Bolivia
16-10-2013
Statement of the FLTI - Collective for the Fourth International before the grave crossroads which the Bolivian labor movement and mineworkers -the frontline of the Latin American Revolution- have been conducted to
POR says that Huanuni miners have "sold out their souls to the devil"…
For us, the Trotskyists, POR has long ago given its "socialist soul" to the union bureaucracy that once and again betrays the Bolivian proletariat and supports the Bolivian bourgeoisie
As we have denounced and demonstrate in these articles, the Huanuni miners were imposed a true fence by its leaderships, and due to that encirclement the government could isolate them and prepare a fatal blow against all their gains.
When it was too late for tears, and after making the Huanuni miners believe that it was not necessary to fight alongside the health workers, the teachers and professors, the manufacturing workers; after preventing hem from accompanying the general strikes with which the Bolivian working class confronted and battled last May all the attacks from the government of Morales -as the high cost of living and the monstrous increase in the fuel prices-; the leadership of the POR and the bureaucracy of COB sent the Huanuni miners, already completely isolated from the rest of the working class, to a desperate fight against the government attack that was well past its beginnings.
When the government's attack had started those traitors made the mineworkers stage a general strike amidst which the bureaucracy of the COB together with Trujillo, the leader of both the Miners Central and the "IPT" (an alleged Workers Party) surrendered to the government of Morales and accepted the miserable wage and the new and shameless retirement law, signing a covenant that is a betrayal all along the line against the mineworkers. Moreover, the leadership of the COB (whose boots are continuously licked by its supporters: POR, LORCI and the other small sects of renegades to Trotskyism) signed the MAS's Retirement Law AGAINST WHICH the general strike had been organized in the first place. The labor movement , and in particular the mineworkers after entering the fight when the general strike was ending, sees how the "leftist" leadership of the COB, supported and with its main base in the Mineworkers Union of Huanuni under the leadership of colque and POR, accepted and guaranteed this enormous treason to the May general strike.
In May, the working class was braking with the government of Morales and was seeking a road to enter the combat. The leadership of the POR in the mineworkers union and the leadership of Trujillo of the COB imposed the mineworkers the worst conditions for their entering the combat.
The government with its murderous police repressed brutally the workers isolated in Caihuasi, who had been carried there peacefully and unprepared to confront the repression; they were beaten and detained by dozens and hundreds. Just before that the mineworkers of Colquiri had revolted in defense of the national mining against the "cooperationist" bosses. Though the bureaucracy of the Miners Federation had already divided the Huanuni miners from the fight of the miners in Colquiri.
During may years the leadership of the COB and the POR made the workers in Huanuni believe that isolated there they could sustain the gains of the mineworkers movement. Those former two are the main responsible for the present isolation of the Huanuni mineworkers that works in f vor of the brutal attack of Morales.
When the conditions were created for the labor movement to enter as a whole the combat against the government, the leadership of Trujillo of the COB and his "IPT", recently founded, betrayed openly the general strike and left alone the Huanuni miners strayed for many days in La Paz, after they had been repressed without getting any of their demands; after weeks of staying there, the miners had to see how their leaders were sending them back home with their hands completely empty. though promising that everything was going to be solved around a negotiation board that the union leaders where convening together with the government.
The bureaucracy of Trujillo of the COB together with their leftist parrots of the LORCI, wanted to make the Huanuni mineworkers and the entire Bolivian working class believe that through the foundation of a "workers arty", which was going to be their IPT (Political Instrument of the Workers) for presenting candidates in the next elections, the attack of the government and the loss of gains of the workers could be stopped. The labor movement did not believe that fraud and started maneuvers of struggle, beginning with a general strike; so everybody that in a congress in Huanuni voted for founding an IPT, betrayed straight-faced that strike. That was the "WP of the COB: an append of the government of Morales, an offspring of his class collaboration front.
