Abstract
In the late 1920s, the anarchist movement in La Paz played a decisive role in opening and consolidating channels of communication with the indigenous movement in the Bolivian Andes. However, anarchists were not the sole political actors involved in this process. Since the beginning of the 20th century, other left-wing currents - broadly defined - also intervened. This article aims to delineate the dialogues established between anarchism and the indigenous movement, both at the ideological level and amid “ethno-classist” struggles. It engages in a debate with and complicates both nationalist and libertarian historiography. Based on the analysis of a corpus composed of commercial and anarchist press, leaflets, correspondence, interviews, and administrative documentation, we argue that the city-countryside exchanges are part of a long and rich history developed in different localities of Bolivia, from that early moment until the hiatus introduced by the outbreak of the Chaco War in 1932. Furthermore, we suggest that this essentially connected history projects itself from the years that preceded the 1952 Revolution, referred to as the “pre-52”, into the following period, known as the “post-52”.
Keywords:
Left-wing currents; anarchism; indigenous movement