Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2019
This article reveals the influence of the Spanish Civil War (1936–9) on both the reformers of Guatemala's ‘Revolutionary Spring’ (1944–54) and the reactionaries who overthrew Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. It shows how officials in the Arévalo and Arbenz administrations looked to the defeated Second Spanish Republic as a moral and political example, while local opponents of those administrations treated Spain's Nationalist insurgency and Francisco Franco's dictatorship as models for how to exterminate communism. In so doing, the article argues for the importance of multi-sited transnational Cold War histories that complement existing studies of US intervention.
Este artículo revela la influencia de la Guerra Civil Española (1936–9) tanto en los reformadores de la ‘Primavera Revolucionaria’ (1944–54) como en los reaccionarios que derrocaron a Jacobo Arbenz en 1954 en Guatemala. Muestra cómo funcionarios en las administraciones de Arévalo y Arbenz vieron a la derrotada Segunda República Española como un ejemplo moral y político, mientras que los oponentes locales a dichos gobiernos trataron a la insurgencia nacionalista española y a la dictadura de Francisco Franco como modelos sobre cómo exterminar al comunismo. Al hacerlo así, el artículo argumenta a favor de la importancia de relatos multisituados de la transnacional Guerra Fría para complementar los estudios existentes sobre la intervención estadounidense.
Este artigo revela a influência que a Guerra Civil Espanhola (1936–9) teve sobre os articuladores da ‘Primavera Revolucionária’ da Guatemala (1944–54) e sobre os reacionários que derrubaram Jacobo Arbenz em 1954. Também mostra como membros das administrações de Arévalo e Arbenz usaram a derrota da Segunda República Espanhola como exemplo político e moral, enquanto oponentes locais dessas administrações trataram a insurgência nacionalista da Espanha e a ditadura de Francisco Franco como exemplos de como exterminar o comunismo. Ao fazê-lo, esse artigo argumenta pela importância de histórias multilocalizadas e transnacionais sobre a Guerra Fria que complementam estudos existentes sobre a intervenção dos Estados Unidos da América.
1 Representación del Estado Español en México to Don Emilio de Navasqüés, subsecretario de asuntos exteriores en Madrid, letter no. 23, 18 May 1954, Archivo General de la Administración, Alcalá de Henares (hereafter AGA), Fondo Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (hereafter FMAE), box 82/09726, file 19.
2 ‘Memorándum Operación Isabella’, 17 May 1954, AGA, FMAE, box 82/09726, file 19.
3 ‘Military Facilities in Spain: Agreement Between the United States and Spain, September 26, 1953’, American Foreign Policy 1950–5, Basic Documents vols. 1 and 2, Department of State, Publication 6446, General Foreign Policy Series 117 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1957). Available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sp1953.asp (last access 10 Oct. 2018).
4 Immerman, Richard, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1982), pp. 141–2Google Scholar; see also Cullather, Nick, Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–54 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 51Google Scholar and Gleijeses, Piero, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 252Google Scholar.
5 Mariano Rossell y Arellano, Carta pastoral sobre los avances del comunismo en Guatemala (Guatemala City: Sánchez y de Guise, 1954), pp. 3–8.
6 Representación del Estado Español en México to Don Emilio de Navasqüés, 11 June 1954, AGA, FMAE, box 82/09726, file 19.
7 Carlos Salazar to Rafael de los Casares, 26 June 1954, AGA, FMAE, box 82/09727, file 29.
8 Jim Handy, Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 203.
9 The idea of Franco's Spain as a model goes unmentioned in, for example, Stephen Kinzer and Stephen Schlesinger, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). It receives some attention, though not exhaustive study, in Gleijeses, Shattered Hope; Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Manolo E. Castañeda Vela, ‘Guatemala, 1954: Las ideas de la contrarrevolución’, Foro Internacional, 45: 1 (Jan.–March 2005), pp. 89–114.
10 Juan José Arévalo, Antikomunismo en América Latina: Radiografía del proceso hacia una nueva colonización (Mexico City: Editorial América Nueva, 1959), p. 127.
11 Vanni Pettiná and José Antonio Sánchez Román, ‘Beyond US Hegemony: The Shaping of the Cold War in Latin America’, Culture & History Digital Journal, 4: 1 (2015), available at http://cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es (last access 3 Oct. 2018); see also Andrew Kirkendall, ‘Cold War Latin America: The State of the Field’, H-Diplo (14 Nov. 2014), available at http://tiny.cc/E119 (last access 3 Oct. 2018).
12 Enrique Muñoz Meany, El hombre y la encrucijada: Textos políticos en defensa de la democracia (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1950), p. 124.