The renegades of Trotskyism that today "fire" all kind of slanders against the rank and file of the mineworkers, which they themselves surrendered to the bureaucracy of the COB, want to hide that they were essential link in the hoax, that they separated the miners of Huanuni from the rest of the mineworkers movement that as in Colquiri were confronting the "cooperationist" bosses and their gangs that were attacking the miners. They supported from the left the bureaucracy of the COB that surrendered the labor gains in a deal with the government of Morales, and today they lift their arms crying to heaven because the miners voted for Montes, thinking that, as Montes is a friend of Morales, at least he could defend something in Huanuni and "stop" the terrible attack. this defensive conscience of the mineworkers, encircled and feline weak before the government, was created and imposed by the class collaborationist bureaucracy of the COB, by that of the Miners federation and by colque and the other friends of the POR and all the groups of the Bolivian left.
In 2011 they cried to the four corners of the world, in the 31st congress of the Miners Federation, that a huge process of radicalization was opening in the mineworkers movement, just in a moment when these same leaders were separating the mineworkers movement from the struggle of the whole working class and the poor peasants in Bolivia, and also separated the mineworkers from the dynamite, which is the base of their power. Now when the mineworkers, feeling weak and cornered vote for Montes, the traitors blame the rank and file for this "right turn" of the mineworkers.
POR is furious. It insists saying that the miners will have to drink their own medicine, that hey will be chastised for having voted for Montes. The POR feels betrayed, BUT IT IS THE RESPONSIBLE FOR CARRYING THE HUANUNI MINEWORKERS TO THIS BLIND ALLEY.
Along the years the mineworkers voted for the bureaucracy of the COB, of the Miners Federation and for POR thinking that they would defend their gains. The POR neither brought them to a decisive fight nor fought for uniting in a same and single struggle and demand all the bolivian miners. However it was very active to edit together with all the fractions of the union bureaucracies a consensual document. The POR was in charge of maintaining the mineworkers of Huanuni far from more than two general strikes: they even failed to strike themselves for their own limited demands. What was the motto of all those bureaucrats educated by the Loraites (Lora was the founder and intellectual head of the POR until his death some years ago, NT)? They said that today it was not by striking and fighting that the miners gains could be saved. and this they said while the government massacred the poor peanuts of the TIPNIS, while the manufacturing workers of La Paz were fighting alongside those of health care, the teachers, etc., as we demonstrate here in our articles.
They were who told the mineworkers of Huanuni that fighting alone and producing much the gains could be maintained. They created the present class-collaborationist and isolationist conscience of the mineworkers. They carried the miners to this blind alley in a moment when their friend of the bureaucracy of the COB have just sold out the retirement and the wages of the Bolivian workers in the negotiation board.
So, the miner today says to himself… "the POR, Trujillo and Colque told us during a lot of years that we had not to fight alongside the TIPNIS, or the manufacturing workers, or the health and education workers; they told us that it was enough if we maintained a strong union for negotiating well with the government". "After many years, they told us we had to fight and sent us to an indefinite fight, without dynamite, and while the leadership of the COB was negotiating with the government our wages and retirement funds, and we were given repression, detainments and prosecutions for many workers".
The mineworker is cornered. Today he does nothing more than following the instructions of his leaders of the bureaucracy of Trujillo of the COB and the POR, who time and again told him that through the workers co-participation in the management of the mine in Huanuni, we could defend the great gain of the nationalized mining, without expropriating all the MNCs and combatting together with the rest of the working class for retaking the road of the revolution of 2003-2005. The POR and it pupils the bureaucrats of the Huanuni union always submitted the mineworkers to a bourgeois policy of management of the mine with "Social Control". They never organized a fight for a "BOARD OF WORKER DIRECTORS of the Comibol!" as part of the fight for the workers control without compensation of the whole mining industry and the expropriation without compensation of the transnationals.
The POR and the Loraite bureaucracy of the Huanuni union applied the "Bolivarian" policy of the "Socialism of the 21st Century" and the so called "Market socialism". Now the POR is criticizing the "limits" of the "unionist" policy by Colque, when it was the Loraites who always rejected the call for a fight to impose a revolutionary government of the COB. While in its press the POR agitates for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the air (that is, without any relationship with the actual processes in Bolivia, NT), it always respected the politics of "Social Control" of the "market socialism" in Huanuni… and now the consequences are pad for by the miners.
