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The GREAT DEPRESSION to 1935

Uruguay was a nation proud of being world champions at soccer. Twice they had won the gold medals in soccer at the Olympics. And Uruguay was unique in other ways. It was the only state in South America that recognized the Soviet Union. Uruguay was a constitutional democracy led by intellectuals from the professional classes. They gave the country national insurance, old age benefits, the eight-hour day and worker's compensation. Some public utilities had been nationalized. To the displeasure of the Church they legalized divorce, and the government had ended the Church's monopoly in education. With the tensions of the depression, Uruguay's neighbors, Brazil and Argentina, feared uprisings among their own people, and viewing Uruguay's relations with the Soviet Union they accused Uruguay of serving as the focus of Communist infestations that threatened their nation.

The collapse in demand from outside Uruguay for wool and other products brought economic depression to Uruguay. Uruguay's president since 1931, Gabriel Terra, dissolved Congress in 1933 and began ruling by decree, temporarily disrupting Uruguay's democracy.

Brazil

Just north of Uruguay, Brazil had enjoyed prosperity after World War I, but its government had squandered money and had accumulated a large internal and foreign debt. Then came the depression, which hurt Brazil's major industry -- coffee. Brazil's coffee kings and many coffee merchants fell into bankruptcy, and unemployment rose in the cities. In 1930, a rebellion brought the president of one of Brazil's provinces to national power - Getúlio Vargas. Vargas suppressed a revolt against him that broke out in Sao Paulo, and he allied himself with an anti-Semitic fascist, Plinio Salgado.

Salgado was subsidized by wealthy German-Brazilian industrialists and by the German Embassy. His slogan was "God, Nation and Family," and he had several thousand street fighters who wore green shirts. Salgado's movement gained supporters from many leading families and secret adherents in the army, navy and in the government's bureaucracies. In 1933, President Vargas disbanded Congress, declared martial law and warned the nation against a threat from Communists. Salgado offered Vargas 100,000 armed followers to protect the nation. Vargas accepted their support and helped them set up headquarters in Rio de Janeiro.

President Vargas created a new constitution, established the eight-hour day, abolished child labor and provided medical care for sick workers and expectant mothers. He ruled the nation with dictatorial powers and controlled the press. He jailed editors and he filled Brazil's prisons with other political prisoners. He appealed to the nation with the slogan "Brazil for the Brazilians." He claimed that his rule was democratic and that he had a direct connection to all Brazilians. He established good trading relations with Germany, and by 1937 Brazil was buying twice as much from Germany as it was from Great Britain.

Argentina

The depression also brought an anti-Communist and dictatorial regime to power in Argentina.  Politics in Argentina, like some other Latin American nations, was a conflict been the owners of great stretches of agricultural land on one hand and those involved in modern industry and the professions on the other. Argentina -- a nation predominately of immigrants from Europe -- had been ruled by an oligarchy of landowners until World War I.

In 1916, Argentina had its first free elections, with a secret ballot, and in this election the opposition party, the Radicals, came to power -- a party ostensibly devoted to free enterprise and industrial expansion but sympathetic toward workers and in favor of social reform. With its exports of meat and cereals, the country prospered, and wealthy young Argentinean men became a common sight in Paris and other places of glamour outside Argentina. The government of the Radical Party was at odds with the landed elite, whose sons had entered and staffed the Church and the military. Therefore the Radical Party was at odds with the military and the Church. And when the depression caught the Radical Party in power, that party, and the nation's president, Hipólito Irigoyen, were blamed for the hard times. Irigoyen was also blamed for having made a trade agreement with the Soviet Union, and the military used this as an excuse to seize power.

The leader of the coup in Argentina, General José Uriburu, made himself President. he instituted terror and torture, and he intervened in twelve of Argentina's fourteen provinces to suppress discontent and opposition to his regime. Uriburu increased the pay of his base of support: the army. He prohibited the Radical Party from participating in elections.

In November 1931 a candidate of Uriburu's choosing, General Augustin P. Justo, was elected President. With the Radical Party thoroughly defeated, Justo pursued moderate policies and reforms and brought a return of honest elections.

