Revolt in Bolivia: Nazi-Military Putsch Seen Doomed:
Masses Remain Quiescent

Juan Rey

Labor Action, 19th September, 1949

August 28. – Yesterday a military conspiracy broke out in all the provinces of Bolivia [...] This new military uprising is immensely totalitarian and Nazi in character [...] There is no indication that the Stalinist party, the PIR [Party of the Revolutionary Left] is involved, although its bureau has not issued any statement so far. On the other hand, the POR, Bolivian Section of the Fourth International, has issued a manifesto against the government, calling for the formation of an “anti-imperialist bloc” consisting of itself, the PIR, and the MNR.

Unsavoury Complicity in Military Plot

The issuing of this manifesto on the outbreak of the military uprising reveals the complicity of some leaders of the POR [Lora] in the Nazi – military plot. The POR has refrained from attacking Stalinism and Peronism, and proposes an alliance with the totalitarian parties in the struggle for the “proletarian revolution” and “nationalization of the mines”, a “worker-peasant government”, etc. With this manifesto the POR placed itself frankly in the camp of the totalitarian and reactionary opposition, proposing a Nazi-Stalinist “anti-imperialist pact”. The class conscious workers and Marxists of the entire continent must condemn this attitude as an open betrayal of the proletarian cause [...].

From the international point of view the military conspiracy was instigated by the Bonapartist expansion of Argentine Peronism and nourished by the mutual support of the Nazis and Stalinists in South America, although until now there has been no proof that the Bolivian Stalinists collaborated in this uprising [...].

Previous Report: Stalinazism! Latin American CPs Aim at Coalition with Native Nazis
Next Report: A Suicidal Line in Bolivia’s Political Crisis