Book Reviews: Imperialism in Bolivia
BOLIVIA: THE UNCOMPLETED REVOLUTION By James M. Malloy. 396 Pages. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh. 1970. $11.95. Hardcover. THE BANKERS IN BOLIVIA: A STUDY IN AMERICAN FOREIGN...
...Grace), etc...
...1 4 - 2 4 . Malloy stresses that the roots of the revolution are not to be found solely in such national traumata as the Chaco War (although he labels this an "accelerating" factor...
...Any criticism of this work goes by default to the radicals who, for almost fifty years, have been unable to follow its example...
...Margaret Alexander Marsh's book, written in 1928, is remarkable in every way...
...Silver exports, primary until the end of the nineteenth century, were replaced in importance by tin as the world grew increasingly hungry for industrial metals...
...2) the "national reformist" groups (especially the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario...
...Vanguard Press, New York...
...Malloy concentrates his attention on the disintegration of the MNR from 1952-1960, but the original focus on imperialism disappears...
...The central question of how U.S...
...imperialism to have been written...
...Marsh's book is extremely well researched and its footnotes provide a useful guide for future researchers...
...Academics, it seems, can indict imperialism in the 1920's, but find it hard to draw the same conclusions when they fall closer to home...
...Workers' unions were broken, the army rebuilt, and the left-wing supporters of the MNR slowly weeded out...
...Patino, for example, who controlled nearly 50 percent of all Bolivian tin production during much of the twentieth century, had shown profits exceeding 150 percent after taxes during the boom years of the 1920's...
...they tended to be broad-based and were strongly supported in the labor movement...
...Even though they changed their orienta- tion numerous times, they have always been marked by certain unmistakable tendencies: the lack of a clear ideological framework, the elitist orienta- tion of their leadership, and their hesitance to search out mass support for their programs...
...Only during periods of war when tin has been in demand and imperialist controls over its colonial territories somewhat weakened, did this depression recede...
...in the literature of the twenties...
...Eder's recom- mendations, which became official policy, meant in his own words "the repudiation, at least tac- itly, of virtually everything that the Revolutionary Government had done over the previous four years...
...The United States imposed a freeze on tin prices during World War II which cost Bolivia millions of revenue dollars each year...
...based on nineteenth century ideology and declining in strength since the 1920's...
...The work concentrates on the growth of U.S...
...These points alone make the book worth-while reading...
...In 1956, under pressure from Washington, Bolivia dropped its monopoly on petroleum operations, contracted a New York law firm (Schuster and Davenport) to draft a new Petroleum Code, and agreed to accept the recom- mendations of U.S...
...The analysis of the postinsurrectionary years lies buried under a considerably heavy academic prose, having been written in that all but incomprehensible language of modern sociologists and political scientists...
...investments in Bolivia between 1908-1927 and includes an in-depth study of the 1922 Stifel-Nicolaus Loan which effectively handed all sources of Bolivian income (as well as the possibilities for future development) to the North Americans...
...The "doctors" (the tin magnates) even collected upon the2...
...LNS29 marginal to that process...
...Furthermore, he has succeeded in integrating a partial history of the Bolivian labor movement into his text...
...patient's will when they received substantial compensation for their mines nationalized in 1952...
...2 (Feb...
...the other is chairman of the Permanent Fiscal Commission and a direc- tor of the national bank...
...Clearly, these were boom years for Bolivian tin, but for Bolivia the only constant growth product was underdevelopment...
...Since the discovery of the Potosi silver mines in the sixteenth century, the Bolivian economy has existed by virtue of its mining industry...
...On Brazils' sub-imperialist role as an agent of the United States in South America see Ruy Mauro Marini, "Brazilian Sub-Imperialism", Monthly Review, Vol...
...North American bankers and citizens have, except for the small loan placed in London last year [1927], an exclusive interest in Bolivia's external debt, and by reason of this interest, not only collect Bolivia's taxes and customs but, through their power to vote the Government's shares in the Banco do la Nacion Boliviana, are in a posi- tion to control the Bank's future development...
...For example, an adequate account of recent developments in that country is yet to be produced, a critical failure in light of Brazilian attempts to further its sub-imperialist policy there.* Nevertheless, some researchers have taken the time necessary to place the welter of facts about Bolivia into a more substantial framework of analysis, especially for the pre1952 period...
...North American investment in Bolivia exceeds that of any other country by some forty or fifty million dollars...
...He cites the imperialist ransacking of Bolivia in an introductory section, but the social and political development of the country is seen to hinge solely on internal events...
...and 3) the "revolutionary socialist" parties (including the Partido de la Izquierda Revolucionaria, the Moscow-oriented Partido Communista de Bolivia, the Trotskyist Partido Obrero Revolucionario, and others...
...But overall, the book should prove quite useful as an introduction to Bolivia...
...Still, foreign controls were never weak enough to permit a solution to Bolivia's economic problems...
