the rise and decline of liberalism in central america: historical perspectives on the contemporary...

The Rise and Decline of Liberalism in Central America: Historical Perspectives on theContemporary CrisisAuthor(s): Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.Source: Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Aug., 1984), pp.291-312Published by: Center for Latin American Studies at the University of MiamiStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/165672 .

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RALPH LEE WOODWARD, JR. Tulane University

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF LIBERALISM IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Historical Perspectives on the

Contemporary Crisis

Recent violence, civil war, revolution, and economic crises have focused attention on Central America. Analyses of these crises vary widely. Class struggle, Soviet or U.S. imperialism, geopolitical balance of power, the energy crisis, and the general malaise of the West all contribute to the turmoil on the isthmus. Yet the bitter political and economic realities of contemporary Central America are deeply rooted in the past. The present conflicts are neither recent in origin nor conducive to short-term military, economic, or political solutions. This article offers a historical interpretation of modern Central America as an explanation of the current crises. The hypothesis of this overview is that the current crises all represent the inevitable collapse of political, economic, and cultural structures erected in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to serve the interests of the elites who commanded the Liberal Reforms or Revolutions of that era, but that fail to meet the demands of the societies they created'.

At the root of the current crises is a historic process by which the traditional society of lords and peasants evolved into a more modern society, with small but significant middle sectors de- manding a share of the oligarchies' political and economic

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article was originally presented at the XI Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Mexico City, October 1, 1984.

Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 26 No. 3, August 1984 291-312 ? 1984 Sage Publications, Inc.

291



292 JOURNAL OF INTERAMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS

preserves. Conflict between a privileged elite on the one hand and an oppressed peasantry on the other dates from the Spanish Conquest. Calculated terror has been an established method of control of the rural population for five centuries. Resentful peasants have often responded violently individually, and sometimes touched off widespread revolution and civil war. This first took place in Guatemala and Nicaragua between 1524 and 1550, but these confrontations became more frequent as greater demands were made upon the peasantry and their lands and as they developed some awareness of the possibility of improving their condition, or, at the very least, of preserving what little they had.

Central America, unified under Spain for nearly 300 years as the "Kingdom of Guatemala," achieved its independence about 160 years ago and, after 18 months as a part of a Mexican Empire, established a republican federation optimistically called the "United Provinces of the Center of America." That tragic experiment need not delay us here. By 1840 the federation had disintegrated and the five present-day city states were going their separate ways. The two political parties, however, that formed around the ideological issues of the first decades of independence provided the structure for the political activities of the social and economic elites in each of the Central American states and underscore the continuity among members of the elites in all five states. These parties-Conservative and Liberal- were factions of a landholding and bureaucratic elite, but they reflected fundamentally different perceptions on how best to develop their country (Rodriguez, 1978; Woodward, 1965 and forthcoming; Wortman, 1982).

Conservatives looked toward maintenance of the two-class society that had so long characterized both Spain and Central America. They favored policies that would preserve the aristo- cratic landholding elites in their traditional, dominant roles, but also, in noblesse oblige fashion, assured the peasants of a degree of protection, especially against exploitation by the Liberal modernizers. Overcoming initial Liberal gains at the outset of independence, these Conservatives and their caudillos controlled most of Central America in the mid-nineteenth century. They



Woodward / LIBERALISM IN CENTRAL AMERICA 293

emphasized traditional Hispanic values and institutions, especially the Roman Catholic Church, and rewarded loyal Indian and mestizo peasants with paternalism and respect for their communal lands. Their demands on the peasants were real, but limited, and subsistence agriculture continued to be the principal activity of most. They relied on the Church and local caudillos and landowners-in feudal style-for social control and to guarantee peace and security. They thus defended states' rights against national unity and were xenophobic toward foreigners who threatened the traditional society with Protestantism, democracy, and modernization. While they welcomed some expansion of agricultural exports, which allowed them a few luxury imports, they were sensitive to the danger of upsetting native labor and land tenure patterns, and they were essentially opposed to granting the nation's land and resources to foreign capitalists who generally did not share their religion, language, or social and cultural values, or who might threaten the preeminent place that they held in the social structure of the provinces.2 Peasant insurgency against Liberal innovators in the 1830s, sometimes instigated by small hacendados, had been instru- mental in the Conservative accession to power (Woodward, 1982 and 1983 b).

