Social Revolution in Bolivia, 1936-1952
By: R. Ipina
Tags: 9 De Abril, Revolution, Bolivia, Victor Paz Estenssoro

Introduction

Evo Morales had been the President of Bolivia from 2006 until 2019. Regardless of your opinion of him, which could be positive or negative, it is undeniable that his rise resulted from decades of hardships faced by the highland, rural, largely indigenous working class of Bolivia. Evo Morales represented a change from the status quo of IMF-bound rulers and a light of hope for the masses of the country. However, he cannot be called the first prominent figure to seemingly represent the working class in such a way.

Before the Revolution, the Republic of Bolivia had been a feudal society for longer than any could remember. Men were born and died as serfs on land that wasn’t truly theirs, seldom with other opportunities in life, ruled not by their own but by multinational oligarchs who cared not for their people but for the personal aggrandizement of themselves. The revolution brought desperately-needed social change to Bolivia.

Victor Paz Estenssoro and the Chaco War

Originally entering the legal field and seeking to become a good attorney, then-future President Victor Paz Estenssoro was originally uninterested in politics. However, there was little opportunity for him in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. He first worked in the Office of Economic Statistics utilizing his legal skills, while gaining considerable experience in the field of economics — which would turn out to aid him greatly in the coming decades.

Following the death of Victor Paz’s father, Domingo Paz Rojas, he was made to aid his family and help support them. He had just been fired from his position as an undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance, the Chaco War began in 1932 between the South American republics of Bolivia and Paraguay.

The Chaco War represented one of the final nails in the coffin for the status quo. It could not be called a war fought in the interests of the people, but a proxy war between two foreign multinational oil companies who cared only for the profitable oil that was previously discovered in the region, which the governments of both Bolivia and Paraguay were willing to provide.

At first, the extent of Paz’s involvement with the war was non-combat related. His task was to oversee payment of salaries to the troops. Eventually, he formally enlisted in his country’s armed forces in the year 1933. Supposedly, Paz enlisted in Bolivia’s First Army Corps and deployed to Fort Muñoz, fighting in the Battle of Condado and also the Battle of Ballivián, two relatively minor battles within the war.

Following the war’s end in 1935, Paz was discharged from the army and he went back to his hometown of Tarija, in southern Bolivia. Paz had experienced firsthand the ineffectiveness of the leadership of his republic. The country’s mining oligarchy had been in full control of the Bolivian central government for several decades, ruling through “elected” leaders in which only perhaps 2% of the population actually voted for their leaders. More than anything else, the war in which approximately 1% of the population was killed exposed how disconnected the interests of the government were with that of the people of whom they were supposed to be representatives, and how incompetent this government truly was.

VPE in Politics and Military Socialism in Bolivia

It was from this point that Paz gained an interest in politics, consistent with his family. This was around the time in which a young colonel in the Bolivian Army known as David Toro Ruilova, similarly seeing the old Bolivian government as an incompetent farce serving only the interests of the oligarchy, became the President of the Republic after a military coup led by comrade Germán Busch on May 17, 1936, along with civilian leftist sympathizers such as Enrique Baldivieso, who would become Busch’s Vice President. Despite leading the coup, Busch left the presidency in the hands of Toro, as he was seen as a “crafted” politician. Amid the experiment of Military Socialism which sought to radically improve the condition of the Bolivian working class, various government offices were established. Among them was the Office of Labor Insurance Savings, of which Paz was appointed general-secretary.

Eventually, he went to work for a powerful mining firm known as Patiño Mines & Enterprises Consolidated, led by the so-called Andean Rockefeller, Simón Iturri Patiño. Here it is said that he witnessed various government officials collecting secret payments from the firm following their promoting of the whims of the tin mining elite. Powerless at the time, he left Patiño Mines and decided to become a politician in his own right.

In 1937, the aforementioned Germán Busch replaced President David Toro and sought to continue the policy of Military Socialism under himself. The following year, Busch convened a Bolivian constitutional convention which sought to radically reform his country’s constitution. Representing his home department Tarija, he attended the constitutional convention.

At this constitutional convention, useful strides were made in progressive constitutional reform, including new regulations on private property which would allow the expropriation of private property by the Bolivian government should it be necessitated by the protection of the interests of the Bolivian people. The Independent Socialist Party (PSI) led by Paz and his comrades played a very important role in both the constitutional convention and the reforms brought by it and legislation in the Bolivian National Congress, including the elimination of a private monopoly on wheat and flour.

Return of the Oligarchs

Although remarkably positive changes were being brought by the regime of Germán Busch, this would not last. On August 23, 1939, President Busch committed suicide with his handgun. Some would speculate in later years that he was actually murdered, however little evidence corroborates such a theory. Moreover, Busch was known to have suicidal tendencies before the successful attempt in 1939.

Following the President’s suicide, General Carlos Quintanilla assumed the Presidency. Originally promising to continue the socialist programs of Toro and Busch, he quickly began associating with the traditional oligarchs. “Elections” were to be held in March of 1940. Quintanilla used his authority as the President to help a pro-oligarchy electoral alliance known as Concordancia, which ran Chaco War veteran General Enrique Peñaranda as their presidential candidate. Remembering that only a small portion of the population was actually able to vote in presidential elections, and the interference of Quintanilla in various ways against Peñaranda’s opposition, he won in a landslide against the reformist candidates. However, plenty of reformist candidates won seats in Congress in that same election.

The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement

During the regime of Peñaranda, Victor Paz Estenssoro founded the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), which was intended to be a mass vanguard party which would represent the interests of the working class, from the rural peasantry to the workers of the cities.

This new party expressed populist social-democratic, Christian, and Bolivian nationalist views publicly. They called for groundbreaking land reform, universal suffrage, and for the true independence of the Republic of Bolivia that fought for the common working class person in Bolivia.

During World War II, Bolivian tin and other resources were quite useful to the allied cause against the axis. The MNR strongly opposed Peñaranda’s many concessions to US interests, including the incredibly deflated prices the allies paid for such resources. It was for this reason that some in Bolivia and their benefactors from the United States and Great Britain falsely labeled the MNR a party that was pro-fascist in order to discredit them.

Catavi Massacre and the Return of Military Socialism

In 1942, miners staged a strike in multiple parts of the country. Although many would return to work, the miners at Catavi held firm in demanding more rights. The regime sent troops to Catavi, after which the soldiers killed at least 41 striking workers, although some estimates reach into the hundreds. The MNR was quick to denounce the massacre.

Nearly one year after the Catavi massacre, the MNR made an alliance with a secret military society known as Razón de Patria, or RADEPA. They were sympathetic to the ideas of Toro and Busch, and like the MNR they wished to see a Bolivia independent and free from control of the oligarchs. RADEPA and the MNR made plans in late 1943 for a coup, which finally occurred on December 20, 1943. Government offices and officials were captured, and Gualberto Villarroel was installed as President of the Republic.

Due to the accusations of the United States of the MNR being a fascist party, they refused to recognize the new government. This, among international meddling and other factors led to the MNR withdrawing from the new government’s cabinet completely in 1944, returning later that year.

In November of 1944, a mutiny began in Oruro, with rebel soldiers seizing military posts and government buildings in a bloodless attempt at a seizure of power. The MNR and the government reacted swiftly, with loyalist troops and MNR militants quickly heading to Oruro. A day after the rebellion started, it had ended when government buildings were retaken by loyalists.

On November 20, a RADEPA officer who was the head of the National Police of Bolivia ordered the execution of 4 men, who were executed by firing squad outside of Oruro. 5 more men were executed outside of the city of La Paz, including prominent members of the former Peñaranda regime, all extrajudicial killings without due process.

These killings sparked outrage in many. Similar to the Catavi massacre, and in order to improve the government’s public image, the MNR was welcomed back into the executive power in late 1944, which they entered in early 1945.

The reforms carried out under the Villarroel government were far more expansive than those of the Toro and Busch governments. From 1944 to 1945, the MNR would introduce various legislative reforms in order to protect the interests of the workers. In November 1944, Congress passed the Voluntary Retirement Bill, which was intended to expand the rights of retirees. Villarroel also helped in this process of economic reform, promulgating multiple decrees intended to help indigenous Bolivian peasants. It is clear that these reforms had the Bolivian oligarchical aristocracy worried.

Reforms passed by the MNR-RADEPA government culminated in the forming of the Union Federation of Mine Workers of Bolivia, or FSTMB. This federation would become a leading labor rights force in the coming years, which would come to be led by prominent leftist MNR official Juan Lechín Oquendo.

In 1945, Victor Paz Estenssoro spoke in favor of an Agrarian bill which would apply to his home department of Tarija. A 1940’s report conducted by the Ministry of Labor described almost feudal conditions that indigenous people underwent. The average peasant was made to pay not only an annual amount of money, but were forced to provide free labor to their landlord plus several months for money that was deliberately too low for the peasant to sufficiently survive, making him become more and more indebted to the landlord. This report was used by Paz in his argument for the bill, and it was passed, giving peasant farmers far more protection from their landlords.

