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Puerto Rican Populism Revisited: the PPD during the 1940s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Emilio Pantojas-Garcia
Emilio Pantojas-Garcia
Affiliation:
Emilio Pantojas-García is Assistant Professor in the Latin American Studies Program, University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Extract

Introduction: Puerto Rican scholars have recently undertaken the task of re-interpreting the populist political project of the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) during the decade of the 1940s. The new studies on this subject have focused on the class basis of the PPD's leadership, the class interests articulated in the policies adopted by the PPD government, and the structural context within which this party came to power and implemented its programme.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , October 1989 , pp. 521 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 Angel G. Quintero Rivera, ‘La base social de la transformación ideológica del Partido Popular en la década del 40’, in Dávila, Gerardo Navas (ed.), Cambio y desarrollo en Puerto Rico; la transformación ideológica del Partido Popular Democrático (Río Piedras, 1980), pp. 35–119Google Scholar; ‘El papel del Estado en el modelo puertorriqueño de crecimiento económico; base clasista del proyecto desarrollista del 40’, paper presented at the Third Central American Congress of Sociology, Tegucigalpa, Honduras (Río Piedras, 1978); and ‘The Socio-Political Background to the Emergence of ‘The Puerto Rican Model’ as a Strategy for Development’, in Craig, Susan (ed.), Contemporary Caribbean: A Sociological Reader, vol. 2 (Maracas, Trinidad/Tobago, 1982), pp. 9–57.Google Scholar Also González, Emilio, ‘Class Struggle and Politics in Puerto Rico During the Decade of the 40's: The rise of P.D.P.’, Two Thirds, vol. 2, no. 1 (1979), pp. 46–57Google Scholar; and ‘Ideología populista y estrategias de desarrollo en Puerto Rico, 1940–1950’ (CEREP, n.d.).

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3 This is a very brief synthesis of the central thesis of Quintero Rivera and González. There are differences in the emphases given by each author. For example, Quintero Rivera argues that the PPD's political project aimed at ‘the constitution of a nation-state in the country that would embody the interests of the people’: ‘El papel del Estado’, p. 27. González, for his part, is more cautious and does not go as far, yet he speaks of a ‘national capitalist development’ model: ‘Ideología populista’, p. 12, and ‘Class Struggle and Politics’, p. 49. However, they both coincide in the view of the PPD's political project as the expression of the interest of a class-in-formation whose aspirations for some kind of national hegemony were frustrated.

4 Herrero, José A., ‘La mitología del azúcar’ (mimeographed, n.d.), pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

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10 Chardón Plan, p. 9.

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13 Gayer, Arthur et al. , The Sugar Economy of Puerto Rico (New York, 1938), p. 223.Google Scholar

14 Interestingly, the negotiator for the sugar corporations was the chief of the colonial police, Col. Elisha Francis Riggs. It is said that he agreed to all of Albizu's demands immediately. Corretjer, Juan Antonio, La lucha por la independencia de Puerto Rico (Guaynabo, 1974), p. 69Google Scholar; Acevedo, , ‘American Colonialism’, p. 148.Google Scholar

15 The problem of forming an anti-imperialist popular movement presents complexities that go beyond the ideological differences between the PN and the workers. The Partido Comunista Puertorriqueño (PCP), which had emerged from within the membership of the FLT in 1934, and whose class origin was clearly proletarian could not capitalise on the crisis either. Instead of facilitating the development of a political alternative for the working classes, the crisis had the immediate effect of dividing them. Fromm, ‘La historia ficción (V)’ and ‘La historia ficción (VI)’; see also Corretjer, Juan A., El líder de la desesperación (Guaynabo, 1974).Google Scholar

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17 Chardón Plan, pp. 1–7.

