A week ago, the Bolivian left-wing party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), currently led by Luis Arce, decisively lost the round of elections against the right-wing. This comes after a prolonged period of "infighting" between Arce, and Morales, who previously led the MAS prior to the 2019 coup which briefly installed Jeanine Anez.
I put infighting in quotes because despite the nominal similarities between Arce and Morales, it is clear that this is not merely a counterproductive battle between two men - instead, the Bolivian left has arrived at a time of unavoidable conflict between two competing strategies. The electoral strategy is represented by Arce, who has aligned himself with a more middle-class-oriented campaign that is more economically liberal, whereas Morales represents a more working-class-oriented campaign that seeks to go further than tepid reform.
Such a conflict between electoralism and revolutionary action is inevitable in any and every developing country that 1) possesses a functioning left-wing party or organization, and 2) is under internal and/or external pressure by capitalists. This crisis must be resolved eventually - and this electoral failure is how such a crisis is manifesting right now. So while the Bolivian left has indeed lost the election, it is not yet defeated. The revolutionary campaign can, if it is willing, still ultimately stand triumphant. But what must be done is a real movement towards socialism, which goes beyond technocrats reforming from above, and instead transforms the state into a full political project of the working class, in which their movements, organizations, and protests are genuinely empowered. Such a project will involve repression by the forces of reaction, not least by the United States, but it is the only road left to take.
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Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Good article from Kawsachun News about the situation in Bolivia:
https://kawsachun.com/five-myths-about-the-crisis-of-the-left-in-bolivia-by-sacha-llorenti/
article
Sacha Llorenti is Bolivian, a lawyer, former minister, and former president of the UN Security Council.I have read very carefully the comments of many comrades, people whom I love and respect greatly, who simplify the situation of the crisis of the left in Bolivia. I know that these criticisms come from honest people, born of genuine concern and solidarity with the Bolivian people.
However, a number of common points arise that deserve explanation, given the unique characteristics of Bolivia, its social organizations, and its left.
It is not egos, lack of generosity, or pettiness that marked the break between social organizations and the government of Luis Arce. This is a reductionism that hides a lack of understanding of what the Political Instrument of social organizations that came to conquer political power in Bolivia in December 2005 means.
This instrument is the sum of the largest indigenous and peasant organizations in the country, in a country that is, needless to say, predominantly indigenous.
These organizations are structured into unions, union sub-centrals, provincial centrals, departmental federations, and national confederations. It is these structures that debate and decide the course of the instrument. These are not personal decisions or whims, but organic decisions that cut across Bolivian territory.
These organizations were systematically attacked by the government of Luis Arce, who, as a result of manipulations of the justice system, managed to take away their party acronym.
So, the break with Arce, among many other reasons, was due to his decision to ban the entire movement organized around the Political Instrument, his catastrophic economic management, and serious allegations of corruption.
Furthermore, these organizations decided that their candidate should be Evo Morales. The demonstrations and protests against the ban were met with repression, an attempt on Evo’s life, and the violent takeover of several union headquarters. As of this writing, dozens of indigenous leaders are still in prison or in hiding.
Although Luis Arce’s government used the same tactics as Lenin Moreno when he banned Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, and the social organizations of the Political Instrument proposed several alternatives to prevent implosion. First, they proposed holding closed internal primaries with the participation of the party’s membership, which exceeded one million registered members. Then, when this was rejected, he proposed holding open primaries in the Argentine style. That proposal was also rejected. Finally, Evo Morales proposed conducting Mexican-style polls to select the candidate, with a commitment to fully support whoever was favored. That proposal was also rejected because the intention was always to politically annul Evo Morales at all costs and, therefore, the organic decisions. Andrónico Rodríguez also did not want primaries to be held.
Andrónico was the young politician who could best represent the interests of the Bolivian popular bloc. An indigenous person, union leader, political scientist, and president of the Senate, he was seen by all as the natural heir to Evo Morales’ political legacy.
However, he committed the political crime of launching his candidacy behind the backs of the social organizations that make up the Political Instrument. It was through a press conference that the indigenous and peasant leadership learned that Andrónico had made the individual decision to launch his candidacy, without it being the result of a decision by the structures of those organizations.
