Written by Aliya Okamoto Abdullaeva
Attempting to distance itself from European imperialism, the United States of America (U.S.) initially wished to adopt a non-interventionist stance, with Thomas Jefferson stating in his inaugural address as President, that “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” were the country’s essential principles. In reality however, the U.S. took part in a wider period of new imperialism, which notably saw the annexation of the Philippines, Hawai’i, and Cuba amongst others, creating an American pointillist empire. This spread of control and influence fell into the narrative of manifest destiny, an early demonstration of American imperialism, which began with settler colonialist campaigns against indigenous Americans. Recent events such as the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War, highlight the longevity and extent of American interference in foreign matters, allowing itself to consolidate its hegemonic role in the world.
The Cold War between the two newly emerging superpowers saw the intensification of American intervention on a global scale, justified against the perceived threat of communism. In response to the USSR’s policies of expanding Soviet spheres of influences, the U.S materialised its policy of containment with the Truman Doctrine in 1947, which provided economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey, the former facing a possible communist insurrection while the latter was in a geopolitically strategic and vulnerable position. In addition to meddling in central and west Asia however, the United States particularly turned to its southern neighbours as a means of furthering self-interest and widening its own influence. The western hemisphere, as the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 came to be interpreted, would be solely under the American sphere of influence, and in essence, under American proprietorship. Hence, with U.S. adamance, the Organisation of American States (OAS) was founded in 1948. Despite encouraging cooperation, the organisation could be seen as another tool for the United States to increase Latin American dependency amidst the threat of communism. A social reformer who helped formulate the Good Neighbour policy, Samuel Guy Inman witnessed that “there was little attention paid to what most deeply troubled thoughtful Latin American delegates” at the OAS Caracas Conference of 1954, highlighting the differing priorities between the southern nations and America, and whose voices were truly heard.
The Good Neighbour policy, administered in 1933 under Franklin D. Roosevelt, stressed non-intervention in maintaining peace and ensuring friendly relations within the western hemisphere. The blanketing approach of the U.S in foreign affairs, the period saw the founding of the OAS, as well as marking the end of the Banana Wars, which saw the American military intervention and occupation of Latin American countries, including Nicaragua and Haiti. However, with the policy of containment and the shadow of McCarthyism back home, the Good Neighbour policy quickly deteriorated. The rise of leftist leaders in South America led to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed efforts to replace socialist governments with right-winged authoritarian ones. One compelling instance of this is the Guatemalan coup d’etat of 1954, when socialist Jacobo Árbenz was overthrown and replaced by Carlos Castillo Armas’s dictatorship. The head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, called this orchestrated coup ‘a victory for democracy.’
The United States’ keen interest on Latin American political and social developments, particularly post-Second World War, has made the nation a reoccurring and unavoidable character in the revolutions, economies, and governments of South American countries throughout the twentieth century. However, unlike the case of Guatemala, the involvement of the United States in the Bolivian Revolution and success in its confinement was much more subtle, capitalising on Bolivia’s economic vulnerability and dependence. A landlocked country, Bolivia was one of the poorest nations in the continent, subject to unstable governments and chronic economic crises. However, rich in mineral resources, Bolivia has long been an important producer of silver, oil, and tin. The shift from the dominating silver mining industry to the production of the more desirable and profitable tin changed the landscape of politics, economics, and society in Bolivia. Dependence on U.S. capital increased, alongside the emergence of a new oligarchic elite, the rosca. Composed mainly of three tin tycoons, the rosca collectively controlled more than eighty percent of national production. The most notable of these was the tin baron Simón Iturri Patiño, nicknamed the ‘Andean Rockefeller,’ who in 1900 found a rich vein of tin in what would be called La Salvadora. Alongside the multiple mines and smelters owned in Bolivia, the ‘Tin King’ expanded his ventures outside the borders, gaining control of the Consolidated Tin Smelters Limited in 1934, a merger of the largest tin companies across the globe, as well as investing in mines in Malaysia and Nigeria. Patiño was also one of the two Bolivian representatives who attended the Evian Conference of 1938, signifying the importance of the rosca in both domestic and foreign affairs despite not being directly attached to the Bolivian government.
Bolivian economy greatly relied on the success of the tin industry, which was vulnerable and vastly interconnected, often experiencing fluctuations in demand amidst the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Cold War. The Great Depression particularly led Bolivia into further economic crisis and political instability as the price of tin plummeted. Arguably a catalyst, the time of economic downturn in the 1930s witnessed the Chaco War. Fought between Bolivia and Paraguay from the year 1932 till 1935, the war was one of unresolved territorial dispute, featuring the arid and allegedly oil-rich Chaco Boreal. Despite the two countries being the ones engaged in combat, certain narratives suggest the undeniable role of foreign oil companies in provoking the war in an attempt to exploit the rumoured oil-rich region. However, Bolivia, struggling to profit off its tin, also had nationalist ambitions of tapping into Chaco’s promised oil. Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell supported Bolivia and Paraguay respectively, revealing their own stakes in the war. Profiting off Bolivian oil since 1921, the presence of Standard Oil in the country was one plagued with difficulties and struggle, but nonetheless bound Bolivia closer to the United States and their interests. In 1937, blaming Standard Oil for instigating the Chaco War, the companies’ oil operations in Bolivia were nationalised. Under the Good Neighbour Policy, the United States decided not to challenge the nation with military intervention and continued providing financial aid. Bolivia lost the war in 1935, resulting in the death of approximately fifty thousand soldiers, most of whom were part of the indigenous population.
