FOCO THEORY (or FOCOISM, FOCALISM, FOQUISMO, etc.)
A strategy for revolution associated with Ernesto “Che” Guevara,
and formalized by Che and the radical French writer Régis Debray. According to this
theory it is not necessary to wait until conditions are right to launch either an
insurrection or else a people’s
war (depending on the nature of the country). Instead, at least in oppressed Third
World countries, a dedicated band of revolutionaries can launch very small-scale, roving
semi-guerrilla warfare at any time, which will supposedly serve as a focus (Spanish:
foco) and inspiration for the rapid growth of more general guerrilla warfare and/or
at some relatively early time a general uprising capable of seizing political power. The
theory is that these paramilitary roving bands can themselves create the necessary
conditions for revolution through their vanguard actions
and moral example.
Unlike genuine people’s war, the foco
theory is based on the assumption that a band of heroes can create a revolution, and that
the mere existence of the foco makes it a vanguard
without any necessity to merge deeply with the masses, forge close ties with them,
participate seriously in their own struggles, and actually lead the masses in their
own struggles. Foco theory, or focoism, is therefore a strongly elitist theory of
revolution.
The origin of the foco theory lies in
an idealist generalization of the experiences of Che and Fidel Castro in the Cuban
Revolution. However, given the stategy followed by Castro, the success of that revolution
was pretty much a lucky accident. This was at the time when there was already mass
disgruntlement on the verge of boiling over against the Batista dictatorship. In other
words, while the foco theory says it is not necessary for conditions to be
particularly ripe for revolution, in Cuba itself they actually were. This circumstance
also led to tremendous demoralization and ineffectiveness in Batista’s army, which almost
totally fell apart after Castro’s small guerrilla force of a few hundred men took over a
similarly small Cuban Army garrison of 250 men near the city of Santa Clara in December
1958 (the Battle of Yaguajay).
Attempts to apply the foco strategy in
other countries have always failed dismally. In Africa Laurent-Désiré Kabila, with the
direct help of Che, attempted it with very dismal results in the Congo. The most famous
example is that led by Che himself in Bolivia, where his approach failed to connect up
with the Bolivian peasants and led to his swift capture by the Bolivian Army with the help
of the U.S. CIA. (The actual cold-blooded murder of Che after his capture is said to have
been done personally by the notorious CIA agent Felix Rodriguez.) This humiliating failure
led Cuba to back off on supporting similar focoist adventures for a number of years, and
revolutionary groups around the world which had been inspired by the Cuban revolution
began splitting into factions, and shifting more toward alternative strategies. In the
mid-1970s, however, Cuba resumed its support for international revolution in a big way.
In Africa it deployed its own troops and also supported the MPLA guerrillas in Angola. In
the Caribbean area it resumed substantial support for groups following the foco strategy.
In Argentina, the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), led by Roberto Santucho, tried the
foco method in Tucumán Province, near Bolivia, but apparently without Cuban military or
financial support. It was also rather easily defeated by around 3,000 Argentine soldiers,
partly by using vicious state terror tactics against the small number of ERP supporters
in nearby towns.
While the original foco strategy was
designed for revolutionary efforts in rural areas in oppressed Third World countries, in
the late 1960s the foco idea was also adapted for urban areas in some Third World
countries and even in the United States! Needless to say, the results of this
urban guerrilla warfare were even more
ignominious defeats. (See: Venceremos Organization
and Weather Underground organization.)
See also the articles
“Guevara, Debray, and Armed Revisionism”, by Lenny Wolff (1985), at
http://www.bannedthought.net/Cuba-Che/Guevara/Guevara-Debray-Wolff.pdf , and
“Focoism vs. People’s
War: Problems of Exaggerated Universalism”, by Mike Ely (2009).
FORECLOSURE
[Capitalist finance:] The legal seizure of property by a creditor after the borrower
fails to make the payments of interest and/or principal as agreed upon in the
mortgage contract. The creditor (usually a bank or equivalent
financial institution) will then normally proceed to sell the property to somebody
else.
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI)
The acquisition by corporations of one country of real assets in another country,
such as factories, mines, or businesses. These assets may be acquired by building new
factories, etc., or by simply purchasing existing factories and companies. FDI does not
include the purchase of foreign securities (e.g., stocks and bonds), unless this amounts
to buying a major or controlling influence in the foreign company that issues these
securities. (A common guideline is that ownership of more than 10% of a foreign company
is considered to be FDI.)
Foreign investment by imperialist
transnational (or multinational) corporations is one of the main mechanisms by which
neo-colonialism occurs in the Third World today. The foreign imperialist owners of these
local factories, mines and plantations, exert enormous influence on both the local
government and on their own imperialist government—which in turn often indirectly
controls the foreign government when it comes to matters which it considers to be
important.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES
Foreign currencies, gold, liquid investments in foreign countries (and thus easily
transformed into foreign currencies via their sale), or balances held by the country with
international institutions such as the IMF,
any or all of which are held by the central bank of a country. Such reserves are needed
in order to be sure that the country will be able to buy the goods it needs from foreign
countries, even if its sale of its own goods to other countries is inadequate during some
period to directly finance those purchases. Moreover, countries operating under the
current world capitalist system may wish to buy or sell foreign currencies in order to
adjust the relative worth of their own currency on international markets. For example,
buying foreign currency with the country’s own currency is a way of keeping the value of
its own currency low, thus promoting the sale of goods to foreigners and supporting its
own manufacturers at the expense of foreign manufacturers.
