In 1914, the political abuses and economic policies of the long-incumbent
Liberal Party (PL) led
José Manuel Pando,
Bautista Saavedra,
Daniel Salamanca, and to break away from the party. They formed the Republican Union, later renamed as the Republican Union Party (), colloquially referred to as the Republican Party (PR). The platform of Republican Party was preoccupied with the recovery of Bolivia's lost maritime territories and typically demanded more morality in government, but its program differed little from traditional liberal slogans. In 1917, the Republicans ran a presidential candidate but were defeated in the Liberal-controlled elections. The Republican Party grabbed power in a
bloodless coup on 12 July 1920. In 1921, Saavedra assumes the presidency as the Republicans split into two personalist factions headed by the party's . The
escalieristas, supporters of Escalier, split to form the
Genuine Republican Party (PRG), while the conservative
saavedrista faction became known as the Government Republican Party. Saavedra, a populist, represented the middle-class and resented the old party's close ties to the powerful tin barons. His appeal to urban middle-class artisans, small merchants, and laborers generated an anti-establishment political base and a new class consciousness. The Republican government of Saavedra enacted progressive social and labor codes and doubled government taxes on mining. Though more concerned for the underprivileged classes, Saavedra blatantly manipulated his populist support. In the 1925 elections the PR's presidential candidate was
Hernando Siles. He was elected president and took office on 10 January 1926. During the rule of Saavedra and Siles, the Bolivian economy underwent a profound change. Tin prices started to decline in the 1920s. After peaking in 1929, tin production declined dramatically as the
Great Depression nearly destroyed the international tin market. During the 1920s, Bolivia faced growing social turmoil. Labor unrest, such as the miners' strike in Uncia in 1923, was brutally suppressed. But the unrest reached new heights of violence after the drastic reduction of the work force during the Great Depression. The social legislation of the Republican governments was weak. Siles's four years of inconsistent rule and unfulfilled promises of radical changes frustrated workers and students. In 1930 he was overthrown when he tried to bypass the constitutional provision forbidding reelection by resigning in order to run again. Shortly before the
Chaco War, the party refounded. A fifty-member National Council was formed as the new leading body of the party. In 1935, after the
Chaco War, Saavedra tagged on the term "socialist" to the party's name, making it the Socialist Republican Party (PRS), to appeal to postwar reformist sentiment. However, the label was "meaningless" and the party remained identified with traditional prewar ideas. The PRS charged the traditional elites with being responsible for the failures of the war. This discourse struck a chord with the radicalized
middle class of the country. The party was joined by a number of middle class intellectuals, as well as some
trade unionists and
Marxists. This development worried the Socialist Party, which charged that Saavedra was not without responsibility for the war nor was he innocent of the killings of miners and peasants in Uncía, Llallagua, Catavi and Jesús de Machaca. In a bloodless revolution on 17 May 1936, the government of Liberals and Genuine Republicans was overthrown. The coup was led by Colonel
Germán Busch Becerra, and he was supported by the PRS. For the 1938 elections, the PRS was the component of the
Socialist Single Front. As a part of the Concordancia-Democratic Alliance formed in March 1939 (along with the Genuine Republicans and Liberals), the PRS supported the military governments of
Carlos Quintanilla 1939–1940 and
Enrique Peñaranda 1940–1943. In February 1943 the PRS, Socialist Party, Genuine Republicans and the Liberals signed a pact ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. On 10 November 1946, the PRS merged with the Genuine Republican Party, the
United Socialist Party and
Independent Socialist Party to form the new
Republican Socialist Unity Party. The party continued to operate as a separate party within the PURS. == References ==