Legion of Veterans

Legion of Veterans
Legión de Ex-Combatientes
AbbreviationLEC
Formation13 September 1935 (1935-09-13)
FounderGermán Busch
Dissolvedc. 1939
TypeChaco War veterans' organization
HeadquartersLa Paz, Bolivia
Supreme Leader
Germán Busch (1937–1939)
Bernardino Bilbao Rioja (1939)
AffiliationsSocialist Single Front

The Legion of Veterans (Spanish: Legión de Ex-Combatientes, LEC) was a Bolivian Chaco War veterans' organization.[1] It was organized on 13 September 1935 by Lieutenant Colonel Germán Busch from various local veterans groups which had established themselves across the country following the end of the Chaco War.[2] Despite its apolitical stance and fairly consistent commitment to non-party affiliation, the LEC, as a result of its sheer size and ideological commitment to the reformist ideals of the so-called generación del Chaco, soon came to act as the principal source of organized civil-military support for the military regimes of Colonel David Toro and later Lieutenant Colonel Germán Busch.

  1. ^ Malloy 1970, pp. 389
  2. ^ Storia contemporanea (in Italian). Vol. 4–6. Società editrice il Mulino. 1973. p. 837.