Revolution in Guatemala: Peasants and Politics Under the Arbenz Government

Abstract

The statement above, by the former rector of the National University of Mexico, which serves as an epigraph to this essay, expresses a position, the very point of view to which most sophisticated students of Indian affairs in Latin America are today accustomed to subscribe. During the past twenty-five years, social scientists throughout the world have asked themselves and one another why poverty, disease and illiteracy persist in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Despite concerted efforts to promote general prosperity and improve public welfare, despite the expenditure of huge sums by national and international agencies, the problem is unresolved. In order to explain this paradox, they argue that underdeveloped countries do not possess the economic and political institutions which, in Western Europe and the United States, facilitate the growth of industry and the expansion of commerce. As a result, it is said, these countries find them selves largely incapable of ‘self-sustained’ economic development, of solving their demographic problems, of accumulating the capital which might permit them a greater degree of economic freedom.

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