The test of the March general strike
On March 4, 1985, about 50,000 people demonstrated has by now become a classic refrain, «The people in La Paz, including more than ten thousand miners who had arrived in the city that morning. This was the first Chile at the time of the armed will never be crushed!"
time in twenty years that the miners had come into the the rehearsal for the September coupl, the Bolivian
But this time they had come for a people are not armed.
direct confrontation with the People's
Union (UDP) government that they had helped to against the elections set for April, was widely taken up. Finally the slogan of "Down with the elections!"
come to power in 1982 by overthrowing General A more political variant, "The elections are no solution"
was also shouted, but it did not catch on as much. It is true that these early general elections, which were
Confederation (COB) came to the demonstration on The miners, the backbone of the Bolivian Labor decided on at the end of last year after the November overloaded trucks from the Oruro and Huanuni mines, and December general strikes, are a maneuver by the
This decision was made in response to the starting out in the early dawn hours. They were joindemands of Hugo Banzer, the Historical Revolutionary ed by massive contingents of La Paz workers and in Nationalist Movement (MNRH) of Paz Estenssoro, but particular by contingents from the housewives commit- also of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR)
tees. The slogans that predominated were "Death to of Paz Zamora, which had been an integral part of the
5 We've had enough of Siles, government up till then.
BOLIVIA.
city en masse.
Garcia Meza's dictatorship.
Banzer and Banzerism!
However, just as in
"tancazo" ["tank operation,"
However, a simple rejection death to the hunger government." (1) The miners also of these elections is not sufficient in and of itself to lay shouted, "Long live the unity of the left!" and what out an alternative political perspective.
The March 4 demonstration in La Paz launched four days of constant marches and mass assemblies in the capital's open-air auditorium, which more than 10,000 miners met every day to discuss how to continue the
In response to these mobilizations, a network of solidarity with the miners began to build up, concerned at the beginning with feeding them. The demonstrators were given food in the university in popular canteens, also in canteens organized by the housewives committees. The latter demonstrated their effectiveness by distributing about 20,000 rations of food a day, in a situation in which food is scarce, mainly because of speculation.
As the miners settled in in the city, an potential of solidarity with them began to express itself more strongly. The central bank employees gave them
The students organized collections of funds. The machinery of support went into operation in the other unions.
From the first day that they were in La Paz, the miners decided to maintain ongoing assemblies. Every day they discussed the state of the struggle and the best way to win their demands. Their 14point platform focused on an urgent social need, raising the demand for a living minimum wage and a sliding scale; and on a political need, calling for "Siles out!" The continuing assembly of the miners decided to stay in La Paz after the initial day in order to force compliance with their demands.
On March 6, the government made it International Viewpoint 22 April 1985 clear that it was rejecting 11 of the 14 points advanced in the miners' union responded by pushing the COB to issue a call for a general strike around the central and unifying demand of a living minimum wage and a sliding
The following day, the expanded leadership of the COB, including a hundred union delegates, decided to call an unlimited general strike. On March 8, the Executive Committee of the COB drew up the traditional document defining the terms of the general strike.
The document set down what services were to continue functioning during the strike, the methods of struggle, etc.
decided, for example, to keep the telex links open for the international press but to interrupt internal communications. This plan was respected, although unevenly. But it still had a defensive and limited aspect.
For example, the assignment of the task of blocking the roads to the peasant movement paradoxically helped the army to make a demonstration of strength on the cheap more than it facilitated a link-up between the mobilization of the peasants nad the struggle of the miners and the workers in La Paz.
This was the sixth time that the COB called a general strike since September 1982, when, precisely by this means, it put the UDP government in power. This sixth general strike, in March 1985, was government. This fact illustrates how rapidly a chasm had opened up between the mass movement and the UDP.
On March 15, to put the COB leader,
Juan Lechin, in a difficult position, Siles Suazo issued a call for cogovernment, that is, a coalition government including
But the confederation had demanded a COB-majority cogovernment, in which the union representatives would dominate. Siles Suazo offered a formula only that would leave the COB representatives in the minority. Under the pressure of the mass movement, this proposition was rejected. Moreover, Lechin's own political plans did not dispose him to accept a solution of this sort in collaboration with the Siles Suazo government.
The strike lasted for more than two weeks. On March 23, the miners had to climb back on their trucks to return to
For some, this meant going back to work. But for many, it was only going back to unemployment without
The jobs of a lot of any prospects. miners have been wiped out by the crisis in the tin-mining industry, tin being the country's traditional source of wealth and the material basis of the miners' power as a social and trade-union force.
