Chile - December 5, 2023

The plebiscite of December 17, is a DEADLY TRAP against the workers and the poor people

Whether "for" or "against" achieves victory, imperialism is what wins, as it will continue
to plunder the copper and lithium of the
Chilean people

At the beginning of November Boric attended a meeting at which the "Alliance for Economic Prosperity in the Americas" (APEP) was launched. Under this pompous name, a dozen US-submissive presidents and representatives of Latin American countries met with bloodthirsty Biden. They came to it in order to make clear that they supported him and that imperialism could come to take the lithium, copper and all the wealth of our Latin American nations, a.k.a. the "US American backyard". The assassin Dina Boluarte, who seized power by means of a coup d'état and spilt workers' and peasants' blood all over Peru, was also present.

Boric and Petro, who are painted as "progressives" by the whole world reformism, had each one bilateral meetings with genocidal Biden. Boric assured Biden that he himself was going home in a state of calm because US president "shared with him his concern about Israel's unconscionable response", while Petro asked Biden to "prevent the massacre in Gaza". The cynicism of these lackey "left" rulers knows no bounds, they want to pass Biden off as a "democrat concerned about the fate of the Palestinian people", when Biden is the government of the US Democrat butchers that finances, arms and commands the extermination in Gaza. On the other hand, Boric assured Biden that whatever the result of the plebiscite on December 17, which will either give rise to a new constitution or maintain the current one, the big US transnationals could feel safe to continue plundering the country. Thus Boric and the Communist Party, the strongest party in the Cñhilena ruling coalition, prove to be the best administrators of the business of US imperialism and its national junior partners, the bourgeoisie.

On his return, Boric went to the old former national congress to receive the new constitutional project handed over to him by all the parties of the ruling coalition and of Pinochetism that participated in the elaboration of the new constitutional trap.

It must be remembered that this new draft was elaborated by a handful of constitutional councillors, experts, etc. in a totally and absolutely undemocratic way and behind the backs of the workers and the people. This is how this project could not have any other result than that if it is approved it will be worse than Pinochet's constitution of 1980. Boric received it from the hands of the president of that institution, Beatriz Hevia, a reactionary member of Kast's republican party, who in her speech said that this constitution would be the constitution of "the true Chileans". No doubt the true Chileans would be for these rotten ultra-reactionaries the 1% made by the rich of the country. It is clear for everybody the class hatred that these people feel for the working class, the Mapuche, the poor people, the immigrants etc., i.e. those who produce the wealth of the country.

It is categorically demonstrated that during these four years, since the "Agreement for Social Peace and a new Constitution" of November 15, 2019, of all the parties of Pinochetism and the former Concertacion, the convening of fraudulent plebiscites, antidemocratic constituent assemblies, constitutional councils, commission of experts, technical committee, etc., were nothing more than a detour to take off the streets and undermine the energies of the working and popular masses that rose up in October 2019 to the cry of "Out with Piñera" and threatened to demolish the brutal Pinochetista regime of the 1980s constitution.

As we know, all this would not have been possible without the decisive participation of all the Reformist currents and parties of all stripes, which are in the bureaucratic leaderships of the totally statified trade unions and trade union centres, which in order to better betray created the so-called "Social Unity Board". From there they betrayed each of the demands of the workers and the poor people, who under the slogan "it is not 30 pesos, it is 30 years" correctly pointed out their situation of super-exploitation, high cost of living, miserable wages and pensions, precarious work, labour abuse and surrender of the wealth of the country to the voracity and plunder of the imperialist transnationals.

After having worked out every last comma of this trap, they now want the workers and the poor people to vote "for" or "against" in the fraudulent plebiscite of December 17. To reach this new exit off a plebiscite all the institutions of the regime of the Pinochet's constitution of '80 were used during these four years. That is why this new constitutional project is nothing but a child of Pinochet's constitution of '80. It is a scandalous lie that it is a "new constitution" when it takes up all the essence of the Pinochetista constitution and "improves" it in favor of the plunder and profit of the imperialist transnationals and the big economic groups that control practically all the branches of the economy. This is the Chile tied in triple chains to imperialism!

Let us look at some examples of how the workers would be left, if the new draft constitution is approved. The AFPs (Chile prívate pension system) are totally protected: article 16, paragraph 28, letter b) states that "each person will have ownership of their pension contributions for old age and the savings generated by them, and will have the right to freely choose the institution, either state or private one, that administers and invests them. Under no circumstances may they be expropriated or appropriated by the state through any mechanism whatsoever". In other words, pensioners will continue to receive miserable pensions while international companies and insurance companies and their junior partners, the "national" economic groups, do fabulous business and obtain multi-million profits from the theft of pensions.

