Bolivia claims US stirring up strike trouble

[KurtFF8]

Source (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gdbg0YQXyg1XBxh5bb1Ysgx9WEQA)


LA PAZ — The government of Bolivia Friday accused the United States of fomenting a strike by the country's biggest union next week, as populist President Evo Morales struggled with growing labor unrest.
The indefinite stoppage by the Bolivian Workers Center umbrella trade union federation from next Monday is a significant challenge to Morales, who has long been confident of its support.
"Anybody who comes from the unions knows that a general, indefinite strike has political content. General indefinite strikes are called to overthrow governments," Vice President Alvaro Garcia told reporters.
"No doubt behind this there could be some officials from the US embassy," he said.
Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, is allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in espousing leftwing ideals and blaming political opposition at home on alleged US interference.
Since coming to power in 2006, he has nationalized energy and telecommunications businesses in his country, South America's poorest, and pared back the power of the European-descended elite to give more rights to the indigenous majority.
While the policies, and strong regional demand for Bolivia's all-important gas reserves, have bolstered the nation's economic growth in recent years, Morales is now under pressure by workers and teachers demanding higher pay.
Before flying to New York Thursday to attend a UN meeting, Morales tried to portray the strikers as puppets of the conservative opposition.
"Some sectors seem to be suffering infiltration by the right to confuse the workers," he said.
Rural unions loyal to Morales, notably those involved in coca-leaf farming, have said they will not take part in the strike.
But the Bolivian Workers Center said it planned a march on La Paz, and the powerful union covering the country's factory workers vowed to expand a hunger-strike already underway to press for a pay rise above the five percent proposed by the government.
"We supported him (Morales) in elections and now is the moment for him to support the workers. His (proposed) raise is not enough to live on," said Angel Asturizaga, leader of the national Factory Workers Union.
A former vice president, Victor Hugo Cardenas, said Morales was reaping the harvest of "false expectations" surrounding his populist rule.
"The president told us we would be swimming in money and people believed him and want to benefit from the bonanza. He whipped up a lot of talk that created a false image," he said.So what do you guys think, US imperialism or perhaps a contradiction within the Leftist movement in Boliva?

[Devrim]

So what do you guys think, US imperialism or perhaps a contradiction within the Leftist movement in Boliva?

Bourgeois politician attacking workers, pretty normal everywhere.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Yes, but do you completely rule out the possibility of US influence? If so, any sources to back your position?

No, I don't completely rule it out. Of course it is possible. Even if a genuine workers movement emerges the US may try to 'meddle'.

I do know that to accuse the US of 'intervening' is a standard retort from so-called 'anti imperialist' politicians used to slander workers trying to defend their living conditions, and I can quite understand why workers in a country with official (always lower than real) inflation is running at 4.9% want to go on strike against a 5% limit on pay increases, which in real terms will be a pay-cut.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Yes, but there is still no evidence to refute the anti-imperialist politician's claims except for speculation on your part. I'm not totally for believing his words, but its difficult to refute them without some actual evidence.

Well yes, but there is no evidence to back them up either. I wouldn't say it is speculation. Politicians lying about striking workers is hardly a new phenomenon. It happens all over the world.

Do you think that workers shouldn't go on strike to get a pay rise that isn't below inflation?

Devrim

[Ligeia]

In response to this strikes the bolivian government is lowering pension-age from 65 to 58, if you're a miner to 56 and if you've worked to 10 consequent years in a mine, 51.
Also augmenting the pension in general.This reform of the law of pensions has been demanded by COB (union) two years earlier, as well as constant demands for rising wages.
The wages of workers have been generally augmented in the last years but they've been incredibily low in the first place.(In 2008, 10% and in 2009 12%).

A little bit from an intresting article (roughly translated by Babelfish and roughly corrected):

The press speculates on "the romance government-unions” and the right tries to capitalize this displeasure politically. The questioned manufacturing leader of the COD cruceña Edwin Fernandez, totally absent of the most important manufacturing fights which are occurring in the country - as the one of the Santa Monica Spinning mill - looks for new legitimation after this strike. The manufacturing cruceños, like Santa Monica and San Aurelio, know the politics and pro-enterprise attitude of this class of leaders very well who were always silent against the miserable wage-increases that the neoliberal governments decreed and act like spies and puppets of the Civic Committee pro-coup participants and the capitalist lodges cruceñas.That's why the workers of Santa Cruz have still not been mobilized, although, as the same case of Santa Monica testifies, they are not totally in agreement with the policy of the government. This class of political movements have also occurred in Tarija where - according to information - the marches have been led by employees of the mayorship who respond to the rightist opposition. On the other hand in the own La Paz, scene of the most radical confrontations, in the same pole of hunger strike, calls to Evo could be read on several posters. In the combative mining march of Potosí we saw many workers of the subsoil with stickers of Evo Morales on their helmets. In summary the atmosphere between the majority can be affirmed that they entered the strike because of incredulity and rage because they feel that they're lacking support from their government which they massively endorsed with their vote.CLICK (http://www.corrientemarxista.org/internacional/8-america-latina/64-la-cob-central-obrera-boliviana-convoco-huelga-general-para-defender-derechos-de-los-trabajadores.html)

