In the last issue of Red Mole we published a USFI statement on Bolivia. A letter has also been received from a quite different participant in the struggle against the coup: a European militant not in the Fourth International. It is of interest because the informal account of the days of the coup in La Paz, conveys an impression of the militancy of the students and workers who came out on the streets and fought, and at the same time shows the extent of the failure to prepare militarily for this eventuality. Furthermore, it shows how the bitter lessons of the coup are being learned by militants in Bolivia. Throughout the period of the Popual Assembly the comrades of the Gonzalez Moscoso POR were calling for the arming of the workers and peasants, and carrying out such work themselves in so far as they could. Prevarication on this question has been the main focus of their criticisms of the POR led by Guillermo Lora during the Popular Assembly. (For an account of Lora's unholy alliance with the CP in the Assembly, see International:6, Sept-Oct. 197l. Note also that the comrades of the SLL have found it necessary to make some criticisms of Lora, whom they supported in his denunciation and betrayal of the guerrilla of Che Guevara.) The comrade who wrote this letter also draws attention to the POR-Lora's failure to understand the agrarian question: he still has the "idea of taking power through armed insurrection in the cities"-(a long time in the future, we might add) whereas "the revolution here is going to be a long drawn out bloody fight and it will have to involve the peasantry too." In publishing these passages the Red Mole declares again its solidarity with all victims of the repression in Bolivia, and with all who take up arms in the struggle against it.
Everything.....has changed drastically as a result of the coup. It's all so different now from the days of the Asamblea Popular, when we were talking (incorrectly) about the arrival of dual power, and thinking that the "victoria final' was drawing near......But the Asamblea turned out to be just a kind of debating chamber with no real power-and the worst of it all is that when the coup (which had been talked about for so long) eventually came-the Asamblea still had not organised its own armed militias, which were of course essential if the Asamblea was to have any power at all to implement its decisions and resolutions.
China in the United Nations, Nixon in Peking-it's obvious The days of the coup were the tensest I have ever lived in my life-we scarcely ate or slept for three days. Things started happening in Santa Cruz on the Thursday when people involved in the coup were arrested, there was a demonstration against their arrest which led to fighting between left and right wing civilians, and then the army arrived-and before long a new government had been set up in Santa Cruz. On Friday one after another the army divisions in the different cities of the interior came out in favour of the coup. There were meetengs in the university and then in the afternoon a large demonstration of workers and students demanding arms, which of course Torres wasn't going to give us. Then back to the university where we were given rapid lessons on how to make grenades and molotov cocktails and told what to do if arrested etc. I joined up with people from the MIR, and we divided into groups and went off to different houses to await instructions. It was a pretty helpless situation -in our group we had one old mauser and a revolver between ten of us. Listened to the terrifying news from Santa Cruz-eight students shot in cold blood as a reprisal for a bomb attack, and the regiments one by one going over to the golpe (coup). But nothing happened in La Paz that night.
On Saturday yet another assembly in the university, then the news that the COB was going to try to take the Cuartel General in Miraflores to get arms-so we all went up to the Stadium a square not far from the (Miraflores) barracks and started building barricades, and several lorry loads of miners armed with sticks of dynamite arrived-but apart from dynamite there was a terrible scarcity of arms...Then the fighting startedthe people and the Colorados regiment (headed by Major Ruben Sanchez, who had been taken prisoner by the Che Guevara guerrilla, and been somewhat radicalised by the experience) against the Castrillo regiment. Those who had guns, and quite a lot who had guts but no guns went off to fight, while the rest of us-I guess well over 1500 people just stood around helplessly in the square, feeling totally impotent-if there had been 1500 more guns things might have been different. What was disappointing was that despite the Vanguardia Militar del Pueblo's declaration a week or so earlier to the effect that the army was a class institution, and that they (the corporals and non-commissioned officers who had made the declaration) were the brothers of the proletariat and would not let themselves be used against them, they nevertheless fought...
The repression began immediately, and the next few days were nerve wracking, houses began to be raided immediately and arrests were made, on the Monday they bombarded the university and arrested 250 people, fortunately they released most of them....There are about seventy political prisonersstudent and labour leaders and militants-in a concentration camp in the heart of the tropical jungle, and who knows how many more imprisoned in La Paz and the military barracks at Viacha. Some comrades are known to be in the military hospital after being brutally tortured. Most of the left wing leaders have gone into exile (so too have the members of the last government) no doubt posing as left wing heroes, which is far from the truth. In Santa Cruz they have shot over twenty people claiming they were guerrillas-but as the army suffered no losses it is obvious they were not killed fighting What is happening is that they are going from village to village and dragging out and shooting anyone they know to belong to any revolutionary organisation.
Although the ex-Barrientista peasants have taken over the peasant federation and claim support for the government, it is doubtful how much peasant support it has. The fact that the MNR is in the government may bring some support, but this is likely to be annulled by the fact that the Falange, who have long been the peasants worst enemies as they represent the landowners, are also in the government..... Although initially people thought the government would not last long, as it is made up of three groups of previously worst enemies, and it looked as if they would fight amongst themselves, they seem to have consolidated themselves, and with a policy of total repression and allies like the Americans and the Brazilians it could last for quite a while. Resistance is going to be difficult-a long slow process of "trabajo de hormiga' ('ants' work')-......The repression continues, but the struggle must go on-Venceremos.