Formally the strike ended in a compromise, with the workers getting a 400% increase in their incomes, payable partly in food tickets. But in fact, this solved nothing, when inflation is running at over 2,000% a year and there is no sliding scale of wages that can maintain the workers' buying power.
The two-week general strike was spurred on by daily street demonstrations. Parallel to this, the Bolivian capital was
Hugo Banzer, leader of the Democratic Nationalist Alliance head of the U DP government.
steadily militarized (in a process directly planned and coordinated by the American ority, the police and army presence was services). With the government's up, and surveillance was tightbeefed ened.
The government's mouthpiece, Minister of Information, Rueda Pena, orchestrated a campaign against the miners through all the media, portraying them as terrorists and putchists out for a coup d'etat. his part, the vice president, Garett, did not hesitate during President Siles Suazo's trip to Montevideo, to declare publicly that it was necessary to institute a state of siege to restore order.
On the directly political level, the government's counteroffensive was focused around three key ideas - rejection of the miners' demands; denouncing them as terrorists; and maintaining the principle general elections, postponing
Devaluation on this scale and such galloping inflation inevitably bring to mind the situation in Germany in 1923. The Bolivian government had to lay out 60 million dollars just for bank notes to be shipped in by plane from Under the conditions created by this sort of inflation, it is becoming impossible to import goods and spare parts. The enterprises cannot function any longer. Every product is becoming the object of frenzespecially medecines, dollar price is ten times higher than in West Europe.
The cost of a box of powdered milk sufficient to feed a child for two weeks is higher than the monthly wage of a work-
The minimum wage for a month, and, according to official statistics, the average wage is 39 dollars a month. In these conthe inflation figures themselves the sixth unlimited general strike called by the COB and the fact that the miners stayed twenty days in a place that is more than 4,000 meters above sea level, living on starvation rations and having to find places to sleep where they could. These miners, who have a long tradition of miliorganization and political conshave really nothing more to lose but their chains. And they express "Nothing could be worse than this again, that by repeating over and over
From the outset of the strike, a problem was posed still more urgently than during the previous strikes. On the social level, it was difficult to force the government to meet the workers' demands. A minimum living wage guaranteed by a sliding scale is in direct contradiction to the policy of the IMF and to the interests of the bosses, who unleashed a furious press campaign against the workers.
of early them only until July 14, 1985. products is demand sets the stage for a social and
The exasperation of the masses and the political tension that exists can be explained clearly by citing a few figures, even though scientifically accurate statistics are unavailable. In the parallel market, the dollar was worth 260 pesos in November 1982, 1,200 pesos in November 1983, 15,000 pesos in November 1984, 150,000 pesos in February 1985, and 170,000 pesos on March 4, 1985.
On the official market, which reflects the devaluations decreed by the government in accordance with the policy imposed by the IMF and implemented by the UDP government, the exchange rate went from 200 pesos to the dollar in November 1982 to 45,000 pesos to the dollar in February 1985. But from November 1984 to February 1985, in one sudden leap, the dollar went from 8,571 pesos to 45,000 pesos. This plunge in the value of the peso was the result of the economic agreement that the government made on February 9, and of the abrupt devaluation that went hand in hand with the other economic measures adopted on this occasion. Bolivian workers demonstrate 4 March 1985 (DR)
lose their meaning. particularly shocking. What we are seeing here is a classical pattern of hoarding. While there is no absolute shortage of food products, speculative hoarding is driving up the prices and starving people.
The country's chronic poverty is being aggravated by the UDP's policy and the general economic crisis. In this situation, the effects of the IMF's policy are being compounded by a flight of capital and massive fiscal fraud that is increasing the budget deficit and bringing on new cuts in the already desperately inadequate social spending.
According to a UNICEF study done recently, 80% of the population was considered to be living in poverty. The soaring inflation comes on top of unemployment and underemployment. When the workers demand a living minimum be taken literally. What is in question is basic survival, the right to eat as the most elementary democratic right (see box).
This is the context for understanding the most immediate economic political confrontation, in fact poses the question of power. That is what was expressed by the slogans demanding that Siles Suazo get out and denouncing the The COB leadership
Nonetheless, difficulties loom large on both the economic and political level.
On the economic level, as on the previous occasions, but now with more aggressiveness, government said "no." In reality, contrary to what the Western press reported, it was ready to negotiate, but in strict limits. Thus, a large part of the wage increases granted as a result of the strike will be paid in food tickets. They will, therefore, not have a multiplier effect on the fragile but nonetheless real social welfare systems (pensions, insurance, retirement), which are vital for a population exposed to silicosis, work accidents, and with a very large number of people unable to work past the age of 35.
