Who the Hell is . . . Hugo Blanco?

This weekend you’ve got a unique chance to hear a heroic leader of the struggle for ecosocialism in Latin America speak in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Hugo Blanco has for decades been a key figure in fighting for the transformation of society in his native Peru, and for the rights of indigenous peoples. On Friday (Oct 15th) he’s speaking at an SSP rally for ecosocialism, which is starting at 7.30 in Partick Burgh Halls. Then on Saturday (16th), Edinburgh Uni Socialist Society is hosting a dayschool on ecosocialism and Latin America, featuring a whole raft of workshops on struggles from across the continent and Hugo, again. It’s on in the Dining Room of Teviot House, Bristo Square from 10.30 – 1.

As a warm up for these exciting events, we thought it might be a good idea to give you an idea just who Hugo is, so that you don’t miss the chance to come and hear him speak.

Before the invasion

To tell Hugo’s story, first of all we need to put it in some context. Peru was part of the Inca state, or Tahuantinsuyo, before the European conquest. Over thousands of years, the peoples of the Andes and Amazon domesticated 182 different plants, such as the potato, and knew thousands of medicinal plants. They constructed a careful system of ecological agriculture based on managing watersheds and terracing the slopes of the highlands. They built aqueducts to carry water to where it was needed, and an impressive system of roads and warehouses that stockpiled food and made sure that any local climatic problems didn’t mean starvation for the people.

The basis of their society was the allyu or local village community. In these communities there were strong ties not only between all the human inhabitants but also the ecology that they depended on, the animals and plants. Working together over the area of Tahuantinsuyo, which is now divided between 6 different states, the allyus were able to make sure that people had access to the products of three different ecological zones: the coastline, the mountains and the rainforest. It wasn’t perfect – there were privileged castes and wars, but there was no slavery or feudalism, as there were in Europe as agriculture had developed. More importantly, Tahuantinsuyo constructed what could perhaps be described as the world’s first welfare state: there was no starvation due to the system of food stockpiling, and the elderly, disabled, orphans or otherwise disadvantaged were taken care of, as part of a society based on collectivism and solidarity.

Civilisation under attack

This all started to change in the 15th century, with the arrival of European invaders. Even before the Spanish arrived in Tahuantinsuyo, their diseases had spread south in advance of them. Europeans were, ironically, more resistant to disease because of our unhealthy societies, based on inequality and without the more advanced protection of human health practiced in American societies.

At the time of their South American conquests, Europeans were in the process of moving from feudalism to capitalism, and used the wealth they stole from the New World to bankroll the process. In Tahuantinsuyo, mining moved from a marginal part of the economy to the centre of it, with indigenous peoples literally worked until death in silver and gold mines. They were treated as Europeans treated animals. The huge wealth that resulted transformed Europe and the world.

On the land, they tried to smash the agricultural collectives and impose feudalism. The best lands were divided among the conquerors, and their inhabitants became serfs on their own land, forced to work for the “owner” in return for the right to cultivate a small plot. They were never paid for their work for the landowner, and had to trek for days carrying produce, sleeping in the open. All the worst of the European feudal system came to – such as the landowners’ right to jail peasants he didn’t like, and to rape women with impunity.

Despite the achievement of independence of Peru’s independence from Spain in 1821, the system didn’t change much, and the government remained controlled by these feudal lords. However, for over 500 years the indigenous peoples have struggled to keep their collective traditions and society alive, and the region has seen numerous rebellions and uprisings. Today, despite centuries of oppression, these people are still there, and their ideas and society is taking on more relevance for the future of the world than ever before.

Hugo’s story

Hugo Blanco was born in 1934 in Cusco, the ancient Inca capital. His politicisation began early, when he heard of a landowner branding an indigenous man by applying a red hot iron to his buttocks. As a child, he learned of the long history of indigenous struggle, and as a school student he organised a school strike demanding the replacement of his school’s principal. At the time Peru was under the military dictatorship of Manuel Odria, who appointed his own people to head the schools. However, the strike at Hugo’s school was successful, and the little dictator of the school was overthrown.

He went on to study agronomy in Argentina, where he joined a socialist party. However, he realised that as an agronomist he would probably have to work for the hated landlords or even become one of them, and so he went to work in a factory. With his fellow workers he involved in the resistance fighting the military coup of 1955.

