¡Vamos a Avanzar!: The Chaco War and Bolivia’s Political Transformation, 1899-1952. Robert Niebuhr. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

In 1932, Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over dry, sparsely populated territories in the Chaco region of South America. Three years of fighting had wide-ranging consequences. National consciousness developed among Bolivia’s disparate peoples and the war increased the importance of public opinion in political life. One postwar rallying cry of veterans, ¡Vamos a avanzar! (“Let’s move forward!”), expressed their desire for reformist modernization.

Robert Niebuhr has written a book about social and political transformations in Bolivia with a focus on the period between 1920 and 1940. He argues that the country’s political elite, however inept or venal, created a modern nation-state during the first half of the twentieth century. For Niebuhr, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement’s ascension to power in 1952, as well as Evo Morales’ Movement for Socialism in the twenty-first century represent “more a continuation of past policies and increased connectivity with global trends than a dramatic transformation and shift from the past.”[1] Niebuhr’s case for this periodization is convincing. Economic changes from early in the century irrevocably altered Bolivian political dynamics. Although most workers did not vote in elections or read newspapers, parties and politicians could not govern with the support of a tiny middle class alone. They increasingly had to acknowledge the social and even economic and political power of miners, students, and urban workers who might go on strike or react violently to breaking news. Peasants, for their part, could desert the army. These reasons, among others, moved the country’s political discourse towards populist rhetoric. The book, it should be noted, is not about the proximate causes, operations, or central figures of the Chaco War (1932-1935), the last large-scale inter-state military conflict in South American history, but rather the war’s relationship to social and political transformations already underway.

In short, Bolivia’s agricultural character and traditional social hierarchy existed alongside a growing integration with the world economy and its marketplace of ideas. Elites, for their part, wanted to strengthen the state and its power.

Early in the twentieth century, Bolivia’s tin mining economy cemented a new set of global connections. Foreign capital flowed into the country from banks in New York City and connected elites to visions of modernity. Niebuhr shows that urban centers with mass media and public schools increased in size as did the number of city dwellers and their potential for mobilization by parties and politicians. Ideologies such as nationalism and communism influenced the country’s political landscape. In short, Bolivia’s agricultural character and traditional social hierarchy existed alongside a growing integration with the world economy and its marketplace of ideas. Elites, for their part, wanted to strengthen the state and its power.

Chapter one establishes the underlying reasons for Bolivia’s willingness to go to war over the Chaco. Chile’s annexation of Bolivia’s coastal territory after the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) made important segments of the Bolivian public sensitive to any loss of territory and laid the basis for emotional arguments about defending disputed territories at all costs. Being landlocked also created a strong geopolitical drive for Bolivia to control a portion of the Paraguay River and, through it, access to the Atlantic Ocean. Elites saw the need for infrastructure to exploit potentially valuable lands in the Chaco as well as an army to defend them. To this end, the Bolivian state purchased modern armaments–Maxim guns, Vickers light tanks–and hired German military advisers. Despite the geographic and logistical challenges of operating in the Chaco, Bolivia’s overconfident president declared war on Paraguay amid a severe political and economic crisis touched off by the Great Depression.

As the war dragged on, tens of thousands of illiterate peasants were conscripted and socialized inside of the army where they encountered Bolivians from every region and ethnic group speaking a diversity of languages.

Chapters two and three cover the war years. Little attention is paid to the chronology of escalating border clashes, major battles, or how Eusebio Ayala and Daniel Salamanca—the Presidents of Paraguay—managed the conflict. The focus is squarely on public opinion and the war’s social and political impacts. The Bolivian state mobilized roughly ten percent of its total population, or about 200,000 soldiers. As the war dragged on, tens of thousands of illiterate peasants were conscripted and socialized inside of the army where they encountered Bolivians from every region and ethnic group speaking a diversity of languages. Large numbers of Indigenous men, removed from their villages and thrust into a military setting, had to overcome communication difficulties and develop sufficient trust in their comrades to fight a common enemy under exceedingly difficult circumstances. Such experiences forged national bonds where mere nationalist rhetoric could not.