What is more, the granting of a concession in the form of food tickets can only be made good to the extent that the food is available in the stores run by COMIBOL, the state mining board. And it could be expected that speculators are not going to be very likely to release their hoarded stocks for the sake of food tickets issued by a government that is living on borrowed
On the political level, while the miners demanded the departure of Siles Suazo, they did not propose an alternative solution. The historic leader of the COB,
DENT EY ESTMB.
12
CONSEJO CENTRAL SUD
WISCHISEA
Juan Lechin, has proposed absolutely nothing in this respect. He called for the departure of Siles, while refusing to add, as the militant forces in the strike mobilization did, rejection of Banzer and Paz Estenssoro. This attitude is no accident. Confrontation with the government has begun. The question of power is objectively posed. But there is a vast gap between the strength of the mass movement
International Viewpoint 22 April 1985
From the
"If we had phrases the
That
Like many other with tion.
trade-
"But this of improvisation.
of that offers the sort people."
miners' economic struggle, so as to maintain, build up and reorganize the mass forces. These circumstances made it necessary to develop a policy of unity going far beyond the so-called revolutionary organizations, without worrying about trying to appeal to the other reformist components of the workers' movement. People's Assembly
The task was to widen the framework of the mobilization by bringing about a convergence of structures such as people's committees, or workers' and peasants' organizations in a forum or a people's assembly - the name does not much matter - in order to set up an instrument of mass involvment more representative than a meeting of COB delegates alone. The latter was an inadequate expression of the social movement, and proved easily manipulable by the old apparatus grouped around Juan Lechin.
A series of problems appeared, on the other hand, in the struggle that puts limits on the initiatives that revolutionists could take to respond to the situation, if they wanted to take account both of the real relationship of forces and set concrete goals for the struggle that would not disappoint the mobilized masses.
The first problem, which the miners themselves had the greatest difficulty in realizing, is that this sector is out ahead of the rest of the Bolivian working class. The workers and people's movement as a whole is not advancing at the same rate, and this fact threatens to create dangerous gaps. The miners are confident of their strength. (2) They remember that they played the decisive role in overthrowing the last military dictatorship. They have become accustomed to going into struggle alone. But, given the stakes involved in the test of strength that is now underway, their example and the sympathy that it might arouse in other popular strata are not sufficient to solve all the problems of the mobilization. For that, what is needed is a solid and wellstructured front bringing together all sectors of the workers movement, the popular movement, the peasant movement, and even a movement of the pauperized middle classes, middle-range earners and petty bourgeoisie.
The growth of people's committees in the neighborhoods that could fulfill the vital functions of assuring food supplies and provide the basis for a united national structure to fight for a plan to safeguard the nation could modify the situation.
In fact, one of the major weaknesses in the struggle lies in the extreme dispersion of the forces, including the political forces, of the working class. In the early fall of 1984, some of these organizations, by forming the United Revolutionary Lead ership (DRU - which won considerable influence in the leadership of the COB at the September 1984 congress), offered an example and a hope for a dynamic of first of was and the which it
A split
PCB.
away at the PCB.
the government the
1985.
ists." (4)
the so-called
"advanced
2.
opposition to the bureauship, the potential can take incoherent cracy among the miners forms, as happened in
Huanuni for example.
The miners there elected
"rank-and-file"
a candidate in opposition to the outgoing leaderlinked to Hugo ship, who turned out to be
Banzer and was removed from his position as a local union delegate in less than three months.
3.
On the formation of the DRU, see International Viewpoint, No 63, November 12, 1984.
Editorial in the March 9-15 issue of Unidad, the Bolivian Communist Party organ.
Editorial in the March 2-8 issue of Unidad.
5.
13
PI, PS-1 (Cortes), MPLN, MIR (Aranibar), BPP, FRI (MD), PS (Aponte), PST.
The responsibility of the PCB leadership for the extreme political difficulties the movement for economic demands has faced for several months is no secondary
The DRU has been unable to meet the challenge of the organizational dispersion of the workers' movement. do that, it would have had to consolidate itself and put forward the broadest possible unity policy, starting with a proposal for unity to the PCB, which found itself in difficulty, its youth organization having broken from it.
Nor was the DRU able to bring forward a leadership of the COB equal to its tasks, although this coalition represented a decisive pole at the Sixth Congress of the COB in August 1984. Finally, the DRU was not capable of taking advantage of the crisis that appeared in the ranks of the PCB, which was forced to leave the cabinet carrying the burden of two years' responsibility for the policies of the
Thus, the DRU had no clear project for creating an effective and united instrument of the left. In practice, the embryonic outlines of such an instrument can be seen only in still fragile attempts to link the COB structures to people's
The crucial problems revealed by the March 1985 mobilization thus remain entirely to be solved.