Liberals, on the other hand, represented that segment of the aristocracy and an incipient bourgeoisie that wished to modernize Central America through emulation of the economic and political success of Western Europe and the United States from the late eighteenth century forward. These "modernizers" rejected traditional Hispanic values and institutions, especially the Church, and espoused classical economic liberalism, opposing monop- olies while encouraging private foreign trade, immigration, and investment. They emphasized exports, and treated the rural masses and their land as the principal resources to be exploited in this effort. Although republican and democratic in political theory, they became much influenced by positivist materialism later in the century, and were contemptuous, even embarrassed, by the Indian heritage of their countries. Once in power they resorted to dictatorship to accomplish their economic goals and to defend their gains. Thus the professionalization of the military,




which became their power base, was an important trend in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Liberals wished to modernize their countries in imitation of the United States and Western Europe, but the absence of stronger middle sectors in the traditional two-class Central American society and the persistence of elitist attitudes toward the masses meant that in practice that development proceeded very differently than in the industrialized nations. What emerged were elite oligarchies of planters and capitalists who cynically and without the noblesse oblige of their Conservative predecessors, continued to live off the labor of an oppressed rural population that shared little if any of the benefits of the expanded export production. On the contrary, they found their own subsistence threatened by encroachment on their lands for the production of export crops.3

Liberal triumph in every state after 1870 was accompanied by a boom in coffee exports, with urbanization, railway construction, and significant economic growth under Liberal guidance. The "coffee prosperity" assured not only Liberal political dominance (enforced by a strong military establishment), but the emergence a new "coffee elite" and an allied urban national bourgeoisie in these "liberal states," especially in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica (Cardoso and Perez, 1977; Cardoso, 1975; McCreery, 1976 and 1983; Browning, 1971; Kerr, 1977; Araya, 1977; Hall, 1976 and 1978; Lanuza, 1976a and 1976b). In Nicaragua, the Liberal Revolution was delayed until 1893, owing to Liberal Party identification with William Walker, the Tennessee adven- turer who had taken over Nicaragua in the 1850s. A further variant in the Nicaraguan case was United States military occupation of that country from 1912 to 1932, with a Conserva- tive puppet government until 1925. Thus, uniquely, the Conserva- tive Party survived in Nicaragua and the two traditional elite parties continued all the way to 1979, while only vestiges of the Conservative Party survived elsewhere (Woodward, 1979). Lib- eral dominance was absolute in Guatemala and El Salvador until 1944, and although Conservative parties survived a while longer in Honduras and Costa Rica, the Liberals had the upper hand most of the time there, too. In Honduras, coffee was not involved, but Liberal development of mining had somewhat the



Woodward / LIBERALISM IN CENTRAL AMERICA -295

same effect although it failed to develop so prosperous an elite or middle sector (see Finney, 1979, 1978, and 1973; Yeager, 1975; Brand, 1972). Under the Liberals, then powerful, export-oriented elites exploited the labor of the rural masses in collaboration with foreign capital, management, and markets. The old Conservative parties disappeared, while in reality, of course, the Liberals became the conservatives of the twentieth century.

A salient feature of the rise of these oligarchies was their ever-closer relationship with North American capital and the U.S. government. The development model during the past century that Central Americans have most sought to duplicate- to imitate-is the North American experience. It has been a model that has stimulated significant modernization in Central America, yet has failed to fulfill the promises of prosperity and general welfare that its promoters expected. Instead, new levels of poverty and misery have come to be associated with the development process, and instead of "developing nations," these states have become dependent poor relations of an industrialized core of North Atlantic mother countries.

