We explain how the history of Latin America was in the twentieth century. In addition, the international context.
How was the history of Latin America in the twentieth century?
Latin America countries were strongly involved in the international economy throughout the twentieth century. The production of raw materials for export in exchange for imported manufactures characterized the first decades of the century.
The great depression of the thirties opened a stage of import substitutionthat in countries like Argentina and Brazil was linked to military coup d'etats that interrupted democratic institutions. Industrialization by import substitution was deepened after World War II (1939-1945).
In the first years of the Cold War, Latin American political regimes frequently applied populist or developmental programs. After the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, the United States government increased its intervention in Latin America to avoid the expansion of communism. This included an economic and social aid program, known as the Alliance for Progress, and military advice to Latin American governments that faced guerrilla organizations.
In the seventies there were new coup d'etats that established dictatorships In countries such as Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina (an important exception was Mexico, which from 1930 to 2000 was governed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party). These dictatorships joined others that already existed in countries such as Paraguay and Brazil. In general, these dictatorships were characterized by the systematic violation of human rights and They derived in transitions to democratic regimes in the eighties.
The economic problems caused by the international recession and the strong external indebtedness of many Latin American countries led to A financial crisis in the eighties. This situation led to the application, in the following decade, of political measures identified as neoliberals (privatizations, opening to trade, reduction of public spending), in the context of the end of the cold war.
Latin America at the beginning of the 20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, Latin America countries had an economy based on export to Europe of raw materials (Cereals, meat, coffee, sugar, cocoa, minerals, etc.) and the importation of European manufactured products (textiles, machinery, among others). Besides, They had foreign capital investmentsespecially from the United Kingdom but increasingly in the United States.
In the political field, many of the Latin American countries began to consolidate their democratic regimes, some by peaceful roads (such as the Sáenz Peña Law in Argentina in 1912) and others by revolutionary roads (such as the Mexican Revolution initiated in 1910).
When World War I (1914-1918) exploded, most Latin American countries remained neutral, with some exceptions such as Brazil (which aligned with the entente). The war decreased for some years trade between Latin America and Europebecause the European countries guided their industry to arms production (and not to export manufactures) and temporarily reduced the demand for raw materials (although the need to feed the troops soon led to the Latin American recovery of food export).
Another relevant fact of these years was The construction of the Panama Canal, opened in 1914 and administered until 1979 exclusively by the United Stateswhich allowed navigation between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in Central America and facilitated US trade.
Latin America in the interwar period
After World War I, the American city of New York displaced London as the international financial capital. During the twenties, the banks and companies of the United States invested important capital sums in Latin Americaboth in productive activities (such as oil in Venezuela) and in loans to governments.
The export of raw materials again favored economic growth in Latin America, which participated largely in the “happy twenties”, especially in cities such as Buenos Aires, Mexico and San Pablo. When the New York Stock Exchange fell in 1929 and began the great depression that affected a large part of the world in the thirties, The reduction of international trade affected the export economies of Latin America.
This caused the implementation of import substitution policies and other state intervention measures that were generally in the hands of The interruption of democratic institutions through military coup d'etatslike those that took place in Argentina and Brazil in 1930.
In the thirties, the good American neighborhood policy was also launched by which the president Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged relations with Latin America. This policy was based on the commitment to stop US interventions on Latin American soil (such as those that had taken place in the 1910s in Mexico, Panama, Cuba or Nicaragua) and had the objective of favoring US economic influence in the region.
Latin America during World War II
During World War II (1939-1945), Several countries in Central America and the Caribbean aligned with the allies After the Japanese attack on the American Base of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In 1942 Brazil and Mexico also joinedwho sent expeditionary forces to Italy and the Pacific, respectively.
From now on, The other Latin American countries were breaking relations with the axis powers and declaring war to Germany and Japan. Argentina broke relations with the axis only in 1944 and declared war on Germany and Japan in March 1945, a few weeks before the war in Europe concluded.
