Popular self-organization, government crisis, and the challenges of a new stage of struggle
Bolivia is experiencing one of the most intense and contradictory periods in its recent history. Less than a year after Rodrigo Paz assumed the presidency, his promise of stability, economic growth, and national reconciliation is being profoundly challenged by a reality marked by economic crisis, social unrest, and the growing prominence of grassroots organizations. What was initially presented by business sectors and the mainstream media as the beginning of a new era of stability following the exhaustion of the cycle led by the Movement for Socialism (MAS), has instead opened a scenario of escalating social confrontation.
Inflation, supply problems, the fuel crisis, and deteriorating living conditions have hit workers, farmers, small business owners, and broad sectors of the population hard. But the most important aspect of the current situation is not only the depth of the economic crisis. What is truly significant is the reappearance of a historical characteristic of Bolivian society: the capacity of the masses to intervene directly in political life when traditional institutions cease to offer solutions.
Bolivia is demonstrating once again that its history has not been written exclusively from government palaces. It has also been written from the mines, the peasant communities, the unions, the indigenous organizations, the neighbourhood councils, and the countless forms of popular organization that, time and again, have emerged to change the course of events.
A crisis deeper than a change of government
It would be a mistake to interpret the current situation solely as a crisis of Rodrigo Paz’s government. The economic difficulties currently afflicting the country have deep roots and are related to contradictions that have accumulated over years. The exhaustion of the hydrocarbon-based revenue model, the decline in international reserves, the dependence on raw material exports, and the lack of a structural transformation of the economy have progressively weakened the foundations of stability that sustained the previous cycle.
The electoral defeat of the MAS party precisely expressed the exhaustion of a project that achieved significant social progress but never broke with the fundamental structures of Bolivian capitalism. For years, economic growth allowed improved living conditions for millions of people. However, much of this progress depended on favorable international conditions and an export boom that ultimately revealed its limitations.
The arrival of Rodrigo Paz did not signify a break with the root causes of the crisis. On the contrary, his government adopted a pro-business and pro-financial stance, deepening policies that sought to shift the burden of the crisis onto the majority of the population. The promise of a supposed “capitalism for all” quickly began to clash with a reality marked by inflation, economic uncertainty, and the deterioration of living conditions for large sections of the population.
The failure of the promise of stability
One of the pillars of the government’s discourse was the idea that the departure of the MAS party would allow for a recovery of economic confidence and the restoration of governability.
However, the first months of the administration revealed a very different reality. Economic difficulties continued to deepen, while the signals sent to international financial institutions and the business sector confirmed an increasingly pro-capital orientation.
Latin American history has repeatedly shown that when governments attempt to resolve economic crises by shifting the costs onto the working majority, the result is usually an intensification of social conflict. Bolivia does not appear to be following a different path.
Furthermore, there is a collective memory that has not disappeared. The generations that led the struggles against neoliberalism vividly remember the consequences of privatizations, austerity measures, and policies imposed by international financial institutions. For this reason, broad sectors of society are observing the course taken by the new government with growing anger.
Protests take to the streets again
The popular response was not long. As social unrest grew, marches, blockades, town hall meetings, popular assemblies, and the various forms of protest that have historically characterized Bolivian struggles began to multiply.
What makes this process particularly important is that many of these forms of struggle hark back to experiences deeply rooted in the country’s collective memory. Road blockades, the coordination between territorial and labor organizations, collective deliberations, and the direct participation of grassroots members are reminiscent of methods of struggle that played a decisive role during the Water War, the Gas War, and other major popular mobilizations.
History does not repeat itself mechanically. Current conditions are different. Organizations have changed, and new generations are participating in political life today. However, there is a clear historical continuity. The tradition of struggle accumulated by the Bolivian people continues to be a source of experience and learning for those who are mobilizing again today.
Self-organization from below
One of the most significant phenomena of the current period is the development of grassroots organization. Town hall meetings, expanded mass assemblies, territorial assemblies, regional coordinating bodies, and various instances of collective deliberation have begun to play an increasingly important role in discussing and debating national issues.
These forums reflect a fundamental reality: large sectors of the population are no longer passively waiting for solutions from traditional institutions. They are beginning to build their own tools for discussion, coordination, and struggle. A party of the working class and oppressed with a revolutionary socialist programme is an urgent necessity.
The importance of this phenomenon extends far beyond the immediate situation. Every time workers, peasants, and popular sectors develop their own forms of organization, the overall balance of power in society shifts. Organization from below does not automatically guarantee profound social transformation, but it is an essential condition for the popular majorities to consciously and systematically participate in shaping their own destiny.
