Duke University Press The Hispanic American Historical Review

Professional Militarism in Twentieth-Century Peru: Historical and Theoretical Background
to the Golpe de Estado of 1968

Author(s): Frederick M. Nunn
Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Aug., 1979), pp. 391-417
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2513143
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Hispanic American Historical Review
59(3), 1979, 391-417
Copyright D 1979 by Duke University Press
Professional Militarism in Twentieth-Century

Peru: Historical and Theoretical Background
to the Golpe de Estado of 1968
FREDERICK M. NUNN
M /[OST discussions of background to the Peruvian golpe

de estado of 1968 and the regime it introduced em-
phasize the immediate causes. These stress the mili-
tary-APRA "rivalry," economic nationalism as a guiding doctrine of
officers educated at the Centro de Altos Estudios Militares (CAEM),
and rising hostility of officers toward civilian political leaders. Some
suggest a hazily defined "leftward drift" of the officer class toward a
neo-Marxist, corporatist position on socioeconomic development and
political organization based on elimination of the possibility of revolu-
tion from below.' Basic to this line of reasoning is the linking of na-
tional defense to economic development and internal security, owing
to fears that insurgent movements in the Andes during the 1960s might
repeat the Cuban experience, thus destroying the military profession
in the name of social justice. This may suffice in a general and imme-
diate sense, but it raises several questions that beg for answers. First,
was hostility toward civilian leaders linked solely to military-APRA
mutual distrust, or was it a historical theme with variations? Second,
were economic nationalism and developmentalism phenomena of re-
cent origin, or were they traditionally a part of military ideology?
Third, was interest in all phases of modernization symptomatic of a
* The author is Professor of History, Portland State University. A Social Sci-

ence Research Council fellowship made possible some of the research for this essay.
An earlier version was presented at the annual conference of the Society for Latin
American Studies, University of Manchester, April 5-7, 1978. Special thanks are
extended to Thomas M. Davies, Jr. and George D. E. Phillip for their comments.
1. See, for example, George D. E. Phillip, The Rise and Fall of the Peruvian
Military Radicals, 1968-1976 (London, 1978), ch. 1, "The Course of Peruvian
Politics, 1948-1968," pp. 13-52. This book contains a good bibliography of sec-
ondary sources dealing with recent Peru. See also Abraham F. Lowenthal, ed.,
The Peruvian Experiment: Continuity and Change under Military Rule (Prince-
ton, 1975), especially the editor's own "Peru's Ambiguous Revolution," pp. 3-43;
and Luigi Einaudi and Alfred Stepan, Latin American Institutional Development:
Changing Military Perspectives in Peru and Brazil (Santa Monica, 1971).
392 FIAHR AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
leftist stance, or was it based on professional priorities? Fourth, was
the Peruvian military-unlike its Argentine, Brazilian, and Chilean
counterparts-devoid of any ideology prior to the advent of U.S. in-
fluence; could professional militarism be manifested overnight? Fi-
nally, just how long have theories existed which proposed and justified
some kind of military role akin to that assumed in 1968?
The following pages seek to show that most of the essence of Peru-
vian professional militarism-the propensity to transform political in-
terest into action and to apply solutions based on a military ethos to
national problems-was produced by decade upon decade of tradi-
tional theories and doctrines first introduced into Peru by French train-
ing officers between 1896 and 1940, and nurtured by their pupils since
that time. Since the first decade of this century, there had been a
continuous conviction on the part of army officers that they had a social
role to perform, that the army was an agent of modernization, and that
it was capable of civilizing Peru. This conviction was the result of
the professionalism of the officer corps and the adaptation of ideas
(particularly those of Marshal Hubert Lyautey)2 brought to Peru by
French instructors and applied in the classroom, on maneuvers, and
in writing to the social, economic, political, and cultural situation of
the early twentieth century. An appreciation of Peruvian military
thought and self-perception reveals the durability of Franco-Peruvian
military theory. This, in turn, indicates an even greater, long-range
significance of the usually cited influences on military-civilian rela-
tions.
Bearing this in mind, the 1968 golpe cannot be considered a cul-
mination of trends toward "structural reform," for such an inference
presupposes military advocacy of a change in traditional structures.
With the possible exception of agrarian reform, this was never serious-
ly advocated by Peruvian officers, was only rarely mentioned in the
lore of the profession, and, despite a great deal of propaganda, did
2. See LouLis Hubert Conzalve Lyautey, "Du R6le social de l'officer," Revue
des Deux Mondes, Mar. 15, 1891, pp. 443-459 (hereafter cited as RDM). This
article was so controversial that, although published anonymously, it resulted in
the author's assignment to Indochina. A brief treatment of the French role in the
professionalization of the Peruvian army can be found in Victor Villanueva, EJer-
cito peruano: Del caudillaje andrquico al militarismo reformist (Lima, 1973), pp.
122-133. This passage has been anthologized in Brian Loveman and Thomas M.
Davies, Jr., eds., The Politics of Antipolitics: The Military in Latin America (Lin-
coln, 1978), pp. 79-85. See also Lyle N. McAlister, "Peru," in McAlister, Anthony
P. Maingot, and Robert A. Potash, The Military in Latin American Socio-Political
Evolution: Four Case Studies (Washington, D.C., 1970), pp. 21-83, for solid
historical, institutional background to the 1960s.
PROFESSIONAL MILITARISM DN PERU 393
not occur after 1968. Military-sponsored reforms did make changes

within a traditional structure; they replaced some components of the
structure and made it more elaborate. The agrarian reform program,
for example, dispossessed latifundistas and redistributed ownership; it
dramatically changed the rural land tenure system. But, however
innovative or radical the nationalization and expansive popular par-
ticipation schemes of the 1968-1975 administration of General Juan
Velasco Alvarado may appear in toto, they merely maintained a hier-
archical, pyramidic socioeconomic Peru and reinforced an authoritarian
polity. The theories applied by the 1968 golpistas are evident long
before the golpe, and the revolutionary aspects of contemporary Peru
have proved to be outward and rhetorical manifestations only, es-
pecially with the collapse of the Velasco ("radical") phase of the post-
1968 reform movement and the ensuing "moderate" administration of
General Francisco Morales Bermudez Cerruti.
An examination of pre-1968 writings of Peruvian army officers ex-
poses much of the theoretical base of the golpe and illustrates its his-
torical quality. By working backward, it is possible to detail and inter-
pret the military point of view regarding state, nation, and society in
a most illustrative way. In this manner, the more familiar arguments
of the recent past emerge vividly as products of continuity, not spon-
taneity. Furthermore, the military devotion to precedent, the basing of
potentially controversial opinions on accepted authorities, and a rigor-
ous conformism can be revealed as contributory to, not detracting from,
the spirit of reform. Moreover, Peru can be shown to be well within the
context of post-1964 regimes in South America, most notably those of
Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
Aside from Victor Villanueva, who writes from retirement (and
certainly not for official publications), Peru's best known and most
articulate military author has been General Edgardo Mercado Jarrin,
one of the leaders of the 1968 movement and a prominent member of
the regime until his retirement. Mercado was representative of the
hardline, nationalist-authoritarian group of army officers who would
find many of Velasco's policies too liberal. His best known piece of
writing prior to 1968 was an essay published in 1964, when he was
still a colonel, entitled "El ejercito de hoy y su proyeccio'n en nuestra
sociedad en periodo de transicion."3
3. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy y su proyeccion en nuestra sociedad en periodo

de transition, 1940-1965," Revista Militar del Per~u (Nov.-Dec. 1964), pp. 1-20
(hereafter cited as RMP). Inconsistencies in issue numeration and dating of jour-
nals make it advisable and no less helpful to date them by month of publication
only.
394 11AMI I AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
In this essay he claimed that the army was technologically and or-
ganizationally equal to the modern armies of other countries and more-
over had developed an advanced doctrine of national defense based on
internal security. Dismissing the debt Peru owed the United States,
Mercado claimed that the Peruvian army was a prime educator since
army-run vocational training schools in Lima, Piura, Arequipa, Cuzco,
and Iquitos trained conscripts from the surrounding regions for the
trades. Army schools were better, in quality, than their civilian coun-
terparts, more economically administered and they prepared men
for useful civilian lives, Mercado wrote. Closer examination of the facts
would indicate that these vocational schools had only a limited success
because linguistic and cultural barriers where Indian conscripts were
involved precluded any overwhelming improvement in their lot. But
Mercado made no note of this.
The colonel believed the army was like a business, moldedd in the
image of an industrial corporation .... The army has for many years
possessed [the] manpower equipped and trained to act successfully in
industry."4 Cost estimates, efficiency reports, organizational flow
charts, planning-these were all exemplary of the modern army. In
essence Mercado was suggesting that the army could run the entire
country, a country he viewed as one giant system, an organism in the
geopolitical sense.
The instrument for military management of national affairs was the
general staff. Since its origin in the 1904 French-founded Escuela
Superior de Guerra (ESG), the general staff had become an agent of
modernization more capable than any civilian counterpart. Changes
wrought in more recent times, since the Zarumnilla-Marafion war with
Ecuador (1941-1942), by increased United States military influence
during and after World War II, or owing to the founding of CAEM in
1950, had "facilitated the formation of a nucleus of officers with mod-
ern attitudes, new expertise, revolutionary spirit, social consciousness,
and inclined to maintain peace and order .. ."5
Military leadership in national affairs was justified by the critical
need for national defense. This was especially true in the 1960s when
Peru was menaced from within by insurrectionary forces feeding on
rural discontent and inspired by Fidel Castro's success in Cuba. The
officer class represented Peruvian totality; it knew collectively all the
4. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy," p. 6.

5. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy," pp. 7-9. Cf. Lyautey, "Du Role social," p.
443: "Learn well that amidst the ruins of hierarchies that were, there will be no
end to the need for social discipline, for respect, for abnegation-and that the army
will always be the best, if not the only school in which you can learn these virtues."
PROFESSIONAL MILITARISM IN PERU 395
country's regions, peculiarities, and problems because officers had to

deal with these on the local, as well as national and international, levels.
Like his Brazilian coevals, Mercado expanded the conception of de-
fense to include all national matters: internal and external security,
government, politics, and development. Policy planning and imple-
mentation became a joint military-civilian concern in the areas of com-
munication, transportation, agrarian reform, economic expansion, and
interior colonization. Adding to the army's credentials as collective
representative of Peruvian totality was the fact that it was an agent of
social mobility.
Like its counterpart in other Latin American countries, Mercado
emphasized the non-aristocratic background of the officer class. The
officers were of middle-class origin. The troops came from the lower
classes: workers and peasants, Indians and cholos. In the ranks,
guided by their officers, they attained true citizenship. They became
literate and studied civics. They learned personal hygiene, a trade,
initiative, group action, discipline, and "purposeful obedience." Such
was Mercado's limited concept of mobility. His temperance anent so-
cial mobility contrasts vividly with his claims that military service and
vocational training produced such striking changes among the lower
classes.
Further, the troops were imbued with the ideas of ability and merit
as avenues to advancement in life. Again their preceptors were their
superiors. In sum, Peruvian army conscripts became "colonists of the
future" and the "vanguard of the modernized sector."6 Mercado's ideal-
ized view of the conscripts' experiences (nothing new in Peruvian mili-
tary literature) was equaled only by his insistence that civilian at-
titudes toward the army recently had become quite positive, far more
so than when he graduated from the Escuela Militar de Chorrillos in
1940. Mercado's essay presumed that most of the improvements in the
army and its image had been accomplished since 1940. Few doubted
his sincerity, but many doubtless were wary of his optimism. These
later portions of his argument must be taken with a grain of salt, but
not his overall perception of the role of the profession. He certainly
was not alone in his optimism. Nor was his a voice crying in the wil-
derness on the subject of modernization. Obviously Peruvian officers
did not want to see the Andes become a second Sierra Maestra. Sim-
ilarly, it is not necessary to dwell on the obvious parallels between mili-
tarily conceived remedies for Peru and the party lines of APRA or Ac-
cion Popular, but one example of nonmilitary prescription for Peru's
6. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy," pp. 7-12.
396 HAHR I AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
future does merit mention as a link between military and civilian ad-
vocacy of development.
In 1960, the Arthur D. Little consulting firm of Boston made a report
to the Peruvian government. Digested and published in 1961 in the
Revista de la Escuela Superior de Guerra, it became a "semi-official"
tract.7 The report, presented to the second administration of Manuel
Prado y Ugarteche (1956-1962), stressed national planning, state di-
rection of development, penetration of the interior, fiscal reforms,
regional planning and administration of specific projects, comprehen-
sive industrial and labor legislation, and government efforts in the
area of social mobilization. Although, in the opinion of many, it did
not go far enough in giving outright control to the army, this systemic,
systematic approach appealed to Mercado. It attracted his colleagues,
Carlos Bobbio Centurion, Francisco Morales Bermidez, Gaston
Ibafez O'Brien, Cristian Sanchez Campos, and Napoleon Urbina Aban-
to. These members of the nationalist-authoritarian wing of the 1968
golpista group clearly saw an expanded military role as crucial to each
and every point mentioned in the Little report.
Written during the 1962-1963 military interregnum, and while the
army struggled against guerrilla forces in the mountains, Lieutenant
Colonel Bobbio's "`Que ejercito necesita el Peru?" is less a set of
thoughtful prescriptions for the country than an exhortation to fellow
officers to concentrate on internal affairs. "What we need," he wrote,
"is an army like no other in the world."8 In blunt terms Bobbio con-
trasted the Peruvian army with those of the United States, the Soviet
Union, and France (the latter in the wake of the Algerian crisis).
Peru's army had a role to play far beyond that of defense against ex-
ternal threats, he concluded, and for that reason he compared the
armies of Israel and Switzerland with Peru's by virtue of their domestic
responsibilities. Oddly enough he lumped the armies of Brazil, Ar-
gentina, and Chile with those of the United States, the Soviet Union,
and France as having no internal role. Either he did not foresee the
institutional golpe as a South American phenomenon, or, more possibly,
in an effort to convince his readers, he chose to emphasize and exag-
gerate Peruvian uniqueness. The Peruvian army, he believed, should
7. "Programa de desarrollo industrial y regional del Perui," Revista de la

Escuela Superior de Guerra (Apr.-June 1961), pp. 7-38 (hereafter cited as
RESG). It did not please most members of the army who served prominently
under Velasco, for unlike a contemporary CAEM project, it called for civilian con-
trol of all programs.
8. Bobbio, "jQue ejercito necesita el Peru'?" RMP (Mar.-Apr. 1963), p. 134.
(Bobbio's italics.)
pay special attention to agrarian reform, irrigation projects, public

health, literacy programs, communications, and transportation. The
state in turn, ought to utilize military expertise in these activities for
the express purpose of mobilizing the populace against the threat of
communism.9 As blunt as he was, Bobbio only recommended and ex-
horted. As critical as he was of civilian institutions, the Church,
political parties, and the bureaucracy, he did not go as far as Mer-
cado in plumping for a permanent military leadership role.
In contrast to Bobbio's enthusiasm for military participation was
the calm, terse approach of the engineer Colonel Morales Bermudez
in "Planeamiento estrategico."10 Like Bobbio and Mercado, he stressed
the development of the general staff as evidence of growing army
organizational capabilities. He noted that the major reorganization of
the general staff in 1959-precisely when it came under the heavy in-
fluence of CAEM graduates-had created a "research and develop-
ment team" whose work allowed "the high command to guide the army
toward a level of efficiency necessary for the fulfillment of its mis-
sion."'1 Although seemingly innocuous (and much of military litera-
ture is of necessity couched in innocuous terminology), Morales Ber-
mnidez' definition of the "mission" is significant. It was to "maintain
the internal order of the republic" and through planning to "contribute
to national development." Thus the developmental role was linked
to the necessity for internal order and not to popular participation.
Most of the Velasco government's programs, despite outward appear-
ances were designed with this in mind.
"Comando y delegation de autoridad y responsabilidad," by Lieu-
tenant Colonel Ibafiez,'2 stressed the army's expertise in organizational
techniques. Drawing upon his work as chief of the ESG's Department
of Research, Planning, Evaluation, and Supervision, he argued that
organized activity depended on the coordination of three stages of
planning and action: the determinative, the executive, the interpre-
tive. The theory is simplistic, for it presumes that orders are given
and carried out in all spheres of life; then the results are properly
evaluated and new determinations for action are made. It is so sim-
plistic that it is ominous. Much of what happened in Peru between
1968 and 1975 testifies to that, notably the failure of agrarian reform
9. Bobbio, "eQue ejercito?" pp. 132-136 passim.

