Manifesto of the IXth Plenum of the Central
Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario
(Bolivian Section of the Fourth International)
LET US ORGANIZE THE WORKERS' LEADERSHIP
OF THE BOLIVIAN REVOLUTION
To All Who Labor!
In the present situation of stagnation in the conquests of the revolution and of capitulation of the Lechinist leadership of the workers' movement, the MN R government and mperialism are keeping up their offensive against the poitions and gains of the toilers, and are preparing new blows against the Bolivian revolution.
in the price and demand for tin in the world market has meant a relative improvement in the economic situation of the country, but this has not had the slightest repercussion on raising the living levels of the toiling population, but is used by the government as a basis for its offensive against the worker, peasant, class masses. nomic problems of the country has been solved, nor can be under the present regime, and the basic economic situation continues to precarious and with no way out. Not only have the fantastic promises about oil, made by Siles
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FOURTH INTERNATIONAL two years ago, not been fulfilled, but the imperialist trusts have not pumped up, and are not for the moment thinking of pumping up, a single drop of oil, while they are — with the collaboration of the government — gradually strangling the Y PF B in order to remain the absolute masters of the THE GOUERNMENT OFFENSIVE
The government feels helpless to find any fundamental solution for saving capitalism other than the liquidation of the basic conquests of the revolution. But it also feels its own weakness in face of the resistance of the workers and peasants, and advances toward its goal by stages. is profiting by the relative reanimation of the tin market for this advance by stages. Therefore, after having its way in the first assault against the mine commissaries, it is now making a pause before setting out on the definitive unfreezing of prices. It is the same with the closing down of mines: after the closure of Pulacayo, it has for the moment desisted from closing down other enterprises. And similarly with the discharge of factory-workers, suppression of social security, etc.
But these pauses indicate only that the government feels too weak to impose imperialism's plans on the country at one fell blow, and nowise that it has given up such plans. It is thus keeping wages frozen, and is preparing new attacks against the commissaries, workers' control, trade-union radio stations, etc.
The Lechinist workers' leadership, however, instead of profiting by this weakness of the government in order to strengthen the position of the masses, is thinking only of negotiating a capitulation and of covering up manent retreat in which it has been leading the workers' movement since the IInd Congress of the COB. PAZ ESTENSSORO AND THE MNR LEFT
It is on this dual basis that Paz Estenssoro is staking his attempt to win back positions for his party capitalist government: on the one hand, on the improved prices for tin which diminish the pressures on the government and allow it to extend the time-limit for completely unfreezing commissary closing mines, etc; on the capitulation of the Lechinist trade-union leadership, which has given up the struggle to fight for the improvement of the masses
Bolivia is indirectly receiving powerful support from the sustained rise of the throughout Latin from the successes of the Cuban revolution, and from the - weakening of imperialism. But Paz Estenssoro is using this, not to advance the revolution, but to negotiate the sellout to imperialism on better terms.
One of the pillars of this manoeuvre of the MN R, aimed at momentarily winning back positions in order to use them as a base to launch a new assault against the conquests of the masses, is the MN R left itself. This left has renounced any independent perspective and has capitulated in fact and in programme to Silism. It is now playing the game that Siles requires, covering with its "left" phrases the attempt to reorganize the MN R in the working centres and in the mines, and trying to reorganize or strengthen the comandos, those eternal spearheads against the trade unions and the workers. This is so obvious, that the membership application blanks of the left sector were printed by the government (which authorizes and encourages the left), and in many places it is well-known Silists who are acting as organizers and recruiters for this "left."
THE PEASANT SITUATION
The government is also trying to ensure itself positions in the countryside and to hold back the growing discontent
The Lechinist labor leadership has paralyzed any action toward the rural regions, has desisted from setting itself up as the workers'
77 centre that the peasants are seeking and waiting for, so as to fight to carry forward the agrarian their living levels, guaranteeing the division and real possession of the land. Here also, in this betrayal, Pazestenssorism is trying to present itself as a hope and a pole of attraction for the peasants. Paz Estenssoro is speculating on the peasants' intense longing to find a leadership that pays attention to their problems and solves them, and is trying to go on keeping the peasants in bounds by refreshing their confidence in the MN R, discredited by so many
This is the goal of the propaganda around the new distribution of deeds to land, tours through the rural regions, the activity of Rojas, etc. But this manoeuvre can reach a momentary and relatively high pitch only because of the betrayal of Lechinism. The appearance workers' leadership which raises in the rural regions the programme of the revolution and of the worker-peasant alliance, will receive peasant support, which is now neled, although amid much distrust, in Pazestenssorism. THE CAPITULATION OF LECHINISM
What emerges with complete clarity from the present basis lies, not in the government's strength (which is highly relative) or in that of imperialism (which received a terrible blow on April 19th and is losing ground in all Latin America). It lies in the capitulation and retreat of the Lechinist labor leadership, is trying to keep the workers' and peasants' paralyzed, divided, and subjected to the MN R.
This capitulation reflects the bourgeois, capitalist, formist conceptions and programme of this which lacks an independent workers' programme and way out, and sees no solution other than the maintenance of the MN R in power, although the MNR is today the enemy no 1 of the revolution and the workers. This leadership, in refusing to struggle and to organize the workers' struggle for their own solution, which is (as opposed to the capitalist government) the workers' and peasants' government, has no other remedy than to capitulate and render to Silism, selling out strikes and gains, as it does in every fundamental problem.
