The PRIN combined the left wing of the MNR and former members of the Revolutionary Workers' Party (POR). The PRIN's ideological position espouses left-wing nationalism, rather than socialism in more traditional terms. It is critical of bourgeois influence in the main body of the MNR.[1]
Electorally, the PRIN abstained in the 1964 and 1966 presidential votes. After the military coup of 1964, the PRIN was forced underground. It was also weakened because Juan Lechín was deported to Paraguay by the military junta, he spent many years in exile between 1965 and 1978.[2] The PRIN was once again suppressed in the 1970s by the military under the presidency of Hugo Banzer.
Following the end of military rule in 1979, a member of the PRIN, Lidia Gueiler Tejada, was appointed interim president. Gueiler was the first woman to serve as president in Bolivia.
The PRIN ran Juan Lechín Oquendo as its candidate on 29 June 1980, it garnered only a 01.20% vote.[4] Through almost two decades of existence, the PRIN has not been able to reach far beyond a role as the personal political vehicle of Juan Lechín Oquendo, whose status as Bolivia's most charismatic labor leader was unchallenged nearly forty years after he first entered politics.[2]
A split in 1979–1980 established the Revolutionary Party of the National Labour Left (Partido Revolucionario de la Izquierda Nacional Laboral, PRIN-L); a minor socialist party with a collective leadership including Edwin Moller and the Revolutionary Party of the National Left – Gueiler (Partido Revolucionario de la Izquierda Nacional Gueiler, PRIN-G), a defunct party led by Lidia Gueiler Tejada.[5]