New Terrain For Rural Politics

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Repor4 o* t Am4i4Cea The Left NEW TERRAIN FOR RURAL POLITICS BY JONATHAN FOX · J··- LONG BEEN an LATIN AMERICAN and rural workers in their HE active ally of peasants LEFT HAS struggle for survival. But urban-based leftist parties have traditionally viewed peasants as unreliable partners in the worker-peasant alliance that would eventually bring a revolutionary vanguard to power. Moreover, many on the Left have sought to frustrate peasant demands for local autonomy, perhaps the most persistent theme of peasant politics over the centuries.' Many leftists long thought that peasants' near-univer- sal demand for land was petty-bourgeois, reflecting individualistic desires to become property-owners. The next step was to assume that political consciousness had to be brought to them by intellectuals and proletar- ians. But peasants and rural workers had few external allies to choose from, and at least revolutionaries offered the promise of land, if not democracy. Since the dramatic T PoliticalscientistJonathanFox teaches at MIT and is a member of NACLA's Editorial Board. His book, The Political Dynamics of Reform: State Power and Food Policy in Mexico, will be publishedthis yearby Cornell University Press. political and economic changes of the late 1980s, how- ever, the Left and broader social movements have begun to rethink their relationships with one another. Peasant movements are no exception. After decades of subordination to their political allies, Latin American peasant movements today are in the midst of a strategic turn toward greater autonomy. For peasants and farmworkers, the issue is not whether to ally with political parties, but on what terms. National political parties aspire to the state's commanding heights, and rarely emphasize the democratization of the public arenas of greatest immediate importance to the rural poor-the municipality, the police and the rural branches of central government agencies. With the transition to democracy, one might think that political parties would intensify their appeals to peasants and farmworkers. After all, peasant and farmworker votes can matter even in countries with large urban majorities. In Brazil's historic 1989 presi- dential race, for example, Lula and the Workers Party won the big cities but Collor clinched victory with the support of the hinterland. In Mexico's 1988 presidential race, rural districts gave Carlos Salinas his official REPORT ON THE AMERICAS