Miners as Voters the Electoral Process in Bolivias Mining Camps
Transcript of Miners as Voters the Electoral Process in Bolivias Mining Camps
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Miners as Voters: The Electoral Process in Bolivia's Mining CampsAuthor(s): Laurence WhiteheadSource: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Nov., 1981), pp. 313-346Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/156073Accessed: 31-03-2016 02:00 UTC
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1. Lat. Amer. Stud. 13, 2, 3I3-46
Miners as Voters: The Electoral Process
in Bolivia's Mining Camps
by LAURENCE WHITEHEAD*
Introduction
In the I940s Bolivia's mineworkers achieved a major impact in national
elections. The electoral system was favourable to them (far more so than after
the 1952 National Revolution); they acquired a unified and effective national
leadership, with extensive back-up organization in all the main mining
camps; they, therefore, began casting their votes as a single block, an ex-
pression of mineworkers' exceptional degree of solidarity in various parts of
the world; and the political parties that courted their votes were constrained
by the demands of their electorate, not only to adopt intransigent language
but actually to become more radical in their programmes, recruitment and
commitments. Given the power structure existing in Bolivia's mining zones
in the I940S, there was never much prospect that a significant change in the
miners' life situation could be brought about purely by electoral methods, and
the miners' union, FSTMB, rapidly became far more than a vote-getting and
controlling vehicle or political machine in the electoral sense. It challenged
the essential prerogatives of the management, using electoral support as just
one means of mobilizing for fundamentally revolutionary ends. In these
circumstances, the electoral system soon became too dangerous for dominant
interests to tolerate its continuance. However, they failed to establish a viable
alternative system of politics. The Revolution of April 1952 engulfed the big
mineowners and most landowners, military men and traditional parties.
Initially it gave Bolivia's mineworkers a vanguard role in the running of the
country and the defence of the revolution. It also projected a highly selective
version of pre-revolutionary history.
A quarter of a century later it is beyond dispute that most of the mine-
workers' initial economic and social gains from the revolution have proved
illusory or transient,' and they have lost even the degree of electoral leverage
* Research for this article was financed by the SSRC. The author wishes to thank
Alan Angell and James Dunkerley for their helpful comments.
For an analysis of the predicament of Bolivia's mineworkers during the i96os and
1970s, see Laurence Whitehead, 'Sobre el radicalismo de los trabajadores mineros de
Bolivia', Revista Mexicana de Sociologia (UNAM, Mexico City), No. 4, I980.
0022-216x/81/JL,4S-I324 $02.00 .? 1981 Cambridge University Press
3 13
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314 Laurence Whitehead
they possessed in the 194os. Now that the promise of the revolutionary dawn
has faded, it may be possible to see more clearly into the pre-revolutionary
night. In the case of the mineworkers, the establishment in 1944 of their major
trade union, the Federacion Sindical de Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia
(FSTMB) and its subsequent organizational and political evolution, has
recently been given serious attention.2
This article presents hitherto neglected evidence concerning the nature of
the politics in Bolivia's mining camps prior to the establishment of the
FSTMB. This, and subsequent electoral evidence, is used to demonstrate the
easily overlooked role of electoral politics in paving the way for the National
Revolution in April I952, which was, among other things, an armed revolt
which enforced the results of the thwarted I951 elections.
Why is so little attention paid to electoral processes by students of Latin
American politics? It is true that electoral analysis of the type that flourishes
in some Anglo-Saxon democracies assumes an institutional stability that is
absent in most of Latin America, and that such analysis can become an over-
refined technique devoid of political content. However, this case study seeks
to demonstrate that if such deformations professionelles are avoided, the
study of electoral processes can contribute to our understanding of some of
the central issues of Latin American politics, such as the process by which
revolutionary mobilization of the lower classes can occur, and the reasons
why dominant minorities may find it difficult to legitimize their political
ascendancy.
The Pre-Revolutionary Electoral System
Of course, it would be naive to accept the national electoral system of pre-
revolutionary Bolivia at face value. There is no case of peaceful transition of
office from one party to another as the result of an electoral defeat, either
before or after the Revolution. The elections of 1978, 1979 and 1980 have
unfortunately proved no exceptions. In I898, the Liberals displaced the
Conservatives by means of a short civil war, after which it took a coup - in
1920 - for the Republicans to displace the Liberals, and they in turn broke
up into rival factions that were unable to coexist within the framework of
electoral competition, but instead resolved their differences by force.
Civilian parties revived in the 1940S, but it was the shifting fortunes of
military factions that determined the ensuing alternations in office (I943,
1946, I949 and I95I). Elections were held to ratify a previously established
government, or possibly to permit the competing elements in a coalition to
2 Guillermo Lora, A History of the Bolivian Labour Movement I848-i971 (CUP,
I977 .
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Miner as Voters 315
measure their relative strength against each other. Only once did a national
election result in victory for the opposition party - that was in I95I when
Paz Estenssoro of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, campaigning
from exile, topped the poll in a presidential election. Before the count was
completed a military junta took over power to block his return. Clearly, this
was no Anglo-Saxon system of electoral sovereignty. Nevertheless, the events
of 1951 which gave the MNR moral authority for its successful revolutionary
endeavours in I952, show that not all elections were totally controlled.
Indeed, organizing for electoral contests was an important element of party
activity which was closely intertwined with the conspiratorial and insur-
rectionary aspects. Success in both aspects was indispensable if a party was to
grow in strength sufficiently to beat down its opponents, and accordingly
party strategists had to strike a delicate balance between two somewhat in-
compatible styles of campaigning. Let us consider what was demanded by the
electoral system.
Herbert Klein has written that the pre-revolutionary electorate was a 'tiny
elite of literate persons. . . divided between a small middle class and an even
more minuscule upper class, both of which were primarily urban'. On his
figures the total number of votes cast rose from only 30,000 in 1884 to some
43,000 in I904 and a little over 70,000 in 19I3, I9I7, and I926. He has
also estimated that in the first fifty years of this century the electorate rose
from about 3 per cent of the total population to about 7 per cent.3 These
figures certainly seem tiny by international standards, but they were not so
negligible in the Bolivian context. In fact, the suffrage was far from being
confined to a middle and upper class elite, or to the cities, and it doubled
between 1940 and I95I. Moreover, a significant, and strategically located,
fraction of the electorates were mineworkers; and accordingly the major
mining camps received their due in the campaign strategies of the main
political parties during various electoral contests before I95I. Furthermore,
the periodic upsurges in party activity occasioned by elections produced pro-
found effects both on political life, and more importantly on industrial
relations, within the mining camps. This hitherto under-estimated facet of
pre-revolutionary Bolivian politics is best approached by considering, first,
the formal basis of representation and, second, the less formal techniques by
which powerholders attempted to manage or manipulate the electoral process.
8 Herbert Klein, Parties and Political Change in Bolivia (CUP, i968), p. i68. Accord-
ing to other sources, 30,500 votes were cast in the 1884 Presidential contest; 40,800
in 1904; 69,000 in 19I3; and 86,000 in I9I7. There was no election in 1926.
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316 Laurence Whitehead
(i) The Formal Basis of Representation
Only literate adult male nationals were entitled to the vote before 1952, and
in order to exercise this right it was necessary to have oneself registered on
the civic list, which was closed thirty days before each election. On the day of
the election it was necessary to appear in person at the polling booth, which
until the I920S could be an open table in full public view. Until I945, voting
only took place in seats of provincial government (of which there were not
more than 98) or of the next lower unit of administration, the seccion
municipal (of which there were not more than 227). Those resident in the
lowest unit of administration, the 1,200 or more cantones, would have to
travel to their nearest electoral centre in order to cast their vote. This last
provision impeded electoral participation by important concentrations of
Bolivian mineworkers, until it was amended by the Villarroel government.
