|
SOCIALIST VOICE Marxist Perspectives for the Workers'
Movement #68 – February 25, 2006
************************************************** MORALES ELECTION IS A VICTORY FOR THE BOLIVIAN PEOPLE A Reply
to Left Critics of Bolivia's New President
By Fred Feldman
===================
Introduction by Ian Angus and John Riddell What attitude should Marxists adopt towards the new Bolivian
government headed by radical peasant and indigenous leader Evo Morales?
Morales and the movement he leads have set as their goal the
"refounding" of the Bolivian nation. The noted Latin American journalist Eduardo
Galeano has written an eloquent explanation of this goal: see "The Second
Founding of Bolivia," at http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/galeano170206.html.
Many groups in the international left have been sharply
critical of Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) he leads.
For example, Gerry Foley, a leader of the U.S.-based group
Socialist Action, writes that "popular illusions in Mora¬les and a party like
MAS in the Bolivian situation can only be a step backward, and have to be
combated. ... It is essential for revolutionists to combat illusions in Morales
and similar parliamentary solu¬tions and to support the fight to make a
government directly representing the working people a reality."(Socialist
Action, January 2006)
In Bolivia itself, Jaime Solares, a leader of the Central
Obrero Boliviano (COB), a union federation, has denounced Morales as "a traitor
to the working class," and the COB remained neutral in the election. Just one
week after the election, Solares issued an Open Letter demanding immediate
nationalization of the oil industry and by implication threatening direct action
against the government if Morales doesn't adopt their timetable.
The following article by Fred Feldman responds to these and
similar criticisms.
=====================
It is a serious error to place ourselves in opposition to the
general course of a popular movement to "refound the nation" because of
theoretical considerations such as permanent revolution, "State and Revolution,"
"two-stage revolution," the evils of "populism," concerns about electoralism,
demands for workers councils, general references to the laws of capitalism, and
so on.
And that is what we are dealing with in the Bolivian election
and its consequences -- a popular movement to "refound the nation" that has now
elected one of its leaders as president. What has come under fire from much of
the left is not just or even primarily Morales but rather this course of the
masses. Of course, he is not "betraying," because he is authentically
representing the popular worker-peasant- indigenous movement that used him to
take the presidency of the bourgeois state for itself.
Uncertain outcome
How will the contradiction between the mass movement and the
presidency, on one side, and the bourgeoisie plus its state play out? Will the
contradiction deepen as measures opposed by the imperialists or native capital
are carried out? Or will it be resolved in favor of the maintenance and
consolidation of a bourgeois government and state?
The outcome is not foreordained. As Venezuela has been
showing, the fact that the masses don't start by destroying the army and the
state machine doesn't doom the process. And we are talking about a process, not
gigantic historical stages.
** Will it lead to further democratic gains for the workers,
peasants, and indigenous?
** Will it lead to comparable developments in other countries
of the region?
** Will it lead to more collaboration and unity against the
imperialist main enemy of the peoples of Latin America?
** Will it lead to socialism? Will the process stall and
retreat?
** Will the presidency be reabsorbed in the bourgeois state or
will the state be dismantled and constructed on a new foundation in the process?
** Will a coup or invasion be attempted? How will divisions in
the military, which must surely be developing, play out?
** Will antagonism against the imperialists heighten or will
the imperialists be conciliated? Will Morales and the movement he leads advance
or retreat? How will divisions within the movement play out?
All of these are possibilities, I believe. But there is a lot
to go through to get there, and the process is just beginning. But none of this
will be resolved by the demands of Solares and Foley and other left critics that
the process that has begun to be replaced by a different one.
A victory to be utilized
The election of Morales must to be recognized as a gain to be
utilized in deepening the struggle. The opportunity to use the presidency of the
nation to advance the struggle must be welcomed, not feared or rejected.
Marx said the working people cannot simply take hold of the
state and wield it for its own purposes, and he was right. But he never opposed
running for office, including executive office. In Bolivia and (under very
different conditions) in Venezuela, the masses have taken hold of one piece of
the state -- the presidency -- and are trying to wield it to advance their
interests. If they continue the fight to pursue these interests, and if Morales
continues to represent them, this will mean an ever-widening conflict with the
imperialists, the bourgeoisie, and their state in Bolivia (and in the United
States of course).