It's a complex situation, on the one hand there are genuine pleas by workers (and other e.g. police,teachers..) to make the government act much better whereas this situation is also in danger of being exploited by right-wing forces.
The MAS government has generally been very tame in its actions, I remember that when they entered the government they wanted to make clear that they'll cooperate/harmonise with the bourgeoisie and workers.
But all in all,the situation is not easy to categorize.

Yesterday the government talked with the COB where they talked about this new pension law (which has now been approved) and also about a wage-augmentation of 8% but there have been no news about the result of the wage-talk.

[Devrim]

It's a complex situation,...

I don't think it is particularly complex at all. It is a government imposing wage restraints.

Devrim

[Guerrilla22]

Standard US tactic to sabotage the economy of another country.

[Devrim]

Standard US tactic to sabotage the economy of another country.

It is also a standard nationalist 'anti-imperialist' bourgeois line to justify attacking the working class.

Devrim

[Nolan]

Bourgeois politicians attack the working class all the time, but Morales has done everything to help the workers and the rural poor so far. Considering the history of American foreign entanglements, it's almost certain the US government has a hand in this.

[fredbergen]

Just a little question:

What kind of "socialist," "anti-imperialist" etc. ruler provides Bolivian army troops for the imperialist occupation of Haiti?

Some Stalinists and pseudo-Trotskyist opportunists will never learn that the only real "anti-imperialism" is socialism -- workers power.

For more information, read articles on Bolivia from The Internationalist (http://www.internationalist.org/boliviatoc.html):

“Andean Capitalism” vs. Permanent Revolution
Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed
When Evo Morales won Bolivia’s national elections in December 2005, becoming the first indigenous president in South American history, the international left almost unanimously hailed this as a victory for the oppressed. Yet as the League for the Fourth International warned, political support to Morales’ “Andean capitalism” is counterposed to the most fundamental interests of the workers, peasants and indigenous peoples. In a year and a half in office, Morales has carried out an “agrarian reform” that strengthens the landowners’ power, decreed phony “nationalizations” that leave oil and gas fields in the hands of imperialist corporations, called a “constituent assembly” in which right-wing racists hold the whip hand, and repeatedly attacked the workers movement. The experience of this bourgeois-nationalist regime confirms Leon Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution, that the working class must take power at the head of the poor peasantry and the exploited layers of the urban population, seizing the land and industries in a socialist revolution extending throughout Latin America and into the imperialist heartland. Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed (http://www.internationalist.org/boliviamoralesvsworkers0709.html) (September 2007)

[Proletarian Ultra]

The main Bolivian union is a member of the World Federation of Trade Unions, which is the historically pro-Soviet group, as opposed to the AFL-CIA one. These claims by the government are hard to accept as credible.

[Barry Lyndon]

Just a little question:

What kind of "socialist," "anti-imperialist" etc. ruler provides Bolivian army troops for the imperialist occupation of Haiti?

Some Stalinists and pseudo-Trotskyist opportunists will never learn that the only real "anti-imperialism" is socialism -- workers power.

For more information, read articles on Bolivia from The Internationalist (http://www.internationalist.org/boliviatoc.html):

“Andean Capitalism” vs. Permanent Revolution
Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed
When Evo Morales won Bolivia’s national elections in December 2005, becoming the first indigenous president in South American history, the international left almost unanimously hailed this as a victory for the oppressed. Yet as the League for the Fourth International warned, political support to Morales’ “Andean capitalism” is counterposed to the most fundamental interests of the workers, peasants and indigenous peoples. In a year and a half in office, Morales has carried out an “agrarian reform” that strengthens the landowners’ power, decreed phony “nationalizations” that leave oil and gas fields in the hands of imperialist corporations, called a “constituent assembly” in which right-wing racists hold the whip hand, and repeatedly attacked the workers movement. The experience of this bourgeois-nationalist regime confirms Leon Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution, that the working class must take power at the head of the poor peasantry and the exploited layers of the urban population, seizing the land and industries in a socialist revolution extending throughout Latin America and into the imperialist heartland. Bolivia: Evo Morales Against the Workers and Oppressed (http://www.internationalist.org/boliviamoralesvsworkers0709.html) (September 2007)

From an organization that supported imperialist intervention in Haiti, and justified it on the grounds that "those people" couldn't feed themselves and lied when you said there was no working class in Haiti, I do not trust your authority on this subject. It's easy to snipe from the sidelines when your not involved in any actual revolution. Go suck an egg.

