Call to the ranks of the Historic Pact: Deep changes are won in the streets, not at the ballot box!
We address this call not only to the honest and fighting ranks of the Historic Pact, but also to the millions of voters who have also found in Rodolfo Hernández the way to express their rage against this corrupt, genocidal and starving regime. The surprising vote for Hernández reflects the weariness with the traditional political parties, and with his “anti-corruption”, “anti-political” message and his “independent” image, he channeled a substantial part of the popular indignation against the Duque government.
Both the vote for Petro and the electoral support for Hernández express the deep desire for change that encourages voters. The electoral defeat of Uribism is a direct effect of the national strike, and the high abstention also expresses the discredit of Colombian political institutions.
Disagreeing with the program and the class collaboration strategy of the Historic Pact; demanding that the trade union and popular organizations that support it call to resume the struggle and mobilization in the streets to demand from the government -whichever it is, now or after August 7- an immediate solution to the needs of millions; pointing out that the agreements with the traditional elites that the Pact has are unacceptable and delay the struggle and advance of the consciousness of the workers; we are ready to call to vote against Hernández, marking the box of the Historic Pact.
Change of manager or economic, political and social change?
In the elections the only thing the capitalists do, through their parties, is to change the board and the manager who will administer their business, taking over the state apparatus. That is the reason why all the candidates, including Petro, insisted on demonstrating that they can be trusted to guarantee the functioning of the Colombian capitalist economy. According to them, if businessmen increase their profits there will be welfare for all. Petro has tried to demonstrate that a “human capitalism” that ensures harmony and collaboration between social classes and care for the environment is possible. But the reality every day shows the opposite, as was evidenced in the national strike; for hunger, unemployment and violence harass daily, while the capitalists increase their fortunes in an excessive way, as Rodolfo Hernandez himself has done. What the workers and the poor are crying out for is a real economic, political and social change, not just a tinkering with the facade of the political regime and social welfare. What is needed in Colombia is a real social revolution.
Was Uribism defeated at the ballots?
For two decades, Uribism, which represents the economic interests of the most reactionary sectors of the business community -drug traffickers, cattle ranchers, landowners- has deepened the authoritarian, corrupt and genocidal regime with which the bourgeoisie has traditionally dominated Colombian society. Federico Gutiérrez represented the direct continuity of that regime and his high vote is the proof that “the snake is still alive”, in spite of his electoral defeat. With their hasty support to Hernandez they seek to adapt in the face of this defeat. The most retarded of the Colombian bourgeoisie has joined this support of Uribism. Since Rodolfo Hernández is just another businessman, and his substantial fortune is due to the merciless plundering of the housing needs of the poorest families, his triumph would be a new frustration of the expectations of the working majorities.
Petro and France: change collaborating with the bourgeoisie?
The two truly new facts presented in the national political situation have been the national strike, which changed the correlation of forces between the masses and the bourgeoisie, and the surprising electoral advance of Rodolfo Hernández. The insufficient electoral triumph in the first round of the Historic Pact is a direct product of the erroneous policy of its leadership in the face of the social struggle.
During the national strike Petro opposed the blockades of highways and avenues that put in check the businesses of the big capitalists and hit the Duque government. His only interest and that of the union bureaucracy of the National Strike Committee, controlled by the Coalitions of the Historic Pact and the Hope Center, was to return to tranquility in order to reach the elections. This year they opposed the April 28 and May Day protests. In addition, the Historical Pact absorbed Francia Márquez, who was trying to run as an independent candidate, and whose political trajectory reflected the radical nature of the social protest.
Together with his opposition to the independent mobilization of the youth and the working class, Petro’s electoral strategy has been to win the confidence of sectors of the bourgeoisie, incorporating into his Coalition representatives of the worst of traditional politics. With this conciliatory policy he contributed to repress the uneasiness distortedly expressed at the polls. This generated a stagnation of the Historic Pact and the meteoric rise of Rodolfo Hernandez, who in spite of his retarded, chauvinist, homophobic, authoritarian and classist contempt for “the little men” and “the little women”, as he contemptuously calls the working people, now has great possibilities of winning the presidency.
