The Rise of APRA in Peru. Dan Cozart

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THE RISE OF APRA IN PERU: VICTOR RAÚL HAYA DE LA

TORRE AND INTER-AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL


CONNECTIONS, 1918–1935
Dan Cozart
University of New Mexico

Abstract

This paper explores the rise of Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Ameri-


cana (APRA) by examining Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre’s formative years
as a student leader. Haya de la Torre’s philosophy of anti-imperialism de-
veloped out of a Latin American intellectual trend known as neo-arielismo
and embodied the aspirations and frustrations of a new generation of young
intellectuals and working class people. However, APRA also represented
a unique response among Peruvian intellectuals to the nation’s defeat in
the War of the Pacific. Haya de la Torre’s calls for a politically united
Latin America rested on a unifying idea of racial ancestry known as In-
doamericanismo and increasing evidence of the debilitating force of U.S.
imperialism. Unlike his predecessors, Haya traveled extensively through-
out the Americas and in Europe to generate intellectual and political con-
nections. Despite the ultimate failure of APRA to achieve its objectives, the
founder and head of the movement was warmly welcomed and encouraged
by students and intellectuals while traveling. Haya’s defeat in the 1930
presidential election sparked protests among his followers based on allega-
tions of fraud. The violent repression that resulted, with tacit support from
the U.S. government, exemplifies the confluence of power that APRA faced.
His reception among U.S. academics highlights the stark contrast between
U.S. foreign policy and academic understandings of Latin America.

On November 21, 1927, the Spanish-language, New York-based news-


paper La Prensa reported that Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, head of the
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA), a “united American front
of manual laborers and intellectuals,” had just completed a three-month
oratory tour of the northeastern United States. The article praised Haya de
la Torre’s speeches made at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia Uni-
versities, pointing out that he was warmly received with enthusiastic and
sympathetic greetings from intellectuals and students alike. The founder
and head of APRA had been exiled from his home country in 1923 for lead-
ing a student protest and published what came to be known as “A Latin
American Doctrine of Anti-Imperialism” while in Mexico City in 1924.
Despite APRA’s calls for a united Latin American front against “Yankee


C 2014 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 77
The Latin Americanist, March 2014

Imperialism,” elite intellectuals in the U.S. were clearly sympathetic to his


ideas for improving the conditions of oppressed Latin Americans. Haya
de la Torre left New York optimistic that North American intellectuals
would take up his cause. Employing the language of Cuban revolutionary
author José Martı́, the Peruvian leader told La Prensa, “I have met many
men in this country who are ready to understand our America and to unite
with her in their perspectives of our relations with Wall Street and Wash-
ington. My goal of organizing a group of North American workers and
intellectuals who represent the unofficial opinion of this country on our
countries’ issues . . . has been successful.”1 Haya de la Torre’s vision for
APRA transcended national politics by bringing together the prominent
Latin American ideas of culture, race, and regional identity that were for-
mulating in the Andes, Mexico and the Southern Cone. In doing so, Haya
de la Torre claimed to represent the “intellectual renaissance” of young
university students rebelling against the traditionalist universities and the
older generation’s complicity in North American imperialism.
The far-reaching philosophy of his movement drew the attention of
academics and political leaders throughout Latin America and the U.S.;
his articulation of the economic and social difficulties of the region’s poor
resonated with Hispanic Americans in the U.S., as the article in La Prensa
shows. Not surprisingly, however, the very alliances and power structures
bolstered by U.S. economic interests in Peru precluded APRA’s inter-
American and domestic success. Although North American academics
could understand the truth in APRA’s assessment and the potential of
its proposals, U.S. government polices toward Peru, and Latin America
in general, remained paternalistic and simplistically focused on economic
interests. This foreign policy framework created a powerful force that
consistently blinded U.S. policy to the academic knowledge of the socio-
cultural, political, and historical conditions of Peru. Moreover, the stark
contrast between U.S. policies toward Peru and the intellectual and cul-
tural connections of Hispanic Americans and U.S. academics, as visible
in La Prensa’s and The New York Times’ reporting on APRA, provided evi-
dence for APRA’s analysis of northern imperialism. Thus, this essay seeks
to build on recent scholarship on U.S.-Latin American relations that an-
alyzes both diplomatic relations and “contact zones” as sites of cultural
resistance to imperialism. Rather than simply reifying the Leninist concept
of imperialism, Haya de la Torre’s proposals and intellectual connections
exhibit the “interactive, improvisational qualities” of such resistance.2
APRA’s origins are most commonly traced to Peru’s humiliating de-
feat in the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) by the Chilean army. The
resulting disillusionment awakened an intellectual consciousness and
elicited widespread anger toward the “ruling classes,” the Peruvian Creole
elites whose power appeared to be another failing legacy of the colonial
era. As Florencia Mallon has analyzed the various forms of nationalist
consciousness that arose as a result of the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) to
show how intellectual elites sought to appropriate this sentiment among

