Bolivia: A History of Class Struggle

BOLIVIA 1S A landlocked country of no

more than 6 million people, with the majority of its population, avout 60%, still working on the land as.peasant farmers. Historically it has been one of the countries most exploited by imperialism. its economy was massively dependent on the export of tin to the imperialist powers - most Importantly the USA. Exports of tin amounted to 75% of all exports by

the 1920s and still amount to over 50% to- © day. Tin production by the turn of the century had come to be dominated by three massive tancay firms - Aramayo, Hochschild and Patino - which controlled 80% of the industry and , dominated the government. This oligarchy, known as the “Rosca” came to be based out- * side of Bolivia, firmly integrated Into the businass communities Of the imperialist heartlands,

The enormous superprotits extracted by imperialism from Bolivia and the resistance to paying taxes of the expatriate “Rosca” kept the Bolivian state chronically impoverished. it was completely at the beck and call of imperialism and cruelly subject to the vagarias of the world tin. market. The 1920s and 30s saw Bolivia racked by economic crises as the world slump produced a dramatle falt in, tin prices. The failure of Bolivian capitalism produced a number of movements, often based in the army and drawing support from the financiaily squeezed urban petit-bourgealste, which attempted to challenge the grip of the “Rosca” and negotiate a better deal with imperialism. The MNR (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolu-: cianario) founded in the 1940s was the most influential nationalist party during this period and became the feading force in the 1962 revolution, :

Starting as an attempted putsch by the MNRA and sections of the militery, the April 1962 revotution became an armed Insurrection led by the most poworful section of the Bolivian warking class - the Bolivian tin miners. It broke the asmy regime end placed Paz Estensorro and the MNR tn power, The MNA goverament was a capitalist government, desgite its revolutionary nationalist rhetoric., Under the pressure of massive peasant land solzures it carried owt a major land reform programme In Aprif 1953, Forced by miners’ strikes and demanstrations, It was compalled to nationafise the three major mining groups of the “Rosca” and form COMIBOL., the state mining company, 4 :

But the regime exposed the chronic political weaknesses of the Bolivian working class and its © parties. In @ situation approaching duat power, where the regime was @ highly unstable one, the left was - unable to win ihe masses from the MNR. Indeed, it did the opposite, The COB supported the govarnment, having five “worker ministers" instatled along-

side the MNR. “

THE ROLE OF THE P.O.R.

The PON, at that time a united party, wholeheartedly supported the entry of the “worker ministers” into the government. They extended eritical support ta it as & government in $o far as ét was progressive and “fought the Rosca.” A resolution of the POR 16th Congress {June 1953) reprinted without crlilcism by Lora tn later years states: “Far from advancing the slogan of the overthrow of the Paz Estenssoro regime we support it In ardar that it resists tha offensive of the Rosca and we call an _ the intarnational protetariat to defand unconditionally the Bolivian revolution and its transitional govarnmant.” (G, Lora, “Bolivie: de la naissance du POR a L‘Assemblee Populaire” '!,p.35). Whitst it fs justified that ravotutionartes would defend arms in hand any such democratic government against domastic or imperialist reactionary attack, it is wrong to giva it political support. tn fact, the POR faited to expose It as a bourgeois government incapable of fighting reaction, fallad to cafl for its replacement by 3 revolutionary workerg and pea-~ sants government ond fated to raise to the fore agitation far the arming of the workers and peasants and the dissolution of the standing army,

The failure to seize the revolutionary opportuntties afforded by the April 1952 revolutlon was to cost the Bolivian workers and peasents dear, The government demobilised the masses, rabuilt the army and in alliance with the Bolivian GP crushed the left in the COB, By 1964, the army was sufficiently confident to strike at the MNR government and reinteaduce military rule. The regime of General Barrientos, which was marked by its subservience to imperialism and tts repression of the trade unions, involving it In a series of massacres of mine workers, lasted until 1969 when the goneral was kilied in a helicopter crash. Ho was replaced by Generat Ovando.

it is rare that tha same political leaders are offered a second chanca to carry out their respective programmes, Yet 1976 In Bolivia offered just such a chance to the feaders who claimed to be fighting for socialism ia Bolivia, tt was a chance that proved + that thoy had learnt nothing from their previous »: mistakes.

The events of October #970 bore a striking simifarity to those of April 1962, General Ovando, under the impact of the apparent success of the

PAGE 2 WORKERS POWER MARCH 1983

KUlIVIA 19 /U/ 1 |

A REVO

This article covers the ravolutionary events that

shook Bolivia between October 1970 and

August. 1971, We offer no apalogies for examining events that took place more than ten

years’ago in a small country in South America.

First, those events are rich in lessons for ravo-

lutlonaries seeking to develop a programme which can lead to victory and working class power in the imperiatised world. Secondly, many of the leading figures and parties in this period of strugife, Juan Lechin, leader of the COB {Bolivian Trade Union Centre), the Boll vian Communist Party {PCB}, Guillermo Lora, leader of POR {Lora}, Hugo Gonzales Moscoso leader of POR (Gonzales) are still contenders for leadership within the Bolivian workers’ movement. They will undoubtedly continue to play an important rote, following the return ta civilian government in September last year. Therefore an examination of the politics which inform their parties, and their record during the revolutionary crisis of 1970/71, has much More than academic interest. Parts of this article are taken from a forthcoming book published by Workers Power and the Irish Workers Group on the Fourth International (see advertisement elsewhere in this paper. } We invite supporters of either Lora’s organisation, POR(MASAS), affiliated to the Fourth Internationalist Tendency or of Gonzales's POR {COMBATE}, affiliated to the USF1, to reply to the criticisms made in this article,

a ere |

nationalist generats In Peru, proceeded to try and renugotiate a betier deal with US Imperialism, The nationalisation of Gulf Oil was ta earn him the enmity of US imperialism and ensure an attempted right-wing coup. Oa October 4th 1970, General Rogelio Miranda obliged the US government and staged an attempted coup. However, sections of the army hesitated and the COB called a general strike against the coup attempt. Miners armed with dyna-

_ mite poured into La Paz as the working class res-

Ronded massively to the call. A “Comande Politico” was formed to organise the resistance. This political command was made up of trade union leaders from the CQ8, including Lechin; organisations such as the Siudent Federation and Peasants of tho indepen-

* dent Bloc, as weil as political parties; the MNA, the

PCB and POR {Lora), and others. “LEFT” BONAPARTISM

Having failed to achieve a swift coup the army found itsetf facing a crisis stmitar to April 1952. it had to head off at all costs anather defeat for the army at the hands of the armed workers. {t chose to put forward its “left” bongpartist face, in the figure of General Juan Jose Torres whose base fay In the airfoyco. Torras announced himself in rebeltion against both Miranda and Ovando, making 6 broadcast from the El Alto alrforce base declaring for “an antiimperialist revolutionary government of soldiers, workers and students,” Time magazine revealed haw this “ysebeltlan” was arganised with the connivance of Ovando: “After mosting with Ovando, General Torres sped to a miliary baso outside La Paz and quiotly ratlied [eft support, When jeftist Air Forca pllots, flying vintage Mustang Sighters strafed the presidential palace, taking care to fire only into the air- it was aif over.” {Time 19.10.70).

in fact the general strike had already broken the coup, and Torres provided a way out for the army, even if it meant temporarily risking a “teft’’ genosal, while they reorganised their forces, Torres was quick to oblige, On assuming office he offered Miranda s post “commensurate with his military rank” {reported tn Le Mondo, 26.40.70) while General Roque Teran, a renowned right-winger, was appointed commender in chief. While Torres was reassuring the milltary, and in fact assuring his own future dowafall, he was atso

Bolivian tin miners

buliding ep his reputation as a leit nationalist amongst the masses, On his inauguration, In front of s crowd estimated at 40,000 ia the Plaza Murrilio,

Le Paz, he declared: “We hava signed a pact of honour with the COB and Universities to build a truly Bolivian and popular government.” (Quated in Bohermla, 16.10.70}. indeed the ftest part of this was true. The foltowing day Lechin announced : “We give full support to Generat Tarres, to whose gavernment we havo appaalled to purge itsaif of preamarican oloments and from which we demand consiltutional liberties and guarantees.” (latercontinental Press, 19.10.70}

The Political Command tad been in negotiations with Torres sinca the first day of the coup. On coming to power Torres offered the Command 25% af the ministries in the new government-[making sure of course the key ministries of the interior, finance, etc were not on offer.) Later this was increased ta 50%.

Despite the previous opposition of the miners’ unions to a return to the “negative experience of so called corute” which represented “‘a betrayal of the historle role of the workers’ movement” the majority of the Palitical Command jumped at the opportunity to enter the government. What fs quite clear is that even the POR {tora} supported the entrAof “worker ckinisters” Into the Torres government, repeating their errors of 4952, Lora makes this clear in his own description of events: “But the oppartunist tandency was brought under contrat sinca the Comando Politico was porsuaded (by the POR? WP) to attach such conditions for accepting the ministries that they would have taon offectively tamoved from tha controt of the President, Thus the ministers would be appointed by the Camando, which would mandate them and recall them at any time:

a polltical adviser would work alongside each minister ete. However, this expariment was never put to the test, since Torres withdrew his offor.” (A History of the Bolivian Labour Movement, by G. Lora.) This interesting “experiment” as Lora chooses to call it, was nothing new at all, It was no more than an agreement to enter a bourgeois government and

had it been realised would have bean no different

" from tha Menshevik entry into the Russian Provis-

ional Government; and this after the experience of 1952!

ION DISARMED

A revolutionary policy should have involved a fight within the Politica! Command for the workers’ and peasants’ organisations ta take power. It should have argued to break off negotiatlons with Torres, to kick out the MNA, and for a cal} to every factory, mine and workplace to olect defegates to iocal soviets end to a national soviet, convened by the political command, It should have called on

. workers to form their owa militias and for the formation of soldiers’ committees in the army, these to send dalegates to the soviets. it should have fought for a workers’ and peasants’ government directly accountable to the soviets, In order to open the road to tha formation of s projetarian stato. The POR {Lora} did none of this and the Pofitical Command effectively ceded power after the aborted

* negotiations on “power sharing’. Defending this position at a later date Lora demonstrates a chronic taitism with regard to the rote of the revolutionary party and its relation to the masses, Speaking of October 1970 he says: “At this time to put oul the stogan for seizing power would have been the idea of a madman, This stagan did not correspond te tha dominant mood of tha masses who did not yst feal it an immediate need to build and canstruct thale own government,” (De la Nalssance du POR a lAssemblee Populaire.) That ts, as long as the masses supported Torres it was madness to ralse the need for their owa governmenti

The explanation of the POR{Lora}’s failure to raise these demands during this crucial period ties in its apportunist use of the anti-Imperialist united frant tactic. As in 1952, with its position of “critical support” to Paz Estensorro, the POA confused the defence of a bourgeois government against the threat of a right wing Imperialist-bscked coup, with extending political support to such 3 government.

~ This position had led to its acceptance of "worker ministers" in 1962. It actually meant maintaining 6n snti-imperialist front with @ section ot the dDourgeaisie on a strategic basis, at

There fs further evidence that tha POR(Lora) did v littie to chatlange the illusions of the Bolivian mas- , ses in the Jeft Bonsgartist Torres. On the crucial question of arming the workers and developing slogans and actions directed towards the breaking up of the bourgeals army the POR either remained silant or sowed illusions in Torres. Lora obviously expected the “force of events” to compel Torres to arm the workers. He blendly stated: ‘Everyone (the POR included -?- WP} supposed that Torres, a irtand of Ovanda, would in view of the difficult situation ha confronted have no alternative but to arm the people, as tha only way of strengthening his own position. But as time passed the hope grew fainter that s clash batween opposing sactors of the military would enable the masses to arm themselves.”

Lora and the POR were calmly walting for a clash In the army between “progressive” and “reactionary’ forces, rather than fighting for the arming of the workers and the organisation of rank and file soldiers for a sharp clash with Torres, Yet, Torres had kept the army intact and its dyed-la-the-wool coup-makers in the generat stoff. The burning issus, fiterally in a life and death struggle for the working ctass, was the struggle to break up the army asa - weapon of reaction, to win the rank and file sofdiérs & to the side of the workers, thereby guarantesing . that the workers would be armed and prepared for, the trevitable coup attempt, By the time tha POR

* {tara} decided that Torres was not going to arm the workers it was too late. The army wos making ready to strike back,

THE PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY

in January 1971 the right wing struck back and attemptod to overthrow Torres. The coup based on General Banzer's cadets and elemants of the Ingavi regiment, which had been the backbone of the Gctober 1870 coup, again was met with a general strike in support of Torres. The coup caltapsed, white 50,000 gathared ta La Paz in answer to the COB’s cail far a general mobilisation. To chants of "“Tarres, soclalism, socialism, socialism," Torres’ reply that’'t will do what the peopie want me to do” was greeted with wild applause.

A direct result of the coup attempt was tho call for a “Peopte's" or “Popular” Assembly, put out by the Political Cammand. The Assembly, when it wes convened, was to heve a majority of workers‘ representatives, Workers’ organisations had 132 or 60% of delegates, 23 camo from tho Independent Peasants Confederation, 63 were allocated to petitbaurgeais efernents such as professionals, teachers, students ete, As the name implies, tho People’s Assembly was seen as the representative of an antiimperiotist united front. Indeed the MNA&, tho gravediggers of the 1952 revolution, were only exctuded when Torres attacked them for thair involvement in the January attempted coupt The political parties of the Political Command, afl of whom wore ta be represented in tha Assembly, each developed their own perspective for the Assembly, The Statinist PCB wanted to buifd i as a popular Front on the Chilean modal in order to mobilise support for Torres, The POR(Lora} saw it as part of a “Revotytlonary Anti-Impertalist United Front’ but at the same time declared It an organ of “dual power and a soviot-type organisation, which has made for the predominance of tho proletariat In the revoluttionary process."

In fact the Assembly was a hybrid body, lt was 8 prota-sovlet whose worker representatives could have been transformed, under the correct Political

CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

leadershlp,into a real teading soviet. On the other hand #t was also a potentiai canstituent assembly, with sfl classes represanted on a national scale, la which direction the Peopte's Assembly developed depended on how the revotutionary forces within it fought to build it.

A rovolutionary strategy should have involved ensuring that ail delegates were elected by rank and . fila factory and workplace committees (many delegates were elected by the trade union jeaderships}. It should have concentrated on building'othor saviats outside of La faz, spreading them on a national scale, calling for tha construction of soldiers’ committeas in the army and for their detegates to attend such soviets. Only with such a network of local soviets would the Assembly have truly become a * central, national soviet, it should have supported = ¢ and encouraged the peasant land seizures that were taking place and organised the building of poor Peasants’ committees. Revolutionaries should have raised the slogan “Ali power to the Popular Assembly" and counterposed the cai) for a Workers’ snd Peasants’ Government” to the bonapartist regime

of Torres, Above atl thoy should have fought for the arming of the workers, and the formation of 3 workers’ mifitia,

Guillerino Lora

This was not the perspective of the POR{Lors). The POR opposed the slogan af “Alf power to the People's Assembly” as “‘ultra-left’: “The Assembly should put itself at the head of an Insurrection, bul It is only at the oppartuna moment, that is to say, when tha masses havo concretely begun te dispute state power with the military govarnment, that the slogan “Ail powor to the Popular Assembly” stioutd have been raised. To do this in May or June 1977 would have boon just empty rhatoric, an trresponsible gamo, no matter how carefully peaptea beliaved thay wore ejaborating the stogan.”

tis the merest demagogy to stigmatise the call ,, tor a workers" and peasants’ government or the expression of no confidance in Torres as an imme-.

{diate and edventurist call to insurrection. This dama-

. ie BODY is an intatitbie sign of Mensbeavism.

* By posing the question of power before tho -. masses, by developing concrete slagans that point in this direction, revolutionaries help lead the masses

socialism passes, not through the road of proletarian Ae) Ww

revolution, but through nationallsation by the bour-

Qeols gtate of various branches of industry end their

transfor into the hands of the workers’ organisations” In Bolivia it was particularly urgent to dispal the

was a path to revolution, It was designed to be a block to revolution. However, Lora, when the Assembly agreed to. accept co-management with an equal number of workers and company representatives

on boards, plus the right to appoint a ganeral manager, precisely fell into the trap of suggesting that this was a revolution by the back door: “Whoever controls Bolivia's mines becames master of the country. Proposing controf of the mines by the working class Implied making the officiat gavernmont un - workable and relegating it to a totatly useloss rote... Sooner or later the quastion of power would arise,

, Moscover the struggle to secure this co-participation

forward towards a revolutionary solution. The refusal

to do this is an abdication of the tasks af a ravotutionary leadership in favour of waiting for the sponlancous upsurge of the masses, Len|n did aot wait for the masses to spontaneously call for a soviet state in £917. He raised the slogan “Ail power to the soviats” - even whilst they were lad by Mensheviks - as a means of winning the masses to the struggle for a soviet state. In Bolivia the aiternative ta developing the Popular Assembly into a genuine soviat and doing this, In part, through the cal) for “alt power” to It, was to coffine it to being a talking shop, whife retying on and supporting Torres’ regime unt the danger from the right had passed.

tn practice the Poputar Assembly which had effectively one session lasting 3 few weeks became a parltament, representative of the masses but without any power. Torres,who at first refused to recognise it, fater declared It a “consultative” body. Within ihe Assembly i appesrs that the POR(Lora) and the PCB acted as & vating bloc, while Lechin balanced batwean this wing and the peasant and student organisations. When the question of co-managemeant of comiBoL came up, foilawing a proposal to devalop “workers’ participation” in the industry, the POR({Lora) again showed its Inability to offer an independent class fead. Torres’ offer wes quite clearly designed to win suppart from the workers in. order to demobilise them in thelr Independent struggle. Participation in a key Industry would, via the medium of state sppointed union bureaucrats, undermine an indepondant strugg!e for workers’ control of the industry. Under these circumstances

participation, itself, was not ruled out, Trotsky was °

clear that within state-capitalist enterprises fa sem/- coforial - countries, participation could, anty covid, further tho strugglo for real workers’ control. However, he was clear that In no way should such a tactic be dressed up as the strategy for socialjst rovoiution. Writing of Cardanas’ attempt in Mexico in 1999 to enlist the partleipation of workers within the nationoiised olf industry Trotsky stated: “lt would of course bo a disastrous error, 4n outright deception, to assort that the road to

Was the best means of mobilising the masses towards tha capture of power.” (Our emphasis).

If the POA {Lora} offered few correct tactics during this revolutionary periad neither did its twin POR (Gonzales). This group as part of the USFS was fully committed to the guariltaist strategy adapted at the Ninth Worid Congress. The galitics of “guerillaism’ kad an aven more disastrous secord in Botivia than in other South American countries. Guevara's gueriila “foco" had bean hunted dawn and

ane

wiped out by Bolivia's US trained counter-insurgency General Banzer

forces in 1967. Remnants of Geuvara‘s organisation the ELW stil existed and in July 1970 about 100 gueriligs, many ex-Christtan Comocratic youth, opened a new gueritla war in Teoponte. Four months tater only six survived having bean mercilessly hunted down by the Botivian military, This was the perspective the POR {Gonzales }- not only advocated for the Bolivian massos but was actively invalyed in. As a result they had [fttle involvement In the mass struggles which prevented tha Gctobes 1970 coup, seeing thom as merely side shows to the “reat armed struggle. Thus they could argue la a statement issued shortly after the

- October mobilisations Tho revalutionary process

rpaning in the vitals of the poopte in the depths of | the mines, in the factorles and universitles...hias Its fullest exprosslon in the armed struggis end gueritle warfara,” (POR (Gonzales) Statement , s tntercontinental Press, Nov. 1970),

The POR(Gonzales} as a result were not part of the Pollticat Command and were bureaucratically exciuded as a political party from the Popular * Assembly on the tnitiative of the POR(Lors)/PCB bloc. While the POR {Gonzales} made a number of correct criticisms of POR(Lora) for instance, over the negotiations with Torres, they remained pofitically crippied by their “gueriliaism” and “processism, While they cafled for an armed struggle to overthrow the capitalist regime of Torres, they were Incapable of developing any slogans or tactics which addressed the crucial questions of soviets, soldiers’

took differant forms, POR{Loral’s adaptation to the petit-bourgeois nationalist Torres regime, POR(Gonzales}‘s adaptation ta tho petit-bourgeols Castrolte and Guevarist currents, made bath parties shy away from the crucial tasks confronting tham- the construction of soviets and the fight for power and the inlertinked task of breaking up the bourgaols army. Both sa this fatter task as primarity a technical one. Troisky, drawing on the experience of the 1908 revolution,summed up tha importance of political agitation and miass struggle in tha fight to break up the army: "The Army’s political mood, that great unknown of every revolution, can ba datermined onty in the precass of a clash betwoon tha soldiers and the psopie.,.tha mafority hesitates and awaits an impulse from outside. This majority

Gs capable of laying down Hs arms, of ovontually

of pointing its bayonets at reaction, only if it begins

_ to balieva in tha possibility of a poapte’s victory,

Such a ballef Is not created by politicaf agitation alons. Only when the soldiers bscome convinced that the people have coma out onto the streets for a life and death struggle - not te cdomonstrate against the government but to overthrow it- does ft bscoma psychologieatly possible for them to ‘cross over to

w dhe side of ths peopta,” (Trotsky, 1905)

Fhe POA(Lora} with Its critical support for Torres and the POR (Gonzales) with its disdain far mass struggles falled miserably to provide any such leadership to the working class rank and file of the

committees or workers’ militia. The struggle for power Army. This Is all the mora criminal when we con-

and the arming of the workers, was seen exclusively ta mititary-techaical terms . The construction of @ “Peopie’s Army” was seen in total (solation from the political struggle and its impact on the sank and file troops. Thair attitude to the Assembly was ono of passive propagandism equalfy as fatal as Lora’s approach : 'The Jaft wing to which the POR(Gonzales) batangs has davoloped the idea thet the Popular Assembly would be a body that would discuss natlonal problems and solutions for them but would leave the powor in the hands of tha mass arganisations (unlons, popular mifitis or Paople’s Anny.) (interview with Gonzales Moscoso, Hougs, 17.56.71}. So both the partles which cleimed te represant *Troiskyism within the Bolivian working class were incapabte of tackling the fundamental problems of a revolutionary situation. Although thelr centrism ;

POGROMS

side: how willing and able to carry through this task the Saiivien proletariat had shown itself ja 1962 and 1971.

BANZER’'S COUP AND THE AFTERMATH

On the 49th August #971, the Army struck, Led by General Banzer and supported by the MNR and the right wing generals whom Torres had kept In place, the army occupied key cites. As late as the 23rd August the Political Command and the POR (Lora) were still pleading for arms from Torres. The results were predictabie, Torres refused to give arms on the grounds that ft would split the army, As the army moved on La Paz, having crushed resistance In

other citios, students snd workers put up a heroic, if hopotess,resistance to the coup, According to onc estimate between them they mustered 2,000 ancic Mausers against the major forces of the Bolivian army snd airforce. Hundreds were killed in the cou which ushered in eight years of brutal rapression.

in exile,the parties of the Peaple’s Assembly proceeded to form a “Revolutionary Anti-Imperiati United Front”, Despite tagging an the word “Aevofutionary"' this front was in fact a populer front built around a purely democratic programme of struggle, In Its ranks ware the POR (Lora) the ProMoscow and Pro-Chinese CPs, the POR{Gonzales), various other parties and Generaf Torrest

Lora’s POR had the most clearly worked out position on the nature of this front. tn their programme they ergue that while before the coup the perspective of insurrection and socialism was on th: agenda, after the coup It was a matier of Fixing dif erent objectives. These objectives turn out to be entirély democratic: “ihe reconquost of democratic guarantees...ciefence of trade union organésations, recognition of their (edarations and canfed srations...respact for human Ilfa and = wall-bsing of prisonors”. (Programmatic Bases of the POR - G. Lora)

While obviously a revolutionary perty would fight for such demands, alongside al! other parties, to limit the struggie In advance to this is pure stagelsm. To join in a bine with tha principal Betra yer of the revolution was nothing less than crossin: class tines, Lora’s programme argues: ‘‘Aati-tmporir fronis can ba grouped Inta two categories: antiimperialist fronts fed by tha bourgeoisie and petitbourgeoisia and those fed by the profetariat, Statin jained and defendad tho first type,”

But if the proleteriat, or parties claiming to re present the proletariat, subordinate thelr program: to that of the bourgeoiste os petit-bousgecisie, it makes no difference who feads It in struggle, ft Is a popular front tying the working class ta the ‘charlot wheels of the bourgeoisie, Whot were the aims of the FAA? “the need is yndeniably to bute! a fighting unity with all the revolutionary democra tic and progressive forcas so that the great battie can be begun in conditions offering a real perspoctive for a popular and national government.” (Man festo of FRA, tatercontinental Press, Dec, #871}, It painted out that the “task is to close ranks aro: the FRA, organised by the forces that fought in the battle of August (Torres ? WP) to win the battle for the people,” it bound ail organisations to the “fundamentat line of the founding doouments” and in case anyona dared to criticise this eopular front it declared any form of “sectarianis: in this respect to be “counter-revatutionary.”

By joining such a front a “Trotskyist” party was not only covering up for the betrayers of the revolution but was tying the projetariat to the bourgeois programme. This is what both the POR groups ware doing. The POR (Gonzales! tried to cover Its traces by saylng its participation had ont, "a tacticat character” {1} while criticising itself for not publishing its criticisms of the manifesto. {lf it had, it would of course, have been thrown out}. The POR (Lora) defended and continues to defend to this day its record and its tactles, both of which were endorsed by the Lambert fed Orgac sing Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fo: International which it had Joined shortly earlier.

The tragedy of the Bolivian revolutions: #952 and 1970/1- was that no revalutionary organisatio existed which could have led Botivian workers anc peasants in a struggle for genuine proletarian pow: It proved once again that a centrist leadership is invariably unable to fead a revalution, and will, if it is a serious force within the proletartat, contribute to its bloody defeat.@

by Stuart King

FOLLOW P.LL.O. DEFEAT

With developments In the Lebanon and the

results of the Palestinian National Council, the scale of tha defeat inflicted on the Pales~ tinians in the summer of 1982 becomes ever more clear. In the Lebanon, having achieved the withdrawal of the bulk of the PLO fight: ers, the Lebanese Phalangists are now conducting a series of terror campaigns to drive Palestinians out of their homes. Aided and abetted by the lsraeli troops, their aim is to drive them first Into the now undefended camps and later, using the fear of repetition of the Sabra and Shatita pogroms, to drive. thom out of Lebanon altogethar. ‘

Issael clearly intends to hang on in the Lebanon, despite friendly US pressure, until. as much as possible of this “sanitisation” ts carried out. Her demands for permament military posts Inside Lebanon and the strengthening of israef’s puppet, Major Haddad,in the Lebanon damonstrates the Zionists determin: ation to reduce the Lehanese government to an israel] protectorats if tiny can get away

_with it, At the same time it has placed Sharon, the real butcher of Sabru and Shatila, in charge of the enormously expanded Zionist settlement programma on the West Bank. The massive financial incentives for settlers are only possible because of American financlal largesse to the state of Israel.

