Bolivian Socialists Defeat U.S.-Backed Coup
In 2019, a U.S.-backed military coup forced rightfully-elected president Evo Morales out of Bolivia. After a year of violence and oppression carried out by interim president Jeanine Áñez Chávez, MÁS and Luis Arce have won Bolivia’s 2020 election. What exactly happened in Bolivia, and what does this victory mean for socialists across the globe?
The 2019 Election: An Anti-Communist Coup in South America
In October of 2019, Bolivia held a general election. President Evo Morales of MÁS (also called MÁS-IPSP, the Movimiento al Socialismo–Instrumento Político por la Soberanía de los Pueblos or Movement Toward Socialism — Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples) was up for re-election in what would have been his fourth term. Critics contended that serving four consecutive terms would be unconstitutional, but Bolivia’s highest court declared that Morales’ re-election campaign was legal. This was only the beginning of the attempts to sabotage Morales’ candidacy and MÁS’ continued movement towards a better Bolivia and, ultimately, a better world.
Bolivia’s electoral system is multi-party and allows for a second round of elections if no one candidate secures a convincing majority of votes. Morales won by such a margin in 2019 that no second round of elections was necessary; Morales won, MÁS remained in power in both chambers of the legislature, and that should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, the United States disagreed with the will of the Bolivian people, and resumed their long tradition of interfering in South American politics.
If you haven’t heard of the OAS, I envy you. The Organization of American States exists to monitor democracy and human rights in all of the countries in the Americas, and because it is based in Washington, D.C., we can safely conclude that its actual purpose is to exert the influence of the U.S. over South and Central American nations. After Morales’ overwhelming victory in 2019, the OAS released a statement indicating that the election in Bolivia was invalid. That statement included no evidence to support this claim.
“This electoral process has taken place in very complex conditions. During this electoral observation, the OAS Electoral Observation Mission has witnessed the obvious inequality between the candidates. The use of public resources during the campaign has been evident…. the TSE presented data with an inexplicable change in trend that drastically modifies the fate of the election and generates a loss of confidence in the electoral process.”
In essence, the OAS claimed that because the election at first appeared close, but then showed a strong majority for Morales, the election must have been tampered with. This is nonsensical, and Morales ignored it. However, this statement lent an air of legitimacy to anti-indigenous and anti-communist groups who wanted to force Morales and MÁS out of power, and these groups leapt on the opportunity to do violence to their political opponents.
U.S. media reported on the unrest that followed as though the anti-Morales groups were legitimately grieved protestors who were only concerned with the survival of Bolivian democracy. This could not be farther from the truth. Members of MÁS were targeted and attacked, both by racist anti-communist citizens of Bolivia and the Bolivian police and military apparatuses; a statue of Hugo Chávez was toppled and beheaded, and the head was left on the doorstep of a prominent MÁS member; anti-Morales groups set fire to the house of MÁS governor Victor Hugo Vasquez and looted it; the office of F.U.T.P.O.C.H., a group dedicated to supporting indigenous peoples originating in Chuquisaca, was attacked and ransacked; in short, this period of civil unrest was obviously an outpouring of violence against indigenous Bolivians and communists rather than a people rioting for democracy.
This violence continued for weeks until President Morales agreed to hold a second election. This seemed like a reasonable concession — there was a concern that the U.S. or those who represent their interests in Bolivia might successfully rig the second election, but at least it should stop the violence, and Morales was confident that his popular support would carry him through another election. Immediately after he announced this, the Bolivian military stepped in and asked him to resign. The anti-Morales forces did not want a second election, because they had every reason to believe he would win again.
Of course, the military doesn’t really ask for anything, so Morales and several top government officials resigned. Coincidentally, I’m sure, the highest ranking government official still in the government after this string of “resignations” was Jeanine Áñez Chávez, a hardline anti-indigenous Catholic conservative. Áñez Chávez promised to hold elections soon so that Bolivia would not be led by an unelected leader for long, and also promised to restore order to Bolivia.
Decree 4078: Achieving Peace Through Human Rights Violations
How did Interim President Áñez Chávez intend to restore order? By giving the anti-communist and anti-indigenous police and military carte blanche to do whatever they want to the people of Bolivia. Decree 4078 promised members of the police and military exemption from prosecution for any crimes they commit in service of “the restoration of internal order and public stability.” This emboldening of the state’s arms of violent oppression led to slaughter.
First, the military fired into a crowd of protestors at Sacaba, wounding over a hundred and killing at least eight. After that, they did the same thing at the Senkata gas plant in the indigenous city of El Alto, killing and wounding many more. A public funeral was held for the victims of the Senkata Massacre, which the police attacked and dispersed with tear gas and batons.
During Interim President Áñez Chávez’s reign, Morales’ supporters were routinely hunted down and arrested or killed. Her government sought to break Bolivia’s socialist and indigenous populations by committing such extreme violence against them that they would never be able to recover. But the people of Bolivia are stronger than that, and Áñez Chávez underestimated the people she so desperately wanted to murder. The people of Bolivia are still standing, still fighting for indigenous rights, and still fighting for the rights of workers and people both in Bolivia and abroad.
The 2020 Election
Part of Áñez Chávez’s plan to destroy socialist and indigenous opposition was delaying the election indefinitely. A coup government which does not have the support of the people cannot survive a democratic election, and she knew that. This is why she delayed the election twice, due to (apparently) concerns over civil unrest and coronavirus.
