The Meeting of the Popular Assembly
INTRODUCTION
The two articles which we publish were written by two IMG militants in Bolivia and sent to us several weeks ago. Since then the inevitable has happened. Torres has been ousted by a right-wing military coup d'etat and the new regime has unleashed a terror against the entire Bolivian left. Nonetheless the two articles retain their importance, and the description of the Popular Assembly becomes an important text in its own right. The interview with Comrade Moscoso reveals that the Bolivian section of the Fourth International, at any rate, was fully prepared for this eventuality.
While no definite information from our comrades has been received as we go to press, there are certain indications that a unified military command has been set up by the entire left to continue the struggle. Thus the strategy decided by our Bolivian comrades three years ago is vindicated with a vengeance and armed struggle is placed on the order of the day. In this our comrades with their past experience and the ELN (founded by Che Guevara) will play an important part.
In publishing these two articles we at the same time solidarise with our Bolivian comrades and all the victims of imperialist repression. A Bolivia Defence Committee is in the process of being set up. Interested comrades should write to it c/o 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
During ten days in June, the old and long-disused Legislative Palace in the main square of La Paz was occupied by the Popular Assembly, composed of delegates from workers', students' and peasants' organisations and left political parties. They met with the possibility of becoming a Bolivian Soviet or a new bourgeois parliament with which to window dress the Torres military regime.
Only a few feet from the President's Palace, the grandiose building was occupied without hindrance although the previous weeks had been tense with rumours of a pre-emptive coup by right-wing army elements who would replace Torres and kill the Assembly before it began. The coup, though still expected daily, did not occur, despite sporadic fascist bomb outrages and the brief occupation of a radio station the weekend before the Assembly began. In the face of this threat, the COB (Central Obrera Boliviana - Bolivian TUC) and peasants', students' and teachers' organisations decreed a general mobilisation of their members and ordered the formation of armed militias in a state of emergency.
The Assembly started its first session backed by an armed guard of steel-helmeted miners and students and a rigorous search of all who entered which revealed pistols and gas.
What were the origins of this extraordinary event, created by the workers yet 'permitted' by the government, itself incapable of preventing it without unleashing civil war and at the same time hoping to tame it into providing a veneer of legality?
On October 7th, 1970 the right-wing of the army had tried to carry out the expected coup against the Ovando regime, brought to its final crisis by the Teoponte guerilla, just as the Barrientos regime had fallen after the guerilla of Che Guevara. The workers came into the streets, the miners marched on La Paz with guns and dynamite. In a few hours, not only Ovando but four other successive right-wing presidents fell. But the workers did not take power. Instead a Comando Politico was formed by the COB, Juan Lechin and a combination of left parties which included the pro-Moscow CP, the POR-Lora (note: see Glossary for abbreviations and explanations), a sector of the pro-Chinese CP and the MNR. This Comando Politico handed over power to General Torres, basically the most credible alternative the army could produce in a hurry, faced with a popular rising.
It did so after a series of negotiations with Torres, in these an attempt was made to impose as a condition that the COB and the political parties should have half the Ministries in a new cabinet, a solution for which the pro-Soviet CP and Lora voted in the Comando Politico, presumably in the hopes of obtaining Ministries in a Torres government. But this attempt at co-government failed because, although Torres accepted the idea of half shares for the workers, the army didn't; it wanted them to have less. Power was therefore handed to Torres unconditionally, sealing the defeat of the workers' uprising, and the Comando Politico turned its attention to the creation of a Popular Assembly.
The idea of a Popular Assembly arises naturally in Bolivia, with a long history of semi-independent organs of workers' power, beginning with the COB's history of co-government after the 1952 revolution. The question is whether the Popular Assembly, unlike its predecessors will succeed in contributing to the organisation of the independent power of the workers until the point when they actually take state power. In some ways its beginnings were inauspicious. The process of drawing up its statutes was dominated by reformist and even rightist parties, at ease in the bureaucratic ramifications of such a task, including the pro-Soviet CP, the POR-Lora, and even the MNR, which was expelled only later when it was found to be conspiring for a right-wing coup. Attempts were made to keep out any intruders in this situation; Lora, for example, proposed that any party applying to join the Popular Assembly should be obliged to publish a list of 5,000 sympathisers (no matter that the POR-Lora doesn't have 5,000 sympathisers; it was already in); but the motion was defeated on the grounds of security. The fact that the Popular Assembly was created by the Comando Politico, with its history of negotiating the defeat of the workers' uprising with a section of the bourgeois army, meant that some genuinely revolutionary parties and organisations were initially absent from the process; notably the POR-Gonzales, the ELN and the Zamora section of the pro-Chinese CP, although the POR has applied for delegates to the Assembly.
This early history determined the composition of the Assembly's first session. The Assembly is composed of delegates: 132 (60%) for proletarian organisations, 53 for 'middle class' organisations, 23 for peasants' organisations and 11 for the political parties. The political parties were represented by two delegates each for the pro-Moscow CP, the POR-Lora, the PRIN, the pro-Chinese CP and the Revolutionary Christian Democrats, and one for the MR Espartaco. Of these, only the last three had a more or less clear revolutionary line, including support for the armed struggle; and the MIR (composed of the Revolutionary Christian Democrats and the MR Espartaco) has not yet evolved a wholly coherent position and has little base outside the universities. But in addition virtually all the delegates have a specific party allegiance and both the POR-Gonzales and the ELN, although not directly represented as parties, had a fair number of members who were elected as delegates of their unions, the COB, etc. The POR was particularly strong among the peasants' and the flour workers' unions; one of its members was elected as a Second Vice-Chairman of the Assembly defeating a CP-Moscow opponent; and the Zamora sector of the pro-Chinese CP also had many followers among the delegates. Nevertheless, the influence of these organisations suffered from their lack of direct representation as political entities.
