The country with the highest number of military coups in history suffered yet another one on Wednesday. This chaotic and short-lived episode has deepened the crisis in Bolivia. The Revolutionary Communist Nucleus (the RCI in Bolivia) made a brief statement on the day of the coup. Below, we analyse what happened, and what it means, in more detail.

The MAS (Movement for Socialism) has returned to power in Bolivia following a crushing victory in the recent elections. Rather than a programme of compromise and national unity, bold socialist measures are necessary to overcome this period of tremendous crisis, and carry society forward.

In his latest podcast (recorded 25 November), Jorge Martin provides an update on the recent strike in Colombia, the month-long uprising in Chile, and the struggle against the coup in Bolivia.

We publish here a translation of an article written by Lucha de Clases, the Bolivian section of the IMT, originally published 18 November after the Sacaba massacre in which nine peasants were killed. Since then, there has been another massacre, in which eight people were killed by the army and the police as they forcibly lifted the blockade of the Senkata gas plant near the capital La Paz. Yesterday, the MAS parliamentary group made a deal with the coup government of Añez to elect a new presidency of the chamber and moved a draft law for the calling of new elections, which starts with a recognition of the legitimacy of the coup government.

To workers, left-wingers and activists. The dramatic times we are living through reveal before everybody’s eyes that Añez’s presidency can only be imposed through bloodshed and the massive use of the armed forces. That is to say: through a putsch that will cut across any democratic smokescreens. The forces that are now being released against farmers, indigenous people and coca growers from the Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS) in several areas around the country, and against the raising of the wiphalas in El Alto, will be used to militarise society against the working class in the future.

On 10 November at 4.50pm, Bolivian president Evo Morales announced his resignation. It was the culmination of a coup that had been brewing for some time. A police mutiny, sharpshooters firing on mine workers, an OAS report questioning the validity of the elections and finally the army “suggesting” he should step down were just the final acts over the weekend. We have opposed this reactionary coup from the beginning, while at the same time pointing out how the conditions for it were laid.

The Bolivian general election, on 20 October, produced a victory for Evo Morales of the ruling MAS party, but on a much-reduced majority, revealing how the class collaborationist policies of his government have alienated sections of its traditional base of support. The fact that Evo avoided a second round by the smallest of margins was used by the right wing to claim fraud and start a campaign of mobilisations on the streets. While there are different elements involved in the protests, in the last few days the initiative has passed to the camp of the “civic movement”, organised by the most reactionary elements of Bolivia’s capitalist oligarchy, based in Santa Cruz. The Bolivian comrades

The elections last Sunday were to elect the president but, due to the conditions under which the whole process has been carried out, they were also a repeat of the 21 February 2016 constitutional referendum.

The Chiquitania region of Bolivia has been on fire since early August. The wildfires started on 2 August both west and east from San José de Chiquitos in woodland areas and dry woods, reaching Roboré later on. Prime Minister Quintana accused the right-wing of provoking the fires for political and electoral purposes. Until he can prove this, we’ll have to take his statement as an assumption that the wildfires did not spread from Brazil, as the government initially claimed. Rather, the cause of this disaster is to be found inside Bolivia’s borders.

Lucha de Clases has been born. Its aim is to offer and represent the Marxist voice of the workers, the peasant, the indigenous movement and the youth in one of the countries with the strongest revolutionary tradition in Latin America and the world

Hands Off Venezuela, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign and others would like to express our solidarity with the Bolivian president Evo Morales, with the revolutionary workers and peasants of Bolivia, in the face of the blatant imperialist aggression which held the president against his will in Vienna for over 14 hours.

On April 9, 1952 Bolivia witnessed one of the deepest and most proletarian revolutions in the history of the American continent. In the space of a few hours, factory workers, the population of the cities and armed miners, defeated and humiliated the bourgeois state apparatus and physically destroyed the army of the ruling class, which would take years to be re-established.

Domitila Chungara was the daughter, and later wife, of a miner and a leader of the women in the mining community. She was arrested and tortured during the 1967 San Juan massacre, when the army opened fire on miners and their families, killing many and injuring even more, including women and children. She went on to become a symbol of the struggle against the military. Here we provide a comment by Darrall Cozens and an article by the comrades of El Militante-Bolivia.

Evo Morales and the Movement Towards Socialism party (MAS) got a resounding victory in the December 6th election in Bolivia. The crowds in the capital La Paz received Morales’ victory speech with shouts of “socialismo, socialismo”.

Even though we are still waiting for the official final data from the Plurinational Electoral Body, the victory of Evo Morales and the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) is clear and massive, as was expected. The overwhelming support for change in society has been graphically shown by Morales winning 2/3rds of the vote.