User:Krisgabwoosh/José Antonio Arze

José Antonio Arze y Arze (13 January 1904 – 23 August 1955) was a Bolivian educator, politician, sociologist, and Marxist intellectual. A founding member and leader of the Revolutionary Left Party, he represented La Paz in the 1944–1946 National Convention and Cochabamba in the Chamber of Deputies from 1947 to 1951 and was president of said body in 1947.

Born in Cochabamba to a lower-class family of some local notoriety, Arze spent his early years living in rural Ayopaya Province. After completing his primary studies, he moved to the capital, where he finished his secondary education. He later attended the Higher University of San Simón, graduating as a lawyer. Influenced by the Argentine university reform of 1918, Arze became active in organizing similar efforts back home. He was key in convening the 1st National Convention of Bolivian Students in 1928, in which the Bolivian University Federation was established. From there, Arze became a leading spokesman for the country's university autonomy movement, an effort that bore fruit with its adhesion to the Constitution in 1931.

A communist influenced by the Russian Revolution, Arze's ideological orientation drew heavily from official Soviet doctrine, particularly the Stalinist line of Marxism–Leninism. Having previously worked for multiple socialist publications, he began participating in efforts to organize an early communist party in the 1930s. Exiled during the Chaco War for his anti-war activism, Arze returned to Bolivia following the fall of the traditionalist governments. He served as a public official in the newly-founded Ministry of Labor but was exiled again to Chile in 1936 during a purge of communist sympathizers.

While in Chile, Arze laid the groundwork for what later became the Revolutionary Left Party, officially formed following in Oruro in 1940. He ran for president in that year's general election, and though defeated by a landslide, his ten percent popular vote margin was surprising given the country's limited suffrage. Arze continued in opposition during the government of Gualberto Villarroel, whose regime he denounced as fascist. Though elected and seated to the 1944–1946 National Convention, government opposition and an attempted assassination prevented Arze from serving, and he was eventually expelled from the legislature.

With the fall of Villarroel in 1946, Arze joined the conservative liberals in forming a national unity government. Though the pact garnered him the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies in 1947, Arze's alignment with the unpopular Hertzog administration cost his party much working-class support, and he came dead last in his second presidential bid in 1951. With the dissolution of his party the following year, Arze retired from political life, dedicating his final years to academia and sociological research until his death in 1955. A radical, revered and reviled by various socialist factions during his lifetime, Arze is remembered for his role in achieving university autonomy, his leadership over the most powerful Marxist party in Bolivian history, and his status as the father of modern sociology in the country.

Early life and education
José Antonio Arze was born on 13 January 1904 in Cochabamba, the eldest of six children born to José Tristán Arze Ustáriz and Arminda Arze Virreira. The Arze family was an old one whose surname carried some local notoriety. On both his father's and mother's side—his parents were first cousins—José Antonio was a distant descendant of Esteban Arze, a noted hero of the revolutionary period in Cochabamba and the namesake of the Esteban Arze Province. Many of Arze's familial contemporaries, most notably his first cousin, Wálter Guevara Arze, but also Eduardo Arze Loureiro, and the more distant relative Eduardo Arze Quiroga, would go on to make their own political marks in José Antonio's lifetime. Another first cousin, Ricardo Anaya Arze, would become one of Arze's closest collaborators, in both his academic and political activities.

Regardless of their prominent background, at the time of his birth, the Arze family held few resources, belonging to the lower class of petite bourgeoisie that inhabited the rural foothills of Cochabamba. Although Arze's father, José Tristán, maintained some political capital—he was deputy prefect of the Ayopaya Province—his main living was made working low-paying agriculture and mining jobs. As a result, Arze spent much of his childhood in the small mining town of Monte Cristo, as well as in the rural locale of Calchani in the Ayopaya Province. It was there that he began his primary studies, attending the Modelo State School between 1913 and 1914. Later, he was able to move back to the capital, where he received a modest education at the home of his aunt and uncle before finally completing his secondary studies at the Bolívar and Sucre schools, from which he graduated in 1921.

