ILWCH Labor Article 2011 (80)

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Canefor the Patria: Building Bolivia with Military Labor,

1900–1975

Elizabeth SheskoDuke University

Abstract

This article reveals the range of tasks performed by military laborers in twentieth-centuryBolivia, distinguishing between martial and nonmartial labor to understand howproductive tasks became central to the military’s mission. The detailed exploration ofsoldiers’ laboring lives shows that their work as strikebreakers, builders, agriculturalists,and domestic servants reinforced social hierarchies and supported private capital.Despite hopes that military service would unify a diverse populace, soldiers on theindigenous end of the spectrum disproportionally performed the more abject labors.The first section charts the development of nonmartial labor and shows how somesoldiers objected to working conditions by invoking the dissonance between martialdiscourse and nonmartial experiences. The article then turns to the increasing legibilityof nonmartial labor in the aftermath of the Chaco War (1932–1935). The final sectiondetails the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement’s efforts to fold the army into the 1952Revolution by emphasizing soldiers’ productive labor.

Bolivian military officers throughout the twentieth century urged troops toembrace “the sacred mission that the patria [nation, motherland] imposes onher good sons to prepare militarily for war during times of peace.”1 Yet whenthey adopted European models of conscription, Bolivian generals and poli-ticians faced a multiethnic and multilingual population in a loosely controlledterritory that lacked the basic infrastructure of the modern state they envi-sioned. The military barracks, they had hoped, would help form workers whospoke Spanish, willingly obeyed authorities, and felt duty-bound to dedicatethemselves to protecting and unifying the patria. But the realities of a weakstate in a thinly populated territory meant that despite official emphasis onarmed training, Bolivian conscripts spent at least as much time building roads,harvesting, and serving as domestic servants as they did preparing for armedconflict. However, the impact of a disastrous war, social revolution, and ideo-logical shifts made once invisible nonmartial labors a central part of not onlythe experience but also the mission of military service.

A diverse and divided society, Bolivia is characterized by pervasive racismbased on powerful social, cultural, and ethnic hierarchies. The barracks wereone of the few places where men from across these barriers met in search ofthe military-service booklets needed to work in the formal sector or conduct offi-cial transactions. Thus, entering the barracks was an experience shared by

International Labor and Working-Class HistoryNo. 80, Fall 2011, pp. 6–28# International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2011doi:10.1017/S0147547911000056

generations of Bolivian men who hailed from indigenous communities, theworking classes, and the urban poor. In order to understand the trajectory ofBolivian society, we must take military conscription into account, both in howit was imagined by Creole elites and in the multiplicity of ways it was experi-enced by conscripts. Soldiers’ labor was fundamental to both.

Before looking at this labor, however, it is important to understand theparamount role of the military in the history of twentieth-century Bolivia.Despite attempts to create a professional army under civilian control in theearly decades of the century, individual officers maneuvered in favor of politi-cal parties and personal interest, troops were stationed in urban areas to influ-ence politics, and coup plots proliferated.2 Fought by drafted and impressedsoldiers from all over Bolivia, the disastrous Chaco War with Paraguay(1932–1935) produced widespread discontent and a series of military presi-dencies that led to a far-ranging revolution in 1952. While the new adminis-tration initially considered abolishing the military, the institution regained itsprominent role over the next twelve years as US aid flooded in and the govern-ment faced factionalism, economic problems, and labor unrest. By the 1964elections, the leader of the 1952 Revolution had a military vice-presidentialcandidate who overthrew him five months later. With only brief interruptions,military officers would occupy the presidential palace for the next seventeenyears.

However, we know very little about the Bolivian military outside of its rolein politics. Scholarship has focused on tactical details, leaders’ actions, andperiods of military rule. These works tend to treat soldiers as warm bodies fol-lowing orders rather than understanding the military as constructed through itsrelationship with conscripts. Although a few scholars have studied therank-and-file troops as subjects of state engagement, very little is knownabout soldiers’ daily lives and labors.3 As the field of labor history has repeatedlyshown, the bottom-up exploration of work routines and relations of authoritypresent in the workplace often provides broader insights into politics andsociety.

To make sense of the diversity of conscripts’ labors, I define all activitiesthey performed under superiors’ orders as labor. I distinguish, however,between martial and nonmartial labor. Martial labor consists of armed tasksdirectly related to maintaining internal order and defending the national terri-tory, including fighting international wars, repressing internal unrest, protectingstate installations, patrolling borders, and the training necessary to prepare forthese tasks. Most narratives of martial labor concentrate on the Chaco War, the1967 pursuit of guerrillas led by Che Guevara, and the suppression of strikes anduprisings. Full of heroes and victims, these works slight more quotidian aspectsof martial labor, such as weapons training, physical training, and the guarding ofborders, arsenals, government installations, and barracks.

A focus on martial labor alone, however, offers a woefully incompletepicture of Bolivian conscripts’ experience and serves to conceal the widearray of tasks they performed in uniform under the label of patriotic service.

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 7

Serving both martial and nonmartial ends, conscripts’ nonmartial laborsincluded preparing land for colonization; populating border regions; ranching;planting trees; logging forests; building and repairing roads, barracks, airports,ports, wells, dams, embankments, irrigation channels, public pools, schools, hos-pitals, and stadiums; manufacturing items; growing foodstuffs and export prod-ucts; cooking; washing; cleaning; teaching literacy skills; taking censuses;processing property titles; serving as domestic servants in officers’ homes;extorting low prices from townspeople; and even following orders to stealgoods. These nonmartial labors included both physical and intellectual tasksthat ranged from the dangerous to the banal, some of which were legal andothers illegal but sanctioned by officers. The Bolivian military clearly servedboth martial and nonmartial ends.

Despite patriotic rhetoric, the structure of military labor reinforced socialhierarchies in which certain groups gave orders and others performed strenuousand sometimes servile work. Corruption and arbitrary implementation meantthat soldiers performed martial and nonmartial labor in service not only ofnational defense and infrastructure but also to benefit private interests and indi-vidual officers. Additionally, the tasks assigned to individual conscripts oftencoincided with racist hierarchies based on markers such as command ofSpanish, place of residence, and level of education.4 Those who fell towardthe indigenous end of the spectrum disproportionally performed nonmartiallabor of the more abject sort.

This article offers a brief overview of the history of conscription intwentieth-century Bolivia, descriptions of soldiers’ martial and nonmartiallabors, and an analysis of the military’s evolving constitutional mission andself-representations. I have drawn on a range of sources produced by andfor the Bolivian military, such as conscription records, internal regulations,soldiers’ testimony in military-justice proceedings, and official correspon-dence. Sources external to the military include petitions to other governmentaloffices, congressional debates, articles and memoirs written by officers andjournalists, and the observations of US military attaches. These recordsreveal how hidden dimensions of military service reinforced social hierarchiesand contributed to state formation. The first section examines the budgetaryand administrative barriers that led to the widespread use of troops for non-martial tasks before 1932. The second section details post-Chaco War shiftsin the military’s constitutional mission and the corresponding changes inhow officers, politicians, and journalists portrayed soldiers’ martial and non-martial labor. The final section treats the impact of the 1952 Revolution andthe subsequent shift to military dictatorship, arguing that the emphasis on non-martial labor spanned changes in administrations and traditional politicaldivides. While conscripts’ tasks changed little across the twentieth century,the visibility of and discourse about their work shifted decisively. Embracingnonmartial labor as an expression of developmentalist nationalism, militaryofficers constructed a rationale for expanding the role of their institution inBolivian society.