[fredbergen]

From an organization that supported imperialist intervention in Haiti, and justified it on the grounds that "those people" couldn't feed themselves and lied when you said there was no working class in Haiti, I do not trust your authority on this subject. It's easy to snipe from the sidelines when your not involved in any actual revolution. Go suck an egg.

Barry: Please show us how the Internationalist Group supported the U.S. occupation of Haiti.

I await your retraction and apology. (But I'm not holding my breath).

[Victory Of The People!]

From an organization that supported imperialist intervention in Haiti, and justified it on the grounds that "those people" couldn't feed themselves and lied when you said there was no working class in Haiti, I do not trust your authority on this subject. It's easy to snipe from the sidelines when your not involved in any actual revolution. Go suck an egg.

Barry, I think you are confusing fredbergen's organization with the Spartacist League. The League for the Fourth International is the Internationalist Group, which has always called for US/UN troops out of Haiti.

It was the Spartacist League ( the International Communist League, not the League for the Fourth International) who claimed there was no working class in Haiti and called for the United States to occupy the island for "humanitarian reasons" and then later reversed itself.

I assume this confusion was just an honest mistake ( It is kind of hard to keep up with all the different organizations out there sometimes)

[S.Artesian]

From an organization that supported imperialist intervention in Haiti, and justified it on the grounds that "those people" couldn't feed themselves and lied when you said there was no working class in Haiti, I do not trust your authority on this subject. It's easy to snipe from the sidelines when your not involved in any actual revolution. Go suck an egg.


How about my authority. I opposes the US intervention in Haiti; the UN relief of that US intervention-- both from the getgo. I opposed the dispatching of troops and police from Brazil, Argentina, China, Uruguay, France, the US, Canada, Bolivia to reinforce and reman the occupation from the getgo.

I also opposed the killing of two mine workers in 2007 [I think]by the Bolivian police after they occupied a building in protests about the government's handling of pension funds-- allowing international investment banks to manage the funds.

[Funny how Morales took no such immediate, confrontational action when the media-lunatics were terrorizing workers and indigenous people, murdering and raping a couple of years ago. Actually not funny].

The question is: do the workers have legitimate demands? What is the condition of the economy? What class controls the economy? What are the steps necessary to eliminating, not simply mitigating, the impoverishment of Bolivian workers, rural poor, and indigenous peoples.

Before we knee-jerk our nodding our heads when Morales says "workers are being manipulated by the US," let's actually look at the situation in Bolivia.

Bolivian miners and workers have had a remarkably militant history, one that has stood in fundamental opposition to the manipulations of the economy but international capitalism. Let's give the workers some credit for being not as stupid and malleable as some would like them to be.

[Barry Lyndon]

Barry, I think you are confusing fredbergen's organization with the Spartacist League. The League for the Fourth International is the Internationalist Group, which has always called for US/UN troops out of Haiti.

It was the Spartacist League ( the International Communist League, not the League for the Fourth International) who claimed there was no working class in Haiti and called for the United States to occupy the island for "humanitarian reasons" and then later reversed itself.

I assume this confusion was just an honest mistake ( It is kind of hard to keep up with all the different organizations out there sometimes)

Yeah, I'm sorry. Fredbergen's rhetoric and posturing is indistinguishable from the Spartacist League. I'm sorry, but I can't keep track of all 39 Trotskyist groupsucles who are fighting over who is the 'real' Trotskyist.

[gorillafuck]

I swear, some people on here sometimes have the idea that third world workers are a bunch of morons. Whenever they form their own demands or go on strike against a non-US supported government, they must certainly be being manipulated by the CIA.

That said, I wouldn't completely rule it out. But I'd need to see some evidence.

[cb9's_unity]

Standard US tactic to sabotage the economy of another country.

Do you primarily equate workers striking with 'sabotaging the economy'? Sounds like an awfully bourgeois outlook to me.

[the last donut of the night]

I used to be in favour of Morales, a bit, before, but this is just revolting. My support goes out to the striking workers.

[Guerrilla22]

Do you primarily equate workers striking with 'sabotaging the economy'? Sounds like an awfully bourgeois outlook to me.

Then perhaps you should do some reading. The US organized strikes in Chile and Venezuela as well. As I said it's a standard US tactic.

[RedSonRising]

From the looks of it, it's pressure from the workers on the man they elected, making sure they are getting accurate representation in terms of policy. I support Evo but if the workers have qualms, let them show it, it's supposed to be their party after all. I think US intervention is not unlikely, but if imperialist infiltration is not behind these mobilizations, then class consciousness is still intact in Bolivia regardless of whose in charge.

[S.Artesian]

Then perhaps you should do some reading. The US organized strikes in Chile and Venezuela as well. As I said it's a standard US tactic.

