Tin and Imperialism
Volk, Steve
The world's knowledge of Bolivia is quite limited. Yet it is only because of Bolivia's tin and its tin-miners that the world knows anything at all. The international division of labor and...
...Preparedness Subcommittee on the Committee on Armed Services, Hearing on Tin and Rubber Stockpiling, July 24, 1951 (Washington, D.C.: U.S...
...cit., 69...
...No parent company W.R...
...Nationalization of the mining concerns of Patino, Hochschild and Aramayo in 1952 soon made evident an important fact about imperialism and the export of minerals: without the control of refining processes, control over the mines can become almost meaningless...
...I: Metals, Minerals and Fuels (Washington, D.C.: U.S...
...Under the leadership of Guillermo Gamarra, the Federation energetically fought to organize all the workers both inside and outside the mines...
...The first international restriction plan was approved by the governments of the British Malay States, the Netherlands Indies, Bolivia and Nigeria...
...8. For an account of the growth of foreign Investment in the Bolivian economy, see Margaret Alexander Marsh, The Bankers in Bolivia: A Study in American Foreign investment (New York: AMS Press, 1970...
...Thus, beginning in the late 1920's, the Tin Barons began to move their profits out of Bolivia, effectively decapitalizing the industry which served as the foundation of the economy...
...7. Gregorlo Irlarte, Galorlas de muerte-las minas belivianas (Montevideo: Tierra Nueva, 1972), 207...
...Following the passage of a new tax law in Bolivia in 1923, Patino incorporated his vast holdings in Delaware...
...Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals,Corp W.R...
...OUTPUTa Oruro, COMIBOL [Fundicion 5,000 Neg'ble Bolivia de Estano] Oruro, COMIBOL [Metabol] Research Neg'ble Bolivia only Vinto, National Smelting 8,000 Neg'ble Bolivia Enterprise [ENAF] Rio de Jan- Cia...
...VI I, No.24 (June 15, 1973), 185...
...At present, the exact amount of tin stockpiled by the GSA is classified information...
...Even more striking is the speed with which tin surpassed all other exportable products...
...12 The United States, until recently, has blocked Bolivian attempts to break this strangle hold...
...International Mining Corp.] Reportedly divested in August, 1973...
...13 The major smelters of Bolivian tin are located in England, Germany, Holland and Texas: none has long-term ore deposits...
...stockpiles of tin from an estimated 232,000 tons to 40,500 tons...
...These same factors discouraged the movement of a large number of European immigrants to Bolivia...
...Although both Patino and Aramayo were born in Bolivia, they, together with European-born Hochschild, represented the larger currents of international capitalism in Bolivia...
...First edition, 1928...
...The U.S...
...2 A simultaneous fall in the world price of silver and a rise in the price of tin greatly stimulated tin production...
...Senado Nacional, Hornosde fundicion en Bolivia (La Paz: Universe, 1963), 14...
...12, 42-3...
...The miners chose Juan Lechin, Simon Reyes and Filemon Escobar to lead them in the hard year to come...
...corporation based in New York...
...Nationalized Sale of zinc from the na- tionalized Mina Matilde Reportedly divested in August, 1973 Nationalized [Mina Matilde] Major control of Bolivian gold fields NA U.S...
...Netherlands Canada India Poland Czechoslovakia 216 141 115 90 60 56 46 41 40 37 32 COUNTRY VOTES Nigeria 50 Zaire 43 Australia 33 TOTAL 1,000 Belgium/Luxem...
...While these two military officers who governed shortly after the disastrous Chaco War (See "Bolivia: The War Goes On" in this issue) never favored the growth of an independent proletarian organization, they did provide certain objective conditions in which the workers' movement could grow without threat of annihilation...
...Born in 1860 in the Cochabamba Valley, Simon Patino rose in13 "Horatio Algeresque" fashion to become one of the world's most influential figures in mining and refining...
...Government Printing Office, 1970), 1105-1106...
...Nixon made the monumental decision to reduce U.S...
...Foundations Directory, 4th ed...
...Grace also purchased a considerable amount of tin concentrates for Wah Chang's Texas City smelter from Bolivian mines...
...In 1958 the Texas smelter passed over to a little known Chinese nationalist firm, Wah Chang...
...Bolivian nationalist congressmen blocked its attempt for a larger contract on the grounds that the terms were unfavorable to Bolivia, representing no more than an exchange of British imperialism for that of the United States...
...Aid Since 1952: Financial Background and Context of Political DeceiMos (Los Angeles: Latin American Center, UCLA, 1969), 34...
...Almaraz Paz, op...
...Nitto Bolivia Mining Co., Ltd...
...Revenues from Bolivia's most important source of foreign exchange dropped to dangerously low levels...