13 For ‘¡Viva la muerte!’, see José Calderón Salazar, Letras de liberación (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1955), p. 221; for ‘¡Muera la inteligencia!’, see Congreso de la República de Guatemala, Acuerdo 26-04, 18 March 2004, a congressional resolution condemning the slogan's use from 1954 to 1962.
14 On the Republic, see Gabriel Jackson, La República Española y la Guerra Civil (Madrid: Editorial Crítica, 2011); Paul Preston, The Last Days of the Spanish Republic (Glasgow: William Collins, 2016); Helen Graham, Socialism and War: The Spanish Socialist Party in Power and Crisis, 1936–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Ángel Viñas, Trilogía: La República Española en guerra (Madrid: Crítica, 2014).
15 On the evolution of the Spanish Right, see Stanley G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1999).
16 Stanley G. Payne, ‘Foreword’, in José M. Sánchez, The Spanish Civil War as a Religious Tragedy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), p. x.
17 On Ubico's pragmatism, see Max Paul Friedman, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign Against the Germans of Latin American in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 83; on ‘spiritual closeness’, see Carlos Sabino, Tiempos de Jorge Ubico en Guatemala y el mundo (Guatemala City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2013), p. 206.
18 ‘Reconocimiento del gobierno español por el de Guatemala, y nombramiento de Representante de este Gobierno en la España Nacional’, doc. 590, 28 June 1954, AGA, FMAE, box 82/09727, file 29.
19 Julio Pinto, Arely Mendoza and Arturo Taracena Arriola (eds.), Fragmentos de una correspondencia: Brañas y Asturias 1929–1973 (Guatemala: Editorial USAC, 2001), p. 16. Asturias’ poem ‘Pasaremos’, for example, honours the Asturian miners’ strike of 1934. See also Mario Oliva Medina, España desde lejos: Intelectuales y letras centroamericanas sobre la guerra civil española 1931–1953 (San José: Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 2011), p. 96.
20 Rafael Delgado, Falange en Guatemala: Una amenaza para la democracia (Mexico City: Gráfica Panamericana, 1948), p. 76.
21 ‘Las Falanges de América’, in Falange Exterior: Boletín Decenal Informativo de la Delegación del Servicio Exterior de Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las J.O.N.S., San Sebastián (15 Aug. 1938), AGA, Fondo (9)17.12 (Servicio Exterior del Falange), box 51/21063.
22 ‘Actos con motivo del dos de mayo’, Amanecer, no. 8, year 1 (15 May 1938), p. 5, reprinted in Delgado, Falange, unnumbered page.
23 Remarks by Felipe Yurrita, in Amanecer, no. 13, year 1 (31 July 1938), p. 11, reprinted in Delgado, Falange, unnumbered page.
24 Richard Adams, Crucifixion by Power: Essays on Guatemalan National Social Structure, 1944–1966 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1970), p. 278. Adams neglects to mention Mexico's restriction of the Church during La Reforma, which was at least as severe.
25 Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, p. 49.
26 Pope Pius XI, Dilectissima Nobis: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Oppression of the Church of Spain, 3 June 1933, available at http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_03061933_dilectissima-nobis.html (last access 5 Oct. 2018).
27 Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Atheistic Communism, 19 March 1937, available at https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19370319_divini-redemptoris.html (last access 5 Oct. 2018).
28 Joint Letter of the Spanish Bishops to the Bishops of the Whole World: The War in Spain (New York: America Press, 1937), p. 5.
29 Anita Frankel, ‘Political Development in Guatemala, 1944–1954: The Impact of Foreign, Military, and Religious Elites’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Connecticut, 1969, p. 181.
30 Ibid., p. 180.
31 ‘Alocución patriótica, pronunciada el día 30 de abril, en la Iglesia de San Francisco, con motivo del Triunfo de la España Nacional’, Amanecer, no. 32, year 2 (15 May 1939), pp. 30–1, reprinted in Delgado, Falange, unnumbered page.
32 Luis Cardoza y Aragón, La revolución guatemalteca (Mexico City: Cuadernos Americanos, 1955), p. 9. Major works include Gleijeses, Shattered Hope; Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre; Kinzer and Schlesinger, Bitter Fruit; Cullather, Secret History; Handy, Revolution in the Countryside.
33 Max Paul Friedman critiques this in ‘Transnationalizing the Guatemalan Spring: From Argentine Krausismo to Spiritual Socialism, 1919–1963’, unpublished paper given at the 2017 meeting of the American Historical Association, 1 Jan. 2017. See, in particular, footnotes 3 and 4 on p. 1 of the paper. Cited with the author's permission.
