Continuing
with our NOTES AND MATERIALS ON CONTEMPORARY PERU (III, continuation of Annexes
I, 2), we include the following as annexes:
I
2. Bureaucratic capitalism and the agrarian
process in Peru
Bureaucratic
capitalism is the capitalism that develops in nations oppressed by imperialism
and supported by a feudal or semi-feudal base. Our country, Peru, cannot be
understood if we do not understand these roots, these semi-feudal subsistences.
We must
also keep in mind that, as world history teaches us, the agricultural bases,
the agrarian bases, the agrarian production relations and particularly,
therefore, the feudal and closed relations of production color absolutely the
entire system from its deepest roots to its highest and most subtle parts. This
means that these agrarian production relations are the basis of the development
of the other social relations of production, as can be read from Lenin's quote.
"What
is "one of the reasons why in countries where smallholding predominates,
wheat is quoted at a lower price than in countries where the capitalist system
of production prevails"? (Capital, Vol. III2a, 340). The reason is
that the peasant hands over a part of the surplus product to society (i.e.,
to the capitalist class) free of charge. “These low prices [of wheat and
other agricultural products] are, therefore, a result of the poverty of the
producers and not, by any means, a consequence of the productivity of their
labor” (Capital, Vol. III2a, 340)” (Lenin, Karl Marx).
In Voz
Popular No. 5, 1976, p. XIV: “How to understand bureaucratic capitalism in
our country”, “How to understand the agrarian process in our country?”.
Here is
Lenin's thesis on the two forms of development of capitalism in the
countryside:
“Development
in a capitalist country can take two forms: first, the large estates remain
and gradually become the basis of capitalist exploitation of the land - this is
the Prussian type of agrarian capitalism, in which the Junkers are
the masters of the situation, their political dominance is maintained for
decades, and the peasants are subject to aggression, humiliation, misery and
ignorance; the development of the productive forces proceeds very slowly. The
second form, the revolution sweeps away landed property, the free farmer on
free land, that is, free of all medieval shackles, becomes the basis of
capitalist agriculture - this is the American type of agrarian
capitalism. It is the most rapid development of the productive forces under
the most favourable conditions for the masses and the people within the
framework of capitalism.”
Bear in
mind that Lenin did this by analysing specific situations that were expressed
in Germany; he saw that there was an evolutionary path, the large estates
subsisted and gradually became the basis for capitalist exploitation of the
land; it is evolutionary, it does not destroy the feudal system, it is the one
that costs more sacrifice, more effort, more pain, more blood, it is a flaying
of the peasantry through this evolutionary maintenance of medieval defects.
In contrast
to this path, the American path, the one that was expressed in the last
century, is the one that was also called the path of the “farmers”, it
sweeps away landed agrarian property; it was fully linked to and derived
from the (American) civil war that allowed its wide expansion. As long as
there are medieval burdens, one cannot speak of a free peasant.
“What is
developing in Peru is bureaucratic capitalism and what is developing in the
countryside is the process of evolution of semi-feudalism, while the American
path is the one that develops the democratic revolution, which we lead through
the people's war under the leadership of the Communist Party. These are
peculiar, different, concrete situations of the time in which we are
developing. Both paths have undergone modifications, concretions by the
course of the historical process. What is the essence of these two paths?
These paths occur in the concrete circumstances where we already have
imperialism, which has already been developing for a century and we are
an oppressed nation that has its peculiarities.”
Lenin: “In
reality, in the Russian revolution there is no struggle for ‘socialization’ and
other stupidities of the populists.” Populist is nothing but petty bourgeois
ideology. Lenin continues: “It served to determine which path the capitalist
development of Russia will follow: the Prussian or the American one? Without
understanding this economic basis of the revolution, it is impossible to
understand anything about the agrarian programme.” That is why they do
not understand bureaucratic capitalism, they do not understand the evolution of
semi-feudalism through petty-bourgeois ideological positions.
Lenin
continued: “All the Cadets, supporters of the big bourgeoisie, made superhuman
efforts to conceal the essence of the agrarian revolution. The Cadets
confuse and reconcile the two fundamental lines of the agrarian programs in the
revolution”; they confuse and reconcile both paths, reduce them to one,
complement them as if they were the same, when they are two contradictory
elements.
Lenin
continued: “In the period from 1861 to 1905, two types of capitalist agrarian
development were manifested in Russia: the Prussian, gradual development of the
landed estate in the direction of capitalism, and the American, differentiation
of the peasantry and rapid development of the productive forces.”
Commenting
on the above quote, the President says: That is what we are seeing here, saving
distances, due to historical conditions and considering bureaucratic
capitalism, we with the democratic revolution open the way for capitalist
development in the countryside, and so we must take into account how to manage
this process so that from the very base that is agriculture, a capitalist
process does not get out of control that prevents us from developing the second
stage of the revolution. We open the way but we are not going to let the
revolution go down a capitalist path that in the end would be a restoration and
return to the domination of imperialism.
