Re: [Marxism] The latest round of debate on Evo...

["Wayne S. Rossi" <felianan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Friedman writes:

Nothing that occurs anywhere in Latin America (or any "Third World"
region) can be so blithely divorced from imperialism. The class struggle
in these areas is inevitably a struggle against imperialism. Therefore,
the class struggle is first and foremost a fight for national liberation.
Your "concrete struggle" proves the point: "neoliberal capitalism" is a
product of the machinations of capital via the world market. That is the
"concrete" meaning of the water and gas wars.
----------------------------------------

The water and gas struggles are the center of the Bolivian revolutionary 
process, and they are the real conditions for Morales' victory.  You can say 
that *they* are concrete manifestations of the conflict between imperialism and 
the Third World, and you'd be right.  However, that doesn't distract from those 
precise struggles, which is the meaning of the uncritically pro-Morales camp.  
If the struggles are linked to imperialism, and they are, does that mean we 
have to now look at Morales as a figure?  No.  It means that we have to look at 
the potential of the revolutionary struggle in Bolivia, which is concrete and 
national, to challenge imperialism.

The uncritical pro-Morales camp here wants to transubstantiate the Bolivian 
struggle from something real into an airy "anti-imperialism" that is embodied 
in the figure of Morales.  This is not and never has been the way things work.  
Morales is a figure from a complex situation with a deeply contradictory stance 
in regard to the class forces in Bolivia.  He is currently entrusted with power 
because he promised to achieve the aims of the Bolivian masses, which are 
directly contradictory to imperialism's goals in the region, specifically in 
the form of nationalizing gas.  It follows that he will only be drawn into a 
wider conflict with imperialism if he follows through on the aims of the 
Bolivian people - that is, does exactly what we "critics" have said he must.  
Imperialism is not and never has been an excuse to sweep aside class questions 
in any situation, and the class questions must be answered by Morales.  Failure 
to do so would be disastrous for his presidency.

-Wayne

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