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Marta Harnecker (1937-2019) was a Chilean journalist and Marxist intellectual. Active during Salvador Allende's government in Chile, Harnecker also advised the government of Cuba and Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez.  

For issue #91 of The Internationalist, we bring to you Part 2 of our series featuring Harnecker's Estrategia y Táctica or Strategy and Tactics, co-written with Gabriela Uribe in 1973. This text was part of the volumes written by Harnecker and Uribe to promote socialist education.

In this section, Harnecker and Uribe explain how a good strategist must both analyze the current power dynamics and create conditions to shift them in favor of the revolution.

This text has been translated from Spanish to English by Maria Inés Cuervo, Translations Coordinator at the Progressive International.

You can read Part 1 here.

It is important to remember here that a good strategist must not only be able to make a correct analysis of the current correlation of forces, but at the same time be able to create the conditions for that correlation of forces to change in favour of the revolutionary forces.

And for this it is politically important to distinguish between those who could be with the revolutionary process because of the objective situation they occupy in society and those who already are. Let us take an example: A peasant exploited by his boss (a big landowner) is a person who is objectively interested in the process of Agrarian Reform in order to put an end to his exploited situation.

However, because of his low political consciousness, because his boss is the godfather of his children and from time to time brings them a little present, this peasant has come to stand together with his boss against the revolutionary forces that are carrying forward the Agrarian Reform.

Another quite characteristic example is that of the small industrialists and traders who would be favoured if the industrial monopolies and their distribution were ended, but who, through right-wing propaganda and the weaknesses of the UP, have been won over to counter-revolutionary positions.

When we refer to those who could be with the process we are thinking of the "possible correlation of forces" that should be given according to the objective conditions that these groups have in society.

When we refer to those who are already with the process, we are referring to the "real correlation of forces". A good strategist, therefore, is one who plans a strategy that allows for the incorporation into the revolutionary process of all those sectors which, because of their situation in society, should be interested in the changes advocated by the revolutionary forces.

What determined that sectors which should have been in agreement with the Programme of Popular Unity were not in agreement from the beginning? The classes in power up to then controlled the vast majority of the media, the educational system, etc. Their propaganda was massive and through lies and terror they managed to awaken the conservative and bourgeois sentiments that they had been instilling in the population for years. In this way they won over many hesitant and depoliticised sectors.

But why is it that even today, despite the fact that many of the programme's achievements have favoured them, there are still important sectors that are against the process?

We think that this is mainly due to the fact that Popular Unity has not developed an offensive in the ideological field, has shown a lack of coordination and certain weaknesses in political leadership and bureaucratic and sectarian failures which have prevented these sectors from being assimilated into the process. These are the main reasons that have prevented the transformation of the possible correlation of forces from which the Programme started into a real correlation of forces favourable to the People's Government.

This situation has meant that even sectors that were won over in the first months of the government have stopped supporting the process due to the growing difficulties in the economic field. The concrete difficulties of the moment seem to have made them lose the final perspective.

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