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The Logic of Nonmartial Labor in the Pre-Chaco Army

In nineteenth-century Bolivia, soldiers were volunteers or victims of forciblerecruitment, and the conscription of tribute-paying Indians was prohibited, atleast officially.5 With war against Chile looming in 1875, Bolivia first declaredthat all male residents owed military service to the patria.6 However, the statedid little to implement this law. Bolivia barely mustered nine thousand men todefend its coast in the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) and effectively pulledout in the war’s first year.7 After this defeat, Conservative administrationstook the initial steps to transform the military into a modern bureaucratic insti-tution. As part of this process, the army banished rabonas (female camp fol-lowers) in 1888 and replaced them with institutionalized meal service.8 WhenLiberals took power after a civil war in 1899, their efforts to professionalize themilitary included a series of conscription laws, establishing institutions, and bring-ing in French (1905–1909) and German (1911–1914) military missions.9

The constitution in force at the time set forth a purely martial mission forthe armed forces: “the conservation of order” and the “defense of independenceand national integrity.”10 Having recently ceded territory to Brazil (1867 and1903) and Chile (1884, treaty in 1904), legislators emphasized that thepurpose of conscription was to protect “our threatened borders” by ensuringthat the entire male population had military training.11 Bolivian lawmakershoped military service would both form a nation and protect it from externaland internal threats. Officers declared that Bolivia would be “great, strong,and invincible” only when she could see “a soldier in each of her sons” whowould know “how to die for the patria.”12

According to this early and idealized vision of military service, conscriptswould learn how to march in formation, use weapons, and guard installations.They would become physically and mentally prepared to fulfill their duties ascitizen-soldiers by following a regimented exercise program and listening tosuperiors explain military theory and civic obligations. Before being discharged,they would participate in war games to gain the battlefield experience thatwould prepare them to defend Bolivia.13 This vision of military service was amartial one that understood national strength in terms of the army’s size; itsgoal was to make men into disciplined soldiers loyal to a national-level patria.

This effort to create a unified nation-state faced a formidable challenge inthe demographic picture painted by the 1900 census, which categorized over fiftypercent of the population as indigenous even while substantially undercountingthis group.14 Conservative administrations had only recently attempted toabolish colonial institutions such as tribute and corporate land ownershipafter a silver boom in the late nineteenth century provided a new source ofincome. Like their Conservative predecessors, the Liberals, who took powerin 1899, saw the so-called Indian problem as Bolivia’s principal challenge andbegan enacting policies to eliminate this obstacle to achieving their ideasabout modernization. As part of a positivist project for national improvementthrough social hygiene, military service was one face of these attempts to

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 9

incorporate the indigenous population. However, divisions among Creole elitesas to whether assimilation or segregation should be Bolivia’s path to modernityresulted in schizophrenic and unevenly implemented policies. And daily practicein the barracks was as slow to conform to the new laws as the state was to fund itsdecrees.

Rank-and-file troops entered the army under the obligatory military-service law passed by Liberals in 1907. This law required all Bolivian men to reg-ister at eighteen and present for service at nineteen; those chosen by lotterywould serve for two years while the rest would receive three months of militarytraining.15 However, practical matters of finance and administration kept themilitary so small that this obligation did not initially affect many men.16

Although its population was around two million, Bolivia fielded an army ofonly two to eight thousand conscripts from 1907 to 1932.17 Many men thusavoided serving by means of the lottery, exemptions, evasion, and the protectionof patrons. Despite claims to equal treatment, the structure of conscription dis-proportionally funneled indigenous men into the barracks through demands forprecise documentation and limits on the service of educated men.

Although Liberals claimed to want a professional military that did not par-ticipate in politics, the repression of rural uprisings was a common form ofmartial labor during the first decades of the twentieth century. Landlords andmine owners often called on government officials to employ the state’s repres-sive apparatus to threaten their tenants, workers, and neighbors. Conscriptsthus marched into indigenous communities and rural properties at least fortytimes between 1912 and 1925 in just the department of La Paz.18 As describedby Captain Samuel Alcoreza, soldiers’ repressive labor was arduous and unre-warding, sometimes involving “a full night’s trek through paths full of waterand mud, in which the troops have suffered the indescribable” in order toarrest “defenseless Indians who were sleeping” in their homes.19 And armyunits ended mining strikes: peacefully in 1919, and bloodily in what becameknown as the 1923 Uncıa Massacre.20 Far from the ideal of convincingworkers in the mines and fields to identify with a national-level patria, thismartial labor reinforced social hierarchies and supported private capital.

Soldiers who hailed from rural and mining communities were also the mostlikely to spend their military service colonizing the frontier and constructing thenation’s basic infrastructure. The sparse population of border regions hadalready led to several territorial losses, so after ceding yet more land to Brazilin the 1903 Acre War, officers and legislators agreed that they could preventfuture dismemberment only by colonizing Bolivia’s territory.21 The governmentthus began sending military conscripts to act as expeditionary forces and con-struct border posts.22 Because the state had little infrastructure in theseregions and no towns to provide garrisons or provision the troops, these soldiershad to be self-sufficient.

The earliest evidence of soldiers’ nonmartial labor thus comes fromaccounts of frontier units in the 1910s and 1920s. One officer explained that asoldier in these garrisons did “rough work” and had to be “a farmer and also

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a bricklayer, woodcutter, and boat builder.” They therefore received militarytraining only in the mornings so afternoons could be spent on “farming andother work.”23 These conscripts were as likely to hunt monkeys, plant manioc,or cut swathes in the jungle as they were to stand guard, march, or clean theirweapons.24 Closely connected to this frontier initiative was the use of militarylaborers to dig roads between these regions and population centers. Underthe command of General Federico Roman, sapper units opened roads through-out the eastern part of the country.25 Despite their manual quality, these laborswere linked to national defense: Populating the frontier and connectingBolivia’s disparate regions would secure borders, achieve food security, andfacilitate the transportation of resources to internal and external markets.Although the daily labor of sappers and frontier soldiers was distinctly nonmar-tial, this work fell to the armed forces for strategic reasons.

The diverse labors of frontier units opened up the possibility of using urbansoldiers for similar tasks even if they lacked a logical link to national defense. Asit became acceptable for uniformed labor to build national highways, it was lessof a conceptual leap to ask soldiers to repair urban roads. If soldiers on the fron-tier were planting seeds, why couldn’t more centrally located units become self-sufficient or be deployed in the harvest if there was a shortage of local workers?If soldiers in border units were building their own barracks, why not use urbansoldiers to build schools? Military labor provided an attractive way for the stateto establish a minimal presence throughout the territory and to build and main-tain infrastructure at low cost. The obligatory nature of military service allowedthe state to furnish itself with an almost-free labor pool compelled by law towork. Although the government had to invest funds in order to pursue desertersand recruit, discipline, transport, house, and feed its troops, it paid conscriptsonly cents a day. The very term used to describe these wages––socorros (literally“aid”)––indicates they were seen not as remuneration for labor but rather as anallowance provided by a benevolent state.

Conscripts stationed in population centers thus performed manual labor onpublic-works projects like wells, embankments, schools, hospitals, and stadiums.For example, in 1913, when the telegraphs director could not find workers inPelechuco (La Paz) to install lines due to fears of an Indian uprising, hecalled on military labor to finish the job.26 And Technical Battalion soldiers sta-tioned in Guaqui (La Paz) reported spending their days excavating stones,building irrigation channels, leveling land, and carrying water in 1921.27

Although the military’s constitutional mission remained purely martial inthe 1920s, officers’ discourse about conscription had begun to change subtly toreflect soldiers’ nonmartial work. Like their predecessors at the turn of thecentury, officers in the 1920s were extolling the virtues of obligatory militaryservice to remake Bolivians in a new mold. They claimed conscription was incor-porating “the indigenous element into civilization” and forming men whoreturned to their homes “completely transformed.” Yet a new element alsoappeared. This same officer added that indigenous soldiers were learning“respect and subordination to their superiors” and the “civic duties of

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 11

compliance with authorities and perseverance in work.”28 Layered atop the ideaof unifying the populace through the barracks, ideas about military service in the1920s invoked an authoritarian fantasy of transforming unruly Indians into dis-ciplined workers.