Another major anomaly in the composition of the Assembly was the small size of the peasant representation, when the peasants are about two-thirds of the population of Bolivia. The reasons given for this situation were that the Independent Confederation of Bolivian Peasants which is recognised by the COB and therefore was the organisation which had delegates in the Assembly does not have the support of the majority of peasants; and moreover that peasants are 'petty-bourgeois'. But the Independent peasants have a strong and honourable revolutionary tradition, and they are growing and may succeed in breaking the traditional alliance between the army and the old and corrupted official peasant leaderships. Clearly it is correct that in a revolutionary Assembly, the proletariat should have an absolute majority, and the size of the peasant delegation should not be determined by their numerical weight in the population. But peasants can hardly be considered more 'petty-bourgeois' and less important from the point of view of the revolution than the 'middle class' organisations, including journalists, professionals and so on, which have more than twice the number of delegates in the Assembly. The real reason for these disproportions was that the pro-Moscow CP and the POR-Lora have largely ignored the peasants in Bolivia; they have no members in the Independent peasants' confederation, which is dominated by the POR-Gonzales and the pro-Chinese CP, and they do have strength in the urban middle classes.
The 132 delegates described as proletarian included delegates from the COB and 38 delegates from the miners. The delegates from the workers' and other organisations were not by any means all elected from the base of the organisations. In many cases they were appointed by their bureaucracies. For example, a big battle took place in the Assembly itself over the representation of the school-teachers' delegation. The leadership of the union had nominated four delegates from among itself; but the rank and file teachers in La Paz had carried out their own elections and chosen a revolutionary Marxist, Guido Quezada, as their delegate; eventually the CP spokesman of the leadership had to retract and accept Quezada as one of the teachers' delegates. Roughly half of the miners' delegates were not miners at all, but members of the old and putrefied bureaucracy, dominated by the pro-Moscow CP and the POR-Lora, while the delegates elected from the base, the peasants, the four university delegates and some others, for example most members of the MIR would vote on the revolutionary side.
The Popular Assembly, which also has regional bodies, aroused very great expectations among workers and equally great fears on the right, as was clear from the constant rumours of pre-emptive coups. But, in practice, in its first session, it failed to live up to these hopes and fears. There were two possible outcomes of the Assembly. It could become an adjunct of the Torres regime, integrated to a greater or lesser extent. Or it could develop as an independent organ of workers' power, creating a situation of dual power. The pro-Moscow CP, apparently happy with the left complexion of Torres, appeared to have as its objective that the Assembly should become an appendage of the Government, supplicating, requesting and even assisting in the consolidation of the regime. It sought a representative Assembly which would express views on the bourgeois democratic tasks being carried out by the regime, demand greater progress and criticise shortcomings, and might eventually develop, by a different path, into some sort of Chilean solution, with Popular Unity under the hegemony of the pro-Moscow CP. In this scheme, the Bolivian economy would be bolstered by injections of Russian and East European 'aid' and Russian markets would become a substitute for American imperialism. Already there is a notable procession of Russian and East European officials on their way from Peru to Bolivia to Chile, with, it seems, privileged attention being given to Bolivia.
In these endeavours, the pro-Moscow CP was supported by the POR-Lora. In theory the position of Lora is somewhat different: the Assembly must develop into an organ of dual power, capable of taking power some time in the future; the essential difference between Lora and the POR-Gonzales is, again, in theory, on the question of the necessity of organising the armed instruments for taking power, since Lora expresses the spontaneist view that the workers will one day rise and take up arms and make it possible for the Assembly to exercise state power. But Lora's position in practice is worse than his position in theory. In practice his collaboration with the pro-Moscow CP, or the 'Holy Alliance' as the MIR for example has described it in its paper, has been so close and so visible throughout the Assembly and before it that their positions are virtually indistinguishable. In every vote that we observed, the pro-Moscow CP and Lora were on the same side. In one particularly shameful instance, both the CP and the POR-Lora voted with a small minority for the retention of the secret vote in the statutes of the Assembly. Repeatedly, throughout the Assembly, their delegates were to be seen in close tactical confabulation.
An intermediate position, a variant on the pro-Moscow scheme, less acceptable to the regime but still possible to accommodate within the norms of bourgeois democracy, would be for the Popular Assembly to become merely a talking shop for the left, adopting resolutions which the Government would ignore but which the Assembly would not contemplate carrying out on its own account. For the Assembly to develop into an organ of dual power it must not only pass revolutionary resolutions, it must base itself on the struggles actually taking place in the country and it must generate further struggles; above all it must determine the ways in which its resolutions can be carried out, not through making requests to the generals, but by organising the armed strength of the workers.
In practice, the Assembly, in its first session, tended towards the intermediate position. From an early stage it divided into two currents, which can be roughly characterised as reformist and revolutionary. The reformists, who included the pro-Moscow CP and, as its faithful appendage, the POR-Lora, almost invariably lost in the votes, often by a very large majority. But the revolutionary majority was an ad hoc majority, responding to situations rather than creating them, and taking few and disorganised initiatives. The reformist minority made the running, introduced most of the resolutions, and succeeded in braking and slowing down the functioning of the Assembly. It was agressive and coherent, and above all it had a marked capacity for manoeuvre, showing itself in its element in the manipulation of committees and drafts. Although its spokesmen were hissed and booed, their powers of oratorial esposition were greater than those of their opponents. They controlled sections of the union bureaucracy and were able to manoeuvre themselves into positions of power in the Committees of the Assembly (even though they lost most of the votes for the Presidium, above all losing the Chairmanship to Lechin, between whom and the CP Lora axis there is marked hostility). As a result the reformists played a role disproportionate to their support in the Assembly. Above all, although the reformists were forced by the voting to accept modifications in resolutions which tended in a revolutionary direction, the majority was unable to devise or even to begin to discuss the means by which the resolutions might be carried out, through the independent power of the working class.