18 See the Chardón Plan, p. 7 for an example of this.

19 Mathews, , La político puertorriqueña, ch. 6.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., ch. 7.

21 Acevedo, , ‘American Colonialism’, p. 160.Google Scholar

22 To a great extent, the idea that the PPD was the genuine expression of the working masses can be attributed to the heavy rhetoric and the political style of PPD leader Luis Muñoz Marín who had identified himself as being pro-independence during the 1930s. Nonetheless, anyone who carefully reads Mathews's book or Governor Tugwell's accounts of his governorship can see that Munóz's pro-independence stance was more a bargaining tool than a political project. See Mathews, , La político puertorriqueña, chs. 5–7;Google Scholar and Tugwell, Rexford G., The Stricken Land (New York, 1947).Google Scholar

23 For an account of the anti-Americanism during the 1930s and its persistence at the beginning of the 1940s, even within the ranks of the PPD, see Brown, Wenzel, Dynamite on Our Doorstep (New York, 1941;)Google Scholar. This view may be somewhat exaggerated due to the author's prejudices, but it illustrates the existing tensions.

24 Tugwell, , The Stricken Land, p. 7.Google Scholar

25 Tugwell, , The Stricken Land, p. 7.Google Scholar According to Juan A. Silén, ‘pan, tierra, y libcrtad’ (bread, land and liberty), had been the slogan of PCP's newspaper, Lucha Obrera, in 1935. Silén, Juan A., Apuntes para la historia del movimiento obrero en Puerto Rico (Río Piedras, 1978), p. 92.Google Scholar

26 PPD, ‘Programa económico y social; status político’, in Compilación de programas, 1940–1964 (San Juan, 1964), p. 1.Google Scholar

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28 As quoted in Edel, Matthew O., ‘Land Reform in Puerto Rico: 1940–1959’, pt. 1. Caribbean Studies, vol. 2, no. 3 (3 10. 1962), p. 30.Google Scholar

29 Rico, Puerto, Leyes (1941)Google Scholar, ‘Ley No. 26’, pp. 389–457.

30 Edel, , ‘Land Reform’, pt. 1, p. 38.Google Scholar

31 Rico, Puerto Board, Planning, Division, Economic, Economic Development of Puerto Rico, 1951–1960 (San Juan, 1951), p. 176Google Scholar, table 30 (hereafter quoted as Planning Board, Economic Development).

32 Tugwell, , The Stricken Land, p. 87.Google Scholar

33 For a detailed description of the law and the various programmes contemplated by it see Villar Roces, Puerto Rico y su reforma agraria; and Descartes, Sol L., ‘Historical Account of Recent Land Reform in Puerto Rico’, in Méndez, Eugenio Fernandez (ed.), Portrait of a Society (Río Piedras, 1972).Google Scholar

34 Rico, Puerto, Leyes (1942).Google Scholar

35 Aside from Quintero Rivera and González, this view is held by Navas, Gerardo, La dialética del desarrollo nacional: el caso de Puerto Rico (Río Piedras, 1978)Google Scholar; and Villamil, José J., ‘El modelo puertorriqueño; los límites del crecimiento dependicnte’, Revista Puertorriqueña de Investigacions Sociales, vol. 1, no. 1 (07–08. 1976), pp. 4–14.Google Scholar

36 For a detailed account of Fomento and its subsidiaries see Ross, David F., The Long Uphill Path (Río Piedras, 1969).Google Scholar

37 Planning, Puerto Rico, Urbanizing, and Board, Zoning, A Development Plan for Puerto Rico (Santurce, 1944), p. 44Google Scholar (hereafter quoted as Planning Board, A Development Plan).

38 This was the case with the expropriation of the Porto Rico Railway Light and Power Co., and of the Mayaguez Light, Power, and Ice Co. See Forty-Third Annual Report of the Governor of Puerto Rico, 1943 (San Juan, 1943), pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

39 Herrero, , ‘La mitología’, pp. 20–30.Google Scholar

40 Forty-Fifth Annual report of the Governor of Puerto Rico, 1945 (San Juan, 1945), p. 98.Google Scholar

41 Perloff, Harvey S., Puerto Rico's Economic Future (Chicago, 1950), pp. 74–6.Google Scholar

42 Rivera, Quintero, ‘La base social’, pp. 68–9.Google Scholar

43 Wolf, Eric R., ‘San José; Subcultures of a “Traditional” Coffee Municipality’, in Steward, Julian H. et al. , The People of Puerto Rico (Chicago, 1956), p. 250.Google Scholar