34 Muñoz Meany, El hombre y la encrucijada, pp. x, 110.
35 Friedman, ‘Transnationalizing the Guatemalan Spring’, pp. 2, 4–6. This in some ways resembled the rhetoric of social Catholicism found in Rerum Novarum, but Arévalo posited the state rather than the Church as the harmonising agent.
36 Motion by Alberto Fuentes Castillo, 22 Dec. 1944, reprinted in Delgado, Falange, pp. 115–16.
37 Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno, Decreto Núm. 53, Guatemala City, 22 Jan. 1945, reprinted in Delgado, Falange, p. 117.
38 Guillermo Toriello, La batalla de Guatemala (Mexico City: Cuadernos Americanos, 1955), p. 42.
39 Abdon Mateos, La batalla de México: El final de la guerra civil y la ayuda a los refugiados (Madrid: Alianza, 2009); Mario Ojeda Revah, Mexico and the Spanish Civil War: Repercussions for the Republican Cause (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2016).
40 Letter from Enrique Muñoz Meany to Luis Cardoza y Aragón, 19 Feb. 1951, reprinted in Arturo Taracena Arriola, Arely Mendoza and Julio Pinto Soria (eds.), El placer de corresponder: Correspondencia entre Cardoza y Aragón, Muñoz Meany y Arriola (San Carlos: Editorial Universitaria, 2004), p. 332.
41 Juan José Arévalo, Guatemala, la democracia y el imperio (Buenos Aires: Editorial Palestra, 1964), pp. 50–1.
42 Enrique Muñoz Meany, Enrique Muñoz Meany (Guatemala City: Ediciones Saker-Ti, 1952), pp. 71, 78.
43 Letter from José Soler Noguera to Just Gimeno, 14 Aug. 1947, cited in Arturo Taracena Arriola, Guatemala, la República Española, y el Gobierno Vasco en el exilio, 1944–1954 (Mérida: UNAM, 2017), pp. 134–5.
44 Ibid., pp. 144–5.
45 Ibid., pp. 194–6.
46 See, for example, ‘Communism in the Free World: Capabilities of the Communist Party, Guatemala’, Intelligence Report, Office of Intelligence Research, Department of State, Washington DC, 1 Jan. 1953, Central Intelligence Agency, job 79-01025A, box 78, folder 1; Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, p. 122.
47 Piero Gleijeses, ‘Juan José Arévalo and the Caribbean Legion’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 21: 1 (Feb. 1989), pp. 133–45; Aaron Coy Moulton, ‘Building Their Own Cold War in Their Own Backyard: The Transnational, International Conflicts in the Greater Caribbean Basin, 1944–1954’, Cold War History, 15: 2 (2015), pp. 135–54; Charles D. Ameringer, The Caribbean Legion: Patriots, Politicians, Soldiers of Fortune, 1946–1950 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996).
48 Gleijeses, ‘Juan José Arévalo’, p. 134.
49 On the Legion's Republicans, see Ameringer, The Caribbean Legion, pp. 98–9.
50 Marqués de Merry del Val to Alberto Martín Artajo, ‘Asunto: remite texto mensaje saludo del Generalísimo Trujillo para S.E. Jefe del Estado’, 19 Nov. 1954, AGA, FMAE, box 82/09727, file 26.
51 Guillermo Putzeys Rojas, Así se hizo la liberación (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1976), p. 31.
52 William Viestenz, By the Grace of God: Francoist Spain and the Sacred Roots of Political Imagination (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), p. 5.
53 Carlos Castillo Armas, ‘Infiltración del comunismo en Guatemala’, in Luis Alberto Hurtado Aguilar (ed.), Así se gestó la liberación (Guatemala City: Secretaría de Divulgación, Cultura y Turismo de la Presidencia de la República, 1956), p. 25.
54 Arévalo, Guatemala, pp. 121–2.
55 Antonio Micala, ‘El caso de España y Guatemala’, Acción Social Cristiana, 2: 3, no. 129 (28 Aug. 1947), p. 10.
56 Kinzer and Schlesinger, Bitter Fruit, p. 33.
57 ‘¿Por qué se alarman los católicos? ¿Acaso se ha intentado nada contra ellos?’, Acción Social Cristiana, 1: 3 (25 Jan. 1945), p. 8. Secular public education was also protected in the 1945 Constitution, in Article 81.
