EDITORIAL
NOW IS THE TIME
The beautiful and
impeccable rallying cry of the Bolivian Revolution

Jorge Altamira


The insurrection
in Bolvia is a call to order for those who have dared to bury
the "Argentinazo" in the past. It is true that the
explosion of the people was provoked by the policies of a
"Menemist" government and that very same thing
would have been provided by a victory for Menem in the last
elections. The Argentine bosses have managed to
"escape" with the Duhalde's and with the
Kirchner's. But for how long? The signing of the accord with
the IMF, the payment of a foreign debt of incredible
magnitude, the freezing of wages, the re-privatization of the
privatizers and fresh subsidies, the "barter" of
the foreign debt for education and housing, the pressure of
the international creditors, the "penal code" to
confront the piqueteros: where is this taking us except to
Bolivia, which is to say, the second edition of our December
19-20?
The daily Ambito
Financiero (14 Oct) very correctly attributed the
Bolivian uprising to the piqueteros. In effect, the peasants
of the high plateaus (with their road and highway blocks) and
the unemployed of El Alto are nothing more than a replica of
the piqueteros. The fact that they find themselves in the
vanguard of a gigantic revolution shows that they concentrate
the historic experience of what has been, ever since the
'40's, the most advanced proletariat in Latin America. The
piqueteros of Bolivia now march together with the factory
workers, the miners, the teachers, the students and with the
masses as a whole, to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie.
They have erred,
then, and badly, those who insist, in Argentina, on denying
the revolutionary potential of the masses who are organizing
in Berazategui or in Ledesma (Jujuy), in Ensenada or in
Tartagal (Salta), in Moreno and La Matanza or in Caleta
Olivia and Río Turbio, in Resistencia and Barranqueras or in
the San Juan capital.
There is a thread
which runs through the Bolivian revolution. The colonial mitas
(exploitation in mining) led to indigenous insurrections
in the 18th century; as social plundering impelled the guerilla
of Upper Perú; tin led to the revolution of '52 and oil
to that of 1971 (Popular Assembly); and gas now (and
genetically modified potatoes) the revolution in course at
the present time. That is, exploitation for private gain and
for the world market.
But the Bolivian
revolution is not only due to this. As decisive as the
domination of international monopoly is, Bolivia has
constructed under its shadow a kind of capitalist
development. And it is precisely these capitalists who find
themselves in complete bankruptcy: eight out of every ten
companies cannot affront their debts. Neither can they be
rescued by the State or by the banks. The foreign debt,
"pardoned" several times over, is no more than 20
per cent of the Bolivian GNP, but it is enough to destroy
public finances. There is a real process of dissolution of
capitalism, which explains perfectly well why even the social
classes that voted for Sánchez de Lozada participate in the
insurrection or maintain their neutrality. But the financial
collapse and the economic bankruptcy are no monopoly of
Bolivia's, as we ourselves well know, as do the Brazilians,
the Russians and the Asians (and now the Californians).
Given its social
breadth the Bolivian insurrection is reminiscent of that of
Nicaragua of 1979. Only between August and October of the
year before, Somoza had massacred 50,000 insurgents in his
eagerness to crush the people's uprising by military means.
In Bolivia it is a question also, neither more nor less, of
the intervention of the peasantry, that many times in the
past was the rear guard of the governments.
The Bolivian
insurrection possesses an enormous historic density, because
the Bolivians know that the plunder of gas signifies a new
tombstone over the possibility of national existence. It is
not the gas, then, that is at stake but rather the
restructuring of Bolivian history upon new social
foundations.
Just as Che
thought, anticipated, understood through intuition, Bolivia
is an epicenter of revolution in South America. For
completely bankrupt capitalist regimes, as are those of the
surrounding countries (including, especially, Brazil), the
victory of the Bolivian revolution is a mortal danger.
Skipping over the laws of history, the destitute Bolivia may
become, all of a sudden, through the action of its exploited,
a model of development for other more developed States.
This explains why
Yankee imperialism has snapped to attention, not only for the
gas deals, which is not even in the hands of the principal
international monopolies. The order was, just as when the
Iranians rose up against the Sha in 1979, bullets and more
bullets; no other intermediary party enjoys the confidence
Bush has as a factor capable of controlling or obstructing
the insurrection of the masses. The OAS, with Kirchner, Lula
and the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) of Uruguay, among others,
have cowered before US imperialism. The question is they can
discuss with Bush the FTAA tariffs or diplomacy with Cuba,
but they have no position independent of their master's in
the face of a workers and peasants revolution. At the
decisive moment they have not uttered a single miserable word
in favor of the human rights of the oppressed massacred in
Bolivia. That these oppressed have transformed themselves
into revolutionaries has eliminated all democratic
sensitivity in them.
Bolivia has laid
bare the counterrevolutionary character of democracy and of
the democratizing, especially those of the left. Lula reached
government bent on preventing a breakdown in the banking
system and, its counterpart, the Argentinazo. Faced with
Bolivia, he has shown that that bent is decidedly strategic.
In 1995 the Partido Obrero broke up an International
Conference of the San Pablo Forum, in Montevideo, because of
the refusal of the parties present there to expel from their
midst a nationalist Bolivian party that had backed, as a
member of the government, marshal law and the use of
repression against a general strike in Bolivia. In the
government or still in the opposition those parties today
support the OAS.
In Bolivia
leftist democratism has been exposed with the efforts of Evo
Morales to boycott the insurrection in function of assuring
himself of the 2004 municipal elections. The revolution is
serving the interests of the right-wing, he has said, as
something which seems to have turned into a fig-leaf for the
Lula's, the Ibarra's, etc., in order to justify their dirty
work. Frei Betto has just said the same thing to justify the
alliance of the PT with the Brazilian land-owners and bankers
and with imperialism. Trotskyism, as occurs in Brazil, should
be ready to govern, a runt of porteño intellectuality
has recently declared. After having proclaimed it
"utopia" the democratizers have now turned it into
a "provocation" that would serve imperialism
itself, with whom they have united in order to drown the
Bolivian revolution.
After having
attempted to negotiate the gas decrees with Sánchez de
Lozada, now Evo aims to limit the overcoming of the crisis to
the mandate-holder stepping down. But even a constituent
assembly convened on the basis of the old regime would be a
defeat for the revolution. For there to be a sovereign
constituent [assembly] it is necessary for the masses to
overthrow the government and that their organizations take
power.
What
distinguishes above all the Bolivian insurrection from the
"Argentinazo" is the exceptional concentration of
historic, absolutely immense energies of the Bolivian worker
and peasant piqueteros. That is what is summed up in the
slogan of the neighbors of La Portada, a neighborhood that
dominates from the heights the highway going from El Alto to
La Paz: "Now is the time."