The majority was disorganised and lacked cohesion. Unaccustomed to playing games it was occasionally helped out by the wily veteran Lechin, who made cracks at the expense of Lora and the pro-Moscow CP, outplayed them at their own games, and was apparently on the side of the angels, supporting the Independent peasants, the armed struggle, and the admission of the POR-Gonzales to the Assembly, in words at least. But Lechin is an unreliable ally; his enemies can quote innumerable betrayals, excused by Lechin on the grounds that he has always been with the workers; if he has made mistakes then they have been the mistakes of the working class.
One of Lechin's manoeuvres was in the wrong direction: by a high-handed decision of the Chair, and against the statutes, he determined, in what is most easily explainable as a tactical alliance with the CP and Lora, that the question of the admission of the POR-Gonzales should be decided in a subsequent session of the Political Committee, chaired by Simon Reyes, long-time CP miner's bureaucrat, rather than immediately in the Assembly itself, where the POR had much sympathy and support. Apart from the doubtful support of Lechin, the revolutionary majority in the Assembly lacked leadership which was effective in terms of the Assembly. Because it was largely composed on rank-and-file workers and peasants it had a lower cultural level. Some of the delegates, notably the representative of the MIR, appeared frightened to advance their point of view.
In spite of this situation, in spite of the origins and composition of the Assembly, it was startling and extraordinary how time and again in the voting, the Assembly came out with a clear majority for the revolutionaries; on some occasions as much as three-quarters. An Assembly which included all the unions recognised by the COB, which was supposed to have a clear majority of workers, about half of whom were not even workers but union bureaucrats, which had a minimal representation of political parties and which excluded one of the most revolutionary of these parties, yet came out time and again with a big majority to the left of the pro-Moscow CP and of a group which calls itself Trotskyist. Nobody openly supported the Torres regime; nobody talked of anything but socialism, revolution, and the fight against imperialism, in a manner unthinkable in, say, the TUC. The pro-Moscow CP and Lora suffered humiliating defeats, to the extent that at one stage they forced the miners' delegation to threaten to withdraw. Filemon Escobar, a member of the miners' bureaucracy, and of the POR-Lora, claimed that the Assembly had been taken over by the peasants and the petty bourgeois, and that the principle of proletarian domination had been destroyed. Apart from the fact that Escobar himself is not a miner and had not been elected from the base (the POR-Lora was defeated in the mine he is supposed to represent), but was in the Assembly for chance reasons connected with the functioning of his union. The Assembly had in fact been taken over by a solid block of peasants, four university representatives, and at the arithmetical minimum, half of the delegates of the proletarian organisations. 'El proletario soy yo, . Filemon Escobar' ('I am the proletariat') wrote the MIR, mocking him. (The POR-Lora's favourite term of abuse is 'petty bourgeois.' The POR-Lora's mini-delegation in the Popular Assembly has a majority of petty bourgeois members. All of the POR-Gonzales members in the Assembly are workers or peasants).
These issues emerged with particular clarity in the debate on the peasants. The debate arose as a result of disagreement on whether the peasants in the Assembly should occupy one of the second vice-chairmanships. Early on the reformists accepted that a second vice-chairman should be a peasant. But they baulked, to the extent of forcing a two-day debate, at the idea that the post should be filled from one of the existing peasant delegates, in other words by a member of the Independent Confederation, or in other words almost inevitably by a member of the POR-Gonzales or of the pro-Chinese CP. At Lora's suggestion, they summoned their considerable demagogic and manoeuverist abilities in defense of the position that the post should be left vacant until a fresh Congress of Peasants had been organised from which new delegates could be elected. This, they fluently argued, would ensure the unity of the peasants; and if the Assembly was not capable of organising a peasants' congress, what use was it? Actually, the only practicable peasants' congress, that of the Independent peasants, had just taken place only days earlier. A further one was indeed projected for August, and might 'represent' a greater percentage of the peasant population; but it was called by the Minister of Agriculture and would be composed of the corrupt official-salaried leaderships of the Army-Peasant pacts. The pro-Moscow CP and the POR-Lora have virtually no strength among any sector of the peasants and are wholly incapable of, and apparently until this moment disinterested in, building up enough support among the peasants to call a Congress of their own.
Calling for different peasant representation from a different Congress is tantamount to calling for the introduction of government agents into the Assembly. It fits oddly with diatribes against the petty bourgeoisie, since the official peasant unions have been used not only as the power base of Barrientos and other bourgeois and military governments, but actually physically against the miners; whereas the Independent peasants have both fought consistently against pacts with the army, and acknowledged the supremacy of the proletariat in making the revolution and their own role as allies in this process. The Assembly is not or should not be a representative body but an instrument of the proletarian revolution; why else should it be dominated by a numerical minority of the population, the proletariat? Why then, all of a sudden, worry about the representativity of the revolutionary section of the peasants? The answer was simple: because the pro-Moscow CP and POR-Lora have no influence in this sector, and because the Independent peasants are inexorably opposed to the peaceful road via Torres. The lines between the revolutionaries and the reformists were clear. When it finally came to the point of voting, the Chairman suggested the delegates should vote 'no' or 'yes' to the filling of the post by an Independent peasant. At this point the pro-Moscow CP delegates lost their nerve and suggested the substitution of the words 'despues' ('after' the new Congress) and 'ahora' ('now'). Rightly, because in spite of this last minute manoeuvre, the 'ahora's won by a three-quarters majority. This was the first victory of the Assembly.
