Version imprimableAs a law student (from 1946) and then a lawyer, in La Paz, he took part in the struggles against the mining and landowning oligarchy, preparing, along with other leaders of the POR, the workers’ and students’ alliance which led to the revolution of April 9, 1952. But the government fell into the hands of the National Revolutionary Movement (a populist bourgeois party).
After having taken part in founding the Bolivian Workers’ Confederation (COB), Hugo Gonzalez Moscoso was on many occasions – both during the time of the MNR governments and under the military dictatorships (from Barrientos to Garcia Meza) which followed them – arrested, tortured and exiled (in several countries of Latin America and in Sweden). In 1967, the POR-Combate supported the guerrilla movement of Che Guevara ; in 1971, it took part in the armed resistance to the coup d’état of Hugo Banzer, and in the subsequent attempt to constitute a front of armed resistance to the dictatorship.
In the 2000 decade, Hugo Gonzalez and the POR-Combate took part in various movements of struggle against neo-liberal policies (the « water war » in Cochabamba, the « gas war ») and in the political process which led to Evo Morales becoming President of Bolivia.
In conclusion, let us quote the tribute by Guillermo Almeyra (editor of the Mexican newspaper La Jornada: « Hugo Gonzalez Moscoso was throughout his life an unwavering, consistent, honest militant, who always tried to translate into action the anticapitalist, antibureaucratic and libertarian ideas of his youth ».
