A review of Jeffrey Webber's Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia Reviewed by lain Bruce
he appearance of Jeffre more accessible paperback edition is a gift to anyone interested in understanding the resistance to neoliberalism in Latin America. But it is more fascinating, intricate account of the way new forms of struggle have emerged in 21 century examines how these have fused and given new dimension to the country's two older traditions of indigenous resistance. As such, its interest goes well beyond Bolivia. Its analysis of how the politics of class struggle combine with resistance to other kinds of oppression, makes this a profoundly thought-provoking book for all those seeking to understand the shape that struggles for emancipation have begun to take in many parts of the world over the last decade or so. And even if it was never the author's overt intention, this also means the book is a most valuable contribution to attempts to reimagine the kind of socialism we can hope to build out of such 21st century movements. It doesn't explicitly mention eco-socialism, but its analyses should prove an inspiration to Red October, or the doctoral work that forms its basis, in fact precedes Jeffrey Webber's already well-known book on the politics of Evo Morales, From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia. Yet it complements and completes the later book in several important ways. That book is an important and detailed examination of political struggles leading up to and following the election of Evo
37 Morales as Bolivia's first indigenous president in December 2005. However, its central thesis has been a controversial one: namely that Morales's election effectively shut the door on a potentially revolutionary outcome to five years of intense social and political struggle, and that his maintenance of many existing economic policies means his administration since then is best characterised as one of "reconstituted neoliberalism". directly with that - in our view mistaken - judgement. But it does help explain how Jeffrey Webber reached it. One other limitation of the later book is that the idea of "indigenous" throughout, is never elaborated in much detail. We are told little characteristics. Red October goes a long way to redressing woven into a rich, analytica moments of what Webber calls the "insurrectionary cycle" of 2000-2005: first the Cochabamba Water-War of 2000; then the First Gas-War of 2003, with Red October as its high point; finally the Second Gas-War of 2005. These are the subjects of chapters five, six and seven, and make this the most valuable and absorbing But none of this would make sense without the book's earlier traditions of struggle in Bolivia since colonial times. These are the long history of resistance by Aymara and Quechua, majority, intense experience of struggle by the organised working class. These are dealt with in chapters two, three and four. It is worth recalling, and the comparatively small, land-locked country has played a special part in the history of world
page 38 of the scan
Reviews 38 capitalism, and in the resistance to it. The vast quantities of silver and gold torn by the Spanish from the mountains of Potosí ended up in banks in London and Amsterdam, fuelling the emergence of a commercial northern industrial revolution. In the middle of the 20" century, a few thousand Bolivian miners - tin miners this time - became the core of one of the best organised and most politically planet. In 1946, the miners' union, the FSTMB, adopted a Thesis, written by Trotskyists significant mass organisation ever did that. Not surprisingly then, Bolivia has also featured in many of the twists and turns of the history of the Fourth international itself. Bolivia's 1952 National Revolution, in which Trotskyist miners again featured largely, was one of the backdrops to the first major split in the F.l. After Che Guevara was killed in eastern Bolivia in 1967, the country was at the centre of a major debate on armed struggle at the F.l's Ninth Congress in 1969 and in the years that Jeffrey Webber's book shows why today, in a new situation presenting new challenges, revolutionary marxists still have a lot to learn from the Bolivian There are a few obstacles the reader has to overcome on the result from the book's origins as a doctoral thesis. One is the structure of each chapter, first stating the hypothesis, then elaborating the detail, and concluding with another summary of the main points. This can feel unnecessarily repetitive for the ordinary reader. Another is the need to place the valuable meat of the book (chapters two to eight) within the framework of an arid and often seemingly pointless academic debate (chapter one and the first part of chapter nine). So for example, Jeffrey Webber develops and applies throughout the very useful and suggestive concept of "combined oppositional consciousness", to describe the meeting of indigenous traditions and cultures of resistance with the organisational and ideological habits of the working class. However, several pages have to be expended in Chapter One justifying this in relation to previous academic literature on the concept of "oppositional consciousness" - which at least to the uninitiated seems like another case of academic social scientists giving a pretentious name to the blindingly obvious. The usefulness of Webber's version ("combined oppositional consciousness") becomes apparent in chapter four, where he describes how the Neoliberal CounterRevolution from 1985 to 2000 not only destroyed the old bastions of working class power in Bolivia, most importantly in the tin mines, but how in the process it produced the bases for the new insurrectionary cycle of 2000 to 2005. This is an extraordinary and complicated phenomenon which deserves continued attention to tease out more of its aspects, not least because it has clear echoes in so many late twentieth century social developments in other parts of the world. Put simply the story goes like this. The dismantling of the mining industry expelled thousands of miners and miners' families from the tin mining towns and villages of the Altiplano. They went in two main directions: into the countryside to seek a living off the land, and into the shanty towns around the main cities to join the growing informal economy. The most important example of the first was the large contingent of miners' families who moved down into the valleys of Chapare to join the coca leaf growers already there. In the second case, many former miners found their way to El Alto, the huge slum-turnedcity in its own right, up on the edge of the crater above Bolivia's main city, La Paz. The miners and their families took several generations of bitter, working class struggle. And along with those memories some considerable baggage of marxist education. This is one aspect of why the coca-growers, or cocaleros, on the one hand (Evo Morales, of course, was one of their main leaders), and the many community organisations of El Alto, on the other hand, became driving forces of the new revolts from 2000 to 2005. But something else also happened in the course of this neoliberal restructuring. The miners, who had always been cases Quechua), as they moved into the valleys or the shanty "indigenous". That is, they emerging "indigenous movement", which in earlier decades had rather been seen as, and saw itself as, a simply a peasant movement. In other words, there was a meeting, and a complex combination, of class politics and identity How this played out in new demands, new organisational forms and new forms of action in those three big struggles of 2000-2005 is the fascinating material of this book's central As Jeffrey Webber shows, one other aspect of the neoliberal offensive was central to all of these revolts: the privatisation In 1928, the pioneer Peruvian marxist, José Carlos Mariateguí, wrote with the simplicity of so many great insights, that "the problem of the Indian is the problem of land". To the problem of land must be added, of course, the problem of water. The two go hand in hand, and both are intimately connected to the extraction of natural resources, including, contradictorily, that of fossil fuels. These resources, who controls them and how they are used, were at the centre of Bolivia's water and gas wars, as they have been in different ways struggles across the Andean region. They are one of the remains, at the forefront of the challenge to neoliberal Jeffrey Webber's book is an invitation to look again at the lessons we can learn from these struggles. And like all good ground breaking works, its supplies all the right answers, but that it gets us asking many
page 39 of the scan
imposed on ordinary people. the crisis. The aim of the book is to present a comparative analysis of the crisis in different regions and to contribute to the debates about alternatives. Price: £ 9.00 US $15.00 / AD €12.00 Also available
Ireland's Credit
Militant years
Crunch
Cor workert th Militant Years Ireland's Credit Alan Thornett Crunch A unique account In many ways Ireland of trade union and has been a test political struggles bed for the working in the car assembly out of the crisis of plant in Cowley, where modern capitalism. the author began work After the crash it in 1959. was the model of The plant was involved savage austerity in key strikes against coupled with attempts by both appeasement of the Labour and the Tories banks. to introduce antitrade union laws.
