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Two Views On Bolivia: A Debate
View 1: World solidarity needed for Bolivian
people, government
by Barry Weisleder and John Riddell / June 2006 issue
Socialist Action
Barry
Weisleder is a leader of Socialist Action (Canada). John Riddell is an
editor of Socialist Voice, an on-line publication published in Toronto.
TORONTO—“General
jubilation” greeted the Bolivian government’s move to take control of the
country’s hydrocarbon resources on May 1, according to the Cuban daily
newspaper Granma. “An impressive multitude [that] gathered to celebrate May
Day” in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, “exploded with joy and cheers” when
these measures were announced. This joy was shared by opponents of
imperialism everywhere.
The
corporate media reacted with dismay and anger. “Bolivia’s Folly,”
proclaimed the Globe and Mail, the most authoritative voice of Canada’s
capitalist rulers. Bolivian president Evo Morales is “acting on his
shopworn socialist notion,” the Globe warned. “It’s the first step down a
dangerous road that will further alienate Bolivia’s business community …
scare off foreign investment … and make it harder for the country to solve
its deep-rooted structural problems.”
Why
such alarm? Bolivia’s measures were not in themselves socialist. The
government’s bid to exert popular control over petroleum reserves merely
parallels the jurisdiction Canada’s government has defended since its
creation in 1867. Bolivia’s demand that oil companies renegotiate
extraction contracts on terms more favorable to the country’s people
follows the example of Venezuela and other Third World oil producers.
But
for the imperialists, the context is alarming. The Bolivian government’s
measures carry out the will of a powerful mass movement that has in recent
years repeatedly challenged the country’s capitalist rulers.
Evo
Morales is himself a product of this movement. His overwhelming election
victory in December 2005 represented that movement’s success in striving to
establish a popular government. And the petroleum takeover was not
negotiated with the oil giants but presented as a fait accompli to a mass
rally in La Paz.
The
Wall Street Journal angrily branded this an example of “another Latin
craze: the abrogation of contracts.”
Other
moves have followed. On May 15, the Bolivian government ordered private
pension funds to hand over $700 million in oil company shares they had
administered since the privatizations of the 1990s. The finance minister of
Spain, where many of these funds are based, denounced this seizure “without
compensation” as “unacceptable.”
Bolivia’s
example is compelling. On May 16, Ecuador, also repeatedly shaken in recent
years by indigenous-based mass movements, took over operations of U.S.-based
oil giant Occidental Petroleum, a move that will bring the Andean country
$100 million a year in extra revenue.
Washington
immediately retaliated by breaking off “free trade” talks with Quito. In
Chicago on May 21, U.S. President Bush warned against the “erosion of
democracy” in Bolivia and Venezuela. He darkly linked “prosperity and
peace” to “respect for property rights.”
The ‘ALBA’ alternative
Bolivia
does not stand alone. On April 29, its president signed a far-reaching
Peoples’ Trade Agreement together with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel
Castro of Cuba, at a meeting of the three presidents in Havana.
Bolivia
also joined the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the
Venezuelan government’s plan to unite the peoples of Latin America around
“the egalitarian principles of justice and equality,” to which Cuba
subscribed in 2004.
The
terms of the three-country agreement were sweeping, providing for massive
Cuban assistance to upgrade health standards and launch a literacy program,
$130 million in direct Venezuelan financing, Venezuelan support for
Bolivia’s petroleum industry, 10,000 scholarships in Venezuela and Cuba for
Bolivian students, and many other measures.
There
is more. In February, the United States succeeded in imposing on Columbia a
“free trade” agreement that robbed Bolivia of the market for 60% of its
vital soybean exports. Cuba and Venezuela responded by undertaking to
purchase the entire available crop at favorable prices.
The
Wall Street Journal now angrily terms Bolivia “a virtual Venezuelan colony
flush with Cuban agents.”
Washington
has so far focused its retaliation on Venezuela, carrying out threatening
military exercises close to the Venezuelan coastline. On May 16 the U.S.
State Department announced the politically significant gesture of an arms
embargo against Venezuela in reprisal for that country’s relations with
Cuba and Iran and its failure to “cooperate with the United States in
fighting terrorism.”
Need for solidarity
Bolivia
now faces the likelihood of a U.S.-sponsored campaign to destabilize and
overthrow its government, similar to the military coup and other dirty
tricks attempted against Venezuela in the last half-decade.