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Cozart

the “Indian masses” in the early twentieth century,3 this article aims to add
a layer to the elite response by suggesting that a new generation of Peru-
vian intellectuals responded divergently: the failures of the ruling classes
prompted student leaders like Haya de la Torre to reconsider nationalism
as a waning sentiment that only weakened Latin America’s ability to resist
North American imperialism.
Nevertheless, Haya de la Torre’s ideas were not unprecedented. As
Pedro Planas Silva has argued, APRA can be considered the “offspring
of neo-arielismo,” embodied in José Enrique Rodó’s 1900 essay Ariel.4 This
Uruguayan intellectual’s warning to Latin American youth of the dangers
of falling prey to the materialism of the United States was developed into
a call for the unification of the Latin American continent in order to defy
northern materialism in the form of imperialism. Perhaps the best-known
example of the surge in neo-arielismo is Argentine intellectual José Inge-
nieros’ 1922 speech in honor of Mexico’s first minister of education, José
Vasconcelos, which condemned the ability of U.S. capitalism to breach the
sovereignty of Latin American nations and called for the unification of
these nations in order to defend their independence.5 Haya de la Torre
was concurrently making similar connections regarding U.S. imperialism
and its consequences for the working classes of Latin America. Although
his ideas did not emerge from a vacuum, his approach to fomenting Latin
American solidarity was unique in at least two ways: his grassroots efforts
to reform university education throughout the region and his articulation
of a uniting racial identity that he considered common among all people of
the region. Despite the inherent limitations of his platform, Haya success-
fully made intellectual and political connections with like-minded young
people in each major region of what is geographically considered “Latin
America.”
Haya de la Torre’s optimism for APRA rested on his belief that student
revolutions at major universities in Argentina, Chile, and Cuba reflected a
growing anti-imperialist sentiment that challenged the traditional order.
The Latin American universities, he stressed, “are almost all of Span-
ish origin, founded during the three centuries of colonial rule. Until the
‘university revolution’ higher educational curricula remained antiquated,
without appreciable progress, based on religious prejudices.”6 The young
Peruvian lauded the student revolution at University of Córdoba in 1918,
where the Government’s use of police and military force to repress the
students “resulted only in increasing the sympathy of the public with the
insurrection.” That year, as a twenty-three year old student at Lima’s San
Marcos University, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre began to organize fel-
low students to protest the traditional authoritarianism of the university.
His student organization began to take action in 1919. Pointing out that
this was “the oldest university in America, founded in 1551,” “the students
proclaimed a general strike, demanded the dismissal of sixteen professors,
the suppression of the courses in canon law, the complete remaking of the

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The Latin Americanist, March 2014

