By Juan Carlos Giordano
National Deputy elected for the Socialist Left in the FIT-U
17 May 2025
Jose Mujica, former president of Uruguay, died on 13 May at 89. Tens of thousands bid farewell in his homeland. “A warrior has the right to rest,” he reportedly said as his cancer progressed. We mourn his loss, and question his legacy. He lived a frugal life, keeping a farm on the outskirts of Montevideo. He got around on his old light blue Volkswagen Beetle, rode a scooter to Government House, and asked to be buried next to the ashes of his dog Manuela.
Mujica always attracted attention, generating a great popular impact. This politician, from congressional representative to president, avoided the luxury enjoyed by many corrupt officials.
From the Trotskyist left, we respect and understand those who feel for “Pepe” Mujica, but we express our differences. Mujica was part of the so-called neo-reformism following the fall of Stalinism and the Berlin Wall in 1989. A left that says socialism is no longer a goal for social change. It preaches the politics of “the possible” and sustains class conciliation. A left that, in the name of the working class, believes government is with the bourgeoisie, does not break with capitalism, the banks, and the multinationals.
Mujica, along with Morales, Lula, Bachelet, the Kirchners, Correa, Chavez, and Maduro, practiced double standards. These “progressive” governments prioritized debt repayment and austerity, serving banks and imperialism.
About the Broad Front
Mujica came to the presidency with the Broad Front from 2010 to 2015. He succeeded his predecessor, Tabare Vazquez, under whom he had been a minister. He had been a member of the Guerrilla Movement of National Liberation (MLN)-Tupamaros in the 1960s. After serving 15 years in prison following the 1973 military coup, they released him in 1985. He founded the Popular Participation Movement (MPP) within the Broad Front.
The Broad Front emerged as a “hopeful” initiative in the face of the disastrous two-party system between the Blanco and Colorado parties. Although it never defined itself as socialist, the Communist Party, and the Socialist Party of Uruguay were there, along with the MPP and other centre-left sectors. The Broad Front’s platform does mention agrarian reform, a break with the IMF, and punishing the perpetrators of genocide. But the government of Tabare Vazquez, with Mujica as its minister, initially betrayed these principles.
Helios Sarthou, a long-time leader of the Broad Front who later left, explained his reasons: “The Front has betrayed everything, but it has betrayed respect for the fallen and disappeared by keeping the Impunity Law intact. It has subjected the country to the economic policies of the empire and its banks. It has renounced the transformation of society by accepting welfare. It has subordinated the class struggle to the labour policy of conciliation. It has paid the foreign debt in advance. It privatized public companies and widened the gap between rich and poor. It undermined the principles of the left and made it cease to be a left” (https://www.nodo50.org/ceprid/. Also in El Socialista 28 October 2009).
Jorge Zabalza, one of the “hostages of the dictatorship” along with Mujica, who died in 2022, said in a report on human rights: “In Mujica I see a deliberate action for forgetting and forgiveness. He won the elections just when the plebiscite to annul the Expiry Law was held and he didn’t take any chances, didn’t say a single word, and he lost by 1 per cent. Mujica could have annulled the Expiry Law if he had included truth and justice in his campaign speech. (Montevideo Portal, 2019). Then Mujica made an impact when he said “I don’t want to have oldies in prison,” proposing house arrest for military personnel over 70, who were in jail.
No one has reported in the media these days that Mujica promoted anti-workers and repressive policies. One of the most memorable episodes was when he declared the Montevideo municipal workers’ strike “essential,” sending the Army to collect garbage to break the protest. Mujica told teachers to work harder and prohibited occupations in public places.
Another relevant event was when Mujica opposed the Social Security plebiscite promoted by the PIT-CNT union, which sought to eliminate the AFAPs (Federal Association of Workers’ Funds), maintain the retirement age at 60, and increase minimum pensions.
Mujica with Big Business
As president, he made his policy toward big business very clear. One year into his administration, in a speech at the luxurious Conrad Hotel in Punta del Este, before more than 1,000 Uruguayan and foreign businesspeople, including 400 Argentines—Lopez Mena (Buquebus); Rattazzi (Fiat); Eurnekian (Aeropuertos 2000)—Mujica said: “Come and invest. Here, they won’t expropriate your assets, nor will they tax you.” Even former President Lacalle praised him: “From saying he was going to build socialism to defending national and foreign investment. President Mujica’s opinions are welcome” (Clarín, 12 February 2011).
According to Mujica, “You can’t raise revenue by increasing taxes on wealth because we’re killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The bourgeoisie is like a cow; some smart people want to kill it for a barbecue. The intelligent thing to do is to let it graze so they can continue milking it.” In this way, Mujica preached the old tale of all centre-left governments: we must govern with big business but “with Creole cunning,” so that they can help “redistribute wealth.” This was just when statistics showed that in Uruguay, 50 per cent of children were below the poverty line.
Mujica and his definition of the left
In 2021, they asked him what it meant to be on the left. He replied: “Today, a cultural battle is taking shape in that space. My generation, still deeply immersed in ideology, thought that by changing the relations of production, we could build a new human being. But economic relations condition human beings. Either the Sapiens mentality changes and they achieve self-control, or we will ruin life on earth.”
His thinking is clear. Mujica says that questioning capitalism is no longer the only way—or only partial criticisms are valid—to end up coexisting with it.
The Socialist Left and our international organisation, the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI) fight for working-class governments that break with the bourgeoisie, multinationals, and the IMF and implement a workers’ and popular economic plan at the service of workers and other popular sectors, embarking on the path to socialism.
We claim the banners Che Guevara fought for, when he said, “Socialist revolution or caricature of a revolution.” Applied in the early years of the Cuban Revolution, they expelled multinationals, expropriated the bourgeoisie, broke with imperialism, implemented agrarian reform, achieving great social gains. The same thing happened with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and in countries where they expropriated the bourgeoisie, such as the Chinese Revolution of 1949, among others. Bureaucratic leadership fell into the former USSR, China, and Cuba, halting and reversing the process until the restoration of capitalism.
We believe that in Uruguay, Argentina, and any country in the world, if we do not defeat capitalism and start socialism—which must be global and with full democracy for the working people—there will be no way forward for the workers, the oppressed, and the youth.
Reflecting on Mujica’s passing, let’s build anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist organisations.