It was perhaps the only clear political victory of the first session of the Assembly. Although even this question was introduced almost as a side issue of an organisational discussion on the filling of the Presidium, others were worse. The disorganisation of the revolutionary left meant that points of real political substance were not discussed and directly confronted. Although some delegates tried to protest, the question of the armed organisation of the Assembly went by with a shrug, a long list of organisational posts to be filled in some hypothetical armed force, and a totally disingenuous attempt at evasion by a pro-Moscow delegate who said that such matters could not be discussed in the Assembly because of the demands of clandestinity (he was suitably booed for his pains). The question of the armed struggle might have been introduced for clear political debate through a resolution in support of the pro-Chinese leader, Oscar Zamora, currently the object of repression for his participation in a land occupation in the province of Santa Cruz. But the resolution was introduced in such a disorganised and sectarian manner that it was an easy target for the attacks of the pro-Moscow CP and Lora, wanting, they said, not to tag along such adventurist paths. The result was merely a general declaration of support for all those subject to repression.
Clearest expression of all of the failure of the Assembly to develop into an organ of dual power was the debate on 'co-participation' in Comibol (Corporacion Minera Boliviana - the nationalised tin mining industry, Bolivia's main enterprise and source of revenue). The idea was introduced on the initiative of Comibol itself and presented in a document written by the bureaucracy of the Miners' Union. The document proposed that the miners should have parity with the government on the governing body of Comibol, and that the general manager should be elected by this body according to a slate drawn up by miners' assemblies which would also elect the workers' representatives on the governing body. It presented revolutionaries with a difficult problem. First, Comibol is currently in major financial difficulties and miners' jobs are threatened. The project was put forward as a means of saving Comibol from disaster, putting an end to the use of its funds for political purposes, reviving Comibol and making it more efficient. It therefore ultimately has the support of many rank and file miners, whose livelihood depends on the survival of Comibol. Second, control of Comibol by the miners could in theory give them considerable power because of the central role of Comibol in the economy. But in practice the project means co-government. It means that the miners were proposing to rescue Comibol from its difficulties; the document contained numerous references to the miners taking 'responsibility' for the correct functioning of the mining industry, preventing any unnecessary stoppages, preventing the removal or damage of Comibol property, etc. It would have the effect of consolidating the Torres regime. It was supported by the pro-Moscow CP and bore many signs of its parentage: a paragraph in the document explained, for example, that economic decentralisation and autonomy for Comibol was necessary for the efficiency of Comibol, both under capitalism and under socialism. The project could be said to be in the interests of the Soviet state, in the sense that the Russian state is becoming a big customer of Comibol and wants a regular and cheap supply of Bolivian tin. Most important of all, a proposal for co-participation in Comibol represents a diversion from the real and major issue: the taking of state power. Lora, supporting the project, said that participation in Comibol could provide a bridge towards socialism and advised the delegates, in one of his anti-guerilla sallies, to struggle concretely in Comibol, instead of 'going peacefully (tranquilmente') off to the mountains'. In other words, it was more important to make reformist gains in the mining industry than to be concerned about creating the armed instruments for taking power.
The revolutionary majority in the Assembly, faced with these problems, produced a confused response. After a long debate, a resolution was proposed and received the votes of the majority which was supposed to make a change in the miners' union's proposals: the miners' representatives were to have not parity, but what amounted to a majority, on the governing body of Comibol. If this actually made any difference and amounted to real control of Comibol, Torres was not going to Accept it. But the Assembly never succeeded in going outside the framework fixed by the original document of making proposals to Torres for participation, majority or otherwise, in Comibol. Above all, the question of how to obtain majority participation, supposing this was considered a desirable objective, was not discussed. The Assembly was therefore left with the assumption that a majority in Comibol was to be obtained in the same way as parity: by asking Torres. Much the same happened with other resolutions: although references to 'demanding' (of the Torres regime) which had slipped into the wording were usually noticed by the revolutionaries and voted out, no actual practical substitute was proposed, since the crucial debate on armed organisation was evaded.
The question is whether this situation will continue and crystallise until the Popular Assembly becomes merely an appendage of the Government. Torres certainly has no objections to the prospect of integrating the Popular Assembly into the machinery of government. He has taken the initiative in declaring that dual power does not exist because he is at one with the Popular Assembly, and his declarations subsequent to this first session show that he fears little from it at the moment. The Assembly is to meet again in two months' time; meanwhile its work continues in committees. There is an obvious danger that the reformist minority, as a result of its bureaucratic skills, will gain ground in the face of a lack of organised alternatives. The reformists have so far succeeded in manoeuvering to achieve the postponement of the admission of the POR to the Assembly. They may also succeed, through the Committees, in changing the composition of the peasant representation, and thus substituting agents of the government for the solid revolutionary block formed by the Independent peasants.
But it seems unlikely that the reformists will succeed in consolidating the Torres regime with the help of a tamed Assembly. First, the objective situation is not conducive to such a prospect. In some ways the situation in the country as a whole reflects the situation inside the Assembly: there is a militant but disorganised majority; the reformists occupy positions of influence and leadership, in particular in the unions, and have superior organisational and intellectual capacities, at least in quantity. But outside the Assembly their capacity to control events is even less than it is inside. There is a constant tendency, in Bolivia, towards even greater radicalisation, towards armed struggle and the creation of conflicts, leading inevitably towards confrontation of the popular forces with the army. And the course of the Assembly will ultimately be determined by what happens outside it.
