Hugo Blanco: `No contradiction between my indigenous struggle and dialectical materialism'

Interview with veteran Peruvian Marxist Hugo Blanco, conducted by Yásser Gómez for Mariátegui magazine, September 9, 2008. Translated by Sean Seymour Jones for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
“The Self-organised Legislative Coup of the FTA [Free Trade Agreement], Indigenous Peoples and Social Movements” was the name of the national gathering of originario [indigenous] peoples, peasant communities and social movements that took place in Lima. There Mariátegui magazine interviewed Hugo Blanco, who in the 1970s led land takeovers in La Convención, Cusco, before the agrarian reform of Juan Velasco Alvarado was implemented. Today he continues in political combat from the trenches together with the peasantry, and as director of the newspaper Lucha Indigena (Indigenous Struggle).
What is your analysis of the Peruvian indigenous movement?
Hugo Blanco: I believe that it is on the rise, as it is in
Do you think [Bolivian President] Evo Morales is
taking the correct road in his conciliatory attitude with
the separatist oligarchy of the ``half moon’’ [provinces in eastern
I believe that he cedes a lot, he says that he wants to avoid bloodshed and
that's why he tries to reconcile with the oligarchy, but they don't want
to reconcile at all. Then, each act of his, more or less conciliatory, is
taken as a triumph by his enemies and in this way they advance further. This
has been seen in many cases, for example having the Constituent Assembly have
to get two-thirds [majority to approve the draft constitution].
After
that, until now, Morales hasn’t convoked the referendum for the Constituent
Assembly, when there was the abuse of the indigenous people in
So, the whole thing of saying something and then easing off afterwards frustrates the people and these frustrated people are dangerous. We have seen that despite this, and the existence of some ultraleft sectors that have called for a vote to remove Evo, such as Pukara magazine and the leadership of the COB [Bolivian Workers Central], Evo Morales obtained more votes than the 53% he won in the presidential elections of 2005.
We have to condemn those ultraleft sectors that stupidly called for a vote to remove Evo. Because if Evo leaves, who will come in? It wasn't the COB that was going to enter into government, or the editors of Pukara, or El Mallku [Felipe Quispe], it was going to be the Santa Cruz oligarchy that would have got in and done the same thing that Pinochet did in Chile.
Do you think the thoughts of José Carlos
Mariátegui continue to be valid for the struggle of the originario peoples in
In Peru all the left self-defines itself as Mariateguist, but it seems that none of these Mariateguists have read The Seven Interpretive Essays of the Peruvian Reality, Mariátegui’s fundamental work, in which two of his essays are dedicated to the indigenous issue: “The Indian Problem” and “The Problem of Land”. And they completely ignore the indigenous problem, that's why, together with some comrades, we have started to publish the newspaper Lucha Indigena. And with these latest legislative decrees proposed by the APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana -- American Revolutionary Popular Alliance) government, once again we are seeing what Maríategui said, that the problem of the Indian is the problem of land.
How involved are the police authorities
with the drug trafficking in the coca-growing zone of
I have denounced in the pages of Lucha
Indigena and on the radio, that in
I have gone to coca-growing zones like Valle del Río Apurímac y
I went to confirm it, but the police didn't let me enter that zone. I
said to them: "I just came to see the soaking pools". They replied to
me: "The general has prohibited people from seeing those pools." And
those from ENACO, together with the police, are the ones that take coca leaves
just metres from those pools.
Once again, I want to denounce, through Maríategui magazine, that the heads of ENACO and of the police are
the cocaine producers. Moreover, ENACO is a monopoly, the
Political Constitution of Peru, in article 61,
prohibits monopolies, it doesn't specify any exception, such as if
they are state or private. So it's an unconstitutional organisation that buys
coca leaves at a low price and sells them for four times as much. When
the Andean parliament member and coca-grower leader Elsa Malpartida visited
Putina Punko in 2007, the coca growers from the zone asked her for a tractor
from the mayor, to destroy a landing strip that was used by drug traffickers.
Who had constructed that air field? DEVIDA, the state organisation that supposedly
fights against the illegal trafficking of drugs.
What is your analysis of the anti-drugs
policy of the Alan García government?
This policy of APRA serves North American interests, who with the
justification of fighting the production of cocaine, puts its army in our
territory. Because they are interested in political and military control over
that big source of hydrocarbons that is the Peruvian Amazon, the biodiversity
and above all the water of the Amazon. Just as the pretext in
Does Marxism have relevance as a tool
for the struggles of the Peruvian people?
The fundamental thing that I learned from Marx is dialectical
materialism. And I continue to use dialectical materialism, although there are
many things with which I disagree with Marx. Because for Marx no human being is
perfect, for Marx there were no bibles, reality is worth more than a thousand
books, all of this is why I'm a Marxist.
Besides, given that I'm a dialectical materialist, I understand that
people suffer from the pressures of their environment and their time. That's
why I understand that he also suffered from Eurocentric pressures. For example
he said that the conquest of
I don't like to define myself as Marxist, because it isn't a religion.
But I have a lot to be grateful for to Marx, because he taught me dialectical
materialism. And by being dialectical I know that the American reality is
different to