TOWARD NEW REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES 1
Bolivia Last March a trial of strength took place between the Siles government and the workers of the mining regions? Since then, tollowing on the retreat that the miners' combativity forced Siles to carry out, political tension in the country has never stopped mounting. It foretells new struggles which, because of the extensiveness they will doubtless take on, and the central questions that they will have to settle, will be perhaps decisive for the fate of the Bolivian revolution begun in April 1952. brought the great Bolivian masses together around the MNR government, considered as the leader of the revolution. At a Ped by parades took a at he samn tontors, of the
COB, the other by Lechín, leader of the Miners' Federation and representing the "left" wing among the trade-union tops. At the official parade practically nothing happened; there was not even a speech by President Siles. A large number of the workers who took part in it hastened, after the ceremony in tront of the Presidential Palace, to the quarter where the meeting called by Lechín was being held. They wanted to demonstrate thereby their determination to maintain class unity and their distrust of the MR government. The meeting called by Lechin seemed to have been organized with a concern for preventing its being too intense. But the presence of miners from San José and elsewhere, and of their militias, made the pent-up enthusiasm of the demonstrators burst out. This was then further stimulated by the speeches of Lechin and of Mario Torres, his companion in tendency and in the leadership, which criticized Siles's economic policy, came out for a raise in wages, and condemned the "farce" that the MNR-COB co-government had been. But far-and-away the most important of all the parades which this year celebrated May Day in Bolivia was that which took place in Oruro, in the heart of the mining region, the scene of great revolutionary struggles. It had been organized by the Oruro Vigilance Committee, the name under which the regional strike committee formed during the March events continues to carry on leading activity very close to that of a genuine organ of workers' power. Miners and militias from San José, Santa Fé, Machacamarca, Mocoya, and Caracoles, together with railwaymen, metalworkers, construction-workers, and others, marched by, their backs turned toward the country's leaders to express their firm determination to put a stop to the reactionary policy of the Siles government. In the words of a press that is always ready to simplify things, the speeches made at Oruro, as well as the demonstration itself, were just plain "Trotskyism." Meanwhile, the crisis within the MNR is raging and continues to imperil the government itself, wherein the Cuadros Quiroga tendency persists in seeing the possibility only of strong measures to restore in the country that social stability desired by American imperialism. In the hope of restoring the unity of the MR and of calming if possible the "intransigences" revealed in all political and social circles of the country, an appeal was made to ex1 For full background on the economic and political situation in Bolivia, cf "From the Present Crisis to the Workers' and Peasants' Government,"
See Fourth International, Spring 1958 issue.
President Paz: Estenssoro, then ambassador at London. Paz unquestionably arouses much sympathy among wide sectors of the toilers. He knew how to withdraw in time from the political arena, with his "Jacobin" past intact. But times have changed, and this method of resorting to the more or less legendary past of "providential" men in order to confront an otherwise changed present and influence the immediate future, will prove as ineffective in Bolivia as elsewhere. Paz Estenssoro's arrival-followed by the embrace between Lechín and Siles given in public on the advice and in the presence of the ex-President playing the old paternalist— far from having brought about any easing of social tension in the country, exacerbated passions, spurred the sigence of both sides, and has resuscitated to political life groups that intend to have a say in the solution of the crisis. For the moment Paz Estenssoro has revealed nothing his projects. Yet he finds himself besieged by workers' delegations whose lists of demands he keeps so as to study them. In short, he is listening to everybody and satisfying nobody. It is believed, solution of the crisis without the coöperation of the United States. A return to an MNR-COB government seems to have been considered. But the prior questions and the preconditions posed by Cuadros Quiroga's crowd in this matter are of a sort to render it impossible. It is indiscutable that a return of Lechin & Co to government functions would be viable only on the basis of a left reorientation, against which the rosca and, so far, Washington, rise up more arrogantly Besides, a new experiment of an MR-COB government is received very coldly by the working class as a whole ; it has even been rejected by the majority of the miners, who furthermore bluntly condemned, despite Lechin's explanations, his embracing Siles. The tone of the miners' attitude toward the situation was given by the regional conference they held at Catavi in May, to prepare the IXth National Congress of the FSTMB, the call for which is being awaited. There were present at Catavi the delegates of twelve unions, including those of Siglo XX, San José, Catavi, Pulacayo, Potosí, and Caracoles. If the highly political and revolutionary level at which the debates of the Catavi conference took place should be successfully maintained at the next National Congress, thus putting a stop to the powerless policy of Lechín & Co, then the relationship of forces in the country would be substantially changed in favor of the working class, and the high road would be opened to the Bolivian revolution. One of the points discussed at the Catavi Conference concerned the attitude of the miners toward the elections that the Siles government has announced for June.
Siles's intentions, this electoral consultation is doubtless aimed at satisfying the MNR "left," disturbed by the unknowns of the present situation. It is not excluded, however, that at the last minute the elections be called off as a result of some "plot" or other, "discovered" in time by the government. The miners' delegates to the Catavi Conference came out in favor of their National Federation-as it had decided at its previous congress- presenting candidates, after having obtained a change in the election law which up till
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL now denies this political right to the trade unions. But in case that the change in this law should be refused by the authorities, the miners have considered the possibility of setting up electoral fronts with the workers' parties for the presentation of FSTMB candidates. The coming weeks threaten to be very agitated in Bolivia. The arrival of Paz Estenssoro, to the degree that the exPresident will certainly not succeed by backstage negotiations or public embraces in dominating a polarization of forces worked upon by deep currents in society, will have served only to bring closer the deadline of a new trial of strength exceeding in scope and in aim all those experienced heretofore. The events of last March, with the setting up of the Region-
65 al Strike Committee at Oruro, and the appeal of the miners' radio-stations of the district, have revealed that the situation • ot dual power is still not wiped out in Bolivia despite ebb of the April revolution. Hidden from time to buried under the conciliatory policy of the labor leaders, it reappears at each new serious struggle and more and more drives the opposing camps to eliminate each other.
The coming combats will bring the question of setting up a
Bolivian workers' and peasants' government out of the field of ideas and set it up in that of reality.
The POR (Bolivian Section of the Fourth International)
which has never ceased to point this way. out to masses, is preparing with all its strength to bring this about.
BULLETIN
As this issue goes to press, we receive the heartening news that Comrades Hugo González Moscoso and Victor Villegas,
• leaders of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, who had been more taken up their party activity.
expelled from the country by the Siles government at the time of the miners' strike, have returned to Bolivia and once
Ceylon