Post-revolutionary Peru

The Politics Of Transformation

Stephen M. Gorman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000307832
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Whether the nearly twelve years of military rule in Peru--between October 1968 and July 1980--are labelled a revolution, œso-called revolution, or simply a 'military dictatorship', one fact remains inescapable: the reforms and programs of the armed forces during that period profoundly altered Peruvian society. This book examines the social, political, and economic legacies of the military government and identifies major areas of tension that are likely to pose problems for the new civilian government. Following a review of the ideology, socio-economic goals, and political performance of the Institutional Revolution of the Armed Forces, the authors analyze the contemporary political economy of Peru and catalog the political and economic policy alternatives available to the Belaúnde regime in the next few years. They discuss the return to partisan politics in Peru, urban and rural conditions, and the way in which real political power has remained with the military forces, despite their surrender of formal authority. Subsequent chapters outline the IMF-imposed stabilization program, revealing its devastating effects on Lima's urban poor, and summarize recent Peruvian foreign policy. A final chapter draws on the prior discussion to present a critical analysis of the transitionary process from military to civilian rule in Peru.

1
The Peruvian Revolution in Historical Perspective

Stephen M. Gorman

Whether the nearly twelve years of military rule in Peru between October 1968 and July 1980 are labeled a “revolution,” a “so-called revolution,” or a simple “military dictatorship,” one fact remains inescapable: the reforms and programs of the armed forces during that period profoundly altered Peruvian society. The military that overthrew President Fernando Belaúnde Terry in 1968 set out to completely restructure social, political, and economic relations in the country. The objective was to promote urban industrial expansion, head off growing political activism among the lower classes, and strengthen the role of the state as an agent of national development and social reconciliation. Peru’s military leaders endeavored to create a corporate social order that would be characterized by moral solidarity, social discipline, centralized authority, and hierarchically integrated self-managing socioeconomic units. The fact that the military failed in many of these objectives, and progressively turned away from reformist policies after 1975, does not alter the fact that the military regime nevertheless intentionally changed the nature of Peruvian political life.

The military’s intervention into politics in 1968 is somewhat unique within both Latin American politics generally and Peruvian history in particular. In the first instance, although different military factions had been involved in at least eleven coup d’etats since the election of Peru’s first civilian president in 1872,[¹] only once before, in 1962, had the armed forces acted as an institution to seize control of the state. On that occasion the military limited its role to convening and supervising “honest” elections, and little more. But in 1968 the armed forces took power with the objective of instituting far ranging reforms with no intention of returning government to civilian hands in the foreseeable future. Secondly, although the military adopted a political program that had been articulated by progressive sectors of the emerging middle class for more than three decades, the armed forces did not govern as the representatives of any specific social class (Bamat, 1979: 2–4). This is not to suggest that certain groups did not benefit more than others from the military’s policies, but this was largely incidental to the broader goals of national development and political stability pursued by the armed forces. Finally, the Peruvian military acted out of extreme nationalism and vigorously attacked the nefarious forms of political, economic, and even cultural neo-imperialism that were considered largely responsible for the country’s underdevelopment and international dependency. Certainly, other Latin American military regimes have adopted similar anti-dependency objectives, most notably in Brazil since the early 1970s, but most of these regimes originally came to power in response to perceived internal communist threats. But for the Peruvian military, the breaking of the linkage between North American imperialism and Peru’s ruling oligarchy was an important motivating consideration in the overthrow of the civilian government.

While Peru found itself in worse economic condition in 198Ö than in 1968, with growing class conflict and a deepening dependency on international financial institutions controlled by North America, important and potentially beneficial transformations were brought about (not always intentionally) by the military government. Other chapters in this work will examine the consequences of military rule in specific areas of Peruvian politics and attempt to outline some of the difficulties that will be faced by the new civilian government headed by Fernando Belaúnde Terry. The purpose of the present chapter is to provide a general review of the military revolution, both as a background to the following chapters and in an attempt to identify the primary factors that combined to frustrate the military’s program of government and eventually force it from power.

The twelve years of military rule (the docenio) are normally divided into the First Phase, corresponding to the presidency of Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–1975), and the Second Phase, corresponding to the presidency of Francisco Morales Bermudez (1975–1980). In point of fact, however, there was a brief period between the overthrow of Velasco in August 1975 and the Lima riots of July 1976 which stands apart from both phases. The First Phase was a period of reformism while the Second Phase is considered rather reactionary, since President Morales Bermúdez presided over the emasculation of many earlier reforms. Morales Bermúdez himself originally characterized the Second Phase as a period of “consolidation” intended to rationalize the reforms that had been effected under Velasco. Throughout the first year of his regime the emphasis actually appears to have been on consolidating earlier revolutionary gains during a period of economic difficulties. Only after the Lima riots and an attempted right-wing coup within the armed forces in July 1976 were^ liberal officers purged from the government and a systematic assault initiated against many of the progressive reforms of the earlier period. This shift in governmental policy apparently resulted from the failure of many reforms to produce the results intended by the military.

