[Below is the first chapter of Diana Raby's new book Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today. In the chapter Raby argues that "Cuba and (especially) Venezuela represent the real revolutionary alternative for our times". The London book launch takes place on Wednesday October 11th (click here for more info). To purchase the book click here.
Democracy and Revolution: Latin America and Socialism Today
By Diana Raby
Chapter 1
The Disinherited Left: From Dogmatic Orthodoxy to Romantic Anti-capitalism
*To view the book's table of contents click here.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Left has been in crisis. The orthodox Communist model was discredited even among its traditional supporters, and as the Eastern European countries were seduced one after another by the siren song of capitalist consumerism, it soon became clear that Western Social Democracy had also lost its way. The ideological victory of supply-side economics and monetarism paved the way for what we now know as neo-liberalism, and with Tony Blair and ‘New Labour’ leading the way, Social Democratic parties ceased to defend even a minimal degree of public ownership and became advocates of ‘Thatcherism lite’: the supremacy of the market with only a limited social safety net to protect the most vulnerable. Neo-liberal globalisation appeared to make the viability of any kind of socialism problematic: could any state, even the most powerful, resist or control market forces? With some transnational corporations being bigger than the GDPs of all but the largest countries, it was said that the state could no longer even regulate the economy, let alone control it.
In
these conditions even traditional left-wing critics of Stalinism like the
Trotskyists failed to benefit politically from the implosion of ‘really
existing socialism’, and the neo-liberal consensus seemed to rule the roost in
both East and West. The electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua early in
1990 seemed to confirm that even Latin America, with its
vigorous independent revolutionary tradition, was not immune to the debacle of
socialist values. Although Communist regimes survived in China and Vietnam, they
appeared to be adopting capitalist market mechanisms with indecent haste, while
the other case of East Asian socialism, North Korea, seemed to
be locked in a Stalinist time-warp. It was in this context that Francis
Fukuyama could write about ‘The End of History’ (Fukuyama 1992), presenting
liberal capitalism as the final and universal goal of humanity, and in Latin
America Jorge Castañeda could produce Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left
after the Cold War (Castañeda 1994), which amounted to a repudiation of that
continent’s revolutionary heritage in the name of Blairite Social Democracy
(and perhaps not surprisingly, Castañeda later became a minister in the
government of right-wing Mexican President Vicente Fox).
Of
course, the triumphalism of the neo-liberal advocates of the ‘New World Order’
was soon tempered by the rise of vigorous mass movements in opposition to the
negative impact of market reforms. In Latin America the ink was
scarcely dry on Castañeda’s book when in January 1994 the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas showed that
the region’s revolutionary heritage was not dead and that popular opposition to
the neo-liberal consensus could take militant forms. In Europe and North America the anti-globalisation movement revealed the
hostility of a significant minority to the new orthodoxy and their allegiance
to collective, egalitarian and anti-capitalist values. The rise of the PT
(Workers’ Party) in Brazil and its innovative practices of local participatory
democracy with such original initiatives as the ‘participatory budget’ was
another hopeful sign, and within a few years the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre
became the symbol of the convergence of the new Latin American popular
movements with the anti-globalisation movement in the North, by hosting the
first three World Social Forums. But none of these new movements presented a
coherent alternative strategy: their strength was based on contestation and
disruption of the neo-liberal consensus, and if they had a strategy it was
almost anti-political or neo-anarchist, rejecting political parties and (as the
Zapatistas explicitly proclaimed) repudiating the struggle for state power on
principle, whether by armed or peaceful means. The spirit of the times is
radically democratic and suspicious of self-proclaimed vanguards, or indeed of
vanguards of any kind – but the apparent alternative favoured by many in the
anti-globalisation, anti-war and anti-capitalist movements is a kind of
idealistic anarchism, a conception which has not ceased to be profoundly
problematic. Without a doubt the great strength of these movements, which have
achieved such an impressive degree of support in Europe and North America, has been their loose, decentralised and flexible character.
But such a structure (or lack thereof) may be very effective in an oppositional
or contestational movement, yet thoroughly dysfunctional for a coherent
political project, let alone a government exercising state power. Those who
defend the actions and vision of Chávez in Venezuela or Lula in Brazil, or
indeed of the Cuban government, are constantly greeted with the refrain that
liberation, or socialism, or popular democracy, has to be the work of ‘the
people themselves’ or ‘the working class itself’, begging the question of what
kind of structure and leadership the Promethean people or working class might
need in order to implement their sovereign will. Insistence on direct,
unmediated popular protagonism is admirable, but it becomes a futile distraction
if it is elevated to the status of absolute dogma, evading questions of
representation, leadership, organisation and structure which are crucial to the
success of any alternative movement. This romantic but ultimately defeatist
approach has since been formulated in more elaborate philosophical form by John
Holloway in Change the World Without Taking Power (Holloway 2002).
Today,
15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the neo-liberal consensus is
increasingly questioned and the ‘End of History’ thesis is thoroughly
discredited. The new geo-political polarisation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks
and the aggressive strategy of the Anglo-Saxon powers in the so-called ‘War on
Terror’ has created a much more problematic situation not just for the Left but
for the future of humanity as a whole. This has provoked the emergence of an
unprecedented mass anti-war movement throughout the world, and particularly in Europe, which has
merged with the anti-globalisation or anti-capitalist movement to produce the
embryo of a real alternative. But it still lacks a political strategy, a
strategy for taking power and an alternative socio-economic model. This book
will attempt to address the problem of a political alternative for the Left and
the popular movement, an alternative which is not limited to cosmetic reforms
of neo-liberal capitalism. Such an alternative is scarcely likely to emerge
from within existing Social Democratic parties, which are so thoroughly
incorporated into the system as to be incapable of renewal. Equally, in those
countries where Communist parties still retain a residual strength and adhere
to a traditional anti-system line (the Portuguese party is a good example),
they may constitute admirable bastions of resistance to neo-liberal hegemony,
but their almost total lack of theoretical renovation shows that they have
failed to come to terms with the lessons of the Soviet collapse and have
nothing creative to offer. With some exceptions, this also applies to most of
the Communist offshoots – the many varieties of Trotskyists and
Marxist-Leninists – who are still wedded to variations on the theme of the
democratic centralist party, the ideological monopoly of dialectical and
historical materialism and the centralised model of state socialism. This does
not by any means imply a complete rejection of Marxism or indeed of some
aspects of Leninism, but it does mean that it is essential to recognise that no
single ideology, much less a single partisan organisation, can any longer lay
claim to a monopoly of wisdom. Marx’s analysis of capitalism and of the
dynamics of class struggle remains extraordinarily accurate, much of Lenin’s
analysis of the state and of the need for a political vanguard remains
convincing, but they cannot provide exclusive formulae for political
organisation, strategy and tactics in today’s world, or for the alternative
society to which we must still aspire.
