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Bolivia: a revolutionary rejoinder http://enpassant.com.au/?p=7305 Some of you may have seen the article published in Green Left Weekly criticizing Daniel Gomez’s article in Socialist Alternative on the recent strike in Bolivia. But in case you haven’t, here are the links: http://sa.org.au/international/2721-general-strike-challenges-bolivian-government http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44208 Here is Daniel’s response to the GL article. John There are some points to draw out about their article. Firstly, they disagree with my article by claiming that the strike was small. This is wrong. The strike included urban teachers, health workers, miners and manufacturing workers. The health workers returned to work after a few days, but the rest stayed out. The adherence to the strike was clearly strong amongst teachers, thousands of whom marched. This shut down schools in Bolivia. The teachers’ strike continued the longest, and was the most radical in its demands. On the 18th of May, a mass teacher’s rally shut down the center of La Paz. The teachers were the last to go back to work, on the 24th of May. As regards the miners and manufacturing workers, thousands marched across the country, and many more struck. While it is difficult to say how many struck precisely, or what proportion of miners struck, one indication was the government’s reaction. After a few days of claiming that the strike was a flop, the government changed tack and started accusing the strikers of sabotaging Bolivia’s progress. After a week, Morales started accusing the strikers of being stooges of the Americans. He then accused the strikers of attempting to overthrow his government. He also claimed that teachers were undemocratic for striking and shutting down classrooms. All the while, the government was in ongoing negotiations with the COB (the striking union federation). While the government did not acquiesce to the main demand of a 12% (as opposed to 5%) pay rise, these negotiations granted significant concessions around the age of retirement. Hardly the responses of a government to an irrelevant strike. Moreover, it is clear there was anger amongst at least some workers that the COB accepted this deal: the urban teacher’s union called the leaders of the COB traitors. So, the GL is clearly wrong to say the strike was: “a lot of huffing and puffing by a few union leaders, and symbolic protests, mixed with a good dose of internal union politicking”. But this all misses the point: the size of a strike is irrelevant to whether or not socialists should support it. It is a clear cut class issue; socialists need to stand with workers against governments and bosses at all times, not just when strikes are big. This relates to the second main problem with the GL article – it systematically downplays the Bolivian working class in favor of indigenous people. This is doubly wrong because it substitutes a nationalist/ethnic analysis for a class one. Many indigenous Bolivians are working class, while others are small farmers or peasants. The former are capable of leading social revolution; the latter, are not. Of course, this distinction is hardly likely to bother the DSP – they love peasants to bits because they fit right into a Stalinist or 3rd world nationalist political project. The GL article quite clearly supports the indigenous peasants movement that constitutes the mass base of Morales’ Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party over the workers’ movement. It was this part of the population that supported Morales in 2006 against the militant miners and teachers who wanted to continue the revolution. Really, it’s all a bit familiar - it’s basically about 3rd world nationalists who couldn’t care less about basic Marxist politics, and love to apologize for governments who act against workers. -- ______________________________________ RatbagMedia http://ratbagmedia.wikispaces.com Phone:07 33331805 Mobile: 0415040947 Emai: ratbagra...@gmail.com Skype: ratbagradio ___________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
