Declaration of the Bolivian Section of the Fourth International"; No.4, July 18, "Collapse of the "Unity of the Armed Forces'"; and No.9, October 3, Among the Gorillas." The mine workers of Bolivia have the absolute duty to explain their class political position on the latest political events and the series of threats now weighing on their future. At the same time, they must oddress themselves to their class brothers and, in general, to all the exploited of the country. 1. The declarations of General Banzer, who claims to head the strangest government in the past several decades in our country, have been smashed to bits by the reality of the facts. In a little less than three years, the dictatorship has disintegrated in an obvious manner, tormented by its internal crisis and suffering the pressure of the revolutionary resistance of the proletariat and the Bolivian people. The regime's repeated efforts to maintain itself in power have been unable to attain their objectives fully, because the working class and the people have not let themselves be fooled; on the contrary, they have firmly rejected all these maneuvers. That is what happened, for example, during the campaign to get Bolivia an outlet to the sea, a campaign launched in order to gather the masses behind a chauvinist banner that, in the final analysis, would have appeared as representing popular support for the regime. We know the fate of this campaign: the working class responded by counterposing its own class position, which was none other than the revolutionary struggle for an outlet to the sea in the fromewark of the alliance of peoples on the basis of their socialist orientation. Further, the clearest proof of 28
OF THE the profound crisis that is rocking the government was the latest coup on June 5. Thus, the so-often proclaimed unity of the army, the sole support of the regime, was totally belied. While crisis and decomposition are eroding the positions of the government and imperialism, the working class and the people are pressing their revolutionary struggle forward step by step and battle after battle, reconquering the rights that were swept away by the bloody coup of 1971. They have strengthened their unity and organization in the fight for their own immediate and historic objectives, opposing the antipopular measures of famine and poverty with tenacious resistance. New and important sectors have thrown themselves into the antifascist, anti-imperialist resistance led by the proletariat: the peasants and, more recently, the university students, members of the liberal professions, and other popular sector. in sum, we affirm that while the government camp is experiencing crisis and decomposition, our positions in the popular camp are becoming stronger cround the struggle for the building of an anti-imperialist united front aimed at giving the country a popular government led by the working class that represents the interests of the majority of our people. 2. The latest crisis suffered by the present dictatorial regime was temporarily overcome by setting up an essentially military government in order to demonstrate that there was a new unity among the officers, which is far from being the reality. On the contrary, the formation of the military cabinet does not represent a solution to the crisis, for everyone knows that putschist attempis remain on the order of the day so far as the various nationalist currents are concerned. We workers must not fool ourselves. The exploited have a clear position on coups, whether civil or military: we must always maintain our class independence, which is expressed in all our basic documents and whose real democratic and revolutionary content excludes no civilian or military force that identifies with the immediate and historic positions of the working class. 3. The well known formulas of "institutionalization" and "constitutionalization" take on a clear meaning for the mine work-
BOLIVIA ers, because these formulas have been defined by their own authors in such a way that there is no need for guesswork in discovering their real aims. "Institutionalization, called, refers to the stage in which the goverment's objective is "restoring order in the country" by creating so-called social peace. In sum, it amounts to nothing other than an attempt to impose the will of the regime on the exploited of the country one way or the other; that is, to exercise very strict control over the workers and their organizations. On this basis, once this stage has been achieved, the next step is "constitutionalization, " which would amount to nothing but the legalization of the previous stage -- namely, the legalization of the regime of famine and exploitation through a reorganized apparatus which many would call the "new state. " To atlain this goal, they have created the Conscjo Nacional de Reformas Estructurales (National Council of Structural Reforms), composed of representatives of the oligarchy and the military caste, a body that will only follow the directives of the military. The idea of carrying out a constitutionalization under conditions of harsh repression of the masses, bars on leftist political parties, the exiling of political and trade-union leaders, the imprisonment of many political leaders -- among them well known workers leaders and trode unionists -- corresponds to a strategy designed to avoid real democratization of the country and instead to set up an electoral system that would allow for the continuity of the counterrevolutionary system inaugurated in August 1971. Under these conditions, the duty of the working class is to conquer and defend the application of democratic liberties, which means respect for the democratic rights of all citizens, freedom of trade-union organization, respect for trade-union freedoms, the possibility of free expression for all revolutionary political parties, and the declaration of a general and unrestricted amnestyConfronted with this situation, the workers must build up their own methods of struggle; the conquest of their rights wilf be possible only through their own efforts and sacrifices in struggle. 4. When the government indicates that it is inclined to authorize the functioning of the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB -Bolivian Workers Confederation), it is trying to channel the workers organizations into its proposed institutionalization, that is, to domesticate them and subject them to its designs as simple appendages of the government's own political orientation. The declarations the government has made on this subject have been clear and decisive; it has explained that it wants to reorganize the COB by utilizing elements foreign to the working class. There is no doubt that this represents an attempt to replace the real COB by a totally different and fake organization. In face of such an absurdity, the mine workers have the duty to struggle to win the right of the COP function from the rank-and-file level up, to win the ri it to be run on the basis of its troditional revolutionar, principics. it is only on this basis that our main organization has been built in the long and difficult process of struggles that we have waged against the enemies of the workers. 5. The August 1971 coup directed its full barbarism toward the students and the universities, not only because the regime had to confront them physically, but also because it had to dismantle the main bases of resistance in the cities. This fact determined the virtual destruction of university autonomy and was followed by efforts to reconstruct the universities as bodies completely dependent on the state. The fact that the university students, afer three years of humiliation and silence, have again entered into octive struggle for their rights that have been trampled underfoot is decisive proof that among the popular mosses there is great discontent about and resistance to the pro-imperialist policy of the government. The incorporation of the students into the struggle being led by the workers has a very great revolutionary significance. That is why in endorsing the unity of the miners and the students, we must support the demands of our student comrades by repeating that their struggle can go forward and attain meaningful success only if it is linked to the cause of the proletariat; that is, it cannot attain its objectives outside the framework of the anti-imperialist positions of the workers and the people. After many years of political submission, the workers of the countryside are entering into the national political awakening and are joining in the general struggle of the Bolivian people. This has been true ever since the tragic events at Cochabamba, which clearly showed that the peasants constitute a sector that suffers intensely from the consequences of the economic measures that are striking the people. The process that has been initiated can culminate only in the overthrow of the government domination that is now oppressing the peasants. This is a task in which the mine workers express their solidarity with this important sector, a natural ally of the working class. 6. From all that we have said, it follows that the problem that presently confronts the mine workers and the rest of the exploited is located primarily in the arena of political struggle. To fail to understand the situation in this way would be a real historic irresponsibility that would Fundamentally set back our present trode-union and revolutionary leadership. That is why it is important to orient the activity of the Federation of Miners toward strengthening and broadening the unity of all the worken and exploited of the country, beginning with an effective struggle for the functioning of the COB as the united leadership of the workers movement.
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