Posted August 11, 2016

     Bolivia, a landlocked country in the mountains, historically has been the poorest country in South America.  It is the most indigenous country of Latin America, with 61% of the population identifying themselves as pertaining to one of several original nations of the region.

      In accordance with the norms and patterns in the development of the modern world-system, Bolivia has played a peripheral role in the world-economy, supplying raw materials for the core nations on a foundation of cheap labor.  Systems of forced labor were imposed following Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, which included the indigenous nations of present-day Bolivia.  During the course of time, first silver, then tin, and then natural gas and petroleum were extracted and exported to the industrializing economies of the North

     From the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, Bolivia’s peripheral function in the world-economy existed alongside autonomous indigenous communities, which were agricultural societies with communal forms of land ownership.  As the world-economy expanded, it increasingly consumed indigenous land and autonomy, such that by 1930, the indigenous lands comprised only one-third of national territory, and the numbers of landless peasants exceeded the number of persons living in indigenous communities.

     Bolivian mine workers, peasants, and factory workers formed a popular movement during the twentieth century, resulting in a government committed to the developmentalist project from 1930 to 1985.  As was the case generally in Latin America, the project was forged through an alliance between the popular sectors and the national bourgeoisie.  It made some concessions to popular demands and provided some protection for national industry, without threatening the interests of foreign corporations.  

     Beginning in 1985, the neoliberal project of the global powers was imposed in Bolivia, resulting in the elimination of the modest protective measures for the people and for national industry that were put in place from 1930 to 1985.  In the 1990s, mass mobilizations emerged, protesting specific measures that were part of the neoliberal package. From 2000 to 2006, the popular movement intensified, with mass mobilizations, road blockings, general strikes, work stoppages, and hunger strikes, culminating in the resignation of the president in 2005 in the midst of a generalized chaos.

      As the renewed popular movement unfolded in the period 1990-2005, new political parties were formed, and they were effective in undermining popular support for the traditional political parties that had cooperated with the imposition of the neoliberal project.  One of the parties was the Movement toward Socialism (MAS), a federation of social movement organizations and unions, founded in 1995.  Its principal leader was Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer who had been born and raised in a poor town in the Bolivian high plains and who emerged as a leader in the coca farmers’ union.  Proposing a constitutional assembly and the nationalization of the natural gas and petroleum companies, Morales won the presidential elections of December 18, 2005.  

     The newly-elected government of Evo Morales immediately sought to put into practice an alternative economic model based on control of the natural resources of the nation and the establishment of national sovereignty.  Seeking to break the core-peripheral relation, it followed a vision of an autonomous development that responds to the demands of the popular movement, which includes indigenous organizations, peasant organizations, unions of workers in the petroleum and gas industries, professionals, and small and medium sized businesses.

     In accordance with his campaign promise and a fundamental popular demand, Morales convoked a Constitutional Assembly, which assembled to begin the formulation of a new Constitution on August 6, 2006.  Although confronting various maneuvers by the opposition, the new Constitution was approved by popular referendum on January 25, 2009, with 61.4% of the vote.  The new Constitution recognizes the autonomy of the indigenous communities, and thus it establishes the Plurinational State of Bolivia.  The Constitution establishes a maximum extension of land of 5000 hectares for personal property; it guarantees access to health services, education, employment, and potable water as constitutional rights; and it prohibits the establishment of a foreign military base in the country.

      The government of Evo Morales renegotiated contracts with natural gas and petroleum companies, resulting in a great increase in state revenues, which are used to develop a variety of social programs, including programs in literacy and credit for small farmers. The Morales government has initiated a land-reform program, beginning with the appropriation of land that was unproductive or that was fraudulently obtained, a common practice during the era of the neoliberal governments.  And Bolivia became the third member of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), joining Venezuela and Cuba.  

     By 2007, a counterrevolution had taken shape, formed by the owners of the large estates, large-scale businesspersons, leaders of the traditional political parties that benefitted from the previous political-economic order, and transnational corporations.  The US government has provided financial support to the counterrevolution. But Morales and MAS have been able to maintain political control.

     In 2009, Evo Morales was re-elected president of Bolivia with 64.22% of the popular vote.  MAS won a majority in the National Assembly, including a two/thirds majority in the Senate.  MAS won control of six of the nine departments of the country and 228 of the 337 municipalities.