The challenges of the popular movement
The growth of the mobilization also presents significant challenges. One of these is the need to coordinate the various struggles unfolding across the country. Protests are happening, organizations are participating, and discontent is spreading, but difficulties persist in articulating the different expressions of resistance at a national level.
At the same time, tensions have begun to emerge between the enormous fighting spirit rising from the grassroots and the more cautious attitude of some sections of the leadership. The debate surrounding the general strike is a particularly significant example. Various town hall meetings and popular organizations have pushed for the need to move toward more forceful national measures. However, the effective implementation of some of these resolutions has encountered obstacles, delays, and hesitation by the leadership.
This situation raises a historical debate within the popular movement once again: how to ensure that decisions democratically adopted by the grassroots are effectively implemented, and how to build coordination mechanisms capable of unifying the struggles without stifling the democratic participation of those who lead them.
State of exception and repressive escalation
As social mobilization grew, the government progressively hardened its response. The criminalization of protest and open repression became fundamental pillars of government policy. Social leaders were imprisoned, activists and grassroots organizations suffered judicial persecution, police and military forces repressed demonstrations in various parts of the country, and state violence left protesters wounded and dead. The government responded to the growing popular discontent not by addressing the root causes of the crisis, but by attempting to impose by force what it could no longer guarantee through consensus.
The declaration of a state of emergency marked a qualitative leap in this approach. Far from offering solutions to the root causes of the conflict, the government opted to strengthen the repressive mechanisms of the state, expanding the powers of the police and military forces and attempting to contain, through repression, a social discontent that continues to grow.
Latin American history offers countless examples of this type of response. It also demonstrates that repression can temporarily contain certain expressions of protest, but it rarely eliminates the economic and social causes that generate them. When living conditions continue to deteriorate, conflicts tend to reappear in new forms.
The memory of struggle is set in motion once again
The social gains achieved by the Bolivian people were never concessions generously bestowed from above. They were the result of decades of organization, mobilization, and struggle led by workers, peasants, indigenous communities, and other popular sectors.
The 1952 Revolution, the miners’ struggles, the resistance against dictatorships, the peasant mobilizations, the Water War, and the Gas War are part of a collective memory that remains present in broad sectors of society. This memory is not simply a historical recollection. It also functions as an accumulated experience that influences how new generations understand the challenges of the present.
Therefore, the current crisis should not be interpreted solely as a period of hardship. It also represents a moment of collective learning, reorganization, and the recovery of traditions of struggle that have played a decisive role in Bolivian history.
Bolivia and the prospects for transformation
The current crisis presents another challenge of enormous magnitude. The need to coordinate struggles, strengthen grassroots organizing, defend democratic freedoms against repression, and build a political perspective capable of unifying popular demands has emerged as a central task.
Historical experience shows that the strength of mobilizations alone does not guarantee lasting transformation. The vast energies unleashed by social struggle need to find forms of organization, a strategy and programme capable of channelling them toward profound and permanent social transformation to a government of the workers’ and the poor with a socialist programme.
In this sense, the discussion that is beginning to unfold in Bolivia is not limited to the continuity or replacement of a particular government. The fundamental question is who governs, for whose benefit, and on what economic and social foundations is the country organized? For those who observe reality from a Marxist perspective, defending the gains achieved and resolving the structural problems that plague Bolivia necessitate moving toward an socialist alternative based on the democratic participation of workers, peasants, indigenous communities, and popular sectors.
The prospect of a socialist Bolivia does not arise as an abstract slogan or a propaganda formula. It arises from the concrete experience of a people who have repeatedly witnessed the limitations of the various forms of capitalist administration. Bolivia governed by the workers and peasants could put the country’s enormous wealth at the service of social needs, permanently consolidate the gains achieved through decades of struggle, and open new possibilities for millions of people.
At the same time, such a transformation would have an importance that transcends national borders. In a continent marked by inequality, dependency, and recurring social crises, a socialist Bolivia could become a powerful point of reference for the peoples of Latin America, demonstrating that there is an alternative to permanent austerity measures, the concentration of wealth, and the subordination of popular needs to the interests of economic elites.
The story is still unfolding. But once again, the Bolivian people demonstrate that they continue to be one of the great protagonists of social struggles on our continent. Their collective memory of resistance, their capacity for organization, and the strength that emerges from below continue to be decisive factors in understanding not only Bolivia’s present, but also the future possibilities for socialist transformation in Latin America.
Â