...North American construction companies, using only American materials, are building Bolivia's railways, sewers, and pavements with the proceeds of Bolivian bonds...
...In the end, while we may know more facts about Bolivia, we are able to understand less and less about the forces which are operating there...
...Undoubtedly, this is the best part of the book...
...AID funds and promises of funds were used to break the backbone of the revolution, for example, is treated much more clearly in Laurence Whitehead's small pamphlet, The United States and Bolivia (London: Haslemere Group Publication, 1969...
...In return, the United States poured a huge amount of aid into Bolivia...
...United States capital predominated at that time and we find constant reference to such giants as the National Lead Company, American Smelting and Refining, the International Mining Company (W.R...
...He finds three main political forces in Bolivia since the late nineteenth century: 1) the traditional parties (Liberal, Conservative, etc...
...Nevertheless, between 1928 and 1952 the capital value of the tin industry had barely increased from $160 million to $161.2 million...
...Bolivia's "veins" were empty, and no transfusion could replace what had been taken out...
...The reformists are traced back to their origins in 1925...
...The workers are rightfully shown as a creative force in Bolivian development and not merely a sector Worker in a Bolivian tin mine...
...Clearly, imperialism is a dynamic, on-going process which needs to be fully documented (not marginally alluded to) if we are to understand Bolivia or any neo-colonial area...
...Thus Bolivia gave up its meagre dollar reserves to re-purchase its exhausted mines from the same people who had drained them for over fifty years...
...Few people noticed the overthrow last summer of General Juan Jose Torres as the Bolivian head of state...
...THE BANKERS IN BOLIVIA: A STUDY IN AMERICAN FOREIGN INVESTMENT By Margaret Alexander Marsh...
...One representative of the bankers is director general of customs...
...Steve Volk...
...James Malloy has combined some very good analysis with fresh insights into Bolivian history to produce a surprisingly valuable book...
...Such contradictions did not pass the tin magnates unnoticed, and their investments had long since been moved to more promising areas outside of Bolivia by the simple expatriation of profits...
...advisor George Jackson Eder on the re-structuring of the economy...
...The Bolivian tin industry, mainstay of the national economy, has been in decline since 1929...
...After all, this was nothing new for Bolivia, a country habitually racked by political turmoil...
...Malloy, while conscious of this process, does not integrate it into the main body of his work...
...Instead he cites the "skewed" development pattern which Bolivia inherited as a result of imperialist intervention early in the twentieth century, a pattern which has left that country in a state of perpetual depression since the late 1920s...
...Bankers in Bolivia is highly recommended for all anti-imperialist researchers...
...1928...
...The revolutionary socialist trend also dates back to the late Twenties...
...By 1950, the largest single item in Bolivia's budget was the debt service...
...By the late 1920's, Marsh could write...
...While marked by sectarian and tactical differences, these parties have found their strength in an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist ideology...
...Bolivia had become yet another slag heap of capitalism...
...Despite this short coming, Malloy describes the political development of Bolivia through 1952 extremely well, painting a coherent and understandable picture of the events and the partic- ipants...
...One of a number of studies commissioned by the American Fund for Public Service (others include excellent works on Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Nearing and Freeman's Dollar Diplomacy), this is one of the finest methodological studies of U.S...
...23, No...
...and 2) the United States and the world-wide capitalist financial agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank made it clear that no aid would be forthcoming until Bolivia compensated the ex-owners...
...a North American oil company has a practical monopoly of petroleum exploitation there...
...Bolivia, free from all foreign debt in 1908, allocated over 37 per-cent of its national budget to service this draining obligation only twenty years later...
...By the heyday of Bolivian tin mining in 1924, over two-thirds of the capital invested in that industry originated'abroad...
...Two factors forced the government to com- pensate the Big Three mine owners: 1) Patino, the largest of the three, owned the only smelter in the world which could treat Bolivian ores and he threatened to stop all processing of that ore unless he received adequate "compensation...
...The section of his book dealing with the postinsurrectionary period (1952-1960) tends to be repetitive, more sociologically oriented, and less empirical than the first half...
...In 1924 Patino incorporated his vast holdings in Delaware and two years later his stock was introduced to North American buyers...
...Likewise some basic documents of Bolivian history have not been consulted...
...The doctors of capitalism were abandoning their patient to a slow death after soaking her for all she was worth...
...A group of rising entrepreneurs represented the new tin industry...
...Malloy treats the revolutionary socialist parties with a sympathy not usually accorded them by North American scholars...
...Simon I. Patino and a second important mining magnate, Carlos Aramayo, were born in Bolivia, but they soon demonstrated that their primary allegiance was to international capitalism...
...1972), pp...
...Even among radical students of the Bolivian situation there is an unfortunate tendency to be so overwhelmed by the endless parade of golpes and presidents that analysis breaks down into story-telling...
...Ostensibly an account of the years after 1952, almost one-half of the text examines the roots of the 1952 revolution...
Vol. 6 • May 1972 • No. 5
