The United States and Latin America have had a long history of relations in regards to populist movements. Many times these populist movements have been anti- United States. We have intervened many times and in many different ways, however I do not believe there is one course of action for Latin America as a whole as it is made up of many different countries with different needs and different leaders. Two examples of when the United States government responded to populist politics, revolutions, or revolts in the 20th century was in Argentina against Juan Peron and his populist movement as well as in Cuba against Fidel Castro. In order to come up with a response for the rise of the Populist Party today, we need to understand what we have done …show more content…
At this time there was a military coup that ended the rule of the middle class during the Great Depression in 1929. People were panicking and were looking for change. This began the rise of the labor movement. He ran as the labor minister and gained much support from the working class of Argentina. He was seen as a huge threat to United States interests. He eventually is arrested in 1945 because of the “trouble” he caused by all the support he gained, and on October 17, 1945, workers rally in Buenos Aires to have Peron released. Not too long after, Peron is elected president of Argentina. The United States becomes increasingly nervous. Peron was a populist and he enacted many social reforms. He stood for everything the United States was against at this time and feared; bottom-up revolution and …show more content…
Originally a dictator ran Cuba: President Fulgencio Batista, who was an ally to the United States. Cuba during this time enjoyed a healthy urban middle class, and its citizens enjoyed some degree of freedom without a police state. Many other countries seemed a lot more likely to revolt, because economically and developmentally, Cuba seemed stable. However, the United States’ role and control of Cuba’s economy started to take its toll on the “peasants”. In 1953, the United States owned many of the major entities, such as 50% of the railroad. Just as much development as there was in the urban areas there was a lack thereof in the rural areas. Not just economically, Cubans started to resent the image of Sin City that Americans gave the country. Cuba was a popular tourist spot where Americans came to behave badly. Castro’s success came from these opposite sides of distaste for the United States, the peasants economically and the middle class socially & nationally. Castro was not originally a socialist; he was a nationalist first. However when he attacks Moncada Barracks, he is arrested and exiled to Mexico City. During this time his failures are turned into “successes” through propaganda. Castro meets with Che Guevara in Mexico City and when he returns, he purges the military of 483 Batista loyalists and enacts land reforms and nationalizes US
The Populists and Progressive were form of movement that occurred during the outbreaks of the workers union after the civil war. The populists began during the late 1800s.The progressive began during the 1900s. There are many differences between these two movements, but yet these movements have many things that are similar.
One mission by Che Guevara was he, “strove to create a proper industrial base and to diminish the economy’s dependence on sugar,” (515). To improve the milk and meat production in Cuba efforts were made to breed a new kind of cattle. This effort failed which resulted in a famine because of this and with the U. S trade embargo the Cuban government began to give rations of daily necessities to citizens, (The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its People). Guevara efforts were too expensive for Cuba causing a crisis. The government, “decided to resolve its crisis by means of a “revolutionary offensive”: first, the nationalization of all services, restaurants, shops, and petty commercial iinstallations... witha production goal of 10 million tons of sugar (516). That goal did not work causing Fidel Castro to offer to resign. Cuba started to become a communist society. In terms of who was in charge and their role in, The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its People state, “Castro was the visible head, the spokesman, and the international strategists while his brother Raul would become more and more the chief of personnel, the head of the armed forces and secret services,”
In all the history of America one thing has been made clear, historians can’t agree on much. It is valid seeing as none of them can travel back in time to actually experience the important events and even distinguish what has value and what doesn’t. Therefore all historians must make a leap and interpret the facts as best they can. The populist movement does not escape this paradox. Two views are widely accepted yet vastly different, the views of Richard Hofstadter and Lawrence Goodwyn. They disagree on whether populists were “isolated and paranoid bigots” or “sophisticated, empathetic egalitarians”; whether their leaders were “opportunists who victimized them” or “visionary economic theorists who liberated them”; whether their beliefs were rooted in the free silver campaign of the 1890s or the cooperative movement of the 1880s; and finally whether their ideal society was in the “agrarian past” or “the promise of a cooperative future”. They could not agree on anything, over all Richard Hofstadter seems to have a better idea of the truth of populism.
The Allies’ victory in WWII marked democracy’s triumph over dictatorship, and the consequences shook Latin America. Questioning why they should support the struggle for democracy in Europe and yet suffer the constraints of dictatorship at home, many Latin Americans rallied to democratize their own political structures. A group of prominent middle–class Brazilians opposed to the continuation of the Vargas dictatorship mused publicly, “If we fight against fascism at the side of the United Nations so that liberty and democracy may be restored to all people, certainly we are not asking too much in demanding for ourselves such rights and guarantees.” The times favored the democratic concepts professed by the middle class. A wave of freedom of speech, press, and assembly engulfed much of Latin America and bathed the middle class with satisfaction. New political parties emerged to represent broader segments of the population. Democracy, always a fragile plant anywhere, seemed ready to blossom throughout Latin America. Nowhere was this change more amply illustrated than in Guatemala, where Jorge Ubico ruled as dictator from 1931 until 1944. Ubico, a former minister of war, carried out unprecedented centralization of the state and repression of his opponents. Although he technically ended debt peonage, the 1934 vagrancy law required the carrying of identification cards and improved ...
After the revolution of 1943 Juan Perón shared control of the Argentinean government. Under Pedro Ramirez, Perón held three cabinet positions. With that he saw an opportunity. He did many reform programs and won a lot of the support of labor unio...
