Two years since the ”Movement for Socialism” (MAS) retook power in Bolivia, the party that became the leading force under Evo Morales, has not made any movement towards socialism. The party may have named itself as a movement towards socialism, but they have no desire nor idea how to move towards it. MAS is fully named Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples. However there is little sovereignty for working people as Bolivia remains a capitalist state under a supposed ”socialist” government.
Revolutionary socialists gave critical support to Evo Morales in 2006. He promised to change the capitalist nature of Bolivia, which was ruled by either liberal or conservative politicians. Morales was a populist like Hugo Chavez. He rejected the neoliberal model that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund enforced on the world, specially on Latin America. This made him unpopular with the rich and capitalist class, who called him a ”communist dictator” despite winning democratic elections. The ruling class removed Morales from power in a coup on 10 November 2019.
Jeanine Áñez declared herself interim-president as MAS officials capitulated to the coup. This proofed to us the weak nature of the so called ”Movement for Socialism”. It was the working class base of MAS who rebelled against the coup regime led by Áñez, who was supported by the capitalist class, the Organization of American States and the USA of Donald Trump. Western imperialism did not criticized nor condemned the coup, proofing their hypocrisy and undemocratic character. Workers and peasants rebelled and demanded free elections. In the end, Áñez was forced to allow elections, but not before killing 33 opponents of her regime!
Luis Alberto Arce Catacora took office on 8 November 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Luis Arce had been the minister of finance (later minister of economy and public finance) from 2006 to 2017 and in 2019 under Evo Morales. Arce’s presidency can be called moderate and not at all revolutionary. Like Morales before him, Arce is governing a capitalist society with strong state intervention. A classical social democratic model that cannot survive in the long run. The ruling class of Bolivia is very anti-socialist and will use its wealth and control over the means of production to sabotage the government.
Extreme poverty was reduced by Evo Morales from 32% in 2006 to 15% in 2019. But the percentage of Bolivians living in relative poverty remains high. 42% of all workers earn less then two U.S dollars a day. 90% of all children attend primary school, but only for a year or less. This shows us that despite improvement, the capitalist system is still the ruling system in Bolivia. Right-wing governments before 2006 claimed that by privatization and deregulation, the market would create more jobs and more wealth. This lie has now been exposed as the gap between the class who owns and those who don’t grew massively.
But the inability of the ”Movement for Socialism” to build genuine democratic socialism has resulted in the fact that capitalist exploitation remains the norm of the day. MAS politicians are social democrats with some anti-imperialist tendencies. Yet they are not socialists nor revolutionaries. They have introduced laws to give native Bolivians more status and acceptance, but the state and economy still runs on market principals. This inability to build socialism despite massive support for it, is why the right-wing could retake power as we have seen in other Latin American countries.
What the right-wing in Bolivia lacks is unity. There are two political alliances in the Bolivian parliament who support a return to full capitalist rule. Civic Community is a liberal alliance of parties like the ”First the People” and the pseudo-”Revolutionary Left Front ”. Creemos is the conservative alliance made up of Solidarity Civic Unity and the Christian Democratic Party. Civic Community and Creemos stand in opposition to the MAS government and should not be underestimated. They have popular support among some sections of the working class who are mislead by capitalist propaganda.
The right-wing can retake power if they can wait out the inability of the MAS government to bring genuine changes. If the voter turnout drops this could result in a capitalist victory. We have seen this in Venezuela were the capitalist opposition retook the parliament, only to be hindered by the autocracy of Nicolas Maduro. It was the inability of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro to build socialism that led to a capitalist victory at the elections. Maduro however ignored the election results, created a presidential dictatorship and even made corrupt deals with the capitalist class to stay in power!
Although moderate leftists have won elections in Latin America, none of them have actually made a move toward socialism. In countries like Mexico, Chili, Bolivia and Venezuela, the governments call themselves leftist or even socialist, but they are not. Socialism means democratic control of working class people over the economy and society. In Latin America the reality is that capitalists rule, either with or in league with state managers and bureaucrats. Workers themselves have little or nothing to say. Governments still work on the old bourgeois model with all the ineffective and bureaucratic systems to grant themselves privileges.
What Latin America needs are workers parties that can provide a genuine socialist alternative. The social democracy of parties like the Movement for Socialism in Bolivia, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and the National Regeneration Movement in Mexico, will not bring their nations out of capitalist greed and exploitation. Capitalism must be abolished and this can only be done by revolutionary means. There is popular support for a socialist alternative, it is the unwillingness of elected leftist officials to brake with the capitalist system, that is hindering the genuine movement for socialism in Latin America.
Revolutionary Socialist Media 