www.resistancebooks.org Capitalism: Crisis & Alternatives Four years after its onset, the economic crisis continues. The ruling elites have tried to preserve profits through state intervention. But the attempts to rescue capitalism have so far failed. Dramatic austerity measures are being We are also facing a changing world economy. There is a partial recovery in Latin America and Asia, but this is not the case in the advanced capitalist countries, particularly Europe, which are staring at a deepening of
CAPITALISM Crisis and Alternatives Building Unity Against Fascism ND ISM Building Unity Against Fascism In 2010, fascist-led organisations like the English Defence League and Italy's Future and Freedom party emerged. To help activists understand these developments, this book gathers together some of the most important analysis of fascism in the 20th century. new from Resistance Books New Parties of the Left As Miliband and Balls make it clearer by the day that New Labour are joining the Tories in attacking public sector workers and the services they provide, the need for a new party of the left has never been greater. Unite's Len McCluskey says that 'It is time for those who want a real alternative centred on investment, job creation and public intervention to end the slump, and a Labour party that will articulate that to get organised in parliament and outside. Our response is that its high time the
New Parties of
the Left
Experiences from Europe
Daniel Bensaid, Alda Sousa,
Alan Thornett and others DUNDATIONS CHRISTIANIT Foundations of The Permanent Christianity Revolution Karl Kautsky's Marxist classic is an account the permanent of how what began as a sect in Palestine became the state religion of the Roman Empire. 'There was a time when Kautsky was the teacher who instructed the proletarian vanguard'. - Leon Trotsky
unions stopped believing
that New Labour can
become such a party.
There has never been a
more crucial time to
create an alternative
across Europe.
Price: £7.00
US $12.00 / FR €9.00 Leon Trotsk
The Global Fight for Climate Justice The USTICE Permanent Revolution & Results and Pros
The Global Fight for Climate Justice Trotsky's writings on lan Angus, who
wrote several of the revolution are the articles in this book theoretical main- and selected the spring of proletarian others from a wide revolutionary strategy range of authors and and are an obligatory movements. He is one study for all who of the world's bestaspire to lead the known ecosocialist working-class in the activists, and a struggle for socialism. founding member
of the Ecosocialist International Network.
page 40 of the scan
manner it should be done: through placing front and centre a meticulous lay bare the roots of the Chinese economic miracle and the foundations to the system, and to illuminate the sources of the fierce class struggles Brenner, Professor of history and director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA, editor of the socialist journal Against countries, enquire by emailing [email protected]. Write to RESISTANCE BOOKS, PO Box 62732, London, SW2 9GQ, with a cheque
China's Rise: Strength and Fragility AU LOONG-YU Bai Rutcue, Bruno jetin with contributions from & Pierre Rousset New from Resistance Books
& Merlin Press Thank About the author Au Loong Yu is a labour researcher based in Hong Kong. He was one of the founding members of Globalization Monitor, an NGO which studies the impact of globalization in China. He was one of the leading spokespersons of the People's Alliance during the actions against the 6th Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in 2006. What they say about the book This collection of essays on China brings a rare and much needed perspective to the literature on the rising star of the global economy. Most are authored by Chinese Marxist critics of the regime. This "insider" Marxist perspective translates into a discussion of issues rarely covered in the existing literature, including a special focus on the workers movement. Very useful. - Gilbert Achcar, Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London Au Loong Yu offers a profound analysis of the rise of China in the examination of its capitalist ruling class and of the variegated ways in which it appropriates a surplus. By starting from the multiple forms of property through which the country's dominant bureaucratic state capitalists sustain themselves, Au is able at one and the same time to of its durable authoritarian political order, to expose the politicoeconomic contradictions that are likely to limit growth and bring crisis that continue to wrack town and country and threaten, over time, to open the way to political alternatives. Truly a tour de force. - Robert the Current, and editorial committee member of New Left Review. How to get a copy Price £12 plus E2 p&p to Britain. For cost of postage to other made out to Resistance for the sum of E14 and provide your name and address.