Socialist Republican Party Partido Republicano Socialista | |
---|---|
Founded | January 28, 1921 |
Dissolved | November 10, 1946 |
Split from | Republican Party |
Merged into | Republican Socialist Unity Party |
Headquarters | La Paz |
Ideology | Reformism Left-wing populism Socialism (from 1932) |
National affiliation | Antifascist Democratic Front (1943) |
The Socialist Republican Party (Spanish : Partido Republicano Socialista, PRS), whose members were also known as "Saavedristas", was a political party in Bolivia. The Socialist Republican Party emerged on January 28, 1921, as the Republican Party was bifurcated on the same day Bautista Saavedra took office as President of the country. The Socialist Republican Party was formed by Saavedra's followers. [1] [2]
The Republican Socialist Party was formed by a reformist sector. Bautista Saavedra, a populist, represented middle-class and resented the old party's close ties to the powerful tin barons. His appeal to urban middle-class artisans, small merchants, and laborers generated a nonestablishment political base and a new class consciousness. The Republican Government of Saavedra enacted progressive social and labor codes and doubled government taxes on mining. Though more concerned for the underprivileged classes, Saavedra blatantly manipulated his populist support. [3]
In the 1925 elections the PRS's presidential candidate was Hernando Siles Reyes. He was elected president and took office on 10 January 1926.
During the rule of Bautista Saavedra and Hernando Siles Reyes, the Bolivian economy underwent a profound change. Tin prices started to decline in the 1920s. After peaking in 1929, tin production declined dramatically as the Great Depression nearly destroyed the international tin market. During the 1920s, Bolivia faced growing social turmoil. Labor unrest, such as the miners' strike in Uncia in 1923, was brutally suppressed. But the unrest reached new heights of violence after the drastic reduction of the work force during the Great Depression. The social legislation of the Republican Socialist Governments was weak. Hernando Siles Reyes's 4 years of inconsistent rule and unfulfilled promises of radical changes frustrated workers and students. In 1930 he was overthrown when he tried to bypass the constitutional provision forbidding reelection by resigning in order to run again. [4]
Shortly before the Chaco War, the party refounded itself seeking to become a genuine socialist (and less personalistic) party. A fifty-member National Council was formed as the new leading body of the party. [5]
After the Chaco War, the Socialist Republican Party charged the traditional elites with being responsible for the failures of the war. This discourse struck a chord with the radicalized middle class of the country. The party was joined by a number of middle class intellectuals, as well as some trade unionists and Marxists. This development worried the Socialist Party, which charged that Saavedra was not without responsibility for the war nor was he innocent of the killings of miners and peasants in Uncía, Llallagua, Catavi and Jesús de Machaca. [5] However, both parties supported the military government of Colonel David Toro in 1936–1937. [6]
In a bloodless revolution on 17 May 1936, the government of Liberals and Genuine Republicans was overthrown. The coup was led by Colonel Germán Busch Becerra, and he was supported by the Republican Socialist Party. For the 1938 elections, the Republican Socialist Party was the component of the Socialist Single Front. [7]
As a part of the Concordancia-Democratic Alliance formed in March 1939 (along with the Genuine Republican Party and the Liberal Party), the Socialist Republican Party supported the military governments of General Carlos Quintanilla 1939–1940 and General Enrique Peñaranda 1940–1943. [6] [8] In February 1943 the Socialist Republican Party, Socialist Party, Genuine Republican Party and the Liberal Party signed a pact ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. [8]
In 1943 after Gualberto Villarroel’s revolution, the Republican Socialist Party, the Genuine Republican Party, Liberal Party and Revolutionary Left Party formed the opposition Antifascist Democratic Front. [9]
On 10 November 1946, the Republican Socialist Party merged with the Genuine Republican Party, the United Socialist Party and Independent Socialist Party to form the new Republican Socialist Unity Party. [10]
Daniel Domingo Salamanca Urey was a Bolivian lawyer and politician who served as the 33rd president of Bolivia from 1931 to 1934.
Bautista Saavedra Mallea was a Bolivian lawyer and politician who served as the 29th president of Bolivia from 1921 to 1925. Prior to that, he was part of a governing junta from 1920 to 1921.
