JEFFERY WEBBER believes that “the left-indigenous insurrectionary period” (2000–2005) was derailed by Evo Morales’s election, as “social movements demobilized” and “a moderate political party came to office.” While Morales’s government implements “reconstituted neoliberalism,” Webber believes hope lies in the “episodic strikes and other social movements” which “signal the renewal of collective action from the left of the MAS [Movement Toward Socialism].” Any serious analysis of the dynamic of class struggle under the Morales government clearly contradicts Webber’s view.

Rather than a shift “from rebellion to reform,” the trend has been one of a continuation of class struggle, albeit under different conditions. The Observatorio de Conflictos de CERES notes that no other government since 1970 (when they began collecting data) has experienced a higher number of conflicts. [3] Like the conflicts between 2000 and 2005, these have tended to be fragmented, dispersed, and corporative in nature, in part the result of the continued extreme debilitation of the Bolivian Workers Central. [4] The October 2003 and May–June 2005 national uprisings, which occurred during periods of extreme polarization, were exceptions. This reflects the growing confidence of the popular movements that the government—or, more specifically, Morales [5]—is much more likely to listen to their demands than to repress them.

The conflict figures also reflect a rise in right-wing protests against the Morales government. Webber is completely silent on this, and on the September 2008 rebellion, when an alliance of U.S. imperialism, pro-autonomy capitalist elites entrenched in the east, and key figures in the Bolivian military activated a coup attempt. Unleashing a wave of paramilitary violence (including attacks on police officers and soldiers, and the massacre of dozens of peasants in the state of Pando), fascist forces occupied almost fifty buildings belonging to state institutions, closed all airports in the four opposition-controlled eastern states, and shut down gas pipelines to neighboring countries. Large agribusinesses cut food supplies to the majority indigenous population in the west, and key military commanders in the east told Morales they would not obey orders to crush the rebellion.

In response, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and directly mobilized loyal soldiers to confront the paramilitaries. Simultaneously, and in coordination with the government, an alliance of peasant-indigenous, urban poor, and workers’ organizations mobilized to join with the resistance being waged by the newly emergent urban poor and workers’ organizations that had developed in the poorer areas of Santa Cruz city. With their plan unraveling, and tens of thousands of marchers approaching, the pro-imperialist alliance had no option but to surrender, a defeat they have yet to fully recover from. [6]

Webber ignores all this because it completely contradicts his argument. The Morales government represents a deepening, not a rupture, of the process that began in 2000. It is the result of the decision made by militant indigenous, peasant, and coca growers’ organizations, [7] which had replaced miners as the vanguard of anti-imperialist struggle, to create their own “political instrument.” Faced with a complex and contradictory situation in which movements were able to bring down governments, but not yet replace them, [8] the Morales leadership embarked on a strategy for power that combined street mobilizations, electoral campaigning around the key demands of the movements, and corporative negotiations with worker/urban poor/neighborhood-based and middle-class organizations outside the MAS, paving the way for the 2005 election victory.

The result represented the rise of an alternative national project, a new “indigenous nationalism,” deeply rooted in the aspirations of the indigenous peasant-led anti-imperialist alliance converted into a revolutionary movement. One in which Morales undeniably plays a pivotal role in maintaining unity among the diverse sectors. Conscious of the fact that winning government is not the same as taking power and that the right would counterattack, the MAS leadership moved to consolidate its position by expanding its support base. For example, it nurtured the growth of emergent urban poor/workers’ organizations in Santa Cruz, forged in resistance against the eastern capitalist elites. Similarly, it worked hard to win over the military ranks and strengthen nationalist elements at all levels of the military. [9] All of which enabled it to defeat the pro-imperialist coup attempt.

Despite the fierce resistance it faced from day one, domestically and internationally, the Morales government has implemented numerous measures: strengthening anti-imperialist alliances with other governments and movements; expanding indigenous rights; eradicating illiteracy; providing greater access to education and health care; and reducing poverty. [10] Most importantly, it has fostered a powerful sense of indigenous pride expressed through the now commonplace idea that the most marginalized and oppressed not only can govern the country, but can do so better than those who have come before.