It
is here that many in the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements, and indeed
in other social movements from the Zapatistas to the Argentine piqueteros or
the Brazilian MST (Movement of the Landless), proclaim that a party or a
vanguard is not necessary and that ‘the movement is everything’. Leadership is
not necessary, the movement will constantly throw up new leaders and rotate them
at will, or will function on the basis of spontaneous unanimity: ‘We are all
Marcos!’ as the Zapatistas and their sympathisers declared when the Mexican
government claimed to have discovered the true identity of their
semi-clandestine and media-conscious spokesperson. But a decade later, not only
have they failed to undermine the Mexican state or to dissolve its power from
below, they have achieved only very modest results in terms of autonomy or
improved rights for the native people of Chiapas who continue to be their main
social base. The Argentine barrio movement has been very impressive in its
capacity for non-partisan mobilisation and has contributed to the downfall of
fi ve presidents, but when a serious political alternative finally emerged in
that chronically divided country, it did so from a totally unexpected source:
an establishment politician, Nestor Kirchner, who as President surprised almost
everyone by adopting an independent foreign and financial policy and going some
way to meet the demands of the barrio movement, which now gives him critical
support while remaining suspicious of his ultimate intentions. The classic
vanguard party and the Marxist-Leninist model of socialism may have produced
unsatisfactory results, Social Democracy may have been completely assimilated
by capitalism, but to proclaim the superiority of non-politics or Holloway’s
‘anti-power’ is in practice to leave the power of corporations and the
capitalist state untouched myriad particular struggles and mass movements may come
and go, and may in the best of cases achieve results on specific issues, but
the power of the state – of the nearly two hundred nation-states around the
world – and of the global economic system will continue as before. There is no
alternative to the search for an alternative.
Another
consequence of the fall of the Soviet bloc was the apparently universal
conversion to ‘democracy’, and the conclusion of Communists and Marxists –
again, with rare exceptions – that the road to power must henceforth be democratic.
The Marxist critique of bourgeois democracy had too easily become an excuse for
bureaucratic despotism in the name of socialism. But does this mean that the
critique of bourgeois democracy has no relevance? Is the concept of revolution
now to be consigned to the dustbin of history, now that the only revolutions
that attract attention are those that overthrow bureaucratic state socialist
regimes? We are all democrats now – advocates of democracy on the Western
liberal model – and so revolution, or any political change that implies the use
of force or direct action, is apparently out. In Latin America, with its rich revolutionary
heritage of armed guerrilla struggle, where in the 1960s and ’70s the debate
over the armed or peaceful roads raged fiercely, the same is apparently now the
case: with the failure of the Central American insurgencies, the defeat of
Sendero Luminoso in Peru and the peaceful transitions to democracy in the
Southern Cone, only the Colombian guerrillas (the FARC, ELN and others) still
hold out – and they are now unmentionable in polite company (or else they are
dismissed as ‘narco-guerrillas’, a convenient distortion which permits US
interventionism to disguise itself as counter-narcotics policy). The universal
assumption that democracy is the only valid regime – accepted even by most
ex-Communist parties – obscures the question of what democracy really means, of
whether Western liberalism is the only valid form of democracy, and of whether revolutionary
change is possible by democratic means. These are also central questions which
will have to be addressed in the search for a political alternative.
At
this point we come to the binary pair of revolution and reform: revolutionaries
have traditionally been scornful of reform as an instrument of the system, as a
means of assimilating and neutralizing popular struggle. Social Democrats are
by definition reformist. But the violent seizure of power does not guarantee
revolutionary change, and in most countries the technological capacity of the
modern state makes defeat of the regular military an extremely costly, if not impossible
proposition. But in countries with a vigorous revolutionary tradition, ‘reform’
is not necessarily seen as incompatible with revolution – and revolution is not
necessarily equated with total armed struggle. In Cuba and Nicaragua – countries
with a weak state, with corrupt personalist dictatorships – outright military
victory was possible. But in most countries (even, in fact, in the two just mentioned)
revolution has implied ‘the combination of all forms of struggle’, with an
emphasis frequently on methods which are neither completely peaceful nor
completely violent: militant demonstrations, political strikes, sabotage,
occupations of landed estates, public offices and factories. Accumulation of
reforms or of popular pressure may
lead
to a situation of rupture with revolutionary implications; rather than overt confrontation with the military there may be splits within the armed forces and
sections of the military may identify with the reformist/revolutionary process.
In Latin America, when an individual is described as
revolutionary, it does not mean that he/she is hellbent on taking up arms: it
means that they are morally committed to the struggle for a better world, that
they are prepared to accept any sacrifice necessary, that they will refuse to
abandon the struggle. In this conception being revolutionary does not exclude
negotiation and compromise; it does exclude acceptance of compromise as a permanent
solution. Reforms are perfectly acceptable, indeed essential; reformism, on the
other hand, means limiting the struggle to reforms within the system. On this
basis, the debate on democracy and revolution acquires new meaning: democratic
campaigns on specific issues have a validity of their own, and whether they become
reformist or revolutionary depends on the broader strategic perspective. If a
process of democratic change threatens to undermine the established system of
power it will eventually lead to ruptures which imply at least some degree of
violent confrontation, but the precise form this will take is unpredictable and
cannot necessarily be determined by the movement or its leadership. Here,
surely, closer attention to Gramsci and to his concepts of ‘hegemony’ and of
the ‘historical bloc’ is in order (Golding 1992).