In addition, the revolutionary political parties, in particular the POR-Gonzales, have decided that the Assembly is worth taking seriously. At first they tended to have an attitude of watching the Assembly to see how it turned out, rather than actually participating in it. The fact that POR members are delegates in the Assembly is not the result of any special organisation with the Assembly in mind, but simply of the POR's current political work among workers and peasants, which ensures that its members are naturally elected as delegates. For the next session, the POR considering that the Assembly does have a role to play in evolving a revolutionary leadership and the organs of workers' power, is organising its representation and is preparing to struggle inside the Assembly. It plans many more delegates who will represent the militant bases of the mines, the workers and the peasants. Similarly members of the pro-Chinese CP assert that these bases will be much better represented in the next Assembly. In this way there is the prospect that the revolutionary majority will, at last, have its leadership. The revolutionary organisations are already working together, possibly to form a front, at any rate to co-ordinate their activity in the Assembly: meetings have taken place between the POR-Gonzales, the pro-Chinese CP, the MIR and Lechin, although Lechin's reliability as an ally of the revolutionary left is not taken for granted.
The view of the POR-Gonzales is very clearly that the development of the Assembly depends on the struggle outside. The Assembly, if it is to serve the revolution, must deal with two main problems: since the revolution cannot be made against the will of the peasant majority, it must deal with the political-social situation in the countryside where there is increasing agitation and an increasing number of land occupations, many of them organised by the POR and the pro-Chinese CP; and it must deal with the creation of a revolutionary popular army. Ultimately the Assembly must discuss the means of taking power. But to make this possible, the POR intends to push forward as rapidly as possible, outside the Assembly, on the two immediate problems, leading and carrying through the land occupations demanded by the peasants (the Independent peasants in their Congress voted for the immediate liquidation of the remaining latifundia), and organising the revolutionary peoples' army. Thus it hopes to present the Assembly with real political problems to discuss and upon which to determine its position, and a framework on intensified class struggle within which to develop the organs of dual power.
What conclusions do we draw from this first session of the Assembly? First we can see its positive aspects. Undoubtedly it is an achievement of the working class, born out of the defeat of last October. This defeat showed clearly the need for the workers to develop their own organs of power, rather than having to rely on a section of the bourgeois army. The Assembly is a spontaneous creation, an organ of potential power, a hybrid animal, a cross between an English Trades Council, a bourgeois parliament without the bourgeoisie and an incipient Soviet. While the left is split into numerous sections and the number of political groups per head of population may be greater in Bolivia than anywhere else, the sheer fact that these warring elements are capable of this joint degree of organisation under pressure of the masses, is nothing less than extraordinary. In England, in France, for the equivalents of these groups to spend ten days closeted together is today unthinkable. Pressured by events the Assembly, at least in terms of its existence, is addressing itself to the actual problems, to the real need, of how to take power. The very existence of the Assembly, composed as it is, of left bureaucrats, political egg heads and the masses of Bolivia, existing side by side with this desperate military solution of a pink cabal of generals, represents the continuing force of the Bolivian revolution seeking the way to its final triumph. It represents an attempt of the masses to organise after the repression, the defeats and massacres. And the debates, the discussions, however insufficient and inconclusive, are about the revolution which everyone knows is knocking at the door. Socialism is the only item on the agenda. The discussion is real, it is about today. The hypothetical belongs elsewhere. If the foco theory is universally discredited, the recent progress of politics in Bolivia, since the time that Che Guevara landed from Madrid, has been a shortened, telescoped, progress of the revolutionary road. The guerillas have achieved this much: they have brought about the ultimate crisis.
But there are still three possible outcomes, in the short term. There could be a ferocious repression of the Brazilian type bringing an end to the opportunities for political and military organisation provided by the Torres regime, hitting the left before it is ready to take the offensive, and reducing it to rearguard actions of the type that currently exists in Brazil. Or the venal vendedores of Soviet aid may get their way, and Bolivia may join Eastern Europe; the support of the reformists for Torres may stop the revolutionary process and Bolivia will close towards Peru and Chile and force Fidel to be more consistent. But likelier than either of these more or less dismal prospects is that the Bolivian revolution has travelled too far already for these to be possible. In Bolivia the workers, the peasants and the students are preparing for the armed struggle, are developing the revolution themselves, physically, against all odds. It is this issue, the reality of a people ready to take up arms, with which the Assembly is confronted.
For the Assembly to progress, for the revolution to develop, the revolutionary majority inside must find its way of interlocking with the struggle outside. The revolutionaries have to respond to and lead and support, incite and instigate, the actual process already in hand, the taking of haciendas, the punishing of the right, the desire of the workers to control, the hundred acts which represent the revolution now.
More than that, it is the struggle outside the Assembly which will secure the revolution and prevent its institutionalisation. The process in the country must be accelerated, deepened, developed. The armed struggle to take power must continue on all fronts. The development of the revolutionary army and the workers' and peasants' militias is more vital than the battle in the Assembly. The prosecution of armed actions, the development of the fight is the revolution. The Assembly can focus this, expose the treachery of the revisionists and reformists. It must issue its calls to action, confront the regime, develop revolutionary unity, lead struggles and begin to exercise the dual power which it can come to constitute. But above all it is the mobilisation of the masses in actual struggle, the development of the revolutionary army which will guarantee the Bolivian revolution against repression or reformism,
Glossary of Political Organisations.
In the Popular Assembly.
PCB Bolivian Communist Party (Pro-Moscow).
