New Alignments in Latin America

...Not from above, not in reviews and personal contacts, not in publicity in the daily press...

...This group consists in part of frustrated middle-class elements, of malcontents who have broken with the old parties and the ruling social structure and have set up miniscule parties which split and resplit, publish theoretical reviews, uphold Castro, systematically attack the United States, and oscillate between Moscow and Peking, neo-Marxism and Trotskyism...

...s THIS unfolding of events inevitable...

...But the Communists are not the only ones skilled in that art...

...The majority of LatinAmerican technicians have been trained abroad, although some are now being schooled in national institutions...

...This has either been forgotten or is ignored by those who rush to support these regimes under the pretext that they are reformist and nationalist...

...And they are reformist in that they intend to impose reforms from above...

...Today's young officers are inclined to do what the older officers had kept civilians from doing for over half a century, but they must operate under much more difficult conditions than in the past, when reforms were the hope of popular movements...

...Translated by STANLEY PLASTRIK...

...The tendency of which I speak is subterranean, noticeable only the last few years, and just beginning to flower...

...In reality, they simply support structural reforms, which are much more moderate than they realize...

...most of them remain totally passive or limit themselves to abstract polemics...

...This attraction for anything from abroad is even more pronounced among sociologists and economists than among engineers and architects...

...By an act of destiny known to them as the "Current of History," they feel themselves called upon to make the people's revolution...

...But long hours devoted to the unions, in the slums, among the peasants...

...Hence, after leaving school and becoming submerged in an atmosphere of exalted, abstract nationalism, these young officers find justification for the armed forces in vague (and often not so vague) dreams of military power...

...a refusal to look for sacrificial lambs in the Spanish heritage, "Yankee" imperialism, Soviet infiltration, etc...

...The decline of the Democratic Left in Latin America was inevitable because a political movement continually blocked from taking power , by military coups is bound to lose its initiative...

...The army must become something it obviously is not in Latin America, an effective social instrument...

...Like the other groups, they recognize neither the working class nor the peasantry, and have no NEW ALIGNMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA contact with or influence over the masses...

...They lack the slightest respect for the oligarchy whose place they propose to take...

...Upon their return home they want to apply model systems developed in societies quite different from their own...

...Democracy as understood in Latin America—formal democracy limited to elections and pretty much unrelated to social and economic life—does not satisfy the aspirations raised in these young officers by their technical education...

...These regimes are nationalist in the double sense of anti-Americanism and the drive to expand their power...

...Because they are anti-American and pro-Castro, they describe themselves as of the Left, but they are really elitists since they say that they, and they alone, can make "the revolution...

...Many of them have been educated abroad, and almost always in schools teaching them foreign models of social development...

...Majority opinion in Latin America will certainly be otherwise, but who will care...

...LATIN AMERICA is about to enter a new phase of its history that may be more important than either the decade of Castroism or the earlier period when middleclass parties were predominant...

...But when they are the product of rulers operating from above who resort to authoritarian methods, then neither more freedom nor a wider sharing of power results...

...Almost all come from the middle class...

...Except for the "Lumpen Left," none of these groups is interested in theoretical analysis...

...They share its frustration under the present oligarchic system...

...From their ranks are recruited the cadres who follow the doctrine of "disarrolismo" (or "development-ism," development seen as panacea...

...b) Young businessmen...

...The only antidote to pseudo-leftist, technocratic and military paternalism is to educate and organize the people so that they acquire the capacity to make their own decisions...

...And this is precisely what is happening in Latin America...

...Over the past few years, military regimes of the traditional type have multiplied in Latin America...

...They think of themselves as revolutionaries...

...Reforms that add to the sum total of wealth without a more equitable distribution are not revolutionary reforms...

...For that it must have a human infrastructure capable of transforming itself into a functioning unit...

...an anti-imperialism based upon antioligarchic considerations...

...Hence, the technicians are nationalists and reformers too, bowing in adoration before efficiency...

...He who aspires to power without possessing the strength to attain it by his own means must reach it by interposed persons or groups...

...Such an undertaking belongs not to large groups or movements but to small units and individuals...

...But the infiltration by technocrats, young officers and civilians, has rapidly promoted a change in their nature...

...Young Latin-American officers for the most part come from the middle class...

...This, they say, is the only way of "making things work...

...But the aspiration to power is intense, as is the desire to take political decisions which, to the first three groups cited above, seem to be no more than technical decisions...

...They are after political efficiency, which they call by resounding names: dictatorship of the proletariat, direct democracy, New Left, etc...

...Habitually impermeable by political ideologies, LatinAmerican technicians are nationalistic through contagion...

...But it takes little daring to foretell that in the years ahead Latin America will live through a revolution from above that will destroy the landed oligarchy, give an economic preponderance to the industrial bourgeoisie and political power to a new oligarchy of technicians, intellectuals, and bureaucrats...

...c) Technicians...

...We are accustomed to Communist infiltration...

...Not all the pseudo-leftists will play the game of the technocrats, nor will every law and decree promulgated have an overtly technocratic character...

...Begun originally as a scholarly obligation, then continued in search for an answer to their own needs, the reading of the works not so much of Marx as of Mao and Che Guevara has led them to desire both agrarian and fiscal reform...

...d) The Lumpen Left or, to use an incongruous term, the Lumpen Establishment...

...But now it has become clear to them that the army in Latin America is so strongly identified as policeman for the traditional oligarchy that more stringent measures are needed...