Unfortunately for the coup government, Bolivia does still have a legislature, and that legislature agreed to hold a new election in October of 2020. After the military coup, a warrant was issued for Morales’ arrest on charges of treason and sedition, so he fled the country to preserve his life; as such, he was not able to stand for election in 2020, and instead Luis Arce ran as the representative from MÁS. Arce was supported by Morales and the party apparatus in general. He is an economist with decades of experience in public office successfully reducing poverty in Bolivia, and is responsible for the nationalization of several key industries.
Áñez Chávez, perhaps realizing that her position was untenable, announced in September that she would not be running for election in 2020. Arce ran against four other candidates, the most popular of which were Carlos Mesa from the Revolutionary Left Front (a group which has formed multiple coalitions with conservative parties, hiding behind a leftist moniker) and Luis Fernando Camacho from the centrist We Believe coalition.
Arce won. MÁS won.
The people of Bolivia were faced with a fascist coup supported by the United States and a constant stream of military and police violence. Media institutions across the world ignored their plight or painted them as the perpetrators, rather than the victims, of violence. Their longtime and beloved socialist leader was forced out of the country. In spite of all of this, in spite of the world arrayed against them, the people of Bolivia triumphed.
What Can Non-Bolivians Learn From This?
Wedge is a platform for revolutionary education, and revolutionary education is best served by modern examples. Bolivia has succeeded against impossible odds; how is their situation generally applicable?
The primary takeaway from Bolivia is the value of persistence. MÁS’ platform is based on a popular movement towards mutual betterment; they exist to serve the people of Bolivia and help them combat imperialism and anti-indigenous sentiment. When the U.S. and the Bolivian military united against them, MÁS did not make concessions. Although it was dangerous, they did not abandon the people they had spent decades uplifting. In turn, the people of Bolivia did not lose hope. They had solidarity and an unshakeable dedication to mutual aid, and even when their comrades were gunned down around them, they did not surrender.
Because MÁS and the people of Bolivia persisted, the interim government could not continue their tactics of violent oppression, and the will of the Bolivian people expressed itself in the election of Arce. I have talked in the past about the failure of electoral politics, but MÁS is more than that — they are a genuinely revolutionary party, supported by the mass of Bolivians both at the ballot box and in the street. This combination of revolutionary party politics and direct action is precisely what Lenin praised, and precisely what led to the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Another important takeaway, especially for American and British leftists, is the rejection of the personality cult. Morales has been in exile for all of 2020, and although this is a tragedy and I desperately hope that he will be able to safely return home soon, Morales is not MÁS. When he was exiled, the socialist movement in Bolivia did not collapse. It adapted. Contrast this with the defeat of Sanders in the U.S. Democratic primary, or the ousting of Corbyn from Labour in the U.K. In those cases, the movement was led and sustained by a single person, and the people around them were not ideologically committed enough to carry on the movement when their leader fell out of favor. MÁS and Bolivia are a different story. Evo Morales is an extremely important fighter for socialism in Bolivia, and his contributions to the struggle cannot be overstated. The same is true for Arce. The same is true for countless other members of MÁS and countless other Bolivians not affiliated with the Bolivian government. When we stop projecting an entire movement onto one person, our movements survive a lot longer.
The last year in Bolivia has been unspeakably tragic. The bloodthirsty coup government killed an unknown but non-zero number of Bolivians, and the light they brought to the world can never be replaced. But now, Bolivia is positioned to return to their position as a global leader in socialist politics. The lives of Bolivians will, I hope, only continue to improve as MÁS and Arce work tirelessly in their best interests.
Socialists spend so much time losing that I worry we have forgotten how to celebrate victories. Bolivia beat insurmountable odds and repulsed U.S. imperialism and election interference — this is historic! This is beautiful and wonderful and intensely inspirational. Tomorrow we can return to the long and difficult task of spreading socialism across the globe. Today, let’s celebrate our comrades in Bolivia.
¡Somos pueblo, somos MÁS!
This article was heavily informed by a deep dive performed by the Troika Kollective into the socialist history of Bolivia and MÁS. Their paper can be read here, and I cannot recommend the Troika Kollective’s work enough. If you’re on Twitter, give them a follow at @troikakollectiv!
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/02/the-oas-has-to-answer-for-its-role-in-the-bolivian-coup (i was also surprised to find this in the guardian; broken clocks are right twice a day?)
https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-085/19
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/11/bolivias-morales-steps-down-under-pressure/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/11/bolivias-beleaguered-president-morales-announces-resignation
https://www.troikakollective.com/post/bolivia-wants-mas
https://batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/bolivian-parliament-approves-new-date-for-pandemic-delayed-election.phtml
http://accuracy.org/release/bolivian-coup-targeting-indigenous-people/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/bolivia-s-new-leader-religious-conservative-jeanine-ez-chavez-faces-n1082426
https://indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/old-religious-tensions-resurge-in-bolivia-after-ouster-of-longtime-indigenous-president-h4CjfpLAuUCAkoTfP-0jtg
https://www.fotoarena.com.br/detalhes/foto/id/ny121119232205?ide=ny184004121119p&b=nytimes
https://www.kasu.org/2020-08-09/bolivia-twice-delays-elections-citing-pandemic
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/19/bolivia-latin-america-socialist-president-arce-morales/
https://orinocotribune.com/license-to-kill-and-go-unpunished-in-bolivia/
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/16/780118421/8-killed-in-bolivia-as-protesters-call-for-return-of-ousted-president-evo-morale
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/22/theyre-killing-us-dogs-massacre-bolivia-and-plea-help
