by FAROOQUE CHOWDHURY
Comrade Marta died on 15 June 2019 of cancer in Canada. A relentless fighter, comrade Marta Harnecker (1937 – 2019) made valuable contributions in the areas of theory related to revolution for socialism in the broader Latin American perspective. Her struggle was for a humane world.
Marta Hernecker’s was not an adventurist-head and not an adventurist-voice, which made her a leading theoretician for people of her time. Rather, years of learning from struggles helped her take an approach linking to reality and perspective, alignment of classes and balance of power of hostile classes. This led her to say:
“We need a left that realizes that being radical does not consist of raising the most militant slogan or carrying out the most extreme actions — with which only a few agree, and which scare off the majority — but rather in being capable of creating spaces for the broadest possible sectors to meet and join forces in struggle. The realization that there are many of us in the same struggle is what makes us strong; it is what radicalizes us. We need a left that understands that we must obtain hegemony, that is to say, that we have to convince instead of imposing. We need a left that understands that, more important than what we have done in the past, is what we will do together in the future to win our sovereignty — to build a society that makes possible the full development of all human beings: the socialist society of the twenty-first century. [[i]]
It is a lesson to be taken into consideration. “Radical […] raising the most militant slogan or carrying out the most extreme actions” mean nothing, but simply a juvenile effort to establish self as the “hero”, in real sense a zero, the character class enemies of the exploited prefer the most.
The sociologist, political scientist, and activist from Chile was a close comrade of Hugo Chavez, the Bolivarian revolutionary leader of Venezuela and one of the most hated figures to the imperialists. To Marta, today’s Venezuela is a laboratory of the Bolivarian revolution. By the type of a number of works, she was also a journalist. But, none of her [journalistic] work took her away from the political fight of people for a humane world. She was not with any idea, which was devoid of political action.
Marta writes:
“In order for political action to be effective, so that protests, resistance and struggles are genuinely able to change things, to convert mass uprisings into revolutions, a political instrument capable of overcoming the dispersion and fragmentation of the exploited and the oppressed is required: one that can create spaces to bring together those who, in spite of their differences, have a common enemy; that is able to strengthen existing struggles and promote others by orientating their actions according to a thorough analysis of the political situation; that can act as an instrument for cohering the many expressions of resistance and struggle.”[[ii]]
It is an essential line of approach today; because the bourgeoisie is fragmenting the exploited with different colours – the tact that weakens the exploited and strengthens the exploiters.
The theoretician was always at the frontline, from country to country. She summarised lessons from successful revolutions:
“The history of triumphant revolutions clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when a political instrument exists that is capable of raising an alternative national program to unify the struggles of diverse social actors behind a common goal […]” [[iii]] And, she emphasised: “[…] actions be carried out at the right place and the right time, always seeking out the weakest link in the enemy’s chain.”[[iv]] It is the same lesson Lenin taught through the Great October Revolution: right place, right time, enemy’s weakest link.
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