PC (ML) Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). Pro-Chinese. The pro-Chinese CP is divided into two or three sections. The section officially represented in the Popular Assembly is led by Ruis Gonzales, whose separation from the pro-Moscow CP originated in personal rivalries rather than political differences. Another section led by Oscar Zamora has recently been engaged in the creation of a peasant base and in land occupations in the province of Santa Cruz. Zamora was exiled to Chile by Torres but recently returned clandestinely.
PRIN Revolutionary Party of the National Left. A left split from MNR. Led by Juan Lechin. General Secretary of the COB, a caudillo figure and long-standing miners' leader.
POR (Lora) A Trotskyist Group which split from the POR (Gonzales) in 1954. It has affinities with the Socialist Labour League. Led by Guillermo Lora.
PDCR Revolutionary Christian Democrat Party. Now in the MIR.
MR Espartaco Revolutionary Spartacus Movement. A later left split from the MNR. Mainly intellectuals. Now in the MIR.
Other Organisations.
POR (Gonzales) Bolivian Section of the Fourth International, led by Hugo Gonzales Moscoso.
ELN National Liberation Army. Formed by Che Guevara.
MIR Left Revolutionary Movement. Recently formed as an electoral front in the Universities. Now a party, incorporates MR Espartaco, PDCR, Independent Marxists and elements of the MNR.
MNR National Revolutionary Movement. Took power in the 1952 revolution. Progressively sold out to imperialism.
PS Socialist Party. Newly formed and semi-official. Has applied for delegates to the Popular Assembly. Includes ex-ministers of the Barrientos and Ovando Governments.
What is your assessment of the present situation, of the possibility of a right-wing coup, and of the actions to be taken in such an event?
We think the present situation is one of extraordinary instability. The power crisis has lasted since 1964, with spectacular expressions, such as the Arguedas affair(1) and the single day last October in which there were no less than four governments. This crisis is steadily deepening. The Torres government is very weak, without any authority. It is kept in power by the fear that the army has for the chaos which would result from a change. Torres finds himself between two fires: on the one hand is the army, which in the main is still united; it is not in disintegration, it has not suffered defeats, its crises are marginal, it is only superficially damaged in a way that does not jeopardise the whole. On the other hand, is the workers' movement and the Bolivian left which is becoming increasingly radicalised, starting from an already high level, towards socialism; it has finished with bourgeois democratic methods and the only thing left for it is to fight for socialism. This can be seen in the declarations of the workers' organisations and of any worker or peasant. It is not simply a form of protest; the Matilde miners for example are proposing the control of the mine. There is a direct struggle for socialism. Torres is situated between the masses and the army together with the civilian right, the Falange, the MNR, Paz Estensorro. He has no authority.
One example of his weakness was the problem of the raising of bus fares. The government authorised it, but within 24 hours it had to withdraw this permission; the people did not accept the increases, there was a mobilisation and a boycott of the buses. The transport bosses called a strike but it ended in defeat and the fares remained as before. It showed clearly the weakness of the government: under pressure from the bosses it decreed an increase and under the pressure of the workers it had to withdraw it. The government is hated by the right and it also has the hatred and lack of confidence of the left. The right, or, in political terms, the bourgeoisie is very weak; above all it is dependent on import activities. As a whole, as a class, it is weak and does not have political instruments; the only instrument at its disposal is the army. The army is not happy with the present situation, and it allows Torres to stay in power only from fear of a popular uprising. But it sees that instead of slowing down this movement and of absorbing the radicalisation of the masses, Torres has no authority and is therefore useless. Instead of carrying out its role of acting as a brake, it is a government which, on account of its vaccilations, indirectly pushes forward the agitation of the masses. The army and imperialism are following these events with care, preparing and organising a coup d'etat. It is a process that is under way; they are only waiting for the right moment to carry it out, a 'cold' situation. But this is very difficult in the present situation, the government cannot be changed without anything at all happening, because of the watchfulness of the masses. They are obliged to postpone the coup. The army did make an attempt on February 11, but the result was a tremendous mobilisation of the masses. It made another attempt in Santa Cruz and took the city in two hours; but it had to withdraw. It wants to make its coup with certain popular characteristics and for this reason it is trying to use sections of the MNR and of the peasants. But this period of waiting cannot last for long. It is going to carry out its attempt even if it initially results in a blood-bath.
What do you think Torres's position would be, in the event of a coup?
I think he would resign, arriving at an agreement with the army. In present conditions, the army - as representative of the bourgeoisie - cannot allow the left and the masses to go on overcoming its weaknesses and developing strength. We have to foresee that the coup will come. We have to prepare ourselves. In present conditions there is a contrast between the radicalisation in political terms of the masses and the strength of its working organisations. This contrast causes us to conclude that if there was a coup now, it would be a military victory for the right and the army. But this would not allow it do more than control certain cities. It would re-establish the armed struggle at a much higher level than in the period of the guerillas of Nancahuazu and Teoponte.
Although we cannot confront the army in a frontal war, the coup and the control of the state machine and certain cities by the army would open a period of multiform struggle: in the cities, in the countryside, in the mines and in guerilla fronts in the mountains. Having regard to the relationship of forces, this is the most likely outcome.
We foresaw this in the crisis of last October and we issued a declaration taking the position that the Torres regime was not a popular victory, but much more the defeat of the Bolivian left. The October crisis should have brought the masses to power. But what was lacking was a unified political command, a popular army and organs of representation and expression of the masses. Until these problems are resolved, any crisis will be resolved in favour of the army and of sections of the bourgeoisie.