The ramifications of the defeat have reverberated through the PLO. Arafat has been desperately trylng to manoevre the whole of the PLO to accept the American peace proposals, whilst Libya and Syrla are willing to spiit the PLO in pursult of thelr own oatlonat Interests. But the basis that the more milttant sectlons of the PLO had for resisting campromises with US imperialism hes been sovaraty underr mined. Instead of a powerful armed base in the Lebanon, with freedom of movement and trainlag for the various PLO armed wings, the bulk of the fighters are now tocked up in what amount to virtual prison camps in the eight" friendly" Arab countries which offered to be thelr hosts,

Arafat banked on this weaknass to be able to bring all the PLO factions fnto line at the Palestinian National Council. White the flery debates took place bofore the ba-suited and well dressed ranks

of professors, doctors and professtonals who do:minf WORKERS POWER

ate tha PNC, the reai discussions took place else where.

George Habosh, head af the Peoples Front fc the Liberation of Palestime could declare resoun ingly during the daytime debates : ’The Agagan Flan says No to a Patostinian state, No to the PF Well, we say No to the Reagan Pian, No to the and No ta any pian that denies our rights,”

But during the evening sessions conducted b: ween the faction jeaders at Arafat's secrat seasic villa, Habash’s and othar rojectionist leaders’ “Nc sounded less resounding. The Reagan plan wes | considared “a sound basis for a just and lasting peace’; jt was “insufficient”, The Fez Plan proy by the Arab League in November #981 — whict contained implicitly the right of Israel to exist : state — was accepted. Gn Jordan, the Council a cepted a part of Aeagan’s plans; the principte o: “confederation” with the Jordan of King Husse the perpetuator of Black September.

This new alilance between Arafat, Habash ar Hawatmeh of the Cemocratic Front may be a { giie one, it Is based an the weakness of the leac. ship of the Palestinian masses and the disparsior their leading fighters. Above atl it deponds on U abitity of Arafat to deliver the promises made ¢ by American Imperialism concerning the West & and the Lebanon, Those promises are untikely ¢ be kept.

MARCH 1963 PAG

Bolivia on a knife-edge: |

ARMY COUP

THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT of Sollvia came to power as a result of 8 massive genaral strike agsinst the military dictatorship of Genaral Viidoso In October 1982, Under tha Impact of the wortd racesslon of the mid-1970s and the enormous corruption of a miiitary junta totally tied to the cocaine smuggling industry, the Bollyian economy was near banksuptcy by the start of the 1980s.

An sppeal by the Bolivian mititery to the In ternational Monetary Fund for an emergency loan in 1981 resulted tn IMF demands for a huge devaluation of tha pesola measure which massively Pushes up inflation in a country dependent on industriat imports}, an end to subsidies on staple foods and an increase in food prices. The attempt to implement these potictes produced an explosion from the workers and peasants. By September the COS had been pressured Into cailing an afl out general strike, while peassnt orgenisations, Primarily the CSUTCB (the United Confederation of Working Farmers), set up road blocks on ail the main highways. The country was paratysed. Fhe demands of the strike were for immediate electans, the restoration of trade union rights and a guaranteed minimum wage.

The military recognising a reat threat of a revolutignary uprising, quickty entered into negotistion with the UDP[Democratic and Popular Unity). This was the electoral blac which had effectively won the 19B0 General Election, but whose presidential candidate Hernan Siles Suazo had been prevented from taking power by the military coup. Stles Suazo headed the major party in the UOP, the MNR-E, which had split fram Paz Estenssoro’s MNA-H aver the fatter’s support for the military dictatorship of General Banzer (1970-76). Two other major parties which made up this coalition were the MIR (Movament of the Revolutionary Left} which started out as a pro-Cuban guerilia organisation and moved rapidly to the right fit is now affiliated to the Socialist Internationsl) and the Bolivian Communist Party{PC8.}

COMPROMISE

, These parties quickly reached a comproapmise with the military. They abandoned the cali jplor-Immadiate elections and agreed to respect the

resuiis of 1980, when thelr coatition received the fargost number of votes (40%) and the presidency, but the Sanate was left with @ majority for the right wing partles - Estenssuro’s MNA-H and. . Banzer's Nsitonat Democratic Action Party[ADN}. vere Through: this-Vcompromisa’”’ tha military had ensured that no election would take place in a situation where the massive mobitisation of workers and peasants would have swept the right out and givan the UDP a massive majority. This suited the UDP feaders just Ine. Avolding elections and continuing to face 9 Senato dominated by the right gave them a perfect excuse for not yielding to demands coming from tho workers and peasants, The miners rejected the compromisa and continued on strike only to be morally bisckmaited into calling it off by Juan Lechin - their leader - who threatened resignation tf it continued. The COB praceeded to give the government thelr support, Thus in Octobar 1982 the UDP took pwer. A

government of bourgeois and petit-bourgeais natiana-

list parties in alliance with the most influential .. Party in the working class - the PCB, Siles Zuazo . nmediately demanded a “social truce’ from the

“working class for {00 days on the basis of ihe

terrible econamic situation feft by the military. The econamic sltuation was indeed dire - for

the masses. Unemployment was running at over

em a

BOLIVIA IS ONCE agsin convulsed in ravotutionary upheavals, Once more there ara reports of an imminent mibtery coup. in mid-Aprii and again at the start of May the country was paralysed by two three-day general strikes calfad against the governmant’s planned austerity mansures.

Botlvia is ane of the poorest countries in Latin America and has a history of alternating revojutionary upsurges and bioody mifitery dictatorShips. The country reprasonts an extrome oxample of the Impact of Imperialist exploitation on the semi-colonial wortd. The domination of tha economy by US imporialism- through its multl-nationat corporatlons, Its banks and ald agencies and fits control of the world commodity markets - has kept the massas in chronic poverty. The stunting of the country’s econamy has also fed to a stunted and weak Botlivisn bourgegisio, In Its majority totally dependant on and subsorvient to US imparislism.

. Tha Bolivian tolfing masses on the other hand have davaloped powarful trade union and poasant organisations, Led by the Tin Minars, the working class has @ record second to none In Latin Amarica in terms of tenacious revolutionary struggle against the super-axptoltation and poverty imposad on tham. Whilst the Bolivian profetariat has not beon ablo

to bring its ravolutionary struggle to the cenclusian of ostablishing Hs class pawer, the Bofivian bourgeoisia has been unable to hald politicat power through Its partios. Tho result has been a series:

of military dictatorships - a form of bonapartismwhich have governod in tho interests of US im: poriatism and the IMF, with the support of those sections of the bourgacisia most closaly linked to the US and other imperialist states,

grees me

ite

wif >

4 ada! be bin UDP supporters greet Sites Suazo

12.5% without taking into account the massive endemic underemployment {partial emplayment In street trading etc}. Utilisation of industrial ca~ pacity stood at only 47% while the foreign debt Stood at 3.9 biltion dallars. The interest payments on Soilvia‘s foreign debt stand at 976 biillon dollars, 300 siflion more than expected earnings! The nationalised tin mines (COMIBOL) had bean run down dramatically with littte investment and corrupt management, Comibol for instance was Praducing 36% fess tin in 1982 than it was 20 years earlier and for a world market where the Price of all raw materials inctuding tla has collapsed with the slump

Such a@ situation demaaded an immediate sot of measures to defend the workers and peasants’ conditions. A government which realiy stood by the interasts of the workers and peasants would have canceled the enormous interest burdens, expropriated the private mining interests and subsidiarles making huge profits out af Camibol, established a mialmum wage protected against inHation and supported the expropriation under the control of the workers of any company laying off workers or sebotaging production. It would have supported the legitimate demands of the peasants for cheap transport by expropriating the right wing truck owners and establishing state contre? of transport. Mast importantly 1 would have mobilised the workers, peasanis and the rank and flle soldiers, to disarm the military coup.mongers and create an armed workers’ and peasants’ militia,

“SOCIAL TRUCE”

Of course the UDP did none of those things. Quite the reverse it set out to sofve the crisis at the expense af the working class. Their “‘social truce” in November 1982 involved a wage freeze, the establishment of a pathetic minimum wage of 8,500 pesos (none of the unions demand a wage minimum of less than 25,060 pesos} and a series of econamic measures designed to placate the IMFsuch as favourable treatment to the private mining sectors and agri-businesses. To cap it all the UDP had the cheek to calt these measures part of & “New Economic Policy™+lilaming it to the Bolshovik’s potiay of the 1920s The strength of the CP in the miners’ union and the COB end tha tacit support of Lechia minimised working class oppositian.

tn other periods these military regimes have been incapabte of containing and repressing the organisation of tha workers and peasants. In 1952 and agaln in 1970 the workers, using an fasurrectlonary general strike, defeated the military in opon battle. Howovor in both of these revotutionary situations the workers and paasants were betrayod by their own loaderships. The rullng class was obliged, timporarily, to advance its “laft” natlonalist wing to power, fn 1952 this was the bour-

’ geols nationalist MNA {Nationalist Revolutionary

Movemont) tod by Victar Paz Estenssore and Hornan Stiles Suazo, in 1970 it was the “laft’’ wing of the mifitary headed by Genoral Torres.

in both cases thase governments wera composed of representatives of the “nationalist” bourqgeolsia, those sections of the capitalists and small businesses which gained ieast from the domination of imparialism. Indsed they were ofton driven out af business by the multinationals and demands of the international banks, Their programme promised indopendent capitalist development utilising state capltallst nationalisations, In particufar of the tia mines,

Because the strongest sectors of the Bollvian bourgolsio, tied up as thay were with Emporiafism, wore opposed to such a4 strategy, both the MNA qovarnmant and that of Torres ware farcad to turn to the working class and peasantry for support in their struggte with the imporiatists and with their foes within the Bolivian bourgeoisla, Cancealing their true ctass character behind 3 mass of antiimporialist and “revalutlonary” verbiage, thay balanced botwoen the working class and papsant organisations, which they prevented from solzing

ctnaae fei tah

OR REVOLUTION

st

A A

eon

{AE

By March 1983 at the end of the 100 day “Sostal Truce numerous strikes broke out around wage demands. Despite PCB opposition the miners’ union (FSTMB} occupied the Comibo! keadquasters demanding a majority of workers’ rapresentatives on the management bosrd. Revolutionaries should have supported such a damand as layIng the basis far reat workers’ control and sbalishing the previous “participation” by tha miners ia their own exptoitation. Fo express reat control however the workers’representatives would have to be directly elected by, answerable to and recallable by the workers themselves with business secrecy having been abolished. Furthermore such workers’ control would have te be rapidly expanded to the whote economy and could anly be securely established under a workers’ and peasants’ government. The COB and the FSTMBE leadership peddied a different conception, one that projected a workers’ majority co-management as being the method by which the warkers could centro} the society - a recipa not tor struggle to taka over the whole economy but for the co-management of Bolivien capitatism, a reactionary and utopian profect, doamed to disaster. 4

In August the COB took this strategy onto the political plane by demanding “co-government" with the UDP i.e. for a number of “worker ministers” to join the government. “Co-government” has a disastrous history in Bolivia. Lechin himself sat as one of thrae “worker ministers” in the Estenssoro government of 1952. There they provided a lett cover for a bourgeois government which was attacking the workers. Lechin attempted to repeat the experiment in 1970 with Forres only to be rebuffed. fn both cases this class calfaborationist strategy was supported by the POR (POR-Masas ia 1970}.

RE-RUN

Unbelievably in 1983 the same strategy Is being actively supported in the Bolivian workers’ movement today by the USFI section in Bolivia - POA Unificado (formally POR-Combate). Tha POR|Masa> appears to have both strength and influence in

- one of the biggest and most militant mines in Vaher

Bolivia at Huenuni (in 8 jolnt slate with dissident Maoists they won a majority in trade union

power, and the pro-impariatist oligarchy, wham they excluded from political office.

But tho prime task of these “left” bonapartist regimes wes to byreaucraticatly control and da mobilise the mass movements which repeatedly threatened to escape their cantrol and put in question capitalist proparty in goneral, tn coflaborating with thesa regimes to gut the revolutionary move ment the leadership af the workers’ movementthe Bolivian Workars Cantre (COB) - under Juan Lechin played a treacherous rote. Lochin, atang with the Bolivian Communist Party(PCB} kept tho workers’ movamant tiad to these “antiimporiatist” regimes evan whan thoy openly turned to attack the workers’ and poasants’ interests and organisations, {See Workers Power No.40 March 1983 and Permanent Revolution No.2 Summer

1984 for analyses of thesa two revatutions.}

The organisations claiming to be Trotskyist in particular tha POR ater POR-Combate and POR-Masas) provided no altornative lead to the working cfass . Indeod they adoptad wholly oppor: tunist tactics towards both the governments of tha MNA and of Torres. By disarming and exhatusting tho workers and peasant organisatlons those ragimas paved the way fer mititary coups backed by the most reaotlonary pro-imporlalist soctors of the bourgooisie- General Barriontos in 964 and Cotonel Banzer in 1977.!n 1984 tha same cycta threat: ans to repeat |tsetf untass the Bolivian proletariat can croate an effective rayolutionary conmmunist leadership, that can load it lo tho seizure of power and the establishment of a genuinaly ravolutionary warkers’ and peasants’ government.

elections st the mine against the PCB), Yet they are using this influence to peddle the same policies that lod to disaster In 1952.

Leading USF1 membar Livio Maitan argues in international Viewpoint :”Taday the demand far co-government implies specificafty that the COB and the CSVTCB do not consider themselves to be represented by the UDP and President Sites Suazo, but that they want to represent the workers and Peasants in government in an independont way.” (Our emphasis- We}, . :

Thus this demand helps the masses to underStand the class nature of the conflicts and pollticat issues, it has an anticapitatist potentiat.” (1.V,

12 March 1984).

So Juan Lechin, with his 30 year recard of betrayal, is to sepreseat the Bativian Prolateriat in “an independent way". One blushes to point out such an elementary lesson ta a so-catled Tratskyist but whanever did a “worker minister” in @ Bourgeols government prove to be independent of anyone except the working class? This project, far from helping the masses to calf things by their real aames, deceives and deludes them. Such a government is not an exercise in workars’ education but a popular front which is one of the last palttical resources of the bourgeoisie against ihe proletarian revalution, one which in Trotsky's words “daoms the working class to impotence and clears the road to fascism.”

Lechin’s desires however wert not to be granted. Siies Suazo rejected his demands for co-government snd alter retreating an new IMF measures faliowing a 2 day ganeral strike in December last year, returned to the attack 2 months ago.

The proposals which sterted the current crisis originated in 8 4 year plan for the economy pushed by the PCB. In April the MIR, who had walked out of the government in January 1983 {in order to try and stitch up a solution with the MNR-H and ADN} were enticed back on the basis of a new austerity package which would satisfy the demands of the IMF.

On Aprif 13th the UDP snnounced the toughest ” ever austerity package under the signatures of ali the parties inchiding the PCB ministers of Mining and Labour, It involved a massive davaluation of the peso, the anding of subsidies on basic food: stuffs + a foaf of bread jumped from 12.5 pesos to 70 pesos a fpaf. Food in general went up 480% fuel rose by 400% and railway transport 600%!

‘ GENERAL STRIKE

The package was met by an immediate three day general strike, which even SP miiitants ia the FSTMB and COB wera forced ta support. The Bank workers at the ceritral bank struck and occupied their offices 10 prevent the devaiuatian. Lechin and the PCB did everything in thelr power to prevent the strike developing into an indefinite ganeral strike - a demand boing pressad by the lactory workers, :

The congress of the estme which met fust after the austerity package sow massive losses for th: PCB ia elections to the leadership, while the dissident Maoists and the Partido Socialista-Lino (a centrist grouping) gained considerably (POR-U lost ground In the elections.) However Juan Lechin was elected unanimously as General Secretary as he has bean every year since 1944]

A further three day general strike was calied over May Day with Lechin densuncing tha factory workers af £a Paz for organising for an tadefinite general strike and threateaing to resign in protest.As a result the government managed to divide the workers - setding with the oll and railway workers.

The COB teadership’s policy of exhausting the workers with a series of 2 and 3 day general strikes was having its effect, The factory workers were

toforced back to work after several more days with their General Secretary Eduardo Siles declaring they “would resist any fresh calis for general strikes because they paid a high price for the tast ons.” Not surprisingly the army chose this moment to declare its intention to “defend peace and public order” amidst rumours that two ex-generals who master-minded the coup against Siles Suaze in 1980- Garcia Meza and Arce Gomez- were back in the country plotting a new coup with sections of the militery.

The current situatlan la Bolivia Is fraught with enormous dangers for the Bolivian masses. The Policies of their feaders - the PCB, Lechin and coare merely paving the way for a mititary coup to tlumph over an exhausted workers’ movement. Such a coup might initially have a damagogic leftnattonelist character but If i did this would be but @ stage to the consolidation of a vicious right-wing dictatorship. To avoid this the Bolivian workers need not more 2 and 3 day general strikes designed to “let off steam” and “maderate” the govarnment poticies, but an ail-out offensive against it.

It needs to launch an indifinite generat strike which demands a complete end to austerity and which organises the workers and peasants organisations lato their own councils or soviets which organise their own mititias and appeal to the rank and file of tha army to join thele struggle against the coup mongers.

The Bolivian masses need a revolutionary party of the proletariat. One which uniike tke POA-V refuses to peddia iilusions in class collaborators like Lechin, but uses the united front tactic to demand that the leadership of the workers’ parties break with the bourgeols parties and enter onto the toad of struggle for a genuine workers’ snd peasants governmont.m

by Stuart King

py A rR

IN CRISIS

BOLIVIA; Failed General Paves Way For Right

WITH ELECTIONS EN Bolivia due for July 14th it new looks cortein that ene or other of the major right wing parties will triumph, Victor Paz Estonssoreo’s, leader of the MNR - H, the man who hefped demobilise the 1962 Aoctivien revolution ang pave the way for a military takeover, tooks ike beating Hugo Banzar’s ADN (Banzer was milltary dictator between FA7O.28., .

Fhe fact that these two parties wel batde lt out for first or second place shows the compiete colfapse of the support for the ‘teft’ UDP goverament because of the role it has played since 1980 in undermining and demobilising the workers’ and Poasanty struggles.

The UDP came to power In 1980 as a result of a massive gencral strike which drove the military fram power, (t wes a classic ‘popular front’ goverament made up of the bourgeois nationalist MNA-I, which draw much of its supPort from the peasantry and middle classes, the MIR, a right wing social democratic current affitialed ta the Socialist international, and the Bolivian Communist Party (PCB), .

The government proceeded to use its support within the working class and peasantry to impose 6 series of austerity measures demanded by the }.MLF. En the early part of its existence it was enormousty aided in this tosk by having the support of the COB {the Botivian Workers’ Centre} and of Juan Lechin,veteran teede union leader and opportunist. Lechin, sided by the PCB, justified support on the basis thet the UOP was tho ‘tosser ovit’, He orgued thot it would be

replaced by a more right wing govarament or a military

dictatorship if the workers put up ony resistance to Its eusterity demonds. ;

However quite quickly the traditional militancy of the Bolivian workers, led by the tin miners,

\ Wo .

shatiered the ‘social truce’ with the government. Since September 1982 thare have been six genoral strikes called by the COB under the pressure of the growing economic crisis, ©

The Government's refusal to allow wages to keep up with inflation, which now runs at the ‘ phenomenal rate of 2300% per vear. has caused enormous hardships, Shortages of food, medicine and spare parts for machinery, rocketing unemployment, a rampant black market and enormous gurrency speculation, have all contributed to the enormous falls in living standards, A recent UNICEF survey estimated thai 80% of the popu- (stion was living in poverty.

Throughout the various austerity packages imposed on the working class by the UOP, the PCB remained an active mamber of the government. Its position enty became untenable when it suffered a crushing defeat in the COB elections in September 1984. With its own working closs base in revolt, and with its own youth movement having split away, the PCB inaily left the government, After two years of attackiag the working class it had desparately io try and restore same left credibility before the elections. [The MIR had already feft the government to try and stitch up a deal with either the MNR - H or ADNI,

The COB leadership under Lechin had shawn itsalf totally incapable of providing any strategy to defend the working class against the UDP offensive. The enormous militancy of the miners had forced tha governmant to concede workers’ majority co-management In COMIBOL, the state iin mining company. But divorced from a struggle to extend warkers’control to other sectors of the economy, from a fight to nationalisa under workers centro} the importent private tin mining and gold mining sectors, from the struggie ta control dis-

Sendero

A FURTHER PROBLEM for the Paruvian ruling lass hes boen tha growth of thy Sendaro © Luminosoe (Shining Path} (SL) rusat gueriiia movemant, which has plunged the southern Aadaan provinces, Ayecucho In particular, into a virtual state of civil way. In response to an astlmated 2,500 ermed attacks by Sendero on tocal politiclans, potica and landevzners.in 1984, the govaramont has doployad 6,000 atmy, |

marines and police, Thy woakness of Poru's pariia-

mentary democracy has boen shown by tho creatian of 15 Military Emargency Zones, placing ovar half of the country under military rute. Thera has been a wave of repression against the negtectad tndlan possants of the Slerra (Andean hightands} - amongst whom Sendero largety aperate - leading to 4,000 murders and at loast 1,800 “disappeared” since Bolaunde’s civitian govern: ment took office in 1980,

Sandera Luminesa ariginated from e split in the pra-Chinese Peruvian Communist Party in 1970,led by Abimacl Guzman (oftan refarred as “Comrade Gonzates’’} a phitosophy professor at the city’s university, The main issue of the split was Gonzales’ stress on the noed to begin armod struggle in what he characterisad as a revolutionary situation tn Peru in tha 1970s. it was argued by SL that the Peruvian governmont - then the reforming mifitery governmant of Velasco - was fascist, as were the subsequent governmonts of Bermudez and Belaundes’ consorvative civilian

government, Sendero describes itself as a Maoist organisa.

tlon, associating itself with tha “Gang of Four’, (Mao’s supporters in tho Chinese Communist Party who wera ousted by Deng Xiaoping's faction in' 1976). Bacause It sess Poru as @ “samifoudal” country it is the peasantry, not the urban working class, which Is sean as the major revolutionary force. In its major programmatic document “Let us davelop the guerilta wart", publishad in March 1992, Sendera argues for a “prolonged popular war based on the peasantry to “surround the cities from the countryside”. Furthermore, thair Maoism is combined with a utopian attachment to the Inca and Indian cultures existing bafore the Spanish conquest, They rofect as “imparlalist’ modern technology and money, positions which have fod many to charactorise thom as “Pol Potists’. Thetr organisation Is both alltist and cult-Hke, based around Comrade Gonzales.

Bast on thoir balief that aij ieft wing groups were “bourgaols workers parties” which proservad the fascist governments by participating in thoir fake fection to tha new constituent assembly, they withdrew fram thelr involvement in

Luminoso

students’and teachors’ organisations in Ayacucho in 1980, They bagan armed aotlon around tha 4980 slections, denouncing tham as a terce and attacking a polting station in Cuchi, in

Ayscucho province, Since then they heve carzied out attacks on the armed forces and local politiclans In Ayacucho, Huancaveliea sad Apurimac, combined with raids an power stations and pofice stations in the cities of Lima, Cuzco and Arequipa.

Although Sendero’s teadership Is generalty made up of inteilactuals, teachers and studants, it has a large following amongst the poor Indian peasants of the Andean highlands. Fiftean thousand demonstrated In Ayacucho fn 1982 at the death of guoriila feadior Edith Lagos - kiltod by the police. in the same year they wore strong enough te occupy Ayacucho for the night and ralease 300 prisonars from the city jail,

However the-poor responta to Sondero’s calt for a 72 hour gonarat strike in the municipal alectlons and their fatture to disrupt the recent ponoral efections - dospite demending a boycottindicates not only tha Impact of army teprasston, but also tha failura of their own strategy. They havo fargoty Ignored tho urban working class and refused united frants with peasant and workars" organisations against repression, Even among tha peasantry thely potictes have alienated many sactions of the population. Militery elitism, the imposition of village leadorships, exacution of not only tandowners and rich peasants but middle poasants as well, a policy of aitempting to starve tho citias by making peasants burn thelr. sucpluses rather thas sel them, thus adding to rural poverty, have al} contributed to stagnation for SL.

Sengero maintains significant support because of the chranic poverty and long term govern: mont nagtoct of the Quechua speaking Andean peasantry, Their demands for tand have always bean mat with governmont repression, which | exorcise now indiscriminately drives mora of the tural population to seek support from the SL,

Whatavar the errors of Sandero Lumlnoso, it Is the duty of the revolutionary feft in Peru to support and defend them against tha reprasSion of the bourgeois state and its army, and denounce “‘tafts" like Barrantes who tacitly support govarnment reprassion. Support for SL wilt continue as long as there Is no ravolutionary alternative put before the peasantry involving an agrartan revolution and tha smashing of the jandtard systom and with the police and military apparatus which supports It. The present refyrmist and otectorally orientated Peruvian leit within the tif offers no such alternative. @

tributian and other necessities and stamp ot the black market ia speculatian, the idea of ‘co-manegement’ remains the co-management of the crisis of Botivisn capitalism. Such 9 struggle would have meant above alt a struggle to overthrow the UDP government and replace it with a workers’ and peasants’ government which would not only

secure such gains bul pracee.t to arm the workers ond peasants against military reaction.

Even after the September Congress of tha COB, which clearly signalted the need. tor a break with the UDP, Lechin could dectare; “any other government in the present circumstances would do exactly what this ong intends to do, Now at

* feast pressure exarted by the warkers allows us

Some conquests such as majority co-management ia LOMIBOL.” (Quated In Latin American Weekly Reports - 5.10.85) Lechin's stternative was the traditional one of the Bolivian workers’ jeadors - to push for ‘worker nvinisters’ In the government; where, no doubt, they would have ptayed ¢ similar rola to the PCB, as agents of the bourgesisie In getting the workers and peasants 1o make sacrifices, Having exhausted the warking class in @ series of genoral strikes,which the COB directed not in order to overthrow the UDP, but to negotiate with jt on withdrawing various austerity measures, the general strike in March was called after 10,000 miaers arrivad in the capital to put ea serles of demands on the government - for wage rises and a stiding scale to pratect living standards from inflation. A demonstration of 60,000 on March 4th backed the demands, When they were rejected by the government, this time an indofinite generat Stetke was calfed. [t lasted @ fortnight but was poorly supported by key sections such as the rail and oi! workers. in addition it received no stipport from ithe peasant organisations. This Strike ended with few government concessions and growing demands from the rank and file to fecalt the COB and hold its leaders to account.

PROGRESSIVE MILITARY

The Baiivian workers clearly recognised the threat that the present situation poses. One of the demands of the workers was for the postponment of the elections for fear of a right wing victory. At the same time they calfed for ‘Sites Out’, ‘Death to the hunger government ° wa've had enough of Siles’ was one of the major slogans of March 4th. The Bolivian working class is confronted again by Its historic weakness of having na political party which reprosents its Interests, despite Its fong history of heroic trade union struggle. The PCB has compromised stseif for the immediate future because of its role ia the VORP government. The COB teaders have offered no alternative but to foin the UDP government themselves, As a result of this Impasse there ls a growing danger of the workers looking to the ‘progressive mifttary’ ta take action to dfock the election of the ADF or MNR-H. Such a posstbifity is being apenty peddled by Lechin'’s Group the PAIN. Such a course also has a disastrous history in Boltvis. Many of the present faaders of the Bolivian working class tied thelr faliowers to the coat talls of the ‘progressive’ Generat Torres, a policy which disarmed the workers” movernent In the face of Banzer’s right wing army coup in 197% {see WP no. 40 March 1983},

As in Peru the USFI Section in Bolivia, PORUnificado. found itself in a favourable situation with the restoration of parliamentary government and tegaity in 7980. it had survived, by its own ‘accounts, the period of illegatity well and was one of the first left groups ta reorganise jtself with a regular press and organisation, ft also made some gains inthe important Huaqunt mines and within the miners’ unlon. However the POR-U showed itself Incapable of chalianging the reformist and conirist misieaders of the Bolivian workers, preferring to adapt {0 their politics and thus ‘pressurise them to the left’.

