Marxists understand that the struggle for national independence from imperial colonial occupation is, at its core, part and parcel of the class struggle itself. Puerto Rico�s struggle for independence is one example.
Many people are unaware of the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has a distinct historical development, culture and self-identity. Its struggle for self-determination and independence has always been the context for the political and social development of the nation.
 Millions took part in the victorious struggle to end the U.S. Navy�s use of Vieques as a bombing range. Photo: ana martinez |
Puerto Rico became a Spanish colony after its invasion by Spanish troops in 1493. Spanish troops subjugated and ultimately exterminated the island�s indigenous Ta�no population. It remained a Spanish colony until the Spanish American war of 1898. The Treaty of Paris forced Spain, the loser of that war, to give up Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States as spoils of war.
Throughout the hundreds of years of the Spanish occupation, Puerto Ricans fought for their independence. This period of the struggle of independence from Spain reached its highest level with the 1868 �Grito de Lares,� a powerful uprising led by Ram�n Emeterio Betances that demanded independence and the abolition of slavery. El Grito de Lares was crushed, but the struggle for freedom continued even after the exchange of imperial masters.
Following the U.S. military invasion of Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898, U.S. rulers imposed a series of laws against crimes like �seditious conspiracy.� These were aimed at suppressing the movement striving to achieve Puerto Rico�s independence. Throughout the 20th century, the most active and outspoken anti-colonial leaders have been targets of assassination or imprisonment.
After World War II, with the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan, the U.S. became the world�s foremost imperialist superpower. Utilizing its new position of economic and military strength, the U.S. government fulfilled its long-standing desire to increase its presence in Latin America. Puerto Rico was destined to play a role in U.S. expansionism in Latin America. Fourteen percent of its territory was turned into military bases to house the invasion troops used in military ventures throughout the continent.
U.S. corporations executed a plan known as �Operation Bootstrap� which transformed Puerto Rico from an agricultural to a manufacturing country. Within a few years, Puerto Rico became the most densely industrialized colony in history. No longer was it a possession in the classical sense of providing raw materials to the colonial centers. It was now an industrially-developed, capitalist colony.
Albizu Campos and the Nationalist Party
During this period after World War II, the next phase of Puerto Rico�s struggle for independence reached its height. The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, under the leadership of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, led the struggle. Its main base of support was the organized working class.
Albizu was the attorney for sugar cane workers, representing them against U.S. conglomerates. The Nationalist Party exposed racist abuses and medical experimentation on unsuspecting Puerto Ricans. As a result of that campaign, Albizu was imprisoned. This imprisonment led to a series of uprisings�among them the Ponce Massacre of 1937, a protest march organized in support of Albizu and the Nationalists. Twenty-one people were shot to death, and 200 were injured by police.
In 1950, Nationalist Party members organized the Jayuya uprising. This uprising, centered in the town of Jayuya, extended throughout the island; it included the attack on President Truman by two Nationalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola. This led to the arrests of Albizu and 3,000 other Nationalists.
On March 1, 1954, Nationalists Lolita Lebr�n, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irving Flores and Andr�s Figueroa Cordero opened fire on the U.S. House of Representatives marking the anniversary of the forced citizenship of the Puerto Rican people. They cried �Viva Puerto Rico Libre!� (Long Live a Free Puerto Rico!) and unfurled the Puerto Rican flag before allowing the bullets to speak for them.
Albizu ultimately died after spending many years in prison for fighting on behalf of Puerto Rico�s independence. It is believed that he was one of many people that were part of criminal human radiation experimentation while he was in prison. The U.S. Department of Energy revealed in 1994 that it had in fact conducted unauthorized radiation experimentation on prisoners on the island.
Anti-colonial struggle has many forms
In more recent times, the struggle for self-determination has taken many forms. The fight to evict the U.S. Navy from Vieques is an example. Since the 1940s, when the U.S. military took over 60 percent of the island, Vieques has been a center of rebellion against U.S. imperialism. That struggle culminated with a mass outpouring of support from most Puerto Ricans, led by pro-independence and socialist forces, finally achieving the expulsion of the U.S. Navy on May 1, 2003.
In 1998, a general strike, called the People�s Strike, took place in response to the pro-statehood governor�s call to privatize Puerto Rico�s telephone company. The strike occurred at the same time as Puerto Ricans were demonstrating against the 100th anniversary of the U.S. invasion. Many telephone workers later joined the struggle in Vieques, linking the working class, the independence and the anti-imperialist struggles.
Today, Puerto Rican teachers in the Puerto Rican Teachers� Federation (FMPR) are involved in a similar struggle for the independence of their union from the U.S. American Federation of Teachers. The reactionary leadership of the AFT has done little to assist the teachers in Puerto Rico, all of whom earn much less than their counterparts in the United States. As a result, the FMPR decided to leave the AFT and seek its own course. The FMPR is led by socialists and has over 43,000 members. The struggle for freedom in Puerto Rico has been at the heart of the struggle for working-class justice and vice versa.
