{"id":3363,"date":"2019-12-18T13:20:44","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T13:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/16.147.243.36\/?p=3363"},"modified":"2019-12-18T13:20:44","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T13:20:44","slug":"forum-contemporary-bolivia-and-history-hines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/forum-contemporary-bolivia-and-history-hines\/","title":{"rendered":"HAHR Forum on Contemporary Bolivia and History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sarah Hines<\/strong> is assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Oklahoma. Her\u00a0manuscript-in-progress is titled, \u201cWater for All: Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia.\u201d\u00a0Her article “The Power and Ethics of Vernacular Modernism: The Misicuni Dam Project in Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1944\u20132017<\/a>” appeared in\u00a0HAHR 98.2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Revolutions and Counterrevolutions in Bolivia, Past and Present<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since Morales resigned on November 10, 2019, debate has arisen in Bolivia and beyond over whether to call his ouster a coup. Those opposed to labeling it a coup worry that doing so overemphasizes the sway of the military and ignores the role that Morales\u2019s own missteps and popular protests against him played in forcing his resignation. Hesitancy also owes to concern that calling his ouster a coup could open the door to deeming popular revolts that overthrow right-wing governments like those in 2003 and 2005 coups as well.<\/p>\n

After the October 20, 2019, elections, cross-class and multitendency protests disputed Evo Morales\u2019s claim to have won reelection to a fourth term. Among the protesters were masked youths from wealthy neighborhoods who attacked MAS officials, burned their families\u2019 homes, beat up people who \u201clooked\u201d like MASistas (i.e., an indigenous person or a peasant), and burned wiphalas<\/em>. The police in the country\u2019s cities joined the protests on November 8, and two days later military top brass \u201csuggested\u201d that Morales resign. While the military did not take power itself, the result was nevertheless a coup. A small unelected group of elites took advantage of the crisis to seize power, repress Morales supporters with deadly force, and overturn the policies of his democratically elected administration. Their goal is nothing less than the destruction of the MAS, the social reforms it has implemented, and the social movements it represents.<\/p>\n

Recent events in Bolivia have much in common with the November 1964 coup that overthrew V\u00edctor Paz Estenssoro and brought rule by the MNR party that led the 1952 Bolivia revolution to an end. Soon after Paz won a third term, teachers struck over pay, students protested the government, miners battled the army, and demonstrators of diverse political tendencies took to the streets. General Ren\u00e9 Barrientos used the political opening to launch a coup supported by a motley group of MNR opponents that included former MNRistas. Barrientos, who became vice president in 1964 against Paz\u2019s wishes, vowed that his regime would continue and indeed \u201crestore\u201d the 1952 revolution. Yet tellingly, when a crowd of workers celebrating Paz\u2019s departure attempted to enter Plaza Murillo, the military forcibly prevented them from approaching the presidential palace.[1] A popular uprising gave way to a military government that allied itself with the peasantry but continued the crackdown on workers and especially miners\u2019 unions begun under the MNR.<\/p>\n

The MNR government had overseen radical changes after the 1952 revolution that improved workers, peasants, and indigenous community members\u2019 lives. Under pressure from these bases, the MNR nationalized the mines, redistributed hacienda land and water sources, reallocated urban housing, and expanded the vote to all adults. But tensions and conflicts within the revolutionary coalition emerged long before the 1964 coup. Peasants pushed for a more radical agrarian reform, miners struck against their new MNR overlords, the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) protested the US-imposed stabilization plan, urban residents demanded basic services, and the MNR leadership itself fractured. Both V\u00edctor Paz (1952\u201356, 1960\u201364) and Hern\u00e1n Siles (1956\u201360) justified economic austerity and violent attacks against challengers on the basis of economic development. It is little wonder then that few defended Paz in November 1964.<\/p>\n

Like the MNR, Evo Morales\u2019s MAS government worked to modernize the economy through state-led development and resource distribution. Morales (partially) nationalized hydrocarbons, increased taxes on extractive industries, and distributed rents from these industries to workers and the poor. But when forced to choose between top-down state-led development and the demands of its bases, the Morales administration consistently chose the former. MAS leaders infiltrated organizations that questioned state policies and branded anyone who critiqued the government a right-wing agent of imperialism. In response to a six-page manifesto from Cochabamba activists opposing the TIPNIS road project, for instance, Vice President \u00c1lvaro Garc\u00eda Linera published a 166-page book branding the activists \u201c\u2018resentidos\u2019 pol\u00edticos\u201d (bitter politickers) and \u201coenegistas\u201d (NGO agents) acting as the \u201c\u2018conciencia desdichada\u2019 de la derecha pol\u00edtica restauradora\u201d (“wretched defenders” of the restorationist right).[2] Like in 1964, a developmentalist agenda that sacrificed the interests of its poor and especially indigenous bases on the altar of economic development coupled with an either-you\u2019re-with-us-or-against-us attitude toward critics of all stripes, as well as an unwillingness to pass the torch, ultimately doomed Morales. Unlike in 1964, however, huge numbers of supporters defended Morales on the streets, seeing his continued presidency as the best hope for defending social movements\u2019 gains over the past three decades.<\/p>\n

Revolutions are processes carried out by a diversity of people with different visions of a more just future. They are contentious periods not only because of who and what they are up against but also due to contests within the revolutionary coalition. The MNR and MAS governments initially weathered upheavals and challenges, but by attacking their supporters they pushed key sectors into opposition and made those groups vulnerable to commandeering by reactionary forces. Whether the 2019 coup will usher in a full-on counterrevolution will depend on whether ordinary Bolivians on both sides of the barricades can unite to oppose the Bible-waving racist Right that currently occupies the Palacio Quemado.<\/p>\n

NOTES
\n[1]\u00a0James Dunkerley, Rebellion in the Veins<\/em> (London: Verso, 1984)<\/a>, 119.
\n[2]\u00a0\u00c1lvaro Garc\u00eda Linera, El \u201coenegismo\u201d, Enfermedad infantil del derechismo<\/em> (Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional, 2011)<\/a>, 7, 166.<\/p>\n

Back to main forum<\/a><\/p>\n

Top image: Mercha a favor de Evo Morales – Buenos Aires. November 18, 2019. Photograph by Santiago Sito<\/a>, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>. (Find the original here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Hines is assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Oklahoma. Her\u00a0manuscript-in-progress is titled, \u201cWater for All: Community, Property, and Revolution in Modern Bolivia.\u201d\u00a0Her article “The Power and Ethics of Vernacular Modernism: The Misicuni Dam Project in Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1944\u20132017” appeared in\u00a0HAHR 98.2. Revolutions and Counterrevolutions in Bolivia, Past and Present Since Morales resigned on November 10, 2019, debate has arisen in Bolivia and beyond over whether to call his ouster a coup. Those opposed …<\/p>\n

HAHR Forum on Contemporary Bolivia and History<\/span> Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[473,611,450,612,613,614,615,570],"class_list":["post-3363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bolivia","tag-evo-morales","tag-hahr","tag-history","tag-jeanine-anez","tag-mas","tag-mnr","tag-protest"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.6","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es","pt"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"pt":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hahr-online.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}