Cuba's political history carries a pattern: when the masses are disillusioned by the current ruler, they turn to a young, strong-willed leader-of-the-people as their new ruler, only to become disillusioned to that ruler when he becomes too oppressive. It has seemed a never- ending cycle. Batista and Castro were both well-regarded leaders initially who appealed strongly to the masses and common citizen. Later, both established dictatorships and lost the support of many of those that they governed. Castro and Batista are each guilt of repression and corruption within their governments. For example, at some point under each regime, the constitution was either suspended or not followed at all. Castro did, though, make one very important contribution to Cuba's political system: Socialism. For the first time, Castro and Che Guevara a socialist plan called the New Man theory which called for developing an ideology amongst citizens that would call for working not for personal enrichment, but for social betterment.
Juan Perón was a charismatic and inviting ex-military politician. He was the smiling face and sharp brain Argentina had been searching for. His involvement with the labor unions was the reason for his rise to power. Juan Perón’s leadership from 1943 to 1955 greatly affected labor unions in Argentina by granting the unions power in the political world, giving the unions someone they could trust, and by implementing complete control over the unions and the rest of Argentina during his presidency.
So after Castro had learned a plan to throw the Dominican Republic leader, Rafael Trujillo out of office, nonetheless it had failed due to the United States stressing the continuing invasion on Castro had gone over to Dominican Republic to take over the president, however several people were caught, and detained, with Fidel Castro being one of the people who’ve fled. So after that, Castro had now gone completely Liberal because of American interventionism, and legal corruption.
There are situations that make the development of a country complicated, and sometimes those circumstances are not always in the hands of the country’s government. When that occurs it seems that progress for that country is questioned and resources that were once unlimited become limited and the country is at a standstill and no improvement is made. For Chile, their time of struggle came when Salvador Allende, a leftist party member, as well as leader of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) became President of the country in November of 1970. Salvador Allende was a leftist thinker and for the United States, as well as President Nixon this election was one they feared would change a lot of things and they did everything in their power to stop the rise of Salvador Allende as President of Chile (Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, 164). The United States saw the election of a leftist political party, in this case the mindset of a country pushing towards Socialism/Marxism government as somewhat perplexing but not for reasons of political differences, but for economic hegemony that was going to be lost.
The Populist Party, also known as the People’s Party was a former political party of the United States in the late 1800s with roots in the Grange and Farmer’s Alliance and the Knights of Labor. The agrarian farmers viewed that urban life, capitalism, and technology to be destructive to the independence and dignity of the weak and improvised. The aggrieved workers wanting reform banded together with the indebted farmers wanting reform to battle against the capitalist order of the mistrusted elitists and Big Business in partnership with the national banks. Together they advocated for a Populist democracy which included more political participation through reforms such as the use of popular referendums where citizens would be allowed to propose and review legislation. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. In addition, they advocated for government ownership of public services and currency expansion and the abolishment of the national bank.
Jorge Videla was the leader of the military-run government. At the time, it was very easy for Videla to seize power because of the highly unstable condition that Argentina was in, and had been in for decades. In September of 1955 all three branches of the military revolted and forced the president, Juan Perón, into exile. Eleven years later, in 1966, a new leader, Juan Carlos Ongania, imposed the military rule again only to have the former president, Perón, return in 1973, and ...
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine politician, military officer, and president between 1946-1952 and 1973-1974. He was loved by the masses, and hated by a lot others, but one thing is for sure, like historians Matthew Karush and Oscar Carosa said: “Perón transformed Argentina’s economy, its social structure, and its political culture in ways that continue to shape Argentina’s reality. No doubt about it, his government brought controversy, and social and political division; however, he still is a well-known figure, not only in Argentina and Latin America, but also in the world.
During the 20th century, many social movements spread throughout Latin America pressuring for social, economic, and political change. Amongst many social revolutionaries in the region, the most notable are Zapatista movement in Mexico and Perónism in Argentina. Zapatism is the movement associated with rebel leader Emiliano Zapata about the ideas of agrarian land reform. Perónism is the phenomenon that came out of Juan Perón’s presidency that is linked to the “working class” of Argentinean society. While both of these social movements were noted in helping the lower social class, the leaders used different approaches to carry out their ideas, some being more successful than others.
Here Castro pinned Cuba and the rest of Latin America against the United States. Similar to Che he is positing that the people of Latin America will follow the Cuban Revolution and succeed in taking power in their own countries. As a result of the history of Cuba and many of these Latin American countries, the exploitation remark is a poignant one. Too many of these countries have a history of struggle with exploitation for their labor and natural resources, and in many of these countries they still struggle with this fact. He refers to the the U.S as an oligarchy which means a form of government where a few people are in power, usually referred to as wealthy elites (“Oligarchy, n”). It is no wonder than why the Castro would refer to the U.S and the Batista government as a regime. He also uses words like “Yankee monopolies” which . refer to the vast amount of influence the U.S had on the Cuban economy. The historical
Fulgencio Batista was the president of Cuba in the mid 1900s. The power he gained in 1952 quickly became corrupted and his intentions of serving the people were no longer his priority. During the 1950s he proved to be more dictatorial and indifferent on many of the issues facing the nation. For example, during this time period the nation was plagued by high unemployment, poverty, and limited water infrastructure. Batista antagonized the population by forming secret, profitable links to organized crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy. Outraged by the abuse of power, the citizens chose to organize a revolt against the Batista-led government.