10. Morales Bermuidez, "Planeamiento estrategico," RESG (Jan.-Mar. 1963),
pp. 7-12.
11. Morales Bermuidez, "Planeamiento estrategico," p. 7.
12. Ibafiez, "Comando y delegation de autoridad y responsabilidad," RESG
(Apr.-June 1965), pp. 9-26.
398 HAHR AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
to make the country self-sufficient in the production of foodstuffs. The
fact that individual nationalist-authoritarians like Bobbio did not con-
trol all aspects of planning and execution does not detract from the
fact that the militarization of administrative techniques was pervasive.
Equally evocative of post-1968 Peru is another essay published in
1963. In "El comite de asuntos civiles: Nexo civil-militar,"'3 Colonel
Ciistian Sa'nchez wrote of a military-civilian fusion much like the fu-
ture Sistema Nacional de Apoyo a la Movilizacion Social (SINAMOS)
which would be set in motion in 1971. Sa'nchez minced no words in
prescribing for Peru's backwardness. Committees composed of officers
and civilians could serve as contact points for social mobilization and
economic development. The objectives of these committees would be
"to furnish assistance to the citizenry in order to improve the standard
of living and reduce suffering; with the end, among others, of earning
for the armed forces the respect, support, and loyalty of the peo-
ple ...."14 At all levels, staff officers and field commanders, and
civilian technicians and administrators would plan, then supervise civic
action programs. Military-civilian cooperation thus became the agent
of both development and national security.
These themes were reemphasized in 1967 by Colonel Napoleon
Urbina.15 Aware of Peru's staggering topography, and its lack of ade-
quate transportation and communications, Urbina called for the de-
velopment of natural resource exploitation at the regional level. This
he saw as the initial step toward centrally coordinated development
and integration. Urbina claimed that military and civilian authority
must coincide in areas undergoing planned development. The army,
he believed, possessed all the necessary talent for his proposal. If the
army could not control outright Peru's economic development, at least
it could oversee it.
Just before the overthrow of Fernando Belauinde Terry, army elitists
clearly construed defense as more than worrying about conventional
conflict with limitrophe states. National defense also meant the pro-
tection of the fatherland from its enemies within who either sought to
radically transform it (with or without emphasis on Cuban models),
or who were content with conditions that appeared to foster radical
causes. Research. planning, and administration at a "military-civilian
13. Sanchez, "El comnite de asuntos civiles: Nexo civil-militar," RESG (Oct.-
Dec. 1963), pp. 43-49. See also, Angel Valdivia Morriberon, "El estado y la
planificacion," RESG (Oct.-Dec. 1963), pp. 113-120.
14. Sa'nchez, "El comite de asuntos civiles," p. 44.
15. Urbina, "La regionalizacion del pais y el desarrollo economico" RESG
(Jan.-Mar. 1967), pp. 7-13.
staff level," free from partisan bickering, based on modern, military

organizational concepts, were seen as the methods to achieve domestic
security and economic development, hence total defense. The army-
the armed forces establishment-was seen as a civilizing institution,
an educator, and an integrator and mobilizer of Peruvians. Such were
the contours of professional militarism in 1968 when the armed forces
seized power.
Almost none of the views expressed by the elite of the 1960s are
remarkable for their originality. Few of their post-1968 programs
aside from agrarian reform had not been discussed previously. Cumu-
lative effects of Zarumilla-Marafion, U.S. largess, the Cuban Revolu-
tion, Andean insurgency, Cold War issues, technological innovations,
Peru's social, economic, and political woes, and the rise of the CAEM-
general staff surely influenced the way in which the military elite
dealt with the issues; but the issues themselves were simply not that
new. Pre-World War II military literature reveals the early develop-
ment of a military approach to national problems. The era usually
seen as most significant in the formulation of a military ideology is
that of the Great Depression.
By 1933 the Peruvian economy was depressed. With domestic in-
dustry in the strictly developmental stage, the country's export economy
base was one of plantation and mine. Market declines, as well as
political conflict, contributed to Peru's 1932-1933 turbulence. It was
in the 1930s that APRA and the army first confronted each other, most
dramatically in 1932 and 1933.
Between the earliest overt confrontations with APRA and the
founding of CAEM almost two decades later, members of the officer
class concerned themselves with politics, social change, and economic
transformation as integral phenomena. Lack of concentrated effort
to persuade civilians to take action or to mount a reformist military
government should not indicate lack of awareness of Peru's national
shortcomings. The "Indian question" (rarely asked properly, rarely
answered adequately), education, integration, national pride, devel-
opment in all its senses-these all were discussed in print, and no-
where better than in a 1933 essay by Lieutenant Colonel Manuel
Morla Concha, entitled "Funcion social del ejercito peruano en la or-
granizacion de la sociedad."'6
Morla's essay is the most important piece of pre-World War II
Peruvian military literature. It is at once reminiscent of Lyautey's 1891
16. Morla, "Funcion social del ejercito en la organization de la nacionalidad,"

RMP (Oct. 1933), pp. 843-872.
"Du Role social de l'officier" and something more than a precedent for
the essays of the 1950s and 1960s. The comparability of Lyautey's,
Morla's, and Mercado's titles should not go unnoticed; neither should
the fact that when Morla wrote, French officers had been training
Peruvian officers for nearly four decades. Morla's thesis, that the army
was an important institution in countries where nationalism and na-
tionhood were late in developing, was not new by anyone's standards.
Nor was his obvious borrowing from Lyautey. Most of his predeces-
sors, contemporaries, and heirs owe much to the marshal who labored
long for France in Indochina, Madagascar, and Morocco, not to men-
tion metropolitan France itself.
Morla adopted Lyautey's ideas from the controversial article of
1891 and from the less controversial "Du Role colonial de 1'armlee,"'
and applied them to Peruvian circumstances. He also discussed ques-
tions in 1933 that had been raised first by French observers, then by
Peruvians themselves. In doing so, he provided an important link be-
tween past and future.
The army was an agent of culture (in the Lyauteyan sense of
civics, patriotic orientation, and literacy) and of democracy (in the
sense of equality of opportunity in the ranks). Obligatory military ser-
vice permitted the common man to be educated and trained, trans-
formed from a "vegetating mass" into a productive citizen. Morla in-
sisted that military service could "tie the country together" through
the shared experience of a structured institution. This was a direct
application of Lyautey's role social to Peru.
Addressing the Indian question, Morla wrote that the indigenous
Peruvian who served his tour of duty became integrated into "national
life," was given the rudiments of an education, was taught personal
hygiene, but was allowed to retain the "positive attributes" of his
heritage. Military service, in short, worked miracles; a far cry from
reality, for if it had, Mercado would not have had to restate the case
so forcefully three decades later. The barracks was a school, he the-
orized, and the army's mission was one of civilization, "una mission
civilizadora."'8 Already indebted to "Du Role social," Morla then pro-
ceeded to apply "Du Role colonial" to Peru.
Agricultural colonies and cooperatives under military supervision,
he thought, were ideal for settlement of frontier areas that were unin-
17. Lyautey, "Du Role colonial de l'armnee," RDM (Jan. 1, 1900), pp. 308-
329. This signed article applied the role social to the work of nation-building in
the French colonies.
18. Morla, "Funcion social," pp. 854-862 passim.
corporated into the national life. Roads, railroads, and airlines linking
the colonies and the frontier to the populated areas would serve both
military and commercial purposes. The army engineers were best
qualified to provide necessary leadership and expertise, and army-
trained "legions" would "forge nationhood" and eliminate regionalism.
In this way the army would break the cultural and topographical bar-
riers to national unity and would stimulate agricultural and mineral
output.19 Colonization, railroads, highways, airplanes, and the army
engineers would make a modern country of Peru.
In addition, the kind of civic action envisaged by Morla would pro-
mote social discipline, respect for authority, and moral standards.20
Therein lay the essence of twentieth-century Peruvian army officer-
class thought. Since its inception as a professional group, the officer
class has never held that the "civilizing mission" is to elevate the lower
classes to a higher social status. Order, hierarchy, authority, discipline,
and improved moral standards have never been linked to radical so-
cial change in military literature; such qualities simply do not decline
with modernization or civilization-not if the alrmy has anything to
do with it. The 1968 assumption of a reformist position which included
reforms at the expense of an "anachronistic oligarchy" and a "frac-
tious middle sector" in no way meant that the officer class constituted
an apostolate of upheaval, either in Morla's thought or that of Mercado.
Morla's essay stands also as a counterattack to APRA's early, ex-
tremist schemes for reform, and those who accompanied him in print
during the 1930s expanded on his counterattack much as those of the
1960s would expand on the inadequate proposals of Arthur D. Little.
Both eras are characterized by professional cynicism based on civilian
failures and the potential danger of extremism in the face of under-
development.
Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Portugal, in a 1933 essay, lamented Peru's
inadequate surface transportation and communications. He too tied
military interests to commercial ones. Portugal wrote that World War
I had proved the necessity of a modern network of highways in Eu-
rope for the transportation of troops and provisions. This was equally
true in South America.21 Captain Mauricio Barbis also argued for a
better road system to facilitate colonization, commerce, and defense.22
19. Ibid., pp. 863-864.