In health, the private sector will continue to exist while public hospitals are falling apart, which is where most of the population is treated. In education there will be an alleged "freedom of choice" between the private and public sector with public subsidies, as it works today. Public, free and quality education! No. There will be no “education first for the child of the worker and just after this is fulfilled, for the child of the bourgeois”, no well-paid teachers, only temporary education workers!

The right to strike will be limited only to collective bargaining (Article 27) and only within the framework of each company. In Chile there has been no effective right to strike since the imposition of the Pinochetista labour plan by the dictatorship, and the strike is regulated by this "labor code" which also regulates the complete state-ization of the trade unions.

Moreover, on the other hand, they intend to "improve" their den of servants of the imperialist transnationals, which is the parliament, since whichever party that does not obtain 5% of votes nationally will not be able to elect any deputy or senator, even if it has been the most voted in its district or constituency (Article 56). This prevents the nomination of any independent candidate from the parties of the regime. In this way, they want to install, as a bad copy, a "two-party" parliamentary system like the US one.

On the other hand, with the peroration of the persecution of alleged "terrorism", any organization or group that is characterized as "accomplices" or "abettors" of terrorist actions can be outlawed (Article 15). Repression is also strengthened by Article 100, letter r, of the draft constitution as it empowers the president to use the Armed Forces to safeguard "critical infrastructure". This is all the "democracy" that these semi-colonial regimes, servants of imperialism, can give!

The electoral circus has begun that will define with which constitution the exploiters will continue to super-exploit the workers and the people to the last drop of sweat and blood. If the "for" side wins, they will impose the "new constitution" and if the "against" side wins, the present constitution, imposed with blood and fire by Pinochet's bayonets, will continue. This is the real death trap against the workers and the people and the poor peasantry. For the same reason, as we have already shown above, we Trotskyists do not call to vote for either of the two alternatives because it is a death trap. Unfortunately no political organization of the so-called "left" has had a minimally class-independent policy, not even those workers' organizations that pose as class-conscious, that would have raised an open struggle to put an end to this Pinochetista regime by proposing a boycott of this whole fraudulent constitutional process. Unfortunately, since the previous electoral process, there is again compulsory voting, whereby anyone who does not vote is punished with a fine ranging from $31,537 (about 40 dollars) to $189,222 (which is equivalent to almost $220 dollars, almost half of a minimum monthly wage).

The renegades of Trotskyism are once again covering the left flank of this Pinochetista regime which used all its anti-democratic and repressive tricks to get the masses off the streets

The renegades of Trotskyism in Chile are not saying a single word about the fact that all these frauds, from the first anti-democratic plebiscite to this last one, have been possible because the bourgeoisie used all the mechanisms and institutions of the Pinochetist constitution of '80 made in the US embassy, its justice system, its parliament full of corrupt servants of the transnationals, etc. They have even "forgotten" that under that constitution the whole scaffolding was built of the imperialist plunder of the country, the starvation economic plans of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys school, the labour plan-labour code tailor-made for the transnationals that imposed the most brutal super-exploitation of the Chilean working class and the total state-ization of the trade unions. Under this constitution, its laws and regulations etc. applied by the different governments of the former Concertacion, the right wing and the New Majority, the most brutal attacks were unloaded against the working class, with the dismissal of thousands of workers like for example the miners of Lota, in mining and other branches of production the bloodsucking subcontracting companies appeared. During the pandemic, more than 1500 subcontracted underground workers or the thousands of health workers who were hired during the pandemic were laid off, and a long etc., which have done nothing but increasingly worsen the plight the exploited have to face day after day. Moreover, after the revolutionary process initiated in October 2019, of which the repression left dozens of comrades assassinated by the Pinochetista armed forces and police officers, and hundreds that lost their eyes, and even today dozens of political prisoners, they have voted and imposed laws such as the militarization of the Araucanía, the anti-factories-and-education-centres take-overs law, or the Naín-Retamal (a law that reinforces the impunity for the repressive forces brutality, NT), etc.

There is no doubt that the constitutional project elaborated by the parties of Pinochetism, the government and those who have parliamentary representation is worse than the constitution of 1980. But to hide and silence that this project maintains all the essence of the 80's constitution of Pinochet, to call to vote "against", is totally nefarious. It is calling to vote for "the lesser evil" against the "greater evil" which in this case would be what they call "Kastitusion". This is the class-collaborationist politics of Stalinism, to which the renegade currents of Trotskyism have adapted themselves, calling for a vote for Petro-F. Márquez in Colombia, the Castillo-Boluarte formula in Peru, Boric in Chile and lately Massa in Argentina, as did openly the Socialist Left of the FIT-U, (sister party of the MST of Chile, in the UIT-CI) with the argument of voting against Milei's right wing. For its part, the PSTU Lit-ci, from Argentina, in the runoff called to vote blank or annul, while in Chile the group MIT -Lit-ci, calls to vote "against". As if the enemies of the exploited were not the same on both sides of the Andes!