Shortly after the UDP came to power, the POR-U, tagging atong behind the CO8 leadership, refused to take up a position of Intransigent oppasition to the UDP;’tha strategic abjective of tha POR Is to bogin to prepare tho masses for the continuation of their steuggle under the UDP goveramont.,.at presant that does not invotye eli

—INTERNATIONAL-%2<<

‘out apposition to tha government, but a strategy of pressurlsing it and exposing the capitulationist feadershin’ finternational Viewpoiat 1.11.82) A revolutionary position would have demanded complete opposition ta the bourgeois government of Sites Suazo . Revolutionaries would have demanded the PCB break with this bourgeois alliance,end alongside the COB launch an immediate campaign for new elections to a constituent assembly. {The existing Assembly had been re-established on the basis of ihe rigged 1980 alection and was dominated by right wing parties, Within such a compaign communists would have fought for a workers’and peasants ‘government around a programme which could reafly defend the workers” and peasants‘ interests against imperialism and the bourgeoiste.

indeed, falling behind Lechin’s schemes the POA cover over whether they favour the elections going ahead. Instead of wacning the masses of the danwers of believing that the progressive sectors of the army can be won to the workers’ side, they compound them by dectaring;"This unity must be widenad by appoating to the commanders, comm: stoned and norr-commisstoned officers and sotdiars not to fire on the people but to jain ranks In delonce of damecratic freedoms and far national soverelgnity against Imparlalism. They must take thelr place in the struggle of the masses... four emphasis 1V 22.4.85)

‘PREPARING THE WAY’

Again when the COB launched its campaign for ‘worker ministers’ in the bourgeots government, the USF fell in with Livio Maltan,erguing that such ministerscould represent the workers and peasants ‘in an Independent way’, and that such demands had sn‘anti-capltalist potential’, (IV 12th March $984) Again the POA showed its willingness to fall in behind Lechin’s demands which would have renewed the filusions of the masses in the UDP government and only undermined resistance to new attacks. Even during the most recent general strike tha POR-U could not bring itsalf to openiy eall for the overthrow af the UDP government. Instead It taikad of ‘preparing the way for saying we''Sites outl No Banzer, No Paz Estensscrol"" tt raised no demands for the formation of workers’ and peasants committees to build genuine organs of working class power - soviets. Instead it rummsged in the cag bag of past defeats and found a slogan from the 1971 debacle ‘Advance towards the foundation of a National People’s Assombiy which must be transformed into a reat peapte’s parliament’ UY 22ad Aprif 1985} The programme for such an assembly, we are informed, should be the programme of tha COB- involving renouncing the foreign debt, wide spread nationslisation, a minimum wage and sti ding “ scate and a monopoly of foreign trade, How this programme, inadequate as it is, wilt be implemented in the teeth of bourgeals and military apposition,we are nat totd. The question of arming the workers and peasants and paralysing the military through revolutianary agitation among rank and file soldiers is never raised.

MISERABLE STRATEGY

Thus the USFE Section in Bolivia fails miserably to advance a strategy for working class power through an alliance with the impoverished peasantry. Instead they adapt ta the historic weakness of the Bolivian tabour movement - syndicalism and petty bourgeols nationalism. These weaknesses have helped to keep the Botivian workers from taking up the tasks of building a mass revotutionary party. By keeping the workers movement free of revolutionary communist potitics it has been repeatedly rendered helpless when faced with a bourgeols nationalist regime - spouting anti- * Imperialist rhetoric but carrying out anti- warking class measures, From critical support for such governments.with al} the demabilisation and demoraXsatlon this brings,it is but one shart and bicady step to another right wing’ 7« milleary dictatar - ship. Revotutionarles in Bativia must do everything possible to alert the heroic miners and other sections of the working class against this outcorne, Only worktag class power can put an end to the vicious e¥cle of Bolivian politics.

by Stuart King

4 vr oa

WORKERS POWER 77 October 1985

WITHIN SIX WEEKS of his Inaugttation as President, Victor Paz Estensscro has given notice to the Bollvian working class of what it can expect from his new government, Declaring a ‘state of slege' on September 19th, Paz proceeded te order the arrest of thousands of trade unionists fnyolyed in ‘a general strike against governmen austerity measures, .

Juan Lechin, fongtlme feader of the COB {the Bolfvlan Trade Union Federation), together with fts current general secretary Walter Delgaditlo and jeaders of the Olt, Bank and Telecommunicatlors Workers were sent into ‘internal exite’ - banished to remote towns mH the Amazonian jungle near Bra~ zi.

Soldiers opened flre on striking workers In the capital La Paz, white others raided the trade un fon headquarters and university fooking for strike leaders and ‘patttical agitators’, sth

Paz ts the 77 year old feader of the MNR-H and has been elected president three times before, In 1952 a general strike and insurrection, fed by the Boilvlan miners overthrew the existing milltary regime, and brought to power the ‘National Revolutionary Movement’ (MNR), i

This party had enormous sitpport amongst the workers and peasants at that tlme on the basis of Its antl-imperlalist pronouncements,. Hts leaders promised to free the country from the rtp. of impertatism, especially the USA; and from the exploitation of the mutti-nattonal corporations which made enormous profits out ‘of Bollvle's natural resources, while. its workers Ilyed In abject poverty. :

mobilisation

Under the pressure of the mobillsed and armed masses the MNRgovernment introduced “a miafér’’ land reform which broke up many. of the larger estates and distrl-: buted lend to the peasants, The "major mining companies were nat

ae

tlonallsed and the state minbig:

corporation COMIBOL was -set

up, farwes? Despite [ts revotutionary andi;

antl-imperlajist rhetorle, the, MNRi: remained a government which). defended bdourgeots property. [tsi strategy of developing Bolivian Industry behind protective trade, - barriers and through state-capitals Ist enterprises ilke COMIBOL,/,

was combined with a determination . to demobillss the masses and reach. a@ Compromise with

Imperialism, «ait

Paz Estenssoro a

Within a few years the Paz Estenssoro regime had managed to divide the peasant organtsattons from the workers, re-bulld the’ shattered Bolivian army through US supplied aid and impose a US’ backed {MF ‘stabilisation - ptan! on the workers which attacked Jobs and living standards,

But this was not sufficient for the Bolivian ruling class nor thelr impertalist masters. As fn many other Latin American cour tries the strength of the working

class and its combativity in , the.

face of attacks on Its living stendards demanded more extraordinaty,. measures.

coup

Having weakened the worker: organtsations and defences, Pa himself was overthrown by a milf, sary coup. This regime of Generajr..

BOLIVIAN WORKERS |

RESIST NEW AUSTERITY:

Juan Lechin

Berrientos guaranteed the Bollvian and US bosses stable and profitable exploftation through the massive repression of the labour movement,

Thts victous circle of mass

revolt headed off and contained by ‘ravotutionary nationalist’ gay- ‘ernments, who only pave the way for renewed military dictatorships, tas become the tragic pattern ‘of modern Boltvian politics,

Paz replaces his old ally the outgoing President, Hernan Siles Zuazo, leader of the MNR-t, The MNR-I, having split {rom Paz in 1970, took over the ‘revoluttonvary’ mantle of the MNR aad formed the UDP government in 1980, Siles, like Paz heforé him, was swept Into office ‘after a general strike which forced the corrupt military junta ¢o hand; over power tog clvitian goverpment,

i. austerity

{ The -UDP i government which ‘Included the Bollyian Communist ‘Party and ‘soctalist' MIR, proceeded, after a short time, to try and impose IMF demanded ‘austerity’ measures, only to be met by massive’ worklng class resistance. Between September 1982 and the elections In July there were six general strikes in Botivia,

Despite their enormous herolsai and self-sacrifice, especially from the miners, the Bollvlan working class was once again crippled by Its feadershtp, The entry [nto the government of the major 'teft! parties, and the support Initially given to it by the COB leadership, provided Stes with a felt cover,

Even when the UDP was openly attacking tha working class {ts leaders were unwilling to fight for an alternative kind of government, one which would haye defended the Interests of the masses and taken real measures to expro~ priate the bosses, arm the workers and dfsband the army - a Workers and Peasants Government. (see; Bolivia falled general atrike paves way for right. WP73}

defensive

Under such feadership the setles of general strikes became purely defensive, exhausting the ‘resources of the masses, at best giving temporary respite from UDP attacks, Yet they provided nO permanent solutton to Bolfvia‘s economle crists,

« Only e& programme of action, which rejected placing the burden of the crisis on the shoulders of the workers and peasants and whlch counterposed to it making the bosses and ‘the ° imperialists pay the ‘costs of their’ own crisis, would have been able to rally the rural masses and middle strata ‘behind ‘thé proletartat. The {immedlate and complete cancellation of the debts to the International

of impertatist the taking over of the major retall distribution companles

banks, the the capitalists

holdings,

expropriation end all

and placing them under workers control, stamping out the biack market, the extension of credit to the peasants; these were the type of demands which needed to be fought for and mobltised around,

hostility

Of course, a government which

fmplemented such revolutionary measures would have faced not onty the feroctous hostility of

its own bourgeotsie and fts armed forces, (thus the Importance of revolutionary work amongst rank and file soldiers} but also a virtual blockade by the fmpertatists,

The Paz government of 1985 Is very different to that of 1952. The government knows that lt wlil only be tolerated If it shows it can do what Siles could not do, break the reststance of the working class and drive down living standards in the interests of profle,

{if Paz falts there -ls always the ADN walting in the wings or a return to a direct military dictatorshlp. So sware is Paz of thls that he has included [In his

‘democratic! government two well known "Golpista's", figures who have been involved in previous

military coups and their dictatorships. Luls Fernando Vaile, who

served In the military government of Generat Pereda In 1978 as weil

the ‘Cocaine Junta! Luls Garcla Meza of glven

as under of General §98081, was of Defence!

Clearly Paz hopes this give the reactionary Generals, .' enough influence In Government

to make them destst from taunch--

tng a ‘coup, Such concesslons were

tried without much success by Salvador Allende near the end of his 1970-73 government in Chile,

extension

That is why, by its very nature, such a struggle had to aim beyond the borders of Bollyla, The struggte would have dynamised the opposition to the totterlng Pinochet regime In Chile, opened the posstbillties of the Bolivian workers giving a lead to the masses of Peru and Argentina faced with similar attacks from thelr goveraments to pay ;their crippiing debts

to the Imperlallsts, Such a strategy was the only one that offered a way out of

the disastrous cycle of milfltary dictatorships imposed on the Baii-

vian people, Instead, the beneflclaries of the apparent stalemate between the UDP = government and the organtsed workers was the right. ‘ Hugo Banzer's ADN (Banzer headed the milHtery dictatorship

between 1971 and £978} won the largest percentage of the votes in the July etectlons - 28% compared to Paz's 26%. He took over 50% of the votes in the capital La Paz, The MNRH scored heavily amongst the peasants, while Sile's MNR-i was decimated, Despite this Paz with the support of the MIR and other ‘left! parties won the Presidency Jn the Congress,

sacrifice '

Within days of his insuguration Paz was declaring to a meeting of Bolivian businessmen his plaas for solving the economle crisls; "The only alternative is work, sacrifice and to place ourselves In a completely realistic situation, This means going against the polltical approach we created and adopted (since £952} We are breaking with this policy to adopt an entirely different one",

The ‘sacrifice’ of course was not to be asked of his well fed

the Ministry’ *

wil #

h it

Sda Jose Un mine eudlence but thelr poverty strick-

en emptoyees, The MNR's tradltional antl-linperlatist rhetoric and aversion to forelgn investment has quickly been dumped tn favour of pollcies which wHl attract US support and investment. Paz quickly announced Bollvla's ‘wltlingness to pay' its $4.8 Odiltion forelgn debt. Nearly $f billion Is owed inimedlately in overdue payments to the international banks ss the

UDP had declared a unilateral moratorium In fune 1984, payments

Such payments can only be

made at the expense af tha workers and peasants. On 29 August @ swingelng austerity package was Introduced almed at doling just that. Petrol went up 700%, domestic gas {widely used for cooking} went up 20 times, bread quadrupled in price, electricity and telephone costs sre to rise ten foid, Most restrictlons on imports and exports were ilfted in the interests of this 'free market", while the currency was massively devalued. Other measures ansounced included the breaking up of COMIBOL Into decentrallsed enterprises obviously aimed at weakening the mlners' cantrol over manage-

‘ment and = paving the way for future privatisation of orofitable mines, He also announced the

opening up of the Uyunt reglon, said to contain the fargest deposits

of Lithium and Potassium in the world, to foreign capital. It was atso these measures

which led to the September general strike. Originally called for 48 hours by the COB leadership, such wes the support that it was extended indefinitely. Paz immedlately dectared the strike Iilegal, a fact that did not stop the miners, factory workers, workers fn tefecommunications, teachers, bankworkers, the ofl workers, raflwaymen and many other sectlons making the strike solid,

lessons

The declaration of the state of slege and the use of the army against the strikers was deltberately aimed at weakening the ‘unlon movement and denionstrating to the bourgeoisle and US Impe-

rialists Paz's determination to take on and defeat the working class,

The Bollyian workers must quickly fearn the lessons of the

past pertod and set about forging @ new leadership in the struggle against the MNR government. Only by doing so can they {Inaliy settle accounts with tke Boltvian capitalists and thelr Generals, as well as with thelr Imperialist paymasters.=

by S.King

20

around 15,000 miners are gath-

ered In La Paz. Accompanied by tens of thousands of teachers, sludents, trade unlonists and street trad. ers, thelr protest resonates dround i the cily alf aflemoon, Wherever they go they leave their calling card; explosions from detonator caps dancing foudly off the streets. These ioud cracks intimidate the army and bring confidence to our ranks,

This was the scene that first morning. bwas to be repeated dally forthe next two weeks, -é

The trade union officials ‘pleaded _

for the marchers to go back te thelr mines, but the miners shrugged aside thelr pleas. The key demands had yet to be won: a minimum living wage, a sliding scale of wages, and working class powert They pressed harder and harder. For days the President was a prisoner In his own palace; the roads In the city were blocked.

Nevertheless, this movement did not take power, Regaining their composure, ihe bosses launched acount ter-offensive which was to inflict a heavy defeat on the miners and thelr supporters, How did this happen?.

Bolivia ts the poorest and least industrialised country in South America. The great majority of the population scrape a ving from small plots of land or by running sinall shops. Yel the industrial warkers play acenttal role In sociely, thanks to the Importance of their work in the naonal economy. During and after the Second Word War the political power of the miners transformed them into

" {he vanguard of the popular and workers’ movement, The miners had been - the comerstone of the resistance to the post-war oligarchic governments: they routed the army In the. A952 revolution.

in 1985 the miners numbered between 50,000 and 70,000, of whom 30,000 worked for COMIBOL, (he,

stale mintng Somporation}, A

T HE MORNING of 4 March 1985;

Uns table ;

Between 1978 and 1980 ‘Bativia was totally unstable. There were three presidential elections, four coups: and seven presidents. A general, ‘strike stopped the bloody Natusch coup of 1979. in 1980 the Democratic and Popular Union (UDP ) won the elections, The UDP had been formed as a popular front by the Communist Party {PC) and the MIR , around Siles Zuazo, leader of the MNRI. [See box}:

However, a coup by Garcia Meza forced the UOP ‘out of government, - Garcia Meza intended to impose a Pinochet-style dictatorship, eliminatIng the leaders of the left. ‘Fortunately, he failed. There were’ three presidents in the military junta's two year fife, The revojutionary upsurge of 4982 forced the military to pul the UDP, which they had deposed, back In power with Slles at its head,

tn the beginning workers had many ittusions In the UDP. The PC,‘ the principal party of the workers’ movement, had two ministers. The:COB andthe peasants' confederation were ted by members or supporters of the UDP,

But the UDP remalned a “popular front"—a@ cross-class alliance lying the workers’ partles to the “left”

- WORKERS POWER © PUBLIC MEETING ~

London

Thursday 2 March 1995, 7.30pm

Room $300, London School of Economics |

4.0 YEARS SINCE. THE BOLIVIAN |. GENERAL STRIKE »

José Villa and other activists: from Bolivia will recalf the events and discuss lessons for revolutionaries today.

BOLIVIA 1985

“The Miners’

Workers Power ise . WORKERS HISTORY reeauary 1995 : Een :

arch Days

in March 1985 thousands of Bolivian miners descended upon the capital, La Paz, and for more than two weeks held the city while the country was engulfed by a general strike. José Villa, active in these events, assesses their significance.

Pensioners’ protest, La Paz 1985 _.

‘ bosses. But the popular front could

not satisfy the workers’ needs. At that time the whole of Latin America was suffering the effecls of recession, sharp rises in debi servicing and a coliapse in export prices.

In response to popular pressure the government put wages up, but pald for it by printing more and more money, The UDP offered the miners coparticipation in state enterprises anda series of benefits which quickly evaporated in the heat of hyperlnitation. The workers soon became disilJusioned with the UDP,

In November 1984 manufacturing workers declared a genera! strke, occupying the faclories and taking thelr bosses hostage. Not a single day passed without fresh strikes and demonstrations. March 1985 marked the twenty-ninth month of dislllusionment with the popular front.

it was the PC and the MIR which

had instigated “co-government” dur-.

ing the UDP’s term in office by encouraging the COB to enter the cabinet. Juan Lechin, the miners’ Jeader and head of the COB executive for four decades, tried to mediate between the UDP and the radical rank and file in order to dissipate the discontent, The PC's support for lhe government at this moment led to it fosing iis predominant place In the warkers’ movement. The MIR then split, with ks leit wing going on to form the MIR-Masas.

The COB hetd a congress in 1984. it was polarised between the official

bloc around the PC on'the one side, and the DRU on the other, The DRU was a trade union alliance put together by Lechin, including the MiRMasas and the POR-De Plé [sea box}. Ratherthan fighting the popular front, the DRY preferred to try and radicalise it. It put forward a number of radical measures but proposed that the workers enter the government and state enterprises,

Guillermo Lora’s POR {lhe PORLora), which had about 2% of the COB delegates, ried lo pose as the opposition to both wings, demanding an insurrection to install the dictator ship of the profetariat. The ORU won,

_ the PC lost positions and the MIR-

Masas candidate, Delgadillo, was elected as the number two figure in the COB.

When the miners took La Paz in 1985 the left was paralysed. It was taken by surprise by the share tse in militancy, The PC did everythIng possible to persuade (he miners to moderale thelr demands and methods of

COB {Bolivian Workers’ Centre}: the Bolivian equivalent of the TUC, BRU: alliance formed within the COB in opposition to the PC. MIR (Left Revolutionary Movement): ex-Castroite current, Taoved from verbal espousat of guerillaism in the Seventies to neoliberalism ang government in the nineties. MiR-Masas (Left Revolutlonary Movementtasses): lef split

from MIR

MNR [Natlonal Rovolutionary Movement): a bourgeois nalionalist party that emerged triumphant out of the 1952 revolulion, The MNR nationalised the mines and most workers voted for it, But despite anti-imperialfst rhetoric and a “left” wing prépared to ally with the workers, it

struggie. Lechin suggested replacing: Siles with another MNR leader.-

Deigoditio argued that Generat Sejas should faunch a “patriotic” coup. The POR-Lora demanded the immediate imposition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, although it gave no concrete expianatlon of how this was to be achieved. ;

Troisky sait that generally in revo- ,

Juilonary processes a moment arfives at which the vanguard of the movement becomes so radicalised that It spontaneousty pushes towards. power but the majority of the masses do not fotlow. The forces of reaction can take advantage of this to pass onto the counterattack,

in Bolivia the miners and sections of workers in La Paz and the Andean plateay wanted to take power. Bul they were not armed and had not formed workers’ councils and popu tar assembiles (soviels). Nor had they managed to split the army, The majority of the peasants, most sludents and the towns in the low fands and to the west were not integrated into the movement. in March 1985 the cen tral task was to organise the broad mass of the rank and fite workers and peasants in popular assembiies and to arm them,

fa March the miners held huge assemblies with thousands partici-

. pating in the open alr, At one point

Lechin was boced out of the meeting by militant miners. The miners found him and forced him to take off his trademark italian hat and wear a ordi nary miner's helmet! These assem blies were the raw materlal out of which soviels could have been built. {t was necessary to organise other sectors of workers on the same besis, The assemblies should have then elected delegates to a national action council. The POR-Lora fed the University Federation (Students’ Unfon} in La Paz, a clty with 40,000

‘students in a population of jess than

a million. Meanwhile the POR-De Pié ran the manufacturing workers’ federation and the union at the Siglo XX mine (the biggest in Bolivia), The rank and file was radicalised and these federations could have initlated the formation of an elected and accountable popular assembly In La Paz. They could have taken their message out to the country.

AS a first slen such bodies would have put the distributor of fuel, gas and food under their controt. In the armed forces and police force there

ment in Botivia

was discontent and this was fertile ground on which to sow agitation for the barracks to form soldiers’ committees and ally themseives with the movement. But not one organisation of the far tent called for the formation of soviet type organisations,

After two weeks of strike action the armed forces occupted the streets and forced the federation to negoltate, The COB leaders failed to organise any resistance and sold out, The miners returned home with only a paltry pay rise to show for their struggles, Before the “March Days” Siles

‘had decided to cut short his period of

government by one year in order to bring forward the presidential elecons, The right hoped to win and put in place a neoliberal government which would lead an assault against the proletariat. The March Days defayed the poll by several weeks and the elections were nol held until July 1986,

Banzer, who had ruled the country as a dictator from 1971 to 1978, won

. the election, declaring that he was

going to Impose order and stabllity,

La Paz, which only three or four months earlier had supporied the miners, was now transformed Into a bastion of support for Banzer. The petit bourgeais majority of the La Paz popuialion were desperate for an end to hyperinfiation and scarcily, and a return to stability and order. if the projelarial could not deliver it (thanks ‘to the betrayal ofits leadership} then at least the extreme right would do so, they thought.

Endorse

Despite winning the election, Banzer had noi received the 33% of the vote required to assume office. Parllament refused 10 endorse him. The “lef” then voled for Victor Paz Estenssoro's MNR, and on & August 1985 Paz Estenssore returned to the Presidency for the fourth ime. Within a few days his iInance minister, Sanchez de Lozada, launched his economic shock therapy. Prices rose overnight—fourteen fold{!)—while wages were frozen. The osganised workers look action but the urban traders, shanty town dwellers and the peasanis did nat join the movement.

in September the COB announced an indefinite general strike against ihe economic shock. The government was able to break the strike in the factories and the public services. During the second week of strike action there was a workers’ and poptt Jarassembly held fn Orure, with some ten thousand people taking part. Among the feaders were the comrades who founded Poder Obrera, Workers Power's Bolivian sister organisation.

That night the slate decreed a stale ofstege, Thousands of miners across. the whofe country began hunger strikes In their mine shaRs, But the MNR goverment won out In the end.

Over the next year, a series of

- defeats decisively closed the revolu-

iionary period which had opened up \In 1982. Time was to show just what a strategic defeat this was for the Bolivian wordng class.

In the years that followed the heart was ripped out of the workers’ movement by the destruction of the tin mining industry, The whole movement was thrown back onto the defensive for the next decade as It vied tao regroup to protect the gains of the 4952 revolutlon from the anslaught of neo-Hberalism.m

eventually did the Job of defeating the working class and maintaining order for the bosses. Now the party of govern-

MARI (Natloral Revolutionary Movement Left}: a short-lived teft split from the MNR in the Fifties.

PC: the (Stalinist} Bolivian Communist Party.

POR-Lora (Revolutionary Workers’ Party-Lora): The POR, ted by Gulflermo Lora,

POR-De Plé (Revoluttonary Workers’ Party-De P[é): a syndicallst split from the. POR, A very small group that oceasionaily found itself in a position of influence.

UDP (Democratic and Papular Union}: a popular front involving the PC, the MIR and MNRI, whiclt won the elections in 1980,

anenecenrenanrenett eter 4

in 19574. We do not want a reactionary safeguard Imposed to derail decisions which upset the bosses.

Future suppert and prospects for the Alliance depend on whether New Labour can gain substantial trade union support. Up to now unions have not affiliated to New Labour. However, there are big rifts In the making within the Council of Trade Unions (CTU).

The bureaucracy wants to moderate oppasition to the ECA and to get a deaf with Labour based on the repeal of ECA If Labour win office. About twenty unions are opposed te this strategy and met in late August to agree a different pian of action. This could lead to a new federa~ tion affitiated to New Labour, turning it Into a bourgeois workers’ party, and thus the Affiance inta a fully fledged crossclass popular front.

The Alllance may draw In more support if National is fragmented by Peters" defection and if New Labour becomes 2 serious bourgeois workers’ party. Such an Ailigance—a Popular Front—will net solve lhe problems of elther New Zealand capltalism or the needs of the workers,

“ Nonetheless, if it draws substantial support from those desperate for a change, under PR it might open up a crisis of legitimacy not Just of the form of hourgeois parliamentary rule but of the very nature of that ruje and the state Jtself.

Whatever form the political struggle takes, our task now is to fight to forge a working class movement that can not only recover its losses but go on to impose its own answer 19 the crisis,

The trade unions have taken a battering over the last couple of years, especlally under the ECA. Many have been sidelined as employers have Ignored them in drawing up new contracts.

Some unions have disaffitiated from the CTU, while others have Ignored Its advice and fought back. Still more are heading towards business unionism, seeking sweetheart deals with employers at any price. Some unions have fost 50% of thelr members. The Clerical Workers Union has disappeared.

Yet there are signs that workers wilt fight to resist the ECA and the employers’ use of it. in February a strike at Carpet

Yarns In Christchurch was partly successful and won a contract which [ncluded union recognition.

In late July, over 1,200 pulp and paper workers struck agalnst Carter Holt Harvey, one of New Zealand’s major export companies, and In mid-September were still keeping picket lines up against scab labour.

Teachers and nurses have siso been engaged in strike action against cuts In funding. Seafarers, engineers and othets, whose contracts are up for renewai, are also preparing for strike action.

Workers Power (NZ/A) supports such actions, We predicted

the wage and welfare cuts that would resuit from the ECA and alone called for a general strike against its intro~ duction, a demand that was then taken up by many workers against the bureaucracy of the CTU. Now we must

“ raise the Issue of the repeal of the

ECA as a vital demand for all working class actions and mabilisations.

Whilst critical support for PR can help speed Up working class disillusion with bourgeois democracy and popu. larise the idea of a workers’ government based on their own organisations of struggle and power, we must fight against any idea of waiting for the 1993 election result to bring rellef fram the attacks.

We must fight around demands that weid the workers Into a united front of struggle against the welfare cuts, the hew wage contracts and whole ECA machinery.

Workers Power will be on the picket lines and demonstrations with our propaganda. We are active in the current strike wave and will fight to democratise the struggles and the unlons, We call on the strongest unions not to settle until the weaker unions have won thelr fights.