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45 Compañía de Fomento de Puerto Rico (CFPR) Informe Annual: 1944 (San Juan, 1945), p. 7.Google Scholar

46 Board, Planning, Economic Development, pp. 7, 28.Google Scholar

47 Board, Planning, Economic Development, p. 126.Google Scholar

48 Cestero, Belén H., Balance of External Payments of Puerto Rico: Fiscal Years 1941–42 to 1947–48 (San Juan, 1950), p. 13.Google Scholar

49 Board, Planning, Economic Development, p. 71.Google Scholar

50 Board, Planning, Economic Development, p. 156, table 7.Google Scholar

51 Calculated from Junta de Planificación, Ingreso y producto Puerto Rico, 1978 (San Juan, 1978), p. 43.Google Scholar

52 PPD, Programa, 1940, p. 2.Google Scholar

53 Jesús T. Piñero, who had been President of the Puerto Rican Farmers Association, is probably the best illustration of the influence of the large colonos within the PPD. Piñero was elected to the Puerto Rican Legislature for the PPD in 1940, and in 1944 was elected Resident Commissioner for Puerto Rico in Washington. In 1946, President Truman appointed him Governor of Puerto Rico, and he thus became the first Puerto Rican Governor appointed by a US President. On the benefits of the PPD's legislation to colonos see Navas, Gerardo, ‘Surgimiento y transformación del Partido Popular Democrático’, in Navas (ed.), Cambio y desarrollo, pp. 24, 27Google Scholar, and passim.

54 Forty-Third Annual Report of the Governor of Puerto Rico, p. 3.

55 Board, Planning, A Development Plan, p. 19Google Scholar; and Goodsell, Charles T., Administración de una revolución (Río Piedras, 1967), p. 36.Google Scholar

56 Tugwell, , The Stricken Land, p. 91.Google Scholar

57 Between 1942 and 1948 the profits declared by the US sugar corporations amounted to a total of 19.7 million dollars. In 1942 profits were 4.5 million, but they declined to 1 million in 1946 before rising to 4.1 million dollars in 1948; Cestero, , Balance of Payments, p. 18.Google Scholar

58 Cintrón, Mattos, La politica y lo político, pp. 13, 200Google Scholar and notes 143 and 14;; also López, Awilda Palau de, ‘Análisis histórico de la figura de Teodoro Moscoso’, in Navas (ed.), Cambio y desarrollo, pp. 154–5.Google Scholar

59 A list of the private entrepreneurs that formed part of the board of directors of Fomento and its subsidiaries appears in Puerto Rico Development Company (PRDC), Third Annual Report, 1945 (San Juan, 1945), p. 7Google Scholar; they were mostly executives from local banks and other local businesses.

60 Ross, , The Long Uphill Path, p. 85.Google Scholar

61 Board, Planning, A Development Plan, p. 5.Google Scholar

62 PRDC, First Annual Report, 1943 (San Juan, 1944).Google Scholar

63 PRDC, Third Annual Report, p. 3Google Scholar;, emphasis in the original. A similar quotation from the US National Association of Maufacturers had appeared also in CFPR, Informe Anual, 1944 (San Juan, 1941;), p. i.Google Scholar

64 Tugwell, , The Stricken Land, p. 148Google Scholar; see also pp. 69 and 137.

65 Tugwell, , The Stricken Land, p. 112Google Scholar and passim.

66 Rivera, Quintero, ‘La base social’, pp. 73–9Google Scholar; González, , ‘Class Struggle and Politics’, pp. 50–1.Google Scholar

67 1 am drawing here on Ernesto Laclau's analysis of populism in Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory, (London, 1977), ch. 4.Google Scholar

68 Ianni, , La formación del estado populista, p. 174.Google Scholar