Yes, the US manipulated strikes in Chile, mostly among "independents" like truck drivers, and small business owners, but also tried to infiltrate and manipulate strikes among other industrial workers, including the copper miners at the El Teniente mines which had been nationalized by Allende in 1971.

The problem of course was that Allende was attempting to follow a constitutional path during a revolutionary class struggle. Workers had organized themselves into cordones comunales, soviets, and were moving toward direct combat with the bourgeoisie.

On August 22, the Christian Democrats and the National Party won 81 of 128 votes in the Chamber of Deputies actually calling for the military to overthrow the Allende government.

Did Allende suspend the chamber, arrest the deputies, and mobilize the cordones comunales to protect the revolution? Of course not as that would have meant complete overthrow of the existing constitution and capitalist rule, or at least the prospects of such overthrow through class war.

We all know what happened 3 weeks later. Even on the day of his overthrow, Allende opposed the mobilization of the workers, going on the radio to urge the workers to NOT take to the streets, to remain in their homes.

BTW the nationalization of the mines was completed and formalized in 1976 under Pinochet with the approval of the US bourgeoisie, which shows IMO how, in reality, it isn't nationalization the bourgeoisie loathe, its the prospects of socialism, of the ascendancy of the workers as the ruling class.

Saint-Just, known as the "archangel of death" during the rule of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety in the French revolution, said that those who make revolutions half-way merely dig their own graves. --

That wouldn't be so bad if that's all it was. Unfortunately they also dig everyone elses' graves.

If economic conditions are behind the social movement that brought the MAS to power and compelled Morales to, tardily, change his views on nationalization of the energy sector [he was one of the last to endorse the popular demands for seizure of the production assets from the foreign companies]; then economic conditions are still operative and precipitating this strike regardless of how much or how little the US is, or wishes to be involved.

So those who actually support the revolution in Bolivia will support the workers.

[Barry Lyndon]

Yes, the US manipulated strikes in Chile, mostly among "independents" like truck drivers, and small business owners, but also tried to infiltrate and manipulate strikes among other industrial workers, including the copper miners at the El Teniente mines which had been nationalized by Allende in 1971.

The problem of course was that Allende was attempting to follow a constitutional path during a revolutionary class struggle. Workers had organized themselves into cordones comunales, soviets, and were moving toward direct combat with the bourgeoisie.

On August 22, the Christian Democrats and the National Party won 81 of 128 votes in the Chamber of Deputies actually calling for the military to overthrow the Allende government.

Did Allende suspend the chamber, arrest the deputies, and mobilize the cordones comunales to protect the revolution? Of course not as that would have meant complete overthrow of the existing constitution and capitalist rule, or at least the prospects of such overthrow through class war.

We all know what happened 3 weeks later. Even on the day of his overthrow, Allende opposed the mobilization of the workers, going on the radio to urge the workers to NOT take to the streets, to remain in their homes.

BTW the nationalization of the mines was completed and formalized in 1976 under Pinochet with the approval of the US bourgeoisie, which shows IMO how, in reality, it isn't nationalization the bourgeoisie loathe, its the prospects of socialism, of the ascendancy of the workers as the ruling class.

Saint-Just, known as the "archangel of death" during the rule of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety in the French revolution, said that those who make revolutions half-way merely dig their own graves. --

That wouldn't be so bad if that's all it was. Unfortunately they also dig everyone elses' graves.

If economic conditions are behind the social movement that brought the MAS to power and compelled Morales to, tardily, change his views on nationalization of the energy sector [he was one of the last to endorse the popular demands for seizure of the production assets from the foreign companies]; then economic conditions are still operative and precipitating this strike regardless of how much or how little the US is, or wishes to be involved.

So those who actually support the revolution in Bolivia will support the workers.

Artesian,

I apologize for the insulting tone I used with you before when were arguing about a similar subject on another thread.
And I agree with you entirely that Morales cannot afford to make the same mistakes that Allende made, it will be the downfall of him and likely the entire MAS movement. The workers are the revolution, he is not, and no one should forget that.

[S.Artesian]

Artesian,

I apologize for the insulting tone I used with you before when were arguing about a similar subject on another thread.
And I agree with you entirely that Morales cannot afford to make the same mistakes that Allende made, it will be the downfall of him and likely the entire MAS movement. The workers are the revolution, he is not, and no one should forget that.


Apology accepted. Wow. You're one stand-up guy.

[Robocommie]

Do you primarily equate workers striking with 'sabotaging the economy'? Sounds like an awfully bourgeois outlook to me.

Well, it's not like union leadership in the US has never been corrupted, either by the mob or by careerists working with the owners. Theoretically it's possible that a union's leadership could be bought off by foreign agents.