Ideological radicalisation and first publications: 1921–1923
While a student, Arze rapidly established himself as a prodigy for his grade. A studious figure with a passion for pedagogy, he took jobs as a secondary schoolteacher while still in high school himself, and in 1921, aged 17, he founded his own academic center: the Higher Institute of Artisans of Cochabamba. The school, which he directed for six years, was one of the department's first centers for adult education, providing night courses to the city's often-poor artisan workers. It additionally served as a pulpit for Arze to diffuse his burgeoning socialist ideals. An early affinity towards socialism and experience observing developments in Eastern Europe at the tail end of World War I defined Arze's lifelong political orientations. In particular, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union were foundational to his understanding of Marxist ideology. He soon became an adherent of Stalinist-style Marxism–Leninism, always oriented towards official Soviet doctrine and publications.

In order to espouse his political views, Arze took to writing. In 1921, he began the publication of his own weekly magazine, El Paladín, which ultimately only lasted three issues between 8 and 22 February. Shortly thereafter, he joined the editorial staff of another Cochabamba-based periodical, Arte y Trabajo, which published its first issue on 27 February. The small avant-garde print headed by Cesáreo Capriles covered political issues under an individualist anarchist lens, espousing apoliticism, anti-clericalism, and libertarian education. Over the course of its run, the paper garnered modest acclaim, amassing a niche but dedicated following of young intellectuals and university students. In addition to Arze, figures such as Augusto Céspedes and Carlos Montenegro, as well as his cousins Ricardo Anaya and Wálter Guevara, joined the magazine's editorial staff, slowly shifting it away from its anarchist ideological origins and towards more progressive left-wing tendencies. Within two months of its original publication, Capriles left the project, handing the reins to Arze, who directed the paper from its eleventh issue onwards. Over the next three years until 1923, Arze served as an assiduous and indefatigable editor-in-chief for Arte y Trabajo, during which time he adopted and popularized the pseudonym León Martel.

Student activism and university reform: 1923–1928
By 1923, Arze's work in the development of the city's popular education led the Cochabamba municipal government to sponsor his travels abroad. He spent stints in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, studying the operation of similar educational institutions in their respective capital cities. In Argentina, in particular, Arze became interested in the powerful student movement that had developed as an outcome of the country's landmark 1918 university reform. The works of José Ingenieros, especially those proclaiming the advent of "new times," were particularly impactful on him. Following his return to Bolivia, Arze attended the Higher University of San Simón (UMSS), where he studied law and political science, graduating in 1925. Also in 1925, he participated in the re-foundation of the UMSS's university library, which he later headed. Around this time, Arze became active in efforts to reestablished a national student movement after a near-twenty-year hiatus in large-scale student organization in the country. One of this initiative's first achievements was the formation of the Federation of Students of Cochabamba, which included among its leadership: Arze, his cousins Ricardo Anaya and Eduardo Arze, and José Aguirre Gainsborg. Shortly after its foundation, the federation got to work on its principal objective: the organization of a national university congress.

As that project was underway, Arze also pursued other ventures. In 1926, for example, he was admitted to the bar, completing the final prerequisite to become a practicing lawyer. Despite this, his primary focus remained headlong on the subject of education and academia, with his pursuit of reforms to these institutions eventually leading him to collaborate with the government of President Hernando Siles. At the persuasion of Céspedes, Arze joined Siles's newly-founded Nationalist Party, which the president had organized in a bid to bolster working-class support for his administration. Although the Nationalist Party's platform contained "nothing especially revolutionary," its "middle-class reformist type of ideology" nonetheless attracted many young urban intellectuals into its ranks. As a result, "in one way or another, almost every major [young] intellectual of leftist leaning, directly or indirectly,... participated in the Siles administration." This included Arze, who served for some time as a senior official within the Ministry of Development.

These connections with Siles opened avenues for Arze to acquire state support for his university reform efforts. Unlike other fast-growing social movements, the work of the university reformers was something the government "watched with interest, rather than fear." Siles, for his part, had demonstrated an openness to hearing out the proposals of the student movement, even appointing Arze to a three-person University Reform Commission in 1927. The following year, during an unrelated presidential visit to Cochabamba, Arze secured a private audience with Siles at the UMSS library, where he petitioned the president to lend government funding to a national meeting of student representatives. Siles was enamored with the idea, procuring from Congress the necessary financing—albeit modest—to organize the event.

Role in the student convention and university autonomy: 1928–1931
At the invitation of Arze's group, the 1st National Convention of Bolivian Students was convened in Cochabamba on 17 August 1928, counting the attendance of student representatives from all of the country's major universities. The primary accomplishment of this first meeting was the formation of the Bolivian University Federation (FUB), the basis of which continues to date in the form of the Bolivian University Confederation. Although the FUB counted the presence of student groups from across the country, its organization, leadership structure, and ideological principles were all centralized around the Federation of Students of Cochabamba, making Arze, in turn, "the key leader of the convention." Arze chaired the event, his close partner Anaya was the FUB's first secretary general, and the pair were jointly tasked with drafting the federation's organic statute and declaration of principles.