Progressive
forces of every hue in Bolivia now have strong reason to rally behind their
government in a united front against threats from imperialism and the
Bolivian oligarchy, while continuing to press for radical measures to
benefit the poor majority. And in the United States and Canada, the key
task is to build a strong solidarity movement in defense of Bolivia and its
two embattled allies.
During
the first months of the Morales presidency, the Bolivian government acted
slowly and cautiously, measuring its moves in an objective situation that
is in many ways unfavorable. Bolivia is the poorest country in South
America. It is landlocked, far from its allies.
The
army and police, which have a long tradition of acting to defend
imperialist interests, are still intact. The state apparatus is largely
hostile. And the government is only now forging unity with the mass
movements that brought it to power.
Moreover,
neighboring South American countries, especially Brazil and Argentina, play
a crucial role in Bolivia’s economy, trade, and international
communications. Brazil’s Petrobras is the largest investor in Bolivian
petroleum and the biggest loser in its assertion of state control over the
industry.
At
the same time, the governments of Brazil and Argentina are in conflict with
imperialism; they helped bring down the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Agreement
of the Americas. One of the Morales government’s major achievements has
been to avoid a breach with these two countries, a process in which
Venezuela’s support has been vital.
As
Grenada’s Maurice Bishop once observed, “The revolution is not like making
instant coffee.” For further radical measures to succeed, the Morales
government must maneuver to secure the most favorable relationship of
forces inside and outside Bolivia.
National liberation
Moreover,
the Bolivian upsurge is not in the first instance a movement for socialism.
It is a struggle for democracy and sovereignty on the part of a nation
brutally oppressed by imperialism. The dominant characteristic of this
struggle has been the efforts of Bolivia’s long-marginalized indigenous
majority to achieve full citizenship and to refound the nation on the basis
of respect for indigenous people’s culture and economy.
Marxism
has long recognized the progressive character of such anti-imperialist and
anti-colonial movements, even if, like Cuba’s July 26 Movement, they do not
inscribe socialism on their banners.
Most
of Bolivia’s toilers are not waged employees but are independent producers,
farmers, cooperative miners, artisans, traders, and peddlers. The government
of Evo Morales aims to increase the viability of these family-based
economic units. Such measures may include the provision of credits,
infrastructure, social services, and marketing assistance.
Such
a program responds to the historic struggle of indigenous peoples in
Bolivia to maintain and strengthen their particular ayllu, the aboriginal
socio-economic structures in which land is not a commodity.
Workers’ and farmers’ government
The
policy of state aid to independent producers forms part of the Marxist
program. It has been long practiced by the workers’ and farmers’ government
of Cuba. In Bolivia, this goal is sometimes called “Andean capitalism,” a
term that can be misunderstood outside its specific context. In fact,
effective support for small-scale family and community enterprise is only
possible when workers, farmers, and other independent producers take full
control of the government apparatus and use it to rein in the power of the
giant capitalist corporations.
Bolivia
today may be taking initial steps toward constituting such a workers’ and
farmers’ government. Bolivian President Evo Morales said April 5, “You
can’t transform things from the [presidential] palace. I feel like a
prisoner of neo-liberal laws.” To escape this prison, his government is
organizing an assembly to write a new constitution.
“We
captured the government,” Morales said. “With the Constituent Assembly we
want to capture political power.” (Elections to the assembly, which is to
redraft the country’s constitution, are to be held in July.)
Morales
is on the right track here. Winning the presidency gives Bolivia’s popular
movements at best only a small fragment of political power, a toehold.
Bolivian working people need full control of the governmental apparatus and
the armed forces. Only a government of working people, reflecting the will
of the indigenous majority of the nation, can carry through the “profound
democratic and anti-colonial revolution” recommended by Bolivia’s
vice-president Alvaro Garcia Linera.
Solidarity
from within the imperialist countries will help win for the Bolivian people
the time and freedom of action needed to press this process forward.
Chavez’s challenge
There
is another vital aspect to the challenge of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Cuba.
The leaders of these three countries are challenging us to join in a
worldwide movement for social justice. They are awakening new interest in
the idea of socialism, including among working people in Canada and the
United States.
Hugo
Chavez made such an appeal following the May 10-12 European Union-Latin
American summit. At the Vienna summit Chavez and Morales squared off
against the presidential figureheads of imperialist Europe, acting as a
tightly coordinated team sporting two flags, but fighting for a common
cause.
Addressing
a solidarity rally of 5000 in Vienna, Chavez quoted the words of Rosa
Luxemburg, “The choice before humanity is socialism or barbarism.” Chavez
continued, “When Rosa Luxemburg made this statement, she was speaking of a
relatively distant future. But now the situation of the world is so bad
that the threat to the human race is not in the future, but now.”