...Perhaps not, probably yes...

...Many of Latin America's young businessmen are the sons of businessmen, often educated in the United States or Western Europe, or in local schools teaching foreign techniques...

...There always are nuances, personal reactions and gestures...

...The paternalism of technocratic rule will inevitably be responsible for efforts to accumulate capital by a series of "forced NEW ALIGNMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA longer be able to threaten, as in the past, a shift to the Soviets...

...Convinced they know how to do things better than anyone else, they consequently feel they must run the country...

...It is not a matter of an organized, directed, and disciplined movement, as is the case of Communist infiltration, but rather a spontaneous cooptation brought about by an identity of viewpoints...

...This road alone can change the social structure of Latin America...

...Instead of a coup to maintain order, to arbitrate between oligarchic factions, or to end a demagogy threatening to get out of the oligarchy's control, we now have seizures of power to establish authoritarian governments with technocratic and developmental objectives...

...finally, the need to go to the masses, to awaken and organize them...

...True enough, events are never as simple as described on paper...

...Like the groups previously described, they have a profound distrust of the people...

...In the absence of freedom of criticism (and such freedom signifies not only free speech but freedom to compete peacefully for power), no increase in wealth is likely to lead to a better distribution of wealth...

...Aware that industry cannot prosper without a much larger national and continental market, they come to favor reform of the social structure (especially agrarian reform) because they see in this the most rapid way to create such a market...

...But since the existing society is hostile to this goal, it must be modified so that it will encourage an economy supporting modern armed forces...

...Reforms are revolutionary or progressive when carried out by civilians and at the base of the society, or when they result in a more favorable distribution of wealth, a broader freedom, and a wider popular participation in power...

...Such functions as "civic action" (that is, road building, education, etc...

...They are highly nationalistic, partly because one tends to distrust what one is imitating, partly because their immediate interests clash with those of foreign capital...

...And in rejecting the policeman's role, they have to find another mission...

...Nonetheless, the analysis of Latin America made by the Democratic Left stands: the need to have a diversity of political parties representing different classes, groups, interests, etc...

...This is not so simple, and explains why I believe a period of neomilitary rule, while not inevitable, is more than likely...

...Any system tending to delay recognition of the people's right to take part in political life is reactionary...

...The "Lumpen Left" who have been demanding an end to the Cold War for 20 years will then discover that, once it is over, their countries may be less protected than they have been in the past...

...On the contrary, the few existing liberties may be lost and even less participation may come about...

...N N ONE OF THESE four groups can take power in its own name...

...They acquired a sense of efficiency lacking in officers of the older generation...

...It would hardly be astonishing if Latin America, led by militarists and technocrats with the collaboration of the "Lumpen Left," should then enter a period of armed conflict, national wars, and other absurdities...

...Latin America's young businessmen, like the young army officers, are nationalists, reformists, paternalists, and obsessed with the notion of efficiency...

...the need for political integration of the nation...

...How, then, to take power...

...I contend that the situation analyzed above is not only the status quo but was foreseeable years ago...

...They, too, want to make use of foreign models, the only models they know...

...Because they are denied significant participation in political power, they feel frustrated...

...In Latin America, minimal participation means that the masses have their own organizations, that the trade union movement is independent, and that these bodies can carry out struggles...

...There will be many who steadfastly claim that, in spite of the methods used, this represents progress...

...They accept reform not in the spirit of justice but because it is a prerequisite to efficiency...

...that is, elections (more or less honest, according to the country), or coups d'etat...

...The solution seems obvious: by infiltration...

...Mao, Giap, and Guevara have further added to their conviction, characteristic of all officers, that society is to be governed by select minorities, and that it is up to such elites to manage social change and tell the people how it ought to be happy...

...They believe that bureaucratic worries are the image of democracy and that, usually, social problems must give way to purely economic and technological objectives...

...One must begin almost from the beginning...

...At one time, say a few decades ago, the young officers believed that they could restore the prestige of the armed forces by adopting a strictly constitutional, noninterventionist stance...

...Nor does simple national defense suffice in Latin America, where the only functioning service is the Inter-American System, that is, the mechanism encouraging the solution of border conflicts...

...Elitists, they would like to see themselves directing reforms and running the country...

...Characteristic of this new phase is the coming together of social groups which, though on the surface quite different, have common interests and conceptions: a) Young officers and a few of the older generals...

...They too are nationalist, paternalist, reformist, but not obsessed with efficiency on the technical level...

...When these fail because of obstacles placed in their path by the bureaucracy, or because of the persistent spirit of artisanship among many workers, or because of outdated banking systems, they lose patience...

...Their nationalism is expressed in antiAmericanism, yet the models they prefer to copy are American...

...which the army has carried out in several countries, is insufficient to give them a sense of mission...

...A further consequence may be that various governments, setting up the indispensable "enemy" in order to sustain a policy of demanding sacrifices from the people, might deliberately foment national rivalries, border conflicts, and thewhole rigmarole associated with expansionism...

...VICTOR ALBA The young officers, in a word, reveal four traits: nationalism, reformism, paternalism, and the desire for efficiency...

...Few among them actually become guerrillas...

...They believe that democracy, as a way of speeding up development, has failed, at least in Latin America, and they admire Soviet methods of development...

...Even when they occasionally become' allies, they lack sufficient strength to take power by means normal to Latin America...