General Strike to General Election
The recession had evolved into a full-blown depression by 1977. With the sole exception of Chile under Pinochet, no other country in Latin America's recent history suffered such...
...Formation of the CCUSC was an important turning point in leftist efforts to unify the labor movement...
...Although there were indications that major military figures in all three services wanted the elections scrapped, Morales Bermddez was committed to carrying out the drama...
...Textiles expulsan a Apristas," Amauta, August 16, 1979...
...The Left's vote was particularly strong in the working-class neighborhoods and shantytowns near the major factory districts...
...Clasista workers were elected recently to union posts on several of the north coast sugar estates, APRA's traditional stronghold...
...THE GENERALS STAGE A RETREAT With unaccustomed candor, the military regime officially designated 1978 the "Year of Austerity...
...Whatever prestige the military had achieved in the early Velasco years was now lost, and many officers dared not appear in uniform in public...
...NovlDec 1980 2526 NACLA Report 10-77, allowing factory owners to fire any worker involved in the strike...
...3 1 While these plans angered workers who understood that such a "Taiwanization" strategy could only be implemented by maintaining wages at depression levels, they also gave pause to the politically conservative Industrial Society (SI...
...In November 1977, Morales Bermfidez announced that elections would be held the following June to select a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution and, provided that document "reflected the changes brought about by the military," the government would be handed over to a civilian regime in 1980.14 ELECTORAL POLITICS RESURGENT The generals' retreat into elections forced them to come to grips with an essential fact: during their decade in office, the reformist regime had never been able to construct an organized base of support...
...And, after clasista unions led a 42-day strike of 40,000 textile workers in February and March 1980, approximately 50 textile unions routed the Apristas from the Textile Federation--the last significant industrial federation they controlled...
...But in June 1977, after the government implemented still another round of price increases demanded by the IMF, a wave of mass protests swept through the southern Andean provinces...
...28 (June 1980), pp...
...The government-controlled daily press quickly began to extend favorable coverage to APRA, even though Haya de la Torre at 83 was rapidly sliding into senility and ill-health.1" Meanwhile, the Left debated the nature of its participation in the elections for the Constituent Assembly...
...By 1977, about 40% of Peru's economically active population was unionized, of which approximately 65% was under leftist leadership...
...business press speculated grimly on the international impact of a Peruvian default on its $8 million debt.19 Under intense foreign pressure, the government announced the most draconian of all its "austerity packages" on May 15...
...Only along the north coast, an area traditionally dominated by APRA, was the strike less than fully successful...
...But, as the military learned to its dismay, new and more difficult problems were arising, and Belatnde was soon under attack from both the organized labor movement and the industrialists...
...At least nine workers, including three women, were killed by police and army troops...
...For background on private loans to Peru, see Stallings, "Privatization...
...Miami Herald, June 20, 1978...
...Blanco pulled together 13 groups, including some from the UDP, to form a second leftist front, the Popular Worker Peasant Student Front (FOCEP).' 7 Finally, the more reformist sectors of the Left ran their own slates of candidates, one headed by General Leonidas Rodriguez Figueroa and his newly-formed Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR), and the other led by the PCP-U...
...Much of the material in this section is based upon the author's reporting from Peru for The Guardian between April 1978 and March 1980...
...From the mines in the central Andes to the fishing towns on the coast, the general strike was a spectacular success on its first day...
...strike for the last 15 days, took on the appearance of a war zone with all access by train or car blocked...
...Financial Times, February 7, 1978...
...In early January, PCP Central Commitee member Ventura Zegarra Arafia accused the party's Political Commission of using the PCP's weekly newspaper, Unidad, to distort the party's official line on the character of the military regime...
...THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS The elections for the Constituent Assembly went off as scheduled onJune 18, with the international press proclaiming Haya de la Torre and his Aprista Party the big winners...
...But the initial euphoria of victory was shattered that evening when the PCP leadership in the CGTP announced that the workers' purpose had been achieved and that workers should return to work...
...3 4 AIFLD's lament that the prospects of its affiliates in Peru were not "optimistic" could not have been more true...
...THE THIRD GENERAL STRIKE As soon as the CUL and the CGTP announced a 48-hour nationwide general strike for May 22-23, police began to arrest hundreds of union leaders and leftists...
...Within the Assembly, the 30 leftist deputies campaigned for constitutional provisions which would guarantee workers' rights and offer protection against government repression...
...5 (November 1963), p. 5. 9. American Institute for Free Labor Development, "Country Labor Plan: Peru, 1977-1978," typescript...
...Workers called it their "Year of Misery...
...The Aprista-dominated Workers' Confederation of Peru (CTP), founded in 1944, drew its strongest support from the sugar workers of northern Peru (Haya's home territory), textile workers, some mining unions, drivers and some white-collar employees...
...Nearly one-third of the wage laborers of Peru went out in one of the 779 strikes which cost industry 20.3 million hours of lost labor time...
...Suddenly the party looked weaker and unsuitable...
...9 This would be backed up by "publicity assistance" to promote a "democratic trade union image...
...The entire community became involved with each strike action in the neighborhood, and residents twice blocked the central highway...
...But the ruse had worked...
...Beyond a doubt, 1975 was the most conflictive year in Peruvian labor history...
...Interview with Victor Villanueva...
...NovlDec 1980 2122 NACLA Report Armored Division of the Army...
