Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954

by Piero Gleijeses

The most thorough account yet available of a revolution that saw the first true agrarian reform in Central America, this book is also a penetrating analysis of the tragic destruction of that revolution. In no other Central American country was U.S. intervention so decisive and so ruinous, charges Piero Gleijeses. Yet he shows that the intervention can be blamed on no single "convenient villain." "Extensively researched and written with conviction and passion, this study analyzes the history and downfall of what seems in retrospect to have been Guatemala's best government, the short-lived regime of Jacobo Arbenz, overthrown in 1954, by a CIA-orchestrated coup."--Foreign Affairs "Piero Gleijeses offers a historical road map that may serve as a guide for future generations. . . . [Readers] will come away with an understanding of the foundation of a great historical tragedy."--Saul Landau, The Progressive "[Gleijeses's] academic rigor does not prevent him from creating an accessible, lucid, almost journalistic account of an episode whose tragic consequences still reverberate."--Paul Kantz, Commonweal

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Latin American History, Politics, American History, War, Political Science

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Ryan Murtha · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible, evocative read. Gleijeses blurs the line between history and investigative reporting, delivering a clear-eyed account of the rise and fall of Jacobo Arbenz. He lays bare the depths which anti-communist propaganda and corporate kowtowing had rotted the brains of both the American media and government in the 1940s and 1950s, where even the most milquetoast liberal democratic reforms came off as signs of Soviet influence.

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, Piero Gleijeses has done an excellent job in his post-mortem analysis of the murdered Guatemalan Revolution of Jacobo Arbenz. Mr. Gleijeses' other works are also of equally excellent caliber.

Here comes the however: I disagree with his conclusion, that the US' primary motive in doing so was cold war anti-Communism, pure and simple, rather than an expedient excuse for defending the United Fruit Company; that the US would have overthrown Arbenz' Revolutionary Action regime even if Guatemala "had had no bananas." This is too one dimensional. I hold that Schlesinger and Kinzer's take in "Bitter Fruit" is much more on the mark. Gleijeses' conclusion only begs the question, as it was unlikely a revolutionary movement would have arisen in the first place without the Fruit Company's massive holdings and equally massive bribery of the Guatemalan government and military. By Gleijeses' own account UFCo was in on the counter-revolution from inception.

The presence of Communists per se in the Arbenz government - though important - seems more excuse than reason. Leftists were also present in the National Revolutionary Movement regime in Bolivia following that country's revolution in '52. The discrepancy in reaction between the two smacks of schizophrenia, until one takes a closer look. The Bolivian MNR nationalized the tin mines, with their heavy US investment, but in turn agreed on compensation, to open its markets to US imports, and finally to a neo-liberal bank-friendly stabilization program in 1957. Guatemala, however, began a program of import-substitution, would not compensate UFCo on the company's terms, and - perhaps most importantly - spurned the strings attached to US aid as a form of bribery. Obviously, only avowed Marxist-Leninists could cop such an attitude to US trade, aid and investment; hence US Ambassador Puerifoy's convenient dodge on the land issue by insisting on the Red Menace within the Guatemalan government.

Schlesinger and Kinzer very thoroughly detailed the links between UFCo, the State Department of John Foster Dulles, and Dulles' partnership with UFCo's Boston attorneys, Sullivan and Cromwell. Guatemala's Communists were not doctrinaire Leninists, instead advocating political and social democracy as their country's only viable program. Such was the real menace in Guatemala. One might as justly state Arbenz would have been overthrown even if there had been no Communists. This anti-democratic hysteria engendered from Washington spoke much more of the US military-corporate state of mind than on the real state of Guatemala under Arbenz. For this reason I must whack off a rating star on Mr. Gleijeses' otherwise excellent forensic study.

[Bernardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This day in history in 1944, Juan José Arévalos became the first democratically elected president of Guatemala, inaugurating a period that became known as the Ten Years of Spring. This era of profound social transformation and political openness was brutally interrupted 10 years later in the CIA-orchestrated coup against Jacobo Árbenz. "Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954," by Piero Gleijeses, professor at Johns Hopkins University, is the most thoroughly researched account of this tragic history whose consequences still linger to this day.
The country would be mired in violence, inequality, underdevelopment and corruption afterwards and is yet to have a popular government like those of Arévalos and Árbenz.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A banana republic tries to gain some autonomy and actually starts to do some wonderful things for the rural Maya, a group every reform seems to miss and eventually ends up paying for others mistakes or indifference. And, as soon as these things start to happen, the United States under the guise of getting rid of this communist beachhead in the Western hemisphere plots and overthrows the president Arbenz. Really the US just gets along better with dictators because they do what is expected of a Latin American country... put the natural resources at the disposal of foreign companies and keep the masses in line with brutality. It was amazing how familiar the stump speech was of what America would consider a threat to its homeland and how it would endeavor on a pre-emptive strike.

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly detailed account of the decade immediately following WW2 during which Guatemala moved towards agrarian reform that smelled too strongly of communism for the US government and dictators in the region leading to the ouster, with considerable US aid (aka Dulles brothers & CIA) of "the best government Guatemala ever had" and a return to serfdom for the natives and good times for those in power, including the military. Sad reading as things are still not much better, and possibly worse 60 years on.

[Chelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great use of historical documents to make the case of Eisenhower's decision to overthrow Arbenz was due to fear of communism spreading to the Western hemipshere more than the desire of United Fruit Company of Boston Mass.

[Bree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good narrative about history of Guatemala in the 40-60s. Devestatingly depressing about American FoPo.

[Brumaire Bodbyl-Mast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gleijeses’ semi definitive narrative of the downfall of the Guatemalan revolution offers a much more complete picture (in about the same amount of discussion) compared to authors who write solely about United Fruit. In sum, his hypothesis is that the United States and Guatemalan upper class were far more upset by Arbenz, and acting in their own interests, rather than those of United Fruit. For example, United Fruit didn’t really have to dig at all to find evidence for Arbenz’ communistic connections. The United States were acutely aware of them, and thus were actively hostile to Arbenz and his program. Arevalo on the other hand was more or less harmless to United Fruit, despite some small bluster. This is where the UFCO narrative seems to make more sense, and Gleijeses says as much. Arbenz actively worked with Communist party members to plan out land reform, and they were a key part of his collation, working within certain strategic bureaucratic positions that made them hard to dislodge. This in turn made the US and his devoutly anticommunist neighbors quite hostile to him and his land reform program. And as stated earlier, UFCO was less affected than more local land owners, and did not in turn have nearly the level of involvement stated in other histories. Rather, Eisenhower & the CIA worked in their own interests, with little push needed. Gleijeses is an impeccable historian, much more so for one whose area of study is not in his native language, nor is the writing he publishes in it either. His skill with historiography is incredibly praiseworthy, as he maintains both a general disconnect (with an ability to see the perspective of skk parties) whilst also pointing out the simple fact that the overthrow of Arbenz was an absolute disaster for the people of Guatemala.

[David Hollingsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read (most of) this book back in graduate school, but didn't have time to read it in full, and certainly not enough time to take it in. Coming back to it for an upcoming podcast I'm doing, I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging I found it. This is longer than the other seminal work on the topic, "Bitter Fruit", but it's not really any harder (as in more jargon-y or information dense).

Unlike Bitter Fruit, which makes the argument that the United Fruit Company was the main reason the US overthrew the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz, this book argues that the coup happened because of a combination of Arbenz befriending communists & US imperial hubris. It sees UFCo's influence as marginal, while really focusing on how Jacobo's reforms (which no one, from the US foreign policy apparatus to the communists themselves, actually saw as communist) scared the US because Arbenz collaborated with communists in creating and implementing them. As Guatemalan communist leader Jose Manuel Fortuny himself said, "they would've overthrown us even if there were no damn bananas."

This book, written in 1992, consults a number of sources that Bitter Fruit (written in 1982) didn't have access to. On top of that, writer Piero Gleijeses directly interviewed a large number of surviving figures from the 10 Years of Spring and the 1954 coup. Because of all this, "Shattered Hope" is the most well-researched book about the topic. Yet, as I said above, it's not couched in jargon or overly dense in its information, making it the perfect balance of substantive yet still engaging.

The only real issue with this book, as with many books about the history of US policy in Latin America, is that it often gets depressing. There are parts that are just downright hard to read. But that is because this book is honest about the US-created crises in Guatemala. Still, sometimes it can be a bit much.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. As a historian of Latin America, this book gets my scholarly seal of approval, and as someone who still reads history to be informed but doesn't like huge tomes that are super dry, it gets my seal of approval for non-academics, too. If you want to be an expert on the subject, though, I'd highly recommend reading both this and Bitter Fruit. Reading the two side by side will give you two well-written perspectives on the same event. But, if I had to recommend just one book, it'd be this.

[Kathryn LaMontagne · Rating 5 out of 5]

An apt title indeed, this book is an extremely well researched account of the Guatemalan revolution and subsequent overthrow of leftist President Jacobo Árbenz.

It is gut wrenching to learn about the effects of neoliberal colonial powers, opportunistic dictators, US bullying, Cold War propaganda and a lot of fucking racism. Among the many things I’ll never forgive the US govt and popular media for is choking the Guatemalan revolution to death with propaganda and meddling. &&& not to prop up a sense of American exceptionalism saying it was solely the doing of Americans and their interests either,,, they fully play off other dictators in the region and fascistic Guatemalan exiles to create and enact this plan also they got so lucky that it made them stupid.

We all need to put respect on President Jacobo Árbenz’s name because he & his cabinet really did their best for the proletariat. This small governments progressive agenda and communist ties literally sent the US in a manic tailspin, speaks to the power of movements and fighting for the dignity of the exploited and underserved. +++ his agrarian reform was like the biggest land back effort I’m aware of and that is so inspiring to me.

[Patrick Link · Rating 5 out of 5]

The argument that usual US Cold War and Manifest Destiny mindset and not special pleading by United Fruit is responsible for US crimes in the 1954 coup are convincingly made. It's hard to think of a time that something like Decree 900 wouldn't be met with US hostility to a neighbor. Gleijeses puts the blame of the fall of Arbenz squarely on the shoulders of the cowardly Guatemalan Army and given its subsequent actions who can blame him? An important legacy of the coup is the undeserved triumphalism of the CIA and covert action in general which goes on to this day despite the Bay of Pigs and further debacles. It does seem that the State Department did play catch-up and gain a good understanding of the political situation in the early fifties. I loved Gleijeses prose and partisanship in presenting Arbenz and the PGT as energetic and committed reformers who were overtaken by reactionary forces inside and outside the country.

[Carlos Arriola · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive essay about one of the most critical moments in the relationship between Latin America and the USA.

In my opinion Gleijeses keeps a very neutral stand, which is very hard to find on this kind of subject.

It changed the view I had: debunked some myths I believed to be true and made me reflect on the roll some "Innocent" actors had. Nothing is black and white, there are many grays in between.

[Thomas Ray]

E183.8 G9 S48 1991 Memorial Library

[Ingrid Rosenberg Arbenz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on the Arbenz administration in Guatemala

[Abe]

A "red" or "pink" interpretation of the fall of the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. It reads like a survey but it's nonetheless a strong monograph.

[Denise Senmartin · Rating 5 out of 5]

another masterpiece of Gleijeses