When he returned to Peru he joined another socialist group, and worked as a manual labourer. In 1958 he was involved in famous protests against the visit of Richard Nixon, where the then US Vice President was stoned, spat on and booed by those furious at imperialist support for Latin American dictators. This caught the attention of the police, and he decided to move back to his home region.

Back in Cusco he organised a union for newspaper peddlers which is still going today. From this union he became a delegate to the Cusco Federation of Labour, and there was able again to see the exploitation of the peasants first hand. He came to realise they were playing a leading role in the struggle for change by forming unions. Some of the landowners were willing to negotiate with them, but others were not, and threw members in jail. Hugo became involved with the union at Chaupimayo hacienda (plantation), where the owner was doing just that.

Peasants’ uprising

The peasants union was using mass action to try and win the freedom of their leaders, but the owner was completely committed to a course of repression. So they decided to go on strike, which became a full scale uprising by indigenous peasants speaking the Quechua language in the early 1960s. The strike meant they refused to do any work for the landowner, but went on working their own plots, effectively land reform by direct action. The response of the landowners was to form squads of thugs and assassins, as well as with the support of the corrupt local police, who regarded them as land thieves who deserved to be killed. The Peruvian military government declared the union an illegal organisation and unleashed the full force of the state against it.

The peasants union declared that the land belonged to those who worked it, and refused to buckle under pressure. They organised their own armed self-defence committees to protect themselves from landowner violence. They took power over the territory where they lived, leading to a dual power situation where the power of the state and the landlords ran up against the counterpower of the armed and organised people.

After a landlord shot and killed an 11 year old boy, the unions decided there needed to be a strong response, and armed themselves for a march to demand an explanation. Hugo was at the head of the armed committee. Along the way they were attacked by cops, leading to several being killed. In response the cops started killing unarmed peasants. Under fire, they were forced to flee in different directions and gradually grabbed by the police.

Despite the fact that many leaders, including Hugo, had been arrested, the government was forced to make concessions to avoid an even greater confrontation. So they decided to implement land reform on a national scale, meaning the demands of the strike had been won. Today Peru remains one of the countries in Latin America with the highest rate of land ownership as a result of this victorious struggle.

Trial, prison and exile

Meanwhile, Hugo was being put on trial. Although the military tribunal wanted to give him the death penalty, an international wave of solidarity, supported by such figures as Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Che Guevara, forced them to climb down and sentence him instead to 25 years in prison. Che’s support was unprecedented, given that Hugo’s politics came from a Trotskyist background, and Cuba supported the Soviet Union at the time where support for Trotskyism was unthinkable. But Guevara said:

“Hugo Blanco is the head of one of the guerilla movements in Peru. He struggled stubbornly but the repression was strong. I don’t know what his tactics of struggle were, but his fall does not signify the end of the movement. It is only a man that has fallen, but not the movement. “One time, when we were preparing to make our landing from the Granma, and when there was great risk that all of us would be killed, Fidel said: ‘What is more important than all of us is the example we set.’ It’s the same thing, Hugo Blanco has set an example.”

Fortunately however, Hugo wasn’t to fall, and instead was caged in the prison on the island of El Fronton. Here he wrote the book ‘Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru.’

When a new government came to power, they offered to release him in return for working as part of their land reform programme. Hugo refused, however, stating he would never take part in a system that gave no say for the working peasants. In the end, as others accepted the deal to get out of prison, the government were forced to free him anyway, as otherwise it would have been obvious he was still in jail for refusing to sell out. Instead he was exiled, going first to Mexico, then Argentina, where he was again jailed as part of an international agreement on repression between right wing governments, and then expelled to Chile.

In Chile he was part of building support for Popular Power transformation taking place under the socialist government of Salvador Allende. However, this was cut short by the brutal fascist coup of General Augusto Pinochet, which Hugo helped resist. Facing the risk of torture or death at the hands of the fascists, he took refuge in the Swedish embassy, from where he was smuggled out of the country to asylum in Sweden. From there, he toured Europe denouncing the brutality and evil of the Pinochet regime, which was engaged in the mass murder of anyone that stood in their way, and was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.

