Thursday, August 13, 2020

Bolivian Workers Strike: U.S. Workers, Their Fight is Our Fight!

Repression and Radicalization on the Rise in Bolivia | Left Voice


Statement of CWG (USA)

Under the devastation of the pandemic and the global economic crisis, the Bolivian Workers' Center (COB), the main Bolivian trade union federation, called for an indefinite general strike on July 28th. After many months of repression and resistance the working masses have broken from the Bolivarian  Movement for Socialism (MAS) and forced the COB leadership to call for the general strike. This strike is growing as more and more sectors of workers join it. But the Añez fascist regime is mobilizing their generals and fascist mobs to smash  the strike. 


It was the growing inter-imperialist rivalry between the United States and China that became the spark for the 2019 Añez coup against not only the elected government but the working people of Bolivia. It was a coup made by the U.S. in league with the fascists of the Media Luna to take back their ownership of Lithium from the partnership between Morales and China. 


As our comrades of the Grupo de Trabalhadores Revolucionários do Brasil (GTR-BR), the Brazilian section of the the International Leninist Trotskyist Tendency (ILTT) wrote in November 2019:


The trigger for this coup is the decline of US imperialism that loses influence over the Bolivarian ALBA that turns to China for trade and investment. But China is not just a semi-colony capable of rescuing the ALBA from US imperialism. She is the largest imperialist rival of the US, globally and also in Latin America. It is their economic power that is turning American semi-colonies into Chinese semi-colonies. It is Morales’ agreement with China on raw materials, especially lithium, that has deprived the US and the Santa Cruz oligarchy of most of this great wealth.” - “Bolivia: Down with the coup! For a workers’ and peasants’ government!


Of course this lithium is the basis of the coming generation of Lithium-Graphene batteries and the electric cars and trucks the Democrats are promising to have produced in the U.S.A. Just this week their all-but-nominated presidential candidate proposed an electric Corvette. Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla Motors, was recently called out on social media for his support for the Bolivian coup. Rather than deny it he said “we’ll coup anybody we want to!” Watch out Zimbabwe! (Zimbabwe mines Lithium as well.)


The Communist Workers Group (CWG-USA) supports the Bolivian general strike,  We support the objective of winning the ranks of the military and arming the workers to build their own organizations of workers and peasants power. But for this to succeed,  U.S. workers need to stop the military intervention of the U.S. in support of the fascist regime. 


U.S. workers take up the Bolivian general strike as your own! Take the cause to the unions, to the veterans and the ranks of the U.S. military! 


Take it to the streets where the fight against racism and the pandemic is now surging! For labor political strikes in the United States in defense of Bolivian workers! Send a message to Trump and his Bonapartist regime that there is only one fight against racism, fascism, imperialism and class oppression and that is international socialist revolution! 


Down with the U.S.-backed fascist regime! No US military intervention in Bolivia and Latin America!