The long-lasting impact of the lost war on Bolivian social consciousness and political make-up can be seen in the emergence of numerous non-traditionalist parties, the rise of military socialism, and the mobilisation of broader class-based organisations, reaching its eventual culmination in the Bolivian National Revolution in 1952. One of the first organisations formed after the Chaco War was the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (POR). Aligning with Trotskyist thought, the POR was able to garner remarkable influence among workers by the mid-1940s. Young Guillermo Lora would become the face of Bolivian Trotskyism, leading POR to become a pivotal participant in the 1952 Revolution. The political party that managed to become the leading force behind the Revolution, however, was the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), founded in 1941. With obscure ideological origins, accused of being pro-Nazi by the United States while simultaneously labelled communist, the party was split between the fascists and Marxist-Leninists, the latter including its founders, Víctor Paz Estenssoroand Hernán Siles Zuazo. Peronism, named after the President of Argentina at the time, was another prominent driving ideology of the MNR. Coined the ‘fascism of the left,’ it embodies authoritarian and nationalist sentiments while catering to the working class through acknowledging class struggle and advocating a pro-welfare state. Nonetheless, the uniting thread of the MNR was its reformist and modernist nature.
To understand the development and resonance of Trotskyist socialism as well as the overall trend of leftist mobilisation in the Bolivian working class in the decade before the Revolution, the social landscape of the nation needs to be examined. Plagued with poverty and oppression throughout the early twentieth century, the majority indigenous population were subject to sub-human living conditions, with families forced to crowd together in poorly built huts which lacked sanitary facilities, often with no bedding or windows. Disease was also widespread, with a 1948 study recording that around 97 per cent of miners were afflicted with tuberculosis. These miners, employed by the tin barons, averaged a life expectancy of thirty-six, receiving starvation wages. Virtual serfdom permeated the peasantry, as 92 per cent of cultivable land was owned by 6 per cent of the population by as late as 1950. In addition, denied access to education, an estimated 75 per cent of Bolivians were illiterate in the 1940s, which consequently blocked the possibility of political participation. Socialism, hence, appealed to the working class as it advocated for government ownership of the means of production, including the production of tin, which would mean better working conditions and wages.
The rising frustration of the people was eventually unleashed by the events in the Catavi mine. On 21 December 1941, eight thousand workers of the Patiño-owned Catavi mine marched for better wages and working conditions, echoing a rising pattern of demonstrations and strikes held by mineworkers across the country, as living cost significantly increased while wages remained low. Armed troops surrounded the demonstrators and called for a halt. Ignoring orders, as the workers continued to advance, the soldiers fired into the crowd with machine guns. The shooting lasted for almost six hours and reportedly killed four hundred people, although exact numbers are unknown. The Peñaranda government, under which this massacre occurred, released official figures which claimed the death count to be nineteen, with only thirty wounded. International opinion was poor, and the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt was left in an uncomfortable situation, as the nation accounted for half of all Bolivian tin exports by the 1940s and early 1950s, now revealed to be products of human rights violations.
Popular outrage ensued, and the MNR, vocally sympathising with the plight of the workers, was able to leverage the massacre and bring itself into the national stage. At an interpellation, Paz Estenssoro addressed the President, asserting that ‘what happened in Catavi is not even an exclusive concern for the workers; it is a problem for the whole of Bolivia.’ With the credibility and stability of the Peñaranda presidency undermined, the MNR alongside a secret military group overthrew the government in a coup, placing military officer Gualberto Villarroel as the new head of state. Villarroel’s regime was one of political repression, with his fascist sympathies aligning Bolivia favourably amongst the Axis Powers, making it difficult for the U.S. to cooperate according to its foreign policies. Nonetheless, the United States crucially attempted to expand its influence and control, putting financial pressure on a country heavily depended on American aid and exports. Dissatisfaction with the government was not confined to the U.S., as students, teachers, and workers participated in demonstrations, strikes, and held meetings. The student-led revolt culminated in the La Paz Riot of 21 July 1946, when rioters began to flood the streets in the capital. People stormed the presidential palace and struggles ensued between armed rioters and the military. Overcome by the immense crowd, Villarroel was captured and defenestrated. Dying from his wounds, Villarroel was then hung from a lamp post outside the palace. The La Paz Riot marked a turning point amongst the masses, as the call for change grew louder.