But this is
not all, Lenin establishes a relationship between these two economic paths and
two political paths, he says:
“The true
historical problem posed by objective historical social development is this:
agrarian evolution of the Prussian or North American type, a landed monarchy
covered with the fig leaf of pseudo-constitutionalism or a peasant republic of
farmers; To close one's eyes to such an objective statement of the problem by
history means to deceive oneself and others, to avoid in a petty-bourgeois way
the sharp class struggle and the sharp, simple and decisive statement of the
problem of the democratic revolution."
The
landowner path is the path of bureaucratic capitalism and leads to the old
Peruvian Republic, to defend and sustain it. The peasant path is the path of the
democratic revolution and leads to the People's Republic of Peru. To not
see this political difference means to deceive oneself and others, it is to
avoid in a petty-bourgeois way the problem of the democratic revolution.
Lenin says:
"We cannot get rid of the bourgeois State, only the petty-bourgeois can
dream of such a thing: our revolution is bourgeois precisely because in it the
struggle is waged not between socialism and capitalism but between the two
forms of capitalism, between two paths of development, between two forms of
bourgeois democratic institutions."
The
revolution is democratic, but there are two paths here, as the VI and VII
Sessions of the Central Committee said in 1976: the bureaucratic capitalist
path and the democratic path. The second, as far as the countryside is
concerned, implies sweeping away all traces of semi-feudalism, sweeping away
the landowners and the big bourgeoisie that has power over the countryside,
whether exploiting it in whatever way, as well as the dominance of imperialist
action. As a counterpart, we support and defend the interests of the peasantry,
we base ourselves on the poor peasantry, we support the middle class and
neutralize the rich; this is dealing with the peasant problem, but the
democratic revolution asks us to sweep away the three mountains:
semi-feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism; and the basis of this
revolution is semi-feudalism, which we have to sweep away, yes, but that is
part of the other three mountains, we cannot separate them, the three form a
unit.
It is very
good to see the agrarian problem, because the peasant question is a basic
problem of the democratic revolution; but let us always consider it within
everything that the democratic revolution implies, the overthrow of the
three mountains, which requires people's war, overthrow of the old State and
the creation of the People's Republic of Peru. This great thesis of Lenin
is basic to understand the agrarian program within the democratic-national
revolution. There are those who consider that these two paths are no longer
valid, a great error that only serves to cover up support for the agrarian
measures of the landowning path.
The
document says: “It is developing under new conditions, bureaucratic
capitalism... uses cooperative and associative forms in general.” Today this
landowning, bureaucratic, evolutionary path of semi-feudalism is developing but
it is specified in another way, it is no longer about cooperatives, nor
about associative forms in general; we must investigate ourselves again and
better define our policies to handle the current process.
The
document goes on to say that the peasant path has been extraordinarily
developed by Chairman Mao Tsetung and that the slogan “Land for those who work
it” is still valid, fully valid, it is a slogan that directly continues to
imply the complete and total destruction of all semi-feudal relations of
exploitation and serves all the constituents of the people because the
proletariat, the petite bourgeoisie up to the national bourgeoisie are also
interested; the specifications have to be seen with what we are proposing
today, with the concrete circumstances of 1990, with the plans of the reaction.
The
document says: “Mariátegui suggested that Peru was following the path of the
landowners, we can see this in the final part of the Seven Essays...”
The
document continues: “This is the path that has been followed in Peru, as
Mariátegui demonstrated, a path that was promoted in the 1920s and that has
been deepened since 1950, especially in the 1960s. (In that decade, Pérez
Godoy's basic law was passed; in 1964, Belaúnde's 15237 law was passed; and the
so-called “agrarian reform” law, 17716, by Velasco, in 1969). Three agrarian
laws were passed, characterized by restrictions and limitations on feudal
property, expropriation of land, and execution by the bureaucratic apparatus of
the State. We could not say, therefore, that feudal property today is the
same as it was before the three agrarian laws. He says: “In short, as it
could not be otherwise, this regime, like the previous ones, develops in our
country the old landowning path, only that it is accompanied by cooperatives,
Sais and associative companies of social property.” This corresponded to the
year 76 and although it is correct and governs today, we need to specify how
the two paths are developing in the countryside.
The
landowning, bureaucratic path, which evolves feudalism, which brings
bureaucratic capitalism to the countryside; and the democratic, peasant path,
which develops as a counterpart to the previous one and which we with the
people's war, leading the democratic revolution are carrying forward,
destroying semi-feudal relations and opening new social relations; a peasant
path that can be coupled with the old order if the revolution does not develop.
We insist, the land problem continues to be the basic problem of the democratic
revolution and we must always worry about it, see how the plans and policies of
the reaction are being specified, how we are printing changes in the
semi-feudal base of Peruvian society. We need to correctly judge this process of
parcelling out, the dispossession of lands, the titling, the ownership of land.
What are the results of the so-called agrarian reform, what do the
intellectuals propose, what do the revisionists and opportunists propose? We
need to be concerned about this problem, especially if we are in the process of
building the conquest of Power.
(Extract
from the document of the II Plenary Session of the CC of the PCP, 1991, already
cited)
3. Genesis of capitalist ground rent and ideas
of special importance for backward countries
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