For weeks now, bourgeois sectors that are in opposition to the government (Centro Democrático at the head) called for a protest demonstration against Petro’s reform projects on February 14. In response, Petro himself and the Pacto Histórico called for a support demonstration for the same day. Given the risk of confrontations, the march against Petro’s reforms was moved to February 15.
We find ourselves before a measurement of forces and a struggle in which, in the long run, the workers, the popular sectors, and the poor peasantry, will lose out if they do not manage to assume their own position, independent of both sectors, with a revolutionary program that defends both their immediate interests and demands and real, deep, effective solutions to the big problems that afflict millions; against which the uprisings and struggles of the previous years took place, and from which Petro and Pacto Histórico have benefited electorally.
The 15th is called by the reactionary past
The demonstration of the 15th is organized by the political forces that, together with others that, to better defend their interests, are now part of Petro’s government, are directly responsible for the most terrible aspects of the country’s past. They are responsible for the actions of a State and a regime that literally massacred the Colombian people, with thousands of disappeared, 6,402 false positives, and hellish levels of misery.
Petro’s electoral triumph put these forces on the political defensive. They are trying to reorganize themselves, to become a medium for the discontent, disillusionment and despair that may begin to deepen in the face of the incapacity of the current government to provide immediate, effective and real solutions to the needs of millions. Processes similar to the one in Colombia have taken place in several countries and demonstrations like this one are the means through which the most reactionary bourgeois forces raise their heads again.
We call on the trade unions, popular, peasant and social organizations to reject the mobilization of the 15th, since it must be pointed out as an attempt to return to the past. Faced with a government that does not respond to the social majorities, the solution is not the most reactionary bourgeois opposition that has already governed and is the one that brought us here. On the contrary, a strong unity with class independence is required to fight and demand from Petro’s government effective actions that fulfil the demands of the working people of Colombia.
The 14th defends a dead end
One of the main objectives of Petro and his closest followers in calling for the march on the 14th is to wrestle with the bourgeois forces that are part of his government so that they back his reform plan more decisively. Without the full backing of those forces, the reform projects, already quite timorous, will be watered down in Parliament; thus drowning all the illusions and hopes that millions had. If anything comes out of it, it will be just minor palliatives which, of course, cannot be opposed, but do not mean a deep and lasting solution to any of the enormous needs of millions.
Without going into an in-depth analysis of the different reforms proposed by Petro, at this stage of his government it is possible to conclude that he is fulfilling to the letter the essence of his program and political proposal: to attempt a capitalist development, alongside some factions of the bourgeoisie (Santismo, Samperismo and others), which does not question at all the economic and political dependence on imperialism. The pace and depth of the government’s reforms are determined by the bourgeois forces that, skillfully, before and after Petro’s triumph, repositioned themselves to control the overflowing process of struggle and mobilization of the Colombian people.
A single example proves this. The promise to make health care not a business would mean that thousands of clinics, laboratories and Health Service Providing Institutions, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, would cease to be businesses. Petro’s health reform does not touch them one bit. The promise of eliminating the EPS, financial intermediaries in the current system, which are only a part of that business, is fading fast. Now they say that they will be able to continue, adjusting to the new model. In short: so little for so much fuss!
Locked in the narrow limits of respect for the “institutionality” of the ill-named Colombian democracy, Petro’s government may end up like the dog, running around trying to bite its own tail. It is the reformist path that, due to the disillusionment it produces in the face of the lack of solutions to the problems, opens the way back to the reactionary past.
Opening a revolutionary path
The leadership of the trade union organizations, the bureaucracy that stopped and demobilized the strike of 2021, calls for the workers and their organizations to become the Petro government’s applause committee. They call to support reforms of which not even the final form is known yet. They call to mobilize without organizing and developing a democratic discussion among the rank and file on what is the most convenient position and, even worse, they call us to trust the Parliament controlled by the most rotten of the bourgeoisie’s parties. By those means, they sell out what is most sacred for the working class, the workers and their organizations: their political independence from the State and the bourgeois governments.
The order of the day is not to support or defend Petro’s government. The order of the day is to launch ourselves into the construction of a revolutionary alternative that opens up a new road, one of radical and profound transformations of the country’s economic, social and political structure.
It is easy enough to propose and even carry out reforms. But that is not what the Colombian people need. We need more than reforms, we need a real revolution.
We invite the organizations that defend Petro’s program but question how he is carrying it out to question the basis of that program. It is not the path of “deepening reforms” that will lead to real solutions. That is the so-called reformist illusion; totally and completely different from the revolutionary alternative.
Impulso Socialista and Grupo de Trabajadores Socialistas are currently in a process of unification, we are open to promoting everything necessary to open the revolutionary road that the Colombian people need; engaging, discussing fraternally, developing common actions with all the forces that decide to seek a road independent from those who defend the past with the march of the 15th and those who advocate the road with no way out by promoting the march of the 14th.
We reject the demonstration of the 15th. We do not promote, we do not support, we do not invite nor do we participate as an organization in the demonstration of the 14th. To the workers who participate in the demonstration of the 15th, we say: “you are in the wrong place!” To those who, still moved by illusions and desires for change, support or participate in the demonstration of the 14th, we say: “That is not the way, another road must be taken. We invite you to leave the reformist road, and join the revolutionary road!”
Grupo de Trabajadores Socialistas – Impulso Socialista
Bogotá/Medellín, February 11, 2023