TOWARD A REVNAL
OF STRUGGLE
BOLIVIA Last October 3 the Banzer military dictatorship ordered Bolivian universities shut down in response to a strike by La Paz professors that had lasted for twenty days and was threatening to spread to the entire country. This government measure was immediately rejected by the majority of the people. It was the professors themselves, supported by the university students, who organized the first response. On October 4, at an assembly of professors, high-schoolers, students from San Andrés and the Catholic University, some fathers of families, and some workers, the government was censured and General Waldo Bernal, the minister of education, was declared an "enemy of culture." A big demonstration was then organized that blocked the main streets in the center of the city. The government saw that the ranks of the marchers were swelling as the demonstration marched along and responded by sending hundreds of carabineers and plainclothes police against them. Tear gas and police dogs were used. On both sides people were wounded in these clashes. Later, the police claimed to have sustained gunshot wounds. Many professors and students were arrested. The movement spreads Similar demonstrations took place in other cities (Oruro, Sucre, Cochabamba), but there the combativity and the mobilization were not so extensive. The universities were transformed into centers of popular meetings. Messages of support from workers organizations were read at all the assemblies and meetings, and Intersectoral Alliance Committees were organized. Concurrently with these demonstrations, a wave of strikes broke out that shook the entire country. On October 5 the mineworkers federation paralyzed all the nationalized and private mines for twenty-four hours. The universities also went on strike. Even the National Confederation of Manufacturers, considered a "scab" organization, called for a twohour work stoppage in solidarity with the professors and against the shutdown of the educational system. The La Paz and Cochabamba sections of this confed26 eration considered this measure ridiculous and called for a twenty-four-hour strike on October 7. The trade unions of the graphic arts workers, drivers, bank employees, construction workers, journalists, and liberal professions (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.) also condemned the government and expressed solidarity with the professors, demanding abrogation of the decree closing the educational system, freedom for all those arrested during the struggle, and the return from exile of Dr. Morales Avila, the president of the Confederation of Liberal Professions. He had served as mediator in the conflict and had later been expelled from the country on charges of having conspired against the dictatorship. Struggle for trade-union democracy The antecedents of this conflict must be sought in the government's control of the trade-union organizations of the professors, which was decreed by the dictatorship when it came to power in 1971. The FSB (Falange Socialista Boliviana - Bolivian Socialist Falange) and the MNR (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario - Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) then took control of the teachers union and used the Ministry of Education to install "new trade-union leaderships, " taking away the professors' right to elect their leaders and to democratically organize their own representative leaderships. The dictatorship tried to take control of all the mass organizations, and its repressive policy was directed toward this objective. It failed very soon in the workers sectors. The miners took the lead in defense of their trade-union organizations and forced respect for the Mineworkers Federation and its right to funcfion; the miners were followed by the graphic arts workers, the construction workers, and others. Very few workers trade unions remained under the political control of the dictatorship. After some bloody confrontations, the dictatorship occupied the universities, purging them of any leftist elements, whether students, professors, or administrative employees. The universities were reorga-
nized in the image of the dictatorship. Members of the FSB and the MNR whose only qualifications were their party cards took over the university chairs and the administrative posts. They were also named to the student leaderships. The universities were converted into nests of police agents and "Fascist commandos." But the victorious struggle to regain control of the trade-union organizations, especially the miners union, spread to the universities. The struggle was launched against the Falangist and MNR rectors appointed by the dictatorship. The University of La Paz was the most combative center of this struggle; it was there that the first success was achieved. In the course of this struggle student leaderships emerged out of the rank and file and developed parallel to the leadership bodies appointed by the government. Rank and File Committees were created in all the departments. Later, an Interdepartmental Committee was formed representing the entire university. The official leadership was overturned and the rank-and-file bodies become the university representative. It is these bodies that are now leading the struggle to recover the gains that had been won before the 1971 coup: co-management; free department heads; selection of department heads through an examination testing competence, with juries having student participation; etc. The student struggle has not yet attained the same level throughout the country. It is going forward everywhere, but there are sectors in which the dictatorship and the parties that support it are still strong and retain the initiative. In action parallel to the university mobilization, the high-schoolers ceased to recognize the leaders appointed by the dictatorship and created their own rank-and-file leaderships, allying themselves with the action of the university students. This struggle of workers, students, and high-schoolers stimulated the struggle of the professors. In the major cities the professors also got together and organized rank-and-file committees. In La Paz, Cochabamba, Sucre, and Tupiza these committees included the majority of the professors right from the beginning. These committees demanded that the government lift its control over their trade-union organizations as well as the national federation and the departmental federations of the urban teachers organizations. They demanded the restitution of their local offices and affirmed their right to form their own leaderships through free and democratic elections. After the dictatorship's negative response, struggles broke out in Cochabamba and La Paz. In this sector, unlike in the workers movement, the dictatorship can count on the support of an active antileftist minority that has served all governments through its police-like conduct. The rank-and-file committees in Cochabamba obtained authorization to call elections, but when it came time for them to be held, the dictatorship's candidates seemed sure to go down in defeat. Small reactionary minorities supported by the police attacked the voting locations. The teachers of Cochabamba were terrified. In La Paz elections convoked by the Rank and File Committee without government authorization were also attacked. Several professors were arrested. The teachers of La Paz went on strike in response to this attack, thus showing that the government's supporters in this area were very insignificant. The strike paralyzed the schools and colleges. All the dictatorship's maneuvers and threats against the strikers failed; the strike asserted its strength more surely every day, spreading to other cities and gaining the support of white-collar workers, blue-collar workers, and students. The strike of the La Paz professors was an expression of the struggle of the masses to recover their trade-union rights and their right to elect their leaderships democratically, without government intervention or control. The strike was also a test of strength between the masses and the dictatorship, a test the government came out of in a very bod position. The decision to close down the educational system has not ended the confrontation to the benefit of the government, it has simply postponed it to the first months of next year. There were a number of interesting features to the professors' conflict with the government. After the decree closing the schools, the Rank and File Committee organized an Assembly, which decided to reopen courses through the end of the school year and set a date for further action by the professors and the students by declaring that the struggle for their demands would be taken up again at the beginning of 1975. This resolution was greeted with a great deal of sympathy among many sectors of the population. The government intervened to prevent courses from starting up again and arrested some professors and students, provoking some uneasiness even in the ranks of its own supporters. The struggle of the professors stimulated the development of contradictions within the regime and allowed the unity, combativity, and politicization of the masses to go forward. In the struggles to come the revolutionary leadership will have to pay special attention to raising the level of the softest sectors, the most conservative layers among the professors and the workers movement. It will also have to pay
27
"rock the boat"
more attention to work in the countryside, in order to give organizational expression to the changes that have occurred among the peasantry. The reemergence of the COB (Central Obrera Boliviana FINLAND