Chavez
recalled his youth, the time of the May 1968 upsurge in France, the
Beatles, and the movement against the war in Vietnam. “We looked to the future
and we thought that by the year 2000, the world would be a different place,
a better place. But the years have passed and instead of improving, things
have gotten worse.
“What
has happened? …. Imperialism and capitalism have stolen my future. And now
that I am in my fifties, I am convinced that people of my generation must
spend every day, every hour, every minute of our lives fighting for a
better world—a world free from poverty, inequality, and injustice.
“That
world is called socialism! I believe that only the youth have the necessary
enthusiasm, the passion, the fire, to make the revolution. Let us unite to
save the world. Together we can succeed!”
To
socialists around the world, Chavez’s now oft-repeated appeal is the
realization of a long-deferred dream. The bold nations of ALBA are placing
the struggle for socialism back on the agenda for the world’s peoples. Our
response should be wholehearted and vigorous solidarity.
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View 2: A response to Comrades Riddell and
Weisleder —Which road for the Bolivian Revolution?
by Gerry Foley and
Jeff Mackler / June 2006 issue Socialist Action
Gerry
Foley is the International Editor of Socialist Action newspaper, and Jeff
Mackler is the National Secretary of Socialist Action (U.S.).
SAN
FRANCISCO—Socialist Action (U.S.) recognizes the need to vigorously defend
the Bolivian people against U.S. imperialist pressures and intervention.
This is nothing new for us.
We
are well aware of the history of imperialist intervention in Latin America
in the past in which even the most moderate bourgeois reformist governments
have been violently overthrown by the reactionary local ruling classes and
their armies, supported by the imperialists.
Moreover,
the Trotskyist movement, of which we are part, has a proud tradition of
defending all reforms that weaken the hold of imperialism and advance the
cause of the oppressed and exploited.
Leon
Trotsky himself, when he lived in Mexico, was favorable to the
nationalization of the Mexican oil industry by President Lazaro Cardenas.
But Trotsky explained that it was not a socialist measure and that such
steps toward economic independence from imperialism could ultimately be
defended only through revolutionary struggle by the masses.
Trotsky
likewise refused to give political support to the bourgeois Cardenas
government. Two years after the oil nationalization, Cardenas supported the
election of Avila Camacho as his successor, who began the liquidation of
the reforms of the earlier Mexican revolutionary period.
The
long experience of defeats of reform efforts in Latin America has shown
that the local bourgeois reaction and imperialist intervention can only be
challenged definitively if the workers and the poor masses are mobilized
for a socialist transformation of the economy wherein the ruling capitalist
institutions are destroyed and replaced with new mass institutions of
workers' rule.
The
army and the bourgeois state structures are central to capitalist power.
They were smashed by the revolutionary action of the Cuban masses with the
defeat of the Batista dictatorship in 1958. This is the starting point in
understanding the survival of the Cuban revolution, as the Cuban publicist
Celia Hart has so eloquently and repeatedly explained.
This
is why the maintenance, extension, and consolidation of anti-imperialist
reform in Bolivia depends essentially on the advance of the mass movement
within the country. Moreover, the most effective and immediate solidarity
with the Bolivian masses will be that offered by the working classes of the
neighboring countries, if they are inspired by the example of the victories
of their Bolivian brothers and sisters won through the exercise of their
own independent power.
In
the imperialist countries, effective solidarity with anti-imperialist
measures in dominated countries does not require an uncritical attitude to
reformist or bourgeois nationalist regimes—quite the contrary.
It
is with respect to this question that Comrades Weisleder and Riddell part
company with us. Their approach is summed up in a paragraph under the
headline "Workers‘ and farmers’ government."
They
assert, "The policy of state aid to independent producers forms
part of the Marxist program. It has been long practiced by the workers’ and
farmers’ government of Cuba. In Bolivia, this goal is sometimes called
'Andean capitalism,' a term that can be misunderstood outside its
specific context. In fact, effective support for small-scale family and
community enterprise is only possible when workers, farmers, and other
independent producers take full control of the government apparatus and use
it to rein in the power of the giant capitalist corporations."
Riddell
and Weisleder conclude: “Bolivia today may be taking initial steps toward
constituting such a workers’ and farmers’ government.”
