Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XII, American Republics

38. Research Memorandum Prepared in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research¹

RAR-11

Washington, January 17, 1962.

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICAL STABILITY AND THE ALLIANCE FOR PROGRESS

Abstract

Broadly-based political stability is a goal sought by the United States in the Alliance for Progress.² Some Latin American countries have already made real headway toward this goal, especially Mexico, Uruguay, and Costa Rica, and to a lesser extent, Venezuela and Argentina. The governments in these countries are oriented toward middle class interests and are based on fairly wide popular support; their political institutions provide means of articulating the interests of important groups in the population. Thus they are reasonably well protected against internal subversion and foreign intrigue, despite weaknesses and stresses in their systems of government.

For other Latin American countries to reach this degree of political stability involves their making a series of changes to which serious obstacles exist in their social patterns and in pressures from right and left against orderly reform. Some of the governments, even though they are organized on a narrow interest base, respond in a measure to popular needs, but by and large the ruling groups lack zeal for reform, with all its hazards. The military institution, a key element, is inclined to the status quo. Organized labor, often the major popular sector, is generally disoriented and vulnerable to the appeals of the revolutionary left. The growing middle class sector has generally not been a stabilizing force. However, the Alliance for Progress can provide the framework for enlisting middle class elements in support of evolutionary reform, permitting a mutation from the present narrowly-based political systems to more broadly-based but still moderate governments.

Progress Toward Stability

Not all Latin American governments suffer from chronic instability. In some countries there are organized bases of popular support for constitutional authority and substantial immunity to subversive movements of the left and right. Included among these countries are Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and perhaps Venezuela and Argentina. In their societies the danger of subversion from the right has been greatly reduced. Political action by the military is curbed because of the strength and influence of well-organized popular forces which are relatively immune to propaganda from the revolutionary left.

Costa Rica and Uruguay have developed greater political stability because of their cultural and social unity and the evolution over a long period of a large middle class. The stability of the other countries (Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina), which are more complex and less unified, is the end product of radical reform or revolution carried out under the leadership of mass-based political parties. In Mexico the reorganization of political life on a popular base took a generation of civil war and revolution. Argentina and Venezuela achieved means of articulating and providing representation for the interests of broader groups in the community through less violent, far-reaching and long-drawn-out progress toward the new political order.

The broadening of the political base in these countries of radical reform is not to be looked upon wholly in terms of modern western (Anglo-American) experience either as to methods or results. These societies have emphasized national sovereignty, popular welfare, and industrial development rather than personal political and economic liberties. The middle class reformers or revolutionary leadership proclaimed these goals and made it their first order of business to pursue them and thereby to consolidate a mass following. Political change was accomplished by a greater centralization of government authority, with strong overtones of fascism in the Argentine experience under Peron. The governments created by the Mexican PRI, the Argentine Peronists, and the Venezuelan AD were designed to manipulate and shape their countries through playing a large role in both political and economic affairs. They were to be directly responsible for the strategy of achieving national goals. Achievements in turn were to strengthen their claim to continuing leadership in the society.

The record of stabilization in the new pattern suggests hazards as well as advantages in Latin-style democracy. The balancing of wider interests may cause new rigidities even while it brings stability. Very large bureaucracies have grown up to carry out economic missions as well as to serve the functions of patron to the humble and broker between multiplying pressure groups. In Argentina, while carefully balancing the forces of labor and the military, the Frondizi regime is attempting to bring about a resumption of economic growth and to move Argentina off the dead center eventually reached by the Peronist regime with its deficit financing, overblown bureaucracy, feather-bedding unions, business monopoly, and neglect of agriculture. In Venezuela there is great danger that the abuses and corruption of the dictatorship will be translated into abuses of economic democracy if large numbers of citizens come to rely on government support instead of productive work. In Mexico the new social system has yet to embrace much more than half the population in its benefits.

The essential common factor among the broadly-based moderate governments is that they are middle class governments with relatively good linkages to the mass of the population. The mass support for these regimes goes beyond the enthusiasm conjured up by heated election campaigns. The continuity of popular support which defends them against movements from the political extremes reflects the development of mass organizations that are either keyed into the dominant political system or are able to articulate popular interests and make good their claims to obtain benefits for the people through established means of communication with the government. Not all middle class governments with broad bases of support, however, are stable and moderate. In Bolivia and Cuba the overthrow of the established order by middle class radical groups destroyed capital resources, caused an exodus of technicians and entrepreneurs, and made both countries dependent upon foreign aid for their basic necessities. Moreover, the Mexican Revolution and to a lesser degree the Peronist reforms that effected the transfer of power to the middle class were severely wasteful of national resources and capabilities.