regulations governing the university, professorships open to all, academic


freedom, and the participation of the students in the governing councils.”7
These demands mirrored those of the Argentine students, and the Peru-
vian students eventually had similar success. On January 22, 1921, Haya
de la Torre helped inaugurate the Universidad Popular, or Popular Uni-
versity of Peru, and was named General Secretary. He explained that his
goal was to “socialize knowledge and raise the spiritual level of men,” be-
cause he understood that “social inequalities were created by deficiencies
in education.”8
Haya was invited to visit a group of student activists in Piriápolis,
Uruguay in January 1922. Funded by the director of an Anglo-Peruvian
school in Lima, the young Haya was warmly received in a ceremony.
The event included a visit to Rodó’s tomb, where Haya gave a “vibrant
speech.”9
During his travels in the Southern Cone, Haya de la Torre was en-
thusiastically welcomed by student organizations in Santiago de Chile in
May 1922. When he made an appearance at the newly founded Univer-
sidad Popular Lastarria, El Mercurio reported, “loud applauses obligated
him to speak.”10 This public display of enthusiastic solidarity between
Chilean and Peruvian students flew in the face of the older generations,
whose memory of the War of the Pacific maintained nationalist antago-
nism. Furthermore, Haya’s ambition to make higher education accessible
to working classes soon developed into his political philosophy based on
demands for social justice. Through a trying series of events, he came to
emphasize the need to politically unite the nations and oppressed people
of Latin America.
A year later, on May 23, 1923, Haya de la Torre led a student protest
with the support of industrial workers of Lima against President Augusto
Leguı́a’s attempt to consolidate his rule and popularity by ceremonially
dedicating the nation to the Catholic Church. When the workers and stu-
dents demonstrated publicly at the university, the government violently
repressed the protestors, killing one student and one worker. Haya de
la Torre was imprisoned for his role in the protest, then began a hunger
strike, and was eventually exiled from Peru on October 9, 1923.11 Available
historical documentation suggests that the exiled leader traveled directly
to la Havana, Cuba. On October 11, Cuban newspaper El Mundo reported
that, “as he is known to be in La Havana,” Victor R. Haya de la Torre “has
signed the petition to create the university student organization ‘Alpha.’”
The report went on to invite students from universities to home-schools
to attend a conference on a “cultural theme” to be headed by Haya de la
Torre the following week at the National University.12
Haya de la Torre traveled throughout Latin America, Europe and the
northeastern United States while in exile, but he spent most of his time in
Mexico City. He was in Mexico City when he wrote his proposal for APRA,
and his optimism was surely reinforced by the international congress of
students who had assembled there in 1921.13 In 1924, Haya de la Torre

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Cozart

invited all Latin American nations to join his proposed American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance under five central points:
1. Action of the countries of Latin America against Yankee Imperialism
2. The political unity of Latin America
3. The nationalization of land and industry
4. The internationalization of the Panama Canal
5. The solidarity of all the oppressed people of the world14

The movement failed to achieve such lofty goals, but the bold state-
ments and publications of Haya de la Torre appealed to many Peruvians
as well as Latin American and U.S. intellectuals. Although APRA parties
existed in at least nine other countries in the late 1920s, the Aprista party
had the most popular support in Peru, where the influential author and
intellectual José Carlos Mariátegui stood in as the party’s leader. However,
Mariátegui split from the “Apristas,” as the members came to be known,
to form the Partido Socialista Peruana in 1928.
Although the political differences between Mariátegui and Haya de la
Torre were enough for the former to leave the Apristas, the two intellec-
tuals had quite similar ideas about Latin American social and class con-
structions of identity. Haya de la Torre’s letters and speeches while abroad
demonstrate this philosophical alignment. Beginning with a speech given
to the Federation of Mexican Students on May 7, 1923, he laid out his
hopes for “the unity of the peoples of our race.”15 The appeal of this state-
ment also shows his understanding of Vasconcelos’ influential 1925 book
The Cosmic Race, which helped foment a sentiment of national identity
around “scientific” benefits of racial mixing, or mestizaje. Haya de la Torre
further developed this notion of a racial unity between all Latin Amer-
icans through the term Indoamérica, which avoided the more restrictive
terms Hispanic America and South America. By referring to the people of
the region as Indoamericanos, Haya de la Torre and Mariátegui aimed to
deemphasize a European heritage, denoted in the terms “Latin” and “His-
panic,” to place more emphasis on the indigenous roots that he supposed
the people of the region held in common. Haya de la Torre’s proposal of
a united Latin America rested on his positive and inclusive racial theory.
The correspondences in Mexican and Peruvian racial theories were likely
influenced by Haya de la Torre’s time in Mexico City, where he served as
Vasconcelos’ “de facto private secretary for several months” in 1923.16 His
letters and speeches while in exile were published in Argentina shortly
after his return to Peru in 1933, showing that interest in a uniting racial
theory was not limited to Peru and Mexico.
Meanwhile, anti-imperialist anger gained global sympathy as the world
observed Augusto César Sandino lead his Army to Defend National
Sovereignty against U.S. puppet president General José Moncada. When
the U.S. Government appointed General Charles R. McCoy to supervise
the 1928 Nicaraguan presidential elections, the Paris section of the “United
Front of Intellectual and Manual Laborers” petitioned for a delegation