The
term "workers’ and farmers’ government" has been used in three
ways in the Trotskyist movement, none of which correspond to the use that
Weisleder and Riddell make of it. A workers’ and farmers’ government can be
the first phase of a revolution before the ownership of the basic
industries has been transformed. It can be the result of a revolution that
destroys the institutions of the state without being led by a party with a
program of socialist revolution. Or it can be a synonym for a workers’
state, a state that has abolished capitalism and is beginning to build
socialism.
All
of these variants presuppose the destruction of the bourgeois state
institutions. A prime example is the 1949 Chinese Revolution, where in the
first phase, the Stalinist-led Communist Party defeated the Chiang
Kai-shek-led Kwomintang government and army, but pledged to preserve
capitalist property relations. What emerged was a highly contradictory
state based on a new government that essentially excluded the capitalist
class and significantly defended the interests of China's peasant masses.
With
the U.S. intervention at the start of the Korean War, the Stalinist-led
Chinese CP, which had originally sought a rapprochement with Chinese
capital, formally nationalized all capitalist property and created a
workers’ state.
The
1963 Algerian Revolution, in which an anti-imperialist armed organization, the
National Liberation Front (FLN), came to power after a long and deep-going
military and political struggle, also constituted a workers’ and farmers’
government, wherein the previous instruments of class rule were shattered
by the revolutionary action of the worker and peasant masses.
The
first phase of the Cuban Revolution, after the triumph of the rebel army
and the dissolution of the initial and short-lived bourgeois government of
Manuel Urrutia, was similarly a workers’ and farmers’ government. Realizing
that even the modest democratic program of the July 26 Movement, centering
on a thoroughgoing land reform, could not be achieved within the framework
of capitalism, the Fidel Castro-led government responded to a series of
imperialist provocations and armed invasion by abolishing capitalist
property and establishing a workers’ state.
In
all three instances, the workers’ and farmers’ government was a highly
unstable and temporary formation resulting from the revolutionary
destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus and its repressive forces, the
army and police. This phase was largely unplanned and a reflection of the
initial lack of clarity of the revolutionary leadership.
In
the case of China, the Maoist-Stalinist leadership consciously resisted a
social transformation while maintaining its political and military control
of the country. In the case of Algeria, the anti-imperialist workers and
farmers government of Ahmed Ben Bella was overthrown by a military coup
backed by the bourgeois Arab states. In Cuba, the revolutionary leadership
team headed by Castro consciously moved to establish a workers’ state.
The
choice before the revolutionary governments became evident; either move
forward to abolish capitalist property relations, distribute the land, and
begin the process of fundamental social reform or resist all of the above
and re-establish the state on the basis of the old system of private
ownership and the exploitation and oppression of the masses who had fought
for the revolution.
In
the case of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, the class nature of the
state was immediately transformed with the Bolshevik victory. The new state
power resided in elected councils of workers and peasants, or “soviets,”
established throughout the new Soviet Republic. The old bourgeois state was
smashed and replaced with the world's most democratic system of workers'
rule.
Here,
the use of the term “workers’and farmers’ government,” as used by Lenin and
Trotsky, was synonymous with a workers’ state.
The
Morales government and party clearly have been bourgeois formations from
the beginning and remain so. The government includes conservatives, even
figures who played major roles in the privatizations carried out by the
previous neoliberal governments.
Evo
Morales’ party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), is a bourgeois
electoral machine. In this respect, Comrades Weisleder and Riddell seem to
be misinformed. Morales and his party are not products of the gigantic mass
movements in Bolivia in 2003 and 2005. They played very little role in them.
Morales
even lent a certain support to the bourgeois Carlos Mesa government, which
was overthrown by the 2005 upsurge. The victory of Morales and the MAS in
the December 2005 elections was a product of the mass movements only in the
sense that the former were able to profit from the radicalization that
these movements impelled because the social organizations that led them,
the Los Altos formations and the Bolivian Workers Confederation (COB), were
unable to offer an alternative in the elections.
Comrades
Weisleder and Riddell do recognize that the bourgeois state and army remain
intact. They also recognize that there is nothing socialist in the Morales
government's measures. (In fact, the so-called oil nationalization was even
hailed by the right-wing French president, Jacques Chirac.)
In
offering an agrarian reform, moreover, the Morales government is promising
not to nationalize any land belonging to the big landowners, who own 90
percent of the productive land. The only land under consideration for
distribution is idle state-owned land.
The
Morales government's welcoming Cuban doctors is certainly
discomforting to the U.S. imperialists, but Cuba has sent doctors to a
number of poor countries without that leading to any break of these
countries from imperialist domination. So, where is there even a shadow or
an intimation of steps toward the destruction of the bourgeois state,
leading to the formation of a "workers’ and farmers’
government"?
