¡Vamos a Avanzar! The Chaco War and Bolivia's Political Transformation, 1899–1952

Abstract

It all goes back to the Chaco War. It seems in studying recent Bolivian history that the bulk of that history is refracted through the lens of that very important war from 1932 to 1935, in which Bolivia lost to its neighbor Paraguay. Arguably, only the 1879–83 War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia lost its coastline to Chile, and the 1952 Bolivian Revolution possibly cast longer shadows on that history.At the time that the Chaco War was fought the nations of the world, mired in the Great Depression, were not paying much attention. But that lack of attention does not diminish the war's importance. First, there is the tremendous number of casualties and loss of life. Although estimates vary, on the Paraguayan side between 35,000 and 50,000 were killed; on the Bolivian side between 50,000 and 80,000 were killed. These were significant numbers as a percentage of the countries' total populations (2.3 percent of Paraguay's, and 3.5 percent of Bolivia's). In Latin America, only the 1864–70 War of the Triple Alliance was deadlier. Second, the Chaco War capped a series of border wars, dating back to the nineteenth century, in which Bolivia lost more than half its territory. Third, and most important, the Bolivia that emerged from the Chaco War proved unrecognizable to the country that had entered the conflict. As Robert Niebuhr discusses in his engaging and excellent new book, Bolivia was modernizing before the war. But after the war, many in Bolivia concluded that reorganization of the nation's economy, society, and military would prevent future catastrophes. Thus modernization accelerated.The Gran Chaco, the borderlands between Bolivia and Paraguay where the war was fought, does not have a lot of resources, but it does have a key one: oil. Although some argue that foreign oil companies manipulated both Bolivia and Paraguay into fighting the war to obtain potentially lucrative oil fields, few careful analysts of the war think that this was the case. Instead, a simmering border conflict facilitated the war. A desperate Bolivian leadership initiated the war thinking that victory would unify the country, which was experiencing a great deal of political conflict. Bolivian military incompetence then laid the groundwork for the loss to Paraguay.Niebuhr refreshingly shows how we can better understand the Chaco War by putting it in comparative, international context. He also shows how the war accelerated the desire for modernization in Bolivia. In addition, Niebuhr discusses the Indigenous voice in the war's history, which is very important because most of the soldiers who died in the war were of Indigenous background. Having sacrificed more than other sectors, the country's Indigenous population intensely questioned the fairness of Bolivian society after the war. This led to Indigenous people more consistently demanding equal rights in Bolivian society. A good example of this political activism was the first truly nationwide conference of Indigenous peoples, in 1945. More broadly, Bolivia's loss galvanized a reformist spirit among veterans, who skillfully and assiduously organized after the war; in the end it was this group that fomented the 1952 revolution. The country's new leadership, at least rhetorically if not in reality, systematically addressed the problems, struggles, and dreams of the nonelite, or popular sectors, for the first time in Bolivian history.Niebuhr could have perhaps sought out more sources to directly capture the Indigenous reaction to the war. As noted above, Indigenous people sacrificed the most in the Chaco War; the war, by raising their consciousness, probably had the biggest impact on this very important group, which indeed comprised the majority in Bolivia. But this criticism does not detract from the important contribution that this book makes to our understanding of not only the Chaco War but modernization in twentieth-century Bolivia. I would recommend this book for students and indeed anyone interested in the Chaco War.