january 1935 Aprismo Carleton Beals Volume 13 • Number 2 The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted.©1935 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this material is permitted only with the express written consent of Foreign Affairs. Visit www.foreignaffairs.com/permissions for more information. APRISMO The Rise of Haya de la Torre By Carleton Beals THE most striking, picturesque and exuberant personality in all Latin America is Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, of Peru, leader of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, as an commonly known APRA. It is international movement, with branches inmost Latin American countries, but its principal stronghold is Peru. There, after the overthrow of the dictator Augusto Legu?a inAugust 1930, Aprismo just missed being swept into power. It is undoubtedly the strongest popular force in that not country today. Haya de la Torre has fired the imagination own of an continent and a half. He only of his people but entire a one name or represents political tendency which under another which is gathering headway in all the southern countries, has found considerable expression in Mexico, and which is repre sented to some extent by the A.B.C. secret organization in Cuba, a group under the leadership of Martinez Saenz that effectively of Machado. To understand the participated in the overthrow movement its is to understand the Apra and leadership probable evolution of Latin America in the years ahead. The impending po our own litical crises there will profoundly affect political and economic relations, our five billion dollars of investments, our our in case of a new world war. trade, and security out as a the Haya de la Torre stands brilliant leader with to masses men. He has knack of appealing large of swayed thought nearly everywhere in the New World by his copious won a writings. He has picturesque halo of martyrdom because of a long exile and imprisonment, and he has built up powerful an well-knit organization with eclectic program of broad social international significance, of great political opportunism and with a it has been labelled implications. It is unique movement, though as communistic, socialistic, liberal, variously? petty bourgeois, fascist Latin Americans are not devoid of the average man's events habit in other countries of judging political by emotions conventional rather than clear con and prejudices, by tags, by our we to cepts. None of familiar clich?s by which attempt inWestern are en pigeon-hole contemporary tendencies Europe Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Foreign Affairs ® www.jstor.org APRISMO m tirely satisfactory for semi-colonial Latin America; economic and course recent new political facts there, the of developments, the movements that have developed, the type of national planning in a a vogue, require fresh terminology. For long time I have been to some puzzled find adequate designation which would roughly a characterize continental tendency miraculously compounded of Wilsonian democracy, Marxian communism and Fascism. Per term haps the Aprismo is itself sufficient. Haya de la Torre is the outstanding exponent of the new doctrines. ii I knew Haya de la Torre intimately during his exile inMexico or in 1923-4; I dealt with him again there three four years later; and on various occasions during my recent visit to Peru, I visited at with him in Lima. He is present about forty years of age, in the full flush of his intellectual development, energy and enthusi asm. As the head of the first truly popular movement in Peru's now entire history, he is the bete noire of old-style politicians, the militarists and the feudal elements. His earlier period in Mexico was was formative; he then forging the ideas, the plans of political a organization, and the contacts which have since made him con tinental figure. Those years of 1923-4 were a dramatic time in Mexican and world affairs. The Mexican revolution, antedating that of Russia, a had stumbled through civil war into hit-or-miss program of land-distribution, anti-clericalism, bitter opposition to oil im was perialism, and actively promoting popular education and labor reforms. The World War had demonstrated the economic and moral bankruptcy of Western Europe and the instability of the Versailles peace. Mussolini had seized power in Italy; Primo an de Rivera had provided opera bouffe imitation in Spain; Horthy had taken charge of Hungary; the Social Democrats in were Germany battling with the Communists. The Russian was revolution wavering between Lenin's NEP policy and Trot an zky's formula of world revolution. China was in uproar. was Gandhi getting gaunter and more menacing in India. Mo rocco was still in revolt. In Mexico in 1923-4 was another notable leader, the exiled Cuban student Julio Antonio Mella, whom I knew