...Another important director of this little known metals firm is Warren Lee Pierson who, in turn, also servedas director for such giants as ITT, Fruehauf Trailer Co., Squibb, TWA, the Molybdenum Corporation of America, Guaranty Savings and Loan, Great Western Financial Corporation, All American Cable and Radio, Inc., and the VertientesCamaguey Sugar Co...
...This loss cost Bolivia approximately $20 million in un realized revenues...
...NA Metals Traders, Inc...
...Thus, when the mines were nationalized in 1952, the Bolivians inherited empty veins, useless shafts, and the most costly tin production methods in the world...
...investment was only $32 million...
...The clearest example of the miners' thought can be seen in their 1946 "Thesis of Pulacayo," reprinted in this issue...
...and Manuel Carrasco, Simon I. Patino, on procer industrial (Paris: Jean Grassin, 1960...
...Steve Volk Footnotes 1. Sergio Almaraz Paz, Requiem pare una republican (La Paz-Cochabamba: Los Amigos del Libro, 1969), 60-61...
...The basic impetus for the creation of the FSTMB came from the newly-created MNR, an amalgam of the proletariat, petit-bourgeoisie and the liberal bourgeoisie, which stressed a nationalist, pro-capitalist and antiimperialist position.* Nevertheless, once allowed to organize by the MNR-supported Villarroel government, the miners' federation soon adopted authentic working class positions which were based on the understanding that only the destruction of capitalism and the creation of socialism could open the road for Bolivian development...
...Government Printing Office, 1953), Ch...
...Of the 2,533 votes cast at the election, the Frente Revolucionario Anti-Imperialista (FRA), the coalition of outlawed leftist parties and organizations, received 1,688.27 A year later, the whole FSTMB elected its leadership...
...Bolivia's percentage of total world exports in tin, only 16 percent prior to 1941, therefore increased dramatically...
...Estanifera do 7,000 2,200 eiro,Brazil Brasil [CESBRA] Diusberg- Berzelius Metalhutten 3,600 1,600 Wanheim, Gesellschaft-G.m.b.h...
...Concentration of mining control into progressively fewer hands gave an inordinate amount of political, social and economic power to a tiny bourgeoisie, often creating obstacles to the development of an organized miners' movement...
...2 6 Although Nixon soon assured his friend, General Hugo Banzer, that he would take no steps to damage the Bolivian economy, it is clear that the threat of sales of the GSA stockpiles is a sufficiently large stick to wave at Bolivia in order to get results...
...1 0 Profits were re-invested in mining in Malaysia, Nigeria and Canada, and in refining plants in Holland, Germany and England...
...Besides the Tin Barons, two North American corporations actively pursued profits in the Bolivian mines...
...Thus, for example, while total U.S...
...Grace & Co...
...The Bolivian ruling class, with the consent of the United States, has exiled or killed their leaders, cut their wages, starved out their strikes and, when all else failed, massacred them as on the "Noche de San Juan" in 1967...
...The government entered the picture when the President placed the country under a state of seige and sent four army regiments to Uncia...
...Having saved sufficient capital, he purchased first 50 percent and then all of "La Salvadora, " a silver-tin mine near Oruro...
...It is estimated that only through the sale of tin at these low prices, Bolivia gave the United States between $600 and $900 million for its war effort, considerably more than the total of U.S...
...Consolidated Gold Fields, Ltd.] No parent company W.R...
...Tin is a component part of almost every imaginable machine, vehicle, aircraft, ship...
...South American Placers Trans-American Resources, Inc...
...Even before 1910 Patino bought into the German smelting firm of Zinnwerke-Wilhelmsburg, but with the First World War he shifted his interests to the Williams, Harvey and Company refinery in Liverpool, the largest European tin smelter...
...By 1925 tin accounted for more than 70 percent of all exports leaving Bolivia...
...16 In 1962 Wah Chang sent a delegation to Bolivia to try to win away part of the tin smelting contract from Patino's Williams, Harvey...
...Among other things, the 1960 Investment Code assured that foreign investments would receive the same treatment as domestic investments, and that expropriations would only be used in "extreme" cases and would always receive full compensation in hard currency...
...Gulf Metallurgical recently signed a ten-year agreement which will guarantee them 6,000 tons of Bolivian tin concentrates for each of the first three years...
...2 3 The GSA acquired the majority of its tin stocks from Bolivia during World War II at the extremely low price of 42c per pound instead of $3 to $4 per pound, the going market price...
...Currently, the GSA stockpiles some 74 products, all considered "strategic essentials" produced only in limited amounts or not at all in the United States...
...While the 1956 measures opened the door to private capital investment for the first time since the revolution of 1952, the Investment Code of 1960 really set the tone for future investments in that country...