I'm not saying that's happening here though. I'm just saying you don't have to be uncritically supportive of every union to be pro-working class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Apart from left-coms, Lassalle wasn't exactly pro-union even towards his own union (which he tried to convert into a political party), yet his political legacy was the German working class breaking away from the aspirations of the German bourgeoisie.

[cb9's_unity]

Then perhaps you should do some reading. The US organized strikes in Chile and Venezuela as well. As I said it's a standard US tactic.

Workers striking should never be primarily seen as an attack from a foreign power, it should be seen that sections of the working class are discontent from the government.

Workers won't strike if the government is acting in their same class interests. Of course the U.S will try to exploit any rift they can for their own, however we shouldn't be condemning workers for class struggle, we should be examining why that rift exists.

To dwell on the working class 'sabotaging' the economy is a bourgeois outlook because it cares more about the health of the government in power and the state of the economy as a whole over the state of class struggle at the time. It can only leads to bourgeois conclusions that pit elements of the working class against itself.

[S.Artesian]

Apart from left-coms, Lassalle wasn't exactly pro-union even towards his own union (which he tried to convert into a political party), yet his political legacy was the working class breaking away from the aspirations of the German bourgeoisie.


Really? Is this the same Lassalle of whom Marx to Kugelmann in 1865: "However it soon became clear-- the proofs fell into our hands-- that Lasalle had in fact betrayed the party. He had entered into a formal contract with Bismarck [of course, without having in his hand any sort of guarantees]"?

[Ligeia]

Seems like strikes have ended.After negotiotations (with Morales) there's a new pension law, two factories will be built in the regions which demanded them but wage talks are still going on.

[Guerrilla22]

Workers striking should never be primarily seen as an attack from a foreign power

In cases where strikes happen in countries with leftists heads of state/governments in latin america it will always be viewed with suspicion. As was the case in Chile and Venezuela.

[S.Artesian]

In cases where strikes happen in countries with leftists heads of state/governments in latin america it will always be viewed with suspicion. As was the case in Chile and Venezuela.


And in cases where class struggle forces states/governments to accommodate leftish leaders, the actions and statements of such leaders should always be viewed with suspicion.

[fredbergen]

Can strikes serve reactionary purposes? Can imperialism attempt to make use of workers protests? Of course. Just look at the "British jobs for British workers" strike (organized by the CWI and the BNP) at the Lindsey oil refinery.

In general, the workers movement is politically subordinated to the bourgeoisie through its leadership. Usually, including in Bolivia, this means political subordination to the "national bourgeoisie" -- today, Evo Morales, yesterday, the "military socialist" government of the MNR. But of course there are union bureaucrats willing to be bought out by Washington.

How does one prevent this? How does one ensure that the workers movement actually serves the historic interest of the working class, socialism? By supporting and making excuses for "leftist" capitalist governments that oppress the workers? No, the only road is to fight for a revolutionary program and leadership of the working class, which means independence from and intransigent opposition to the Moraleses, Chávezes, Lulas, Aristides, etc.

Trotsky's unfinished essay, "Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/tu.htm)" has some great insights into how this works out in semi-colonial countries like Bolivia. He concludes:


"As a matter of fact, the independence of trade unions in the class sense, in their relations to the bourgeois state can, in the present conditions, be assured only by a completely revolutionary leadership, that is, the leadership of the Fourth International. This leadership, naturally, must and can be rational and assure the unions the maximum of democracy conceivable under the present concrete conditions. But without the political leadership of the Fourth International the independence of the trade unions is impossible."

[Die Neue Zeit]

Really? Is this the same Lassalle of whom Marx to Kugelmann in 1865: "However it soon became clear-- the proofs fell into our hands-- that Lasalle had in fact betrayed the party. He had entered into a formal contract with Bismarck [of course, without having in his hand any sort of guarantees]"?

Read Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's Lenin Rediscovered: WITBD in Context, available on Google Books. :rolleyes:

[fredbergen]

Jacob, the Second International is dead. Social democracy is dead. Lassalle and Kautsky are very very very dead. Get over it and stop inflicting your sick, irrelevant necrophiliac obsession on every discussion here.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Look who's the necrophiliac? You are representative of a still-born political line (Fourth International) that goes back to Sorel and Bakunin!

[Barry Lyndon]

Jacob, the Second International is dead. Social democracy is dead. Lassalle and Kautsky are very very very dead. Get over it and stop inflicting your sick, irrelevant necrophiliac obsession on every discussion here.

Says someone who wants to resurrect the Fourth International, a prospect that was dead as soon as Trotsky's brain was run through with a Stalinist icepick. And likes to engage in endless arguments over the exact label one should use for the USSR, as if anyone gives a shit. Get over yourself.

[S.Artesian]

Read Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's Lenin Rediscovered: WITBD in Context, available on Google Books. :rolleyes:


Read it. Yeah, that's the same one. Yes, he argued for the class constituting itself as an independent party. Yes his romance with Bismarck "compromised" him.

