BOLIVIAN MINERS LOSE A BATTLE • by S. FERNANDEZ• Toward the end of 1975 it became clear that the Bolivlan masses were recovering from the blows that had been dealt them by the repressive government measures of November 1974 and the clashes of early 1975. In fact, the year 1976 began with a revolutionary rise. As we pointed out or the time, this new awakening of the workers and people's movement was expressed in the Centralized conflicts around the Manaca shoe factory, in Cochabamba and around the universities. (For an account of these struggles, see INPRECOR, No. 50, April 29, 1976.) More than 70,000 people, both worken and students, mobilized in these struggles during February and March of this year. The dictatorship was forced to yield in face of this attack by the masses. It was the first test of strength to end in a political gain for the workers. The high point of this new rise of the mass movement occurred with the miners' congress in Corocoro (see INPRECOR, No.56, July 22, 1976), both because the government was unable to prevent the congress from being held and because of its political, economic, and social conclusions. But while the Corocoro congress reflected the new rise of the masses, it also revealed the limits and inadequacies of that rise. As we explained during the pre-congress discussion itself, the Bolivian masses are not developing in a uniform manner or at the same level. Instead, the resistance to and struggle against the measures of the dictatorship are marked by uneven development and maturation. The new rise of the masses has been limited to the miners and the university students, while other sectors (with a few exceptions, such as the Manaco workers in the industrial sector) have held back, unable to defeat or overcome government control. The dictatorship understood this new awakening of the masses and its limitations and thus prepared to isolate 28 and decapitate it, for the regime could not permit itself the lux -y of allowing the development of the workers movement, which day by day was succeeding in making its trade-union organizations function again and was becoming ever more audacious in its demands and its efforts to recover lost ground. It was urgent for the government to prevent the masses from unifying on a national scale, to prevent the more backward sectors from advancing and joining with the most advanced ones, in sum, to prevent the consciousness and mobilization of the masses from rising. After the Corocoro miners' congress, in which their agents were unable to accomplish anything, the government, the high command of the armed forces, and the employers all agreed to move to the counteroffensive. They decided to take on the miners. In doing so, dictatorship began by altering its command, introducing nation te hig spain, o, reza Melgarejo, a typical antiworker od venturist, was placed in command. In spite of these various adjustments, however, one important factor was still lacking. A way had to be found to pay for the struggle against the miners, which the government calculated would be a long one. At the request of the military government, Henry Kissinger ogreed to generously finance the antiworker counteroffensive of Banzer and recommended that he take a hard line against the miners. The plan of attack was approved and polished up in Santa Cruz, in the presence of Kissinger and with his assistance. Kissinger left Bolivia on the night of June 7. On the following night, Banzer's cabinet voted a state of siege and decided on a military invasion of the mines, ordering the destruction and capture of the miners" leaderships, from the national FSTMB (Bolivian Federation of Mineworkers" Unions) to the local trade-union sections. The workers' response: a general strike The dictatorship's offensive took the trade-union leadership and the left parties by surprise. The FSTMB had begun to assemble its economic commission to prepare for wage negotiations with Coimbol, scheduled for June 10. The questions of the repatriation of the body of expresident Torres, who had been murdered in Argentina, and the prolonged struggle of the high-school students against military service occupied the center of attention at the time when the dictatorship launched its brutal attack on the miners. While the army entered the mines, the great majority of the leaders of the FSTMB were seized in La Paz, which succeeded in decapitating the miners' movement temporarily. The first response to the military assault thus came from the local trade unions. As always, the Catavi and Siglo XX mines were the first to take the initiative, calling a strike. The leadership of the FSTMB was then reconstituted by those who had not been cap-
tured and a general miners' strike was called. Subsequently, the miners' leadership was hit by more arrests and was again reconstituted. In practice, though, the FSTMB ceased to act as a centralized leadership providing an orientation, and the strike was maintained by rank-and-file initiative. The state of siege, along with the declaration of the mining regiors as military zones, isolated the mines. A wall of silence and misinformation was erected around the mining regions, making communication among districts difficult, communication between the mines as a whole and the rest of the workers movement and the universities wos even more difficult. Throughout the thirty days of the strike, the government continually broadcast false information. In an attempt to break the strike in each mine by subjecting the entire population to military pressure, the police