Dear Editor

Though I translated the text ‘A Revolution Betrayed’ by José Villa in Revolutionary History, Volume 4, no 3, on the Bolivian events of 1952, I would not wish any readers to think that I share its views in any way and therefore make a few points outlining my objections.

The framework for my criticism becomes evident in the opening sentence of the text, inasmuch as it assumes that the October 1917 events in Russia would be a model with which to compare those in Bolivia; a society of scanty industrial development, a minuscule bourgeoisie, and a peasantry which ‘lived on the margins of the national economy... in... the form of serfdom’ (p82). Not only are such comparisons of limited utility but, to assume that a model already exists by which to re-run or judge revolutions, is not Marxist, but a form of idealist thought: the idea precedes the deed.

The author wishes to discredit his opponents, particularly Lora, by piling selective quote on selective quote. It is illustrative that in this task he felt the need to omit the word ‘allegedly’ (p59) which I insisted should be replaced in the interests of historical accuracy.

Nobody would claim that the FOR did not make mistakes, and Lora himself is quoted admitting to some. My own view is that, rather than comparing Bolivia to other historically specific situations in other societies, one should try to study what occurred during those years, and ask whether any other result could have been attained. The FOR could expect no help from the leadership of the Fourth International, as is clear from reading the documents, and only a few generalities were to be found in the Comintern texts. In both the prewar and postwar periods, the FOR was on its own, and it had to develop its own policies from its own resources. There was no ‘cookbook’ of recipes to study, and this should be borne in mind. Nobody has written more on the ‘Anti-Imperialist Front’ than Lora, and it is all based on political experience. It gets great criticism, but all his critics seem to think that, in some abstract way, there is a clearly ‘correct path’ in existence. Lora’s materials are based on experience, and it is my view that a critical study of them will be more fruitful than studying his many detractors.

The author drags in the POUM as part of his analogy, claiming that the FI ‘was founded in the struggle against [it]’ (p64). But, if the POUM made a series of errors in 1936-37, which few would doubt, the record of the International Secretariat of Trotsky’s movement in Spain in setting up a separate entity, was hardly a success story (cf Di Bartolomeo’s article in Revolutionary History, Volume 4, nos 1/2). And, of course, the POUM was invited to the Fl’s founding conference - surely a sign of some confidence in it?

The real substance of the author’s criticism is his view of the nature of the MNR. ‘The MNR was clearly a bourgeois party’, he states (p69), and he keeps repeating this assertion without satisfactory proof. Moralising about the past employment or social background of Victor Paz is meaningless. We could disqualify many of the Bolshevik leaders in the same way. Neither are the Fascistic tendencies in the MNR, nor its pro-Axis stance in the Second World War, valid points. Such features have been common in nationalist movements in backward countries, and arguments like these were used by Stalinism in order to line up Latin American labour movements behind Anglo-US imperialism in the Second World War.

Lora was correct to characterise the MNR as petit-bourgeois, and to those whose judgements on Latin American societies begin from historical reality and not schemas, its kinship with ‘Aprismo’ is obvious and well documented. As for APRA, we have Trotsky’s opinions. In January 1939 he likened it to ‘the Russian populists (SRs) and the Chinese Kuomintang’ (‘Ignorance is not a Revolutionary Instrument’, Writings of Leon Trotsky 1938-39 , p184). In November 1938 he said:

‘The Kuomintang in China, the PRM in Mexico and APRA in Peru are very similar organisations. It is the People’s Front in the form of a party. Of course the People’s Front in Latin America does not have so reactionary a character as in France and Spain. It is two-sided. It can have a reactionary attitude insofar as it is directed against the workers; it can have an aggressive attitude insofar as it is directed against imperialism.’ (‘Latin American Problems’, Writings of Leon Trotsky: Supplement 1934-40, p785)

He goes on to say that whilst ‘our organisation’ does not participate in APRA and the like, ‘it must maintain absolute freedom of action and criticism’ (op cit, p785), and while ‘we cannot enter such a party... we can create a nucleus within it in order to win the workers and separate them from the bourgeoisie’ (op cit, p794).

Seeing the MNR as ‘clearly a bourgeois party’, the author castigates the FOR for having ‘struggled to get more workers into [it]’ as, for him, the role of the Trotskyists should have been one of having ‘struggled for them to leave it’ (p74). Such a policy would have put the FOR on the margins of Bolivian politics as sectarian propagandists.

Here in Britain the Tory and Liberal parties are ‘clearly’ bourgeois, and nobody would consider intervening in them as a way of reaching workers that these parties might attract—but the Labour Party is something else. It, too, is a bourgeois party, but it differs from the others inasmuch as it rests upon the working class and its organisations. In this area we do not instruct workers within to leave, but we try to find a way whereby they would themselves see the necessity of fighting their inadequate leaders and adopting Marxist policies.

There is surely an analogy here with the MNR in the early 1950s. It is pedantry to test out parties resting on the masses for the right pedigree - it is enough for Marxists that such parties encompass the masses who believe them to be revolutionary or Socialist. Therefore it was correct for the FOR to try to strengthen the MNIR left, and to kick out the right. It was correct for the FOR to try to move towards a workers’ and peasants’ government. The point is that in such actions one must not mix up the banners. The correctness or otherwise of such activity is determined by the analysis and perspective that it is based upon. If correct, success may be attained, if not, then enormous mistakes will be made.

Linked to the previous argument is the claim that ‘the petit-bourgeoisie cannot form a government or wield state power.’ (p62). This claim, which is an essential component of the author’s arguments against the FOR is, once again, merely an assertion. Historical events disprove it. Not only was Fascism in its many variants a petit-bourgeois movement which formed governments, it also wielded state power very effectively. Bonapartism, from Pilsudski to Peron, as well as the MFA government in Portugal, to mention only a few, arises from such elements when the bourgeoisie and the proletariat show their incapacity to take their destiny in their own hands. The usual pattern is that, in an effort to drag their country out of its backwardness and subordination to imperialism, a secret society of middle-ranking officers, often from the lower classes, recognises that incapacity and substitutes itself.

n the ex-colonies we have seen any number of petit-bourgeois ‘anti-imperialist’, ‘Socialist’ regimes - as recently with Sandinista Nicaragua and Khomeini’s Iran. Although some Trotskyists saw them as worthy of workers’ state status, it could in no way be said, in opposition to that view, that the bourgeoisie was in power. What led misguided Trotskyists and other leftists to characterise such regimes as proletarian was the fact that the bourgeoisie was clearly not in power. When such regimes demobilise the masses, after some differentiation and purging within their leaderships, they usually make an accommodation with imperialism. That occurred with the MNR in Bolivia. But one must never confuse the end of a historical process with its beginning.

I had other objections to the text but, after the cuts in length which it underwent, my comments would be obscure, so I will leave it here. I hope a fruitful discussion will result.

Mike Jones