Peru

With the coming of the depression, conflict and repression intensified in Peru as it did elsewhere.  Before the depression, Peru had been led by military men  -- men involved in Peru's war with Chile. Peru's president was Augusto Bernadino Leguia, a dictator who was criticized for his compromise with Chile, criticized for the economic depression, for his financial dealings and his harsh rule. In 1930, General Luis M. Sánchez Cerro, led a coup against Leguía. In elections in 1931, a Leftist coalition, led by a group called the Popular Alliance of Revolutionary Americans (APRA), out-polled Cerro, but the counting was done under Cerro's bayonets, and Cerro became President.

The following year, the APRA led a popular rebellion. The insurgents executed some sixty army officers, and the army killed at least 1,000 of the APRA and their sympathizers, using aerial bombing for the first time in South America's history. Under President Cerro, all political activity, debate and most newspapers were silenced. Thousands were jailed -- some of them chained to walls in the fortress near downtown Lima.

In 1933 Cerro was assassinated, and General Manuel Oscar Benavides became president. He promoted public works and labor legislation. He encouraged education and sanitation, and he released political prisoners.

Chile

The Latin American nation hardest hit by the depression was Chile, but here the depression caught a repressive military regime in power. The unemployed and students rioted, and in 1931 the regime's leader, Carlos Ibáñez, escaped over the Andes Mountains to Argentina. The movement that overthrew Ibáñez drafted a liberal professor of law, Juan Esteban Montero, to run for the presidency, and he won. But political turmoil soon followed. In June, 1932, a military coup placed Carlos Dávila, a socialist, in power. Washington withheld recognition from the Dávila regime, and in September another military coup ousted Dávila.

In December 1932, quarrels within Chile's military resulted in its putting in power a former Liberal Party president, Arturo Alessandri, now a Conservative. Alessandri lasted as president into the mid-thirties, when fighting between socialist and fascist groups resulted in Alessandri asking for dictatorial powers with which to suppress communism. In 1936, Ibáñez, back from Argentina, tried to seize power with the help of  fascists, but the coup failed. In preparation for elections scheduled for 1938, Alessandri's government banned fascist mass meetings and parades. The fascists responded by trying to seize buildings near the presidential palace, but the rising was easily crushed, and the fascist leader, J. González von Marées, received a twenty-year prison sentence.

Colombia

In Colombia it was the conservatives who were in office when the depression hit, and with the depression the public voted a conservative president out of office and elected in his place as a  member of the Liberal Party: Enrique Olaya Herrera. Another Liberal, Alfonso López Pumarejo, was elected President in 1934. Pumarejo established, constitutional reforms, the eight-hour workday and the right of labor to strike. And Colombia's Liberal Party was to hold power until 1946.

Venezuela

In Venezuela the Depression caught the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez in office. Gómez had been in power since 1908. He had amassed a fortune. He used spies and torture, and he had put dissidents into dungeons. But he had been careful not to neglect bestowing favor to the military, upon whose support his power rested. Gómez died in 1935, and pent up resentment against him and his rule resulted in people sacking and burning the homes of the Gómez family and his henchmen. General Eleázar López Contreras succeeded Gómez, and he promoted public works as relief from the depression. Civil liberties for a time were respected, but López Contreras responded to strikes and disorders by repressive measures against what his regime labeled as agitation by communists and anarchists.

Bolivia and Paraguay

Bolivia and Paraguay had been too busy warring with each other over territory and oil to be impacted politically by the depression. The fighting ended in 1936.  And that year in Paraguay, Colonel Rafael Franco took over the presidency. He intended to establish a fascist regime modeled after Italy. Paraguay's army overthrew him a year later and re-established civilian rule, giving power to Félix Paiva, a university president. The formal settlement between Bolivia and Paraguay came in 1938, while in Bolivia a 34 year-old Lieutenant Colonel, Germán Busch, became president under a new constitution. In 1939, Busch died mysteriously. It was said that he had committed suicide, but his backers believed he had been murdered, and they began a new movement in Bolivia called the Movement of National Revolution (MNR).

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