AN AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

Osvaldo Jordan

September 8, 2008

THE COLD WAR (1948-1989)After 1948, any intention to transform inequitable

social relations in Latin America was regarded as an alignment with the Soviet Union and International Communism.

Many Latin American governments, like Argentina and Brazil, had already implemented social reform since the 1930s, and others, like Guatemala and Costa Rica, were starting novel experiments.

All of these efforts were met with suspicion and animosity by both the US Government and private corporations.

THE COLD WAR (1948-1989)During McCarthyism, the US supported

undercover operations and tracking of selected Latin American leaders.

In the 1960s, JFK created the Alliance for Progress to prevent the spread of communism in Latin America (Modernization Theory).

Between 1964-1989, all countries in Latin America, with the exception of Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela, came to be controlled by military rulers (Huntington Thesis).

THE IDEOLOGICAL DEBATE• MODERNIZATION THEORY (W. W.

Rostow) argued that economic growth would unavoidably lead towards political democracy.

• In contrast, Latin American academics borrowed from Prebisch and Lenin to create DEPENDENCY THEORY. The development of the core countries of Europe and the US necessarily implied the underdevelopment of the periphery (Latin America, Africa, and Asia).

LAS VENAS ABIERTAS DE AMERICA LATINA

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/19/obama-chavez-book-gift-latin-america

THE IDEOLOGICAL DEBATE• The Catholic Church borrowed from Marxism to

create LIBERATION THEOLOGY. The Kingdom of God should be constructed on Earth by liberating the oppressed (Medellin 1968).

• On the other hand, Samuel Huntington (1968) argued that those countries that still lacked democratic institutions should rather be governed by authoritarian regimes.

• As a corollary, the DOCTRINE OF NATIONAL SECURITY justified the overthrow of democratic regimes and the continued rule of the military.

US AND LATIN AMERICA DURING THE COLD WAR

1954. US intervention in the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (CIA).

1959. Cuban Revolution (via armada).

1961. The Bay of Pigs Invasion.

1963. Cuban Missile Crisis.

1964. Operation Marquetalia.

1965. Dominican Invasion.

1970. Socialist Salvador Allende is elected President of Chile (via electoral).

US AND LATIN AMERICA DURING THE COLD WAR

1973. With US support, Allende is overthrown by a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.

1979. Nicaraguan Revolution and Central American Civil Wars.

1983. Grenada Invasion.

1989. Panama Invasion.

THE END OF HISTORY