tional left on imperialism goes way beyond these questions of negotiated peace and deals. It involves the whole strategic question of how to confront imperialism today. This debate is skewed by a mas sive collapse to the right, under the impact of the collapse of the Berlin wall, the defeat in Nicaragua and the Gulf war.
Social democratic currents in the Brazilian Workers Party and other sectors of the Latin American left, for example, theorise that it is possible to do a new deal' with imperialism which avoids semi-colonial subjugation. From this perspective, the end of the cold war and superpower rivalry has created conditions for a new third way' between utopian models of soThe question of power revolutionary movement can only become the government party, ortake part in government, with the perspective of a more-or-less rapid mobilisation of the masses to take power. This is not because of some doctrinaire imperative learned from textbooks or a line-by-line study of Lenin and Trotsky; neither is it because of an abstract sectarian tims of imperialist exploitation.
This kind of theorisation underpinned the extraordinary declaration of the Salvadorean FMEN leader Jaoquin Villalobos that El Salvador 'cannot be con sidered a capitalist country.
The idea that, freed from the conflict with the Soviet Union, American imperialism can be made to see that it is in its interests to adopt a benevolent attitude to the 'third world', is actually the height of utopianism. For the simple fact is that it is not in the interests of US capitalism, in a period of crisis, to extend largess to the third This kind of theory replaces a materialist economic-political theory of imperialism with an idealist geo-political one: that at model. It is because of the dynamics of the class struggle.
A revolutionary movement in the government signals alarm for the bourgeoisie and the mo bilisation of counter-revolution to overthrow that goverment. It means a race between the mobilisation of revo lution and the mobilisation of counter-revolution. For revolution to win this race, a revolutionary government has the heart of imperialism was the confrontation with the So viet Union.
In fact the no tion of a third way' for the third world had much more going for it in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, bourgeois nationalism in the third world was much stronger. It was possible for the ruling layers in some third world states (for example the oil exporting states) to negotiate a new arrangement with imperialism, which gave the indigenous ruling classes a greater share of imperialist super-profits. Naturally, the benefits of these new arrangements stayed largely in the pockets and Swiss to take imme diate measures to answer the concrete material needs of the masses, and that means challenging the economic power of the bourgeoisie. It means acting in a way to deepen the self-organisation and mobilisation of the masses, including measures of workers control, and, for elementary banks accounts of domestic rul ers. But the living standards in many third world countries did improve. Some more radical nationalist goverments did develop the material infrastructure of their country with some benefits for the masses - although this was never a 'noncapitalist' model of development.
This relationship of forces has now totally collapsed, under the weight of the world eco self-defence of the masses and their social gains, arming the working class. The precise timetable of so cialisation of major industries is not the issue here. The Bolsheviks carried out their major naeither repression of the mass movement or going ahead with the nationalisations.
But he never hid the fact that he considered that the revolutionary forces had too little expertise industry themselves and a more gradual transition would have been preferable. In this case politics -the dynamics of the class struggle - overrode strictly 'economic considerations.
To many, including in Latin America, this kind of discussion seems totally unrealistic in the concrete conditions of Brazil to Discussing in one care day. There are two arguments used for saying it is unrealistic: first, the international balance of class forces, second the state of domestic politics in that country. If either of these arguments were valid it would be necessary to say that it would be irresponsible for the Workers Party to take the goverment under such conditions. And it would be necessary to ask what kind of political profile and practice had enabled the PT to take the government when a real workers' government were I not on the agenda. to create political democracy theory + practice • No Historic Compromise with Imperialism • page three In any case, the assumption of goverment by the PT in the most populous country of Latin America would profoundly modify the international relationship of forces. It would electrify Latin America and be an important element for the remo bilisation of mass movements of the oppressed. Brazilian domestic politics would be totally re-cast.
A PT goverment would immediately be on trial: either it would progressively take meas ures in the interests fo the workers, or it would capitulate to imperialism and domestic reaction. If it did the former, it would ace a tremendous campaign of destabilisation by imperialisn and the domestic bourgeoisie. Its only answer would be the revolutionary mobilisation of the workers.
An historic compromise with the domestic ruling class is even less likely than a compromise with imperialism Imperialism has had to tolerate post-capital ist states for a long period; the domestic ruling class will tolerate nothing which challenges its power and privileges. An attempt at marginal reforms would totally discredit a PT government: it would be forced to administer the austerity dictated by the crisis of the world capitalist economy. Most likely in this case the forces involved in the PT would split into class struggle and class collabo rationist components. Buta split implies a sector of the mass movement going into opposition to their govemment. A reformist solution would crash against the anti-capitalist dy-. namics of the mass movement.