During the twenty years of Liberal government, the number of registered
electors almost doubled, reaching about ioo,ooo by 1920. On the face of it,
the suffrage had been extended to a majority of the country's literate adult
males during this period, even applying a fairly generous interpretation of
the term 'literate'.
However, by the end of the Liberal era, electoral reform and the need
for honest voting procedures had become the major theme of opposition
politicians, who expressed their contempt for official fraud by boycotting
elections like that of May I920 which preceded, and in a sense precipitated,
the Republican Party's coup d'etat in July of the same year. One of the first
acts of the new Junta was to modify the legislation regulating elections that
had grown up since i889. President Saavedra (author, before the coup, of a
pamphlet advocating electoral reform) commented on the innovations as
follows:
Naturally the method of compiling the electoral registers, which is the base for
honest voting, has been completely changed. Special notaries now have effective
responsibility for their compilation and protection. Thus, an end has been put to
the practice of multiple registration of voters, which was at the heart of all
electoral misdeeds. There have also been important modifications to the voting
process, in order to shield it from fraud, violence and foul play... a decree has
been promulgated conferring responsibility for the maintenance of order and the
upholding of electoral processes to commissions of citizens representing the
various parties or candidates, presided over by a neutral officer. These commis-
sions have charge of the public forces and are in charge of the civil guard. The
police have therefore been definitively excluded from all interference in the
electoral process. ..4
4 From the Presidential message to Congress, August I921, quoted in Carlos Aramayo
Alzerreca, Saavedra: El Ultimo Caudillo (La Paz, I94I), pp. 188-90.
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Miner as Voters 3 17
In practice, Saavedra's electoral reforms failed to legitimize the party
system, but they produced major changes in the formal processes of represen-
tation that generally lasted until the 1952 revolution.
Following the Chaco War, commentators were disappointed to find that
the number of registered voters had hardly increased compared with a
generation earlier, despite strong administrative incentives to persuade
citizens to register and to vote.5
The pressure on all eligible citizens to register requires particular stress.
The pro-government La Naci6n of January 4th I940, stated that 'those who
fail in their civic duty [to register] will be severely punished. In this hour,
indifference is a crime. The mass of workers are the most numerous sector
and indeed constitute almost the entirety of the electorate [my emphasis].
They are required to fulfil this obligation, as are the private employees.'
Table i shows the growth of the total electorate between I940 and
I951:
TABLE I
1940 105000
1944 129 000
1947 129000
I95I 211 000
Source: La Razon (La Paz), March 3rd I940; July 2nd, 1944. El Diario (La
Paz), May 6th, 1951 gives the I951 total as 205,000, but before including the
province of Tarija, which contained about 6,ooo electors.
The big increase between I947 and 1951 shows that, despite all the official
threats of the early I940s, there remained a considerable proportion of
individuals eligible to vote who did not bother to register, at least until
partisan passions were inflamed by the intense political campaign of the late
I940s. However, by I95I it seems likely that a very high proportion of
eligible voters were registered. From the I950 census it appears that there
5 On March i6 1938, the British Ambassador noted the administrative pressure to vote
as follows: '80 per cent of the La Paz electorate did in fact vote, but only, so it
seems, for the purpose of obtaining a certificate to the effect that they had been to
the polls, since it appears that some 75 per cent of this 80 per cent of voters did not
in fact vote for any specific candidate, but simply wrote on their papers ribald
remarks...' London: Public Record Office (PRO), Foreign Office Archives, Bolivia,
Vol. 37I/2I4I8/A3062/984/S. Two years later La Razon (La Paz) commented
editorially on February 14 1940, that the 73,394 citizens on the electoral register at
the beginning of the month was 'well below pre-war levels, and an indication of the
apoliticism of modern youth. A very discouraging sign.' Eventually the numbers
were boosted by an additional 3I,000.
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318 Laurence Whitehead
were 257,229 literate males aged 20 or more resident in Bolivia. Approaching
20,000 of these would be ineligible to register, either because they were not
yet 21, or because they were non-nationals. It seems, therefore, that 21 I,000
out of approximately 240,000, i.e. around 88 per cent of eligible citizens were
registered to vote on the eve of the revolution.
The President of the Republic was directly elected for a four year, non-
renewable, term and required an absolute majority of the votes cast. In 1873
and again in 1884 the front-running candidate for the Presidency had failed
to win an absolute majority, with the result that Congress was required to
choose between the three leading contenders. However, on both occasions
the candidate with the largest number of popular votes was ratified by
Congress. It seems that those who wished to thwart Paz Estenssoro's victory
in the i95 elections first attempted to alter the count in order to deny him
an absolute majority of the popular vote. Thereafter, had there been no
military coup they would have needed to persuade Congress to abandon the
practice of endorsing the front-running candidate, evidently no easy task.
Congress was bi-cameral with a department-wide electorate as the con-
stituency for senatorial contests, and a province-wide electorate for each
deputy. Each department (of which there were eight in 900o and nine in
195I) elected multiple senators (two per department in 900o, three per
department in I950), each for a six-year term. Provincial deputies were
elected for a four-year term according to the single member constituency,
first past the post system, but there were multiple member constituencies in
the departmental capitals (which elected four members each - apart from
La Paz which elected six). The number of deputies in Congress rose from
72 in I900 to 112 in I952, more or less matching the population increase.
However, although the average deputy represented around 25,000 in-
habitants, his electorate had not reached 2,000 votes even in I95I. Many
were elected by little more than a clique of friends. For example, in 1944 the
MNR leader and future President, Hernan Siles Suazo, was elected deputy
for Murillo province, La Paz department, with only 319 votes cast in his
favour (by 1946 he had boosted the figure to 400). Paz Estenssoro, the
founder and Jefe of the MNR, who came from a leading political family in
the southern city of Tarija, was elected deputy for Tarija in I940 with 484
votes. In the more isolated provinces the figures could be more startling.
Thus, for example, the Marxist printer Fernando Sifiani, was elected for the
bleak frontier province of Sud Lipez in 1950 by 79 votes to 24.
What proportion of this electorate were mineworkers? No precise answer
is possible and in any case the politically significant dimension was probably
not so much occupational status as exposure to the influence of the militant
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Miner as Voters 319
and (in 195 i) outlawed Miners' Federation. Thus, for example, unemployed
and retired mineworkers, even those who had left the mining camps alto-
gether, were probably strongly under the influence of their union, as were
many small traders operating in the ambit of the large mining camps.
Workers in the smaller or more isolated mines, on the other hand, might still
be largely untouched by the proselytism of the labour movement. All that the
available statistics enable us to calculate is the proportion of the electorate
located in cities and provinces where union influence was likely to be very
strong, and where a high proportion of the electorate must have been mine-
workers. For example, the cities of Oruro and Potosi between them con-
tributed Io per cent of the total electorate (I2,516 and 8,321 registered
voters respectively). It would be conservative to count at least one quarter of
these as either miners, ex-miners, or close relatives of miners, nearly all of
whom must have been directly exposed to FSTMB propaganda. Turning to
the major mining provinces, the proportion must have been considerably
higher. On a conservative estimate, I conclude that at the national level at
least I5,000 voters must have been fully enrolled members of the Miners'
Federation in 1951. A more generous, but perhaps more realistic, estimate
would be 20,000, and, if former members and close relatives of members of
the union were included, a considerably higher figure would result. In
summary, the Federation had pretty direct influence over the political out-
look of at least 7 per cent of the total electorate, with 10 per cent my own
best guess, and 5 per cent not a very farfetched claim.