...The workers' ability to defend and build their clasista movement depends, ultimately, on the Left's ability to overcome the bitterness of the last electoral campaign and find ways to centralize a labor movement still divided into separate confederations...
...With the PCP's own worker and student members joining the militant upsurge, the CGTP's leadership finally agreed to a proposal from the clasista forces, to replace the CCUSC with a more unified left front...
...Since early in the Velasco period, said Zegarra, Jorge del Prado and others had "exaggerated the positive aspects [of the regime's reforms] and hidden its deficiencies...
...30 NACLA ReportNovIDec 1980 31 BELAUNDE, ONCE AGAIN The Left's disunity was all the more disappointing in that the industrialists and other center/right political forces were also deeply divided...
...The elections are merely a framework, a pretext...
...See Table 5...
...When May 22 dawned, the streets of Lima, a city of five million, were virtually deserted...
...Writing its 1977-78 "Country Labor Plan" for Peru, the American Institute of Free Labor Development (AIFLD) noted that their favorite confederation had fallen on bad times...
...For an analysis of the Left's constitutional proposals, as well as those finally adopted, seeJavier Diez Canseco...
...3 0 If Belainde's first months in power did not please the workers, neither did they overjoy the industrialists...
...For the first NovlDec 1980 2728 NACLA Report time in Peruvian history, revolutionary leaders appeared on TV to denounce bourgeois parties and the military regime...
...The call for a single coalition also reflected pressure from the base...
...In a display of impartiality to give credibility to the electoral process, the military allowed all political parties and coalitions free access to television time...
...Despite these problems, however, workers launched more strikes during the course of 1979 than in any year since 1975, as Peru's reconciliation with the international banks took its toll...
...On June 28 the government announced its most drastic "austerity" package to date...
...Since a "state of emergency" was still in effect and striking workers could be fired, the government thought it could undercut the strike by a massive propaganda blitz, and by pressuring private bus and van owners to run their normal routes.' 0 By early morning on July 19, however, workers in the major squatter settlements which surrounded Lima had blockaded the highways leading into the capital, threatening to stone and burn any bus attempting to break through...
...In the industrial zone of Vitarte, a few miles from Lima on the central highway, spontaneous popular resistance began to take on a new form which linked factory struggles to neighborhood protests...
...Apart from the independent federations led by Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists and the CGTP, the new Unifed Struggle Committee (CUL) included the breakaway sector of the government's own CTRP as well as the small Christian Democratic CNT...
...Protests broke out spontaneously all over the country...
...Most of its Lima affiliates split to join the new clasista coalition which cut across existing confederations, the Clasista Trade Union Coordinating and Unifying Committee (CCUSC...
...7 Reflecting the concerns of many industrialists whose companies could ill afford a further collapse of the internal market, the Peruvian government resisted some aspects of the IMF plan, and several key officials resigned...
...Further, employers discovered that Decree Law 10-77 would give them a legal pretext to "rationalize production" during the depression, firing workers with seniority and cutting back the labor force without having to pay severance benefits...
...Faced with intense internal and external pressure, the PCP extended its support for the second general strike...
...2 1 If nothing else, his decision to press ahead with elections in the midst of intense political unrest demonstrated that the regime had run out of options...
...Numerous factories in the area tried to cut back their work force in violation of Peru's labor laws, and the workers responded with strikes and the seizure of several factories...
...Interview with Vanguardia Revolucionaria leader Edmundo Murrugarra, Lima, April 1978...
...7.Journal of Commerce, August 24, 1977...
...The supposedly anti-imperialist government which won admiration among third world nations for standing up to the United States was now being dictated to by the IMF...
...One positive note was the unification, at least for the time being, of most parties of the Left into a single coalition, Left Unity, for the November 23 municipal elections...
...Initially, the strongest force in the CTRP was Tantalein's fishermen's union, but the thrust of this proto-fascist movement was broken by its inability to pay for its corporatist programs, and by the closed ranks of leftist-led workers...
...With the sole exception of Chile under Pinochet, no other country in Latin America's recent history suffered such economic devastation in such a short period of time...
...Average real wages by 1978 had fallen to 57% of their 1970 level...
...In strictly economic terms, Peru entered the 1980s poised for a new period of capitalist expansion and accumulation...
...In 1980, when Belafnde returned, he inherited a radically transformed nation...
...CUL's unity had been broken, and the strike was a failure...
...Ari is also the Quechua word for yes.] The uniting of the Left, according to one liberal commentator, "shattered the electoral scheme" by which the military planned to transfer power to civilian leadership...
...What was truly remarkable, however, was that the Left, despite being divided and forced underground a month before the voting, won 30 % of the vote...
...curfew, threatening to shoot anyone moving through the streets...
...The military regime, after 12 years of power, looked for three main criteria in a new civilian government: 1) it must be a strong and "responsible" political force, capable of governing effectively and halting the advances of the Left...
...15-16...
...2 0 Workers living in the shantytowns had blocked every major highway leading into the capital...
...6 This understanding formed the basis for a coalition of 18 left organizations, the Popular Democratic Unity (UDP...
...But despite the ever more reactionary policies of the government, Jorge del Prado and other PCP leaders maintained the party's general support of the regime, arguing against militant actions which might provoke a coup by more right-wing generals...