In an editorial in its organ Unidad, of March 1, 1985, the PCB recognized, after making a self-criticism that skipped as nimbly as possible over the question of the balance sheet of the UDP, that there was "a need to find a concrete form of unity involving all the people's parties and forces in order to provide them with political leadership."
In reality, the PCB is of course continuing to cast a longing eye at bourgeois forces, even marginal ones, and the so-called progressive military officers. Nonethe revolutionary organizations ize such a policy of alliances, and offered united front of the left," based on a
- to which have been officially added demands for putting the banking system state control and introducing a monopoly of foreign trade — the fundamental iaw on agrarian reform, and the setting up of a cooperative distribution network uniting production and distrib-
A front established on such a basis would be an effective instrument for conducting the fight to assemble a mass
It would stimulate the emergence of an alternative pole that could undertake the fight for a genuinely antioligarchic and anti-imperialist workers and people's government.
However, if Lechin was able to maneuver so easily and to lead the struggle to a compromise that represented a partial political defeat for the miners, because he was able to take advantage of
In fact, it was left open by the DRU's failure to offer perspectives, which was owing to two weaknesses. First, this bloc of organizations that scored a success at the Sixth Congress of the COB did not have a network of cadres equal to the responsibilities and tasks that fell to it in the COB.
it itself lacked unity and a coherent political project. The left and the defence of democratic liberties
So, in the final analysis, the results of the general strike on the economic front were negative, since the wage increases won are derisory by comparison with the rate of inflation and the dimensions of the mobilization of the miners and the popular masses in La Paz over a period of
But the same need not necessarily be said about the results in terms of accumulating experience and raising consciousness. On this level, the result of the recent mobilizations depends on the capacity of the revolutionary currents to draw the lessons of the events in those weeks, to point out the next steps forward, and to stimulate the working masses to organize to meet these
With the backing of a major section of the army that takes orders from General Sejas, Siles Suazo leaned heavily on the need to maintain order and on expanding the role of the military. At the same time, he continued to negotiate with the strikers to assure the holding of elections. It is clear that the US imperialists are trying to promote a solution based on a strong regime organized around a more institutionalized and disciplined army than the one represented by General Garcia Meza, which had become corrupted by involvement in the drug trade and had no cover of electoral legitimacy.
So the response from the right for the moment has not been the traditional one of a military coup in direct confrontation with the masses. It has been rather that of a gradually expanding role of the army, which has caught off guard workers who are more used to direct tests of strength.
At the same time, the right has built up a "democratic" offensive, executing the neat trick of presenting itself as the champion of elections against the "putschists of the left." That is the world - and the history of Bolivia - turned upside down, in a country that has experienced 180 military coups.
The left is quite properly denouncing the electoral maneuver of the right, for which the stage was set from the outset of the UP government in 1982, since the right retained its majority in parliament [elected before the struggle that forced the military to withdraw from the government]. Beyond denunciations, however, the left is not offering any real political alternative, other than hairbrained approaches to so-called military officers.
Nonetheless, the left could challenge the propaganda campaign of the right on of defending democratic liberties itself. After all, in the economic disaster in which the country finds itself, are not the first democratic rights that have to be guaranteed the most elementary social ones, starting with the right to eat? People who die of starvation are not going to cast any more votes.
In this conflict, the bourgeois offensive is aimed at defeating the miners, who program that does not have to be invented, needs. since it is already a historic gain of the Bolivian working class. This program is summed up in the COB's emergency plan forces, which reacted to the crisis on
CALL FOR PEOPLE'S COUNCILS
The revolutionary, democratic and people's political parties declare the following
They support unanimously, resolutely and actively the objectives of the mobilization and the call for an unlimited general strike issued by the miners
They condemn strongly and with indignation the police repression and the order that was given to fire on peacefully
Dr Siles Suazo, which has condoned hoarding of and speculation in, basic necessities by the private sector.
3. In view of the recent events, it is clearly urgent to organize people's councils in the countryside, the poor neighborhoods, and the unions - councils whose tasks would be to deal with the problems of food supply, to organize mass mobilizations, and to defend democratic freedoms against any attempts to take us backward.