violently burst into houses, seizing miners and their families and taking them away. In combination with and in support of such measures, Coimbol reduced normal food production, closing down the canteens and reducing rations to absurdly low levels. The supply of drinking water was cut off, as were lights and electricity. The miners' encampments were turned into vast prisons prey to hunger, insecurity, and violence by fascist goons. The strike continued under these condifions, strike committees arose and rank-and-file committees began to emerge in the absence of the trade-union leaders, who had been arrested or were in hiding. The solidarity the miners awakened in the cities was also met by violence. Hundreds of students were arrested and seven universities were eventually closed down. Here again the leadership was decapitated. Genuine support from other sectors of urban workers through strikes and mobilizations could not move forward in face of the massive and violent repression. Under these conditions, the miners were unable to hold out for more than thirty days, despite their heroism. The strike was suspended mine by mine. Consequences of the defeat The defeat of the miners contained the rise of the masses that had been germinating since late 1975 and had forced Banzer to back down during the mobilizations of February and March of this year. The leaderships of the FSTMB and the local trade-union sections were partially destroyed. Eight hundred forty-five miners were fired on charges of being agitators and left militants. Some 400 people were imprisoned or exiled. The miners' radio stations were taken over by the army. The mining districts are still occupied by the armed forces. But in spite of the gravity of these blows against the miners and students, it may nevertheless be said that the defeat was not total. For one thing, even in the areas that were directly hit, demoralization is limited, while the spirit of combativity still holds sway among the broad masses. The trade-union leaderships, although much reduced by arrests and layoffs, have preserved themselves underground. There is one other very important element. The sectors that waged the strike or supported it morally are now rodicalizing. They have been shaken by the methods the dictatorship used against the miners. In the areas around the mines, among the peasants and the rest of the civilian population that does not work in the mines, there is a positive development of opposition to the military regime. The presence of the army fuels discontent. From the economic and social standpoint, the government has proven incapable of meeting the aspirations and demands of the miners. The wage increase decreed in the middle of the strike and later institutionalized with the conference of rank-and-file delegates, the so-called Social Plan, does not satisfy even the most minimal of the needs of the workers. The presence of the army in the mines will soon become a source of difficulty for the dictatorship, since the political influence of the masses who are suffering and fighting will have an impact on the troops. The tactic adopted by the masses, which is to get close to the soldiers and fraternize with them, is a correct one which will soon bear fruit. The government, having made use of a fake paternal ism and centered its attack on the "far left, " is now trying to pacify the mines. But to succeed in this would require offering the masses of miners something to compensate for their losses. And on this level the government's only response has been the presence of the army and repressive measures. The left parties, along with the miners and students, have also been dealt hard blows. They have lost their apparatuses, their means by which to work, and many of the leodership codre. But here agoin the defeat is less grave than has been the case on other occasions. In spite of the hard blows, the parties are trying to examine the situation and begin again. The rank-and-file committees In an attempt to work around and prosecute the leaderships of trade unions elected in congresses and assemblies and also in an attempt to gain time, the government demagogically pushed for the emergence of so-called rank-and-file committees with which it could negotiate. In Huanuni even Banzer himself asked the miners to support the rank-and-file committee against the trade-union leadership. The conference of La Paz, out of which an agreement came, was made up of these rank-and-file committees. What are these committees and what was the significance of the La Paz conference? It is important to clarify this point. Are they simply government bodies as is the case with the "coordinadores" (coordinating committees)? Not at all. The rank-and-file committees are part of the arsenal of struggle of the mining proletariat, and the masses resort to them when repression decapitates the unions. But they must have a democratic origin and must rest on the will of the workers. It is certain that in the initial period, under the pressure of the