20. Ibid., pp. 864-872 passim.
21. Poltugal, "Las vias de comunicacion desde el punto de vista del comercio
y de los problems militares," RMP (Aug. 1933), pp. 659-664.
22. Barbis, "El ejercito y la colonization de la montafia," RMP (Dec. 1933),
pp. 1239-1242.
Barbis called the army "the sentinel of the fatherland: its calling is to
take up the reins of national development."
Early the next year Colonel Jorge Vargas, in "Charla sobre el ejer-
cito,"23 told the good burghers of Cuzco, his fellow Rotarians, of the
army's contributions to national greatness. This bit of service club pro-
fessional boosterism must have been repeated wherever Rotarians
gathered in the Andes for food and fellowship, but alas, only Vargas'
contribution remains as an example. He tied national defense to in-
ternal development, education, communications, and the redemption
of the Indian. Like those before and after him, he discussed tersely
the army's social role as a peacetime obligation; where else, he asked,
but in the army, did Indians have an opportunity to become literate,
disciplined, healthy citizens?
Essays published in 1935 by Captain Cesar Velarde and Lieutenant
Colonel Alejandro Aliaga reconfirmed Lyautey's influence in Peru.
The first of Velarde's two essays attacked excessive individualism in
civilian society by calling upon Peruvians to be mindful of their ob-
ligations to their fellow citizens.24 The army, he thought, set a proper
example of corporate responsibility. Civilians ought to emulate the
discipline and sobriety of men in uniform as well as the mutual respect
of subalterns and those in positions of authority. Velarde believed
that Peru needed social and cultural integrity and that the army was
the prime agent of integration because of obligatory military service.
This essay is one of the earliest instances in which a military author
made use of Tu'pac Amaru's eighteenth-century admonition: "Ama
llulla, ama sua, ama ccella,"25 and the essay was written, of course,
some three decades before he became an official culture hero and
symbol of the agrarian reform program.
Velarde's second essay of the year was another concise call for an
expanded military role, in this case as educator of the lower classes.26
He claimed that sixty percent of each year's draftees were illiterate and
that some 80,000 men had learned to read and write, absorbed the ele-
ments of civics, and learned the rudiments of personal hygiene in the
years since 1912. He supported Vargas' concept of a military "peace-
time obligation."
23. Vargas, "Charla sobre el ejercito," RMP (Jan. 1934), pp. 103-110.
24. Velarde, "ISuperacion, superacion!" RMP (Jan. 1935), pp. 105-111.
25. "Do not lie, do not steal, do not be lazy." Lyautey's "Du Role social" was
translated by Colonel J. M. Perez Manzanares and published as "Papel social del
oficial," RMP (Mar. 1934), pp. 285-309.
26. Velarde, "La instruction civil en el ejercito," RMP (Nov. 1935), pp. 2119-
2121.
Velarde's superior, Colonel Alejandro Aliaga, echoed these argu-

ments and those of Lyautey, indicating an adherence in Peru to a
standard military tenet: reliance on precedent. In his "Papel social
del ejercito en tiempo de paz,"27 he hewed to the Morla-Vargas-
Velarde line. The army was the school of "civic spirit" and the in-
culcator of discipline, loyalty, and honor; the army was the integrator
of Indian, cholo, mulatto, Negro, oriental, and white. It was the pro-
vider of technical expertise to the country. As if this were not enough,
the army was Peru's only remaining counterpoise to "los tenta'culos del
monstruo comunista."28 Thus, APRA was not the only political force
feared by army officers, not the only justification for the continued
existence of conscription.
Wariness of partisan politics and lack of consensus kept officers
from heatedly advocating military leadership as the solution to all
national problems. So did the presence of the largely misunderstood,
but highly talented Marshal Oscar Benavides, president from 1933 to
1939, whose military-political aura was akin to that of the Duke of
Caxias, Carlos ba'fiez del Campo, and Agustin Justo. A soldier and an
aristocrat, he was able to keep the army out of politics by keeping him-
self in. He clearly saw the relationships between internal security and
development, and strove to modernize Peru. During his presidency,
the Revista Militar del Peru' espoused a developmental role but warned
against political meddling.
In 1936 (the year Benavides voided the presidential election and
announced he would serve the full six-year term of an elected presi-
dent), Major Enrique B3arreto treated two subjects that would become
prominent in the literature of the 1960s: the role of the general staff
and the need for industrial development. He wrote that the army
must not be affected by political squabbling if it were to provide ade-
quately for national defense. By implication, partisan politics and
parliamentary government were detrimental to both the public interest
and to national defense-a standard position among South American
and European military figures of the time. Moreover, Barreto thought,
the general staff in peacetime could serve as the perfect coordinating
agency for economic development and social mobilization. Therefore,
the general staff should be given peacetime responsibility and author-
ity, and it should have access to all necessary data on industry, agri-
27. Aliaga, "Papel social del ejercito en tiempo de paz," RMP (Dec. 1935),
pp. 2309-2315.
28. Ibid.,p.2313.
culture, population, transportation, and communications in order to be
permanently prepared for war.29
In their 1936 editorial "La political internal y el ejercito," the editors
of the Revista Militar del Peru' opined that "the army is the purest
condensation and experience of the national soul" (with nary an ac-
knowledgement to either Vigny or Seeckt).30 "To menace the father-
land is to threaten the army," they reasoned, in somewhat convoluted
fashion, admonishing their readers to think of "the fatherland above
all," and to eschew partisan politics. They also cautioned civilians
against meddling in army affairs, a clear response to APRA's efforts
to subvert discipline, incite soldiers to disobey orders, and divide the
officer class against itself.3' The army was thus stationed above divi-
sive politics and placed on the same level as the fatherland, the state,
the nation.
There are few examples in military literature of direct high level
appeals to civilians for their support and goodwill. The best is the
printed version of War Minister Federico Hurtado's radio address of
March 24, 1938.32 General Hurtado went on a national hookup to
present the army's viewpoint on political affairs and touched on the
themes discussed by many of his 1930s' predecessors. "The army,"
he said, not surprisingly, was the "most noble symbol of the nation."
International respect and national security were maintained only by
preparedness for conflict, and preparedness could be assured only
through obligatory military service which educated and civilized the
common citizen. The army remained above politics and parties. Hur-
tado's views were by no means original. They constitute a summation
of Peruvian adaptations of attitudes prevalent in Europe and South
America since the late nineteenth century. lie simply may have been
anticipating an immediate future without the army's caudillo in the
29. Enrique Barreto, "Rol de los estados mayores en tiempo de paz," RMP
(Aug. 1936), pp. 1381-1398.
30. Cf. Alfred de Vigny, The Military Necessity (originally Servitude et
grandeurs militaires [Paris, 1935]), trans. by Humphrey Hare (London, 1953), ch.
2, p. 14: "The army is a nation within the nation ...." and Hans von Seeckt,
Thoughts of a Soldier (originally Gedanken eines Soldaten [Leipzig, 1928]), trans.
by Gilbert Waterhouse (London, 1930), p. 77: "The army should become a state
within the state . . . it should itself become the purest image of the state."
31. "La politica interna y el ejercito," RAMP (Sept. 1936), pp. 1577-1581.
Information on APRA-army relations during this period can be found in Davies,
Jr. and Villanueva, eds., Trescientos documentos para la historia del Apra (Lima,
1979).
32. Hurtado, "El ministro de la guerra se dirige a la cuidadania," RMP (Mar.
1938), pp. i-xxii. Hurtado also served as one of three appointed vice presidents
under Benavides.
presidential palace. Many of the leaders of the 1968 movement were