The charge of "dollar diplomacy" finds easy documentation in Central America from the 1860s forward. A close relationship between the Liberal parties and the United States evolved between 1870 and 1945 in the economic, social, political, and cultural spheres. Even as early as the 1840s, U.S. diplomats had favored the Liberals in contrast to Britain's courting of the Conservatives. The Anglo-American rivalry by 1914 was decided clearly in the favor of the United States. The United States became the principal market for Central American exports, especially bananas, which developed with U.S. capital, shipping, and technology. U.S. industrial and agricultural exports flooded the Central American markets, often destroying native handicraft industries. North American manufacturing and construction companies supplied the material and technology for modernization of Central America's city-state capitals. The International Railway of Central America and Tropical Radio, both subsidi- aries of the giant United Fruit Company, monopolized trans- portation and communications throughout the isthmus and over- came German and British competition (greatly aided by World




War I), completing U.S. hegemony over Central America (Stewart, 1964; May and Plaza, 1958; Kepner, 1936; LaBarge, 1968; Karnes, 1978; Lainez and Meza, 1973; McCann, 1976).

The elite sent their children to school in the United States, and they often returned with spouses who brought North American values directly into the social structure of the isthmus, blending more modern attitudes with traditional Hispanic values (Gold- rich, 1966). This became noticeable even among the emerging middle class. The Liberals imitated U.S. political forms if not realities, and the terminology of North American democracy filled the Liberal rhetoric. They rewrote the Central American constitutions to conform more closely to the U.S. Constitution of 1789, although in practice Central American executives retained far more authority than in the United States. North American politicians, businessmen, and academics of the era pointed to the enthusiasm with which Central Americans were adapting to the U.S. model. Without actually hoisting the stars and stripes, Central America became a U.S. colonial dominion. U.S. em- bassies became inordinately large for such tiny countries, and basic economic and political decisions for these states were often made within our embassy walls. Major U.S. military interven- tions occurred only in Nicaragua and Panama, but military missions provided significant assistance toward the maintenance of the Liberal dictatorships through the training of national police forces to maintain internal security.

Classic liberal dictatorships arose: Justo Rufino Barrios, Tomas Guardia, Santiago Gonzalez, Marcos Aurelio Soto, and Jose Santos Zelaya were the prototypes in each country. Manuel Estrada Cabrera carried it to such extremes in his 22-year domination of Guatemala (1898-1920) as to prompt something of a democratic reaction in that state during the 1920s. El Salvador had less blatant dictatorships in the early twentieth century and appeared to encourage some democratic practice along with important expansion of economic opportunity for the middle class, but in reality the coffee elite discreetly monopolized the power, with the Melendez family getting the largest share. Although there were some democratic charades and eventually




the happy exception of Costa Rica, military dictatorship became the norm with the oligarchies calling the shots, passing around the presidency and the principal ministries among themselves. Ex- cept in Costa Rica, no opposition party was ever allowed to win national elections. More and more land was put into coffee and other export crops at the expense of food production. Especially in El Salvador, as the population increased because of eradication of epidemic diseases, the lot of the rural peasant deteriorated steadily, so that the Salvadoran peasant became one of the most oppressed and poorly fed in the world (Browning, 1971: 292-303).

It is a shock for many North Americans to learn that capitalist "modernization" over the past century has actually meant a lowered standard of living for most Central Americans. Central American travel accounts of the nineteenth century, however, reflect significantly better living conditions than those found today among most rural Central Americans. Most had land upon which to grow food, and fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, and poultry were generally abundant and inexpensive. The distinc- tions between rich and poor were less marked than today. Debt peonage was not widespread in most of the region before 1870 and was much less prevalent than in Mexico (see Parker, 1970; Woodward, 1983c). By the 1970s malnutrition was widespread, and El Salvador compared with Bangladesh as among the most poorly nourished and land poor countries in the world (White and Montgomery, 1980: 1-2; Citizens for Participation, 1980).

Serious challenges to these regimes began during the 1920s, and after the Great Depression the elite turned to stronger dictators to silence the middle and working classes. Ubico in Guatemala (1931-1944), Hernandez Martinez in Salvador (1931- 1944), and Somoza in Nicaragua (1934-1956) were the classic Liberal dictators of the 1930s, symbols of order, stability, and protection of American interests in an otherwise troubled world. Somoza directed the assassination of the popular Augusto Sandino, who had led the successful resistance to the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua, and Hern'andez's troops massacred as many as 30,000 peasants in a "communist" uprising in El Salvador (Grieb, 1979; Macaulay, 1967; Anderson, 1971). Along




with Carias in Honduras (1933-1949) they built fascist-like regimes on the oligarchies' fear of "communism" and organized labor.4 Only Costa Rica departed from this pattern significantly.

