TROTSKYISTS ADVISE "NO CONFIDENCE" IN MILITARY JUNTA
[The following statement Was iSsued by the Political Comat s« sion of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario [POR], the Bolivian Section of the Fourth International, upon the downfall of the Paz Estenssoro government, | ,
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Amid general rejoicing among the people, the most bloody lackey of imperialism in recent times has fallen. The POR joins in the popular celebration over the downfall of the murderer of university - students and miners, the logical corollary of the process of disintegration of capitalist policies, of the crisis of the. bourgeois program (in Bolivia as throughout the world), which brought the ferment to such pitch that the end of the MNR [Movimiento Nacionalista Revo-~ lucionario] was inevitable, bringing things to the alternative: either a popular insurrection along the socialist road, or the displacement of Paz and the MNR by order of Yankee imperialism. This is what the POR heavily stressed and taught, and with this in mind the workers _ prepared to: establish their own government. ot
It was the strength of the. proletariat and its revolutionary struggles that pulverized the dismal’ MNR government and its whole antilabor policy saturated with the most shameless servility to international finance capital. It was the action of the revolutionary Marxists, the entry of the teachers and students into battle, and . finally in La Paz, Cochabamba ‘and Oruro the. valorous and patriotic action of the university students that completed the. “undermining of the regime's stability. Se
The powerful repressive apparatus of the MNR, exercised for twelve years, could not contain or destroy the militant spirit of the people, Despite the exilings, the gloomy jails, the use of the army in the massacre at Sora-Sora and the attack on the "San José" radio station, the people continued their energetic pressure and the fate of the butcher Paz was already decided and his downfall was only a matter of days. :
But in face of the failure of the persecution and the massacre, the Army suddenly revolted, the very same Army which up until November 2 upheld the tyrannical regime and which at Sucre, Cochabamba and La Paz fought the people alongside the mercenary ‘bands, . the political police and the carabineros.
In the final ‘moments of the MNR, the Army intervened, the same Army that a few days earlier, on orders of the despot, * massacred -the miners at Sora-Sora and attacked the miners! radio station "San José," and which before that attacked the guerrilla fighters at Santa Cruz and Apolo. Mustang planes flew over the mines to intimi-~ date the proletariat,
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. And,.in confirmation. of our forecasts, what has occurred politically in Bolivia is a preventive coup d'état aimed at safeguarding the economic and social structures of the country, no doubt with the cunning connivance of the Yankee embassy, with the. - objective of containing the insurrection and cheating the popular feelings and aspirations, ; .
In this way, the political power that should have passed into the hands of the people and their political organizations, slipped into the hands of a Military Junta, who did not fail to shield the butcher and his followers in their escape... :
The apparatus set up by the MNR has not been touched and various functionaries are the same ones who were in the administration with Victor Paz, including some landholders... The political economy -is to remain the same as it has been for the past twelve years, Thus the Military Junta is not the. government for which the. people have been clamoring.
The entire people <-- university students, miners, teachers, etc., rose up in arms to overthrow an entire regime and an entire conception personified in the men of the MNR; and what they want now is to bury the whole MNR policy, its men and its plans dictated by the Yankee embassy The ‘people don't want to continue the past or to "restore" it. me : Because of this, the position of the working class, employees, patriotic university students, revolutionary intellectuals, peasants, communalists and ex-tenants can be nothing else than absolute inde~ pendence with regard to the Military Junta, alert vigilance, nothing but no confidence,
It is necessary to overcome the obstacle of opportunist currents that are trying to deliver the” working class to the Military Junta.
As. for the workers parties, it is their duty to establish a united front of the left to organize the masses and direct their -. struggle toward real national and social liberation along the revoiutionary socialist road.
Along this road it is necessary itd revitalize. the COB [central . Obrera Boliviana, the trade-union federation] in a revolutionary way and cure it of its bureaucratic ossification, rectifying the influence of the MNR. It must be converted into a living, militant, independent force as a center of proletarian power,
The. trade unions of the COB must be tempered in- ‘the proletarlan concept of self-sacrifice, tenacity and revolutionary determination. ; ol
And all of us, parties, unions, and the people, let's lift high the banners of the anti-imperialist struggle.
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