Witnessing the lynching of President Villaroel in front of the presidential palace, the MNR abandoned its fascist faction and aligned with the widely supported Trotskyist POR. Adopting anti-imperialist and anti-government sentiments, the reformist MNR managed to become the main opposition to the ruling party, with Paz Estenssoro winning the presidential election in 1951. Shortly afterwards, President Urriolagoitía invalidated the elections and installed a military junta through a self-coup, known as the Mamertazo, as a final fight by the oligarchy and the old regime. On 9 April 1952, the MNR, in coalition with General Antonio Seleme and his loyal troops, attempted a countercoup. Declaring victory prematurely, the troops allied with the MNR were faced by the military and fighting continued. The MNR’s failure in swiftly overthrowing the government ignited the workers’ revolution, as miners from across the country began to march to the capital La Paz, equipped with weapons provided by the allied police. The workers’ militias prevailed, destroying the old regime as the military surrendered on 12 April. The events of the proletariat uprising as workers seized manners in their own hands, displayed the overwhelming will of the people to call for social change, chanting out “Agrarian reform!” and “Nationalisation of the mines!” Juan Lechín, leader of the FSTMB, addressing the masses who have “taken command of their own density’ proclaiming that they had ‘given America a lesson for all time.”
In the months following the Bolivian Revolution of 1952, universal suffrage was granted which, alongside women, allowed the majority indigenous population to participate politically regardless of illiteracy. Additionally, dissolving the feudalist system that exploited peasant labour, Bolivia became a pioneer in agrarian reform in South America, as the MNR passed decrees that would distribute confiscated land to the peasants. The nationalisation of the tin mines relieved the nation of the political and economic oppression from the oligarchical elite, with their operations coming under the control of the Bolivian Mining Corporation (COMIBOL). Nationalising the tin industry however, quickly proved ineffective, as pre-revolutionary levels of production would not return until the 1960s, keeping Bolivia dependant on the U.S.
The Bolivian Workers’ Centre (COB), a trade union federation led by FSTMB’s Juan Lechín, was also created in the aftermath of the Revolution. The COB became a second-to-government entity, with veto power as the voice of the workers. However, in the 1960s, the Paz administration would come to arrest union leaders who opposed the lowering of wages and layoffs by the mining industry. Additionally, the Triangular Plan, initiated partly by the United States, aimed at ‘rehabilitating’ the Bolivian tin industry through loans was accepted by the MNR. The COMIBOL, prohibited in using U.S. funding, found itself discouraged in the MNR’s gradual shift towards the right as the Triangular Plan weakened its power, and subsequently the power of the miners. Although not completely denationalising the tin mines, the Plan allowed for certain privatising developments. In addition, the 1955 Petroleum Code re-privatised Bolivian oil, allowing American companies to return to extracting and selling Bolivian oil. The undoing and silencing of the policies advocated by the workers suggest that the U.S. did not see intervention as necessary, assuming their weakness as the pliant MNR held overall decision making.
Although Bolivian-American relations in the early twentieth century have been hailed as a success story for the Good Neighbour Policy, the two countries stood on unequal grounds. To most Bolivians, their dependence on the United States was obvious, with records showing American financial aid to Bolivia totalled $142 million between the years 1952 and 1959. Alienating the United States with radical socialist policies threatened detrimental consequences to a Bolivia still starved by rising inflation and declining living conditions. As a result, with U.S. pressure, the MNR began to moderate its policies and centralise its position, diverging from its revolutionary beginnings. It could further be argued that MNR’s radical stance in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution was motivated by political survival, as popular support from the MNR was from its leftist policies, rather that strong ideological beliefs.
In 2012, Vice-President Álvaro García Linera reflecting on the anniversary of Revolution, stated that, the MNR “changed [Bolivia] from a beggar-state to a relatively strong state, with the ability to exercise control.” Ironically, in 2019 the United States ousted Evo Morales, the President under whom Linera served, under alleged involvements in cocaine trafficking. Morales, coming into power during a resurgence in the pink tide in Latin America, worked towards socialism, challenging U.S. political influence in both Bolivia and in the region.
The path to the Bolivian Revolution in 1952 was one of military coups, imperialist forces, tin tycoons and revolutionary workers. Anti-imperialist sentiments and an extensive campaign for nationalisation echoed across class lines, with organisations such as the POR, FSTMB, and COMIBOL amassing strong support. Still, the taming of the Revolution by the U.S. through economic coercion, undermined the workers’ organisations, and its potential for successful could be considered extinguished in the 1964 coup d’etat which characterised itself ironically as a ‘restorative revolution’ to continue the spirit of the 1952 Revolution. Overthrowing the now right-leaning Paz regime, Bolivia’s political platform would witness consecutive military dictators in the decades to come.
Regardless of its shortfalls however, the Bolivian Revolution of 1952 was a distinct and instrumental moment in the history of Latin American political ideology, social movements and foreign affairs.
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