The day the government cemented the theft of £1 million

Santa Cruz's Red Week of 1921-22 became one of the most intense civic uprisings in the history of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Its rallying cry was "railway or nothing," a demand for road integration and an end to what residents saw as the state's postponement of the region's development.

Between 1917 and 1921, the department had collected 12 million Bolivian pesos through local taxes, roughly one million pounds sterling at the time. The money was considered untouchable and had been reserved exclusively for the planned Cochabamba-Santa Cruz railway.

Public anger erupted when civil society discovered that the government of President Bautista Saavedra had diverted the funds to other state purposes. The government instead sought to replace the railway with a simple road, a decision that the article says frustrated the region's hopes for progress and integration.

The first public protest took place in Santa Cruz on May 25, 1921, followed by a larger and more heated demonstration on May 29. Student and political agitation intensified on June 5 and 6. In the municipal council, substitute councilor Dr. Carmelo Ortiz Taborga sharply criticized Santa Cruz lawmakers for failing to act in the Andean Congress and proposed withdrawing the public's confidence in them and demanding their resignations.

After the motion passed, angry residents marched through the city and rang church bells. Prefect José Gil Soruco ordered the peaceful protest dispersed with gunfire. The repression intensified resistance, and on June 7, during heavily suppressed student strikes, a large open town meeting gathered in the main square under the leadership of council president Uldarico Zambrana. Dr. Cástulo Chávez, president of the Pro-Railway Committee, blamed the central government for suffocating the eastern region economically by favoring international railways over internal routes. The meeting demanded repeal of the Cochabamba-Santa Cruz highway law, the return of all diverted railway funds with the money secured in a bank, and full enforcement of the railway law.

“

railway or nothing