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The Latin Americanist, March 2014

representing the “more radical elements of Latin America” to be included


to form a more balanced oversight committee. The New York Times re-
ported on December 25, 1927, that the Paris group nominated Haya de
la Torre, Vasconcelos, and Alfredo Palacios of Argentina, because they
were “really representative of the rising generation of forward-looking
Ibero-Americans.” The report also pointed out that Haya de la Torre was
the “Honorary President of the Student Federations of Peru and Cuba
and honorary member of those of Panama, Argentina, and Chile.” The
Nicaraguan Federation of Labor welcomed Haya de la Torre’s nomination
“with enthusiasm.”17
Carleton Beals, perhaps the most outspoken critic of imperialism in the
U.S., interviewed Augusto Sandino during the first three months of 1928.
The resulting articles were published in weekly installments in The Na-
tion. Beals cheekily pointed out that during his time with the Sandinistas,
“Not a single hair of my blond, Anglo-Saxon head had been injured,” and
the articles “embarrassed the U.S. government and generated worldwide
support for Sandino’s cause.”18
Despite the interest APRA had already generated among Latin Amer-
ican and U.S. intellectuals, U.S. policymakers seemed aloof to this anti-
imperialist sentiment. Rather than address this explicit challenge to its re-
gional authority, the U.S. government focused its attention on maintaining
conditions in Peru that would be favorable to its economic interests. Just
a few months before Haya de la Torre’s tour of universities and cultural
centers in New York, the Coolidge administration proposed a commercial
treaty with Leguı́a that would replicate the “adjustment of relations be-
tween Cuba and the United States following the Spanish-American War.”
The U.S. was happy to conduct trade negotiations with a repressive dicta-
torship, as long as it guaranteed access to raw goods and the “protection of
U.S. property.”19 Haya pointed out that the same policy was apparent in
U.S. involvement in Cuba, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti.20
The New York Times continued to cover the anti-imperialist intellectual
leader in 1930, reporting that the Nationalist Party of Peru had nominated
Haya de la Torre as their candidate in the upcoming presidential election.
Interestingly, the article and the nomination grant the leader the title “Doc-
tor,” suggesting that he completed the graduate degree during his time
in exile. The nomination also acclaimed him as “the teacher of the new
generation, the tireless fighter for the spiritual and material emancipation
of the people, the vigilant soldier of justice.”21
The New York Times allowed the presidential candidate to speak for him-
self in a 1931 article titled “Haya de la Torre Explains Aprism.” The article
echoed the positive image of the leader conveyed by La Prensa, adding to
it by providing a biographical sketch, explaining that he graduated from
San Marcos University with high honors in 1921. The article also makes
the somewhat surprising, yet well-supported argument that being exiled
by President Leguı́a, “as it turned out . . . was the most signal benefit which
he could have conferred on the young man.” During his time in Europe,

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Haya de la Torre took a graduate course at Oxford, “where his mastery of


English and his skill as a debater were so generally recognized that he was
selected to represent Oxford against Harvard University in a discussion
of the Monroe Doctrine. Oxford won on this occasion.” Haya de la Torre
spent time in Germany, France, England, and Rumania, “always keeping
in close touch with labor leaders wherever he went.” However, “he re-
turned from Russia firmly convinced that Communism was a dangerous
thing.” Before pointing out his main goals as a Peruvian politician, the ar-
ticle explains that despite his nearly eight years abroad, he was “received
on his return by cheering mobs of students and working men at every
stage of his triumphal progress from Tumbes to Lima.”22
Not everyone in the U.S. shared this perspective, however. In contrast to
such triumphal narratives of Haya de la Torre’s enduring popularity, U.S.
policymakers began to apprehensively take note of APRA. Although Haya
de la Torre lost the presidential election to Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro, his
campaign had been largely successful and the elections of early October
1930 were wrought with “wide-scale fraud and irregularities.” The Apris-
tas, who “felt sure they had won,” considered violently contesting the
results, but Haya de la Torre dissuaded his followers from sparking a civil
war.23 On October 11, 1930, U.S. Ambassador to Peru Fred Morris Dear-
ing wrote to the Secretary of State to report credible rumors of a military
coup against the government of Sánchez Cerro. The Ambassador’s letters
detail the military’s mobilization in various regions against the govern-
ment, but the main concern of U.S. officials was that commercial relations
between the two nations might be disturbed by these events. Ambassador
Dearing explained that the uprising, according to “Responsible persons..
is communistic and they expect the worst.”24
In contrast to The New York Times’ coverage of Haya de la Torre, the
Chicago Daily Tribune echoed the concerns of the U.S. government regard-
ing APRA in 1931. Haya de la Torre’s return to Lima in 1930, the newspaper
reported, met with a “noncommittal greeting . . . However, out of fear of
possible trouble the steel shutters of many restaurants and saloons were
pulled down.”25
Nonetheless, twenty-seven Apristas had been elected to the Congress,
and the return of a constitutional government provided hope that the
Apristas could win the next presidential election. However, President
Sánchez Cerro proved his authoritarianism by closing the Aprista party
headquarters, deporting the Aprista congressmen, and imprisoning Haya
de la Torre in 1932. In the midst of the repression, a student and former
Aprista member shot and wounded Sánchez Cerro. The crackdown also
sparked a revolt in Haya de la Torre’s home city of Trujillo in 1932, which
was quelled by the Peruvian army, navy and air force. Despite the power
of the government’s actions to silence the party and quash its protests,
Sánchez Cerro was assassinated on April 30, 1933. Oscar Benavides then
seized the presidency through military power. Just a few weeks prior to
this event, the government passed an amnesty law that freed political

