The fight of the Bolivian
Fourth Internationalists
A. Although we are a small party, with a limited material apparatus, we were able to come through two years repression without being destroyed. Our losses were only about 30%. Of course, that is a third of our organization that was hit by repression, and we had to concentrate our forces in certain social sectors and certain areas. It would have been wrong to scatter our forces; that would have made us an easy target for the
The following interview with a leader of class, its impressive class consciousness the POR-C, the Bolivian section of the Fourth International, was made in La is plotting to establish a "neither exile or surrender." Paz in mid-February.
Question. How much time does the present government have?
Answer. It's impossible to predict exactly how fast things will move. We know that in Bolivia bourgeois democratic governments don't last long.
The U.S. is anxious to cap the social volcano that is threatening to blow up in its Latin American back yard. They have tried the method of dictatorship, and the people have defeated them. They have tried democratic governments, but these have not held up very long.
Moreover, in Bolivia the various factions of the native bourgeoisie, the oligarchy, and the army are linked to dif ferent international interests. Besides, a factor that has decisive weight is the maturity and experience of our working 16 and militancy.
The right regime of the hard right. The workers are fighting for their rights and their demands, for a revolutionary solution. Whether the UDP government falls and how quickly depends on the interaction of all these factors. But it is certain that it cannot hold up for long and that we are heading toward a political and military confrontation with the right.
Q. What is our strategy for the event of a coup d'etat?
A. The political results and the social cost for the masses will differ, according to whether it is a cold coup or a bloody one. If it is a cold coup, the repression will be limited, but there will be repres sion to destroy the mass organizations and consolidate the power of the right. A violent coup will be aimed at destroying the political and social organizations dictatorship.
We declared that we would accept
We put our confidence in the masses and their capacity for a rapid recovery. We had confidence in ourselves and in international solidarity. We never underestimate the enemy, and we do not overestimate the strength of the masses.
However, the assessment we made of the government's situation, that it had no popular or international support but rested solely on repression, without even the support of the social forces it sought to represent, made it possible for us to foresee that the dictatorship would not last long. We saw that its talk about remaining in power for twenty years was only a bluff.
We had to begin to face the repression with little preparation. We had no houses, no money, no press, and not even an elementary techical apparatus. had to build that on the run, in the
new cadres and continue the struggle. methods and new forms.
course of the struggle. It was not that we were surprised by the coup. It was simply that despite our previous efforts we did not have the material means to build an apparatus. But we were able to take the first steps toward this as
Our organization was small, close knit, and a large proportion of our members were trained cadres. That was our first weapon against the repression. Our party never stopped doing mass work. It was able to shield itself from the repression, but without cutting itself off from the
After the initial atmosphere of fear was overcome, we started to concentrate our forces and set up our political leader-
We had made progress in reorganizing the party and in raising the morale of the membership as well as in the mass sectors in which we were working. We put out our press and maintained a regular fortand if the morale of the fighters is commensurate with the demands
It was in this period of clandestinity we begun to set up mass fronts the Revolutionary Workers Front (FTR), the Revolutionary Student Front in the universities and high schools, and the Revolutionary Peasant Front (FCR). We scored major successes in these areas, inasmuch as independent trade unionists and even members of other parties joined. Our party led these united-front organizations and offered them a political line.
In this period, we consolidated our political role in the resistance. an important component of the CONADE, an underground body involving the the MNR-1, the MIR, the PCB, the PS-Uno, the Movimiento Revoluci-
Tupac Katari (an Indian organization), the PRIN (the most left of the
In May 1982, we were the only party that functioned as such in the mobilization and workers march. with our own flags, posters, and press. We were, to be sure, protected by the security groups organized by the parties. But we came through a whole process without being destroyed by the repression, while revolutionary organizations larger than ourselves before the coup disappeared without leaving a trace.
The party also grew numerically in this period, especially in the working class and the middle strata.
It is not simple to make the transition from working underground to working in conditions of democracy and legality. What is more, it would be wrong to turn the entire party to legal work in a country where democracy never lasts long. We are following a mass orientation in our organizational and agitational work, but we maintain the basic elements of underground organization, prepared groups originating in the MNR, led by to reorganize the party in the undernightly publishing schedule. We started Juan Lechin, the chairman of the COB), ground if necessary. with a very small run, distributed in the among trade unionists members of the other parties. overcome our technical limitations and increased our circulation to 2,500 copies
In a period of repression, a newspaper or even a simple leaflet is an invaluable thing in the hands of workers, and so our paper passed from hand to hand.
To be sure, if we had not had the benefit of international solidarity, would have had difficulty in coming have been forced to go into exile or at least we would have been more exposed to repression owing to the material precariousness of our lives. got a modest but essential revolutionary support from the comrades of the Fourth comrades outside the country. party itself was able to face adversity and overcome it. We proved that it is possible to build a revolutionary organization in the midst of a period of repression, if you have a correct line and an independent group. It was the basis of our proposal that the April-May programmatic document of this front was drawn up. We launched a propaganda offensive to mobilize the masses and to stimulate strikes in 1980, which the government claimed was terrorist activi-
In November 1981, our miner comrades, led by Felipe Vasquez, encouraged the Huanuni miners to organize their union, issue a signed appeal, unleash a general strike, and confront the dictaour comrades, including Comrade Vasquez were arrested brutally tortured. But in an immediate response to this, our women comrades in the mining region organized a hunger strike and inflicted a new defeat on the dictatorship. The movement spread and marked the beginning of the end for the dictatorship.
Twice, the dictatorship managed to break up the leadership of our party. Twice we were able to rebuild it with
Today, we have our mass fronts, which are operating publicly. We have party members and leaders working publicly. At the same time, we maintain that there is a need for clandestine organization and security work, both in a period in which there are still paramilitary gangs, and for the periods to come. Thus, the party is preparing itself for all situations. We reject the cult of clandestinity. But we also combat organizational laxness.
The basic contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was not resolved by the assumption of power by the UP government. It will be resolved only by civil war.
Q. Are we prepared for a new coup?
We are not organizationally and militarily prepared to defeat a bloody ses and their fighting capacity. masses are defeated, we will be also, and we would then have to undertake a new phase of the struggle, with new
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