...The Workers' Struggle Against Imperialism...
...Bolivia) S.A...
...By 1910 when Patino's mines accounted for 10 percent of the world production of tin, he turned his sights to the construction of a vertically integrated metal industry...
...Li Kuo-ch'in, a mining engineer from Hunan, China, established Wah Chang and oversaw its expansion into the Wah Chang Trading Corporation, the Wah Chang Corporation, Wah Chang Smelting and Refining Company of America and Li Tungsten...
...The code abolished restrictive requirements that mining producers sell their product only to the Banco Minero: permitted mining companies to use foreign smelters in lieu of domestic ones if the latter did not offer similar or better terms...
...Working in close quarters under the most difficult circumstances, miners quickly learned the necessity of mutual reliance and support...
...Indeed, most observers recognize that Bolivia over-paid the Tin Barons for their nationalized interests...
...Because of drastic over-production of tin in the late 19 2 0's and a consequent lowering of world prices, and because few nations produce tin, an arrangement of compulsory tin control went into effect in 1931 among the tin producers...
...1 8 A businessman connected to the metals industry affirmed that Grace was "financing" both Wah Chang and Teledyne's smelting operations...
...He retained his alliance with National Lead, and the two corporations exchanged stock and directors...
...When we consider Bolivia's total laboring population, including both rural and urban sectors, we see that prior to 1952 relatively few workers participated in the organized labor movement...
...In '000) PRINCIPAL INTEREST YEAR USAID IADB USAID IADB 1966 2,000 1,290 920 300 1967 2,400 1,290 840 280 1968 2,780 1,290 750 230 1969 3,150 1,290 630 180 1970 3,520 1,290 500 140 1971 3,640 1,290 360 80 1972 3,380 650 220 30 1973 3,370 320 90 10 Source: Gregorio Iriarte, Galerias de muerte: las minas bolivianas (Montevideo: Tierra Nueva,1972), 203.17 a predominant role by its control of the Empresa Minera Estalsa and the International Mining Company...
...is rich with examples of heroic struggles against powerful opponents...
...Although it had once refined a limited quantity of Bolivian ore in the 1920's, it had no major interest in tin smelting until World War II...
...Inter-Mill Pro- ducts Corp...
...American Metal Market, op...
...has gone into liquidation, and Bolivia has been having considerable trouble finding a smelter for its ores...
...Harvest Queen Co...
...Moody's, Industrials [1973...
...At present, it seems that a short-term arrangement between the Rio Tinto Zinc's Capper Pass smelter, COMIBOL, and the British government will be arranged...
...3 This prompted a contemporary economist to remark: "The present intense * The War of the Pacific (1879-1884), fought between Bolivia, Peru and Chile, ended with the latter's total victory...
...and, Senado Naclonal, Ibid., 1-87...
...A year later, they formed a national miners' federation, the FSTMB, which, to this day, has been at the forefront of the workers' struggle in Bolivia...
...American Firms, Subsidiaries and Affiliates -- Bolivia, Trade List, August 1968...
...But, in the 70 years since they created the first mining union, the workers have remained constant to one struggle: the fight to win the wealth created by their daily labor...
...United States Steel General Explora- tion Co...
...Standard and Poors, Register, 1973...
...capitalists who wanted to invest in Bolivia were by no means forgotten...
...Internally, too, the miners' unions have often suffered from a lack of leadership, the corruption of some union bureaucrats and the isolation from a strong unified party...
...2 51is As prices rose in the international tin market in 1973, Pres...
...cit., 28...
...Engel- hard] South American Gold and Platinum, Co...
...Lechin is one of the miners' central figures and the head of the PRIN, a leftist split-off from the MNR...
...In this case the lawyer, a vice-president of the firm, is Sumner Ford, partner in the large firm of Breed, Abbott and Morgan of New York...
...Although mutual aid societies emerged in Bolivia as early as 1854, the modern workers' movement did not develop until the period of economic growth at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century...
...The Federacion Obrera Central de Uncia, the most important of these, was founded on May 1, 1923, by workers at the large mines in the Oruro-Potosi region including Patino's "La Salvadora" and the Chilean-controlled "Compania Estanifera de Llallagua...
...4. Quoted in Herbert S. Klein, Parties and Political Cpange in Bolivia, 1680.1952 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 117...
...Empresa Minera Porco Grace y Cia...
...cit., 117...
...The lesson learned by the Tin Barons during the depression was a simple one: Bolivia, the country with the most costly tin production structure,* was not the best location for future investment...
...Bolivian Tin Corporation Churquini Enter- prises, Inc...
...aid to Bolivia since the war...
...Grace & Co...
...malfunctioning of the national economy has no parallel in any other crisis ever suffered by the nation...