Obstacles to Stability

What are the prospects that other Latin American countries will reach political stability through widened popular participation and support of authority? Can the transition proceed without leading into a harsh totalitarian system as in Cuba or a breakdown as in Bolivia? The answer may be in doubt for all except a few of the other thirteen Latin American republics.

With luck and good planning this few could include Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. Even in these countries the prospects for achieving a broadened and strengthened base of authority while maintaining stability are far in the future if they have to be realized through the slow-moving processes of gradual, evolutionary social and economic change. On the other hand, forcing the pace by political action of the type applied in Mexico or Argentina could open the way for excesses of the Cuban type, associated with Soviet intervention. It could lead to civil war even without foreign support of the revolutionary left. Venezuela, with its large petroleum revenues, is not a model for the poorer countries of the area. The cultural and social endowments of Uruguay and Costa Rica simply have no parallel elsewhere.

Some Latin American governments with a narrow political base are sensitive to popular pressures and undertake piecemeal reforms. But significant reform is barred by the difficulty of the problems to be solved or the reluctance of ruling groups to push essential measures. Most governments appear to be paralyzed for fear of offending propertied interests and precipitating action by vested interests in conjunction with the military on the one hand, or of encouraging the revolutionary left on the other. The feeling that radical change is foolhardy has doubtless been reinforced by the experience of reform-inclined executives in Brazil and Ecuador. In any case, the present leadership finds maintenance of the status quo the lesser of two evils.

The military may be torn between their traditional alignment with the propertied class and, on the other hand, their growing fear of revolution if reform lags, and in some cases the aspirations of personnel drawn from reform-minded sectors of society. However, the overriding fear may well be apprehension that once the mob is out of control its new leadership will liquidate the military. The tighter the lid has been held down, the stronger will be anticipations of reaction tending to take an extreme form. Thus, in the absence of a strong responsible civilian leadership to furnish a lead toward reform, the military may be incapable of playing a positive role. Whether the leadership is in the hands of reaction or reform, they tend to stand with constitutional authority.

The main organizational focus that commonly exists amongst the people in general is the trade unions; this sector of labor is subject to a confusion of impulses. A strong stand against Castro/communist penetration will be found amongst labor groups in Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and Uruguay, but in most of the countries these groups have no effective reformist leadership around which to rally. Meanwhile communist forces are strengthening their political thrust and gaining the confidence of revolutionary leftwing and campesino groups—although these groups are still limited in numbers. Throughout the area many labor organizations remain passive against a threat to government authority.

The example of Cuba has the effect more of reinforcing the determination of propertied groups to maintain a tighter control than of stimulating an impulse among them to sponsor reform. Their inclination to maintain the status quo is increased by their inability to appease popular pressures and to gain organized mass support through half measures and programs of change that are limited in scope. They may be further confirmed in this immobilism by their ability to count on military backing against radical reform movements. In these circumstances the propertied groups offer less than effective partnership in prosecuting reforms under the Alliance for Progress. They even offset foreign financial aid by removing their capital to safe havens abroad. Such reforms as they sponsor tend to be hesitant and badly executed, and in the long run the reforms can serve little purpose in achieving political stability.

In most of those countries where it lacks the force to take over the governments, the middle class still plays a disturbing role in the political system. It has grown rapidly in recent years with the expansion of the urban complex, greater educational opportunities, and the area-wide burst of economic growth following World War II. Usually dominant in the management of mass-based political parties, trade unions, campesino organizations, communications media, the educational system, and the military, middle class leaders have key but still subordinate roles in the society. They are inclined to be dissatisfied with their secondary position and relatively humble status. The rank and file of the middle class, dependent salaried personnel and small business men, is under pressure from inflation, the housing shortage, and monopoly pricing. Many are only slightly above a decent subsistence level. Thus the Latin American middle class is not comparable to the moderate, propertied middle class of either Western European or US tradition. Its loudest voices are chauvinistic, anti-capitalist, and resentful of a status quo that limits its horizons and seems to deny the possibility of rapid progress for the nation as a whole. The middle class in many countries of Latin America where it has not yet achieved dominance in the society represents a most serious danger to the present order of things.

Role of the Alliance for Progress

In the charged political atmosphere of these years, pressure for Alliance for Progress reforms may actually feed extremist strength since propertied groups are not ready to give way without a struggle to governments that propose rapid social change. Nevertheless, despite its immediate effect in stirring up political discords, the Alliance for Progress may carry with it means to resolve the conflict between middle class aspirations and mass hopes as against the status quo. Its goals presuppose a whole range of social operations that require the services of hundreds of thousands of members of the middle class, ranging from individuals with no more than vocational training to intellectuals skilled in the arts of communication, and also including the military. These tasks include services to labor unions, rural education, rural extension, cadastral surveys, conservation, cooperative organizations, as well as employment in the growing industrial and modern service sector. Most of the proposed reforms will be labor intensive since many individuals are needed to organize the new social and economic units and to act as intermediaries for the dissemination of techniques already well understood but not now practiced outside the urban areas or in a relatively small urban sector.

