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A Balance Sheet of Bolivia’s ‘Rehearsal for a Revolution’
The following article is from the July issue of Socialismo
o Barbaridad, the international magazine of the Argentine Movimiento al
Socialismo (MAS), one of the principal Trotskyist organizations in the
Southern Cone of Latin America. In
our previous issue, we reported that the mass uprising in May and June in
Bolivia had been marked by calls for establishing a government based on the
organizations of the masses. This struggle, however, ended with the installation
of another bourgeois “caretaker” government, this time headed by Eduardo Rodriguez,
chief justice of the Bolivian Supreme Court. The following article analyzes the situation since the end of
the mass struggle from the standpoint of revolutionists in a neighboring
country. It has been somewhat abridged for space reasons. Translation from the
Spanish is by Socialist Action.
by Roberto Saenz
Bolivia has gone through a general rehearsal of revolution. Day by
day, in greater and greater numbers, the masses took over the streets in La
Paz
and El Alto, but also in Cochabamba, Oruro, Sucre, and Potosi—giving
their movement a national scope. The quasi-insurrectional features that
appeared in the last days were demonstrated by the setting up of embryonic
forms of an alternative power to the formal state institutions.
[Interim President Eduardo] Rodriguez has made a point of saying
that the demands for nationalizing the petroleum resources and for a
constituent assembly will have to wait for the “new president.” But it is unlikely
that the masses will wait until then, despite the work of Evo Morales, who
has tried time and time again to entrap the process in the discredited constitutional
channels, undermining the mass movement.
And despite also the truce granted by the leaderships of the COB
[Bolivian Labor Confederation], Fejuve [Federation of Neighborhood Councils
of El Alto], and the COR [Regional Labor Confederation of El Alto]. It is the time for balance sheets. The
prevailing feeling is that “nothing was gained,” and “we went out for
[nationalization of] the gas and not for a mere change of presidents.” There
is a certain frustration. But at
the same time, in these few weeks, the working people gained a new feeling
of their tremendous power.
From organizations such as the Gas Coordinating Committee1 headed by
Oscar Olivera, they are trying to put over a different balance sheet. They
talk about a “triumph,” and how a “blood bath” was avoided, because that is
what Hormando Vaca Diez [parliamentary representative of the reactionary
land barons of eastern Bolivia] taking the presidency would have meant.
However, it is absolutely clear that the bourgeoisie did not dare to
unleash a mass repression (to test its forces in an open clash with the
masses). And so that argument cannot hide the fact that the objective of the
mobilization was not a mere “change of personalities” through the
mechanisms of the democracy of the rich but to get the nationalization of
the gas:
“Bolivia seems to be approaching a complete collapse. The violent protests, the social split
between the ‘whites’ and the peasants—and between the East and West—and the
complete impotence of the Congress have been compounded most recently by
blockades of roads threatening to create shortages in the cities. More than
60 percent of the roads are impassible, and the situation is getting worse
hourly….
“From the early hours of the morning, the climate in this city
seemed strange. A city that is more and more a ‘pedestrian town’ was
paralyzed since dawn, as the 48-hour strike called by the transport unions
went into effect….
“Toward the evening, the marches of peasants, indigenous people,
students, and unions seemed to stretch throughout La Paz and El Alto. The
legislators
could not achieve a consensus. ... As we go to press, exploding
dynamite sticks are again shattering the cold La Paz night. A difficult
night has started for Bolivia.”2
As we have been pointing out, what happened in Bolivia was a real
dress rehearsal of a revolution. Anyone who is unable to understand and
draw the lessons of the social experience that has just occurred before our
eyes will irremediably lose sight of one of the richest and most intense
expressions of class struggle in recent decades.
Of course, between a “dress rehearsal” and a real social revolution,
there are a series of major and acute problems that have to be solved. They
may block
new “dress rehearsals” from becoming an outright revolution. And the
tremendous paradox that for the time being the result of these
revolutionary days is a miserable snap election is not a minor fact. As is well known, for the principled
Russian revolutionists of the 20th century, the 1905 Revolution was an
“anticipation” of the two revolutions in 1917. It posed all the questions
and debates about strategy.
But what I want to stress here is what was indicated about the
social, political, and organizational forces that prefigure the way a real
revolution could develop in Bolivia in the conditions of the early 21st
century. In order to be victorious, such a revolution would require a series
of decisive “subjective” conditions that remain totally absent and that it
is necessary to work to achieve.
A new element in these recent revolutionary days is that for the
first time in years, bourgeois democracy was threatened with being
outflanked both from the right and the left. The Santa Cruz bourgeoisie and
the imperialists in fact hesitated to put Hormando Vaca Diez in the
presidency in order to unleash a
“legal” blood bath to suppress the mass movement and impose an outright
turn to Bonapartism.3
They did not dare do it. The ruling classes were not united. It
would have been hard for the army to withstand the pressure of a direct
confrontation on
that scale. In El Alto, it might have meant house-to-house fighting.
