The United Secretariat of the Fourth International has had an initial discussion of the situation in Bolivia and the new conditions of struggle facing the revolutionary vanguard. It reaffirms its agreement with the consistent political differentiation maintained in the period prior to the Banzer coup by the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Bolivian section of the Fourth International, in contradistinction to the stands taken by all the opportunist tendencies towards the capitalist Torres government and the clear threats of an ultraright coup d'etat. The establishment of the dictatorship has thrown the workers' movement back into clandestinity and subjected it to a ferocious repression. In this situation the insistence of the POR on the need to combine mass actions with the development of armed struggle in order to move toward the organization of armed mass action against the Banzer dictatorship is correct.
In the framework of this orientation toward struggle against the military dictatorship of Banzer, the POR recently decided to join the "Frente Revolucionario Anti-imperialista" [FRA]. Unfortunately, the founding document of this front presents a false political line. The theme of multiclass national unity, which it advances, reflects the positions of the majority sectors in the leadership of the front — not only reformists and Stalinists, but also bourgeois elements, including Torres himself, who bear a crucial part of the responsibility for the success of the Banzer coup d'etat. The United Secretariat cannot agree with the POR's signing such a text, which is directly contradictory to the longstanding program of the POR and the lessons of the struggle against the Torres regime and the Banzer coup, which the POR itself had drawn.
The United Secretariat will discuss this and other questions with the POR leadership in a comprehensive way in the coming period. The United Secretariat of the Fourth International calls on all revolutionaries to express greater solidarity than ever with the difficult and courageous struggle being carried on by the Bolivian comrades.