But
the issue of democracy goes beyond this: it has also to address the question of
direct and participatory democracy as opposed to liberal parliamentarism. In
the nineteenth century democracy was not equated with liberalism: it was
understood that liberalism was an elitist system of constitutional rule and
division of powers, guaranteeing civil rights but not popular sovereignty as
implied by democracy. One of the most telling aspects of the retreat of the
Left in the past 30 years has been the way in which democracy has come to be
seen as synonymous with parliamentary liberalism, and any idea of direct or
participatory democracy is automatically dismissed as equivalent to the sham of
the so-called ‘popular democracies’ of Eastern Europe. But if democracy does
not include direct participation by workers, the poor, the marginalised and
excluded of capitalist society, then it excludes all possibility of real
change, of a genuine political alternative. As recently as the 1960s C.B.
Macpherson could write his now classic Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism (Macpherson 1962), demonstrating how from its seventeenth-century
origins liberalism was based on a market society of individual proprietors, and
arguing that this was no longer an adequate basis for a theory of political
obligation. But in the last two decades, in all the now fashionable literature
on ‘democratic transition’ and consolidation’, it is as if Macpherson (not to
mention Marx!) had never existed. In recent decades parliamentary liberalism
has assimilated the Left in the name of democracy, when the real task is for
the Left to reclaim democracy from liberalism.
It
follows from this discussion that the collapse of the Soviet and Eastern
European models should not be taken as proof of the failure or irrelevance of
all socialist or revolutionary experiences. Few would want to defend the
Stalinist rigidity of North Korea, and the apparent acceptance of many aspects
of robber-baron capitalism by China and Vietnam is cause for grave doubts about
their continuing socialist credentials (although it has to be recognised that
the jury is still out on their long-term evolution). But Cuba is still
widely admired for its social achievements and its valiant resistance to US hostility,
and its former association with the Soviet Union should not
be taken as proof that its social and political model is identical or that it
will suffer a similar fate. If Cuba has
survived, it is precisely because its socialism differs in important respects
and its revolution had different origins and characteristics; indeed, it will
be argued in Chapter 4 that the true originality of the Cuban revolution has
yet to be appreciated, and that its political relevance for the Left today is
much greater than is normally assumed.
Along
with Cuba, what are arguably the most original and most successful
revolutionary experiences of our times have occurred in Latin America: the
Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua (until it was tragically destroyed by US
sabotage), and today the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. Together with one
European case – Portugal and the ‘Revolution of the Carnations’ of 1974–75 –
they offer the most interesting and inspiring examples of popular revolutionary
politics in the past half-century, and will constitute the empirical basis of
this book. None of these revolutions was made by a Socialist or Communist
party; two were led by guerrilla insurgents and two by rebels from within the
military establishment; all were inspired by original and apparently eclectic
ideologies; all have involved a great emphasis on direct democracy and popular
power; and all have featured the prominent role of one or a few charismatic
individual leaders. The fact that much of the Left rejects Cuba and Venezuela, dismisses Nicaragua as a defeat
without considering its contemporary relevance, and regards Portugal as no more
than a demonstration of the success of the liberal capitalist model, only confirms
the poverty of
contemporary Socialist and progressive thought. It will be argued here that Nicaragua and Portugal in their
respective revolutionary phases offered examples of popular and democratic
politics which are still relevant, and that Cuba and
(especially) Venezuela represent the
real revolutionary alternative for our times. One other Latin American process
which will be briefly considered, the ‘Popular Unity’ under Allende in Chile,
serves in many respects as a counter-example, since it was a coalition of
traditional political parties of the Left, with a conventional Marxist ideology
and a leader who, however admirable, was singularly lacking in charisma.
It
is not accidental that all but one of these examples arose in Latin America:
that region of creative ferment, with a longer experience of colonial rule than
any other, the ‘backyard’ of US imperialism, far more of an ethnic and cultural
‘melting pot’ than North America, also has a long and intense history of
popular revolutionary struggle which is less contaminated by political and
ideological distortions than that of any other continent. The wealth of
revolutionary history in Europe,
particularly in certain countries such as France and Russia, is constrained
as a source of inspiration by the continent’s history of internecine strife and
imperialist expansionism, and in recent times by the straitjacket of the Cold
War. In most of Asia traditional cultures and social
structures have remained too solid to permit the emergence of revolutionary
movements transcending the nationalist and anti-colonialist phase, and the
major East Asian exceptions are profoundly problematic. India is in the
grip of right-wing Hindu nationalism, while other countries of South and West Asia appear torn
between Islamic fundamentalism and Western neo-liberalism. In South Africa the African National Congress, once a
totemic source of anti-imperialist inspiration, has embraced the free market,
while the rest of the continent wallows in neo-colonial poverty, internecine strife
and corruption, and progressive movements remain weak. Only in Latin America
does the revolutionary impulse appear to flourish, so that in addition to Cuba
and Venezuela we find the progressive governments of Lula in Brazil, Kirchner
in Argentina, the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) in Uruguay and powerful popular
movements such as Pachakutic in Ecuador, Evo Morales and the MAS in Bolivia, the
FARC and ELN as well as peaceful popular resistance in Colombia, the FMLN in El
Salvador and in Mexico, the Zapatistas as well as the promising presidential
campaign of Andrés López Obrador. Despite the defeat of the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua and the neutralisation of the other Central American insurgencies,
despite the apparent failure of the Zapatistas to achieve fundamental change in
Mexico, popular and progressive movements in Latin America continue to show a vitality
and creativity without parallel in today’s cynical, unipolar and terrorist-obsessed world.
Recent
advances in Latin America have not
come without problems. Lula was elected President of Brazil at the fourth
attempt, but lacks a clear majority in Congress and has to negotiate any
legislative project with a bewildering variety of political forces, and his
government has been weakened by corruption scandals. Chávez survived the April 2002
coup and the subsequent strike/lockout but faces continuing harassment by an
intransigent and sometimes violent opposition, and ill-disguised US hostility.
