Home World Politics Bolivia Will Evo’s resignation lead to Pinochet or resistance?

Bolivia Will Evo’s resignation lead to Pinochet or resistance?

Details
Published on Tuesday
12 November 2019  16:35
Written by Radical Socialist
Tuesday 12 November 2019, by Martín Mosquera
The coup d’état against Bolivian president Evo Morales has generated the kind of anguish that great defeats of revolutionary struggles evoke: Allende’s fall, Che’s death in combat, defeat in the Spanish Civil War. “Criticism is no passion of the head, it is the head of passion,” Marx once said. We do not have to put aside the sentiments that envelope us today, rather, we must mobilize them for positive ends.
We still do not know the scope of the events taking place in Bolivia, if the revolution can avoid being shot down, if it can escape heaps of dead among the social movements, the indigenous peoples, and the social base of Morales’ political party, the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS). Evo’s social defenses are powerful and the ruling classes know they will have to break threw them in order to move forward with their plans. The latest news is disturbing – burning houses, persecutions, arrests. More big shocks lay ahead and the outcome is unwritten. El Alto – a one-million-strong, indigenous-majority city close by the capital city La Paz – has a heroic insurrectionary tradition that has brought down several governments in the past. It embodies the traditions of struggle in which Evo himself was trained. I am interested to see what kind of polarization develops among left-wing militants and activists in the face of these facts. The left’s positions are grouped into two major poles. Some are unable to position themselves properly in the fight against the coup because they stick to warnings or slogans that are already out of date. For example, the Argentine Partido de los Trabajadores para el Socialismo (PTS) published an article a couple weeks ago titled: “Neither with Evo nor with Mesa (the right-wing forces). For an independent political solution!” even as preparations for the coup were underway and the government had to be defended. Others defend Evo and renounce their “right to criticize” a government that has just been overturned without a fight, even though it won nearly half of the votes in recent elections. It fell like a house of cards, upending what seemed to be the most stable progressive process in the region. Evo went down to defeat without putting up a fight and that fact forms part of our anguish, and should be part of our balance sheet. We fight to win, and in order to win we must extract the proper lessons from our experiences. What Evo did yesterday, it must be said, is analogous to the actions taken by Juan Perón in 1955 in the face of a coup or those of Salvador Allende in 1973 (and the opposite of what Chavez did in 2002). Obviously these resignations and retreats, like Evo’s, did not prevent any bloodshed, on the contrary they left social and political organizations and movements and the popular classes at the mercy of brutal reactionary violence. The executions of 1955 and Pinochet’s genocide testify eloquently to this reality. Counter-revolutions produce violence, not revolutions. There is no comparing the social and human cost between the two. Evo’s resignation (and that of his vice president Garcia Linera) was based on a belief that there was no other alternative. But if that were the case, it is the result of a naïve policy that was not prepared for a test of strength with the kind of authoritarian reaction that every progressive process provokes on the part of the ruling classes. It is the naivety of “class conciliation.” The lessons of history in this field are incontrovertible – Allende’s example remains too close to us to play with fire in this way. Hopefully, it is not too late to avoid a historic defeat and the liquidation of one of the most notable experiences of the Latin American peoples of the last decades. 11 November 2019 Originally posted on FB. Translated by No Borders News with permission from the author.
RELATED ARTICLES

WSF Declaration of the Social Movements Assembly

Details Published on Sunday 13 February 2011 17:06 Written by Radical Socialist WSF Declaration of the Social Movements Assembly 12 February 2011 As the Social Movements Assembly of the World...

Whither Tunisia?

Details Published on Thursday 20 January 2011 01:43 Written by Radical Socialist Whither Tunisia? Curfew in Tunisia! What is the political significance? January 13 by Fathi Chamkhi Just hours after his...

Tunisia, Egypt: a revolutionary process of world scope

Details Published on Monday 28 February 2011 18:16 Written by Radical Socialist Tunisia, Egypt: a revolutionary process of world scope Fourth International The International Committee of the Fourth International at...

Most Popular

Ailing king, wise soul and the kingdom of Pakistan

Details Published on Wednesday 22 June 2011 00:54 Written by Radical Socialist Ailing king, wise soul and the kingdom of Pakistan by Amjad Nazeer The unpleasant outcomes of our low priorities...

ALGERIA “The West prefers a regime subject to its interests

Details Published on Thursday 06 June 2019 16:53 Written by Radical Socialist INTERVIEW WITH HOCINE BELALLOUFI Wednesday 5 June 2019, by Hocine Belalloufi Hocine Belalloufi is a journalist and a...

The Martyred Professor : Saba Dashtiyari of Balochistan

Details Published on Saturday 04 June 2011 06:13 Written by Radical Socialist Obituary: The Martyred Professor http://www.thebalochhal.com/2011/06/obituary-the-martyred-professor/ By Malik Siraj Akbar I do no know any young Baloch of my generation...

Bolivia: Nationalisation puts wealth in hands of the people

Details Published on Tuesday 28 May 2013 03:03 Written by Radical Socialist Bolivia: Nationalisation puts wealth in hands of the people Tuesday, May 28, 2013 By Federico Fuentes A hydrocarbon separation...

Contribution to the debate on the Role and Tasks of the FI in the form of amendments

Details Published on Tuesday 15 December 2009 12:10Written by Radical Socialist

Radical Socialist Statement on The Karnataka Verdict and the Future

Details Published on Sunday 14 May 2023 09:51 Written by Radical Socialist

Bolivarian Venezuela at the crossroads The Venezuelan economy: in transition towards socialism?

Details Published on Thursday 08 July 2010 04:47 Written by Radical Socialist (Part 3)   Eric Toussaint The capitalist sector is growing faster than the public sector and is still predominant...

Cuba, Venezuela and the Question of Imperialist Intervention in Libya

Details Published on Sunday 06 March 2011 14:57 Written by Radical Socialist Cuba, Venezuela and the Question of  Imperialist Intervention in Libya There is a large debate within the...

জুলাইয়ের দিনগুলি –দানিয়েল গাইডো

Details Published on Saturday 25 November 2017 19:01 Written by Radical Socialist

The Aggravating Crisis Cannot be Solved Even with Wen Jiabao’s Push for Political Reform

Details Published on Friday 10 February 2012 13:49 Written by Radical Socialist The Aggravating Crisis Cannot be Solved Even with Wen Jiabao’s Push for Political Reform Zhang Kai The following...