Evo Morales & MAS: Why Line Matters

Political line matters. What you do, why you do it, who you are and where you are going. Just like an apple can't make orange juice, so too with social reality. The recent triumphs of the electoral left in Latin America have heartened many, particularly among the generations who've never seen socialism. Too much of 20th Century history has been spoonfed to us by our enemies -- to the point that we often accept their HIStory rather than writing our own.

So who is Evo Morales? What does the left populism sweeping Latin America portend? How far will it go? Or put another way, how far can it go without revolutionary leadership?

Before the elections that swept Morales to power, they laid out a number of talking points that read something like a program. Further background on MAS and their populist rap was reported in English and Spanish on the Monthly Review Zine by Heinz Dieterich: Evo Morales, Communitarian Socialism and the Regional Power Block.

Stan Goff has written a strategic analysis of what he thinks the Evo Morales election means. In short, he argues:

National sovereignty and self-determination are trying to break out in Latin America. These are not merely insider political maneuvers, but leaders who are serving as the representatives of highly mobilized, highly militant popular movements.

Cutting against the easy congratulations, James Petras says that what things may seem aren't necessarily what they are. Putting it blunt, he says: The Bankers Can Rest Easy.

"Once again in Bolivia we have a popular leader elected to power. Once again we have an army of uncritical left cheerrleaders, ignorant of significant facts and policy changes over the last 5 years."

It's a necessary read, unless you are part of the spectrum that thinks political line doesn't matter and we can rest easy by delivering de-politicized social movements to opportunist demogogues with a slick rap and the right "identity."

Here is yet another situation where a revolutionary people are finding their struggles diverted back into the international capitalist system that immiserates them. Without a vanguard party, the people cannot overthrow capitalism or the state that serves it. So long as radicals accept that they can't organize revolutionary leadership organizations, they will keep pissing in someone else's wind.

Comments

[Mark]

bm: your formatting is confusing and needs fixing - the blockquoted bit includes what should be a separate paragraph.

The Military Matters article strikes the note: yes, these new populists are not proletarian revolutionaries, but they are anti-imperialist, which is in itself of the utmost importance right now.