answer all these questions

Recent Popular Movements in the Dominican Republic Author(s): Roberto Cassa and Fred Murphy Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 22, No. 3, The Dominican Republic: Social Change and Political Stagnation (Summer, 1995), pp. 80-93 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2634141 Accessed: 14-05-2020 04:52 UTC

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Recent Popular Movements

in the Dominican Republic

by

Roberto Cassa

Translated by Fred Murphy

The study of the social movements that have arisen in the Dominican

Republic in recent years is valuable in its own right, but it can also help to

shed light on more general historical trends. Indeed, such movements have

been framed by various forms of structural change, such as the transition from

a weakly modernized agrarian export economy to a service-based economy linked to the outside. Politically, they should be considered concomitants of

the democratic order, revealing the practical limits of its assumptions with

respect both to the parties' representation of the people's interests and to their

role as channels for negotiation with the state. Furthermore, the study of these

movements can provide a basis for reflecting upon the limits of the move-

ments themselves, an important issue inasmuch as it points to the obstacles

to substantive social change.

Only the urban popular movements that have assumed national signifi-

cance will be considered in this essay.' These movements are, of course, closely linked to the local and thereby constitute a sort of extension to the

national level of local objectives and forms. Agrarian protests have been in

decline, perhaps in connection with the rapid drop in agricultural and live-

stock production and in the proportion of the population engaged in such

activities, and increasing urbanization has meant that rural protests largely tend to have the same ups and downs as urban ones.

The sort of social movement that has predominated for more than a decade

differs from previous ones, whose cohesion tended to be based on class or

occupational status and whose organizational and ideological framework was

Roberto Cassd, a Dominican, is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the Autonomous National

University of Mexico and a professor of history at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, where he received his undergraduate training. He has published several books on the

Dominican Republic, among them Capitalismo y dictadura (Santo Domingo: Editora de la Universidad Aut6noma de Santo Domingo, 1982). Fred Murphy is a doctoral candidate in political science and historical studies at the Center for Studies of Social Change.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 86, Vol. 22 No. 3, Summer 1995 80-93

C 1995 Latin American Perspectives

80

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Cassd / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 81

provided by political parties. Essentially, these movements took shape around

the expectation of a revolution that would transform the social and political

system. While the defining characteristics of this revolution were not shared

by the disparate currents, some of its features allowed for a degree of cohesion

vis-a-vis the state. Although the state was their main antagonist, these

movements were marked by a spirit of class struggle. This outlook was shared

even by the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (Dominican Revolutionary Party-PRD), which took moderately leftist positions and was for a long time

the principal political force in the country.

The basic principle was representation of the popular classes, with the state

being viewed as synthesizing the interests of the ruling class (or classes,

depending on theoretically derived definitions and one's perception of real- ity). Thus it was commonly accepted that the revolution would bring about

a social shift. This was, of course, a concept advanced by a minority of activists, but they were the ones who set the tone for these movements.

In any case, the practical consequence was the integration of social protest into a political framework that pointed toward changes in the state and, in the

long term, the transformation of the system. While the purely economic

demands generally did not cross social or occupational boundaries, their systematization at the macrosocial level found its channel par excellence in political mobilizations led by one or several parties. One result of this was

the subordination of the social movements to guidelines established by the parties, which at times manifested itself in an instrumentalist disposition to exclude other political or ideological currents, as occurred in trade-union federations of the right and the left. This explains why organizations such as young people's cultural clubs were generally controlled either by a political

party or by a local coalition, formal or informal, of various parties and political currents.

Clearly, this profile reflected structural determinants and mechanisms of social cohesion that had long since been revealed as more effective than corporative ones. This can be attributed, in principle, to the weakness of the dominant sectors on the structural level and their political subordination to

the state. The tendency toward authoritarianism gave rise to an overpoliti-

cized response on the part of the dominated social actors, summed up in an authoritarian-populist logic. The defeat of the April 1965 revolution, in particular, was followed by statist politics administered in accordance with a Bonapartist scheme by the incumbent executive, Joaquin Balaguer. As a

consequence, the notion of revolution was for a time enhanced, and this in turn was one of the reasons (though not necessarily the principal one) for the system's recourse to authoritarianism.