Lucio Gutiérrez, a former rebel colonel whose electoral victory in Ecuador led some to
compare him to Chávez, proved a disappointment and was disowned by the popular indigenous
Pachakutic movement. But what distinguishes the region in today’s world is that
the question of power for progressive movements is on the agenda, and has in
fact been realised in some countries – something which on other continents is
only a remote dream. Major problems remain for the Left in Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay
and Argentina – how to consolidate revolutionary power in Venezuela, how far
Lula’s reforms or those of the Frente Amplio can go in Brazil and Uruguay,
whether or not Kirchner will really ally with the popular movement in Argentina
– but the extraordinary and positive development is that for the first time
since the defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990, these issues are once again on the
table.
The
Cuban revolution is clearly the starting-point for contemporary Latin American
revolutionary movements, yet remarkably little attention has been devoted to
its political originality. Accounts of the armed struggle and the events of the
revolutionary transformation are legion, and Cuba has been much discussed in
terms of armed struggle and the foco theory of guerrilla action, and also with
reference to the Guevarist concept of the ‘New Man’ and socialist theory; but the
actual political process which led first to revolutionary victory and then to
socialist transition has not been adequately studied. In the enormous
literature on Cuba there is
general recognition that the old Communist Party, the Partido Socialista
Popular (PSP), was incapable of making the revolution, both because it opposed
armed struggle and because of its former compromises with Batista. It is also generally
recognised that revolutionary victory was the work of Fidel Castro and the 26
July Movement, a broad, popular, nationalist and social-reformist movement which
did not adopt a strictly defined ideological label and did not mention
Socialism or Communism until more than two years after the victory of 1 January
1959. But the implications of this for revolutionary theory have never been adequately
explored beyond vague references to the genius of Fidel (from admirers) or
Castro’s duplicity (from detractors), coupled with correct but inadequate
observations about the radicalising effects of US hostility. Surely the fact
that a broad national movement with individual charismatic leadership was
capable of leading one of the most popular and radical revolutionary processes
in history deserves careful analysis. It raises fundamental questions about the
concept of a revolutionary vanguard, about the role of political parties and
the relationship between leadership and mass. Perhaps today’s distrust of
political parties and of formulaic ideologies is neither so new nor so
original, and the same questions (and possible answers to them) may have been
raised in Cuba over 40 years ago – only to be lost in the rhetoric and the
harsh realities of the Cold War.
A
second crucial formative experience for the contemporary Latin American Left
was Chile; the defeat
of the Popular Unity, widely seen at the time as demonstrating the futility of
the electoral road, offers other equally important lessons. It is currently
fashionable to compare Venezuela under Chávez
with Chile under
Allende, but there are important differences. Certainly Pinochet’s betrayal and
the brutality of the Chilean coup (the original ‘9/11’) confirmed the implacable
hostility of imperialism and of local elites to any project of popular
transformation, and the unreliability of the supposedly ‘constitutionalist’
Chilean military. The economic sabotage by Chilean business and the truckers’
strike have parallels in the recent opposition strike in Venezuela, and CIA
involvement in the Chilean coup seems to be mirrored by the overwhelming circumstantial
evidence of US complicity in the short-lived 2002 coup against Chávez. In both
cases reliance on elections and constitutionalism seems to be undermined by the
refusal of hegemonic interests to accept a democracy which they do not control.
But the Chilean experience also underlines the fateful consequences of partisan
divisions (the rivalries of Socialists, Communists, MAPU and other parties),
and the dangers of attempting a transformational project without a clear
popular majority. It must never be forgotten that Allende was elected in a
three-way race with only 36 per cent of the popular vote, and although his
support increased somewhat in subsequent municipal and legislative elections,
he never had a solid absolute majority. Opposition control of Parliament also
made it impossible for Allende to impose his projected constitutional changes.
By contrast, Chávez has won massive majorities in no less than ten elections
and referenda and was able to begin his term with a Constituent Assembly that
led to a sweeping institutional transformation of Venezuela. Finally,
although the jury is still out on the ultimate fate of the chavista project,
Chávez’ own military origins and the less elitist characteristics of the
Venezuelan military have so far guaranteed majority support in the armed forces
for the Bolivarian process. If Chile demonstrated
the hazards of the purely electoral road, that does not necessarily imply that
armed insurgency is the only solution. The issue is much more complex, and
cannot be reduced (as was often done in the 1960s and 1970s) to a matter of
dogma, of being always and on principle ‘for’ or ‘against’ taking up arms.
Here
it needs to be pointed out that Latin America has an outstanding
tradition of popular armed struggle which long predates the Cuban revolution,
having its roots in the Independence Wars of the early nineteenth century. It
is based on a concept of popular collective insurgency which has nothing to do
with militarism or with the ‘individual right to bear arms’ of the US
Constitution. The idea of the people taking up arms to achieve liberation is
central to Latin American political culture, and it by no means excludes other
forms of struggle and participation. It embodies a distrust of institutionalized
politics and a radical rejection of all forms of paternalism: rights are gained
by struggle, whether armed or peaceful, and not granted by benevolent
authority. It is intimately linked to the concept of popular sovereignty, that
sovereignty really does reside in the people as a whole and not in the propertied
classes or in any hereditary group or privileged institution. The people,
moreover, constitute themselves as political actors by collective mobilisation,
not merely by passive reception of media messages or individualised voting. The
secret ballot is undoubtedly regarded as essential, but as inadequate unless accompanied
by mass organisation and mobilisation; and this will ideally be peaceful but
may encompass an entirely legitimate recourse to arms if faced with repression
or arbitrary authority. Hence the resonance of the term ‘revolutionary’ tends
to be positive, unlike in contemporary Europe or North America where it has come to be associated with irrational
violence or dogmatic sectarianism. For the same reasons, ‘democracy’ in Latin America is popularly associated with collective rights and
popular power, and not just representative institutions and liberal pluralism.
The concept is also indissolubly linked with the rights and cultures of
oppressed ethnic and social groups, with indigenous, black and mestizo
empowerment.
The
Cuban revolution brought with it a reaffirmation of this tradition of armed
struggle, and even if for a while in the 1960s and ’70s it became fetishised in
the form of the isolated guerrilla foco, it also contributed to the rise of
more substantial insurgent organisations organically linked to popular
movements in several countries: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia.
