Chapter 757: Bolivian Battlegrounds
The nation of Bolivia was one of three Latin American countries that declared war on the Axis Central Powers in 1943 as well as the Co-Prosperity Sphere quickly thereafter, the others being Chile and Colombia. This was however more out of economic ties and influence by the United States of America, then true allegiance, as the new president held fascist royalist and anti-Semitic leanings, but the foreign pressure still remain at peace with the Allies and to suppress his more extreme pro-Namo/Faro supporters. Bolivian mines supplied needed tin to the Allies, but with no coastline, the landlocked country did not send troops or warplanes overseas. It all had begun, when on May 17, 1936 Colonel David Toro Ruilova (1936–37) overthrew President Tejada in a military coup. Because the officer corps wanted to avoid a civilian investigation of the military's wartime leadership, backing for the coup came from all ranks. The main backers were a group of younger officers who wanted to bring profound change to Bolivia. Toro, the leader of this group, hoped to reform the country from the top down. His program of "military socialism" included social and economic justice and government control over natural resources. He also planned to set up a corporate-style political system to replace the democratic system established in 1825. Toro attempted to get civilian support with far-reaching social legislation and nominated a print worker as the first labor secretary in Bolivia. He also nationalized the holdings of Standard Oil without compensation and called for the convening of a constitutional congress that would include the traditional parties, as well as new reformist groups and the labor movement. Toro however was still unable to secure a lasting popular support. A group of more radical officers resented his reluctance to challenge the rosca, and they supported a coup by Colonel Germán Busch Becerra (1937–39) in 1937. A new constitution was promulgated in 1938, stressing the primacy of the common good over private property and favored government intervention in social and economic relations. It also legalized the Indian communities and included a labor code. In 1939 Busch challenged the interests of the mine owners for the first time by issuing a decree that would prevent the mining companies from removing capital from the country. None of his policies, however, resulted in significant popular and military support, and completely alienated the conservative forces. Frustrated by his inability to bring about change, Busch committed suicide in 1939.
Despite the weakness of the Toro and Busch regimes, their policies had a profound impact on Bolivia. Reformist decrees raised expectations among the middle class, but when they failed to be implemented, they contributed to the growth of the left. The constitutional convention gave the new forces for the first time a nationwide platform and the possibility of forming alliances. The military socialist regimes also prompted the conservatives to join forces to stem the growth of the left and led to them eyeing the German Empire dominated Axis Central Powers and the Japanese Empire dominated Co-Prosperity as potentially allies and friends. After a few months under the provisional presidency of General Carlos Quintanilla (1939–40), the chief of staff during the Busch regime, General Enrique Peñaranda Castillo (1940–43) was elected president in the spring of 1940. Peñaranda's support came from the traditional parties, the Liberals, and the two wings of the Republicans, who had formed a concordancia to stem the growth of the movement toward further reforms. The trend toward reform, however, could not be halted, and a number of new groups gained control of the Congress during Peñaranda's presidency. These groups, although very different in their ideological outlooks, agreed on the need to change the status quo. They included the Trotskyite Revolutionary Workers Party (Partido Obrero Revolucionario, POR), which had already been formed in 1934, as well as the Bolivian Socialist Falange (Falange Socialista Boliviana, FSB), founded in 1937 and patterned on the Spanish Falange. The Leftist Revolutionary Party (Partido de Izquierda Revolucionaria, PIR) was founded in 1940 by a coalition of radical Marxist groups. The most important opposition to the concordancia came from the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, MNR). The first party with widespread support in Bolivian history, the MNR had a membership that included intellectuals and both white-collar and blue-collar workers. It was founded in 1941 by a small group of intellectual dissidents from the middle and upper classes and represented persons from a wide range of political persuasions who were united by their discontent with the status quo. Among its leaders were Víctor Paz Estenssoro, a professor of economics; Hernán Siles Zuazo, the son of former President Siles Reyes; and several influential writers. The party's program included nationalization of all of Bolivia's natural resources and far-reaching social reforms. Its anti-Semitic statements resulted not only in the imprisonment of MNR leaders but also in charges by the United States government that MNR was under the influence of Nazis and Fascist who had fled to South America after the German Coup of 1938. As the leader of the congressional opposition, the MNR denounced Peñaranda's close cooperation with the United States and was especially critical of his agreement to compensate Standard Oil for its nationalized holdings. The MNR members of the Congress also began an investigation of the Catavi Massacre of striking miners and their families by government troops at one of the Patiño mines in Catavi in 1942. MNR influence with the miners increased when Paz Estenssoro led the congressional interrogation of government ministers. The MNR had contacts with reformist military officers, who were organized in a secret military lodge named the Fatherland's Cause (Razón de Patria, Radepa). Radepa was founded in 1934 by Bolivian prisoners of war in Paraguay. It sought mass support, backed military intervention in politics, and hoped to prevent excessive foreign control over Bolivia's natural resources. Finally in December 1943 the Radepa-MNR alliance overthrew the Peñaranda regime.
