[The following is taken from the October 3 issue of International Viewpoint, a fortnightly journal published in Paris under the auspices of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. The footnote is from the original.]
On July 2 and 3, 1983, a unification congress of the POR-Combate (Revolutionary Workers Party - Bolivian section of the Fourth International) and Vanguardia Comunista del POR (Communist Vanguard of the POR) took place. The new organization has taken the name of POR-Unificado. The first issue, in July, of the newspaper of the new organization, called Bandera Socialista, was entirely given over to the analysis of the congress. The unification has come after four years of discussion and joint activity between the two organizations.
The congress took place in the headquarters of Radio Nueva América, which broadcast the first hour of the proceedings. There were 150 delegates present: miners, workers, peasants, teachers, and students, coming from La Paz, Huanuni, Siglo XX, Potosí, Oruro, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Escoma, and San José.
Fraternal greetings were given by a representative of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International and the PRT (Revolutionary Workers Party), Mexican section of the Fourth International. Representatives of Bolivian organizations, the PRIN (Revolutionary Party of the Nationalist Left) and the Revolutionary Front of the Left (FRI), and a leader of the Bolivian Workers Confederation (COB) also addressed the conference.
In his address, the representative of the PRIN, who brought the greetings of Juan Lechín to the congress, stated that "our presence is neither casual nor just for form... We are realistic and modest, but the PRIN undertakes to take an active part in the programmatic unity of the left."
The FRI delegate declared that "cogovernment* requires a powerful instrument that the left forces must create... The working class needs a driving force, and a first step towards this has been taken here." Comrade Karina spoke to the conference on behalf of the revolutionary women of the POR-Combate to highlight the important role of organized women in the revolutionary process.
After the opening contribution by Victor Sosa, leader of the former VC del POR, the longtime Bolivian Trotskyist leader Hugo González Moscoso, member of the former POR-Combate, opened the debate of the unification congress. At the end of this contribution he stated that it is necessary to pose the question of power for the popular masses through "their own organizations, through the Bolivian Workers Confederation, a people's assembly, a workers and peasants parliament."
A presidium of six union leaders including Felipe Vázquez and Augusto León, miners' leaders from Huanuni and Siglo XX, organized the discussion, which concluded by adopting the general line of the program, the statutes, and the political resolution for POR- Unificado. It was also decided to maintain the new organization as the Bolivian section of the Fourth International. A central committee of 17 full members and two alternates was elected.
The political resolution, extracts of which are published in Bandera Socialista No. 1, outlines the way in which the austerity policy carried out by the Democratic People's Union (UDP) government and the pressure of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sharpen the antiworker measures being taken and underlines the weakness of the UDP governmental coalition, shaken by numerous internal crises.
The document looks finally at the most recent workers' actions, the occupation of COMIBOL by the miners, and the appeal by the second congress of the Single Confederation of Rural Workers in favor of a cogovernment between the COB, the CSUTCB, and the UDP. These events allow the comrades to affirm that "the workers are not defeated."
The POR-Unificado proposes to launch a national campaign against the austerity policy of the UDP government on the following lines: "Against the economic measures that the IMF wishes to impose. For the rejection of the foreign debt. Against unemployment and for the right to work. For the minimum living wage and sliding scale of wages. For the workers, through the COB, to revise and determine the price rises of necessary articles. For the workers to decide the rate of production. For workers majority comanagement in state enterprises and for workers control and their right of veto in private enterprises."
The other axis of the political work of the POR-Unificado will be the fight for "the constitution of a united front of the workers parties and people's organizations around the COB, concentrated on the need to deepen the present democratic process and prevent a fascist coup d'etat."
*The COB has recently proposed to the UDP government a cogovernment formula, along the lines of the workers majority comanagement in the mines.