Same guy. You think there might be some connection between his notion of the party, his discounting of political freedom, and his compromise with Bismarck?

Doesn't mean Lenin didn't admire Lassalle, doesn't mean German Social Democracy did not embody part or all of Lassalle.

[S.Artesian]

There all dead-- Marx, Lassalle, Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Stalin-- Internationals 1-4, with 5 probably not even being carried to term, but miscarrying prior to birth.

So let's try sorting this out outside the various mausoleums we enjoy visiting.

[fredbergen]

Trotskyism is the program of the Russian October revolution, the only successful workers revolution in history, and the fight for new October revolutions.

As long as there are those who take up its banner, it is relevant to the international working class today, cynicism and icepick jokes to the contrary.

Jacob "DNZ" Richter's politics, if we could call it that, is an eclectic, half-digested pastiche of a revival, popular in certain academic backwaters, of ideas and organizations whose legacy is the ultimate betrayal of the workers and the revolutionary movement. The practical result of his pseudo-intellectual gobbledeygook? Supporting police attacks on the left, among other things.

Now we were discussing the workers movement in Bolivia...

[Devrim]

Can strikes serve reactionary purposes? Can imperialism attempt to make use of workers protests? Of course. Just look at the "British jobs for British workers" strike (organized by the CWI and the BNP) at the Lindsey oil refinery.

This is slanderous. I am no friend of the Militant, but I think here it has to be said. First strikes generally aren't organised by political parties in this period, and I think that that shows how disconnected from reality you are.

I don't live in Britain and have had no contact with workers at Lindsey. It is difficult to say what exactly happened on the ground without direct knowledge of the events. What I understood from following the strike in the media, and discussions with people who lived in Britian on the issue, was that members of the CWI were involved, but that there is no evidence that the BNP were. Indeed the only mention I heard of BNP involvement was some of them turning up their to be given pretty short shift by the strikers. Were there nationalist elements in the strike? Yes undoubtedly, but there are also nationalist elements within the working class. Was the strike nationalist? I would say no. I think that the nationalist slogans (which were put forward by the British Labour Party), were exaggerated by the media. I think this is something that can be open to discussion.

The idea that the CWI organised the strike together with the BNP is not though. It is a lie and an outrageous slander.

Devrim

[fredbergen]

CWI supporters were prominent in the strike leadership committee and supported the strike's demand, that jobs be taken away from foreign workers and given to "british" workers. The CWI preferred the euphemism "local" workers as opposed to "british" workers, but it means the same thing.

The BNP supported the strike and there was BNP agitation on the picket lines.

There were more than nationalist "slogans." The purpose of the strike was national chauvinist exclusion of foreign workers.

[Devrim]

The BNP supported the strike and there was BNP agitation on the picket lines.

I heard the BNP turned up once and got told where to get off.

You said that they organised it together with the CWI.


Just look at the "British jobs for British workers" strike (organized by the CWI and the BNP)

'Organised by', and 'supported' are very different terms.

Devrim

[KC]

The fact that so many here are willing to take such a concrete stand on this situation with such little knowledge (or none) is really telling I think about the entrenchment of ideological predisposition among the left and the dogmatism that has resulted therefrom.

It's pretty disturbing. On the one hand you have those who are adamant that this is entirely US intervention and that Morales can do no wrong and then on the other you have those claiming that the Bolivian government is completely anti-working class and so this is obviously a ruse to gain support for the government.

I think the situation is a little more complicated than that. Most of you need to get your heads out of your collective asses.

[S.Artesian]

The fact that so many here are willing to take such a concrete stand on this situation with such little knowledge (or none) is really telling I think about the entrenchment of ideological predisposition among the left and the dogmatism that has resulted therefrom.

It's pretty disturbing. On the one hand you have those who are adamant that this is entirely US intervention and that Morales can do no wrong and then on the other you have those claiming that the Bolivian government is completely anti-working class and so this is obviously a ruse to gain support for the government.

I think the situation is a little more complicated than that. Most of you need to get your heads out of your collective asses.

The situation is more complicated than that, and there are those who have said we need to examine the economy of Bolivia, the class struggle in Bolivia, and where both economy and class struggle are going.

The issue has a definite charge to it in that Morales is claiming the workers are tools of US imperialism and such charges have been used historically to prepare assaults on the working class that inevitably lead to the defeat of the revolutionary process itself-- we don't need to go too far back in history or too far distant from La Paz to find an example-- we can look at the MNR government, the "national democratic revolutionary" government of Bolivia itself, from 1952-1964.

If you don't want others to make knee-jerk, blanket evaluations, then you yourself need to refrain from knee-jerk, blanket evaluations, such as telling "most of you" to "get your head out of your asses."