One difference with Venezuela is that in Bolivia the mass
upsurge preceded the establishment of the presidency. In Venezuela there was the
Caracazo (1989) and the popular response to Chavez's coup (1992) and an
electrified response to his assertion after the coup failed that the fight would
continue. Nonetheless, there was less visible mass struggle in Venezuela before
the establishment of the Chavez government (1999) than in Bolivia. So the
relative independence of the Morales presidency from the bourgeois government
and state and its relative dependence on the mass movement is more clear than in
the first period of the Chavez presidency.
The Bolivian people face the challenge and opportunity of
deepening this conflict. And of course much depends (yes, the individual in
history matters) on Morales's capacity to stand against the pressures coming
down from the enemy, pressures that are sure to intensify if the president
attempts to advance the interests of those who raised him up.
This is about the fundamental nature of communism, the fact
that communism is not a theory but a historical movement taking place before our
eyes (and hopefully with our participation). Genuine communism is the name given
to the real struggles taking place around us. A genuine communist movement
doesn't argue that the real struggle is a mistake that should be replaced with
another one advocated by advanced thinkers -- whether this goes by the name of
permanent revolution, socialism from below, two-stage revolution, or whatever.
Constituent Assembly
The Bolivian masses want to "refound the nation" in a very
fundamental way -- I believe this has been Morales' slogan since he began
pressing for the combination of the presidential election and constituent
assembly as a road for the struggle. He argued from the beginning that the
movement could not just change things "from below" but had to take political
power to accomplish its goals. So far he has done a very good job of pursuing
this course patiently and stubbornly, and he has won masses of fighting workers
and peasants and Indians to his cause. And so far he is keeping his word to
them.
The leftist critics say that Bolivia is in a revolutionary
situation - - and then they demand that this revolutionary situation be replaced
by a different one that follows an anti-electoral, "workers council" course. To
those who think that way, I recommend the very fine critique of the ultraleft in
Portugal in 1975, by Gerry Foley, Joseph Hansen and George Novack, which has
been posted in the Documents section of the Socialist Voice website. Their
arguments against the hostile stance taken by much of the far left against the
constituent assembly elected in Portugal in 1975 are directly relevant to the
hostility much of the far left is expressing towards the Morales presidency
today.
I am not in the least suggesting that the far left critics are
allied with imperialism -- but neither are they playing a revolutionary role.
Indeed, the intense fanaticism of Solares' denunciation of Morales is fraught
with danger. Let us not forget the 1983 coup carried out by Bernard Coard's
"leftists" against Maurice Bishop in Grenada, a coup that destroyed the popular
movement that Bishop led and opened the door to U.S. invasion.
Cuba's role
The developments in Bolivia show the growing attractive power
of the Cuban revolution. And this has been heightened by the Castro leadership's
ability to relate to all struggles and fighters in a completely non-sectarian
way. They learned in their courageous and self-sacrificing efforts to push the
strategy of guerrilla warfare in the 1960s that revolutions are not made by
imposing "Russian models" or "Cuban roads" but by collaborating with
revolutionaries and fighters from the popular movements in Latin America in the
line of march that the class struggle in their countries and region charts for
itself.
And the Bolivian process is greatly strengthened by the
committed support it is receiving from Cuba and Venezuela.
The counter-argument seems to be that objective conditions in
Bolivia demand maximalist solutions, not the step-by-step advances pursued by
Morales, who some compare with Kerensky. But the Bolivian masses are pursuing a
process, not immediately creating soviets or overthrowing the entire bourgeois
state as a whole in one blow. And Morales, unlike Kerensky, is not postponing
the Constituent Assembly but insisting on it against capitalist and landlord
opposition, and campaigning for the working people and oppressed to mobilize for
it and defend it.
The test of Bolivia
Morales is certainly going to be thoroughly tested by what
happens. The pressure has only started to be applied. The threats and penalties
will mount if he continues to lead forward. The Bolivian working people are also
being tested.
But the veteran revolutionaries and would-be revolutionaries
in Bolivia and elsewhere are also being tested. Can they avoid a spirit of
narrow resistance, resentment, and competition with the new forces that have
come forward including Morales?
There is nothing progressive or revolutionary about shouting
from abroad, "You are fools! They betray you!" when the masses are going forward
firmly and intelligently, when the leadership they have forged is showing some
competence, and when they are not being betrayed.
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free
from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
|
Title: Message