We will work for the formation of elected and recailable strike committees, councils of action and workers’ defence committees to protect them from the attentions of police and scab alike. Each and every fightback can be the polnt of departure for a general strike agalnst the ECA and thus for a root and branch destruction of alt the National government's plans—past, present and future, @

Trotskyist International 9

Sam Lowry cutlines the situation facing Bolivian revolutionaries in the unions. Below we reprint the analysis of our Bolivian comrades,

from the July edition

of their paper.

The major Bolivian trade union confederation, the CO8 (Central of Bolivian Workers), held its ninth congress in May this year. Delegates assembled in Sucre, Bolivia on May Day itself after an opening to the year which witnessed renewed trade union militancy in the face of gavemnment austerity measures,

Delegates dispersed two weeks later with a political document calling for “subversive resistance” to the govemment in their pockets but with a new general secretary pledged to Supporting that government's neoliberal policies.

In January over 500 miners started off the yaar with a raund of violent protests on the streets of the capital, La Paz, against the MIFVAON government's privatisation plans for the state mining corporation, COMIBOL.

The government intends to slash the 7,000 strong workforce by 25% and hand it over to private joint-venture projects.

After four weeks in the capital, many miles from workmates and famifies, and despite widespread solidarity action from other sectors of workers, the striking miners were sold out by tha COB officials who accepted the principle of privatisation in return for a church-brokered deal.

Other disputes flared up, including a 24 hour oil workers stoppage over corrupt management on 12 February. Two days later a one day general strike in La Paz organised by the Civic Committee brought the city to a standstill. This potentially reactionary protest was led by the populist Mayor of La

‘Fighting the

pebeslezal

bureaucracy in Bolivia

Paz against the way the state budget was divided up to favour poorer regions.

Public education, a major gain of ” 1952, has been a key target for the government since 1986. Up te naw the unions have succeeded in stopping the attempt to shed central state responsibility for funding of education onto the poorer municipalities.

In February, students and staff responded again miltantly to proposed budget cuts and the privatisation of universities, which in Bolivia _ are open to everyone free of charge.

The students defied violent state repression of their demonstrations and won some budget increases from the government. The national teachers' union also called a general strike over pay and mobilised a series of ‘ant demonstrations, finally winning a 20% pay rise and a bonus payment. .

Since at least the-election of the AGN-MIR government in 1989, the general pattern of class struggle has been one of defensive struggles in the face of harsh attacks, generally derailed by reformist leaderships. In recent years the labour movement has been severely undermined by such attacks.

The miners are down ta 8,000 from over 27,000 in 1985, The number of organised industrial workers has been whittled down from 70,006 to 30,000 in the same period. Coupled with the demise of Stalinism and the discrediting of the lef, this has led to the rise of populist parties.

In Ef Alto, the huge shanty town

above La Paz, CONDEPA niles:the council, while in Oruro, once bastion of the miners and stronghold of the nationalist party of the 1952 revolution—-the MNR— the UCS party of beer magnate Max Fernandez won last December's muncipal elections.

Parties like CONDEPA and UCS profit from the disillusion of the masses in the fighting capacity of the unions and from the cynicism with which they now greet the nationalist rhetoric of the national parties.

The mass of unemployed and underemployed prefer the “self-help” schemes and meagre pailiatives of the populists to the betrayed and bankrupt visions of nationalism.

The COS and its affiliates are now faced with a major crisis of direction. Divisions resurfaced this year over increasing the weight of the peasants’ representation in the bureaucracy, the need for a new-—that is, multi-class— strategy and for a mora “Bolivian” or Indigenist approach.

Since Juan Lechin, the historic

The COB Congress:

One of the major concerns of the workers’ movement's

trade unlon struggle and of its allies, in both the countryside and the city, Is to get surefooted leaders who will take the path to victory, and retake the conquests of neoliberalism.

However, we must not forget that the new National Executive Committee (CEN) of the Bolivian Workers’ Centrat

leader of the CO8, relinquished his thirty year hold on the reins, the COB has elected a new leader at the three last congresses,

This year, despite voting for a “left” political document from the left reformist PRP of Edgar Ramirez, congress elected Oscar Salas as its new leader.

Supported by a braad range of populist and rightist organisations, Salas’ election signals a major turn away from “traditional” class struggle politics: he is an open supporter of the government who accepts privatisatian as inevitable,

There was a noticeable increase in tight wing delegates and officials and outright baurgeois parties were represented too. Thay happily did a deal with elements of the left over the political document in order to secure their candidate's election.

The {eft will have to rally their torees rapidly if they wish to see any of the document's fine phrases come to life. e

results and prospects

(COB) is composed of those who, with official support, practically took over the leadershIp. The officials’ role in this event was to divide the COB and the workers’ movement. The political document which demanded “Active resIstance and subversion, and popular Insurrection to defeat neollberalism and build socialism” did not mention refusal to recognise the extemal debt, which is

September/December 1992

10

imperialism's mechanism for enforcing the super-exploitation of the “semicolonies”. Similarly, It argues for the construction of socialism in one country, a theory which has failed historically, and which was approved through official support.

At the time of the CEN election the officials supported the block ted by Oscar Salas (ASD-MBL-CONDEPA-UCSEJE COMUNERO-MIR-FIR-FRUTCA) and which during the discussions accepted the privatisation of state enterprises.

The officials operate principalty * through those who work for the US embassy, proclaiming themselves for “tree trade unionism”. The workers must fight against this “trade unionism” which aims to depatitlelse them so that they accept neoliberalism.

At the Eighth Congress (1980) the officials, playing the same game, supported the politicat document—again the PRP’s—which In draft only talked about “From active resistance to subversive resistance”.

During the negotiations, which the bureaucracy felt to be foremost for the leadership, the leaders adopted the sentiment of “combative protests against neo-liberalism, towards a dialegue with the government”.

The FSTMS [miners’ union] is playing the same role. in no part of the docuMent approved by the Ninth Congress was the occupation of the mines raised, thus trampling on the memory of those who founded the union.

On the other hand, the POR [the centrist group led by G Lora] counterposed the taking of power ta the taking of the mines, Ultra-left polities such as these ensure that this centrist party

does not grow within the workers’ movement. ,

We must struggle to do justice ta the positive resolutions which have come out of the Ninth congress, amongst them the defence of social security against privatisation, the opening of teacher training colleges and the defence of public and free education, defence of state enterprises.

The workers must demand that the social democratic leadership of the COB, struggle for the salary which Congress approved (Bs 1,467) which in practice means a minimum wage.

* If the most right wing currents in the Congress “attack” the leaders we must prepare the struggle for a new extraordinary Congress to give the COB a revolutionary leadership, while we alone remain confident in our own rank and file strength and are keenly vigilant of the conduct of the leaders of today's COB.

Criticism and even opposition to deeds were the order of the day amongst the bourgeois parties—-MNR, AON and MIR. Nevertheless, 7 July shows that putting class unity above ail eise, the bourgeois themseives united to give their consent to the contract with LITHCO, leaving to one side CONDEPA and MEL which only presented observations on the manner In which to hand lithium to the transnational company,

Equally, within two days the forces of the bourgeoisie had all reached agreement an changing the existing constitution which defends the state enterprises to one which defends an open door policy for the transnationals that would exploit our raw materials and super-exploit the workers. In addition, this would consolidate the privatisation

Trotskyist International 9

“also to the reduction of 23,000 of the

and decentralisation of education and public heatth.

The government is ruthlessly implementing the agreement with the World Bank, in which it has promised this year to sack nearly half the 7,060 COMIBOL mineworkers, in order subsequently to hand it over to private management;

current 70,000 state empiayed teachers and 4,000 of the 12,000 public heaith workers,

All of this within the framework of neoilberalism, transfering the services to the regions (i.e. decentralisation) or privatisation,

On this basis the MIR-ADN government has given fifteen days to the miners to accept the reopening of the San José mine as a Joint venture. To do this COMIBOL is blackmailing the workers into accepting “voluntary” redundancy in return for an extra bonus or be faced with compulsory redundancy.

The workers are demanding that the government invest in the reopening, but this would require US$800,000; the gevernment prefers to spend more than USS3 million on sacking the miners,

In the same way it signalled nearly a month ago the privatisation of the glue factories and the deforestation of Catavi and Its handing over to a Brazilian multinational,

We must be watchful with the leaders of the COB and the FSTMB so that they do not commit the errors of the fast mobilisation in January, when around 500 miners from Huanunl, Colquiri and other pits, put on a show of force In response to privatisation In La Paz,

The demonstration showed such potential strength of support from other sectors, that the government had had to declare a state of slege, but thls never happened due to the CO8B’s treacherous role. That leadership then had a demobillsing 72 hour “truce” and signed a treaty in which the workers accepted privatisation.

With this result, the ascent of the mass movement which after so many years had grown within the oppressed faded, and the masses-—demoralised but without having even fought the battle against privatisation—piaced their

hope In the achievements of the Ninth Congress of the COB. The resuits of the Congress we already know, are an Hl omen for the working class.

The leadership endorsed by the bureaucrats have shown thelr inefficiency over the boycott of the National Censug {ast June. The COB did nothing

- 1o take the-fead in an organised boycott.

They needed to propagandise for the boycott, go to the masses explaining the Importance of the boycott, the importance of showing the bourgeoisie that they still had an organised enemy before them.

The leadership of the workers and peasants limited themselves to doing nothing. With the exception of some of them, the boycott was not carried out and its failure led to the exploited joosing confidence in themselves and their leadership. Now the Ninth Congress approved the PRP‘s “subversive” theses, the basic line of which Is “for ac tive and subversive resistance and popular insurrection”,

But, we know that the vote for this political thesis owes more to the power of the apparatus and to the bureaucrats’ vote which endorsed the support of the. majority, It is true that the PRP did not win the leadership of the COB, but nevertheless it halds the leadership of the FSTMB In its hands—and “active resistance” and even more, “subversive resistance” have remained propaganda slogans.

Now the “subversive” PRP Is unmasked, The rank and file are demand-

SURVEYS |

ing the carrying out of their proposal, especially in the mines.

Privatisation is advancing and the exploited are without leadership. Congress, on the verge of having given a green ifght to an officially endorsed leadership, has not defined any clear or

specific tasks in anticipation for what ~ . .

we know fs going to happen: privatisation.

The workers must not endorse the type of state ownership

which was Imposed after the revolution of 1952. That administration falted because the bourgeoisie hoycotted enterprises like COMIBOL and because in reallty it was net an administration for the workers.

The solution to the problems of the exploited is for them to take control, not only of the enterprises and factories, but also of the state. That will obviously enly occur when we have vanquished the bourgeoisie.

Meanwhile, under this type of Imperialist attack, it Is possible to prevent the gevernment from privatising the enterprises and Instead reopen them with state investment, This is vital if the organised working class movement is to survive. ©

The reactivation of the enterprises must be done under workers’ supervislon, so that the bourgeolsie cannot boycott production. The workers must nal take over management of the enterprises because:

@ the bourgeoisie controls the capitat and will not give them enough money. @ In arder to Increase production the workers would have to exploit themselves and/or sack each other.

We can do none of these tasks with the current leadership of either the COB or.the.FSTMB. We.must convoke an extraordinary congress of the COS and. of the FSTMB to elect a consistent and fighting leadership, which will not do any deals with the government. .

The privatisation of ail state enterprises must be stopped or thousands of workers will stay without work and those who remain will be easily superexploited.

Before the government's attack the workers had begun to go out onto the streets and were preparing to fight possibly the final battle against privatl+ sation, The factory workers in La Paz mobilised fighting marches. The leadership of the COS must unify these struggies-and prevent sectionalism. Sectional Struggles will benefit the government and the bureaucrats,

We must not forget that the COB Is in the hands of reformists and of officials who will negotiate to prevent the oppressed from radicalising their struggle. , :

lt Is necessary to organise and unify these mobilisatlons, It Is essential to build rank and file committees to stop the traitors, ® No to privatisationl @ State Investment under coltective

workers’ control!

September/December 1992

14

Spring wave of

militant protest rocks | :

- Olf Y 4a. - In March teachers, tin’miners and peasants mounted *"

mass resistance to the government. Demonstrations, hunger strikes, and repression followed fast upon one another. Sam Lowry reports from Bolivia

Bolivia LOS to the polls on & June. But before the electoral campaign began, the country was rocked by a militant wave of working class struggles. On 7 March sixteen leaders of the COB (Bolivia's trade union council) began a hunger strike in protest at government pians for yet more cuts in public spending.

Within four days, there were twenty such hunger strikes involving 154 strikers. Nine days later they had been joined by over 600 more at 43 sites.

The strikers sought an end to govemment privatisation plans in health and education as weil as the state mining company (COMIBOL). They hoped to halt further cuts in the already inadequate social security provisions.

They aimed to get uncultivated land owned by the Jatifundistas transterred to indigenous and rural communities, The COB’s centrai demand was for a basic monthly family wage of 1,462 bolivianos ($348) as compared to the present minimum of 300b ($74).

The COB’s campaign was by no means unproblematic. For example, it accepted the rights of the latifundistas to hold huge tracts of-land despite the 1953 land reform which clearly gave Jand rights only to those who work the land. Equally, it failed to distinguish between state control of nationalised industries and workers’ control and It did not warm against the dangers of planned joint venture projects In the mining industry. Nevertheless, it provided an important focus for the entire fabour and peasant movement and showed the potential to mobilise the working popu-

lation against the government on a massive scale.

The hunger strike is a ciassic tactic of the Bolivian class struggle. In 1978, a mass hunger strike started by miners’ wives, and Involving more than 4,000 people, was the catalyst in bringing down the hated Banzer dictatorship.

The current hunger strike was intended to act as a national focus for the growing discontent In the country, sparked off by the government's “offer” of between 9% and 16% wage rises for teachers, health and other pubile sector workers, ,

In Santa Cruz, the Civic Committee issued a cali to arms if the regional budget should be cut and workers oceupied an important oil installation. ‘There was 2 regional strike in the Department of La Paz.

Nevertheless, the hunger strike is essentially a defensive and passive tactic. The best and most courageous militants who join the strike become cut off from the rank and file and it is very difficult for the mass of workers to develop Jonger term tactics and strategies.

They become fearful for the health = - of their leaders and, thus, the dimensions of the campaign are set by the stamina of the hunger strikers. What was necessary te take the campaign forward was the direct mobilisation of the mass of workers themselves.

At the same time as the COB hunger strike, the miners’ union, FSTMB, was preparing its own action against government cuts.

Historically, the tin miners have been the vanguard of the Bolivian working

Trotskyist International 11

class. Before the collapse of the market In October 1985, there were 27,000 miners in COMIBOL, today there are just 4,350 and, with tin prices still low, the World Bank is demanding stil more cuts as the basis for further foans.

The imumediate plans ot the government of the ex-left nationalist MIR of Paz Zamora involved sacking 836 miners, closing the least efficient pits at San José, Bolivar, Machacamar- ¢a and Santa Fé and introducing joint venture schemes at the more econemi¢ mines such as Huanuni and Calquiri.

The intention was then te await the resuits of the 6 June elections before announcing a further package which would cut the workforce to a mere 343 miners,

During the first week of March, miners began arriving in La Paz. They held daily demonstrations with the teachers who were mounting a nationwide campaign against the government's pay offer. Thousands took part In these marches which were violently broken up by the police and army using tear gas.

Support for the demonstrators was widespread because of the Impact of government price rises of 8% for petrol and diese! and 4.5% for the bottled gas which Is the nermai ecoking fuel in Bolivia.

Added to this, Paz Zamora signed a deal to export Jiquid gas to Brazit at a price widely betieved to represent a financial loss,

When a landslide ruptured the main internal fuel pipeline, leading to shortages everywhere, disgust turned to anger and spontanecus blockades of major roads by furious housewives

added to the government's problems,

On 8 Maxch, attra series of delegate meetings, the COB cafled an indefinite general strike to be Jotned, in stages, by different sectors of workers. On 12 March, the oll workers came out and peasant union leaders announced plans for a nationwide road biockade on the 15th.

Although the oii workers’ strike ended after two days and the road bieckade was called off, the pressure resulted In a new round of talks between the government and the COB on 18 March, Under pressure from the rank and file, no agreement was reached and the - government broke off ail negotiations with a final, take It or leave It, offer of 20% for the teachers.

At the same time, it ordered a national crackdown on “public disturbances”. This took the form of 2 natlonal ban on all demonstrations with armed soldiers patrolling the streats of the major cities. A full scale, national “state of siege” was politically impossible because, constitutionally, such a measure has to last at least ninety days and this would have included the election period.

Nonetheless, a regional state of siege was declared In Potosi where the Civic Committee, in contrast to many around the country, had been pursuing its part in the national mobilisation with great vigour, in ensuing street fights with the army, many workers and students were injured, two disappeared, a police station was burned to the ground and one 74 year old student was killed.

Despite the repression, miners and teachers continued thelr struggie. In many towns, soldiers drove hunger strikers from their pickets with tear gas and around the country leading trade unionists were arrested, some being tortured for information about their comrades,

On 22 March, in defiance of CO8 Instructions, miners and teachers led 2 militant march from El Alto on the outskirts of La Paz into the city itself, They confronted armed soldiers and police with sling shots and recks and two police stations were razed after prisoners in them were released,

Ia the early hours of 23 March, the COB signed a deal with the government. This accepted the 20% for teachers but anly 9% for health workers.

Detalnees were released, the privat sation of health und education was put on ice and there was a vague agreement to consult over future privatisation plans, in the mining sector, FSTMB's misgulded plans for worker management (Le, worker ilability for losses) were to be “considered” and privatisatlon was formally rejected,

However, thls did not rule out joint ventures which would undoubtedly lead to further redundancies. Miners themselves only gained a 12% pay rise, barety keeping place with inflation.

This settiement was clearly a sell-out and was seen as such by the militants. Many hunger strlkers, despite being close to coma, opposed the deal but their Isolation from the actual arena of struggie left them heipless,

The rank and file of the peasant union, CSUCTB, belatedly called a national congress in order ta discipline and replace the treacherous leadership that had called off the national road blockade at the height of the struggle.

Although the teachers and miners left La Paz, the fight continued in some pits for another two weeks until troops occupied them.

A final attempt to secure further strike action In eazly April was derailed by the leaders of the CO8 and of the leachers’ and miners’ unions. This marked the end of the period of mobillsation in which the workers had succeeded in defending and extending their organisations and had secured 2 number of partial gains on the economic front

At the same time, it is clear that much more could have been won had the full potential of the mobilisations been realised. Once again, the lions of the Bolivian working class have been led by donkeys,

Poder Obrero (Bolivia) was energetically Invalved from the start In the aftermath of the sell-out, Trotskyists

> SURVEYS

In Bolivia must be quick to draw the important lessons of the struggle. Cru-- oial to taking the strike forward would have been the creation of local and reglonal councils which could have coordinated direct action, forged a national command and seized the initlative from the vacillating natlonal leaderships.

Such councils, composed of militants from all the workers’ organisatlons would pledge to fight uncempromisingly egainst alt privatisations.

Using the tactics of direct mass action—occupations of the pits and factories, the blockade of ail major roads, general strikes and the creation of workers’ defence forces—workers would have been abie to draw in the support of the peasant organisations across the country.

They could have formed the basis for 2 campaign that went beyond the defensive and immediately economic demands of the COB and calied for workers’ control of industry and the public sector, full scale iand reform and the end to payments on the external debt to the imperialist banks. .

In time, such councils could have established themselves as the recognised leadership of the working ciass, In the short term, however, It was necessary to fight to convene an extraordinary congress of the COB to demand that the existing leaders planned and coordinated the escalation of the actlon or, if necessary, to replace them altogether,

The end of the mobilisations and their replacement by the electorai circuses of the main parties has only served to highlight the lack of a working class political party in Bolivia,

The election Is a contest between reactionary bourgeois blocs. The mest important candidates are Hugo Banzer and Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada.

Banzer was the ferocious anti-communist dictator between 1971 and 1978, lronicaily, he is backed today by those parties thal he used to persecute—MIR and the PCML.

Sanchez is the author of the neoliberal model and head of the MNR. Other important bourgeois candidates

are Max Fernandez (UCS), Carlos Palenque (Condepa) and Aranibar - (MBL). - i Despite alt thelr pramises of reforms,

new investments, the creation of half a million new Jobs, and an end to all priv _

\ vatisation plans, any of these candidates, once elected, would immediately begin to implement the IMF and World Bank's plans which will spell yet more misery and hardship for the workers and peasants of Bolivia.

Last year, a call was made by the congress of the Santa Cruz COB for the creation of a workers’ party. This was also endorsed by the COB leader Jests Yavari.

Present circumstances make clear the burning need for such a party but ail the indications are that what the COB leaders have in mind is a Bolivian equivaient of the Brazilian Party of Labour, an electoral machine rather than a weapon for prosecuting the class struggie to a victorious conciusion.

Such a party, which breaks completely with the politics of the bourgeoisie and bases itself on a revolutionary transitional programme, will only be bulit as a mass organisation within the context of the scale of workers’ mobilisations seen in March,

The future will hoid many more such battles and the task of Trotskyisis now is to convince the best militants of the lessons of the March events so that they can organise now the nucleus of the future revolutionary party. e

The Spring 1993 edition of Revolutionary History, Voi 4 No 4, is entited “Colour and Class; Origins of South African Trotskyism.” Articles include: fan Hunter's "Ralph Lee and pioneer Trotskyists of Jahanesburg” and Baruch Hirson‘s “The Trotskyist Groups in South Africa", This issue also Includes a study of the trade union policy of various Trotskyist groups.

Price £3.50 from: Socialist Platform, 111 Riverside Close, Mount Pleasant Hili, London E5 95S

Cheques made to Socialist Platform Lid

Africa:

Popular revolt

and national...

conflicts

José Villa examines the effects on the continent of the failure of postcolonial bourgeois regimes to break with imperialism

In no continents the bankrupticy of capitalism demonstrated with so starkly as in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa possesses two thirds of the 30 poorest countries In the world. One third of its people receive Jess than the trinimum number of daily calories necessary for medium term survival. Africa has the highest infant mortality rate of all the continents. ‘

The 1980s have been particularly cruel for Africa. Production per capita fell more than 10% over the decade. Africa's share of worid trade fell by half from the already meagre figure of 2.4%, smaller now than the smaltest European imperialist countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium.

This state of affairs is not due to some natural deficiency. The continent’s agricultura] and minerai resourc- @S are enormous, The cause of this seemingly inescapable poverty is the weakness of semi-coloniat capitalism, and behind this the effects of imperialist domination. Africa sutfers at one and the same time from a lack of capital and from the depredations of capitalism.

Capital came primarily in the wake of the coloniai powers and after the imperialist division of the continent, Rather than destroying and replacing earlier modes of production imperialist capital preserved them and combined its own super-expioitation with them,

It ted to the withering of certain sectors of production, ihose which met the

Trotskvist International 44

needs of the indigenous Inhabitants, and the overextension of others that were necessasy for the economies of the European metropolls,

The axis of the African economies ‘was the extraction and export of mineral tesources and the production of export crops. Leaving aside South Africa, thece was little industriallsation. in the 1980s this historic pattern was intenslfled_ in sub-Saharan Africa millions of peasants were pressed by thelr governments to abandon subsistence production in favour of entering the world commoditles market.

The pressure to do this originated with the world economic agencies of imperialism, the World Bank and theIMF, These agencies held enormous power over the African states because they had been ensnared in a staggering level of debt. From 1973 to 1993 this increased approximately twenty tlmes.

Yet the changes to African agriculture brought not food and plenty but famine and ever greater indebtedness. In the 1980s recessions the prices of agricultural exports felt by haif whilst interest rates soared. The degenerative effects of large scale export agricuiture combined with primitive methods (expansion of cattle grazing, clearing of trees for fuel) exacerbated the drought problems and the expansion of the desert. -

Millions of the rural population were driven from the land into the cities, creating huge shanty towns in which

i t t

large families Ilve In rural style houses without water, sewers, electricity or made-up roads.

It should not be Imagined that there

__ ls no wealthy clesses In Africa. In fact

the continent has the most revolting

‘contrasts between a few rich and the ~

vast army of the poor. Where 90% of the population live in squalor there are mansions whose Inhabitants consume the clothes and perfumes of Paris, who have bank accounts In London of Zutich, private jets and private armies to guard their wealth,

In the Ivory Coast the Juxurious egomaniac Houphuet-Boigny recentiy had the Pope consecrate a replica of Saint Peter's cathedral In Rome, larger even than the original.

Since independence the great majority of African states have been ruled for most of the time by oneman dictatorships or military juntas, Around a corrupt milltary elite is assembled an etite of state bureaucrats with strong mutually beneficial links to the Imperialist multinationals,

A few states—Ethlopla, Somalia, Angola, Benin, Congo, Mozambique often not much different as far as the character af their rullng elites were concerned, proclaimed themselves antimperialist, even “Marxist-Leninist”. They cultivated strong links to the Soviet Union.

These regimes nationallsed some foreign companies, carried through agrarian reforms, promoted a black consciousness culture, supporting other anti-racist and anti-imperialist movements, Economically, they created a highly protectionist and state capitalist structure but despite the economic plans and the Marxist-Leninist Ideology these Were not workers’ states.

During the Cold War Africa was a key polnt of contlict be tween the USA and the USSR. The US gave biltlons of dollars in military ald to anti-communist regimes or to fund anticommunist revolts agalnst states which were regarded as pro-soviet. Each side attempted to utilise and Inflame interethnic contradictions within their rivals,

a SURVEYS

Thus Africa became wracked by nationailst wars and guerilla uprisings.

Sut at the close of the 1980s the situation began to change. With the decline and fait of the Soviet bureaucracy In the Gorbachev years,. 1965-1991, -

the source of milltary aid economic ald

dried up,

One after another of Africa's “MarxIst” or “socialist” states began to move ever closer to imperiailsm, throwing overboard all the paraphernalia of Stalinism in favour of a newfound enthuslasm for the market.

This was the pattern In Ethlopla (even before the fall of Mengistu), in Somalia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Angola and Mozambique. This also applied to the “African socialist” and pan-Africanist regimes such as Nyerere’s Tanzania or Kaunda's Zambia, and Rawling’s Ghana.

Now these states are seeking large scale Investments from the multinationals and accepting IMF austerity programmes In order to quality for assist. ance In the future. They have been pressured inte the usually IMF recipe; massive privatisatlons, pulling down protective barriers, putting the economies of theses states totally at the mercy of the world market.

In these conditions the imperialists really had no further use for the corrupt military dictatorships they had maintained for so long as a barrier fo communism, indeed, the corruption of these regimes was 2 drain on the multinationals that had to pay-off a whole stratum of generals and state - bureaucrats for their contracts.

The imperialists decided that “cheap government” was “democratic” government. Suddenly, their hypocritical propaganda about “human rights” was switched from Eastern Europe to Africa.

But on tts own, Imperiailst pressure would not have worked. The mighty revolt of the black proletariat of South Africa in the years 7984-6, as well as similar mass democracy movements from Chile to the Phillipines had an impact on students and trade unionists in the African dictatorships.

Last but not least, the poputar upheavals in Eastern Europe, which top-

- themseives,

pled seemingly impregnable dictaterships, encoursged revolt In Afrlea. Since 1989 In state after African state the one-party regimes or one man dictatorships coilapsed or quickly reformed.

This process was not simply one of. reform from above or from outside pressure. Often It involved big street demonstrations, barricade fighting and general strikes.

