Communism and the Democrats of Latin America, 1933-1965
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A Pretext For Power The United States, Anti-communism and the Democrats of Latin America, 1933-1965. A thesis submitted for the degree of ‘Doctorate of Philosophy’ at the University of Western Sydney. By James Trapani 1 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the contributions of several individuals who have contributed to my completion of this thesis. Without their tireless work and support this project would not have been possible. Firstly, I would like to thank my principal supervisor, Dr Andrew Cottle. Without Drew’s invitation to join the UWS honours program in May 2009, my life would have taken a very different path. Drew’s dedication to the fields of political science, political economy and history has been an inspiration over the past six years. He always encourages his students to be better scholars without directly impacting our scholarly, or world, view. His feedback, often in the form of simple validation, was invaluable to this thesis. Secondly, I would like to thank the University of Western Sydney, where I have studied for the past decade. Their mission to empower working-class people through education is valuable to modern Australian society. Specifically, I would like to thank: my co-supervisor Prof Brett Bowden; the HDR coordinator Prof Judith Snodgrass; and HDR administrator Dr Wayne Peake. Their advice and direction has allowed me to focus on the business of thesis writing. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Prof Robert Lee and Dr Steven Drakeley, who provided me with the opportunity to begin my academic teaching career, which has funded this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my committed partner Rosannagh Ryan, who has been by my side through Honours and the Doctorate. The doctoral candidacy is a difficult process that is not possible without appropriate family support. Thank you for all of your support throughout the thesis. 2 Statement of Authenticity The work presented in the thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. Signature: Date: June 22, 2015 James Trapani – University of Western Sydney. 3 Abstract This thesis offers a revisionist interpretation of the anti-communist pretext that justified US interference in Latin America to the detriment of social democratic leaders between 1933 and 1965. It posits that the Latin American social democratic ideology of ‘nationalism, socialism and anti-imperialism’, adopted in Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba, Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica, posed a systematic threat to the established Latin American oligarchies and their North American supporters. This ideology sought to transform the political and economic structures of those individual Latin American nations in order to increase the quality of life for the majority of the population. Yet the social democrats emerged during the transition between World War II and the Cold War, when progressive politics were viewed with caution. This placed their nationalist movements within the broader context of the global Cold War. While the Latin American social democrats distanced themselves from the small Latin American communist movement, Washington characterised their economic policies as within ‘the communist line’. Despite their lack of evidence, US policy makers directly contributed to the downfall of several social democratic governments between 1948 and 1965 under the pretext of anti- communism. This pretext effectively ended the movement for Latin American social democracy. Significant ‘blowback’ then occurred in the form of the radicalisation of the democratic left, the implantation of a communist regime in Cuba and the destabilisation of the region in its aftermath. By revising the contextual and ideological origins of the anti-communist pretext as a mechanism to thwart social democracy in Latin America, this thesis will contribute to the literature regarding the political, military and economic machinations of the US in Latin America during the Cold War. 4 Contents Chapter Pg. Introduction: A Pretext for Power 6 Literature Review and Theoretical Framework 21 The Causes of Anti-communism Divergent Continents: The Origins of ‘Anglo’ and ‘Latin’ America 38 Conflicting Visions: Latin American Nationalism and the Good Neighbour Policy 63 Taking their Share: The Democratic Revolution in Latin America 88 Defining the Enemy: Colombia’s Bogotázo and the Pan-American Alliance 110 The Miller Doctrine: The Conservative Counter-Revolution in Latin America 131 The Effects of Anti-communism The South America Problem: Eisenhower Confronts ‘Communism’ in Latin America 150 ‘People cannot spit on foreign policy’: The Radicalisation