58 Juan de Landívar, ‘La libertad de educación’, Acción Social Cristiana, 1: 4 (1 Feb. 1945), p. 2.
59 ‘La libertad religiosa amenazada’, Acción Social Cristiana, 1: 5 (8 Feb. 1945), p. 1. For more on secular education, see, for example, ‘La religión, factor esencial de la educación’, Acción Social Cristiana, 1: 14 (12 April 1945), p. 1.
60 See, for example, ‘Impresiones’, Acción Social Cristiana, 1 Aug. 1946, pp. 3–5; Alfonso Junco, ‘El régimen español no es totalitario’, Acción Social Cristiana, 2: 63 (9 May 1946), p. 4.
61 Juan A. Rosales, ‘Deberes de los católicos en el campo político’, Acción Social Cristiana, 1: 5 (8 Feb. 1945), p. 4.
62 ‘Impresiones’, Acción Social Cristiana, 2: 81 (12 Sept. 1946), p. 4.
63 ‘Por la libertad de la Iglesia Católica’, Acción Social Cristiana, 2: 3, no. 127 (14 Aug. 1947), p. 2.
64 Dr. Tecolote, ‘En defensa de lo español’, Acción Social Cristiana, 3: 100 (30 Jan. 1947), p. 9.
65 Mariano Rossell y Arellano, Jorge García y Caballeros and Fray Raimundo M. Martín, Carta pastoral colectiva del episcopado de la provincia eclesiástica de Guatemala sobre la amenaza comunista en nuestra patria (Guatemala City: Tipografía Sánchez & De Guise, 1945).
66 Patricia Harms, ‘God Doesn't Like the Revolution: The Archbishop, the Market Women, and the Economy of Gender in Guatemala, 1944–1954’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 32: 2 (2011), pp. 111–39.
67 Rossell refers to the 1946 statement in his 1954 pastoral letter; see Rossell et al., Carta pastoral sobre los avances del comunismo en Guatemala, p. 2.
68 Ibid.
69 Mario López Villatoro, Por los fueros de la verdad histórica (Guatemala City: Secretaría de Divulgación, Cultura, y Turismo de la Presidencia de la República, 1961), pp. 151–2, 166.
70 The term ‘Chekas’ was a Russian colloquialism referring to the various secret police organisations operating in the Soviet Union. Charged with suppressing counter-revolutionary sentiment, the Chekas executed tens of thousands of perceived anti-Bolsheviks in the years immediately following the revolution of October 1917.
71 Manuel de Heredia, ¡ Atención, Guatemala! El General Ydígoras Fuentes y la realidad histórica de Guatemala (Madrid: Editorial Prensa Española, 1962), pp. 15, 133. British intelligence officials with close ties on the ground in Central America, for example, dismissed claims of Soviet-style – let alone Soviet-backed – repression in Arbenz's Guatemala; see Max Paul Friedman, ‘Fracas in Caracas: Latin American Diplomatic Resistance to United States Intervention in Guatemala in 1954’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 21: 4 (2010), p. 672.
72 Comisión Permanente del Primer Congreso Contra la Intervención Soviética en América Latina (henceforth CPPCCISAL), El libro negro del comunismo en Guatemala (Mexico City: S. Turanzas del Valle, 1954), pp. 20–2. No strike force materialised to defend Arbenz as the coup unfolded.
73 ‘Ideologue and builder’ comes from a 1955 handwritten letter by Carlos Castillo Armas, reprinted in Calderón, Letras de liberación, unnumbered flyleaf page.
74 Calderón, Letras de liberación, pp. 9, 15, 141, 221.
75 Ibid., pp. 12, 18, 52, 54, 73, 98.
76 Ramiro de Maeztu, Defensa de la hispanidad (Valladolid: Aldus, 1938), pp. 54, 180–2.
77 Marta Elena Casaús Arzú, Guatemala: Linaje y racismo (San José: FLACSO Costa Rica, 1992); Arévalo, Antikomunismo, p. 64.
78 Calderón, Letras de liberación, pp. 27, 81, 97.
79 Mariano Rossell y Arellano, ‘Tácticas y obras del comunismo’, Estudios Centro Americanos, 11: 108 (Sept. 1956), pp. 455, 459.
80 For ‘reconquest’, see Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN), ‘Asalto a la base militar de “La Aurora”’, 5 Nov. 1950, reprinted in Hurtado (ed.), Así se gestó la liberación, p. 51.
81 Enrique Muñoz Meany, ‘Afirmación de una democracia’, in Muñoz Meany, Enrique Muñoz Meany, p. 72. Under Castillo Armas, Casado would lead the National Police.
