RE: [Marxism] The danger to the revolutionary process in the sectarian baiting of President-elect Evo Morales

["Juan Carlos" <juancarloscruz@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey my friend: and utopian perfectionist socialists behave like anarchists
some times, because they would like a perfect real communist anarchist state
less system the first day that Evo Morales gets to power.  We all  wish that
things change real fast, but the world changes and evolves very slow.  Like
James Petras for example he is already writting articles about the failure
of new Evo Morale's government

Juan Carlos



"Que se acabe el arroz, la leche y la gasolina, pero el ron que no se acabe
que esa es mi medicina." -Johnny Ventura



From:  "Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To:  Activists and scholars in Marxist
tradition<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:  "'mxmail'" <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject:  [Marxism] The danger to the revolutionary process in the sectarian
baiting of President-elect Evo Morales
Date:  Sat, 07 Jan 2006 01:02:37 -0500
Yes, there is sectarian baiting of Evo Morales taking place.  That is
simply a fact.  And not only sectariaan baiting, but adventurist threats
to the new government that pose a danger to the entire actual and
potential revolutionary process.  The touch of frenzy building in the
anti-Morales campaign before his inauguration is already producing this.

For instance, the issue of International Viewpoint I referred to as an
"anti-Evo special issue"  front pages an interview with Jaime Solares of
the Confederation of Bolivian Workers.  The IV issue headlines, with
every indication of full support, this statement by Solares:

"If Evo doesn't nationalize the gas, he will fall like Lozada"

I do hope the  participants in the current anti-Evo propaganda wave will
actually stop and think about what Solares -- and International
Viewpoint?  And the Fourth International? And Bolivian Fourth
Internationalists? -- are saying here.  Solares is threatening an armed
"popular" insurrection against the most popularly-elected president in
the history of Bolivia, who got about 55 percent of the vote in a
country where the Far Left seems to have had every opportunity to
challenge him if they had wished to do so.

Threats like this are wonderful openings for the army and police, and
for reactionary forces which have hardly disappeared in the wake of the
election.

This is not the first time I have raised the issue of an anti-democratic
thrust developing in the anti-Evo campaign which can hand powerful
wepaons to the counter-revolution in Bolivia.  As the  "leftist" in
lingo but counterrevolutionary in fact coup against Maurice Bishop
showed in fact.

This is not the first time I have raised the issue of  the
anti-democratic  ultraleft twitch in the anti-Evo campaignings, which is
now reaching a crescendo, and crossing over into threats that can only
damage the potential breadth of the revolutionary process.

Back on June 10 the list published a short article by me entitled: "A
recommended reading for discussing Bolivia: Joseph Hansen's 'For a
correct political course in Portugal'"

In that article I wrote:

 recommend that everyone involved in discussing Bolivia now take time
to dig up -- and I hope the Marxist Internet Archive will help with this
-- and read "For a Correct Political Course in Portugal," a critique of
the line of the former International Majority Tendency in Portugal
signed by Joseph Hansen, Gerry Foley, and George Novack -- but
predominantly, I firmly believe, the work of Joseph Hansen with a number
of sections by Gerry Foley.

This is one of the best examples of Marxist strategic thinking about
tactical problems, the importance of such things as the defense and
extension of bourgeois democracy as part of a revolutionary process.

It is very important to read today because I get strong vibrations from
some of the discussion on the list that parts of the left are heading
for a round of "antiparliamentary cretinism" around the likelihood of a
new election, the likely victory of Morales, MAS, and their allies, and
the election and holding of a constituent assembly to establish a new
constitution for Bolivia.  I pick up the clear sense that the road to a
genuine popular revolution is being counterposed to these steps.

There is a lot of stuff about Fourth International factional disputes
but a great deal of it is very relevant to the discussions around
Bolivia today.  A review of the subheadings will reveal some of what I
mean: "Bourgeois Democracy v. Proletarian Democracy and the Legacy of
Eduard Bernstein"; "The Electoral Victory -- an Opening or a Trap?";
"Sectarian Thinking par excellence"; can the peasants be won over?; the
constituent assembly as a stepping stone to a workers and peasants
government; how the issue of democracy was stolen from Portuguese
revolutionists"; and much else is highly relevant as well.

[In Portugal, the ultraleftist campaign against bourgeois democracy
carried out in the name of "soviets" ended with a coup attempt, possibly
supported by a small section of the bourgeois army, that gave the ruling
class the whip hand to push back the extensive radicalization that had
developed after the fall of a military dictatorship in 1974.]

Overall, the document showed Hansen's extraordinary capacity to educate
about how to think about revolutionary situations. Even the sections on
freedom of the press, the suppression of the Social Democrats' Republica
newspaper, and the section entitled "Anti-parliamentary cretinism and
the Copcon Program" will be useful.  The document could use a lot of
footnotinmg today, but I am convinced the discussion on thinking through
perspectives on how the workers and peasants can advance toward power in
Bolivia will be helped by reading it, despite the massive differences in
the situations being discussed.

***
Unfortunately the Marxist Internet Archive is not yet able to include
this document from  1975, but I, Walter Lippmann, Andy Pollack, and some
other comrades have copies available in PDF format. I hope that one
positive effect of the grave error made by Jaime Solares in making this
threat, and International Viewpoint in appearing to strongly support it,
will be to interest more comrades in reading Hansen's extremely relevant
comments.

And I also still think it is time to end this thread.
Fred Feldman


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