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An Ideology of Modernization: The Case of the Bolivian MNR

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Charles H. Weston Jr.
Charles H. Weston Jr.*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Western Illinois University
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Extract

The coming to power of the Bolivian National Revolutionary Movement (Movimento Nacionalista Revolucionario—MNR) marks a major break in Bolivia's continuity of development, a major recasting of her social order. As a result of the 1952 Revolution the political and economic power of the traditional elite, which rested upon its ownership and control of most of the nation's land and natural resources, was substantially eliminated; power passed into the hands of new groups, including an emerging middle class, which was primarily responsible for the 1952 Revolution, and the Indian population, which for the first time acquired a considerable measure of economic independence and the opportunity to participate in national politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 85 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1968

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References

1 Foreign Area Studies Division of the Special Operations Research Office, U.S. Army Handbook for Bolivia (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 468.

2 Gutiérrez, Alberto Ostria, Una revolución tras los Andes (Santiago, Chile: Nacimiento, 1944)Google Scholar; Gutiérrez, Alberto Ostria, The Tragedy of Bolivia (New York: Devin-Adair Co., 1956)Google Scholar.

3 Alexander, Robert, The Bolivian National Revolution (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1956)Google Scholar.

4 Critical Materials, Report of the Senate Foreign Exchange Subcommittee on Minerals, Materials, and Fuels of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 1st Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956), pp. 116— 17, quoted in Richard Patch, “Bolivia: U.S. Assistance in a Revolutionary Setting,” Social Change in Latin America Today (New York: Random House, 1960), p. 165.

5 Foreign Areas Studies Division, Handbook for Bolivia, p. 682.

6 Osborne, Harold, Bolivia: A Land Divided (3rd. ed., rev.; London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 68.Google Scholar

7 Peñaloza, Luis, Historia del movimiento nacionalista revolucionario (La Paz: Editorial Librería Juventud), p. 21.Google Scholar

8 Patch, Social Change, pp. 120-21.

9 Herbert Klein, “The Impact of the Chaco War on Bolivian Society” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of Chicago, 1963), pp. 264-65.

10 Montenegro, Carlos, Nacionalismo y colonaje (3rd. ed.; La Paz: Editorial Trabajo, 1953), p. 209.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 211.

12 Some of the more important bibliographical sources include: Rural Hinton (ed.), Who's Who in Latin America (3rd. ed., 6 vols.; Stanford: Stanford University Press); Richard Patch, “The Bolivian National Elections of 1964: Their Place in the Consolidation and Reconstruction of the MNR Party” (unpublished manuscript); José Fellman Velarde, Victor Paz Estenssoro, el hombre v la revolución (La Paz: E. Burrillo, 1955).

13 Marof, Tristan (Gustavo Adolfo Navarro), La tragedia del Altiplano (Buenos Aires: Claridad, 1934), pp. 60–219.Google Scholar

14 Sigmund, Paul, Jr. (ed.), The Ideologies of the Developing Nations (New York: Frederick Praeger, 1964), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

15 Estenssoro, Víctor Paz, Discursos parlamentarios (La Paz: Editorial Canata, 1955), p. 220.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 166.

17 Arze, Walter Guevara, “Teoría, medio y fines de la Revolución Boliviana,” in Cornejo, Alfred (ed.), Programas políticas (Cochabamba: Universitaria, 1959), p. 165.Google Scholar

18 Immigration from Germany was 7,595 and from Austria 1,402 in the years 1938-1939. By contrast for the same period immigration from England was 597 and from Spain 567. The high proportion from Germany and Austria undoubtedly represents the flight of Jews from Hitler's regime. See Leonard, Olen E., Bolivia: Land, People and Institutions (Washington: Scarecrow Press, 1952), pp. 73–74.Google Scholar

19 Cornejo, Alberto (ed.), Programas políticos (Cochabamba: Universitaria, 1949), p. 174.Google Scholar

20 Ibid.

21 La Calle, April 21, 1940, p. 3.

22 La Calk, April 7, 1941, p. 3.

23 Ibid.

24 El Diario, December 21, 1942, p. 8.

25 Interview with Victor Paz Estenssoro, December 22, 1964; Lima, Peni; interview with Guevara Arze, December 14, 1964: La Paz, Bolivia.

26 Barcelli, Augustin, Medio siglo de luchas syndicates revolucionarias en Bolivia (La Paz: Editorial del Estado, 1956), p. 165.Google Scholar

27 Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1963), p. 173.Google Scholar

28 Interview with Guevara Arze, December 14, 1964: La Paz, Bolivia.

29 Shils, Edward, Political Development in the New States (The Hague: Mouton, 1962), p. 7.Google Scholar

30 Strictly speaking, both Patino and Aramayo were Bolivians, having been born in Bolivia. However, they were regarded as foreigners because after making their fortunes they spent most of their lives in Europe and the United States.

31 Osborne, Bolivia, p. 151.

32 Velarde, José Fellman, Una bala en el viento (Buenos Aires: Xenix, 1952), p. 108.Google Scholar

33 Foreign Areas Studies Division, Handbook for Bolivia, p. 463.

34 Enrique Sánchez de Lozada, Breve ensayo sobre la realidad boliviana (La Paz: Universo, 1940), p. 27.

35 Guevara Arze, Programas políticos, pp. 160-72. Guevara's advocacy of a democratic revolution carried out by the workers, peasants, and middle class against the imperialist order is similar to Mao Tse-tung's advocacy in his 1940 essay, “On New Democracy” (Mao Tse-tung, Collected Works [New York: International publishers, 1954]) of a new democratic revolution carried out by the four anti-imperialist classes—the workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, and national bourgeoisie. Guevara's revolutionary strategy may have been influenced by Mao's writings. However, Guevara, when he came to occupy a position of power, proved to be a moderate socialist, bent on economic and social reform rather than the transformation of a backward society by totalitarian methods.

36 Montenegro, Carlos, Documentos (La Paz: Nacional, 1954), p. 72.Google Scholar

37 Alexander, Bolivian National Revolution, p. 97.

38 Fellman Velarde, Victor Paz Estenssoro, p. 228.

39 Cornejo, Programas políticos, p. 148.

40 Paz Estenssoro, Discursos, p. 323; Barcelli, Medio Siglo, p. 168; Klein, The Impact, p. 397; Patch, Social Change, p. 125.

41 Patch, Social Change, p. 122.

42 Cornejo, Programas políticos, pp. 148-51.

43 Leonard Binder, “National Integration and Political Development,” American Political Science Review, LVIII (September, 1964), p. 630.

44 Francovich, Guillermo, El pensamiento en el siglo XX (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956), p. 89.Google Scholar

45 Ibid., p. 101-02.

46 ibid., pp. 92-95.

47 In the 1951 election the total vote of the candidates of the three traditional parties, the Republican Socialist Union Party, the Bolivian Civic Action Party, and the Liberal Party, was slightly less than the vote for Paz. The remaining votes were divided between the candidates of the FSB and the PIR. The total vote in the presidential election was slightly over 126,000.

48 Brinton, Crane, The Anatomy of Revolution (Chicago: Prentice-Hall, 1952), p. 281.Google Scholar