Reviews

Social Struggles and the City:
The Case of Sio Paulo Edited by LOcio Kowarick, Monthly Review Press, 1994, 269 pp., $38 (cloth), $18 (paper).
The departure point for the essays
in this book is the link between
workplace demands and communi-
ty demands for urban improve-
ment. In the logic of the capitalist
city, Kowarick argues, systems of
capital accumulation function to
wrest the most labor power from
workers while spending the least
amount possible on urban services
to reproduce the labor force. In Sdo
Paulo, Latin America’s second-
largest city and among its most
unequal, the connection between
exploitation in the workplace and
misery in the community is sharply
etched. Union and urban move-
ments have, therefore, been adept
at mutually supporting one anoth-
er’s struggles.
In one of the book’s most cogent
essays, L6cio Kowarick and Nabil
G. Bonduki analyze Sdo Paulo’s
urban development over the past
50 years, with particular emphasis
on state-civil society relations. In
the period between the end of the
1940s and the military takeover of
1964, the authors argue, a policy of
“urban laissez-faire” reigned, in
which people were allowed to set-
tle and build housing with little
state interference-or support.
Real-estate agents made a killing
as the expansion of the city into
the periphery raised land prices.
The State made only the most
modest of concessions to the poor,
such as the provision of public
transportation to the outlying areas
so workers could get to their jobs
in the city center. Under the dicta-
torship, even these shreds of state
accountability were lost. Urban
policy served only the interests of
big business, real-estate agents and
the upper class. The chapter con-
cludes with a look at the modest
gains recently made by the city’s
organized social movements–
often in partnership with the
Workers Party (PT).
Kowarick intersperses overview
pieces that provide context with
narrow case studies. The book’s
contributors-all Brazilian acade-
mics-take on such topics as the
post-World War II housing crisis,
the pivotal 1978 metalworkers’
strike, and the PT’s governance of
the city from 1989 to 1991.
Because Kowarick has written or
co-authored four of the book’s nine
chapters, the book is more cohe-
sive than most edited volumes.
Rebellion from the Roots:
Indian Uprising in Chiapas by John Ross, Common Courage Press, P.O. Box 702, Monroe, ME 04951, 1995, 424 pp., $14.95 (paper).
This is a breezy but compelling
account of last year’s Zapatista
uprising in the southern Mexican
state of Chiapas. It recounts events
leading up to, surrounding and
flowing from the rebellion. Ross
brings an irreverent style, devel-
oped over years of writing for the
alternative press, to this rapidly
put-together book. Though not a
scholar, Ross provides a much
fuller context for the uprising than
one typically finds in the main-
stream media. In interwoven chap-
ters, he connects to the uprising
NAFTA, the U.S. State Depart-
ment, indigenous Mexico and Cen-
tral America, the ruling PRI, the
Chiapas ruling class, liberation the-
ology and Mexico’s tumultuous
events of 1994. The most effective
sections of the book detail the
uprising itself, get inside the Zap-
atista organization, and examine
the peace negotiations, focusing on
the interaction among government
negotiator Manuel Camacho, the
Zapatista leader Subcomandante
Marcos, and the mediator Bishop
Samuel Rufz-who Ross delights
in calling, quite approvingly, “the
Red Bishop.”
Perhaps most fascinating is
Ross’ speculation about the identi-
ty and political/iconographic
meaning of Marcos (who is known
to his “fans” as the Sup). What
does the Sup really look like? What
is the nature of his appeal-and
why have the sales of ski masks
gone up? What is the Sup’s sexual-
ity? Does his prominence perpetu-
ate the myth that “the Indians can’t
have a revolution unless the white
guys bring the flashlights?” There
are certainly more sophisticated
and historically compelling analy-
ses of the recent events in Chiapas,
but this is a book which, if
assigned to students, is certain to
be read cover to cover.
School of Assassins a video narrated by Susan Sarandon, produced and distributed by Mary- knoll World Productions, P.O. Box 308, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0308, 1994, 18 mins., $14.95 plus $2.00 s+h.
This brief video chronicles the
atrocities committed by graduates
of the U.S. Army’s School of the
Americas (SOA), especially in El
Salvador during the 1980s. Pro-
duced as part of the lobbying
effort in support of the persistent
attempts of liberal Congressional
Democrats to shut the school
down by cutting off funding, the
video raises issues that can be
used as talking points in class-
rooms and community discussion
groups. The video covers well-trod
territory-the murders of Arch-
bishop Romero, the four U.S.
nuns, the peasants at El Mozote,
and the six Jesuits and their house-
keeper. It reports the National
Security Archive’s chilling discov-
ery of a cable from U.S. Ambas-
sador to El Salvador, Dean Hinton,
which confirmed that the Embassy
knew in advance of death-squad
leader (and SOA graduate) Rober-
to D’Aubisson’s plan to murder
the Archbishop.
Unfortunately, the video merely
hints at the current activities of
SOA graduates in places like
Colombia and Peru. And in a
greater omission, the video fails to
address the motivation behind
U.S. support for death-squad
activity, leaving the impression
that crafty Latin thugs are simply
very good at bilking the long-suf-
fering U.S. taxpayer. The video’s
politics seem deliberately crafted
to help the lobbying effort, but
Congressional action on the SOA
is now probably less likely than
ever. Long-term organizing–
which needs a clearer focus than
this video provides-has never
been more important.
The Cuban Revolution in Crisis:
From Managing Socialism to
Managing Survival by Frank T. Fitzgerald, Monthly Review Press, 1994, 239 pp., $34 (cloth), $16 (paper).
The title of this book is somewhat
misleading. Fitzgerald does not
concentrate on the post-1989 “spe-
cial period,” nor does he take a
particularly negative, fatalistic
view of the revolution’s future.
Instead, Fitzgerald’s primary con-
cern is how the revolution has
dealt with the country’s skill short-
Unless otherwise noted, all
reviews are written by NACIA.
NACTA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
age-a consequence of both the
poor educational base of the pre-
1959 population and the early exo-
dus of a small but significant seg-
ment of the middle class.
To address this question, the
author focuses on the revolution’s
middle ranks-those between the
leadership cupola and the rank-
and-file workers. At first, party
militants with good political but
poor educational credentials-the
so-called “old cadres”-filled the
administrative ranks. As the litera-
cy campaigns and educational
reforms began to pay dividends
over the years, the old cadres have
been gradually replaced-though
not without a struggle-by newly
trained professionals.
In the process of tracing this sea
change in the revolution’s middle
ranks, Fitzgerald ends up dis-
cussing competing theories of
socialist development, and the eco-
nomic strategies that Castro threw
his weight behind at different
moments. He is particularly con-
cerned with the democratic dimen-
sion of these rival economic mod-
els. Given that actual decisions
have always been made by the
leaders, he examines the degree to
which workers and mid-level func-
tionaries have been able to partici-
pate in formulating, evaluating and
implementing policy at different
conjunctures. He also takes a hard
look at bureaucratization-a prob-
lem with which the revolution has
struggled from the beginning.
Sidestepping the considerable
minefields that anyone writing
about Cuba faces today, Fitzgerald
has produced a remarkably even-
handed, non-polemical book. It is
an excellent introduction for those
who have only a passing acquain-
tance with the history of the Cuban
revolution, and a thoughtful
resource for anyone concerned
with the construction of socialism
in the Third World.