BOLIVIA army and the repressive measures, some scab elements wormed their way into the committees, elements on which the government tried to rely. But this was only temporary. In San Jose the assembly had already stated its rejection of the official coordinating bodies and its support to the rank-and-file committee, which was elected democratically. It is necessary to wage a firm struggle to maintain this traditional practice of the miners, throwing the bureaucrats out. The rank-and-file committees must serve as the present defensive trench of proletarian interests. The conference of rank-and-file delegates and the very acceptance of the rank-and-file committees clearly indicate the limits of the government's victory. The dictatorship was forced to compromise with the rank-and-file committees, since it was unable to smash the miners completely in spite of the defeat of the strike. Furthermore, the conference showed that the government, although it had won militarily, was unable to transfer its victory to the political or social spheres. Its paternalist maneuvers, carried out with rifles pointed at the backs of the miners, will collapse resoundingly in the near future. Causes of the defeat One of the causes of the defeat of the miners was undoubtedly an incorrect view of reality which consisted of confusing the rise of one sector with the rise of the class as a whole. Because of this, an onlimited general strike was called against the government's attack, but because of the relative retard of important sectors of the workers movement it was impossible to generalize this battle. The strike thus remained confined to the mines and universities. Then there was the lack of flexibility. Under the present conditions, it is not correct to struggle for all or nothing. It would have been better to have been more flexible, taking one step at a time in an active process of agitation, trying to stimulate the maturation of the more backward layers, trying to draw in much broader sectors of the masses through common demands and a single leadership. As on previous occasions, even in the mines and universities there was a lack of understanding of the importance of arming and estaolishing self-defense committees at the trade-union level. Such bodies were absent in face of the military occupation and the violence employed by the police. The closing of the canteens and even the cutting off of drinking water and electricity could have been countered by organized and militarily trained commandos. In the mines in the south, specifically in Siete Suyos, in the absence of such bodies the masses spontaneously resorted to dynamite as in the old days, which resulted in the death of two workers. The smaller left parties were generally not very active in the struggle, either because of their weakness or because of incurable sectarianism. In any case, they lacked the audacity to form a united front and work out a common strategy and tactics to deal with the war declared by Banzer. This is a reflection of the Bolivian crisis of 30 revolutionary leodership, an urgent crisis which borders on tragedy and whose solution desperately requires a capable and strong revolutionary Marxist party rooted among the masses and holding authority among them, a party that can direct, plan, and organize the struggle, overcoming the present atomization and fragmentation. Tasks and perspectives The gorillas have above all gained time in which to contain and decapitate the awakening and rise of the miners and university students. The regime has temporarily gained stability. While it is certain that there will be conflicts with other sectors, they will be on a lower level for the moment. For Banzer, however, the most important point is the question of his international relations. By defeating the miners he has increased his prestige among his imperialist patrons, the banks and finance capital. He now appears to head a regime worthy of their confidence, one of the most stable in Latin Americo. Less than thirty days after the miners strike was broken, Banzer received various loans running into the millions of dollars. In addition, in accordance with Kissinger's promise, it is Yankee imperialism that will pick up the tab for the 524 million spent breaking the strike and carrying out the repressive measures. As far as the masses are concerned, one of the basic tasks now is to stand fast with the miners so that the broken strike does not result in new retrogression. The rank-and-file committees must be converted into genuine organs of the will of the workers; they must be purged of infiltrators. What remains of the FSTMB leadership must be united in these committees, incorporating them into an emergency leadership. On the other hand, attention must be directed to the sectors that have not been hard hit, those that have been more backward, in order to make them advance, to raise their political consciousness and understanding, and to push forward the tendencies toward recovery of the trade unions, casting aside the official coordinating bodies. The binding of the wounds of the miners' movement and the development of the maturation of the other sectors, especially the factory workers, has now become the task facing the mass movement. The struggle for democratic rights and liberties for the masses, denunciation of the atrocities committed by the government, and publication of lists of those imprisoned, tortured, exiled, and persecuted must occupy an important place in the concerns of revolutionaries. To centralize the masses and unite the political tendencies of the workers movement are major tasks. We must begin with the question of wages in order to raise the transitional program. As far as our party is concerned, the future of the revolution will depend on our growth. We must constantly remain conscious of this historic truth. We must build ourselves into the Marxist party that is now lacking. And to do this we must ever strengthen our base among the masses.
FREE JOSE PAEZ!
The life of José Francisco Pdez, a veteran leader of the trade-union movement in