Soldiers in units primarily devoted to manual labor tended to be less edu-cated, more indigenous, and less likely to speak Spanish. For example, a 1921conscript assigned to the above-referenced Technical Battalion expressed hiswish for companions who were “more intelligent and better educated thanthe Indians who make up the majority” of the unit.29 And General GonzaloJauregui asserted that seventy percent of the Loa and Campero Regiments in1926 were “Quechua and Aymara Indians,” noting that Aymaras fromCarangas (Oruro) and Omasuyos (La Paz) predominated.30

Soldiers had been performing nonmartial tasks for several decades whenthe price of tin dropped in 1926 and some international debts came due.31

Prior to this crisis, the minister of war had sometimes hired civilian contractorsto build barracks and had even warned that the use of soldiers for manual labor“might be detrimental to military instruction.”32 However, in the face of increas-ing deficits, he issued orders in 1931 that soldiers repair their own barracks “inorder to economize for the national treasury.”33

Nonmartial labors thus intensified in the late 1920s and early 1930s: In1927, the Colorados Infantry Regiment was carving out a new access road tothe Miraflores section of La Paz.34 Soldiers in the Juana Azurduy InfantryRegiment hewed a road between Sucre and the Chaco the following year,using dynamite to break apart solid rock. Observers described soldiers “inclinedover horrifying abysses, levering apart the rocks with their crowbars, placingquarried blocks from considerable heights.”35 Conscripts in 1931 report beingordered to make 2,500 mud bricks per week and to spend several days “clean-ing, channeling, and clearing” the river embankment of the minister of war’sprivate residence.36 That same year the Revista Militar reported that the BageEngineering Regiment’s labors had produced “almost all the local progress inCobija,” where soldiers had built urban roads and bridges, cleaned cemeteries,erected a stadium, installed street lighting, and constructed public works tocollect, channel, and distribute drinking water.37

Although these labors resembled those of their civilian peers, soldiers whomade oral, written, or physical attempts to better their working conditions wereusually deemed mutineers, arrested, and judicially processed. Thus “mutinies”that resemble strikes dot the military history of twentieth-century Bolivia;some soldiers even used the language of work stoppage to express theirdemands and defend their actions. In 1906, for example, conscripts abandonedPuerto Heath on the Peruvian border, citing “excessive work,” having serveddouble the promised tour, and their complaint that “our Patria pays uspoorly.”38 Various groups of conscripts in the 1920s were formally accused ofmutiny for collectively requesting promotions, petitioning that a specific com-mander remain in the regiment, and objecting to, in their words, “workinglike donkeys” or doing “excessive work, day and night.”39

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Conscripts’ labor experiences, even during this early period of obligatorymilitary service, were thus far more diverse than the martial activities cited inthe Constitution. The dissonance between martial vision and nonmartial experi-ence sometimes became a subject of debate from below as soldiers invoked offi-cial rhetoric of what military labor should do (defend the patria) in their writtencomplaints and oral statements during military-justice proceedings. In a striking1931 case of adopting official rhetoric to make demands, a group of seventeensoldiers from the Colorados Regiment sent a letter to the division commanderto complain about superiors who “imposed forced labor upon us” and made “uscomplete work that does not correspond to military service, like making mudbricks.”40 Military labor thus became an arena of contestation as the gapbetween theory and practice opened a space for dissent.

Turning to Nonmartial Labor in the Aftermath of Military Defeat

A semi-arid region sparsely populated by lowland indigenous groups, the Chacohad long been claimed by both Bolivia and Paraguay. The dispute came to ahead when Paraguay invited Mennonite immigrants to settle the region in thelate 1920s. A 1928 flare-up brought mass mobilization on both sides but wasquickly quelled through diplomatic means. When Bolivian president DanielSalamanca faced popular mobilization and a hostile Congress, however, heturned to the Chaco to strengthen his political position. Escalation becameinevitable as Salamanca gave increasingly aggressive speeches, increased themilitary’s budget, and sent troops to establish outposts in previously unpene-trated regions. Skirmishes became a full-scale war in July 1932.41

Salamanca was sure that Bolivia’s victory would be swift. ItsGerman-trained standing army of 7,267 soldiers seemed far better preparedfor war than Paraguay’s 4,100 French-trained troops.42 But after Bolivianforces suffered a crushing defeat at Boqueron (September 1932), GeneralHans Kundt was recalled from Germany to take control of the flounderingoffensive. This change in command did not, however, translate into victory onthe battlefield, and Bolivia continued to cede ground. Despite having mobilized77,000 soldiers, Bolivia’s army was reduced to a demoralized contingent of15,000 by the end of 1933. Kundt was soon ousted, and Salamanca facedrenewed opposition in La Paz.43 As Paraguayan troops approached the heartof Bolivian territory in November 1934, army leaders arrested Salamanca andforced him to resign. The nations signed a peace agreement in June 1935.

Given the undeveloped status of the Chaco frontier, the military had todevote substantial attention to infrastructure projects while fighting. In awartime context, these nonmartial labors were clearly linked to nationaldefense; without them, there would have been neither roads to bring mobilizedsoldiers to the front nor hospitals to care for the wounded. Reservist Juan Laimetestified that when his combat unit was in Villa Montes, “all of us bricklayerswere chosen to occupy ourselves with work on the new hospital, for which Iwas entrusted with making mud bricks.”44 And when asked about his role in

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 13

the war, indigenous soldier Florencio Vazquez distinguished his labors from themartial ones of other soldiers, remembering having worked “with tools” onroads to get “foodstuffs to those who were fighting.”45

Over the course of the war, Bolivia mobilized 250,000 men, thirty-fourpercent of whom died, deserted, or fell prisoner. As Herbert Klein points out,given its small population, these losses were on par with those suffered byEuropean nations in the First World War.46 One of the bloodiest conflicts inSouth America, this war left an indelible scar on the memory of Bolivians,meant yet another territorial loss, and led to a questioning of traditional politicalstructures. Coups in 1936 and 1943 brought to power reformist governments ledby junior military officers, who advocated something they called “military social-ism.” Like their contemporaries in other parts of Latin America, these leaderswere influenced by European fascist movements and worked to mold the popu-lation through a strong state.47

In the face of territorial loss, useless death, and mounting war debt, the tra-ditional military emerged from the war disgraced and denounced as a parasiteon the nation. Yet it was still one of few options available to fulfill newleaders’ plans for a prosperous and unified Bolivia. The sense that the militaryhad profoundly failed at its martial tasks therefore led to an official expansion ofits mission to include cooperation “in work on roads, communications, and colo-nization.”48 During debate over this clause in the 1938 Constitution, legislatorsdeclared the value of this work to be “indisputable” and agreed these laborscould be done “without compromising in any way” the mission of preparingfor war. They hoped emphasizing these tasks would repair the institution’simage. “It is necessary to change,” stated one representative, “the impressionof the people that the Army only consumes and does not produce.”49 A 1939measure then created farms on state land with the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency for military forces.50 These laws were premised on the convictionthat the military could redeem itself through nonmartial tasks that would lit-erally build Bolivia. Soldiers’ nonmartial labor thus gained prominence in theaftermath of a disastrous war, both in official discourse and in practice. TheLa Paz newspaper El Diario emphasized the promise of using military laborin infrastructure projects, publishing photographs of soldiers moving earthwith their shovels and arguing that their sweat and toil would “surely bring econ-omic expansion to the country.”51

As a series of Left- and Right-leaning military men seized control of thegovernment, the army steadily grew to as many as twenty thousand conscriptsper year.52 The increase in troops meant that many more indigenous menwere serving; in many rural and mining communities, military service becamea rite of passage men needed to complete before they could marry and hold lea-dership positions.53 Like their pre-Chaco peers, however, indigenous men weremore likely to perform manual labor than participate in armed training. Typicalof soldiers sent to 1940s sapper units was conscript Pedro Ayadiri Ohari, atwenty-two-year-old agricultural laborer from Pocoata in the mining region ofPotosı. Described in military records as a mostly illiterate Quechua speaker

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who understood “a little” Spanish, Ayadiri served eight months as a sapper.54

US military attaches visiting these units in the 1940s confirmed this trend,reporting that the “enlisted men are Indians with very slight knowledge ofSpanish” who “live under very primitive conditions.”55 Even conscripts assignedto urban regiments faced labor discrimination, as superiors often gave militarytraining to the better educated and used the rest as manual laborers. Forexample, the commanders of a company garrisoned near La Paz explainedthat they picked “the soldiers least capable of carrying out individual training”to use as “a special group of workers.” They classified at least one of theseworkers as an “uncommunicative indigenous soldier” who did not speakSpanish and was “illiterate and very slow in his mental activity.”56

In the post-Chaco War period, military authorities assigned conscripts tomore than seventy different units named for types of manual labor(Agricultural, Colonization, Hydraulic, Engineering, Railroad, Sapper) ratherthan for programs of military training (Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry).57