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The Latin Americanist, March 2014

prisoners and another law that barred Apristas from running for office.26
The concurrence of the release of Apristas from prison and the assassina-
tion of Sánchez Cerro appears to have contributed to the public condem-
nation of APRA by Peruvian government officials in the 1930s, during
which time the party remained a clandestine organization.
Although the North American press did not all perceive APRA in the
same light, The New York Times appears to have represented the perspec-
tives of intellectuals more than the Chicago Daily Tribune. While the Chicago
newspaper portrayed APRA as an unpopular political party past its prime,
U.S. academics interested in Latin American politics generally agreed that
Haya de la Torre was the rightful winner of the 1930 election.27
APRA appeared again in The New York Times in the midst of this contin-
ued repression, in an article titled “Predicts Triumph of APRA Movement:
Haya de la Torre Aide, Deported from Peru, Says His Party Has Definite
Plan,” published on March 13, 1932. The article was reported from Buena
Ventura, Colombia and included statements by an APRA spokesman on
behalf of twenty-three exiled Apristas (of whom twenty were members of
the Constituent Congress of Peru). He explains that the recent election of
Sánchez Cerro was “largely the result of fraud.” In dealing with the APRA
members elected to Congress, the spokesman reported, “the government
of Sánchez Cerro soon unchained a persecution against our Apra party
comparable to attacks on labor parties in other countries.” They were
arrested and deported on charges of plotting a revolution but claimed
to have popular support. Sánchez Cerro had also ordered the arrest of
Haya de la Torre. The APRA statement asserted that “almost every one of
our party is a professional man, including lawyers, physicians, engineers,
journalists and professors . . . leaning toward scientific politics . . . We have
popular support, a scientific plan of reform and an unbreakable decision
to improve the sorry political conditions that we have obtained in Peru up
to now.”28
While in hiding, Haya de la Torre continued working on his book,
El Antimperialismo y el APRA, which he had started writing in 1928 in
Mexico City. Similar to his fellow Apristas, the only way to express APRA’s
goals and ideology was through foreign press. Consequently, his book
was finally published by a Chilean publishing company in 1936. He be-
gan writing the book in response to the writings of the founder of the
Cuban Communist Party, Julio Antonio Mella, who was assassinated by
the Machado regime, and with whom Haya had met at the Global Anti-
imperialist Conference in Brussels in 1927. The book aimed to clarify the
discrepancies between international communists by uniting their ideol-
ogy as a struggle against fascism. Here Haya also laid out the nuanced
global political objectives of APRA, which he describes as “seriously fight-
ing against the advances of the politics of the dollar . . . and defending
ourselves, at the same time, from communist demagoguery.”29 Although
his Aprista ideology was anti-imperialist, Haya de la Torre’s political