The fact that some sectors of the ruling class did have the
perspective of avoiding head-on confrontation is shown by the statements of
the president of the Confederation of Private Sector Employers, himself, the
majority sector that was for an “constitutional solution”: “Let whoever
assumes the presidency commit himself to holding elections. If one of the
candidates
means more blood and confrontation, he has to put his hand on his
breast and resign.” 4
If a massive repression had been unleashed, and the masses in the
streets—and in particular in the El Alto Commune—had fought back, the
situation would have risked an overwhelming tide from the left.
The popular masses and the workers in El Alto, joined by the urban
and rural teachers, important contingents of miners, factory workers, and
sections of the peasantry, with more and more road blockades, were moving
into what in practice was a semi-insurrectional process. That is, they were
on the way to setting up embryonic expressions of dual power that
threatened to outflank institutions from the left.
In this regard, a right-wing journalist commented: “Social actions
may be indirect or direct. … If it is successful, if it is not contained,
direct action
becomes contagious. When it is seen that a sector is more
‘effective’ working outside the legal order, other sections will imitate
it. And then, direct
actions may become an epidemic. … As George Sorel advised, Evo Morales
is appealing the method of revolutionary mobilizations.5
“As Lenin demonstrated in Russia in 1917, the myth of the
revolutionary strike is an unviable principle but it may prove viable if two
conditions are present. The first is a generalized political crisis. The
other is the failure of the state to apply the law. … The failure of a
democratic state to use the legal force at its disposal against unleashed
violence is an enigma of our time, which is not limited to Bolivia or Ecuador,
but which has come home to us….
“Our presidents preferred to lose power rather than confront the
demonstrators. They prevented a blood bath, but they also weakened the
authority of the democratic state.”6
Of course this “enigma” is not so mysterious. It is a result of
conditions in which the relationship of forces does not permit a solution
“by force“;
conditions in which the rulers have to accept the presence of the
masses in the street and their struggle with their methods of direct action
while they try to take advantage of their “subjective” weaknesses—that is,
the fact that the masses are still going through a crisis of seeking alternatives, a party, a
leadership:
“There is another parallel conflict—the demand for a so-called
referendum on autonomy pushed by the most conservative elites in the east
and south. While in January the landowners and businessmen in the east demobilized
the population with Mesa’s promise to authorize direct election of
provincial governors, today it is clear that a referendum that approves ‘economic
autonomy’ would establish ‘regional authority for deciding on the natural
resources.’ “This means that every province could decide to impose its own
regulations. And the elites that are promoting these autonomy schemes are
the most determined defenders of
continuing to sell the gas and petroleum
as is now being done.”8
Bolivia is going through an exceptional national crisis. What do we
mean by this definition? It is a crisis of such a scope that it cannot be
called simply
economic, political, or constitutional but one in which the national
unity of the country is at stake. Behind
the demand for autonomy is a rancid racist
oligarchy that identifies less and less with Bolivia as it is today
and has very strong separatist tendencies:
“Here in Santa Cruz the situation is … the center of the right-wing
operations. The bourgeoisie here is the most retrograde and fascist. During
the conflict,
groups of the Union Juvenil Cruzenista (which normally operates in
the cities) took up arms in the villages near the blockades. At the doors
of the high schools, they were paying every boy who went to break the blockades
(that is, beat up the peasants) 100 bolivars (12 dollars).
“It should be pointed out that the movement in the area … is mainly
indigenous and peasant, but the city of Santa Cruz, the capital, has been
taken by reaction. So, the
conflicts were mainly rural; they wanted to promote clashes between the
people in the urban areas and those in the rural areas.
“In the area where I work, there were sharp confrontations, in which
there were casualties on both sides. But in other areas, people from the
urban
centers did not dare go out against the peasants, no matter how much money they were offered. “The Union Juvenil Cruzenista is a group
of more or less paramilitaries formed by the neo-Nazis. They are extremely
racist, and play up the idea of a Santa Cruz nation, claiming, ‘we are a different race and a better one
than all that trash.”8
It is not every day that a situation reaches the point when the
national unity of a country is in question and when movements develop with
openly fascist
characteristics (embryonic but very real). This is another
expression of the fact that the situation is breaking out of the framework
of bourgeois democracy, and of the extreme degree of social and political polarization
the country is experiencing.
Historical analogies should be taken with caution when we analyze
social processes and class struggles that always have their specific
features. With this caveat, they can be used illustratively. In this sense,
it can be said that Bolivia at the beginning of the 21st century
has a series of characteristics that can be compared to the revolutionary
process in Spain in the 1930s.
It is clear that Bolivia has not reached such an extreme (nor is it
certain that it will), but this can also not be ruled out. That is, in the
conditions of a country geographically, socially, and politically polarized,
it is not impossible that the seeds or elements of civil war that appeared
in the last weeks may develop fully. This is the result of the open crisis
of rule and national unity that is dividing the ruling class itself, as
well as the eruption of a mass movement with revolutionary potential, in
particular in the western part of the country.
