The author explores the social explosion in Bolvia as part of the wider and ongoing social transformation reshaping the entire region. The victory of the insurgents as Clairmont insists is not the Promised Land, but it is more than the start of an arduously protracted struggle that throws its shadow over Latin America's ruling elite and its foreign backers.
The Bolivian insurgency is but a part of the upsurge in the region. What is at stake is not merely the survival of the progressive movement in Latin America, but the survival of the creole oligarchy protected as it had been by the US. The insurgency is the historical upshot of a far-reaching and sustained class struggle that has raged for months and would have been inconceivable without an ideologically coherent mass organised political base.