...Nov/Dec 1980 3132 NACLA Report NO HONEYMOON FOR BELAUNDE Besides growing to twice its 1960s size, the labor movement was now largely under militant clasista leadership...
...6. Stallings, "Privatization," p. 12...
...After the PCP pulled out of theJuly strike, rank-and-file members of the PCP had publicly criticized their own leaders, and many remained skeptical...
...The nationwide general strike on May 22-23 involved about one million workers, about 70% of the workers on strike during the year, and 20 million (55%) of the hours lost...
...On June 20, they arrested hundreds of union leaders, workers and students...
...History will judge us, but as usual it will be the masses who will pay dearly for this failure...
...In consequence, Peru's incidence of typhoid and other diseases shot up and by 1979, its infant mortality rate was the second highest in the Western Hemisphere.2 Anyone who knew Peru in the 1960s and then returned in the late 1970s can testify to the horrifying misery which was visible everywhere...
...Regarding the bankruptcy of Moraveco and the general crisis of Peru's automobile industry, see Actualidad Econdmica, no...
...As APRA's limitations in a post-Haya period became apparent to the military, the government-controlled press shifted its support to Fernando Belafinde, the very man the generals had ousted in 1968...
...The shanty towns which surround Lima and house half the capital city's population were turned into cordones de miseria, to use the phrase by which priests and nuns now characterize their parishes...
...The military then proclaimed Decree Law Militant southern provinces join nationwide general strike, July 19, 1977...
...Some 6,000 workers were subsequently fired, mostly union leaders and labor militants...
...The riots paralyzed several cities as demonstrators singled out the SINAMOS offices for attack, burning several...
...President Morales Bermfidez sent a handwritten appeal to the CGTP's leadership, imTable 6 STRIKES IN PERU, 1965-1979 Year 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976* 1977** 1978*** 1979 Number Number of of Strikes Strikers (thousands) 397 294 414 364 372 345 377 409 788 570 779 440 234 364 637 135.6 121.2 142.2 107.8 91.5 111.0 161.4 130.6 416.2 362.7 617.1 258.1 396.2 1,398.3 516.9 Percent of Hours Workforce Lost (millions) 7 6 7 5 5 6 9 7 21 18 29 17 20 70 26 6.4 11.7 8.4 3.4 3.9 5.8 10.9 6.3 15.7 13.4 20.3 6.8 5.0 36.1 7.9 Source: Denis Sulmont, El movimiento obrero peruano (1890-1980), resefia hist6rica, Lima: Tarea, 1980, pp...
...Electoral victory had momentarily revitalized APRA, enabling it to win back the leadership of a few trade unions lost in the early 1970s...
...Whereas the military had been generous with state subsidies, Manuel Ulloa, the Wall Street banker who had become Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and other U.S.oriented officials pushed for an end to inefficiency in Peruvian industry at the expense of weaker competitors...
...22 NACLA ReportVitarte residents stand fast against the police, 1976...
...and then I understood-- as we all do now--that this is not simply an electoral process...
...Latin America Regional Reports...
...15-16...
...THE IMF TURNS THE SCREWS In the midst of the election campaign, the regime reached its most serious economic crisis...
...Most aggrieved, however, was that sector of industry which produced for the internal market...
...THE IMF ADDS FUEL TO AUSTERITY'S FIRES Despite increasing repression, the clasista labor movement strengthened its organizing drives and even began to involve employees of state agencies--who were prohibited by law from unionizing...
...It included relative cutbacks in health services, housing and public transportation...
...The police lost no time...
...Many of the industrialists who had most enthusiastically embraced the regime's reform programs, such as Samuel Drassinower, were themselves on the verge of bankruptcy...
...Above all, the economy possessed a vast army of unemployed labor which could be hired at extremely low wages...
...government refused any further assistance...
...Unfortunately, this often resulted in the PCP-U's establishing parallel organizations and ignoring the clasista-led CUL, which only further divided the labor movement...
...As austerity measures cut deeper into people's pocketbooks, it also cut into progressive support for the government...
...The future was brightest for those industrialists who had positioned themselves in the Andean Common Market to sell processed fish and fish byproducts, cotton and alpaca textiles and specialized non-traditional exports...
...Stallings, "Privatization," p. 14...
...s Although prohibited from legally operating in Peru, AIFLD budgeted $182,650 for its activities there during 1977-78...
...But the government had already made a mockery of the elections by arresting 12 left candidates, driving other labor and leftist leaders underground and closing down Marka and other progressive periodicals...
...Faced with considerable popular resistance and damage to industrialists like Samuel Drassinower, the military government began to question its own ability or desire to implement the full austerity program demanded by the U.S...
...The FOCEP, led by Hugo Blanco, captured an unexpected 12% of the vote, the PCP-U and the PSR, 6% each and the UDP 4...
...And, the electoral arena, far from being a diversion from labor's upsurge, now became inextricably linked to preparations for a general strike...
...Workers in the major labor federations of Lima demanded that the CGTP support another nationwide general strike - the third in less than a year...
...As its name implies, the CTRP was to serve as the government's own labor central, its task to wrest the allegiance of workers away from APRA, the PCP and the growing clasista movement...
...But today's organized industrial proletariat, in which the clasista forces are concentrated, is still a minority within the Peruvian populace...
...5. Denis Sulmont, El movimiento obrero peruano (1890-1980), resefria histdrica (Lima: Tarea, 1980), pp...