[KC]

I don't really know what you're talking about; I wasn't referring to you. And I agree with you, so I don't know what your response to me is even suppose to mean? Or are you just upset that I told people to get their heads out of their asses? :confused:

[S.Artesian]

And the BNP were driven off when they showed up on the picket lines.

[Devrim]

The fact that so many here are willing to take such a concrete stand on this situation with such little knowledge (or none) is really telling I think about the entrenchment of ideological predisposition among the left and the dogmatism that has resulted therefrom.

It's pretty disturbing. On the one hand you have those who are adamant that this is entirely US intervention and that Morales can do no wrong and then on the other you have those claiming that the Bolivian government is completely anti-working class and so this is obviously a ruse to gain support for the government.

I think that Bolivia is a capitalist state and the government is bourgeois. I don't think that is the result of 'entrenchment of ideological predisposition among and dogmatism'. It is an analysis.

Could there be USA agitation? Yes, I think it is quite possible. All I said though was that this is a line often used against workers, which it is.

Devrim

[Barry Lyndon]

I think that Bolivia is a capitalist state and the government is bourgeois. I don't think that is the result of 'entrenchment of ideological predisposition among and dogmatism'. It is an analysis.

Could there be USA agitation? Yes, I think it is quite possible. All I said though was that this is a line often used against workers, which it is.

Devrim

No one is making the argument that Bolivia is currently a socialist state. The MAS political party that Morales heads is called 'Movement TOWARD Socialism' for a reason. Stop creating straw men.

[KC]

Well I wasn't really directing that at Left Communists or "anti-imperialists" either because their entire ideology is essentially based on blanket statements.

[Proletarian Ultra]

The industrial unions are striking against the government.

The peasant unions are supporting the government.

To me this looks like a classic peasant/proletarian contradiction.

[S.Artesian]

The industrial unions are striking against the government.

The peasant unions are supporting the government.

To me this looks like a classic peasant/proletarian contradiction.


There is a long, and bitter history, of such conflict in Bolivia, between workers and indigenous peasants, with the peasants being "suspicious" to say the least not of the workers so much, particularly the miners who were drawn themselves from the villages of the indigenous people, but of the labor leaders who were "whiter" than they.

The "suspicions" were reinforced, of course, by the MNR government's land reform policy that promised much and delivered little, but what little it did deliver was the attempt to embody individual peasant ownership in a countryside where individual peasant ownership had not been the norm.

Barrientos made good use of his indigenous connections-- Barrientos was a cochabambino and he built up tremendous support in the rural areas by mediating disputes, entertaining caciques at his house etc. all of which served him well, when as vice-president he initiated the rebellion that overthrew Paz.

With the deep structural changes in the Bolivian economy initiated under Banzer, and the even more severe changes in the lost decade of the 1980s, the composition, and structure of the working class, and its employment changed, with industrial workers and miners declining and "service" workers increasing.

Many of the former miners were casualized and worked on a sort of half-contract/half-free lance basis-- essentially "tenant-mining". This was not economically viable and many moved to rural areas and became cocaleros. Still the division between peasant based organizations and worker urban based is very real, and very difficult.

MAS is peasant based, and its land reform policies are based on the 1996 law that Gonzalo Sanchez had introduced during his first term [same Goni who, in his second coming, unleashed the machine gunners against demonstrators and had to flee the country. Think he's in Miami-- where else?-- now.

Morales himself speaks about "socialism" but he was one of the last to endorse even "nationalization" of the energy sector, and his vice-president has explicitly articulated a "state capitalist" program for Bolivia's development.

I don't know how the Bolivian economy is making out-- haven't checked into it recently. I do know the World Bank was full of praise for Morales' "skillful handling" of the economic crisis and expanding health, sanitation, and education services... however..

With the price of gas being hammered over the past year, I think we may be seeing the beginnings of economic distress very similar to the distress that Venezuela is now undergoing since oil dropped off its 2007-2008 highs, and the bolivar has been devalued.

None of this is easy to sort through, but we need to keep in mind that
1) Bolivia has already had its "national democratic revolution in the 12 years of MNR rule

2) that national democratic revolution proved itself incapable of resolving any of the contradictions of the Bolivian economy in urban, rural, and/or mining sectors

3) that MNR regime did itself in, so to speak, because it had to-- it had to rearm the military in order to subjugate the miners who were prepared and in fact struggling for expropriation of the mines and the bourgeoisie as a class.

4) Morales is certainly hated by the local bourgeoisie, the media lunatics who are ever so white, for his indigenous roots and his support for the mild land reform proposals of Goni, but that bourgeoisie want to do away with the MAS government so they can better terrorize the agricultural workers on their estates, and break the gas and oil workers who know how to seize those means of production

5) Morales has, and will, continue to make efforts to restrain the workers, and even disarm them, no matter what the economic circumstances are, and how severe the threat is from the media-lunatics, and... the international bourgeoisie-- including, and particularly, the bourgeoisie of Brazil who would like to annex the gas fields of Bolivia.

