In all likelihood, the Peronists’ concern for the MNR refugees went well beyond simple humanitarianism or respect for international law; they considered them to be the only Bolivian faction who “could respond to our overtures for the formation of a bloc” against the “Yanqui and Brazilian imperialisms aligned against us.” Because most MNR members, including Paz Estenssoro himself, were seeking refuge in Buenos Aires, the potential for intrigue was virtually unlimited. Although other Bolivian diplomats attributed at least some blame for the food crisis to the inefficiency of the new Peronist trade monopoly and noted that other nations had suffered from it as well, this did nothing to change the fact that the “normalization of exports” from Argentina would “not be possible in the short term.”17
What the Peronists failed to take into account, however, was the State Department’s strong desire to see the Monje junta prosper. Over the course of 1945 and 1946, U.S. diplomats had discovered that “Argentina normally eases its policies on supplies quite readily after it discovers that we are willing to take care of its neighbors’ food needs.” Because U.S. diplomats urgently sought to strengthen the new government and Braden was receptive to any means by which any Argentine venture could be countered, this was the perfect opportunity. Indeed, State Department officers had been planning for this contingency since before the revolution, and Assistant Secretary Braden pledged that he would meet Bolivia’s “minimum requirements” of food. In fact, he “was already making arrangements to do so” in mid-August, when the first Bolivian request arrived.18 His superiors immediately authorized the shipment of twenty-four thousand tons of flour, and promised more to come. In October, the United States shipped eight thousand tons of wheat as well as an additional nine thousand tons of flour by rail from Chile; Ambassador Martínez Vargas confidently informed his superiors that he could obtain another eight thousand tons of U.S. wheat in November. For the Bolivians, the lesson was clear, and one they would exploit for years. Because the United States would provide wheat and flour to counter a Peronist embargo and ease a “critical and dangerous economic and political situation,” Bolivian diplomats could use the promise of U.S. aid to secure lower prices from the Argentines and, in turn, lower prices from the North Americans as well.19
Once the State Department announced that it would meet Bolivia’s needs and Monje declared that the MNR exiles would be given safe transit out of Bolivia, the Argentines lifted their “virtual blockade” almost immediately.20 Although the new Bolivian chargé in Buenos Aires was obliged to run almost exactly the same gauntlet of Argentine functionaries in October that Daza Ondarza had run in August, he was greeted with “a spirit of cooperation that translated into the immediate dispatch of export permits.” When queried by U.S. diplomats, Bolivian statesmen reported no complaints at the end of October and attributed the “reversal of Argentina’s position solely to United States expressions of aid, which have, in effect, nullified Argentina’s economic pressure.”21 At least one U.S. official was convinced that Daza Ondarza had for months “failed to bring Bolivia’s problems to the attention of the proper Argentine representatives,” but this had clearly not been the case. Although the Peronist motivations remained somewhat unclear, one MNR leader suggested that the Argentines had been “pointing a gun at the head of Bolivia” to remind it that “it could not afford the luxury of an anti-Argentine policy” at a time when mobs in La Paz were chanting, “Perón, to the lamppost!”22
In the end, both U.S. and Argentine diplomats had applied pressure, albeit of a much different character, to protect Paz Estenssoro and the MNR refugees. When Paz Estenssoro finally arrived in Argentina in November, he admitted that “he owed his life” to the leaders of Argentina, Paraguay, and Mexico, who had insisted on Bolivia’s “firm” adherence to the principles of political asylum. He did not include Ambassador Flack or the Truman administration among his saviors, for swift U.S. recognition of the junta had, if anything, endangered him and his colleagues. Thoroughly unrepentant, Paz Estenssoro reaffirmed his support for Villarroel, whose work had been “so barbarously interrupted by the Bradenist plutocracy,” denounced Monje as a figurehead for “vampires who suck the blood of the Bolivian people,” and lamented that his homeland was now “completely asphyxiated by the overwhelming pressure of the oligarchic and plutocratic tentacles.”23 As MNR members dispersed, some fleeing to Argentina and others going underground in Bolivia, to plot their response and to reorganize in the mines, Monje and the junta had passed their first test and survived their first challenges.
With Bolivia’s international relations reestablished and normalized, the junta’s primary task was to pave the way for a restoration of constitutional rule by holding elections for the presidency, the Senate, and the Chamber of Deputies. The MNR was naturally prohibited from participating, which ensured that the competition would be among the various parties making up the Frente Democrático Antifascista. Although the election of March 1947 was, on one level, notable for the civility and relative harmony that accompanied it, on another, it was a harbinger of the factional infighting that would cripple the governments of the sexenio. Unified only by hatred and fear of the movimientistas, the FDA had brought together the Marxist Partido de la Izquierda Revolucionaria, the rightist Liberal Party, bastion of the landed aristocracy, and the more moderate Socialist Republican, Genuine Republican, and Socialist Parties into a united front against Villarroel. Dropping “Antifascista” from its name, the Frente Democrático hoped to present a single slate of candidates who would restore unity to Bolivia. This hope would be dashed, however, by the ambitions of José Antonio Arze and his PIR.
The piristas seem to have believed, with some merit, that the moment had finally arrived for them to ascend to power. Theirs was the one remaining party that, through its influence in the mining, industrial, and railway unions, had anything resembling a mass constituency. Indeed, what organized support the 21 July revolution had enjoyed had come almost exclusively from PIR cells in the student federations and unions in La Paz. With the MNR being driven out of the mining camps, the piristas had every reason to believe they would be able to fill the void and finally achieve a dominant position among the working class. Explicitly Marxist in orientation since its founding in 1940, the PIR advocated a reasonably thorough reform of Bolivian society through a “12 Point” agenda that called for a centralized economy, women’s suffrage, education reform, the elimination of illiteracy, and “action against imperialism, feudalism, and Nazi-Fascism.” Notably, it was able to coexist with the landed elite because it did not call for immediate land reform or liberation of the indigenous masses and with the tin barons because it did not call for immediate nationalization of their properties.24 Confident in its own strength, however, the PIR was unwilling to sacrifice its agenda to the more conservative parties of the Frente Democrático: its defection destroyed whatever consensus may have existed in the postwar period.
Pan-American Union official Ernesto Galarza offered a different version of the breakup of the Frente. According to Galarza, the PIR was effectively purged from the FDA when the “political marriage of the Rosca and the PIR proved to be a shot-gun wedding with a hangman’s honeymoon.” Although the piristas had great strength in the Tripartite Committee, the junta quickly supplanted and then disbanded the committee. Further, Monje’s success in disarming the newly armed paceños dealt a direct blow to the PIR’s ability to threaten the regime or launch a “second workers’ revolution.” José Arze and his followers were gradually eliminated from their positions in the junta and denied the representation they believed they deserved on councils and electoral slates; they came under increasing fire from the tin barons’ newspapers.25 Even though the other parties blamed the dissolution of the Frente Democrático on the PIR, Galarza’s version of events has considerable merit.
The PIR was not the only party to defect from the Frente Democrático: other defections quickly followed. When the Republicans and Socialists forged a coalition, the Partido de la Unión Republicana Socialista (PURS), to fill the void left by the PIR’s departure, the Liberals made a bold move to block their old rivals, suggesting that Monje be named president by acclamation. And when Monje turned down the nomination, the Liberal Party announced its intention to run its own slate of candidates against