The beginning of the end of the Liberal era had begun, however. Liberal economic programs and the foreign trade it promoted generated significant urban middle classes. While the elite controlled and oppressed the rural masses on their estates, the urban population became more prosperous and better educated, consistent with Liberal modernization promises. But these middle classes also demanded a greater share of the economic product and participation in the political process. The oligarchies begrudgingly made minor concessions, but jealously preserved most of the real economic and political power to themselves, thus preventing the sort of evolution toward social democracy that occurred in the United States and western Europe.

Several institutions, however, served the interests of the new urban middle sectors. The military itself was one of these, providing a means of social mobility and access to power from the lower echelons of society. Repeatedly, elements of the military have demanded reform and attention to the economic concerns of the middle sectors (Ropp, 1971; Elam, 1970; Rozman, 1970). More important have been two elements less well connected to the oligarchies, more clearly institutions of the new middle classes created by modernization.

As has already been suggested, the children of the elite frequently were educated abroad, especially in the United States, but the growing demand for skills in the modernizing cities demanded the expansion of Central American universities and these became a major avenue for middle-class mobility and entrance into the political arena. Indeed, development of higher education outside the control of the Church was a major point in nineteenth-century Liberal policy. Thus, from the 1920s forward, students, professors, and other intellectuals began to form political parties and to establish a dialogue of issues distinctly outside of the old Liberal-Conservative framework. Profes- sionals trained in Central American universities played leading




roles in these new parties, which reflected philosophical and political currents of the twentieth century, of Europe and later the "third world," rather than the nineteenth-century Liberal, U.S. orientation of the elite. Marxism found favor with many, for it seemed to offer scientific explanations for their limited economic gains and their dependent exploitation by capitalism. But more moderate views were also prevalent, developing into the so-called "democratic left," best represented eventually in Christian Demo- cracy and Social Democracy. All of these new forces had in common that they were asking very different questions from those that their Liberal predecessors had posed. Although these students and intellectuals were only a tiny minority of the population, they provided articulation and leadership for the middle and working classes. Their alienation from the Liberal establishment that created them is one of the major keys to the present crises (Hennessey, 1979).

To the university communities was added organized labor, often underestimated in Central America because of its relative weakness compared to larger Latin American nations. Late in organizing, owing to the small industrial population and the antilabor policies of the governments, serious labor organization began in the 1920s. Although suppressed ruthlessly as "Com- munist" by the dictators of the 1930s, organized labor played a role in their overthrow and an even larger role in the emerging parties after 1945. The majority of Central American workers were rural, but it has been the organization of urban workers that has been most important in making labor a political force in Central America, and the new political parties have recognized this (Lopez Larrave, 1979; MacCameron, 1976; Pearson, 1969).

More recently, the Church has once more become a vocal advocate of Central America's oppressed peoples. The strongly anticlerical Liberals allowed the Church to survive only in a depressed, subservient condition, and after 1870 it was largely excluded from education, government, and economic activity, areas where it had been of major importance before about 1870. What remained was a servile clergy that supported the authority of the Liberal state. Regular orders had nearly all been expelled




from Central America, but in the mid to late twentieth century, in the name of religious toleration and in response to international pressure, some were allowed to return. Foreigners often dominated these orders and some of them, like the Maryknollers and Jesuits, began to emphasize the Church's traditional concern for the masses. By the 1970s a great movement, called "liberation theology," had arisen emphasizing the social gospel and both lay and clergy responsibility to the poor. The effects have been notable, but have divided the Church in every Central American state. Radical liberation theology combines Marxism and Christi- anity, but more moderate clergy also joined in condemning government disregard for human rights (Melville and Melville, 1971; Berryman, 1984; Greenhalgh and Gruenke, 1981).

