Permanent revolution on the altiplano: Bolivian Trotskyism, 1928--2005

In Bolivia, uniquely in the Western Hemisphere, Trotskyism acquired significant and enduring influence in the labor movement as well as sectors of the peasantry. The dissident Communist current identified with the views of the exiled Soviet revolutionary generated themes and slogans that fed into the 1952 Bolivian Revolution, one of the deepest-going national upheavals in modern Latin American history. The influence of Bolivian Trotskyism continued to be felt at subsequent turning points in the life of this predominantly Indian and peasant Andean country.;Yet it was the nationalist party (MNR) that, in a complex process of ideological and organizational cooptation, reaped the rewards. The fate of Bolivian Trotskyism is part of the ultimate frustration of the Bolivian National Revolution itself. Yet the issues posed by this process are far from settled. In October 2003, Bolivian workers and peasants drove out the latest MNR leader to occupy the nation's presidency. Among their watchwords was a "return to the Thesis of Pulacayo," a program for social revolution written by the Trotskyists in 1946, approved by the miners' union, and long considered the central programmatic document of Bolivian labor. A subsequent upheaval in May-June 2005 paved the way for the election of peasant leader Evo Morales as the nation's first indigenous president.;This dissertation will seek to answer the following questions: Why did Trotskyism achieve this degree of influence in Bolivia? What was its impact on the 1952 Revolution and subsequent upheavals? Why did its adherents fail to achieve their stated goals?;Labor leaders saw links with the nationalist MNR as a way to gain access to parliament and the national press. Trotskyist activists saw the role of advisers and intellectual technicians for labor leaders as a means to gain access to workers in isolated raining camps. They believed labor radicals would be the rider, the MNR the horse. The opposite proved to be the case: this "anti-imperialist united front" aided the MNR while frustrating the Trotskyists' long-term objectives.