Imperialism could afford to support of encourage thls process because muitlpasty democracy could contro! the social forces emerging and their was no immediate fear of “communist™ Inter- ~ vention, or a genuinely revolutlonary socialist leadership developing In the short term, Most of the new democratic parties were pro-market and Indeed proimperialist,

But with or without democracy the 1 economic prospects for these states are grim indeed, All of them face enormous problems inherited from the failure of both imperialism and the seml-coloniai ruling classes to solve the ethnic and national antagonisms that are pulling the state structures apart.

Black Africas divided Into nearly fifty states yet nearly all of them are multi-ethnic in character, consisting of more than one linguistic and even nationat communities. The borders of these states were created not by these

- communities or groups of communities

in the process of their own development but by the colonial powers demaresting their territory from one another. Yet since the the imperiailst powers withdrew thelr governors and garrisons all attempts to unify the states of the contlnent have failed.

The dreams of the founders of Pan Africanism have proved unrealisable. This is not simply because the predatoty actions of the imperialist powers. were determined to maintain the balkanisation and piunder of the continent, It ~ is no less the work of the parasitic 5 rullng class that the coloniatists teft behind to exercise power for them.

The Organisation of African disUnity, the club of Imperialist stooges, ” tefuses to see the colonial borders called inta question and for good rea-

proletariat and the neo-li

hurricane

Translated from Poder Obrero (Bolivia), February, 1993

THE POLICY OF the government is to privatise the economy of the country. Because of this it does not, and will not, accept any alternative plans that the workers put forward which fly in the face of their policy. If up to now the workers’ movement has resisted and avoided

privatisation it is due to the solid actions they Have’

undertaken such as the seizure of the San José or Tasna mines and the marches to La Paz,

The FSTMB [the miners’ union} and its leaders propose “alternative plans” or “delegate administrations” that are destined to fail and that only divert, disorientate, weaken and waste the time of the workers in their struggle. The alternative plan of workers’ selfmanagement consists of transferring the administration of COMIBOL [state mining compay] into the hands of the FSTMB for a set period of time. This new administration would be in charge of finding capital investment to regenerate the state mining sector, The

administration would modify the present worker-em- - ployer relationship: state-employed workers would -

become FSTMB-employed workers.

The proletarian nature of the most combative union sector would be lost, which, in turn, would mortally wound the proletarian hegemony of the COB [the united trade union confederation in Bolivia], All “selfmanaging” and “co-managing” workers are doomed to defeat in a market economy in a capitalist country, In order to get: out of the economic crisis the proletariat would need to take over the whole economy, That is to say, it would need to control the banks, the economics ministry, external trade, etc.

This will only be possible with the seizure of political power on the part of the workers led by their own political party. Therefore, all self-management measures, whatever their colouration, can only lead to a complete economic breakdown. In order to overcome the crisis the workers would have to super-exploit themselves and take on casual workers who they would in turn exploit. The self-managing businesses would have to compete against each other and to set production at a maximum which would mean refusing to respect stoppages and strikes organised by their unions.

The “delegate administration”, which emerged in the

city of Oruro under the leadership of the COD [the.

regional organisation of the COB] in an attempt to find an alternative to privatisation, proposed that the administration of COMIBOL mines (in this case of San José) pass into the hands of regional bodies like the Civic

Committee, the University, and the trade union of that sector, This would not lose the worker-employer relationship between COMIBOL and the workers and the state would re-invest capital in the businesses in order to regenerate them economically. This “delegate administration” conserves the present worker-employer relation. However, it extends worker self-management and other bourgeois and petit-bourgeoig relationships under the umbrella of bodies such as the Civic Committees. All this would run up against the same insurmountable obstacles inside the capitalist system. The alternative plans can be put forward by the workers to its own government and not to the bourgeois government, To raise the alternative plans with the class enemy represents nothing but a betrayal of the working class. These plans can only tie the workers to bad bourgeois administrations and involve them in self-

exploitation.

Both plans were rejected by the government given that its crystal clear intention was the implementation of

_ a neo-liberal privatisation policy no matter what the

cost.

The miners of San José, discrientated by their leaders with their alternative plans and negotiations about the payment of wages and food stores, resisted throughout 1992 in the face of great pressure and the government’s privatisation offensive. However, this resistance suffered from a constant weakening. Around 150 out of 500 workers have abandoned the struggle.

This weakening, and one ought to repeat, is due to the deceitful and disorientating policy of their union leaders. After having fought for workers’ self-management during the first half of 1992 they have gone over to fight for the delegate administration. During the whole of last year the workers heroically resisted the attack of the government despite their disorientating and feeble leaderg.

Face with a negative and discouraging outcome the miners of San José now seek to settle for better social benefits than the workers had before. However, the struggle isn’t lost. The only thing, at this moment, that can save the state mining companies from privatisation or closure is the seizure of the mines within the framework of national and regional mobilisations.

In the Santa Fé mine the workforce has been cut. Out of the 170 that used to be there, there are now 100, The miners of Bolivar, disorientated by their official leaders, just hope to keep their jobs whether the company is

53

privatised or not, Ifa future private company sacked the workers only then would they react against privatisation. This tactic ie colaborationist and false inasmuch as the class enemy has taken into consideration this possibility and is prepared for this moment... Today the workers of Bolivar aren’t producing anything and some, encouraged by a management which aims to dismantle the mine, are just passing the time doing absolutely nothing. COMIBOL cancels their wages. The same thing is happening at Ingenio Machacamara where some workers keep an eye on the plant while the great majority enjoy a kind of paid holiday. This is the general situation that all the nationalised mines find themselves in with the exception of a few such as Huanuni. But these aren’t outside the privatisation plan.

Only by seizing the mines and imposing workers’

control over production and marketing can workers

prevent the privatisation or closure of the mines. The |

state must invest in its companies in order to reactivate them, And to finance it we demand the end of payments on the astronomical foreign debt. It is the bourgeoisie that has administered the state and COMIBOL. The

54 Trotskyist Bulletin No. 3

workers must not collaborate with the bourgeois state through the drawing up of alternative plans,

Tn the face of the closure of state-owned companies we must seize them and demand that the government invests in order to reactivate them under collective workers’ control. We must also demand the opening of the books, In this way we can demonstrate that the workers are not the cause of the crisis. Rank and rile assemblies can decide what we do with the corrupt officials that have embedded themselves in the ranks of the workers and in the boardrooms.

Collective workers’ control is a transitory step. It would last a short time under a capitalist state. It indicates that workers will not collaborate with the bourgeoisie, prevents privatisation and, more, directs the atruggle towards an entirely new system—that is to say, towards socialism.

Long live class independence! Fight privatisation!

Occupy the mines!

Impose collective workers’ control!

4, Pte rae!

olivia; privatisation, elections and the workers

" Document frssed by the Fourth Conference of Poder Obrero (Bolivia)

val

August 1993 Since the 1986 CPSU Congress when Gorbachev announced perestroika’s arrival, we have seen the collapse of the “socialist states” of Rastern Europe. After Lenin’s death in 1923, the bureaucracy headed by Stalin began to strangle the socialist revolution opened up in 1917. Stalin sealed the national frontiers to prevent the

spread of socialist revo}ution (“socialism in one country”) «

and denied the possibility of making revolutions in backward countries without industrialisation and peaceful coexistence with the bourgeoisie. The government of workers’ councils (soviets) was replaced by the dictatorship of bureaucratic terror allied with imperialism against world revolution. Thus, iminediately after the Second Werld War Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. divided up the world in the name of “peaceful coexistence”. The sarne bureaucracy that obstructed the construction of socialism has collapsed and delivered itself into the arms of capitalism. In the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe openly bourgeois governments are already in place (e.g. Poland and Russia) which are fostering nationalism at the same time as restoring capitalism, bringing with it unemployment, collosal price rises and privatisation: One dramatic example is Yeltsin who is trying to push Russia towards capitalism along a fast-track and taking total power as president to do it. Another tragic example is the inter-ethnic war in exYugoslavia: the bloody confrontation between Bosnians, Croats and Muslims to keep existing territory or occupy new ground. The collapse of Stalinism has provoked the growth of reactionary forces—racism,. fascism, interethnic struggies. This does not lead us to fight for the re-

establishment of Stalinist regimes. While we clearly -

defend unconditionally the workers’ states from imperialist aggression and other reactionary forces, at the same time we call for political revolution and for workers to take power into their.own hands through workers’ councils, led by a revolutionary party.

_ Breathing space for imperialism,

Workers all over the world, but mainly in the semicolonies, had many illusions in the degenerate workers’ states. The disintegration of the USSR, the transition of other countries of Eastern Europe to the market economy, at the same time as the defeat of the Sandinistas in

Nicaragua and the defeat of the guerrillas in El Salvador, |

has had a negative influence on the consciousness of the workers’.movement worldwide, as well as giving imperialism renewed political strength. This is why imperialism smashed Iraq and later invaded Somalia. The aim is to install themselves with all their military

power in these regions and increase the oppression of the semi-colonies. Now, it is doing everything possible to destroy the degenerate workers’ states that still exist and impose bourgeois regimes: Cuba, Vietnam, China and North Korea. One example is the Torricelli Law, the economic blockade of Cuba. Our struggle must include the defence of these degenerate workers’ states against imperialist attack and against their repressive governments and forces, we fight for political revolution in these states, We fight for workers councils to take power and decide everything. Castro announced the opening of Cuba towards a market economy which means a further defeat for the Stalinist bureaucracy. This rupture in Stalinist policy gives imperialism more force and breathing space in the midst of its own crisis. It will not wait for a second before attacking the workers’ movement of these countries and semi-colonies. However, imperialism is not able to impose its new world order, it is deepening the contradictions between the imperialist countries and the workers’ movement of the world is yesisting in some regions more than others.

How imperialism alms to save itself The major industrial capitalist countries (USA, Japan, EC) have imposed neo-liberal policies since the end of the 1970s in order to reverse their excessive budget and balance of payments deficits (USA is losing more than $150 million a year in the world market). First

- Thatcher then Reagan atarted implementing neoliberal

polices in their respective countries, public spending was

reduced and major state. companies were privatised (e.g.

transport in England). They are fiercely attacking work-_ ers’ gains in their own countries.

__ The USA is facing grave problems due to its economic

decline when compared with Europe and Japan. The North American fiscal deficit has reached more than

. $400,000 million and for this an adjustment programme

is needed to correct the deficit. The implementation of neoliberal policies, in an attempt to solve the crisis, has stagnated the economy, inflation has risen from 2.9% in 1992 to 4.3% today. The economies of backward countries, that are subject to imperialism, are increasingly more unstable, as the USA offloads all its problems on to them.

In this context the capitalist “new world order” has not been established because of the inter-imperialist contradictions (USA v. EC and Japan) and because there are stil] degenerated workers’ states (China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea). Every day the economic power of the USA is being relegated unlike their military power. Clearly it is still the guard-dog of the capitalist

33

world. The European Community and Japan are taking shape as the next hegemonic imperialist powers. So as not to be left behind Bush has launched theT he Initiative for the Americas, which is, in Clinton’s words, the American Common Market. It will aim to build a single market. This is part of neo-liberal policy: the freeing up of the supply and demand in the semi-colonies (such as Bolivia) in order to invade our markets with their own products, Itis the law of the market. Backward countries have become bit by bit merely the source of raw materials and cheap labour. New policies are imposed, changing the judicial and economic structures of these countries, putting “their states” at their disposal. According to Bush, this plan includes the creation of a multinational armed force under imperialist hegemony that would allow the imposition of neo-liberalism and the militarisation of Latin America. Today they have not changed their’ intention inspite of the “pacifism” of Clinton.

Obstacles to the Imposition of neo-liberalism

The smooth application of neo-iliberal policies is not viable in backward capitalist countries because the social cost is too high. Venezuela, a much richer country than Bolivia, has already retreated from it’s application. In the majority of backward capitalist countries where they are trying to take neo-liberalism forward its application has provoked all kinds of responses;, state coups in Haiti, Venezuela, and Guatemala; mass mobilisations; a referendum in Uruguay (in which the proposed privatisation was repudiated); brutal repression by the national bourgeoisie. It is because of having to irapose this policy that itis necessary to defeat the organisations of the workers and the people and it is there that they met their first stumbling block. There are still regions where the struggles of the movement of workers and the exploited continue. While private property continues to exist, and above all poverty and hunger, the class struggle asserts itself daily, thus reaffirming the need and possibility of socialism.

Governments swore that neoliberal policies would reduce the external debt. It grew by more than $443,000 million in 1993, at the same time that $200,000 million left Latin America. The incipient national bourgeoisies were hardly able to recoup 20% of the amount that left these countries. This means that capital is leaving the countries of the south for the imperialist countries.

The renewed strength of the workers’ movement in Latin America The workers’ movement; in general in Latin America fought back. In the majority of countries the bourgeoisie tried to smash it. The main obstacle for the implementation of neoliberal policies is the reaction and resistance that it provoked in the popular and workers’ movements. Being om the sharp end of unemployment,

poverty and low wages. the exploited and oppressed _

masses have risen up against those who implemented the model. Thanks to the enormous mobilisation of the masses in Brazil first Collor was sacked and now Perez in Venezuela. However, there is not enough force nor a revolutionary leadership to guide these events along the path of revolution. The seaction of the popular and

workers’ movements is wasted because of the absence of ~

a political leadership. This is what is happening in

34 Trotskyist Bulletin No. 4

general in Latin America. Venezuela, Peru, Uruguay and Bolivia are the clearest examples of resistance to the implementation of the neoliberal model. For this reason they are seeking to eliminate the vanguard of the workers’ movement. Faced with these obstacles, together with corruption, coups are their only solution, e.g. Venezuela and Guatemala and Peru where the coup has been consolidated. In these countries, in order to impose néoliberal policies, especially in Peru, the force of the military was needed, In Chile, neoliberal measures were imposed through the bloody regime of’ Pinochet. Today, as in other countries, poverty and unemployment has increased in Chile.

The yeors of neo-Hhoralism. ‘After more than a decade of neoliberal policies they have not been the success that the World Bank, the IDB

’ and the IMF wanted. Imperialism failed to recover from

the crisis, although the partial implementation of néoliberal policies in Latin America is bearing certain fruits for imperialism. The president of the IDB, Enrique Iglesias, showed his discontent when he said “the increase in the number of poor in Latin America-—183 million in 1989—would lead to the collapse of neo-hberalism”. Also ECLA announced in their analysis that “only 5% of the population increased their income while 75% had theirs reduced”. In general, poverty has increased in Latin Aimerica by 37 to 53% in the 80’s. Throughout this period a tiny group of the richest bourgeoisie (particularly in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela) has exported investment out of Latin America to the tune of $7,461 million. between 1988 and 1990, While the governing classes make themselves rich through business (Collor in Brazil and Perez in Venezuela) they are fought by the legalist sectors of the bourgeoisie backed by the popular and workers’ movements.

_Another problem they are facing in Latin America is rising inflation. Last year Brazil had inflation of more than 40%. In Colombia—the miracle economy of the 1980’s-——had an inflation rate of 1.9% in in March this year. This is an alarming annual rate of 30%. This economic scenario frightens world imperialism’s economic agencies and shatters their hopes in the neoliberal miracle. The demands to privatise face these

’ obstacles in the countries of the southern hemisphere.

We can conclude that Latin America is seeing the resurgence, of the forces of the workers’ movement compared to the end of the 1980’s and that the economy is not showing the growth so anxiously hoped for by the neo-liberals, Furthermore, the external debt is growing, unemployment has risen alarmingly, poverty is a reality in all the cities and villages of Latin America, inflation is rising dangerously and imperialism is unable to achieve its’ objectives.

The Crisis of Statism in Bolivia In the 1952 revolution the masses imposed bourgeois democratic gains on the MNR government such as the nationalisation of the mines, agrarian reform, free education, universal vote ete, As a result of the revolution the bourgeoisie, supported by imperialism, found itself

' obliged to adopt the statist economic model to stop the

revolutionary advance of the masses and the wrath of imperialism. It was a way to stop the socialist revolu-

tions of the world. This statist method was strengthened by the EDER plan, imposed by Siles Zuazo in 1956 by bloodletting and fire.

Until the 1970's this was the model, It was impossible to take the gains away from the masses that had cost them so much in 1952, Unemployment was low and the state still regulated the economy. Yet despite the economic boom of the 1970’s the bourgeoisie was incapable of renewing plant and equipment. With these disadvantages the Bolivian economy entered into crisis in 1978, The crisis was accompanied by the revolutionary upsurge of the masses and a generalised level of discontent at the corruption in business of the Banzer government. These features caused a shift in the policy of imperialism towards support for democratic processes

in Latin America. The Banzer dictatorship crumbled and :

consequently the statist model entered into full crisis

opening up a revolutionary period after the 1980- 82

Garcia Meza-ist dictatorship,

. During the following UDP government there was an _

upsurge in the masses that was not transformed jnto a socialist revolution because of the lack of a revolutionary leadership. After this there was demoralisation which

was expressed in the 1985 elections and the crises of the’

left parties. The UDP government was dogged by hyperinflation and a haemorrahging of foreign exchange; the statist model had entered its death agony. After the revolutionary period of 1982-86 that ended with the “March for Life” the bourgeoisie stabilised the government but still faced the same obstacle as in the 1920’s—the organised popular and workers’ movements.

. The resistence of the popular ond workers’ movements

After only a month of the new MNR-ADN government ministers launched the New Economic Policy (Decree DS21060). The response was a general strike that lasted _more than a month, together with a massive hunger strike in September 1986. The government was forced to impose a state of siege and embarked upon a period of repression. The bourgeoisie placed its hopes in the neoliberal recipes of the IMF and supported all the measures of force against the popular and workers’ movements. In 1986 they relaunched their NEP offensive, in response to a general wave of discontent originating in Oruro and Potosi. The mining proletariat focussed this anger in the

“March for Life”. Once again the response was a state of .

siege and massive sackings of workers, particularly in

the mines (more than 23,000) and the factories under the.

- name of “relocation”.

The government's justification for these measures wad,

firstly, to stop the crisis brought about by the UDP and to deal with the collapse in the price of tin. In truth there was a worldwide collapse of commodity prices which plunged the statist model of development into a crisia, deprived of traditional revenues. Traditionally, our economy was based on the export of minerals, particularly tin, In the 1950's the country depended for 96% of

its export earnings on the sale of tin by the state mining’

company (COMIBOL), In 1984 gas and mineral exports were still 95% of the total. In 1992 exports were the following: minerals, 49.5%, non-traditional products, 26.2%, hydrocarbons, 16.5% and reexports, 7.8%.

We cannot ignore that today’s economy is also based on the economy of coca-cocaine. Taking into account that

the foreign exchange does not circulate in the productive

‘sector but in the goods and services sector (chalets,

luxury cars etc.) it is yet to be proved that this money supports industry.

The bourgeolsia sells out In this context the bourgeoisie managed to impose the

first part of their neoliberal plan—the drastic reduction

of hyperinflation at a very high social cost: alarmingly

high unemployment, growth of the informal sector in the

economy to embrace more than half of the economically active population (not covered by social security), wage cuts, cuts in all public expenditure and especially the budget for education and health, the growth of poverty. The economy of the country went into recession which the bourgeoisie labelled “economic stabilisation”. The productive sector of the country is still stagnant and agriculture has not recovered from the crisis of the 1980's due to drought and the lack of machinery.

Another important development is the reform of the tax system. Thanks to this reform they have managed to defraud the people on a massive scale. Even worse is the

increase in VAT from 10% to 13%. However, the

governments that tried to impose neo-liberalism (MNRADN and MIR-ADN) have encountered resistance and struggle against these tax hikes, double taxation, VAT. from large layers of the people such as the trade unions. The governments have been forced to be more flexible, for example, with land taxes in the countryside.

The result of eight years of neo-liberalism is that our country is among the five poorest in Latin America and the 44th poorest in the world, with a rate of infant mortality of 110 deaths for every 1000 births and with a per capita income of $650 (Switzerland has $32,689 and Brazil more than $7000).

These attacks were all savage blows to the popular and workers’ movements. The vanguard of the proletariat, the miners, are reduced in numbers, The same goes for the factory workers which unconditionally

. supported all the miners’ struggles of the past 60 years.

Privatisation. The vital stop for the conselidation of neollhoralism In order to “reactivate” the country’s economy the bourgeoisie must follow up with the second part of their neoliberal plan: privatisation of the state owned companies, with the aim of attracting new capital to try and jump start the productive sector. However, there are

‘ serious obstacles in the path. The bourgeoisie still has

not defeated the popular and workers’ movements. Bolivia is still considered tobe a politically unstable country. This means that capitalists are frightened to invest in the country not just for economic reasons.

Imperialism is forcing the bourgeoisie to use the law against those who oppose their plans. New legislation is being passed by parliament to change the legal framework of the country, overhauling the 1967 Constitution which embodies the old bourgeois nationalisation ideals. The clearest example of this is the restructuring of the present administration of COMIBOL through the intorduction of independent management of companies. The first step is the transformation of Huanuni, Sante Fe, Viloco into “co-operatives”, These steps prepare the terrain ahead for the most important goal: the privatisation of COMIBOL.

35

The objectives of imperialism, via the government are:

1. Depoliticise the proletariat, above all the miners (because it is still the vanguard and its responses are politically advanced). If possible, defeat it through sackings, non-recognition of trade unions, cuts in wages and social security, ending of the right to strike. This means using cheap labour thatis politically unorganised.

Finish the stage of reactivation, by means of the injection of foreign capital protected by the laws against nationalisation. For this the government needs new laws. This they will achieve gradually through the bourgeois parliament (electoral reform and privatisation). The extraction of raw materials will be done without any economic risk to imperialism. The case of the Ito and Catavi quarries is a clear example of the enormous riches that have been plundered by capitalist companies. In Bolivia the investment of $23 million in COMSUR gave in one year $15 million. In 4 years more than $40 million.

3. Privatise the main state companies, YPFB, COMIBOL, LAB (airline), ENDE (electricity), ENFE (rail), ENTEL (phones) y AASANA (customs).

Until now privatisation has not been imposed because of the resistance of the workers’ movement. Capitalists are frightened to invest in Bolivia. It is also for this reason that the contract signed for the exploitation of the vast wealth of the Bolivar Mine is in the hands of the proimperialist Sanchez Lozada and his company COMSUR. Of the 23 companies that have signed joint-ventures with COMIBOL only 2 went on to function. However, these are also susceptible to disruption because of legal action taken by the miners’ union (FSTMB).

The ebb of the workers’ movement cones to an end By January last year the end of the ebb of the workers’ * movement was evident: 500 miners in La Paz forced the government to sign an agreement after the goverment used repression and their old ally the trade union bureaucracy. The agreement accepted the privatisation of state companies. :

In March this year our country was put to the test by a wave of strikes and mobilisations of the masses that forced the government to militarise the country so as not to declare a state of siege. This mobilisation is characterised by-the radical response of the urban and rural teachers and miners, which once again came to play the role of the vanguard of the Bolivian proletariat. The hunger strikes which broke out at the same time had negative effects because, as a result of the grave state of health of many hunger strikers—they were taking only water—it was not possible to plan a long-term struggle. The conflict began when the COB put demands on the government, insisting on a wage rise based on a minimum family expenditure of Bs.1462 (about $300). In the struggle that followed the betrayal by the leaders of the CSUTCE (peasants’ union) was a serious blow which left the peasants demobilised. The regional mobilisations were subdued except in Potosi where the people and the workers’ went over the heads of the Civic Committee and was almost insurrectionary.

The mobilisations meant that the government agreed not to privatise COMIZOL, although it would continue with the contracts of Shared Risk which, for the government, is not privatisation. A miserable wage increase was won as well as some other demands that for

38 Trotskyist Bulletin No. 4

the leadership of COB were important advances. The truth is they got very little compared with the level of mobilisation. March of this year was marked by an advance in the class consciousness of the workers’ movement. What was needed was a Revolutionary Party to lead these grassroots mobilisations. It is our task to push these struggies forward at the grassroots with alternative politics that are capable of bringing the majority of the working class and their allies together. This means going over the heads of the current leadership of these sectors, which rather than unify the struggle seeks the support of the bourgeoisie. It is necessary to build a party with class independence.

What do hourgesis elections mean?

The elections are characterised by the absence of candidates from the working class and the exploited, which reaffirms the crisia of revolutionary leadership. Candidates of the workers and the exploited sectors would make the consciousness of the class grow.

None of the popular parties have distanced themselves from neo-liberal positions. The ASD (Euro-Stalinists), MBL (bourgeois leftists), EJE (Castroites) and IU (United Left), which are supposedly with the people, are praised by private businessmen for having abandoned Marxist orthodoxy. These parties preach the virtues of a mixed economy; public companies should operate alongside private ones in order to promote economic growth.

The winners are, without doubt, the neoliberals and even though the Banzer lost the elections, the bourgeoisie has again opted for the neo-liberal model. President Goni (MNE) and his government allies will try again to privatise. All parties employed the same arguments about protecting jobs. Faced with so-much pre-election demagogy the World Bank reminded them that if YPFB (the state petrol company) was not privatised the Bolivian economy would be ruined.

After the elections everything will stay the same; poverty, wages, unemployment. The exploited do not have many illusions in bourgeois democracy. We must struggle and with our own hands seize power from the bourgeoisie through armed insurrection. If we have to use the electoral arena it is only to raise the consciousness of the class or when a revolutionary party can present it’s own candidates in order to make propaganda and agitate around the programme.

The results show that the majority of the exploited who do vote (in some places like Huanuni the majority abstained) have not resisted the UDP allure. The right has won again in some mining centres and in the countryside.

The new government of MNR-MRTKL-LICS-MBL

The new government is protected by the UCS (Party ot beer magnate Max Fernandez) and the MBL. Their intention is to impose privatisation. They need allies within the workers’ movement (the MBL have 17 members in the Executive of the COB), the peasants’ movement and other sectors (MRTKL—indigenists) brings support from the peasants of La Paz, the MBL from the peasants of the South and the UCS from popular sectors such as trade unions). This will be a strong government.

However, Goni himself knows that he cannot fulfill his electoral promises. Already the economist Jeremy

ee eth ep eee nee

Sachs (now advisor to Yeltsin), the architect of the 1985 decree 21060, “advised” against Goni’s promise to reduce VAT from 13% ’to 10%, even advising that it be raised to 15%. It is more likely that he will increase the general rate of tax on rural land and on trade unions. He will be unable to carry out the “Plan de Todos” (Plan for AD uniesa he takes strong measures against the workers’ movement and popular organisations; unless he controls the COB, for example. For this reason he js protected by the MBL-UCS alliance. He will unable to fulfill the following promises: .

1. Invest Bs 8.900 million in 4 years by raising new capital. This would mean the privatisation of major companies in the next two years (according to his own declarations). However, investments flee the country and the most they have achieved since 19485 is Bs 500 million.

2. 11% economic growth over four years 101.997. The potential growth rate in Bolivia is 6% according to ECLA (during the best years 1975-76 growth was 5.3%). Growth from 1989 to 1992 was 3.5% in total.

8. The creation of 500,000 jobs, 287,000 new ones. Triple the projected investment in YPFB alone is needed to create 10,000 new jobs. It must be taken into account that in 1992 5,013 workers in total were relocated.

For all these reasons a greater response from the workers’ movement than over the past two years is expected. At the same time a deepening of the economic crisis, part of the general crisis of capitalism, is expected over the next four years. The recession will deepen and unemployment and poverty will increase, factors which show that this year and the next will produce fierce’ struggles betweer. the workers’ and popular movements, and the government.

