons, and whoever says that in fact will be seeking to prolong the agony, and consequently the calamities suffered daily by the working class and the working family, as well as the popular sectors and peoples of the world.

We do not want the border wall, the Israeli wall against the Palestinian people, or the concentration camps against African and Arab migrants in the EU, nor the abusive racist measures of the Mexican immigration police against our Honduran, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan working brothers , Haitians. The suffering of the proletariat, which in many cases finds its death in seas and deserts, leads us to argue that it is not with nationalism or populist rhetoric about national sovereignty that imperialism will be confronted, but with proletarian internationalism.

Communists, knowing that it is not a simple, easy, or instantaneous task, will work for the unity of the working class of Mexico and the US. But also of migrant workers of other nationalities against the monopolies that exploit and oppress us together.

Immigrant labor is and has always been an essential component of accumulation, since both overexploitation and the extraction of surplus value derived from it are so much greater. Proclaiming racism against migrant workers, the bourgeoisie seeks to antagonize and create conflicts among the various sectors of the working class in order to reduce the value of its workforce. Only the unity of the workers, we reiterate, will open a certain path, without chauvinism, without nationalism.

The struggle against Trump and US imperialism is linked to the struggle against monopolies and capitalism in Mexico, so the old bourgeois formula proclaimed with vehemence in the last days: "national unity" is false.

Popular sovereignty is not in the interest of monopolies, because their only homeland is profit. Only when capitalism is overthrown and labor power triumphant, sovereign interests over energy, land, industry, natural resources, seas, frontiers will be guaranteed. This is possible in the context of the construction of socialism-communism in our country. There are conditions that mature for this work to fructify.

History teaches us how throughout the twentieth century, on the occasions when the working class adopted "national unity", it mortgaged its independence as a class subordinated to the interests of the bourgeoisie, which it took to maximize its profits and affirm its domination. With the "national unity", labor-management pacts were repeatedly signed, labor force was devalued, austerity measures were accepted, freedom and democratic and labor rights were restricted. Interclassist pacts have always been to the detriment of the workers; In Mexico, entrenched populist efforts that advanced in the concentration and centralization of capital and produced a period of stabilization that favored the ruling class.

The "anti-imperialist" rhetoric, plagued by an anti-American discourse, disguised the interdependence bonds woven between the monopolies of both nations, which were strengthened with the signing of NAFTA in 1994, while the ideology of "national unity" Was filed for other times.

But today the ruling class has found it useful to remove this policy of "national unity" with several objectives, first of all achieving the unity of the bourgeoisie itself and its political expressions, from the right and liberalism to social democracy and the new social democracy .

In his speech in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, López Obrador immediately called to close ranks with Peña Nieto, forgetting without flushing that he considered him an illegitimate president, while he was, of course, the legitimate president of Mexico. In it he presented a series of measures that a few days later adopted Enrique Peña Nieto. In the same direction, all the employers' chambers, the registered parties, the legislative power, the media, the organic intellectuals of the system were quickly aligned. In the whole ruling class there is a consensus on "national unity," and the greatest spokesman is Carlos Slim, head of one of the monopolies that obtain the most supergrances.

The measures that drive are false exits, placebos, verbiage, demagoguery. Deceptions, in a word.

In the midst of this fever of chauvinism, the monopolies will find the way to negotiate with Trump and imperialism new rules that favor them, agreements that can be foreseen will have a secret character and backs of both peoples. In addition, they are paving the way for the management of the new social democracy of MORENA and López Obrador, which in these days have joined the monopoly of TV Azteca and former Interior Secretary Esteban Moctezuma, win the Presidency in 2018.

But even above these objectives, it is above all to mitigate the class struggle in our country - which was accentuated with the beginning of 2017, after the effects of the capitalist crisis that is recharged in the popular economy, in the pockets of The workers, with the petrolzo, the scarcity, the wild increase of the costs of the commodities, the transport, the services, and the waves of protest, that although spontaneous for now, express the potential of struggle of the working class and The popular sectors against the power of monopolies.

The Communist Party of Mexico calls on the workers not to fall into the trap of "national unity", not to fall into the logic of interclassist agreements, or in the conciliation of classes, and to intensify the consequent struggle against imperialism that is In the first place the fight against the monopolies in Mexico.

The Communist Party of Mexico calls for the struggle to break with inter-state agreements such as NAFTA, and the new forms it acquires after the foreseeable changes in door to its architecture.

The Communist Party of Mexico calls for the organization of migrant workers on the northern border, beyond the borders of the great cities of the United States. And also on the southern border of our country, where our Central American proletarian brothers suffer from the Mexican Immigration Police similar humiliations experienced by the US Border Patrol.

Our call is to internationalism, not to nationalism; Our call is to class positions, not to "national unity". Our call is to unity with American workers, not with our executioners, our exploiters who are the class of the bourgeoisie, whose policies of hunger and misery force millions of workers in our country to seek better labor conditions in our country. lifetime; Those bourgeois who build walls of exclusion and social injustice in our cities and towns, around their luxurious residential areas and shopping centers, while the vast majority exploited survives with the indispensable.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee

https://divagacionesweb.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/partido-comunista-de-mexico-contra-el-muro-contra-el-imperialismo/

Google Translator

A surprisingly lucid translation from Google, how'd that happen?