International Conference Release Nº 3

We, the International Conference, a coordination of organizations that aim to collaborate in the reconstruction of the revolutionary socialist/communist movement worldwide, strongly condemn the coup d'état carried out in Bolivia by the Yankee Oligarchy and Imperialism, against the Government of the Plurinational State and its president, Evo Morales, and especially against the vital interests of all the Bolivian Working People and the different Nations that compose it.

Class struggle, coup d'état and civil war in Bolivia

In these dramatic moments for the Bolivian Working People, our first internationalist duty as revolutionaries is to draw the lessons of this exacerbated class struggle.

This head-on clash between antagonistic social classes is taking Bolivia to the brink of civil war. This is nothing but a class war for the control of political and economic power. A total conflict whose outcome cannot be other than the seizure of power by only one of the two contenders in struggle: either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat.

There are no more, and there can be no more half-measures, dialogues, or negotiations. There are only two ways out of this coup d'état.

The first one is the perpetuation of Capitalism and the Power of the fascist and racist local Oligarchy,  supported by Yankee Imperialism. This would lead to the defeat and massacre of the Bolivian Working People, and the crushing of their different Original Nations. It would entail a repetition, once again, of the cyclical tragedy that plagues the majority of the Peoples of Latin America in struggle for their national and social liberation.

The second one is the victory of the Bolivian Working People and the beginning of the construction of Socialism, in revolutionary transition towards a Class-fee, State-free, Patriarchy-free society.

The Truth is always revolutionary

Our revolutionary duty is to tell the truth, our proletarian truth, combative and antagonistic, against the lies of the Bolivian bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialism, against the alienating demagogy of reformism and social-democratic opportunism. Whoever may fall, and whoever this may hurt. Only this way can we rebuild the revolutionary socialist/communist movement worldwide.

There is no point in repudiating or condemning the coup d'état of the oligarchy and calling for solidarity with the Bolivian Working People, or the Chilean, or Ecuadorian or Haitian, if the causes and roots of this tragic situation are not pointed out, a tragic situation for the cause of national and social liberation of the oppressed, exploited and impoverished masses throughout the world.

There is no point in calling world days of solidarity with Bolivia if it is not done from a revolutionary political line, a line that makes not even the slightest theoretical or practical concession  to revisionism, opportunism, reformism, electoralism and all the multiple variants of social democracy, disguised and hidden behind the flags as they are, even if these flags are the most beautiful and sacred ones.

It is useless to demand, to summon, to call, to reject..., if the political failures and errors committed by the Bolivian revolutionary movement, which have made possible and facilitated the coup d'état of the Oligarchy and Imperialism, disarming thus the Proletariat, are not explained to the Working Peoples of the whole planet. Without destroying the apparatuses of the bourgeois state, without taking power, without arming the Working People, there is no popular victory and no possible social change, let alone Socialism.

In the long run, there can be no middle ground in the class struggle, and even less so when it deepens and radicalises to the point of class warfare. Whoever affirms there can be such a thing, is lying and alienating, deceiving, disorienting and disarming the Working Peoples, and objectively collaborating with the Oligarchy and Imperialism.  

On the path of Marx, Lenin and Che Guevara

The International Conference is a small coordination of revolutionary organizations and movements, very aware of our weaknesses and shortcomings. Our duty is to contribute humbly to the extent of our possibilities. We have the firm and irrevocable will to collaborate in the reconstruction of the socialist/communist revolutionary praxis all over the world, and that is what we strive for.

This theoretical and practical reconstitution depends on having the courage and bravery to raise high the flags of the Socialist Revolution, which, for us, comes true in the figures of Marx, Lenin and Che.

That is why we bring here the words of Commander Ernesto Guevara during the Second Tricontinental Conference held in Havana, on April 16, 1967, when he was already fighting in the mountains of Bolivia:

"The American continent constitutes a more or less homogeneous whole and in almost all of its territory the North American monopoly capitals maintain an absolute superiority. The puppet or, at best, weak and fearful governments, cannot win over the orders of the Yankee master. Yankee Americans have almost reached the maximum of their political and economic domination; little more could they advance already. Any change in the situation could become a setback in their supremacy. Their policy is to maintain what has been conquered. The line of action is reduced at the present time to the brutal use of force to prevent liberation movements of any kind.

The slogan: "We will not allow another Cuba" reveals both the possibility of widespread aggressions, such as the one perpetrated against Santo Domingo or, previously, the massacre in Panama, as well as the clear warning that the Yankee troops are willing to intervene anywhere in the American continent where the established order is altered, endangering their interests. That policy has almost absolute impunity; the OAS is a comfortable mask, however discredited it may be; the UN is inefficient to the point of ridicule or tragedy; the armies of all the countries of America are ready to intervene to crush their peoples. As a matter of fact, the international of crime and treason has been formed.

On the other hand, the local bourgeoisies have lost all their capacity to oppose imperialism; they only form its caboose. There are no more changes to be made; either socialist revolution or caricature of revolution”.

The Crucial Importance of Revolutionary Theory

More than 50 years ago, Che warned that the Soviet Union was falling back into Capitalism. This analysis was fully confirmed by the facts 25 years later. Unfortunately, we revolutionaries of the world acceded too late to the texts where Commander Ernesto Guevara developed his avant-garde thinking, which places him, in our opinion, at the same level as Marx and Lenin in the history of Revolutionary Theory and Practice, in the long march of Socialist/Communist Praxis.