It is within this context that one should assess the political influence that
could be exercised by Bolivia's mineworkers once they were organized to cast
their votes as a bloc. Even before the First World War there were at least
half-a-dozen provinces where the local economy was dominated by large-scale
mining activities and where, therefore, the literate element in the labour force
would make up a large proportion of the deputy's electorate. Since most of
the mining provinces were concentrated in the Departments of Potosi and
Oruro (which also contained substantial contingents of mineworkers and
railway employees living in the respective departmental capitals), similar
considerations would presumably affect the electoral calculations of almost a
quarter of Bolivia's senators.
Finally, as I shall demonstrate at the end of this paper, the mining vote
could at times have a significant impact even on the outcome of presidential
elections, above all if it could be mobilized behind a single candidate.
In principle, therefore, the system of representation in pre-revolutionary
Bolivia gave the mineworkers disproportionate influence, by virtue of their
occupational characteristics. For the mining industry concentrated together
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320 Laurence Whitehead
relatively large numbers of adult male wage earners, frequently able at least
to sign their names, into provinces which lacked other modern sources of
employment. It gave them a strong sense of collective solidarity that could be
generalized from individual camps into a nationwide sense of common
identity; it gave them powerful common aspirations and grievances; and it
facilitated collective organization to an extent that was virtually unobtainable
in the rest of Bolivian society. All this coexisted with an electoral system that
disenfranchized the two majority categories of Bolivian society - peasant
cultivators (almost all illiterate), and women (disbarred by custom from
entering a mineshaft) - and that was slanted, by the single member constitu-
ency and the first past the post system, in favour of highly concentrated or
organized minorities of the electorate. But, of course, in pre-revolutionary
Bolivia it was not the electorate which exercised effective power. On the
contrary among the most important elements in the power structure were the
handful of major mining enterprises that became known as the rosca or the
super-estado minero.6
It is, therefore, necessary to examine the informal processes by which the
formal system of representation was 'managed' in favour of the economic
elites.
(ii) The Informal System of Electoral Management
Bolivia is a country of great regional diversity, so that a systematic descrip-
tion of pre-revolutionary electoral management would have to include local
circumstances that varied from the huge, almost unpopulated, Amazon fief-
dom of Suarez Hermanos to the intense provincial rivalries found within
such closed and university-influenced cities as Sucre and Cochabamba.
Here we are concerned with miners as voters, and it is, therefore, the system
of management that operated in the cordillera mining zones that will occupy
our attention. But it should not be forgotten that other forms of elite
domination were experienced in other parts of Bolivia, so that during the
I94ps the parties of the left and the MNR found targets for their revolu-
tionary mobilization on a nationwide scale.
With regard to the mining zones, an early manifestation of the degree of
elite control over the electorate was provided by El Diario on February 26th,
1913:
On the political front, don Sim6n I. Patifio has control over the province of
Bustillo in the Department of Potosi and the province of Huanuni in the Depart-
6 For the rise to political leadership of the mineworkers, see Guillermo Lora, A History
of the Bolivian Labour Movement (1848-I971) (CUP I977), Chapter Four. On the
term 'rosca' see pp. 383-4.
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Miner as Voters 321
ment of Oruro. His control there is sufficient to tip the balance to whatever side
he chooses. In the province of Ayopaya in the Department of Cochabamba a new
and prosperous mining enterprise is being established at Kami which is entirely
owned by Sefior Patifio who... possesses all the elements necessary for electoral
success in that province.7
What were the elements necessary for such success? First, of course, one
must have sufficient dependents resident in the province and eligible to vote.
Consider the example of Bustillo province, mentioned above. In the May
19I4 congressional elections the Liberals (the ruling party, which enjoyed
Patifio's support) received so many votes in this remote and hitherto neglected
province that the opposition Conservatives felt certain they were the victims
of a fraud. Not so, according to the Prefect of Potosi, who pointed out that:
merely in the mining district of Uncia and Llallagua there are a great many
workers, nearly all of whom are literate... according to the latest statistics pro-
vided by the mining firms of Patifio and Llallagua the district has 4,206 persons
employed by the two enterprises, of which 3,894 are of Bolivian nationality.8
He went on to estimate that adding in artisans and urban workers the
adult male workforce in this mining zone probably exceeded 7,000 persons.
Evidently many of them had been registered to vote, and evidently these
voters were thought very susceptible to the preferences of the leading
employer in the area.
Indeed, so large was this contingent of voters that in I9II the Liberal
Party of Potosi had invited Sim6n I. Patifio to stand as its candidate at the
forthcoming senatorial elections. Patifio declined, but his biographer reports
that on May 26th, I 91 he wrote to the manager of the Tupiza branch of the
Banco Mercantil (which he owned):
My lawyer and friend, Dr. Atiliano Aparicio, has launched his candidacy as a
Senator for the Department of Potosi where the elections will be held next
month... I would like you, if it is not too much trouble, to use your influence in
your provinces and work in support of Sr. Aparicio.9
7 El Diario, quoted in Juan Albarracin Millan, El Poder Minero en la Administracion
Liberal (La Paz, 1972), pp. 191-2.
8 Informe del Prefecto (Potosi, June 1914), p. 21. It might be suspected that the Prefect
was exaggerating the extent of literacy among the miners to conceal an electoral
fraud. However, when Heraclio Bonilla examined the company records on 1,447
workers hired at the Peruvian mine of Morococha in I920, he found 65 per cent
classified as able to read, and 69 per cent as able to write. El Minero de los Andes
(Lima, 1974), p. 82.
9 Quoted in Charles Geddes, Patino: The Tin King (London, 1972), p. 121. Aparicio
was duly elected Senator and became a well-known parliamentary spokesman for
Patifio's interests.
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322 Laurence Whitehead
Employees and dependents entitled to vote, and bank managers available
to use their influence with the electorate, each clearly provided useful in-
gredients towards electoral success. However, opponents of the Liberal Party
did not consider these sufficient explanation for the scale of its triumphs.
In the words of Bautista Saavedra when he broke away from the Liberal
Party to join up with opposition Republicans: 'the suffrage has become the
exclusive business of sub-prefects, corregidores and the police'.10 The
question, therefore, arises of how much influence a mining proprietor could
exercise over the sub-prefect of his province. One clue is provided by Patifio's
biographer, who records a letter dated December 20th, 191 o from the mining
magnate to his friend the Minister of Government, recommending a candi-
date to fill the vacant post of sub-prefect of Bustillo province.l Another
indicator is provided by the Prefect of Potosi who, in the report previously
mentioned, observed that one sub-prefect in his jurisdiction had recently
resigned in order to become manager of an important mining enterprise.12
In 1916 the Prefect of Oruro amplified the point, observing that in the
mining zones of Antequera, Avicaya and Totoral it was impossible to find
an inhabitant who was not dependent on the mining companies.
It is impossible to secure independent officials there who will really exercise their
own authority.... No government official can resist the power of the mining
companies, indeed one would be sacked from his post and even thrown out of his
house if he came down against the interests of the mineowners.13
Similarly, it was argued in Congress in 1922 that sub-prefects could not be
expected to arbitrate fairly in mine labour disputes, since the pay of such an
official was a mere 200 bolivianos a month, compared with the double or
more that would be earned by the employee of a mining company. These sub-
prefects 'undoubtedly feel themselves undermined and come to depend not
on the government, but on the patron'.l4
The capacity to mobilize the miners' vote rested, therefore, less with the
governing Liberal Party as such than with the mineowners who perhaps
chose to align themselves with it. Some important mining magnates, such as
the former Conservative President Aniceto Arce, chose to enlist with the
opposition. The same occurred in the case of Carlos Vfctor Aramayo, Patiino's
main competitor in the tin mining sector, who joined the opposition Repub-
licans and, in May I915, duly secured his election as deputy for Sud Chichas
10 Quoted in Albarracin Millan, op. cit., p. 212. 11 Geddes, op. cit., p. 120.
12 Informe del Prefecto, op. cit., p. 9.
I3 Quoted in Albarracin Millan, op. cit., p. 271.