Hernando Siles Reyes was a Bolivian politician who served as the 31st president of Bolivia from 1926 to 1930. The founder of the Nationalist Party, he soon gravitated toward the Saavedrista faction of the Republican Party, which had come to power in 1920. Chosen by President Saavedra to be his successor in 1926, Siles ran on a ticket that included the latter's brother, Abdon Saavedra, as his vice-presidential running mate. This formula won the elections, and Siles Reyes was sworn in August, 1926. Soon, he came to be regarded as one of the most charismatic Bolivian politicians in recent memory, especially when he broke openly with the domineering ex-President Bautista Saavedra, and exiled him along with his brother. Despite all this, the Siles government soon ran into economic and political difficulties associated with the far-reaching effects of the "crash" of 1929. Moreover, his term was marked by rising diplomatic tensions with neighboring Paraguay which would later lead to the Chaco War. Many more opponents were exiled, giving Siles some breathing room, but matters reached a breaking point when, in 1930, the President attempted to unilaterally increase his term in office, ostensibly to deal with the mounting economic and international crisis. This was all his opponents needed, and with a coup d'état clearly in the offing, Siles resigned on May 28, 1930, leaving his cabinet in charge. The latter was overthrown by General Carlos Blanco, who in 1931 called elections which were won by Daniel Salamanca of the Partido Republicano-Genuino. Siles lived the rest of his life in exile, dying in Lima in 1942 at the age of 60.
Víctor Germán Busch Becerra was a Bolivian military officer and statesman who served as the 36th president of Bolivia from 1937 to 1939. Prior to his presidency, he served as the Chief of the General Staff and was the Supreme Leader of the Legion of Veterans, a veterans' organization founded by him after his service in the Chaco War.
The vice president of Bolivia, officially known as the vice president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is the second highest political position in Bolivia. The vice president replaces the president in his definitive absence or others impediment and is the ex officio President of the Legislative Assembly.
Carlos Quintanilla Quiroga was a Bolivian military officer who served as the 37th president of Bolivia from 1939 to 1940. Quintanilla saw action in the initial stages of the Chaco War (1932–1935) and managed to ascend the echelon of the Bolivian armed forces until he became commander of the army during the administration of Germán Busch. When President Busch committed suicide on 23 August 1939, Quintanilla declared himself Provisional President of the Republic.
Bolivia's defeat by Paraguay in the Chaco War of 1932–1936 marked a turning point in the modern history of Bolivia. Significant loss of life and territory discredited the traditional ruling classes, while service in the army produced stirrings of political awareness among the indigenous people. Many of the contested Gran Chaco region was surrendered to Paraguay. In return, Bolivia was given access to the Paraguay River where Puerto Busch was founded, and, with this, free access to the Atlantic Ocean through international waters was possible.
General elections were held in Bolivia on 10 March 1940, electing both a new President of the Republic and a new National Congress. The elections were the first in six years since 1934 and the first not to be annulled in nine years since the general election of 1931.
The Republican Party was a Bolivian political party founded in 1914.
The Genuine Republican Party was founded in Bolivia in 1921 by José María Escalier and Daniel Domingo Salamanca Urey following a split in the Republican Party.
The Nationalist Party was a Bolivian reformist and nationalist political party.
The first Bolivian Socialist Parties were established in 1913–1935.
The Concordance was an electoral political alliance of the right-wing and traditionalist political parties in Bolivia.
The Antifascist Democratic Front was a political alliance of the traditionalist and left-wing parties in Bolivia.
The Social Democratic Party was a conservative, small and elitist, but influential Bolivian political party formed by middle-class intellectuals.
1920 Bolivian coup d'état was a bloodless takeover of power in Bolivia by the Republican party on July 12, 1920 which overthrew the previously ruling government of the Liberal Party and brought Bautista Saavedra to power as President from 1920 until 1925.
Bolivia has experienced more than 190 coups d'état and revolutions since its independence was declared in 1825. Since 1950, Bolivia has seen the most coups of any country. The penultimate known attempt was in 1984, two years after the country's transition to democracy in 1982. The most recent attempted coup d'état was in 2024, led by General Juan José Zúñiga.
Enrique Peñaranda assumed office as the 38th President of Bolivia on 15 April 1940, and his term was terminated by a coup d'état on 20 December 1943. A general in the Chaco War, Peñaranda was brought forth by the traditional conservative political parties, sidelined since the end of the Chaco War, as their candidate in the 1940 general elections.
Gabriel Gosálvez Tejada was a Bolivian politician, journalist, economist, and diplomat. Throughout his political career, Gosálvez held various ministerial officers and diplomatic posts as a member of the United Socialist Party. When that party merged into the Republican Socialist Unity Party, Gosálvez was presented as its presidential candidate in the 1951 general election.
The Government Junta of Bolivia, known from 21 June 1936 as the Military Government Junta, was a civil-military junta which ruled Bolivia from 17 May 1936 through 28 May 1938. It consisted of representatives of both the armed forces as well as the civilian sector, including moderate socialists and organized labor leaders. The President of the Junta was Colonel David Toro who came to power on 22 May 1936, six days after a coup d'état which overthrew the previous government. Toro presided over a reformist experiment known as Military Socialism for a little over a year before being overthrown himself in another coup d'état which allowed Lieutenant Colonel Germán Busch to succeed to lead the junta on 13 July 1937. The junta was dissolved on 28 May 1938 when the National Convention elected Busch Constitutional President of the Republic.