The Charles W. Arnade Collection of Boliviana – Books and Pamphlets

Of the roughly 3000 books and pamphlets in the Arnade ollection, many are rare issues, with either a single, or just a handful of locations recorded in WorldCat; further, more than 100 volumes are not found in WorldCat.

The bulk of Dr. Arnade’s printed books can be classified as historical. Particularly for the period concerned with the radical Revolution of 1952 and its aftermath, however, there is also a strong emphasis on subjects such as economics (including mining and agriculture); political and social sciences (including the political rights of the various indigenous population); and pedagogical reform. For other areas, such as the persistence and survival of pre-Hispanic traits in the mountainous regions and in the valleys of Bolivia, there are also many titles that deal with folkloric, linguistic, musical, anthropological, and archeological studies as well as the plastic arts.

1824-1825 history

The broader category of historical writings in the Arnade collection can be divided into the following six periods:
1. A period extending from 1809, passes through the fifteen-year war of independence,  and ending with the Víctory at Ayacucho on 9 December 1824 and the subsequent creation of the independent republic of Bolivia. This is the period studied in its entirety by  Dr. Arnade in  The Emergence of the Republic of Bolivia.

2. A period that starts with the establishment of the newly created republic in 1825 and extends to the death in 1860 of Casimiro Olañeta, one of the leading political figures of that time in Bolivian history, and reputed to be one of the artificers of the new republic of Bolivia.  Casimiro Olañeta (1796-1860), was the nephew of the royalist general Pedro Antonio Olañeta(1770-1825), one of the staunchest generals defending the rights of the King of Spain. He refused to surrender to his enemies even after the defeat of Ayacucho on 9 December 1824, and was treacherously assassinated on May 27, 1825. This paved the way for the official declaration of Independence of Bolivia, on 6 August 1825. His nephew, Casimiro, on the other hand, who had become his uncle’s secretary in 1820, finally abandoned the royalist cause after the defeat at Ayacucho. He became a leading political figure once he joined Sucre’s side and is claimed by some to have been the actual brains behind the creation of the new republic. Afterwards, Casimiro Olañeta played an important role in Bolivian politics during the first thirty five years of the independent republic,

El Siglo – 1860

Olañeta speech – 1858

although he mainly remained in the background. During that extended period Casimiro was a controversial figure, seen by many historians as an inveterate schemer–a man who had many defenders, but, perhaps, even more detractors.
There are two extremely rare pieces concerning Casimiro Olañeta in the Arnade collection: a speech by Olañeta issued as a broadside, published around 1858, and a single number of the periodical El Siglo, dated 25 August, 1860, issued shortly after his death, devoted entirely to eulogize Olañeta.

3. A period that starts in 1861 and lasts through to the end of the 19^th century. It includes the tragic era of Mariano Melgarejo (1820-1871), who became president of Bolivia on December 28, 1864, and was removed from power on January 15, 1871. This era also includes the War of the Pacific with Chile(1879-1884), that left Bolivia with the physical and psychological scar of a landlocked country.

1861-1899 history

4. A period that begins with the first part of the 20^th century and goes through to 1935, the date of the catastrophic loss of the Chaco War that resulted in another dismemberment of part of the original territory of the republic of Bolivia.

5. A period that extends from the aftermath of the Chaco catastrophe to the outbreak of the Revolution of April 9, 1952. This period introduced a new generation of political thinkers bent on establishing a new social political order and reached its climax with the outbreak of the revolution of 1952 and the consequent defeat of the conservative forces that had run Bolivia since 1825.

6. A period that covers most of the first decade following the 1952 revolution, namely the two terms of the Presidency of Víctor Paz Estenssoro(1907-2001), and that of Hernán Siles Zuazo(1914-1996), whose term came to an end in 1964 after a coup brought General René Barrientos to power.