The Central American insurgencies of the 1970s and ’80s represented the
internationalisation of the popular revolutionary movement, and precisely for
this reason they were regarded as an intolerable threat by the United States. Victory in Nicaragua in 1979
revived the hope of continental liberation inspired by the Cuban revolution,
and significantly it also came about in unorthodox form. As in Cuba it was a
national uprising against a brutal dictatorship in a small and extremely
dependent country, a client regime in a region which had suffered frequent US intervention.
The Sandinista Front (FSLN, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) was a
broad movement of national liberation with three constituent tendencies and
with ideological influences ranging from Marxism-Leninism to Social Democracy
and liberation theology. The Sandinistas were opposed throughout by the small
Nicaraguan Communist Party, and as in Cuba, drew
inspiration from national and Latin American revolutionary and anti-imperialist
traditions. While expressing admiration for and gratitude to Cuba, they did not
adopt the Cuban model (and much less the Soviet one), insisting on maintaining
a ‘mixed economy’ and a pluralist electoral system combined with elements of
direct democracy. The Nicaraguan agrarian reform and literacy campaign, and the
rank-and-file organisational structure of the Sandinista Defence Committees (similar
to the Cuban Committees for the Defence of the Revolution), clearly drew on
Cuban experience, but were combined with efforts to work with the private
sector and with a pluralist political system.
Sandinista
defeat at the polls in 1990 was undoubtedly due above all to unrelenting US hostility
and the devastating effects of the Contra war, but there were other
contributory factors, notably internal divisions and the abandonment after 1986
of popular participatory and welfare policies in favour of conventional liberal
democracy and an IMF deflationary package. The subsequent defeat or
neutralisation of the Salvadorean and Guatemalan insurgencies was more
straightforward, consisting essentially of the application by the US of overwhelming
pressure in order to forestall revolutionary victory. These reverses,
coinciding as they did with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, led to profound
demoralisation and disorientation among the Latin American Left and contributed
to the worldwide crisis of progressive ideas from which we are only now
beginning to emerge. If a victorious armed revolution could be defeated in
little more than a decade and two other apparently solid insurgent movements
could be neutralised, what hope was there for radical social change of any kind?
And since the final Sandinista defeat came at the ballot box, hope of progress
through elections was also undermined. Were free elections and multi-party
systems incompatible with revolutionary power? If the Sandinistas were to win
elections again, would they – indeed could they – reinitiate the revolutionary
transformation of 1979–84? It is no accident that after the Sandinista defeat,
any prospect of a liberal ‘opening’ in Cuba was closed off indefinitely: the message
for Fidel and the Cubans was that if they permitted political liberalisation,
Washington and the Miami mafia would subvert the country’s institutions and buy
the elections.
Further
South, in the more socially and economically advanced ‘Southern Cone’ countries
(Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile), this
period was more optimistic since it brought the end of repressive militarism
and the gradual process of ‘democratic transition’. With the imposition of
superficially democratic solutions in the Central American countries, and
similar transitions occurring in Bolivia, Paraguay and even Mexico (with the
PAN’s electoral victory in 2000 heralding the end of the PRI’s 71-year reign),
the media and the dominant powers in North America and Europe were able to proclaim
the universal triumph of liberal democracy in Latin America (the remaining
Andean countries – Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela – remained formally
democratic throughout this period). This was Fukuyama’s or
Castañeda’s vision triumphant. Of course there remained the inconvenient
exception of Cuba, but it was assumed
that this ‘dinosaur’ – dismissed as a kind of tropical Albania – would fall
into line at any moment.
But
the crucial questions, both for the newly liberalised countries and those which
had observed liberal constitutional norms over a longer period, related to the
nature of the ‘democracy’ which had now become the continent-wide norm. With
the universal imposition of neo-liberalism and with the Left in disarray,
liberal democracy seemed to be reduced to a formal electoral game with little
relevance to the real conditions of existence for the popular classes. The one
significant exception was Brazil, where the
rise of the PT (Workers’ Party) ushered in major progressive changes, first at
municipal and state levels and then, with Lula’s presidential victory,
potentially at national level. What the PT has achieved, most notably in Porto Alegre, is of enormous significance for
popular movements everywhere. The systematic practice of reporting back by
elected representatives and the possibility of recall, and even more important,
the participatory budget, together constitute a revolution in local government
whose full consequences have yet to be worked out. While there is still no
doubt some validity in the Marxist doctrine that true workers’ power, or
popular power, is only possible at national level, the extent of change in some
PT-run municipalities is very impressive both in material terms and in popular
empowerment. But Lula’s achievements as President are so far very modest, as
was to be expected given the lack of a majority in Congress and of any
significant change in the judiciary, the armed forces or other institutions;
the current Brazilian process is one of reform, not revolution.
In
historical perspective it seems clear that Lula is subject to similar constraints
to those faced by Allende – although it may be hoped that the final outcome
will not be so tragic, both because Lula’s apparent goals are more modest and
because neither the international climate nor the attitude of the Brazilian
armed forces is favourable to an unconstitutional solution. However, the
possibility of a radicalization of the popular movement, beyond the control of
the PT government, could lead to a more complex situation. Both the MST
(Movement of the Landless) and certain sectors of the PT have revolutionary positions
which more truly represent the aspirations of the popular movement, but which
also face violent hostility from the Brazilian oligarchy – and this could lead
to a very dangerous confrontation with unpredictable consequences in the
absence of a coherent unified strategy by the Government and its supporters.
Given the lack of a serious transformative strategy on the part of Lula and the
PT Government and the current corruption crisis, the prospects for Brazil are not
encouraging.
If
the Brazilian situation offers the prospect of no more than limited reform, it
is in Venezuela that a
revolutionary transformation is not only possible but is already well under
way. It is also Venezuela which most
clearly raises the theoretical issues formulated above: the relation of
leadership and mass, the question of party versus movement, the problem of the
true nature of democracy, and reform versus revolution. In Venezuela there has been
a real (although still incomplete) change in the structure of power, with a new
Constitution, a population which is mobilised and organised in a participatory
democracy, a government of popular origin which is pushing forward an ongoing process
of transformation, a political reorientation of the armed forces, and the
beginnings of an economic restructuring with the effective renationalisation of
the vital oil industry. An agrarian reform is under way, producer and consumer
cooperatives are being promoted, and a reform of urban property is giving
effective ownership and control to slum dwellers. ‘Bolivarian schools’ have
brought education to over a million
children previously excluded from the system, a literacy campaign has been
initiated, and millions of people are organized in local land, water and
electrical utility committees, ‘Bolivarian Circles’ and other grass-roots
organisations of popular power. Yet this process was not initiated by a
Socialist or Communist party, nor indeed by any party, but by a movement of
military origin, the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR-200) led by Lt-Col.