But this Lechnist leadership, owing to its constant sell-outs and betrayals, is in crisis, and has more and more rapidly lost its prestige and authority with the toilers. maintain itself and keep its hold over them, it has had to resort to alliances with the repudiated "reestructadores" [trade-union "reorganizers"], as it did with the railway. men and at Telamayu. But this only speeds up its crisis and decomposition.
Nevertheless, Lechinism keeps controlling the labor novement, especially because there has not emerged as yet ınother staff of workers' leaders on the national scale that offers an alternative choice to the workers for their reTHE EMERGENCE OF A NEW WORKERS' LEADERSHIP
The emergence of this new workers' leadership is thus the key to the situation and to any new advance of the revolution to overcome the present stagnation, seize the initiative from capitalism, and defeat the government's offensive.
Therefore Siles, Paz Estenssoro, Lechín, and the MN R, together with their manoeuvre to win back certain positions for the MN R, are concentrating all their fire against he possibility that such a new leadership be organized an‹ merge. Hence the attempts to expel the militants of the
POR from the mines (which the workers defeated), the repressions and imprisonments of POR leaders and militants, etc. The government and imperialism see in the POR the centre that can lead and organize the new revolutionary workers' leadership, and see the growing echo of its activity among the workers.
The activity and programme of the POR nevertheless
obtain this echo, because they respond to a need that is making its way among the worker and peasant vanguard and among ever broader layers of the toiling masses! need for a new revolutionary leadership. trend toward a new leadership is making its way in the most advanced workers' centres, where the experience of Lechinism's treason is most evident. In San José, in Siglo XX - Catavi, in the railway centres, the struggle has begun. In Huanuni, the workers repudiated Celestino and his reestructadores, and, together with them, Lechinist allies, and are demanding a new leadership. In the valley of Cochabamba, peasant discontent with the bureaucratic leadership of Rojas, entrenched in Ucureña, is being shown by the growing prestige of other centres of leadership, such as that set up at Ana Rancho.
This struggle for a new leadership, headed by the mining centres, has begun amid a temporary ebb in the struggles for demands in those sectors: the toilers, at the time of the latest blows and defeats (eg, the commissaries) due to the old leadership, do not want to hurl themselves into the fight while they still have those leaders in whom they feel no confidence. But at the same time there is building up a new wave of struggles in other sectors, such as school-teachers, which has already found an echo among the telegraphers, building workers, railwaymen, and others. ORGANIZE A NEW LEADERSHIP WITH A WORKERS' PROGRAMME
In this situation, the central task for the worker and peasant vanguard is to overcome the brake of the Lechinist leadership, and organize the new revolutionary leadership of the workers' and peasants' movement that the toilers need. The struggle for this new leadership is bound up with the struggle for the defense of the conquests of the revolution and for the demands of the toilers.
This new leadership, independent of the MNR (in any of its wings whatever) and of any bourgeois party and policy, must regroup itself around a programme of transitional demands to improve the situation of the masses, reorganize the workers' movement, defend its conquests, and carry forward the revolution.
The crisis of the Lechinist leadership, and the manoeuvres of the M. N R and the government in the rural regions, tend to undermine and weaken the worker-peasant alliance, the main support of the revolution. The new workers' leadership must include the worker-peasant alliance as a fundamental point in its programme and in its struggle. The mining centres and the railway workers, who are today at the head of this struggle for new leadership, must from now on develop this alliance, supported by and supporting the peasants in their zones, and be strengthened by this support against the attacks of the government and the manoeuvres of the top union bureaucracy.
The emergence of a new workers' leadership is not a process that goes in a straight line and simultaneously everywhere. It is already begun, and will advance first in certain
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL centres and trade unions, to spread from there to the national tederations and confederations. But it is a process that does not turn back, and that will speed up, with the crisis of Lechinism, the new struggles of the masses. APPEAL OF THE PARTIDO OBRERO REVOLUCIONARIO
In every factory, workers neighborhood, mining district, railway centre, big estate, peasant centre, worker or peasant union, the PUR calls on the vanguard workers to organize an independent revolutionary way out, to set up and raise to leadership a new staff of revolutonary leaders with a programme of defense of the conquests and advances of the revolution. Comrade toilers of the mines, the cities, and the countryside:
The P OR calls on you to organize the new worker and peasant leadership, with this programme of struggle: an immediate and general raise in wages; against unemployment and the shutting down of enterprises; against the untreezing of prices in the mining commissaries; complete distribution of the land and the deeds thereto, and for the fulfillment of the agrarian reform; for trade-union democracy; for the defense of the trade unions radio stations; for the defense of workers' control; for the development of workers' and peasants' militias; for the defense of the Y PF B and against the imperialist oil-trusts; Wor acceptances ofor the and asion or the imperialists and states; for the expulsion of the imperialists and their agents from the country; for expropriation without indemnization of the railways, and their administration by the workers; for the reorganization of the Comibol under administration; for a workers' plan of economic development; for a regroupment and reorganization of the labor movement in a. Special Congress Obrera Boliviana, to impose workers' solutions to the problems of the country and the revolution.
The IXth Plenum of the Central Committee of the POR calls on all the toilers to fight for these solutions and this programme, and to strengthen and develop the ranks and the organization of the POR in all places of labor: mining, working, and peasant centres. The POR is the guarantee of the defense of the revolutionary conquests, against the M NR, the rosca, the government, and imperialism; it is the centre for the organization of the new leadership of the workers' movement; and it is the vanguard party carry forward the revolution to the total defeat of imperialism and capitalism and to the government of the toilers, the Workers' and Peasants' Government.
IXth PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE POR Oruro 9 August 1959
THE PROPHET UNARMED
The