"Bolivia will be socialist or it will never be a modern country"
NACLA
In November 1972, NACLA interviewed Rene Zavaleta Mercado in Santiago, Chile. Zavaleta is a National Director of the Bolivian Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), and was one of the...
...It fought on August 21, 1971, however, when the reactionary military forces rebelled, but only to defend the Popular Assembly, not the Torres government...
...We were not strong enough, however, to decisively influence the Assembly...
...How do you view this...
...The history of the Bolivian working class, for example, is one of the most brilliant, militant, and consistent...
...the ELN suffered from the first error while the Popular Assembly suffered from the second...
...Nevertheless, it seems to us that they believe the struggle of the Latin American left focuses around guerrilla movements...
...imperialism...
...The MIR neither participated in the Torres government nor did they support it...
...On the other hand, before the FRA could become an effective instrument for revolutionary unity, it would have been necessary for its vanguard groups to agree to follow the leadership of the proletariat...
...one, at the same time, which represented only a minority in a country overwhelminghly composed of peasants...
...the Sparticists), some because they could no longer remain in their old parties which had moved to the right (e.g...
...We believe that there has been some misunderstanding when speaking of so-called Brazilian "sub-imperialism...
...When faced with sudden crises (August 21, 1971, for example), the left must act together, regardless of what positions may have been taken in the past...
...We must expect from them any type of reactionary offensive, because they have previously shown that they are capable of doing anything to keep themselves in power...
...Zavaleta represents the position of the former...
...But the construction of a viable dictatorship presents the bourgeoisie with enormous problems since its internal contradictions rapidly surface...
...Brazil today, like Bolivia, is an occupied country...
...The United States for us represents a structure of power which is not only imperialist, but which encompasses inside itself the most vicious and criminal tendencies known in the world's history...
...What significance do these strikes have and do you think the Banzer regime will be able to maintain itself in power...
...Basically, we criticized the scant attention the Assembly paid to the problem of its own armed defense...
...Now, we cannot evaluate the validity of a position on the basis of theoretical canons alone...
...This does not mean, and we should understand this clearly, that one party must place itself under the discipline of another but some parties, for example, would have to abandon certain points in their general conceptions.11 NACLA: What are the perspectives for the FRA's building a unified anti-imperialist movement in Bolivia...
...The result would be an eclectic program...
...On the contrary, the leftist movement is bound together by its ideological program, that is to say, the organized consciousness of its members...
...the DCR...
...The terror unleashed by these two forces after August 21, 1971 has been very intense...
...Quite frankly, we believe that Bolivia can never develop under capitalism...
...New York: Modern Reader, 1971...
...But, at the same time, we thought that the lack of concern with armed organization constituted the proletariat's weakest link...
...RZM: There are two basic positions within the FRA...
...Today, Bolivian workers are capable of organizing themselves even when all their leaders are being persecuted...
...The MNR, the largest democratic-bourgeois party in Bolivian history, is condemned to a slow but inevitable decline...
...All these groups were discontent, some because of their isolation (e.g...
...Imperialism governs through the armed forces-which it intensely indoctrinates-and through the bourgeoisie which characteristically plays and intermediary role...
...imperialism and Brazilian "sub-imperialism" played in recent events in Bolivia...
...It resulted from a fusion of the Grupo Espartaco, the Democracia Cristiana Revolucionaria, a segment of the Partido Comrnunista (Marxista-Leninista), the Independent Marxists, and a Marxist faction inside the MNR, of which I was a member...
...Last year, the MIR split into two sectors, the "MIRCausa Obrera" and the MIR-DCR...
...NACLA: At times it seems as if the MIR represented a middle position between what we might characterize as the political-mass orientation of the POR and the PCB, and the military-vanguard position of the ELN...
...This was our thought when we founded the MIR, what we wanted to introduce as a major political point in the Popular Assembly, and what we have pursued in the FRA, by whose very creation we achieved one part of what we sought...
...The most serious problem for the Bolivian Revolution remains the limited existence of workers' parties within the mass movement which, nevertheless, is perhaps the most advanced in all Latin America...
...RZM: We have had very little contact with North American progressives...
...But terror, as is known, can only be successful if accompanied by a high degree of economic development or when supported by a rigid traditionalist class system as in Franco's Spain...
...RENE ZAVALETA MERCADO: The MIR was formed May 1971, three months before the fall of the Torres government...
...Imprisoned and then exiled by the Banzer regime, Zavaleta came to Santiago as a delegate of the newly formed Frente Revolucionario Anti-Imperialista (FRA...
...And the events of August 21 prove that the Assembly neglected this aspect of its organization...
...The possibilities along this line are quite exciting...
...Zavaleta is a National Director of the Bolivian Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), and was one of the Party's founders...
...In the final analysis, for example, the guerrilla movements of Nancahuazu and Teoponte failed because they remained completely marginal to the working class...
...We believe that Bolivia represents the case of a powerful mass movement linked to a weak vanguard...
...NACLA: Can you tell us something about the formation of the Bolivian MIR and the role it played in the Popular Assembly during the Torres government...
...In Bolivia, any movement which takes place without links to the proletarian movement is destined to limp along or simply perish...
...The best way North American progressives can help us is by learning the real history of our popular movements and distinguishing among them...
...The mass movement in Bolivia has always been more vigorous than those parties which drew their members from it...
