42
PETER WEISS
know it's not only the compradors we shall have to fight, but the
whole might of North America. Our future lies in guerrilla warfare.
TROTSKY: The conditions in South America are different from those in
China. And different again from Africa, India. In the course of whole
centuries your rural population has grown used to its weakness and
poverty. In China the revolutionary leaders live among the peasants.
In your countries there is no common cultural background. The small
farmers, the shepherds, the Indians, when you go among them, they
look on you with suspicion. You don't speak their language. You
grew up in the cities. Can read and write. They know nothing except
their mountains, their valleys, their forests.
SOUTH AMERICAN STUDENT: Yet it is easier for us there, out in the de–
serts, than in the cities and industrial centers. Just because of their
constant daily need, they've never learned how to t()e the line in order
to gain some imagined advantage. Money has never corrupted them,
since they scarcely know what money is. From them we can expect
everything. They have nothing to lose.
TR.OTSKY: Yet I still believe it's the workers in industry, in the cities,
who first realize their position. Who are willing to find out. Without
a political conception, without a party, nothing can be done.
SOUTH AMERICAN STUDENT: I don't think the city parties' directives will
be of much help to us, Comrade Trotsky. None of the existing theories
fit our problem. Perhaps we shall have to start right at the beginning.
As you did, with a handful of professional revolutionaries. Discover ·
our strategy as we go along.
TROTSKY: Yes, I don't suggest the backward countries should simply
wait patiently until the proletariat from the metropolitan centers come
to free them. Conditions for armed rebellion must be created every–
where. In different ways. In the towns through political argument,
through legal, semilegal and illegal activities. In the country districts
through education in its simplest form. Since the workers form a
single class, they can join in pressing common demands. Through
strikes, demonstrations. The illiterate small farmers are not a class.
Nationalities, tribal customs, religions, superstitions, divide them. They
can rise up spontaneously against profiteers, feudal landlords. Hunger,
misery impels them. But to sustain a lasting revolution, you need a
political conviction. That's why a rebellion, if it is to become a libera–
tion movement, must be led by enlightened workers.
SOUTH AMERICAN STUDENT: Time will show whether objective condi–
tions in the classical sense are necessary in Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru.
Or whether they can't be created through subjective surprise actions.
The
STUDENTS
rise and prepare to leave.