...s These measures were renewed on a monthly basis for the next year, thus reducing the number of strikes during 1976 and 1977 to about half the 1975 level...
...See Francisco Durand, "La industria: Acomodos y conflictos," and Ursula Vallejos, "Reducci6n arancelaria: (Exabrupto tecnocritico o estratkgia conciente...
...Workers went out on wildcat strikes, and women demonstrated in the streets in many provincial towns...
...He promised one million new jobs, the rehiring of workers fired in strikes or for political activities, amnesty for workers charged with crimes during labor disputes, price controls and a regular adjustment of wages in line with inflation...
...Unity was to prove quite fragile...
...BUILDING FOR THE 1980 ELECTIONS As they prepared for the 1980 presidential elections, leaders of Revolutionary Vanguard (VR) and other groups within the UDP argued for broad unity around the candidacy of Hugo Blanco...
...But they faced a stiff struggle...
...The majority, however, recognized that even if the elections would be undemocratic in practice, they were a product of the military regime's contradictions and reflected a victory for the popular movement...
...The sharp increase in strike activity demonstrated that cutbacks in public services and preservation of high profits would not come easily, but this was not the only response to the government's austerity measures and price hikes...
...But by February 1979, his health deteriorated sharply and he was unable to play any political role during the last months of his life...
...Those earning the legal minimum wage could purchase only 30...
...The Minister of Labor incurred the owners' wrath by demanding, as Beladnde had promised, that they rehire some of the fired workers...
...On the contrary, it continued to foster illusions by pointing to the increased stature of several officers, especially the social-democratic General Rodriguez Figueroa, as evidence that the removal of Velasco was a victory for the Left...
...Patria Roja, a Maoist organization influential in the very large independent teachers' union (SUTEP), argued in favor of turning the CCUSC into a fifth confederation, but they were opposed by a majority of Vanguardia Revolucionaria, Trotskyist and other Marxists who argued that they should try to reconstruct a more militant CGTP from within the confederation...
...55-58...
...The downtown area is like a graveyard," said a Peruvian journalist...
...Not only did its civilian employees form a union, but some 98% of the civilian employees went on strikeOctober 6.El Diario de Marka, October 7, 1980...
...Despite bribery, coercion and force, the CTRP was never able to break into the large industrial or mining unions...
...Interview with Victor Villanueva, historian and analyst of the Peruvian military, Bloomington, Indiana, October 29-31, 1980...
...Backed by the Alliance for Progress, he was expected to institute basic reforms in Peruvian society designed to rid the country of feudalism, foster industrialization, and prevent the outbreak of a Cuba-style revolution...
...After the collapse of ARI, Belafnde portrayed himself as the savior of the victims of the military dictatorship...
...111, 205...
...As a result of its withdrawal from the strike, 26 NACLA ReportNovlDec 1980 27 the PCP soon split...
...They also won the right to vote for illiterates, thus enfranchising the peasantry...
...The basket contains only food, kerosene for cooking and bus fare to work--no clothes or other "luxuries...
...The PCP was not permitted this particular fantasy for long...
...Ironically, they had to turn to their traditional enemy, APRA...
...In the opinion of most officers, only APRA could offer such guarantees...
...The social welfare and labor legislation won by Peruvian workers over the past three generations was erased in a day...
...But when we tried to register voters we encountered an overwhelming demand by the masses for unity...
...1 Price increases, announced in "packages" several times per year, hit hardest at basic consumer goods - the food, fuel and transportation of the minimal market basket...
...2. Henry Dietz, "The IMF from the Bottom Up: Social Impacts of Stabilization Policies in Lima, Peru," paper delivered at Latin American Studies Association, Bloomington, Indiana, October 19-21, 1980, pp...
...As such, they urged the Left to "use the electoral forum to agitate, to expand the class struggle...
...In addition, radicalized priests and nuns also played a role in this process, asking that their parishioners reflect on the causes of their misery and opening their churches as sanctuaries for hunger strikers...
...Most UDP members considered themselves Marxist-Leninists, but the organizations ranged from the PCPMajority to some small Trotskyist organizations...
...al., Agresidn al trabajo y derechos sindicales en la nueva constituci6n, (Lima: Ediciones Amauta...
...4 Vitarte-like mobilizations mushroomed in the shanty towns surrounding Lima...
...Yet both the labor movement and leftist forces in general were deeply divided over how to lead mass opposition to the increasingly reactionary policies of the regime...
...Belafinde's election, perhaps more than anything else, signaled that APRA as a major political force might go to the grave with Haya de la Torre...
...ploring them not to weaken the nation during an international crisis by going out on strike...
...Even the dreaded Ministry of the Interior, a nerve center for repression, was involved...
...In October, AIFLD's Peruvian partner, the Aprista CTP, offered to secure Belafinde a modest labor base by sponsoring the organization of a Democratic Trade Union Front (FSD) composed of the CTP, a rump group from the Christian Democratic CNT and the national leaders of the CTRP...
...The govNovlDec 1980 2324 NACLA Report erminment retaliated by suspending all constitutional guarantees, instituting a nightly curfew and shutting down the leftist weekly newspapers, including the increasingly popular Marka...
...The caloric intake of Lima's lower income groups dropped 22% between 1972 and 1979 to only 62% of the minimum recommended nutritional level...
...Yet this support was again short-lived...
