Germán Busch

Busch was born in either El Carmen de Iténez or San Javier and was raised in Trinidad. He attended the Military College of the Army and served with distinction in the Chaco War. For his actions, he rose to prominence among the high command of the armed forces, participating in the military-led ousters of presidents Daniel Salamanca in 1934 and José Luis Tejada Sorzano in 1936. The latter propelled his mentor, Colonel David Toro, to the presidency of a military junta of which Busch was a member. On 13 July 1937, Busch orchestrated a soft-coup which forced Toro's resignation, elevating himself to the presidency of the junta.


A war hero, drawn in by the reformist social movements of the time, Busch spearheaded the development of Toro's military socialist ideology, convening the 1938 National Convention which legally elected him president and promulgated the 1938 Political Constitution, hailed as a "Social Constitution" as it established the State's right to the country's natural wealth, alluded to the social function of property, and recognized the communal lands of indigenous Bolivians.^[3] However, his political inexperience and accustomation to rigid military structure weakened his ability to lead the disparate factions of the left-wing movements and led him to ultimately suspend the legislature and declare dictatorial rule in 1939. During this time, he issued a profusion of executive decrees including a new labor and school code and the mining currency law, the latter of which proved to be the most popular of his policies though it gained him the ire of the Rosca, the country's powerful mining oligarchy.


By the end of 1939, pressure from resurgent conservative parties, a corruption scandal, and a deepening personal depression led Busch to commit suicide on 23 August 1939, bringing an end to the era of military socialism in Bolivia. An enigmatic character who came from outside the political realm, he was wrapped in legend and controversy, even about his birthplace. His sudden and unexpected death in office is still disputed as either suicide or an assassination.