BOLIVIA: The Revolt that Failed

The lid blew off La Paz last week for the first time since the bloody 1946 revolution in which the capital's citizens hanged their dictator from a lamppost. This time the capital's schoolteachers touched off the explosion by demanding higher pay to offset the government's recent currency devaluation. Within hours, a raging mob was surging through the streets denouncing Conservative President Mamerto Urriolagoitia (pronounced ooreo-la-goytcha).

All the dissident elements in Bolivia—Socialists, Communists, Trotskyites, members of the pro-fascist Movement of National Revolution—dropped mutual hates to back the teachers. Rail, bank, factory and...