subalterns or cadets at this time and they must have been aware of the
profession's delicate position concerning involvement or non-involve-
ment in civilian affairs. To many, total abstention must have been
wishful thinking; to others, of course, it was out of the question.
The Chorrillos graduating class of December 1938 was treated to a
commencement address by the Marshal-President himself. Benavides
cautiously summed up points of view expressed in the 1930s in the fol-
lowing manner: "It is not enough for the army officer to possess the
highest of military virtues, to enrich constantly his knowledge, and to
train and drill soldiers and citizens for the defense of the fatherland.
Simultaneously he plays a social and civilizing role. He improves and
brings nearer a future for a race which, thanks in great part to military
service, we have incorporated into the functional life of the nation."33
Wishful thinking and hyperbole, beyond doubt, heady stuff to be sure,
Benavides' words certainly encouraged those graduates to perceive
themselves as more than uniformed bureaucrats. They contrast sharp-
ly with those spoken the next year by the newly elected president,
Manuel Prado y Ugarteche, symbol of the limefio oligarchy, and a man
indifferent to the developmental role of the army.
Prado's charge to the December 1939 graduating class praised the
army for its glorious past, stated that modern science and technology
were important components of military power, and concluded that the
armed forces ought to have accurate information on natural resources,
economic potential, and manpower in case of war. These were safe
words in late 1939,34 and he ventured no further. He saw no "civilizing
mission," no "noble symbol of the nation," no "perfect condensation
and experience of the national soul," no "counterpoise to the tentacles
of the communist monster," no transforming of the "vegetating mass"
of Indians and cholos. In short, to Prado and his kind, the army existed
to fight wars and, only if all else failed, to keep the right kind of people
in power and the wrong kind of people at bay. Peru's shift from mar-
shal-aristocrat to civilian-oligarch was more than coincidental. As the
turbulent decade drew to a close, French officers, representatives of
the ideals of Lyautey who continued the Franco-Peruvian military tie
established in 1896, returned to their own patrie in a vain attempt to
defend it from the German invaders. Soon the Peruvian army, in con-
33. Benavides, "Discurso del president de la republican en la ceremonia de

clausura del afio academic de la escuela militar," RMP (Jan. 1939), pp. i-vi.
34. Prado y Ugarteche, "Discurso en la clausura del afio academic de la
escuela militar," RMP (Jan. 1940), pp. i-vi.
406 17Amp I AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
trast, would meet with success in the field, in the war with Ecuador,
yet would chafe at its government's decision not to continue the con-
flict until Ecuador was totally defeated. Such counterpoint helped
to frame the outlook on military-civilian relations in the Chorrillos
promociones of the era. Their national view combined ambition, frus-
tration, and continued introspection.
By the time of World War II and Zarumilla-Marafixon, the officer
class, while hardly committed to military direction of national affairs,
clearly displayed a social consciousness and more than a touch of pro-
fessional militarism. But it would be just as much of an error to ascribe
the genesis of these characteristics to the politically troublous 1930s
as it has been to ascribe them to post-World War II causes. Profes-
sional militarism is based on the inclination to apply military solutions
to national problems, a distaste for partisan politics, and belief in a
social function. All of these found ample expression in Peruvian mili-
tary literature nearly three decades before Morla wrote "Funcion so-
cial," before the army and APRA entered into conflict, and before
Oscar Benavides came to power. The military ideology of the golpe of
1968 has an even more extensive historical background.
The earliest mention of the mission civilizadora, for example, ap-
pears in a brief note of 1904 published in Boletin del Ministerio de
Guerra y Marina, forerunner of Revista AMilitar del Peru', by Lieutenant
Colonel Gabriel Velarde Alvarez. In "Instruccion civil del soldado,"35
Velarde went straight to the point by reminding his readers of a de-
cree of 1888 establishing civics programs in the barracks. Troops were
to be taught the elements of history, government, reading, and writing.
Conscripts and volunteers were thus to be civilized. But the program
had languished and the army suffered as a result.
Civilized men, not ignorant, illiterate peasants, won the German
victories of 1870-1871, he claimed. "Books, maps and blackboards"
won battles as much as hordes of soldiers. Too long had the Indians
been kept in a primitive state by the gamonales. As indirect a criticism
of the land tenure system as this was, it carried a challenge to lati-
fundia. Rather the army, despite Peru's agrarian system, would mold
citizens. Indians formed the backbone of the soldiering citizenry, and
what better mission than to integrate them into the national life
through military service. "What more meritorious labor than to trans-
form the unfortunate helot into a civilized being; the miserable slave
of tyranny and superstition into a free man, conscious of his rights and
35. Velarde Alvarez, "Instrmccion civil del soldado," Boletin del Ministerio de
Guerra y Marina (Oct. 1904), pp. 843-845 (hereafter cited as BMGM).
duties; the victims of their own vices and ignorance into leaders, and
perhaps even saviors of their own people."36 Such was the stuff with
which a military ideology was forged early in this century when the
French dominated Peruvian military preparation.
Prior to 1914-year of the overthrow of President Guillermo Bil-
linghurst and the arrival of Luis Sanchez Cerro and Oscar Benavides
on the politico-military scene, and year of the outbreak of war in Eu-
rope-there were seven firm examples of officer-class interest in a
civilizing mission, and many others of peripheral import. Each is iden-
tifiable by its reliance on arguments presented by Lyautey in his es-
says of 1891 and 1900, and transmitted via the French officers who
taught in the Escuela Militar and in the Escuela Superior de Guerra.
The ideas found in each would be reiterated for decades.
Nothing of merit followed Velarde's note until 1910, when J. C.
Guerrero published two essays, both entitled "La educacion e instruc-
cion de la raza indigena en las escuelas civiles de tropa." The civics
program of which Velarde had spoken was still languishing and, like
Velarde, Guerrero found this situation intolerable. "Let us educate the
Indian," he wrote, "and we will have a citizen; once we have citizens,
then we will have a nation."37 Later that year Lieutenant A. Escalona
continued in this direction, pleading for drill and instruction of Indian
troops in the Quechua language and for classes in which the officer
class could learn Quechua in order to better communicate with the
Ildian.38 The experience of military life transmitted through the
Quechua language (which dialect was not stipulated) would there-
fore integrate the Indian into the mainstream of national life. Then
Major David Fernandini published the first of three 1911 articles firm-
ly establishing the trend.
Fernandini consistently emphasized the importance of military life
for the masses. His first two essays,39 dealt in general terms with what
he called a "wholesome barracks-life experience." These were fol-
36. Ibid., p. 844.

37. Cuerrero, "La education e instruction de la raza indigena en las escuelas
civiles de tropa," BMGM (June 1910), pp. 666-668; and (July 1910), pp. 713-
714.
38. Escalona, "El kechua y su importancia para los oficiales peruanos," BMGM
(Dec. 1910), pp. 1296-1298. This and other briefs for officer language training
anticipate attempts made after 1968 to make a bilingual nation of Peru. Owing to
the fact that there are at least five distinct dialects spoken in the Andes, intercul-
tural communication, recognized as a barrier to national integration, remained one
in the 1970s, military claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
39. Fernandini, "Conveniente reglamentacion del servicio militar obligatorio,"
BMGM (Feb. 1911), pp. 181-196; and "El ciudadano y sus deberes para con la
patria," BMGM (Mar. 1911), pp. 314-318.
lowed by Captain Nicanor Beunza's, "Servicio militar en el Peru,"
which sharply criticized the extant obligatory service law and its ap-
plication. Beunza accused a "brutalizing trinity of provincial governor,
judge, and priest" of malfeasance and incompetence in administration
of record keeping. The Indian had to be wrested from the control of
these exploiters before he could become a useful citizen of Peru through
military service,40 but the best was yet to come.
Major Fernandini's third essay of the year dealt with the difficulties
of inculcating patriotism and "love of country" in the conscripts. He
made no mention of the army's inglorious historical record, but in-
sisted that an appreciation of the country's history through study of
its heroes was necessary for the soldier. He suggested that training of-
ficers stress the role of TUipac Amaru as precursor to independence in
order that Indian and cholo identify with Peru's past-and present.
Once the masses were thus imbued with love of country and patriotic
verve, he believed optimistically, "then we can say 'Banzai Peru!' "41
This was a truly hyperbolic reaction in a country where the military
past was dismal, but where young officers had great hopes for their
professional future.
Major Carlos Echazui was equally outspoken in "La discipline mili-
tar,' albeit for a different reason. The major sought to impede civilian
meddling in military affairs, and conversely military involvement in
anything but strictly professional questions. He juxtaposed democracy
with authoritarianism and civil liberties with military discipline: "The
officer may think what he wishes, but more than anything he must
obey .... Respect for civil liberties and freedom of speech, which so-
ciety maintains by law, is replaced in the military by respect, blind
obedience, and denial of the right to question authority or actions of
those in authority."42 Abnegation, service to the fatherland, and sacri-
fice governed military life. Echazi's adoption of these arguments ad-
vanced in French military literature helped to convince his fellows that
their way was the more patriotic, organized, disciplined, productive,
and progressive.43 The drawing of the line between military and civil-
ian life had begun.
40. Beunza, "Servicio military en el Peru'," BMGM (Mar. 1911), pp. 255-263.
Beunza's "brutalizing trinity" was, of course, copied directly from Manuel Gon-
zalez Prada's 1888 "Discurso en el Politeama." See Piginas libres, 2 vols. (Lima
1966), I, 63-64.
41. Fernandini, "Medio de desarrollar el amor a la patria," BMGM (May
1911), pp. 564-570.
42. Echazii, "La discipline militar," BMGM (Dec. 1914), pp. 1451-1455.
43. As examples, see Lieutenant C. Riet, "L'Arme'e moralisatrice," Journal des
Soon after World War I a wave of antimilitary thought swept the