of Social Democracy 172 The Cuban Revolution: Castro, the New Left and the Confirmation of Pretext 191 Designed to Fail: Anti-communism and the Rhetorical Alliance for Progress 212 ‘In the Grip of a Psychosis’: Anti-communism, Counterinsurgency and the Rise of a New Militarism 231 Conclusion: The Ghosts of Soviet Communism 250 References 261 5 Introduction: A Pretext for Power This thesis explains the origins of the anti-communist pretext that was utilised against a generation of Latin American ‘social democratic’ and ‘populist’ leaders between 1933 and 1965. It will argue that the United States’ (US) ‘Cold War’ policies in Latin America were not motivated by communism or the Soviet Union (USSR). Rather, these policies were motivated by Imperial expansion against those countries that expressed nationalist economic policies. This assertion is supported, for instance, by the case of Guatemala in 1954.1 When historians examined the early Cold War case of US foreign policy in Guatemala they revealed the disparity between the Americans’ rhetoric of anti-communism and their actions, in deposing a democratically elected reformer. Several historians have demonstrated that the reform regime of Jacobo Árbenz was not communist (Schlesinger and Kinzer, 1982, p. 138). 2 Rather, the Árbenz regime threatened US private corporate interests, which provided sufficient motivation for a US-led coup. Despite the widespread acceptance of this view of events in Guatemala, best articulated by Greg Grandin (2004) and Piero Gleijes (1990), no scholar has sought to extend this conclusion into a regional examination of the anti-communist pretext utilised elsewhere. Guatemala was not unique, but an extreme example of a regional policy of anti-communism that targeted a generation of reform-minded leaders in Latin America. The US-initiated coup in Guatemala had a similar outcome to the dozens of domestic military coups that occurred between 1948 and 1965 under the pretext of anti-communism.3 As this thesis has evolved, its focus has shifted to defining those reformist governments and individuals targeted by American-led anti-communism, in order to comprehend the threat that they posed to US interests. Hence the project diverges into two key arguments: that the US formed an alliance with conservative Latin American elements to prevent economic reform under the pretext of anti-communism; and that Latin American progressives followed a pragmatic path of social democracy to reposition their nations’ places within the international capitalist economy. This introduction will briefly explain those two points. 1 See Chapter Six for a thorough analysis of Guatemala. 2 See also: Gleijes, 1990; Grow, 2008; Grandin, 2004; Immerman, 1982; Aybar de Soto, 1978. 3 For information on Latin American authoritarianism, see Schmitz, 1999. For more information on anti-communism and military coups see Chapters Five, Six and Ten. 6 Anti-communism was utilised in Latin America by local oligarchies and the US State Department considerably earlier than traditional notions of the Latin American Cold War, emerging in 1947-48, would suggest. Anti-communist rhetoric was utilised against progressive governments that challenged US interests as early as the 1920s. In 1927, US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg warned of the Bolshevist threat in Mexico and its influence upon Augusto Sandino’s guerrilla campaign in Nicaragua (as cited in, Wood, 1961, p. 20). The US Ambassador to Peru, Fred Dearing, described the Aprista movement as “the reddest of the red” and “under the influence of Moscow” during the 1931 presidential election (as cited in, Stein, 1980, p. 172). In 1933-34 the US Ambassador to Cuba, Sumner Welles, accused the short-lived Grau administration of supporting communist land seizures in rural areas, leading to the overthrow of his government (Ameringer, 2000, p. 9). As the international Cold War descended, in 1948, US Secretary of State George Marshall accused rioters responding to the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogotá of having communist motivations (as cited in, Randall, 1992, p. 189). Later, in 1954, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accused Guatemala of communist infiltration to justify the overthrow of the Árbenz regime (Schlesinger and Kinzer, 1982, p. 145). Then US Vice-President Richard Nixon (1978) labelled rioters in Lima and Caracas communist during his 1958 trip (p. 190). The threat of communism in the Caribbean eventually took the US army to the Dominican Republic in 1965, as it was by then an institutionalised pretext for interference and intervention (Crandle, 2006, p. 66). The National Security Council (NSC) referred to its actual enemies as “impractical idealists” who “promised change” (NSC, 1953). Thus, anti-communism