Paris, Cafe de Flore

How revolutionaries organized
Bolivian miners in 1950s

Below is an excerpt from Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia, Copyright ©2001 Pathfinder Press.
"We also determined that we had to go inside the mines themselves, not remain outside in other sections, but to go into the very center of the mine. And so I became a miner.

The section I entered, which was made up of young men, was the specimen section. These are miners who go around in groups taking samples from the unmined locations and bringing them to the laboratory to determine what quantity of mineral the specimen contains. This was a mobile group. One day they would work here, the next day there, and the following day somewhere else. It was an ideal situation to make contact with a lot of people.

At first the specimen section had around 200 workers. Eventually the majority of the miners there became members of the party; they formed their cell and held meetings. That was where we recruited Rosendo García Maismán [the leader of the mine workers’ federation at Siglo XX].

So now the party existed. Then we pointed out the party had to expand within the mine, and we said that people should transfer to different sections of the mine. But people did not want to move. In order to have the others do so, I had to set the example, and I went to the most difficult section, Block Caving.

There the amount of space was very small, and there was a lot of dust. A lot of dynamite was used, there were many explosions. In short, the work was very tough, very difficult. There are people who get silicosis after three months. Their lungs are destroyed. That’s where I went.

García Maismán went to one section. And the same with the other comrades, who transferred to different sections. Then the party encompassed much more. It wasn’t just the specimen section, but we had party groups in other sections. "
From the on-line edition of the SWP newspaper, Dec. 10, 2007