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82 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

POLITICAL RESTRUCTURING AND SOCIAL PROTEST

In recent times the structural factors just considered have been amplified,

and a change has occurred in the content and operation of social movements

as a consequence of the particular outcomes of political debates. The defini-

tive defeat of the revolutionary project that became evident in the first half

of the 1970s (a consequence above all of the inconsistency of its proponents)

and the economic modernization achieved by the system set the stage for the

abandonment of authoritarianism and the introduction of a limited democra-

tization. This latter was manifested particularly in the displacement of the

Balaguer government by the PRD in 1978. To achieve this the PRD had to

make pacts with the principal sectors of the dominant bloc, and, although the

necessity of a revolution was not discounted in theory, one could observe

among the populace a search for viable short-term political and social gains

within the confines of the system. The PRD therefore accommodated itself to the substantial change in the attitudes of classes and other social agents

generated by the partial success of development plans and the corresponding

political measures.

But the subordination of the new bureaucracy to the traditional agents of

economic power meant that the underlying causes of social protest would not

disappear. It became evident that political freedoms were not reflected in the

relations of production. This was shown, for example, in a wave of strikes in

the months following the "change" of 1978, which briefly raised hopes of a

reconstitution of the trade-union movement. Although the union leaderships

did bend to pressures from the rank and file and unite in the Conferencia

Nacional de Unidad Sindical (National Conference of Trade-Union Unity- CNUS), the tendency lacked continuity. To understand this blockage it is necessary to recognize not just the inherent incapacity of the trade unions but

also the less than ideal political terrain. Indeed, the democratization process turned out to be quite limited on the

level of social relations, although it had initially generated great expectations

in this regard. The way in which it occurred led to increasing corruption

among the PRD leadership and a loss of efficacy in the state apparatus. This tested the capacities of the rightward-drifting technobureaucracy to which the PRD had delegated decisive economic and administrative control. With the failure of the technocratic project the state ceased to operate as the direct recycling agent for the mechanisms of capital formation. At the same time,

disenchantment in broad sectors of the population produced an attenuation of political-ideological identification, an abandonment of the expectation of global change, the waning of loyalties, and the adoption of a political realism

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Cassd / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 83

bordering on cynicism-political action becoming, in short, a means of

solving one's individual problems. This, in turn, generated the conditions for

a new kind of social movement.

In this situation, the PRD was able to a large extent to neutralize the means

available to its opponents. Accustomed to the catastrophist perspective of

revolution, the left did not know how to respond to the challenge presented

by its former allies. At the level of the masses, the problem was more complex

in that it was obvious that their increasing political distance from the PRD

would not necessarily result in a complete break with it. For most progres-

sives the PRD was a lesser evil that guaranteed the consolidation of democ-

racy. Inevitably, however, the feedback between the demagogy of the new

rulers and the marked reservations of broad sectors of the population began

to diminish. The profiles of the major political parties, once well differenti-

ated, began to converge, and skepticism reached new heights in significant

portions of the population regarding the likelihood that their expectations would be met through conventional political mechanisms such as parties and

elections.

A large part of the population had not, however, completely lost confi-

dence in the mechanisms of the political system, and as a result this period

saw the recovery of leadership by Joaquin Balaguer, the erosion of the PRD's

influence by successful confrontations with the sector of the party that had

become part of the state bureaucracy, and, finally, the progressive ascendancy

of the Partido de la Liberacion Dominicana (Dominican Liberation Party-

PLD). The PLD managed to occupy the functional space that had earlier

belonged to the PRD by adopting a pragmatic and moderate platform devoid

of class or ideological considerations. Its positions were summed up by the

promise of honesty and efficiency.

Given these aspects of political restructuring and, especially, the way they

operated, social movements gained increasing space to the extent that their

new profiles became more clearly defined. Without discounting expectations

of a change in government by means of elections, these movements took on a protagonistic role inversely proportional to that of the political parties in electoral conjunctures. What was involved here was not just the temporal separation of activities but also the emergence of a complex logic that

contained traces of both hope for the parties and disenchantment with them. Among other ingredients, this logic included the primacy of immediate demands of a defensive type. Put differently, the elimination of the option of global transformation resulted in the centrality of day-to-day concerns. While this was a political phenomenon, its prominence is attributable to the dete- riorating living conditions of the great majority of the population. Given the

absence of a perspective of global change (except during electoral cam-

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84 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

paigns), the popular movements found their support precisely in the refusal

to tolerate further decline in living standards.