West. The horrors of the war, the brutality of combat, the calculating
behavior of the German warlords, allegations of profiteering by arma-
ments magnates, events in Russia, economic crises, and the dislocation
of a generation led many political leaders to see disarmament as the
way to achieve the lasting peace. In Latin America antimilitarism was
seen as the way to keep restless political officers from developing a
wider range of interests and responsibilities. This, of course, prompted
a military response in the form of renewed interests and widening of
responsibilities, at first in a defensive way, then in a more aggressive
and belligerent manner.
In an essay published in 1919, General Jose Marava stated that the
army was both "useful and necessary." It contributed to national prog-
ress by spreading modern technology, and it prepared conscripts for
the trades and disseminated culture in the barracks.44 The tone of this
essay was mild when compared to the 1914 and prewar arguments of
Fernandini and Echazu', Velarde and Escalona. A 1919 editorial quoted
President Augusto Legula (just beginning his 1919-1930 government, the
oncenio): "My government will spare no effort whatsoever to accom-
plish everything possible relevant to the flourishing of our armed forces,
for they constitute the basis, not only of national defense, but of na-
tional growth."45 Leguia meant to mollify, to coopt, for he knew he
would need military support. The military response, voiced in the ed-
itolials and articles of the Boletin del AMinisterio de Guerra y Marina
did not disappoint him-at first. Military writers stressed the army's
political neutrality in the struggle which brought Leguia to power;
but they also stressed strong support for governments which repre-
Sciences Militaires/Revue Militaire Fran.aise (May 1896), pp. 255-274 (despite

reversal of title order and change to biweekly status in 1908, hereafter cited as
JSM/RMF); Henri Baraude, "L'Armee en 1900: Ce qu'elle devrait etre," JSM/
RMF (June 1899), pp. 395-405, and (July 1899), pp. 46-56; Capitaine Gerard,
"Instruction et education militaires," JSM/RMF (Feb. 1903), pp. 250-268;
Georges Duruy, "L'Officier educateur," JSM/RMF (Mar. 1904), pp. 360-368;
Capitaine M. Demongeot, "L'Mducation de la solidaritee dans l'armee," JSM/RMF
1904), pp. 78-97, and (Nov. 1904), pp. 248-257; Lieutenant Lauth, "Nos soldats:
Paysan, ouvrier, employee," JSM/RMF (Nov. 1906), pp. 257-279; Dr. Viguier,
"Role de l'officier en matiere d'hygiene," JSM/RMF (Apr. 1907), pp. 112-137;
Capitaine M. Demongeot, "L'Mducation de la solidaritee dans l'armee," JSM/RMF
(Feb. 1910), pp. 272-286; and General Langlois, "Le Haut commandment," RDM
(Sept. 1, 1911), pp. 764-793.
44. Marava, "El ejercito y la armada y la cultura nacional," BMGM (June-
July 1919), pp. 799-817.
410 HAR I AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
sented "the will of the people." Army editors and authors denied sub-
servience to "the oligarchy," "arbitrary government," or any "specific
administration," and claimed the army represented "the nation" and "the
people." During the oncenio, Legulfa introduced officers to the reali-
ties of partisan politics and to the extreme difficulty of representing
the will of the people. This was good training for the turbulent decade
to come.
Midway through the oncenio, military writers once again assumed
the offensive, reacting to Legufia's meddling in military internal matters
and his failure to treat the army in the style to which it wanted to be-
come accustomed. The Francophile Lieutenant Colonel Jose M. Perez
Manzanares published his translation of an essay by General Bernard
Serrigny entitled "La organization de la nacion para el tiempo de
guerra."46 This treatise was an appeal for military-civilian collabora-
tion in preparation for and conduct of war. French insistence on close
military-civilian relations was thus proposed in Peru for carefully de-
fined national defense purposes. Once linked to social and develop-
ment roles and to internal security questions in the period following
1930, the theoretical foundation of the 1968 golpe would be laid. Once
bound to military supervision of social and economic reform programs
and elimination of causes of popular discontent, that foundation would
be solid.
Military ideology found additional expression during the oncenio.
Captain Andres Escalona, concerned about the number of conscripts
fleeing the barracks, suggested that inductees be introduced grad-
ually to military life, "broken in," then kept busy. "Let them work,
play, sing and laugh; in sum, let them enjoy themselves, but do not let
them think."47 He concluded that this scheme would promote esprit
de corps-a questionable conclusion, at best.
General Frangois Pellegrin's "El c.a.e.m. de Francia" (another of
Perez Manzanares' translations), outlined the prewar origins of higher
military studies in France.48 The idea of a high-level training program
for officers and selected civilians, stressing economics, administration,
mobilization, geopolitics, and sociology was popular in Peruvian army
circles a full quarter-century before the country got its own CAEM.
46. Serrigny, "La organization de la nation para el tiempo de guerra," Revista

del Circulo Militar del Peru (Feb. 1924), pp. 199-220 (hereafter cited as RCMP).
This journal succeeded the BMGM until 1933, when it was renamed RMP. This
essay originally appeared as "L'Organisation de la nation pour le temps de guerre,"
RDM (Sept. 1923), pp. 583-602.
47. Escalona, "Los conscriptos," RCMP (Feb. 1925), pp. 130-134.
48. Pellegrin, "El c.a.e.m. de Francia," RCMP (Mar. 1925), pp. 229-240.
Pellegrin, Lyautey's aide-de-camp during World War I, was instrumen-