For its part, the Communist Party, through the mouth of C. Vallejo in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, says that: "Since the (social) outburst (on October 18, 2019,NT), the focus has been on reaching an agreement on issues that previously distanced us profoundly". It is very clear that the central "issue" was to uphold the regime of the Pinochetista constitution of 1980, and now with its call to vote "against", together with Boric's FA (Broad Front), the "socialists" of Lagos and Bachelet and all the pro-US reformist left, together with the coup plotters of the DC (Christian Democratic Party), they are trying to get the workers and the common people to relegitimize it. Furthermore, this policy of class collaboration is exposed, when right-wing parliamentarians are also calling to vote "against", even in parties like the Social Christian one and La Gente (The people) party that call to vote "for", part of their adherents will vote "against". Those on the right who will vote "against" will do so because they have always opposed any change in the Pinochetista constitution and in order to "close any constitutional process". Of course there are already rumours that, if the "no" vote wins, what will happen is there will have to wait for a few more years to reform Pinochet's '80 constitution.

The MIT says in a recent leaflet: "However, just voting "Against" will not solve our problems. It is essential that the organizations of the working class and youth, such as the CUT, the trade union federations and confederations, CONFECH and the social movements build a list of demands and a plan of action to fight to improve our living conditions. It was the path of the mobilization and organization of "October 18" that opened the crack between the powerful and the possibilities of change. This crack is the one they are now trying to bury". Incredible, the MIT asks the strike-breaking bureaucrats of the CUT, the CONFECH in the hands of Stalinism, the "socialists" and the Broad Front supporterd, real “ministers without portfolio” to draw up a "list of demands" and a "plan of action" to fight, when it was the infamous leaderships of these organizations that using all their weight and means at their disposal prevented Piñera and the entire Pinochetista regime from being thrown down. They were the gravediggers of the revolutionary process of October 2019, with plebiscitary frauds and antidemocratic constituent convention in between, and that the MIT, accompanied as the shadow to the body by its elected constituent, legitimizing the convention, and later in the height of its electoral cretinism called to vote for Boric, together with the no less cretins of the MST-Uit-ci.

For its part, the PTR - PTS denounces this trap, but its call for a "mobilization" is for a "free and sovereign constituent assembly", when the struggle for the present moment is to stop the attack of this pro-imperialist government of Boric and the CP, which with its latest anti-worker laws and against the fighters has only perfected the constitution of the 80s.

The forces to confront this government exist and have been harshly repressed by the police commanded by Boric and the CP, this has been the case of the high school students who have not given up their fighting against this government. Not to mention the poor Mapuche peasants who are resisting and fighting to recover their land despite the militarization imposed by this government with the approval of the corrupt parliament. And still the struggle to free the political prisoners of October 2019 rumbles in the streets as convictions and trials continue against the rebellious youth who confronted the Piñera government and the Pinochetista constitution.

To take up again the revolutionary road of October 2019 and finish the pending task of overthrowing the constitution of '80:

For a great congress of workers, students and the poor Mapuche peasants!

Let it be composed of one delegate per 100 from every factory, port, mine and study centre. That rank and file assemblies be set up in every study and work centre to discuss how to stop the current attack and give a workers' solution to all the pending demands of the exploited. Only in this way will we be able to take back the CUT and all our organizations from the hands of the strike-breaking bureaucrats who tie the fate of the proletariat to this pro-imperialist government that they paint as "progressive". Down with the union and student bureaucracy! Open the way for the militant workers' and students' rank-and-file!

The money for free and quality education at all levels, for decent wages and pensions, housing, health and free transport is there, but it is being taken away by imperialism plundering the nation!

Imperialism out of all Latin America! Gringos Go Home!

No more plunder, out with the transnationals! Copper and lithium belong to the Chileans!

For Cooper Re-nationalization without compensation and under workers' control!
Expropriation of Albemarle, SQM and its Chinese partner Tianqui that plunder our lithium, without compensation and under workers' control!

Down with APEP! Out with the IMF!
Break all economic, political and military treaties that tie the nation to imperialism!
Out with the US South-Com, its troops and military bases in Colombia, Chile, Peru and the whole Latin America!

Step forward to the anti-imperialist unity of the exploited of Latin America with the workers of the US!

The workers of the US and imperialist Europe are standing together with the Palestinian masses and stopping the war machine, the Chilean workers together with the biggest Palestinian community outside the Middle East must follow this path for one and only fight from Chile to Palestine:

For the destruction of the Zionist-fascist state of Israel, armed and financed by the US!
Free Palestine from the Jordan River to the Sea, with its capital in Jerusalem!

Immediate freedom for all political prisoners in Chile, Palestine, Latin America and the world!

For the working class and the oppressed peoples of the world to live, imperialism must die!

Chile will be socialist or a colony of Wall Street