...none is among the world's tin producers...
...the refiners will continue to charge the same treatment charges...
...And W. Stuart Symington, chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (then conducting negotiations with a Bolivian military Junta which soon collapsed and opened the way for the 1952 revolution), remarked in a Senate hearing on the stockpiling of tin and rubber: I think the important point . .. is that these (producer) countries which have received so much from us in the physical protection we have, and are offering them through our mobilization program, nevertheless appear to think it is all right for-and I use the word of your committee-the American taxpayer to be "gouged" when he buys from those very countries the raw materials necessary to supply the guns, and tanks, and the planes to protect said countries from Soviet communism...
...While labor organizing advanced in the cities under the leadership of the railway and tram workers and the typographers, in the mines broader organizational forms materialized following widespread strikes...
...2. Luis Penaloza, Historia economic de olivla, 2 Vols...
...Nevertheless, Senator Lyndon Johnson, in 1951, accused the tin producers, especially the Bolivian producers, of seeking "one vast international gouge of the American taxpayer...
...Nevertheless, increased European demand for silver in the late 1850's gave fresh wind to that tired industry and simultaneously created the basis for the emergence of a new political order in Bolivia...
...Traditional labor histories suggest that radical thought was "imported" into Bolivia and that, once there, its career was faltering at best...
...The international division of labor and an economic order which is the reflection of this contemporary incoherent system have taxed Bolivia doubly: the fruits of the miners' labor are enjoyed more in New York or London than on the solitary mountain where that labor is performed...
...Latin America (London), Vol...
...Bolivia in 1952 possessed no smelter for its own tin and therefore had to export tin concentrates...
...economist William Stokes justified the North American position on economic grounds, remarking that ". a tin smelter does not make economic sense for them . . there should be proved ore reserves for 25 years of operations in order to justify a smelter, something that is lacking in Bolivia...
...Consuming Countries Japan England W. Germany France Italy U.S.S.R...
...Williams, Harvey is controlled by the Consolidated Tin Smelters, Ltd., of England which is a holding company of Patino NV (incorporated in the Netherlands in 1970 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Patino Mining Corporation which was incorporated in Quebec in 1956...
...Metals Reserve Company contracted with Bolivia for the purchase of all Bolivian tin, with the exception of that already scheduled for Britain...
...The mine proved to be one of the richest tin producers in Bolivia, and Patino applied the most modern methods to its exploitation...
...4 The only event dramatic enough to pull Bolvia out of its economic decline was World War II...
...Senate...
...company had already received a USAID grant which financed a research program on the technology of concentrating and smelting tin...
...A large number of these are owned by one U.S...
...Lipez Mining Co...
...On June 4, 1923, the workers and their families gathered to protest the detentions...
...The history of the Bolivian miners TABLE 4: International Tin Council, 1970...
...The victory of 1952 opened the way for three major advances for the miners: co-government (with the naming of three labor ministers including the miners' leader, Juan Lechin), control obrero (which gave workers a voice and veto power in the new national enterprises), and the nationalization of the Tin Baron's holdings...
...Obviously, this put the Bolivian producers at a distinct disadvantage in a market where prices are determined for refined tin without taking into consideration costs of production for any single producer country...
...Hollandsche Metallurgisch Industrie Billiton to build a smelter in Texas * Other smelters were designed to take a different grade ore than that coming from the Bolivian mines...
...44 (November 2, 1973), 350-51.7 Source: U.S...
...If prices fall, the production of (tin) concentrates will suffer...
...Investment Codes and the Re-introduction of Direct Foreign Investment in Mining...
...AM&MC then established a subsidiary, Gulf Metallurgical and Chemical Corp., to run the Texas City smelter...
...2 8 All three had been in exile in Chile before the fascist coup in that country, and it is feared that Escobar has either been arrested or killed by the Chilean military acting in cooperation with Bolivian police...
...The strength of the miners' organizations was decisive during the fighting of April 1952...
...Aramayo, who had entered the mines with national capital from very traditional sources, also moved his business operations outside of Bolivia, in this case to Switzerland...
...American Metal Market, Metal Statistics, 1973 (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1973), 288...
...From the late 1920's until the nationalization decree of 1952, the miners working in their mines consistently produced at least 75 percent of Bolivia's tin exports...
...Chile Hoy (Santiago), Vol...
...2 4 Unwilling to let the tin producing countries "gouge" them further, the GSA has been extremely effective in releasing its stockpiles onto the world market anytime the producers threaten to raise tin prices...
...During World War II, Bolivia's tin exports accounted for approximately 67 percent of the world's tin concentrates entering trade channels...
...Such investment codes were finally passed in 1956 (implied in the monetary stabilization rulings), 1960, 1965 and 1972...