The final document, presented by Arze and approved without much further debate by the convention, "was an essay on the Marxist interpretation of Bolivian reality." Although primarily focused on the implementation of university reform and university autonomy—especially economic autonomy—in line with the Argentine model, the publication also did not refrain from issuing declarations regarding "the social question." Among the non-university reforms put forward were the unionization of the proletariat—including, notably, teachers and knowledge workers—the full incorporation of the country's indigenous population into civilian life, and the emancipation of women. Although some concessions were afforded to more rightward and nationalist elements of the convention, in general, the program "demonstrated that the most advanced sectors of the student body were boldly oriented towards Marxism." For his part, Arze emerged from the convention as the "undisputed spokesman for the reform movement."

A second student conference convened in Sucre the following year. Although Arze did not play as large of a role as in the previous event, his and Anaya's influences over the student movement were solidified, and their presence would continue to be felt through ensuing congresses and beyond. The pursuit of university autonomy would continue into 1930 and—ironically—became a contributing factor to the destabilization and eventual fall of Siles's government. Finally, in early 1931, the military government of Carlos Blanco Galindo put forward a constitutional referendum on the topic. With its passage, the various facets of university autonomy were incorporated into the Constitution. In his later years, Arze would come to consider the realization of university autonomy as one of the three greatest achievements of his lifetime.

Early communist organizing: 1928–1932
For Arze, the fall of Siles did not signify a significant political loss. Although publicly, Arze had few qualms openly operating within Siles's Nationalist Party, in private, he had long been covertly participating in early efforts to organize an underground communist party. The so-called "Clandestine Communist Party" (PCC), formed in 1928, maintained close relations with the group of young Marxist activists led by Arze, and though never a full member in his own right, the student movement he semi-headed quickly became the most active and numerous wing of the party, alongside the trade unions.

One member of the PCC, Waldo Álvarez, Arze met while living in La Paz, where, since 1929, he had been working as a sociology professor at the Higher University of San Andrés. The pair had been introduced to one another by their mutual friend josé Cuadros Quiroga, then an editorial writer for El Diario, while Álvarez was working for the same publication.

One active member of the PCC was Waldo Álvarez, a workers' rights activist and trade union leader. Arze first became acquainted with Álvarez while residing in La Paz, where, since 1929, he had been working as a professor of sociology at the Higher University of San Andrés. The pair had been introduced to one another by their mutual friend José Cuadros Quiroga, then an editorial writer for El Diario, while Álvarez was working for the same publication. The three soon became fast friends, jointly working to form their own leftist cell, the Revolutionary Socialist Group, which also counted the membership of Guevara and thirty-six other individuals.

In private conversations with Álvarez, Arze began developing the framework for a communist organization of transnational influence. In 1930, he presented a draft statute to Álvarez and Cuadros, outlining his idea for a Confederation of Pacific Workers' Republics (CROP) that would unite the communist parties of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru as a step towards an eventual political union. Arze argued that, alone, Bolivia did not have the conditions to achieve revolutionary change and that only through union with workers of neighboring countries could proletarian revolution take place. The document has been described as a "curious and remarkable example of Arze's political creativity" and reflected his long-held utopian viewpoints. At the same time, it demonstrated "the political immaturity of the young Marxist."

Members of the PCC quickly adopted Arze's proposal; the statute was passed in October 1931, and Álvarez was appointed as the CROP's secretary general. The CROP declared itself in line with the goals of the Comintern, outlining as its final objective the organization's membership within an eventual globe-spanning Soviet-style union. Arze presented the CROP's statute to the Comintern's Latin American Bureau in Buenos Aires, where he also requested that the organization recognize it as the only official communist party in Bolivia.