The international effects of the two world wars and the great depression, added to the impulse of nationalist movements, They promoted from 1945 an economic policy more oriented to internal development than to external dependence. This led to deepen industrialization policies for import substitution (ISI) in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Latin America from the postwar period to the seventies
After World War II, in various Latin American countries regimes were strengthened that some historians identified as populiststhat is, focused on the figure of a charismatic and authoritarian leader, with nationalist, anti -imperialist and generally anti -communist speeches, and oriented to industrialization, the nationalization of companies and the application of social reforms favorable to some sectors, such as urban or rural workers.
An antecedent of these regimes was that of Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico (1934-1940), followed in the decades of forty and fifty by governments such as Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina (1946-1955), Luis Batlle in Uruguay (1947-1951), Getúlio Vargas in Brazil (1951-1954), Víctor Paz Paz Estenssoro in Bolivia in Bolivia (1952-1956 and 1960-1964) and José María Velasco Ibarra in Ecuador (five times president between 1934 and 1972).
In general, these regimes They depended on the maintenance of the foreign demand for raw materials (such as the oil of Mexico and the agricultural products of Argentina), so that changes in international conditions generally led to economic stagnation.
In the fifties and sixties, developing projects, which They defended the state impulse of industrialization without excluding the use of foreign capitals to favor the economic development of underdeveloped economies.
This type of project was applied by the governments of Justcelino Kubitschek in Brazil (1956-1961), Arturo Frondizi in Argentina (1958-1962) and Marcos Pérez Jiménez in Venezuela (1952-1958). However, political instability (including coups) and dependence on foreign capitals or international prices of raw materials (such as oil in the case of Venezuela) put limits to these economic programs.
A key fact of the twentieth century in Latin America was The Cuban Revolution from 1959, which overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and established an anti -imperialist regime that, in 1961, was declared openly communist and aligned with the Soviet Union (USSR). This fact inserted Latin America into the Cold War, although in 1954 the CIA (American Intelligence Agency) had already contributed a coup against the president of Guatemala, Jacobo Affenz, who had implemented an agrarian reform.
In several countries rural and urban guerrillas were formed in the Cuban revolution already trained by the government of Cuba. Latin American governments in general reinforced their armed forces and had the military advice of the United States, which sought to avoid the spread of communism in Latin America by what was called National Security Doctrine.
In Brazil, a coup d'etat in 1964 established a military dictatorship that ruled until 1985. In Chile, a leftist government led by Salvador Allende arrived at the presidency democratically in 1970 but was overthrown by a coup d'etat in 1973.
Other dictatorships were established through coups in countries such as Ecuador (1972), Uruguay (1973) and Argentina (1976). On the other hand, In Nicaragua the Sandinista National Liberation Front overthrew the dictatorship of the Somoza family in 1979 and established a government aligned with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Latin America at the end of the 20th century
The transition from military dictatorships to new democratic regimes It occurred between the seventies and the eighties: Ecuador in 1979, Argentina in 1983, Uruguay and Brazil in 1985, Paraguay in 1989 and Chile in 1990. In Nicaragua, free elections were held in 1990 that gave the victory to an opposition coalition to the Sandinista front.
In the 1980s, a world recession that reduced international prices of Latin American raw materials combined with strong external indebtedness, increased in the previous decade, which caused An economic crisis in much of Latin America. In countries like Argentina and Brazil this led to hyperinflation.
In the nineties there was a turn towards privatization and trimming policies of public spendingfrequently called neoliberals, which had already been implemented by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.
This included the formation of economic blocks for free trade, such as Mercosur (founded in 1991) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (in force since 1994). In general, these policies favored economic stability but increased unemployment and external indebtedness.
Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil in the second half of the twentieth century
Mexico
Mexico is the only case in Latin America in which The same party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was in power for seventy consecutive years (1930-2000).
Arising from the Mexican Revolution, it managed to create a durable political model that avoided the existence of military blows such as those that took place in other Latin American countries, although became something very similar to an authoritarian regime of the single party.
From the end of the sixties, the PRI governments gave increasing signs of not being able to integrate the aspirations of broad sectors of Mexican society. In 1992 The Mexican government signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the United Stateswhich entered into force on January 1, 1994. That same day there was a neo -shoe survey in Chiapas.
