The Bleeding Utopia: MarxismLeninism in Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala

1
The Bleeding UtopiaMarxism-Leninism in Cuba, El
Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala

• Background Past Grievances
• Background Latin American Utopianism
• Contrast with Mexican Revolution
• The Caldron of the Cold War
• The Cuban Revolution
• The Sandinista Revolution
• Civil War in El Salvador and Guatemala

2
Past Grievances - CubaThe Scars of African
Slavery

• Colonial period plantation economy focused on
  exporting tobacco, coffe and sugar to Europe
  
• Large African slave population approx. 500,000
  when slavery ended in 1880, 13,000 of whom were
  born in Africa
  
• Independence delayed by fear of slave rebellion
  (Haitian example), and fear of U.S. Invasion
  
• Peace of Zanjon ending 10 Years War (1878) only
  freed black combatants
  
• Emancipation Proclamation of 1880 was followed by
  8-year period of tutelage rather than immediate
  freedom
  
• Systematic discrimation vagrancy laws, racial
  restrictions on entry into professions,
  segregation/Apartheid
  
• 86,000 Afro-Cubans died in War for Independence
  (1895-1898), inspired by Maceo and Marti's
  promise of equality
  
• In 1898, U.S. Intervened in Cuba, defeated Spain
  in the Spanish-American War, and collaborated
  with white Cubans in removing blacks from
  positions they had won under Maceo and Marti.
  Segregation was reimposed.

3
Fathers of Cuba
Major General Leonard Wood, U.S. Governor of Cuba
in 1901, spoke of need to whiten Cuba.
Antonio Maceo and José Martí, Heros of Cuban
Independence. Notice that you've only heard of
one of them.
4
Past Grievances - CubaSegregation and Race War

• 1908, Evaristo Estenoz (left) forms Partido
  Independiente de Color to represent the interests
  of blacks who had been denied the equality they
  fought for in the wars for independence
• 1910, leaders of P.I.C. are jailed Morúa law
  forbids parties based on religion or race
  
• 1912, Pres. Gómez accuses blacks of widespread
  attroticities, such as raping a school teacher
  a myth used to inflame white racism for political
  gain
• 1912, 6,000 black Cubans were massacred by the
  Cuban Army

5
Past Grievances - CubaSegregation and Race War

• Subsequent administrations, including U.S.
  occupying forces, would continue to repress any
  movement to improve conditions for blacks or
  workers
• Charles Magoon
• José Miguel Gómez
• Gerardo Machado
• Fulgencio Batista

6
The Cuban Revolution

• After fifty years of government that most Cubans
  felt was undemocratic and did not represent their
  interests, Cuban Revolution breaks out in 1956
  
• Fidel Castro narrowly avoided death twice in his
  famous raid on the Moncada barracks, and again
  when his boat, the Granma, was intercepted by the
  Cuban military. Fidel and Raúl were two of only
  a handful of survivors of both operations.
• Against seemingly impossible odds, the Castro
  brothers escaped to the Sierra Maestra, from
  which point they slowly increased their numbers
  and advanced on Havana
• Castro captured Havanna in 1959 and was welcomed
  as a hero. Few in the capital knew he was a
  socialist.

7
Heroes or Villains?

• Supporters note that Castro has made education,
  healthcare, food, clothing and shelter available
  to all Cubansa situation the poor in many Latin
  countries might find enviable.
• Detractors note that equality in Cuba amounts to
  universal poverty. Living standards are
  primitive.
  
• Two political facts are difficult to avoid (1)
  Polls have consistently shown staunch support for
  Castro among most Cubans. (2) Opposition figures
  have been jailed by the thousands. Some
  potential rivals have been executed.
• Today, as in the 50s, tourism, tobacco, sugar,
  rum and prostitution are the mainstays of the
  economy.

Che Guevara commanded the La Cabaña Fortress
prison in the first months after the Revolution.
He ordered the extra-judicial torture and
execution of as many as 550 accused members of
the old regime. His status as pop icon ignores
this aspect of his work.
8
Past Grievances - NicaraguaImperialism,
oligarchy, and dictatorship

• Slavery less common in Nicaragua
• Landholding elite, small middle class, majority
  of population poor workers and farmers
  
• Part of Mexican Empire under Iturbide
• United Provinces of Central America
• From 1838 on, independent Republic
• Frequent civil war between Conservatives
  (Granada) and Liberals (León)?
  