14 Quoted in Redactor de la Hon. Cdmara de Diputados, Tomo VII (La Paz, 1922),
April 4 1922 debate, p. 35.
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Miner as Voters 323
(the province where his mines were located). In this particular instance the
Liberals denounced improper electoral influence by a mining magnate.
It seems possible that the foreign-owned mining companies (like United
Copper Mines of Corocoro, which predominated in the province of Pacajes)
may have been more wary of too direct involvement in Bolivian party politics,
although their capacity for local control can hardly have been very different.
The potential risks were highlighted in the 1917 elections when Aramayo,
campaigning for re-election, was arrested by the Liberal government on the
charge of flouting the authority of the sub-prefect.
Three periods of more genuine electoral freedom can now be considered,
all of which indicated to dominant economic interests the dangerous con-
sequences of allowing representation from any political organizations to
penetrate the socially isolated world of the mining camp. The three periods
are the elections of 1923, 1940 and I944.
After the revolution of July i2th (I920) there was a great working class move-
ment in the mining centres of Oruro; the proletariat believed that the change of
regime provided a good moment for the working class to put forward its demands,
but they were wrong.
The mineworkers of San Jose and the Socabon led the movement, and reached
a satisfactory settlement with the management. . the problem was solved in
under 24 hours, and although the movement contained subversive tendencies
there was no recourse to prefectural authority.
The contract that emerged, as I said, was favourable to the working class; but
unfortunately the capitalists, as ever, tried to evade not only the terms of their
agreement with the workers, but even the very law itself, using their habitual
resources. Thus it was that the miners of Oruro were cheated and the working
class leaders who had negotiated the settlement were thrown out of their jobs.15
Such was the climate of political innovation from 1920 to I923 that
speeches such as this (by a socialist congressman from Oruro in April 1922)
could be heard in the seat of government for the first time. A minority of
congressmen proclaimed their first allegiance was to the labour unions rather
than to the governing (Republican) party, and spoke out vehemently on
behalf of their working class electors. Indeed, there were deputies who went
further, leading them into direct confrontations with the employers. But
although the Republican government had supported trade union organiza-
tion, and was in part relying on the support of lower class electors to
counterbalance the hostility of displaced elite groups, it was in no way
inclined to be led by this minority of socialist deputies. Such prominent mine-
owners as Aniceto Arce and Carlos Victor Aramayo were also associated with
the Republican Party and, even in relation to Patifno, the government's
15 Redactor, op. cit., April i 1922, p. 26.
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324 Laurence Whitehead
intention was to reach an accommodation. The Republicans' problem of
electoral management was, therefore, to prevent the socialists from out-
bidding them for the labour vote, while convincing the mineowners and
other large employers that it was in their best interest to collaborate with a
government dependent on lower class support.
The I923 Elections
The elections of May 1923 demonstrated the near impossibility of containing
the social tensions of the mining camps within the framework of a liberal-
democratic electoral process. One of the first signs in Bustillo province that an
election was under way was the appointment in March and April 1923 of a
new sub-prefect and a new police intendente at Llallagua, both of whom
were willing to listen sympathetically to workers' grievances, and therefore
to curb the normally absolute power of the mining company managers.16
The next development was the creation on May Ist of an independent
regional labour organization based on the provincial capital, but intended to
embrace workers in the adjacent mining camps, the Federacion Obrera
Central de Uncia (FOCU). On May 4th (i.e., two days before the election)
the Minister of Government acknowledged the existence of this new organ-
ization, which noisily supported the intendente and denounced the abuses of
the mine managers. However, on May 8th, two days after the election was
safely completed, the two leading mining companies in the district avowed
that they would not recognize the Federation. Instead a company union was
set up. On May 12th, Patifio's Llallagua company forbade any of its
employees to leave the mining camp, on pain of dismissal, and forbade the
entry on to its premises of all non-employees. Apparently the company
lawyers (one of them himself a member of the Liberal Party) then began
sending cables to the government in La Paz, urging it to outlaw FOCU on
the grounds that under the pretence of being a labour organization it was in
fact preparing a revolution, following the leadership of the Liberal party,
which had just abstained in the previous week's elections.17
With the elections out of the way, the government's priorities evidently
shifted towards reassuring the employees who had felt threatened by the
disruptive forces that a few weeks of political campaigning had unleashed.
By May ist, FOCU claimed, despite the sacking of some of its supporters, to
have recruited I,800 members from among the employees of the two mining
16 The activities of these officials are described in a well documented memoir by the
President of FOCU, Gumercindo Rivera, La Masacre de Uncia (Oruro, I967),
pp. I4ff., 53ff., I52ff.
17 Op. cit., pp. 19, 23, 25, 30, 49, 52.
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Miner as Voters 325
enterprises, and by the end of that month it claimed a total membership
(for the whole Uncia region) of 4,000. Here was a force potentially capable
of dominating the mining zone and overthrowing managerial authority there.
In fact, its significance extended beyond this particular mining zone, for it
was part of a series of local labour Federations operating from the mining
centres of Corocoro, Machacamarca and Oruro, as well as La Paz and major
railway centres. The organizers of FOCU tried to counter the allegation that
they were part of a subversive plot by opposition parties, by vehemently
denying such charges and publicizing their grievances against the mine
management. Help was sought from the deputy elect for Bustillo province,
Pedro N. L6pez. The President of FOCU made a serious effort to reach a
peaceful settlement that would have enabled FOCU to establish itself on a
permanent basis. Instead, the confrontation escalated, until on June 4th the
so-called massacre of Uncia brought to a violent conclusion the first brief
effort at independent trade union organization in the mines which had been
facilitated by the short interlude of electoral campaigning.
Pedro N. L6pez, long an admirer of President Saavedra's advanced views
on labour issues, was re-elected deputy for Bustillo province on May 6th
1923. However, his efforts at compromise only evoked distrust on both sides.
On May 3 st, an agent informed the President that subversion was under way
in the mines and among the peasantry, adding 'perceptibly mixed up in all
this is deputy Pedro N. Lopez, who is sending all kinds of advice through
the post'. On the other side, what the labour organizers remembered about
L6pez was that after the massacre he voted in favour of the state of siege
measures proclaimed on June Ist. 'It is extremely odd that a national repre-
sentative should thus endorse a cruel repression, directed against the very
workers of the districts that he represented. They raised him up with their
votes, convinced that whatever happened their representative would know
how to defend the rights of the working class. How wrong they were '18
Nevertheless, L6pez was re-elected in 1925, and served until I929.
For a generation after 1923 managerial authority was not opposed by
any effective organization in this, or most other, Bolivian mining camps.
Therefore, the best an elected representative could provide for his constituents
was a series of favours and services on an individualistic basis. That, at least,
was the technique adopted by L6pez after the labour repression of I923.
Looking back, in I929, on his parliamentary career, he summarized it as
follows:
Since I became a deputy I have been deeply concerned about the social problems
which became prominent in the affairs of the Republic after the European war.
18 Ibid., p. I54 and p. 6I.
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326 Laurence Whitehead
Therefore, as a legislator I put forward various proposals, commented on others,
and took part in debates on the laws regulating these affairs. As a lawyer I defended
many poor workers without charge, as those who have visited my offices in La Paz
can testify. As a friend of many of them I contributed to the cost of their return
to their homes, or otherwise assisted them. An account of my invariably generous
interventions in successive social conflicts would require a pamphlet all on its
own.19
This was all that was left from the radical euphoria that accompanied the
I920 revolution. Indeed, even this degree of responsiveness to the interests of
the mining electorate was more than could be accommodated by the Bolivian
political system during the early I930S.
