This is an edited version of a talk presented at the April 25 PSL Socialism Conference in Chicago.
Latin America has a long history of both imperialist intervention and people’s struggle for self-determination. In the face of U.S. aggression and material support for right-wing terror, revolutionary movements across Latin America continue to grow in popularity and political strength.
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Two particular successes of note include the recent passage of the Provisional Electoral Law in Bolivia and the constitutional amendments that preceded it.
The revolutionary struggle in Bolivia has been shaped by Bolivia’s vast natural resource reserves, its history as victim of imperialist intervention and the super-oppression of the indigenous majority.
Over 470 years ago, the Spanish brutally conquered Bolivia, exploiting its land and people for centuries, as European colonialism did around the world. Descendants of the European ruling class in Bolivia governed the entire country, controlling all the country’s wealth and driving the vast majority of Bolivia into deep poverty.
The Bolivian ruling class set up a system in which nearly 65 percent of people were living in poverty by 2002. Forty percent of those lived in extreme poverty. At the same time, ruling elites controlled vast reserves of natural gas, fertile land and industry—concentrated mostly in the eastern provinces of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija and Pando.
The indigenous majority was denied the right to vote until 1952, when revolutionary struggle swept Bolivia. In its 180 years of independence before the recent election of Evo Morales, Bolivia never had a president who represented the indigenous majority, which makes up about 60 percent of the population.
In December 2005, all of this changed with the country’s election of its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, from the ranks of the unions of coca growers, to truly represent the struggle of the Bolivian people.
The movement that Morales represents, the Movement toward Socialism, has made significant strides in taking public ownership over Bolivia’s wealth. The progressive government has redistributed land to indigenous farmers, nationalized unused land hoarded by rich landowners and nationalized the gas industry. The administration has formed alliances with Cuba and Venezuela. Cuba and Venezuela have provided free doctors to treat rural populations, investments in cooperative farming and food processing, and literacy program resources.
Bolivia achieved many of these reforms through a constitutional referendum last February that was the culmination of a long and difficult political battle against the former ruling elite, supported by the United States. During this struggle, the ruling elite threatened everything from secession to assassination. They continue to threaten the reforms, including a foiled assassination attempt on President Morales in mid-April.
Despite the threats, the Bolivian people overwhelmingly passed both the constitutional amendments and a referendum that capped personal land holdings at 12,000 acres.
The new constitution recognizes the self-determination of all 36 Indigenous nations of Bolivia, protects freedom of religion and prohibits discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation. It limits the wealth and power of the Bolivian oligarchy, and it nationalizes all idle lands, as well as all gas, mineral and oil resources.
Representing the gains of a long struggle against the U.S.-backed privatization of water, the constitution makes access to water a fundamental human right. It further enshrines the rights to health care, education, jobs and retirement.
Finally, the constitution allows all elected government officials to run for re-election. Morales will run again for the presidency in the December elections. Because of the popularity of his reforms, he is already favored to win. A second term could secure critical continuity of the reforms already set in motion.
Bolivia’s growing people’s movement has been fighting for bourgeois democratic rights of which the indigenous majority was long deprived. The movement is backed by a mass mobilization of the poorest and most oppressed sectors of society and is capable of fighting for more than fundamental bourgeois rights. The movement directly challenges the Bolivian ruling class.
The recent election law is an example of this evolving struggle. The constitutional referendum required that the legislature pass a new election law addressing the legislative reforms, yet the right-wing majority of the senate tried to prevent the Transitory Election Law from passing. In response, Morales and his supporters began a hunger strike that forced the right wing to relent. The law gives Bolivians who live abroad the right to vote in the election and guarantees more parliamentary representation for Indigenous-populated districts in the east.
The struggle in Bolivia is resolved to repel any imperialist intervention and to equitably distribute resources. In the United States, the belly of world capitalist imperialism, we have a role to play as well in supporting and defending Latin American revolutionary movements.