Ernesto Guevara warned that a Revolution that is not socialist, that is, that does not take political, economic and cultural power from the bourgeoisie and destroys all its state apparatuses; a Revolution that does not constantly build and strengthen the Workers' and People's Power, the Socialist State, and, to put it in Karl Marx´s words, the Revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat; a Revolution that does not do all that, no matter how much it improves the material conditions of the Working People, no matter how much it nationalises this or that partial sector of the national economy, no matter how much it develops health, education and formal equality between men and women, sooner or later it is defeated by Imperialism and the subordinate local Oligarchies.

CHE Guevara personally lived and suffered the terrible defeat of the Guatemalan revolutionary movement led by Jacobo Arbenz, which was overthrown by the Guatemalan Army and by Imperialism, through the CIA, for the benefit of the United Fruit Company, on June 27, 1954, 65 years ago now.

The structural parallels with the coup d'état that is currently taking place in Bolivia are painfully evident to any militant who has any knowledge of Revolutionary Theory. 

It was precisely the systematic and increasingly profound study of the theories of Marx and Lenin that allowed Che to draw the conclusions and teachings of the defeat of the Guatemalan movement, to regroup in Mexico with other Latin American revolutionaries, and to decisively contribute to the victory of the Cuban Revolution, which in an acute process of class struggle and confrontation with Yankee Imperialism, declared its socialist character on April 16, 1961.

Six years later, day after day, Che, a revolutionary fighter in the mountains of Bolivia, made his message public to the Peoples of the world through the Tricontinental. The symbolism was evident, but it was progressively forgotten. It is now the time to remember it.

Full validity of Che´s words 

"We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism, and that it must be defeated in a great world confrontation. The strategic aim of this struggle must be the destruction of imperialism. The role that is up to us to play, the exploited and lagging behind peoples of the world, is that of eliminating the foundations of imperialism  -our oppressed peoples, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians and cheap workers and to where they export new capital (instruments of domination), weapons and all kinds of articles, plunging us into absolute dependence. The fundamental element of this strategic purpose will be, then, the real liberation of the peoples; liberation that will take place through armed struggles in the vast majority of cases, and that will have, in the American continent, almost unfailingly, the capacity of becoming a socialist revolution.

When focusing on the destruction of imperialism, one must identify its head, which is none other than the United States of America”.

"We cannot predict the future, but we must never give in to the surrendering temptation of being the standard-bearers of a people that yearns for its freedom, but renounces the struggle that this entails and waits for it like a breadcrumb of victory”.

"It is time for us to mitigate our differences and put everything at the service of the struggle”.

"In our struggling world, any discrepancy around tactics, around the method of action for achieving limited objectives, must be analyzed with the respect that others' appreciations deserve. As for the great strategic objective, the total destruction of imperialism through struggle, we must be uncompromising.

"How could we look at the bright and near future, if two, three, many Vietnams flourished on the surface of the globe, with their death quota and their immense tragedies, with their daily heroism, with their repeated blows to imperialism, with the obligation this entails for it to disperse its forces, under the onslaught of the growing hatred of the peoples of the world!

And if we were all able to unite, so that our blows would be more solid and certain, so that the aid of all kinds to the struggling peoples would be even more effective, how great the future would be, and how close!

The World Anti-imperialist Front must be built

Fifty-two years have passed, and new anti-imperialist Vietnams have emerged on the three continents on the periphery of Capitalism, each with its own pace and identity: Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, India, Philippines, Nepal, Donbass, and now, perhaps, Ecuador and Chile, Haiti and Bolivia, if the Working People are able to resist the Oligarchy coup and counterattack in order to destroy the bourgeois state, seize power and initiate the construction of Socialism.

The best form of solidarity with the Bolivian Working People, with its working class and its popular sectors, with the poor masses, is by opening new fronts of struggle all over the world, wherever we are, in our own nations. An anti-imperialist struggle that, if it does not want to be inexorably defeated by the world capitalist oligarchy, must have an anti-capitalist character, and therefore, a worker, peasant, popular and proletarian, that is, socialist/communist revolutionary character.

With the due respect and deep understanding to the rhythms and historical particularities of each specific social formation, to the national, to the linguistic, to the cultural, to the social and even to the religious identity of each Working People of this planet, we revolutionaries must build an Anti-imperialist Front on a world level.

This Anti-imperialist Front must defeat Capitalism in all its forms and variants, and start the socialist transition to class-free, state-free and patriarchy-free societies. It must start the construction of Socialism as a tool to ensure the achievement of this strategic objective of the revolutionary movement since 1848, when it was scientifically formulated by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto.

The International Conference expresses its militant and unconditional solidarity with the struggling Bolivian Working People, and wishes them victory in the fight against the oligarchy and Imperialism, towards the triumph of the Bolivian Socialist Revolution.

We commit ourselves to do everything possible and impossible to accelerate and radicalize the struggle in our nations, which is the best form of real and effective solidarity with Bolivia. Bolivian comrades, sisters and brothers, march forward, resist and don't give in. You are not alone. We are fighting and we will win with you.

They will not pass! Homeland or death! We shall overcome! March forward, march forward with all the forces of History! On the path of Che, Lenin and Marx, on the path of the Socialist Revolution! Ever Onward To Victory! Revolution or death! The armed people shall overcome!

November 15, 2019