The I93I Elections
Despite the illusions initially harboured by some protagonists, the military
coup of 1930 soon proved the opportunity for a resurgence of conservative
forces, all the more determined to contain popular demands because the
economic situation was deteriorating so drastically and the risk of war with
Paraguay could be seen to be advancing.20 Nevertheless, the politicians who
came to power in I930 were identified with the cause of honest and fair
elections. How, then, were the prescribed forms to be observed, while in
practice the lower class majority of the electorate remained demobilized?
An uncontested presidential election seemed the appropriate formula, and
this was agreed by all the main political parties in favour under the new
regime. However, there was more. The Liberals hit on a further device
calculated to reduce participation by the least educated fraction of the
electorate. Before i931, the practice had been for the elector to select a
printed slip, containing the name of his chosen candidate, and seal it in an
envelope. However:
For the elections of January 4th 1931 a new official regulation stipulated that the
voter must write out in long-hand, in a darkened cubicle, the names of the
candidates for whom he wished to cast his vote. This apparently minor alteration
had a concealed political motive: to handicap the voters of the Republican party -
in both of its branches. This party - as it is known - had a popular base of sup-
port, and its numerical strength came from the working class in the cities, and
the peasantry in the provinces. Therefore, among its supporters could be numbered
many voters for whom the action of writing was slow, and perhaps even disagree-
able... By contrast the Liberal party had for twenty years based itself upon the
public employees for whom such voting was straightforward.21
19 Pedro N. Lopez, Mi Labor Parlamentario (Potosi, 1929), p. 33.
20 See L. Whitehead, 'The Impact of the Great Depression in Bolivia'. Proceedings of
the XL International Congress of Americanists (Genoa, I975), Vol. IV.
21 David Avlestequi, Salamanca (La Paz, 1962), Vol. III, p. 245. The Liberal Party
was applying the principles enunciated by its greatest leader, ex-President Ismael
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Miner as Voters 327
Daniel Salamanca was elected president with a mere 38,282 votes cast in
his favour. The Liberals emerged as the largest party in Congress, but the
number of votes cast was the lowest of all twentieth century elections.
With this mandate Salamanca led Bolivia into the depths of the depression
and the morass of the Chaco War.
The 1940 Elections
By the late I930S, however, a painful process of postwar consolidation was
under way, which included the gradual re-emergence of working class
organizations. In the mining zones the outbreak of the Second World War
greatly increased the demand for labour and gave a great impetus to this
process. Thus, the number of full-time workers employed in the major mines
rose from an estimated i6,ooo in I935, to 34,000 in i940, and a peak of
53,000 in I943.22 A breakdown of the figures for December I940 is pro-
vided in Table 2.
TABLE 2
Six miining centres employing over 2,000 workers each
Patino Mines Uncia) 5,444
Unificada de Potosi 4,134
Oruro 2 757
Aramayo Mines Tupiza) 2,55
Huanun 2 385
Huanchaca 2 246
Al above 33 818
Estimated total for all mines 50,000
Source: Max Quiroga Antezana, 'La situaci6n de la clase minera trabajadora
en Bolivia'. Revista Economica (Oruro) Nos. 7/8 July/September 195 I, p. IIo.
Montes, who had told Congress on December 5 1917, 'We have always believed
that Democracy does not involve the illiterate multitudes; that political parties,
whether in government or opposition, are organized to assume the responsibilities of
government and therefore cannot be the thoughtless aggregation of ignorant masses,
rceruited from the depths of society.' Quoted in Porfirio Diaz Machicao, Saavedra
(La Paz, I954), p. 39.
22 Figures for the 1940s from Ricardo Anaya, La Nacionalizacion de las Minas en
Bolivia (La Paz, I952), p. 83. The I935 estimate is based on an official report of
that year, El Estano en Bolivia (La Paz, I936).
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328 Laurence Whitehead
Assuming three dependants per wage earner, it was concluded that
200,000 persons directly depended on the major mines for their livelihood in
1940, and that many more depended indirectly, e.g., as shopkeepers, trans-
port workers, etc., providing services to the mining zone.
The elections of 1940 provided the first significant opportunity for political
organization in the mining zones since 1923. Table 2 shows that the
province of Bustillo (capital Uncfa) remained the leading centre of mining
employment, closely followed by the cities of Potosi and Oruro, and then the
province of Dalence (capital Huanuni). The impact of the mining electorate
can be judged under three headings: the overall presidential campaign; the
party allegiances revealed in the congressional results; and, in more detail
with regard to a specific mining constituency, Bustillo province.
The most influential writer on the political history of this period is almost
certainly Augusto Cespedes, who stood unsuccessfully as MNR candidate for
Bustillo province in 1942, and was elected deputy there in 1944. In his
account of the 940 elections he writes:
Peinaranda's only opponent was J. A. Arze, presidential candidate for the pro-
communist left... whose only object was to impress the foreign centres of
communism by mounting a presidential campaign ... although they did not know
of Arze, the mass of miners voted for him, attracted by the working class slant of
his campaign propaganda.23
Table 3 presents the published presidential results broken down by
department. It shows that over two-thirds of Arze's vote came from the two
mining departments of Oruro and Potosi, where he ran a respectable second
against the official candidate.
It is particularly interesting to consider Arze's vote in Oruro Department
where, according to the official figures, he received the votes of almost 40 per
cent of the registered electorate. In fact, he was initially credited with a lead
over Pefiaranda in that Department (2,587 votes for Arze against 1,663 for
Pefiaranda on March I3th).24 On the basis of these figures it seems rather
questionable whether Arze was as lacking in local organization and support
as Cespedes suggested.
Although the parties of the left were reported to be 'bitterly disappointed'
with the conglessional results, and to be 'indulging in the usual accusations
23 A. Cespedes, El Dictador Suicida (Santiago, 1956), p. 23I.
24 A leading supporter of Arze subsequently claimed that although the official candi-
date inevitably triumphed and was credited with 58,000 (sic) votes, 'we learnt later
that Arze had obtained 37,000 votes... his triumph was significant in such working-
class centres as Potosi, Oruro, Tupiza, Uyuni, etc., although we had not a cent to
pay for propaganda'. Miguel Bonifaz, Bolivia: Frustracion y Destino (Sucre, 1965),
p. 144.
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Miner as Voters 329
TABLE 3
940o Presidential Election
Department Arze Penaranda Bilbao Electorate
Potosi 4 7 6 8 448 366 I9 2 6
Oruro 3 482 5 080 214 9 264
La Paz I 117 19 862 -29 385
Cochabamba 3 1 7 776 1 630 I6 050
Chuquisaca I II7 6 628 - 7 405
Taria 52 4 244 - 6 020
Sana Cruz - 8 057 - i2 738
Ben - 2493 - 4o4
Pando - 3469 538
National 1 366 64 8 6 2 21 10o4 612
Source: La Radon (La Paz) March 3rd I940 and May i5th I940. These results
were described as 'still not quite real' two months after the election. The total
for Pefiaranda exceeds the sum of the column by 382.
of bribery and corruption', they did succeed in electing a few deputies.
The city of Potosi elected two deputies listed in the press as 'communist', and
two 'independents' elected for provinces of Potosi were also, in fact, Marxist
and supporters of Arze's campaign. One of them, Raul Ruiz Gonzalez, was
elected for the mining provinces of Bustillo, with 842 votes.
Undoubtedly, the local organizations supporting Arze's candidacy must
have been weak and incipient compared with the relatively elaborate party
structures that were to develop in a few years. Nevertheless, it should not
be supposed that his movement was operating in a vacuum, or merely trying
to impress a foreign audience. The brief interlude of political freedom
occasioned by the election campaign had enabled Arze to return from exile
in Chile. There was already an organized movement awaiting his leadership.
The Conferencia Nacional de Izquierdas initially resolved on abstention from
the March Ioth elections, but was available to reverse its policy and mount
a lightning campaign once the circumstances seemed propitious, and it had
significant local resources (student enthusiasts and trade union nuclei) avail-
able for sudden mobilization.
The campaign in Bustillo province provides an illustration. In 1940 Raul
Ruiz Gonzalez took advantage of the election campaign to sponsor a miners'
sindicato in Patifio's main fiefdom. He was a former student activist, an
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330 Laurence Whitehead
impecunious schoolteacher and leading member of the Frente Popular de
Potosi. The prospect of obtaining a deputy who would instruct and defend
the sindicato must have contributed to the electoral appeal of Ruiz Gonzalez.
The legal identity of the sindicato was finally recognized by President
Pefiaranda on January Ioth I94I and its founders subsequently recalled their
organizational efforts as follows:
As the result of real struggles against Patifio the Sindicato ... was organised by
determined working class leaders... During this massive endeavour, we always
received determined and disinterested support from Comrade Raul Ruiz Gonzailez,
whose speeches and personal reflections on the importance of sindicatos contri-
buted effectively to the growth of our movement. We are also indebted to him for
the drafting of our statutes and the securing of our legal identity... He has been
a real inspiration to our sindicato, our best defender, and always a calm and
balanced adviser to us.25
Ruiz Gonzalez was a Marxist, and he sought to teach the labour leaders a
Marxist view of society and trade unionism. He stressed that the right to
strike was explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution, and also that it was a
responsibility of the trade union to give a socialist education to its members,
for from the labour movement would develop an entirely new society. It may
be suspected that some of his rather abstract propositions were hard for most
of his audience to grasp.26 However, his suggestions for union organization
(enshrined in the Statutes) had more practical effect. Membership was open
to all manual and clerical workers, not only of Patifio Mines, but also those
employed by any other enterprise in the province of Bustillo, provided they
were over I8 years old, had not been expelled from any other union 'for
betraying the cause of the workers', and were willing to pay whatever
subscription might be fixed by a general assembly of the membership.
(Subscriptions were to be collected fortnightly, but members who became
unemployed would be excused payment). The political significance of the
union was highlighted by the fact that the limits to membership were
defined by the province rather than the company (so that the union might
embrace the largest possible proportion of the constituency electorate) and
that the Secretary-General was obliged to report bi-monthly on the activities
of the union to the local deputy, while the executive committee (of six,
elected by a roll-call of members every two years and only eligible for re-
25 A document dated 1942 quoted in Irineo Pimental, Unidad Sindical y Lucha Por
Mejores Condiciones de Vida (Siglo XX, May 1960), p. 208.
26 An example of his abstract mode of presentation can be found in Ibid., pp. 173-82.
He later became a Professor of Economics and founder in 1950 of the Bolivian
Communist Party. In 1964 he was a leader of the pro-Chinese breakaway movement
which he represented in the People's Assembly in I97I.
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Miner as Voters 331
election in the case of a unanimous vote) was expected to remain 'in
permanent contact' with him.
On the evidence from Bustillo procince, it would seem that the election of
I940 was a major turning point in the political history of the mining work-
force. Conducted in a climate of relative freedom, the election enabled a
Marxist organizer to gain access to a labour force hitherto insulated from
outside political influence by the management's power of local control.
He not only gained access to them but secured his own election and the
establishment of an independent labour organization deeply influenced by his
ideas. The system of electorate management that had, until then, protected
the economic status quo, had apparently broken down. But to some extent
I940 proved a false dawn for the labour movement. It was not until the 1944
election that the fundamental breach would come and then it was not the
Popular Front movement that would inherit the political leadership of the
mining proletariat, but rather their bitter rivals in the nationalist movement
which traced its origin to participation in the Chaco War. What, then, were
the limitations of the 1940 breakthrough?
First, of course, despite his good showing, Arze had not won the presi-
dency. The decisive executive power was firmly in the hands of his opponents.
When Arze requested assurances that the legal rights of his Front would be
respected (May 1940), he was promised full protection 'so long as your
movement remains authentically Bolivian'.27 Arze proceeded to organize a
Congress in Oruro at which his movement was organized into a political
party, the Partido de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (PIR), whose objectives
included the nationalization of the mines. The Congress was due to meet
from July 25th to 30th, but after the first two days had witnessed mounting
violence (allegedly orchestrated by the authorities), all meetings were banned,
a state of siege was proclaimed and 26 leaders (including Arze himself, were
arrested and despatched to a military camp in the Amazon. Most were held
for three months. Thus the relative freedom of the election campaign was
soon followed by a reversion to more normal conditions with most forms of
opposition subject to harassment and repression.
In the mining zones the result was that managerial supremacy was once
again backed up by government support, and any opposition-linked move-
ment that wished to preserve its freedom to organize would have to proceed
with extreme caution to survive. However, for an incipient sindicato,
proceeding with extreme caution would mean low morale and low recruit-
ment of members. Given the public intention to nationalize the mines,
management would remain hostile however moderately the PIR's union
27 Porfirio Diaz Machicao, Pegaranda (La Paz, I950), p. 28.
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332 Laurence Whitehead
wing behaved. In any case, as war-induced employment rapidly increased in
the mining camps, it produced acute social problems of overcrowding and
scarcity, aggravated by inflation. Such social conditions would have provided
an ideal setting for aggressive union organization had not the balance of
national and local power been so adverse to the union organizers. As it was,
by the middle of the war they still had few concrete gains to show for all
their efforts, which helps explain why the mine-workers were so easily won
away from the PIR.
The 1942 Elections
In fact, despite the promising statistics of the I940 election, Arze's movement
had secured no more than a toe-hold in the mining camps before the end
of 1942. In the cities of Potosi and Oruro the largest element in the local
labour movement was the miners' union (with 2,000 and 1,500 members,
respectively reported in 1939), strengthened by the proximity of the mines to
the administrative centres, the railway network and, perhaps most impor-
tantly, to the provincial universities. But in the main mining provinces the
miners' unions were weaker, and almost the only means of access to the
workers was through the local congressmen. On this score the PIR's success
in Bustillo was something of an exception. In Aramayo's old stamping
ground of Sud Chichas a pro-government deputy was elected, and the two
other largest mining camps, Huanuni (Dalence province, Department of
Oruro) and Corocoro (Pacajes province, Department of La Paz), independent
deputies were elected who, although anti-management, opted to align them-
selves in 1942 with the newly organized nationalist MNR rather than the
Marxist PIR. Worst of all for the PIR, despite the support of his sindicato,
in May 1942 Ruiz Gonzalez lost his seat.
There were two rival sindicatos established in the province of Bustillo at
this time (one based on the mining camp of Llallagua and the other on the
nearby ore concentration plant of Catavi). Each supported a different candi-
date. but neither was strong enough to secure the election of its favourite.
In fact a local lawyer supported by Patifio Mines won the seat, with the
MNR candidate, supported by the Catavi sindicato, second, and Ruiz
Gonzalez, backed by the Llallagua sindicato, third.
From early on the MNR and the PIR had adopted radically different
attitudes towards the World War. An Axis victory would not have been
considered by the MNR a tragedy for Bolivian national interests. But for
the PIR the defeat of the Soviet Union would have been a catastrophe for the
international labour movement and the cause of socialism. It followed that
after the collapse of the Nazi-Soviet Pact the strategy of the PIR was guided
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Miner as Voters 333
by two conflicting criteria. On the one hand the Marxists wanted to build up
their organization within Bolivia, for which purpose they needed to champion
popular causes; but at the same time they were determined to help the anti-
Axis cause in every way possible, including restraining strikes that might
impede the flow of war materials and co-operating with anti-fascist business
interests. Unfortunately for them, it was Bolivia's foreign-based mining and
railway companies that were making the country's main contribution to the
Allied war effort. These companies were expanding their output not, of
course, by means of new investment (which was almost impossible in war-
time), but by demanding longer hours and stricter work discipline from their
workers. As a nationalist movement the MNR could make the most of the
workers' grievances against the foreign companies, whereas the PIR's inter-
nationalism compelled restraint. Ruiz Gonzalez ruefully admits the con-
sequences for his support base in Patifio Mines:
It is easy to understand why in such harsh conditions, the workers in the mines
felt a growing hatred of the gringos who worked as managers, engineers and
foremen. With yanquis in positions of command over the workforce some of
them were so disoriented as to sympathise with Nazi Germany, since it was after
all the enemy of the U.S.A. during the war years.28
The I944 Elections
Faced with international hostility, which took the form of six months non-
recognition, combined with internal resistance from the mine-workers and
other threatened economic interests, the Villarroel government was in-
escapably driven to mobilize new bases of popular support. A key target of
its strategy was naturally occupied by the mineworkers, at the peak of their
numerical strength owing to wartime demands for minerals, and better
placed than at any time since the First World War to exert economic pressure
in defence of their living conditions. Furthermore, these living conditions had
in fact deteriorated under the pressures of inflation, overcrowding, and
shortages that accompanied the war. The establishment of the nationwide
FSTMB in June I944 needs to be viewed in the context of this national
situation, so exceptional in its political, its economic, and also in its social
characteristics. The similarities with Peronism naturally attract attention, but
in Bolivia it was a political party allied to the military, the MNR, that took
the lead in mobilizing mass support, rather than a military conspirator as in
the case of Per6n himself.
Although the MNR had been in contact with the Catavi sindicato as early
as 1942, and may have encouraged the intransigence which led to the
28 Raul Ruiz Gonzalez, Bolivia, el Prometeo de los Andes (Buenos Aires, I96I), p. 99.
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334 Laurence Whitehead
massacre, no party had much of an organization there before December 2oth
1943, the date on which Villarroel's faction within the army seized power,
bestowing three ministries on the MNR. The party did not insist on the
Ministry of Labour, and that post went to an independent. It was, however,
interested in nominating militants to positions of influence in local govern-
ment and sought in that way to extend its influence in the mines immedi-
ately after taking office. On the suggestion of Hernan Siles Suazo (deputy
chief of the party), Juan Lechin was appointed sub-prefect of Uncia (a post,
the significance of which has been established in a previous section), and
Luis Pelaez Rioja mayor of Huanuni. Between them they were to create the
FSTMB. Both had joined the MNR before Villarroel took power, at a time
when the party had, at most, a few hundred active members.
Both officials began to use their new positions to curb the authority of the
respective company managers.
Mr. Lechin went and set about two overbearing 'gringos'; he put a halt to the
abuses of authority committed by the company police, and that alone sufficed to
rally the masses immediately behind Lechin and the MNR.29
As for the mayor of Huanuni,
A few days later the President (Villarroel) received a cable from the company
(Patifo Mines) protesting against a fine of 25,000 bolivianos imposed by the
mayor because the scales weighing meat in the company stores were inaccurate.
A majority of members of the new junta regarded this as over-reaction by the
mayor, who should be sacked. I wrote that independent local authorities had been
appointed precisely in order to finish with the habitual frauds perpetrated by the
companies against the workers. The problem was resolved by a disposition
suspending the fine 'on this occasion'.30
These quotations demonstrate the initial caution of the Villarroel govern-
ment and the vulnerability of its radical new appointees in the mining zone.
However, by June 1944 they were ready to convene a founding congress of
the FSTMB, which was held under the auspices of the mayor. A few weeks
beforehand, however, the Minister of the Interior, allegedly under pressure
from the U.S. government's representative, Mr Avra Warren, had begun to
'arrange' congressional elections at which the MNR candidates were to be
defeated (the Party's ministers had been dropped as early as March because
29 Hernan Quiroga, Pirista editor of the Oruro newspaper La Patria (the paper with
most coverage of developments in the mines) speaking in Congress, September 25
1947, quoted in Patino Mines, op. cit., p. 170.
30 Augusto Cespedes, El Presidente Colgado (Buenos Aires, 1966), p. I34. Cespedes
was the MNR's defeated candidate in Bustillo province in 1942. In early 1944 he
was writing for the nationalist La Paz daily La Calle.
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Miner as Voters 335
of their pro-Axis sympathies).31 When the MNR decided to renominate
Augusto Cespedes as their candidate for Bustillo province, 'Lechin received
messages from the government telling him how pleased it would be if this
time the seat was won by mineworkers'.32 Lechin, however, in common
with the other MNR nominees, was uncooperative, and as a result all
civilian prefects and sub-prefects were sacked and replaced by military at the
end of May.
On May 20th I944, Ambassador Warren held a final meeting with
President Villarroel over the terms for U.S. recognition. According to the
Warren Report,
Ambassador Warren was told by Villarroel that he considered the MNR to have
no practical possibility of receiving a majority in the coming elections or of com-
bining with other parties to secure one... The Government is approaching the
July elections with confidence and from present indications will not find it neces-
sary to lean heavily for support on any one party or class but will rather depend
principally on independents elected because of individual reputations rather than
on party labels. It hopes also to receive a good percentage of the labor vote.
Ambassador Warren received the same indication from talks with labor leaders.
The 40,000 members of the worker's federation hold the balance in any Bolivian
election. They give their support to the political group presenting the most
favorable social program. Bolivian politicians remember that in the last general
election only 84,000 ballots were cast out of an estimated total population of three
and one-half millions and consider the labor vote to be the determining factor...
Conversations held during Ambassador Warren's stay in La Paz made it clear,
however, that many working men have confidence in the sincerity of the Villar-
roel regime's pro-labor declarations and that a number of PIR 'regulars' will
support the provisional government. Negotiations have been under way for
mutual support with a wing of the Liberal Party, one of the more conservative of
the old-line groups; ... 3
It was, therefore, by no means a foregone conclusion that the military
government would remain allied to the MNR, nor could that party rely
on its influence in official circles to secure it favourable electoral results.
31 On Avra Warren, see Cole Blasier, 'The United States, Germany and the Bolivian
Revolutionaries, I94I-6', Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 52, No. I,
February 1972, pp. 40-4. However, Blasier does not mention Warren's unsuccessful
attempt to limit the MNR's representation in Congress. According to Victor Paz
Estenssoro (interview, Lima, August I2 1969), much later: 'I had a long conver-
sation with Avra Warren, the American official who negotiated the terms and
conditions for U.S. recognition of the revolutionary government... (including that)
we (the MNR) be expelled from the Cabinet; and that we should not win more than
20 seats in the 1944 election. All the conditions were fulfilled, except the last - the
MNR won more than 50 seats.' (According to other sources, of the I36 seats in the
Constituent Assembly - I09 for deputies and 27 for Senators - the MNR won 66.)
32 Cespedes, op. cit., p. I50.
33 The Warren Report (Washington: National Archives, 824:oo/3i96B).
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336 Laurence Whitehead
Just as the Villarroel government required some form of popular mobilization
as a reinforcement against its internal and external enemies, so the MNR
needed to demonstrate its strength of support in order to retain its influence
with the military regime. The 1944 Congressional elections were thus a
genuine trial of political strength, as important in their own way as elections
in well established democracies. Under the electoral system then in force, the
mineworkers were a decisive proportion of the electorate and it was the
MNR that succeeded, by means of vigorous and possibly even demagogic
campaigning, in garnering the great majority of the mineworkers' support.