So, today, the mineworker, with the broken back for the Morales government’s repression, with prisoners, and prosecuted workers only change men to negotiate. “POR is not useful to negotiate, doesn’t keep the gains, let’s vote Montes to see if he does so” the miner says. The miners of Huanuni are taking the POR’s “medicine” but with different packing.
At the same time, the miners followed what the COB bureaucracy, Trujillo, and LORCI said, that is, it was necessary to set up an Workers’ Political Instrument ” independent from the government”. Then, the same leaders of COB masked with a left covering by LORC, proved to be an “Instrument” of the government to sell out the salary, pension of workers in the table of negotiation with the Morales government( see article).
The leaderships have led the Huanuni miners to a defeat after another defeat, the rank and file never was absent when they were called to fight in the streets, in routes and to confront politically the Morales government. Such leaders of POR and Cobist bureaucracy offered the mineworkers promises of victory, and they only gave them millstones of defeats.
POR said there is to set up an Antiimperialist Revolutionary Front…for that reason, Colque taking the same “medicine” POR gave him, with Trujillo and other leaders of the PT of COB went to the “Antiimperialist Summit” of the World Social Forum in Bolivia-all lackeys of Wall Street- where more than 5.000 delegates of all over the world came to cover the transnational’ government of Morales as “anti-imperialist”, “anticapitalist”. They went to support this government in such summit. And now they get angry with the miners to whom they have imposed a conscience of class collaboration through thousands of defeats.
It was the COB bureaucracy, yesterday with Montes and today with Trujillo, that made miners believe that in the government there is a “friend of workers” with whom we can negotiate and get conquests.
With this class colaborationist policy they extinguished the fire of the 2003-2005 Bolivian revolution that posed the war cry: Gringos go home! Rifle, machine guns, Bolivia doesn’t shut up! Now they are obfuscate with the rank and file miners because the fire they put out, this time, had not lighted.
The evil left of the WSF is the responsible one of the withdrawal of the vanguard of the Bolivian and Latin American working class, like the Bolivian miners. This left said that Obama was a friend in the White House while he kept attacking the US and world working class thousands times more than Bush.
And now? After the pro-government and opposition COB, and the PT of COB sustained by all the liliputien groups of the renegades of Trotskyism went to support Morales and when with COB they signed every agreement and pact with the government…now they are offended because the miners led to a blind alley follow their instructions: there is to negotiate with the government of Evo Morales to solve the problems and not to confront and defeat him.
Workers are taking the “medicine” of the COB mining bureaucracy and POR. What they are doing now is to seek the best negotiator to get their demands. For that reason, they voted Montes in HUanuni. The political crisis of the mining movement in Bolivia is the consequence of the politic on the part of the collaborationist, pseudo-left leaderships that by tarnishing socialism and trotskysm put workers at the government’s feet.
During the elections some miners shouted “long live Montes, no more Trotskyism”. This is the tragedy of the mining movement and was imposed by POR that is no more than the left-leg of the COB bureaucracy, as well as all the renegades of Trotskyism at international level who are the left-wing legitimizing the World Social Forum, a den of thieves, enemies of the proletariat.
During the entire 2011, the textile workers of La Paz led a huge upheaval against the Morales government and traitors of the COB bureaucracy; an uprising already under developed years before. Justly, against Montes who led the COB…the leadership of the textile workers travelled to the meeting of Latin American “militant” worker organizations in Brazil convened by Conlutas-trade union led by LIT- . there the textile workers asked the hundreds of workers organizations of the continent for their support against the Morales government and Montes bureaucracy…they sent the textile workers back with the empty hands and gave them a reprimand: “the governments of the native bourgeoisies are not confronted, they are demanded to fulfill their promises” the meeting said.
The textile workers of La Paz in those days fought determinedly against the government and by the dynamite they tried once and again to expel the traitor Montes from COB. POR and the bureaucracy of the Mining Federation left them alone. The Bolivian working class was the one who expelled Montes and POR was who opened for him again the doors of Huanuni.
And now this left that belongs to the WSF’s left wing, lackeys of the Bolivarian governments, is horrified at, regrets and is angry with the Bolivian workers to whom they fenced, isolated and betrayed one thousand times.
The problem is neither the miners nor the Bolivian workers, the problem is their leaderships.