FOREIGN EXPERIENCE
“The experience of the Chinese revolution, that is, building rural base areas, encircling the cities from the countryside and finally seizing the cities, may not be wholly applicable to many of your countries, though it can serve for your reference. I beg to advise you not to transplant Chinese experience mechanically. The experience of any foreign country can serve only for reference and must not be regarded as dogma. The universal truth of Marxism-Leninism and the concrete conditions of your own countries—the two must be integrated.” —Mao, “Some Experiences in our Party’s History” (Sept. 23, 1956), SW 5:320. [This was part of a talk with representatives of some Latin-American Communist parties.]
FORMAL LOGIC
See: LOGIC—Formal
FOSTER, John Bellamy (1953- )
The current editor of the socialist magazine Monthly
Review, and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon at Eugene. He has
adopted and further elaborated the blend of Marxism and Keynesianism characteristic of the
Monthly Review School of political economy,
which was originally developed by Paul Sweezy,
Paul Baran, and Harry
Magdoff. He has also given considerable attention to ecology and the environment.
Among Foster’s numerous books are: The
Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (1986),
which is a good exposition and overview of the Monthly Review School’s conceptions,
The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet (2009), and The Great
Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (with Fred Magdoff, 2009).
FOUCAULT, Michel [Pronounced: mish-shell foo-ko] (1926-1984)
French bourgeois philosopher and sociologist who taught at universities in both France and
the United States. He was variously closely associated with
structuralism, post-structuralism and
postmodernism, though he ultimately rejected all those
labels. (Bourgeois philosophers, especially adherents to the schools of
Continental Philosophy, very much dislike being
pinned down on matters big or small. Besides not wanting to have to defend any definite
philosophical positions, they often think they are so great and so unique that any existing
label could only demean them!) In later years, however, Foucault did describe his thought
as a critical history of “modernity” rooted in Kant. Besides Kant, he was also greatly
influenced by Nietzsche, and in one interview he openly stated that “I am a Nietzschean.”
But despite this variety of deeply bourgeois
connections and associations, including some of the most reactionary like Nietzsche,
Foucault is often considered a “leftist radical” in academia, and someone worth seriously
studying, discussing and following! Indeed, the Wikipedia (from which a lot of the
information in this entry is taken) says that in 2007 Foucault was listed by the [London]
Times Higher Education Guide as the “most cited intellectual in the humanities”!
Foucault is said to be “best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most
notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his
work on the history of human sexuality”. So if you are interested in discussions of those
topics from the perspective of Kant, Nietzsche and postmodernism, then I guess Foucault is
your man! But if you want a revolutionary Marxist perspective, then look elsewhere!
Foucault was an inactive member of the
revisionist Communist Party of France for a few years, but never anything like a real
revolutionary Marxist, either in theory or practice. In the late 1970s, in the midst of a
turn in French society away from radicalism, a number of young philosophers who had
previously considered themselves to be “Maoists” completely abandoned that perspective and
shifted strongly to the right. These so-called “New Philosophers” often cited Foucault as
their major influence. While Foucault himself is said to have had “mixed feelings” about
this, any genuine revolutionary would have been completely disgusted and totally embarrassed
by it! But this shows the sort of influence which Foucault has actually had.
“FOUR ALLS”
This is the name given by the Chinese during the Mao era to the following four points
which concisely and powerfully sum up the essence and meaning of communist revolution:
1) The abolition of class distinctions
generally.
2) The abolition of all the relations of
production on which they rest.
3) The abolition of all the social
relations that correspond to these relations of production.
4) The revolutionizing of all the ideas
that result from these social relations.
These four points are taken verbatim from a passage in Marx’s pamphlet, “The Class
Struggles in France” (1850), MECW 10:127.
“FOUR CLEAN-UPS”
A mass campaign in China, circa early 1966, as part of the Socialist Education Movement,
to clean up (i.e. remove bourgeois influences in) politics, ideology, organization and
the economy.
“FOUR FIRSTS”
Shorthand for a list of four priorities that members of the Communist Party of China
and the People’s Liberation Army were expected to keep in mind during the Mao era.
First place must be given:
1) To man (humans) in handling
the relationship between man and weapons;
2) To political work in handling
the relationship between political and other work;
3) To ideological work in
relation to other aspects of political work; and
4) In ideological work, to the ideas
currently in a person’s mind as distinguished from ideas in books.
That is to say, first place to man,
first place to political work, first place to ideological work and first place to living
ideas.
“FOUR-GOOD COMPANIES”
Companies of the People’s Liberation Army in China during the Mao era which were good in
political and ideological work, in the “three-eight”
working style, in military training and in arranging their everyday life.
“FOUR-GOOD DEPARTMENTS”
In Maoist China, departments of the People’s Liberation Army (and perhaps government
departments in general) which were good in political and ideological work, in the
“three-eight” working style, in their
specialized work and in arranging their everyday life.
“FOUR GREATS”
The four great attributes ascribed to Mao Zedong during the early years of the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: “Our great teacher, great
leader, great supreme commander and great helmsman Chairman Mao...”. For a period this
was almost an obligatory phrase at least for the first reference to Mao in any article
or speech. It was part of the effort to build a cult of
personally around him. After a few years, however, that cult was drastically toned
down and the “four greats” were seldom mentioned any more.
“FOUR OLDS”
Shorthand for a set of ideological targets of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
in China: old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits.
FOURIER, François Marie Charles (1772-1837)
Important French utopian socialist. He put forward the idea of an ideal community called
a phalanx, based on his elaborate design of a central building called a
phalanstère. While sometimes ridiculed for this, architecture can in fact
be of some importance in the promotion of cooperative social consciousness. Fourier was
far ahead of his time when it came to the promotion of equality for women, and was the
inventor of the term feminism.
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