Major Gualberto Villarroel López became president, and three MNR members, including Paz Estenssoro, joined his cabinet. The MNR ministers resigned, however, when the United States refused to grant its recognition, repeating its charge of ties between the MNR and Nazi Germany. This American intervention into Bolivia incredibly soured American-Bolivian relations and let to growing ties to the Axis Central Powers and the Co-Prosperity Sphere instead of the Allies. The MNR ministers returned to their posts in 1944, after their party (partly thanks to the American intervention before in 1943) party had won a majority in the election and the United States had to finally recognized the government. Villarroel's government emphasized continuity with the reformist regimes of Toro and Busch. Paz Estenssoro, who served as minister of finance, hoped to get popular support with a budget that emphasized social spending over economic development. But the salary increase for miners did not bring about their consistent backing of the government and only managed to strengthen the ties between the MNR and miners. The Villarroel government also tried for the first time to get the support of the campesinos. In 1944 it created the National Indigenous Congress to discuss the problems in the countryside and to improve the situation of the peasants. However, most of the social legislation, such as the abolition of the labor obligation of the campesinos to their landlords, was never put in effect.
Villarroel was overthrown in 1945, after he had been unable to organize popular support and faced opposition from conservative groups and increasing political terrorism that included murders of the government's opponents. Rivalry between the MNR and the military in the governing coalition also contributed to his downfall. In 1944 mobs of students, teachers, and workers seized arms from the arsenal and moved to the presidential palace. They captured and shot Villarroel and suspended his body from a lamppost in the main square, while the army remained aloof in the barracks.
Quickly afterwards, the new elections were won by a coalition of the Bolivian Socialist Falange (Falange Socialista Boliviana or FSB, later Falange Socialista Royalista Boliviana or FSRB) and the Nationalist Royalist Action (in Spanish: Acción Realista Nacionalista) that lead to the Presidency of Óscar Únzaga de la Vega (born 19 April 1916) carried by a strong following among former landowners by offering a platform strongly influenced by Franco and Benito Mussolini and had been massively supported by the German Empire, the Axis Central Powers, Namo and Faro supporters. He would make himself King of a new Bolician Kingdom in 1951, heavily influenced by Namo and Faro Ideology, but would be toppled by a coup in 1954 when the Bolivian Coprospist Movement (Spanish: Movimiento Coprospista Boliviano) and other opposition parties (like the Sapa Inti Party) that would lead to the General-Presidency of the Japanese-Bolivian “Caudillo” Yamataka Kunimichi, a Sansei, or third generation Japanese, who had least one Nisei second generation Japanese parent, who would increas the economic and military ties to the Japanese Empire and the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Under Yamataka Coprospist Bolivia or the Bolivian Kingdom would ultimately become a member state of the Co-Prosperity Sphere itself and he would be made viscount shishaku (shi) (Japanese: 子爵) for his increase of Coprospist influence in South America (Minami Amerika), by then better known as the Southeast Continent (Japanese: Nantō Tairiku 南東大陸), while North Amerika (Kita Amerika) was by then also known as Eastern Continent (Japanese: Tōtairiku 東大陸).