(now President) Hugo Chávez Frías. Named for the bicentenary of liberator Simón
Bolívar’s birth in 1983, the MBR-200 was a clandestine military and civilian
movement for social and political change in Venezuela. In February
1989, when in the caracazo the people of the shantytowns rose up against the
further impoverishment implied by an IMF economic package and were savagely
massacred by troops on the orders of the corrupt Social Democratic President
Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP), Chávez’ movement was not yet ready to act. But three
years later, on 4 February
1992, it was the MBR-200 which took the initiative in launching a
military/civilian uprising against CAP, and despite the movement’s failure this
action sounded the death-knell of the old Venezuelan pseudodemocracy. February
1989 and February 1992 between them set in motion a revolutionary dynamic which
would lead, through Chávez’ two-year imprisonment, his amnesty under popular
pressure, his resignation from the armed forces in order to enter civilian
politics and create a broad civilian movement, the Fifth Republic Movement
(MVR), and his election as President in December 1998, to the process of
transformation which has been under way since his inauguration in February
1999. The comparison of Chávez with Allende as leading a radical transformation
by electoral means fails in part because it ignores the insurrectional origins
of the process: December 1998 was the electoral ratification of the events of
February 1989 and February 1992, popular and military revolts which were
temporarily unsuccessful but from which the old political system never
recovered.
Once
again, as in Cuba, we are faced with an extremely unorthodox situation: a
genuine popular revolution which is not led by a Socialist party, which does
not have (or did not appear to have until recently) a Socialist programme or
ideology, which is headed by a charismatic individual leading a broad and
somewhat amorphous popular movement, and in which the leader is (of all
things!) a former military officer. Not surprisingly, it is Chávez’ military
origins which have raised eyebrows, and initially provoked outright hostility,
among many progressive observers in Latin America and
elsewhere. In a continent with a long tradition of reactionary militarism, most
recently manifested in the brutal dictatorships of the Southern Cone and Central America, the idea of a popular revolution led by the
military seemed too absurd to contemplate. But there does exist a different
military tradition in Latin America, a tradition of nationalist, democratic and
anti-imperialist officers like Omar Torrijos in Panama, Velasco Alvarado in
Peru or Francisco Caamaño Deno in the Dominican Republic. Indeed it is a
tradition with deep roots, going back to the Socialist Republic of Col.
Marmaduke Grove in Chile (1931), the Brazilian ‘tenentes’ (lieutenants) of the
1920s, and all the way back to the early nineteenth century liberators. Also,
in the specific case of Venezuela, officer recruitment is much less elitist
than in Argentina or Chile – Chávez comes from a provincial lower-middle-class
family of mixed race – and crucially, most of the officers of Chávez’
generation were not trained in the notorious US ‘School of the Americas’ but in
Venezuela, with political science courses taught by French-trained academics.
The old stereotype has to be modified, and it has to be recognised that the
military are not genetically reactionary; they are social beings subject to
many of the same influences as civilians.
For
me the issues raised by the Venezuelan process are less about the military as
such and more about the character and leadership of revolutionary movements in
general: the same issues raised by the Cuban experience. Once again, a
successful popular revolution – at least, more successful to date than anything
we have seen since Nicaragua – has taken
place in a manner that was totally unexpected. Once again, the organised Left
was totally irrelevant to the process, and only gave its support (in the best
of cases – because several leftwing parties have joined the reactionary
opposition) when victory was already at hand. Once again, the people recognised
the revolutionary leadership long before the politicians or the intellectuals.
And once again, victory was achieved by a broad, democratic national movement,
ideologically flexible but united in action, with an individual charismatic
leader with remarkable oratorical gifts and capacity for decisive action. This
type of movement and this type of leadership inevitably raise the issue of
populism – a term which is anathema to the organised Left, and which both the
leaders themselves and most of their followers would indignantly reject. But if
populism is understood not as opportunism or demagogy, nor as a specific ideology
or programme, but rather as a style of political action, a methodology, a
phenomenon which arises at critical conjunctures and which can have completely
different political orientations and consequences depending on the specific
context and class character of the movement, then perhaps it is legitimate to
describe these processes as populist – as a revolutionary form of populism
(Laclau 1977; Raby 1983; Cammack 2000). This is also one of the central theses
of this book, and its implications for progressive politics are no less
revolutionary than the political processes herein analysed, from Cuba to Venezuela.
There
is another important revolutionary process of the contemporary era in which the
military played a central role, not in Latin America but in Latin Europe, namely the Portuguese
revolution of 1974–75. Despite the very different context – a European colonial
power, albeit small, peripheral and relatively poor – the Portuguese experience
may be relevant to an analysis of the Venezuelan situation. Here also junior
military officers, many of them of relatively humble origins, revolted against
a discredited civilian regime (in this case a Fascist-oriented dictatorship)
and identified with popular aspirations – both the aspirations of colonised
African peoples for self-determination and the aspirations of the Portuguese
people for democracy and social justice. The poetic moment of 25 April 1974 –
when the people of Lisbon celebrated the liberating coup by placing red carnations
in the soldiers’ rifles – quickly turned into a genuinely revolutionary process
as the frustrations of nearly 50 years of repression burst forth in mass
demonstrations, factory occupations, purges of police informers, housing
occupations by slum-dwellers and the homeless, land occupations by rural
labourers, and protests of every kind. For 19 months, until 25 November 1975 when a
moderate but nevertheless counter-revolutionary coup restored bourgeois order in Portugal, the country
was in turmoil, in a process of creative ferment which was the first truly
revolutionary process in Europe since the
end of the Second World War.
