ATTEMPT TO CRUSH POLITICAL OPPOSITION IN BOLIVIA
The unconstitutional election staged by Victor Paz Estenssoro May 31 to gain a third four-year term for himself as president of Bolivia has been followed up with logical, if reactionary, consistency.
On August 21, Paz broke diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba, Six officials at the Cuban Embassy were ordered to leave at once,
In an editorial August 25, the New York Times declared that Paz “and the key elements in the *puling MNR [Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario] party did not want to conform to the Organization: of American States resolution calling for sanctions against Cuba," But "Bolivia reportedly was given no choice, It was a case of conforming or of facing a severe cut in United States aid -- and Bolivia cannot © carry on without such aid,"
The heavy State Department pressure on poverty~stricken Bolivia has now had further consequences, On September 20 Paz proclaimed a "state of siege." This meant the suspension of such civil liberties as still remained in the badly battered constitution,
According to the Bolivian government, a vast "conspiracy" had been discovered involving guerrilla fighters of the Bolivian Falange, a fascist-minded grouping, and guerrilla fighters of revolutionary socialist orientation, The plot, again according to Paz's spokesmen, also involved former President Hernan Siles Zuazo, who is neither fascist-minded nor socialist-oriented but of the same general political coloration as Paz himself.
Hundreds of political arrests were made, Although no details and few names were mentioned, they appeared to be part of a nationwide witoh hunt directed mainly against left-wing opponents of Pazts unconstitutional regime.
Siles and 34 other alleged "plotters" were put on a plane September 22 and flown to exile in neighboring Paraguay. Among them were leading figures of the political opposition, Juan Lechin Octendo, the well-known trade-union leader of the miners who was vice-president of Bolivia until he broke with Paz last January because of the drift of the government toward the right under U.S. pressure, was reported to be in hiding. At Huanuni, miners were said to have taken four high officials of the Mining Corporation of Bolivia as hostages, In La Paz armed militia loyal to Paz were patroling the streets,
Thus the Alliance for Progress bore its expected bitter fruit in the Andean:-republic., Once again the alternative was clearly posed. -~- either a reactionary dictatorship or a socialist revolution in the example set by Cuba... U.S. imperialism has ruled out any middle road for Latin America, sO,
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THE TERRITORIAL ISSUES IN THE SINO-SOVIET DISPUTE
[An inquiry about the stand of the Trotskyists on two important questions in the Sino-Soviet dispute was recently received by the Fourth International, These were:
[(1) The claims raised by the People's Republic of China to territory that has been held by the Soviet Union since the overthrow of the Czarist government .
[(2) Chinats support | of Japants claim to the Kurile. Islands, which were taken by the Soviet: Union after its victory in World War’ ; II,
[Pierre Frank, one of the main figures of the Fourth International, gave the following reply.]
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I should like to thank you for providing me with the opportunity to deal with questions on which the Fourth International itself has not yet taken a formal stand, We have been preoccupied with the fundamental international issues at stake among the workers parties and have placed priority on these questions rather than the relations among workers states. But it goes without saying that the Fourth International, Tike all other working-class organizations, must likewise take a position on issues involving relations among: the workers states, e
We took up the question:in a broad way at the time of the break between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1948, When the Soviet technicians were withdrawn from China, we again considered. the problem, What we said then still holds; namely, that differences... among the parties in power, even if they lead to a split, should in no case be permitted to provoke serious repercussions between states having the same social character.
-This is the broad principle we hold to in determining our position with regard to the territorial problems that have been raised.
In the question of the Kurile Islands, Khrushchev was reported to have said to some visitors from Japan: "As for the Kurile Islands they have no-economic importance for:the USSR. They are only of military importance, If the United States should some day withdraw from Japan and give up Okinawa, well we would reciprocate one hundred per cent." (Le Monde , September 17.
If this is ‘an accurate report, Khrushchev. himself recognizes that the Kuriles are Japanese territory. ms
To justify the occupation of foreign territory by a workers!
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state, the Fourth International would in no case argue its “economic importance," The bargaining aspect, in which Khrushchev involves the United States, is likewise inadmissible. On the other hand, in cer~ tain circumstances, we would not deny that the Soviet government has the right to take into account military considerations involving the defense of the Soviet Union, But such considerations must be advanced with a good deal of caution. Above all, it is necessary to prove whether present militant needs are of such nature that they must take priority over everything else -- especially the negative repercussions that can occur among the masses of the occupied country. As a general rule, it appears to us that the military benefits are minor compared to the accompanying political disadvantages, a
With regard to territories in dispute between two workers states ~~ in this case the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China «~- we cannot take as the criterion either the shifts in bound-~ ary lines of long ago or the fact that the Soviet Union is the oldest workers! state. The criterion should only be the wishes of the peoples now living in these areas, The right of a people to determine their own fate is the-only fundamental criterion, This was the traditional. position of the Bolsheviks as it is today of the Fourth International, a
In October 1917 the young Soviet power recognized: the right of Poland, Finland and other countries ‘to decide for ‘themselves, even if this signified bourgeois rule, If it is now objected that since then the Soviet Union was constituted, it should be recalled that in 1922 . when this occurred, the issue was discussed and Lenin took a strong position in favor of the right of every Soviet republic to separate from the Union (see his letters of December 30 and Sl, 1922, on the nationality question, which were violently. aimed against Stalin and . the Great Russian bureaucracy). ‘The platform of the Left Opposition (Trotsky+Zinoviev) in 1927 likewise vigorously defended national rights within the Soviet Union. Trotsky was even in favor of the right of the Ukraine to constitute an independent Soviet Republic.
What the wishes of the populations are in the areas referred to by the Chinese leadership and by Khrushchev are not known to us. But the only fundamental criterion, I emphasize once more, is the right of peoples to determine their own fate, The problem of boundary lines. and similar issues are heritages of the past or arise in the process of constructing the socialist society, The workers states should work out. some kind of international law and institutions: independent of the state structures to which such questions could be submitted and resolved acoording to the criteria of socialist democracy.
Unfortunately, these contradictions are now being exacerbated by the ruling bureaucracies. However, it seems improbable to us that the current tensions involving territorial questions between the Soviet Union and China could degenerate into an armed conflict, al+ though the dispute has been embittered in a dangerous way.
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We are confident that the current crisis of the Communist movement will, after sharp struggles,:end with the removal of Stalinism and all the gross bureaucratic deformations, One of the consequences will be a great improvement in relations among the workers states, But this outcome is still not something immediate,