It was a personal candidacy that dealt one of the hardest blows to the Political Instrument because it usurped a representation that had not been conferred upon him, legitimized the proscription of the popular movement, and broke with the logic of collective decision-making. Rodríguez was expelled from his union and his peasant federation. His very low percentage in the elections is proof that his candidacy did not have popular support. To make matters worse, his lists of candidates included people who were clearly right-wing.
The decision to campaign for the null vote was not an individual or capricious decision by Evo Morales. It was a collective decision that took time to make and was based on the logic that these elections were illegitimate because they were held while banning the country’s largest political movement. Despite the brevity of the campaign, the null vote reached nearly 20 percent of the votes, when the average of all previous elections was closer to 3.5 percent. It was a protest vote, a disciplined vote, a vote that shows that social organizations continue to be the soul and essence of the Bolivian left.
The election results show that the Bolivian left is based on indigenous and peasant social organizations, that Evo Morales remains the undisputed leader, and that this is where the real opposition to the right wing that will take political power in November lies.
Just as happened after the coup d’état, it was these organizations and this leadership that managed to restore democracy. After the series of blows that this time came from the Arce government and Rodríguez’s breakaway, it will be these organizations that will chart the course that the popular and revolutionary movement in Bolivia must follow.
Final note on equidistance
A call to the Latin American left: there can be no equidistance between those who betray and those who are betrayed, between those who seek to destroy our political organizations and those who defend them, between those who proscribe and those who are proscribed, between those who seek to assassinate our comrades and those who are the victims, between those who imprison indigenous leaders and those who are imprisoned. Our equidistance in the face of injustice is a weapon for our enemies.
As José Martí rightly said: “Men cannot be more perfect than the sun. The sun burns with the same light with which it shines. The sun has spots. The grateful see the light. The ungrateful see the spots.”
@ZWQbpkzl@hexbear.net this is the news source I mentioned when we were talking about this, I think this article may be what you were looking for
To restate my initial question because I don't think it was quite understood at the time: Are the organizations formed up MAS holding together as a coalition without the MAS structure? I asked this question because the election results were so bad that it seemed like a collective decision to boycott the election, not the defeat of a shattered coalition.
Your article clearly answers "yes" and calls the coalition without a party, the Political Instrument which decided to boycott the election. Although I don't think they did this with an actual congress, probably through a network of correspondence.
If you'll tolerate me armchair politicking here: why are they so insistant that it must be Evo? A healthly party would have ranks successors for Evo to tap in, side step the term limit nonsense, and carry on the agenda. The fact that those would-be successors, Arce and Rodriguez, weren't tapped, and instead decided to run on their own and to the right of Evo is deeply concerning.
Yes I was confused about that question because I wasn't sure if there was a specific organization you were referring to but now I think I understand what you are asking- yes it seems like the orgs that were working within MAS are communicating between each other and still working together outside of MAS although a new coalition org hasn't explicitly been named or announced to replace MAS.
Evo is a legendary figure who was the face of the movement and did a good job while in power. People want experienced and proven candidates and wanted him for the term Arce had but he was exiled due to the coup. They likely see running him again as getting back on the track they were already on, instead of a new track under inexperienced leadership. Corruption is the name of the game in developing countries and we are seeing it play out with Arce and the MAS takeover that happened, so why go with an unknown instead of someone who has earned trust ?
I'm not questioning why everyone in loves Evo, his position is well earned. I'm mostly wondering what was going on in MAS that every potential successor broke rank and ran to the right of Evo. I really need to read up on the lore of Acre's coup before asking too many questions but I'll leave with just one: How much of MAS is left under Acre? Does he only own the name and some staff?
It really sounds like the party/coalition is weak and was held together more by opposition to shared enemies than a serious commitment to party building. But I don't know enough specifically to say this with confidence.
I suspect it was held together by Evo given that the constituent orgs are more loyal to him than MAS. I also suspect actual positions within the party attracted the more corrupt members of the constituent orgs. The basic anarchist criticism of hierarchy is generally true.
Yeah that could also be. That is a common outcome from bourgeois electoralism in general - rally around The One Dude, have a parasocial relationship with The One Dude, and follow the One Dude when he creates the compound for True Comrades Only, No ~~Girls~~Revisionists Allowed.