We have pointed out on other occasions the “geographical uncertainty
of power,” given the crisis and breakdown of the Bolivian bourgeoisie
state, with its epicenter in El Alto [in the west], while the ”modern”
economic axis has shifted to the east [where the oil and gas are].
We stress that the situation has not yet reached this extreme. The
decisive political and social forces of the ruling class are opposed to
this scenario, as is also true of Yankee imperialism (which nonetheless has
a clear crisis of orientation for the region), of the present governments
in Brazil and Argentina, and the Bolivian army itself (whose raison d’etre
is to defend
the unity of the country), of the Church, and so on.
For the immediate future, the fight is against the renewed “normal”
constitutional trap, the attempt to channel the whole process through snap
elections, a road that will not lead to the real solution of any of the
problems. It will only put them off, and, the rulers hope, put the masses
to sleep.
This fight is also against the stabilizing role of the MAS
[ironically Morales’ party has the same name as Saenz’s party, although it
has nothing to do with
socialism] and Evo Morales, who are constantly striving to isolate
the more radicalized sectors in El Alto and La Paz.
A power vacuum has appeared, even in the mouths of the various
leaders, beyond their lack of a real political will to resolve this problem.
Here we see a classical problem. Immense mobilizations of the masses by themselves
cannot pose the question of taking power in a “spontaneous way.” Taking
power is a science and an art that demands planning and organization.
Without this, talking about “workers and peasants” power, as do Jaime Solares
of the COB [Bolivian Workers Confederation] and Abel Mamani of Fejuve, is
pure hot air.
The reflections of those who know these leaders well are
interesting: “This third alternative (workers’ and peasants’ power) runs up
against serious problems both in the political and ideological field, as
well as in organization. Up until now, the verbal radicalization of the
leaders has not led to any unified and coordinated work to develop the
potential and consolidate the seeds of people’s power that have emerged
spontaneously….
“This can be key to their defeat. We have not seen either any signs
of revolutionary work to divide or neutralize the police and the army.
There is no talk of arms and insurrection. There is no united revolutionary
leadership. In many sectors … there is an unfounded confidence that
gigantic mobilizations
are sufficient to defeat the bourgeoisie. Others put their
confidence in elections, and many still believe that the solution proposed
by the MAS … is the surest.”9
Without really posing the tasks involved in the seizure of power, or
taking up the democratic demands of the masses (which have been left,
criminally, in
the hands of the MAS), the “leftist” boasting of Solares cannot
solve the question of power or achieve the organizational and political
conditions for taking it. That is, it cannot develop the embryonic forms of
alternative power, taking up the democratic banners of the broad masses, to
be able to draw these masses beyond the most advanced contingents of the
workers and poor.
It is these conditions that explain the paradox that the
revolutionary days reached such heights but led only to the calling of a
snap election. Undoubtedly, the Rodriguez government is much weaker in
taking
office than [the ousted president] Mesa was. It has a mandate of
only six months.
It is also clear that the first attempt at a bourgeois-democratic reabsorption
of the revolutionary process failed with Carlos Mesa. Today, the bourgeoisie
is resorting not simply to another president but to calling general
elections.
In any case, we have to offer a double explanation for the second
attempt to divert the process through bourgeois-democratic channels. On the one hand, there is the
role of the MAS, which is today virtually the only national party in
Bolivia, and which, in general terms, is seen by the masses (especially by
the peasants and indigenous) as the incarnation of their
aspirations.
The more radical leaderships, both in the COB and Indian nationalist
party of Quispe, have been unable to offer any coherent alternative to the
clearly
electoralist project of the MAS. At the same time, the MAS has been
able to exploit the genuine democratic sentiments of the indigenous masses,
who aspire to make their numbers count, as in elections.
This is the basic explanation of the paradox we have been pointing
out, and which has to be resolved in order for Bolivia to become a historic
lever of class struggle. This involves the task of building a new revolutionary
socialist party made up the most experienced and advanced of the present vanguard in an arduous
political and strategic struggle against the dominant leaderships of the
indigenous movements and the COB.
1
The recent statement of the Coordinadora del Gas, led by Oscar Olivera, who
is close to the MAS.
2
La Nación, Buenos Aires, June 3, 2005.
3
That is, resorting to a regime that balances between the classes on the basis
of the armed forces and police.
4
"Tres fuerzas se disputan el poder en Bolivia," Econoticias
bolivia, June 8, 2005.
5
Of course, it was not only Morales who appealed to “the method of revolutionary
mobilization” but also the mass organizations in El Alto and La Paz.
Morales’
tragedy
is that although he is a total reformist, the imperialists still see him
almost as a “Commie.”
6
Mariano Grondona in La Nación, Buenos Aires, June 12, 2005
7
"Las piezas de un rompecabezas", Bolpress, May 27, 2005
8
An anonymous account of a young man in Santa Cruz.
9
Econoticias bolivia, June 8, 2005.
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