Dr. Arnade was keenly interested in the Revolution of 1952 and its aftermath. See, for instance, the essay “Bolivia’s social revolution 1952-1959: a discussion of sources”, published in the Journal of Inter-American Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, July 1959, pp. 341-352. The Arnade collection also contains numerous pamphlets and other writings that deal one way or the other with the 1952 Revolution and the decade that followed.

Ley de la Reforma Agraria de Cuba

The Bolivian Revolution of 1952 was led by the M.N.R. [Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario]. This political party began with an extremely radical program that affected the vital fields of mining, agriculture and social reform–three of the most important areas that were in need of reform. It expropriated the mines from the three tin barons: Patiño, Aramayo, and Hochschild. (Oil had already been nationalized at an earlier date, as a consequence of the difficulties that arose in the contract with the Standard Oil Co. and the subsequent Chaco War). It also instituted agrarian reform and redistribution of landed property benefiting the peasantry. [For a comparison with the similar Cuban reform see Ley de la Reforma Agraria de Cuba].

Lastly, it decreed the emancipation and political rights of the indigenous population that had remained politically marginalized until that time. These three reforms must be seen as forerunners of some of the political programs of the present day Bolivian government. The M.N.R. consisted at first of an assortment of alliances that covered a large spectrum of the progressive political panorama; but as the 1952 Revolution became entrenched, and due to internal and external pressures, the ruling party moved farther away from its initial radical programs, or watered them down in such a way that they ceased to be relevant. The revolutionary fervor fizzled out at last and was surpassed in 1964 by the coup of General Barrientos.

Canelas pamphlet

Dr. Arnade collected numerous speeches addressed on various occasions and different dates by two Presidents, Víctor Paz Estenssoro and Hernán Siles Zuazo, outlining various obscure programs that the revolutionary government wished to tackle. The Arnade collection also includes many publications that deal with the reformation of University Studies, particularly in such outlying centers as Oruro, Potosi, Tarija, and Santa Cruz; in other words, away from the more traditional universities located in La Paz, Cochabamba, and Sucre.

Dr. Arnade’s collection also contains a number of publications that present the points of view of critics of the revolution, from various opposition parties. An example of criticism that emanated from the right is a very rare pamphlet by Demetrio Canelas of 1955 (not in WorldCat), the publisher of the banned newspaper Los Tiempos of Cochabamba.

Book of poems by Zulema Bass Werner de Ruiz

Curiously enough, however, with the exception of a few documents, there is an almost total absence in the Arnade collection of any publications from the  main right wing opposition party, the FSB [the Falange Socialista Boliviana] led by Oscar Unzaga de la Vega (1916-1959). The collection does include, however, a very important document in English issued in 1953 by Unzaga, addressed to an international audience, wherein he outlines the FSB’s political objectives as an opposition party.

There is extensive material critical of the M.N.R. political program collected by Dr. Arnade emanating from two left wing opposition parties, namely from the P.I.R. [the Partido Izquierdista Revolucionario], a Marxist party led by José Antonio Arze, and from the P.O.R. [the Partido Obrero Revolucionario], a Trotskyite party whose main speaker and pamphleteer was Guillermo Loras.

Botanical school text

From the point of view of the P.I.R. the collection contains, for example, a very curious schematic wall-chart (printed on both sides) published in July 1952 [not in WorldCat], elaborated by José Antonio Arze,the charismatic professor of sociology at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, in La Paz; from the point of view of the P.O.R., there is a pamphlet from 1960, published by Editorial Masas, the official publishing house of that party.

Besides the six historical periods listed above, the Arnade collection has also many curious items that fall well outside the categories established above. For instance, the many works of Zulema Bass Werner de Ruiz, a poet native of Tarija, are present in the collection, many of them not listed in WorldCat.

Another interesting aspect of the collection is the high incidence of signed presentation copies, a fact that speaks volumes about Arnade’s high standing among Bolivian scholars.

Finally, the collection contains an early botanical school text most likely used by Professor Arnade during his high school days at the Colegio La Salle in Cochabamba, likely one of the earliest books added to his collection.