Independence still a threat to U.S. imperialism
The U.S. ruling class has vigilantly opposed this historic struggle, which has proven to be objectively anti-colonial and anti-capitalist. The U.S. occupation is highlighted by corporate plunder and exploitation of the population. During the past century the resistance of the Puerto Rican people has been expressed through many labor struggles as much as in the efforts of the independence movement. Many U.S. government analysts have warned of the threat these struggles pose to U.S. occupation.
The contributions of Juana Col�n�a militant labor leader and daughter of slaves who helped found the Socialist Party of Puerto Rico in 1920�and later of Nationalist Party leader and communist Juan Antonio Corretjer served to demonstrate that the quest for Puerto Rican national liberation is intimately tied to the struggle for socialism. To guarantee the emancipation of Puerto Rico, where it can develop freely and enjoy prosperity without the interference of a foreign power, requires by necessity the overthrow of capitalism.
Today, as in the initial phase of the U.S. occupation, all matters concerning the economic, social and political life of the Puerto Rican masses�such as the creation of laws governing commerce, trade, tariffs, taxes, communications, transportation, education, judiciary and law enforcement�are decided not in Puerto Rico, but in Washington, DC.
The political status of Puerto Rico shows the barbaric nature of U.S. imperialism. How ironic that the United States, an advanced capitalist country with supposedly an advanced culture, practices in these modern times the oldest form of foreign subjugation that dates back to the days of the Greek and Roman empires.
The Puerto Rican migration
As Puerto Rico became increasingly industrialized, corporate executives and top military officials began staking out areas of land for their purposes. Companies expanded their factory operations while the Pentagon turned the island into a launching pad for war in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Corporate and military land grabs resulted in a massive eviction of the country�s peasantry. Many left Puerto Rico due to the unbearable economic situation created by the foreign rulers. This was an episode in Puerto Rican history that speaks to the suffering of many who were forced to leave their families and travel to a mysterious place. Between 1947 and into the 1960s, Puerto Ricans migrated to the industrialized urban centers of the United States�New York, Chicago, Jersey City, Philadelphia and Bridgeport�at a rate of 63,000 annually.
The great majority of these immigrants came in search of a better life. They were instead surprised to find new forms of colonial oppression. Racist violence, slum dwellings and low paying jobs became added features to the Puerto Rican experience. From then on many came to the realization that forming alliances with other oppressed sectors of the population was necessary in the struggle for survival.
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and upsurge of the 1960s, in which the national liberation struggle of the African American people reached a higher level of definition, had a profound influence on the newly-migrated Puerto Rican community. Adjusting to a totally different social and political environment was a gradual process for the new immigrants. It was through the anti-racist and other struggles sweeping the United States that the familiarization to new conditions came about. It was in the course of the struggle to survive in a strange and hostile land that a part of the Puerto Rican nation also became an integral part of the U.S. working class.
The Young Lords Party
 Young Lords Party marks the death of Julio Roldan at the hands of police repression, October 1970. Far left, Carlito Rovira. |
The greatest example of this process was the birth of the Young Lords, a well organized, revolutionary Puerto Rican youth organization that followed the model of their fraternal organization, the Black Panther Party. The Young Lords was the first organization to be born among the Puerto Rican masses based on the concrete socioeconomic, political circumstances existing in the United States.
They raised the banner of independence for Puerto Rico, always recalling who they were and the reason they were not in the land of their origin. The Lords were more in tune with the struggles in major U.S. cities against police brutality, housing and job discrimination, inadequate health facilities and services�all that was close to the reality of the Puerto Rican people in this country. They enjoyed the wide support and respect of the Puerto Rican people. The Young Lords supported the Chinese and Cuban revolutions and openly proclaimed themselves anti-capitalists and socialists.
Generations have passed since the great migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States. Many of today�s Puerto Rican youth have long forgotten the �old country�s� culture and have adopted new expressions suitable to the present day reality. No matter how many generations are born in the United States, no matter where in this empire they may reside, the plight of the Puerto Rican people is attributed to one thing: the colonization of the territory where they originated as a people.
Continued poverty, continued struggle
Today, while U.S. corporations rob from Puerto Rico an average of $26 billion a year, Puerto Ricans are the second-poorest nationality in the U.S. (Native Americans are the poorest). In fact, Puerto Ricans have the highest poverty rate among all Latinos in the United States. Of the 3.5 million Puerto Ricans in the U.S., 26 percent live below the official poverty line, three times the national average. Puerto Ricans in the United States suffer the highest unemployment among all Latino groups, citizen and non-citizen alike. Those who claim that statehood will resolve Puerto Rico�s problems have little to say about this.
Nationalist and socialist forces in the United States and on the island, however, have been exposing this economic contradiction as well as the fundamental fallacy of the U.S. claims of �freedom� and �democracy� for the world and the reality of colonial oppression in Puerto Rico.
The success of a revolutionary struggle for socialism in the United States will require absolute support for Puerto Rico�s right to independence as the principle guarantee to the right to self-determination. In addition, respecting that right automatically implies the right to reparations. Returning the wealth stolen from the labor of the Puerto Rican masses and from the natural resources of their homeland will be among the many acts of solidarity U.S. workers will engage in to put an end to capitalist oppression forever.