The challenge to the elite employed both revolutionary violence and new political parties. More modern parties emerged first in Costa Rica, where the elitist parties (Liberal and Conservative) were never so firmly entrenched as in the other states. The reasons for a more egalitarian tradition in Costa Rica and lesser extremes of wealth and poverty even in its two-class traditional society are well known, and it is not surprising that Costa Rica was the first to emerge from classical "liberal" dictatorships toward a more modern, three-class society. Since 1936 moderate reformist parties, sometimes cooperating with Marxists, have governed that state, with Pepe Figueres' anti- Communist National Liberation Party being the most conspic- uous since 1948. The PLN, along with Venezuela's Democratic Action Party, affiliated with the Socialist International and represented a new force in the Caribbean Basin from 1948 forward. Costa Rican abolition of its army in Latin America's most democratic country was more than simply a rejection of military rule. Along with the emphasis Costa Rica had put on education and social and economic welfare, it reflected the rise of the middle class and rejection of the aristocrat-peasant traditional society. The Costa Rican experience underlines the necessity of destroying the old regime's military force. For real social and political modernization to take place, the military power of the old elites must be eliminated. This was done in Costa Rica-and subsequently in Cuba and Nicaragua. Failure to do so in




Guatemala resulted in reversal of the revolution there (see Salazar, 1980 and 1981; Bell, 1971; Araya, 1968; Ameringer, 1978; Romero, 1979 and 1977; Vega, 1981 and 1982).

In Guatemala, reformist middle-class parties, with elements from the military, the university, and the labor movement, overthrew General Ubico in 1944 and launched a bold program of social, political, and economic reform under Juan Jose Arevalo amid demands from the left for more thorough revolution. He also faced formidable right-wing opposition from the elite supporters of the Ubico regime, but when the moderate and reformist heir apparent to Arevalo, Major Francisco Arana, fell to an assassin's bullet in 1949, the way was opened for Major Jacobo Arbenz to win the presidency and turn the revolution toward the left in collaboration with Marxist intellectuals and labor leaders. Alarmed, traditional elite and U.S. business interests, notably United Fruit, whose banana plantations faced expropriation, mounted a major propaganda campaign and found receptive ears among Cold War U.S. government officials who saw a Soviet satellite emerging on the isthmus. In 1954 the United States supported an invasion by Guatemalan exiles that easily toppled Arbenz, as the Guatemalan Army, already dubious of the Revolution and fearing proposals of arming labor unions, refused to resist the invaders (Aybar, 1979; Fried et al., 1983; Schneider, 1958; Diaz Rozzotto, 1958; Aguilera, 1971; Schlesinger and Kinzer, 1982; Immerman, 1982).

This invasion, which served as the model for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba seven years later and perhaps for the present U.S. anti-Sandinista action, did not mean a complete return to pre-1945 Liberal rule in Guatemala. Too much change had occurred for a return of the Liberal Party. Some of the welfare- state social and political reform survived, although the tone of the governments since 1954 has certainly been reactionary. The old oligarchy, greatly expanded by the growth of new industry fueled by substantial U.S. investments, returned to power. They out- lawed leftist parties and harassed moderate parties such as Arevalo's Party of Revolutionary Action and the growing Christian Democratic Party. Right-wing elements dominated the country through several different parties representing factions of




the old elite and the new bourgeoisie. The growth of the Guatemalan economy, including capital-intensive industry and diversification of agricultural exports, made the elite considerably more complex than the older coffee oligarchy, but it still clung tenaciously to nineteenth-century Liberal-Positivist tenets. As in El Salvador, commercial agriculture gained at the expense of peasant subsistence, and significant parts of the urban middle class accepted this neo-liberal philosophy.

Following the rise of Fidel Castro, the left responded with guerrilla warfare, and from the early sixties Guatemala suffered escalating violence from both right and left, both factions effectively discouraging moderate compromise. Terror and assassination took a horrifying toll among leaders of labor organizations and at the University of San Carlos. A vicious civil war raged in Guatemala. When Indian peasants joined the guerrillas, right-wing death squads and the military murdered thousands of their number. Construction of a new highway in the North and an accompanying land grab by the generals led to further violence. The brief regime of Efrain Rios Montt (March 1982-August 1983) offered some interesting variations, with his blend of neo- liberalism in practice, social democratic promises, and some new moral innovations in bureaucracy (Melville and Melville, 1971; Galeano, 1969; Jonas and Tobis, 1974; Fried et al., 1983; New York Times, 1983). In any case, he brought a return of peace to Guatemala and dealt the Left a major defeat, although some described the peace in Guatemala as "the tranquility of a cemetery." The Rios Montt government did not, however, on all accounts satisfy the traditional Right, and on August 8, 1983 Defence Minister Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores took over the country in another right-wing military coup. Since then the violence has once more escalated.

