The 1938 Bolivian National Convention was a meeting of the
unicameral
Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one.
Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multic ...
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
n
legislature
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...
composed of an elected
constituent assembly
A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
. It met in
La Paz
La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities ...
from 25 May to 30 October 1938 and was charged with rewriting the
Constitution of Bolivia
The current Constitution of Bolivia ( es, Constitución Política del Estado; literally, the ''Political Constitution of the State'') came into effect on 7 February 2009 when it was promulgated by President Evo Morales, after being approved in a ...
.Rossana Barragán, "Ciudadanía y elecciones, convenciones y debates" in President
David Toro
José David Toro Ruilova (June 24, 1898 – July 25, 1977) was a colonel in the Bolivian army and member of the High Command during the Chaco War (1932–35) who served as the de facto 35th president of Bolivia from 1936 to 1937. He was on ...
had called for the National Convention in 1937, but by the time it was held he had been forced to resign in a
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
which brought the young lieutenant colonel
Germán Busch
Víctor Germán Busch Becerra (23 March 1903 – 23 August 1939) was a Bolivian military officer and statesman who served as the 36th president of Bolivia from 1937 to 1939. Prior to his presidency, he served as the Chief of the General Staff ...
to power on 13 July 1937.
The Congress was elected as part of that year's
legislative election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
. Voter rolls for electing Convention members were opened in August 1937 and the vote was held on 13 March 1938.Rossana Barragán, "Ciudadanía y elecciones, convenciones y debates" in
Background
President David Toro, who called the National Convention, had presided over a clearly left-wing ideology known as
Military Socialism
Bourgeois socialism or conservative socialism was a term used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in various pieces, including in ''The Communist Manifesto''. ''Conservative socialism'' was used as a rebuke by Marx for certain strains of socialism, ...
. His successor Germán Busch, however, was politically enigmatic with both the left and the right alike assuming he would reverse course from the leftist Toro back to the traditional conservatism of the pre-
Chaco War
The Chaco War ( es, link=no, Guerra del Chaco, gn, Cháko Ñorairõ
The coming assembly was the first national legislative body to meet in Bolivia in over three years. With it, the traditional establishment parties (The Liberals and the
Genuine
Genuine may refer to:
Companies
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*Genuine Scooters, a Chicago-based scooter manufacturer
*Genuine Games, a video game company founded in early 2002
Music
* ''Genuine'' (S ...
and
Socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
Republicans) hoped to reassert themselves in national politics. However, the Busch regime soon took a left-wing political stance, implementing the Toro-era concept of union representation in government by allowing the Trade Union Confederation of Bolivian Workers (CSTB) and the Legion of Veterans (LEC) to present candidates in the legislative elections.
Soon, the CSTB and LEC joined with multiple left-wing parties, from the moderate socialist United Socialist Party (PSU) to the more radical Independent Socialist Party (PSI), and formed the
Socialist Single Front
Socialist Single Front (Spanish: ''Frente Único Socialista'', FUS) was a Bolivian electoral political alliance of left-wing and socialist political parties and organizations.
The Socialist Single Front was established on 18 February 1938, for the ...
(FUS), a united electoral alliance backed by the Busch government. Faced with a unified left-wing coalition, the traditional parties withdrew from the elections, save for the Socialist Republicans who joined with the FUS and certain dissident Liberals who chose to collaborate with the new regime.
With the path to victory cleared, the FUS won the 1938 legislative election in a landslide, winning all 18 seats in the Chamber of Senators and 96 of the 103 seats in the
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
with just 7 seats going to independents and 2 being won by independent
clerics
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
from
La Paz
La Paz (), officially known as Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Spanish pronunciation: ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With an estimated 816,044 residents as of 2020, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities ...
. Thus, when the Convention finally opened in May 1938, the so-called ''Generación del Chaco'' (Chaco Generation) finally and for the first time found itself with a national platform from which to constitute its ideas into law.
The Convention
The National Convention opened on 25 May 1938, electing Renato Riverín of the Popular Front of Potosí (FPP) as its president. It was the first time workers were included in a Bolivian constituent assembly.Rossana Barragán, "Ciudadanía y elecciones, convenciones y debates" in The Convention dominated the political scene nationwide, becoming the debate grounds of ideologues and thinkers of the entire left-wing spectrum, from moderate socialists to economic nationalists and hard line
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
labor leaders.
Presidential election
One of the first acts of the new assembly was to formally elect Germán Busch constitutional president on 27 May.
Enrique Baldivieso
Enrique Baldivieso Aparicio (born 1902 in Tupiza, d. 1957) served as the 24th vice president of Bolivia from 1938 to 1939, during the presidency of Germán Busch
Víctor Germán Busch Becerra (23 March 1903 – 23 August 1939) was a Bolivia ...
, a Deputy for
Potosí
Potosí, known as Villa Imperial de Potosí in the colonial period, is the capital city and a municipality of the Department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world at a nominal . For centuries, it was the location o ...
and the leader of the United Socialist Party, was elected Vice President. The pair were formally inaugurated as part of a national holiday the following day with terms set to last until 6 August 1942.
