Background
Gualberto Villarroel López was born on 15 December 1908 in Cochabamba.
military politician president statesman
Gualberto Villarroel López was born on 15 December 1908 in Cochabamba.
Villarroel attended grade school and high school in the city of Cochabamba. He entered the military college in 1925 and graduated in 1928.
He entered the Superior War College and became a major in 1940.
He served in the Chaco War and in 1935 was promoted to captain. By 1943 he was in a junior position in the General High Command of the army.
Although Villarroel was a relatively unknown military figure, he became president of the first government in which the Nationalist Revolutionary Move¬ment (MNR) participated. His influence derived from his commanding position in the military lodge called "Reason of the Fatherland," which joined with the MNR in the revolt of December 20, 1943. Serving as provisional president until August 6, 1944, Villarroel was elected constitutional president for 1944-1948 by a national convention. The new government was branded by the tin interests, the political parties of the left, and the U. S. State Department as “Nazi-Fascist,” and was denied recognition by most governments in the hemisphere until the removal of the MNR from the cabinet in June 1944. However, by January 1945 MNR leaders had returned to the cabinet. The national Congress and nascent labor movement were rent by rivalry between the MNR and the Revolutionary Left Party (PIR) of José Antonio Arze. Coup attempts in November 1944 and June 1945 were occasions for the murder and imprisonment of many opposition party leaders. This brought about the alliance of the Stalinist PIR and the conservative parties in the Democratic Antifascist Front against VillarroeFs government.
The popularity of some Villarroel reforms did not protect the regime from the chaotic political environment. On July 21, 1946, street demonstrations by students, striking teachers, and railworkers overran the presidential palace. Villarroel and several close associates were seized and strung up from lampposts in the main plaza. Villarroel thus became a martyr of the forthcoming 1952 Revolution.
The Villarroel rule benefited labor and the urban middle classes. Its reforms threatened the entrenched power elite. A new 1945 constitution reaffirmed the principles of economic nationalism and social welfare, and interests of the state over individualism. The government forced companies to sell 60 percent of foreign exchange earnings to the state and increased tax revenues. Pro-labor laws protected job security and the right to unionization. The MNR gained leadership of the Federation of Mine Workers in 1944: the PIR controlled most nonmining workers.
A major move of the Villarroel government was convocation of the First National Indian Congress in May 1945. A National Federation of Campesinos was formed and two decrees abolished the free labor service obligations of the Indian peasantry on haciendas and in mines. Although land reform was not considered and the rural landlords ignored the new reforms, for the first time the Indian was mobilized as a potential political power base.