84
Cozart

philosophy promoted democratic participation and non-violent revolu-


tion to achieve social equality that could not be reduced to simplified
terms.
Despite his nuanced political philosophy, the Sánchez Cerro regime
maintained that APRA was a Communist party. In fact, this political pos-
turing created severe diplomatic tensions between the Mexican govern-
ment and Peru’s authoritarian regime. When the regime discovered that
General Juan B. Cabral, the Mexican foreign minister to Peru, had secretly
met with Haya de la Torre while he was hiding from the authorities,
the Peruvian government broke diplomatic ties with Mexico by sending
Cabral home. Rather than explain Haya de la Torre’s situation in depth,
the Washington Post simply reported that, “Legislation has been adopted
[in Peru] for the purpose of breaking up Communistic agitation.”30 The
severing of Mexican-Peruvian relations resulted from Sánchez Cerro’s raid
on a residence suspected of harboring the political fugitive, where docu-
ments revealing his communication with Mexico were discovered. Shortly
afterward, Haya de la Torre was arrested and imprisoned.
North American intellectuals publicly voiced their support for the im-
prisoned political leader in 1933. On May 8, 1933, The New York Times
reported that a group of American intellectuals presented a petition to the
Peruvian Ambassador Manuel Freyre y Santander “to obtain the release
from prison of Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre.” The article explained that
this was the second such petition to be presented, the first being inconse-
quential.
While it is difficult to assess the impact of the petitions, Haya de la Torre
was released from prison the night of August 10, 1933 after spending four-
teen months in “close confinement.”31 Furthermore, the petitions show the
extent to which some northern academics supported Haya, going so far as
to organize to demand his freedom. His release from prison prompted po-
litical supporters to rejoice, but Haya de la Torre’s efforts would be limited
to the intellectual rather than political sphere. Some Apristas continued
to operate clandestinely to influence elections, and Haya de la Torre’s
political and social literature continued to circulate among intellectuals
throughout Latin America.
Meanwhile, the U.S. became increasingly concerned with political de-
velopments in Latin America. In an article citing protests and repression
in Cuba, as well as “the emotional attachment as the masses listen to evan-
gelical Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre,” The Washington Post conveyed the
“disturbing elements” of class-consciousness as relating to race in a 1935
article. With three photographs of “typical scenes from sore spots to the
south of us which cause Uncle Sam constant worry,” the Washington Post
conveyed the central concerns of the U.S.: anything other than a stable,
passive government that maintained favorable trade conditions with the
north was cause for concern.32 While these newspaper accounts certainly
did not claim to speak for particular corporate groups, it is my hope that
this essay shows that some articles reflected the perspectives of some more

85
The Latin Americanist, March 2014

than others. The Washington Post has never pretended to be the podium for
U.S. foreign policy, but this 1935 article certainly mirrors the government’s
reasoning in diplomatic cables regarding political developments in Peru
in the 1930s.
With the rise of Fascism and Communism in the interwar years, Latin
America increasingly became the region of political concern and contes-
tation for the United States. Haya de la Torre confronted two entrenched
powers that sought to maintain the status-quo for the region: the traditional
militaristic and nationalist Creoles represented by the older generation of
Peruvian elite and the imperialist influence of the U.S. In the face of such
daunting opposition, Haya de la Torre’s successes are all the more remark-
able. Building on neo-arielismo’s growing calls for social equality through
education and a rejection of northern materialism and imperialism, the
young Haya responded defiantly to repression. During his travels in the
Southern Cone, he met José Ingenieros,33 whose suggestions for Latin
American unity became the central component of Haya’s APRA proposal.
Beyond lecturing and writing about resisting imperialism, Haya’s inter-
national grassroots efforts were unique. He gained the support of young
student activists and intellectuals in the Southern Cone, the Andes, Central
America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and even in the United States and France.
While his focus on Indoamérica was also a unique approach to naturaliz-
ing the collective identity of the region, the theory inherently ignored the
significant Afro-descended populations of the Americas, much like Vas-
concelos’ “cosmic race.” While he was able to transcend some limitations
of his historical context, it seems he could not see past others. Nonetheless,
documentation of his efforts demonstrates that Haya de la Torre was able
to articulate the aspirations and frustrations of a generation of progressive
intellectuals and working class individuals throughout the Americas.

Endnotes
1
“Queda establecida en N.Y. la sección del ‘Apra’ bajo los mejores auspi-
cios.” La Prensa, New York, November 21, 1927.
2
Joseph, Gilbert, Catherine C. Legrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore, eds. Close
Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American
Relations. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 8. See also Kaplan, Amy
and Donald E. Pease, eds. Cultures of United States Imperialism. (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1993); and Joseph, Gilbert and Daniela Spenser,
eds. In From the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Cold War,
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008).
3
Mallon, Florencia. “Nationalist and Antistate Coalitions in the War of
the Pacific: Junı́n and Cajamarca, 1879–1902, in Resistance, Rebellion, and
Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries, ed. Steve J.
Stern, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 267.
4
Planas Silva, Pedro. Los Orı́genes del APRA: El Joven Haya. (Lima, Peru:
Okura Editores, S.A., 1986), 11.
5
Ibid, 12.