...Finally, the internal frustrations of foquismo* mean that the petit-bourgeoisie, which became radicalized inside the theory and experience of guerrilla movements, will remain within the left but now will relate directly to the workers' movement...
...North American progressives should place their hopes of revolution on the Bolivia proletariat...
...The decadence of populism (nationalism) is, for example, evident...
...RZM: Bolivia today is a country occupied by the United States...
...Both the North Americans and Banzer already have failed...
...This means that divisions of the left are sometimes necessary in order to facilitate the triumph of the correct position...
...Theory that the guerrilla base (foco) defines the nature and direction of liberation struggles...
...If, in a given moment the North Americans decide to use Brazil as an agent of imperialism, this in no way implies that Brazil has ceased to be a principal subject of U.S...
...In Bolivia the left always tends either to over-stress military preparedness or to neglect it totally...
...When a mass movement reaches the level of Bolivia's, the bourgeoisie can only survive by implanting a dictatorship...
...Now they are merely trying to survive in the best manner possible...
...To us, it seemed that an armed movement marginal to the working class was an absurdity, an anti-Marxist dogma...
...If this is accomplished, one can then take advantage of these favorable conditions to expand the previously mentioned proletarian parties...
...While this has fostered spontaneity within the working class, what happened in the Assembly flowed logically from this defect...
...Neither of these can can flower in Bolivia...
...For this reason, the creation of a proletarian party, or the expansion of existing workers' parties, is the principal task of our time...
...And we should not forget that imperialism also penetrated the MNR governments (1952-1964...
...In the case of the Popular Assembly, there was no relation between its importance as the representative of the masses, as a true Soviet, and the scant attention which its leaders paid to the real aspects of the struggle for power, especially the military ones...
...NACLA: What role has U.S...
...We think that the ability to grow while waging intense ideological struggle is at the very heart of revolutionary movements...
...Bolivia is occupied by imperialism, by the United States, and not by Brazil...
...He served as Minister of Mines during the last MNR government before the Barrientos dictatorship and established a national resources policy which led to the nationalization of the Gulf Oil Company in 1970...
...History has shown us, nevertheless, that one does not cement relationships between radically different concepts merely by acts of good faith...
...In all these sectors the workers' parties have ample basis for a period of accelerated growth...
...From the beginning we held that the Popular Assembly represented the legitimate government of Bolivia, even though this meant accepting the existence of Torres' regime...
...Bolivia will be socialist or it will never be a modern country...
...Under these circumstances it makes sense to fight for the restoration of a democratic regime and the granting of democratic freedoms for the popular movement...
...RZM: The strikes of the textile workers and bank employees at the end of 1972 demonstrate the importance of an element which we call a class' ability to "accumulate experience...
...As the majority inside the Catholic groups did not do this, the MIR split, and the greater part of the Revolutionary Christian Democracy (DCR) quit the party...
...that is whom you should support...
...As far as the perspectives for truly unified action by the left, we must distinguish two kinds of situations...
...Excepting Ovando's and Torres' governments, this has been the case since 1964...
...The right is less easily divided because material interests draw it together...
...Every time the proletariat has become isolated, it has been defeated...
...In the final analysis, the moment of revolutionary crisis will determine a position's correctness...
...PS), the other by the alliance between vanguard groups and populist parties (PRIN, ELN, MIRDCR, PCML...
...This belief derived from the undeniable fact of the existence of an isolated but very advanced working class...
...NACLA: What can the leftist and progressive movement in the United States do to support the Bolivian people's struggle for liberation...
...RZM: An answer can be found in the last part of the previous question...
...It is also improbable that the masses can place much faith in military nationalism following their experience with Ovando and Torres...
...The test of a line's accuracy is measured through practice, by its encounter with reality...
...This is possible because the method of direct mass action has already been incorporated into the proletariat's consciousness...
...Similar situations undoubtedly will occur in the future, and we must assure a unified response at those times...
...It seemed to us that the most important political act consisted in unifying two groups: that which most clearly represented the radicalized petitbourgeoisie (the ELN) and those parties with a worker base (the PCB and the POR...
...It is also possible that a mass spontaneous explosion-an inherent characteristic of our movement which is both its strength and its weakness--will occur once again, taking advantage of one of Banzer's many crises...
...Banzer's military dictatorship responds in every fundamental aspect to the necessities of the North Americans...
...the leftist sectors of the MNR), and some because they had become increasingly radicalized after the guerrilla movement of Nancahuazu (e.g...
...This resulted because of certain historical circumstances...
...Nevertheless, if this unity means an end to ideological struggle, it would be reactionary to propose such a measure...
...It is not clear exactly what this concept means within the Marxist theory of imperialism...
...See, for example, Regis Debray, Strategy for Revolution: Essays on Latin America, Robin Blackburn, ed...
...The only circumstances under which the MIR could have remained united would have been if its non- or pre-Marxist sector had agreed to follow the Party's Marxist-Leninist line...
...When the MIR formed, we had a certain eclectic vision of the Bolivian left which perhaps reflected our own composition...
...NACLA: The devaluation of the Bolivian peso by 67 percent in late 1972 touched off an intense period of unrest capped by a wave of strikes among textiles workers and bank employees...
...One is represented by those parties and movements linked to the advanced sector of the working class (PCB, POR, MIRCausa Obrera...
...Leninism, for example, won out over other positions in the Russian left because it responded best to the reality of the situation...
...This is, above all, what its prior experience has shown...
Vol. 8 • February 1974 • No. 2