From that time until now, the masses have only been able to create the Popular Assembly. And, in a half-hearted fashion, the COB(2) has issued a call for the arming of the workers. But the form in which this call was made causes me to give it no more than a propaganda value. They are organising the High Command before organising the militias, before having a real discussion of the armed struggle. We proposed precisely these needs, they have taken up the idea, but in an unserious manner. In an organised sense there are no militias in Bolivia; it is necessary to create them. Those sectors that are influenced by us are the first to begin this. During the May Day demonstration a section of workers influenced by us marched with a large poster saying, 'We need a Revolutionary Peoples' Army,' and behind it came groups of selected workers wearing the uniform of the guerillas - the beret and star of Che Guevara, and carrying arms; it was euphoric, an instruction to the people. But this is not what the trade union leadership is thinking of.
If the arming of the workers is not organised, if the popular army does not develop, we think that the coup will easily be able to re-establish the army's control. But this control will not last. That situation will be the opening of the war. We don't think in terms of any fixed model. It will be a civil war on a national scale with different fronts. It will be the beginning of a long war for which we are now preparing.
How does the POR view the Popular Assembly and the positions of the PCB (Bolivian Communist Party), the POR (Lora)(3), Lechin and the PRIN (National Left Revolutionary Party)?
We believe that this is a force that can overcome one of the drawbacks of the Bolivian left and the revolutionary process. It must develop itself as a power of the working class, it must create dual power and represent workers' power in the face of the bourgeois power. We say that the Popular Assembly must not simply criticise the government or defend the interests of the working class (as it says in its statutes), but it must debate in order to resolve both workers' problems and national problems. To do the opposite would be to become a form of bourgeois parliament. The revolutionary process needs a democratic body which will express the will of the masses towards the taking of power. The Assembly has two possibilities for its future development. One is that it will be neutralised by the government; within it are forces that are working in this sense, reformist currents that are already working with a form of agreement with the government, especially the PCB (pro-Moscow). As usual, the position of Lora is ambiguous. He says that the Popular Assembly must be an organ of power. But when? In the vague future. Meanwhile it should take up a position of discussing national problems in a reformist manner. Filemon Escobar, the POR (Lora) miners' leader said that it was necessary to study the matter of trials for those who have assassinated workers and to discuss the question of the mines. These are important subjects, but only if they are situated within the framework of dual power. Let us assume that the Assembly studies the massacres that took place in the mines. Is it going to demand that Torres should punish the guilty? Lora talks of dual power but does not conceive of it actually taking place, effectively. The PRIN's position and that of Lechin, its leader, also revolves around workers' power. But here it is a question of instalments: in the first period it is necessary to deal with national problems, without proposing the taking of power, and in practical terms they do not propose a confrontation but want to establish the Popular Assembly.
But the problem cannot be solved except in terms of class struggle. Suppose the army attacks and establishes a Barrientos type regime. The Popular Assembly could possibly be incorporated into the military regime. But at the same time, we believe that the revolutionary forces that are working within the Assembly and that are drawn from the masses together with the crisis of the capitalist regime and of power demonstrate that the most likely development of the Popular Assembly will be in the direction of workers' power. There will be two tendencies. The tendency towards incorporation can develop initially but will be overtaken. It is not simply a question of political manoeuvering, but of the ability of the government to concede something to the masses. But there are no reforms that it can give. For example, it cannot nationalise companies because enterprises barely exist. The pressure that is coming from the masses will force the tendency towards dual power. This tendency will also bring nearer the coup and the confrontation. We know that dual power is nothing more than a brief occurrence with two powers contesting for control of the country. We have to know how to utilise it.
What are the forms of the armed struggle likely to be?
They will be various. It is not possible to say that they will be of the Cuban type, or the Guatemalan type. The armed struggle will accord with Bolivian conditions, with the level of consciousness that exists here and with the deficiencies that exist in the left. If an army could be constructed on the basis of the trade unions and the peasants there would be two armies and the struggle would have a special character. But this problem has not been resolved. The confrontation, then, will have forms characteristic of the revolutionary war, of a guerilla and of a civil war with separate fronts. Certain of the acts that the army right has engaged in show the possibilities that it still has. In February, the Rangers(4) took the city of Santa Cruz in two hours and changed the local authorities. They could do the same here in La Paz, or in Cochabamba: one night, out comes the army and it takes the city. There is not the strength, organised and ready, to resist. The masses would come out on to the streets, skirmishes would take place, but later, we would have to conduct a commando war, a war of guerillas. In the mines they are better organised and in the countryside armed regiments are already developing; there the situation will be different and there will be other forms of struggle.
But apart from the forms that the struggle is going to take, there are two questions to be examined, in the light of the situation. There will be one army led by a party, and another formed at the level of trade unions. In time they could come to be one.
We are living in the reality of Bolivia. There are workers' organisations that are in agreement with the armed struggle, but from the point of view of their organisations. What answer, what slogan do we have to advance for them? We say that it is necessary to organise the Popular Workers' Army. The COB has arrived at the same slogan after we did. Our militants, workers and peasants, at the same time as organising the party have also to organise this popular army and to be the nucleus of it. We work at that as well. We do not see any contradiction between organising an army based on a party and working to develop the popular army. Rather, our development through the revolutionary army can assist this tendency of the working class, as a class, to arm itself. The future civil war will be able to count on this popular, massive, support whether or not the popular army becomes a concrete fact. And in the future, a revolutionary army, superior to the army of the party, will be able to develop, and we shall be in the heart of it.