...But the generalized mining depression of the seventeenth century, the rise of Mexican mining in the eighteenth and the turmoil of the wars of independence in the nineteenth century, all tended to tarnish the luster of the Bolivian precious metals industry...
...In a treaty signed between Bolivia and Chile in 1904, the latter agreed to build a railroad between Arica and La Paz and to pay retributions to Bolivia in return for the huge chunk of land...
...Nevertheless, in April 1973, the GSA was authorized to sell some 191,000 tons of "excess" tin: approximately six times the annual production of Bolivia, the second largest tin producer in the world...
...9. For Patino and his mercurial rise in mining, see Herbert S. Klein, "The Creation of the Patino Tin Empire," Inter- American Economic Affairs, Vol...
...Hochschild, representing Chilean capital, bought out the Bolivia-owned Soux Companies which were active in mining in the Potosi region in the early 1920's...
...Deering Millikan Phillips Brothers Ore Corp...
...Standard and Poor's, Corporation Records [1973...
...In the early days of tin mining, employers could easily break the back of any workers' movement by turning to the large pool of peasants previously excluded from the monetary sector of the economy...
...24 (December 3,1965...
...Workers accepted Marxism, for example, because it best explained the cause of their abysmal existence within their own social system and, because of that, offered them a means by which that system could be destroyed...
...Thus, the one person who had the capability to refine Bolivian tin in 1952 was Antenor Patino, son of Simon, whose mines had just been nationalized.* The agreement worked out between Patino and Bolivia-with the intense prodding of the United States-gave Patino the right to retain 5 to 10 percent of every pound of tin smelted from COMIBOL concentrates...
...Silver from the "Cerro Rico" of Potosi was perhaps the single most important financial support of Hapsburg Spain...
...7 The Tin Barons...
...State University, Materials Survey on Tin (Washington, D.C.: U.S...
...Cornelius H. Zondag, La economia boliviana, 1952-1965 (La Paz-Cochabambe: Los Amigos del Libro, 1968), 278...
...Furthermore, the payments had a critical effect on COMIBOL, the agent for the Bolivian government in these payments, since it was being drained of capital at the same time that the exhausted tin veins began to give out...
...Los Tiempos (Cochabamba, Bolivia), November 23, 1973...
...and, F. Kanematsu y Cia., Ltd...
...and three Japanese firms: W.R.Grace.and Company, Mitsubishi Metal Mining Co., Ltd...
...aid to Bolivia from the end of World War II to 1961 surpassed $220 million, direct U.S...
...During the war, Bolivia had to sell the United States its tin at the "democracy price" of 42c per pound for five years even though the world price reached approximately $4.96 per pound by 1945...
...bCapper Pass & Sons, Ltd...
...reduced royalty payments for the majority of tin exports by 30 percent...
...When company administrators called Gamarra in to insist that the Federation limit its organizing to the Uncia area, he responded that the Federation proposed to establish relations with all Bolivian workers' unions...
...19, No...
...Department of Commerce...
...New York Times, August 30, 1960...
...Yet if the strength of the owners was all to apparent, even more compelling factors led the miners to organize...
...In 1970 these two firms, in turn, sold out to the Associated Metals and Minerals Corporation (AM&MC), a non-public16 TABLE 1: The Refining of Bolivian Ores...
...The reduction was to begin by the sale of 18,500 tons by the end of 1973, a sale large enough to disrupt totally the world market...
...Mining unions began to spread after 1914 when the first was formed at the Huanchaca mine...
...Steel Nationalized [Mina Matilde] Sources: U.S...
...COMMENT Ambo, Ltd...
...Mechanisms of Imperialist Control...
...The Tin Miners-Development of a Class Conscious Proletariat The structure of the Bolivian economy, its orientation to world markets and sensitivity to world prices, which have historically demonstrated a large degree of instability, and the fact of its control by foreign capital sources all have affected the formation of the Bolivian proletariat...
...Government Printing Office, 1951), 1. 6. Penn...
...As Sergio Almaraz commented, The workers and technicians who operate the smelters-few in comparison with the miners (400 workers in Williams, Harvey process the work of more than 25P00Bolivians and Nigerians) are freed from uncertainty given the limited possibilities for mortal *Carlos Montenegro, one of the MNR's most lucid early ideologists...
...In the mines, though, the union alone served the workers' needs, expressed their demands, and fought the majority of their battles, at least until the 1940's...
...8 A history of Simon Patino's early years in the mining industry is suggestive of the wider process by which foreign capital entered and then dominated the industry...
...But Indonesia changed its policy and required all ore exploited in the country also to be refined there...
...imperialism in Bolivia is that it is based as much, if not more, on strategic and "geopolitical" considerations as on possible profits from direct foreign investment...