Another Return to Oligarchical Governance

In 1946, an alliance of parties opposed to Villarroel backed by the oligarchy overthrew the Bolivian government in a coup far bloodier than those of 1943 and 1936. Under serious threat by the reformist MNR-RADEPA government, the aristocracy made a seemingly unlikely alliance with the Revolutionary Left Party (PIR). PIR was a nominally Marxist-Leninist communist political party that was opposed to the regime of Villarroel, and would later go on to support US-backed right-wing dictators such as Hugo Banzer in later decades.

In July, social unrest paralyzed the city of La Paz with lynch mobs searching for loyalists to murder. Government officials were hanged outside of the presidential palace, Palacio Quemado. Later that day, Palacio Quemado was shot up by a mob looking for the President until they found Villarroel hiding in his office. Villarroel was shot and he was hung from a lamppost in Plaza Murillo. Fortunately, top MNR leaders were able to escape the wrath of the mobs.

With Villarroel dead and Paz in exile and living in Argentina, the oligarchy was back in control of the executive power.

Urriolagoitía Presidency

Sympathy for the MNR and other revolutionary forces continued to grow despite fierce resistance from the oligarchs. In 1947, “elections” were held in which presidential candidate Enrique Hertzog and and his running-mate Mamerto Urriolagoitia were elected to the presidency, with Victor Paz Estenssoro receiving up to 5% of the popular vote, in a country in which only a small percentage of the population were allowed to vote. On May 7 1949, however, Hertzog was made to resign and Urriolagoitia assumed the presidency.

Elections in Bolivia were to be held in 1951, and the MNR chose Victor Paz Estenssoro to run for the presidency once again, with Hernán Siles Zuazo as his running-mate. The government party also ran, known as the Republican Socialist Union Party, or PURS. Although its name sounds as though it was a left-wing socialist party, it was a party that was created in order to protect the interests of the oligarchs against the revolutionary forces.

The elections occurred as scheduled, with an MNR victory over the PURS after a dedicated campaign in favor of Victor Paz Estenssoro, followed by Bernardo Bilbao Rioja of the Bolivian Socialist Falange (FSB).

Despite reaching a majority, the Urriolagoitía regime reported otherwise. According to the constitution, even if Paz hadn’t reached a majority as the government reported, the election was then supposed to be decided by Congress. Instead, in a last ditch effort to save the oligarchy from the MNR, an event known as the Mamertazo took place. Urriolagoitía had performed a “self-coup” and installed General Hugo Ballivián as the President of Bolivia.

The Revolution

It became clear that the country’s traditional system was on its last leg as the military dictatorship ruled Bolivia with an iron fist as it desperately attempted to suppress internal dissent from the MNR’s working class sympathizers. However, some in Ballivián’s government helped the MNR in their revolutionary cause.

Finally, on the 9th of April, gunfire sounded in La Paz. The revolution had come, and government troops struggled to fight off MNR rebels. On day 2, government forces had begun to beat the revolutionary forces. The next day, the rebels proved victorious once again as MNR forces seized government posts and goods. Later in the day, the government had finally surrendered to the rebels.

Following the success of the MNR’s revolution, Victor Paz Estenssoro triumphantly returned to Bolivia to assume the presidency rightfully won in the 1951 elections.

Aftermath

The revolutionary government of Victor Paz Estenssoro and the social-democratic Revolutionary Nationalist Movement instituted wide-reaching reforms which objectively benefited the Bolivian working class. Among his first actions was heavily decreasing the size of the military, largely replacing it with workers and peasant militias which would safeguard the revolution against reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries. The government also promulgated a policy of universal suffrage, which allowed every Bolivian who was of age to finally have a voice in their government. Moreover, various nationalizations occured — including of the Andean Rockefeller himself, Patiño and other mining oligarchs. In addition to this was a land reform intended to help the peasants of Bolivia.

Criticism of the Paz Government

Victor Paz Estenssoro’s government, although much better than the days of old, was most certainly imperfect. It undoubtedly received criticism, some of which is certainly justified, even if explainable. For example, as a result of political instability in Bolivia, Victor Paz had established the Office of Political Control, which engaged in tactics which sought to suppress some of Bolivia’s dissidents in the name of protecting Bolivia’s stability and preventing its collapse. Also, the Paz government operated what many opponent called concentration camps which detained people that the government deemed to be threats to the new order.

Legacy of the Revolution

This revolution represented hope for the people of Bolivia to achieve liberation from servitude by the oligarchy. Despite future problems that occurred in Bolivia and even with the MNR itself, history and the people of Bolivia remember the revolution positively as a force for good that changed the course of Bolivia for the better. The revolutionaries are remembered as honest, patriotic men who took on the oligarchic system and won. The 1952 National Revolution will hopefully serve as inspiration for Bolivians in the future should a similar situation arise again.

Museum of the National Revolution, La Paz, Bolivia

Sources