However, all types of units performed nonmartial labor: In 1941, a sapperunit carved roads into the steep hillsides surrounding La Paz, and the famedColorados Infantry Regiment hacked out an eighteen-kilometer stretchbetween Corocoro and Ballivian.58 As part of his duties in the Loa InfantryRegiment, 1946 conscript Edwin Silvetti Baldivieso received dynamite alongwith orders to “make the hill that was on the runway disappear.” He beganwork at 8:30 and had set off twelve rounds, when, around 12:45, he heard“someone calling” right before the “dynamite exploded in my hand.”59 In1948, over one thousand conscripts worked on the construction of a newgeneral barracks in La Paz.60 The same year, conscript Rafael Montero of theColorados Infantry Regiment described the seventeen months he had spentbuilding a school in Sucre as: “treading on mud, making bricks, putting stoneover stone.”61

Like their predecessors before the war, soldiers in the 1940s also completedagricultural tasks. Those stationed in the country’s thinly populated northeast,for example, spent part of each day raising crops for their own consumption.62

Given strategic needs during the Second World War, conscripts were orderedto “engage in food production” in the region bordering Brazil so locals coulddevote themselves to producing rubber for the Allies. The same period providesevidence of military labor benefitting private individuals. For example, six sol-diers under the orders of Captain Hugo Antezana in Aiquile (Cochabamba)claimed to have spent three days on the property of Isa de Romero dekernellingcorn, peeling coffee, and rounding up cattle. Several soldiers noted this was notthe first time their labor had served private interests: “Each time that Dr. Lomasaid to him why don’t you lend me your soldiers to do work on my irrigationditches, he would send us.”63

More strikingly, other conscripts, like Diego Bernal, Daniel Bernal, andCayetano Pacajes, followed orders to commit crimes. Testifying at their noncom-missioned officers’ (NCOs) indictment in 1942, they described being awoken bySergeant Valencia and Corporal Zapata, who “in an authoritarian manner

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 15

ordered us to get out of bed . . . and go out barefoot to carry corrugated-metalsheets from the barracks to a house across the street.” Although they had par-ticipated in this robbery of government materials, the military tribunal found nofault with their actions since “these indigenous” soldiers “had acted out offear.”64 For some conscripts, threatening or even committing acts of violenceto force locals to sell foodstuffs and supplies at far below market value was aquotidian task. Soldiers serving in Curahuara de Carangas (Oruro), forexample, received orders in 1946 from Lieutenant H. Guzman to pay nomore than twenty bolivianos per lamb despite the fact that “in no area havesuch prices been seen.”65

Following a tradition that dated back at least to the 1920s, officers in thepost-Chaco War period benefited from the nonmartial labor of conscript “assist-ants.” Internal regulations limited their work to “the washing of garments, thecleaning and training of horses”; mandated that officers pay assistants adefined monthly salary; and insisted that soldiers were not “domestics,” werenot to provide childcare, and could not be obligated to serve as assistants.66 Inpractice, however, limits on assistants’ duties were quite blurry. In 1945, forexample, one of soldier Enrique Beltran’s responsibilities was to drive aroundColonel Arturo Armijo’s wife.67 And 1948 conscript Vıctor Gutierrez routinelyspent part of his day in Colonel Ricardo Rıos’s house, “cleaning his rooms.”68

Other conscripts reported sleeping in officers’ homes, serving them meals, andcarrying their bedding.69 At least one officer made all his soldiers into domesticservants, requiring them to cook, serve, wash, and perform for parties he hosted;to pursue a favorite servant who had run away; and even to “wash his feet andalso those of his little daughter.”70 Taking on work that would otherwise be per-formed by family members or paid servants, these conscript “assistants” allowedofficers to maintain the lifestyle of a higher social class.

Soldiers’ martial labor of internal repression, training, and guard duty wassimilar to that of the pre-Chaco War period. Their military training consisted ofclassroom instruction on the theory of combat and weapons use, practical train-ing in the same, and physical-fitness programs that emphasized endurance andprecise obedience to orders. Although most soldiers stood guard at somepoint during military service, their labor differed depending on the commanderand regiment. Some guards had two-hour shifts while others served atwenty-four-hour duty day. Some sentinels set up their cots and slept by themain entrance. Others were expected to actively patrol the installation as aroaming armed guard. Long periods of boredom could be punctuated by amoment of panic, such as when conscript Miguel Fuentes, during the courseof a twenty-four-hour shift in 1937, shot alleged Chaco deserter GregorioMerida as, at least according to Fuentes, he attempted to sneak across theborder from Argentina.71

These martial labors often supported existing power structures, especiallyduring periods of right-wing military rule (1939–1943, 1946–1952). Troops reg-ularly suppressed rural and mining strikes, most famously at Catavi (1943),Ayopaya (1947), and Siglo XX (1949). General Enrique Penaranda’s

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administration (1940–1943) demonstrated overt support for the mining compa-nies by garrisoning 250 conscripts at the Catavi mine and 550 at Uncıa to quelllabor unrest.72 An officer’s 1949 campaign diary offers some sense of theserepressive labors: As approximately eight hundred miners advanced on them,conscripts positioned their heavy machine guns and “called on the masses tohalt, receiving petards of dynamite as a response.”73 Conscripts thus laboredas strike breakers, agriculturalists, builders, robbers, extortionists, and domesticservants in service not only of the patria but also of their officers, NCOs, andprivate capital.

Although these labors differed little from those performed before andduring the war, nonmartial labor was becoming increasingly legible within theinstitution and, in fact, offered it a new path forward during a period of uphea-val. Influenced by international ideologies and their own experiences in theChaco War, the opinions of many junior officers about the institution and itsrelationship with conscripts began to shift. These changes burst onto thenational stage during reformist military administrations led by Colonel DavidToro (1936–1937), Major German Busch (1937–1939), and ColonelGualberto Villarroel (1943–1946).

The 1942 and 1946 writings of two officers in the Revista Militar reflectednew ideas about the transformation of conscripts that was being soughtthrough military service. Colonel D. Arturo Arevalo defined officers’ duty asto “mold in conscripts the national soul” so they would be “a useful elementfor work and social harmony.”74 And Lieutenant Guillermo Garcıa emphasizedofficers’ responsibility “to mold men not only fit to defend the Patria but who arealso efficient citizens, who, upon changing their uniforms for civilian or pro-fessional clothes, take up the peaceful weapons of work, cementing ournationality upon the indestructible bases of order and culture.”75 Likeearly-twentieth-century officers, they imbued military service with the powerto create a unified nation. But instead of using explicitly civilizing terms todepict the transformation of abject and barbarous Indians, they used thelanguage of nationalist modernization to describe their efforts to formworkers and Bolivians in the barracks.

However, officers still drove this process; authority and notions of racial-ized hierarchy had not disappeared. Indeed, Garcıa’s praise of “order” and“culture” implied that conscripts’ communities lacked precisely these character-istics. The difference in Garcıa’s formulation was that ex-conscripts werecapable of taking up the “weapons of work” and “cementing the nationality.”In many ways, this nationalist project paralleled the Villarroel administration’s1945 sponsorship of the first National Indigenous Congress, which brought morethan 1,500 indigenous delegates, many of whom were Chaco veterans, to thenational capital of La Paz.76 These reformist military officers aimed to instill anational identity that would eventually override other identifications, but theypublicly sought indigenous allies. Like Garcıa and Arevalo, state agents at thecongress constantly reiterated the redemptive power of work; Villarroel hadeven insisted that “human value can be measured only by work.”77 In the

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 17

aftermath of the Chaco War, work had emerged as a credible terrain in which allBolivians could come together discursively. Officers like Villarroel in thePresidential Palace and Garcıa in the barracks aimed to form Bolivians whounderstood their labor in the mines, fields, and building Bolivia as directly con-tributing to national interests.