To understand the content of these movements one must recognize that

the debate regarding the distribution of the national product has shifted from

a class perspective to one of dependency on state policies. In the most direct

form, this defensive pattern is no longer centrally articulated around chal-

lenging the owners of the means of production and services; it has shifted

toward what is perceived as responsible for the deterioration of living

conditions, inevitably converging on governmental policy.

This focus on the state and especially its executive branch as adversary is

the result of the exhaustion of the development scheme based on the transfer

of surplus from the agrarian export sectors to the urban industrial apparatus.

In this shift, given the great weight of the public sector, a crucial function fell

to the state. When the scheme fell victim to stagnation and inflation, it became

necessary to apply neoliberal principles to economic policy, largely at the

urging of international institutions. There has tended to be a correlation

between social movements and inflation or the implementation of neoliberal recipes.

A NEW KIND OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT

From this point on, popular movements have taken shape on the basis of

differentiated patterns of experience, although doubtless incorporating deter-

minants from much earlier. These movements, whether on the local or

national level, have been structured on a territorial basis and for the most part

have been the result of local efforts. This sort of protest tends to involve the

entire population except for those who are committed to the regime. A

consensus against the state arises spontaneously and is rationalized only over

time, being the result of the particular demands that bring the collectivity

together. Originally, these movements were directed toward demanding the

installation or improvement of public services such as water, electricity,

roads, health and education centers, transportation, and so on, but with the

general decline in living standards at the beginning of the 1980s they began taking up other demands directed not so much toward improving living standards as toward resisting their further deterioration. What mattered more

than anything else was maintaining real incomes, especially as these were affected by policies that fueled inflation. From the moment that price in- creases were not accompanied by wage adjustments, people spontaneously mobilized against them rather than for wage increases. This was a compara- tively new form of protest for sectors of the working class.

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Cassd / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 85

Because their content was determined by mass participation, it seems that

we can discount the possibility that these movements were motivated by a

goal of changing the political system or even (with the partial exception of

the 1990-1991 conjuncture) the ruling group. Their prepolitical nature does,

of course, imply politics in that it is an expression of the interests of the

working-class sectors and the population as a whole, but popular mobilization

has been shaped apart from the political system. This prepolitical character

is apparent in the absence of any unifying proposal of an alternative design

for society or even for public policy. Simply put, lacking any particular commonly accepted approach that might go beyond elementary economic

demands, the impoverished masses have been restricted to a position of

resistance in the face of a state power that has no interlocutor.

Perhaps as a result of this lack of a firm foundation, the popular mobili-

zation has from the beginning required outside agents. Spontaneous protest has not produced any significant institutionalized results. On the margins of

these movements have arisen two organizational types that claim leadership

and have to a degree achieved it: trade-union confederations and territorial

organizations such as those linked to progressive sectors of the Catholic Church, those promoted by leftist parties, and others that present themselves

as alternatives to the parties although they have identical aims. Both sorts of organization have sought to compensate for the lack of an institutional base

among the masses by broadening their appeals so as to become more attuned

to them. Thus the confederations have drawn up a set of trade-union demands

quite distinct from the demands of the territorial organizations. For their part, the militants of the territorial organizations have attributed to their protests a

potentially revolutionary content that, rationalized intellectually, is consid- ered the result of the emergence of a new subject (i.e., a group with its own

consciousness) alternative to the working class. Detailed assessments of the

significance of this new subject vary with the organization. In fact, however, if the masses have remained indifferent to the confederations' traditional

demands, they have been similarly indifferent to the radical proposals of the

territorial organizations. It does not seem, moreover, that after years of

association with significant sectors of the population, leftist activists have abandoned a message representing their aims and actions. This decisive inadequacy can be extended to the religious groupings, despite their being the ones that have managed to get close to small segments of the impoverished masses in a practical and ongoing way.

