Workers' Liberty

On Tuesday morning we met the leadership of the Bolivian miners´ federation, who were very militant and talked a lot about the need for a planned, socialist society to replace capitalist barbarism. They talked of their history, and the important role they played in leading the struggles of the last 5 years - of course, all social movements talk about their own importance relative to the others, but this simply shows their pride.

Pride in their struggle, pride in their martyrs, pride in their class. Poignantly, their general secretary Roberto Chavez talked about how much he wanted to meet miners from Britain - unaware of their plight - and how proud he was that everywhere in the world, miners served as the vanguard of the class. This made me think about the NUM´s radicalism and militancy, which ultimately cost our miners their jobs at the hands of the Tories with the defeat of their heroic year-long strike 20 years ago. In Bolivia, at the same time, many mines were closed and the industry all but destroyed - it is now recovering, and there are 18,000 miners across the country.

After leaving the meeting, I was interviewed by Bolivian Channel 3, for a lunchtime programme for students - this came in addition to Monday´s interview for Channel 1 News before the Roberto de la Cruz meeting. It was good for me to be able to talk about the pressing need for a socialist revolution on mainstream TV! - it could never have happened in England. Guy commented that, after 2 appearances on TV, I was now so famous that Bolivian girls would have posters of me on their walls...

Another thing that would never happen in England would be the leader of the trade union federation saying that "there are two paths for the working class. Bourgeois democracy or armed insurrection - at the moment we are working towards the latter". But this is what Jaime Solares, the leader of COB, a federation bringing together millions of workers and peasants, said at our meeting. Imagine Brendan Barber (TUC) saying that! What is so exciting about Bolivia is that revolution really is on the agenda, and the leaders of mass movements so openly dismiss bourgeois reformism. Indeed, we hear that the COB are unhappy that their general secretary has been to slow in developing a political instrument for the union to seize power - the regional leaders in Oruro say that they "want soviets". This really is necessary - while they are right to support the alternative Constituent Assembly and continuing to press radical reformist demands, the organs of the working class and peasants must be yoked together into political organisation if they are going to overthrow bourgeois state power. A mere economist programme can only bring down governments, not set up a workers´ state - for it does not pose the political system as a central question.

We also heard of a movement of the relatives of those massacred by the army during the 2003 Gas War. They want to bring "Goni" to justice, to show that the former president who fled to Miami with tens of millions of dollars´worth of Bolivian cash can´t escape his crimes - the crimes of the defender of privilege, inequality and the bourgeoisie.