He was eventually allowed to return to Peru, but not for long, again being exiled to Sweden. From there, he took advantage of an agreement cut by the US to allow the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzenitzen to visit, which stated that an author had the right to visit the country of his publisher. Following the English language publication of his book, this allowed him into the US, where he went on a major speaking tour of 40 US cities, speaking to around 10,000 people. The US government of the time under President Carter boasted of their human rights record; his aim was to expose them to their own people as the worst violator of human rights in Latin America.

Elected parliamentarian

In 1977 Peru was rocked by a general strike against the dictator Morales Bermudez, which forced there to be an election for a constituent assembly in which Hugo was nominated as a candidate. The government was forced to accept his return, and he used his free TV time as a candidate to call on viewers to join a national strike that had been called against a massive price rise imposed by the government. Enraged, they deported him yet again to Argentina where he was jailed, and eventually deported back to Sweden again. However, while in exile he was elected as a member of the constituent assembly, and he toured Europe ridiculing the fact that although he was an elected member he was not allowed in his own country. The government caved and let him back in.

In parliament the left was ignored, with Hugo writing a draft for a constitution which they refused to debate. Socialists instead used it as an opportunity to highlight and represent the mass social movements taking place outside. In 1980 Hugo ran for President of Peru, coming 4th out of 16 candidates. His presence embarrassed the authorities, and so despite the fact he was accorded immunity by being a parliamentarian, he was detained by police and beaten badly. In 1983 he declared publicly that the military chief in Ayacucho was an assassin, and was suspended for the rest of the parliamentary session.

After being kicked out of parliament he went again to work for the Peruvian Peasant Federation as an organiser. They were fighting against the corrupt land reform bureaucracy that he had refused to participate in back when he was in prison, as well as Shining Path guerillas who killed those led land seizures. He received death threats from both sides. This was during the original government of Alan Garcia, who is once again today the President of Peru.

Following from a partially successful strike in Ucayali, the peasants’ organisation set up a public meeting. President Garcia had the cops open fire on the meeting from two sides, and Hugo saw friends and comrades murdered in cold blood. The police put a bag over his head, beat him harshly and took him once again into custody. Luckily another peasant saw all this, and got word out, leading to an international solidarity campaign demanding his freedom, spearheaded in Sweden. As a result he was freed and returned again to Sweden to express his gratitude, especially to the children who had campaigned for him. He told them of the children of Ucayali who had been robbed of their parents by President Garcia, and an international relationship of friendship grew up between the two communities, with exchange of letters and financial aid to support the victims of the state.

Elected as a Senator once more, Hugo used his position on the environmental commission to confront the pollution that was devastating peasant communities caused by mining, and the complicity of the senate in it, including the environment commission itself. However, in 1992 Peru suffered yet another military coup, as President Fujimori tried to seize full control of the country. Unable to control the Congress, he sent a tank to dissolve it, and teargassed those inside. Hugo was forced to flee to Mexico.

The Zapatistas, ecosocialism and the struggle today

The silver lining to this cloud though was that this meant he was in Mexico during the outbreak of the Zapatista rebellion, and was able to travel to Chiapas to take part in the international conference they organised called ‘For Humanity Against Neoliberalism,‘ which helped launch the World Social Forum movement.

Today, Fujimori is in jail for his crimes against his own people, but Alan Garcia is once again the President. Hugo is again able to live in his home country, where he is the editor of the magazine Lucha Indigena (‘Indigenous Struggle’). He remains a tireless campaigner for indigenous rights, and today is one of the leading figures in the world calling for ecosocialism.

Indigenous people believe today that the world can learn from their model of collectivist, ecologically sustainable commuities. In contrast, the international capitalist order is trying to demolish what is left of the allyus, and convert the land into mega plantations for subsidised corporate agriculture. Only huge companies will be able to sustain this model, because peasants cannot afford the pittance that is paid for their produce. But Hugo is one of the many voices calling on the human race to realise that this system of endless economic growth at the cost of ceaseless human and natural destruction is unable to survive. As an international ecosocialist leader, he is calling on us to end capitalism before it ends us and brings about the extinction of the human race.

The alternative, a good life where no one goes hungry, and where we have collective democratic ownership of resources and are building a society that is part of the ecology it inhabits and recognises the limits this imposes, is demonstrated by indigenous peoples in Latin America. They today are at the forefront of the struggle for the future of human civilisation, and Hugo Blanco is a key leader. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to come and hear him speak in Glasgow and Edinburgh this weekend.