Workers' struggles topple Bolivian dictator

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The eventual resignation of Bolivian dictator Col. Alberto Natusch last Saturday after 16 days of street battles, strikes, attempted counter-coups and thorough political crisis for the Bolivian capitalist class is a major gain for the working class.

The final removal of Natusch and the defeat of his incipient dictatorship was not obtained through the negotiations between the military and the Congressional opposition but through the mobilisation of the masses headed by the proletariat.

The resolve of the democratic' wing of the bourgeoisie and the COB (TUC) bureaucracy was only maintained by the enormous pressure exerted from below through the almost daily demonstrations in the cities-which cost over 200 lives -and the massive support for the week-long national general strike.

When the leaders of the COB headed by Juan Lechin, called off the general strike after eight days (just as it was on the point of developing into a revolutionary mobilisation), the miners vehemently attacked them, called for continued resistance and maintained their action, paralysing the mines and effectively bringing the economy to a standstill.

This concerted action meant that, despite his manoeuvres, Lechin was unable to pull the COB into a totally unprincipled coalition junta with representatives of Congress and the military. However, if the removal of Natusch was forced through by the working class the outcome has remained firmly in the hands of the bourgeoisie which has stage-managed a "compromise' with the army.

This has elevated to the Presidency the former president of Congress, Lydia Gue iler, who will preside ove: an interim government until new next May.

Stalemate

This is exactly the position in which deposed president Walter Guevara found himselfand in no way alters the fundamental stalemate and lack of direction within the leading circles of the bourgeoisie.

Gueiler, unlike Guevara, has degree of popular support derived from her prominent role in the 1952 revolution and her record of forthright repudiation' of military regimes.

This record appears to have been established, at least partially, on the basis of her almost total absence from Bolivia between 1964 and 1978!

Gueiler was a leading The inevitable failure of the member of the bourgeois nationalist party, the MNR, in its early days of radicalsim.

Shortly after the revolution she married Edwin Moller, leader of that faction of the POR (Workers Revolutionary Party) which followed the classical Pabloite path to fuse with the petty bourgeois nationalists and renounce all aspirations to being Trotskyists.

The definitive turn of the MNR towards imperialism after the implementation of the US 'Stabilisation Plan' in 1956 eventually led both Gueiler and Moller to split from the MNR and form with Lechin the leftposturing PRIN (Revolutionary Party of Left Nationalism).

Since the early '60s Gueiler has langhished there or thereabouts and been conspicuously absent from any real struggle of the working class.

Once she donned the presidential sash (which by now must be slightly threadbare), and Islamic reaction and bourhave been received with total disbelief by the masses, since Gueiler's ascent has been contrived in liaison with precisely those sectors of the military that backed Natusch's coup and defended his dictatorial regime by straffing demonstrations from the air and machinegunning them from the ground.

The extended delay in the removal of Natusch lay in the inability of the Army to reach an internal decision on how it could retreat and still retain "honour"

Far from defeated

They have undoubtedly suffered a setback. But they are still far from defeated and it remains to be seen how they will adjust to the "revival of the democratic process".

This 'process' is itself in a complete shambles and can offer no feasible resolution to the virtual bankruptcy of the Bolivian economy without turning once more against the working class that actually fought and sacrificed hundreds of lives in its defence.

Although Congress and the whole apparatus of bourgeois democracy is riding high on its resistance to the military, this facade will drop away very quickly.

The miners have already given notice of their position.

The powerful council of the Central-Southern Region voted overwhelmingly to remove from their union posts any of their leaders that took up seats in Congress on the grounds that parliament was an openly 'antiworker' body.

The crisis is not over-it has only just begun.

As it deepens, and its real class content becomes clear, the working class will not be aligned with elderly parliamentarians against ambitious officers but will be thrown into battle on its own behalf against all forms of capitalist class rule.

Natusch