“In One Hand a Weapon and in the Other a Tool”: The Embrace ofNonmartial Labor

The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), a middle-class party thatsought to represent workers and peasants, formed in the aftermath of theChaco War and briefly participated in the 1943–1946 Villarroel administration.After a mob lynched Villarroel in 1946, a series of conservative governmentsreestablished control. A 1949 coup attempt by the MNR was unsuccessful,but its exiled candidate, Victor Paz Estenssoro, emerged victorious in the1951 election. The president’s subsequent installation of a military ruler toprevent Paz from taking office eventually led to an armed insurrection onApril 9, 1952. Supported by the police, the MNR seized control of governmentinstallations. After three days of combat, army units defending the previousadministration collapsed in the face of the popular mobilization of workers,miners, and townspeople. By August 1953, the new administration had national-ized the largest tin mines; expanded suffrage to explicitly include women,Indians, and illiterates; and decreed radical agrarian reform. Often called “reluc-tant revolutionaries,” the MNR was internally divided between factions thatadvocated limited reform and those that wanted to dismantle the old systemin favor of more radical social change.78

Widely viewed as a tool of the oligarchy and oppressor of the people, thearmy was substantially weakened by the events of April and faced significantrivals in newly formed peasant and worker militias. The MNR dismissed atleast a hundred officers and cut troop levels to 5,000.79 Yet it did not abolishthe military, instead choosing to “configure an Army in its image,” to quotethe words of President Vıctor Paz.80 MNR leaders thus constructed a discursivecontrast between the “old oligarchic army” and the “new productive army.”Many troops were immediately discharged while others were reassigned to non-martial labor on infrastructure projects. Conscript Oscar Rocabado, forexample, began his military service in January 1952, immediately prior to therevolution. He received military training and passed individual review duringhis first four months of service, but after the events of April he was assignedto Camp Mochara (near Tupiza, Potosı) to work on airport construction. Withhis fellow conscripts, he loaded mud bricks, gravel, sand, and barrels of wateronto trucks and transported them to a construction site about a mile away.Rocabado noted that they lived in isolation and infrequently left the camp.Even on Sundays, he reported, “despite the fact that we were off-duty, we didnot go anywhere” because it was too far to walk to the nearest village.81

18 ILWCH, 80, Fall 2011

In keeping with the new emphasis on productive activities, the MNR’s ministerof defense revised the text of conscripts’ ritually intoned oath. The previousformula, set in 1924 and printed in each conscript’s military-service booklet, empha-sized duty to country, martial labor, and obedience to commands: “Swear beforeGod and the Patria to defend your flag even to the sacrifice of your life, never toabandon those who command you during war, and to apply yourself to superiors’orders.”82 The 1953 text retained elements of obedience and defense but put con-siderably more emphasis on nationalism and labor: “Swear before the Patria andthe National Revolution, with the idea that from now on our ranks are devotedto the sacred feeling of nationalism, as much to work for the material and spiritualprosperity of Bolivia as to defend her from internal enemies and from those beyondher borders. Soldiers: SUBORDINATION AND PERSEVERANCE!”83 Workand defense were balanced in this version; the nationalism invoked was sacred;and repeated emphasis on following orders had been reduced to the single word“subordination.” Hierarchy and authority had not disappeared, but in assertingsoldiers’ devotion to revolutionary nationalism, the portrayal of the military’srelationship with its conscripts became, on the surface, less authoritarian.

The MNR rewrote the constitution and laws to highlight the military’s missionto “cooperate in the country’s economic promotion” through a combination ofmilitary training and the “productive labor” of agriculture, ranching, industry, con-struction, and colonization.84 In keeping with this emphasis, the governmentproudly publicized the military’s nonmartial accomplishments: The presidentbragged that military labor had dug 219 wells in 1953; a 1956 pamphlet chronicleda highland soldier’s work in a lowland colonization unit; and a 1958 documentaryfilm entitled “The Peace Offensive” positively depicted military laborers to thegeneral public.85 Newspapers and the military magazine regularly publishedimages of soldiers’ manual labors. In Figure 1, officers and civilians show off thelevees constructed by soldiers on the San Jeronimo farm.86 In another such

Figure 1. Levees built by soldiers for the San Jeronimo farm, 1952. Reprinted fromRevista Militar 178–182 (1952): 90

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 19

image, conscripts pose with a bulldozer on the bare Altiplano; the caption describesthe heroic efforts of the “Revolution’s Army” to forge a highway.87 Units namedfor productive activities proliferated and even infantry, cavalry, and artillery regi-ments dedicated their labor to these tasks: In 1954, fifty percent of the ColoradosRegiment spent their days working on the highway between Tarapacaya andPotosı; the Eighth Infantry Regiment was repairing La Paz’s urban roads; theEguino Cavalry Regiment was growing foodstuffs behind their barracks; and theCamacho Artillery Regiment was cultivating peas, beans, quinoa, barley, and pota-toes on forty-three hectares.88 Between 1955 and 1961, successive cohorts of con-scripts in a single army unit built sixty-one kilometers of roads, fifty-five bridges,and seventy drainage systems.89

The number of conscripts assigned to colonization work increased after theRevolution as the MNR mandated that battalions aid in its push to developlowland regions. According to newspaper reports, soldiers like the one picturedin Figure 2 were “replacing the rifle with the spade to dedicate themselves to

Figure 2. Colonization battalion solider with “a spade at his shoulder,” 1958.Reprinted from La Nacion, August 15, 1958, 6.

20 ILWCH, 80, Fall 2011

agricultural work in the scorching earth of Santa Cruz.”90 Like their predeces-sors in the 1920s, these conscripts received reduced military training to devotetheir time to nonmartial labor. Between 1955 and 1957, 3,600 conscripts traveledto the lowlands to prepare land for settlement; by 1962, they had cleared over11,800 hectares.91

Legal reforms under the MNR officially sanctioned the use of military con-scripts for commercial operations and as contract laborers for private compa-nies.92 Hired-out soldiers did the same labor as those on military farms, butrather than saving the state money, they brought it income. Reformers hopedthat codifying this long-standing practice would limit opportunities for corrup-tion and ensure that the profits from this labor did more than just augmentofficers’ salaries. As early as 1954, the revolutionary government’s official news-paper was bragging of the Vergara Artillery Group’s help with the cottonharvest at Finca Menonah in Robore and at the La Algodonera farm in SantaCruz.93 And film clips from the 1960s show conscripts cutting sugarcane,loading it onto carts, and feeding it into a pressing machine.94

All of these manual labor tasks had been performed by conscripts prior tothe Revolution, but the discourse surrounding this labor had profoundlychanged. In stark contrast to the martial emphasis that allowed somepre-Chaco War conscripts to object to nonmartial assignments, the MNR glori-fied this work. It sought not only the labor of conscripts hailing from rural areasand the mines but also their political support. How conscripts might perceivetheir quotidian labor for the patria mattered in ways that it had not before1952. While still emphasizing the need to defend frontier regions and thesavings for state coffers, politicians and officers began to depict underdevelop-ment as a battle that the country needed to win, thus expanding the list ofthreats against which Bolivia needed protection. Their argument that nationaldefense must be achieved through economic development not only respondedto the specific situation faced by the MNR in the 1950s but also echoed voicesemerging throughout Latin America.95 Phrases that militarized developmentlabor abound after 1952, popping up in military-magazine articles, presidentialaddresses, speeches to soldiers, and even laws. Military labor would “save ourPatria from economic chaos”; the army must wage “the peaceful and edifyingbattles of national economic emancipation” in which victory was a road bull-dozed or a farm mechanized.96 The most enthusiastic proponents went so faras to insist that building roads would allow Bolivia to “impose its hegemonyon the continent.”97

This discourse not only imbued nonmartial labor with a higher purpose, italso attempted to mobilize conscripts as actors invested in Bolivia’s future andgave the military as an institution a new and popular mission. These changeswere clear and profound. But the “Revolution’s Army” was also characterizedby many continuities from the pre-1952 and even pre-Chaco army. Although theMNR advocated workers’ rights, its leaders still saw military service as teaching“discipline in work” and observed “the significant evolution that it produces inthe peasant who enters the barracks.”98 The MNR’s attempt to form a

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 21

revolutionary peasantry was primarily characterized by land-reform efforts, butthe barracks would also be a key site of identity transformation. However, theallocation of labor assignments continued along racial lines. Indigenoussoldier Juan Acarapi Mamani, for example, spent his days laboring with a“group of soldiers charged with making tiles for the Regiment” rather than par-ticipating in military training with the other conscripts in the Castrillo InfantryRegiment.99

Growing steadily in size and prestige after its very existence had beenthreatened in 1952, the military regained a prominent role in the mid- to late1950s. In the face of regime factionalism and economic crisis, the administrationsof Hernan Siles (1956–1960) and Vıctor Paz (1960–1964) relied increasingly onUS aid and advisors. Military assistance to combat potential counterinsurgencyflooded in after the Cuban Revolution, and a new term for nonmartial pro-ductive labor was introduced: Civic Action. US leaders conceived of CivicAction as fighting communism by both contributing to “economic and socialdevelopment” and improving “the standing of military forces with the popu-lation.”100 Higher standards of living would increase resistance to communistpropaganda, and the military’s involvement in these activities would guaranteelocal support against internal and external subversion. After a definitive breakwith the left wing of his party in 1963, President Paz was left with few supportersand accepted General Rene Barrientos as his vice-presidential candidate in1964; Barrientos would form part of the junta that overthrew him a fewmonths later.