Signed: PRIN, PS-1 (palacios), PCB, POR-Unificado, MIR (Masas), PCB-ML, 14
The lack of a revolutionary alternative was of course, exploited by the bourgeois demonstrating miners by the regime of
La Paz March 7, 1985 are the backbone of the COB. The bour-
On the COB emergency plan, see issue No Viewpoint's French-language Since the start of the struggle, the media have conducted a systematic campaign to divide
A large part of this campaign has so-called Trotskyist or neo-Trotskyist provocations. which have been picked up by the European the miners regularly of terrorism for throwing dynamite because it is one of their tools. their militancy, just as they explode sticks of dynamite to celebrate their traditional holidays. The antiterrorist campaign lumped together the and the miners, as well as Juan The PCB did not restrain itself from conducting a campaign parallel to that of the media, using the pretext of the ultraleft propagandist line put forward by the POR-Lora. general line of the latter group amounts to no more than propaganda for the transitional proposals.
International Viewpoint 22 April 1985
geoisie knows perfectly well that the material basis of the miners' power is eroding. Tin production costs are climbing more quickly than the selling prices. The bulk of productive investment is now going to the private mines and no longer into the nationalized mines. In these circumstances, defeating the miners means weakening the social counter-power of the COB, which is an old obsession of the Bolivian bourgeoisie.
At the same time, the bourgeoisie is campaign, portraying the record of the UDP government as the bankruptey of a people's government, trying to put the responsibility on the workers for a policy that was not theirs. In fact. the "people" have never really been in power with the UPD government, even if some of the political parties to which they gave their preference at the polls were represented in it.
Today, with the UPD in crisis and the Siles Suazo regime breaking up, the right - i.e., the MNR-H of Paz Estenssoro, the ADN of Hugo Banzer, and the MIR of Paz Zamora - has clearly gone on the
The government is resting more and more on an army that has been partially reorganized for two years now, and which is serving as a lever for installing a government strong enough to strike at the active wing of the workers' movement and apply the IMF's plans. obstacles this project faces are continuing strong resistance from the mass movement and conflicts within the bourgeois leader-
The elections now set for July 14 are intended to enable the right to speed up the implementation of its project, to provide a more solid constitutional cover International Viewpoint 22 April 1985 for the state power, and to establish the framework for alliances among the formations of the right.
The extreme gravity of the social crisis makes it understandable why a very real radicalization among the workers popular masses is being accompanied by elements of despair. atus's traditional methods of intervening in the electoral process, can enable the right to score electoral gains among the peasants, whose struggles have converged only partially with those of the workers in the last period, and even among sections of the urban poor worn out by chaos and privation. Such a development is not unlikely if the most determined struggles lead to no lasting advances and if organizational dispersion continues to prevail among the left.
The forces of the left must, therefore, counterattack against the bourgeoisie's offensive on the terrain of defending democratic rights itself by pointing up the fact that the formal right to vote is not all there is to democracy when a large part of the population is facing starvation. Secondly, while exposing the objectives of the electoral operation, it will be necessary, if the elections actually do take place, to put forward an "effective left united front" deriving its authority from its involvement in the struggles.
The convulsions shaking the country are announcing the end of a cycle in Bolivian history opened by the revolution of 1952. (8) From an economic standpoint. a kev to the future is in the eastern region of Santa Cruz. It is in that area that the dynamic sectors of the economy are concentrated - oil; gas;
Bolivian miners (DR) stock raising; to say nothing of cocaine, the revenues from which are not monitored by the state but are equivalent to, if not greater than, those from the country's traditional mining exports.
However, this decisive region is separ ated from the valleys and the highlands (from Cochabamba to La Paz and Oruro). The bourgeoisie of Santa Cruz exhibits a "regionalism" that sometimes assumes a secessionist tone. The workers' and people's movement is considerably weaker here, and the right and extreme right are stronger, to say nothing of the paramilitary forces linked to the drug traffic. The cleavage between the bourgeoisie of the east and that of La Paz, whose wealth is based on tin exports, is giving impetus to the structural crisis of political leadership from which the ruling class suffers.
Finally, it is striking that the political
Lechin, Banzer have essentially come out of the political generation of the revolution of 1952, which is today reaching the limits of its lifespan. One might see in this the symbol of the end of an era and one of the reasons for the difficulties both the bourgeoisie and the COB have been experiencing in recomposing a new leadership. (9)
In 1952, a mass insurrection brought the MR to power. It was not yet divided and its central leader was Paz Estenssoro. The regime that came out of the revolution, in particular, nationalized the tin mines and adopted an agrarian reform. 9. Within the popular camp, the coldly premeditated murder of the Partido Socialista No 1, Quiroga Santa Cruz at the time of the 1980 coup d'etat had a major effect. It meant the elimination of a leader capable of organizing the political and trade-union forces who enjoyed great personal prestige and authority.
15