...SI's industrialists warned that they would not comply unless their taxes were lowered and new repressive labor legislation passed...
...And, as the firings of thousands of trade union militants during 1977-80 so clearly demonstrated, the organized labor movement is extremely vulnerable...
...3 2 As in Chile, the strong turn to export-oriented growth would nevertheless result in the ruin of many industrialists producing for local markets, especially smaller capitalists...
...Foreign exchange reserves had risen to $547 million by the end of 1979, indicating that intermediate goods upon which Peruvian industry is dependent could once again be imported, along with, perhaps, a modest quantity of basic foodstuffs to feed a hungry working class...
...On May 20, President Morales went on nationwide television to warn that such agitation could imperil the electoral process...
...Interview with a participant in the military regime's discussions with Haya de la Torre, Lima, December 1979...
...AP had decided to sit this round out, because the military had stacked the cards in favor of APRA...
...in Actualidad Econdmica, October 1980...
...The Left entered the 1980 elections with five presidential candidates...
...About 60 % of the workforce is underemployed, unemployed, or part of the independent small farmer/artisan class...
...In the first place, APRA's total was inflated by votes that would otherwise have gone to Popular Action (AP), the party of former president Beladnde...
...During interviews with the author in 1975, Haya was vigorous and articulate for periods of an hour or two...
...6 On top of this they recommended a further 30% devaluation of the sol...
...Calling themselves the Majority (PCP-M), many of the party's trade union members broke away, along with the Lima regional committee, most of the youth organization, several provincial committees and a substantial number of Central Committee members...
...In order to meet conditions for a loan from a group of U.S...
...2 9 But Belafinde's proposed 1981 budget offered no conjugal bliss to the workers either, election promises notwithstanding...
...Not only did Belafinde pull away half of the Left's 1978 votes, but an additional 100,000 leftist voters who selected their own candidates for senator and deputy shifted their presidential vote to Beladnde in order to prevent an APRA victory...
...Rather, it is a channel through which the masses are seeking to forge unity in struggle, but not just for elections sake...
...Other "labor disputes" affecting production are also included in these figures...
...A general strike already underway in the southern provincial capital of Arequipa was solidified...
...On February 27, Hugo Blanco attended a meeting of the ARI leadership to announce that he would forego unity to enter into an exclusively Trotskyist front...
...Still, the 12-year old military experiment in Peru has given rise to some very important changes for labor and the Left...
...The CGTP leaders were branded as traitors by the PCP rank and file...
...The reformist bloc led by the PCP-U also lost two-thirds of its vote...
...APRA's 37% of the vote gave Haya hope that the prize which had always eluded him -the presidency -- might at long last be within grasp...
...Some parties, such as Patria Roja, argued that elections were a reactionary conspiracy to derail the popular upsurge, and should be boycotted...
...By 1976, some of the strongest criticism of the CTRP came from its own rank-and-file...
...3. On Peru's labor confederations, see Sulmont, Historic, and Alan Angell, Peruvian Labour and the Military Government Since 1968 (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 1980...
...Private bus drivers who had attempted to run the general strike of July 19, 1977, made no such attempt this time, some out of fear, some out of respect for the workers and some because their profits would be hurt by the 100% increase in gasoline prices...
...If they wanted their voice heard in a civilian regime, they would have to seek out an alliance with a political party...
...LABOR'S VOICE IN THE ASSEMBLY The elections presented the government with a ticklish problem: many of the leaders arrested NovlDec 1980 2930 NACLA Report in May had been elected to the Constituent Assembly...
...This was due not only to the contraction of the depression, but also because the import of new capital goods during 1973-76 had broken all previous records...
...He then was cashiered from the regime before the year was up...
...Only the Soviet Union agreed to allow Peru easier terms for the repayment of debts incurred in the purchase of Soviet military equipment.' 8 Even some Peruvian capitalists began to suggest that a debt moratorium might be in order (something the Left had demanded), and the U.S...
...Furthermore, as in the late 1960s, the economy now possessed ample unused productive capacity ready to be set into motion...
...Right to strike and all civil liberties were suspended for a full year from August 13, 1976 to August 28, 1977...
...118-121...
...The road to unity was tortuous however...
...21-22...
...8. AIFLDReport, Vol...
...Based on the experience of the first strike, the attitude of the PCP was critical...
...Secondly, the fact that the rightist Popular Christian Party (PPC) received only 25 % of the vote was a blow to the conservative executives of transnational corporations who were backing it...
...But closer inspection of the election returns led to different conclusions...
...banks, the government decreed a 31% devaluation of the Peruvian sol, slashed government spending, ordered a hiring freeze and halted subsidies to state enterprises...
...CONCLUSION In the wake of the post-World War II industrialization efforts and a 12-year period of Bonapartist reforms, Peru is no longer the predominantly-peasant and semi-feudal country it was whenJos6 Carlos Mariitegui and the first Peruvian socialists formed the original CGTP...
...Yet, with a conservative government in Washington intent on turning back the clock in Latin America and a center/right government in Lima threatening to emulate the Chilean economy, Peru's workers and progressive forces will have to rely on all the lessons learned in Latin America in the past dozen years to maintain their victories and move ahead...
...His program, however, was an utter failure...
...Ironically, the Left's ability to organize in this period was strengthened by the unemployment of so many key militants who now devoted more time to political work in their own neighborhoods...