These civilian activities performed by the military would also spread the rule of law and order and increase respect for government in rural areas. All these programs for the military would have a dual purpose—they would directly contribute to the development of the country and to the improvement of living standards at the same time that they involved the military in the Alliance, increased popular respect for the military, and indoctrinated the military in the benefits of widespread socio-economic progress.

All Latin American armed forces will not be eager to participate in such development programs. They would prefer prestigious modern fighting equipment to bulldozers and surveying equipment; but the supply of military equipment can be made dependent at least in part on the execution of civil action programs. The military, especially the officers, may be unwilling to spend long periods of time in the backward rural areas, but some officers may find satisfying careers in civil action programs once they are started. In Bolivia many recruits would like to stay in the military if more than private’s pay were available for men engaged in civil action work.

Students and Teachers

To involve university students and teachers in the Alliance for Progress is difficult because these groups do not generally have continuing organizations with widespread support. Failure to enlist their support, however, may doom the program because these groups reject moderate reform and students provide the infantry for the violence of the revolutionary left. Moreover, in pursuing its aim of promoting self-help, one of the main targets of the Alliance must be education. Improvement in the quality and quantity of education can contribute powerfully to weaning students from extreme leftist philosophies if aid is directed to strengthening universities and faculties which have moderate political leanings. In general the politically moderate pro-United States universities are also those which do outstanding work in education—for example, the University of Concepcion (Chile), which is located in an agricultural area and emphasizes agricultural technology; the University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), which is noted for its advanced work in the social sciences; or the University of Valle (Colombia), which is reported to have a full-time faculty of 172 for a student body of 250 in medicine, 240 in engineering, 100 in economics, 50 in nursing, and 500 in part-time extension courses in the same fields.

There are many factors underlying the widespread leftist political action among students and teachers, of which some of the most important follow. Students almost universally attend only part-time, as does the faculty. The students and frequently even the faculty are not required to attend class. Students concentrate in law and liberal arts faculties far beyond the possibility of remunerative employment in activities other than politics. Students control the universities through their representation on governing councils. Facilities are usually lacking for study, especially libraries and laboratories.

Support from the Alliance can help to remove these basic conditions which lead to extremist political activity. In some cases new universities, including regional universities, could be established. New schools and faculties to strengthen studies in agricultural technology, social sciences, and other neglected disciplines could be created under the Alliance. Aid should also be directed to those institutions and faculties which include the fewest far left agitators.

How effective a serious approach to education can be in discouraging irresponsible political activity may be gauged from the University Center (faculty) of General Studies at the National University of Honduras. This faculty was recently organized to provide general subjects in preparation for the specialized faculties and to introduce needed new professional courses. A difficult curriculum and a disciplined approach to practical education are the hallmarks of the new faculty. In the elections of July, 1961, for leadership of the student federation the students of the new faculty ran up a large enough majority for the democratic candidates to offset the small majorities won by the communist-inclined candidates in each of the six other faculties, although the leftists still control the federation through the faculty representatives.

Careful distribution of aid to education can weaken the universities and faculties which are politically oriented to the left by building up universities and faculties which, because of their own participation in the Alliance, will tend to support it. There may, to be sure, be less political organization and activity in schools which devote themselves to preparing technical personnel for work in the development effort. Yet it is to be anticipated that, as these graduates grow into their work of construction and leadership, they will swell the ranks of the moderate, centrist minded groups on the political stage of the nation.

1. Source: Department of State, S/P Files: Lot 69 D 121, American Republics, 1962. Limited Official Use; Noforn. Drafted by Bushnell. Sent to the members of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Committee under cover of a February 9 memorandum from Rostow. It was intended as the basis for a discussion by the Committee at a meeting held on February 13; see Document 40.
2. This paper was prepared in response to questions raised by Research Memorandum RAR-6 of November 17, 1961, “Alliance for Progress Goals Linked with Presidential Upsets”, which described blocks to reform in countries with narrowly-based governments. [Footnote in the source text. RAR-6 suggested that the leaders of Latin American countries attempting to implement Alliance for Progress reforms had drawn the wrath of both the extreme right and revolutionary left in their nations. This resulted in destabilizing political pressures that led to the ouster of the Presidents of El Salvador, Brazil, and Ecuador. (Department of State, S/P Files: Lot 69 D 121, American Republics, 1961)]