BASIS OF WORKERS-PEASANT ALLIANCE
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Bolivia
The development of the situation in' the countryside constitutes one of the fundamental aspects of the Bolivian revolution in 1959. A basic element in the government's control, hitherto, over the countryside has been the conflict between workers and peasants.
This situation is rapidly coming to an end, giving rise to one of the most serious factors in the instability and demoralization of the Siles régime, and opening a new and deeper prospect for the unfolding of the revolution in
The struggle received its initial impetus from the entry into the government at the beginning of 1959 of Vicente Alvarez Plata, "peasant" trade-union bureaucrat, as Minister for Agrarian Affairs. and the rural rank-and-file.
The government then raised to the Ministry José Rojas, biggest leader of the Central de Ucureña and of the National Federation of Peasants and himself a former peasant. With the help of Kojas, bureaucratic peasant trade-union boss in Ucureña, Siles believed he could contain the struggle in the countryside.
But in fact Rojas' elevation acted as a stimulant. For his departure from Ucureña gave the opportunity to his opponents to seize control of the movement there. Thus the translation of Rojas to the administration signified not the end of the struggle but, on the contrary, the beginning of a fresh wave of unrest. This in turn gave rise to fresh lissension within the peasant leadershir between those wanted to extend the struggle and those whose interest lay in a compromise with the Government. Thoroughly alarmed by the situation, Kojas left the Ministry and again plunged into the thick of the faction-fight. His intervention, however, came too late to be of much use to
61 his master, Siles; for by this time he was discredited before everyone except his own personal clique and certain of the most backward elements.
Following the discrediting of Plata and the departure of Rojas, the government introduced a basic change into its agrarian policy. Siles appointed as Minister of Agrarian Affairs a military man, General Pacheco, ex-Minister in the Villarroel government. The general lost no time if condie, are ed top sonditing come raside of the dis of course, solidifying the ranks of the discontented and insurgent peasantry, causing them to seek new allies among other sections of the oppressed
The government now lacked all confidence in the peasant leadership, subjected to tremendously powerful pressure from the rank-and-file. It could • "martyrdom Longer rely, even on the faction of the "doctors" (the of Plata at Atahuallpani symbolizing the decisive repudiation of this group on the part of the embattled peasantry.
Thus began a new period of bloody struggle in the Bolivian countryside, in which the Siles government's only hope lay in the splitting and strike-breaking rôle of its agent in the working-class movement, the treacherous and criminal Lechinist leadership. The gang were set was to carry forward the policy of Paz Estenssoro: to divide the laborers and poor peasants of the countryside from the workers in the towns.
Thanks to the bold leadership of the miners' union and the work of the POR fraction in the COB (trade-union confederation), this design was thwarted. There is increasing realization on all sides, at the end of 1959, that the powerful worker-peasant alliance must be reëstablished on the basis of a program uniting the immediate demands of both sections in struggle. The deepening of the Bolivian revolution into a new phase is now posed: a deepening made necessary for the very preservation of the revolution *
Ceylon