82 Arévalo, Antikomunismo, p. 115. Photographs of materials the MLN confiscated due to their ‘subversive content’ appear in Comité de Estudiantes Universitarios Anticomunistas (CEUA), El Calvario de Guatemala (Guatemala City: Tipografía Nacional, 1955), pp. 313–17.
83 Toriello, La batalla de Guatemala, pp. 231–2.
84 Ibid., pp. 67, 218.
85 CEUA, Plan de Tegucigalpa (Guatemala City: Talleres Gráficos Liberación CEUA, 1953).
86 Toriello, La batalla de Guatemala, pp. 231–2.
87 Arévalo, Antikomunismo, pp. 120–1.
88 Calderón, Letras de liberación, p. 9.
89 All quotes from Enrique Muñoz Meany, ‘Homenaje de Guatemala a la República Española’, 14 April 1950. Arquivo Municipal de Betanzos (Galicia), Fondo Alvajar, available at http://archivomunicipal.betanzos.net (last access 1 Oct. 2018).
90 For diverging interpretations of Caracas, see Friedman, ‘Fracas in Caracas’, pp. 669–89 and Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, pp. 267–78 (where the Toriello quote appears).
91 Arévalo, Guatemala, p. 29. Guatemala had attempted to buy arms from the United States, Canada, Belgium, Britain, Italy and Switzerland, and was rebuffed in all cases, before turning to Czechoslovakia. Friedman, ‘Fracas in Caracas’, p. 673.
92 Quoted in Taracena, Guatemala, p. 341.
93 Alberti, Rafael, ‘El rostro del crimen’, in Poesías completas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1961), pp. 737–79Google Scholar.
94 Movimiento Democrático Latino-Americano, untitled document, Santiago de Chile, June 1954, Fundación Española Universitaria, Archivo de la Segunda República en el Exilio (Madrid), Fondo Chile, CH 30/2.
95 Carlos Salazar to Rafael de los Casares, 26 June 1954, AGA, FMAE, box 82/09727, file 29.
96 Michael McClintock estimates that 9,000 people were detained, 10,000 exiled and 300 killed after Arbenz's fall. McClintock, The American Connection: State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala (London: Zed, 1985), p. 29.
97 Adams, Crucifixion by Power, pp. 282–3.
98 Federico Klein, Chile's ambassador to Guatemala, reported in Oct. 1954 that ‘the clergy are intervening in politics, and 27 Jesuits have arrived to organise a Falange in the Spanish style’. Klein's report is reproduced in Roberto García Ferreira, ‘“Sumida en las tinieblas”: Guatemala, octubre de 1954’, Revista de Historia de América, 149 (July–Dec. 2013), pp. 171–93.
99 Mariano Rossell y Arellano, ‘Carta pastoral del Ilmo. y Rvmo. Sr. Arzobispo de Guatemala, Mariano Rossell, del 2 de julio, y oración fúnebre del mismo prelado, del 7 de julio’, reprinted in CPPCCISAL, El libro negro del comunismo en Guatemala, pp. 263–6.
100 Calderón, Letras de liberación, pp. 14, 118, 190.
101 For the 10 per cent estimate, see Streeter, Stephen, Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954–1961 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 2000), p. 39Google Scholar.
102 Putzeys, Así se hizo la liberación, p. 315.
103 For ‘war to the death’, see ‘Pacto entre el Ejército de Liberación y la Base de Zacapa’, 30 July 1954, reprinted in Putzeys, Así se hizo la liberación, pp. 309–11.
104 US Embassy, Guatemala to State Department, ‘Biweekly Pol. Review February 16-29/72’, 1 March 1972, National Archives at College Park, record group 59, subject numeric files 1970–3, Political and Defense, box 2336, folder POL-2 – Guat – 1/1/72.
105 Weld, Kirsten, Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), pp. 91–154Google Scholar.
106 ‘Arzobispo bendijo nuevos vehículos de la policía’, El Imparcial, 14 March 1967.
107 Taracena, Guatemala, pp. 341–2. ‘I can attest to this personally’, Taracena writes. In the 1970s, Taracena helped found the Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor, EGP), successor to the FAR's first incarnation.
108 Bonar Ludwig Hernández Sandoval, ‘Re-Christianizing Society: The Institutional and Popular Revival of Catholicism in Guatemala, 1920–1968’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2010; Bidegain, Ana María, From Catholic Action to Liberation Theology: The Historical Process of the Laity in Latin America in the Twentieth Century (Notre Dame, IN: Kellogg Institute for International Studies, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
109 Muñoz Meany, El hombre y la encrucijada, pp. 112–13.