In Bolivia, the parties that support the armed struggle are the ELN (5), the pro-Chinese (who project the prolonged peasant war) and the MIR(6). Our position is the most complete and integrated; we see the problem as a whole and not only the problem of organising. We believe we have gained a certain amount of prestige as far as the ELN and the MIR are concerned, and we have very good relations with the pro-Chinese groups. We are able to co-ordinate with them. This is something that flows fundamentally from our political line. But there is something else as well, the weight of the Fourth International and in particular the struggle of our comrades in Argentina gives us authority. We believe it is possible to co-ordinate work in the mass movement and to develop the formation of a military organisation much bigger than that which now exists.
We believe it is necessary to start armed actions immediately, linked to the solution of the workers' problems. For example, we are intervening in the seizure of lands in the province of La Paz. One opportunity that we have results from the fact that the Independent Confederation of Bolivian Peasants resolved at its Congress to liquidate the latifundia. We are going to intervene in carrying out that resolution. We are going to carry out actions similar though not identical to those occurring in Argentina. This is an immediate question and is going to strengthen the tendency towards dual power and confrontation.
What are your relations with the ELN now, and what were they in the past?
Our present relations with the ELN, as I was saying, are sympathetic, in a way that corresponds to revolutionary organisations involved in the armed struggle for socialism.
Since the public appearance of the ELN, under the command of Che Guevara, in the guerilla of Nancahuazu, it has had the public support of our organisation. And not only that, but we proposed our own incorporation, as fighters. However, from May 1967 until October of the same year, those in charge of the Urban organisation of the ELN were not able to arrange this incorporation, agreed by Che. After the assassination of Che, within a few months we arrived at an agreement for joing work, whilst maintaining separate organisations, in order to reorganise and prepare the continuation of the guerilla struggle on the urban front and among the miners and in the countryside, linked with the masses. This joing work, developed by Inti Peredo and ourselves was cut short by the repression of 1969, in which members of the ELN and the POR were killed and taken prisoner. Inti also dispersed both organisations. The reorganisation carried out afterwards, for differing reasons, was carried out by each organisation separately. After that came Teoponte and other setbacks.
The actions and history of these last years has demonstrated that the ELN and the POR are the organisations most akin to each other in the armed struggle for socialism. For this reason there is sympathy between them, although differences exist as regards the conception of the armed struggle, differences which are tending to be reduced as lessons are learnt from experience and the development of the process.
We have always held the position that there must be a guerilla linked with the masses, developed in the principal cities and in the mines where there is the most radicalised and politicised section of the Bolivian proletariat and in the countryside, at the side of the peasant masses. These conceptions have nothing in common with focoism.
How do you resolve the problem of combining the armed struggle with the political struggle of the masses?
In Bolivia the problems of armed actions and the political struggle of the masses are related. Our party does open work with its militants. For example, in the Peasants' Congress we proposed our programme and five of our comrades were elected to the Executive. We are working in the countryside, in the universities and in workers' organisations. We are trying to benefit from the political situation that exists at the moment. We are winning leading positions in the workers' and peasants' organisations. Perhaps the most important is that the Bolivian Independent Peasants' Confederation is influenced by us. The leadership is divided amongst ourselves, the pro-Chinese, with the MIR and the MNR(7) holding a minority. The Confederation itself has an overall majority in the district of La Paz, in the Altiplano and also in the Santa Cruz area; we are going to carry out a struggle to cause the government organisations in the countryside to be destroyed. In the countryside we are making advances, particularly in the Altiplano and at Santa Cruz. It is there that we are concentrating our forces for the moment.
We are working in the mines, especially at Huanuni, which is the biggest of the nationalised mines, employing 4,000 workers, and we have a comrade there in the leadership. At Catavi and Siglo our comrades were sacked by Barrientos; now they are re-incorporating themselves in the work and reorganising themselves. We also hold the leadership of the flour-workers union, which represents 6,000 workers.
In the University we are making important advances in La Paz, Oruro and Cochabamba. Together with the ELN we have contributed to the success of the line of armed struggle in the University, supporting the election of the MIR, which at that time was a front within the University with M.R. Espartaco(8), the Revolutionary Christian Democrats, Independent Marxists and ourselves. We were at the centre of these activities and have gained much respect for our position.
The composition of the party is mainly worker and after that, peasant. Notwithstanding our programme in the University, the intellectual sector of the party is small. We consider this a weakness, considering the cultural level of the country and the important and necessary role of intellectuals. The radicalisation of intellectuals can provide leadership for the working class and the peasantry. The shortage of cadres at this level is restricting our work at the moment and it is for this reason that we are interested in the work in the University.
We believe that the construction of the party has to be done through combined work at the political and the military level. In the Barrientos period, it had to be almost exclusively military work because there were no opportunities for open work. Now there are conditions and we are going forward with both methods of work: after many attempts, we have been able to achieve a balance between political work and clandestine work. We believe we have made advances, above all since last October, despite the fact that we had lived through a fierce repression.
Footnotes
(1) Arguedas. This case symbolises the instability. He was a minister in the Barrientos Government and is still remembered in Bolivia for his complicity in the massacre of miners and other repressive acts. He claims to have been a CIA agent within the Cabinet, but was responsible for sending Che's diary to Cuba and the deathmask and hands of Che. He is now in Cuba.
(2) Confederacion Obrera Boliviana. Bolivian TUC.
(3) The POR split in 1954; the Lora section of the POR has relations with the Socialist Labour League.
(4) Rangers. A crack regiment, trained by the Americans and used against Che Guevara.
(5) M.I.R. Movement of Left Revolutionaries.
(6) E.L.N. National Liberation Army formed by Che Guevara.
(7) M.N.R. Revolutionary National Movement. Took power in the 1952 revolution and gradually sold out to imperialism.
(8) M.R. Espartaco. Revolutionary Spartacus Movement. A left split from the M.N.R.