User:Krisgabwoosh/CROP

Formation of the PIR and opposition years: 1940–1946
User:Krisgabwoosh/PIR

Lora 1979, p. 83-84

https://archive.org/details/presidentecolgado0000cespedes_202301/page/180/mode/2up?q=arze&view=theater

Later life and death
University politics


 * Arze soon became a kind of specialist in university affairs, especially university reform, and he wrote a great deal on the question., Lora, p. 79

Politics


 * Participated in numerous failed attempts at forming a Communist Party of Bolivia between 1930 and 1933, Urgente
 * Anti-war activist during the Chaco War in 1932, denouncing it as imperialist, Lora, p. 80
 * Exiled to Peru for the duration of the Chaco campaign, Lora, p. 80
 * Joined Enrique Baldivieso's Socialist Party, Lora, p. 80
 * In 1936, as a member of the Socialist Party, he supported the government of David Toro, Urgente
 * Returned from Peru in 1935 to work as a legal advisor for the Ministry of Labor under his close friend Waldo Alvarez, Lora, p. 82
 * Legal advisor for the Ministry of Labor during the presidency of David Toro and ministerial term of Waldo Alvarez, Urgente
 * Joined the Socialist Left Bloc which became part of the Socialist Party in July 1936, Lora, p. 82
 * Privately supported the creation of a Confederations of Pacific Workers' Republics (CROP), an organization with the end goal of uniting Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. which led him to be purged from the Socialist Party after Carlos Montenegro, seeking to remove Marxists, published the CROP's statutes in La Calle and La Razon, Lora p. 80-81 More information available there.
 * Exiled to Chile in 1936, Lora, p. 82
 * In 1939, he formed the Bolivian Left Front in Santiago, Lora, p. 82
 * In 1939, while exiled in Chile, he formed the Bolivian Left Front, Urgente
 * FIB became the immediate predecessor of the PIR, Lora, p. 82
 * In his time, he was the "idol of the students", who proclaimed him as the presidential candidate in 1939 against Enrique Penaranda of Concordance, Lora, p. 82
 * Declared a candidate for president in 1940 by the Bolivian University Federation, Francovich, p. 108
 * Created and was named leader of the PIR in 1940 at a congress in Oruro, Lora, p. 82
 * Between 1940 and 1952, he was a founding member and leader of the PIR, Urgente
 * Ran for president in 1940, 1944?, and 1951, Urgente
 * Promoted the theory that the Villarroel-MNR government was fascist, but only after the president rejected his public offer for cooperation, Lora, p. 83
 * Elected deputy for La Paz in 1944, Lora, p. 83
 * During WWII, he adjusted his speech to be in line with Moscow's pro-American stance, Lora, p. 83
 * The PIR joined the Antifascist Democratic Front, Lora, p. 83
 * "This policy of 'national unity' against fascism was nothing less than collaboration with the rosca and it became the PIR's downfall", Lora, p. 83
 * During the presidency of Enrique Hertzog, as part of a national unity government, he was name president of the Chamber of Deputies in 1947, Lora, p. 83
 * President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1947, Urgente
 * PIR dissolved in 1952, Francovich, at which most members joined the PCB p. 108
 * Member of the Commission for Educational Reform from 1953 to 1954, Urgente
 * Member of the Educational Reform Commission, Lora, p. 83
 * General advisor and secretary of the Third Interamerican Indigenist Congress, Urgente
 * Secretary general of the Third Interamerican Indigenist Congress, which met in La Paz in 1954. He stressed that his participation was professional and not political, Lora, p. 83

Academia


 * The Municipality of Cochabamba sent him abroad to study the operation of similar institutions elsewhere, Lora, p. 79
 * Public official in the Municipal Library of Cochabamba, Urgente
 * Founder of the Library of the UMSA, now the library of social sciences, Urgente
 * Professor of sociology of the UMSA by 1929, Schelchkov, p. 34
 * Professor of sociology, taught at the UMSA and USFX, Francovich, p. 108
 * Taught courses Chile, Cuba, and the US, Francovich, p. 108
 * Translated Georges Rouma's La civilizacion de los Incas and Louis Baudin's el imperio socialista, Francovich, p. 108
 * Professor of history, Spanish, French, and English, at various primary and secondary schools, Urgente
 * University docent in Cochabamba, La Paz, Sucre, Santiago de Chile, and Williams College, US, Urgente
 * Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UMSS, Urgente
 * In 1940, he founded the Institute of Bolivian Sociology, Urgente
 * In 1941, he founded the Institute of Bolivian Sociology of the USFX, Francovich, p. 108
 * At the same time, started publication of Revista del Instituto de Sociología Boliviana., Francovich, p. 108
 * On 8 March 1940, he founded the Institute of Bolivian Sociology on the campus of the USFX, Lora, p. 79-80
 * Between 1941 and 1944, he delivered conferences in the US and other countries, Lora, p. 83
 * Represented the CSTB at a CTAL meeting, Lora, p. 83
 * Professor of sociology of Europe in 1948, Lora, p. 83
 * Returned to Bolivia in 1951 and retired from politics, dedicating himself to education and sociology, Lora, p. 83
 * In 1952, he served as president of the first congress of Bolivian sociology, Urgente
 * In July 1952, he organized the first congress of Bolivian sociology in La Paz, Francovich, p. 110
 * President of the Bolivian Society of Sociology, Lora, p. 83
 * Served as president of the Bolivian Society of Sociology, formed by the mentioned congress, Urgente

