Peasant Wars in Bolivia: Making, Thinking, and Living the Revolution in Cochabamba, 1952-64. By José M. Gordillo

Abstract

In an enormously rich and complex narrative, Gordillo examines the role of peasants in the 1952 Bolivian Revolution. This ethnography of peasant political struggle is a welcome addition to an increasingly rich body of literature on the Bolivian revolution that seeks to understand revolutionary political dynamics from below. Although the University of Calgary published the book in 2022, it originated in Gordillo’s 1999 dissertation, which has already served as a reference for a recent wave of scholars seeking a new interpretation of the 1952 revolution. Gordillo outlines the complex map of political interests that constituted the peasant world in Cochabamba. He reveals that different peasant traditions gave rise to specific political demands and thus distinct types of land claims. While peasants of the highlands demanded restitution of community lands, the colonos (laborers who worked for a landlord prior to the revolution) fought for the expropriation of haciendas. Gordillo challenges the so-called ethnic turn in the historiography of the 1990s, which marginalized the study of class identities. By contrast, he argues that class is essential to understanding politics in the valleys, where a peasant identity was not simply imposed by the government but embraced and built over years of social, historical, and political struggles. This reality contrasts with the ethnic and class formation of communities in the highlands, where an indigenous-communal identity persisted.