The new upsurge is rear

The conflicts of January last year and March this year were important steps towards raising consciousness. The government had managed to sow the idea in certain sectors that privatisation wag the best measure and beneficial to the workers. Now the same workers are rejecting privatisation, It seemed that after March this year we had entered a dangerous stage of passivity, a slumber induced by the electoral process. However, July was a month of conflict: health workers, petrol workers and railworkers went into struggle, the peasants tried to destroy the traitorous and conciliatory leadership, the majority of the FUL (student unions) branches in the country are ignoring the CUB (Student National Confederation) where the MBL and MNR are established. The Patriotic Accord government has shattered. This shows the, weakness of the bourgeoisie.

The previous analysis has shown the inability of the bourgeoisie government to resolve the most fundamental problems faced by the population. This situation has

led to a resurgence of the class which if it found a revolutionary leadership would significantly accelerate this upturn.

The tesks of the workers’ ond populor movements

The working class and its allies have begun the offensive: the signs are that on the day of the handing over of presidential power the the “relocated” (those made unemployed under the decree) crucified themselves in protest and the health workers began a new stoppage. However, the absence of a revolutionary leadership is a clear danger and the development of class consciousness could easily degenerate. For this reason, the struggle must be generalised and united. What remains is to prepare the battle against the new and. well protected government. To succeed in their neoliberal plan the bourgecisie needs a divided trade union moverient. They have already begun with the peasants, through their . agents in the MBL and the MRTKL. They need atrade.- unionism that is not revolutionary. For this reason our task is to strengthen the unity of the exploited through the COB, while expelling the agents of the government. We need to strengthen the coca-growing peasants movement.

Faced with joint ventures or any other form of privatisation the exploited must never present alternative plans to the bosses for reactivating the companies (self-management or cooperatives), This would be a conciliation to the bourgecisie and class collaboration. If today we accept privatisation tomorrow we will have to accent massive redundancies. We must struggle against privatisation to the bitter end.

The struggle against joint ventures is vital for the preservation of, sources ‘of employment for workers. Against the attempts at privatisation workers’ contro! collectives must take over the mines and demand the opening of the books. Our response to the joint ventures should be the occupation of the mines. Already changes in the consciousness of the miners can be seen in the results of the Miners’ Congress. Now that the Congress decided to take over the mines and, in the last instance, agreed to armed defence we must generalise this slogan and make it a reality,

*Death to privatisation!

«Impose workers’ control collectives !

* Prepare for the occupation of the mines!

* Organise defence committees of the nationalised mines!

* Build the intemmational revol utionary leadership! * Long live the international proletariat!

Long live the new revolutionary communist internatienal!

*Long live workers’ power!

¢Workers of the world unite!

37

The April strike wave in Bolivia PODER OBRERO (Bolivia), Special edition, 14 April 1994

The majority of the COB" have decided to launch an.

indefinite general strike from Friday, 15 April. Every student and worker should fully support this measure and make sure that the leadership actively carries it out. The hunger strike movement, alongside mobilisations b students and teachers, is beginning to grow. The university sector is now in the forefront of this conflict. How_ever, the movement is beginning to extend to other sectors. The hunger strikes, which started two weeks ago, have continued to spread, until by 11 April thay involved more than one hundred people in almost all the

departmental capitals. Thirty five miners on hunger

strike, demanding the right to return to their workplaces, organised a special protest picket in the form of a “crucifixion” on top of the UMSA? building; amongst them is a mother with her baby. On the afternoon of 11 April rural teachers called for mobilisations throughout the country. In La Paz more than 8,000 of them arrived for the march ‘from the 19 provinces of the department. In Oruro more than 3,000 rural and urban teachers and students marched together to the central square on 10 February. At the end of the rally the students burnt the pink flags of the MNR° which were flying from the prefecture building.

The rural ‘teachers’ confederation was the first to declare an indefinite strike last week. The majority of the rank and file are joining the strike. On Wednesday 18 April the teachers of the city of La Paz went on strike. Two days later an indefinite general strike started in the health sector. On Tuesday 12 April, 1,500 to 2,000 students, together with the teaching and administrative staff of the University of Cochabamba‘, began a mass

. hunger strike. The aimis thatin the following days 4,000 people from La Paz alone will join the hunger strike, In Santa Cruz, Potosi, Cochabamba and La Paz sharp

‘ clashes have occurred between students and the forces of repression. The marches on Monday (11 April) proved bigger and more radical than the marches called by the COB for either the 30 March national stoppage or that of 7 April in La Paz,

There are other sectors on hunger strike besides education, These involve leaders of the COB and all the departmental and regional union congresses, the min-

ers, the factory workers, Lloyd Aero Boliviano workers,

and others. The CSUTCB* has called a national peasant blockade of the highways for 28 April. But this date is

more than two weeks away. It would be far better to:

bring it forward so that it can link up and add to the pressure of the developing mass movement, On Tuesday, 12 April, in Potosi, the miners of the private firm GoniPatifio took part in a radical mass demonstration to the central square, The university students not only went on to block the streets but occupied various public buildings and private offices in order to prevent staff from entering. These events highlight two tendencies that it is

important to draw attention to: one is the involvement of private sector workers and the other is the tactic of mass occupations. In every city students, teachers and the other strikers should occupy, en masse, both private firms and public institutions in order to stop staff working and to bring workers together in the struggle.

In Potosi the police have begun to arrest university students and on Wednesday morning the forces of repression surrounded the university. The students tried to break the encirclement. The police were forced to release twenty detainees for fear of a popular explosion. In the old colonial city the fear was that students and

other residents might burn down the police station for a

third time, just as they did in 1987 and 1993. The national stoppage of the COB on 30 March was weak. During that day’s march in Oruro, municipal workers, health workers, students and, some peasants participated, However, the miners, the factory workers, rail workers, or the other powerful and combative workers of ENAF were not present.

immediate Tasks,

it is essential that the present protests escalate. In order to create a powerful, indefinite general strike the industrial proletariat (the miners, the factory workers, the oil workers, the metal workers, the agro-industrial workers and the railworkers) must be drawn into full scale action. These key sectors produce the nation’s wealth and they also form the historic vanguard of the oppressed. But they have been badly hit by neo-liberalism. Today the majority of industrial workers work in the private sector and it is more difficult for them to strike due to the laws imposed by the neo-liberalists that

‘undermine their job security. But neither the workers in

education and health nor the students can paralyse the national economy. Their strength consists in the fact that they can mobilise tens of thousands onto the streets and thereby influence the rest of the country’s workers. In every Bolivian village there are teachers and students. The teachers must realise how crucial it is for them to march every day and pull out alongside them students and their parents, It is essential to unite the whole educational community against the plan to municipalise education which would mean the end of free state education. The universities are the cultural centres of the main cities and their members number more than 100,000 people. Their potential for calling action is enor-

. mous. The schools and universities can mobilise tens of

thousands of students, teachers, parents and ordinary people. They can be backed by peasant communities and civil and neighbourhood organisations. If we organise large-scale mobilisations and blockades on a daily basis we will be certain to have an enormous impact on the majority and embolden the workers, peasants and all

29

trade unionists.

We must stop the destruction of free state education in the schools, colleges and public universities now, With the new laws the government will decentralise education and health-care" and then they will privatise them. This will mean that only those with money will be able to stady and have the right to medical treatment. The government has only offered a pay rise of 7.5% and will only guarantee security of employment in public sector companies. This increase is totally inadequate and will not even cover a quarter of the cost of” living for a family. On the other hand, the majority of today’s workers are employed by private outfits. There are tens of thousands of casual workers and workers that can be easily sacked. We have to demand job security for all these sectors and a minimum living wage that covers the family’s basic tmonthly outgoings (Bs. 1860) and see thatis adjusted in accordance with the rise in a cost of living. To give

incentives to industry the buying power of workers must be raised.

The betrayal by the leadership.

Like a fire brigade the COB acts to put out the struggles. The trade union bureaucracy hardly tried to convince the government to even, give it a few crumbs. Jerjes Justiniano, the MP of the Salas party* refused to defend the teachers who were thrown out by the police when they wanted to enter the Congress to carry out their ‘hunger strike. Thousands could see how this deputy insulted the strikers in front of the television cameras. On Thursday, 7 April, the national majority of the COB had called for an indefinite genera] stoppage. But only a few hours before it was due to begin the bureaucracy, without consultation, withdrew the call. The bureaueracy did nothing to make it happen. The leadership of the FSTMB? seemed to be centred in the COMIBOL mines (which today employ less than 2,000 miners, less than che number of miners in COMSUR, the Goni-Patino company). Before the 7th the bureaucracy did not go to the rank and file (mainly from the private mines which involves more than three times the workforce of the public sector) to explain the reasons for the strike and to prepare it. The bureaucracy of the COB and the CSUCTB is packed full people who are officials in the MBL, MRTKL and even the MNR and UCS or if not from “left” parties who were until recently on the coat tails of today’s Finance Minister, Aranibar,

This so-called left is in reality more and more rightwing. Now it agrees with privatisation and advocates following IMF guidelines. It merely pleads for Jess crualty in the application of the neo-liberal measures. This reformist “left” only joins the Mobilisations in order to regotiate themselves soft jobs and Prepare their way into i Ministarial post or secretaryship in a future governnent (as is shown by the example of the renegades Jardenas, Motete Zamora, Aranibar and the various eaders of PS-1 that today trails behind the MNR or the MIR). Their future path is one already taken by the Jovement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) over the last wenty years or so, when it went from an adventurist uerrilla foco-ism and an ultra-left attitude to revoluion, to an unscrupulous search for money. It ended up ransforming itself into an anti-working class, pro-reression and pro-drug-traffickers’ party.

Lora’s POR has the merit of having campaigned for nd inspired many hunger strikes and teachers’ marches

0 Trotskyist Bulletin No, 5

in the city of La Paz, But this selfless militancy remains a prisoner of the party's adven turist logic. For the Lorists we are on the verge of taking power and the conditiona are maturing to the point where they call for an imsurrectional general trike. They fail to appreciate the long term defeat which the working class has suffered since 1986 and that the period since then has been one of a democratictiberal Teactionary offensive. They believe that the mobilisation of the masses can be substituted for by a few heroic individuals. The hunger strike is a good tactic for politicians, for sacked workers seeking reinstatement or to open a breach in a dictatorship. But hunger strikes can also have a demobilising effect if happens in the context of a mobilisation where state repression is not strong, It is better if thousands march through the streets, blocking the main routes, the squares and streets. It is preferable that they march to different town-halls, to markets and the mines and factory gates to organise meetings there and encourage the people to form support committees and to mobilise alongside those already on strike. The bureaucracy actually prefers hunger strikes, with only a few people on the streets. The Lorist centrists call for all-out, “hard” hunger strikes. We, in conirast, put the main emphasis on encouraging combative marches and blockades. The latter in particular radicalises the masses the most, gains the maximum support and intimidates the government best.

The leadership of the COB is sabotaging the strike before it has even begun. The majority of the universities are finalising negotiations with the government on their own. What the bureaucracy wants is to look consistent before the opening of the badly organised COB congress which takes place in two weeks time.” Their radicalism is a pose struck for the new COB leadership elections. On the other hand, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many rank and file members demand an indefinite strike. In the universities a good tactic would be to force the rectors and the University and Faculty Councils to put themselves at the head of the demonstrations and daily blockades or join a long hunger strike.

Win the other sectors! At this very moment the XIII Congress of the Federation of Co-operative Mines (FEN-COMIN)is taking place.

While the number of COMIBOL miners has been re- .

duced from 30,000 to less than 2,000 the number of cooperative miners has been doubled from 28,000, a short time ago, to 56,000. This sector is super-exploited and their minimum income is less than 400 to 500 Bolivianos" They work more than eight hours a day, with no social security, without technology and with a much higher chance of contracting disease and being injured. It is essential to convince this sector to participate in the struggle. We must demand social security for the co-operative miners, that they are put on COMIBOL contracts and that they enjoy full social security benefits. We demand a 6 hour day, early retirement and the reactivation of these mines with modem high technology from the State under the control the miners. An alliance between waged and co-operative miners must be builtin

the mines to encourage mobilisations, marches and blockades. The private mines and metalworks are expanding. Inti Raymi and COMSUR are models that are attracting alot of multinational investment, There are Many mines, particularly those that are not on the altiplano thigh plateau), whose workers are not unionised, To unite the

movement we must also urge them to organise or. strengthen their own unions .

In the private companies and the many public oompanies (e.g. ENAF, YPFB) the unions are weak and afraid to join in the struggle. Many workers aré frightened of losing their jobs or special preferential concessions granted by their bosses if they join in some form of lowlevel, cautious struggle thatin the end will be sold out by the COB bureaucracy. The recent voluntary redundancy of half the COMIBOL workforce in exchange for $1,000 compensation shows the lack of confidenée which the rank and file has in the leadership and which leads to demoralisation. To motivate these sectors to join the struggle a campaign within the rank and file is needed, éncouraging them with a more daring means of struggle. Recallable delegates chosen by mass meetings of the rank and file must lead the strike movement, the blockades and the mass demonstrations.

The national meeting of the COB must elect a united mobilising committee whose members can be replaced by a mass assembly. This rank and file committee must taek charge of the struggle and be superior in authority to the COB's bureaucratic leaders. The demands of every sector must be drawn ther into a single joint claim so that the demands of the peasants, the smallholders, the private manufacturing workers and the ministries, the oppressed nationalities and the poor neighbourhoods can he unified. The abolition of VAT, and all the indirect taxation which penalises the poor, must be a key goal of struggle. These taxes must be replaced by taxes on the multinationals and the rich. The state must guarantee

social security, the minimum wage and the provision of *.

cheap supplies for the smallholders and co-operatives. We demand the direct commercialisation of rural produce sold in the cities. Committees of poor peasants and urban workers can then.exchange the goods they make themselves without middle men and obtain better prices.

The water and electricity supplies, sewerage, roads, posts, as well as schools and colleges for the hamlets and villages must be greatly improved by increasing the resources from the State. Money for all this can be raised through a tax on the property of the rich and by not paying the foreign debt. All public investment must be controlled by committees elected and recallable by rank and file assemblies. All anti-imperialist political prisoners must be freed. In the unified claim the demands of the rank and file soldiers must also be represented: better wages, the right to organise trade-unions, the election of officers, the right to veto reactionary orders. The aim is to win them, as in April 1942, to the side ofthe revolution. We must oppose the laws of capitalisation and “popular participation”. They plan to privatise the public companies and go on to break up the free state education system. With the law of “popular participation” they are trying to by-pass the unions and make the coramunities and villages beg for investment from private companies and themselves act as the bosses who sack and force down the wages of the public sector

Notes

1 Bolivian Workers Central (COB} is the trade union federation.

2 UMSA is the main university building in the centre of la Paz.

3 MNRie the main party in the government coalition.

4 Led by the University Council and the icadership of the degree courses and centres

S$ The national airline

6 CSUTCB is the peasants’ federation in Bolivia.

workers and teachers.

This Friday, 14 April, we must try te transform the stoppage called by the COB into an active strike full of demonstrations and blockades. Instead of putting the accent on increasing the numbers of those on hunger strike the emphasis must be put on the producing daily papers and organising combative marches and blockades. We must make the miners come into to the cities and make them tremble and encourage the peasants to block the main highways. We need to mobilise the students, teachers, parents and other workers to occupy the public offices and companies and paralyse the inter-city and inter-departmental traffic.

The government has said itis a “democratic” one and that under no circumstances will it declare a state of siege. We must not forget that the MNR, when itcame to power more than half a century ago, massacred peasants, students and teachers, that its hands are stained with the blood ofthe people, that it decreed several states of siege to impose its neo-liberal model in 1985 and 1986 and unleashed the army on us during the March for Life. In the last few days the police have repressed many hunger strike pickets in Potosi, Cochabamba and Oruro. When faced by any repression the masses must ficod into the streets to free those arrested. To prepare for the possibility of a state of emergency organised resistance must be put in train now. The government will try to pour scorn on the general strike comparing it to more radical atvikes that brsugat down tha govornmonts of Tejada (1936), that struck blows to Ovando (1970) and Natush (1979) and that made Bolivia tremble between

1982 and 1985. We must remain conscious of the factthat the workers

-and pepular movements have suffered a serious defeat

since 1986. We are in a period of defensive struggies. Our objective must be to stop the neo-liberal offensiva, to blow holes in the government's plans and prepare the conditions for a workers’ and people’s counter-offensive. Our struggle must be political. Not only must we fight whatever measures this government imposes, against this government itself, but we must struggle against the whole neo-liberal model which is sponsored by al] the parliamentary parties and indeed against capitalism itself. Our strategy must be to turn the working class into a class capable of taking and holding power, create the conditions for a socialist revolution andthe impose a workers’ and peasants’ government. Such a government will give bread, land, work, education and health to the masses, will expropriate the bourgeoisie and organise a collectivised, planned ceotormy under the control of the workers.

Fight for wage rises that cover the family cost of living! For an adequate university budget! : For a national mobilising committee made up of delegates elected and revocable by rank and file assemblies! For an indefinite fighting General Strike with blockades and mass mobilisations!

7 For these sectors onto underfunded municipal governments.

8 About $400 at the current exchange rate.

9 Oscar Salas was elected head of the COB executive in 1993.

14 The Congress wae later postroned until June. .

11 The COB Congress was postponed one month until early June. 12 Around $100 a month.

'" 3 t

58 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

José Villa

A Revolution Betrayed

The POR and the Fourth International in the Bolivian Revolution

José Villa was on two consecutive occasions elected to the Executive Committee of La Paz University Federation. He was one of the most prominent activists during the events of March 1985 when the miners controlled the city for two weeks. Hundreds of workers came to the main lecture hall every day to listen and to discuss the following day's activities. He was one of the main activists during the general strike of August-September 1985, the main speaker at the mass assembly in Oruro, and one of the most outstanding agitators during the hunger strike of thousands of miners in the mines of San José. He participated actively in the march of August 1986, when more than 10 000 miners marched for 150 miles at an altitude of 4000 metres. The march might have brought about the fall of the neo-liberal government as well as brought the Trotskyists to the leadership of the miners’ and students’ unions.

Aweek after being congratulated by the POR congress in March

“1985 for his exemplary work with the miners, he was expelled for

having dared to question Lora. Many members, including whole districts, left the POR in response to that action. Instead of trying to build a variant of the POR, he formed a tendency which tried to make a profound examination of what the POR had represented. He came to the conclusion that the POR had never been Trotskyist, and that a Trotskyist party had to be built. This struggle produced the movement for a Trotskyist Workers Faction, the weeklies Gufa and Guja Obrera, and the Poder Obrera groups of. Bolivia and Peru, which were founding sections of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International, of which Workers Power is the section in Britain.

We extend our thanks to Mike Jones for translating this article, and to John Sullivan for checking the text against the Spanish original. The article as it appears in these pages is a heavily edited and shortened version of the original. Workers Power has the full English text.

\ I, Then the February 1917 Revolution occurred, the Bolshevik Party

had been in existence for 15 years. When the revolution of April 1952 occurred, the Revolutionary Workers Party (POR) had been in existence for 17 years. Both parties operated in countries with a peasant and petit-bourgeois majority, but with a modern, geographically concentrated proletariat. Both parties had the benefit of working with those who had introduced Marxism into their respective countries

stem ee

BSP a meager nh ton megenfeomnt mene ptars oratory men oar fo onan rt aero ramen et

REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 59

(Plekhanov and Marof), and their cadres had helped to form the first working class organisations. Bolshevism had been formed through a confrontation with other Marxist currents (economists, Mensbeviks, etc), petit-bourgeois Socialists (Socialist Revolutionaries), and bourgeois democrats (Cadets), and the POR had had to fight against the ‘Marxists’ of Marof and Stalinism, the different wings of the MNR, and ‘Socialism’ of both bourgeois and military varieties.

Bolshevism was tempered during the working class upsurge which culminated in the 1905 Revolution, in the reactionary phase which followed it, in the new wave of strikes, and in the struggle against the First World War. The POR was born in the fight against the Chaco War, and was forged during two great mass insurgencies, which brought down the governments in 1936 and 1946, in great strikes and massacres, in constant changes of government, coups and a short civil war. While the ‘dress rehearsal’ of 1905 was smashed, both of the two rehearsals of revolutionary crises experienced by the POR ended with the governments falling. The programme of Bolivian ‘Trotskyism’ was endorsed by the university students and the miners, and the POR could pride itself on having had within its ranks important central leaders of the miners’ union (FSTMB) and the National Workers Centre (CON), the foreruniter of the Bolivian Workers Centre (Central Obrera Boliviana, COB), which was to play a major réle in the events of 1952.1 __

James Dunkerley maintains that ‘much of the preparatory work [of founding the COB] was undertaken by the POR representatives, Edwin Moller, Miguel Alandia and José Zegada’, and that ‘the POR allegedly controlled at least half the COB’s 13 man central committee’ The COB was born brandishing the Theses of Pulacayo, and adhered toa POR programme and orientation.

The réle of the POR in the April 1952 Revolution was such that even one of the founders of the Stalinist party recognised that of the five main leaders of the insurrection, one was of the MNR right, another was of the pro-POR wing of the MNR, and three were of the POR?

In Lucha Obrera the POR boasted that:

“When top MNR leaders thought about flight, it was our comrades who led the people and proletariat of Oruro to victory... Our militants were the real leaders in the defence of Villa Pavon and Miraflores, which in practice saved the difficult situation for the revolutionaries when the enemy already appeared to be triumphant within the city.”4

The POR was the most important and influential party within the COB, which was itself the dominant power in the country. Robert Alexander says that:

‘The POR... had in large part-been able to determine the ideological

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May

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AegeNecad aN ais RRNA seepage meni de ene

ra * .

60 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

orientation and dynamism of the Workers Centre... For the first six months the COB was practically in the hands of the Trotskyists.”®

It took the Russian Bolsheviks from February to October to win a majority in the Soviets, and having done so they moved to insurrection. The POR, however, played a central réle in the COB from the start. Whereas the Bolsheviks were a minority within the Russian working class for these eight months, the POR led the COB for the first crucial six months after the insurrection which dispersed the bourgeois army. The POR provided the COB with its programme and leadership, and ran its press. Juan Lechin, the main leader of the COB, functioned by

' reading speeches written by the POR.‘

However, there was a huge difference between the POR and the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks demanded that the Soviets should not support the bourgeois-democratic, reformist coalition government, and insisted that they should break from the bourgeoisie, and take power. The POR, in contrast, gave ‘critical support’ to the bourgeois government, and asked for ministerial posts. Whereas the Bolsheviks attacked the Mensheviks and the SRs without pity, seeking to remove them from leadership positions, the POR identified itself with the labour bureaucracy (for whom it drafted speeches and ministerial plans), and sought to transform the MNR and its government. The

- Bolshevik strategy was to make a new revolution, that of the POR was

to reform the MNR and its government. In short, whereas Bolshevism was Leninist, the POR was Lechinist.

April 1952: The Menshevism of the POR

Just before the April events, the POR had published ‘an open letter to the government, demanding that power be handed over to the Nationalist MNR without a new election’.’ The strategy of the POR was limited to pressurising the governmént in order to attempt to change the leadership of the bourgeois state, with the aim of allowing the MNR to take over the presidency by constitutional means. In that way, a legitimate government could be restored, which, through pressure from below, would be forced to adopt radical measures, and would also have to appoint ‘worker ministers’.

During the April events Lora had been in France, after having attended the Third World Congress of the Fourth International. He gave statements to La Verité, which the US Socialist Workers Party then reproduced in The Militant. In his history of the POR, Lora says:

‘Up to now not enough importance has been given to the‘call for the Trotskyist programme made by Lora in Paris a few days after the arrival of the MNR in power.”

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 61

ee

Let us look at this ‘Trotskyist programme’:

“The central slogans put forward by our party were:

“1. Restore the constitution of the country through the formation of an MNR government which obtained a majority in the 1951 election.

_ ‘2, The struggle for the improvement of wages and working condi-

tions. .

‘3. Struggle for democratic rights.

‘4. Mobilisation of the masses against imperialism, for the nationalisation of the mines, and for the abrogation of the UN agreement.”

Only the last of these demands was really radical, and even that did not go beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy, or what the anti-Communist President Victor Paz Estenssoro was going to do a few months later. The first demand sought a constitutional bourgeois state with a populist government. Instead of seeking to differentiate itself from the latter by raising anti-capitalist and class based slogans, the POR platform was no different from that of the bourgeois MNR. Lora did not put forward any proletarian slogans, such as the expropriation without compensation of the bourgeoisie, workers’ control, the disarming of the bourgeois armed forces and their replacement by workers’ and peasants’ militias, the occupation of mines, factories, land, etc. Instead of calling for the transformation of the COB into a soviet, breaking from the bourgeoisie and taking power, Lora called for the MNR government to change direction, and limited himself to asking for reforms which did not go beyond the framework of the capitalist state. Tt was not as if the POR was taken unawares by developments:

‘The subversive movement of 9 April was no surprise for our party, and it occurred as we had foreseen in our theoretical analysis.”

If a party was aware that this event was approaching, it should surely have kept its most prominent leader in the country, or, at least, not far away. However, Lora stayed in Paris for over six months after the end of the congress. By boasting that his party had predicted what was going to happen, and staying abroad himself, Lora was either blustering, or worse, he did not place much importance on his own endeavours to overthrow the MNR, but instead agreed with trying to put pressure on it.

If the POR was in the forefront of the struggle, it should have put itself forward as an alternative leadership, calling on the COB to overthrow Paz. However, Lora called for support of the bourgeois government and its ‘left wing’ ministers. For the POR, the enemy was not the bourgeois government, but only the ministers who stood to the right of Paz. In fact, ‘the government was to be defended to the utmost’:

i \ i { |

‘In this connection, the essential mission of the POR isto assume the

__,..F6le of the vigilant guide to prevent the aspirations of the workers from. __.

being diluted by vague promises or by manoeuvres of right wing

elements.”!! .

_ ....Lora attempted to uphold this reformist position by characterising.the.. _ > egime as ‘petit-bourgeois’, and insisting that this government, ifforeed..- --

to accept additional labour ministers, had ‘the possibility of being transformed and changed into a phase of the workers’ and peasants’ government’.” This was utopian, as the petit-bourgeoisie cannot form -a government or wield state power, and reactionary, as the MNR may have been comprised of and supported by the petit-bourgeoisie, but its leadership came from the oligarchic families, and acted fully in the interests of the bourgeoisie.

-The POR Supports The Bourgeois Government

Nine days after the uprising of 9 April, the mouthpiece of the POR declared that ‘to the extent that it carries out the promised programme’, the POR ‘supports the Government’.” Under no circumstances can the proletariat support the government of a section of its exploiters. On the contrary, the aim of a Marxist party should be to undermine it, and to struggle for its revolutionary overthrow. Otherwise, it would stand compromised for helping to maintain the capitalist state.’ In May Lucha Obrera adopted a nationalist tone when it called for a change in the direction of the Paz government, demanding ‘a Bolivian government which will obey the will of the Bolivians and not of the Yanks.” A government ‘of the Bolivians’ can only be that of the

Bolivian ruling class. The POR, instead of struggling to overthrow the -

bourgeois government, suggested that the MINR should develop a sovereign national bourgeoisie, and stop. conciliating the USA.