The distance between these organizations and the masses that they seek to represent can be attributed not only to the depoliticization resulting from the frustrating experience with the PRD but also to the failure of the militants

to become the vehicle for the development of the various demands. It has

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86 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

been their practice to react to the behavior of the masses in terms of

predetermined codes and therefore to be unable to interact with them in a

consistent fashion. The drawing capacity of the trade-union federations and

the territorial organizations has depended upon the absence of organic

cohesiveness among the masses. Thus the latter have heeded calls for strikes

and protests without regard to the motives that underlie them simply because

the calls are sufficient with regard to their specific reasons for protesting. In

this sense, the behavior of the masses has been immediate and conjunctural

and has given substance to the calls for protest. Here we can see the structural

basis of these social movements in the impromptu presence of the masses

through the medium of protest as opposed to their absence at the institutional

level-the latter absence being compensated for by the territorial organiza-

tions, in which the masses are not present.

It has been around this combination that these social movements have

found their pattern, with all its strengths and weaknesses. It may be defined

as a combination of riot and general strike, whether local or national. In the

face of overwhelming state power, the indifference of most of the political

parties, and the risks presented by difficulties in finding employment, protest finds expression in the form of a riot, reflecting the elemental level of

destructive moral indignation that is prevalent among the masses and the

difficulty in channeling this in more orderly and systematic ways. The riot takes on meaning, in the historical context being considered here,

to the extent that it achieves its greatest effects when directed against public policies. Governments have shown indifference to peaceful protest, and

therefore violence or the possibility thereof becomes the means par excel-

lence for the expression of protest. But, when all is said and done, the violence

of the riot becomes indispensable to the general strike. Riot and strike reinforce each other in the overall effectiveness of the desired action, al-

though undoubtedly the strike normally becomes feasible, as a formal means

of calling for protest, in the shadow of the threat of a riot.

It has been asserted by right-wing journalists of the daily press that this

relationship is proof of the lack of popular support for the general strike. This reasoning is fallacious, since in other situations the threat of violence is

insufficient to generate a work stoppage. Violence is insufficient when

solidarity of the masses is lacking. The latter take advantage of the occurrence of violence to abandon their everyday pursuits, including risking absence from industrial or service enterprises. When effective support is lacking, not

even violence will produce a successful strike or at best will not manage to do so for very long. Whether because of difficulty in justifying absence from work, dependence upon self-employment for daily subsistence, or a political sense of focusing on what is immediately feasible, what is certain is that

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Cassd / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 87

active solidarity with a strike on the part of the great majority of the

population generally does not last more than a day. From the society that is

stopping work comes the reflex, spontaneous and irresistible, of the return to

normal activities, as is apparent in nearly all the movements characterized by

the convergence of strike and riot at the national level. One cannot fail to note

that local movements, to the extent that they depend upon more directly felt

demands and more intense solidarity, tend to last the longest.

STRIKES AND RIOTS, 1979-1984

The first instance of a popular movement of the kind just described

occurred a year after the PRD came to power. As world oil prices shot up at

the end of July 1979, the government decreed price increases on gasoline and

other fuels. A coalition of trade unions in the transport sector called for a

strike, which had an impact beyond the simple halting of public transporta-

tion. In the wake of the transport unions' initiative and the vast police

operation in response to it, apparently spontaneous violent incidents spread throughout the poor neighborhoods on the northern side of the city. Less than

a year later the events of early August 1979 were repeated. Spurred by a new increase in the price of gasoline and other petroleum derivatives, the transport

unions called for a strike on May 30, 1980, and again this was accompanied by riots. On this occasion one could indeed detect the organized presence of groups of left-wing militants in the demonstrations and the confrontations

with the police. In light of the broad popular participation and support for the transport workers, the strike was extended. Unlike the events of 1979, this movement covered nearly the entire country and displayed all the ingredients

of the popular movement analyzed above. Both in the poor neighborhoods of Santo Domingo and in most other cities, violent confrontations unfolded alongside an overall stoppage of normal activities. Several highways in the central Cibao were blockaded with trees and rocks, and demonstrators made

special efforts to halt the circulation of vehicles. In the five days of sporadic violence, 4 persons were killed, 16 suffered bullet wounds, and more than 1,500 were arrested (500 of these in cities of the interior).

