The Thirtieth Anniversary
Essay by Roger Burbach
[“Socialism is Dead, Long
Live Socialism,” Nov/Dec 1997]
presents some provocative argu-
ments, and is a welcome opening of
debate on the future of socialist
movements in Latin America. I
strongly disagree, however, with the
fundamentals of Burbach’s analysis
and conclusions.
While the article considers several
causes for the failure of “socialism
as we knew it” in Cuba, Chile and
Nicaragua, it never mentions the
fundamental one, namely, that it
occurred in the context of underde-
velopment. In these countries, social-
ism was destined to fail, as it was in
the Soviet Union when the revolu-
tion did not expand to Germany in
1919. It is not news that it is impos-
sible to build a successful socialist
regime in an underdeveloped coun-
try while capitalism remains fully
entrenched in the developed world.
This key omission becomes the basis
Readers are invited to address letters to
The Editors, NACLA Report on the
Americas, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 454,
New York, NY 10115. Letters can be sent
by e-mail to: editor@nacla. org.
of Burbach’s proposed utopian solu-
tion-“postmodern socialisms.”
According to Burbach, “postmod-
ern socialisms” encompass local and
regional struggles of groups that live
off the leftovers of the globalization
feast (street vendors, garbage scav-
engers), as well as current peasant
struggles, like those in Chiapas and
Brazil. Burbach’s analysis elevates
some of the most desperate struggles
for survival, which arise from the
profound underdevelopment of Latin
America, to paradigmatic building
blocks of future “socialisms.” Even
if it were possible to infuse these
survival strategies with a socialist
orientation-a doubtful proposition-
local and regional “socialisms”
would be doomed to failure. Not
only would it be extremely difficult
to convince people to forgo the ben-
efits of modern technology, but
external actors-governments as
well as transnational entities-would
do everything possible to defeat such
“socialist experiments.” Burbach’s
solution for the reconstruction of
socialist movements in Latin
America is utopian in its vision,
and most likely very cruel in its
consequences.
Burbach mentions, but then fails
to analyze, one possibility for the
reconstruction of socialism in Latin
America. For the first time, global-
ization objectively favors coopera-
tion among workers of different
countries, including cooperation
between workers in underdeveloped
and developed countries. This coop-
eration, moreover, may also bring
important civil rights, child labor,
gender equality and environmental
issues to the forefront of trans-
national struggles. Contrary to
Burbach’s proposal, which limits the
range of socialist goals to the
crumbs left over by the globalization
process, reconstruction of the social-
ist movements in Latin America
necessitates broadening their scope
to include the struggle for the uni-
versalization of the rights to work,
education, nutrition, health care,
social security, access to modern
technology and communication, a
clean environment, democracy and
racial and gender equality.
Ultimately, only socialism can
accomplish these goals. Thus, “Long
Live Socialism.”
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