In June 1952 Lucha Obrera maintained that the MNR should thank the POR for helping it win power and for its support, declaring that “if the MNR has to give thanks to anyone, and greatly for our help, it is without doubt, to the POR’. And shortly after trying to ingratiate itself

- with the MNR, it offered a mild criticism, more in sadness than anger:

‘Never before has a party like the MNR, that can count on uniform backing from an armed people and proletariat, achieved power; and never before, therefore, did anyone have the opportunity of adopting measures with a real revolutionary content. The government has closed its eyes, or has not wanted to see the magnificent opportunity, and has preferred to deceive the proletariat which supported it unconditionally.”

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 63

Never before had the MNR had such an opportunity to make a social revolution, but it hesitated... It wasn’t because the MNR was a bourgeois party, no, it just had rotten tactics. The MNR merely had to open its eyes and see the magnificent opportunities before it... The whole policy of the POR was pure Menshevism.

For Marxists, the proletariat.can-seize power only on the basis of the destruction of the existing state machinery, and the removal of the bourgeoisie from power. For the POR, the workers could win power by ‘Bolivianising’ and reforming the bourgeois MNR regime. The POR faithfully followed the teachings of Aguirre and Marof, of trying to serve nationalist governments with the aim of changing their direction.

Co-Government.

After the success of the April Revolution, a quarrel erupted between the different wings of the MNR over the allocation of the quotas of power. When Lechin withdrew, protesting at the few posts given to him for his followers, the right wing gave way. Lechin named four minsters, and co-government was born. As far as the POR was concerned, Lechin should have fought for more portfolios - and perhaps some for the POR... Supported by all the POR votes, the COB resolved:

‘To grant comrades ‘Juan Lechin and German, Butrén the absolute confidence of the working class, and to reaffirm its solidarity and support in the ministerial posts they presently hold.”

The POR, after identifying itself with the Lechinist ministers, did ask them to resign in protest against the delay in nationalising the mines. But on other occasions the POR was once more to demand the capture of ministries on behalf of Lechinism. Towards the end of 1953, the POR leadership presented a report in which it admitted that:

‘The new upsurge comes from the demand for Lechin to leave the cabinet, which was put forward by the mining unions, backed by the COB, and curbed by Lechfn. Our union fraction then took up a neutral and vacillating position.’”

The POR, therefore, admitted that its trade unionists adapted to pressure from Lechin. The policy of demanding the resignation of the labour ministers was an opportunist manoeuvre. It did not accompany the call for the COB to take power. Some weeks later, during the key events which frustrated the rightist January coup, the POR was to demand that ‘the Comrade President’ Bolivianise his government and allow them to join it. For those reasons, the ‘new period of upsurge’

64 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

did not end with the fulfilment of the POR theses, but in the victory of the MNR, which was to succeed in absorbing most of the membership ~ and periphery of the POR: ~ ts

The POR Seeks To Enter The Bourgeois Government. _

party to assert its total independence from, and opposition to MNR bourgeois government. The POR not only supported this new regime, and identified itself fully with its ‘leftist’ ministers, but €ven

_tried to enter it. At its Third World Congress in 1951, the Fourth _ International unanimously adopted a line favouring the POR joining a future MNR government. The POR’s paper declared:

‘The Executive Power invited the revolutionary Miguel Alandia Pantoja to take up the post of Minister of Culture... The POR authorised ‘its member to accept the invitation.

Alandia, who until the end of his life was a leader of Lora’s POR. became the editor of the trade union organ of the MNR bureaucracy. and joined the government in the capacity of Minister of Culture. Rumours spread, and the Californian Trotskyist Sam Ryan wrote to the leaders of the SWP and the Fourth International, demanding that they provide information on the POR’s participation in the government: - ‘

“According to these reports received from non-Trotskyist sources, the POR is accepting posts in the government machinery: Guillermo Lora former Secretary of the party, has been appointed [to] the Stabilisation Office; Comrade Moller, present Secretary of the POR, is director of the Workers Savings Bank, which is controlled by Juan Lechin, a member of the Cabinet; Ayala Mercado, another POR leader, is a member of the Agrarian Commission”,

Bolshevism emerged in the struggle against ministerialism. The followers of Lenin were opposed to Socialists entering bourgeois-democratic governments in Western Europe, and that of Kerensky in Russia in 1917. The only governments in which the Bolsheviks would have participated critically would be those based on workers’ militias and councils, which could attack and disarm the capitalist class. The Fourth International was founded in the struggle against the POUM of Andrés Nin, which joined the Spanish Republican government in 1937. Joining a non-working class government only serves the enemies of the proletariat by confusing it, and helping to prepare the conditions for an offensive against it.

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 65

_- in 1952 the POR had a ministerialist attitude. If it did not succeed in obtaining Portfolios in the government, but. only won secretarial posts in ministries or departments, it is because the MNR did not consider it to have any weight independent of the Lechinist faction, and

it could use its presence as a means of calming the masses. It preferred

union bureaucracy.

_to keep the POR outside the cabinet, but subordinate it-through-the:

The Collaborationist Programme Of The POR

After April 1952 The Programme of the Exploited appeared in every issue of Lucha Obrera. It declared:

‘1, To prevent the revolution that begun on 9 April being strangled

within the bourgeois and democratic framework.

tb con strengthening of the working class, and the consolidation of € .

slogan of nationalisation of land and expropriation of the large estates without compensation, in order to allow the revolutionary process to end in victory. ‘4. The gaining of democratic guarantees for the exploited. The development of union democracy within the unions. Freedom of propaganda for revolutionary parties. The cancelling of all privileges for the Rosca counter-revolution. 7 ‘5. Armed workers’ militias to replace the regular army. ‘6. Better conditions of living and work. A basic living wage and a sliding scale of wages. Collective contracts. “7. Nationalisation of the mines and railways without compensation and under workers’ control. ‘8. The expulsion of imperialism. The cancelling of the international treaties which bind the country to imperialism. The rejection of the agreement on technical aid with the UN22

We are not questioning those particular slogans, but rather the absence of key and essential slogans. The programme is limited, and is tailored to fit the outlook of the Lechin wing of the MNR, which would not object to any of the slogans.

The central demands which were completely ignored in the POR press during those months were those of the occupation of the mines, factories and large estates; no support for the new bourgeois government nor for the Lechin union bureaucracy; no to co-government; that ‘worker ministers’ should resign from the capitalist cabinet; the sovietisation of the COB; and ‘All Power to the COBP.

The POR talked about ‘preventing the revolution being strangled’ when they themselves were strangling it with ‘critical’ support to the

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66 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

capitalist government. They demanded the ‘consolidation of the COB’, but they opposed struggling for the most elementary tasks of achieving

the MNR, for the:election and recall of allleaders: through rank-and

. file mass meetings, for an immediate.conference. of the COB.in order... .. to equip it with a soviet-type: stricture, and for-it.to take complete... -:;

power. The POR did not struggle to transformthe COB into aSupreme Soviet in order to seize power, but wanted to put pressure on its leadership so that it would recite its speeches and improve governmen-. tal decrees. °

The POR called for the nationalisation: of-the-land,-mines- and.. railways, but did not call upon the workers and peasants to carry it out themselves, merely requesting and pressurising the government to.do it. This not only created dangerous illusions amongst the masses, but helped to demobilise them and keep them im a state of dependency, instead of calling on them to do things themselves. At no time did the POR call for the bourgeoisie to be expropriated. Workers’ control was only demanded for state enterprises. The factories (Said, Soligno, etc), shopping chains (Casa Grace, etc) and other private companies continued operating as before. There was no demand for their nationalisation — not even with compensation - for workers’ control, or for the payment of higher taxes. >

‘The POR wanted ‘freedom of propaganda for revolutionary parties’. By this the POR acknowledged that, apart from itself, other ‘revolutionaries’ existed, among them the MNR and the Stalinists. The POR should have called for the broadest democratic liberties, and for the expropriation of the mass media and its handing over to organisations of workers and ordinary people. ‘The cancellation of all privileges of the Rosca counter-revolution’ was demanded. But what does the. cancellation of privileges mean? What was needed was the demand for its total expropriation, along with the creation of peoples’ courts to try the executioners and butchers of the oligarchic regime.

The slogan about expelling imperialism was very vague. It was not tied to demands to expropriate all imperialist-owned enterprises, or to repudiate the foreign debt. Anyway, the POR itself said repeatedly that, if it assumed power, it would try to force the USA to recognise it and establish diplomatic relations.

The POR did not raise the main slogan for thoroughgoing bourgeois democracy: the sovereign Constituent Assembly, where ali those over the age of 18 (or 16) would have the right to vote and to be elected. New elections on the most democratic and broad basis as possible, and the creation of a new Constituent Assembly where the main national problems could be debated, would have helped the revolutionary party to expose the nature of the MNR and of parliamentarianism. The POR envisaged something else which threw dust in the workers’ eyes: to

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 67

restore the reactionary constitution which put Pazinto the Presidential alace.

This programme lacked the slightest internationalist slogans. It did not call for solidarity with the other workers of the world and with anti-imperialist struggles, the. defence of the-workers’ states against

_. imperialism, support for revolutions against the bourgeoisie and the -

bureaucracies, the internationalisation of the revolution, and for the’ building of the United Socialist States of Latin America and of the world, not to mention the struggle for the workers’ and peasants’ government or for the Socialist republic.

The POR action programme was that of a party which had repudiated the strategy of the Permanent Revolution, and which only desired a bourgeois-democratic transformation within the segregated framework of one, isolated, landlocked and backward country.

‘For an MNR-POR Government’

At its 1951 congress, the Fourth International, with no dissenting votes, adopted the slogan of an MNR-POR government. After April 1952 the

POR tried to apply this recipe with a small difference. It demanded the removal of the MNR right wing:

*The workers’ and peasants’ government is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is a move towards it, an inevitable period in the sense that, as a political party of the working class, we do not yet constitute a majority of it... The workers’ and peasants’ government will surely emerge before the dictatorship of the proletariat in Bolivia, fundamentally based upon two important political forces: the POR and the MNR left wing, to which we should try to give the essential organisational consciousness, security and firmness, so that the way to political power

is opened to us, which the militant working masses will offer us in the future.’

This concept of a workers’ and peasants’ government owes more to Stalinism than to Leninist Trotskyism. The centrist Fourth International and the POR proposed a joint government in which the so-called workers’ party was led by a party of another class. But the MNR did not represent the peasantry (and even less its poor or landless sectors), nor did it bother to organise this class or to place in its top leadership some leader from the national majority. The MNR was an unmistakably bourgeois party.

The proletariat must not dilute its programme and accept the democratic programme of the bourgeoisie, whether petit, medium or big. Under this programme it is impossible to break from imperialism and backwardness. The only manner of resolving the outstanding

68 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

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bourgeois democratic tasks is througk a Socialist revolution, which . completes the unfinished democratic tasks within a framework of the - expropriation of the. bourgeoisie, and a socialised and planned eco- ~.. nomy established by popular and workers’ councils, and by the inter-

: - nationalisation of the revolution. -..-- “e . In its five decades of.existence the POR has never put forward the

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ing an anti-imperialist and agrarian revolution in order to establish a multi-class and capitalist government, which could be achieved bya military coup or through the metamorphosis of a bourgeois govern- ~-ment. Later, in the Theses of Pulacayo, it put forward the idea of a “bourgeois democratic revolution led by the proletariat. Through the strategy of opposing a Socialist revolution in order to limit itself to a - --bourgeois-democratic and national one, the POR subordinated itself ~ imstrategic blocs with Lechin, and ultimately with the entire MNR and ~ The MNR was a party representing an emerging bourgeoisie. Far from wishing to disarm and expropriate itself, that is to say, to commit suicide as a class, the MNR bourgeoisie aspired to strengthen the state through reforms which would extend the internal market. A governmoent of the POR and whatever wing of the MNR would have been a government for the defence of the bourgeois state — a bourgeois government with a decoration of ‘Trotskyist’ ministers.

‘All Power To. The MNR Left Wing!’

Atits ninth national conference, the POR ratified the line of identifying with the national reformist wing of Lechin and Nuflo Chavez:

‘The national political report outlined the position of the POR in relation to the government as follows: . ; |

‘1. Support for the government in-facé of the attacks by imperialism and the Rosca. “ ;

‘2. Support for all the progressive measures it enacts, always indicating their scope and limitations... .

‘3, In the struggle between the MNR’s wings, the POR supports the left... The POR will support the MNR left in its struggle against the right wing of the party, in all its activity that tends to destroy the structures on which the feudal bourgeoisie and imperialist exploitation rest, and in every attempt to deepen the revolution and to carry out the workers’ programme, such as the complete control of the government, so replacing the right wing.”

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. REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 69 tt ‘The working class must actively intervene in the formation of the new

cabinet. It is the workers who must run the state with a revolutionary programme that will start to destroy the capitalist structures. The COB,

“representing the working class and peasant forces, must form a major-

" ity in the new cabinet..2>

The MNR was clearly a bourgeois party. Within every populist bourgeois party which attempts to discipline the unions, there is always a labourist wing that tries to mediate between the pressures of the workers and the needs of following a bourgeois policy. The ‘left? wing of the MNR was neither proletarian nor revolutionary. Its support for a bourgeois programme, and its incorporation into capitalist structures demonstrated its counter-revolutionary nature. It is always possible

. that youth and working class sections in the nationalist movement will

shift leftwards towards centrism, and, if So, everything possibly niust be done to win them to Trotskyist politics. However, known bureaucrats

- with a long career of betrayals, supporting an open anti-Communist

party, cannot evolve in a revolutionary direction.

Lechin’s and Ch4vez’s ‘left’ wing defended capitalism, and merely desired to reform it. The MNR needed them in order to-control the masses. With the right hand it initiated the reorganisation of the armed forces, set up the paramilitary commandos and the secret police (the Comando Politico), stirred up anti-Communist hysteria to mobilise the petit-bourgeoisie against the proletarian ‘excesses’, and pressed for approaches to imperialism. With its left hand it tried to flirt with working class radicalism, whilst simultaneously aiming to tanie it. MNR trade unionists, while they uttered the most incendiary speeches, did everything possible to use their authority to hold back the COB’s mobilisation and demands, tried to defuse the movement towards dual power, and turn it into a force that would be subordinated to, and would collaborate with, the bourgeois regime.

However, the POR did more than serve Lechinism. Its members edited its union paper, wrote its speeches, and gave it complete support. Paz wanted to line up behind imperialism, Lechin lined up behind Paz, and the POR behind Lechin.

From the first weeks of the 1952 Revolution until at least the end of 1953, the POR considered that the left wing elements of the governing party would ‘proceed to their logical conclusion, that is to say, evolve towards forming a workers’ and peasants’ government’:

‘The evolution of the government towards the left, and its consequent transformation will be determined by the exploited. Owing to the pressure of political circumstances, the petit-bourgeois government may possibly be superseded and be turned into a stage of a workers’ and peasants’ government. It is the most probable tendency of that

70 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 71

unstable moment... This requires the political defeat ofthe.right, and... the active participation in the state_of the.proletariat-and :the. peasz,- 5 vse.

ce aT

a new cabinet to which it would offer its services. Instead of calling for the overthrow of the bourgeois state, the POR called for its regeneration under the control of the ‘left’ wing of bourgeois officialdom. Even if the ‘left’ wing of the MNR had the majority, or even every ministry, the state a that they would have controlled and defended would been bourgeois.

a . It is. fruitless and dangerous to: pursue ‘left’ wings-of bourgeois ~

. -- nationalist parties. Within the ‘left’ there will always be another ‘left’, and within this yet another. At the end of this pursuit, the route to the proletarian revolution is lost, and we end up as vulgar followers of the bourgeois nationalists. Not one leader of the MNR ‘left’ wing ever

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cusses. One month after the creation of the -COB;.the-POR:-considered ithe. = Bes os possible that the exploited would: put sufficient-pressure-on:the: MNRaz: i: ee micvoo" = 7 to shift it leftwards and transform it into. a:workers’,and-peasants?-.. «7. government. But Paz and the MNR were not ‘neutral’ forces or ‘wildcards’ flitting between the various classes. The MNR was an unswerv-

ingly bourgeois force, incapable of changing its class content. However, -.. --

‘ a

woe -much a monkey wants to learn to fly it-is impossible. Paz’s. MR had. ..,

absolutely no possibility of evolving into a workers’ and peasants’

government. The only ones who. could evolve were_the. PORists ~

towards a greater conciliation with the bourgeois MNR. Revolution-

evolved. towards forming a.reformist workers’ party or.centrist organisation, let alone Marxism.

The least that a party which called itself revolutionary should have done was to have constantly denounced the counter-revolutionary and

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aries do not call upon the workers to have a more ‘active participation’ within the state, but to overturn it.

The POR still persisted in the second half of 1953. On 23 June 1953 the Political Bureau of-the POR proposed that ‘the whole of this struggle must revolve around the slogan: Total Control of the State by the Left Wing of the MNR’”’ Liborio Justo correctly observed:

turncoat Lechin. But the POR went on tail-ending the corrupt old

bureaucrat, hoping that he and his fellow bureaucrats would turn towards it:

nS

‘There can be no doubt that with the creation of a left wing political organisation, independent of the right that controls the MNR and . government, the imminent split will ensure the vanquishing of all ‘The POR would support the left in its struggle against the right, it | vacillating and centrist positions, ensuring that, faced with this situawould guide its ideological orientation towards the most radical posi- tion, all the leftists in the MNR will turn to the Party, initially with no tions, and simultaneously it would mobilise the MNR rank and file so other aim than to win positions from the right, and so deepen the that it would call on the leftist leadership to adopt the programme of revolutionary process.”

proletarian revolution. That is to say, the revolution should be carried , out by the MNR left wing, which the POR had “instructed” to cease , being petit-bourgeois and an agent of the reaction, and this would help

its rank and file push it to adopt the programme of the proletarian.

revolution.” .

- ‘e 1

In August, after a ministerial crisis had occurred, Lucha Obrera opined:

Waldo Alvarez’s memoirs give a vivid description of the relationship which developed between the POR’s leaders and Lechin, which ‘was so close that they believed that they could control the labour movement through him, whereas he used them for his own aims’:

‘The POR could not hide its servile attitude to the Executive Secretary [Lechin] on every question which arose in the COB...

‘The only political outcome of the present situation is the displacement ‘Many cases could be cited, but the most serious, which was almost

of the MNR right wing from power by the left wing. “All power to the oy a betrayal of the proletariat, was to submit to the requests of the top left!” is a suitable slogan in the case of a cabinet crisis. Such a new Kind. a ; leaders over the launching of a manifesto to nationalise the mines. The - of MNR government would carry out the new tasks ofthe revolution. 2... workers demanded workers’ control... But when the Executive Sec-

. Total control of the state by the left... The POR willhelp theleftintbis. | 0 ._, retary intervened asking for the amendment to be withdrawn in accordtask, it will guide it politically and support it critically.” ance with government policy, only one POR member stood firm and supported the workers. The rest softened their position, supported the government directive, and in order to hide things, asked for the amendment to be sent to the government in a separate note. ‘So on a number of occasions, the POR’s slavish attitude tothe main COB leader led it to make concessions prejudicial to the real revolutionary mood of the working class.”!

Instead of fighting to expose and politically destroy the ‘left’ wing, the POR offered itself as a prop and adviser to the left of the official bourgeois party. Instead of struggling for a workers’ and peasants’ government, it asked for a ‘new kind of MNR government’. Instead of wanting to overthrow a social class, the POR was limited to asking for

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72 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

According to Catoira, when Lechin was put in charge of the COB by - the government, and also became Minister of Mining and Petroleum, “he shed the Trotskyist clothing in which the POR had clad him, and : promoted himself simply as a loyal MNR supporter’. Lora, however, claims thats... 00. = oo . oO

- ‘Lechin..: returned to Trotskyist posturing immediately after 9 April... and he accommodated himself to the radicalisation of the masses. He surrounded himself with POR members and, where he could, recited speeches written by the latter.’

Some people thought Lechin had evolved from the MNR to the POR in 1952, whereas others thought the opposite. What is certain is that nobody knew for whom that crafty individual was working. Lechin made use of everyone. The MNR let him have a certain independence and verbal radicalism so that he could consolidate his position in the labour movement, and thus tame it. The POR thought that by writing his theses, speeches and programmes it was using him to reach out to the working class. But it was the clever bureaucrat who used the POR to gain authority over the most militant workers, and thus negotiate for

a share of power within his party and his government. In exchange for

mouthing the POR’s incendiary slogans, Lechin received its support, and at worst its mild criticism. ..

During the revolutionary euphoria of the 1950s Lechin lived in the Hotel Crillon, the most luxurious hotel in La Paz. By contrast, the workers who had made him their irreplaceable leader lived in the most degraded conditions of squalor. Not that the POR mentioned this...

The POR went so far as to claim the line of the Lechinist newspaper

Vanguardia as its own: . ‘Its orientation is defined and determined by thé route that the proletariat boldly opened up during the April events... Take care! The people are not the servants of the government. The government are the servants of the people. A revolutionary fluency can be seen incarnated in its editors, interpreters of the majority views of the rank and file of its party formed by proletarians, peasants and office workers... If Vanguardia maintains its line, the path on which it is set will bring these bold lads the object of their desires, when the working masses judge that feudal exploitation in the countryside must be liquidated.”*

The POR identified itself with the Lechinist slogan of making the government the servant of the people. It is impossible to imagine that any capitalist government can defend the interests of the proletariat. The POR wagered on the MNR ‘left’ being able to enlighten the popular and working class majority in the MNR so as to reorient it and

. REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 73

Ee ees enable it to put the MNR government ‘at the service of the people’.

Paz: The Anti-Capitalist

_ The illusions of the POR in the MNR went to the extreme of believing "that Paz himself could initiate a turn to revolution. It said that it was ~ ‘possible’ for the President to ‘have made some good proposals for

achieving a real economic transformation of the country’, but he was blocked by the reactionaries in the cabinet and right wing technicians:

‘Meanwhile, the present President of the Republic has his hands tied in front of his party comrades, and, faced with creating a government of the people or staying President, seems to have chosen the latter 237

Every time the President gave a speech to ingratiate himself with the radicalised masses, a Marxist should have denounced it as a demagogic trick. Yet the POR always ended up saluting every radical-sounding outburst by Paz, even after the first year of the revolution:

‘The President, revising the whole of his past political attitude, points to anti-capitalist and not merely anti-imperialist and anti-feudal aims for the revolution. This speech can very easily be-regarded as Trotskyist... With these words Victor Paz has gone further than all his leftist collaborators, who are so determined to hold back and obstruct the liquidation of the latifundia...*

The POR’s adaptation to Paz was such that it believed that he was capable of breaking with and expropriating his own social class! It was a serious crime for a supposedly working class party to promote even the faintest idea that such a reactionary could possibly ever have installed an anti-capitalist government.

The Desire To Transform The MNR

At bottom the POR considered that the MNR could actually be transformed into an anti-capitalist revolutionary party:

‘Solid working class cadres in the MNR, the elimination of counterrevolutionary tendencies, a political programme which represents the interests of the exploited classes, in brief the absolute pre-eminence of the working class within the MNR ranks is the only means by which the MNR can carry out an important réle in the revolutionary course towards the workers’ and peasants’ government.”

Regardless of the number of workers it recruits, a bourgeois party

74 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 75

cannot change its class character.. The exploited. masses-will never. be, « -. 42-2 ten0%t

To deal with this, the Bolsheviks demanded that the Soviets break - _ w-able to control a party-created by the bourgeoisie, and:which.acts-in its ~ 22v 21:

from the ‘leftist’ bourgeois provisional government, and take all power™

- themselves. In Bolivia the demand should have been to struggle for all power to the COB. The COB, just like the Russian Soviets, had the arms and the power, but, because of its conciliatory leadership, gave

. away the latter:to the bourgeoisie. The seizuré of power by the Soviets " and the COB could have been carried out peacefully. The old military

.. os: + . specific interests.” Whereas the POR struggled to.get-more-workers, = 12 ¢--

--. . - inte the MNR, Trotskyists should have struggled-for-them-toleave its. .-..- .-2 | Dee Dae. But for the POR, all the problems of Bolivia-could-have beemtackled....2--2- . _. cru, .ifthe MNR had recruited more workers, asthis:would-have.strength-.. posse 4. a:+

ened its left wing. Furthermore; if the right wing elements-had-been=:.. == —>~

purged and the left wing around Chavez and Lechin had taken charge, the POR would have been,ready to fuse with the MNR:

_. ‘If the left wing succeeds in.taking charge and adopts-a working class -..-. —..

orientation, the POR is ready to work with it and even to fuse with it. The form of this new party ought to be reflected in the form of . government, which can only be a workers’ and peasants’ government.

The left wing of the MNR may not have come to lead the party, but this did not prevent many PORists from drawing the logical conclusions of their party’s adaptation to the MNR. In 1954 the whole of the POR’s old guard (Warqui, Ernesto Ayala, etc), all of the POR leaders of the COB, (Edwin Moller, José Zegada), and the great majority of Lora’s Leninist Workers Faction dissolved themselves and entered the MNR.

‘All Power To The COB!

James Malloy says that although the COB ‘proposed that the MNR assume the power and responsibility of government and of governing the state officially’, it was ‘in a certain sense, more powerful than the government itself, and had ‘set itself up as a centre without rival, capable of initiative and veto in relation to the central power’:

‘In reality, the COB was the real government 6f the Bolivian workers and, hence, of the national economy. In fact, it possessed the symbolic and functional characteristics of a sovereign entity, including executive, deliberative and judicial organs, a defined area of authority, electors and, what is more important, armed forces.’””

The situation in Bolivia after 9 April 1952 was similar to that in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. Two powers existed in the. country, but the strongest, the one with mass character, was that of the peoples’ and workers’ organisations, which, owing to their conciliatory leaderships, handed over power to a weak bourgeois government. The governments of both Kerensky and Paz had to flirt with the upsurge and demands of the masses at the same time as they tried to spin out time to exhaust them, and then, by rebuilding the armed forces and their authority, to open the way to a situation of bourgeois stabilisation.

apparatus had already collapsed through a violent revolution. The road was open for the working class, armed and with popular support, to seize power. The only obstacle to the COB and the Russian Soviets carrying out that task was that their leaderships were so insistent on’ rescuing the bourgeoisie.

In spite of the COB being the real power in the country, and the POR giving it direction, the latter —a section of the Fourth International — opposed the slogan of ‘All Power to the COBI’. On the contrary, it called on the COB to join the bourgeois government, thus weakening its alternative power, and so becoming a body increasingly subordinate to the bourgeois government. The slogan of the POR was that of shifting the Paz administration leftwards via ministerial changes. With that treacherous line it helped Paz and Lechin to dilute the power of the COB, aid to reconstitute the bourgeois state and the army.

In his ‘self-criticism’ Lora recognised that:

‘The POR leaders used these events to launch the slogan of “total control of the cabinet by the left”... The slogan, however, contained the signs of an enormous ideological error: to believe that the workers could win power via Lechin — behind the slogan of “All Power to the COB!?”.

‘The watch-word of “All Power to the COB!” could have led to the victory of the workers on two exceptionally favourable occasions. The first was when the agitation around the immediate nationalisation of the mines without compensation and under workers’ control reached its high point during the first half of 1952. The second arose with the defeat of the coup d’état on 6 January 1953. Not taking due advantage of these opportunities, and adapting to marching behind and mouthing the slogans of the MNR left, were the greatest errors of the POR”

As we have seen, on the first occasion the POR did not call for the seizure of the enterprises, but for support for the MNR government. On the second occasion, the POR gave its support to Paz, whilst attempting to change his policies, a treacherous course.