...At that time, since Dutch and Belgian tin smelters were under German control and the British smelters under the threat of air attack, it contracted the Dutch firm of N.V...
...C. Tennazt Co...
...CAfter considerable problems at its new location, Williams, Harvey & Co...
...Sociedad Minera Comercial, Ltda...
...C. Tennant Sons & Co...
...Empresa Minera Estalsa, S.A...
...At the end of 1972, miners in the Siglo XX mine, the largest tin mine in the country, held union elections...
...The labor movement in La Paz, Potosi, Oruro and other urban areas of Bolivia found expression in mutual aid societies, guilds, emerging party organizations and modern trade unions...
...Grace & Co...
...W. Germany Arnhem, N.V...
...Knowledge of European, Argentine and Chilean radical thought entered Bolivia through many doors in the first two decades of the twentieth century...
...In 1966, for example, the New York Straits tin price declined from $1.79 a pound to $1.54 a pound, a loss produced principally by the sale of over 16,000 tons of GSA-stockpiled tin on the world market...
...Sergio Almaraz Paz 1 Since the discovery of the Potosi silver mines in the sixteenth century, the Bolivian economy has been solidly based on its mining industry...
...One of the important characteristics of U.S...
...City, Texas, capable of smelting 90,000 tons of high-grade concentrates a year or a smaller amount of low-grade concentrates...
...The FSTMB became one of the strongest segments of the newly formed Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), the national labor organization...
...Finally, the absence of large-scale manufactures or industries in the Bolivian cities slowed the process of urban migration in the first third of the twentieth century and gave urban labor the qualities of an artisan movement...
...The United States is therefore free from all contractual obligations in the tin market...
...From 1928 to 1950, capital invested in mining increased by only $1.2 million at constant 1950 prices...
...Therefore, it greatly needed a new source of tin concentrates...
...International Mining Co...
...Empresa Minera Chisum y Cia...
...2 2 Although, at present, the 20 largest mines are the property of COMIBOL (in which the United States exercises considerable sway because of its inordinately large loanssee Table 2), there are approximately 40 "medium-sized" and some 2,000 "small-sized" mines in private hands...
...9 At the age of 24 he signed on as clerk of the Chilean-controlled Compania Huanchaca de Bolivia, one of the largest silver mining companies in Bolivia...
...15 accidents or market saturation...
...It is clear that the miners were not the only force undermining the faltering reactionary governments of the late 1940's and early 1950's, but they alone turned the tide of battle on April 10, 1952, by seizing the railroad station above La Paz and encircling the important railhead at Oruro...
...German Busch...
...Ford also sits on the board of directors of the Li Foundation, Underwriters Trust Co., and the National Distillers and Chemical Corporation (with sizable interests in Bolivia), among others...
...Iriarte, op...
...2 0 Nevertheless, the interests of private U.S...
...As a consequence of its defeat, Bolivia lost all its lands on the Pacific coast, including the im- portant ports of Antofagasta and Arica...
...The small size is indicative of the structural limitations of an economy which could provide permanent cash wages to relatively few people...
...Bolivia is the only country among the major tin producers where tin is mined from the hard rock below ground...
...It currently receives about 75 percent of its concentrates from Bolivia...
...2 1 The 1965 Investment Code, written under the dictatorship of General Rene Barrientos, insured foreign investors of one of their most desired areas for expansion: mining...
...2 (Autumn, 1965...
...Senate, op...
...19 The parent company, a member of the Lissauer Group, is a trading and purchasing company which buys raw materials or concentrates and then sells to foreign smelters...
...5 With the fall of the Malayan straights to the Japanese, Bolivia became the Allies' largest tin producer within a secure shipping zone...
...I, No...
...Grace and Company in order to establish a foothold in Bolivian tin concentrates...
...See Table 4) The United States, the largest consumer of tin metal in the world and, through the General Services Administration (GSA), one of the largest sellers of the metal, is not represented on the International Tin Council...
...The United States has always been concerned with the smelting of Bolivian tin...
...I, No.31 (January 12-18, 1973), 19...
...See Table 1...
...England traditionally served as the major market for Bolivian tin concentrates since the largest refining plants were located there...
...La Paz: n.p., 1953-1954), I I, 179-189...
...and, International Tin Council, Annual Report, 1970-71, 25...
...By 1920 Bolivian workers produced nearly 50,000 tons of tin concentrates annually, slightly less than one-quarter of total world production...
...Minerals Yearbook, 1970...
...With the coming of the war, though, the U.S...
...6 The direction of the commerce in tin proved as important as the quantitative increase in trade...
...Otherwise," he continued, "we could not accomplish the lofty goal which these diverse federations seek: social revolution...
