Both class and national struggles

One of the extraordinary things about Bolvia and perhaps the aspect of what’s happening here that we can learn the most from is the intersection of class and national identity personified in Evo Morales’s leadership. My interview with Juan de la Cruz Villca (pictured here) who co-founded the MAS with Evo brought me a lot of understanding.

The COB (Las Central Obreira Bolviano) was formed just after the 1952 revolution here and adopted a fairly classic Marxist revolutionary program for a workers and peasants alliance. Juan explains that the miners were running the COB and their idea was that the only revolutionary class was the workers and so the only indigenous people who were actually involved in those days were assimilated professionals.

Juan told me with a chuckle, “The only role for the peasants was as Secretary for the Campesinos.”

He goes on to explain that the miners only saw the importance of the class struggle and not of the , national, cultural and people’s struggle of indigenous people. His thesis was that they need both class and national struggles. Further he argued that if the COB was to be a workers peasants alliance than one of the top positions had to go to an indigenous campesino. The closing down of the mines and defeat of the miner struggle moved along the understanding that the COB had to go beyond the traditional proletariat

And he was elected as the first indigenous secretary general of the COB.

Even though indigenous people are a majority in this country, the lessons learned here in the left about the centrality of the race, identity and nation and of course I would add gender to any kind of transformational change is in my view critical to new strategies for social change. In the North, globalization has brought these issues to forefront in every country. We have much to learn by how they have been handled here.

I got the interview with Evo Morales so watch for the Toronto Star on Sunday, www.rabble.ca
at the beginning of the week and right here for more info.