During
the ‘hot summer’ of 1975 Henry Kissinger, throwing up his hands in horror,
declared that Portugal was ‘the Cuba of Europe’, but the Portuguese esablishment,
aided and abetted by European Social Democracy, the Catholic Church and the
CIA, succeeded in putting the revolutionary genie back in the bottle.
Throughout the process, the key events were played out in the popular movement
and among the military, the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) as the rebel military
movement became known. During the 19-month upheaval, six weak civilian
provisional governments succeeded one another, but real power was in the
street, among the people – and in the hands of the MFA. Many officers quickly became
radicalised and identified with the popular movement, and by early 1975 the MFA
was talking of ‘popular power’, socialism and the ‘People–MFA Alliance’, and proposing
a revolutionary system of workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ committees, with a
National Assembly of People’s Power as the ultimate goal. Observers talked of
the ‘populism’ of the MFA, and with good reason: the personal leadership,
charisma and oratorical capacity of Col. Vasco Gonçalves, Prime Minister of
four of the six provisional governments, was rivalled by that of Major Otelo
Saraiva de Carvalho, operational commander of the 25 April coup. But the MFA
was divided between a dominant pro-Communist sector around Gonçalves, a
‘moderate’ sector which was gaining in strength, and a radical sector personified
by Otelo and aligned with the revolutionary Left. Conservative forces led by
the Catholic Church dominated the North of the country, and allied with the political
Right, the Socialist party and the MFA ‘moderates’ to confront the Provisional Government
and the military radicals. The standoff led to a growing threat of civil war,
which was resolved with the 25 November coup by the Centre Right. The military
Left and the Communist Party decided not to resist in order to avert open war,
and were rewarded with guarantees of political rights within a newly
consolidated bourgeois state. Leftist officers were purged from the military;
the popular movement, now effectively leaderless, was subjected to limited but
effective repression; liberal norms were preserved and Portugal became a
conventional parliamentary democracy, entering the European Union a few years
later. But the real Portuguese revolution was destroyed, and the victors
expunged from the official record the memory of the mass movement for popular
power and socialism – now subject to ironic ridicule as the ‘PREC’, Processo
Revolucionário em Curso or Revolutionary Process under Way – and replaced it
with the myth of the heroic resistance of the democratic forces against the Communist
threat. They cannot, however, destroy the folk memory of how, for a brief
period at least, the Portuguese people in alliance with the radical military
took matters into their own hands and created a vision of popular power and
socialism which is without parallel in contemporary Europe.
These
four revolutionary experiences – the Cuban, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan and
Portuguese – all point in the direction of a broad, popular and democratic
movement with a bold, charismatic and non-partisan leadership, ideologically
flexible and inspired by national popular culture and traditions as well as
different strands of international progressive thought, as the essential
components of successful revolution. But this raises major questions about the
role of political parties, the relevance of Marxism or any kind of socialist ideology,
the relationship between revolution and democracy and the nature of the new
revolutionary society. What are the implications of these processes for the
future of the international Left? What relevance do they have to the Left in Britain or other
advanced countries? Is Socialism still the ultimate goal, and if so, what does Socialism
mean in today’s globalised world? The attempt to answer these questions may
produce some surprising, but ultimately inspiring, conclusions.
Hi,
I'm here online for the kids of Haiti.
I'm here for a non-profit haiti group that spends their time to
building an oppurunity for the kids in haiti. If anybody wants to donate then this is the site:
Donate to Haiti or Help Haiti
They give children in Haiti books and teach them.
And yes, they're a real cause.
I greatly appreciate anyone's help
Posted by: RickDG | February 12, 2010 at 07:20 AM
Hi,
I'm here online for the kids of Haiti.
I'm here for a non-profit haiti group that spends their time to
building an oppurunity for the kids in haiti. If anybody wants to donate then this is the site:
Donate to Haiti or Help Haiti
They give children in Haiti books and teach them.
And yes, they're a real cause.
I greatly appreciate anyone's help
Posted by: LTFrank | February 12, 2010 at 07:20 AM
Does anyone know where to get some decent slimming information online?? I've tried a number of things and none of them seem to be working for me right now. In and out of Yo-yo diets, really need to get help now!!
HOW TO GET SLIM
Posted by: immirlCor | September 13, 2011 at 08:51 AM
thrombus un ange passe expression refuge spa indigo girls Canada Goose le jour se lève film
hexavideo streaming inculquer anglais rhume des foins en automne participation aux bénéfices manpower voltec solar rivalis.fr petit poucet perrault hermite le portrait de dorian gray film sauf imprévu tropiquarium voleur dragonica .
successive over relaxation solvant cire molybdenum module linguistique de microsoft® office 2010 leverrier marais audomarois tomber mal lettre de credit irrevocable et confirmée le grand pan paternelle vie mohair de france poutou oranger des osages multilingual jobs rugissants sans rechigner gris anthracite couleur histoire de l'art libre commerce tribade définition huitieme jour panorama photo zanzi jardin nine hip hop 2010 insoutenable légèreté de l'être trouver un code postal impassibilité richesse nationale imagine un jardin nantes liquidity lancinante teinte ral plongeuse dans un restaurant mine d'art sujet d'actualité en espagne m'aime t'il vraiment phobie scolaire lire de l'anglais maison de la presse yah tiraillement bas ventre apres ovulation obstiné synonyme prodigal son tab remparts tours namco salle de sport marseille membrane nucléaire indiscipline lyrics paletot fille mes notices racial orc insolence wikipedia guiberteau ingrid michaelson infusion de persil individuel définition vendre quoi sur les marchés raffermir le ventre manometre pression turbo retirer sa plainte illusion auditive coiffeur viralzone transfuge dictionnaire poursuite de la greve ne pas dire non au panda pardonner une trahison secours d'hiver jura sauf si en anglais vues du ciel .