In the remainder of this chapter we will outline the ideology and political objectives of the military, the specific reforms enacted to promote those objectives, and the actual impact of reforms and programs on Peruvian society over the course of the docenio. The actual causes for the failure of the military-led revolution will be found to be complex. But two contributing factors that stand out in particular were: inadequate conceptualization and poor execution of reforms. What I choose to term the “bad luck” explanation mentioned by some analysts (see for example Werlich, 1981; and Herbol 1979), which cites the failure to discover exportable resources in anticipated amounts and the international recession that began in 1974 as important factors contributing to the collapse of the military’s economic programs, will be largely discounted here. As the following section will attempt to illustrate, the military assumed power with an ideology that claimed to understand the past errors of civilian governments that had produced Peru’s underdevelopment and international dependency, including the nature of the country’s subordinate integration into the global capitalist system. Yet, the military rulers proceeded to predicate the success of revolutionary reforms on the expansion of the country’s integration into the international market (albeit with some diversification of products, trading partners, and marketing techniques). The result economically was that the generals’ approach to development failed in much the same fashion as civilian regimes before them, but on a grander scale.

Ideology and Goals

One of the important characteristics of the Peruvian military is that its officer corp has not been drawn from the upper classes. In fact, officers after the turn of the century were drawn increasingly from the middle and lower-middle classes, especially in the case of the army. Thus, the armed forces, dominated by the army, were not strictly speaking an extension of the ruling classes athough they frequently acted in defense of upper-class interests prior to 1968. The essentially middle-class composition of the army officer corp rendered it especially susceptible to the reformist currents that gained steadily after the early 1930s. Because of early hostilities between the army and the main carrier of progressive middle-class reformism, the Peruvian Aprista Party (or APRA), however, the army was inhibited from embracing the dominant reformist ideology for some time. But with the establishment of the Center of High Military Studies (CAEM) an indirect process of officer indoctrination in middle-class progressivism was initiated under the aegis of military professionalization (Villanueva, 1973b; and Stepan, 1978: 144–147).[²]

Among the courses offered at CAEM were many dealing with the political history and socioeconomic conditions of Peru. A significant number of the civilian instructors brought in to offer such courses were, at least indirectly, influenced by the writings of Peru’s early socialist José” Carlos Mariá’tegui (1895–1930) and the political platform advanced by APRA. New officers became ever more sensitive to the political and economic corruption of the national oligarchy, the domination of the country by foreign economic interests, and the superficiality and decadence of Peru’s purely formal democracy and personalistic political parties. All of this promoted a rejection within the army of the sterility of politics and a decrease in respect for the legitimacy of civilian rulers. The final step in the gradual politicization of CAEM officers was the conceptualization of national development as an integral dimension of national defense. If development was indeed essential to a strong national defense, and if civilian politicians were, as the army came steadily to believe, incapable of promoting development, then the army would be compelled to assume the direction of the state in order to fulfill its own mission of national defense.

Without implying that the following goals were universally held within the armed forces, or clearly and consciously understood by the entire circle of military rulers at the outset of the revolution, we can nevertheless identify four major concerns that oriented the military after 1968: 1) Social Justice, 2) Popular Participation, 3) National Independence, and 4) Development.

Social Justice was a primary and all inclusive goal of the military revolutionaries, but it was defined in only the vaguest manner. Generally, Social Justice combined a concern for the material well being of individuals with the teachings of Catholicism. As such, it was analogous to Christian Humanism. But its main emphasis was on the collectivity over the individual, and social responsibility over personal interest. Velasco (1973: 134) explained early in the revolution that the military leaders were “humanist revolutionaries” who were intent on moralizing Peruvian society with a set of values completely different from “those that sustain capitalism or communism.” The goal of the revolution was to create a society that would “reprieve” man as part of a broader collectivity.

The concept of Social Justice precluded social conflict, which was considered to be a by-product of social stratification based on the special privileges and monopoly over wealth enjoyed by an egotistical minority. Accordingly, Social Justice required that all people share equitably (although not necessarily equally) in both the wealth and “destiny” of the country. This would be possible only when there arose “free citizens” occupying their “just place in society” (La Prensa, June 25, 1969). It should be stressed that this was not a call for strict egalitarianism since it did not propose a leveling of society, but only a more “just” distribution of social wealth.

Finally, Social Justice imposed certain limitations on formal or legal rights, including property ownership. Stated Velasco (1973: 41), “The Revolution recognizes the legitimacy of all those rights whose observance does not signify perpetuating injustice….” Conversely, the military government refused to respect certain formal rights whose observance “would signify, necessarily, condemning the majority to eternal poverty….” This clearly encompassed property rights. The notion of Social Justice assumed that property might be held in private ownership, but that this would not relieve it of its social obligations. In other words, the right of private propert...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• 1 The Peruvian Revolution in Historical Perspective
• 2 The Return of Partisan Politics in Peru
• 3 Mobilization, Austerity, and Voting: The Legacy of the Revolution for Lima’s Poor
• 4 The Condition of Organized Labor
• 5 Post-Revolutionary Agrarian Politics in Peru
• 6 Peru’s “New” Military Professionalism: The Failure of the Technocratic Approach
• 7 Challenges to Peruvian Foreign Policy
• 8 The Intellectual Foundations of Revolution in Peru: The Anti-Oligarchic Tradition
• 9 The Post-Revolutionary Political Economy of Peru
• Bibliography
• Index