Webber’s misleading claims aside, change has also occurred in the economic sphere, starting with the fact that government policy is no longer dictated from Washington. The Morales government has pursued a line of increasing state intervention, expanding infrastructure, finding alternative trading partners to counter U.S. sanctions and loss of trade preferences, [11] dealing with the drop in remittances from overseas, and successfully steering the country through the world economic crisis. [12] The response by foreign capital is far from the jubilation that one would expect if the government were implementing “reconstituted neoliberalism.” For example, since the failed coup attempt, net Foreign Direct Investment has plummeted from U.S. $253.2 million in the first quarter of 2008 to U.S. $45 million in the same period in 2010. [13]

Ignoring the numerous nationalizations and newly created state companies across a variety of sectors, none of which is the result of pressure from below via strikes or occupations, Webber focuses on mining to justify his position; unfortunately the facts prove just the opposite. Although the majority of active mines are in private hands, he points to no struggle for their nationalization because he knows none exists. He mentions peasant and worker struggles against the San Cristobal mine, but evades the fact that there was no proposal from any quarters for its nationalization; there is only a mild call to reform the current neoliberal Mining Code. [14] Similarly, Webber provides no evidence of workers’ protests or occupations to demand the nationalization of the Vinto tin smelter (not mine, as Webber says) because there isn’t any, while the case of Huanuni actually points in the opposite direction to Webber’s claim. At Huanuni, miners organized in cooperatives violently attacked workers at the mine in order to take it over for their own private benefit. Morales fired the mining minister, who was aligned with the powerful cooperative sector, which includes some 75,000 miners (who had demanded control of the ministry in return for their support in the 2005 elections); replaced him with a former miners’ union leader, stating “until now we have not complied with the Bolivian people on the issue of mining”; and nationalized Huanuni. [15]

This interplay of factors can also be seen in the more recent protests against the hike in fuel prices [16] and other similar conflicts. [17] The lack of any serious threat (for now) from the right, combined with weaknesses and errors on the part of the government and MAS, has further stimulated corporative mobilizations among the MAS base, demanding that “their” government redirect its attention toward resolving their immediate and specific needs. [18] This has often been accompanied by internal conflicts between competing organizations, in some cases reflecting competing class forces and ideologies within the process but more generally reflecting internal disputes over power sharing, a constant feature of the MAS and the Morales government. [19] In almost all cases, the main peasant confederations have firmly sided with the government, reflecting a certain process of bureaucratization of these organizations. [20] Standing above all this, as a mediator between the competing interests, is Morales, whose political intuition continues to reflect the close link he maintains not just with union leaders but directly with the bases, through constant national, regional, and local assemblies. For this reason, criticism is overwhelmingly directed at those around him. [21] Furthermore, while some of these were important in shifting government policy to the left, there is no evidence of the emergence of any political challenge proposing a more “revolutionary” or “socialist” strategy opposed to that of the MAS leadership. [22] In this context, the problem with the MAS is not that it is a “moderate party,” but rather that it is hardly a party at all. How to go from a MAS, which acts as an amorphous conglomerate of peasant/indigenous/urban poor/worker unions lacking a clear strategic perspective or space to debate the way forward, toward the construction of a mass revolutionary party, is a challenge that must be overcome. But the issue of revolutionary organization is another thing that Webber, like his autonomist cohorts, is silent on. [23]

It is true that none of this means Bolivia is today socialist, or that it has completely broken out of its position of dependency. But it does mean that important advances have been made by the social movements precisely because they decided to move from resistance to power. Our role is not to tell the Bolivian masses from afar that they are doing it all wrong or that their process is not revolutionary enough; our priority must be to defend the gains of the Bolivian process and help to create the necessary space for its continued advance.

This means placing at the center of our solidarity work opposition to U.S. imperialism’s campaign against the Morales government and the revolutionary movement it rests on. Through its constant destabilization campaign, the U.S. has made clear that its central enemy is the Morales government, which today governs independently of imperialist interests. Mistaking localized corporative struggles—as legitimate as they may be—for the “cutting edge of anti-imperialism struggle” not only means missing who the real enemy is; it ignores the leadership role of the Morales government. It was not pressure from below that made Morales expel the U.S. ambassador (yet to return), boot out the Drug Enforcement Administration, withdraw from the School of the Americas, and campaign against U.S. Agency for International Development funding to social organizations.

Webber’s perspective is not only mistaken; it weakens the struggle to build a global movement that can resist imperialism and help free up space for revolutionary processes to advance away from dependency. A struggle in which the Morales government, forged in revolutionary confrontations and representing the broad aspirations of Bolivia’s indigenous majority, is today playing a vanguard role, as demonstrated by the Cochabamba peoples’ summit on climate change and its recent intervention in the Cancun COP16 summit.

Federico Fuentes