Like their predecessors in the MNR, military administrations underBarrientos (1964–1969), Ovando (1969–1970), Torres (1970–1971), and Banzer(1971–1978) continued to emphasize the military’s productive contribution tothe nation. In 1967, President Barrientos declared: “The Bolivian soldier carriesin one hand a weapon and in the other a tool, [has] one foot in the barracksand the other in the field of economic development.” “Disorder and chaos,” hewarned, were “fatal enemies of the Patria,” so each conscript must become “a per-manent sentry, a lookout, who guarantees the dynamic process of develop-ment.”101 Films and photographs from the era routinely depict uniformedsoldiers mixing cement, operating well-drilling equipment, and roofingschools.102 And newspapers bragged of the “quota of blood” paid by “the selflessmembers of the armed forces who work for the progress of the Patria.”103

These administrations also increasingly called on the armed forces to endlabor disputes, sending troops into the mines in 1964, 1965, 1967, and 1974.Newspapers printed photographs of soldiers loading bazookas, occupying themines, and training machine guns on union buildings. Conscripts’ repressivelabors prior to 1952 had served private interests by intimidating workersdemanding better pay, safer conditions, or the release of prisoners. However,the state faced similar demands from nationalized mines after accepting theInternational Monetary Fund’s stabilization plan that ended subsidies, helddown wages, and maintained a single exchange rate.104 In the face of this conun-drum, officers aggressively invoked the military’s right to power based on its

22 ILWCH, 80, Fall 2011

self-definition as the guardian and ultimate expression of Bolivian nationalism.In a statement to the press during the 1974 strike at Uncıa, the commander ofthe Second Division argued that anyone who resisted was, by definition, anextremist since “the Bolivian people never feel dissatisfied but rather veryhappy when a military unit holds watch to ensure order, tranquility, and theintegrity of the citizenry.”105

Despite assertions as to the legitimacy of the military’s guardian role, theuse of conscripts for repressive labor complicated the idea of citizen-soldiersby forcing individuals to choose between local and national loyalties, just as ithad for Captain Alcoreza’s troops in 1915, when they were deployed inservice of the landlords against sleeping Indians. For the conscripts engagedin this martial labor, orders to repress miners might mean turning weapons onfriends or even family members. A particularly poignant example can be seenin anthropologist June Nash’s oral history of miner Juan Rojas. Although hehad himself experienced military repression, Rojas insisted that his son com-plete military service, even threatening to bring him back to the barracks“like a child” if he deserted. However, when his son mentioned that he mightbe ordered to attack miners with machine guns, forcing them to work “withguns at their throats,” Juan responded that he must remain loyal to theminers and “liquidate the officials that command [him] to fire.”106 Althoughthis was likely empty bravado, the military experience was a conflicted onefor many conscripts.

Nonmartial assignments could also complicate the idea of the military asthe epitome of nationalism. The 1967 example of the Manchego AssaultRegiment is particularly striking. After intense training with US GreenBerets, soldiers from this unit captured Che Guevara. President Barrientos des-cended upon La Higuera to personally congratulate the troops, promising theman early discharge in reward for their efforts. Yet, after spending months pursu-ing the remaining guerrillas, the Manchego unit returned to their barracks inGuabira (Santa Cruz). As retired general Gary Prado Salmon writes: “Afterhaving been covered with glory for their performance at ‘La Higuera,’ the sol-diers suddenly realized that the presidential promise of discharge would notbe fulfilled, and that, on the contrary, they were destined to cut sugarcane onprivate property for the benefit of their superiors.” So they captured the garri-son’s armaments, made prisoners out of their officers, and shot at the warplanessent to scare them into surrender. The authorities quickly capitulated, promisingto honorably discharge the mutineers within sixty days.107

In some ways, the Manchego mutineers were not dissimilar to theircounterparts in the early twentieth century, who had complained about thenature and conditions of their labor. Despite the efforts of the MNR and militaryadministrations to celebrate development labor, conscripts still understood it tobe fundamentally different from martial labor. But unlike the 1931 Coloradosconscripts who had complained about making mud bricks, the Manchego sol-diers never faced a military tribunal even though they had, in fact, mutinied.The hiring out of conscripts as agricultural day laborers was common and

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 23

legal, but these soldiers, due to their well-publicized martial accomplishments,could take advantage of an institutional fear of embarrassment to avoidreprisals.

Conclusion

Throughout the twentieth century, soldiers’ martial and nonmartial laborsdefended Bolivia’s borders, developed the nation, maintained the military,and benefited individuals and private companies. The diversity of soldiers’labor originated with the creation of frontier units, the state’s financial needs,and officers’ taking advantage of military hierarchy. After the Chaco War,however, political and military leaders used nonmartial labor to justify their por-trayal of the military as essential to the patria’s integrity. The use of militarylabor for development was not solely a practical matter of finances but also adiscursive project of nation building and on-the-job training for the nation’sfuture laborers. In the words of President Paz, conscripts would “serve thePatria” by “building the new Bolivia.”108 Not only would their labor literallybuild their country’s roads and schools, their experience in the barrackswould also instill an identification with Bolivia and a desire to work, both inand out of uniform, for the greatness of the patria.

And, in some ways, it worked. Impressment gangs had long ago disap-peared, and the military could rely on community norms and a more effectivestate to supply it with conscripts. In fact, the president of the state-ownedBolivian Development Corporation may have been exaggerating only slightlywhen he declared in 1957 that military service was “fulfilled in an almost reli-gious manner.”109 However, budget shortfalls, political upheaval, corrupt offi-cers, and conscript resistance still meant that military barracks were sites ofconflict and negotiation. Dominant ideas about the correlation between “ethni-city” and ability meant that many indigenous conscripts continued to do themost menial of labors. And there were always officers who mistreated their sol-diers or sought to hire out conscripts’ labor for personal gain, as happened withCaptain Antezana in 1946 and the Manchego Regiment in 1968.

Although official representations of military service had expanded toinclude far more than armed defense, officers had always presented this dutyas a sacred one. The image of conscripts willingly serving the patria was so inte-gral to the perpetuation of compulsory military service that, in at least one case,it became more important than insisting upon strict enforcement of authorityover soldiers. In 1974, the commander of a unit garrisoned in Cochabambadenied press reports that his soldiers had mutinied, claiming that the incidentwas only conscripts complaining about “not having been discharged on theanticipated date.” He added an assurance that they would “be dischargedwith all honors . . . because they took part in fulfilling the sacred duty towhich the Patria has called them.”110 Far from being mutineers, he portrayedthese soldiers as having honorably fulfilled the terms of their contract laboringfor the patria.

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NOTES

I would like to thank John D. French, Jocelyn Olcott, Dirk Bonker, Orin Starn, Pete Sigal,Robert Smale, the members of the Latin American & Caribbean Graduate Student Workshopat Duke University, and the International Labor and Working-Class History reviewers for theircomments on earlier drafts.

1. Speech to Yacuma Regiment conscripts, San Joaquın de Mamore, August 7, 1947, “Elactual soldado boliviano,” Revista militar 120–121 (December 1947): 39–45. All translationsare my own unless otherwise noted.

2. James Dunkerley, Orıgenes del poder militar, trans. Rose Marie Vargas (La Paz, 1987),7–8, 23, 65, 131.

3. See Rene Danilo Arze Aguirre, Guerra y conflictos sociales (La Paz, 1987); AndrewCanessa, Minas, mote y munecas (La Paz, 2006); Dunkerley, Origenes del poder militar;Lesley Gill, “Creating Citizens, Making Men: The Military and Masculinity in Bolivia,”Cultural Anthropology 12 (1997); Luis Oporto Ordonez, “Conscripcion militar e insercioncomo mano de obra minero,” in Uncıa y Llallagua (La Paz, 2007); Juan R. QuintanaTaborga, Soldados y ciudadanos (La Paz, 1998).