...Working-class women were seen weeping in Lima supermarkets as they realized the immensity of the impact on their families...
...Andean Group, November 7, 1980...
...Table 5 shows the cost of a minimal "market basket" required to sustain a family of six...
...At least 32 people were killed in the provincial insurrections and in the general strike itself, and the twelve arrested leftist candidates were deported to Argentina, including the major candidates of the UDP, FOCEP and the PSR, as well as the publisher of Marka...
...31 (September 1980), pp...
...Only APRA's weakened CTP remained on the sidelines...
...10-11...
...Under prodding from the IMF, state subsidies on these items were gradually eliminated...
...Clasista-led unions within the CGTP united with the independent federations through the CCUSC coalition to plan strategy...
...4. New York Times, July 24, 1976...
...Besides the teachers' union, the CCUSC's major support came from affiliates of the CGTP's powerful metalworkers' federation and from the copper miners of Centromin, the Cerro de Pasco mining complex nationalized in 1974...
...Despite the severe contraction of the internal market which brought many industrial firms to the verge of bankruptcy, profits as a percent of national income actually rose steadily throughout the depression...
...The Fund demanded that the government be even more stringent in its "stabilization" measures designed to reduce inflation by eliminating most of the budget deficit, selling off state-owned firms to the private sector, lowering tariff barriers and import quotas, raising even further the prices of fuel and food, and limiting wage increases to far below the inflation rate...
...Life on Lima's perimeter-a barriada...
...Led by AIFLD's long-time supporter, Julio Cruzado, the FSD claimed to represent "responsible democratic trade unionism,"' a phrase right out of AIFLD's book...
...20 (October 1979), pp...
...He has lived for five years in Peru and has written extensively on that country for the Guardian and other publications...
...and 3) it must grant the Armed Forces complete control over their respective budgets, promotions and assignments...
...In 1972 profits were only 17.5% of national income...
...From miners to state employees to doctors and nurses, labor launched 30 major strikes during Beladtnde's first month in office...
...The Left has no business coming into our neighborhoods asking us to choose between a dozen different revolutionary candidates for president," declared a textile worker who had been fired for organizing the expulsion of reformist leadership from her union...
...1, no...
...A few days before the nationwide action, the military fabricated an incident on the Ecuadorean border...
...12-13...
...In September 1980, the new government decreed a lowering of tariffs from a maximum of 120% to 60%, a move which set off a furor among owners of smaller and medium-sized firms...
...PAYING FOR BELAUNDE'S POPULISM In the 1960s, Belafinde was "Latin America's Architect of Hope," as Time Magazine portrayed him in a cover story...
...Supportive of Velasco's government, many CNT unions joined in the clasista upsurge as the depression deepened...
...For an analysis of the features of the impending recovery and its contradictions, see Felipe Portocarrero M., Criis y recuperaci6n: La economia peruana de los 70 a los 80 (Lima: Mosca Azul, 1980), pp...
...The strike was also total in most of the central and southern provinces, such as Cuzco...
...Blanco's FOCEP coalition had polled 12% of the vote in the 1978 elections and, though his Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT) was small, he was widely respected throughout the Left for his willingness to work jointly in mass struggles...
...They had not totally lost their grip on reality, however: given "Peru's current political climate," the Plan noted, AIFLD's "objectives cannot be any more specific or optimistic...
...On August 13, the government abolished the right to strike and permitted the firing of workers who violated this "national emergency...
...By 1979, the average wage for workers in Lima could purchase only 75% of such a basket...
...Foreign banks immediately cancelled a pending $260 million loan, and the U.S...
...16-17, 115-131...
...THE SECOND GENERAL STRIKE AND THE PCP SPLIT The struggle to rehire the 6,000 workers now became the central focus of the labor movement...
...and no...
...Hugo Blanco, the extremely popular Trotskyist leader, was allowed to return from exile during this period and criticized the UDP for not building its electoral campaign around an immediate socialist program...
...WORKERS MOVE TOWARD UNITY Employers had never seen anything like it...
...GENERAL STRIKE TO GENERAL ELECTION 1. Financial Times, December 6, 1979...
...In short, the IMF wanted Peru to commit itself to a zero or even negative rate of economic growth...
...Plaza Uni6n, through which hundreds of thousands of workers pass every morning on their way to the main factory districts, was deserted...
...For years AIFLD representatives had worked with the CTP to develop a union movement "free of destructive totalitarian infiltration," in other words, free from radical workers...
...They pointed to the Prime Minister, General Pedro Richter Prada, as a powerful reactionary force capable of a "pinochetazo" on the Chilean model...
...The PCP, for example, did not abandon the new Morales Bermfidez government, even though the party was now isolated from any influence within the ruling alliance...
...The hard-won unity achieved by the CUL was broken, and the most militant workers were left to face the government's repression...
...The government was forced to allow their release from jail or return from exile, although the leftist press remained closed for many months...
...Latin America Political Report (London), June 2, 1978...
...In February, the IMF declared the government in violation of its bail-out agreement...
...The fourth labor confederation was the Workers' Confederation of the Peruvian Revolution (CTRP), founded in late 1972...
...After a decade of rule, the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces was in serious trouble: * Corporatist schemes designed to make workers feel they were a "fully participating" part of the Peruvian "family" were in shambles...
...Following the PCP's lead, the CGTP, whose top leaders were still loyal to the party line, resisted any calls for a coordinated nationwide general strike...