The right wing of the MNR staged an unsuccessful coup on 6 January 1953. The COB called the workers’ and peasants’ militias to a mass national mobilisation, and a massive demonstration took place next day. The demonstrators demanded immediate and unrestricted

76 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO'3

agrarian reform, wage increases, vouchers, protection against dismiss- - » al, rent control, price control, subsidies to food stores, a series of social «Security measures, and the. reinstatement of sacked workers. Yet,

addressing the massive demonstration on behalf of the COB, Edwin

Moller, then Secretary of the POR, instead of calling on the workers to have no confidence in the bourgeois government of Paz and for the COB ‘to seize power, concluded:-“We want, Comrade Paz Estenssoro,

- agovernment of Bolivians for the Bolivians.“ In the crucial moments of the revolution, the POR showed that its strategy was limited to changing the policies of the bourgeois government, and not for its revolutionary overthrow.

- Inspite of those extraordinary conditions, the POR delayed almost a year before launching the slogan for a COB government. However, it must be said that there are different ways and methods of launching such a slogan. The POR’s call for ‘All Power to the COB!’ was merely a variant of its idea of ‘all power to the left of the MNR’. For the POR, that slogan was not in order to expose the Lechin leadership, but was more concerned with governing jointly with it. Instead of trying to counterpose the COB to the MNR government, the POR wanted the ‘COB gradually to replace existing ministers in the Paz cabinet until finally there would be a government of the COB bureaucracy of the MNR. The slogan of ‘All Power to the COB!’ should have gone hand in hand with the raising of anti-capitalist slogans with a powerful denunciation of the MNR ‘left’. 2

Lechin has often said that his great mistake was in not taking power in April 1952.% But a cabinet based upon the COB with Lechin as President would not have constituted a revolutionary workers’ government. Lechin would have done everything possible to maintain capitalism, and to coexist with the national and world bourgeoisie. A revolutionary party would only have been able to participate critically in that government if it had broken with the bourgeois MNR, based itself directly upon the working class organisations and their militias, and attacked and disarmed the bourgeoisie — and this was highly unlikely.

Turn The COB Into A Soviet!

For Lenin and Trotsky, the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat could be based only on bodies like the Russian Soviets of 1917. In every revolution it is vital to transform the mass organisations created by the exploited into soviets. A soviet is an organ of struggle of the proletariat whose delegates are directly elected and revocable in rank and file assemblies, which include all workers, smallholders, peasants, soldiers, housewives, unemployed and other oppressed sectors of the area. Whereas unions are bodies which unite workers in an enterprise or branch of production, Soviets are territorial organisms which encom-

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 77

pass the broadest masses, both non-unionised and unionised. The COB, although it had soviet tendencies, was an organism with trade

__ union, vertical and bureaucratic features. As Lora admitted:

‘One of the gravest errors in the organisation of the COB consisted in its originating from the top leadership, which were soon to end up

. completely tied to the petit-bourgeois government, and it crystallised

through the middle rank leadership... The correct thing would have been to proceed in the opposite way, that is to say, from the bottom up. The workers adhered to the COB through their trade union leaders... The founders of the COB orientated towards the old leaders, and not

on the democratically elected rank and file. delegates. This organisa- -

tional defect already contained the cause of its infirmity, which increased its bureaucratisation, its isolation from the masses, and the skilful control of it by the government.’

The COB delegates were neither elected nor controlled, and were not subject to recall through rank and file mass meetings. The first congress of the COB took place 30 months after its foundation. The bureau-

cracy did everything possible to run the union along bureaucratic lines. -

A revolutionary party would have struggled for the immediate organisation of a congress a few days or weeks after it was founded. Only in this way could the COB have been democratised and have acquired the features of a soviet. However, the POR was in the top leadership of the COB, and did not object to.a bureaucratic structure which allowed a cosy relationship with Lechin.

The COB was founded at a meeting called by the Miners Federation on 17 April 1952. The leaderships of the confederations of factory workers, railway workers and peasants, the federation of bank employees and allied branches, commercial and industrial employees, and printing, construction, bricklayers’ and bakers’ unions took part in that assembly.” The poor neighbourhoods, the unemployed and the rank and file soldiers were not organised within it. The COB aimed to be a union centre based on leaderships elected at labour congresses every so often years. The COB’s founding meeting elected an Executive Committee which held office until the congress in October 1954. It was headed by Lechin (Executive Secretary), German Butr6én (General Secretary) and Mario Torres (Secretary of Relations). As the two key figures in the COB were ministers, the job of day to day leadership at the centre fell on PORists like Edwin Moller (Organisation Secretary), José Zegada (Minuting Secretary) and Miguel Alandia Pantoja (Director of the Press).* Although ‘this first Management Committee was declared provisional until the election of a proper committee by a national congress which would meet shortly’,® that congress did not take place until after the COB had ceased to be an alternative dual

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78 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

power, and had surrendered to the official bourgeois power. The COB

bourgeois nationalist governments .invariably.create, which-use. the... caer thetoric-of-antrimperialism in order to build a popular basis for themselves, and to discipline the masses.

so required a.constant daily battle against the MNR and-the-Lechinist .... - awit bureaucracy. On the contrary, the POR bore the main responsibility

for the COB being a limited and bureaucratic organisation that was

tied to officialdom. ,

--. The Nationalisation Of The.Mines..- ---- -»-+-

‘One of the POR’s slogans which most gripped the workers was that of the occupation of the mines... Why was this demand not carried through by workers’ action, at the time of their greatest mobilisation and radicalisation? If the mines had been occupied, and it was possible that this could have occurred, itis clear that the course of the revolution would have undergone a radical change... The occupation of the mines would have raised, sooner or later, the question of power, and created the basis for the rapid supersession of the nationalist sentiments of the working class. At the same time, the POR would have been able, quite quickly, to recover its control. 80

If, however, the issues of Lucha Obrera and the POR’s programme for 1952 are examined, the slogan of the immediate occupation of the mines, factories and land will not be found. The only time an enterprise 7 was occupied was to prevent the closure of the Corocoro mine. The reason the POR did not raise that slogan was connected to its refusal a to call for workers’ control in the private sector, to nationalise the factories, and to formulate anti-capitalist- demands. The POR was tailing Lechin, and merely attempting to put pressure upon the Paz government. ;

In fact, the illusions of the POR in the MNR were clearly shown in the crucial issue of the nationalisation of the mines. Whilst Paz, supported by Lechin, did everything possible to ensure that the workers did not occupy the mines and instead waited for a solution from above, - the POR, far from denouncing these manoeuvres, idealised Lechin:

‘The Minister of Mines and Petroleum, supported by those around him, = quite clearly advocated expropriation without compensation.”

- A revolutionary party would have done the opposite, and drawn atten-

developed in a manner identical to other-organs.of ‘popularpower’that.. . .-.--

i ee The POR did not fight to transform the COB. into a soviet.To,do.. +o. +04

In his lengthy history of the Bolivian labour movement, Lorastatesi---- -~ .4-

REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO3 79

tion to the fact that, whilst Lechin spouted radical phrases, he was, as events showed, preparing nationalisation (with compensation) merely

for enterprises in a poor state. But for the POR, the nationalisation of -

the mines was a great step forward:

- ‘The nationalisation of the-mines which will be announced shortly will be the starting point-that-will make the continuation of the: capitalist

system on the basis of the classical forms of exploitation impossible.*

Nationalisation is not an anti-capitalist measure in itself. It can also be a means for the bourgeoisie to aid its development. The nationalisation of large-scale mining in Bolivia was not the start of thé destruction of capitalism, it strengthened it. The POR helped that process by limiting itself to a bourgeois-democratic programme, and by tailing the MNR and its ‘left’ wing.

The MNR formally adopted the slogan of the nationalisation of the mines without compensation and under workers’ control. However, it ended by paying up so as to keep in with imperialism. As for ‘workers’ control’, the directorate of the Corporacién Minera de Bolivia (Comibol) was run by Carbajal (the first General Secretary of the FSTMB), and two of its seven directors were nominated by the FSTMB. The latter were not elected with a mandate, and they were not recallable by rank and file assemblies. In actual fact, this sort of ‘workers control’ was aimed at getting the workers to participate in the running of the enterprise in order to stop them striking and to get them to break their backs for ‘their’ company. Workers’ control means the workers supervising the administration of an enterprise as part of the struggle for control over society as a whole. But when exercised by bureaucrats, with no control by the rank and file, it turns into the integration of a layer of workers into the management of the enterprise. And this is what happened:

‘The workers’ leader Mario Torres admitted that he earned 90 000 bolivianos per month for running Comibol... when a skilled worker earned 4000 bolivianos per month.’¥

We have seen that the POR limited itself to demanding workers’ control merely in state enterprises, and did not question the prevailing regime in the private sector. It adapted to the bureaucracy controlling Comibol. Later on it raised the reformist alternative of winning a majority on the Comibol board. Faced with this position, it should have called for the opening of the accounts of all enterprises and of the government, so that they could be controlled and inspected by the workers through rank and file meetings and by delegates supervised by them, as part of the wider struggle for workers’ power.

80 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

At the international level the POR said: ‘We demand a free market _for tin’ What was really required was a producers’ cartel instead.

The Disintegration And Reorganisation Of The Armed Forces

The military leaders faced a serious problem during the April events. The troops recruited over the previous few weeks had had very little combat training and instruction, as much of their time had been spent in ceremonial drill practice for the repatriation of the remains of Eduardo Avaroa. One observer said that ‘the soldiers were able to parade very well, but they did not know how to fight’. Moreover, as Lora explains:

‘In the first months of the revolution, only the COB possessed.an armed force, the armed workers’ and peasants’ militias. The arming of the workers began with union militias when conditions did not exist for the formation of a similar force linked to the MNR. The meetings were impressive parades of armed workers and peasants... The COB Asserobly and the rank and file organisations, unlike its Executive Committee, were serious about the task of consolidating these militias, improving their armament, disciplining them and creating a unified command. Paz Estenssoro and Lechin instructed their followers to obstruct the efforts being made to strengthen the armed workers’ nuclei, as they represented the greatest threat to the government. Taking advantage of the resources available because of their monopoly

of power, they began to organise militias in the zonal commands of the ©

MNR, independent of the trade union militias, and gave them the job of overseeing the main centres; the MNR’s leaders, closely helped by Stalinism, were given the means to sabotage the consolidation of the COB militias.”** *.

A key problem in every revolution is the armed forces. A revolutionary party must oppose the reorganisation of the bourgeois army in any form, and put forward the demand to replace it by the armed people organised in militias. As-the revolution deepens the repulse of any external or internal aggression should be based on the militias, which can serve as the basis for an internationalist and proletarian Red Army.

But this was not the policy of Lechin and his followers in the POR. Whilst the MNR did everything possible to reorganise the traditional armed forces, Lechin tricked the workers with the fable that he only wanted a peaceful, technical and construction brigade type of bourgeois army. An armed force like that does not stop being guard dogs of capital, and its benign postures help to give it popular support, and hide its rdle as the armed defenders of the capitalist class. Nevertheless,

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 81 ee “

the POR gave credence to Lechin, saying that he opposed the old

regular army, and favoured ‘the creation of a new technical army with “industrial and farming functions’5”

Immediately after the April insurrection, the Bolivian armed forces

were disintegrating. The well-known anti-Communist general G Prado says that at the time: _ wy

‘In the barracks the situation was tense, as the officers were split between those who supported and those who condemned the revolution. Nobody did anything except stand guard to ensure that as much military equipment as possible was kept from the revolutionary forces. A sense of defeat, however, was made worse when we learned the details of what had occurred in the three days of fighting, confirming that the army had been beaten on every hand. The flight of the High Command made the officers feel even more abandoned. A number, fearing repression, deserted their units without delay and sought asyjum in foreign embassies or voluntarily went into exile. Others, forgetting their duty, went home to await developments. A few stayed in the barracks trying to regroup their units, control the soldiers, and keep an appearance of order and discipline.’

Whilst this was happening the COB adopted the resolution presented by the mining representatives which proposed that the National Corps of the COB’s Armed Militias would be organised under the National Command and Departmental and Special Commands. The National Command was headed by the National Leader, Paz, and the Commander-in-Chief, Lechin. The commanders of the cells would be elected by the departmental militiamen, the Departmental Centres and the National Command of the COB.

Gary Prado states that the military commanders considered that the resolution was a humiliating attack on the institution of the armed forces. However, although unable to prevent the formation of militias, ‘it was decided to try to maintain some degree of control over the militias in some way’:

“With that aim, by means of deceit, the Chief of the General Staff, German Armando Fortin, offered to supply-the COB with all the advice needed to improve the organisation of the Armed Militias, such as the appointment of enough instructors to instil into the militiamen disciplined attitudes, basic military training and responsibility on the understanding that the militias will be, in the final analysis, the reserve of the Armed Forces of the Nation.

“The General Staff offer was warmly accepted by the COB... In this way it succeeded to a certain extent in dealing with the problem of the militias, at least inasmuch as it prevented them from becoming a

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82 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3 ee

structure that would turn them into a parallel army..The:National ; .

Command of the militias never functioned properly.”

Instead of ensuring that the workers’ militias were independent of and opposed to the bourgeois armed forces, the COB leadership of Lechin

- and the POR ‘warinly actepted’ the proposal of the high:command of---~ - “* the defeated army, which had as-its aim the castration- of the -militias,-.-- .-:

and their subordination to the armed forces. They also accepted as the national leader of the militias a class enemy, Paz. For his part, Lechin tried to avoid the constfuction of an independent force of armed workers. He wanted to transform them into the MNR’s armed guards or the militia reserves of the regular bourgeois army.” But this did not prevent the POR from supporting him.

The Peasant Uprising

The great struggles in Bolivia between the end of the Chaco War and 1952 were centred on the cities and mines. Yet at that time at least 70 per cent of the population lived in the countryside. The peasants lived on the margins of the national economy, could not vote, and took little direct part in politics. The peasant masses spoke Amerindian lan- ’ guages, and the great majority were illiterate. The Indians had to pay - the gamonal in labour, products or money, in other words, a form of serfdom.

Nevertheless, the peasant masses were gradually awakening. When the army of the Rosca collapsed, the Indian tenants organised themselves, and a few months after April 1952, a wave of land occupations occurred, mainly in the valleys of Cochabamba and La Paz, which had trading links with the cities. These movements were not Marxist, and the MNR immediately took them over. The left had little influence at first, but once the peasant mobilisations for-land began to get under way, the POR succeeded in attaining great influence in the convulsed valley of Cochabamba. In 1953 it correctly launched the slogan of the occupation of the land and the expropriation of the latifundia. However, its agrarian programme did not go beyond the limits of the bourgeois democratic revolution.

The mere distribution of land cannot solve all the peasants’ problems, nor can it ensure that there will be a substantial increase in agricultural production. This requires electrification, mechanisation and the modernisation of the agricultural sector, plus the improvement of communications and the means of exchange, through the expropriation of industry, transport and the banks under the control of workers and small peasants. Similarly, plans for literacy campaigns and cultural and political education could only be carried out on the basis of substantial sums obtained by confiscation from the rich, and by a

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 83

general mobilisation of educational volunteers — i

MNR did not want to do.* something that the

ke Once again, the POR’s programme was limited to a bourgeois amework, and it sought to put pressure on the ‘Comrade President’:

“Whilst we all waited for the government to make its position clear on the problem of the latifundia, whilst taking up the hopes of the ex- ~ ploited masses, President Paz Estenssoro answered our worries by the needs from the Indians, of labour and sacrifices.’

Once more the POR pinned its hopes on Paz, instead of constantly informing the masses that the MNR was not interested in carrying out an agrarian revolution. The MNR eventually introduced agrarian reome, but they failed to pull the agricultural sector out of its backward-

The POR’s Opportunist International Orientation

The Bolivian revolution could never have overcome its impoverished capitalist semi-colonial condition by remaining isolated in a backward and landlocked country. The internationalisation of the revolution was vital in order to ward off counter-revolution, and to establish the material basis for Socialist construction. . 7 __ The MNR did everything possible to isolate the revolution within its own boundaries. It did not even dare to organise or encourage msurgent movements in other countries of the continent, however moderate their programmes were. Paz took great pains to be imperialism’s trump card. Lechin and his POR scribes took great pains to promote him. No serious call for the international expansion of the revolution can be found m the POR’s press and its programme of action. It did not even oras iali J ae ents truggle for the Socialist United States The POR has never been renowned for regarding international politics as important. However, in the few articles written by the POR about other countries a line of colossal capitulation to bourgeois nationalism can be seen:

‘First Perén and Vargas in Argentina and Brazil, then Paz Estenssoro in Bolivia and later Velasco Ibarra in Ecuador and finally Ibaiiez in Chile, unifying the revolutionary and anti-imperialist aspirations of their own peoples, express in their broad electoral victories, not only the discontent of the working masses for the system of capitalist exploitation, but the fundamental defeat of imperialism’s subjection of our semi-colonial countries through the traditional methods of economic slavery. Such mass movements fully identify themselves with the

84 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

ee

revolutionary actions that are liberating China, Korea, Indonesia and Indochina, and which enable these countries to escape the influence and exploitation of imperialism.”*

The POR maintained that the bourgeois governments of Perén, Var-

gas, Paz and Ibaiiez had defeated imperialism, and had ‘fully identified ss themselves’ with the revolutions that were overthrowing the bour-“"" ="

geoisie in Asia. The nationalist Latin American governments did not question the backward capitalist semi-colonial nature of the countries that they ran. They simply sought to generate better conditions for the development of a national bourgeoisie. The aim of their social reforms was to widen the internal market and control labour organisations. All these regimes were anti-Communist, and ended up supporting imperialism and repressing the workers.

The Opportunism of the Fourth international

The Fourth International gave wholehearted support to the treacherous policy of the POR, and admitted to being the POR’s guide. The resolution adopted by the IEC of the Fourth International at its Twelfth Plenum in November 1952 was quite uncritical of the POR.® Early in 1953 Fourth International asserted:

‘The POR began by justifying granting critical support to the MNR

government... it gave the government critical support against attacks

of imperialism and reaction and it supported all progressive meas166

ures.

In 1953 the Fourth International began to split between the Interna-

- tional Secretariat of Michel Pablo, Ernest Mandel and Juan Posadas,

and the International Committee of the SWP’(USA), the French PCI of Bleibtreu-Favre and Pierre Lambert and the groups of Gerry Healy and Nahuel Moreno. During the split the Bolivian Revolution was not discussed. All had supported the POR line. The split was not between ‘orthodox and ‘revisionist’. forces, but between two wings which had already supported the centrist orientation of seeking to reform dissident Stalinists (such as Tito) or nationalists (such as the MNR). Only much later, in their search to find arguments for their factional battles, did the anti-Pabloists discover the betrayal of 1952. . Healy’s International Committee published a vast collection of six books entitled Trotskyism versus Revisionism, which contained hundreds of letters and documents which were supposed to show its struggle against revisionism. However, in none of those volumes is the 1952 Revolution mentioned. The first volume is dedicated to the split with Pabloism. More than 50 texts of that polemic are reproduced.

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 85

Nevertheless, in all these documents Bolivia is only mentioned in two brief and passing references of a purely administrative nature. All this confirms that the anti-Pabloists never questioned the Menshevik strategy which was unanimously adopted by the Fourth International.

The only discordant voice known within the Fourth International

at the time was that of a small: tendency in the SWP in-California,

headed by Vern and Ryan. This had the great merit of severely questioning Lora’s Menshevik declarations and conduct.” The Vern-Ryan tendency received no reply to its criticism against the Menshevik line in Bolivia. From then until today, all the currents which derive from the ‘anti-Pabloist’ International Committee, not to mention those deriving from the International Secretariat, continue to ignore these criticisms of a policy to which they gave their endorsement.

Notes

1. The National Workers Centre (Central Obrera Nacional, CON) was a union federation formed in 1946 by the POR and FSTMB, chiefly in order to combat the influence of the Stalinist-led CSTB.

2. James Dunkerley, Rebellion in the Veins, Verso, London, 1984, pp45, 67. This was confirmed in October 1952 by a journalist who was critical of the POR. He

admitted that within the COB ‘the iargest fraction is that of the POR; next comes

the group of Lechin and Torres, that is the nationalist wing of the unions, while the Stalinists are in third place with scarcely five votes’ (Labor Action, 27 October

1952). ; ;

Waldo Alvarez, Memorias del primer ministro obrero, La Paz, 1986, p188.

Lucha Obrera, 12 June 1952. : ~

RJ Alexander, Trotskyism in Latin America, Hoover Institution Press, Califor-

nia, 1973, pi34.

6. Guillermo Lora claims not only that ‘a large part of the fulltime staff and the whole orientation of the brand new COB was Trotskyist’, but that the POR controlled Lechin, who ‘did no more than operate under the powerful pressure of the masses and the POR’ (G Lora, La revolucién boliviana: analisis critico, La Paz, 1963, p254).

7. Labor Action, 7 April 1952.

8. G Lora, Contribucién a Ia historia politica de boliviana, Volume 2, La Paz, 1978, pp237-8,

9. The Militant, 12 May 1952.

10. Ibid.

11. The Militant, 19 May 1952. This assertion does not square with his later comment that at the time he said that the working class ‘in order to triumph had no other way than by going over the political corpse of the MNR and also over that of Lechinism’ (Lora, Contribucién a la historia politica de boliviana, Volume 2, op cit, pp237-8).

12. Lucha Obrera, 25 May 1952.

13. Lucha Obrera, 18 April 1952.

14, Dunkerley maintains that although POR members ‘were from an early stage highly critical of the MNR regime, they made no call for an immediate workers’ government, demanding instead a radicalisation of proposed reforms, the defence of the regime against imperialism and the revolutionary education of the masses’ (Dunkerley, op cit, p46).

15. Lucha Obrera, 25 May 1952.

ati

86 REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4, NO 3

ee A TL

16. Lucha Obrera, 12 June 1952.

17. Lucha Obrera, 29 June 1952.

18. Jorge Lazarte, Movimiento obrero y procesos politicos en Bolivia: historia de la COB 1952-1957, La Paz, 1989, p280.

19. POR, Boletin Interno, no 13, 1953, p11.

20. Lucha Obrera, 1 June 1952. A journalist, claiming to be Trotskyist, related how ‘one of the old militants of the-POR told.us likewise with pride, that the MNR offered two mitiistries to the POR’ (Alexander, op cit, p125). ;

21. S Ryan, letter dated 4 August 1953, SWP, Internal Bulletin, no 17, August 1953, New York, p40. To date, we are not aware of any confirmation or denial of such facts, just as we are unaware of any source which can ascertain their reliability or otherwise.

22. Lucha Obrera, 25 May 1952. :

23. POR, Boletin Interna, no 13, 1953, p12.

24. Lucha Obrera, 11 November 1952.

25S. Tbid.

26. Lucha Obrera, 25 May 1952.

27. L Justo, Bolivia: la revolucién derrotada, Cochabamba, 1967, p224. .

28. Ibid. Justo criticised the Fourth International for having a Menshevik position in 1952, linking this with his allegations that Trotsky had capitulated to US imperialism, and with his call fora Fifth International. Justo’s positions were largely centrist, standing in the tradition of Aguirre, and supporting the stagist Theses of Pulacayo. He raised the demand ‘All Power to the COB’ without explaining that the COB had first to be transformed into a soviet.

29, Lucha Obrera, 2 August 1953.

30. POR, Boletin Interno, no 13, 1953, p10.

31. Alvarez, op cit, pp283-4.

32. R Catoira Marin, El sindicalismo boliviano, La Paz, 1987, p43. ; 33. Lora, Contribucién a Ja historia politica de boliviana, Volume 2, op cit, p228. 34. Catoira, op cit, p48.

35. Lucha Obrera, 3 May 1952.

36. Lucha Obrera, 25 May 1952.

37. Lucha Obrera, 12 June 1952.

38. Lucha Obrera, 5 August 1953.

39. Lucha Obrera, 11 November 1952.

40. In all seriousness, the POR called oh the leopard to change its spots:

‘If the MNR does not organically change itself, expelfing the rightists, freemasons, adventurers, businessmen and carpetbaggers from its ranks, it will become the gravedigger of the revolution.’ (Lucha Obrera’ Supplement, 3 February 1953)

41, Lucha Obrera, Supplement, 3 February 1953. 42. JM Malloy, Bolivia: la revolucién inconclusa, Ceres, La Paz, 1989, pp243-4. 43. Lora, La revolucién boliviana: andlisis critico, op cit, pp267, 270. 44, Lucha Obrera, 23 January 1953. 45. See the interview in Facetas, 5 July 1987. 46. Lora, La revolucién boliviana: analisis critico, op cit, pp262-3. 47. Lazarte, op cit, p6. . 48. Alandia was in charge of the first three issues of the COB’s journal, Rebelién, which ‘wholly expressed the programme of the Centre at that time’. The first issue even ‘contained a hearty greeting to the General Secretary of the POR’ (Lora, La = revolucién boliviana: andlisis critico, op cit, p254). However, rather than putting forward a revolutionary policy calling on the COB to break from Paz, and to occupy the mines, factories and the land, and to take power, Rebelién identified . itself with the bourgeois regime, and demanded that it be propped up:

‘The defeat of the oligarchy and the birth of the MNR government is the work of

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REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY, VOLUME 4,NO3 87

the working masses; it is our creation... In order to survive, the present government requires from the workers that the workers supporting it, being vigilant, will be able to attain great achievements.’ (Rebelién, 1 May 1952)

49. Lazarte, op cit, p7.

50. Lora, Contribucion a la historia politica de boliviana, Volume 2, op cit, pp231-2.

51. Lucha Obrera, 29 June 1952.

52. POR, Boletin Interno, no.13, 1953, p9.* -~ a _

53. Pierre Scali, ‘La révolution bolivienne 1952-1954’, La Verité, 22 April 1954.

54. Lucha Obrera, May 1953.

55. wee Prado Salmon, Poder y fuerzas armadas 1949-1982, Cochabamba,

+ p33.

56. Lora, La revolucién boliviana: andlisis critico, op cit, p271.

57. Lucha Obrera, 15 July 1952.

58. Prado, op cit, p40.

59. Op cit, pp52-54.

60. In his memoirs Lechin boasted that in April 1952 he handed over to the police the arms discarded by the soldiers. Cf Lupe Cajias, Historia de una leyenda: vida y palabra de Juan Lechin Oquendo, La Paz, 1989, p148.

61. The MNR introduced adult suffrage, and the illiterate Bolivian peasants were able to vote for the first time. The POR had not called for adult suffrage, nor did it demand a Constituent Assembly. Later it demanded that illiterates be eligible for election, and that the proletariat have a preferential vote.

62: Lucha Obrera, 29 June 1952.

63. POR, Boletin Interno, no 13, 1953, p3.

64. The POR’s adaptation to nationalism was also shown by its sympathetic attitude towards the participation of the Chilean Partido Socialista Popular in a bourgeois

government, and towards the Israeli Labour government in 1953, when it dis- _ agreed on a wholly reactionary basis with the US government over its treatment

of the Palestinians. _

65. The IEC’s resolution is reproduced above, pp32-7.

66. Fourth International, January-February 1953, p16.

67. The letters of the Vern-Ryan tendency can be found in Bolivia: The Revolution the ‘Fourth International Betrayed, League for a Revolutionary Party, New York, 1987. In spite of the progressive nature of its criticism, this tendency soon dissolved itself. Its positions, although on the left wing of the deformed Fourth International, contained a series of ambiguities, not least on the question of Stalinism in Eastern Europe.

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