• Battles among oligarchs
• William Walker had been invited by Liberals
• At other times, Conservatives would call in U.S.
  Marines
  
• Large amount of immigration from Europe in 19th
  century. Population mestizo (mixed Amerindian
  and white) 69, white 17, black 9, Amerindian 5

9
Past Grievances - NicaraguaImperialism,
oligarchy, and dictatorship

• From 1909 on, U.S. Supported Conservative govt's
  in exchange for exlusive rights to build canal
  
• In support of conservatives, U.S. Marines
  occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933
  
• 1927-1933, Augusto Sandino led a brilliantly
  successful guerilla war against the conservatives
  and against U.S. occupation
  
• Sandino officially supported liberals
• Increasingly radicalized, became associated with
  odd spiritual communist group Magnetic-Spirituali
  st School of the Universal Commune (EMECU)?

10
Past Grievances - NicaraguaImperialism,
oligarchy, and dictatorship

• The U.S. Armed and trained a new military-police
  force, the National Guard, putting installed
  the Anastasio Somoza in charge
  
• Somoza assassinated Sandino by treachery, and
  made himself dictator of Nicaragua
  
• The Somoza dynasty, sustained by Anastasio's two
  sons, endured from 1936-1979
  
• Corruption and tyranny, increasing repressive
• 1972 earthquake devestated 90 of Managua
• Somoza family controlled most of the industries
  that would profit from reconstruction
  
• Both workers and elite rebelled

The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua for four
decades.
11
Past Grievances - NicaraguaImperialism,
oligarchy, and dictatorship

• Nicaragua has widespread underemployment and the
  third lowest per capita income in the Western
  Hemisphere. Distribution of income is one of the
  most unequal on the globe. CIA
• GDP - per capita (PPP) 3,100 (2006 est.)?
• GDP - composition by sector agriculture 17.3,
  industry 25.8, services 56.8 (2006)?
  
• Unemployment rate 3.8 plus underemployment of
  46.5 (2006 est.)?
  
• Population below poverty line 48 (2005)?
• Household income or consumption by percentage
  share lowest 10 1.2 highest 10 45 (2001)?

12
The Nicaraguan Revolution

• In 1979, the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation
  Front, or Sandinistas) seized control of
  Nicaragua.
  
• Nicaragua was the second country in the Americas,
  after Cuba, to witness a successful socialist
  revolution.
  
• The FSLN had organized politically since 1961,
  and had engaged in guerrilla warfare since the
  early 1970s.
  
• Pledged to pursue mixed economy (socialism with
  room for free enterprise) and political
  pluralism
  
• Sandinistas won re-election in 1984, but were
  defeated in 1990.

13
The Sandinistas

• The Sandinistas inherited a ruined country 1.6B
  in debt, 50,000 war dead, 600,000 homeless,
  ruined infrastructure, and some of the highest
  poverty rates in the Americas
• With Cuban assistance, the Sandinistas greatly
  expanded literacy and access to healthcare
  
• Land reform and agricultural cooperatives ended
  hunger, but also reduced exports and alienated
  middle and upper-class supporters
  
• U.S.-supported Contra rebels (or terrorists)
  successfully sabotaged many projects to rebuild
  infrastructure
  
• By the late 80s, the U.S.-supported Contra
  insurgency, the collapse of Soviet communism and
  accompanying subsidies, and managerial experience
  among socialists brought economic ruin and
  electoral defeat (1990)?

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14
Sandinistas Return

• The Sandinistas remained a powerful political
  party after 1990
  
• After 16 years of conservative government, Daniel
  Ortega was re-elected president in 2006
  
• Like other Latin American countries, Nicaragua
  continues to search for a political and economic
  formula that will attract investment and allow
  business to flourish, while spreading the wealth
  to the poor and marginalized.