...Wage demands deferred by four years of military repression and austerity programs were raised as soon as power changed hands...
...Although left and progressive forces approached the elections divided, the electoral process itself greatly deepened the politicization of Peruvian society...
...Del Prado agreed, ordering the confederation out of the strike...
...7 Thus in Peru, as in the United States, voters found themselves in a "lesser of two evils" choice...
...Six months after the July action, the CUL again called for a 48-hour nationwide general strike, to be held onJanuary 23-24, 1978...
...Different assessments of the Morales Bermidez regime by Peru's labor-based political parties made themselves felt in the corresponding trade union confederations.' Still the largest was the PCP-dominated CGTP, with approximately 170 affiliated unions and a total membership of 400,000...
...At the close of the first day, the government formally declared the strike illegal, giving factory owners full authority to fire all workers who participated...
...26 (April 1980), pp...
...Sulmont, El movimiento, p. 143...
...It encouraged an independent leftist, Genaro Ledesma, to split from Blanco's coalition and run as their own candidate for president...
...This, they agreed, would be "in the best interests of businessmen...
...Yet, as the deadline to register electoral coalitions drew near, except for the PCP-U and two small parties, all leftist organizations in Peru succeeded in forming the Revolutionary Left Alliance (ARI) behind the candidacy of Hugo Blanco...
...Portocarrero, Crisis y recuperacidn, pp...
...The complete English translation of a speech in which Blanco recounts his own history and explains his political perspective can be found in Intercontinental Press, September 18, 1978...
...Ibid...
...The owners of Lima's largest brewery lit trash fires in the furnaces to demoralize workers living in neighboring squatter settlements, but the residents knew that not a single brewery worker had entered the plant...
...Vitarte is a center of textile production, an industry hard hit by the contraction of the economy...
...The workers who carried on the militant union struggles in the 1970s were concentrated among the 200,000 men and women who work for the largest 5 % of all firms but who produce 75 % of the national product...
...Guardian, May 31, 1978...
...2 " THE COLLAPSE OF LEFT UNITY Right-wing observers proved correct in their wishful predictions that ARI was a "very precarious front...
...At a moment in which nearly every major organized labor group was developing a unified strategy to fight Morales Bermfidez' attacks on labor, AIFLD reported that its work in Peru would be "aimed at the rank and file in key unions being threatened by communists...
...In late May 1976, even though the entire workforce was on strike demanding their reinstatement, the Ministry of Labor ratified the firing of 250 workers from the Manufacturas Nylon plant in Vitarte...
...Food prices were allowed to increase by another 25-30% and real wages fell to below their level of eight . years earlier...
...APRA understood the military's bind and realized that Haya de la Torre's mystique and the party's disciplined organization made it the only political force capable of picking up the pieces and halting the Left's advance...
...and Denis Sulmont, "Sesenta dias de expectativas y lucha sindical," paper presented at Latin American Studies Association National Meeting, Bloomington, Indiana, October 1980...
...danger of war was near...
...At the same time the PCP-U, which had lost a significant portion of its trade union base in 1977-78, embarked upon a more combative course of action designed to reverse this trend...
...When it became apparent that workers were deaf to the pleas of Morales, the government declared a state of siege and suspended all constitutional rights...
...Belafinde's Popular Action party was a broad but still organizationally weak amalgam of liberal and centrist constituencies...
...Though hardly a dynamic political leader, Belatinde demonstrated that he could exploit the Left's divisions by speaking to the needs of the workers and middle sectors...
...They were met by 8,000 residents who blocked the road and fought police with rocks and clubs...
...See Table 6...
...With inflation already running at 80%, the prices of milk, cooking oil and gasoline were doubled overnight...
...I don't cry for the rupture of a friendship," said a VR representative, his voice breaking as he looked across the room at Blanco, "but rather for our failure to carry out the responsibility we had assumed...
...If the Left didn't unite, the masses were prepared to send us to hell, and justly so...
...The July 19 nationwide general strike involved some 272,000 workers, about 69% of the workers on strike during the year and 44% of the hours lost...
...As president of the 1978-79 Constituent Assembly, Haya mustered the strength to preside at the initial sessions and was politically lucid in behind- the-scenes negotiations with the military regime...
...If Belafinde expected a honeymoon period during which workers would withhold their demands, he did not receive it...
...Amauta...
...32 NACLA ReportNovlDec 1980 33 (Far be it for AIFLD to pack its bags and go home, however...
...By now the foreign private banks were refusing new loans to Peru without the IMF's blessing...
...Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1978...
...There was no doubt as to who paid the price...
...A violent clash with police in the central Andean city of Huancayo left four dead...
...Two days before the strike, on January 21, General Pedro Richter, Chief of Staff of the Peruvian Army, and General Paul Cabrera, his counterpart in Ecuador, announced on television that they had arrived at a "happy agreement" to settle their border disputes...
...Quite simply, the Peruvian military was unable to govern effectively and, recognizing this, began to organize a retreat from power...
...Never before in Peruvian history had the Left been considered an electoral threat...
...While this reflects a decline in influence for both the PCP and APRA, the schism in APRA opened with Haya's death has resulted in a particularly rapid loss of ground in the workers movement...
...That night the military imposed a midnight to 5 a.m...