     Along with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales has emerged as one of the charismatic leaders in the new political reality that has been forged in Latin America, which has challenged not only the neoliberal project but also the structures of the neocolonial world-system.  Reflecting this reality, Bolivia served in 2014 as the President of the G-77 plus China, and Morales led an anniversary commemoration in which the presidents adopted a declaration, “Toward a New World Order for Living Well.”  In a subsequent post in this series on the Third World project, we will discuss this declaration, which is an indication of the international leadership of Evo Morales, and which echoes historic declarations of Third World charismatic leaders before international fora during the period 1948 to 1983.   

​

Bibliography
 
Moldiz Mercado, Hugo. 2006. “Crónica del proceso constituyente boliviano” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 1 (Sept-Dec), Pp. 10-22.
 
__________.  2008.  Bolivia en los tiempos de Evo.  Mexico City: Ocean Sur.
 
__________.  2008. “Bolivia: la recta final” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 7, Pp. 15-27.
 
__________.  2010. “Revolución democrática en Bolivia,” IX Conferencia de Estudios Americanos, Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional, Havana, Cuba, November 19, 2010. 
 
Puente, Rafael.  2010. “Bolivia: la nueva Constitución, meta y punto de partida” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 12, Pp. 19-26.
 
Stefanoni, Pablo.  2007. “¿A dónde va la Bolivia de Evo? Balance y perspectivas en un año de gobierno” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 3 (April-June), Pp. 82-90.

 
Key words: Bolivia, Evo Morales, MAS, socialism
 

The history of Bolivia, an impoverished land-locked country in the mountains of South America, with a population in which 61% are self-identified as indigenous, follows the patterns of the peripheralized regions of the Third World in the modern world-economy (see various posts on the origin and development of the modern world-system). 

 Following the conquest of the Inca Empire by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, systems of forced labor were imposed, for the purpose of supplying raw materials integral to the development of the world-economy. With respect to Bolivia, these raw materials were first silver, then tin, then natural gas and petroleum. For decades in Bolivia, the peripheral function in the world-economy co-existed with autonomous indigenous communities, agricultural societies with communal forms of land ownership. But as the world-economy expanded and developed, it increasingly encroached on indigenous land and autonomy. By 1930, the indigenous lands comprised only one-third of national territory, and the numbers of landless peasants exceeded the number of persons living in indigenous communities.

 During the twentieth century, Bolivian mine workers, peasants, and factory workers formed unions that were the base of a popular movement, which resulted in a developmentalist project of the government from 1930 to 1985. This project, typical of Latin America in the period, was forged through an alliance between the popular sectors and the national bourgeoisie. It makes some concessions to popular demands and provides some protection for national industry, without threatening the interests of foreign corporations. The high point of the Bolivian popular movement was the Bolivian Revolution of 1952, when the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement took control of the government, nationalized tin mines, and distributed land to peasants. But this occurred at a time when the tin mines had reached exhaustion, so that the economic and social transformations envisioned by the movement were not attained. 

 As the signs of the terminal structural crisis of the world-system began to appear in the 1970s, a consequence of the fact the system had reached and overextended the geographical and ecological limits of the earth, the global elite turned to the Right, aggressively pursuing its interests. Beginning in 1980, the neoliberal project was imposed on the world, culminating today in a world-system characterized by financial speculation, military interventionism, ideological manipulation, the declining sovereignty of nations, growing inequality, overreach of vital natural resources, increasing threats to the ecological balance of the earth, political instability, and interferences in the affairs of those nations that seek an alternative road.

 In the case of Bolivia, the neoliberal project was imposed in 1985, resulting in the elimination of the protective measures for the people and for national industry that were put in place during the developmentalist period. This gave rise to a revitalization of popular movements during the 1990s, in the form of mass mobilizations protesting specific measures that were part of the neoliberal package. In the period 2000-2006, the popular movement intensified. Mass mobilizations, road blockings, general strikes, work stoppages, and hunger strikes culminated in the resignation of the president in 2005 in the midst of a generalized chaos.

 As the renewed popular movement unfolded in the period 1990-2005, new political parties were formed, and they were effective in taking popular electoral backing away from the traditional political parties that had cooperated with the imposition of the neoliberal project. One of the parties was the Movement toward Socialism (MAS), a federation of social movement organizations and unions, founded in 1995. Its principal leader was Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer who had been born and raised in a poor town in the Bolivian high plains and who emerged as a leader in the coca farmers’ union. Proposing a constitutional assembly and the nationalization of the natural gas and petroleum companies, Morales finished second in the 2002 elections, in which a traditional party with its neoliberal commitment prevailed. But in the next elections, held on December 18, 2005, Morales and MAS won the presidential elections with 54% of the vote, obtaining an absolute majority in the first round. 