At the end of 1994 an economic crisis broke out that implied a strong devaluation of the currency and a recession of economic activity. Its impact on other countries was known as “tequila effect.” In the presidential elections of the year 2000 a period of political alternation began due to the election of the candidate of the National Action Party, Vicente Fox.
Argentina
General Juan Domingo Perón and the Peronist movement powerfully influenced the Argentine political scene from the military coup given in 1943 by Middle Rank officials and its subsequent promotion to the Presidency through the 1946 presidential elections.
The Nationalist and Populist Program of the Government of Perón, supported by a good international economic situation, promoted social and labor reforms that made it very popular Among broad sectors of Argentine workers. When economic difficulties began in the early fifties, the Government applied measures to cut public spending and encouraged the entry of foreign capital.
In 1955, Perón was deposed and sent into exile For a military coup. After a self -denominated liberating revolution dictatorship, governments were democratically chosen (such as those who presided over the development of Arturo Frondizi and the radical Arturo Illia) and military dictatorships (such as the Argentine Revolution).
Perón returned to the presidency of Argentina in 1973, but died in 1974 Without stability in a country that had a high degree of social conflict, including the actions of Peronist armed organizations (such as Montoneros) and Marxistas (such as the revolutionary army of the people) and the illegal repression of the parapolitical organization known as Triple A. To this was added a deep economic crisis that led in 1975 to an adjustment plan known as Rodrigazo.
A new military coup in March 1976 gave way to a dictatorship which exercised a severe repression on broad sectors of Argentine society, which included torture, murders and the forced disappearance of people. The economic difficulties and the Argentine defeat in the Malvinas War against the United Kingdom (1982) accelerated the wear of the military dictatorship and opened the doors to the reinstatement of democracy in 1983.
The Democratic Government of the Radical Raúl Alfonsín concluded early due to an economic crisis who led to hyperinflation in 1989. The new president, Carlos Menem, belonging to a Peronist coalition, applied neoliberal cutting measures, such as privatizations, opening to trade and labor flexibility, and was reelected in 1995 for a second mandate that ended in 1999.
Chili
In Chile, democratic traditions were deeply rooted in the mid -twentieth century, so until 1973 governments alternated from one and the other sign democratically chosen. During the two mandates of the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei (1964-1970) they put into practice projects such as agrarian reform, housing plans, social security laws and educational reform.
This was in tune with the proposals of the Alliance for Progress, an economic and social aid program for Latin America promoted in 1961 by the United States government to avoid the dissemination of the rest of Latin America of communism (which had triumphed in Cuba after the 1959 revolution).
The victory of the Popular Unity, a coalition of leftist parties led by Salvador Allende, in the 1970 elections was accompanied by a deep polarization of Chilean society. The coup d'etat headed by Brigade General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973 established a military dictatorship and ended decades of parliamentary policy.
The transition to democracy began only in 1988, when Pinochet was defeated in a plebiscite convened by himself to ensure his re -election. In the 1989 presidential elections, the candidate of the Concertación de Partidas for Democracy was elected (headed by the Christian Democratic Party), Patricio Aylwin, who exercised the presidency between 1990 and 1994. Aylwin was succeeded by Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, of the same coalition, between 1994 and 2000.
Brazil
In Brazil, the most influential political personality of the twentieth century was Getúlio Vargas. After accessing power with a coup d'etat in 1930, he devised the Novo state (1937-1945), A leading project of modernization of Brazilian society. He returned as an elected president between 1950 and 1954. In the middle of the political crisis, his death for suicide did not erase the deep mark he left in Brazilian politics.
Between 1956 and 1961 JUSCELINO KUBITSCHEK, with a developing trend governedwho managed the construction of a new capital (Brasilia) and promoted industrialization with the support of foreign capital.
In 1964, A new coup d'etat established a military dictatorship until 1985when popular pressure and economic problems forced the fall of the dictatorship and the beginning of the democratic transition.
Since then, governments chosen democratically followed. The first president of the Republic after the dictatorship was José Sarney (1985-1990), happened by Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), Itamar Franco (1992-1994) and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002).
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References
- AA.VV. (1996). 20th century history. Salvat
- Bushnell, D. et al. (2023). History of Latin America. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Zanatta, L. (2012). History of Latin America. From the colony to the 21st century. 21st century.
