Revolutionary nationalism and the restoration of criollo hegemony : aid, decapitalization and ethnicity, Bolivia (1952-1964)

Habitually known as a mining country, Bolivia is neither Andean nor an Indian one. It has eastern lowlands.(Oriente) and is ruled by a 'criollo' class-caste of Hispanic origin. The national revolution of 1952 mirrors those nineteenth and twentieth century criollo attempts to restructure the hegemony of the dominant class-caste through new forms of production in other regions. In the context of a waning Latin American populism, the MNR was caught up in internal contradictions and external constraints. Desperate for the economic and political survival of the revolution, the MNR compromised its policy ideals and sought assistance from the US. Compromise led to the creation of a political centre - an ideological corridor linking the left and the right. US policies, aid and state expenditure is related to the declining fortunes of the MNR. Attention is given to how Cbmibol, the state mining concern, vas systematically decapitalized to finance bureaucratic clienteles and agriculture in the Oriente, while the underground miners are blamed for the crisis of the industry. They in turn saw the revolution and mining from an Andean moral economic point of view, based on reciprocity not exploitation and theft. The changes in the agrarian structure implemented in the Oriente department of Santa Cruz followed guidelines set by the US Bohan plan, which became the economic programme of the MNR. It embigedthe landowning cruceña oligarchy to emerge as an agroindustrial bourgeoisie jockeying for national hegemony with the re-emerging Andean private mining criollo-bourgeoisie. The rise of this cruceña class-caste is examined via the civic movement it led in the midst of ethnic and class contradictions within the local MNR party structure and central government. The cruceñidad moved from regional hegemony in the fifties to national domination in the seventies, although its project was hampered by a crisis in its productive base, and popular pressure for a return to democratic rule. Faced with a loss of its political power and criollo ethno-cultural predominance, the cruceña fraction of the criollo class-caste resorted to drugs trafficking.