Making Enemies and Allies: Bolivia’s Foreign Relations, 1952–56

In September 1953, one month after Bolivian President Victor Paz Estenssoro signed the agrarian reform decree abolishing pongueaje and ordering the expropriation of feudal estates, representatives of the National Federation of Peasants of Peru wrote a letter to the Bolivian president congratulating him on his decision to sign the decree. The leaders of the Peruvian Peasant Federation also requested a copy of this document. It was not surprising to find that Bolivia's law appealed to Peruvian peasants. Like Bolivia, Peru had a sizeable Indian population subject to peonage on large haciendas. General Manuel Odría, Peru's conservative president, so feared the destabilizing political effects that Bolivia's agrarian reform could have on his country that he imprisoned the signatories of the letter and, a few months later, he closed the border with Bolivia. This incident was one of many events that disturbed Bolivia's diplomatic relations with Peru after the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) took power in April 1952. This paper explores Bolivia's international relations with its neighbors at the time of the Bolivian National Revolution. It analyzes the effects of MNR policies (such as universal suffrage, peasant unionization, and land distribution) on the region. It particularly examines Bolivia's strained relations with conservative President Manuel Odría of Peru and the growing alliance with nationalist and leftist President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala.