Vol. 72/No. 26      June 30, 2008

“In one country after another the military caste seized power,” wrote Joseph Hansen, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, in a 1966 article focusing on the previous year’s bloody coup in Indonesia—the heaviest defeat for many years.

Working people in these countries were politically disarmed by the class-collaborationist “peaceful coexistence” policies foisted by Moscow and Beijing on their followers. This contrasted with Cuba, whose leadership mobilized workers and farmers to carry out a socialist revolution and defend it.

Three years later Hansen commented on the extensive nationalizations of industry and commerce by post-independence Burmese governments, both civilian and military. Such nationalizations differed from those carried out in workers states such as China or Cuba, he said, which emerged as products of revolutions.

The moves in Burma followed a pattern in which a sector of the officer caste takes over, aiming to give “capitalism a new lease on life after a period in incubation under auspices of the state apparatus,” he noted.  
 
‘Socialist’ military regime
General Ne Win, the main coup leader, said his government stood for “the Burmese way to socialism.” In July 1962 the military junta founded the Burma Socialist Programme Party as an agency of social control over unions, the Buddhist hierarchy, and other troublesome groups.

By 1965 any media independent of military control had been closed down. Displaying its xenophobic character, the military established tighter and tighter controls over the country’s borders.

Burma’s capitalist economy stagnated. Rice shortages sparked protests in 1967. Seven years later demonstrations and strikes broke out over high food prices.

The junta also faced insurgencies for independence or autonomy by national minorities in the Shan and Kachin states and elsewhere. The government also faced resistance from guerrilla units of the Communist Party of Burma. Benefiting from arms and funding provided by Beijing, CPB forces based in the Burma-China border region escalated their attacks in 1968. But they were left high and dry when the Chinese and Burmese governments reestablished friendly relations a decade later. By the late 1980s the CPB was a spent force.

Washington gave the junta military aid, under the cover of fighting the opium trade.  
 
1987-88 upsurge
Popular resistance reached new levels in 1987-88. Millions marched against the effects of inflation, unemployment, and the military suppression of rights. Protesters called for elections and the release of all political prisoners.

Opposition spread across the country, involving students, workers, peasants, monks, and small traders.

The high point was a general strike and popular rebellion in August and September, one month after Ne Win resigned as official head of government.

Lacking a revolutionary leadership, the upsurge fell short of the overthrow of military rule. The generals regrouped, announcing the formation of a new State Law and Order Restoration Council headed by Gen. Saw Maung. Armored cars and machine guns were used against unarmed crowds. The death toll was in the thousands, according to widespread reports. Following its bloody crackdown the military called elections in 1990. Voters departed from the military script, however, electing the National League for Democracy by a landslide. The NLD was led by Aung Sang Suu Kyi, a prominent figure in the upsurge who had been placed under house arrest.

The junta blocked the new parliament from meeting. Reversing its course of closer ties with the unpopular regime, Washington publicly endorsed the bourgeois opposition leader.

Beijing has become a major exporter to Myanmar and, along with Moscow, the key supplier of arms to the regime. The army in Myanmar now numbers 400,000—more than double its size when the current junta consolidated its rule.

The junta, which renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council in 1997, stepped up its efforts to encourage investment from many capitalist interests in the region, and from imperialist companies such as Chevron in the United States and Total in France. Lucrative deals for the ruling generals have resulted.

For working people in Myanmar the consequences of military rule have been repression and grinding poverty. The country has gone from being the world’s biggest rice exporter in colonial times to one of Asia’s poorest nations.

The capitalist regime’s refusal to immediately mobilize aid for the victims of the May 3 cyclone was the latest example of its contempt for working people.

It was left to ordinary people to take the first steps in responding to the devastation sparked by the cyclone. These same working people had, just months earlier, shown once again their capacity to resist military rule. A series of mass demonstrations, sparked by rises in fuel prices, marked the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the 1987-88 upsurge.

Myanmar: How British imperialism undermined economic development