[Marxism] RE: Problems -- and possibilities -- in Bolivia

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert H. Jackson writes:
What is occurring today in Bolivia has happened many times in recent
history. I lived in Cochabamba fro a year from 1986-1987, and a month
after
I arrived the tin miners from Oruro were marching on La Paz, and the
U.S.
supported president imposed a state of siege.

(I know this is a really weird question, but are you by any chance
related to the Robert H. Jackson who was attorney general under Franklin
Roosevelt, and was appointed by him to the US Supreme Court?  He did
many bad things -- as they all do -- but his main claim to fame is
likely to be his authorship of the minority opinion opposing the
imprisonment of the Japanese residents of the United States.)

 I have never been in Bolivia, but I have followed the country since the
early 1960s when I learned about the people's tremendous fighting
tradition as a new reader of the Militant newspaper.

 I think there is something different from what you describe in the
report that you are commenting on.
That is the fact that the "paralyzing" general strike is occurring not
in Cochabamba, or the Oruro mines or in La Paz, but in SANTA CRUZ.

 My recollection of Santa Cruz is as the headquarters and most stable
and reliable base of the bourgeoisie, the landlords, the right wing of
the army.  I have never heard of Santa Cruz being crippled by workers'
strikes or seized by peasant protesters, as has happened quite
frequently.  I suspect this must have happened in 1952, when a national
revolution really did transform the country in many ways, but I don't
know of instances since. I don't claim there are absolutely none, I just
don't know about them.

  The counterrevolution against the deep-going popular revolutionary
upsurge of workers and peasants from 1969-71 (not unrelated to the
self-sacrifice of the guerrilla led by Che, although not caused by it)
was defeated by a counterrevolution that began in Santa Cruz, and I
think I recall that the Barrientos counter-revolution of 1964-8 had a
strong base of support there.

  So when I saw that Santa Cruz was paralyzed by a strike, I have to
admit my heart leapt with actual joy.  I have been walking on air.
Perhaps that is an illusion, but I suspect not.

    I notice that the much criticized and probably imperfect Evo Morales
has never broken his ties with the workers and peasants, and, despite
the attempts of some sectors of the workers movement to break its ties
with him and despite his political maneuvers with bourgeois forces, has
managed to preserve those ties.  He seems to me to be committed to SOME
KIND of fundamental change in Bolivia.

    I think Bolivia is closer to a true social revolution of the workers
and peasants (and above all in some ways of the Indians as Indians --
would that rock Peru, Ecuador, Guatemal and Mexico!) than it has ever
been before.

    History is not just an endless cycle of tragic repetitions.

Fred Feldman


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism