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Miners as Voters: The Electoral Process in Bolivia's Mining Camps

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Laurence Whitehead
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Extract

In the 1940s 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 expression 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.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1981 , pp. 313 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 For an analysis of the predicament of Bolivia's mineworkers during the 1960s and 1970s, see Laurence, Whitehead, ‘Sobre el radicalismo de los trabajadores mineros de Bolivia’, Revista Mexicana de Sociología (UNAM, Mexico City), No. 4, 1980.Google Scholar

2 Guillermo, Lora, A History of the Bolivian Labour Movement 1848–1971 (CUP, 1977).Google Scholar

3 Herbert, Klein, Parties and Political Change in Bolivia (CUP, 1968), p. 168. According to other sources, 30,500 votes were cast in the 1884 Presidential contest; 40,800 in 1904; 69,000 in 1913; and 86,000 in 1917. There was no election in 1926.Google Scholar

4 From the Presidential message to Congress, August 1921, quoted in Carlos, Aramayo Alzerreca, Saavedra: El Ultimo Caudillo (La Paz, 1941), pp. 188–90.Google Scholar

5 On March 16 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. 371/21418/A3062/984/S. Two years later La Razón (La Paz) commented editorially on February 14 1940, that the 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 suo;. Eventually the numbers were boosted by an additional 31,000.

6 For the rise to political leadership of the mineworkers, see Guillermo, Lora, A History of the Boliuian Labour Moucment (1848–1971) (CUP 1977), Chapter Four. On the term ‘rosca’ see pp. 383–4.Google Scholar

7 El Diario, quoted in Juan, Albarracín Millan, El Poder Minero en la Administración Liberal (La Paz, 1972), pp. 191–2.Google Scholar

8 Informe del Prefecto (Potosí, , 06 1914), p. 21.Google Scholar 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 1920, 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.Google Scholar

9 Quoted in Charles, Geddes, Patiña: The Tin King (London, 1972), p. 121. Aparicio was duly elected Senator and became a well-known parliamentary spokesman for Patiño's interests.Google Scholar

10 Quoted in Albarracín, Millan, op. cit., p. 212.Google Scholar

11 Geddes, , op. cit., p. 120.Google Scholar

12 Informe del Prejecto, op. cit., p. 9.Google Scholar

13 Quoted in Albarracín, Millan, op. cit., p. 271.Google Scholar

14 Quoted in Redactor de la Hon. Cámara de Diputados, Tomo VII (La Paz, 1922), 04 4 1922 debate, p. 35.Google Scholar

15 Redactor, op. cit., 04 1 1922, p. 26.Google Scholar

16 The activities of these officials are described in a well documented memoir by the President of FOCU, Gumercindo, Rivera, La Masacre de Uncía (Oruro, 1967), pp. 14ff., 53 ff., 152 ff.Google Scholar

17 Op. cit., pp. 19, 23, 25, 30, 49, 52.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 154 and p. 61.

19 Pedro, N. López, Mi Labor Parlamentario (Potosí, 1929), p. 33.Google Scholar

20 See Whitehead, L., ‘The Impact of the Great Depression in Bolivia’. Proceedings of the XL International Congress of Americanists (Genoa, 1975), Vol. IV.Google Scholar

21 David, Aviestequl, Salamanca (La Paz, 1962), Vol. III, p. 245.Google Scholar The Liberal Party was applying the principles enunciated by its greatest leader, ex-President Ismael 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, Díaz Machicao, Saavedra (La Paz, 1954), p. 39.Google Scholar

22 Figures for the 1940s from Ricardo, Anaya, La Nacionalización de las Minas en Bolivia (La Paz, 1952), p. 83.Google Scholar The 1935 estimate is based on an official report of that year, El Estaño en Bolivia (La Paz, 1936).Google Scholar

23 Céspedes, A., El Dictador Suicida (Santiago, 1956), p. 231.Google Scholar

24 A leading supporter of Arze subsequently claimed that although the official candidate 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 Potosí, Oruro, Tupiza, Uyuni, etc., although we had not a cent to pay for propaganda’. Miguel, Bonifaz, Boliuia: Frustración y Destino (Sucre, 1965), p. 144.Google Scholar

25 A document dated 1942 quoted in Irineo, Pimental, Unidad Sindical y Lucha Por Mejores Condiciones de Vida (Siglo XX, 05 1960), p. 208.Google Scholar

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 1971.

27 Porfirio, Díaz Machicao, Peñaranda (La Paz, 1950), p. 28.Google Scholar

28 Raúl, Ruiz González, Bolivia, el Prometco de los Andes (Buenos Aires, 1961), p. 99.Google Scholar

29 Hernán, Quiroga, Pirista editor of the Oruro newspaper La Patria (the paper with most coverage of developments in the mines) speaking in Congress, 09 25 1947,Google Scholar quoted in Patiño Mines, op. cit., p. 170.Google Scholar

30 Augusto, Céspedes, El Presidente Colgado (Buenos Aires, 1966), p. 134. Céspedes 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.Google Scholar

31 On Avra Warren, see Cole, Blasier, ‘The United States, Germany and the Bolivian Revolutionaries, 1941–1946’, Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 52, No. 1, 02 1972, pp. 40–4. However, Blasier does not mention Warren's unsuccessful attempt to limit the MNR's representation in Congress. According to Víctor Paz Estenssoro (interview, Lima, August 12 1969), much later: ‘I had a long conversation 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 136 seats in the Constituent Assembly – 109 for deputies and 27 for Senators – the MNR won 66.)Google Scholar

32 Céspedes, , op. cit., p. 150.Google Scholar

33 The Warren Report (Washington: National Archives, 824:00/3196B).

34 ‘60.000 Obreros de Minas Constituyeron su Federación Sindical,’ La Calle (La Paz), 06 15 1944.Google Scholar

35 El Presidente Colgado, op. cit., p. 151. In fact Céspedes received 1,547 out of the 1,965 votes recorded.Google Scholar

36 Víctor, Paz Estenssoro, Discursos Parlamentarios.Google Scholar

37 PRO AS 2861/9/5, despatched May 9 1946.

38 Kerr, and Siegal, , ‘The inter-industry propensity to strike’ (1954), reprinted in Collective Bargaining: A Reader (Ed. Allan, Flanders), (Penguin, 1969), pp. 141–3.Google Scholar For a recent, if somewhat severe, critique of the i/ated mass hypothesis, see Jeremy, Edwards, Sociological Review (1977).Google Scholar

39 John, H. Magill Jnr, Labour Unions and Political Socialization: A Case Study Bolivian Workers (Praeger, New York, 1974).Google Scholar

40 El Diario (La Paz), 05 5 1951.Google Scholar

41 El Diario, 05 4 1951.Google Scholar

42 El Diario, 05 8 1951 gives these figures for Uncía, administrative seat of the province.Google Scholar