The COB and the revolution (1952–6)

Antecedents

Both in terms of organisation and of ideology the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) is the highest achievement so-far of the Bolivian labour movement. If the workers ever really had a revolutionary leadership, it was the COB. Many people have regarded the formation of the COB as unanticipated, as merely a product of the 1952 revolution or a creation of the MNR. But in fact it was the culmination of the whole history of the labour movement, an expression of its rich experience and of the level of development of its class consciousness. Equally there can be no doubt that the COB was the product of intense and persistent campaigning within the labour organisations by political parties. Following the revolution of 9 April 1952, the COB became the most important political force in the country, and the struggle for the control of the country centred around it. This fact confirms the importance of the proletariat, especially the miners, in the revolutionary process.

From the 1920s onwards, the main preoccupation of the unions had been to set up a national labour organisation. Various attempts to do this had failed but, as we have seen, the various national workers' congresses did adopt truly revolutionary programmes which were intended to provide a basis for labour unity.