...Yet anarcho-syndicalism and Marxism are models for understanding reality, not pieces of baggage which can be slipped into a country while customs officials are momentarily occupied...
...I. Producing Countries COUNTRY VOTES Malaysia 441 Bolivia 182 Thailand 132 Indonesia 119 II...
...17 Since 1958, when it purchased the Texas City smelter, it had used only Indonesian ores...
...For years after, until 1897, he worked with the German mining firm of Fricke and Company...
...5. U.S...
...PARENT CO...
...war effort amounted to more than $600 million, and the United States retained a large stockpile of the important metal...
...But the major smelter capable of handling Bolivian concentrates on a large scale was the Williams, Harvey smelter in England, obviously beyond the control of the MNR and the tin miners...
...Many, if not most, of the unions organized their workers around the broad ideologies of Marxism or anarcho-syndicalism...
...Quoted in Gullermo Lora, Historia del movimiento obrero boilviano (La Paz- Cochabamba: Los Amigos del Libro, 1969), II, 373...
...The Gallatin Letter, Vol...
...cit., 39-47...
...Yet the miners' militancy had not been crushed...
...All other major producers employ dredge mining techniques which are much less costly...
...Grace, at least through 1973, played TABLE 2: COMIBOL's Financial Obligations to USAID and the Interamerican Development Bank [IADB], 1966-1973...
...and, gave a wide variety of tax and duty exemptions to foreign mining companies...
...IV (Mexico: Naciones Unidas, Departamento de Asuntos Economicos y Sociales, 1958), 15, 115...
...See Latin America, VII, No...
...Reyes is a top leader in the Bolivian Communist Party, and Escobar, one of the important figures in the Revolutionary Labor Party (POR...
...Mining, perhaps more than any other job, demands the solidarity of its working force if accidental deaths or injuries are to be prevented...
...Hollandsche 30,000 6,000 Netherlands Metallugische - Industrie Billiton N. Ferriby, Capper Pass & Sons, 10,000 8,000 Yorkshire Ltd.b England Kirkby, Williams, Harvey & 20,000- 17,000 Lancashire Co., Ltd.c 25,000 England Texas City, Gulf Metallurgical 10,000 6,000 Texas, USA and Chemical Corp...
...This trend reached an extreme in the mines where, by 1924, foreigners controlled two-thirds of the Bolivian mining industry...
...Tin plate is a carrier of food...
...These are only two examples of the miners' response to the military dictatorship...
...expressed the MNR's line in the following statement: 'The fight (for self- determination) will not be won by destroying the capitalist, but by nationalizing the mines...
...Bureau of Inter- national Commerce...
...policy-makers pressed the Bolivian government for the establishment of certain investment codes which would guarantee the free access of foreign private capital to all sectors of the economy...
...in other words, by placing autonomous control of wealth in Bolivian hands...
...Li also established a somewhat shady foundation, the Li Foundation, whose stated purpose is the "promotion of good will between the United States and the Republic of China (Taiwan)," and which awards students at the National Taiwan University fellowships for study in the United States.15 As in other firms, the legal advisor to Wah Chang holds a crucial position...
...In the 1920's, the Guggenheims controlled the important Caracoles Tin Company of Bolivia...
...Wah Chang's smelting operations in Texas City gradually passed from the hands of Teledyne to two small firms, Frederick H. Lenway and Company, a mineral and metal trading company, and Southern California Chemicals...
...The country had been suffering under the repressive Banzer government for more than a year, and the miners, in particular, had endured the attacks of reactionary governments for almost 16 years, except for the short-lived period of Torres' government...
...The lessons absorbed in the mines, in turn, facilitated the growth of a class conscious mining proletariat and made it the vanguard of the working class movement...
...As the tin industry expanded in Bolivia, three men came to control its development: Simon I. Patino, Mauricio Hochschild and Carlos Aramayo...
...American Smelting and Refining Co...
...is controlled by Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation, Ltd...
...The Gallatin Annual of International Business, 1965 (New York: American Heritage Publishing Company, Inc., 1965), 265...
...3. James W. Wilkie, The Bolivian Revolutien and U.S...
...Compared to the small shops which predominated in the urban wage economy, the units of production in the mines14 were quite large, thereby helping to create a qualitatively different movement...
...New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1971), 306...
...Since that time, the International Tin Council, composed of producers and consumers, has established (except in war years) a schedule of production divided among the producing nations...
...It sells tin when the prices rise and buys when they are low, and generally wreaks havoc in the delicate tin market...
...The indigenous nature of the Bolivian workers' movement sets it apart from those South American countries where immigrant labor helped to swell the ranks of organized labor...