idée cadeau micro societe travail partenarial lianes coopération tabacologue vaillampont saison de la courgette opinion way termes médicaux lacrimosa mozart gris du gabon toison d'or theatre horaires rer tondeuse wolf sauter pieces detachees oisif définition serrer la main signification penders pinailler synonyme synchrone maillot de bain identifier un insecte jackass 3d morzine nacelle streety salon des métiers d'art proposer la botte mettre du texte sur une photo mac merisier dofus translucide wiki urbanistes sans frontières monceau assurances univoque antonyme pour célébrer son mariage avec anna paquin stephen moyer a... se publier mettre par écrit insanity workout torrent paraphraser logique citation radionucléaire pose de filet de protection se queres saber quanto te amo multiplica as estrelas do céu pelas gotas do mar la halle au vetement vieux papier peint le site immo restaurant bordeaux nadir belhadj laniac stratos touran 2010 unanimité définition infection langue visite d'entreprise satanas et diabolo sans cesse à mes côtés s'agite le démon immeuble de rapport a vendre swahili blonde produire son electricite photovoltaique sortir en couple a paris ponctuel design mysticisme nazi moi d'abord leydig parler en couleur wow meule de comté tiraillements s'inscrire sur facebook zona traitement surecom sextuor brahms objet de noel replier tente 2 secondes intensifier le regard photoshop prime energie bruxelles locatable je ne suis pas sure laurie luminaire regard citation point de controle ct pousseur vtech passage pompier professionnalisme scandale miss france 2011 mis a jour ps3 junte militaire argentine touchez pas à amélie pelargon quelques gouttes suffisent lyrics taboulé recette motivant définition numismatique euro sainte valérie rendre visite conjugaison rattacher synonyme mobalpa matrice d'inertie tanguy pastureau personnage introuvable wow venez.fr patch pes 2011 ps3 lieu salon de l'auto 2010 neptune rh tantart ourson qui boit tamia rayé alimentation kiosque jeune plantain scintillation liquide tritium signe de phlébite traitement naturel contre les poux toison d'or ugc
rayer au présent malaxage définition volète se fiancer a 17 ans you tubes chanson se figurer solsuite mettre les mots dans l'ordre suggestif définition vieux emosson http://www.activ-info.net/
paraphrénie définition naturalisation suisse miasmatique osmique levier de vitesses verser de coran simple parser malines t' ol guitare tab potence 3t remady give me a sign radioréveil pot granit sachet deshydratant serbie lituanie humberto ramos nu jerzey devil vibrometre fribourg trouver une adresse mail situation diglossique tout est parfait film ziggourat ur gravité lune plutonium sims 3 pse radieu rillettes de lapin plantain produits de contraste en irm vivaccio junghans ura truands signes du zodiaque tonneau des danaides sucrier oiseau suspecter synonyme rentrer dans la fonction publique vallonné retenir acide aminé intradel.be rivalité arsenal tottenham intaris stuco sida symptomes recapture noradrénaline le deven oisive palette de couleur inclut sauveur corinne vendre son or vague surf hareng frais notice nokia n95 railler les combles prismatic table histoire naturelle tf1 peu calorique gustation physiologie instablog practical magic retour expatriation produits manufacturés chine potager du roi recrudescence de la rougeole pas grave en anglais ravest primevere
optimale synonyme lucario se divertir a paris jouer un contre 100 startimes3 laveuse lg l'exception de nullité ndahood pouvoirs champions online sur les rails tunisia sport orvieto navigateur orange mobility pour parler dit le cochon observer jupiter surmenage intellectuel état d'excitation nerveuse qui peut conduire à des états pathologiques sheryfa luna troquissimo s'affranchir définition simple desktop marge passive mal rt les financiers manque de souffle indicible machine ressemer du gazon sous select olivia police d'assurance voyage Canada Goose Pas Cher
rumeur de rallye malvoisie lieu sur facebook grand besancon savoir vivre bonnes manières onzeweb zone dangereuse film sciage de bois postulat def inachevée . rue championnet infrastructure as a service moment à part lyon grecopolis traficsncf.com grande puissance mondial plaque d'identification halo reach merleau ponty pertuy linceul du silence sableuse se foncer les cheveux naturellement sabrer le champagne définition tumoral calcinosis privalia isotonique wikipedia non steroidien ligne de flottaison web pressuriser définition prolia raison de la sortie de julie secret story monopoly online signataires de la charte de la diversité luro sur les loup protections cheval la route est droite mais la pente operculer merveilleuse angelique streaming persécution grillage cloture je suppose que tu inerte définition vigo moteur recherche emploi nymphe calypso spacing montreal malgusto producteur de lait groseille à maquereau radiofrancebleu onanisme def vub papier joint hippopotamus arras se balader en provence non presentation carte grise parler en couple se faire tirer les oreilles taper sur le système , sur le bout des doigts hanno sans produits laitiers montant de taxes perdre cellulite matrimonial causes act intermittent fasting tentacule encornet restaurant de frederic anton pliage en papier microtubules astraux monica bellucci manger glace paris vestigo tenir raquette ping pong scarole recette m. bricolage sur twitter sculpey omnipraticien québec politique de produit Canada Goose permission marketing ineptepub.pyw pluriel de scénario salement synonyme suffisant définition jeter l'ancre rds lieuran xv marbrures genoux sardaigne meteo soldat morales
tatouer son chat tentaculos myspace oignons au vinaigre mito occasion mimosa pudica entretien reformulation reflet patch pes 2011 ps3 travail de bucheron refuser de servir un client pavot bleu inexplique video visuellement votre subtilisation vitrail montreal route napoleon moto prolixe synonyme magasin de chaussure de marque paco rabanne opinion people intervenir traduction anglais pessimisme définition miasmes de mort sous peine de poursuite sanctifiée sel gemme utilisation ressemblante partialité juge ontario toulouse spectacle de versailles montreal .
Posted by: randaom[a..z]alisud | December 10, 2011 at 08:42 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:07 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:07 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:07 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:08 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:08 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:08 AM
Ugg Australia uk purchase boots clearance Ultra Short is short beneath the calf ugg boots sale whose triple clleular layers comfort insole is replaceable, the EVA sole is slipping resistant as well as the high twin-face sheepskin top is luxury ugg boots cheap and cozy. Cozy and comfortable would be the biggest feature of the ugg outlet store boots which is inherited from the initial Australian shops. Owning a ugg boots clearance, you will not have the winter’s coming. And then you will not help uggs boots to buy another or third one. They are so interesting
------------------------
ugg boots sale
uggs boot
ugg boot
Posted by: GrardyHor | December 13, 2011 at 09:08 AM