It
may be that Weisleder and Riddell hope that the Constituent Assembly, which
will be elected this month and convene in August, will produce such steps.
But the framework of its election so far seems to be a bourgeois
electoralist one. Representatives will be elected by large districts.
Organizations of toilers and indigenous and poor communities will not be
represented as such.
Morales'
vice president, Alvaro Linera, the inventor of the term "Andean
capitalism," which Comrades Weisleder and Riddell argue is misleading
(presumably believing that it does not mean what it says), is promising
that the Constituent Assembly will leave the bulk of the Bolivian
constitution unchanged.
And
if Morales and the MAS intend to transform the nature of the state or
establish a workers’ and farmers’ government in Bolivia through the
Constituent Assembly, why have they set the rules of its elections in the
traditional bourgeois electoralist framework?
Of
course, there may be surprises when the Constituent Assembly is finally
elected and when it begins to make decisions. The political climate in
Bolivia following two near insurrections in the last four years is quite
volatile. In fact, when Morales failed to nationalize oil and gas
immediately after his election, his approval rating in the polls dropped precipitously,
threatening his control of the Constituent Assembly elections.
This
was a more immediate threat to his government than any threat to Bolivia's
soybean exports. In fact, the demand for soybeans on the international
market is very strong. That in part explains why less land has been
distributed to the peasants under the Lula government in Brazil than under
its neoliberal predecessor. The Brazilian agrarian reform, like the
Bolivian one, is restricted to distributing unused land. And with the increased
demand for soy beans, the landlords now want to use all the available land.
At
this time there is absolutely no indication that Morales intends to take
any "steps toward a workers and farmers government." If, of
course, he or the MAS or the Constituent Assembly propose any steps to
begin to dismantle the bourgeois state, Socialist Action (U.S.) will
certainly defend them. But we will continue to analyze the process of
radicalization critically, looking at both its advances and limitations.
The
central question remains: Is Morales pursuing a revolutionary strategy? If
he is, there is no way he can conceal it. By the same token, efforts to
attribute revolutionary intentions to leaderships or governments that do
not merit them have a very bad history. They can amount to an apology for
reformism, and can serve to mis-educate and disorient revolutionary cadre,
both inside Bolivia and internationally.
Riddell
and Weisleder state, "And the government is only now forging unity
with the mass movements that brought it to power." To be accurate,
Morales and his party did not participate in the struggles led by the mass
organizations that began to challenge bourgeois power, and now that Morales
and the MAS have governmental power, they are trying to take them over!
In
regard to the Cuban government's favorable response to Morales' victory and
his nationalist turn, it is clear that this event has offered the besieged
Cuban Revolution more breathing space—and we rejoice with the Cuban leaders
for that. But the Cubans also understand that while they must take full
advantage of every new opening, only new socialist revolutions will relieve
their isolation and the inevitable pressures they face at home. That is
qualitatively more important than any immediate diplomatic gain or the
scoring of political points on the international level.
Weisleder
and Riddell correctly quote Maurice Bishop's well-worn maxim, "The
revolution is not a cup of instant coffee." But necessary
"maneuvers" aside, neither can a revolution succeed without
satisfying the basic needs of the masses and without their active
participation as history's agents.
Riddell
and Weisleder diverge with us further when they assert that “the Bolivian
upsurge is not in the first instance a movement for socialism. It is a
struggle for democracy and sovereignty on the part of a nation brutally
oppressed by imperialism.
“The
dominant characteristic of this struggle has been the efforts of Bolivia's
long-marginalized indigenous majority to achieve full citizenship and to
refound the nation on the basis of respect for indigenous people's culture
and economy.”
To
the contrary, the Bolivian masses rose to challenge their bourgeois
government's selling water rights to imperialist corporations and again to
demand the nationalization of the natural gas resources of the country.
They formed workers’ assemblies and recalled the revolutionary experience
of Bolivia's heroic trade-union movement led by the tin miners, heavily
influenced by Trotskyism, when the working class vanguard reached a stage
of near insurrection in the 1950s.
Riddell
and Weisleder come dangerously close to counterposing to Trotsky's theory
of permanent revolution the so-called two-stage theory of revolutionary
development, wherein the backwardness of Bolivia is posited as precluding a
path of socialist development. We prefer the course of the Cubans, who
quickly came to understand that their revolution would either proceed to
the abolition of capitalist property or there would be no revolution at
all.
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