...1 1 When the Federation demanded freedom to organize without fears of reprisals, the company unceremoniously rejected its demands and detained its leaders...
...In the late 1960's Wah Chang was taken over by the huge Teledyne Corporation...
...The United States countered with a $10 million offer of its own for the reequipment of the mines and for concentration plants-not refineries--and with a threat that Bolivia would receive no further aid if it accepted the Soviet offer...
...American Metal Market (New York), January 4,1971, 1,9...
...In fact, the twenty-year period between 1908 and 1928, which witnessed a substantial influx of foreign private capital into Bolivia, produced the demise of many small national concerns...
...Spain Yugoslavia Hungary Denmark Bulgaria Austria S. Korea All Other TOTAL 29 28 16 15 11 10 10 7 20 1,000 Votes reflect proportion of production or consumption Source: Tin News, August 15, 1972, 1-2...
...In 1932 total earnings from tin exports amounted to a paltry $10 million...
...The silver boom carried Bolivia into the twentieth century, but it was tin, an habitual byproduct of silver mining, which formed the basis of the modern Bolivian economy...
...International Metal Processing Corp...
...Compania American Smelting Bolivi- ana, Ltd...
...The United States and the Refining of Bolivian Tin...
...aEstimated, in tons...
...The oligopolistic concentration of capital in the tin industry also accentuated this trend...
...When the MNR nationalized the Gran Mineria, it took over 17 mining properties with their respective ore processing and concentrating facilities...
...The leaders of the new order parlayed Chilean compensation for the lands seized during the War of the Pacific* and this new silver boom into development of an economic infra-structure...
...U.S...
...Thus, the Bolivian contribution to the U.S...
...CAPACITY 1970 LOCATION SMELTER OWNERSHIP TONS/YR...
...Quoted in June Nash, "Dependency and the Failure of Feedback," Unpublished mss., 7. 14...
...Wah Chang finally received approximately 5,000 tons of tin concentrates per year (one-quarter of total production...
...And, finally, W. R. Grace organized the International Mining Company, a large producer of Bolivian wolfram during World War I and actively competed with Williams, Harvey (Patino) and American Smelting and Refining (Guggenheim) for the control of the refining industry...
...Standard and Poor's, Register [1973...
...The basic points which emerges is that Bolivian interests retained very little control over the development of tin in their country...
...The most important link in this plan was the European tin refining industry...
...Almaraz Paz,op...
...cit., 295...
...There is considerable evidence to the effect that Wah Chang allied itself with the powerful W.R...
...Emilio Diaz, the Chilean administrator of the Uncia mines, ordered the soldiers to turn their fire on the crowd, producing yet another of the many massacres which have occurred in the Bolivian mines...
...In 1959, for example, the Soviet Union offered Bolivia $10 million for the construction of a tin smelter in Bolivia...
...Seven years after the nationalization, no final indemnification figure had been reached, and the Big Three had already collected about $20 million from this informal system.14 For companies which had invested only $1 million in the mines since 1928, this represented a windfall profit...
...Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines...
...Tin," as Lyndon Johnson once recalled, "as we all know, is one of the most vital materials to our national defense...
...Organization among the miners continued to grow in the 1930's under the protection of the "military socialists," Col...
...Obviously, though, both the Dutch firm, then in conflict with Williams, Harvey, and the United States took advantage of the opportunity to attempt to break British domination of Bolivian tin smelting...
...For the United States, the Second World War was its great opportunity to replace England in the control of tin...
...Furthermore, the pittance left by the plunderer will be used to feed only the parasitic sector of the country, a country which has no existence other than tin...
...IN BOLIVIA U.S...
...With the stock market crash of 1929, though, Bolivian tin exports plummeted as did tin prices which fell over 60 percent between 1926 and 1932...
...David Toro and Lieut...
...TABLE 3: U.S...
...Investments in Bolivian Mining...
...The United States has one final but crucial hold on the Bolivian mining economy: its stockpiles of tin...
...CEPAL, El desarrolo economico de Bolivia, analysis y proyacciones del desarrallo economico, No...
...Patino allied with the large National Lead Company of the United States and forced his entry into Williams, Harvey which, before long, he also controlled...
...In 1943 the miners were again given the conditions needed for basic organizational work when another young military nationalist, Major Gualberto Villarroel, assumed the presidency...
...Their primary Latin American activity is in Bolivia, and they have important operations in Peru and Chile as well...
...See Table 3...
...As the English report, Latin America, stated: "In any shake-out of the market Bolivia is the first sufferer, as its production costs are so much higher than those of alluvial tin producers...
...All of Bolivian life is surrounded by one monstrous fact: he who owns the tin will own the country, but to own it means to destroy those who produce it...
Vol. 8 • February 1974 • No. 2