 The government of Morales has sought to put into practice an alternative economic model based on control of the natural resources of the nation and the establishment of national sovereignty. It has attempted to break with a political-economic system in which the transnational corporations, the international finance agencies, the national elite, and the United States are the principal political actors in the country. It has followed a vision of endogenous development tied to the demands of the popular movement, in which the social actors include indigenous organizations, peasant organizations, unions of workers in the petroleum and gas industries, professionals, and small and medium sized businesses.

 In accordance with his campaign promise and a fundamental popular demand, Morales convoked a Constitutional Assembly, which was convened on August 6, 2006, and which led to a new Constitution, approved on January 25, 2009 in a popular referendum, with 61.4% of the vote. The new Constitution recognizes the autonomy of the indigenous communities, and thus it established the Plurinational State of Bolivia. The Constitution establishes a maximum extension of land of 5000 hectares for personal property; it guarantees access to health services, education, employment, and potable water as constitutional rights; and it prohibits the establishment of a foreign military base in the country.

 The government of Morales renegotiated contracts with natural gas and petroleum companies, resulting in a great increase in state revenues, which are used to develop a variety of social programs, including programs in literacy and credit for small farmers. The Morales government has initiated a land-reform program, beginning with the appropriation of land that was unproductive or that was fraudulently obtained, a common practice during the era of the neoliberal governments. And Bolivia became the third member of the Boliviarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), joining Venezuela and Cuba. Today, Bolivia’s membership in ALBA enables it to negotiate mutually beneficial economic and social relations with Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, and several Caribbean nations.

 By 2007, a counterrevolution had taken shape, formed by the owners of the large estates, large-scale businesspersons, leaders of the traditional political parties that benefitted from the previous political-economic order, and transnational corporations. The US government has provided financial support to the counterrevolution.

 In 2009, Evo Morales was re-elected president of Bolivia with 64.22% of the popular vote. MAS won a majority in the National Assembly, including a two/thirds majority in the Senate. MAS won control of six of the nine departments of the country and 228 of the 337 municipalities.

 Along with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales has emerged as one of the charismatic leaders in the new political reality that has been forged in Latin America, which has challenged not only the neoliberal project but the structures of the neocolonial world-system. Reflecting this reality, Bolivia was named this year as the President of the G-77 plus China, and Morales led an anniversary commemoration in which the presidents adopted a declaration, “Toward a New World Order for Living Well.” (See the Address by Evo Morales on the occasion of the transfer of the presidency of the G77 plus China to Bolivia on January 8, 2014; for more on the phenomenon of charismatic leadership in revolutionary processes, see “On charismatic leaders” in the Blog Index).

 In his address at the 69th Morales expressed a perspective on global affairs that reflects an understanding and moral evaluation that is typical of the charismatic leaders, movements, and governments of the Third World. He affirms the need to live in harmony with Mother Earth; the social and economic rights of all persons, including the rights of access to water, electricity, telecommunication, nutrition, education and health services; the right of the nations of the Third World to sovereignty and true independence; and the right of Third World nations to control their natural resources. He maintains that capitalism undermines these rights of persons and nations, and he calls upon the world to combat the “omnipresent power of banks.” He calls for a fundamental reconstruction of the global financial architecture, maintaining that the principal global financial institutions must no longer be controlled by the developed countries. He proposes the development of mutually beneficial relations among nations, based in the principle of solidarity; and he applauds the steps taken to this end in Latin America and the Third World.

 Morales expressed opposition to the wars launched by the “great powers and corporations” in pursuit of “imperial and neocolonial interests.” He condemned US interference in Iraq, maintaining that the US war in Iraq created the present crisis. He rejected the present policy of waging war against war, which he labeled a perverse formula, maintaining that war should be attacked at its structural causes, which include “marginality; poverty; the absence of opportunity; cultural, political and social exclusion; discrimination; inequality; the seizure and robbery of territory; ruthless capitalism; and the dictatorship of transnational interests.”

 Morales also condemned the “barbarous and cruel genocidal action of Israel against the civil population of Palestine” as well as the US economic and financial blockade of Cuba.

 Evo Morales concluded his address to the General Assembly with the following words:

An English translation of Evo Morales' address to the United Nations can be found at: “Address by Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, at the 69th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, September 24, 2014.”

Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Evo Morales, UN General Assembly, Bolivia

Posted October 23, 2013

      In the 1870s, Simón Patiño, in a condition half dead from hunger, discovered in the Bolivian high plains the richest vein of tin in the world. The concentration was so high that the tin could be sent directly to the port, without need for a process of concentration.  Patiño became the “King of Tin” and one of the richest men in the world.  “From Europe he for many years lifted up and overthrew the presidents and ministers of Bolivia, planned the hunger of the workers and organized their massacre, and expanded and extended his personal fortune.  Bolivia was a country that existed in his service” (Galeano 2007:191; 1997:147).

     A popular movement in Bolivia first emerged in the 1930s.  By the early 1950s it had become an advanced social revolutionary movement under the leadership of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement.  Its social base consisted of unions of mine workers, peasants, and factory workers.  It reached its zenith in 1952, when the Bolivian government nationalized the mines and distributed land to peasants.  
 
     However, the nationalization of the tin mines did not change the situation.  In the first place, the tin mines had been exhausted.  In the mountain where the rich vein had been found by Patiño, the degree of purity was reduced 120 times from what it had once been.  For every 156,000 tons of rock, only 400 tons of tin were obtained (Galeano 2007:191; 1997:147).

     Secondly, Antenor Patiño, son of Simón, charged considerable compensation for the nationalization, and he continued to control the price and the distribution of Bolivian tin.  The nationalization “had not modified the role of Bolivia in the international division of labor.  Bolivia continued exporting the crude mineral, and nearly all the tin is refined still in the ovens of Liverpool by Williams, Harvey and Co., which is owned by Patiño.  The nationalization of the sources of production of any raw material, as is taught from painful experience, is not sufficient”  (Galeano 2007:192; 1997:148).

     With Bolivian mining after nationalization continuing to conform to the peripheral role in the international division of labor, the Bolivian workers continued to suffer wages of superexploitation and to live in social conditions characteristic of underdevelopment.  They lived in one-room shacks with dirt floors, with 60% of male youth sharing a bed with a sister.  They lacked bathrooms, having instead small public sheds with latrines; the people preferred the garbage dumps, where at least there was open air.  They had to wait for the delivery of water, collecting it in containers when it arrived.  Meals were limited, consisting of potatoes, noodles, rice, maize, and occasionally tough meat.  During dinner, the minors chewed coca leafs, which function to dull hunger and to mask fatigue (Galeano 2007:194-95; 1997:150-51).

       The worst was the dust, which condemned the minors to death by asphyxiation (Galeano 2007:195; 1997:151).  “The slow and quiet death constitutes the specialty of the mine.  Vomiting of blood, cough, and a sensation of a lead weight on the back and an acute oppression in the chest are the signs that announce it.  After the medical analysis come the never ending bureaucratic pilgrimages.  They give a period of three months to vacate the house” (Galeano 2007:196; 1997:151-52).

     Tin mining destroyed the environment, leaving tunnels as well as accumulated grey mounds from the residue that is left after the tin is separated from the rock.  Rains washed the residual tin and deposited it everywhere.  Everything had the dark color of tin, from the mountain streams to the walls of the minors’ shacks (Galeano 2007:194).   
 
     The exhaustion of tin meant that its exploitation could not remain profitable, so the tin industry in Bolivia declined, to be replaced by the exploitation of natural gas, just as tin had previously replaced silver as the principal raw material for exportation from Bolivia.  But as the exported raw material changed from silver to tin to natural gas, the structures remained  intact: the raw materials export industries were owned and operated by foreign companies who paid hunger wages to Bolivian workers, with the cooperation of the Bolivian government.  The core-peripheral structures contributed to the economic development of the nations to the North even as they guaranteed underdevelopment and poverty for Bolivia.

          But as in Venezuela and Chile (see “Petroleum in Venezuela” 10/18/2013 and “Copper in Chile” 10/22/2013), the people formed movements that sought to take control of the natural resources of the nation and thus to make possible the true and full independence of the nation.  During the course of the twentieth century, the popular movements had significant gains, but they did not accomplish the definitive social transformation that they sought.  The struggle of the people continues today, as we will see in future posts.


References

Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition. Translated by Cedric Belfrage. Forward by Isabel Allende. New York: Monthly Review Press.

__________. 2004. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, tercera edición, revisada. México: Siglo XXI Editores.

 
Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, open veins of Latin America, Galeano, tin, Bolivia