Need “Communism for All” here ♦ Letter: To the Workers of Bolivia here ♦
Workers in Latin America Need “Communism for All”
EL SALVADOR— “The working class in Bolivia must not trust leaders who promise change for our class through elections. They are part of the capitalist system. The only trustworthy leadership is the communist one,” said a maquila worker and organizer with the International Communist Workers’ Party.
“I’ve seen the news about Bolivia. How massive the demonstrations have been, and how well-organized the peasant women are,” said Chona, a peasant comrade. She was part of the guerrilla hideouts in Honduras during the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992).
The Bolivian working class is rising up once again with “Las Cholas” (indigenous peasant women) in the lead. The cholitas were also present in Peru and Chile.
In all three South American countries, to varying degrees, these indigenous women suffered terrible discrimination. They were barred from certain public spaces, denied entry to restaurants, and prohibited from wearing their traditional clothing in government buildings. They provided militant leadership alongside industrial workers, miners, peasants, and students in the street protests in La Paz (Bolivia’s capital).
“Capitalism and progress for all” has been the slogan of Bolivia’s current president, Rodrigo Paz. But six months after taking office, his administration is falling apart. His policies have boiled down to eliminating taxes on the wealthy, cutting fuel subsidies, and flooding Bolivia with low-quality gasoline that has damaged cars and trucks.
On top of that, there is an alarming food shortage, compounded by cuts to healthcare and education.
The More Repression by the Bosses, the More Communist Struggle
The masses have responded courageously to the bosses’ brutal repression carried out through the police and the bosses’ media. One example was Monday, May 18: protests, roadblocks, and violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces. This, against a backdrop of an economic crisis that in recent months has exacerbated social tensions and instability. And the deaths of four workers and the arrests of protest leaders.
But this has not stopped the masses of city and rural workers. The protests involve miners, indigenous groups, workers, and students. They are united by growing dissatisfaction with the deteriorating economic situation and the shortage of fuel and essential goods.
We conclude that with ICWP’s communist ideas, the workers of Bolivia and the entire world can defeat the bosses. That is why it is essential that workers’ struggles like this one be waged directly for communism, not for changing presidents or other reformist demands.
Only communism will satisfy the needs of the Bolivian masses and workers everywhere. To collectively produce and share everything we need, without bosses, wage slavery, or money. To produce to meet the needs of our class, not the profits of the capitalists. That is true communism.
Bolivia is rich in minerals. It is part of the lithium belt. Lithium is the main component used to manufacture rechargeable batteries for smartphones, tablets, laptops, and cameras.
Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile together account for more than 50% of the world’s lithium reserves. On the surface, these three governments appear to be on the side of the US government. But China is already several steps ahead in terms of investments to exploit lithium in these countries.
The inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and China is playing out inch by inch in these South American countries. Trump may claim this is his “backyard.” But as capitalists, these governments are doing billion-dollar deals with Chinese capitalists.
Bolivia’s government, like all others, is subservient to business interests. It has shifted the full burden of yet another capitalist crisis onto the workers.
The working class has a genuine need for a communist revolution. It urgently needs to organize itself around the direct struggle for communism through cells of the International Communist Workers’ Party. This is the only way to break definitively with the endless crises and exploitation perpetrated by the bosses’ governments.
Only a profound political education and the organizational unity of workers, peasants, and the military can break the cycle of suffering and recurring economic crises in Bolivia and the world. We need to spread the ideas of the ICWP through Red Flag and expand our readership in South America.
Communism is our future. And that must be our struggle today.
Letter: To the workers of Bolivia from a reader in Ecuador
Brothers and sisters of Bolivia, today the voice of the countryside rings out louder than ever. The farmworkers are not asking for a favor. They are demanding what has always been rightfully theirs: land to work, water to plant, and respect to live with dignity.
The current struggle of Bolivian farmers is a struggle for food sovereignty and for an economic model that does not leave rural communities behind. For decades, they have sustained the entire country’s food supply through their labor, growing potatoes in the highlands, quinoa in the valleys, and corn on the plains. Without them, there are no tables set in the cities, no markets to fill, no country to sustain itself.
This mobilization is not violence. It is survival. It is the response of those who have historically been marginalized by policies that favor large agribusinesses and interests that concentrate land ownership while small-scale farmers barely survive. When a farmer blocks a road, they do not do so on a whim. They do it because their children have no school, because their harvest is not enough to cover the cost of fertilizer, because the price they are paid for their product does not even cover the effort of their day.
Supporting farmers is supporting Bolivia itself. It is defending biodiversity, native seeds, and the ancestral knowledge that has cared for our land for centuries. It is committing to an economy that does not destroy ecosystems to export raw materials but rather strengthens local production and fair trade.
The state has an obligation to listen, to engage in dialogue, and to build real solutions: access to fair credit, rural infrastructure, fair prices, and protection against unfair imports. Repression is not the way forward. The way forward is to recognize that without the countryside, there is no city.
Today, it is our turn to stand with those who rise at 4 am, those who work under the sun and rain, those who defend Pachamama as a mother and not as a resource. The struggle of the farmworkers is the struggle of all of us who want a more just, more sovereign, and more humane country.
— Physical therapist, daughter of a farmworker of Ecuador
Red Flag responds: Thank you, comrade, for your eloquent and deeply moving letter. For centuries, Bolivian farmworkers and the indigenous population in general—in Bolivia, Ecuador, and other Andean countries—have been at the forefront of the struggle against the extreme exploitation imposed on them by international capitalism.
It is the same struggle waged by billions of workers across the globe for a dignified and respectful life. For a world where human life is the most valuable and cherished thing. For a world where nature and humanity are not callously destroyed by capitalism’s insatiable thirst for maximum profits.
Only by putting an end to that vile exploitation can we free ourselves from all the evils we suffer. And from all the capitalist ideologies that divide us, weaken us, and often pit us against one another.
Only by putting an end to wage slavery— the material basis of that vile exploitation— can we be free workers and live in peace and harmony. This requires a communist revolution led by the ICWP and the building of a world without money. A world without markets—where nothing is sold, especially our labor power.
A world without barter—where we collectively produce everything humanity needs solely for our benefit and not to fill the million-dollar coffers of the capitalists. A world where we will all contribute according to our dedication and abilities and receive according to our needs.
The struggle of the Bolivian working class has brought this issue to the forefront. It cries out for a communist revolution and underscores its urgency in the face of the global capitalist collapse and the looming Third World War.
Please send your letters, responses, and suggestions to Contact@ICWPRedFlag.org