It is necessary to speak clearly, those who sold out the 1952 revolution to Paz Estensoro, were neither the Trotskyism nor the IV International. Those who isolated the Huanuni miners from the Bolivian working class and poor peasants were neither the Trotskyism nor the IV International. Those like LOR-CI, MST and other small groups who from COB gave the Transitional Program to the COB bureaucracy, who betrayed the general strike and gave “the LP of COB” to Morales when they didn’t even have a deputy are not and will never be of trostkyism or IV International in the Bolivian worker movement. Those who gave their back to the textile workers of La Paz when workers went to Conlutas Brazil seeking the unity of their struggle against the native bourgeoisies, against the fake “Bolivarian revolution” are not and will not be of the IV International.
The tragedy of Bolivia is the tragedy of the whole Latin American and world proletariat. It is reduced to the following question: the Stalinist shit that fell down in 1989 selling out the worker states was revived, like Lazaro, by the renegades of trotskysm. The latter gave them legality to speak again in the name of the working class and both of them, sustained a policy of class collaboration that legitimized as people’s friends to the biggest enemies of the working class-from Obama to Morales, from Chavism in Venezuela to kirchnerism in Argentina.
In Venezuela Alan Woods, that agent of the English socialimperialist parties, gave the Transitional Program to Chavez, the repressor of the Caracazo, for Chavez to read it in his program Aló Presidente and can be legitimized as “socialist”.
Lorismo decreed that the problem of the Cuban castrism, restorer of capitalism, is that “they moved away from Marxism”. It means to wash the hands of the Stalinism. For POR the problem of the bureaucracy is ideological and is not about corruption before the bourgeoisie. Thus, they keep giving classes of “Marxism” to any careerist bureaucrat that emerges as they did with Solares and Montes, just to give some samples.
In Bolivia, POR gave the Transitional Program and Thesis of Pulacayo to lots of Congresses, even, giving classes of socialism to the biggest bureaucrats, those traitors of the Bolivian proletariat. Moreover, they wrote common documents like in the last congress of the Mining Federation where they announced the coming of a “socialist COB” while the cobist bureaucracy had dozens of ministries and secretaries in the anti-worker Morales government. Through “the socialist COB” betrayed the general strike, set up a Workers’ Party of COB already destroyed before being set up in the last “anticapitalist” summit since it was an extension of the Morales government.
The Bolivian worker movement doesn’t deserve the leadership they have. It is contrary to what POR affirms saying that the mineworkers “sold their soul to the devil” when since years POR has been the biggest sustainer of capitalism in Bolivia and main responsible for the treason against the 1952 revolution under the leadership of pablism and others liquidators of the IV International…in the name of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to better deceive the working class. Many time before POR lost every Trotskyist “soul” and “spirit”.
In Huanuni and the Bolivian mineworker movement, how can they be of trotskyism and IV International if they together with the union bureaucracy, among them Montes, voted in favor of Khadafy in Libya and the murderous Al Assad in Syria. The latter are the biggest lackeys of the imperialism and killers of workers in the North of Africa and Middle East and they voted for them in the last Congress of the FSTMB in Potosí!
In Bolivia and at international level, the club of friends of the WSF, POR and LOR-CI and other renegades of Trotskyism are not and will never ever be of the IV International. They are the left of Obama. They are friends, by the left-side, of Montes. They coexisted during lots of years with such bureaucracy inside COB. And now, they have the miserable politic of blaming the cornered mineworkers for keep voting their (POR’s) politic, that is, negotiate in isolation an agreement with the government.
As the Bolivian Trotskyists say “the mine movement will return to the struggle and stand up again, but POR WILL NOT”.
Those who gave the IV International’s Transitional Program to the COB bureaucracy long ago have abandoned the struggle for the political independence of the Bolivian Worker movement, since they are enemies of setting up the revolutionary COB and his militias of the ’52.
In Bolivia, the barricades’ combat in the worker vanguard will be solved between reform and revolution; between the collaborationist COB bureaucracy together with all his wings and despicable left on one side, and on the other side, in the revolution field, the cores of workers and revolutionary workers seeking a road to refound the IV International to set up again the Bolivian worker movement, the Thesis of Pulacayo and the internationalist program for the socialist revolution in Bolivia.
