Re: [Marxism] Cochabamba People, 1 / Bechtel, 0

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

Nestor writes:

[First part in Spanish, MOST in English.

As you will see from the article, the famous "water war", which has
ended with a victory that we celebrate together with J. Schultz, who
reports in detail, was simply a particular form of what Lenin termed
an "economic struggle".

It would be simple (simpleton) economism to turn something that can
be won, as it was, at the courts, into a "political struggle".

But this is what many do, only because a tiny fraction of a very poor
people can defeat _the own bourgeoisie of those many_ in a way they
haven't managed to do as yet.

And of course we REALLY understand the difficulties involved in such
a task, we are not haughty nor anything like that.
_________________________________________________________

I don't know what the translations of Lenin are like in Argentina, but in the 
English it is perfectly clear that economism is something quite different from 
what you present here repeatedly.  Lenin argues consistently against what he 
defines as a tendency for all political action to be in the trade unions, and a 
corresponding lack of political organization as such.  Unless you are using it 
to mean any awareness of the class struggle, in which case it's a baseless slur 
against Marxism as a whole.

What is politics?  It is concentrated economics.  They cannot be separated from 
each other.  The water wars, like everything else in Bolivia, are shot through 
and interpenetrated with the class struggle, with the struggle against 
imperialism, and the indigenous struggle - which are inseparable one from the 
other.  The water question, in being raised, automatically raised with it the 
questions of poverty and the oppression of the indigenous peoples, since the 
indigenous poor were the primary victims of the privatization.   To pretend 
that economics aren't political or that a revolt (!) is not political is 
outside of the boundaries of Marxist thought.  Bolivia is in the midst of a 
class struggle, of which the water wars are a part.

Marxists shouldn't have to assault analysis rooted in class struggles in order 
to defend *anyone*.

-Wayne




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