4. A highly developed literature on the way “race” functions in Bolivia describes ethniccategories as seemingly definable, static, and carrying immense social import but individualclassification as fluid and situational, based on shifting sociocultural markers such as dress,hairstyle, language, diet, surname, schooling, occupation, region, residence, and income.See, for example, Laura Gotkowitz, A Revolution for Our Rights: Indigenous Struggles forLand and Justice in Bolivia, 1880–1952 (Durham, 2007), 13; Waskar T. Ari, “Race andSubaltern Nationalism: AMP Activist-Intellectuals in Bolivia, 1921–1964” (Ph.D. diss.,Georgetown University, 2004), v. Previous generations of scholars either took indigeneityas an ontological category or argued that ethnic and racial terms served to mask classrelationships.

5. James Dunkerley, “Reassessing Caudillismo in Bolivia, 1825–79,” Latin AmericanResearch Review 1 (1981): 19.

6. Ley militar: organizacion del servicio, conscripcion y sorteo, August 6, 1875.7. William F. Sater, Andean Tragedy: Fighting the War of the Pacific, 1879–1884 (Lincoln,

NE, 2007), 20–22.8. The military also established the Military Academy in 1891 and the Quartermaster

Corps in 1899. Legislators reiterated the obligation to serve in a September 20, 1892 conscrip-tion law. Julio Dıaz Arguedas, Historia del ejercito de Bolivia, 1825–1932 (La Paz, 1940), 23–25,57, 177; Dunkerley, “Reassessing Caudillismo,” 57.

9. Dıaz Arguedas, Historia del ejercito, 45–192, 760–64.10. Art. 87 (b), Constitucion polıtica de la Republica de Bolivia, October 28, 1880.11. 23a Sesion extraordinaria, January 5, 1907, Redactor de la H. Camara de Diputados,

Tomo III (La Paz, 1907): 1460.12. Capt. Camilo Unzaga, “El ejercito en la vida social,” Revista militar 39 (1908): 341–49.13. Minister of War to Prefects, January 21, 1907, Boletın militar, Tomo III (La Paz, 1907),

21–28.14. Oficina Nacional de Inmigracion Estadıstica y Propaganda Geografica, Censo general

de la poblacion de la Republica de Bolivia segun el empadronamiento de 1e. de septiembre de1900, vol. 2 (La Paz, 1904). The 1950 census categorized sixty-three percent of the populationas indigenous. Grieshaber argues that the 1900 census only counted tribute payers as indigenousrather than using markers such as language and dress. Erwin P. Grieshaber, “Fluctuaciones en ladefinicion del indio: Comparacion de los censos de 1900 y 1950,” Historia Boliviana 5 (1985).

15. With minor changes, this law remained in force until rewritten in 1966; that version stillstands today. Ley de servicio militar, January 16, 1907; Ley del servicio nacional de defensa,August 1, 1966.

16. Rates of participation in the Bolivian military were on a par with other Latin Americancountries but far lower than in European countries. Miguel Angel Centeno, Blood and Debt:War and the Nation-State in Latin America (University Park, PA, 2002), 225.

17. Ley que fija el numero de plazas, November 16, 1907, November 16, 1909, February 2,1910, December 12, 1918, and May 18, 1932; “Bolivia: Combat Estimate,” August 25, 1926 andJanuary 10, 1928, RG 165, NM 84–77, b. 557, f. S-C Intelligence Reference Pubs, NationalArchives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (hereafter cited as NARA).

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 25

18. See correspondence in Prefecture-Admin 147, 148, 149, 208, Archivo de La Paz, LaPaz, Bolivia (hereafter cited as ALP).

19. Minister of War to Prefect of La Paz #1730, January 30, 1915, Prefecture-Admin 148,ALP.

20. Robert L. Smale, “I Sweat the Flavor of Tin”: Labor Activism in Early TwentiethCentury Bolivia (Pittsburgh, 2010), 87–91, 110–43.

21. On the Acre War, see Robert L. Scheina, “The Acre War, 1903,” in Latin America’sWars: The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900-2001 (Washington, 2003), 7–9.

22. Julio Sanjines Goitia, El militar ingeniero (La Paz, 1975), 350.23. My. Julio Bretel, “Mision del oficial en fronteras,” Revista militar 6 (1922): 414–23.24. My. Marcelino Guzman y B., “La vida del oficial en fronteras,” Revista militar 16

(1923): 312–19.25. Sanjines Goitia, El militar ingeniero, 320-21.26. Prefect of La Paz to Minister of War #1849, August 16, 1913, Prefecture-Admin 147,

ALP.27. INS-59-003, Tribunal Permanente de Justicia Militar, Archivo Historico Militar, La

Paz, Bolivia (hereafter cited as AHM-TPJM).28. My. Luis Emilio Aguirre, “El nuevo ejercito,” Revista militar 44 (1925): 597–604.29. Victor Zambrana Flores statement, November 6, 1921, INS-59-003, AHM-TPJM.30. Gen. Gonzalo Jauregui, “Las razas indıgenas en Bolivia y su educacion en los cuar-

teles,” Revista militar 55 (1926): 533–37.31. Herbert S. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia (New York, 2003), 168.32. Orden Suprema, February 18, 1925, Anuario de leyes y disposiciones supremas de 1925

(La Paz, 1926): 228–29. For instances of hiring civilian contractors, see Decreto Supremo March6, 1918, Anuario de leyes y disposiciones supremas de 1918 (La Paz, 1919): 345–46; ResolucionSuprema July 30, 1919, Anuario de leyes y disposiciones supremas de 1919 (La Paz, 1920): 690.

33. Minister of War to Chief of Staff, January 26, 1931, ABA-01-004, AHM-TPJM.34. “En la region de Killi-Killi ocurrio un desplome de tierra,” El Diario, August 24, 1927, 8.35. Jaime Mendoza, “Una valiosa opinion acerca del camino carretero al Chaco,” Revista

militar 79 (1928): 433–35.36. Lt. Col. Alberto Sotomayor statement, October 1, 1931, ABA-01-004, AHM-TPJM.37. “Cronica,” Revista militar 117 (1931): 776–79.38. Ignacio Torres and Sarg. Manuel Flores statements, November 18, 1906 and November

28, 1907, Prefecture-Expedientes 189, doc. 177, ALP.39. Soldiers to Minister of War, November 1, 1920, MOT-71-001; Julio Rendon and Jose

Sinani statements, October 4, 1921 and November 17, 1921, INS-59-003; soldiers to Junta deGobierno, November 18, 1920, INS-59-002, AHM-TPJM.

40. Seventeen soldiers to Second Division Commander, September 22, 1931, ABA-01-004,AHM-TPJM.

41. Bruce W. Farcau, The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932–1935 (Westport, 1996),11–15; Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia, 168–77.

42. Ley que fija el numero de plazas del ejercito, May 18, 1932; David H. Zook, TheConduct of the Chaco War (New York, 1960), 75.

43. Zook, The Conduct of the Chaco War, 174.44. Statement of reservist Juan Laime, December 16, 1932, DES-16-007, AHM-TPJM.45. Arze Aguirre, Guerra y conflictos sociales, 251.46. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia, 183. See also Centeno, Blood and Debt, 59.47. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia, 186–203. See also Brian Loveman, For la Patria:

Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America (Wilmington, 1999), 101–11.48. Art. 169 (b), Constitucion polıtica de la Republica de Bolivia, October 30, 1938. This

clause remained unchanged until 1961.49. 128a sesion, October 24, 1938, Redactor de la Convencion Nacional, Tomo V (La Paz,

1939): 325.50. Ley de zapadores, October 29, 1939. See also “Las granjas agrıcolas del ejercito nacio-

nal,” Revista militar 31–32 (1939): 883.51. “El camino de Padcaya a Fortın Campero,” El Diario, June 12, 1936, 8.52. Charles D. Corbett, “Military Institutional Development and Sociopolitical Change:

The Bolivian Case,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 14 (1972): 403.53. Gill, “Creating Citizens, Making Men,” 537–39.

26 ILWCH, 80, Fall 2011

54. Hoja de Servicio no. 039933, August 28, 1944, Registro Territorial, Archivo Central delMinisterio de Defensa Nacional, La Paz, Bolivia (hereafter cited as ACMDN-RT).

55. Military Attache Report: Bolivia, June 9, 1944 and June 17, 1942, RG 165, NM 84-77, b.191 and 189, f. MA Reports vol. 2 and 971–9965, NARA.

