Bolivia: revolutionary crisis reaches its peak

Published on Jun 11, 2005

Last Updated on Feb 5, 2011 at 10:05 am

While the mass of workers and peasants are surrounding Parliament trying to close it down, Evo Morales and the leaders of the MAS are trying to shore up a discredited capitalist parliament, which not even the ruling class itself is very keen on anymore! Jaime Solares, leader of the Bolivian Workers Union, the COB, threatened that if parliament would not agree to nationalise gas, then they would “burn down parliament”. In the end the parliamentary session ended very late at night with only 66 out of its 157 members present. They were not able to reach agreement on anything.

Mesa is in fact suspended in mid-air. He accused COB leader Jaime Solares and one of the leaders of the Regional Workers Federation of El Alto, Roberto de la Cruz, of subversion and conspiring to overthrow the government, but was completely unable to have them arrested. At this particular moment it is unlikely that he can use the army against the masses, since, like in October 2003, this would further radicalise the movement and precipitate his own downfall (quite apart from the fact that it is not clear whether the army would follow such an order).

Real power is in fact in the hands of the masses of workers and peasants in the streets. Even the bourgeois parliament can only meet with the permission of the masses that surround it. The main problem now, like in October 2003, is not the strength of the mass movement (which is growing as the general strike and road blockades spread throughout the country) or its willingness to go all the way. The only factor that is missing is a leadership with a clear strategy of how to take power. In October 2003 the miners, workers and peasants surrounded Parliament and brought down the government. But their leaders (Solares and Quispe at that time) did not know what to do next, did not have a clear idea of what to replace the bourgeois Parliament with, and power slipped through their fingers back to Mesa. The moment was lost. Now the masses have gone through the experience of the Mesa government. Important sections of the movement (the workers, the trade unions, the people of El Alto) have already made it clear that they are fighting for a “workers’ and peasants’ government”. Even those, mainly the peasants led by the MAS who support the convening of a Constituent Assembly, see this as some form of government of the peasants and workers, where they will make the decisions.

The crucial question is, what next for the workers’ movement? The main slogan should be for the calling of a Revolutionary People’s Assembly, composed of elected representatives of all trade unions, peasant organisations, neighbourhood organisations, etc, and that this Assembly take power into its own hands. This is the only strategy that can offer a way forward at this particular time.

Bolivian capitalism is in such a crisis that normal bourgeois democratic rule can no longer contain the revolutionary movement of the masses. Either the workers and peasants take power into their own hands or the ruling class will use one trick or another to take back power and smash the movement in the most brutal fashion.

June 1, 2005