In El Salvador the story is less complex but similar. Students, workers, and progressive military officers overthrew Hern'andez Martinez in 1944 and formed the basis of more effective middle- class participation in politics. In El Salvador, however, the compact coffee oligarchy-the so-called "14 families"-managed to keep control, and through the military they were able to




prevent their state from pursuing the reformist route of either Costa Rica or Guatemala. The Salvadoran elite had reacted savagely to "save the country from communism" in the 1932 peasant uprising (Anderson, 1971). Yet labor and student organization advanced, so that they have become important forces in Salvadoran politics since 1945. San Salvador industrialized notably as a result of the Common Market. This both expanded the urban middle and working classes and widened the oligarchy, recently counted at 254 families, who maintained power throughout the period through the Party of National Conciliation (PCN). Jose Napole6n Duarte led the Christian Democratic Party to challenge the ruling clique and won the mayorship of San Salvador, 1964-1970. Organization of peasants by the Christian Democrats, the growing role of the Church on the side of reform, pressures brought on by the 1969 "soccer war" with Honduras, and polarization of political issues all placed great strain on the outmoded political ideology of the ruling elite. The showdown came in 1972 when Duarte won the presidential election but was denied office (Webre, 1979). Factions of the oligarchy now turned to military terror squads, as in Guatemala. Here was the place for the United States to play a role on behalf of orderly political process and emergence of more modern-and moderate -political and social forces. Instead, the Nixon government continued to support the elite-backed PCN military regime, and we therefore find ourselves in today's crisis. The revolutionary junta that took power in October -1979, with subsequent reshufflings that eventually included Duarte as the chief-of-state, represented more centrist, but relatively impotent, elements of the middle class after the conflict had already become polarized. Large numbers of the politically active, including many Christian Democrats-, had joined the guerrillas and their political organizations as the only means of dealing with a government that refused to recognize legitimate elections. Denying gradual reform and change as the Christian Democrats had advocated, a bloodbath enveloped the country, where more than 45,000 people have died, mostly at the hands of the government or its terrorists. Comparing this as a percentage of the population with the United States, it would be




equivalent to more than two million people dying in revolution here. And more than a half million Salvadorans have reportedly fled the country, equivalent to some 28 million in the United States in terms of a percentage of its total population. Moderates could not control the right-wing military, and when the reformist Colonel Adolfo Majano was forced out of military command at the end of 1980, coinciding with the election of a pro-right-wing government in Washington, Duarte simply became a captive of the old order, still believing he could do more within the government than outside it. Nevertheless he was ineffectual in stemming the atrocities of the military or in bringing peace. His defeat in the elections early last year ended that phase of the conflict with the election, under highly questionable circum- stances, of a neo-liberal coalition headed by Roberto d'Aubisson. While the February 1982 election reflected widespread exhaustion with the civil war, it also reflected consolidation of neo-liberal forces to terminate the moderate coup of 1979. Provisional president, Alvaro Magalna, although moderate in some respects, is dependent on this right-wing coalition. So the war goes on in El Salvador, with heavy U.S. military aid to the government (Montgomery, 1982; Baloyra, 1982 and 1983; Estudios Centro- americanos, 1979a and 1979b; Dunkerley, 1982; Zaid, 1982).

Liberal Party domination of Nicaragua became highly consol- idated and personalized under the Somoza dynasty. The survival of the Conservative Party as the only significant legal opposition provided a forum for some modernization of the political process, but both parties remained essentially havens for the old elite and Nicaragua's small national bourgeoisie. More modern political parties, such as the Christian Democrats, operated marginally, or underground, at the universities. In reality, as the Sandinista revolution was to demonstrate, none of the legal parties was able or willing to carry out reforms that would restructure the society or reform the land tenure system. The Sandinista front, organized about 1961 and always dedicated to a socialist-oriented revolution, gained few adherents until the late seventies (Taboada, 1984; Walker, 1970).