1938 Constitution
With its dominant position in the assembly, the left-wing quickly overpowered more conservative elements, rejecting liberal concepts of
limited government
In political philosophy, limited government is the concept of a government limited in power. It is a key concept in the history of liberalism.Amy Gutmann, "How Limited Is Liberal Government" in Liberalism Without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theo ...
and
laissez-faire
''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...
which had shaped the entire
constitutional history of Bolivia
Bolivia has had seventeen constitutions, including the present one, since its foundation in 1825.
List of constitutions
Early history
The Constituent Assembly that founded Bolivia in 1825 wrote the nation's first constitution establishing a ce ...
. The classical Constitution of 1880 would be thrown out and the new one written under the guidelines of a revolutionary concept known as "social constitutionalism" in which the State was given the expanded role of providing for the economic and social needs of the population. At the same time, the concept of private property was reworded, limiting it from a natural right to a government-given right which was granted only so long as it fulfilled a "social function".
The new constitution also provided for many benefits and securities for organized labor which would now enjoy the direct protection of the State. Annual paid leave, a minimum wage, insurance for accidents and disability, and guarantees for unions were all included. The legal existence of
indigenous communities
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
was also recognized.
The so-called "Labor Sector" which represented the most extreme left of the convention also called for full-scale
land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
. The leader of the Independent Socialists, the ''Tarijeño'' deputy
Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro (2 October 1907 – 7 June 2001) was a Bolivian politician who served as the 45th president of Bolivia for three nonconsecutive and four total terms from 1952 to 1956, 1960 to 1964 and 1985 to 1989. He ran for pre ...
, also called for complete government control of the country's expansive
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
industry, which up until then had been dominated by the tin barons of the mining
oligarchy
Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
. While these more radical reforms were shot down, they received a voice on the national stage for the very first time.
Finally, after months of deliberation and debate, the Political Constitution of 1938 was promulgated on 30 October.
Aftermath
For all its successes and contributions, one notable absence from the Convention was President Germán Busch himself. Politically naïve, Busch contributed little to the writing of the new Constitution. The Socialist Single Front, which created a united front of the left-wing parties, only lasted through the legislative elections. From there, the different factions of the left remained in a state of instability, forming and breaking apart from one another in their attempts to create a viable
political coalition
This is a list of political groups by country. A political group also known as a political alliance, coalition or bloc, is cooperation by members of different political parties on a common agenda of some kind. This usually involves formal agreeme ...
. Despite attempts by Renato Riverín and Busch's advisor
Gabriel Gosálvez
Gabriel Gosálvez Tejada (15 November 1899 – 12 December 1957) was a Bolivian politician, journalist, economist, and diplomat. Throughout his political career, Gosálvez held various ministerial officers and diplomatic posts as a member of the ...
to form a government-backed Socialist Party, it suffered from a lack of commitment on the part of Busch and collapsed entirely when Vicente Leyton, his own Minister of Government, refused to join it.
Further fracturing occurred on 19 January 1939 when nine deputies and three senators announced the formation of the Eastern Socialist Party (PSO), also known as the Orientalist Party. The new party was aligned with the traditional liberalism of the pre-Chaco War parties and its political program expressed its intent to "proclaim the intangibility of the Eastern territory" and "to accept as a basic principle the integrity of each of the eastern departments, leaving established their historical and racial identity." For these reasons it was described by its critics as both "regionalist" and "racist" and was condemned by various social and cultural institutions, regional centers, trade union organizations, veterans, journalists, and even the Liberal Party.
Nevertheless, the PSO on 1 February appealed for President Busch to join. However, on 14 February Busch warned that the "founding fa regionalist party ..constitutes an attack against national unity." Busch's harsh condemnation came amidst calls that the members of the PSO be expelled from the legislature. Given the weight of the pressure and "In compliance with the order of His Excellency Mr. President," the PSO was dissolved on 18 February, less than a month after its formation.
The PSO was the last attempt made by the more traditionally-oriented parties to ally themselves with the Busch government. Just a month later on 22 March, the Liberals and both Republican parties broke with their previous policy of interacting with the fringes of the moderate left and formed the
Concordance
Concordance may refer to:
* Agreement (linguistics), a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase
* Bible concordance, an alphabetical listing of terms in the Bible
* Concordant coastline, in geology, where beds, or la ...
coalition in direct opposition to the government.Fredrick B. Pike. The United States and the Andean republics: Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Harvard University Press, 1977. p. 255. The Concordance came forth demanding the end of military involvement in government and announced their intent to present candidates for the May legislative elections.
As a result, the left-wing stood without a united front against the resurgent and combined traditional parties, resulting in a bleak outlook on the coming legislative elections. Finally, tired of political manoeuvring and disappointed with the lack of results his regime had produced, Busch took matters into his own hands. On 24 April 1939, Busch declared totalitarian rule in a
self-coup
A self-coup, also called autocoup (from the es, autogolpe), is a form of coup d'état in which a nation's head, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. The leader may dissolve or render powerless ...
to the shock of the nation. The May legislative elections were cancelled and the assembly was permanently adjourned, bringing an end to the only legislature of the military socialist era.
1938 members of the Chamber of Deputies:Valentín Abecia López. Montenegro: homenaje del Honorable Senado Nacional, a los 44 años de su muerte. Honorable Senado Nacional, 1997. Pp. 139-143.