The “national issue” is one of the centres of the current Bolivian situation. It is here that it is necessary, in the first place, to make clear difference the two claims of “autonomy” that are confronting each other.
This demand of the native Aimara, Quechua and Tupi-Guarani is absolutely just and legitimate because it represents the absolute majority of the Bolivian people and, apart from that, they have been suffering ages-long oppression and looting. At the same time, they vindicate unity of Bolivian territory by means of “plurinational state”. That is why revolutionaries must support their claim.
That is unlike the “autonomy” claimed by the bourgeoisie of the half moon (not to mention the possible division of the country) is – as seen above – reactionary and pro imperialist. In a display of hypocrisy, the bourgeoisie of Santa Cruz invokes a Tupi Guarani tradition specific of the people of the high plateau, when their principal leader is pureblooded descendant of Croatians. That is why revolutionaries must fight against this “autonomy”.
And yet it is necessary to give more precision to the policy of the revolutionaries regarding the national question, a topic that has been widely discussed Bolsheviks before the year immediately before the 1917 socialist revolution because the Russian Empire was a multinational state, with numerous oppressed nations.
As a point on the programme we, the Marxists are against the division of the states that already exist because it for it would mean division and fragmentation of the central protagonist of the struggle for socialism, the proletariat. Our proposal for the oppressed nations is to build a Socialist Federation where the nations would have full right guaranteed. To use the term that the native nationalities use, in Bolivia we would talk of building a “socialist plurinational state”.
At the same time, we stand for the “right for self-determination” for these nations. Joining a united Federation cannot be compulsory but it must be the outcome of freewill decision. If these nations decide to build a new independent state, we shall respect this definition even if we shall consider it wrong.
This was what happened in Finland where people decided to get out of the URSS after the 1917 revolution, a decision that was fully respected by the revolutionary government at whose head Lenin stood.