By mid-May, the MNR's election campaign was in full swing. On June
Ioth, as the culmination of the MNR's election campaign, came the founding
Congress of the Miners' Federation in Huanuni, attended by delegates from
25 sindicatos, initially claiming to represent 45,000 miners (later in the week
the claim rose to 60,ooo). The new Federation was clearly identified with
the MNR and thus viewed with hostility by the PIR and the unions it con-
trolled. Of the io individuals elected to the Federation's first executive com-
mittee, six (including all the top four) later occupied prominent public
positions by courtesy of the MNR. The Congress proposed various measures
of legislation that would be popular with the labour force (e.g., a refund of
the one per cent that had been deducted from workers' payslips since I936 as
compulsory savings), and demanding polling booths in all mining centres
located more than 50 kilometres from a provincial capital.34
According to the MNR's victorious candidate for Bustillo Province:
On election day my task was to persuade the thousands of unregistered miners
that they could not vote, since they wanted to do so like those registered. In the
plaza of Llallagua they handed me a torch to light a bonfire and burn a puppet
representation of Pefiaranda. I obtained the biggest majority ever registered in
Bolivia under the system of limited suffrage and was almost crushed to death by
the crowds after the count.35
Similarly, in Dalence province (location of the Huanuni mine) the newly
elected General Secretary of the FSTMB, Emilio Carvajal, was elected for
the MNR party by 640 votes, against 340 for an independent and 129 for
the camp's long-established PIR leader. The MNR also won in Inquisivi
(Colquiri mine), and Arque (Kami mine) and captured three out of four seats
in the city of Oruro. All the major mines in the provinces listed above were
owned by Patinio.
84 '60.ooo Obreros de Minas Constituyeron su Federaci6n Sindical', La Calle (La Paz),
June I5 I944.
35 El Presidente Colgado, op. cit., p. 151. In fact Cespedes received 1,547 out of the
1,965 votes recorded.
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Miner as Voters 337
The outcome of the election campaign was essentially to strengthen the
MNR's hold on the national government, thereby providing a stronger base
for it to consolidate mineworkers' support and reinforce the nascent FSTMB.
The outcome also intensified the hostility and resistance of their rivals for
working class support, the PIR.
The MNR claimed much of the credit for the pro-labour measures taken
by the Villarroel government during 1944 and it was the party which in due
course gathered the fruits of those measures. The memoirs of party members
insist that their chief, Paz Estenssoro, was the inspiration behind the scenes,
urging the creation of the FSTMB to counterbalance the power of the
mining companies. The party's Stalinist critics, on the other hand, remember-
ing their recent experiences of imprisonment and intimidation, argued that
trade union freedoms had been suppressed and that a totalitarian form of
labour organization was being imposed on the workers from above, in
disregard of the representative union leadership.
Speaking in Congress on October 23rd I944, Paz Estenssoro sought to
refute the charge that Bolivian workers 'are subjected to forced labour of the
Nazi type'. He reminded the PIR of the labour record of the so-called
'democratic' parties with which they were now allied, and continued:
The MNR admits to total agreement with the PIR on one question of the greatest
importance: trade union freedom. But, to be exact, it is under the present govern-
ment that that freedom has been granted... Is it not under the present govern-
ment that the Miners' Federation has been organised? ... Bolivia's mineworkers
are true proletarians. And it is these mineworkers that the present regime has
requested, and even required, to join sindicatos, so that they will have an effective
instrument for the pursuit of their demands... the congressmen of the MNR,
accompanied by those of the PIR, proposed a similar law in the Congress of I943,
but at that time it failed to pass... owing to opposition from those with whom
the PIR is now allied. . . Furthermore, under the shalter of this revolutionary law
of Fuero Sindical (Trade Union Immunities), sindicatos have been organised in
various mining centres; and I would add that it has been the congressmen of the
MNR, like the Honourable Siles Suazo, who have sponsored these petitions and
assisted the process of legal recognition... What has happened is that the PIR,
with its eye on a very immediate and concrete objective, the coming elections, and
fearful of some persecution which it might suffer after the Revolution, has lost its
sense of historical perspective... its strongly reactionary attitude reflects the fear
that its own programme may be carried into effect by the MNR.36
It was with arguments like this that the MNR succeeded in undermining
the labour base of the rival workers' party. In the mines, where their success
was almost complete, not only debating points were scored. Since the Catavi
86 Victor Paz Estenssoro, Discursos Parlamentarios.
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338 Laurence Whitehead
massacre the MNR had systematically presented itself as the vanguard party
in the struggle against the mineowners, whereas the PIR had vacillated,
partly perhaps because of its 'stage theory' (capitalism needed to develop
further in Bolivia before the social basis for socialism could develop) but
mainly because the mineowners were reliably supplying the Allies with
strategic raw materials. From I944 onwards the MNR not only redoubled
its attacks on the companies and sponsored the formation of trade unions in
the mines. It also encouraged both economic demands and encroachments on
the authority of the mine management, both of which threatened to divert
energies from the task of securing maximum immediate production. This
strategy goes far to explain both the intensity of mineworker mobilization in
favour of radical social change and the intensity of mineowner and Pirista
resistance to such activities.
However, this intensification of class conflict in the mines did not bring
unconditional support from the mineworkers to the MNR. It was the
sindicato whose presence was felt at the work-place and which could claim
direct credit for advantages obtained. By contrast the MNR was in govern-
ment, with a responsibility for maintaining production and, indeed, it
pursued a rather cautious economic policy in order to prepare the country for
the strains of post-war depression. Not everything the party did was under-
stood and approved by the labour force in the mines, and the party, too,
was precariously placed to maintain tight control over its creation, the
FSTMB.
Nevertheless, during the partial renewal of Congress in May I946, the
MNR urgently needed a display of electoral strength in the mines. The
opposition, on the other hand, was made so desperate by the climate of
repression and class conflict that it abstained from the electoral campaign,
devoting its energies instead to the violent overthrow of the Villarroel
government (an objective finally achieved in July I946).
The I946 Elections
Although in national terms the May, I946 mid-term election was a somewhat
irrelevant sideshow compared to the real political struggles of that period, it
is of interest here. It provides the last test of popular mobilization and/or
orchestrated expression of MNR support in the mining camps before the
National Revolution. Although only one third of the seats in the Senate, and
one half in the lower house were up for re-election, it happens that the
mining departments of Oruro and Potosi were both selected for senatorial
campaigns (the MNR won five of the six senatorial vacancies) and deputies
were elected for the mining provinces of Pacajes (Corocoro mine), where an
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Miner as Voters 339
independent was elected; Sud Yungas (La Chojlla mine) and Sud Chichas
(Aramayo's mines), where MNR candidates were elected; and Inquisivi
(Colquiri mine) and Dalence (Huanuni mine) where FSTMB nominees
won, including Juan Lechin, for Huanuni. What these results, in fact, suggest
was that even in the mining zones the MNR's popularity and control over the
electorate was not unconditional. The MNR might prove transient, but the
mineworkers owed their first loyalty to their sindicato and would concen-
trate on trying to preserve the union, rather than the party.
In his report of the results, British Ambassador Rees highlighted the small
proportion of the population eligible to vote and the very low turnout of
those registered, which he attributed to absolute indifference and lack of civic
spirit, 'which defects have greatly favoured the local power politics of a
relatively well-organized and aggressive party like the MNR,' whose success
he attributed to 'their management' of elections in the provinces.37
However, a glance at the identity of those elected deputies with strong
support in the mining provinces casts some doubt on the success of MNR
management even there. In Dalence province the miners of Huanuni cast
1,084 votes for Juan Lechin, defeating the outgoing MNR depu