Intellectuals in movement: Comuna and the antineoliberal hegemonic construction in Bolivia

Abstract

The research presented here is to analyze the political thought of the bolivian group "Comuna", between 1991 and 2010. The group has always tried to incorporate the Bolivian Indianism within the frameworks of analysis of Marxism, and to achieve this theoretical-political objective, has produced innovations in the field of Latin American Marxism, especially about the revolutionary potential role that can be fulfilled by the communal property and updating the concept of the working class. In this sense, the research proposal comes from a double need: a) the investigation of theoretical innovations proposed by the group "Comuna" within the Latin American Marxism, b) the reconstruction of the main controversies in this group to be involved with other traditions of Indianism and Marxism in Bolivia in this period. It is a theoretical discussion on the political thought of the group and a historical discussion on the emergence of this current of thought. The question that guides all this study is if the group's attempt to synthesize the two currents of revolutionary thought in Bolivia - Marxism and Indianism - can achieve anti-capitalist and revolutionary character that it proposes, by combining, according to the Bolivian reality, aspects of these two different "worldviews". The research has as its general objective, to answer that question, consider the production of the group "Comuna" between the years 1991 and 2010, in Bolivia, seeking to understand the theoretical innovations introduced by the group of intellectuals to Marxism and the historical context in which they are inserted. For this, there are more specific objectives, like organize the theoretical innovations of the group; to list and periodize the historical moments that were a backdrop to these theories, and, finally, to list and discuss the controversies that arose from it. It is thought, as the research hypothesis, that the theoretical work of the group, to achieve the goal of incorporating the indigenous sector of the Bolivian population in the Marxist's analysis and to characterize the Bolivian society from their peculiarities, has specifically and according to Bolivian reality characterized the revolutionary role of communal property and expanded the range of the spectrum concept of the working class in the direction of formulating a broader idea of the revolutionary subject, covering most sectors of Bolivia's lower classes. By doing this, and here is the central hypothesis of the research, the group "Comuna" produced a innovative theory of Marxism in Latin America, on one hand by characterizing the bolivian society and its composition of class, and on the other hand by conceiving the relationship between classes in this society. The research here presented is an outgrowth of a research completed in 2010 under the theme "State, neoliberalism and alternatives in Latin America: an analysis of the Bolivian experience," and fits into a broader set of research within the Center for Marxist Studies (CEMARX) in the line of Marxism and Political Theory - ahead of Latin American political thought.