86
Cozart

6
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. “Latin America’s Student Revolution,”
The Living Age (October 15, 1926), 103–106. Originally published in Foreign
Affairs (London Pacifist Monthly), September 1926, 103.
7
Ibid., 104–105.
8
Ibid, 9–10.
9
Ibid.
10
“Las visitas ayer del estudiante peruano señor Haya de la Torre,” El
Mercurio, Santiago de Chile, 26 de mayo de 1922.
11
Kantor, Harry. The Ideology and Program of the Peruvian Aprista Movement.
(Washington, D.C.: Savile Books, 1966), 10.
12
“Noticias Diversas: Próxima conferencia por el Sr. Haya de la Torre,” El
Mundo (La Havana, Cuba), 11 de octubre de 1923.
13
Haya de la Torre, “Latin America’s Student Revolution,” (1926), 105.
14
Cited in Holden, Robert H. and Zolov, Eric, eds. “A Latin American
Doctrine of Anti-Imperialism,” by Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, in Latin
America and the United States: A Documentary History. (New York: Oxford
University Press), 2011.
15
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. Construyendo el Aprismo: artı́culos y cartas
desde el exilio (1924–1931). Buenos Aires: Colección Claridad, 1933.
16
Carr, Berry. “Radicals, Revolutionaries and Exiles: Mexico City in
the 1920s,” Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies (Fall, 2010), 27.
Accessed via http://clas.berkeley.edu/Publications/Review/Fall2010/
pdf/BRLASFall2010-Carr.pdf, 7 March 2013.
17
“Radicals Offer Plan in Nicaragua Election: Pars Group Urges that Latin
American Delegation Act with General McCoy,” The New York Times,
December 25, 1927.
18
Cited in Holden, Robert H. and Zolov, Eric, eds. “With Sandino in
Nicaragua,” in Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 126–127.
19
“Proposed Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Consular Rights be-
tween the United States and Peru., 363.” Foreign Relations of the United
States, Vol. I, p. 596.
20
Haya de la Torre, “Latin America’s Student Revolution,” (1926), 106.
21
“Peruvians Put Exile in Presidential Race: Nationalists Nominate Dr.
Haya de la Torre to Lead Fight on ‘Yankee Imperialism,’” The New York
Times, August 26, 1930.
22
“Haya de la Torre Explains Aprism.” The New York Times. September 13,
1931.
23
Kantor, Harry. The Ideology and Program of the Peruvian Aprista Movement,
(Washington, D.C.: Savile Books, 1966), 13, 55.
24
“Peru: Revolution in Peru.” Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. III,
1930, pp. 905–923.
25
“Peru’s Political ‘Don Quixote’ Back from Exile: Aspires to Presidency;
Finds Lima Cold,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 17, 1931.
26
Kantor, Harry, Ibid.

87
The Latin Americanist, March 2014

27
Ibid. Kantor cites Carleton Beals (1937), Hugo Fernández Artucio (1942),
and Hubert Herring (1941) as agreeing on this point.
28
“Predicts Triumph of APRA Movement: Haya de la Torre Aide, De-
ported from Peru, Says His Party Has Definite Plan.” The New York Times,
March 13, 1932.
29
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. El Antimperialismo y el APRA. (Santiago
de Chile: Ediciones Ercilla, 1936), 14.
30
“Haya Called Fugitive: Mexican Relations Are Broken By Peru,” The
Washington Post, May 15, 1932.
31
“Famous Peruvian Leader Released: Haya de la Torre’s Arrest Led to
1932 Break with Mexico,” The Washington Post, August 11, 1933.
32
“Social and Political Unrest Breeds Revolt in Nations South of Us,” The
Washington Post, March 17, 1935.
33
Planas Silva, Pedro. Los Orı́genes del APRA, 1986, 10.

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“General United States Policy toward Latin America, 1, Editorial Note.”
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“Haya de la Torre Explains Aprism.” The New York Times. September 13,
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Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. “A Latin American Doctrine of Anti-
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