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72 Chapter 5 Union Activist The COB The Siglo XX mine and Llallagua served as the crucible for the revolutionary politics that characterized much of Bolivia’s social movements during the twentieth century. Félix’s story is at the heart of the struggle of organized miners at Siglo XX for better wages and conditions, which provided the spark for resistance to exploitation all over Bolivia and underpins the militant social movements of today. For thirty-five years after it was founded in 1952, the Bolivian Workers Central (Central Obrera Boliviana, or COB), under the leadership of Siglo XX machinist Juan Lechín, embodied the aspirations of Bolivia’s poor and working classes. At first it served as a counterbalance to the state, defending the interests of those who had fought during the 1952 revolution for structural changes. It cogoverned in a minority position with the MNR until 1956, successfully advocating the revolution’s most radical changes and blocking conservative government initiatives. Unlike labor movements in most countries, the COB played a role in Bolivia extending far beyond mere work-related issues despite frequently fractious internal divisions related both to politics and to turf. The COB successfully fused demands for labor rights with the struggle for civil and social rights (Dunkerley 1984). Its statutes provided that the miners—considered by Marxist ideology to be the vanguard of the working class—should always lead the organization. This made the Federation of Bolivian Miners’ Unions (FSTMB) inordinately powerful. Within the miners’ union, several left political parties vied for control, including the MNR, which had led the 1952 revolution, and the Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Partido Revolucionario Obrero, or POR), formed during the 1940s. The Bolivian Communist Party (Partido Comunista de Bolivia, or PCB), founded in 1950, was initially far less important largely because the Soviet Union, which supported many communist parties around the world, neglected Bolivia until the 1960s, when it made significant inroads both in the FSTMB and the COB and the POR declined in importance (Alexander and Parker 2005). 73 By 1964, increasingly frustrated with the PCB’s domination by urban intellectuals and the proclivity of other left parties to form opportunistic electoral alliances with conservatives, several mining leaders in Siglo XX joined the fledgling Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (Partido Comunista Marxista-Leninista, or PCML). Its head, Federico Escobar, was an influential union figure who held the controversial and influential post in charge of Control Obrero (Worker Control). He died mysteriously in 1966 after being transported to La Paz for medical treatment. After his death, a statue of him was erected in the Miners’ Plaza in the center of Llallagua in the pose he was best known for: delivering an impassioned speech to his fellow miners. After Escobar’s death, the PCML allied with Chinese Maoists, and its members were identified as chinos (Chinese), in contrast to the PCB, whose strong ties with the Russian Communist Party led its members to be called rusos (Russians). At no point were the differences and infighting among the various left parties more pronounced than during the events that led up to the death of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in 1967. Che arrived in Bolivia with the hope of sparking a continental uprising. While publicly welcomed by the PCB, his virtually unannounced launching of guerrilla warfare in eastern Bolivia was resented by the party, which insisted that a revolution in the country must be led by Bolivians. Sectarian differences meant the PCB blocked the assistance offered by Félix’s party, the PCML, although a few people did abandon the mines to fight with the tiny guerrilla force. For his part, Che Guevara, despite his differences with Moscow, was only willing to work through proRussia parties and never fully grasped the depth of nationalist sentiment entrenched in parties like the PCB throughout Latin America (Anderson 1997). During this entire time, Bolivia suffered under the military dictatorship initiated by the 1964 coup that effectively brought the country’s revolutionary experiment to an end. General René Barrientos legitimized his rule in a 1966 presidential election, winning 63 percent of the vote with backing from conservative politicians, businessmen, and campesinos, who threw in their lot with the generals to guarantee they would not be forced back into semislavery on private estates. Barrientos’s newfound legitimacy emboldened him to increase the intensity of his assault against labor, which had begun with the 1965 Mining Code. By 1966, Barrientos had cut the workforce, abolished control obrero, and installed a military...

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