Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America

Unfortunately, improved relations between the US and Latin American nations were short-lived following the end of World War II. The result was US overreaction to the ascendency of the USSR and the success of the Chinese Communist Revolution. The term Red Scare describes the sentiments poignantly. US foreign policy became dominated by the fear of anything resembling communism gaining popularity and support in any nation. The myopic perspective of US diplomats created terrible dictatorships in many Latin American nations like Guatemala simply because those leaders were obsequious to US policy, which traded subservience for freedom for the local citizens.

The end of the Second World War frustrated the hopes of many Latin American nationalists who desired a more autochthonal economy, independent from the need for US or European goods. The stagnation of the economy and the discrepancies in wealth distribution throughout Latin America forced people to look away from capitalism, which was promoting a return to neocolonialism, for solutions to solve current societal and economic woes. Populist governments offered one solution that allowed for reform without invoking full-scale wrath from the United States. Unfortunately, however, even this did not always work, as events in Guatemala demonstrated.

The trouble in Guatemala began with socialist reformers in the late 1940s. The first reformer was Juan José Arévalo. As president of Guatemala, his philosophy was “spiritual socialism” (277), also known as Arevalismo, which for the US meant communism even though Arévalo opposed communism as just as detrimental to individual freedom and betterment as capitalism. He raised the minimum wage and initiated many literacy programs. In 1951, he lost the election, and Jacobo Árbenz took over. Árbenz sought to revolutionize Guatemala’s infrastructure and economy. He earned the ire of the US in 1954 when his government voted against the Declaration of Caracas (which sought to illegalize communism in the Americas) and when his government confiscated and redistributed lands owned by United Fruit to poor Guatemalan citizens. The US response was to send a small proxy force to invade the country from Honduras. The Guatemalan military joined the invaders and ousted Árbenz. What followed was a murderous military dictatorship followed immediately by a bloody, 36-year civil war. In contrast to the events in Guatemala stand those that transpired in Bolivia.

The National Revolutionary Movement (MNR [in Spanish Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucinario]) began in 1941. However, it was not until the 1950s that it made tremendous political gains within Bolivia. In 1952, it led the Bolivian National Revolution. The MNR set out immediately to effect change. Universal suffrage was granted. The military was purged of rebellious officers and downsized. It nationalized all mines, consolidating everything to do with mining into a state-owned monopoly. In 1953, agrarian reform was carried out that abolished forced labor and redistributed land. Nevertheless, and as a result of some policies (particularly miner-run mines), Bolivia faced many economic hardships. Rather than military intervention to overthrow the MNR, the US sent monetary aid and training for the Bolivian military. As a result, the MNR continued to rule the nation through the 1960s; however, political differences between two of the movement’s strongest leaders led to a political split. Furthermore, unpopular and unsuccessful reforms convinced military leaders to intervene. Although, Bolivia reverted to a military dictatorship between 1971-1978, the dictatorship was not murderous as it was in Guatemala, and it did not spark a civil war.

With the brief understanding of Latin American history and an equally minute grasp of Marxism, it is obvious why Marxist ideals and rhetoric appealed to people, especially the poor, lower classes. Marxism viewed history as a long narration of class struggle between the haves and have-nots. Marx’s most important works, The Communist Manifesto and Capital, laid out the problems of capitalism, established economic theories to possibly correct those problems, and called people to action. It was a relatively radical shift from anything before it, and its focus on bettering the lives of workers, those who benefitted least from a capitalist market, appealed to people all over the world. In conjunction with nationalist ideas and indigenismo, Marxism fueled the idea of empowerment for the people and that they could finally take control of their destinies. It offered them the blueprints. It is not surprising, therefore, that men like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro sought to establish governments based on Marx’s ideas. The successful Cuban revolution then served as an example to others that the US could be opposed and that Marxism/socialism/communism could be a possible solution.