The 1972 earthquake and the mismanagement of relief activities by the Somoza government began to destroy the credibility of




the regime, but the powerful U.S.-created National Guard maintained its power (Millett, 1977). The assassination of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, popular editor of the country's leading daily (La Prensa) and the principal legal (if often censured) opposition to the Somozas, brought a dramatic change in the political climate of the country. All segments of the population, from peasants to businessmen, rallied to support the Sandinista War against the dictatorship (Woodward, 1979; Lopez et al., 1979; del Cid, 1979).

The Carter government worked clumsily and ineffectually to replace Somoza with some member of the elite who would continue pro-U.S. policies. "Somocismo sin Somoza," it was called in Nicaragua, and the Sandinistas were able, with massive popular support, to fill the vacuum left when Somoza finally fled the country on July 19, 1979. U.S. policy under Carter was vascillating and timid, while under Reagan it has been strongly hostile to the Sandinistas, whose ideological commitments run from center-left to Marxist-Leninist. What was immediately clear was that there was great national unity against the Somoza dynasty and the old order. The long association of the United States with the Somozas has been and will continue to be a burden for U.S. policy there, notwithstanding the commitment of some Sandinistas not to become totally dependent on Cuban or Soviet assistance. Yet the refusal of the Reagan government to implement congressionally approved aid to Nicaragua and in the meantime its obvious support of Somocista forces in Honduras and elsewhere make U.S. influence in the country thoroughly negative. Although there is some opposition to the Sandinista socialist program in the country, there is virtually universal condemnation of Reagan's anti-Nicaraguan posture. Moreover, the highly successful literacy campaign and a much more humane and peaceful manner of dealing with the old order than was followed in the Cuban Revolution, have brought world wide admiration for the Sandinistas. As in El Salvador, the failure of the United States to act more quickly against the old regime, the dying order, deprived this country of a positive and enlightened role in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas, although affiliated officially with the International Social Democratic movement in London, just as Cuba was two decades ago, drifted toward envelopment by




the Soviet bloc, especially as the Reagan policy escalated its efforts to overturn the regime by covert destabilization methods and overt aid to counterrevolutionaries operating from across the Honduran border.5

Finally, Honduras, with a less thoroughly entrenched landholding elite, has to date withstood major social revolution, largely owing to the intervention of the army in politics. Although it recently elected a civilian president, in reality the army has taken strong control of the government. The U.S. hand has been heavier in Honduras than in any other Central American state, through investment, political intervention by private U.S. interests, military missions, and intergovernmental cooperation. De- spite some notable economic growth in the 1970s, the Honduran elite still remains in large part traditional, looking for modernization along nineteenth-century Liberal lines. Since the victory of the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua, Honduran military buildup has been notable. U.S. military aid is highly visible and there are more U.S. military advisers in Honduras than in El Salvador. U.S. combat manuevers in Honduras (Big Pine I, II, and III) appear menacing to Nicaragua and the Salvadoran guerillas. The staff at the U.S Embassy in Tegucigalpa is now said to be the largest of any U.S. embassy in Latin America. Moreover, the 7,000 members of the old Nicaraguan National Guard form a powerful Somocista exile force within the country. This is a force that has little or no support within Nicaragua. It is also inconceivable that it could successfully reconquer the country given the present military buildup in Nicaragua which includes at least 100,000 poorly trained but well-equipped and highly motivated troops (Personal observations of the author, July-August 1983; see also Prensa Libre, 1983; El Diario de Hoy, 1983; and Associated Press Viewdata Wire, November 1983- February 1984).

Modern Central America reflects the persistence of the nineteenth- century Liberal political tradition, conservative by today's defini- tions, among Central American elites, along with the inevitable rise of more modern middle sector interests against it. While certain segments of the middle class have embraced neo-liberalism, others, and working class representatives, have risen to challenge it, with the inevitable clashes of working-class and