tal in popularizing the potential of such an institute in Peru.
Of special significance in tracing the continuities of Peruvian mili-
tary thought from the early twentieth century to the 1968 golpe was a
proposal of Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Montagne Markholtz. Not
content that the role of the military should be confined to questions of
national security, Montague advocated all-weather linking of the south-
ern Andes between Arequipa and Cuzco by a new route through Sicua-
ni.49 Though the details are of little significance today, he argued
forcefully that the road would open up new areas for economic devel-
opment as well as provide for defense of the region. Marshal Lyautey
would have approved; French officers in Peru at the time did.50 It is
of more than passing interest that Montagne's son, General Ernesto
Montage Sanchez, served as Peruvian Minister of War from 1968 to
1972.
Peru's controversial conscripcio'n vial-road gang levies in isolated
areas-was the subject of a 1926 essay by Lieutenant Colonel Vidal C.
Panizo. He too linked highway construction to defense, nation-build-
ing, and to patriotism as well. To oppose the program, moreover, was
to deny one's heritage, for it "marks a brilliant achievement in the par-
liamentary history of Peru."5' Soon, Panizo hoped, there would be a
highway network linking Lima and the sierra with Bolivia, and hence
with Buenos Aires on the Atlantic Ocean. Montagne's suggestions for
highways to serve military and economic imperatives pale in com-
parison, for Panizo also emphasized the role of the highway as trans-
mitter of Western culture and civilization to the Peruvian heartland.
Furthermore, according to Lieutenant Paz Garcia, the Indian of
that heartland could still do with a bit of civilization. Stating a fam-
iliar theme, he thought the Indian could become acculturated (with or
without a dose of roadwork) through his military service. "The In-
dian," wrote Paz Garcia, "has been and continues to be vilely exploited
by those who will not recognize . . . that he is a principal resource for
the future of our nation."52 Civilian educational schemes as yet had
49. Montagne, "Un camnino de interest nacional," RCMP (Apr. 1925), pp. 336-
340. Montagne also served as one of Benavides' appointed vice presidents.
50. See Estado Mayor General, Viaje de estudios de la escuela superior de
guerra dirigida por el colonel Naulin, subjefe del e.m.; del 5 al 30 de noviembre de
1904 (Lima, 1905).
51. Panizo, "La ley de conscripcion vial y la defense del pais," RCMP (Apr.
1926), pp. 339-341. For details on the program, see Davies, Jr., Indian Integra-
tion in Peru: A Half Century of Experience, 1900-1948 (Lincoln, 1974).
52. Paz Garcia, "El cuartel y la redencion del indio," RCMP (Apr. 1926), pp.
385-394.
412 HAM I AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
done nothing to free the Indian from the gamonal. Neither had the
administrators and judges who served the interests of the oligarchy.
It was they who made the Indian resent military service, for they
sought his time and labor for themselves. With better facilities, pa-
tience, understanding, and <'strong but paternal" discipline the Indian
could adjust, serve, and ultimately leave the army "healthy, moderate-
ly literate, and morally pure." Like Escalona sixteen years before,
Paz Garcia stressed better barracks, food, and equipment as condi-
tions that would attract and hold the Indian to military service. He
shared Escalona's unflagging and ingenuous belief in the ability of the
army to civilize the Indian. (The opinion held by Indians about all
this, it goes without saying, remains unknown.) This belief was wide-
spread among the officer class and along with it the contention that
government ought to make sure the army had the wherewithal to carry
out its task.
The ubiquitous Vidal Panizo concurred. As the anti-Legula forces
began to gather, he proclaimed that "discipline is the soul of the
army;"53 intraservice harmony was the rule because of the moral purity
of the officer class; the orders of officers were just, their fulfillment
necessary; the officer's mission was important and its completion a pre-
requisite to national progress. Beset by politiqueria on all sides, of-
ficers realized the precarious nature of their situation. As they did
they sought solace and self-justification in their civilizing mission and
their social role as had their French mentors years before when buffeted
by politicians in the pre-World War I years.
No matter the decade, Peruvian sources give ample evidence of the
durability of officer-class self-perception and continuity of thought on
their domestic responsibilities. These have included defense, security
development, national progress, integration, civic action, whatever
terminology has happened to be in vogue. Panizo, Paz Garcia, Mon-
tagne, and their colleagues can be viewed as transition figures between
pre-World War I and pre-World War II variations of professional mili-
tarism. So can the likes of Major Genaro Muro, Captains Francisco
Valdivia and Federico Gomez Cobos, Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Por-
tugal, and Lieutenant Mauricio Barbis.
Muro saw frontier area colonization, for example, as the key to
Peruvian progress. Bolivians and Brazilians living in the oriente posed
a threat to Peru's sovereignty. Agricultural settlements administered
by the army would both protect and produce-an argument then as
53. Panizo, "La discipline es el alma del ejercito," RCMP (Dec. 1926), pp.
1409-1417.
old as nineteenth-century military colonization in North Africa, yet

comparable to the various schemes put forth by the Mercado genera-
tion. Muro thought the oriente was the "land of the future," and that
"civilization would conquer the wilderness."54 Captain Valdivia echoed
Montagne and Panizo in his brief for a national highway system, "the
veins of the [state] organism," transmitting industry, trade, agriculture,
defense capability, culture, and civilization to all corners of Peru.55
If the Inca had fresh fish daily in Cuzco, reasoned Valdivia pithily, so
should modern day Peruvians.
Captain Gomez, writing in June 1930, stated that defense depended
on the proper assembly and maintenance of statistics, but he was con-
vinced that existing civilian institutions were incapable of fulfilling this
task. Provincial garrison commanders needed accurate data on re-
sources, communications, transport, harvests, storage facilities, and
manpower (all heavily emphasized in contemporary postwar French
military literature), if they were to defend the country.56 His argu-
ment was legitimate, and it wvas something upon which to build.
As the oncenio merged violently with the Great Depression, Legula
fell to Lieutenant Colonel Sanchez Cerro, then he to an assassin's bul-
let, thus opening the way to Marshal Benavides. The fact that con-
tinuity of thought and self-perception was maintained during this dif-
ficult time attests to the durability of professional militarism. Writing
on military colonization in the montafia, for example, Lieutenant Bar-
bis championed the cause of his aforementioned "sentinel of the father-
land"' by calling for an army role in national social and economic
development very much like that which Manuel Morla had just ad-
vocated and which Mercado Jarrin would eventually propose and then
observe.
Well before the Great Depression, therefore, Peruvian military liter-
ature had dealt with themes hitherto normally attributed to or asso-
ciated with either the officers who first confronted APRA in the
1930s or with the 1968 golpistas, and the reformers from CAEM and
54. Muro, "Colonizacion de nuestros rios fronterizos de oriente," RCMP (Oct.

1927), pp. 33-38.
55. Valdivia, "Conscripcion vial," RCMP (Dec. 1927), pp. 249-254.
56. Gomez, "Datos estadisutcos," RCAIP (June 1930), pp. 187-196. See the
following sources published in the Revue Militaire Frangais (hereafter cited as
RMF), post-World War I successor to JSM/RMF: Lieutenant Colonel Emile
Mayer, "N6tre organisation militaire," RMF (Sept. 1910), pp. 311-326; Capitaine
Damidaux, "L'Officier d'etat major," RMF (Oct. 1925), pp. 84-94; Major de
Gaulle, "Du Caractre," RMF (June 1930), pp. 274-286. The last cited is a chap-
ter fromn de Gaulle's Le Fil de l'epee (Paris, 1932).
414 HAHE I AUGUST I FREDERICK M. NUNN
SINAMOS. The long tradition is attributable to the fact that since late
in the past century the army was under the intellectual as well as
technical influence of French military missions. France's military mo-
nopoly persisted in Peru until World War II and forms but one chapter
in a history of German and French professional penetration of South
America.57 While the German presence in Chile and the French im-
press upon Brazil may be better known, the 1896-1940 Franco-Pelni-
vian tie was without question the least adulterated transmission of
military culture from the Old World to the New. Residual French in-
fluence remained long after 1940.
To the French, Peru was a New World Annam and Algeria, a trans-
atlantic Madagascar and Morocco; a sovereign nation with a colonial
socioeconomic structure; a "European" country with an exotic, primi-
tive substance; a prime locale for application of colonial military theory
as set down by Joseph Simon Gallieni, Lyautey, and their fellows. The
influence of the French permeates Peruvian military literature, as
clearly noted, from the first decade of this century.
In 1896, under the leadership of Colonel Paul Clement, French of-
ficers began the organization and education of a battered and maligned
Peruvian army.58 They took over all but the top command posts, re-
organized and dominated the Escuela Militar (until the 1920s), or-
ganized and directed the Escuela Superior de Guerra from 1904 for-
ward, and even made plans for an institute of advanced military studies
modeled after the short-lived (1909-1910) Centre des Hautes Etudes
Militaires, known popularly as thle "ecole des eleves marechaux," the
"school of the marshals."59
A number of mission officers had served in Africa and more than
a few under Gallieni and Lyautey. They transmitted directly to Peru
the ideas that found their way into the literature discussed in this
57. On this subject, see Nunn, "Effects of European Military Training in

Latin America: The Origins and Nature of Military Professionalism in Argentina,
Brazil, Chile and Peru, 1890-1940," Military Affairs, 39 (Feb. 1975), 1-7.
58. See Centro de Estudios Historico-Militares del Peru', Lima, Documentos
donados al CEHMP por el r.p. Ruben Vargas Ugarte, S. J., Memorandum que
eleva el general Paul Clement, jefe de la mission military francesa, a s.e. el president
de la republican, el 24 de agosto de 1899. This is an extremely informative docu-
ment and provides the definitive link between French colonial military thought
and its application in Peru.
59. See Enrique Indacochea Galareta, "El centro de altos estudios militares
de Francia," RMP (Nov.-Dec. 1960), pp. 29-54; and Escuela Superior de
Guerra del Perui, Cincuentenario de la escuela superior de guerra del Peru,
1904-1954 (Chorrillos, 1954). The "school of the marshals" was the idea of Gen-
eral Ferdinand Foch, commandant of the Ecole Superieure de la Guerre.
essay. It was they who began tLe long march to 1968, via the onceio,
the Great Depression, Zarumilla-Maranio'n, the Cold War, CAEM, and
counterinsurgency.
General Mercado's article discussed at the opening of this essay
stressed the significance of the 1940-1965 quarter-century as a transi-
tion period. Peru's domestic and international experience in this period
helped bridge the gap, but French military thought provided the basic
continuity.60 Thus the lessons of the French masters and the proposals
of their pupils could still find expression in the 1960s and 1970s.
Penetration of the interior, colonization, assembly of statistics and data,
obligatory military service as an educational experience, la mission
civilizadora, military-civilian socioeconomic cooperation, and the ty-
ing of national development to internal security are all attributable to
the French presence.
In November 1946, just as the United States was supposedly gaining
influence in Peruvian military affairs, the army devoted a week to
honoring their former mentors. The event was the fiftieth anniversary
of the arrival in Callao of Paul Clement. The Revista Militar del Peru
dedicated its November issue to the French, and that month's Revista
de la Escuela Militar de Chorrillos had a lengthy section on "Las
misiones militares francesas."6' Stripped of the hyperbole which per-
meates such occasions, the Peruvian debt looms large. Officer after
officer lavished praise, cited the French origins of policy after policy
and program after program, noted achievement after achievement, and
recalled the "good old days." It was a postwar revival-in the mystical,
fervent sense-of Francophilia in the officer class, and it was a demon-
60. See Arturo Arevalo, "La contextura moral del oficial," RMP (May 1945),
pp. 27-39; Juan Vicente Rojo, "El ejerc.ito como institucion social," RAIP (May
1948), pp. 7-15; (June 1948), pp. 109-119; and (July 1948), pp. 237-247; Erasmo
Herrera Benitez, "Como exaltar el patriotismo e intensificar la educacion civica de la
ciudadania,"7 RMP (Jan.-Feb. 1950), pp. 113-115; Carlos Gonzalez Bueno, "Ejer-
cito: Rol social y discipline," RAIP (Jan. 1952), pp. 1-6; Felipe de la Barra,
"Factores primarios de la defensa nacional," RMP (Sept.-Oct. 1954), pp. 1-16;
Arturo Castilla Pizarro, "El Peri'u como nacion: Nacionalismo y conciencia nacional:
Sus factores formativos," RMP (Jan.-Mar. 1955), pp. 613-615; Marcial Figueroa
Arevalo, "El oficial del ejercito y la integracion del indigena a la nacionalidad,"
RMP (Sept. 1955), pp. 104-109; Victor Sanchez Malin, "El departamento de
movilizacion integral de la naci6n: Elemento batsico del ministerio de la defensa
nacional," RESG (July-Sept. 1955), pp. 30-53.
61. See the November 1946 issues of RMP and Revista de la Escuela Militar
de Chorrillos, for extensive treatments of the French missions and their impact on
Peruvian military thought and self-perception. A detailed treatment including
mission rosters can be found in General Carlos Miniano's Las misiones militares
francesas en el Peru (Lima, 1959).
416 HAR I AUGUST j FREDERICK M. NUNN
stration of independence and wariness of U.S. influence a full twenty
years earlier than many have considered.62
Four years later CAEM, the long awaited Peruvian version of the
post-World War I Centre des Hautes Etudes de la Defense Nationale,
began operations, and in 1954 the Escuela Superior de Guerra cele-
brated its own fiftieth anniversary3 One aspect of this jubilee was the
launching of the Revista de la Escuela Superior de Guerra, and from
the first issue its editors emphasized a widened area of military re-
sponsibility and an expanded concept of national defense. Within a
decade the then Colonel Mercado was a member of the editorial board.
He and colonels Enrique Gallegos Venero, Gaston Ibanez, Armando
Cueto Zevallos and Alvaro Pito were writing regularly on security, de-
velopment, staff planning, counterinsurgency, frontier and interior
colonization, geopolitics, economic development, social change, and
the need for a military-civilian national unity of purpose.64 As well as
those officers mentioned at the outset, Gallegos, Cueto, and Pito con-
tributed to the influential literature of the 1960s. One of their primary
points of reference was the activity of the French army-successful and
unsuccessful-in the contemporary Algerian and Indochinese crises and
as a counterpoise to Marxism.6,5 Franco-Peruvian tradition thus suc-
cessfully offset both imported Cuban-style Marxism and Peru's weak
democratic tradition.
62. Cf. Einaudi and Stepan, Latin American Institutional Development, p. 20;
and Phillip, The Rise and Fall, pp. 55-58.
63. As if to make continuity official, Morla Concha's 1933 essay was reprinted
as the preface (pp. viii-xxv) to the April 1952 issue of the RMP. An editorial note
claimed that the essay had permanent value because of its content and was evi-
dence of the transcendence of military culture since 1933. In 1952, Morla was a
division general and chief of the general staff.
64. In addition to essays noted at the beginning of this study, see Gallegos
Venero, "Un combate victorioso en guerra contrarrevolucionaria," RESG (July-
Sept. 1962), pp. 7-26; Ibaiez, "Movilizacion economical" RESG (Jan.-Mar. 1964),
pp. 5598, and (Apr-June 1964), pp. 25-64; Cueto, "Movilizacicn de recursos
humanos," RESG (Jan.-Mar. 1964), pp. 7-54; Pito, "Reflexiones sobre el sistema
de gobierno democratico" RESG (Jan.-AMar. 1964), pp. 117-121; and Mercado,
"La politica de seguridad integral," RESG (Oct.-Dec. 1964), pp. 83-112.
65. The following are representative: General Lionel Martin Chassin, "Du
Role ideologique de l'armee," Revue Militaire d'Information (Oct. 10, 1954), pp.
13-19 (hereafter cited as RMI); this journal became a monthly in 1956. Chassin,
"Du Role bistorique de l'amnee," RAMI (Oct. 1956), pp. 1182-1199; J. Hogard,
"Guerre revolutionnaire et pacification," RMI (Jan. 1957), pp. 7-24; General
Paul Ely, "L'Anrene dans la nation," RMI (Aug.-Sept. 1957), pp. 7-14; and
Claude Delmas, "La Nation et le monde moderne," RMI (July 1959), pp. 25-40.
There is an excellent biography of primary source materials on French military-
civilian relations during the periods treated herein in John Steward Ambler's
Soldiers Against the State: The French Armny in Politics (New York, 1968).
PROFESSIONAL MLITARISM IN PERU 417
Rededication to the French model, and the confrontation of prob-

lems of the present with solutions and theories based on past experi-
ence, lends to the golpe of 1968 a historical quality. The army officer,
once called by Lyautey a "marvelous agent of social action" became
convinced in Peru that he was indeed "the right man in the right
place."66 That place, as he ultimately saw it in Peru, was at the head
of all, or nearly all, government affairs as the agent of development,
barrier against upheaval, provider of security, and civilizer of a nation.
Having long expressed hostility toward certain sectors of the civilian
population, officers decided to replace politicians and landowners, for
example, with men in uniform functioning as administrators and policy-
makers. A full decade in such a capacity revealed an inability to mesh
theory and practice in the present but did little to diminish the ob-
vious reliance on the past. Much of that advocated was not put into
action; most of what was enacted was based on early twentieth-century
thought and self-perception perpetuated as an ideology by army writers
and theorists, adapting many values and ideals of the past to the
present.
66. Lyautey, "Du Role social," p. 446; "Du R6oe colonial," p. 309.

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Professional Militarism in Twentieth-Century Peru: Historical and Theoretical Background

to the Golpe de Estado of 1968

Professional Militarism in Twentieth-Century

M /[OST discussions of background to the Peruvian golpe

* The author is Professor of History, Portland State University. A Social Sci-

not occur after 1968. Military-sponsored reforms did make changes

3. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy y su proyeccion en nuestra sociedad en periodo

4. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy," p. 6.

country's regions, peculiarities, and problems because officers had to

6. Mercado, "El ejercito de hoy," pp. 7-12.

7. "Programa de desarrollo industrial y regional del Perui," Revista de la

pay special attention to agrarian reform, irrigation projects, public

9. Bobbio, "eQue ejercito?" pp. 132-136 passim.

staff level," free from partisan bickering, based on modern, military

16. Morla, "Funcion social del ejercito en la organization de la nacionalidad,"

19. Ibid., pp. 863-864.

Velarde's superior, Colonel Alejandro Aliaga, echoed these argu-

presidential palace. Many of the leaders of the 1968 movement were

33. Benavides, "Discurso del president de la republican en la ceremonia de

36. Ibid., p. 844.

Soon after World War I a wave of antimilitary thought swept the

Sciences Militaires/Revue Militaire Fran.aise (May 1896), pp. 255-274 (despite

46. Serrigny, "La organization de la nation para el tiempo de guerra," Revista

Pellegrin, Lyautey's aide-de-camp during World War I, was instrumen-

old as nineteenth-century military colonization in North Africa, yet

54. Muro, "Colonizacion de nuestros rios fronterizos de oriente," RCMP (Oct.

57. On this subject, see Nunn, "Effects of European Military Training in

Rededication to the French model, and the confrontation of prob-

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