RE: [Marxism] Re: More on Bolivia's COB

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg writes: "The current situation in Bolivia, however, seems to have
arrived at a critical juncture. The grumbling of the COB seems to be a sign
that Morales is in danger of losing support among an  important sector of
the organized working class, who see him as too timid and incapable of
standing up to the oligarchy."

But the COB leadership has been grumbling about Morales for years now.
That's why it is hard to gauge whether there really is any shift among the
masses. The article about this new threat to form the political instrument
of the workers to my ears sounded like reporting on the same kind of
--frankly-- asinine sectarian bombast that the COB leadership has been using
to discredit itself for several years -- however unintentionally -- and
quite often to the applause of foreign radicals, especially people who
consider themselves "Trotskyists" or partisans of "socialism from below."

Yes, I know, Evo's economic policies have been unclear, incomplete,
incoherent, inconsistent, and unsustainable...

Looks like he's been channeling Marx: 

"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all
capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in
the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling
class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. 

"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of
despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of
bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear
economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the
movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old
social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the
mode of production."

If you skipped over the quote: don't. And read the second paragraph twice.
And remember, that relatively speaking, the revolutionary process in Bolivia
is starting from a much lower level than anything Marx and Engels might have
imagined in writing those lines. 

Tons of folks have had essentially the same complaints about Lenin, Fidel,
the Vietnamese, the Sandinistas, Maurice Bishop, Hugo Chavez and so on. The
measures are not radical enough. The government isn't really taking on the
root of the problem. 

The reason why so many folks have this complaint is that they think "the
government" can radically change things, transform society, revolutionize
life itself. It cannot. Only the masses, the people can do that. Sure, the
people need state power to do that, but that is not just a matter of good
guys holding the top government jobs. 

All the huffing and puffing about "expropriation without compensation" (a
favorite demand of the COB leadership) can't make it so, and I believe it is
a sign of maturity in a revolutionary leadership that it rejects such
ultra-radical ways of putting the question. Because the task is to unite ALL
who can be united on OUR side, including a layer of working people who will
be confused about compensation.

Look at the Cuban case. Did Fidel proclaim "expropriation without
compensation"? Of course not -- he said compensation would be paid, fully,
even to the imperialist corporations. But out of the proceeds of sugar sales
to the U.S. over the minimum quota the US had assigned Cuba. Cuba usually
exported much more than its quota to the U.S., so it was a perfectly
reasonable mechanism. However, it just so happened that RIGHT THEN the US
had banned sugar imports from the island, not just those over the quota, but
those to fill the quota also.

The Cuban way of posing the question of compensation placed the onus of the
United States, not for the benefit of Wall Street, but for the benefit of
small farmers and other small proprietors in Cuba, as well as workers who
identified or aspired to become part of such layers. The message was that
provided you dealt fairly with the revolution, the revolution would deal
fairly with you. But of course, if you declared economic war on the
revolution, the revolution was hardly in a position to continue business as
usual with you.

Why did Fidel -- and I think it must be recognized he is a consummate
politician, a real political artist, even if you don't agree with him --
CHOOSE to put the question in this way, rather than baldly explaining that
after decades of raping the island, the imperialists and their corporations
had absolutely no right to even a penny in compensation?

Because the big capitalists and the imperialists tell the small farmer or
merchant or other producer --and there are typically TONS of them in third
world economies-- that if even the richest and most powerful can be
nationalized, the revolutionary government will have even less respect for
the smallest owners, once it gets around to dealing with them, and the
smallholders better join up with the counterrevolution.

A revolution has to do everything it can to undercut this sort of appeal,
both for political and economic reasons. 

The real question is whether the various measures and the ways they are
presented taken as a whole are tending to re-enforce or undercut the
organization and combativity of the toilers and of "the nation," for
ultimately it is the toilers organized as the nation who will face and have
to stand up to and perdure against the fullest wrath of the imperialists. 

>From this point of view it is interesting to compare the statements of the
COB leadership to the article by Solis Rada that was posted to the list. He
does not insist that the re-nationalization of the gas had to be
qualitatively more radical; on the contrary, he says quite openly that
perhaps these (clearly to him disappointing) results are as far as the
relationship of forces allows, for the time being. 

But he is critical of Evo for not being open about the limitations of the
nationalization process as reflected in the contracts signed. Why? Because a
fuller, more open explanation would help the working people as a whole
understand just how much had been achieved and how much more ground remained
to be taken. 

I have no way of knowing whether this particular criticism of Evo's handling
of this situation is on target or not; but the reasoning, the method of
analysis involved does seem right to me. The real question is strengthening
the understanding, organization and combativity of working people and that
is where Solis Rada has focused, not on the seeming "radicalness" or lack of
it of the measures at this moment of what is, we hope, the early stages of a
process of permanent revolution.

Contrast that to the COB leadership's denunciation of the insufficient, at
best partial character of Evo's policies. I, for one, do not *necessarily*
believe that ANYTHING the COB leadership says bears the slightest
resemblance to the attitude of most working people, since the COB tops
showed themselves to be completely out of touch with the masses in the
election campaign leading up to Evo's victory and afterwards, with their
farcical "general strike" a year ago. 

And I repeat, the big question is favoring the development of the power of
the working people "from below," because eventually --we hope-- they will
have to take charge of this economy that today is still largely run by the
capitalists and make it function in the face of all sorts of imperialist
attacks, sabotage and so on.

"Dealing death blows to capitalist property"-type thinking, which is what
I've seen from the COB leadership, is wrong as the overriding, central
priority. 

Property is not a relationship between people and things, the issue is not
to take the "things" out of the hands of the bad people, the capitalists.
Property is a SOCIAL relation, a relationship between different people (and
groups of people) MEDIATED by the "things," the factories, farms, refineries
and so on. It is the SOCIAL relationship that needs to be turned upside
down, and that is much, much harder to do than changing the name on a title
deed from "Bob Exploiter" to "Bolivia."

Joaquin



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