capitalist interests already becoming important in Central American politics. The major failure of Liberalism and capitalism in Central America has been their failure to provide labor with adequate wages so that the prosperity could become more general and expand in a healthy manner. Nowhere can this be better observed than in the capital-intensive industries promoted in the Central American Common Market. The continued repression of labor has deprived most Central Americans of better standards of living and a more participatory role in their governments. The close relationship of the United States with the old elites has been a major force in allowing the repressive policies to continue as long as they have. Not until the Carter administration was there some recognition that this relationship could be permanently damaging to U.S. interests in the region, as the inevitability of change would sooner or later leave the United States on the losing side. This is the lesson of Cuba, and of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Whether moderate forces as the Christian Democrats or Social Democrats, seeking a synthesis of socialism and capitalism into mixed economic and social orders-will prevail in Central America will undoubtedly depend to some degree on the willingness of U.S. private and government interests to break with archaic political forces and support more progressive but potentially friendly elements such as the anti- Communist Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, or Social- ists. The alternative will almost certainly be more violence, more radical Marxist strength, and potential loss of our hegemony in the region to the Soviet Union. I can only note here the contrast with U.S. policy in Panama under Jimmy Carter, where returning the Canal Zone to Panama in a statesman-like fashion resulted in a sounder relationship with the government and people of Panama.

Great nations often decline when they become enchanted with their own past to the degree that they lose sight of the future. This is the danger that the United States faces in its adulation of neo-Liberalism to the exclusion of twentieth-century social democracy. The Central American crises are direct challenges to our continued insistence on social and economic solutions of the past. We can support social democracy now and endorse the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, or watch the rest of the world leave us behind with our vision of the world as it was.




NOTES

1. Since 1970 a number of excellent books have presented detailed data and analyses of various aspects of contemporary Central America, some of which are listed in the reference section below. Some useful anthologies of documents and articles have also been published, such as Gettleman et al. (1981), Levine (1983), and the Stanford Central American. While many of these have added to our enlightenment regarding the history of mid twentieth-century Central America, most suffer from varying degrees of myopia regarding longer historical patterns. Anderson (1971) and Adams (1970), at least, offer a better understanding of the relation between events of the mid twentieth century and those of the nineteenth, but only Browning (1971), a historical geography, provides the sort of detailed historical research that conclusively links the present crisis in El Salvador to long-term economic and social practices. Browning suggests for El Salvador, in much greater detail, the general hypothesis that I argued in my general history of Central America in 1976. Except as otherwise indicated, the information and ideas expressed in this article are condensed from that work (Woodward, 1976).

2. Revealing statements on the Central American Conservative philosophy may be found in many editorials in El Tiempo (1839-1841); Gaceta Oficial (1841-1847); Gacetade Guatemala (1847-1871); La Gaceta, Diario Oficial (1860-1890), and other newspapers representing Conservative government during the mid nineteenth century.

3. The Liberal approach has been frequently described, for Central American historiography was dominated by Liberals from 1870 through the mid twentieth century. See Montufar (1878-1887), upon which many other pro-Liberal accounts of the nineteenth century were based. This literature is discussed in Griffith (1960). See also Wauchope and Harrison (1972).

4. Dr. Tiburcio Carias was neither a General nor a member of the Liberal Party, but he pursued policies similar to the other dictators of Central America in those years in a somewhat more benign way. Generals Ubico and Hernandez Martinez both were initially concerned over the rise of non-Liberal Carias, but soon decided that he fit the liberal pattern after all, despite the conservative origins of his National Party (Grieb, 1979: 97-100).

5. Millett (1977) is one of the most informative works on the Somoza years, but there are a number of other useful volumes representing several points of view, including Diederich (1981): Somoza and Cox (1980); Bell (1978); and Walker (1981). Works on the Sandinista Revolution are appearing rapidly, but among the most useful that have to date been published are Booth (1982); Walker (1982); Ignatiev and Borokiv (1980); Weber (1981); Borge et al. (1982); and Black (1981). For a more comprehensive discussion of writings on the revolution, and on Nicaragua in general, see Woodward (1983a).

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Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., is Professor of History at Tulane University. He is the author of Central America, A Nation Divided (New York: Oxford, 1976); Nicaragua (Oxford: Clio, 1983); seven other books, and many scholarly articles on Latin American history. He is also the editor of the Central American section of the Research Guide to Central America and the Caribbean, to bepublished in late 1984 by the University of Wisconsin Press; and he is Associate Editor of the Revista del Pensamiento Centroamericano (Managua).



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