A History of the Bolivian Labour Movement 1848–1971

This book is an abridgement and translation of Guillermo Lora's five-volume history.

Guillermo Lora (Author), Laurence Whitehead (Edited by), Christine Whitehead (Translated by)

9780521100212, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 January 2009

424 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.54 kg

This book is an abridgement and translation of Guillermo Lora's five-volume history. It deals with the strengthening and radicalisation of Bolivia's organised labour movement, which culminated in the drastic revolutionary changes of the 1950s. The first half offers a reinterpretation of Bolivian history in the century preceding the revolution, viewed from the perspective of the working class. The second half discusses in more detail the major political events and doctrinal issues of a period in which the author, as secretary of the Trotskyist Partido Obrero Revolucionario, himself frequently played an active part. Despite the radical upheaval that occurred in the fifties and the mobilisation of broad sectors of the population around such radical objectives as direct property seizures, union-nominated ministers and union, military and worker control, the labour movement was unable to maintain its conquests in the 1960s. The concluding chapters describe the period of renewed military repression and the continuing efforts of the labour movement to resist.

Editor's Introduction
Book 1. Protection versus free trade
Book 2. Mineowners, artisans and utopian socialists
Book 3. Workers and the Liberal Party 1900–20
Book 4. The nineteen-twenties
Book 5. From the Chaco defeat to the Catavi massacre 1932–42
Book 6. The workers become revolutionary
Book 7. The rise and fall of the Central Obrera Boliviana
Book 8. The military versus the unions
Notes
Editor's suggested reading
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]