Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Rise of APRA in Peru. Dan Cozart
The Rise of APRA in Peru. Dan Cozart
The Rise of APRA in Peru. Dan Cozart
Abstract
C 2014 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 77
The Latin Americanist, March 2014
78
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
79
The Latin Americanist, March 2014
80
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
81
The Latin Americanist, March 2014
82
Cozart
83
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
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.
References
Alva Castro, Luis. Victor Raúl, El Señor Asilo. Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial
Oveja Negra, 1988.
“General United States Policy toward Latin America, 1, Editorial Note.”
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Volumes VI and VII.
“Haya de la Torre Explains Aprism.” The New York Times. September 13,
1931.
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. “A Latin American Doctrine of Anti-
Imperialism,” in Holden, Robert and Zolov, Eric, eds. in Latin America
and the United States: A Documentary History. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2011, 122–123.
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. Construyendo el Aprismo: artı́culos y cartas
desde el exilio (1924–1931). Buenos Aires: Colección Claridad, 1933.
Haya de la Torre, Victor Raúl. El Antimperialismo y el APRA. Santiago de
Chile: Ediciones Ercilla, 1936.
Kantor, Harry. The Ideology and Program of the Peruvian Aprista Movement.
Washington, D.C.: Savile Books, 1966.
Klaren, Peter. Modernization, Dislocation, and Aprismo: Origins of the Peruvian
Aprista Party, 1870–1932. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973.
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, 232–279.
Planas Silva, Pedro. Los Orı́genes del APRA: El Joven Haya. Lima, Peru:
Okura Editores, S.A., 1986.
88