The war transformed its survivors into the generación de Chaco (“Chaco generation”), a large body of veterans with contempt for the old political order.

Nineteen images, mostly from La Semana Grafica—an illustrated Bolivian weekly newsmagazine—provide a sense of domestic propaganda and war reporting. Photographs of Bolivians in captivity, there were over 20,000 prisoners of war, come from Paraguay’s Archive of the Ministry of Defense. As is the case throughout the book, Niebuhr draws from European and U.S. historiographies to put pre and postwar Bolivia in a global perspective. The Crimean War, U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam War are all effectively used to consider modern warfare’s relationship to nation building and state formation. Some comparisons may seem to come at the expense of narrative focus and Bolivia’s historical experience. Why Paraguayan forces prevailed over the more populous, better-equipped Bolivian Army is not a major topic of inquiry, nor is Paraguay’s superior wartime mobilization. In fact, it is unclear what happened in Paraguay during the war years or how neighboring countries reacted to unfolding events. 

Bolivia could not return to the status quo ante after 1935. The war transformed its survivors into the generación de Chaco (“Chaco generation”), a large body of veterans with contempt for the old political order. Chapters four and five cover the immediate postwar era and its tumultuous politics. Perhaps unsurprisingly, young military officers blamed Bolivia’s ruling elite for wartime failures and drew inspiration from nationalist politics in contemporary Spain, Italy, and Germany. The Nazis, for instance, seemed to have restored Germany from the ashes of a humiliating defeat in World War I.  

¡Vamos a Avanzar! demonstrates the Chaco War’s role modernizing the Bolivian state and makes a convincing case that events in the first half of the twentieth century laid the foundation for populist politics and Indigenous activism in the second half of the century.

Germán Busch, an officer who distinguished himself during the Chaco War, founded the League of Veterans (Legión de Ex-Combatientes, LEC) in 1935. With offices across the country, its members quickly emerged as a powerful organization. They supported Colonel David Toro’s military coup in 1936, which inaugurated a long period of military involvement in politics. Not long after, the LEC supported Germán Busch’s takeover and short-lived presidency (1937-1939). Both Toro and Busch advocated policies to promote infrastructure, urban development, and mass literacy. Toro nationalized the American owned Standard Oil Company to the approval of crowds and officers alike. Such postwar policies accelerated the shift towards a more inclusive political environment and set the stage for Bolivian National Revolution (1952-1964). Less clear is how LEC chiefs related to the country’s large body of illiterate, Indigenous veterans. That the war changed life for Indigenous men and women is certain, but the book does not show it. As a result, some assertions lack empirical grounding. Niebuhr writes, “As Indigenous peasants they had no power. As ex-soldiers they gained experience, respect, and a claim to citizenship in an emerging modern state.”[2] This is not a claim supported by military records or subsequent oral testimony, which leaves the reader to wonder about these veterans who “agitated for equal rights and full citizenship.”[3]

¡Vamos a Avanzar! demonstrates the Chaco War’s role modernizing the Bolivian state and makes a convincing case that events in the first half of the twentieth century laid the foundation for populist politics and Indigenous activism in the second half of the century. The book’s contribution has to do with placing Bolivia’s modernization process in a global and temporal perspective.

John R. Bawden is a professor of history at the University of Montevallo. His research focuses on Chilean history during the Cold War and U.S.-Latin American relations.

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Header Image: Bolivian military figures and leaders in the Chaco - Standing: Eulogio Ruiz, René Rocabado, Ltc. Luiz Añez, Col. David Toro, Col. Felipe Rivera, Col. Bernardino Bilbao, Jorge Jordán and Ltc. Oscar Moscoso. Seated from left to right are Dr. José Luis Fernando Guachalla, Minister of War, Gnrl. Enrique Peñaranda, Dr. José Luis Tejada Sorzano, President of the Republic, Col. Julio Sanjinez, Minister of Defense. 1935. (Unknown)

Notes:

[1] Niebuhr, ¡Vamos a Avanzar!, 169.

[2] Niebuhr, ¡Vamos a Avanzar!, 133.

[3] Niebuhr, ¡Vamos a Avanzar!, 109.