Santa Cruz de la Sierra: de campañas separatistas y proyectos integracionistas, entre las postrimerías y la posguerra del Chaco (1935-1939)

Abstract

This article investigates the campaign that tried to separate Santa Cruz from Bolivia during the Chaco War and the consequent reaction on the part of the Santa Cruz intelligentsia that emphasized its belonging to Bolivia. Both separatists and integrationists justified their positions with a reading of history and descriptions with ethnic arguments about the population of Santa Cruz. The separatists emphasized the brotherhood between Paraguayans and Santa Cruz for sharing a Guaraní origin. The integrationists denied the kinship with the indigenous people of the area and emphasized its whiteness. He then analyzes the confrontation in the post-war period of the Chaco, around the founding of the Socialist Oriental Party (POS). At that time two ways of conceiving the Nation were found. On the one hand, the POS reaffirming the ethnic, historical and geographical differences of the Bolivian East and elevating them to the rank of party platform; on the other, President Germán Busch and the nationalists who did not admit that a group of convention members would gather around a party prioritizing regional identity over national identity. Explore then the way in which "race" and history are used in relation to the question of national belonging.