Instead, the revolution began in mid-July with a student strike at the universities of La Paz, backed by PIR labor agitators.67 When Villarroel ordered its suppression, fighting broke out in the heart of the city, and several students were killed. As marches and protests led by casket-bearing students sprang up across La Paz, PIR unionists called a general strike, paralyzing the city. Students and piristas armed themselves to battle for La Paz and the nation. Within days, both the military and the MNR had abandoned Villarroel, who now faced an insurgent mob almost alone. On 23 July 1946, the president was dragged into the Plaza Murillo, beaten, mutilated, and hanged from a lamppost “a la Mussolini.”68 Newly appointed U.S. ambassador Joseph Flack, who had arrived just in time to witness the lynching and the fall of what he called “one of the most noxious governments the country had ever experienced,” was awestruck by the spectacle. The opposition had, according to Flack and other State Department officers, “with their bare hands alone” triggered a “volcano of popular discontent” to oust a “Nazi-tainted dictatorship” “a la French Revolution.”69
As movimientistas scattered into exile and sought refuge in the embassies of La Paz, the MNR’s tentative experiment in populist reform came to an abrupt halt. Contrary to movimientista and peronista propaganda, Braden’s State Department seems to have done nothing to provoke or support the revolution, although it rejoiced when the old order and liberal constitutional oligarchy were restored. For the next six years, the MNR plotted its return in union halls, mining camps, clandestine party meetings, and the streets of Buenos Aires, while the tin barons worked to reestablish their control over Bolivian society. Whereas the MNR considered the sexenio to be nothing more than the naked restoration of the rosca to full power, conservative reformers, ever wary of counterrevolution, tried their best to steer a middle course between the radicalism of the MNR and the revanchism of the old elite. Their efforts, despite the full support of the U.S. State Department, were doomed to failure.
This is one of the profound constitutional contradictions of Bolivian democracy. It cannot have majoritarian government, first because the majority of the Bolivian population is alien to the political life, and second because inside the nucleus of the minority that has political awareness, the majority is in violent divergence with the interests that have in their hands the vital responsibilities of the nation.
—Demetrio Canelas, 5 January 1952
It is true that the salaries and wages that are paid [in Bolivia] cannot furnish employees and workers a standard of living like that of the United States or Argentina because neither from England nor from the United States . . . have we been able to obtain prices that permit adequate increases in these salaries and wages.
—Gabriel Gosálvez, 3 September 1949
In the aftermath of the revolution of 21 July 1946, both the Truman administration and Bolivia’s Provisional Junta of Government optimistically looked forward to a new era of cooperation and mutual understanding. Relief, exuberance, and satisfaction characterized the mood at the State Department. Members of the new junta made the astonishing and extremely unlikely claim that, at the time of the revolution, Major Villarroel “had a mission in Buenos Aires prepared to give way to Perón’s desires, arrange elimination of customs barriers, and assure ‘Anschluss’ with Argentina.” Although more sanguine observers like U.S. diplomat George Messersmith suggested that “anyone who knows the Bolivian attitude on sovereignty realizes that even Villarroel would not have bartered on this point,” U.S. chargé Hector Adam had nonetheless concluded that “there can no longer be any doubt that Bolivia, either through fear of reprisals or genuine willingness,” had “signed up” in a “southern bloc” with Argentina.1 If nothing else, Villarroel’s lynching put to rest any fears that Perón had a puppet in La Paz.
Those fears were replaced with jubilant optimism on the part of newly appointed ambassador Joseph Flack. When a junta headed by former judge Tomás Monje Gutiérrez eventually took control of Bolivia, promising a restoration of democracy, Flack took it upon himself to shepherd that process. The new regime faced impressive obstacles, including revolutionaries it could not control, fear of a MNR counterrevolution, and an Argentine food embargo that threatened to further destabilize an already unstable situation. Although Flack and his superiors did everything in their power to protect and assist the junta, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was not so charitable. Picking up where it had left off, the RFC was determined to undo Bolivian ambassador Victor Andrade’s victory. In other words, the greatest threat to the new regime came not from vengeful peronistas or movimientistas, who were painting the names of the junta’s leaders on lampposts in anticipation of their counterrevolution, but from representatives of the same U.S. government that had pledged its full support.
Restoring Order to Revolutionary Bolivia
Villarroel’s sudden demise and the complete collapse of his government caught the established parties and the political class entirely off guard. In the wake of the army’s complete abandonment of Villarroel, chaos reigned in the streets
of La Paz. Although an informal Tripartite Committee of students, teachers, and workers attempted to restore order to the city, it failed to curb the mob violence: hordes of vengeful paceños descended on the foreign embassies where members of the old regime had taken refuge. Gangs of students besieged the Argentine and Ecuadoran embassies, firing guns into the air and hurling insults at those who were sheltering movimientistas and pro-Villarroel military officers. They even stopped and searched the car of the Peruvian ambassador, whose wife was related to the MNR ex-mayor.2
With the army discredited and confined to the barracks and the police unwilling to take to the streets, the hastily assembled new junta found it impossible to establish control of the nation. Composed largely of men employed directly or indirectly by the tin barons and former officials of the Peñaranda government who had not taken part in the uprising, it had an uphill battle restoring order to La Paz. Respected judge Tomás Monje Gutiérrez was named head of the junta but, for almost a month, was too ill to take charge. Néstor Guillén Olmos and Monje Gutiérrez took limited steps to reestablish control but could not risk either putting uniformed soldiers on the streets or attempting to disarm the revolutionaries. New police officers were issued badges stamped “21” to symbolize their support for the 21 July uprising and to give proof that any semblance of villarroelismo had been purged.3 Responding to a pervasive fear within the diplomatic corps that MNR members would be killed by mobs or arrested rather than exiled, a fear that precluded any prospect of immediate international recognition of the new government, the junta made restoring order and protecting members of the old regime seeking asylum its highest priorities.
For U.S. policy makers, especially Ambassador Flack, the threat of further bloodletting was the only shadow to darken what was otherwise a shining triumph. Flack had arrived in La Paz on the eve of the revolution and had narrowly missed being hit by a stray bullet. This did little to dampen his spirits, however: he immediately proclaimed the revolution to be “an act of pure democracy emanating from the people and accomplished almost entirely with their bare hands,” and believed that it could well produce the “first democratic government in Bolivian history.” He lauded the revolutionaries in the highest terms and believed that the refusal of the masses to turn in their guns actually “had a salutary effect on any ideas which the military may still cherish surreptitiously of eventually trying to retake the government.”4 In short, Flack argued that “democracy’s first steps are apt to be faltering” but “should be supported in every reasonable and decent way by our country.” The tin barons rejoiced as well, expecting “relief from the troublesome labor problems” of the recent past and an end to what they called Villarroel’s “odious labor laws.”5
Still, Ambassador Flack