well and later saw die in the Red Cross emergency hospital, after being shot in were the back by the minions of Machado. Both Mella and Haya 238 FOREIGNAFFAIRS both keen striking personalities, both remarkable orators, minds, both already outstanding figures in Latin America. Soon they came threw in lot the Com into sharp conflict. Mella his with was a more realistic im munist Party. Haya seeking formula for The was of the mediate political action. result the founding Apra on en movement, which brought down Haya's head the undying and a attack from mity of the Third International furibund a Mella (he circulated vitriolic pamphlet against the Peruvian). at at and After studying Oxford, observing Geneva, traveling through Germany, the Soviet Union and other parts of Europe, and Haya toured Mexico and Central America, lecturing every where organizing Apra cells. Despite frequent persecutions, was an exilings, and financial difficulties, he rapidly building up a international following. One could scarcely pick up newspaper or magazine in any country in South America without finding his keen comments on world affairs. When in August 1930 the little sergeant of Arequipa, S?nchez Cerro, overthrew the eleven year dictatorship of Legu?a, Haya a hurried back to Peru. He was greeted by monster paid-admis ? a sion mass-meeting in the Lima Hippodrome total, including those swarming around the gates, of at least twenty thousand movement over the like a tidal people. The Apra swept country a wave. S?nchez Cerro temporarily deposited power in Commis a sion of Notables, headed by Catholic dignitary, Monse?or Hol the candidate. guin, and Haya became opposition presidential enthusiasm Numer He toured the country kindling everywhere. was ous followers did likewise. The message of Apra carried corners from Lima and the coast into the highest of the Andes, to where centuries Pizarro Cajamarca, ago Conquistador captured to seat of one of the Inca Emperor Atahualpa, historic Cuzco, to of de Dios largest empires in history, the far jungles Madre and the Amazon region of Iquitos and Loreto.The word "APRA" was on was daubed on walls everywhere; it carved in stone the was out the high cliffs of the Andes, it spelled in sand plants along saw a desert roads. On Argentine Beach I lean dog branded ? can no further. with the letters propaganda enthusiasm go were then and are to the Special appeals made, still, indigenous the in population. The Indian elements, numerically largest Peru, over four centuries. The had been political non-participants for cause. cells were Apra made Indian liberation part of its Apra named after Inca emperors. Quechua battle-cries were included in APRISMO 239 and cheers. "Indian and freedom are Apra songs regeneration one synonymous with Aprismo" is of the stock phrases. Even before he had left Peru eight years previously, Haya had come into the limelight as one of the courageous leaders in the movement student of the University of Trujillo, his birthplace. on Official wrath had fallen his head, during the rule of the much an enormous hated Leguia, when in May 1923 he led student labor demonstration against the President's attempt to dedicate to the country officially the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The University of San Marcos was converted into a temporarily revolutionary barricade. Street-fighting resulted in several deaths, the wound ing of many more, wholesale arrests and the driving of Haya and a other leaders into exile. Many students, after prolonged hunger were to strike, shipped off hard toil in the jungles where many a perished. Since then, Haya's propaganda, in hundred different ways, had been filtering steadily into Peru. a sown As result of the seeds during those years, Apra merely a needed the opportunity to become strong organized movement. was It captured the entire countryside. Undoubtedly Haya elected president, for despite official harassment and the whole even sale robbing of votes, he polled in the official count almost as as many S?nchez Cerro. was S?nchez Cerro thoroughly frightened. Official persecutions came some of Apra fast and furious. Twenty Apra deputies were thrown out of the national congress and have never been were reinstated. Apristas jailed, exiled, assassinated. Shortly, was was a Haya himself thrown into prison and held for nearly a was year and half, mostly incommunicado. At various times he to reported have been murdered in his cell, and probably would not have been had it been for protests from prominent scholars and public figures all over the world. was While he in prison, these persecutions produced the spon taneous ac Trujillo revolt. The Apristas stormed into desperate to tion, and the flame spread the serfs of the adjacent sugar estates and to the Indians of lofty Cajamarca and Ancash. But was the pivot of resistance Trujillo.