Bolivia is in a revolutionary crisis. More than six weeks into an indefinite general strike, workers, indigenous people and rural farmers continue to block highways in significant portions of the country. Popular marches persist in major cities, and what began as protests over inflation, fuel shortages, wages, and economic deterioration has developed into a broader political confrontation. As the government of President Rodrigo Paz responds with increasingly violent repression, the movement more and more demands Paz’s resignation. The masses are challenging the institutions of the ruling class in a manner that prevents the ruling class from governing as usual.
At the center of this conflict stands the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB). The COB is a labor federation with deep roots in the twentieth-century struggles of the Bolivian working class. The present-day COB is shot through with bureaucratic conservatism borne of a long partnership with the Bolivian government to generate revenue by selling Bolivia’s underground assets as raw materials on the international market. The result is that, where the international left once called for ‘all power to the COB’ in such Bolivian upheavals, there is now no organization worthy of the workers’ trust to take power in their name.