...2 4 ARI continued to crumble as Patria Roja and other pro-China groups squabbled over candidates for senate and deputy seats...
...Instead, it was limited to organizing small non-unionized firms to at least give itself the credibility of an impressive number of affiliates which then formed parallel "federations" in each sector...
...24 NACLAReportNovlDec 1980 25 THE FIRST GENERAL STRIKE With the support of the PCP, the CUL issued a call for a 48-hour general strike on July 19- 20, 1977...
...And the exasperated electorate pretty much sent them all to hell- particularly Blanco himself, whose 12% vote in 1978 fell to 4.4...
...General Rodriguez was given temporary control of the mass media to entice him away from his command of the Lima-based Table 5 WAGES AND COST OF LIVING 1973-1979 (thousands of soles pe Cost of the Minimal "Market Basket"* for a Family of Six er month) Average Legal Wage/ Minimum Salary Wage 1973 4.9 5.2 2.4 1974 5.7 5.7 3.0 1975 7.6 7.2 3.5 1976 11.6 10.7 4.5 1977 15.7 11.9 5.0 1978 26.9 17.5 6.9 1979 (July) 59.9 29.8 12.0 Source:Jornal (July 1979), p. 23 *Elaborated by Actualidad Econ6mica from government statistics...
...Based on such an understanding, ranking generals had met secretly with Haya de la Torre (until his health failed) and other Aprista leaders on a regular basis before and After the 1978 elections to discuss politics, control of the labor movement, and plans for an orderly transfer of power...
...Denis Sulmont, "La huelga textil," Cuadernos Laborales (January-March 1980), pp...
...Others continued to push the confederation leftward from within...
...The third national group was the Christian Democratic National Workers' Confederation (CNT), an organization which dwindled with the declining fortunes of the party...
...Belafinde won 42% compared to 27.5% for APRA and 11% for the candidate of the right-wing Popular Christian Party...
...Even Popular Action leaders were surprised at the extent of their victory...
...But the strike continued successfully the next day...
...The Central Bank had run completely out of foreign exchange...
...APRA's loss to the growing clasista movement was a serious blow to the military regime's corporatist strategy...
...First, as we have stressed, the majority of unionized workers in 1980 are in clasista-led unions, an important change from the late 1960s...
...For a purely descriptive account characteristic of Western press coverage, see Hugo O'Shaughnessy, "Peru's Generals Abandon Power: A Grim Legacy for the Civilians," Financial Times (London), June 16, 1978...
...Hugo Blanco's remarks on the formation of ARI offered hope that years of sectarian infighting were at an end: To be candid, I had thought that we should each go separately in the elections in order to educate the masses and explain our different political positions...
...With middle sector incomes now severely reduced and workers' pay devastated, popular sympathy had swung decisively behind the most class-conscious and militant unions...
...Haya's death at 84 on August 2, 1979 unleashed a bitter power struggle within APRA between the left-of-center supporters of Armando Villanueva (who won nomination as APRA's presidential candidate) and the old guard represented by Andras Townsend...
...Cognizant of the government's vacillating posture, the IMF sent a mission to Lima in March 1977...
...After four years of gaping deficit, the import/export balance had turned positive again in 1978-79, due to higher copper prices, petroleum coming on stream and the vigorous output of the U.S.-dominated mining sector, in particular the just-opened Cuajone mine...
...As class struggle intensified under the military government, APRA's support from the textile workers, miners and its peasant affiliate continued the erosion process underway since Haya's sellout of workers during the Belaiinde period...
...2 * Leadership of the labor movement had shifted to the clasista forces...
...204-205...
...banks...
...by 1978 they had risen to 26.7% (See Table 3...
...The PCP-U was the first to exclude itself from any united left alliance...
...Although its affiliates came from all sectors of the Peruvian economy, in the last decade large unions of teachers, miners and fishermen had left or were expelled from the organization because they were too clasista for the cautious and pro-government PCP leadership...
...A bout the Author William Bollinger is an editor of Latin American Perspectives and teaches Latin American history in Los Angeles...
...In all cases, of course, workers involved in more than one strike during a year are double counted...
...2 8 The military had done the dirty work...
...The announcement was shattering...
...Government funds assigned to education would be reduced from 10.1% to 7.4%, and indirect taxes which cut most heavily into the poor's buying power would be increased...
...Those who remained--the PCPUnity (PCP-U)-accused the majority of factionalism, ultra-leftism, and serving as a cover for police agents...
...Arequipa, already embroiled in a regional general 28 NACLAReportNovlDec 1980 29 0o C. Relatives of workers killed during first general strike...
...In alliance with the rightist PPC, APRA was able to pass constitutional provisions making the government the ultimate arbiter of the right to strike and of union legitimacy...
...As the figures indicate, there were nevertheless quite a few strikes, although nothing approaching 1975...
...The owners requested that the government end the protest and, on June 4, a huge police force of assault guards was sent up the highway from Lima to clear the picket line...
...PRICE HIKES AND POPULAR RESISTANCE Even before Velasco was removed from the presidency, prices had increased 20-30% on most basic consumer items as the government sought to bring its budget into balance...
...2) it must guarantee that there would be no investigations of military corruption or government crimes...
...Actualidad Econdmica, October 1980, pp...
...As in Chile's economic "recovery" program instituted in 1973, Belafnde's economic plan was based on production for export...
Vol. 14 • November 1980 • No. 6