Despite the subsequent unfolding of local movements of this kind and the

ongoing deterioration of living conditions, the ruling PRD found itself completely overwhelmed only when its second administration decided to apply the adjustment policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). President Salvador Jorge Blanco, who had been elected partly for his progressive, reformist platform, reversed himself with regard to economic policy immediately upon taking office. Taking advantage of the holiday

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88 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

period of Holy Week in 1984, the government decreed abrupt increases for

various subsistence goods such as flour, cooking oil, and milk. There fol-

lowed a chain reaction of speculative price increases. As soon as the holidays

were over, an unprecedented popular movement erupted. It lasted three days

and involved the vast bulk of the urban population and considerable rural

sectors as well. The explosion of protest began in a few poor neighborhoods

of the capital but rapidly extended to adjoining sectors and in a few hours

had become a national phenomenon of colossal proportions. Tens of thou-

sands of young people took to the streets to demonstrate and to harass the

army and police units that were trying to penetrate the neighborhoods. It was

evident that these youths, who took up positions on the street corners, burning

tires and erecting makeshift barricades, enjoyed the support of the local

population.

The climax occurred the following day, coinciding with the 19th anniver-

sary of the 1965 revolution. This fortuitous circumstance was not one that

the population had taken into account, but it gave rise to an overpoliticized interpretation of the events. On April 24 the country was completely para-

lyzed, and confrontations were taking place everywhere except in the resi-

dential zones of the bourgeoisie. In numerous rural localities people joined the protest by blocking roads with trees and rocks. Only on the third day did

the movement begin to wear itself out.

It is notable that an event of this magnitude had grown out of a neighbor-

hood strike called by a hundred local organizations in the Capotillo and Sim6n Bolivar districts, among the poorest of the capital. The organizers of the Capotillo Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee obviously had no idea of the repercussions their efforts were to have. The call for a 12-hour

neighborhood strike was the spark that ignited a prairie fire. From that point

on there is no evidence of any role of organized groups in spreading the movement. One cannot even assert that the protest in the two neighborhoods

themselves remained under the control of the leftist militants who had

originally called it. The trade-union federations took advantage of this vacuum to attempt to

achieve a central role that they had been unable to earn by enrolling workers in enterprise-based unions. A few hours after the protests began, the union leaders sought to assume formal leadership by calling a 24-hour general strike. In reality, this call was entirely ineffective, since it was made in the face of a fait accompli-indeed, the protests were to continue for another 48 hours. Nor could one say that the unions provided any real leadership thereafter. Nonetheless, the unionists managed to gain the role of interlocu- tors with the government, arrogating to themselves a representative position that they did not deserve.

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Cassd / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 89

Behind certain of these union organizations were parties of the left, some

of which had been engaging in unified electoral action via two coalitions,

Socialist Unity and the United Left (soon to merge as the Dominican Left

Front). These leftist parties lent support to the trade unions' efforts to

represent the protesters and at the same time sought to present themselves as

the direct standard-bearers of the popular movement. Their overpoliticized

assessment of the events led them to interpret the movement as the signal of

a revolutionary upsurge-to one group it seemed nothing less than an "imminent revolution."

In the end, these events helped to undermine confidence in the PRD and

benefit the third competitor, the PLD, which would become a challenger for power in the 1990 elections.

POPULAR MOBILIZATION UNDER BALAGUER

The events of April 1984 represented the culmination of this new kind of

popular movement and at the same time, mainly because of the way in which leftist militants interpreted them, played an essential role in its subsequent

development. Thus there was a metamorphosis on the part of the organiza- tions, which began to envision vague preparations for moving on to an insurrectional phase in light of the emergence of an alternative historical

subject. This reading of what had happened in April 1984 was sustained for

a good while by nearly all of the militant leftist organizations, but as time went on and the mass mobilizations were not repeated, there were debates- not always formally organized-about the reasons for this. Amid the volun-

tarism incited or at least accepted by the leaders, many militants came to

understand that the main stumbling block was the weakness of the leadership of their own organizations. As a result, nearly all the leftist organizations underwent splits that increased their isolation from the society.

Despite their inability to incorporate sectors of the masses, the leftist

organizations did manage to maintain a presence on the scene. On the local level, they reproduced in their practice the spatial limits within which popular protests usually took place; thus there emerged a number of little islands, largely isolated from each other, a product of the trust that develops in an area

subject to direct practice. Further, they made an effort to remedy this local fragmentation through various kinds of coordinating mechanisms. Although

the fragmentation was never really overcome, these coordinating apparatuses did play an important role in calling actions at the national level. Still, none of them seem to have managed to gain solid preeminence, since the role of each depended upon combinations of variables and generally did not last

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90 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

long. It is interesting that there continued to be two organizing principles, one

territorial (or "popular") and one based on national organizations, especially

trade-union federations. These alternatives came to be seen as antagonistic.