[fredbergen]

Devrim and Sartesian were right to sharply criticize my previous post where I wrote:


Can strikes serve reactionary purposes? Can imperialism attempt to make use of workers protests? Of course. Just look at the "British jobs for British workers" strike (organized by the CWI and the BNP) at the Lindsey oil refinery.

I'm sorry to say this was a lazy polemical shorthand that undermined my overall argument.

Of course the BNP and CWI didn't get together to organize the "British Jobs for British Workers" strike at Lindsey. I was wrong to imply that they did. In their different, separate ways, they both organized for it, because they both supported its reactionary, nationalist aims.

It is also true that at one point, BNP agitators were driven away from the pickets, and that the leadership of the wildcat strike, and many rank and file workers also, were opposed to and embarrassed by the open support that the British fascists offered to their strike.

But the point, which I unfortunately discredited with my exaggeration, was that the strike was reactionary and served the interests of the capitalists by weakening and dividing the international working class. It did so because instead of promoting international workers solidarity and a united struggle for union conditions for all workers, the wildcat strike leadership, including the CWI "socialists," poisoned the working class with national chauvinism.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I'm sorry to say this was a lazy polemical shorthand that undermined my overall argument.
Your comment was far from 'lazy polemical shorthand' - it was a disgraceful slander that is typical of the nonsense that supporters of the LFI would splurt out.


Of course the BNP and CWI didn't get together to organize the "British Jobs for British Workers" strike at Lindsey.
This statement on its own demonstrates your complete lack of knowledge about the strike - it was not a "British Jobs for British Workers" strike - it was a strike against job cuts and the exploitation of immigrant workers to drive down wages and conditions. The only people who trot out the rubbish like you have here are those who never once set foot on the picket line and took their line on the strike from Murdoch's Sky News.


I was wrong to imply that they did. In their different, separate ways, they both organized for it,
To start with the BNP had absolutely no involvement in the strike - they had no people on strike, they had no presence on the picket-line and they had absolutely no influence on the strike what so ever.

In terms of the CWI - the CWI did not 'organise for it' - a member of the CWI was elected to the six person strike committee and a supporter of the CWI was also elected. The CWI's involvement was in assisting the workers on strike in ensuring that efforts by the company to cut jobs, wages and conditions would be defeated.


because they both supported its reactionary, nationalist aims.
Do you have the slightest knowledge of what the demands of the workers on strike actually were? - I suggest that you make the effort to find out instead of parroting Murdoch's press.


that the leadership of the wildcat strike, and many rank and file workers also, were opposed to and embarrassed by the open support that the British fascists offered to their strike.
It is nonsense to suggest that the workers were 'embarrassed' by the antics of the BNP - the workers were hopping mad at the attempts by the BNP to hop on Murdoch's bandwagon. Journalists sulked around the area attempting to catch workers into making statement that they could then distort to serve their own purposes. The workers learned very quickly how to deal with them.


But the point, which I unfortunately discredited with my exaggeration, was that the strike was reactionary and served the interests of the capitalists by weakening and dividing the international working class.
Really? - again do you actually know anything about what the workers were demanding and what solidarity measures they engaged in with the immigrant workers involved?


It did so because instead of promoting international workers solidarity and a united struggle for union conditions for all workers, the wildcat strike leadership, including the CWI "socialists," poisoned the working class with national chauvinism.
Again - I suggest you actually find out the details of the strike before uttering such dangerous slander.

Incidentally, you are not the only one who has come out with this nonsense. Shortly after the strike leading SWP members in Ireland, Eamon McCann and Richard Boyd-Barrett were interviewed on a national radio station in Ireland about strikes and civil unrest. During the interview they were asked could they give an example of a strike they wouldn't support. They could have offered, for example, the reactionary strike by the loyalist Unlster Workers Council in Northern Ireland in 1974. But they didn't, instead they started going on about the 'racist' Lindsey strike. Interestingly, during the entire time the strike was taking place, not once did a member of the SWP visit the picket-line, talk to the workers involved etc. Instead they sat back in their armchairs, watched Sky News and condemned the strike from on-high. Interestly enough the British SWP were forced to back-track very qucikly on the rubbish they were spouting. Obviously the Irish SWP didn't feel the same need. I have yet to run into McCann or RBB since their disgraceful performance in the radio programme, but I will be having words with them when I do.

If you wish to comment further on the Lindsey strike then I suggest that you make the effort to actually find out what happened, how it happened, who was involved and what the outcome was. Then I would be more than happy to discuss it with you. In the meantime you know where you can shove your disgraceful comments.