Mexican paper warns about role of Venezuelan and Mexican Marxists

Our attention has been drawn to an article published in the Mexican newspaper El Financiero on August 27, 2007. El Financiero is one of the serious financial newspapers of the Mexican ruling class. Under the title "Praises for Chavez and appeals to overthrow the Calderon government in Bolivarian circles" the article is an attack on the Venezuelan government for an alleged "expansion of the personal (sic) interests of the Venezuelan government throughout the world". The implication is that a whole series of organisations and solidarity movements, while "making emphasis on their independence and not responding directly to the chavista government, they are supported and partially financed by it". The "article" then explains how these groups and organisations are actively involved in appeals to overthrow the Calderón government in México. Through this amalgam what the anonymous journalist is saying is that the Chávez government is behind the attempts in Mexico to overthrow Calderon.

This is a completely ridiculous argument, which has also been used in other countries (notably Perú) where the ruling class is in difficulties and they try to blame "foreign agitators", financed by the evil "Chavez" government, which has a plan for "spreading Communist revolution". Quite clearly the mass movement against electoral fraud in México and the illegitimate government of Calderón was the result of the electoral fraud committed by the Mexican ruling class. The massive mobilisation which acquired insurrectionary proportions in Oaxaca and gathered 3 million people in the streets of Mexico DF was in opposition to the policies of privatisation, attacks on social security, attacks on state education, etc carried out by the previous government of Fox and to defend the victory of Lopez Obrador in the elections. If there is a grain of truth in these allegations is this: the Venezuelan revolution is an inspiration for millions of workers, peasants and youth throughout the Latin American continent and beyond.

However what is significant about this article is that it makes a specific reference to the Revolutionary Marxist Current (CMR) in Venezuela and the Marxist Tendency Militante in Mexico. The Venezuelan CMR is mentioned together with the revolutionary website Aporrea and the Bolivarian Peoples' Congress as one of the "tools for ideological propaganda" with the aim of spreading the "socialist revolution in the 21st century".

The article in El Financiero also includes a long quote from an article by Rubén Rivera in Militante, the paper of the Marxist Tendency in México, which says: "to defend the Venezuelan revolution must be synonymous with promoting it in Mexico. Calderon and their reactionary hordes shout loudly against the Venezuelan revolution because they know that it means power to the workers and the loss of their privileges... Today more than even what is needed is unity of action to overthrow the Calderon government! Long live the Venezuelan revolution!"

These are the ideas the Mexican ruling class is afraid of! If the Mexican capitalist press pay a particular attention to the Venezuelan and Mexican Marxists is because they know that they are dangerous and that their ideas are gaining a growing echo. This is not an isolated article. Mexican newspapers conducted a campaign of criminalisation against the Marxist Tendency, attempting to link it up to the EPR guerrilla group, looking for an excuse to unleash state repression against the comrades. It is not by chance that this particular article appeared just a few weeks after a dozen activists from the CLEP-CEDEP students organisation and Militante were arrested while participating in student protests in Mexico City.

The role of the capitalist media is to provide justification and cover for the repressive actions of the state. But in this case, El Financiero is also giving the ruling class a warning about the role Marxists can play in the Venezuelan and Mexican revolutions.