On top of this there was a difference in aims, the territorial organizations of

the Collective of Popular Organizations espousing superpoliticized princi-

ples, revolutionary in character, and the Trade-Union Coordinating Commit-

tee adopting a reformist, pro-negotiation stance.

In the two years following 1984, popular mobilization was never more

than local. This had to do with the effects of the return of Joaquin Balaguer

to the government after the PRD's downfall. The new president applied economic policies that bore immediate fruit while capitalizing on the indig-

nation over the corruption of the PRD governments. Nonetheless, factors

were accumulating that led to increasing coordination among different sorts

of territorial, trade-union, and professional organizations. One of the inter- esting elements of this process was the refinement of platforms, which came

to combine the classical demands of the workers' organizations with those of the territorial ones.

Once the policy of spending on construction projects was exhausted, inflation and stagnation set in once again. The government lost the relative

consensus it had achieved and even found itself confronting the most influ-

ential ranks of the bourgeoisie. Between 1989 and 1990 the corporate organizations of the bourgeoisie began discreetly manipulating the popular mobilizations to settle their disputes with the government.

Thus the conditions were created for an effective call for a general strike

at the national level, as occurred June 19-20, 1989. The characteristic mobi- lizations and riots again reached levels comparable to those of April 1984 in

many parts of the country. What was most important was that this strike

successfully passed the test of fire on the first day, when the government

announced its willingness to negotiate with the popular movement. No significant concessions were achieved, however, and this proved counterpro-

ductive for the movements. A gradual shift of national expectations toward

the elections of May 1990 was indicated by the notable decline of the popular movement in the following months.

The negative correlation between elections and popular movements was increasingly apparent. It did not matter that inflation was accelerating in the months leading up to the elections, because the PLD was perceived as the certain winner. More than ever, the PLD became a factor in the sabotage of popular mobilizations, to which it had never contributed and which it now viewed as disruptive of the concert of clearly conservative forces that would guarantee its triumph. It even began to appeal to elements of neoliberal ideology in propagating its proposals. This distancing from the everyday lives

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Cassa / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 91

of the popular masses was one of the many reasons for the PLD's failure to

achieve a clear majority capable of neutralizing the electoral maneuvering of

Balaguer's party.

Despite the fact that the vote count favored Balaguer with a majority of

33,000, the bulk of the population was convinced that it was fraudulent. In

this situation, the PLD achieved the virtual support of a number of leftist

organizations in opposing Balaguer's remaining in power. At that point

political considerations began to fuel popular mobilizations-something that had not occurred since 1979.

The popular mobilizations suspended the year before now immediately

resumed at the national level. In addition to opposition to Balaguer's reelec-

tion they reflected the impact of deteriorating income levels during the

preceding months. Moreover, no sooner was his reelection assured than

Balaguer entered for the first time into serious negotiations with the IMF.

Having achieved his aim of remaining in power, for which he had required

indiscriminate spending on the distribution of largesse, the spendthrift presi-

dent now put into practice a harsh adjustment policy that paralyzed the

economy. The inflation rate temporarily shot up as well. It became evident to many leaders of the left that it was feasible to call for popular mobilizations

on the basis of the convergence of immediate economic demands and

demands for the removal of the government. In mid-July the PLD called a

"civic strike" that gained impressive support, especially inasmuch as no violence was involved. The inauguration of Balaguer on August 16, 1990,

was preceded by the year's first general strike and quickly followed by two more. It is debatable what was behind the strike calls, since the two main

blocs had different aims-one focusing more on the president's resignation

and the other on an end to the adjustment policies. In reality, the two blocs were suspicious of one another, and each sought hegemony at the cost of

unity. Of all the general strikes seen in the subsequent years, this one had the

broadest base of support and, as a result, fueled the hopes of important sectors

of the population that action capable of frustrating the government's plans was possible.

The state was forced to adopt a threatening posture, including an order to

open fire if and when an individual commander thought it necessary. With 14 dead, the mobilizations proved incapable of forcing the government to

give in. The militants' reading of the popular mood had obviously been mistaken. In the end, they had gambled that governmental entrenchment would lead to a radicalization of the masses. The lack of effective unity was fatal to the mid-August strike. The most radical sector, the Collective of Popular Organizations, attempted to prolong the mobilization but was forced to retreat.

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92 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

During this strike and subsequent ones, the requirement of mass support

was evident. Support, though significant, was not of the magnitude counted

on by the territorial organizations. The key to success was situating the call

for a strike in the center of the national debate and correctly reading the pulse

of the most active portion of the population. Support became dependent on confidence in the ability to achieve some results.

It became clear during this strike that the government was able to with-

stand protest because it had a monopoly of force. And despite the extent of the violence, it was evident after the first day that the movement was losing

strength; the concerns of the self-employed and the insistence of business owners on their employees' appearing for work despite the danger contrib-

uted to weakening it. Because of the failure of the state to bend under this

crucial mobilization, the trade unionists decided to limit their demands to

their particular sphere, while the popular organizations, guided by some leftist parties, concluded that the failures had been subjective in nature and

did not arise from relying on the other sectors.

Thereafter the popular movement's strength slowly waned. Various calls

for general strikes from the final months of 1990 through mid-1991 reflected the divisions among the organizations and revealed the weakness of the

political grouping responsible for initially mobilizing the popular movement. As the expectation of tangible results faded, every later movement was

beginning to collapse by the second day. There was no political force capable

of pressuring the government to alter its adjustment policy, despite the precarious base of its legitimacy. To a certain extent, the end of this pattern

of popular mobilization resulted from an overuse of it that led people to question its viability.

CONCLUSIONS

A characteristic weakness of these popular movements has been that their

leaders have found it impossible to institutionalize the sporadic mobiliza- tions. The preeminence of short-term objectives is probably responsible for this weakness; the activists have tended to ignore both the organization of the population and the effective coordination of the various sectors for partici- pation in the political debate. As a result, the popular organizations have done no better than the political parties in identifying mechanisms for popular

participation and representation. At first glance it appears that, in order to survive in times of declining resistance, territorial organizations should decisively alter their priorities and structures so as to become capable of establishing coherent strategies free of manipulation and outside hegemony.

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Cassa / RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS 93

At the heart of the political proposal just considered is the problem of the

"subject." Practice has revealed the obstacles that prevent those who live in poor neighborhoods from constituting themselves as alternatives to the

proletariat. It currently seems inappropriate to base a political proposal on

the centrality of one sector. The question of a force capable of social

transformation ought to be shifted to the sphere of political will as a product

of the coordination of the demands of the national sectors with progressive views. No central subject (such as the working class) should be made

responsible for a project indefinitely. Political action should be based on the

constant modification and readjustment of proposals. Above all, it requires

planning and coordination to prevent errors and inadequacies such as those

that led to the exhaustion of the popular social movements under study. This is not to say that mobilizations of this kind could not make a comeback, but they will have diminishing effects unless there is substantial change in the conception of what has come to be called the popular movement.

NOTE

1. The sources include Cassa (1985), Centro de Estudios de la Educaci6n (1984), Centro de

Investaci6n y Documentaci6n Social (1984), Dore (1985), P6rez and Artiles (1992), Ruiz B.

(1992), and Tejeda (1989).

REFERENCES

Cassa, Roberto

1985 Los doce ainos. Santo Domingo: Editora de la Universidad Aut6noma de Santo

Domingo.

Centro de Estudios de la Educaci6n

1984 "Otro abril de lucha popular." Mimeo, Santo Domingo.

Centro de Investigaci6n y Documentaci6n Social

1984 Crisis y movimientos populares en la Repu'blica Dominicana. Santo Domingo.

Dore, Carlos

1985 ",Por qu6 se produjo abril de 1984?" Impacto Socialista, 2 (2).

P6rez, Cesar and Leopoldo Artiles

1992 Movimientos sociales dominicanos: Identidad y dilemas. Santo Domingo: Instituto

Tecnol6gico de Santo Domingo.

Ruiz B., Victor E.

1992 Lucha social y movimiento sindical en la Reptiblica Dominicana: Agosto de 1990-julio

de 1991. Santo Domingo: Centro de Estudios de la Educaci6n.

Tejeda, Darfo

1989 "Movimiento popular, huelga general y coyuntura." El Siglo, December 30.

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