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Internationalist solidarity with Central American migrant caravan

Marxist Theory · 2018-10-23

Core Argument

The article argues that the Central American migrant caravan of October 2018 is not a spontaneous search for the "American dream" but a mass flight driven by the deliberate destruction of living conditions in the region by US imperialism and local oligarchies. The central claim is that the caravan exposes the bankruptcy of the capitalist system in Central America and Mexico, and that the only adequate response is internationalist working-class solidarity — not charity, not border policing, and certainly not nationalist appeals. The authors insist that the caravan is a political event, not a humanitarian one: it reveals the weakness of the Honduran government after the stolen 2017 elections, the subordination of the Mexican state to US border policy, and the objective unity of the exploited across national lines.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the Marxist tradition of proletarian internationalism, drawing on the classical position that the working class has no country and that borders are instruments of class rule. The article explicitly rejects the nation-state as a framework for working-class organisation, arguing that "the working class cannot organise itself on a national basis to defeat an international enemy." This is a direct application of the Communist Manifesto's insistence that national divisions are artificial and serve the bourgeoisie.

The piece also deploys a dependency-theory-inflected understanding of imperialism: Central America is not underdeveloped by accident but actively underdeveloped by US policy, including coups (Honduras 2009), electoral fraud (2017), and militarisation. The Mexican state is correctly identified as a sub-imperial enforcer — "the American frontier begins in the Suchiate River and not in the Rio Grande." This situates the argument within the Marxist tradition of analysing combined and uneven development and the role of comprador bourgeoisies.

The article also draws on a class analysis of ideology: anti-migrant racism is not a popular prejudice but "the dominant ideology of the ruling class," which teaches workers to be "humble and servile to the powerful" and "haughty, arrogant and not at all in solidarity with the poorest." This is a classic Marxist account of false consciousness and divide and rule.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published on 23 October 2018, at the height of the first major migrant caravan from Central America. The immediate context is crucial:

  • Honduras: The 2017 presidential election was widely condemned as fraudulent, with Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH) remaining in power despite mass protests. The article notes that "the government is weak: it does not have a solid social base." The caravan began with 150 people but swelled to thousands precisely because the political crisis remained unresolved.
  • Mexico: The article was written just weeks before Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) took office on 1 December 2018. AMLO had campaigned on a left-nationalist platform, but the article implicitly warns that his government would continue enforcing US border policy — a prediction borne out by AMLO's deployment of the National Guard to stop caravans in 2019.
  • US imperialism: The Trump administration was escalating its anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, including the "Remain in Mexico" programme and family separations. The article correctly identifies that the US border effectively begins at Guatemala's frontier, with Mexico acting as a buffer state.

The article's data points — 900,000 Mexicans displaced by the drug war, 30,000 disappeared, 300,000 killed in 12 years — ground the analysis in the concrete violence of the region. The caravan is not an exception but a symptom of a permanent crisis.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is a joint solidarity statement, not a developed theoretical piece. It leaves several questions open:

  • Strategy: The article calls for "the unity of the Central American, Mexican and Latin American peoples" to overthrow capitalism, but does not specify how this unity is to be built organisationally. The broader IDOM corpus develops this through the concept of a revolutionary party and the need for a transitional programme that connects immediate demands (free movement, jobs, housing) to the socialist perspective.
  • The role of the Mexican left: The article does not analyse AMLO's MORENA party or the broader Mexican left's response to the caravan. Later IDOM articles and Against the Stream episodes critically assess AMLO's record, arguing that his government has continued neoliberal policies and repression of migrants.
  • The US working class: The article asserts that "the working class is one, anywhere in the world: including the United States," but does not address the concrete task of building solidarity among US workers, many of whom were influenced by Trump's anti-immigrant nationalism. This is taken up in other IDOM pieces on the US left and the need for a revolutionary strategy against the far right.

Connections

  • Classical texts: Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (on proletarian internationalism); Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (on the export of capital and super-exploitation); Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution (on combined and uneven development in semi-colonial countries).
  • IDOM articles: "The migrant caravan and the crisis of US imperialism" (2018); "Mexico: AMLO's first year — continuity or change?" (2019); "Central America: the roots of the migration crisis" (2019). These develop the analysis of the caravan as a symptom of overaccumulation and the falling rate of profit in the region.
  • Against the Stream episodes: Several episodes from 2018-2019 cover the caravan, the Honduran crisis, and the Mexican elections, providing more detailed conjunctural analysis.
  • Other Marxist traditions: The article's emphasis on the artificiality of borders and the historical unity of Central America echoes the work of Latin American Marxists like José Carlos Mariátegui and the early dependency theorists (Andre Gunder Frank, Ruy Mauro Marini). It also connects to contemporary debates on migrant autonomy versus state-led migration management within the Marxist left.

Key Quotes

  1. "It is not incorrect to say that the American frontier begins in the Suchiate River and not in the Rio Grande. The government and the bourgeoisie of the United States consider Mexico to be its backyard, and therefore obliged to implement and defend all of the USA's 'security' policies."

  2. "The most reactionary sentiments emerge among the middle class, the bourgeoisie and some declassed sectors, who call our Central American brothers criminals, murderers, filthy, etc. This reflects the dominant ideology of the ruling class, which teaches us to be humble and servile to the powerful (the bourgeoisie and imperialism); and haughty, arrogant and not at all in solidarity with the poorest."

  3. "Central America was once a single land and it was a crime to divide it: the intention was always to control and plunder the territory."

  4. "The Creole bourgeoisie has always been cowardly and incapable of developing the productive forces and carrying forward the slogans of the national democratic revolution: they are bound hand and foot to imperialism."

  5. "We are internationalists because the working class cannot organise itself on a national basis to defeat an international enemy."

  6. "The Mexican working class does not buy the story that the Central Americans are coming to take away our jobs, because right now there is no work for the Mexicans themselves! We are united because their demands are our demands, because their path is our path, because their lives are our lives."