Bolivian Nationalists Cannot Solve Problems of Masses

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major upset for the government of General David Padilla.

Nevertheless, the bourgeois press has been reluctant to wax lyrical on the subject- primarily because constitutional niceties have never cut much ice in Bolivia.

But it also seems unlikely that a clear victor will emerge, thus in creasing once again the ever-present possibility of a coup.

No 'official' results will be issued until the end of the month but at the mament Hernan Siles Suazo, leader of the 'left' MR and the Popular Democratic Union (UDP) alliance, is leading with 37% of thè poll, Victor Paz Estenssoro of the 'right' MNR follows with 29% and ex-dictator Hugo Banzer has scored a remarkable 18%.

• Keliable These figures come from reliable sources and have been produced with the aid of a computer, a somewhat farcical item, of uneven development when one considers the rudimentary and often . brutal conditions under which votes are squeezed from the masses in a predominantly rural and backward society.

It is, of course, largely the peasantry that swings the elections, and the leading candidates of the bourgeois parties have been putting a good deal of effort into their perambulations across the countryside.

Paz in particular spent much energy in an attempt to refurbish his populist credentials by reminding the backward sections of the peasantry of the MNR's 1953' Agrarian Reform.

Siles, on the other hand, well aware that the Reform was strangled by the MNR's alliance with imperialism through the US "stabilisation plan" of 1956, has turned to the more militant and. advanced sectors with promises of "deepening the process"

Banzer

"Process" is a word that looms large in the bourgeois nationalist vocabulary and it is often shunted up against "revolutionary"; but any "process" offered by Siles will be far from revolutionary and, unless heis removed by a coup, still further from rapid.

It is Banzer, who despite his intervention in the formal contest, threatens to head such a move by the military.

His return to the limelight reflects the failure of the right to find an alternative figurehead as well as its continued reliance upon widespread repression to keep the capitalist economy alive.

Banzer is from the eastern city of Santa Cruz which has in the last decade become the dynamo of Bolivian capitalism through oil and agro-industry.

Santa Cruz flourished under Banzer's rule and it is the heartland of the falangist party which nurses fond remembrances of Mussolini and Franco beneath an insubstantial skin of technocratic jargon.

Distinct interests

It is legitimate to see the capitalists of this area as distinct in their immediate interests from those of the highland cities and the "Altiplano" who currently hold the initiative in their support for 'democratisation' Even Siles was forcibly presented from entering Santa Cruz to give a speech and it is apparent that a major part of Banzer's 18% of the poll was collected in the department.

Nevertheless, the growing combativity of the expanding proletariat in the east of the country has stalled the conspiratorial progress of the bourgeoisie on several occasions.

The latest was when the local branch of the COB (Centra' Obrera Bolivianathe Bolivian TUC) refused to support a departmental strike for more aid to the sugar industry on the grounds that it was provocative and designed to pave the way for a rightist coup.

Banzer was faced with another setback when he was forcibly prevented from entering the mining camp of Huanuni during the campaign.

Padilla His bodyguards had to shoot their way out when the entourage was surrounded and stoned by workers.

This prompted calls for 'order' and a denunciation of the election as a "tedious obligation" by the leading bourgeois daily El Diario.

This is little more than a clear invitation to the military to settle the whole affair in their time-honoured manner.

Needless to say fears of a coup have been amply supported by constant sabrerattling on the part of the army, which officially interviewed all presidential candidates to ascertain the degree of "house-cleaning" that was being threatened.

They appear to be satisfied on this count but this is no guarantee that large sections of the officer corps will be prepared to surrender the • enormous privileges they have acquired after fifteen years in power.

Not necessary In the immediate future the intervention of the army may not be a necessity for the bourgeoisie since the coalitions of Silez and Paz are beginning to show a flexibility towards co-operation in government. • Should this come aboutand the only previous case of a minority government was in 1931 when the bourgeoisie was in a strong political position and on the offensive-it might stave off military intervention.

But it would also nullify even the most limited progressive measures.

It would additionally bring the Maoists of the PCBM-L and the petty bourgeois radicals of the guevarist MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left) into league with the most resolutely ultramontane sectors of the bourgeoisieprecisely those sectors that supported the overthrow of the populist Torres regime (1970-71), condoned the massacre of hundreds of militants and backed Banzer's bloody repression of the working class for seven years.

Deal with bourgeoisie The Maoists have already laid bare the total bankruptcy of their politics by throwing their lot in with Paz as the representațive of 'the most advanced sector of the bourgeoisie' The MIR, currently inside Siles' UDP along with the pro-Moscow Stalinists and a hotch-potch of eloquent reformist groupings, continues to make demagogic gestures.

It has, however, clearly pledged itself to Siles' programme which will increasingly require the army's services to police the masses.

The action of the masses will determine the success or failure of the bourgeois electoral operation.

The largest parties of the working class, the Stalinists and the MNR are, of course, deeply committed to the 'democratic process' and have become integral parts of the bourgeois coalitions.

No more attacks However, the most advanced sectors of the Bolivian proletariat, the miners and the factory workers of La Paz, Oruro and Cochabamba, have given clear notice that they will countenance no further ozons sans formal democratic freedoms have been perceived in many quarters as the 'safest way', the best guarantee against fascism by virtue of their moderation.

But the reverse is true. The Bolivian economy is in acute difficulties; all the major state enterprises including the oil and tin corporations are near to collapse.

The daily demand for dollars is now 1.4 millions against a usual 700,000 and this demand is likely to increase three- or fourfold.

Reserves

The reserves of the country are extremely low and even the slightest redistributionary measure would put them in grave danger. Put bluntly, the Bolivian economy cannot support increased wages without entering severe crisis.

Trotskyists, while recognising that the elections were a bourgeois operation, cannot dismiss them as mere sham.

There is every indication that the masses participated and that bourgeois nationalist regime of one type or another will emerge in August as the first popularly elected government for fitteen years.

Blind alley

The political consequences of such an event cannot be lightly cast aside.

On the contrary, it, is only by recognising this fact and at the same time drawing the most incisive critique of the blind alley of bourgeois nationalism in a period of capitalist crisis that Trotskyists will be able to deepen the struggle for working class independence and for a series of trasitional demands to strip the veneer off the class interests of the retormists and deepen the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses in the coming period of acute crisis and conflict.

In this conflict the neat

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