Journalism


 * Directed the Página Latinoamericana of the Lima-based paper Universal between 1932 and 1935, Urgente
 * Technical official at the Library of Congress of Chile between 1936 and 1937, Urgente

https://web.archive.org/web/20200628222652/https://www.paginasiete.bo/gente/2020/6/27/alvarez-el-ministro-obrero-que-hizo-temblar-al-poder-259608.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20220308131734/https://culturaydeporte.usfx.bo/centrodocumental/wp-content/Documentos/BOLET%C3%8DN%20No.7-Parte%202-Desarrollo-%20La%20Autonom%C3%ADa%20Universitaria%20en%20Bolivia-%20(Febrero-2021)%20-%20Web1.pdf

https://repositorio.umsa.bo/bitstream/handle/123456789/7214/BC-F-00708.OPT.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

https://www.la-razon.com/politico/2020/06/17/un-grafico-de-ministro/

Ensayo

Los Tiempos
 * Died on 23 August 1955, p. 7
 * First exile in Peru, where he directed Página Latinoamericana for the Lima-based paper Universal in 1934, pp. 8, 24
 * Returned to Bolivia from Peru in 1936, where he briefly collaborated with David Toro, p. 8
 * His most fundamental work, Sociologia Marxista, was published posthumously, p. 10

Pensamiento:
 * Many works published posthumously by his nephew, José Roberto Arze.
 * Fluent in French, English, and Esperanto, using the latter to write the novela Melsurbo, about a communist city in the year 3000. The name "Melsurbo" being a portmanteau of the of the initials of Marx, Engeles, Lenin, and Stalin.
 * Utopianist and futureologist. Nephew called him "the most genuine utopian that the national consciousness ever had."
 * Died in Cochabamba on 23 August 1955.
 * First work was Semblanzas filosóficas: Arturo Schopenhauer, written at age 16.
 * Owned a 5,000 volume library of sociology, history, Marxism, and Bolivian authors, which he considered his greatest fortune.
 * Considered university autonomy, the foundation of the PIR, and the diffusion of sociology in Bolivia as his greatest achievements.
 * Married Gloria Rodríguez, Chilean journalist.


 * PIR dissolved in 1952 after most members left to join the PCB
 * Proclaimed candidate for president in 1940 by the Bolivian University Federation
 * Candidate for the PIR in 1951
 * Professor of sociology
 * Taught in La Paz and Sucre as well as some courses in the US Chile and Cuba
 * Created the Institute of Bolivian Sociology of the University of Sucre (USFX?) in 1941, which published Revista del Instituto de Sociología Boliviana.
 * Professor of sociology of the University of La Paz (UMSA?), p. 108
 * Organized the first Congress of Bolivian Sociology in July 1952.
 * President of the Bolivian Society of Sociology, affiliated with the Latinamerican Association of Sociology

https://www.andesacd.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Anales-19-2004.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20200628222652/https://www.paginasiete.bo/gente/2020/6/27/alvarez-el-ministro-obrero-que-hizo-temblar-al-poder-259608.html

https://www.facebook.com/lhpar/photos/a.238442996898892/825781434831709

https://web.archive.org/web/20170722121602/https://www.paginasiete.bo/ideas/2015/11/8/jose-antonio-arze-76019.html

https://www.andesacd.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Escritos-Literarios-Jos%C3%A9-Antonio-Arze-1091kb.pdf

https://www.andesacd.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Anales-19-2004.pdf https://www.masas.nu/diccionario%20politico/a.pdf

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Anuario_legislativo_de/g_tgAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=jose%20antonio%20arze

https://www.facebook.com/groups/archivistas.bolivia/posts/3617529724926516/