The Revolutionary Left Party was a communist party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

 in Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

. It was founded in May 1940 by Dr. José Antonio Arze and other Bolivian intellectuals.

The PIR was sympathetic to the Communist International

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

, but did not become an affiliate to the International. The PIR began to organize the country's miners, but it did so cautiously for fear that strikes would hinder supplies for the Allies

Allies of World War II

The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Except for the pro-Axis

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

 Gualberto Villarroel

Gualberto Villarroel

Gualberto Villarroel López was the head of state of Bolivia from December 20, 1943 to July 21, 1946. A reformist, he is nonetheless remembered for his alleged fascist sympathies, and is sometimes compared with Argentina's Juan Domingo Perón...

, the PIR generally supported all of Bolivia's war-time presidents to assure the nation remained an Allied power. Because of the party's hesitation to engage in domestic issues, it lost much of its working-class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 support to the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement

Revolutionary Nationalist Movement

The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement is a Bolivian political party, perhaps the most important in the country during the 20th century. At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won, in an alliance with the Free Bolivia Movement, 26.9% of the popular vote and 36 out of 130 seats in the...

 (MNR) and the Revolutionary Workers' Party

Revolutionary Workers' Party (Bolivia)

The Revolutionary Workers' Party is a Trotskyist political party in Bolivia. At its height in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the POR was one of the few Trotskyist parties in history to gain a mass working-class following.-Beginnings:...

 (POR).

In 1950, a section of the PIR membership broke away and founded the Communist Party of Bolivia

Communist Party of Bolivia

The Communist Party of Bolivia is a communist party in Bolivia. It was founded in 1950 by Raúl Ruiz González and other former members of the Revolutionary Left Party . It remained small and did not hold its first national party congress until 1959....

 (PCB). By the 1960s, the PCB had to a large extent replaced the PIR. Following the military coup in 1964, the PIR went underground and disintegrated into warring factions. A reconstituted PIR emerged in the late 1970s as a puppet party of the dictator Hugo Banzer

Hugo Banzer

Hugo Banzer Suárez was a politician, military general, dictator and President of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from August 22, 1971 to July 21, 1978, as a dictator; and then again from August 6, 1997 to August 7, 2001, as constitutional President.-Military and ideological...

. In 1979, it dissolved into Banzer's new Nationalist Democratic Action

Nationalist Democratic Action

Nationalist Democratic Action is a right-wing political party in Bolivia led by Jorge Quiroga. ADN was founded on March 23, 1979 by the military dictator Hugo Banzer after he stepped down from power. It later expanded to include the Revolutionary Left Party and a faction of the Bolivian Socialist...

(ADN).

Sources

• Jerry W. Knudson, The Impact of the Catavi Mine Massacre of 1942 on Bolivian Politics and Public Opinion. In: The Americas, Vol. 26, No. 3 (January 1970), 254-276.
• Herbert S. Klein, A Concise History of Bolivia (Cambridge University Press, 2003). ISBN 0521807824