15
Past Grievances - Guatemala(Neo)Colonialism,
Ethnic Division and Uncle Sam

• The Liberal Dictatorships
• Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, Pres., 1898 to 1920
• Jorge Ubico y Castañeda, Pres., 1931-1944
• United Fruit Company gained control of 40 of
  arable land, railroad monopoly, electricity
  monopoly, control of ports
  
• Ten Years of Spring- Military coup of reformist
  officers overthrows Ubico and holds elections
  
• Juan José Arévalo, 1945-1951
• Jacobo Arbenz, 1951-1954
• Goals democracy, land reform

16
The Great White Fleet brings fruit to the Great
White Consumer... But what would be left for the
not-so-white workers who grow the fruit?
17
The Rise and Fall of Arbenz

• Juan José Arévalo had extended voting and labor
  rights to all Guatemalans
  
• Arbenz was unsatisfied. 2 of population
  controlled 72 of arable land, but only 12 was
  utilized.
  
• Arbenz enacted land reform affecting only unused
  portions of estates over 670 acres, excepting
  land with slope over 30 deg.
  
• Inspired by U.S. Homestead Act, 1862
• Arbenz gave up 1,700 acres of his own land
• Compensation in the form of bonds based on
  declared value for tax purposes
  
• United Fruit had declared value of 3/acre, then
  insisted on 75/acre compensation

18
Coup and Civil War

• Operation PBFortune / PBSuccess (1951-1954)?
• Eisenhower ordered CIA to overthrow Arbenz
• 1954 coup installed military junta led by Col.
  Carlos Castillo Armas
  
• CIVIL WAR, 1954-1990
• Military murdered 100,000 civilians
• Marxist insurgencies battled for control of
  country EGP, ORPA, FAR, PGT eventually united as
  URNG (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity)?
  
• Right-wing (ESA, La mano blanca) paramilitaries
  fought back
  

19
Difficult Democracy

• Rigoberta Menchu, indigenous activist, shocked
  the world with her personal accounts of the
  abuses inflicted on her people by the Guatemalan
  military and landowners
• This backlash, together with the collapse of the
  Soviet Union, weakened both the right and left in
  the Guatemalan civil war, and pushed both sides
  to seek peace
• Democracy was restored in 1986, and a formal
  peace was signed in 1996
  
• Democracy has brought the indigenous majority
  representation in the legislature, but control of
  the government has remained elusive.
  
• Ethnic conflict and discrimination persist.

20
U.S. Invasions in Panama
1856 First of five U.S. interventions in Panama
to protect the Atlantic-Pacific railroad from
Panamanian nationalists. 1903 When negotiations
with Colombia break down, the U.S. sends ten
warships to back a rebellion in Panama in order
to acquire the land for the Panama Canal. The
Hay-Bunau-Varilla (Panama Canal) Treaty grants
U.S. right to construct canal, as well as
complete sovereignty over Canal Zone, 20 miles
wide and 50 miles long, running length of canal.
1903-1914 U.S. Marines occupy Panama in order to
defend construction of canal. Panamanian
military is disbanded. 1908 U.S. troops intervene
in Panama for first of 4 times in next decade.
1918 U.S. Marines occupy Panamanian province of
Chiriqui for two years to maintain public order.
1925 U.S. Army troops occupy Panama City to brea
k a rent strike and keep order.
1936 U.S. relinquishes rights to unilateral
intervention in Panama. 1941 Ricardo Adolfo de l
a Guardia deposes Panamanian president Arias in a
military coup-- first clearing it with the U.S.
Ambassador, who suspected Arias of Nazi
sympathies. 1946 U.S. Army School of the America
s opens in Panama as a hemisphere-wide military
academy. Its linchpin is the Doctrine of National
Security, by which the chief threat to a nation
is internal Marxist subversion this will be the
guiding principle behind dictatorships in Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Central America, and
elsewhere. 1979 Ratification of the Panama Canal
treaty which is to return the Canal to Panama by
1999. "Once again, Uncle Sam put his tail betwee
n his legs and crept away rather than face
trouble." --Ronald Reagan 1981 Gen. Torrijos of
Panama is killed in a plane crash. There is a
suspicion of CIA involvement, due to Torrijos'
nationalism and friendly relations with Cuba.
1989 U.S. invades Panama to depose former CIA
agent Manuel Noriega supposedly for his support
of drug trafficking. The drug war has replaced
the cold war as the favored U.S. pretext of
intervention. U.S. press reports hundreds of
civilian deaths. International press reports
thousands. See http//www.panama1.com/The_Panama_
Deception.php