56. My. Hugo Arteaga and Capt. Walter Castellon statements, April 20, 1948,ACC-07-007, AHM-TPJM.

57. Index of folders, 2008, ACMDN-RT.58. Prefect of La Paz to Minister of Defense #365, February 28, 1941, Prefecture-Admin

141, ALP; Commander of 1st Military Region to Prefect of La Paz #210, May 3, 1941,Prefecture-Admin 209, ALP.

59. Statements of soldier Edwin Silvetti Baldivieso and Sub-Lt. Alberto AlbarrecınCrespo, June 17, 1946, ACC-07-002, AHM-TPJM.

60. “El ano militar,” Revista militar 135–137 (1949): 107–9.61. Capt. Hugo Suarez Guzman, “Cronica sobre la construccion de Escuela Modelo

Ricardo Mujia en Sucre,” Revista militar 154 (1950): 35–47.62. My. Hugo Rene Pol, “Notas editorials,” Revista militar 95–96 (1945): 711.63. Nataniel Morales statement, August 30, 1946, ABA-03-006, AHM-TPJM.64. Diego Bernal and Daniel Bernal statements, June 29, 1942 and July 1, 1942,

ROB-86-006, AHM-TPJM.65. Prefect of La Paz to Minister of Defense #2558, November 23, 1946, Prefecture-Admin

141, ALP.66. Legal copy of reglamento de regimen interno no. 6, October 2, 1931, ABA-01-004,

AHM-TPJM.67. Enrique Beltran statement, September 5, 1945, ACC-07-001, AHM-TPJM.68. Vıctor Gutierrez statement, March 1, 1949, HER-52-010, AHM-TPJM.69. Tiburcio Flores statement, December 18, 1947, DES-23-007; Rene Murillo statement,

April 23, 1947, DES-22-015; Lt. Hugo Baldivieso statement, September 7, 1948, HUR-56-005,AHM-TPJM.

70. Antonio Orellana, Mauro Gutierrez, Bautista Acuna, and Nataniel Morales state-ments, August 28–30, 1946, ABA-03-006, AHM-TPJM.

71. Statements of Miguel Fuentes Orellana, October 27 and November 10, 1937,MUE-69-06, AHM-TPJM.

72. Report on Patino Mines for US Military Attache, June 24, 1942, RG 165, NM 84–77, b.190, f. Subversive, NARA.

73. “Entre talones de la masacre de Catavi: Mayo 1949,” La Nacion, December 29, 1952, 4.74. Tcnl. D. Arturo Arevalo, “La contextura moral del oficial,” Revista militar 99–100

(1946): 71–84.75. Tte. Guillermo Garcıa, “Instructores e instruidos,” Revista militar 57–58 (1942): 95–101.76. Gotkowitz, A Revolution for Our Rights, 192–232.77. “Mensaje del Presidente de la Junta de Gobierno al Pueblo Boliviano.” La Calle,

January 1, 1944.78. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia, 197–222. The ideology of MNR administrations

and whether the revolution’s leaders were radicals or moderates pushed by the masses hasbeen a subject of intense historiographical debate. See a summary in Gotkowitz, ARevolution for Our Rights, 268–90.

79. William H. Brill, Military Intervention in Bolivia: The Overthrow of Paz Estenssoro andthe MNR (Washington, 1967), 15–17.

80. Vıctor Paz Estenssoro, “Mensaje del Presidente Constitucional de la Rep. de Bolivia,”Revista militar 188–194 (1952): 8–20.

81. Oscar Rocabado statement, January 20, 1953, ACC-07-009, AHM-TPJM.82. Decreto supremo que fija la formula del juramento, August 4, 1924.83. Gen. Luis Ernesto Arteaga, “El juramento del lealtad a la bandera,” Revista militar

188–194 (1953): 202–5.84. Arts. 1, 23, 54–62, Ley organica de las fuerzas armadas de la nacion, Law # 280 of

December 20, 1963. See also Art. 201, Constitucion polıtica de la Republica de Bolivia,August 6, 1961.

85. Paz Estenssoro, “Mensaje del presidente”; “Historia de un soldado-colono,” LaNacion, July 28, 1956, 5; “Historiando algo con respeto a la pelıcula ‘Ofensiva de Paz’,” LaNacion, August 15, 1958, 6.

Constructing Roads, Washing Feet, and Cutting Cane for the Patria 27

86. Revista militar 178–182 (1952): 90.87. “El camino Coroico-Caranavi estara a cargo del ejercito de la revolucion,” La Nacion,

November 11, 1952, 5.88. “El Regimiento Colorados realiza eficaz labor de beneficio publico,” La Nacion, May

8, 1954, 5; “Varias obras publicas ejecutaron unidades del Ejercito,” La Nacion, June 21, 1954, 5;“Actividad territorial y desarrollo de la exposicion agrıcola ganadera de Challapata,” Revistamilitar 199–200 (1954): 70.

89. Lt. Col. Hugo Antezana, “El camino al Ichilo,” Revista militar 246–248 (1961): 81–85.90. “Historiando algo con respeto a la pelıcula ‘Ofensiva de Paz’,” La Nacion, August 15,

1958, 6.91. Joaquin de Lemoine, “Proyecto de Migraciones Internas,” July 3, 1957, 49, 34

Bolivia––General, Papers of Robert J. Alexander, Rutgers University Libraries, NewBrunswick, NJ (hereafter cited as RUL/MC974); Bolivia. Direccion Nacional deInformaciones, Bolivia: 10 anos de revolucion (La Paz, 1962), 147.

92. Arts. 23 and 58, Ley organica de las fuerzas armadas de la nacion, Law # 280 ofDecember 20, 1963.

93. “La Region Militar no. 5 ayuda al autoabastecimiento,” La Nacion, May 19, 1954, 5;“Activa labor de la Region Militar No. 5 en el Oriente,” La Nacion, June 7, 1954, 5.

94. “Civic Action, Bolivia, South America,” July 1963, RG 111, LC-47212, LC-47214,LC-47215, NARA.

95. Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies Jr., eds., The Politics of Antipolitics: TheMilitary in Latin America, 2nd revised and expanded ed. (Lincoln, 1989), 7–8.

96. “Actividades del ejercito de la Revolucion Nacional,” Revista militar 184–185 (1953):106–8; Col. Clemente Inofuentes, “Necesitamos un ejercito que sea sıntesis del anhelopopular,” Revista militar 184–185 (1953): 63–68; de Lemoine, “Proyecto de MigracionesInternas.”

97. My. Elka, “La vialidad y el ejercito nacional,” Revista militar 174–175 (1952): 14–15.98. “El camino Coroico-Caranavi estara a cargo del ejercito de la revolucion,” La Nacion,

November 12, 1952, 5; Col. E. M. Clemente Inofuentes G. “Plan de cooperacion del Ejercito a laproduccion agraria,” Revista militar 186–187 (1953): 61–65.

99. Juan Acarapi Mamani statement, May 1, 1953, MUE-71-009, AHM-TPJM.100. Undated Department of Defense Handout on civic action, quoted in William H. Brill,

“Military Civic Action in Bolivia” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1965), 23.101. Gen. Rene Barrientos quoted in “Barrientos dijo que cada integrante de las FF.AA.

es vigıa del desarrollo,” El Diario, November 22, 1967, 6.102. “Community Development,” May 1966, RG 111, LC-50029, NARA; “Civic Action

US Military Group,” September 1970, RG 111, LC-56148, NARA; “Accion cıvica militar entodos los ambitos de la patria,” Revista militar 291 (1967): 139.

103. “Faltan 6 kilometros para concluir camino de Riberalta a Guayaramerın,” El Diario,September 14, 1969, 5.

104. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia, 220.105. “Susceptibilidad en mineros por presencia de la FF.AA.,” Presencia, May 26, 1974, 10.106. June C. Nash, I Spent My Life in the Mines: The Story of Juan Rojas, Bolivian Tin

Miner, updated ed. (New York, 1992 [1979]), 346–50.107. Gary Prado Salmon, Poder y fuerzas armadas, 1949–1982 (Cochabamba, 1984),

212–14.108. “Historiando algo con respeto a la pelıcula ‘Ofensiva de Paz’,” La Nacion, August 15,

1958, 6.109. de Lemoine, “Proyecto de Migraciones Internas.”110. “Aclaran que no hubo motın sino queja de conscriptos,” El Diario, February 23, 1974, 3.

28 ILWCH, 80, Fall 2011