Two different governments facing the same crisis
Whoever is elected on June 19 and leads the government, Petro or Hernandez, they will be facing the same crisis, expectations and demands of millions. The solutions proposed by both safeguard the essential interests of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. For that reason, neither one nor the other will be “our government”. That is to say, we workers should not trust either one. Before one or the other we will have to organize ourselves, raise our demands, demands and fight for them.
However, there is a substantial difference. Behind a Hernandez government the most reactionary fractions of the bourgeoisie and landowners will openly line up, as they have already done for the second round, through the parties defeated on May 29, while behind a Petro government weak and minority bourgeois fractions will line up. While the political strength of Hernandez comes from the amorphous and dispersed expression of millions who desire change and renewal, the strength of Petro arises, to a large extent, from the strength of social, trade union and popular organizations, which through their leaderships support the Historic Pact. As revolutionaries, we are obliged to struggle within those organizations to conquer a new political and trade union leadership that breaks with the policy of collaboration and conciliation of classes, demanding from a possible Petro government measures much more radical than those proposed in his program. The government of class collaboration that Petro proposes, even though we are against it, expresses in a clearer way the development of the class struggle in the country and the possibility of, by building a revolutionary leadership, to propose the construction of a government of workers and peasants, without bourgeoisie, that applies a socialist program to confront the capitalist crisis to which neither Petro’s government nor that of Hernández will be able to give a solution.
Whoever governs, the real change will be won in the streets, in struggle and mobilization, not at the ballot box!
The honest and fighting ranks of the Historic Pact should call on its leadership to call to take to the streets to confront the Duque government, for immediate readjustment of wages that are being devoured by inflation, control of prices and tariffs, cessation of payment of the foreign debt to address the growth of poverty and other urgent social problems, rupture of all economic and military pacts with imperialism, among other demands. In other words, a platform of struggle for social mobilization.
We should not wait passively to be defeated in the second round. The place of struggle is not the ballot boxes where Petro and France hope to defeat Hernandez, but instead they block social mobilization. If the Historic Pact does not put itself at the head of the struggle it will be digging its own political grave and demoralizing its militants and voters. It is indispensable to break politically with the bourgeoisie and imperialism, radicalizing the program, and to prepare the mobilization of the protest against a possible electoral fraud.
Impulso Socialista and the Grupo de Trabajadores Socialistas will under no circumstances call to support in the second round a bourgeois businessman like Rodolfo Hernandez, but we consider indispensable the political independence of the working class in the face of the program and the pacts of class collaboration that the Historical Pact raises.
Our vote is against Hernández who is, today, an immediate and direct enemy to defeat. The political strategy of the Historic Pact will make that defeat very difficult. For that reason also, our call to vote against Hernandez means a call to fight against the policy that today is promoted by the Historic Pact; a policy to which the leaderships of the workers’ organizations have folded. We will mark the vote for Petro and Francia with the rage of those of us who fight in the streets.
To defeat this policy of class collaboration, of agreements with the bourgeoisie, it is essential, in addition to the struggle and mobilization, to advance swiftly in the development of a revolutionary political organization, that orients these struggles towards the only change that will guarantee to begin to satisfy the needs of millions of workers, exploited and oppressed: the seizure of power and the beginning of the construction of a socialist society. To this task we call to dedicate the greatest efforts!
For an immediate and general wage increase! For a freeze on prices and tariffs!
Against hunger, unemployment and corruption: no to the payment of the foreign debt!
No to the labor and pension reforms of the IMF and the OECD!
Freedom for those arrested for the National Strike!
Justice and punishment for the murders and rapes!
To the streets to fight, let us promote a new National Strike!
For a government of the workers and the poor!
For a revolutionary program against capitalism and its barbarism!
Whoever governs, the real change will be won in the streets, in struggle and mobilization, not at the ballot box!
Grupo de Trabajadores Socialistas – Impulso Socialista
Bogotá, 6 June 2022